<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"><channel><title><![CDATA[eMerge Magazine]]></title><description><![CDATA[eMerge Magazine supports writers of all backgrounds and genres through publishing original, creative work.]]></description><link>https://emerge-writerscolony.org/</link><image><url>https://emerge-writerscolony.org/favicon.png</url><title>eMerge Magazine</title><link>https://emerge-writerscolony.org/</link></image><generator>Ghost 2.9</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 19 Feb 2025 02:47:16 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://emerge-writerscolony.org/rss/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><ttl>60</ttl><item><title><![CDATA[Interview: Joyce Goforth Hanewinkel]]></title><description><![CDATA[This is a short description of the episode]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/test-podcast-post/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__67b4cc224f874303201be715</guid><category><![CDATA[eMerge Unchained]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joyce Hanewinkel]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 18 Feb 2025 18:22:36 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1739795599841-b77211b16c52?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8YWxsfDR8fHx8fHx8fDE3Mzk5MDE4MTR8&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="kg-card kg-audio-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/media/2025/02/interview-joyce-goforth-hanewinkel_thumb.jpg" alt="Interview: Joyce Goforth Hanewinkel" class="kg-audio-thumbnail"><div class="kg-audio-thumbnail placeholder kg-audio-hide"><svg width="24" height="24" fill="none"><path fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd" d="M7.5 15.33a.75.75 0 1 0 0 1.5.75.75 0 0 0 0-1.5Zm-2.25.75a2.25 2.25 0 1 1 4.5 0 2.25 2.25 0 0 1-4.5 0ZM15 13.83a.75.75 0 1 0 0 1.5.75.75 0 0 0 0-1.5Zm-2.25.75a2.25 2.25 0 1 1 4.5 0 2.25 2.25 0 0 1-4.5 0Z"/><path fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd" d="M14.486 6.81A2.25 2.25 0 0 1 17.25 9v5.579a.75.75 0 0 1-1.5 0v-5.58a.75.75 0 0 0-.932-.727.755.755 0 0 1-.059.013l-4.465.744a.75.75 0 0 0-.544.72v6.33a.75.75 0 0 1-1.5 0v-6.33a2.25 2.25 0 0 1 1.763-2.194l4.473-.746Z"/><path fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd" d="M3 1.5a.75.75 0 0 0-.75.75v19.5a.75.75 0 0 0 .75.75h18a.75.75 0 0 0 .75-.75V5.133a.75.75 0 0 0-.225-.535l-.002-.002-3-2.883A.75.75 0 0 0 18 1.5H3ZM1.409.659A2.25 2.25 0 0 1 3 0h15a2.25 2.25 0 0 1 1.568.637l.003.002 3 2.883a2.25 2.25 0 0 1 .679 1.61V21.75A2.25 2.25 0 0 1 21 24H3a2.25 2.25 0 0 1-2.25-2.25V2.25c0-.597.237-1.169.659-1.591Z"/></svg></div><div class="kg-audio-player-container"><audio src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/media/2025/02/interview-joyce-goforth-hanewinkel.mp3" preload="metadata"/><div class="kg-audio-title">Interview: Joyce Goforth Hanewinkel</div><div class="kg-audio-player"><button class="kg-audio-play-icon" aria-label="Play audio"><svg viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M23.14 10.608 2.253.164A1.559 1.559 0 0 0 0 1.557v20.887a1.558 1.558 0 0 0 2.253 1.392L23.14 13.393a1.557 1.557 0 0 0 0-2.785Z"/></svg></button><button class="kg-audio-pause-icon kg-audio-hide" aria-label="Pause audio"><svg viewBox="0 0 24 24"><rect x="3" y="1" width="7" height="22" rx="1.5" ry="1.5"/><rect x="14" y="1" width="7" height="22" rx="1.5" ry="1.5"/></svg></button><span class="kg-audio-current-time">0:00</span><div class="kg-audio-time">/<span class="kg-audio-duration">1591.964922</span></div><input type="range" class="kg-audio-seek-slider" max="100" value="0"><button class="kg-audio-playback-rate" aria-label="Adjust playback speed">1×</button><button class="kg-audio-unmute-icon" aria-label="Unmute"><svg viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M15.189 2.021a9.728 9.728 0 0 0-7.924 4.85.249.249 0 0 1-.221.133H5.25a3 3 0 0 0-3 3v2a3 3 0 0 0 3 3h1.794a.249.249 0 0 1 .221.133 9.73 9.73 0 0 0 7.924 4.85h.06a1 1 0 0 0 1-1V3.02a1 1 0 0 0-1.06-.998Z"/></svg></button><button class="kg-audio-mute-icon kg-audio-hide" aria-label="Mute"><svg viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M16.177 4.3a.248.248 0 0 0 .073-.176v-1.1a1 1 0 0 0-1.061-1 9.728 9.728 0 0 0-7.924 4.85.249.249 0 0 1-.221.133H5.25a3 3 0 0 0-3 3v2a3 3 0 0 0 3 3h.114a.251.251 0 0 0 .177-.073ZM23.707 1.706A1 1 0 0 0 22.293.292l-22 22a1 1 0 0 0 0 1.414l.009.009a1 1 0 0 0 1.405-.009l6.63-6.631A.251.251 0 0 1 8.515 17a.245.245 0 0 1 .177.075 10.081 10.081 0 0 0 6.5 2.92 1 1 0 0 0 1.061-1V9.266a.247.247 0 0 1 .073-.176Z"/></svg></button><input type="range" class="kg-audio-volume-slider" max="100" value="100"/></input></div></div></img></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Letter from the Editors]]></title><description><![CDATA[Part One: The Previous Editor | Part Two: The Upcoming Editor
Letter from the Previous Editor
by Charles Templeton
After much reflection and with a deep sense of gratitude, I am stepping aside as the editor of eMerge. It has been one of the great joys of my life to curate and shape this publication, fostering a space where voices converge, ideas flourish, and creativity finds its home. While transitioning from the editorial helm, I will remain fully engaged as the publisher and owner of]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-25-january-2025-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6792b7e54f874303201be6ca</guid><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Aubrey Green]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 21:48:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="http://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2025/01/image0.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="http://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2025/01/image0.jpg" alt="Letter from the Editors"/><p><a href="#previous" rel="noreferrer">Part One: The Previous Editor</a> | <a href="#upcoming" rel="noreferrer">Part Two: The Upcoming Editor</a></p>
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<h3 id="letter-from-the-previous-editor">Letter from the Previous Editor</h3><p><strong>by Charles Templeton</strong></p><p>After much reflection and with a deep sense of gratitude, I am stepping aside as the editor of <em>eMerge</em>. It has been one of the great joys of my life to curate and shape this publication, fostering a space where voices converge, ideas flourish, and creativity finds its home. While transitioning from the editorial helm, I will remain fully engaged as the publisher and owner of <em>eMerge</em>, continuing to champion its mission and support its growth.</p><p>It is my privilege to introduce Aubrey Green as the new editor of <em>eMerge</em>. Aubrey is an accomplished writer, an insightful editor, and someone whose dedication to the literary arts has long inspired me. She is currently the owner and editor at Blue Clover Editing, where her keen editorial eye and unwavering support for writers have garnered widespread respect. Her vision and passion align perfectly with the ethos of <em>eMerge</em>, and I am confident she will bring fresh perspectives and boundless energy to the publication. Under her leadership, <em>eMerge</em> will continue to thrive, innovate, and serve as a beacon for our readers and contributors.</p><p>This transition is not a farewell but an evolution. While my role changes, my commitment to this community remains steadfast. I look forward to focusing on the broader horizons of <em>eMerge</em> as its publisher while Aubrey breathes new life into its pages and steers its creative direction.</p><p>Thank you for entrusting me with this role and for the trust you will now place in Aubrey. Together, we will ensure that <em>eMerge</em> remains a place where stories are told, art is celebrated, and voices are heard.</p><p>Until next time,</p><p>I remain.</p><p>Just another Zororastafarian writer with a heart full of gratitude …</p><p><br>Charles Templeton<br>Publisher and Owner, <em>eMerge</em></br></br></p><p><em>Editor Emeritus, WCDH</em></p><hr>
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<h3 id="letter-from-the-upcoming-editor">Letter from the Upcoming Editor</h3><p><strong>by Aubrey Green</strong></p><p>Hello!</p><p>I am thrilled and deeply grateful to be stepping into this new role as Managing<br>Editor of eMerge. This has always been a home for voices that challenge<br>assumptions and reflect the beautifully complex world we live in; that is even more<br>important now. It’s an honor to be entrusted with continuing this tradition while<br>seeking new ways to amplify those voices and expand the magazine’s reach.</br></br></br></br></p><p>In the coming months, you can expect to hear more podcast interviews from both<br>old friends and new; the Nikki Hanna Literary Challenge will soon begin, and the<br>Woody Barlow Poetry Contest will be coming back before you know it (seriously,<br>it’s early this year)! These programs reflect our commitment to showcasing the incredible talent of our contributors. We will also be popping up at conferences and festivals around the Midwest, so come say hello!</br></br></br></p><p>To our contributors, supporters, and loyal readers—thank you for making eMerge<br>what it is. Your passion inspires every page we publish. I invite you to share your<br>thoughts, ideas, and hopes for the future of this magazine—feel free to reach out via email or connect with us on our social media platforms. Together, we can<br>continue to foster a community where bold storytelling thrives. And to Charles,<br>thank you for all you’ve done for eMerge and the writing community—don’t go<br>too far.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Here’s to the next chapter!<br>Aubrey Green<br>Managing Editor, eMerge</br></br></p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>
</hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Notions (The Dunbar) 1958-67]]></title><description><![CDATA["Swearing is lip filth"
Said the sign above the doorway of the YMCA. We all were guilty of cussing, but we did not swear. At least I didn't, I swear.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/notions-the-dunbar-1958-67/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678053204f874303201be1de</guid><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Morris McCorvey]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:49:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1632919437809-30b200530cb8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHltY2F8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjMyNTY3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1632919437809-30b200530cb8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHltY2F8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjMyNTY3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Notions (The Dunbar) 1958-67"/><p>“Swearing is lip filth”<br>Said the sign above the doorway of the YMCA. We all were guilty of cussing, but we did not swear. At least I didn’t, I swear.</br></p><p>Across the street from the Y sat the silent, lonely, red-brick building with granite columns.</p><p>It was an oasis, nothing less: The Paul Laurence Dunbar Branch Library. Hemingway’s<em> clean</em> <em>well-lighted place</em> in a large, red-brick WPA-era building set on the high side of a segregated ghetto valley colloquially known as the whores’ stroll. A mysterious kind of pause amid all the other commercial and deserted buildings.</p><p>I discovered it at twilight one fall evening, running for my life from some teenaged predators bent on taking whatever money I might possess. I took a sharp turn and crossed the street from the Kappa Lounge, then raced up the stairs of the library and hid behind one of its great columns.</p><p>They were in the WPA-Greek tradition and framed the huge wooden door that opened onto the library’s vestibule. The thugs stopped in dead out on the sidewalk, and would not take another step in the direction of the building.</p><p>The Dunbar was a mystery to most all of us in the neighborhood, but I was stunned by the effect on the assholes chasing me.</p><p>I was so fascinated, I stepped out from behind the column and took another look at the library’s limestone engraved named on the lentil over the door, wondering what the heck. The bullies raced away, on down the hill. I backed into the library door, turned, and opened it.</p><p>What I beheld became my personal safe harbor for the next several years. A hallowed place of quiet peace, set in the warm rich glow of polished hardwood and golden lamplight, amidst the noise and constant turmoil of my childhood world. Early on, I decided that since I was pretty much stuck at the Dunbar library, I might as well read some of the books. I got started traveling the world via National Geographic.</p><hr><p>A few months later, my best friend and I were about to leave Dunbar elementary school for summer vacation. We decided to say a last goodbye to our teacher and went up to her classroom. She was there, boxing up books and other learning materials. A tall, erect, handsome woman with silver streaked hair and a voice worthy of Broadway. Miss Townsend. She wished us well, then paused and fished into one of her boxes.</p><p>“Here, Vernon,” she said to my friend, handing him a book. “Uncle Funny Bunny,” the title read.</p><p>“If you’ll complete this workbook over the summer, you’ll be well prepared for next school year.”</p><p>“Thank you, Miss Townsend,” Vernon said, nervously aware of my invisibility. Miss Townsend was a severe woman, capable of violent anger. I stood there waiting for my ”Uncle Funny Bunny” book. But, the old spinster turned away, and resumed boxing up books.</p><p>“Have a safe summer, boys,” she said dismissively.</p><p>“Yes, m’am,” Vernon said as we walked away.</p><p>I did okay until we got out of the building, whereupon I started to cry quietly.</p><p>“Hey man, you can have this old book,” Vernon offered. “I can get one from my Momma.”</p><p>His mother was a teacher at another school.</p><p>But, I declined.</p><p>“No, I know a lady who’ll loan me all the books I need,” I said.</p><p>“And I’m gonna read ‘em all."</p><p>Except for the Y, there was no place as safe out of school as the Dunbar Branch Library. Named after the venerable lyric poet from Ohio. And once I discovered I could escape the routine violence and vice of my immediate environment, I spent nearly every weekday evening—and many a summer afternoon—there in the quiet company of the librarian and a few elders.</p><p>In March, just after the first wave of Beatlemania, the sun had just begun to return.</p><p>Walking home from the library, passing the corner on which King Kelly held court.</p><p>I found myself summoned by the shoeshine king.</p><p><em>Hey youngblood,</em> he called out.<br><em>Come here and let me holla atcha for a few.</em></br></p><p>I sidled over cautiously. He was a friend of Daddy’s, so I dared not disrespect him, even though Everyone said he was crazy. After all, he called himself the shoeshine king.</p><p><em>I noticed you been patronizin’ the old Dunbar library quite a bit,</em> he said or asked.<br>Well, I go there a lot, I answered carefully.</br></p><p><em>I helped build that sucker after the war</em>, he said.<br><em>I cooked for Ike, all over Europe, y’know.</em></br></p><p><em>Went all over the world with him.<br>You Mack’s boy, aintcha?</br></em><br>Yessir, nodding.</br></p><p><em>Well, you give my regards to your mama and daddy.<br>And watch what you read up yonder. That shit can give a brother notions.<br>Know what I mean?</br></br></em></p><p>Yessir, no idea what he was babbling ‘bout.</p><p>But it sounded like notions were to be avoided at all costs.</p><p>I proceeded mindfully, keeping a close eye out for any notions that might beset me.</p><p>Her name was Gertrude Richards, the Dunbar Branch Librarian. I’ll never forget our time together in that venerable sanctuary. Cool quiet summer afternoons, long autumn evenings, frosty winter twilights when snow hung in the library’s sentinel evergreens as if in a postcard scene offset by the dark brick building. Peaceful hours when it seemed there was no one else in the world but Miss Richards and me. When the library closed each night, I’d race home through the darkness, armed with words, words, words; and increasingly, ‘notions.’</p><p>They kinda eased their way into me.</p><p>One autumn evening, I picked up an anthology of long-dead white cats and let it fall open, to lead me to an unknown poem. It lead to “Song” by old John Donne. As I began to read “Song,” my eyes fell on a slender volume named “<em>A Coney Island of the Mind</em>,” which I snatched off the shelf eagerly because of its title. It fell open to a poem with a number as its title: #23.<br>The adult section.</br></p><p>The Adult Section had been an ongoing reading chess match between Miss Richards since I received my library card. Every time I made a move in the direction of that section, Miss Richards headed me off, usually with a suggestion like “<em>Treasure Island,</em>” “<em>Robin Hood,”</em> or something. I always accepted her suggestions, but never ceased my quest for the Adult section.</p><p>The autumn evening I discovered those two vastly different poems was the first time I succeeded in catching her distracted by her own reading to sneak into it.</p><p>Suffice it to say, it was not what I’d been imagining for years.</p><p>But my immediate understanding of the two poems, separated by more than 300 years, made it clear why Miss Richards had both protected me from and prepared me for the Adult section. My immediate and innate understanding of both poems and their poets opened a doorway inside me: A doorway for which I’d never find an exit.</p><p>I remember thinking, “Wow! This shit is important.” It did not feel like a wise career pursuit; but it sure felt as if someone had to do it. It was the ‘60s. America had already convinced me that as its designated “nigger” I had nothing to lose. So I picked up the gauntlet.</p><p>As years passed, I discovered the football field, pool hall, and other spaces into which I wedged myself, but my natural connection to the library held firm. Over the decades that followed, wherever I lived long enough to pay utilities I acquired a library card. Got myself a veritable trove of ‘em. From Wichita to points east and west. I armored myself with all I learned in every library I could find everywhere I lived.</p><p>When I graduated from high school, I visited Miss Richards, to tell her I was off to college. She wept.</p><p>Months later, riding out of the City on the old Santa Fe train, I vivdly recall excitedly thinking, “I’m off to college! Man, I ain’t never eatin’ beans or listening to the Blues again.” Little did I know, y’know. The Blues are one thing, but sadness is another thing entirely. I was on my way to learning the difference.</p><p>And when I did, I raced back into the Blues’ embrace with a full heart.</p><p><em>(for the pool players)<br>I play it cool, and dig all jive.<br>That’s the reason I stay alive.<br>My motto as I live and learn is dig<br>And be dug in return.</br></br></br></br></em></p><p>Coming into our own midway thru high school. Old enough and respectful enough to be allowed to shoot pool at Brown’s after school, when we shoulda been doing homework. Studying the angles of street geometry, you might say. Not hanging out at the Library as much. But being sent back to it more and more, as I grew, and was made more aware of my world.</p><p><em>Hey!<br>Youngblood. What they teachin’ y’all over there at Carter G. Woodson school?</br></em><br>Called out one of the poolhall’s regular hustlers.</br></p><p>History, one of us responded.</p><p><em>O yeah? What kinda History? History or his story?<br>You know Carter G. Woodson was a historian, right?</br></em></p><p>I cleared my throat and said Lewis and Clark right now. I was actually enjoying the subject.</p><p><em>Well, then you must already be hip to York, right?</em></p><p>Who? we all asked. Me, Doc, and Heywood, playing for quarters.</p><p><em>Who!? Who? You sound like a bunch of hoot-owls.<br>Who the hell is y’all’s history teacher?</br></em></p><p>Mr. Clark we answered.</p><p><em>Mr. Clark? James Clark, Deacon over at Calvary?</em></p><p>He seemed outraged. Yessir, I managed.</p><p><em>Well, ain’t that a bitch? I played football with that nigger. You tell Mr. Clark that Blue Hill said the next time you fellas are asked about York, Hannibal, or the Buffalo Soldiers, y’all better have a cogent comprehensive answer.<br>Got me? Co-gent and com-pre-hensive!</br></em></p><p>Yessir.</p><p><em>Give your old man my regards.<br>Your Mama too.</br></em></p><p>Yessir.</p><p>I was soon back in the library. But York wasn’t there.</p><hr><p><em>Editor's Note: We publish this work as a tribute to Morris, who passed away in September 2024 … our words live on even after we make the final transition.</em></p></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Etude]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was something]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/etude/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678065ec4f874303201be214</guid><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Adrian Frost]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:49:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512733596533-7b00ccf8ebaf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBpYW5vfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYzMjQ0NHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512733596533-7b00ccf8ebaf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBpYW5vfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYzMjQ0NHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Etude"/><p>It was something<br>Something like this<br>Something not not complete<br>A fragment<br>A fragment on the edge<br>On the edge of time</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>She was playing. Her fingers, the tips of her<br>fingers were molten gold<br>The sun turning red Orange was drifting down<br>toward the swelling olive writhed Wine<br>darkening seas<br>The window was ajar Her fingers folded the<br>notes in parcels of beauty that fled to the<br>widow and out to the sea<br>I had my left hand on the other piano’s keys.We<br>had been playing together but I’d stopped as he<br>came into the room<br>He was … was he going to be jealous She looked<br>She looked for a moment at me In the<br>shadow of the windows wall his drum<br>set sat but he didn’t play classical music like<br>She and me</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I took the look in her eyes and I turned them on<br>Him My voice said O Henry we were thinking<br>of thee How this piece needs a drum roll like<br>Oars wooden oars stroking thru the wine dark sea<br>Do you think Do you think You could do that<br>For We<br>And although her fingers still molten in the rays of<br>the departing sun stopped for an eternity<br>balanced here at the edge of the world her<br>eyes pointed at him And he muttered I’ll try I’ll<br>syncopate I’ll feel your key And my hands<br>dropped back to the piano and began gently to play<br>And then I heard her tune turn on its heel<br>And listen for the oars of his timbered drum<br>And by all the Gods and Goddesses<br>He played like a shimmer of lace<br>Like the spindrift that spume and froths<br>At the edge of the wave<br>As Aphrodite appears out of the seas grave<br>And we played together us three<br>At the edge of the<br>World<br>To the wine dark<br>Sea</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rushnik]]></title><description><![CDATA[
Rushnik beautiful simple woven
thing you greet each tired traveler with fresh-baked bread, some salt to keep stories.
My hands, please ritual them dry rushnik, symmetry red string - a stranger, an end
a beginning, a friend - symbols sing a song I never knew I never knew. Be
bread rushnik, your thread hand-dyed, hands which know how to knead, joy knuckles into bread, out of bread how to place salt cellars their middles, little friendships of bread, before my people murdered to rewrite yo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rushnik/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6780676e4f874303201be224</guid><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:48:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="http://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2025/01/Rushnik.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div style="text-align:center">
<img src="http://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2025/01/Rushnik.jpg" alt="Rushnik"/><p>Rushnik beautiful simple woven</p>
<p>thing you greet each tired traveler with fresh-baked bread, some salt to keep stories.<br>
My hands, please ritual them dry <em>rushnik</em>, symmetry red string - a stranger, an end<br>
a beginning, a friend - symbols sing a song I never knew I never knew. Be</br></br></p>
<p>bread <em>rushnik</em>, your thread hand-dyed, hands which know how to knead, joy knuckles into bread, out of bread how to place salt cellars their middles, little friendships of bread, before my people murdered to rewrite your people from our people, Soviet ideals rust red</p>
<p>blood-crusted corruption patterned like barbed-wire – oh <em>rushnik</em>, covering young dead you<br>
still bond love to newlyweds, grace languages with many homes, symmetries<br>
peace with memory, sun with scenery, gift endings our beginnings, wheatfields their winds,</br></br></p>
<p>shade under sunflowers, re-embroider us rushnik, re-imagine borders, distance,<br>
ancestral memory. Oh, <em>rushnik</em>, our hands oh, <em>rushnik</em> I wish I was useful<br>
like you, I wish I could tell you that what connects us is only beautiful like you</br></br></p>
<p>simple woven thing please teach us to break bread again</p>
</div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Love Mississippi]]></title><description><![CDATA[I love Mississippi.
Of course,
I love Wm Faulkner
the way a tragedy needs to be loved.
Even a dead
alcoholic
racist
can come to live in mercy.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-love-mississippi/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__67806aa14f874303201be260</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Georgia Choate]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:47:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1610379105080-b8d3dc3a685e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxib296ZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY2MzIwNTN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1610379105080-b8d3dc3a685e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxib296ZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY2MzIwNTN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="I Love Mississippi"/><p>I love Mississippi.<br>Of course,<br>I love Wm Faulkner<br>the way a tragedy needs to be loved.<br>Even a dead<br>alcoholic<br>racist<br>can come to live in mercy.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Winter Sky]]></title><description><![CDATA[a cold stone-grey morning
chilled air and marble icing
spread evenly over the horizon
sliced and cut into laced cloud strands
ripple across the cliffs below]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/winter-sky/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678071c74f874303201be281</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:46:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1675350029528-1441becb7d7b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHdpbnRlciUyMHNreXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY2MzA3NzB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1675350029528-1441becb7d7b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHdpbnRlciUyMHNreXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY2MzA3NzB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Winter Sky"/><p>a cold stone-grey morning<br>chilled air and marble icing<br>spread evenly over the horizon<br>sliced and cut into laced cloud strands<br>ripple across the cliffs below</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[As Small as the Scent of Her Hair]]></title><description><![CDATA[So much depends on where you stand,
which direction you face, how strong
the wind, how fair the skies.
So much is determined by timing,
when you begin, and with whom,
the season, the phase of the moon.
So much rides on a roll of the dice, a
spin of the wheel, who marked the
cards and who deals.
The future can change in an instant, redirected
by something as small as the scent of her
hair, the color of her eyes.
The face you hold in the diamond
of your mind is the fulcrum upon
which you balan]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/as-small-as-the-scent-of-her-hair/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678073884f874303201be292</guid><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Brian Mosher]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:45:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1732455667495-27515c068aea?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxoYW5kcyUyMGhvbGRpbmd8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjMwNjQwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1732455667495-27515c068aea?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxoYW5kcyUyMGhvbGRpbmd8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjMwNjQwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="As Small as the Scent of Her Hair"/><p>So much depends on where you stand,<br>which direction you face, how strong<br>the wind, how fair the skies.</br></br></p><p>So much is determined by timing,<br>when you begin, and with whom,<br>the season, the phase of the moon.</br></br></p><p>So much rides on a roll of the dice, a<br>spin of the wheel, who marked the<br>cards and who deals.</br></br></p><p>The future can change in an instant, redirected<br>by something as small as the scent of her<br>hair, the color of her eyes.</br></br></p><p>The face you hold in the diamond<br>of your mind is the fulcrum upon<br>which you balance yourself.</br></br></p><p>Be prepared, choose wisely, aware<br>of the importance of how well your<br>hand fits inside another's.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[When the Whole World]]></title><description><![CDATA[When the whole world
becomes too much,
let me find refuge.
Let me find refuge
in the shelter of morning
breaking through glass,
the spiced steam of chai tea.
Let me find refuge
in the sanctuary of sparrows
pecking at windows, crafting
nests inside Victorian transoms.
Let me find refuge
in the haven of spring trees
casting mulberries, sweet
enticement to doe, velvet-footed fox.
Let me find refuge
in the harbor of rain-soaked pine
limbs, dripping their Druid scent;
in lilacs, marigolds, gerani]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/when-the-whole-world/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6780743a4f874303201be2a5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Linda Neal Reising]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:45:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585185160068-8175b6a39d84?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHx0ZWF8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjMwNTI2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585185160068-8175b6a39d84?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHx0ZWF8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjMwNTI2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="When the Whole World"/><p>When the whole world<br>becomes too much,<br>let me find refuge.</br></br></p><p>Let me find refuge<br>in the shelter of morning<br>breaking through glass,<br>the spiced steam of chai tea.</br></br></br></p><p>Let me find refuge<br>in the sanctuary of sparrows<br>pecking at windows, crafting<br>nests inside Victorian transoms.</br></br></br></p><p>Let me find refuge<br>in the haven of spring trees<br>casting mulberries, sweet<br>enticement to doe, velvet-footed fox.</br></br></br></p><p>Let me find refuge<br>in the harbor of rain-soaked pine<br>limbs, dripping their Druid scent;<br>in lilacs, marigolds, geraniums.</br></br></br></p><p>Let me find refuge<br>in the stronghold of night sky,<br>balancing three hundred billion<br>stars, blinking their coded language.</br></br></br></p><p>When the whole world<br>becomes too much,<br>let me find refuge in my refuge.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Margie's Children]]></title><description><![CDATA[They are all around this place
Each one a part of nature’s grace
And all await a sweet embrace
As Margie’s children
She tucks the flowers in their bed
And feeds the birds their daily bread
When morning blooms, each little head
Looks up to greet her
For all the downy, feathered heads
Of subtle grays or brilliant reds
And all the blossoms in the beds
Are Margie’s children
She knows the secrets that abound
And those that hide ‘til she’s around
Like arrowheads in ancient ground
That rise to meet ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/margies-children/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6780750f4f874303201be2b7</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lea Ann Crisp]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:44:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1591295986787-653fb390286e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxmbG93ZXJiZWR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjMwMjgxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1591295986787-653fb390286e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxmbG93ZXJiZWR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjMwMjgxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Margie's Children"/><p>They are all around this place<br>Each one a part of nature’s grace<br>And all await a sweet embrace<br>As Margie’s children</br></br></br></p><p>She tucks the flowers in their bed<br>And feeds the birds their daily bread<br>When morning blooms, each little head<br>Looks up to greet her</br></br></br></p><p>For all the downy, feathered heads<br>Of subtle grays or brilliant reds<br>And all the blossoms in the beds<br>Are Margie’s children</br></br></br></p><p>She knows the secrets that abound<br>And those that hide ‘til she’s around<br>Like arrowheads in ancient ground<br>That rise to meet her</br></br></br></p><p>The land will lure her with its call<br>The hills, the bluffs, the waterfall<br>For all its treasures, big and small<br>Are Margie’s children</br></br></br></p><p>Her caring arms will open wide<br>To all the things she finds outside<br>And for the love she can provide<br>Each one will seek her</br></br></br></p><p>And you can count the trees so tall<br>Or count the birds or leaves that fall<br>But never finish counting all<br>Of Margie’s children</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dear Stranger]]></title><description><![CDATA[Letter to The Stranger I met in The Bus Today .
Dear Stranger ,
I don’t know if it is okay to call you My stranger ,Or call you the girl with a pink cardigan ,who sat by the window with a pink journal on her hand and a plush sky-blue teddy bear hanging by her backpack .I noticed that today you were slightly agitated , I wondered if you still remembered me , stranger . I wondered if you remembered the red haired girl who shared a table with you on your first day in high school , but mostly I wo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dear-stranger/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678075b94f874303201be2c7</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kwanele Buthelezi]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:44:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1714385471906-4da72d1c73e5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwOHx8dHVsaXBzfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYzMDEwOHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1714385471906-4da72d1c73e5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwOHx8dHVsaXBzfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYzMDEwOHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dear Stranger"/><p>Letter to The Stranger I met in The Bus Today .</p><p>Dear Stranger ,</p><p>I don’t know if it is okay to call you My stranger ,Or call you the girl with a pink cardigan ,who sat by the window with a pink journal on her hand and a plush sky-blue teddy bear hanging by her backpack .I noticed that today you were slightly agitated , I wondered if you still remembered me , stranger . I wondered if you remembered the red haired girl who shared a table with you on your first day in high school , but mostly I wonder if you stopped ...cutting yourself or at least remember that you kissed a girl on your sixth month of high school and described it as the most magical thing you had ever seen on earth ,I remember that you loved singing so much that Fridays were always scheduled for Karaoke and doughnuts and weed . I wonder if you remember dragging me across the hallway straight to the garden of your home by the time we both turned sixteen and making love to me , as the sun set across the sky . I wonder if you remember showing me where your favourite flowers were planted , tulips to be exact . I wonder if you remember how terrified we both were when you finally hit him back with a knife deep in his throat on the day of prom because I remember everything clearly . I remember your bloody hands , I remember your under pants hanging by your knees when you finally saw what you had done . Dear stranger , I remember the tulips becoming your least favourite flowers on your garden , I remember that you stopped wearing anything that has pink . I remember that you stopped kissing my lips or holding my hands , I remember vividly that you stopped going to Karaoke on Friday nights and smoking everything your hands came across . Dear Stranger , I wonder if you remember me , the red haired girl you forgot existed . Dear stranger , I wonder if you remember how you forgot to live , I wonder if its you , I wonder if you eventually swam ashore and stopped drowning .</p><p>To the Stranger I met on the bus today , I wonder if you still remembered me , or that tulips were your favourite flowers , or that you rolled me my first huge blunt , or that you loved singing , I wonder if the colour pink is your favourite colour again .</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Upon This Spot in History]]></title><description><![CDATA[Upon this very spot, history whispers …
Standing upon this Oklahoman ground
listening to each story plot tell time.
A Cretaceous skeleton lies buried
deep underneath this earth …
where Homo erectus men died
delirious with convulsions and fever
from malaria-ridden mosquitoes
in prehistoric, tropical environment.
Then millenniums later
buffalo roamed vibrating
shaking the ground, quaking
from massive herds migrating
over wide-open plains …
Littered, with flint arrowheads
Indian braves crafted, a]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/upon-this-spot-in-history/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6780765d4f874303201be2da</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Antonia Love]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:43:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1497483996262-df5caae87573?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGplZXB8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjI5ODI0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1497483996262-df5caae87573?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGplZXB8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjI5ODI0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Upon This Spot in History"/><p>Upon this very spot, history whispers …<br>Standing upon this Oklahoman ground<br>listening to each story plot tell time.</br></br></p><p>A Cretaceous skeleton lies buried<br>deep underneath this earth …<br>where Homo erectus men died<br>delirious with convulsions and fever<br>from malaria-ridden mosquitoes<br>in prehistoric, tropical environment.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Then millenniums later<br>buffalo roamed vibrating<br>shaking the ground, quaking<br>from massive herds migrating<br>over wide-open plains …<br>Littered, with flint arrowheads<br>Indian braves crafted, as protection<br>from annihilation, of White men<br>invading ancient tribal lands.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Evidence of wagon train bravery, arrows<br>still embedded. Undiscovered in skulls<br>of a young pioneer couple, riding<br>wheel-rutted trails of misfortune<br>across Indian Territory<br>in the wild, Wild West.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Now, pungent odor lingers of the skunk<br>hit last night, by eighteen-wheeler truck.<br>Motivating reluctant, road-weary body<br>to climb back into, Jeep Explorer.<br>Driving far away, from interstate<br>roadside picnic/rest area,<br>leaving aluminum beer cans,<br>cigarette butts, and Big Mac meal turd<br>floating, in a public port-a-potty.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Now, our modern-time legacy.<br>On this very spot, where …<br>history is<strong><em> screaming!</em></strong></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Evening News]]></title><description><![CDATA[I only ask you kids for one thing,
my mother says, in her fed-up voice.
Stretched out on the sofa, one foot on the floor,
her arm thrown over her headache
as our record player screams
Tutti Frutti from down the hall.
Her hands cotton-gloved to cover the eczema,
three children peeling away the layers of her.
I only ask you kids for one thing. Let me have
this living room for one half hour of peace
so I can listen to Walter Cronkite
and just a few minutes without your 45s.
Her hair in pin curls, ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-evening-news/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678077144f874303201be2eb</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Lorenzen]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:43:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542999250-278129776101?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxyZWNvcmQlMjBwbGF5ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjI5NTU2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542999250-278129776101?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxyZWNvcmQlMjBwbGF5ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjI5NTU2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Evening News"/><p><em>I only ask you kids for one thing,</em><br>my mother says, in her fed-up voice.<br>Stretched out on the sofa, one foot on the floor,<br>her arm thrown over her headache<br>as our record player screams<br>Tutti Frutti from down the hall.<br>Her hands cotton-gloved to cover the eczema,<br>three children peeling away the layers of her.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><em>I only ask you kids for one thing. Let me have<br>this living room for one half hour of peace<br>so I can listen to Walter Cronkite<br>and just a few minutes without your 45s.</br></br></br></em><br>Her hair in pin curls, scarf tied around,<br>her blouse smudged with bananas and orange juice,<br>three children draining her brain of cognition.</br></br></br></p><p>After that sofa spent many years in a basement<br>in another city, we sorted through boxes piled<br>on its exhausted cushions. I asked her<br>what got her through. <em>Well, it wasn’t church,</em><br>she said.<em> Or even your dad and you kids.<br>It was Little Richard, that’s what it was.</br></em></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Our Darling Boy]]></title><description><![CDATA[Our son tries on roles from school or books
like most people buy shoes, testing one pair
and another until one fits the moment.
Now he’s Hermione wanting that time-turner
so he can lengthen his days and make more time
to play and read and dress up (always dress up).
Sometimes he’s the firefighter or EMT. Other times
he prefers the pink tutu so he can dance his way
through the hallway like a ballerina, or flit like
the rainbow butterfly princess down the stairs
to the front room where he const]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/our-darling-boy/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678077c64f874303201be301</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Audell Shelburne]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:42:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1499377193864-82682aefed04?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHRpbWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjI5MjA0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1499377193864-82682aefed04?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHRpbWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjI5MjA0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Our Darling Boy"/><p>Our son tries on roles from school or books<br>like most people buy shoes, testing one pair<br>and another until one fits the moment.</br></br></p><p>Now he’s Hermione wanting that time-turner<br>so he can lengthen his days and make more time<br>to play and read and dress up (always dress up).</br></br></p><p>Sometimes he’s the firefighter or EMT. Other times<br>he prefers the pink tutu so he can dance his way<br>through the hallway like a ballerina, or flit like</br></br></p><p>the rainbow butterfly princess down the stairs<br>to the front room where he constructed her castle<br>in his contractor's outfit yesterday. Now he’s Babe, </br></br></p><p>the sheep-dog-pig. He’s a pilot, a pirate, a knight.<br>Our house is big enough for him and his dreams.<br>Dragons seem to know they should stay away.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[She Only Used to be Yours]]></title><description><![CDATA[During the winter, oak trees keep their dead leaves, which remain brown and wilted until spring. Marcescense is when a tree's leaves persist through the winter season. The leaves transition from vibrant greens to warm oranges before turning brown like dirt in a graveyard. You die a little in the winter, but some people hold on to life.
Anne exuded empathy through her actions, her unwavering sympathy evident in the way she comforted others. Some nights, Anne would lie awake, her thoughts echoin]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/she-only-used-to-be-yours/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678078774f874303201be314</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Morada Rivera]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:41:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1503792243040-7ce7f5f06085?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxrZXklMjBib3h8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjI4OTA1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1503792243040-7ce7f5f06085?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxrZXklMjBib3h8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjI4OTA1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="She Only Used to be Yours"/><p>During the winter, oak trees keep their dead leaves, which remain brown and wilted until spring. Marcescense is when a tree's leaves persist through the winter season. The leaves transition from vibrant greens to warm oranges before turning brown like dirt in a graveyard. You die a little in the winter, but some people hold on to life. </p><p>Anne exuded empathy through her actions, her unwavering sympathy evident in the way she comforted others. Some nights, Anne would lie awake, her thoughts echoing in the empty room like ghosts, yearning for a listening ear that never came. A photo of a man holding a woman always stayed close by Anne's bedside, a reminder of love and loss intertwined in her heart. I could immediately recognize these people in the photo were related to Anne; they stood closely, laughing and holding each other's arms with the same dark eyes. Another frame smaller in size stood beside the photo of the man and woman. This frame, however, was of Anne and another girl, laughing and holding a string of ribbon between them. It reminded me of the string of fate from Greek mythology.</p><p>I wondered what secrets lay hidden beneath the surface and yearned to uncover more about the individual in the photo, despite never witnessing their presence at the house. </p><p>One evening we heard a knock at the door; I could hear her descending the stairs. Re-entering the room a few moments later, she held a box, wearing an expression not just of puzzlement but also fear. </p><p>What could be inside that silenced her so profoundly, shrouding the room in an eerie stillness? She seemed to be holding her breath, her actions reflecting a sense of anticipation or anxiety. </p><p>Sitting at her desk with the unopened box before her, she cast a wary glance toward the photo of the girl. Then she carefully opened the box. </p><p>A small note rested atop another box inside. She began to read the note, then suddenly dropped it back into the box and pushed herself to the back of her chair, as far as she could go. A small gasp escaped her, and I discerned that tears were beginning to fall.</p><p>After some time, she stood up and opened the window to the frigid exterior. Anne's actions took an enigmatic turn as she extended her hand out of the window, as though grasping for an ethereal presence in the starlit night sky. Anne did not do well in the cold, usually succumbing to some sort of head cold or sniffle, so I was surprised that she sat out the window for so long.</p><p>Retreating inside, she wiped away the remnants of her tears, feeling their sting like tiny daggers, a far cry from the gentle snowflake kisses her mother once described. She picked up the note once again. </p><p>This time, as she began to read aloud, "Anne, Merry Christmas." Another sharp gasp and sob escaped her. </p><p>“I can't wait to talk when this ... when this gets to you ... Like a key that opens doors, you have opened so many for me. I love you so much.”</p><p>Anne covered her eyes as tears poured into her hands. Leaving the note on the desk, she opened the smaller box inside. It contained a necklace in the shape of a key, crafted from gleaming silver, adorned with a beautifully set blue stone, Anne's favorite color, and a small moon at the end in place of the teeth. </p><p>She closed the box and climbed into bed without a sound, eventually drifting into sleep. </p><p>Without my knowledge, Anne disappeared overnight without leaving any clues, making me realize the chilling truth that I had missed her departure. </p><p>The only things missing were the photograph of the couple, a few books, and some clothes.</p><p>Weeks passed in silence after Anne's disappearance, with nothing but my presence. One fateful day, a young woman arrived at the house, bringing an air of mystery with her. There was something hauntingly familiar about her. She stood in the street, pacing until finally she gathered her resolve, ascended the steps to the house, and lightly knocked on the door. The door swung open slightly. </p><p>Alarmed, she cautiously entered, climbing the staircase and reaching Anne's room. She knocked softly once more. “Anne?” </p><p>Opening the door, she spotted the box and note on the desk. Opening the box, she beheld the delicate necklace nestled on the plush velvet and instinctively let out a small cry.</p><p>Oh, what words would I share with her if given the chance? </p><p>I would have told you that Anne had come here to escape something. As the months went by, I learned that she was running from someone, and it was you. I would have told you that she came here to forget you, but how do you forget something that sits in your room, like the photograph?</p><p>How do you move forward when everything around you is a memory?</p><p>If I could, I would have warned you never to visit or send gifts here because Anne has made it clear—she does not want to be found. I need to inform you that your key no longer fits the lock on her door. </p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[On the Fly]]></title><description><![CDATA[It is the perfect implement extending from the palm of my hand,
Wherever I point it is where the fly lands.
It is made with a perfect blend of balance, flexibility, and strength,
With finesse distributed throughout its entire length.
As the backing hugs the spool around the center of the reel,
The fly line, leader, and tippet slip through the guides as my finger applies appropriate pressure and feel.
The rod guides the line and fly through the air with precision,
As my wrist and elbow provide]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/on-the-fly/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678078ea4f874303201be322</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Terry Lynn Rhoades]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:41:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1452109436269-d410ed332571?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxmbHklMjBmaXNoaW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYyNzgxMXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1452109436269-d410ed332571?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxmbHklMjBmaXNoaW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYyNzgxMXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="On the Fly"/><p>It is the perfect implement extending from the palm of my hand,<br>Wherever I point it is where the fly lands.</br></p><p>It is made with a perfect blend of balance, flexibility, and strength,<br>With finesse distributed throughout its entire length.</br></p><p>As the backing hugs the spool around the center of the reel,<br>The fly line, leader, and tippet slip through the guides as my finger applies appropriate pressure and feel.</br></p><p>The rod guides the line and fly through the air with precision,<br>As my wrist and elbow provide the right angle and tension.</br></p><p>With a proper grip, I snap the rod upwards to the perfect angel and pitch,<br>This propels the line behind me generating stored energy with each choreographed twitch.</br></p><p>As the stored energy propels my line forward,<br>The fly glides through the air to the exact distance ordered.</br></p><p>As soon as my fly gently lands on its predetermined spot,<br>A fastidious brown trout takes it down before realizing he is caught!</br></p><p>Just before setting the hook, the trout and fly dip below the surface of the stream,<br>I long for the day when this is my reality and not just a dream.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lake Michigan]]></title><description><![CDATA[Houses at the shore.
People on streets in straight lines
lock themselves in.
Light spring breeze ruffles the flags.
At the beach, a boy’s lost key.
Will I have to live someone else’s life?
He sifts sand between his fingers,
gulps his fear, the boundless
lake gaping at him.
What if it’s no one’s? Hello?
But they’ve all folded up their towels
and gone home, the air too chilly
this late in the day.
He searches till his lips turn blue
and the moon turns white.
Fathers and mothers, snug
in their b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lake-michigan/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6780799b4f874303201be33b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jeffrey Kingman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:40:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/uploads/1413399807481ef38ab22/e0b00b9f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNhbmQlMjBoYW5kfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYxMDI3N3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/uploads/1413399807481ef38ab22/e0b00b9f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNhbmQlMjBoYW5kfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYxMDI3N3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Lake Michigan"/><p>Houses at the shore.<br>People on streets in straight lines<br>lock themselves in.<br>Light spring breeze ruffles the flags.<br>At the beach, a boy’s lost key.</br></br></br></br></p><p><em>Will I have to live someone else’s life?</em><br>He sifts sand between his fingers,<br>gulps his fear, the boundless<br>lake gaping at him.<br><em>What if it’s no one’s? Hello?</em></br></br></br></br></p><p>But they’ve all folded up their towels<br>and gone home, the air too chilly<br>this late in the day.<br>He searches till his lips turn blue<br>and the moon turns white.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Fathers and mothers, snug<br>in their beds, don’t always remember<br>who their children are.<br>When we lose something for good<br>memories are supposed to be a comfort.</br></br></br></br></p><p>There was a shed in the backyard<br>for the bicycles, and a key hiding<br>in an old tin on a shelf.<br>On the floor, a scattering<br>of sand someone had wiped off their legs.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Your Deepest Wound is Your Greatest Gift?]]></title><description><![CDATA[That's what we tell ourselves to explain
the ruffles in the air after a hummingbird
or mac truck speeds through, but what if
we actually live in an ocean of time
where what we name "wound" or "gift" shifts
up and down the weight of waves
that break or smooth out shining ridges
back to the undertow?
What if it's not really an ocean but still
an immersion, even on land into the roar
of cicadas, the gleam of a gingko leaf
on the ground, "You've Got Sunshine"
blaring so loud from the coffee shop
th]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/your-deepest-wound-is-your-greatest-gift/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__67807afb4f874303201be355</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:40:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514747975201-4715db583da9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI3fHxvY2VhbiUyMHdhdmVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYxMDEyM3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514747975201-4715db583da9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI3fHxvY2VhbiUyMHdhdmVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYxMDEyM3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Your Deepest Wound is Your Greatest Gift?"/><p>That's what we tell ourselves to explain<br>the ruffles in the air after a hummingbird<br>or mac truck speeds through, but what if<br>we actually live in an ocean of time<br>where what we name "wound" or "gift" shifts<br>up and down the weight of waves<br>that break or smooth out shining ridges<br>back to the undertow?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>What if it's not really an ocean but still<br>an immersion, even on land into the roar<br>of cicadas, the gleam of a gingko leaf<br>on the ground, "You've Got Sunshine"<br>blaring so loud from the coffee shop<br>that the crow on a powerline tilts her head?</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>What if wounds or gifts are outside<br>dialect and syntax drained by the drought<br>of disappointments, and instead are simply<br>charms of goldfinch, conspiracies of ravens,<br>quarrels of sparrows, murders of crows,<br>museums of starlings, curfews of curlews<br>winging it to some place warm enough<br>to perch and actually rest?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>That could be the gift outside of the word,<br>the sudden or long-time glimpsed arrival<br>to this turquoise table with this iced coffee<br>beside this statue of a golden Santa Claus<br>looking out the windows at light<br>once again sharpening its song<br>against scars and shadows.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Unwoke?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Un-woke?
Are you broke
On the rung of the
Evolutionary escalera—
What does it materia?
Who could be gladder
Than a racist
Who's madder
At the world
Coming together
Through love and peace,
When they pray for
Brown lives
To be badder—
Like worse off
Cause they get off
On hate & division,
See—I've had a vision
Of we being nothing
But earth-lee-ings...
What could be better?
Are we not but we?
But wokism
Makes ‘em crazier
Than a mad hatter
Trying to climb up
A Crisco covered ladder...]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/unwoke/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__67807c6c4f874303201be378</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Cleofas Avila]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:39:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517281862878-d312fe477d71?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDY1fHxsYWRkZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjA5NjY2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517281862878-d312fe477d71?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDY1fHxsYWRkZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjA5NjY2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Unwoke?"/><p>Un-woke?<br>Are you broke<br>On the rung of the<br>Evolutionary escalera—<br>What does it materia?<br>Who could be gladder<br>Than a racist<br>Who's madder<br>At the world<br>Coming together<br>Through love and peace,<br>When they pray for<br>Brown lives<br>To be badder—<br>Like worse off<br>Cause they get off<br>On hate & division,<br>See—I've had a vision<br>Of we being nothing<br>But earth-lee-ings...<br>What could be better?<br>Are we not but we?<br>But wokism<br>Makes ‘em crazier<br>Than a mad hatter<br>Trying to climb up<br>A Crisco covered ladder...</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Les Adieux]]></title><description><![CDATA[after Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/les-adieux/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__67807cd84f874303201be385</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Abby Caplin]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:39:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605794978644-f0b340b2785a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHRheGl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjA5NTA1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605794978644-f0b340b2785a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHRheGl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NjA5NTA1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Les Adieux"/><p><em>after Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí</em></p><hr><p>Frank eats breakfast beside her, vitamins<br>clattering from their bottles. Audible swallows<br>of water cause his eyelids to twitch.<br>She pushes him from her red suitcase,<br>folds her clothes into it. His panic grows—<br>he begs her not to leave him, follows her<br>downstairs and outside, but she refuses to stay.<br>She turns the key, Frank feeling ill as he watches<br>her leave it under the reclining woman. <em>Stay!<br>Please,</br></em> he says, and without shame throws<br>himself at her feet. She strokes his whiskers<br>with her thumb, distracts him with the flickering<br>blue-greens of foliage, the flash of a magpie.<br>The tempo of her movements increases as she gathers<br>her things, checks her watch, melts into a taxi.<br>Pulling away, she sees him shrinking through glass.<br>Then Frank leaps from his porch into her echo.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[When I Walk Away]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’ve been walking for half a century
gazing at the horizon and imagining
I’m walking toward marriage or a career.
I began walking with pregnancies
young children and the fine art of letting go.
Now I am walking under the influence
of aging, masked as wisdom
I walk according to a grand design
but never against time, circumstance
shadows or darkness.
I walk in silence and meditate
I walk deliberately with long strides
and I walk purposefully.
At times I walk around in circles
according to my own]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/when-i-walk-away/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__67807dd64f874303201be3a4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Linda Meg Frith]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:38:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524173434783-787293ef3297?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHx3YWxrJTIwc3Vuc2V0fGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYwOTI5MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524173434783-787293ef3297?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHx3YWxrJTIwc3Vuc2V0fGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYwOTI5MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="When I Walk Away"/><p>I’ve been walking for half a century<br>gazing at the horizon and imagining<br>I’m walking toward marriage or a career.<br>I began walking with pregnancies<br>young children and the fine art of letting go.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Now I am walking under the influence<br>of aging, masked as wisdom<br>I walk according to a grand design<br>but never against time, circumstance<br>shadows or darkness.</br></br></br></br></p><p>I walk in silence and meditate<br>I walk deliberately with long strides<br>and I walk purposefully.<br>At times I walk around in circles<br>according to my own patterns.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Someday I will walk into the sunset<br>And you will know I have walked away.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Last Night]]></title><description><![CDATA[You didn’t know. I’d kept it secret.
But now—I felt it in my waters—
it was time to tell.
I whispered in your ear
(the room was crowded)
“I’ve a surprise.”
You turned and tinkled
wide-eyed, “A surprise?” I nodded
and bustled past composite faces
up a flight of half-familiar stairs.
I took it from a shoebox
stuffed with shreddings
and hurried down.
You sat apart, unfrazzled
by the hubbub, grinning
at me lumbering before you,
hand wedged behind my back.
But when I held it out
and touched your empt]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/last-night/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__67807e3d4f874303201be3b7</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel P. Stokes]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:38:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1483706600674-e0c87d3fe85b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNlY3JldHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY2MDkxNDZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1483706600674-e0c87d3fe85b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNlY3JldHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY2MDkxNDZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Last Night"/><p>You didn’t know. I’d kept it secret.<br>But now—I felt it in my waters—<br>it was time to tell.<br>I whispered in your ear<br>(the room was crowded)<br>“I’ve a surprise.”<br>You turned and tinkled<br>wide-eyed, “A surprise?” I nodded<br>and bustled past composite faces<br>up a flight of half-familiar stairs.<br>I took it from a shoebox<br>stuffed with shreddings<br>and hurried down.<br>You sat apart, unfrazzled<br>by the hubbub, grinning<br>at me lumbering before you,<br>hand wedged behind my back.<br>But when I held it out<br>and touched your empty pillow,<br>I faced once more in cold light<br>and in silence<br>the insignificance<br>of all we’ll never share.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Momentous]]></title><description><![CDATA[We live by moments—
those fragments of reality
that slip beneath the door of time.
We pile them into minutes, hours
that form a bridge across the day.
We say “I’ll only be a moment”
when we’re half out the door
and the time between departure and arrival
is too brief to count.
But tack on those last three letters,
and suddenly it’s World War III, the Moon Landing,
Hurricane Andrew. Three letters
and a ho-hum remnant bursts into significance.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/momentous/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__67807e874f874303201be3c4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sharon Scholl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:37:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1496060875531-64e305199ebf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxkb29yfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYwODk1NXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1496060875531-64e305199ebf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxkb29yfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjYwODk1NXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Momentous"/><p>We live by moments—<br>those fragments of reality<br>that slip beneath the door of time.<br>We pile them into minutes, hours<br>that form a bridge across the day.</br></br></br></br></p><p>We say “I’ll only be a moment”<br>when we’re half out the door<br>and the time between departure and arrival<br>is too brief to count.</br></br></br></p><p>But tack on those last three letters,<br>and suddenly it’s World War III, the Moon Landing,<br>Hurricane Andrew. Three letters<br>and a ho-hum remnant bursts into significance.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Take Outs]]></title><description><![CDATA[As lips that haven't been kissed in a while I try not to look for you.
I resist the temptation, plus, if I started,
my head would be filled with too many eyes:
needs, needs, everywhere that I peer.
You see, they don't really mean it, to exist as such ravening.
Yet there they are nevertheless, old ulcerous victims.
How Nagasaki blisters still, haunts some medic's dreams.
He did all he could simply with Band-Aids, mercurochrome,
but the injuries engulf.
Here though, time is meridian, the lean sl]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/take-outs/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__67807ee24f874303201be3d5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Mead]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:37:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1637248578458-934f03db3ea2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHRha2UlMjBvdXRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjUzOTUwN3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1637248578458-934f03db3ea2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHRha2UlMjBvdXRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjUzOTUwN3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Take Outs"/><p>As lips that haven't been kissed in a while I try not to look for you.<br>I resist the temptation, plus, if I started,<br>my head would be filled with too many eyes:<br>needs, needs, everywhere that I peer.</br></br></br></p><p>You see, they don't really mean it, to exist as such ravening.<br>Yet there they are nevertheless, old ulcerous victims.<br>How Nagasaki blisters still, haunts some medic's dreams.<br>He did all he could simply with Band-Aids, mercurochrome,<br>but the injuries engulf.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Here though, time is meridian, the lean slits from which lizards peek,<br>sunning their tongues. Clarity is a tattoo. It's stark; won't wash off.</br></p><p>Among forewarning sarcophagi, the marble ruins tourists visit,<br>there are a terrorist's blood stains every day a janitor scrubs.<br>He does his best not to picture whatever breathing essence<br>must have stopped.</br></br></br></p><p>It's a clip lost to editing. Snip, snip, another out-take.<br>No, don't look, don't imagine.</br></p><p>Instead think of the moment we said, “Let the music begin!”<br>and mimicked a tango behind the safe balcony.<br>The iron grids were well-cemented. Two jewelry box figures,<br>we spun and spun, utterly unaware, utterly deaf to the UZIs.</br></br></br></p><p>After all, weren't we the Americans?<br>Who could possibly hate ...<br>I ask this remembering then, stone-struck, stand back.<br>The visuals take over, reel like credits dark glasses document.</br></br></br></p><p>Is silence an import for civilized governments<br>from war-ravaged countries?</br></p><p>Here's tragedy's newsprint:<br>Sometimes even those most directly responsible miss the point.</br></p><p>The point, love, missing, is the last thing I now have.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Uncanny Canary]]></title><description><![CDATA[back to where he vanishes
taking perspective with him
burnt out light bulb dreamers
wait for incandescence
as a skyscraper cyclops keep poking
the eye within an eye
repeating he turns love to cliché
but for the artifice of unknowing
lunar enticements locked in rockets
dreams multiplied by machines
oh down with no warning
“in furrowed phosphorous”
“eternity in a sky rocket”
make me automatic tech daddy]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/uncanny-canary/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__67807fa24f874303201be3eb</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Merrill Cole]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:36:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495291916458-c12f594151e7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGxpZ2h0JTIwYnVsYnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY1MzkyODJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495291916458-c12f594151e7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGxpZ2h0JTIwYnVsYnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY1MzkyODJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Uncanny Canary"/><p>back to where he vanishes<br>taking perspective with him</br></p><p>burnt out light bulb dreamers<br>wait for incandescence</br></p><p>as a skyscraper cyclops keep poking<br>the eye within an eye</br></p><p>repeating he turns love to cliché<br>but for the artifice of unknowing</br></p><p>lunar enticements locked in rockets<br>dreams multiplied by machines</br></p><p>oh down with no warning<br>“in furrowed phosphorous”</br></p><p>“eternity in a sky rocket”<br>make me automatic tech daddy</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[European Film]]></title><description><![CDATA[The drag of household
always feels “sticky”
as in being stuck.
Family is a feeling
to peel off, as
demonstrated
in European film
when they introduce
the children early,
then drop them
to get on with
the real story
because, unlike
the pups whelped
by Disney America,
they are not the point.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/european-film/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678080024f874303201be3fe</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Harrison Fisher]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:36:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506280851383-12729ce453ac?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHN0aWNreXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY1MzcxMDV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506280851383-12729ce453ac?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHN0aWNreXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY1MzcxMDV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="European Film"/><p>The drag of household<br>always feels “sticky”<br>as in being stuck.</br></br></p><p>Family is a feeling<br>to peel off, as<br>demonstrated</br></br></p><p>in European film</p><p>when they introduce<br>the children early,<br>then drop them</br></br></p><p>to get on with<br>the real story<br>because, unlike</br></br></p><p>the pups whelped<br>by Disney America,<br>they are not the point.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mount Cameroon National Park (MCNP)]]></title><description><![CDATA[I am jealous and envious of your beauty
When I sit in Buea I admire your stature
One of the Divine’s wonderful creatures
You are in support of the Bakweri culture
You have all it takes for me to face future
Gazing your slopes I see hope for the future
How amazing and mellifluous you are to all
Oh there is still a lot about you yet uncovered
When you vomit it tells scientists you are rich
When you suffer from diarrhea worries awake
Your vomiting and diarrhea is so unpredictable
You roar at will a]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mount-cameroon-national-park-mcnp/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678080584f874303201be40d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ferdinan Ngomba Vevanje]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:34:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="http://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2025/01/Mount_Cameroon_waterfall-_Buea.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="http://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2025/01/Mount_Cameroon_waterfall-_Buea.jpg" alt="Mount Cameroon National Park (MCNP)"/><p>I am jealous and envious of your beauty<br>When I sit in Buea I admire your stature<br>One of the Divine’s wonderful creatures<br>You are in support of the Bakweri culture<br>You have all it takes for me to face future<br>Gazing your slopes I see hope for the future<br>How amazing and mellifluous you are to all<br>Oh there is still a lot about you yet uncovered<br>When you vomit it tells scientists you are rich<br>When you suffer from diarrhea worries awake<br>Your vomiting and diarrhea is so unpredictable<br>You roar at will and only Divinity knows when<br>Even at your roaring all still stay put after all<br>When you roar it is as speaking alien tongues<br>Yes many men could not survive without you<br>MCNP a blessing you are to Fako denizens<br>MCNP I profoundly praise Yaweh for you</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Out of the Frying Pan]]></title><description><![CDATA[My fifteen-year-old cousin and I decided to run away to New York City the summer I was thirteen. Why the Big Apple? Well, why not? How would we get there? We would hitchhike, of course. We knew little of the world beyond the two-stoplight town of Nowata, Oklahoma. We could have just as easily selected Chicago or Paris. But something about the glitz and glamor of that faraway metropolis sparked our imaginations. It seemed as likely as any a destination for two unhappy adolescent girls longing to ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/out-of-the-frying-pan/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678080ce4f874303201be41a</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jeanean Doherty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:34:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1600512592336-7e1452b9743c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM3fHxmcnlpbmclMjBwYW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NTM4Njc5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1600512592336-7e1452b9743c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM3fHxmcnlpbmclMjBwYW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NTM4Njc5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Out of the Frying Pan"/><p>My fifteen-year-old cousin and I decided to run away to New York City the summer I was thirteen. Why the Big Apple? Well, why not? How would we get there? We would hitchhike, of course. We knew little of the world beyond the two-stoplight town of Nowata, Oklahoma. We could have just as easily selected Chicago or Paris. But something about the glitz and glamor of that faraway metropolis sparked our imaginations. It seemed as likely as any a destination for two unhappy adolescent girls longing to grow up and free themselves of their parents.</p><p/><p>We planned for Martha to stay overnight on my family’s farm, two and a half miles outside Nowata. We each packed a small bag of essentials—a change of underwear and lipstick. We had very little money, but I knew my frugal brother had stashed some cash in his underwear drawer. We didn’t actually steal from him. We left a note thanking him for the loan and promising to repay him when we reached our destination and found jobs. We didn’t think about our limited qualifications for employment but were confident we would surely find work of some sort. Waitressing, perhaps. We had experience in that field, having waited tables at the local restaurant for 50 cents an hour. Plus tips. I also had experience as a car hop at the drive-in. Were there drive-ins in New York City? Well, we reasoned, probably.</p><p>We went to bed early, giggling under the covers and feeling sly about our plan to escape. We were impatient as it seemed the rest of the family dawdled unusually long before going to bed. I grew drowsy and dozed off, but Martha stayed alert. Finally, the farmhouse quieted as others went into a deep sleep.</p><p>Feeling it was safe to implement our plan, Martha and I tiptoed through the house, trying to silence the squeaking screen door as we exited. We clutched our bags, rushed across the dewy yard, crossed the pasture, and scrambled under the barbed wire fence to the county road. Giggling nervously, we paused to listen for pursuers. Nothing. We hadn’t been heard. Nobody had missed us. Onward. </p><p>Along dusty stretches of country roads, the hum of high wires gave us pause. Was that the telephone wires? Were our parents awake and calling? Were they looking for us? A lone set of headlights crested the hill behind us, and we crouched in the ditch until the pickup passed. I don’t know if we breathed a sigh of relief or regret that it wasn’t our parents, as our bags had grown heavier, and we were beginning to tire.</p><p>The moon had risen in the starlit sky, but the night seemed mighty dark without the familiar porch light. And there were a lot of strange, unfamiliar sounds. Creatures could be heard scurrying in the brush alongside the road. What kind of creatures were they? Friend or foe? We didn’t know, but we felt safer walking and holding hands, which is awkward when the other hand clutches a bag of belongings. Finally, after about six miles, we reached the tarmac of the eastbound highway.</p><p>A few trucks and fewer cars whizzed past us. We stopped and stuck out our thumbs as we had seen other hitchhikers do, but nobody stopped. (Thank the good Lord!) We picked up our progressively heavier bags and trudged eastward. But then, after what seemed like hours, an oncoming car slowed, flashed its lights on bright, and advanced slowly upon us. It scared the bejeezus out of us. The car stopped, and we could see it was the County Sheriff. </p><p>“Where you gals headed?” The officer asked through his open window.</p><p>“New York City.“ I answered.</p><p>“Y’all need a ride?” he drawled after inhaling his cigarette.</p><p>“Uh, yeah, sure,” we chimed in unison. Of course, we knew the Sheriff of Nowata County wasn’t on his way to New York City for a cup of coffee, but we were tired, our bags were heavy, our feet hurt, and a ride to just about anyplace sounded darn good. Besides, he was the Sheriff, and we knew to obey the authorities. That’s how we were raised. So, without argument, we climbed into the back seat.</p><p>“Whadda say let’s get a bite to eat afore you go to New York City?” he suggested. And that dear, sweet man maneuvered a U-turn, returning us to Nowata, where he pulled into the parking lot of the all-night diner.</p><p>Perched near the town's main intersection, the tube-shaped stainless steel diner served simple meals to local folks and travelers twenty-four hours a day. Heads turned, and curious late-night customers stared as the Sheriff ushered us in. Butts swiveled on the vinyl-clad stools facing the Formica countertop as regulars called out greetings to the Sheriff. </p><p>A big man, he mounted the end stool by swinging his legs over it as though mounting a horse. The seat disappeared under him, leaving only a stainless column visibly supporting his impressive weight.</p><p>Uncertain of what we were to do, we stood clasping each other’s hands and our bags while staring at him like deer in oncoming headlights. He grunted and nodded his head at the two empty stools beside him. That’s all the invitation we needed to claim our places at the counter.</p><p>A buxom, weary-eyed waitress slapped a cup of coffee and a generous piece of pie in front of the Sheriff before he could ask for one. Obviously, she was well acquainted with his routine. Judging by his girth and how his belly pressed against the counter, he was a frequent visitor. The cook peered from his kitchen domain through the pass-through, his white paper hat sitting askew on his bald head.</p><p>“Who’s your travelin’ companions, Sheriff?” he called out, the ashes of a cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth dangerously close to falling onto the plate of food awaiting the waitress.</p><p>“Just a couple of gals on their way to New York City,” the sheriff answered.</p><p>The cook merely grunted and nodded in response. The other diners resumed the hum of their conversations. The waitress scarcely acknowledged our presence except to hand us menus. No one laughed or ridiculed us. We were made to feel welcome as we settled in the warm presence of strangers, as though two teenagers stopping by on their way to New York City were a regular thing that happened every shift.</p><p>We were hungry and thirsty and quickly devoured our cheeseburger and fries, slurping<s> </s>deliciously cold Coca-Cola. All three were a rare treat. As we mopped up the last ketchup-drenched fries, the Sheriff excused himself to go to the bathroom. We took that opportunity to grab our bags and slide out the door, then ran as fast as we could for the safety of the farm. I’m sure the Sheriff, the cook, the waitress, and other customers had a good laugh. </p><p>I shudder now, sixty-five years later, when I think about what our fate might have been except for that kind-hearted Sheriff on a steamy summer night. Two rebellious teenage girls eager to experience the world were a fine example of the old country saying of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.</p><p>I suspect he followed at a distance to ensure we made it home safely. Nowata is a small town, but he kept our secret and didn’t tell, not even our parents. He saved us from harm and kept us safe. For him, it was all in a night’s work. For me, a chance to grow into adulthood to satisfy my longing to explore the world.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Normal]]></title><description><![CDATA[I.
once a blank thing and a super rainbow dark matter explosion collided in the middle of english homeroom.
this half-formed idea of what a person could be was sometimes called john.
the force so bright it could've burned out the sun was l'appel duvide.
because they were both in the tenth grade, they had to analyze shakespeare together.
the first drop of vibrant ink she spilled on his depressing form was a book.
shocked he didn't have a favorite, she lent him hers, a story called "oppression." ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/normal/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678081624f874303201be42d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elism J. Mars]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:33:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1553782749-5ab8693a5f4f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNoYWtlc3BlYXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NTM4NTkxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1553782749-5ab8693a5f4f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNoYWtlc3BlYXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM2NTM4NTkxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Normal"/><p>I.</p><p>once a blank thing and a super rainbow dark matter explosion collided in the middle of english homeroom.<br>this half-formed idea of what a person could be was sometimes called john.<br>the force so bright it could've burned out the sun was l'appel duvide.<br>because they were both in the tenth grade, they had to analyze shakespeare together.<br>the first drop of vibrant ink she spilled on his depressing form was a book.<br>shocked he didn't have a favorite, she lent him hers, a story called "oppression." he'd never read it.<br>reading it during lunch, his first mistake, meant the boys learned about l'appel's existence.<br>the upperclassman that ruled john's life, <br>the six boys keeping him from the cold clutches of social desolation, <br>executively decided that l'appel duvide was snooty, pretentious, uppity, and not worth wasting time on.<br>she never met his friends.<br>he only met hers through the ornate framed picture on her desk all home.<br>it sat in the one uncluttered corner.<br>this wasn't real, it couldn't be. she was everything.<br>her deep rooted longing to come to america, <br>the light in her eyes, the clarity in her voice.<br>a surge of adrenaline, a pang of jealousy.<br>she laughed in fairy dust.<br>john could contain himself. he wouldn't let his stupid emotions lead him around like a dog.<br>she kissed him ...<br>and the leash went taut.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>II.</p><p>and so an everything and a nothing came together, and they were something.<br>they presented on the first of october.<br>john’s pack leader asked if he was into the new girl over lunch.<br>john lied.<br>when he walked into homecoming with a shower of stars dripping off his arm, it was harder to deny.<br>john could feel a dozen eyes on him all night.<br>when they were about to leave he was pulled aside, they demanded to know,<br><em>johnny is this your idea of a joke?</em><br>john didn’t know where he found the courage to say it’s not.<br>the feeling of her palm, warm against his, probably had something to do with it.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>l’appel asks him about his dreams.<br>john doesn’t know what to say.<br>his only dream is right here in his arms.<br>all others unobtainable, by virtue of their existence;<br>blurry, undefined longings to be something more than he is.<br>it’s social suicide. he’s Normal, that’s what he is.<br>l’appel digs until she finds something<br>slightly less mediocre under his stupid plastic shell.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>III.</p><p>but unremarkable he remains, even in his hardships.<br>masked up tight around his friends, petty fights about chores with his dad.<br>remarkably Normal.<br>l’appel was ostracized and bullied until she had to switch schools in paris.<br>an unexpected soup stain was enough reason for her father to lock her away for days.<br>all of john’s hurt ended in comfort, but not for him.<br>l’appel had plans for his birthday, not that it mattered to the wolf pack.<br>they dragged him to the leader’s house for a night of pizza and weed.<br>he was officially sixteen, or whatever.<br><em>john, we’d been planning this for two weeks.</em> she said on the phone,<br><em>instead I waited at home for six and a half hours,<br>waiting to hear a single damn thing from you,<br>just to know if you were still alive.<br>sorry. </br></br></br></em>he grit out in reply, the word tasted like sandpaper, but his tongue was growing awfully smooth.<br>valentine’s day brought nothing better.<br>a dozen red roses and a box of drug store chocolates were not enough,<br>to make up for his hoodie and ripped jeans, his <em>flagrant lack of care</em>.<br>milk chocolate for his sensitive-stomached nymph was another violation.<br><em>what are you saying?</em> he asked.<br><em>i’m saying if this is who you really are,<br>you’re a bastard and I want nothing to do with you.</br></em></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>IV.</p><p>romeo and juliet was their second shakespeare project.<br>split up by the cruel randomizer, l’appel begged their teacher to let them work together,<br>gripping his hand with a numbing tightness.<br>at the house of the guy john was paired with, aiden, his palms sweat, his focus wavered.<br><em>hm? yeah, sorry.</em> sandpaper. <em>it’s just ...</em> there was no good way to explain him and l’appel ...<br>but he tried. he was met with <em>dude, call me crazy, but this doesn’t sound the healthiest.</em></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>l’appel’s parents wouldn’t let her go to prom. it was the most obvious lie he’d ever heard.<br>she showed up anyway, flaming that he didn’t pick her up.<br>ignored all night, john went home, lead sat heavy where his heart should be.<br>the next day he asked her why.<br>because he’s <em>useless</em>, because he <em>should have known</em>, because he <em>dropped her glass heart</em>.<br>he fell, like icarus, like lucifer, his knees hit the ground with a bruising thump.<br><em>do you even care?</em> she asked him.<br>he swore it, swore it on his life, with the desperation of a man with a gun to his head.<br><em>please don’t leave me. i’m sorry. i’m sorry for everything i’ve ever done.<br>i’ll be better, i’ll be different, please! if i’m not enough for you, i’m Nothing.</br></em><br>he could only prove himself to her by abandoning everything he knew.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>driving her to the airport on a warm day in spring, they talked about the plan.<br>how he would talk to no girls, never look in the pack’s direction, call her every night.<br><em>it would work.</em> he thought to himself <em> it had to.<br>nothing ever has to work. </br></em>She said.<em> it will probably fail. we both knew this wasn’t gonna be forever.</em><br>so<em> </em>it was all for nothing?<br>it was all for nothing.<br>it was all for<br>Nothing<br>he dropped her at the curb.<em> i can’t do this.</em> he choked– <em>anymore. with you. i can’t do it.</em><br>his car rolled away while she screamed.<br>out the window john called<br><em>i’m sorry</em><br>one last time.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>he didn’t go back to the pack.<br>but when he saw aiden again, they said <em>hey man, you look brighter today.</em><br>john didn’t feel normal yet. but he didn’t feel like nothing.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Old Jeans (for Michelle)]]></title><description><![CDATA[She was like your favorite pair of jeans, in human form.
It took no effort to pull them on and the sensation that came
as soon as they were secure
was comfort
like a warm hug they wrapped around me and I around them
Like an embrace
she was part of me too
safe
We may have been a little frayed at the edges
maybe holy at the center
but we were right
we were ease
we were familiar ... family
and when she left me ...
unwillingly
that comfort left with her
I've tried on new pairs
but none are just ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/old-jeans-for-michelle/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678083ee4f874303201be458</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Hannon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:32:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1456942724798-2bc9cdcdf494?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMzfHxvbGQlMjBqZWFuc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY1MzgzMTF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1456942724798-2bc9cdcdf494?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMzfHxvbGQlMjBqZWFuc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzY1MzgzMTF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Old Jeans (for Michelle)"/><p>She was like your favorite pair of jeans, in human form.<br>It took no effort to pull them on and the sensation that came<br>as soon as they were secure<br>was comfort</br></br></br></p><p>like a warm hug they wrapped around me and I around them<br>Like an embrace<br>she was part of me too<br>safe</br></br></br></p><p>We may have been a little frayed at the edges<br>maybe holy at the center<br>but we were right<br>we were ease<br>we were familiar ... family</br></br></br></br></p><p>and when she left me ...<br>unwillingly<br>that comfort left with her</br></br></p><p>I've tried on new pairs<br>but none are just right like she</br></p><p>I need to be clothed<br>I know this<br>so I keep trying<br>Keep surviving<br>time keeps multiplying</br></br></br></br></p><p>but nothing can make me forget<br>What it feels like to have the perfect fit.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Now Batting]]></title><description><![CDATA[Randy Torrez steps up to the plate for the most important at-bat in his life. Two outs. Bases loaded. He gets a hit, and the Lenape Lions win the high school state championship. He gets out, they lose and call it a season. Of course, he could also walk or get hit by a pitch, but Randy doesn’t want to win that way.
Randy takes some practice swings before stepping into the batter’s box. He pats the cross hanging on a chain underneath his shirt, blesses himself—a gesture so quick it almost looks l]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/now-batting/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678084aa4f874303201be470</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Frank Diamond]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:30:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508801935195-1fec42cd1d6a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGJhc2ViYWxsJTIwYmF0fGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjUzODE4M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508801935195-1fec42cd1d6a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGJhc2ViYWxsJTIwYmF0fGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjUzODE4M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Now Batting"/><p>Randy Torrez steps up to the plate for the most important at-bat in his life. Two outs. Bases loaded. He gets a hit, and the Lenape Lions win the high school state championship. He gets out, they lose and call it a season. Of course, he could also walk or get hit by a pitch, but Randy doesn’t want to win that way.</p><p>Randy takes some practice swings before stepping into the batter’s box. He pats the cross hanging on a chain underneath his shirt, blesses himself—a gesture so quick it almost looks like he’s drawing an air-circle. He digs in, raises the barrel of the bat to eye level, grabs it, squints at it, whispers something, lowers it, and then relaxes into his stance.</p><p>The Dakota Dodgers’s fielders and bench jockeys chatter.</p><p>“NobatterNobatterNobatterNobatterUpThereJarvisBaby!”</p><p>That would be Jarvis Metempo, the pitcher.</p><p>Randy takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.</p><p><em>You got this.</em></p><p>Somebody yells, “Walk’s as good as a hit, Randy!” as if it’s newly discovered wisdom instead of a cliche Randy’s heard since Little League. Randy called bullshit on that advice at around age five along with “It doesn’t matter if you win or lose.”</p><p>It sure as hell does matter; even little kids aren’t fooled by that one, and colleges don’t offer scholarships to walkers. Those who closely follow high school baseball—players, coaches, various social media, some newspapers—consider Randy the best prospect in Pennsylvania. He’s a five-tool player: hits for average, got some pop, acrobatic fielder, gun for an arm, and fast.</p><p>Colleges also don’t offer scholarships to pitchers who allow a hit, or walk someone, or hit batters and lose games as a result. Not a good look. Metempo is the best hurler in the state. A kid who can mix heat, with a drop-off-the-table curve ball, a sneaky slider, and once in a while a disappearing change-up. That’s at least two out-pitches right there, maybe three.</p><p>Randy glances at the crowd, about 5,000 strong in this bush-league ballpark, host of the state playoffs this year. Shadows of the stands creep over the grass on this bright and cool day. Perfect baseball weather played under a turquoise dome of a sky arching ever on and on.</p><p>Randy’s already gotten scholarship offers. However, in the stands this afternoon sits John “Clutch” McNally, a scout for the Division 1 university Randy really wants to go to. That school manufactures Major League Baseball prospects.</p><p>Clutch got his nickname because he looks for the sixth tool: How does a player perform under pressure? Does he come through when everything’s on the line? Does he hit walk-off home runs? Or can he pitch a gem to stop a losing streak? He measures intangibles, those nearly spiritual elements in skill or attitude or concentration that allow players to perform well in situations.</p><p>Not everything that takes place on the diamond can now be measured, it just seems that way. Randy’s grandfather talked about batting averages and earned runs. Now, advanced statistics measure things like—for hitters—wRAA (weighted runs above average) and wRC+ (weighted runs created plus); and for pitchers, SIERA (skill-interactive earned run average) and xFIP (expected fielding independent pitching).</p><p>But advanced stats can’t be gathered at the high school level because of the small sample size. It’s just too short of a season; 15 to 20 games. Baseball ability runs hot and cold for even top prospects and by the time a talented player shakes free from a slump, or makes the right adjustment on the mound, there may be just two more contests to go.</p><p>For hitters, college recruiters look at bat speed, mechanics, knowledge of the strike zone, and the ability to get the barrel of the bat on the ball.</p><p><em>Stop thinking.</em></p><p>Randy needs to enter the zone, where everything slows and he locks onto the moment, entering the now.</p><p>“You can do it, Randy,” somebody in the crowd yells.</p><p>Randy knows that he <em>can</em> do it. Just this year he’s gotten three game-ending hits, two of them walk-off homers. Lately, though ...</p><p>Coach Roberts didn’t tell Randy about Clutch McNally, who’d travelled 300 miles to see Randy and Metempo face off. Coach probably didn’t want to put that pressure on his star player. But somebody at Lenape Regional High School somehow found out—maybe a teacher, maybe a kid, maybe a parent, maybe one of the maintenance workers. Who knows? Randy heard about it one week ago and hasn’t gotten a hit since.</p><p>That’s 0 for 4 over two games, with two walks. Coach Roberts took him aside.</p><p>“Listen, I know that you know about the recruiter,” Roberts said. “It’s affecting your game a little bit.”</p><p>“I think my balance might be off, Coach. Putting too much weight on the back leg. And maybe my swing ...”</p><p>“Stop!” Roberts commanded. “Stop thinking!”</p><p>“Coach?”</p><p>“Let muscle memory do the thinking for you. You know how to hit.”</p><p>Randy wanted to ask, “How in hell do you stop thinking? How do you try without trying to not try?” Or how do you not <em>press,</em> as Coach would put it, without pressing to do so?</p><p>The fact that Roberts teaches physics made such a pep talk seem all that more off-kilter. If anybody believed that everything can in fact be measured, it’d be an educator dealing with the laws of electromagnetism and thermodynamics.</p><p>Like a lot of great instructors, Roberts’s digressions often prove more compelling then when he sticks to the lesson plan. A couple of weeks ago he discussed how some scientists tried to locate the human soul.</p><p>“Do you believe we have a soul, Mr. Roberts?”</p><p>Affirmative.</p><p>“Is there proof?”</p><p>Not any that can be detected by science, but there have been some interesting philosophical arguments.</p><p>“For now, though, it really just comes down to faith,” Roberts concluded.</p><p>A virtue Randy can use more of at the moment.</p><p>So far today, he’s gone 0 for 2 with a walk. True, he did quickly steal second and then third, where his teammates stranded him. He fielded flawlessly, gunning two guys out at the plate from center field, and making three game-reel plays—two diving catches, and one scaling up and reaching over the fence to snag what should have been a home run, but became the third out instead.</p><p><em>Don’t put pressure on yourself.</em></p><p>He looks out at the mound but makes no eye contact with Metempo.</p><p><em>The pitcher doesn’t exist.</em></p><p>The only thing that exists is the ball.</p><p><em>See it, hit it. See it, hit it. See it, hit it.</em></p><p>Metempo winds up. Let’s loose.</p><p>“Heyooo!” the ump roars. “Outside!”</p><p>Randy backs away, takes another deep breath, another practice swing.</p><p><em>You got this.</em></p><p>He eases into his stance.</p><p>The windup, the pitch.</p><p>“Eereike!</p><p><em>Shit. That was my pitch.</em></p><p>Metempo just served it up there. A fastball too fast for 90 percent of high school batters, but Randy knows that he could have crushed it.</p><p>Sometimes pitchers would intentionally walk him, and sometimes they’d not put anything in the strike zone, hoping that Randy’s aggressiveness would make him swing at junk.</p><p>He sometimes did—on purpose. Randy would wave at the first two. Then, needing to get just one more strike to end the inning, they’d often try to sneak one by him. That’s how Randy got so many hits when behind 0-2.</p><p>But Metempo isn’t going to walk Randy and lose the game that way. He isn’t going to lose the game period, or so he thinks. Metempo wants to overpower the best hitter in the state.</p><p>The chatter from the Dodgers’s fielders comes faster, louder. Randy tunes it out. The catcher, though, he’s right there.</p><p>He says to Randy, “Slumps are the worst, dude. I feel you.”</p><p>“Yeah. Keep talking,” Randy says.</p><p>Randy calls time. Steps out of the box again, looks down to third base. Coach Roberts pantomimes giving a signal, patting shoulders, knees, and hips; tugging cap, nose, and ears. All of which means nothing. He’s not telling Randy to swing or not swing at the next pitch. He’s not giving the baserunners cues. This game’s come down to this moment where signals and advice don’t matter.</p><p>Coach claps, then yells, “You got this, Torrez!”</p><p>Randy steps back into the box.</p><p>“You ain’t swung the lumber all day,” the catcher says.</p><p>Randy doesn’t respond as Metempo digs with his cleats at the mound, reminding Randy of videos he’s seen of bulls pawing the dirt before charging.</p><p><em>Focus! Focus! Focus!</em></p><p>It’s not a contest between Randy and Metempo. It’s a contest between Randy and the ball. Probably contest is the wrong word. Negotiation might be more like it. Yeah. Negotiation works. The ball’s got spin, velocity, and trajectory. One way or another, though, it’s got to come to Randy.</p><p>Suddenly, Metempo throws over to third to try to pick off the runner and end the game that way, but Randy’s teammate dives back just before the tag.</p><p>Randy doesn’t appreciate almost getting the bat taken out of his hands with the game on the line. And yet the runner on third clearly wormed into Metempo’s head the way their catcher’s been trying to get into Randy’s. The psychological battle never ends.</p><p>Windup. Pitch.</p><p>Randy sees the ball better than he has in a week. Good. Unfortunately the pill rockets toward his head and Randy hits the ground to avoid being beaned.</p><p><em>Holy shit!</em></p><p>“Yalllll,” the ump yells.</p><p>The catcher jumps to snag the pitch. If it had gotten past him, the kid on third would have scored and that would have ended the game. The catcher asks for time and jogs out to Metempo. Randy’s willing to take one for the team, but not in the head. Is Metempo choking? Will he walk Randy?</p><p><em>Damn! Come on! Let me hit!</em></p><p>The catcher trots back and squats behind the plate once more. The ump leans over his shoulder. Quiet descends. The Dodgers’s chatter fades, nobody calls from the stands.</p><p>Windup. Pitch.</p><p>Outside corner. But is it in the strike zone? Randy reaches, nips the ball foul.</p><p><em>Man!</em></p><p>Randy asks the umpire: “In?”</p><p>“Painted the black.”</p><p>Two balls. Two strikes.</p><p>Randy again steps out. Breathes. Practice swings. If Metempo throws that kind of heat in that part of the strike zone, then the adage “good pitching beats good hitting” takes over.</p><p><em>Cancel that thought! Come on! You got this!”</em></p><p>Metempo stalks about the mound again.</p><p><em>He smells victory.</em></p><p>Windup. Pitch.</p><p>Not yet. The ball’s in the dirt. Randy dances out of the way as the catcher throws his body in front of it, again saving the game. <em>He</em> might be the one impressing Clutch McNally.</p><p>Randy can’t resist.</p><p>“Almost two wild pitches,” he tells the catcher.</p><p>“Almost,” the catcher says as he gets up, “but this ain’t horseshoes.”</p><p>Still, he calls time again, heads to the mound for one last discussion with Metempo. He returns, squats behind the plate. Randy glances back to glimpse where the catcher sets up. The ump positions himself as well.</p><p><em>This is it.</em></p><p>Three balls. Two strikes. Bases loaded. Bottom of the seventh. Clutch McNally probably standing with the rest of the crowd that’s noisier than it’s been all day. The Dodgers’s players now screech their encouragement for Metempo.</p><p>Does Randy’s entire future hinge on what happens next?</p><p><em>You’re thinking again!</em></p><p>Randy calls time, steps out of the box. Breathes. Stretches. Prays like his Grandpa would have. Philippians 4:13. “Todo lo puedo en aquel qua me fortalece.” <em>I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.</em></p><p>Would advance statistics help him in this situation? Can everything be measured? Will all things one day be known? To Randy, it comes down to Issac Newton: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Forces happen in pairs. Object A (the ball) can’t expend force on Object B (the bat) without encountering a force itself.</p><p><em>Stop thinking! Focus!</em></p><p>Windup. Pitch.</p><p>He sees it. Sees it perfectly. Another fastball, but it appears to be slower than Metempo’s usual. The kid on the mound’s tired. Finally. Randy will swing. This one’s in his wheelhouse. That guarantees nothing, though. How many times have great hitters swung and missed balls in their wheelhouse, or turned them into fly outs or ground outs?</p><p>His thought in this millisecond will unfold for him later the way water in a pond ripples circularly away from a point of impact. The ball exists in another dimension, a hidden reality.</p><p>Randy reaches deep inside himself, deeper than he’d ever reached. Deeper than consciousness, deeper than life or what lays beyond it. Reaching all the way down to his very soul that watches from a field of being that stretches ever on and on.</p><hr><p>"Now Batting" was originally published December 16, 2024 in the literary magazine <a href="https://writtentales.com/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com" rel="noreferrer"><em>Written Tales</em></a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Revealed: Ronda's Secret Ingredient BLISS Fudge Recipe]]></title><description><![CDATA[I played around and made up my own recipe, which is what I’m presenting to you here. Loving a dash of mystery, I started calling it my Secret Ingredient Fudge. Whenever someone new tastes it, they typically nibble an edge, close their eyes, and try to guess the secret ingredient.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/revealed-rondas-secret-ingredient-bliss-fudge-recipe/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__678085354f874303201be47e</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronda Del Boccio]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:29:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1598305763630-766a134a6b0a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGZ1ZGdlfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjUzODA0NHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1598305763630-766a134a6b0a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGZ1ZGdlfGVufDB8fHx8MTczNjUzODA0NHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Revealed: Ronda's Secret Ingredient BLISS Fudge Recipe"/><p>This fudge has a story. It’s not exactly the tale you expect me to tell of a hundred-year-old recipe. It’s not one of those recipes passed from great-grandmother down the line to me. This fudge is my own creation, but it still has a family-rooted past.</p><p>Back in the 1970s right after Thanksgiving, Mama Lou, my maternal grandmother, would clear everything off the shelves on her chilly back porch and give the whole area a good cleaning.</p><p>I knew what was coming—TREAT SEASON!</p><p>I helped dust the area from her hips down, partly because I was that young and short. Plus, she wouldn’t have to bend over and make pained sound effects. The storage area cleaned, candy making began. The house smelled of sugar and chocolate for the next few weeks as she made batch after batch of her secret recipes for fudge and brown sugar candy.</p><p>She packed some of the sweets into recycled cookie tins and then off to friends, neighbors, and family members out of town. She rolled way too much of her signature creations in coconut, which I still detest to this day. Way to ruin perfectly excellent fudge, in my opinion. But perhaps that’s just me.</p><p>Anyway, the whole family expected that prized delight to appear on platters sitting right next to Mama Lou’s pumpkin pie and Aunt Carol’s apple pie.</p><p>Carol, two years older than my mom and her only other sibling, was a great baker as well. One year I asked her if she’d ever made Mama Lou’s fudge.</p><p>“Oh, no. That’s Mom’s thing. I don’t want her to get mad at me.”</p><p>Mad? She never seemed territorial about things to me. I wondered if Carol ever even asked her mother to spill the sugary tea. I can’t imagine a mother being mad because their daughter also made fudge, but I suppose it happens.</p><p>Whyever the recipe remained secret, I’ll never know, but up until I went rogue, nobody else took up the candy making.</p><p>I wanted to learn while my grandmother was still able to teach me, but she never did. I know why, in my case. Since I’m mostly blind, I think everyone in the family assumed I couldn’t learn to cook or that it wouldn’t be safe for me to deal with molten goo.</p><p>When I moved away from home to take my first “big”—as in career—job, I wanted fudge. I’ve never truly enjoyed anything you could buy in one of those touristy and expensive shops. Since Mama Lou never gave me (or Carol, for that matter) her recipe, I got a recipe from a totally blind colleague at my new job and made that version of fudge.</p><p>She showed me how to tell if the fudge is cooked without using a candy thermometer. Back then, it was hard to find many kitchen items adapted for those with little or no eyesight.</p><p>So at Christmas when I went back home to Chicago with a tin of my own fudge, Aunt Carol gave me a sour, pursed-lipped expression. I was hoping for a side-by-side comparison, with both being great. But Mama Lou hadn’t made any. She was getting much older, dealing with dementia, and less able to work with recipes. When I went to visit her, the smell of burnt sugar told me she had made a failed attempt. She was mad and upset with herself. All I could do was hug her and let my tears slide off my nose and into her hair.</p><p>That tin of what I jokingly called “imported fudge from Minnesota” felt like it carried an electrical charge, but before the next holiday season, family members were asking if I was the new family fudge maker.</p><p>I said, “Yes, I am.”</p><p>Since I didn’t love the recipe I inherited from my coworker, I played around and made up my own, which is what I’m presenting to you here. Loving a dash of mystery, I started calling it my Secret Ingredient Fudge. Whenever someone new tastes it, they typically nibble an edge, close their eyes, and try to guess the secret ingredient.</p><p>Here are some of the guesses made over the years: cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, buttermilk, almond, love, and my personal favorite—garlic. I know he was kidding!</p><p>None of those are correct. Certainly, love goes into everything I cook, bake, or even reheat. Gratitude fills my heart, and I give thanks as I prepare and eat food. But those aren’t the secret ingredient.</p><p>Vanilla, coffee, and cinnamon are all great, but not the secret. I always add a splash of vanilla and a couple shots of brewed coffee, both of which enhance the chocolatey flavor. I often add cinnamon for that Mexican-inspired flair. I tried replacing the cream with buttermilk once, because it does such great things to cakes and brownies. Let me save you the cost of this experiment. In fudge? Not so much.</p><p>Nobody has ever guessed the secret ingredient. You’ll find it listed in the recipe.</p><p>Enjoy!</p><hr><h4 id="secret-ingredient-bliss-fudge"><strong>Secret Ingredient BLISS Fudge</strong></h4><h5 id="tools-you%E2%80%99ll-need"><strong>Tools You’ll need:</strong></h5><p>· Stockpot</p><p>· Spatula</p><p>· Candy thermometer OR Small dish of cold water with ice cubes for testing doneness</p><p>· 9 x 13-inch pan, greased (or you can put a piece of parchment inside. Wet it first.)</p><h5 id="ingredients"><strong>Ingredients</strong></h5><p>· Love! This goes into all food and drink in my world.</p><p>· 1 stick butter</p><p>· 1-pint (16 ounces) heavy whipping cream OR Half & Half</p><p>· A splash of brewed coffee if you have it. OPTIONAL</p><p>· 1/3 cup Hershey’s cocoa powder (OPTIONAL, but it gives a fuller-bodied taste)</p><p>· 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (I prefer Mexican vanilla)</p><p>· 2 lb. bag powdered sugar (also called 10x or confectioner’s sugar)</p><p>· 12 oz bag (2 cups) semi-sweet chocolate chips. (Milk chocolate chips can make the candy sickly sweet.)</p><p>· The Secret Ingredient—a blessing!</p><h5 id="optional-add-ins"><strong>OPTIONAL add-ins:</strong></h5><p>· 1 Tablespoon cinnamon</p><p>· 2/3 cup finely chopped nuts (I prefer nut-free candy, plus so many people have allergies)</p><p>· Coconut to roll individual pieces in, if you must!</p><p><strong> </strong></p><h5 id="fudge-making-tutorial-video-on-youtube"><strong>Fudge Making Tutorial Video on YouTube</strong></h5><p>Here is a video in which I walk you through making this fudge:</p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="150" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ne3jx0kT0FY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="" title="Secret Fudge Recipe | BLISS Fudge | Easy Fudge Recipes | Ronda Del Boccio's BLISS Fudge"/></figure><p/><h5 id="method"><strong>Method:</strong></h5><p>1. Put your 6-quart stockpot onto burner under medium-high heat.</p><p>2. Add the stick of butter and pour in cream.</p><p>3. OPTIONAL: Once butter is melted, add in the brewed coffee.</p><p>4. OPTIONAL: Add the whole bag of powdered sugar. Stir in completely.</p><p>5. OPTIONAL: Add the cocoa powder and/or cinnamon, if using. Mix thoroughly.</p><p>6. Speak your blessing over the candy. It can be whatever feels right to you. Or you may say something like this: “I bless this fudge to bring love, peace, and harmony to all who eat it.”</p><p>7. Cook the candy base to the soft ball stage (235-240 degrees Fahrenheit or 113-116 Celsius), stirring occasionally. The candy will thicken as it cooks, which is a good cue once you’ve made the fudge a few times (If you’re using the bowl of ice water method, when you think the fudge is cooked, drizzle a bit over the side. If it sets up quickly like finished fudge, it’s done..</p><p>8. Once candy is cooked, remove from heat and add chocolate chips. Mix</p><p>completely. This is when you’ll add nuts if using.</p><p>9. Pour into 9x13 pan and set aside to cool.</p><p>10. Cut into pieces and enjoy!</p><h5 id="variations"><strong>Variations</strong></h5><p>· Peanut Butter Fudge (without chocolate) Omit the coffee and cocoa powder. Add a 12-ounce (2 cup) jar of peanut butter in place of the chocolate chips.</p><p>· Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Fudge: Add a jar of peanut butter at the end when you put in the chocolate chips.</p><p>· White Chocolate Fudge: Omit cocoa and coffee from recipe and use white chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet.</p><p>· Fudge with Nuts: When you add chocolate chips, also add 2 cups of chopped nuts of your choice, such as pecans, walnuts or cashews. If you buy a bag in the store, the 12-ounce bag is the right amount.</p><p>· Some with / Some Without Nuts : Make the recipe as desired but pour half into an 8- or 9-inch square pan. Then add the nuts and pour the nutted portion into a separate pan.</p><p/><p>Please enjoy this recipe any time of the year with your friends and loved ones—and remember to say a blessing!</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Namesake]]></title><description><![CDATA[The kitchen smells like eggroll oil,
oil that slicks my (sweet) hands;
Birdsong (sweet) in my ear like coconut
flesh lavishing the tongue.
my hands bow to the folded gold;
gold filled with a care that shrieks;
Only the sky can contain a bird’s
journey and fill it with friendly winds.
shrieks of tongues stay the oily air;
air that burns me down to no-name;
Yellow canary, pretty little darling!
Lilting coquette ... alas, she doesn’t stay.
no-name woman bent over hot oil;
oil will cling t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/namesake/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6780872d4f874303201be4a1</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[January 2025]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Pauline Chu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:28:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="http://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2025/01/canary-in-tree-outside.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="http://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2025/01/canary-in-tree-outside.jpg" alt="Namesake"/><p>The kitchen smells like eggroll oil, <br>oil that slicks my (sweet) hands;</br></p><p>Birdsong (sweet) in my ear like coconut<br>flesh lavishing the tongue.</br></p><p>my hands bow to the folded gold; <br>gold filled with a care that shrieks; </br></p><p>Only the sky can contain a bird’s<br>journey and fill it with friendly winds.</br></p><p>shrieks of tongues stay the oily air; <br>air that burns me down to no-name;</br></p><p>Yellow canary, pretty little darling!<br>Lilting coquette ... alas, she doesn’t stay.</br></p><p>no-name woman bent over hot oil;<br>oil will cling to her bones’ end;</br></p><p>Canaries follow the hollow of their bones;<br>they soar on the names we give them.</br></p><p>end-dead, discard-dead–how she will smell:<br>smell like home, like an oily kitchen.</br></p><p>Names are wishes—ah! that’s the catch—<br>wishes are filled with (sweet) care;<br>wishes stay deep in your bones;<br>wishes bear you far from home.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 24: Fall 2024]]></title><description><![CDATA[Welcome to the Fall 2024 edition of eMerge, our grand finale for the year!]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-24-fall-2024/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__67730d24fb1c2705b85255c7</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:16:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1690716906738-d80ccc55b8bf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxob3QlMjBjaG9jb2xhdGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM1NTkzMjg3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1690716906738-d80ccc55b8bf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxob3QlMjBjaG9jb2xhdGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM1NTkzMjg3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Issue 24: Fall 2024"/><p>Welcome to the Fall 2024 edition of <em>eMerge</em>, our grand finale for the year!</p><p>As winter creeps closer and the days get shorter, we’re all starting to think about warm blankets, hot drinks, and the inevitable “I swear I’ll read more books” resolutions we make every January. Well, whether you’re bracing for the cold or celebrating sweater weather, we hope this issue of <em>eMerge</em> brings some extra warmth and joy to your world.</p><p>Inside, you’ll find plenty to keep you cozy. Maybe Anna Gall's "Chicken Au Gratin Pot Pies" will inspire some kitchen magic (or at least make you crave a pot pie). If you’re in need of a good chuckle, Zeek Taylor's short story "Cookies and Kool-Aid" will do the trick—because who doesn’t need a laugh while imagining that delightful combination? And for those who thrive on lyrical escapes, our selection of imaginative poetry is here to transport you. Be sure to check out Ron Wallace’s <em>Mickey Mantle and the Chinaberry Trees</em> or Caryn Goldberg’s <em>When They Took the Baby Away</em>—two standouts that stir the soul.</p><p>This issue also features the Winners of our 2024 Woody Barlow Poetry Contest, and wow, are they something special! Here are your winners:</p><ul><li><strong>Marigold</strong> by Erin McGrane</li><li><strong>In a Swampy Area South of Morgan City</strong> by Simone J. Banks</li><li><strong>I Have a Photo</strong> by Lynn Packham Larson</li><li><strong>All Weekend I Dreamed of Dogs</strong> by Kathryn Lorenzen</li><li><strong>Prayer for Howard</strong> by Elaine Alarcon</li></ul><p>Now, let me tell you, none of this would be possible without the all-stars behind the scenes. A huge thank you to our website wizard, Cat Templeton, and the graphic genius, Chad Gurley, who make everything look shiny and delightful. Sandra Templeton’s keen artistic eye keeps things beautiful, and our newest addition, Aubrey Green, lends a fresh voice to our new podcast, <em>eMerge Unchained</em>. (Don’t worry—it’s still chained to good taste.)</p><p>Thanks as well to our Featured Partners, Blue Clover Editing, Transformative Language Arts Network (TLAN), WriterCon and Bill Bernhardt, The Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow, Ozark Writers League, and the Eureka Springs School of the Arts (ESSA).</p><p>Submissions for <em>eMerge</em> 2025 opened on October 3rd and are pouring in as we speak. (Seriously, we’re swimming in poetry, prose, and delicious recipes over here!) If you’ve submitted, rest assured, we’ve got big things planned for the new year. You’ll be hearing from me by early 2025—hopefully, before the snow melts, but we make no promises about how much coffee we’ll need to get there.</p><p>So grab a cup of cocoa, settle in, and enjoy this issue. May your winter be restful, restorative, and filled with words that warm the heart.</p><p>Until Next Time,</p><p>I remain,</p><p>Just another Zororastafarian Editor trying to roll a boulder up a steep hill in Tartarus … another version of circular thinking …</p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Prayer for Howard]]></title><description><![CDATA[You are dying,
ninety growing on fifty. Absurdly
I wish you a sweet death
knowing otherwise,
at an hour when birds chatter
glory in the bottle washer tree
and swifts stitch blessing over the city,
feather and wing of all avians
homeward bound to the islands
defying red hawk,
cramped spaces
and the molecule.
May your breath pass into light
when sun blossoms gold
on the horizon,
quickening beatitude.
May your breath mingle
with all the tides of creation,
lungs singing as the earth spins
rose an]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/prayer-for-howard/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523347</guid><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elaine Alarcon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:15:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515497957908-4d6377430754?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDg1fHx2aWV3JTIwb2YlMjBzdW5zZXQlMjB6b2x0YW4lMjB0YXNpfGVufDB8fHx8MTcyNzcwNzY2MXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515497957908-4d6377430754?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDg1fHx2aWV3JTIwb2YlMjBzdW5zZXQlMjB6b2x0YW4lMjB0YXNpfGVufDB8fHx8MTcyNzcwNzY2MXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Prayer for Howard"/><p>You are dying,</p><p>ninety growing on fifty. Absurdly<br>I wish you a sweet death<br>knowing otherwise,<br>at an hour when birds chatter<br>glory in the bottle washer tree<br>and swifts stitch blessing over the city,<br>feather and wing of all avians<br>homeward bound to the islands<br>defying red hawk,<br>cramped spaces<br>and the molecule.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>May your breath pass into light<br>when sun blossoms gold<br>on the horizon,<br>quickening beatitude.</br></br></br></p><p>May your breath mingle<br>with all the tides of creation,<br>lungs singing as the earth spins<br>rose and purples on the horizon<br>for the long watches of the hours<br>in their slow journey toward night,<br>your body folded<br>in their pocket, a secret.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Sleep, beloved friend.<br>The moon is wedged against the sky.<br>Here is a coin for the journey.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[In A Swampy Area South of Morgan City]]></title><description><![CDATA[New land is forming at the mouths of the Wax Lake Outlet and the Atchafalaya River. This is a noteworthy exception. Put another way, the delta has shrunk as if most of Delaware has dropped into the sea. I lean back on the table to watch the ultrasound become its own false-color satellite. My healthy 6 follicles look like vacant pools, spread across land. Pitch black hollow wells and I think of Louisiana; the vanishing coastline, the satellite maps of canals and spoil levees creating a checkerboa]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/in-a-swampy-area-south-of-morgan-city/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523348</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[simone j. banks]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:14:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1683415408793-a617a9b78ed7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHN3YW1wJTIwdHJlZXMlMjBtaXNzaXNzaXBwaXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3Mjc3MDc5NzR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1683415408793-a617a9b78ed7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHN3YW1wJTIwdHJlZXMlMjBtaXNzaXNzaXBwaXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3Mjc3MDc5NzR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="In A Swampy Area South of Morgan City"/><p>New land is forming at the mouths of the Wax Lake Outlet and the Atchafalaya River. This is a noteworthy exception. Put another way, the delta has shrunk as if most of Delaware has dropped into the sea. I lean back on the table to watch the ultrasound become its own false-color satellite. My healthy 6 follicles look like vacant pools, spread across land. Pitch black hollow wells and I think of Louisiana; the vanishing coastline, the satellite maps of canals and spoil levees creating a checkerboard of what’s left. My follicles, however, form great possibilities. The companies of oil and gas were warned. Like the warning of being 39 and pregnant. Too late. And I questioned, what is there to know about nature while living on the edge? What would a space of absolution look like? Feel like? When I lived in Baton Rouge two young women jumped off the bridge into the Mississippi River. There, I said it. And now you know I think of them often. Such stories of absence. Each of them, on separate occasions, were found downriver, but one of them, 40 miles away at mile point 137. A fact too specific to forget. Maybe, they knew their leaving was the only way to love the water, to become like the river, a creature of memory, themselves on the edge. The way I find faith in my birthing new life on the edge of 40. There is new land forming along a distributary of The Mississippi River along a disappearing coastline. The River has always been a baptismal escape route, opening its deep and dark mouth waiting for the join. The River, and its never-ending story.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Have a Photo]]></title><description><![CDATA[I have a ghostly photograph of two girls
Taken at the Oregon coast in 1991.
I’m sure it was color film
But the image appears nearly black and white.
They are silhouetted against the cloudy gray sky and
The darker gray water.
Both girls are sixteen,
They are looking at each other,
Sitting closely together smiling, talking.
There wasn’t much light when the picture was taken
So their features are nearly obscured.
One reaches up to the other,
Perhaps to examine her earring more closely
Or to rem]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-have-a-photo/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523349</guid><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:13:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516724562728-afc824a36e84?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxjYW1lcmF8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzI3NzA4MDUwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516724562728-afc824a36e84?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxjYW1lcmF8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzI3NzA4MDUwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="I Have a Photo"/><p>I have a ghostly photograph of two girls<br>Taken at the Oregon coast in 1991.<br>I’m sure it was color film<br>But the image appears nearly black and white.</br></br></br></p><p>They are silhouetted against the cloudy gray sky and<br>The darker gray water.</br></p><p>Both girls are sixteen,<br>They are looking at each other,<br>Sitting closely together smiling, talking.</br></br></p><p>There wasn’t much light when the picture was taken<br>So their features are nearly obscured.</br></p><p>One reaches up to the other,<br>Perhaps to examine her earring more closely<br>Or to remove something that had caught in her hair.</br></br></p><p>Their mothers were friends in the seventh grade, and<br>Their mothers were friends at forty-three<br>When these girls were sixteen.</br></br></p><p>At seventy-six the mothers are still friends.<br>They might have dreamt back then<br>That the girls could be life-long friends,<br>Even though they lived two thousand miles apart.</br></br></br></p><p>But the girls’ lives were far different from their mothers’.<br>Lily died at twenty-five, Sarah at forty-two.<br>Both of cancer.</br></br></p><p>Sometimes when I look at that photo<br>I see my own sixteen-year-old face and my friend’s,<br>Looking at each other in the fading light,<br>Smiling and talking as girls.<br>The resemblance is strong.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[All Weekend I Dreamed of Dogs]]></title><description><![CDATA[What possessed the minds of primitive
people to tame the wolf predator
Encouraging it to scavenge at the
edges of fires, camps, trails
Nudging the sideways dance
of evolution, from wild to
companion to loved one
At what point did an ancient human’s
heart first break at the death of a canine
The marvel of the dog
To sit quietly attending
each smell’s library of meaning
To put your head in a lap
at just the right moment
To be willing to run
until your heart explodes
To catch the frisbee until
you]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/all-weekend-i-dreamed-of-dogs/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852334a</guid><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Lorenzen]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:11:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/09/chris-mills-JeuKR9Ue4LM-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/09/chris-mills-JeuKR9Ue4LM-unsplash.jpg" alt="All Weekend I Dreamed of Dogs"/><p>What possessed the minds of primitive<br>people to tame the wolf predator<br>Encouraging it to scavenge at the<br>edges of fires, camps, trails<br>Nudging the sideways dance<br>of evolution, from wild to<br>companion to loved one<br>At what point did an ancient human’s<br>heart first break at the death of a canine</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The marvel of the dog<br>To sit quietly attending<br>each smell’s library of meaning<br>To put your head in a lap<br>at just the right moment<br>To be willing to run<br>until your heart explodes<br>To catch the frisbee until<br>your grinning mouth bleeds<br>The purest gifts of being<br>The ecstasy of breath<br>The full-on living of every<br>day as the best day</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Upon the loss of a black lab, lover of<br>sun-warmed grass and beanie<br>babies, I took to my bed, dreaming<br>deeply of dogs, trails of fur and<br>car rides and who’s a good girl</br></br></br></br></p><p>Waking then to wonder what could<br>we possibly do to ever truly be<br>worthy of a dog’s love</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Marigold]]></title><description><![CDATA[Call me by the name you knew (me by)
when last we knew each other
lemongrass, soot
lightening, eel
Speak to me in the way (you did)
when I was comet dust, and you were fire
when I was angel fish, and you were silt
at the bottom of the world.
Greet me with the touch I know (as you did)
when I was paint, and you were rain
when I was lint, and you a window
opening inward
Love me as you always will (and always have)
even when you are eyelid, and I am tear
even when you are a porcupine’s quill
and]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/marigold/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852334b</guid><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Erin McGrane]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:10:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/10/k-mitch-hodge-vyQIz2RKFSI-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/10/k-mitch-hodge-vyQIz2RKFSI-unsplash.jpg" alt="Marigold"/><p>Call me by the name you knew (me by)<br>when last we knew each other<br>lemongrass, soot<br>lightening, eel</br></br></br></p><p>Speak to me in the way (you did)<br>when I was comet dust, and you were fire<br>when I was angel fish, and you were silt<br>at the bottom of the world.</br></br></br></p><p>Greet me with the touch I know (as you did)<br>when I was paint, and you were rain<br>when I was lint, and you a window<br>opening inward</br></br></br></p><p>Love me as you always will (and always have)<br>even when you are eyelid, and I am tear<br>even when you are a porcupine’s quill<br>and I am helium, lifting a green balloon</br></br></br></p><p>Paper, rock, scissors, sunlight<br>placenta, peach, ash, nail</br></p><p>Neither created nor destroyed<br>not creator or destroyer, ever<br>we will be a part of All.</br></br></p><p>Even when you are the marigold<br>bursting from my grave</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Scorpius on the Horizon]]></title><description><![CDATA[Standing sentinel in the shallows across the cove,
the great blue heron
eyed us discreetly
as the motor grumbled
and we drifted away from the dock
moving into the main channel.
The heat of the cloudless day
softened as we floated over the lake,
exploring bluffs and other coves.
Later, we arranged our chairs for the view from the dock.
The last reflections of the setting sun lighting up the water
and the sky growing pale,
then colorless, until it became a barely visible blank canvas.
We]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/scorpius-on-the-horizon/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523316</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:09:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1623729296034-176f277bfddc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNjb3JwaXVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI0NDQxNHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1623729296034-176f277bfddc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNjb3JwaXVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI0NDQxNHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Scorpius on the Horizon"/><p>Standing sentinel in the shallows across the cove, <br>the great blue heron<br>eyed us discreetly <br>as the motor grumbled <br>and we drifted away from the dock<br>moving into the main channel.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The heat of the cloudless day <br>softened as we floated over the lake,<br>exploring bluffs and other coves. </br></br></p><p>Later, we arranged our chairs for the view from the dock.<br>The last reflections of the setting sun lighting up the water <br>and the sky growing pale, <br>then colorless, until it became a barely visible blank canvas.</br></br></br></p><p>We sipped champagne and watched,<br>commenting on the first hint of a planet, <br>guessing at what we were seeing. <br>Stars and more stars, shooting stars made us call out and point, <br>so grateful to have seen them. </br></br></br></br></p><p>Gradually we began to discern a shape that must be a constellation. <br>Scorpius looked to have just risen from the lake, <br>fully formed, enormous,<br>Climbing its way up the canvas of sky.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Eureka! It’s Christmas Again]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was like the magic that kids feel at Christmas time, something in the air, very real and abstract at the same time. I was in our hotel room dressing, a five-minute walk from where you sat on the second floor veranda, when my cell rang. I snagged us a table you said. I ordered you a Moscow Mule in a copper mug. (Would it be a Moscow Mule if it weren’t in a copper mug?) And there you were at a table next to the veranda with a perfect view of Spring Street from where it curves into view, all the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/eureka-its-christmas-again/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523317</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Dorroh]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:08:18 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513416543495-10c173ed9908?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1vc2NvdyUyMG11bGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjQ1NzYyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513416543495-10c173ed9908?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1vc2NvdyUyMG11bGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjQ1NzYyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Eureka! It’s Christmas Again"/><p>It was like the magic that kids feel at Christmas time, something in the air, very real and abstract at the same time. I was in our hotel room dressing, a five-minute walk from where you sat on the second floor veranda, when my cell rang. <em>I snagged us a table</em> you said. <em>I ordered you a Moscow Mule in a copper mug. </em>(Would it be a Moscow Mule if it weren’t in a copper mug?) And there you were at a table next to the veranda with a perfect view of Spring Street from where it curves into view, all the way past the Basin Hotel. A Greek Jesus was seated across from us. His most striking feature was his hair, which he wore in the style so often portrayed by the majority of the paintings that artists have rendered of him. Fake Jesus was sipping a martini. He leaned in and asked where we were from. And then there was this discussion about lillet, how it gets bruised from excess shaking. And then we asked him if he’d like to share our table. He was waiting on his daughter. The one who didn’t die from childhood cancer, the one who never missed the Eureka Springs Arkansas, Christmas parade. She was fashionably late but charming enough to get away with it. And you…how you hugged the railing when the parade started, how you reached out to touch a single white light from a strand of hundreds, how you glowed. You were in your element, and let’s just say that I had adapted comfortably. I traded seats with Fake Jesus Daughter so she could practically touch the parade. Jesus had his muscular arms on the back of your chair, and I imagined just for a moment that you two were a couple and what that would look like in a frame on your mother’s living room coffee table.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Man Who Sees Things]]></title><description><![CDATA[Some say that he is a ghost—man who is spirit, or at least
a man who knows his spirits well. His boozy breath gets
worse through the evenings when his mind needs escape
from the desperate darkness troubling his bones. Sadness.
He moves through town quietly, a nod, a smirk, a chortle
when he eyes someone eyeing him. Aye, to see him
is to question everything—humanity, peace, poverty, power.
He holds these things with fingerless gloves and grace.
Rumors tell of a riches to rags route, a journe]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-man-who-sees-things/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523318</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Hoffman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:08:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1470337458703-46ad1756a187?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNwaXJpdHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjQ2MzY2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1470337458703-46ad1756a187?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNwaXJpdHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjQ2MzY2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Man Who Sees Things"/><p>Some say that he is a ghost—man who is spirit, or at least<br>a man who knows his spirits well. His boozy breath gets<br>worse through the evenings when his mind needs escape<br>from the desperate darkness troubling his bones. Sadness.</br></br></br></p><p>He moves through town quietly, a nod, a smirk, a chortle<br>when he eyes someone eyeing him. Aye, to see him<br>is to question everything—humanity, peace, poverty, power.<br>He holds these things with fingerless gloves and grace.</br></br></br></p><p>Rumors tell of a riches to rags route, a journey he will <br>confirm and deny with a shrug of his shoulders. Chin tilted<br>sideways, he turns the other cheek while gazing at<br>the infinite above us. He sees things that we don’t.</br></br></br></p><p>I want to know and understand as he does. What wisdom, what <br>freedom, what calm he seems to know; while I am more familiar <br>with clean clothes, new car smell, bills, anxiety, and fear. </br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lullaby for Aldwyn]]></title><description><![CDATA[I know the difficulty
of the moon’s pulls
from the window
as you restlessly search
like a wave looks
for shore
while your arm is trapped
by the boulder
you, by
accident, moved here.
I, too, am afraid
I can't swim
away from my childhood
deep end. But I swear
moonlight
never gave up on me
even when I fell
asleep.
So as you reach
for harbor
I will end
my song softly
as I navigate
through
which notes to hold
in & which ones
to let go of.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lullaby-for-aldwyn/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523319</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Etzel Jr.]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:07:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1593388872830-f08b029050f3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fG11c2ljJTIwbm90ZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjQ3MDg2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1593388872830-f08b029050f3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fG11c2ljJTIwbm90ZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjQ3MDg2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Lullaby for Aldwyn"/><p>I know the difficulty<br>of the moon’s pulls<br>from the window<br>as you restlessly search<br>like a wave looks<br>for shore<br>while your arm is trapped<br>by the boulder<br>you, by<br>accident, moved here.<br>I, too, am afraid<br>I can&#39;t swim<br>away from my childhood<br>deep end. But I swear</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>moonlight<br>never gave up on me<br>even when I fell<br>asleep.<br>So as you reach<br>for harbor<br>I will end<br>my song softly<br>as I navigate<br>through<br>which notes to hold<br>in &amp; which ones<br>to let go of.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Fox]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dancing flame against
rows of silent stones,
a red fox sets the
tombstone garden ablaze.
Stopping once,
where earth absorbed
my tears.
A sign from my son?
Hair at birth bright as
a new copper penny.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-fox/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852331a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elaine McMilian]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:07:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1646971012135-9f9743876e20?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxwZW5ueXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQxODA1NjV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1646971012135-9f9743876e20?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxwZW5ueXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQxODA1NjV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Fox"/><p>Dancing flame against<br>rows of silent stones,<br>a red fox sets the<br>tombstone garden ablaze.</br></br></br></p><p>Stopping once,<br>where earth absorbed<br>my tears.</br></br></p><p>A sign from my son?<br>Hair at birth bright as<br>a new copper penny.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[All Four Seasons]]></title><description><![CDATA[I met you in the autumn years of our lives.
We walked together in sunshine, wind, and rain.
We embraced the autumn colors, felt the crisp air, heard the music in the leaves.
A canvas to be completed sooner rather than later, a life to cycle through all four seasons.
You entered the winter years, though I not yet ready.
I with another stroll along a golden yellow, pumpkin orange, and burnt red lane.
You with another to touch snowflakes, lick icicles before the quiet hush of snowfall.
A blanket gr]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/all-four-seasons/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852331b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:07:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1540317700647-ec69694d70d0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHNlYXNvbnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjQ4NDM0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1540317700647-ec69694d70d0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHNlYXNvbnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjQ4NDM0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="All Four Seasons"/><p>I met you in the autumn years of our lives.<br>We walked together in sunshine, wind, and rain.<br>We embraced the autumn colors, felt the crisp air, heard the music in the leaves.<br>A canvas to be completed sooner rather than later, a life to cycle through all four seasons.<br>You entered the winter years, though I not yet ready.<br>I with another stroll along a golden yellow, pumpkin orange, and burnt red lane.<br>You with another to touch snowflakes, lick icicles before the quiet hush of snowfall.<br>A blanket gray sky with woody cedars and small stone silhouettes.<br>In a slow-motion moment I witnessed your spring and summer years.<br>A beautiful blossom, the home nest welcomes sweet springtime.<br>Summertime love brought forth fruit twice, then eight times.<br>Your early autumn years, leaves on a tree trunk, your graduation cap atop long thick hair.<br>New roads on the horizon, friendships and love many a time, then sickness.<br>A life to cycle through all four seasons too quickly.<br>But now you are at peace and free to live forever.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lost in the Fall]]></title><description><![CDATA[Angry fire flashed in his eyes;
finger pointed accusingly –
a first between my father and me,
despite ample opportunities.
No longer the man I knew,
so much destroyed the moment
he crashed to the hardwood floor
after a two-am piss.
Here in his hospital bed,
he wanted only to take a shit
on a toilet like a man,
not in a diaper like a child.
And I was there, not helping,
saying, “They’ll be here soon.”
But language also had been
lost in the fall,
along with dignity and pride.
Merci]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lost-in-the-fall/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852331c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Brian Mosher]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:06:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512678080530-7760d81faba6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGhvc3BpdGFsfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI0ODkzMXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512678080530-7760d81faba6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGhvc3BpdGFsfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI0ODkzMXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Lost in the Fall"/><p>Angry fire flashed in his eyes; <br>finger pointed accusingly – <br>a first between my father and me, <br>despite ample opportunities.<br>No longer the man I knew, <br>so much destroyed the moment <br>he crashed to the hardwood floor <br>after a two-am piss.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Here in his hospital bed, <br>he wanted only to take a shit <br>on a toilet like a man, <br>not in a diaper like a child. <br>And I was there, not helping, <br>saying, “They’ll be here soon.” </br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But language also had been<br>lost in the fall, <br>along with dignity and pride.</br></br></p><p>Mercifully, nurses rescued me <br>from his fury, <br>but not from my shame <br>at having borne witness to this, <br>his one descent into indignation <br>in a lifetime of generous kindness, <br>moral strength, humility<br>and paternal pride.<br>Nor could they prevent this moment <br>from becoming part of how <br>I remember him, and <br>part of how <br>I judge myself.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Provision]]></title><description><![CDATA[my friend feeds rats to a hawk
rat catchers come to her house
and trap the rats in cages and kill them
then she carries the rat cages to the reservoir
and holds the dead rats up by their tails
for the hawk to swoop down and seize
and miraculously the hawk comes
she is brave to do that I think
so close to a raptor’s heartbeat
to the wing that could put out her eye
or knock her down and I envy her
the joy of that wildness and cherish
the picture of her wind-blown hair and her
standing firm ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/provision/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852331d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:06:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1583104982877-e4f0572acca1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxoYXdrfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI0OTMyMnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1583104982877-e4f0572acca1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxoYXdrfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI0OTMyMnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Provision"/><p>my friend feeds rats to a hawk<br>rat catchers come to her house<br>and trap the rats in cages and kill them <br>then she carries the rat cages to the reservoir <br>and holds the dead rats up by their tails<br>for the hawk to swoop down and seize<br>and miraculously the hawk comes<br>she is brave to do that I think <br>so close to a raptor’s heartbeat <br>to the wing that could put out her eye <br>or knock her down and I envy her <br>the joy of that wildness and cherish <br>the picture of her wind-blown hair and her<br>standing firm and the hawk approaching</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dread]]></title><description><![CDATA[One day I’ll be wiping the counter
with the sure muscle of terry cloth
at my command
me, morning bee, in control
stops me mid-swipe
the floods, the heat
all so close
I feel plunged into the hottest bath
A yellow melt of rubber ducky
Its beak a one dimensional splay of orange
like a lick of fire
I have arrived
into the future
wide open
and gaping as a broken jaw
drooling
I told you so]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dread/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852331e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Darlene Graf]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:06:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1563453392212-326f5e854473?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGNsZWFuaW5nJTIwY2xvfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI1MDA0NXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1563453392212-326f5e854473?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGNsZWFuaW5nJTIwY2xvfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI1MDA0NXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dread"/><p>One day I’ll be wiping the counter<br>with the sure muscle of terry cloth<br>at my command<br>me, morning bee, in control<br>stops me mid-swipe<br>the floods, the heat<br>all so close<br>I feel plunged into the hottest bath<br>A yellow melt of rubber ducky<br>Its beak a one dimensional splay of orange<br>like a lick of fire<br>I have arrived<br>into the future<br>wide open<br>and gaping as a broken jaw<br>drooling<br>I told you so</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[All at once, here at home, a stinger]]></title><description><![CDATA[A little step in nectar
and I know I am home
A crooked arrow points me like yellow mandibles on mad honey
Where my mother is waiting in a hive
And I was born in a pollen basket woven into the skies
With my hands that rocket towards the doorknob
hallucination from a frothing beebread and a sob
My mother shutting the door tight
My father finally coming home at night ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/all-at-once-here-at-home-a-stinger/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852331f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Shalini Singh]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:06:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1534512547189-5944d6fd30e8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fHBvbGxlbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQyNTA1NDR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1534512547189-5944d6fd30e8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fHBvbGxlbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQyNTA1NDR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="All at once, here at home, a stinger"/><p><em>A little step in nectar <br>and I know I am home<br>A crooked arrow points me like yellow mandibles on mad honey</br></br></em></p><p><em>Where my mother is waiting in a hive <br>And I was born in a pollen basket woven into the skies </br></em></p><p><em>With my hands that rocket towards the doorknob<br>hallucination from a frothing beebread and a sob </br></em></p><p><em>My mother shutting the door tight<br>My father finally coming home at night </br></em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Wrong Way]]></title><description><![CDATA[Since she was born
she’s always kissed in
a left-handed way
Everyone told her
that was wrong
Her grandmother told her
Her mother told her
The nuns told her
The nuns definitely told her
Boy did the nuns tell her
So she stopped kissing
in a left-handed way and
tried kissing right-handed
But it wasn’t the same
It never felt right It
made her think there was
something wrong with her
So she stopped kissing in
a right-handed way too
She just entirely stopped kissing]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-wrong-way/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523320</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:05:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527225041591-d3c66e0f5f88?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHxraXNzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI1MDkzOXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527225041591-d3c66e0f5f88?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHxraXNzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI1MDkzOXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Wrong Way"/><p>Since she was born <br>she’s always kissed in <br>a left-handed way</br></br></p><p>Everyone told her<br>that was wrong<br>Her grandmother told her<br>Her mother told her<br>The nuns told her<br>The nuns definitely told her<br>Boy did the nuns tell her</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>So she stopped kissing<br>in a left-handed way and<br>tried kissing right-handed<br>But it wasn’t the same</br></br></br></p><p>It never felt right It<br>made her think there was <br>something wrong with her</br></br></p><p>So she stopped kissing in<br>a right-handed way too<br>She just entirely stopped kissing</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Keep Reading]]></title><description><![CDATA[When the lights flicker out,
and hope is but a memory,
keep reading.
Remember that things
look messy in the middle
of any good tale.
Don’t curse the story
even when the pages are
damp with tears.
Because light shines through
the grayest chapters.
Dear reader,
keep laughing.
keep dreaming.
For in the end,
good will triumph.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/keep-reading/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523321</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Abbi B.]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:05:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531053270060-6643c8e70e8f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxyZWFkaW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI1MTI2N3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531053270060-6643c8e70e8f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxyZWFkaW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDI1MTI2N3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Keep Reading"/><p>When the lights flicker out,<br>and hope is but a memory,<br>keep reading.</br></br></p><p>Remember that things<br>look messy in the middle<br>of any good tale.</br></br></p><p>Don’t curse the story<br>even when the pages are<br>damp with tears.</br></br></p><p>Because light shines through<br>the grayest chapters.</br></p><p>Dear reader,<br>keep laughing.<br>keep dreaming.</br></br></p><p>For in the end,<br>good will triumph.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Milestones]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was the first time Silas Lott, age sixteen years and three days, had ever left Mississippi County, Arkansas. The realization came to the boy in brief bursts, like the fields of cotton, still September green and full of potential, passing outside the bus window. One row at a time. There, then gone. There, then gone. Still for a moment, but so fleeting he could only focus on one row at a time, row after row.
His best friend, Bruce Hemphill, had talked Silas into signing up for the National Gu]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/milestones/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523322</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Daniel Wright]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:05:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529087795572-98e214aeeb79?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxyb3dzJTIwb2YlMjBjb3R0b258ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjUyODk2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529087795572-98e214aeeb79?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxyb3dzJTIwb2YlMjBjb3R0b258ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjUyODk2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Milestones"/><p>It was the first time Silas Lott, age sixteen years and three days, had ever left Mississippi County, Arkansas. The realization came to the boy in brief bursts, like the fields of cotton, still September green and full of potential, passing outside the bus window. One row at a time. There, then gone. There, then gone. Still for a moment, but so fleeting he could only focus on one row at a time, row after row. </p><p>His best friend, Bruce Hemphill, had talked Silas into signing up for the National Guard. Both were born during the War and had no proper birth certificate so when they presented themselves at the Armory in April and signed a statement saying that they were eighteen, that was that. It was the first lie Silas ever told and his mother let him have it when she found out. </p><p>“Lying to the Government won’t lead to nothing but trouble, boy. I raised you better than that.” </p><p>She had, but Silas longed for adventure. There was little chance for that in the corner of Northeast Arkansas where his people had come eighty some-odd years before.</p><p>Silas’s grandfather, William Lott, paddled up the tributaries of the Mississippi river from Alabama after his own father, Nathan, was killed by the Indians. For as long as Silas could remember Grandpa Willie told stories about growing up in the wild country of the Alabama hills. Their family had been the victims of various Indian raids over the years despite Willie’s grandfather (Silas’s great great grandfather) marrying a Cherokee named Sallie Lightfoot. </p><p>Grandpa Willie set forth upstream in a neighbor’s boat soon after the attack. Weeks later, carrying his canoe between creeks and camping on the banks each night, the fourteen-year-old hit the big river. He told Silas that going against the current was the only thing that kept him safe, so instead of going south, Willie paddled up the Mississippi, straight past Memphis until he was too tired to row another minute. </p><p>He ditched his canoe on the western bank and set up camp next to a big hill he figured to be a burial mound. He hoped the Indians in Arkansas would steer clear of it like they tended to back in Alabama. The next morning, he filled his pocket with small white stones he’d collected on the trip and walked west. </p><p>To mark his way back, he placed a stone at the base of the tallest tree within sight. This had been his habit each time he ventured beyond the banks and though he couldn’t remember where he’d learned it, it had served him well. (He only got lost once on a moonless night in Mississippi when hunger forced him deep into the woods hunting a half-dead Squirrel that a passing hawk had dropped at his feet.) </p><p>Before Willie had placed his fourth stone, he met a crew of men clearing large trees from the swampy bottoms. He asked about work. The foreman threw him a small-handled ax and said, “Show me what you can do.” </p><p>As luck would have it, Willie chopped those trees for the rest of his life. (Whether the luck was good or bad, was a question Willie never answered when Silas asked.) There was a boom in Arkansas after the Great Fire of 1871 and the timber cleared would be sent up the Mississippi to Chicago for decades. The following year, when he turned fifteen, Willie met Silas’s grandmother and the two raised a family in the swamps. </p><p>Once a piece of land was cleared, Willie and his family moved west, one parcel at a time. When Silas knew him, Grandpa Willie lived at Big Lake, the swampy remnant of an ancient sea about thirty miles west of the Mississippi. Silas’s grandmother, Dicey, was long dead by then and Grandpa Willie lived alone in a small cabin he built on stilts in a cove within the sprawling hardwood bottomland. Silas was fascinated by the roof over the bed that was rigged to be lifted with a rope so that the old man could duck hunt first thing in the morning. </p><p>Silas and his parents took Grandpa Willie store-bought groceries once a month. They would drive to the end of the road, then get into a boat and paddle the three or four miles to what Silas’s mother called ‘the shack on the shore’. Silas’s mother had an irrational fear of her son drowning, so insisted on going with them, holding Silas tight to her chest in the boat the entire time. </p><p>“You just missed it,” Grandpa Willie would say to Silas every time they visited. “That swamp monster was slinking by not five minutes before you got here.” </p><p>Even after Silas was old enough to know better, he would play along. </p><p>Silas’s dad was in California working at the metalworks factory in Torrence the summer Grandpa Willie died. (Three months of California wages lasted nine in Arkansas.) Silas and his mother had taken the last boat ride alone with the monthly delivery of groceries. </p><p>She sent Silas inside while she waited in the boat. He found the old man lying lifeless in his bed, his eyes wide open and turned skyward toward the raised roof with a shotgun in his hands. </p><p> Silas wiped at the side of his face and hoped it was too dark in the bus for anyone to see his tears. </p><p>“You figure we gonna be on the TV?” Bruce asked. </p><p>“I hope not,” Silas said. </p><p>“Hell, this face was made for the movies,” Bruce said. </p><p>“Yeah, the funny pictures,” Roy Briggs said from the seat behind them. “I’m gonna turn you two in for lying about your age, anyway.” </p><p>“Do it Briggs and I’ll kick your ass six ways to Sunday and you know it,” Bruce said. </p><p>Roy knew it alright. Bruce had spent most of their childhood doing just that. Normally, Silas rooted for the underdog in any fight, but not when the underdog was Roy Briggs, a rich kid, almost as wide as he was tall, with a mouth on him. No matter how many times it got him in trouble, Roy just wouldn’t shut up. As if the world was obligated to hear him out even though he never said anything new. </p><p>“That boy’s got a glass jaw,” Silas’s father used to tell him when Roy would pick on Silas in elementary school. “One good punch is all it’d take.” </p><p>Silas was never one to fight. He put up with Roy’s insults about the patches on his clothes and the fact that some days Silas didn’t have anything for lunch besides crackers. Bruce had shown up in the third grade and made fast friends with everyone, by force if needed. Since then, the three developed an odd connection. Silas, the longsuffering, Bruce the powerhouse and Roy the know-it-all. </p><p>Their bus was headed to Little Rock. The boy’s division of the National Guard had been deployed to keep Black kids out of the White school there. Silas had longed for adventure, but now that it presented itself, he missed his mother. </p><p>He hadn’t told her where they were going, only that he was called up and now that he was, there wasn’t anything to be done about it. </p><p>“I’ll not let my baby go off to God knows where,” she said. “I’m gonna call and tell them you’s just sixteen.” </p><p>“But I’ll get in trouble, Ma,” Silas said. “You wouldn’t want that.” </p><p>The truth was that he didn’t know what would happen if she told. </p><p>“Besides,” Silas added. “We could use the money. It ain’t gonna be dangerous. We haven’t even done a proper training yet. Maybe that’s all it is.” </p><p>Another lie. They had done some training after school at the Amory in town, just not down in Leesville, Louisiana as the recruiter had promised them. And the training consisted of how to wear their uniform, stand at attention and tie a slip knot. </p><p>In the end, Silas’s mother didn’t like it, but she trusted her boy. And though he didn’t like to lie, there was no way Silas could let Bruce and Roy go without him. </p><p>When they arrived in Little Rock late that night, the three friends, along with some other boys they’d picked up in Jonesboro and Bald Knob along the way piled out of the bus. A man started yelling at them immediately. Silas was so startled by it that he didn’t dare look him in the eyes, thinking he must be a General or something. </p><p>“Take your skinny asses to Barracks Three! Run, don’t walk.” </p><p>The busload of boys did as they were told, almost tripping over each other to get out of earshot of the screams. Silas was smaller and slower than most of the others and entered the barracks last. </p><p>“I saved you a spot.” Bruce said and motioned Silas over to a bunk on the far side of the room. “I know how you like to sleep up against the wall.” </p><p>“Thanks, Bruce,” Silas said. “Much appreciated.” </p><p>Roy Briggs mimicked, “Much appreciated,” in the squeaky voice he’d used to make fun of Silas since the 5<sup>th</sup> grade, when Roy’s voice had changed, but Silas’s hadn’t. “Ease up, Roy,” Bruce said. “Lest you wanna talk to Jonas.” (Jonas was what Bruce called his right fist.) </p><p>“If I know you, Jonas is gonna be too busy tonight to do much talking,” Roy said. </p><p>“Careful, I can jack off with my left hand now.” Bruce said, moving his left hand over his groin and holding up his right fist. </p><p>“If you touch me, I’ll tell,” Roy said. </p><p>Silas put his knapsack on the bed and left Bruce and Roy to their usual routine of threats and whines. In the end, Roy would swear he was going to shut up and Bruce would agree not to whoop him. </p><p>After the lights were turned off, Silas scooted over so that his back was to the wall, just like at home. </p><p>“Hangin’ in there?” Bruce whispered. </p><p>“Sure,” Silas said. </p><p>“We wanted to see the world,” Bruce said. It was pitch dark, but Silas could hear the smile in Bruce’s voice. “And here we are.” </p><p>“Yeah,” Silas said. “Little Rock.” </p><p>“Beats Blytheville any day.” </p><p>Silas lay awake most of the night next to the secret that even his best friend didn’t know. That he’d never spent a night away from home. </p><p>On the bus the next morning, all dressed in their uniforms, the boys sat in silence. The man who Silas thought was a General was just a cranky Sargent from Fordyce who sat in the front seat, eyes straight ahead. </p><p>Silas looked at the hills in the distance and wondered what it would be like to live in a place with so many ups and downs. Blytheville was flat as far as the eye could see. The only hill in town was the new bypass that crossed over the railroad tracks by Highway 181. </p><p>The woods seemed ripe for hunting, Silas thought. He had seen buck scrapings and some bobcat marks, which surprised him, being in the city as they were. When they passed downtown Little Rock each of the boys looked out the windows with their mouths open. Even the city boys from Jonesboro were impressed. </p><p>Silas heard the chanting before he saw any people. </p><p>“No N——s, no way! Not ever, not here, go away!” over and over, faint and constant, like the sound of ducks over the horizon just before you could see them. </p><p>It doesn’t even rhyme good, Silas thought. </p><p>The Sargent at the front of the bus stood up. </p><p>“You boys grab your rifles as you head out. I swear to God if one of you sumbitch bumpkins points this at a single n--—, I’ll have your hide.” </p><p>The bus pulled to a stop at the end of a dirt path off the main road and they filed out, each taking a rifle from the driver before stepping down. </p><p>“Sir,” Bruce said. “This gun ain’t loaded.” </p><p>“Damn straight, Slick,” the driver said and smiled at the Sargent. “You get in any trouble, you put those long legs of yours to use and run your ass back home to bumfuck. We can’t trust you hillbillies not to shoot a darkie when you get the chance.” </p><p>“We ain’t from the hills,” Roy Briggs said before he could stop himself. </p><p>“Shut up you fat turd and get back in line.” </p><p>Silas put his head down, took the rifle and stepped off the bus. The chants were louder then and seemed to come from every direction. The boys lined up in formation and the Sargent stood on the last step and shouted, “Your job today is to stand there. Don’t say a word. Don’t make a sound. We are gonna march you up to the front of the school where you will form a line. Ain’t nobody going to come up to you, but even if they do, you better not move or I’ll have your ass. Single line!” The Sargent hopped down in a slow trot toward the school, and they followed. </p><p>That night when they watched the news in a corner of the barracks, the day sounded more exciting than it had been. </p><p>“There’s my shoulder,” Roy Briggs said. </p><p>“Lucky they didn’t get your face in it, they’d a broke the camera,” Bruce said. </p><p>“That’s not you, that’s me,” a big boy from Bald Knob said. </p><p>Silas asked Bruce, “Are we just gonna stand around all day, every day?” He said it louder than he meant and one of the other boys answered. </p><p>“A soldier’s job is to do as he’s told.” </p><p>Silas blushed and shrank back a little. </p><p>He and his friends had talked about the Blacks that might be coming to school. The teachers had speculated for years, but to Silas, it sounded far off, like World War II. It didn’t seem likely to ever happen in Northeast Arkansas. </p><p>Roy Briggs was a proud segregationist of course. His family had slaves for generations he was quick to add to any conversation whether about civil rights or not. Bruce didn’t care one way or the other, though he said he’d seen Black girls that were every bit as pretty as White ones. </p><p>Silas didn’t know what to think. Blytheville had a large Black population for a town its size, but there was little interaction between the races. Silas and his family lived about five miles out of town in Half Moon with an all-White population of farmers. The Black people had certain sections in town with their own stores, garages and even a funeral home. The rich Whites lived in town over by the Country Club and shopped on Main Street. The poor Whites lived everywhere else. When Silas’s family came to town they went to Main Street as well, though they could never afford much there. </p><p>Silas’s father had once gone to one of the Black general stores to buy sorghum when times were bad, but he did it early in the morning and made sure nobody saw him. </p><p>Other than in passing, Silas had never spent any time around Black people. Grandpa Willie’s closest neighbor at Big Lake was an old Black man named Leon. Silas had only seen Leon at Grandpa Willie’s cabin once. The two men were talking on the small dock that served as a porch when Silas and his father and mother pulled up in their boat. </p><p>“Leon here was just buying some of my special decoys,” Grandpa Willie said. “You best be heading out, Leon.” </p><p>Silas’s father looked at the two funny but didn’t say anything while Leon stood and got into his small rowboat. </p><p>Leon said, “Ma’am,” and tipped his hat to Silas’s mother, who nodded her head. Silas’s father stood silent on the dock until Leon had paddled out of sight. </p><p>“I don’t really like you doing business with that sort,” he told Grandpa Willie. </p><p>“Don’t get above your raisin’ boy,” Grandpa Willie said. </p><p>It was odd hearing his father referred to as boy. </p><p>“I don’t mean it that way, Daddy. I hear he’s been in prison.” </p><p>“Prison don’t mean shit,” Grandpa Willie said. “Been there once or twice myself.” </p><p>Silas’s mother put her hands over the boy’s ears. </p><p>Silas pulled away and said, “I done heard it, Ma.” </p><p>Grandpa Willie smiled and said, “Beg, pardon Becky. I don’t mean to be a bad influence on the boy. Y’all come on in and visit.” </p><p>“I was mostly innocent,” Grandpa Willie whispered to Silas as they went inside.</p><p>Grandpa Willie told some stories about the goings-on at the lake that month. (They’d found a body in one of the bogs, and the only thing they could tell was that it was a woman, nothing else.) Silas’s mother excused herself and sat in the boat knitting for the rest of the visit. She tried to get Silas to go with her, but he refused after several pleas. </p><p>“Good to see you’re getting some gumption with your momma,” Grandpa Willie said. “She means well but comes a time when a man goes his own way. But you always be sweet to her, you hear me?” </p><p>“Yes, sir,” Silas said. </p><p>“Not a day goes by I don’t miss my momma,” Grandpa Willie said. “Half Cherokee and half crazy, but nobody gonna love you like that again.” </p><p>“Dad, we need to talk about Leon,” Silas’s father said. </p><p>“Nothing to talk about,” Willie said. “He’s had a rough time of it and he’s my neighbor. Enough said.” </p><p>“Just don’t let one of these bottom boys catch him here after dark. Those boys from Manila would skin him alive and you along with him.” </p><p>“You don’t have to tell me and Leon how things work in these parts,” Grandpa Willie said. </p><p>“Okay, I’m just saying.” </p><p>“Shit. Worse than the Indians, the rednecks around here. They ever come for Leon or me, I’ll take a few with me, don’t you worry.” </p><p>Silas knew Manila was a sunset town. That Black people could come into town to spend money, but that was all. Before sunset they had to be outside the town limits and if they lived east of town on Big Lake, they’d best stay indoors after dark. No Blacks dared move further west. The fact the townspeople allowed them to hide away in the swampy bottoms was considered, by most, downright generous.</p><p>For a solid week, the boys would wake in the barracks at 6am, load into the bus and go to the High School. They’d collect their empty guns and stand silently while the crowds behind them yelled insults at the few people holding pro-integration signs. </p><p>The crowds would gather as the students arrived in the morning, then again at lunchtime, and once more when classes were dismissed for the afternoon. In between those times, the people would thin out. Silas noticed a few ladies who stood around most of the day talking to any reporters who might wander by. One lady, with painted eyebrows and a pink scarf around her neck, would follow the camera crews around and yell, “No Miscegenation!” in a shrill voice. </p><p>Silas had been there a week and still hadn’t seen a Black person. The boys weren’t allowed to talk to each other or any of the people in the crowds, even if they spoke to them first. For eight, sometimes nine hours, they would stand, often four or five hours at a time with no break. One of the boys had rigged a contraption so he could pee into a hot water bottle strapped to his leg. Silas was bored.</p><p>Even Bruce, who never found a rule he couldn’t stretch to its limit, got no consideration for being such a talker. </p><p>“It’s like torture,” Bruce would say at night when they ate their bologna sandwiches in the Mess Hall. </p><p>“I almost don’t care if they let them in the school,” Roy Briggs, the proud segregationist said, “if it means we could go home.” </p><p>“I never cared one way or the other,” Bruce said. “But the longer I listen to those hateful city boys holler, I agree with the Black folks. What do you think, Silas?” </p><p>Silas thought for a moment. “I been studying on it,” he finally said as if that answered the question. </p><p>“And?” Roy Briggs said. “Not that I care.” </p><p>“Shut up, Roy,” Bruce said. “Anytime Silas studies on something, you can bank he’s got a different take on it.” </p><p>Roy rolled his eyes but kept quiet. They both looked over to Silas. </p><p>“They’re gonna go to that school,” Silas said. “Sooner or later. The Supreme Court done said so and there ain’t no getting around it. I don’t see what everybody’s so worked up about.” </p><p>“Don’t see?” Roy Blount said. “You talk like going to school with a N--— is just an everyday occurrence. You ever been to school with one?” </p><p>“No, but I don’t think I’d mind to,” Silas said. </p><p>“You’re so poor, I can see why,” Roy said. “You ain’t got nothing they’d wanna steal. My daddy says white trash ain’t much different than N--—s so they don’t know better.” </p><p>“The day I listen to your daddy is the day I blow my brains out,” Bruce said. “The man raised you.” </p><p>“Well,” Roy said. “Daddy says there’s an order to things. You start messing with the order and the whole society’s liable to collapse.” </p><p>“Societies collapse all the time,” Silas said. “I’ve read about them.” Silas spent most afternoons reading the Encyclopedia at the Elementary School library. He went there because they had a newer edition than the High School. </p><p>“Daddy says,” Roy began. </p><p>“Daddy says,” Bruce mocked. </p><p>Silas could tell Roy was about to say something smart, then thought better of it. Instead, he took a big bite of his sandwich. </p><p>Even Roy knows a cold bologna sandwich was better than a knuckle one, Silas thought. </p><p>On the Monday of the third week, Silas noticed that instead of the usual sergeant that always yelled at them, there was a different man, still a sergeant, but with a cleaner uniform, sitting silently in the front seat. He didn’t yell at them to shut up once during the trip, but the boys, now conditioned to the silence hadn’t said anything either. (The old sergeant would yell occasionally just for the sake of yelling.)</p><p>The fellas exchanged questioning looks but said nothing. When they arrived at the usual drop-off point, the new sergeant stood and turned to face them.” </p><p>“Gentlemen,” he said. “Raise your right hand.” </p><p>Most did so immediately, but a few took a startled moment before following suit. </p><p>“You are hereby federalized under The National Guard Code of Conduct to the service of the Federal Government of the United States of America. From this moment forward, you take your orders from General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Repeat after me. I accept my responsibility as a soldier in service of the United States of America.” </p><p>Silas felt his heart race as he repeated the words along with every boy on the bus. “I accept my responsibility as a soldier in service of the United States of America.” </p><p>They were led through various pledges, then filed out of the bus as usual. Silas noticed that this time his gun was loaded. </p><p>“You are not to engage the citizenry unless explicitly ordered to do so by me. Is that understood?” The sergeant repeated the question to each of them and waited for the verbal reply of “Yes, Sir.” </p><p>Bruce gave Silas a raised eyebrow as he took his gun. When Silas approached the sergeant, he repeated, “You are not to engage the citizenry unless explicitly ordered to do so by me. Is that understood?” </p><p>“Yes, sir!” Silas said. </p><p>Silas stepped off the same bus in the same place that he had for the last three weeks but felt like he now stood on a different planet. Maybe it was the weight of the loaded gun. (A subtle difference, but one that any country boy would know.) Or maybe it was that Silas knew what the sergeant meant while the other boys had not. They were now federalized soldiers who no longer took their orders from the Governor, but the President. </p><p>The President supported the Supreme Court of the United States in service to the U.S. Constitution. They were now there to protect the rights of the citizens who wanted to attend Little Rock Central High School. The courts had ruled that the colored citizens had that right. </p><p>Silas remembered a few moments in his life when everything had changed. </p><p>The first time he shot a coon with his father. “Now you gotta gut and skin it,” Daddy said. “Nothing here goes to waste.” </p><p>His first kiss, outside the movie theater, with Vera Courtland. More tender and wet than he’d imagined. And nicer. </p><p>Finding Grandpa Willie that morning at the shack. The old man’s pale skin that nearly matched the blue of his eyes, open and dead, looking toward heaven. </p><p>Holding up his right hand while the bus bumped down the road and the new sergeant conveyed the oath to Silas and his friends. </p><p>The rest of the day was unremarkable. They stood in a line by the jeering crowd as usual, but this time the focus of the crowd’s taunts were the boys themselves, not any counter-protestors or students. </p><p>“Made you into turn-coat, N— lovers, did they?” </p><p>A girl with big sunglasses and her hair in a tight bun shouted so close to Silas that he could feel the spit from her mouth on his cheek. </p><p>“A traitor to your race!” She screamed over and over in his face. </p><p>They said worse things as well. Silas was pretty sure he’d heard every cuss word known to man. Grandpa Willie was known for his language and didn’t hold his tongue, even around Silas’s mother. But nothing was like the combinations these men and women, even some of them children, strung together. They insulted the soldier’s looks, their manhood and especially their mothers. </p><p>Silas had spent most of his life ignoring insults, but Bruce had a tough day, his hands gripping the butt of his rifle. A vein down one side of his neck throbbed in a way that Silas knew meant Bruce was moving inside even though all was still on the surface. </p><p>That night in the barracks, Bruce pulled out a bottle of moonshine from a bag underneath his mattress. </p><p>“Where’d you get that?” Silas asked. </p><p>“My cousin from Jacksonville snuck it in today while we was at the school,” Bruce said. </p><p>“Don’t let Roy see it or he’ll tell,” Silas said. </p><p>“I dare him to. I’d love an excuse to kick somebody’s ass right now,” Bruce said. “You want some?” </p><p>Silas had tasted alcohol a few times and didn’t like it. Every time Bruce offered when they were back home, Silas would shake his head and Bruce would say, “You don’t know what you’re missing.” </p><p>This time Silas took the bottle. </p><p>He looked at it a second then turned it up toward his lips and tried to let it go straight down his throat. Instead, it seemed to camp on his tongue and lips, burning like nothing he’d ever felt. </p><p>“Easy there, you ain’t used to real liquor,” Bruce said. </p><p>Silas tried to say that he wasn’t used to any liquor but couldn’t. His throat seized and he gasped for air. </p><p>“Quick, one more good swig, while it still burns, then you’ll be set.” </p><p>Bruce grabbed Silas’s hand and lifted the bottle back to his lips. Silas didn’t want anymore, but he let Bruce feed him the bottle like a baby and swallowed hard. </p><p>“That’s it,” Bruce said. “In a minute, it won’t hurt no more. Nothing will.” </p><p>A feeling from Silas’s stomach rose up and then spread through his chest, to the back of his head and down his arms, straight out through his fingertips. </p><p>“There you go,” Bruce said. “You ain’t never been drunk, it’ll pass, then it’’ll feel good.” </p><p>“It already does,” Silas said. He brought the bottle back to his mouth and took two swallows that didn’t burn at all. </p><p>Silas closed his eyes and it felt to him as if he was swimming in the deep water of the creek behind the house. He leaned back and floated down to his bunk. Bruce climbed to the top bunk and pulled Silas back up, then sat down beside him. </p><p>“Don’t pass out on me already,” Bruce said. </p><p>Silas put his arm around Bruce and slurred, “I won’t.” </p><p>Bruce laughed. “We better keep moving, just in case. Let’s go see if we can find some trouble.” </p><p>"Sure!” Silas said a little louder than he meant to. </p><p>Bruce’s cousin met them by the fence and led them through a patch of woods. The pool hall was about a mile off base as the crow flies. He bought the two of them a whisky at the bar. It was a large old A-frame house with several pool tables off to the side and a wooden counter that jutted out from the hallway that led to a kitchen. </p><p>“Slow down, Silas,” Bruce said too late. </p><p>Silas set the empty glass down on the counter. </p><p>They weren’t in their uniforms, but the boy’s youth and crewcuts made it obvious to the locals who they were. Bruce knew this meant trouble but that’s why he’d come. He was itching for it. </p><p>And trouble came. </p><p>It was a garden-variety fight for Bruce. Silas only remembered bits and pieces but was told he gave as good as he got. The two made it back to the barracks just before sunrise. Silas told Roy that he’d fell out of bed and busted his lip. When Roy asked Bruce about his shiner, Bruce said, “Your momma was in a bad mood.” </p><p>They rode to the school that day in silence. Silas ran his tongue back and forth on the inside of his lip unable to resist the sting and a little proud that he’d been in his first fight (or so he’d been told). The protesters were already lined up and down the street and jeered as they passed. </p><p>“N— lovers,” several shouted at them. </p><p>The bus came to a sudden stop when someone in the crowd threw a bottle against the windshield. At first, Silas thought it was a shot and ducked down in his seat. The crowd swelled around the bus and began to push against it. First pounding, then once they got momentum, rocking the bus back and forth. </p><p>Silas looked at the row of rifles in the front two seats and wondered if they were loaded today. The rocking intensified and the shouting became deafening. A man’s hand reached through the open window next to Silas and took hold of him by the shirt. The man pulled Silas into the window frame so hard that his forehead began to bleed from a cut just above his brow. </p><p>He felt the wet warmth cover his eyes and resisted an urge to grab the man’s arm and slam his weight against it. </p><p>I could, Silas thought. I could snap the bastard’s arm in two. </p><p>Something came over him that he’d never known. He supposed it was hate and it scared him more than anything in his life ever had. </p><p>Silas yanked himself free of the man’s grip and crouched down in the floor by the seat. </p><p>He looked up as the man’s hand grasped at the air above him, and again resisted what was bubbling up from somewhere inside. An urge to hurt. </p><p>To retaliate. </p><p>To injure. </p><p>Instead, Silas thought of Grandpa Willie’s shack on Big Lake and the dead look of the old man’s eyes the day they found him. He recalled his mother’s hand against his forehead when he was sick. His bedroom back home and how he wished he was there; under the bright patched quilt a spinster aunt had made him for his twelfth birthday. </p><p>Silas would think of this moment until the day he died. The hateful hand reaching back and forth through the window above him as the bus rocked. </p><p>The anger he felt, even decades later, made him ashamed. Of himself, his state, and his station. So many contradictions that he rarely spoke of it. </p><p>Bruce would go on to join the Army right out of high school and move to California. Roy Briggs stayed put and took over his Daddy’s business. He and Silas rarely spoke when they passed each other on the street all through their lives and into old age. </p><p>Silas passed away at the age of eighty-one, surrounded by his children and their children. Outside in the hospice hallway, even more children, too small for such things, played with a favorite granddaughter, not ready to say goodbye to BaPol, the teller of stories. </p><p>A final realization came to Silas that day, like the rows of young cotton outside the bus window decades ago and just as fleeting. He would die no more than five miles from where he was born, but hoped he’d covered some territory. He had been many places, California, the Grand Canyon, and even Plymouth Rock. But Silas knew that September day in Little Rock was the only one of true consequence. </p><p>We all stand in line and hope that someday the rules get explained. </p><p>In his life, Silas had told many stories, but not this one; unsure if he should be proud or ashamed of his small role in our American history, he kept it to himself. </p><p>When the rocking of the bus finally stopped, and the crowd moved away, Silas stood up and watched as a group of Black children walked down the street surrounded by men in suits. A little girl with red bows in her braids waved at him and Silas waved back. She disappeared around the corner, followed by the angry crowd. </p><p>Not caring who saw, Silas sat down in his seat on the bus and cried while he licked his swollen lip. </p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Roasted Poet Still Spits Fire]]></title><description><![CDATA[The poet writes about morality as if exemplifying perfection,
yet ignores the utter hypocrisy of the self.
The poet scorches the earth for its injustices,
yet is unable to cease participation in the system.
The poet seeks a kind of personal autonomy
while simultaneously barking unsolicited advice.
The poet is both deadly serious and a clown—
coping mechanisms exposed to the world.
The poet is the worst self-critic,
but cannot stomach others’ critique.
The poet seeks the approval of others,
yet r]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-roasted-poet-still-spits-fire/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523323</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[D. L. Lang]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:04:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457298483369-0a95d2b17fcd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI5fHxwb2V0cnl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjUzMjMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457298483369-0a95d2b17fcd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI5fHxwb2V0cnl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjUzMjMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Roasted Poet Still Spits Fire"/><p>The poet writes about morality as if exemplifying perfection,<br>yet ignores the utter hypocrisy of the self.<br>The poet scorches the earth for its injustices,<br>yet is unable to cease participation in the system.<br>The poet seeks a kind of personal autonomy<br>while simultaneously barking unsolicited advice.<br>The poet is both deadly serious and a clown—<br>coping mechanisms exposed to the world.<br>The poet is the worst self-critic,<br>but cannot stomach others’ critique.<br>The poet seeks the approval of others,<br>yet refuses to obey any rules of conformity.<br>The poet shall become so free that it is lonely,<br>yet run towards the open arms of belonging. </br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[An Evening Walk]]></title><description><![CDATA[After a warm rain the grass
stretches to the horizon
and meets the infinite sky.
The gardens are as brilliant
as a Persian rug.
I enjoy it while I can.
Storm clouds loom ahead.
Clouds are suddenly boulders,
as the sky turns blood red.
I can’t ignore it.
Turning away, with eyes
locked firmly on my feet,
I avoid a black weed bed,
But the leaves which hang
from the branches like lanterns
fall on my hatless head.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/an-evening-walk/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523324</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[George Freek]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:04:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1533460004989-cef01064af7e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxncmFzcyUyMHJhaW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjUzNzM4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1533460004989-cef01064af7e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxncmFzcyUyMHJhaW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MjUzNzM4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="An Evening Walk"/><p>After a warm rain the grass<br>stretches to the horizon<br>and meets the infinite sky.<br>The gardens are as brilliant<br>as a Persian rug.<br>I enjoy it while I can.<br>Storm clouds loom ahead.<br>Clouds are suddenly boulders,<br>as the sky turns blood red.<br>I can’t ignore it.<br>Turning away, with eyes<br>locked firmly on my feet,<br>I avoid a black weed bed,<br>But the leaves which hang<br>from the branches like lanterns<br>fall on my hatless head.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Teddy Bear]]></title><description><![CDATA[Teddy, you were there from the beginning.
While life moved inside me,
You appeared underneath nursery theme wrapping.
You were the promise of a child for me to love.
You tagged along to each childbirth class.
I stared in concentration at your eyes dark brown.
I remember your robust roundness;
Soft was the skin sewn on you.
You were a portrayal of the baby I longed to hold.
You witnessed the pain of long labor,
But also shared the joy of the birth of my firstborn.
You sat beside my baby in her cr]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/teddy-bear/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523326</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:04:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1556012018-50c5c0da73bf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxfHx0ZWRkeSUyMGJlYXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MzQxODU5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1556012018-50c5c0da73bf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxfHx0ZWRkeSUyMGJlYXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MzQxODU5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Teddy Bear"/><p>Teddy, you were there from the beginning.<br>While life moved inside me,<br>You appeared underneath nursery theme wrapping.<br>You were the promise of a child for me to love.<br>You tagged along to each childbirth class.<br>I stared in concentration at your eyes dark brown.<br>I remember your robust roundness;<br>Soft was the skin sewn on you.<br>You were a portrayal of the baby I longed to hold.<br>You witnessed the pain of long labor,<br>But also shared the joy of the birth of my firstborn.<br>You sat beside my baby in her crib,<br>Keeping watch those long nights and tiresome days.<br>My baby soiled your skin several times<br>As she cooed at your cute, chubby face.<br>Through washings you hold up well.<br>While more life moved inside me,<br>My little darling spoke your two-syllable name.<br>When my second child arrived,<br>My first toddled you around.<br>My new baby had her own teddy, too.<br>Soon you were invited to little girls’ tea parties and storytime.<br>I remember you learning your alphabets<br>As your “teacher” sang with precision.<br>You sit on the window seat of my “baby’s” room now.<br>He too has loved on you as the others.<br>When the dimples have left his hands,<br>And he’s onto playing baseball and soccer,<br>who will love you? I will.<br>You will forever be dear in my heart.<br>You’ve been there from the beginning of my motherhood,<br>A promise of a child to love … children … grandchildren …<br>And there will be others.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Glimpse]]></title><description><![CDATA[Not everyone believes in ghosts and not everyone who has seen a ghost is lying or crazy.
Stories about these phantoms of the dead have been told for thousands of years. It is perfectly normal to fear something we cannot understand or what we have been told is bad, but who is to say all ghosts are scary and evil, might some actually bring comfort?
I must admit that I think about ghosts a lot. I have often wondered what it would feel like to be a ghost. Would I be sad to be dead? Would I b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-glimpse/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523327</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathy Attwood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:03:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514944152559-a103040c7f16?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGdob3N0fGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDM0MzI0OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514944152559-a103040c7f16?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGdob3N0fGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDM0MzI0OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Glimpse"/><p>Not everyone believes in ghosts and not everyone who has seen a ghost is lying or crazy. </p><p>Stories about these phantoms of the dead have been told for thousands of years. It is perfectly normal to fear something we cannot understand or what we have been told is bad, but who is to say all ghosts are scary and evil, might some actually bring comfort? </p><p>I must admit that I think about ghosts a lot. I have often wondered what it would feel like to be a ghost. Would I be sad to be dead? Would I be frightened of the darkness and the unknown? Perhaps I would be naughty and scare people. </p><p>How does one go about defining something that is in a perpetual state of nothingness? Does it have emotions? Why is it here? Is it even real? </p><p>In the light of day I tend to think ghosts are not real, but having said that I am always cautious in a cemetery and I pull my feet under the covers at night and it is not unusual for me to jump at the least little sound in the basement. </p><p>I was ten years old when I thought I saw a ghost. It was barely a glimpse though, it was more of an inkling of light and shadows forming together to reveal someone that I once knew. </p><p>Auntie Lou was 42 when she died. She was feisty and full of life until that night she fell down the back staircase and broke her neck. </p><p>All of our family and friends gathered after the funeral to pay their last respects. They brought casseroles, white cakes on pretty stands and glazed donuts in boxes. </p><p>The day after the funeral my mother and I began the difficult task of going through my aunt’s belongings. My mother was in the kitchen cleaning out the refrigerator and she asked me to go find her purse because she needed her glasses. Why I asked? In my ten year old mind we had but one simple task at hand – empty the contents. Why look at dates on jars? Were we going to cart all the opened stuff back to our own refrigerator? Were we that hard up for food? </p><p>As I wandered through each room looking for my mother’s purse I came to the back staircase. The atmosphere was a bit unsettling. The stairs were steep and narrow and I began to picture Auntie Lou’s body rolling and tumbling to the bottom. I wondered if she screamed out. Did she die instantly or was it a painful, lingering death? A shadow passed over my head and sent a shiver up my spine. </p><p>It may seem improbable to some people, but when I looked up I saw Auntie Lou standing at the top of the stairs in her favorite blue terry cloth bath robe. She gazed down at me with a sad expression on her face. It hurt. Those were the words that drifted through my head. </p><p>I rubbed my eyes and when I opened them she was gone. I stood there a few moments longer waiting for my aunt to reappear like the beautiful assistant behind the curtain in a magician’s act, but my mother called out to me and I walked away as if nothing had happened. </p><p>The following year my grandfather died. There was nothing at all surprising about his death - he was 96 years old and in very poor health. After the funeral, family and friends gathered at the house bringing the same white cakes, casseroles and glazed donuts. </p><p>I ran my fingers across his old pocket watch. I held it in the palm of my hand and clicked it open. I knew it was old because Papa said it belonged to his father and his father before him. </p><p>I stared out the window at the gnarly branches of the old sycamore tree in the back yard. I remembered how my brother and I would play for hours in that tree while Papa delighted in our antics. </p><p>I opened the back door. It was an autumn afternoon, crisp and cool with leaves bouncing and twirling in the wind. It was not until after I stepped out onto the porch that I thought I saw him sitting in his rocking chair smiling and staring peacefully into the back yard. He gazed happily at that old sycamore and perhaps in his eyes he saw his two grandchildren dangling their legs from the thickest branch laughing and acting silly. </p><p>I tried not to disturb the look of radiance on his face as the late afternoon sun settled. I quietly went back inside the house and walked away as if nothing had happened. </p><p>The year my parents divorced my brother Nicky began wearing many different hats. He was my brother, my father and my very best friend. He made me laugh and he also made me cry. He was everything to me. </p><p>In the middle of a terribly cold winter, Nicky was in a motorcycle accident. He was traveling on a lonely, curvy road when his rear tire slipped on an icy patch. The motorcycle spun out of control and he sailed off a small cliff and into a gorge. At first the doctors thought they would have to amputate his leg but after several surgeries they saved the leg and we all rejoiced. But Nicky grew weaker and contacted a blood infection. His organs began to fail. I had this horrible sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that he would not be alive when the flowers bloomed in May. </p><p>The last thing Nicky wanted was to die in a hospital bed. If he was going to die it would be at home sitting on the sofa watching one of his favorite movies. </p><p>It will always be impossible not to remember that afternoon and the blurry blizzard of snow that we watched through the frosty windows. We were warm and cozy inside and eating bowls of popcorn and watching “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” It was a war movie and I can not speak much to the plot because both characters were insane. It was all about a bridge - build it, don’t build it, blow it up, don’t blow it up – it was sheer madness. The best scene in the movie was when the soldiers marched into the POW camp whistling a catchy little tune. </p><p>I started to whistle and softly Nicky joined in, but after a while I noticed I was the only one whistling. </p><p>He was staring straight ahead and there was no light in his eyes. His neck was bent at an odd angle and when I jostled him his lifeless body crumpled against me. I knew at that moment he was gone. It did not occur to me until later in the day that I would never hear his laughter again or his words of encouragement, nor would I feel his strong arms holding me up against the world protecting me. </p><p> Even to this day, ten years later, I will see or hear something that reminds me of Nicky and I reach for the phone to give him a call…and then I remember…. </p><p>I still live with my mother in the same two story white farm house on an old country road. Hardly any traffic comes down our road except for the Johnson’s who live a few miles down and my uncle who lives a few miles up - near the crossroads. </p><p>Everyone knows a story or two about the crossroads. Quite literally it is just an intersection of two or more roads but folklore would have you believe that if you stand in the middle you will find yourself surrounded by spirits of the dead. </p><p>Not surprisingly, on the tenth anniversary of Nicky’s death I stood out on the porch bundled up in a heavy coat and gloves. I gazed out at the mountains looming in the distance. Icicles hung from the bare tree branches and any leaves left were covered in sparkling frost. </p><p>I walked down the snow covered steps carefully while heavy snow flakes fell gently on my face. As I made my way to the end of the yard I passed a bicycle leaning up against the fence. It was covered in vines of ivy, the paint was chipped and both tires were flat. It seemed sad to let Nicky’s old bike rust and merge into the landscape, but neither my mother nor I wanted to get rid of it so it just sat waiting, waiting for what… I don’t know. </p><p>As the cold bitter wind whistled around my ears I struggled down the road crunching through the icy crust until I reached the narrow intersection. My face was now practically numb and my eyelashes were heavy with snow flurries. </p><p>I stood in the middle of the crossroads and looked to my right and then to my left. </p><p>As I was not really expecting to see anything, I gasped at the sight before me. In the far distance a fine mist of snow twirled around the vague outline of a figure. At first my curiosity was peaked with a thrill of excitement and then anxiety crept up my spine and I suddenly became very afraid. I wanted to walk away, no I wanted to run away.</p><p>I wiped my face of snow flurries as the wind howled around my head. I took a step back out of fear but my boots slipped on an icy patch and I fell into a soft mound of snow. I pulled myself up and regained my footing hastily making my way back down the road, into the yard and past Nicky’s old bike. I grabbed hold of the porch railing and pulled myself up the steps by sheer will. Laying my hand on the screen door handle I practically burst into the house and locked the door behind me. </p><p> The thought of the shadowy figure out in the snow made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. There was something familiar in the walk. I could not help but think maybe my dead brother had done everything on the other side and was now coming back home to say hello. </p><p> I slowly pulled the door back open and kept a firm grip on the edge just in case I had to shut it quickly. </p><p> I unlatched the screen door and stepped outside. I crossed my arms over my chest and gazed out onto the road. </p><p>My heart skipped a beat at the sight of a blurred figure standing in the middle of the crossroads waving to me. </p><p>Instead of just waving back I fought my way out again onto the snow packed road. I slipped twice and almost fell. I heard my mother’s voice calling out to me but I ignored her because I had to get to Nicky before he vanished into a blinding blanket of whiteness. </p><p>I fought the wind as it pulled me backwards. Ice pellets stung my face. I made a lunge toward the ghostly figure and felt the weight of a body within my grasp and then it was gone; I had nothing in my arms but cold air.</p><p>My arms and legs were tingling from the cold and I began sobbing uncontrollably. </p><p>My mother came running down the road with her coat flapping in the wind. She wrapped me in her strong arms and pulled me up to my feet. I could feel her fingers digging into my arms as she helped me back home and into bed. </p><p>Hours later when I awoke I was covered in layers of bed linen and a heavy quilt. I pushed it all aside and rose up at the sound of a lone coyote howling in the night. I started to think about that coyote – was he frightened, lonely or just making his presence known. </p><p>I swung my legs off the edge of the bed and sat there pondering everything that had happened earlier that day. </p><p>I stood up and walked over to the window. I could see that it was still snowing. The flurries were falling at a gentle and steady pace. I cracked the window in order to feel the cold air. There was a pure silence to the night that gave me peace and then I heard the footsteps. </p><p>Soft steady footsteps came up the stairway and stopped right outside my door. They lingered momentarily before walking back downstairs. I wanted my mother to know that I was fine so I quickly walked to the door and opened it. I stepped out into the hallway and saw nothing but darkness. There were no lights on in the house and no one was on the stairway. </p><p> I lay back down and stared up at the ceiling until I fell back asleep. </p><p> I awoke to someone tapping on my shoulder. I turned over and saw my brother’s eyes. </p><p> Why did you not take care of my bike? </p><p> In the haze of being awakened from a sound sleep I was trying to think of an answer to Nicky’s question when he faded into the darkness. I turned over and fell back asleep and when I awoke the next morning I was certain it had all been a dream. </p><p>Soon after I began to suffer from night terrors and sleep paralysis. I could not sleep in the dark anymore and needed a night light. I began to think I was going crazy because I was seeing vague shapes out of the corner of my eye. I wanted it to stop. It frightened me and I needed answers. </p><p>I visited fortune tellers, charm readers and mediums and everyone had the same answers – how could you NOT believe in the supernatural? </p><p>Are ghosts real? Do they wander the earth checking in on loved ones? I am not familiar with the workings on the other side. Perhaps it takes certain spirits longer to adjust to their new role as they travel through time and space. </p><p>Maybe that night Nicky just wanted to make sure we never forgot about him like we forgot about his old bike. He would have been wrong to think such a thing because while life went on without him we never forgot. His memory is tucked warmly in our hearts and even if he becomes lost in the days events, he is never forgotten. </p><p>Lately sometimes in the middle of the night I feel the bed dip the tiniest bit as if someone is sitting next to me and watching over me, protecting me against the world. </p><p>Whether ghosts are real or not, I am no longer afraid. </p><p>I can think of far worse things in this world to fear. </p><p> </p><p>THE END</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mickey Mantle and Chinaberry Trees]]></title><description><![CDATA[As October descends
like a feathering of dust
in an empty room,
the color of fireflies fades
from my summer nights
beneath a moon, alabaster white.
This cooling of air
this shortening of the sun
has always bothered me.
I remember being twelve,
sitting in the shade of a chinaberry tree
grown to the fence
next to the house
where my grandmother lived
before she didn’t.
Rubbing neatsfoot oil
into the laces,
the palm and pocket
of my Rawlings glove,
I pretended to hear country music,
d]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mickey-mantle-and-chinaberry-trees/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523328</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Wallace]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:03:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620740528428-59fb523a484a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGJhc2ViYWxsJTIwZ2xvdmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MzQzOTU3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620740528428-59fb523a484a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGJhc2ViYWxsJTIwZ2xvdmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0MzQzOTU3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Mickey Mantle and Chinaberry Trees"/><p>As October descends <br> like a feathering of dust <br>in an empty room,<br>the color of fireflies fades <br> from my summer nights <br>beneath a moon, alabaster white.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>This cooling of air<br> this shortening of the sun <br>has always bothered me.</br></br></p><p>I remember being twelve, <br>sitting in the shade of a chinaberry tree <br> grown to the fence <br>next to the house <br>where my grandmother lived<br> before she didn’t. <br>Rubbing neatsfoot oil <br>into the laces, <br> the palm and pocket <br>of my Rawlings glove,<br>I pretended to hear country music,<br>drifting from the silent radio <br> in the empty house.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The golden tan darkened <br>around the X’s <br>that stitched the fingers together <br> connecting pocket to thumb <br>weaving a web of leather <br>designed to take a baseball from midair.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I can still see<br>the practiced cursive of Mickey Mantle<br> etched into the palm<br>as my fingers measured the oil<br>to rub into the Rawlings<br> where his signature<br>was stamped like a cattle brand.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>And if I try<br> really hard<br>half a century flown<br>like a great horned owl into the night,<br>I can still smell the way the leather smelled<br>as I worked the oil<br> meant for Dad’s saddle<br>into the folds and crevices of the glove,<br>knowing I would soon surrender it<br>to the coming winter.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Long before I understood metaphor<br>and simile,<br> somehow<br> even as a boy,<br>when I leaned back<br>against that Chinaberry,<br>and felt the rough bark through my tee shirt,<br>I knew that season of beauty<br> that time of turning leaves<br>marked endings I did not wish to see,<br>and I sensed a sadness<br> that I could not explain,<br>watching two kids next door throw a football<br>back and forth<br> across the dying grass<br> of their front lawn.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[My Girlfriend Sings Fleetwood Mac in the Kitchen]]></title><description><![CDATA[I am taken from my book when I hear the crash of the cars outside and sirens quickly approaching. From the balcony, one small, older car has rear-ended the truck in front of it. It is collapsed and they likely have not survived.
When the engines and the ambulances have approached, sirens silenced, they begin the extrication.
My girlfriend suddenly knocks on the door. I sigh relief.
“Hey babe, sorry - left my keys in the car,” she says as she juggles 3 reusable totes of groceries.
I help her ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/my-girlfriend-sings-fleetwood-mac-in-the-kitchen/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523329</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Beth Hannah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:03:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1579037005241-a79202c7e9fd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGFtYnVsYW5jZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MTUwOTN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1579037005241-a79202c7e9fd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGFtYnVsYW5jZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MTUwOTN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="My Girlfriend Sings Fleetwood Mac in the Kitchen"/><p>I am taken from my book when I hear the crash of the cars outside and sirens quickly approaching. From the balcony, one small, older car has rear-ended the truck in front of it. It is collapsed and they likely have not survived.</p><p>When the engines and the ambulances have approached, sirens silenced, they begin the extrication.</p><p>My girlfriend suddenly knocks on the door. I sigh relief.</p><p>“Hey babe, sorry - left my keys in the car,” she says as she juggles 3 reusable totes of groceries.</p><p>I help her bring them inside. She still has her headphones on over her ears, as she did when she left the house. She has the most beautiful, approachable smile and people cannot help but ask her questions at the grocery store. The headphones help her “stay focused” so she says. I know that truthfully, she is so introverted it tires her to speak to strangers in public.</p><p>But when she arrives home to me, and sees my face, feels the warmth of my presence, she is energized.</p><p>I offer to help her unload the groceries, with all of the fresh vegetables and hippie hygienic products she buys. She says yes, but when it’s time to prep the fruit and veggies, I must leave, for she can only focus doing it by herself. I also don’t chop the carrots right.</p><p>As we pack lettuce into the fridge and rice cakes into the pantry, she sings along to the Fleetwood Mac I can hear blaring in her headphones. She asks me if she is my Rhiannon and grabs my hands to dance. I stomp around the kitchen as she twirls herself around in my arms on<br>her feet light as a ghost’s. I have no rhythm, but I try to dance only for her. She sings to Stevie Nicks, off key on some of the high notes, but I close my eyes to listen to her. She does not know how truly beautiful her voice is.</br></p><p>She demands I leave the kitchen, although I protest. “Go back to your book” she says to me and kisses me so softly on the lips I almost think it’s not there. It tingles as I walk with reluctance back to the couch grinning, my stomach warm and churning over inside.</p><p>She washes and cuts strawberries, chops cucumbers, and sings Gold Dust Woman, not caring that I am reading. I only pretend; I can only listen to her singing. I squeeze my eyes shut so I can remember her voice, burn it into my brain and keep it on repeat. I pretend to keep reading.</p><p>I do my best to ignore the commotion outside. They’ve brought out the Jaws of Life and I turn back to look at her.</p><p>I’ve never known love until her. I have known girls before, but never have I loved a woman like her. I have no future without her in it. And I have never been able to relay this correctly to her.</p><p>“Tell me why you love me” she demands of me.</p><p>All I’m able to say to her is “I love everything about you”. But that’s not good enough for her. Details, she says.</p><p>How do I say to her that it’s true? I love her smile that invites everyone to her, even at the store, and her tiny arms around my chest when we hug, and her kitchen twirls, and her confidence, and her kiss. Oh, her kiss. I try to remember it on my lips. I remember it so light, like a warm breeze.</p><p>She sings The Chain as she puts away the last of the prepped veggies.</p><p>Suddenly she is quiet.</p><p>I close my eyes.</p><p>I know what is coming.</p><p>Again.</p><p>Without a word, she walks to the front door, headphones still on. I cannot look up, I cannot watch her leave.</p><p>I run onto the balcony and watch her get lifted from the car, headphones still on and bloody, by the firemen in dirty, brown bunker gear. She is laid down on the stretcher, covered in a thin white sheet, and the ambulance drives away in silence.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cookies and Kool-Aid]]></title><description><![CDATA[I grew up in the Northeast Arkansas Delta town of Marmaduke. It had a population of 650 people. Within the city limits there were five churches. If attended equally, each church would have averaged 130 residents. Although most folks did attend, not everyone was a churchgoer, at least not on a regular basis. I don’t think I ever went to any one church back then that had 130 people in attendance. The town had one Church of Christ and one Methodist church. The three other churches were all various ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/cookies-and-kool-aid/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852332a</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:03:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612551396716-e749eef1785f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGNodXJjaGVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQxNTc1M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612551396716-e749eef1785f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGNodXJjaGVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQxNTc1M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Cookies and Kool-Aid"/><p>I grew up in the Northeast Arkansas Delta town of Marmaduke. It had a population of 650 people. Within the city limits there were five churches. If attended equally, each church would have averaged 130 residents. Although most folks did attend, not everyone was a churchgoer, at least not on a regular basis. I don’t think I ever went to any one church back then that had 130 people in attendance. The town had one Church of Christ and one Methodist church. The three other churches were all various branches of Baptist: General Baptist, Missionary Baptist, and Southern Baptist. Outside the city limits there were many country churches, including a few more Baptist congregations.</p><p>My two sisters and I attended the Methodist Church regularly with our mother. When small, we mainly went to Sunday school. I liked Sunday school because there was always a good chance that some kid in the class would have a birthday celebration. When that happened the teacher would run down to Crouch’s grocery store and buy vanilla wafers and little tubs of vanilla ice cream that we ate with wooden spoons.</p><p>Another perk of Sunday school is that we got to color mimeographed pictures of Biblical scenes. I didn’t care what the subject matter was as long as I could take advantage of the dozens of crayons available to me. There were colors in the Sunday school classroom that I didn’t have at home.</p><p>When I got a little older, I opted to stay home and watch African American church services that were broadcast on television via Memphis stations. I watched only for the music, and I turned off the TV when the preaching came on. My mother didn’t mind if I stayed home. It was my choice. However, I was not to go out of the house on Sunday morning because some good churchgoer might see me and wonder why I wasn’t in church.</p><p>During summer my church hosted a week-long vacation Bible school. I loved going, mainly for the cookies, the Kool-Aid, and the crafts. One of the Baptist churches was directly across the alley from our house, and they also hosted a vacation Bible school. One year the Baptist preacher came a-calling and invited my sisters and me to attend. My older sister told him that we couldn’t because “We are Methodists.” That didn’t stop me. I knew that the Baptists also had cookies, Kool-Aid, and crafts.</p><p>I started going to both vacation Bible schools when I was five years old. When I was in the first-grade class at the Baptist Bible school, each student was given a line of scripture to learn. The line was to be recited at a program performed at the end of the Bible school. Each year the program was held at night in the church sanctuary, and it was heavily attended by beaming parents, grandparents, and family friends.</p><p>The line that I was given was “The Lord is my Shepherd.” I was to recite only the one line. I misunderstood and thought that I was to memorize the entire 23rd Psalm. I practiced and practiced until I had it down pat. The night of the program, my entire family was in attendance. Each of my classmates recited their one line. I recited all of the 23rd Psalm, and I received a large round of applause.</p><p>When we got home, my older sister wagged her finger at me and said, “You were just trying to show off in front of the Baptists. You are nothing but a show-off.”</p><p>My mother stepped in and said, “No, he is just an overachiever.” I asked her if that was a good thing. She said, “Yes.”</p><p>Thereafter the term overachiever stuck in my mind. At least she didn’t call me adorably precocious or a ham. Bless my mother’s heart.</p><p>When I was six years old, my teacher during that summer’s Baptist Bible school was Miss Betty. There were ten students in my class. Miss Betty had a baby boy who was a few months old, and she brought him to class with her. One morning the baby was fussy, and to stop his crying, Miss Betty opened her blouse and pulled out a very large breast and proceeded to nurse the baby. I was fascinated. I had never seen an uncovered breast.</p><p>When I returned home from Bible school that day, my mother was somewhat shocked when I answered her question, “What did you learn today?” with “Miss Betty’s booby is bigger than my head.”</p><p>It took a lot of begging on my part before my mother consented to let me return to the school the next day. I felt lucky to be there. Half the kids were absent due to the “exposure.” It was difficult for me to pay attention that morning. I kept looking at the sleeping baby boy and hoping that he would wake up and cry. However, no such luck.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Gospel of the Midnight Rodeo]]></title><description><![CDATA[I dream of horses
The bodies bucking with them,
surrendered to the holy beast to
speed, to light
to the animal of their wild
pearl snaps billowing behind them.
Oklahoma red dirt-rich
Oil-stained, hooves nailed to heaven,
what freedom is this?
I can see how it might seem violent,
might make you wrinkle your nose at it
might cause you to drive 37 miles north,
might disturb the soul who does not know
what violence earned.
Who forgets the ways in which we’re
animal, circling the arena, barrel]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/gospel-of-the-midnight-rodeo/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852332b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Claire Collins]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:02:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1584403782333-c5281ab1f9cd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxyb2Rlb3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MTYwMzB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1584403782333-c5281ab1f9cd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxyb2Rlb3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MTYwMzB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Gospel of the Midnight Rodeo"/><p>I dream of horses<br>The bodies bucking with them,<br>surrendered to the holy beast to<br>speed, to light<br>to the animal of their wild<br>pearl snaps billowing behind them.<br>Oklahoma red dirt-rich<br>Oil-stained, hooves nailed to heaven, <br>what freedom is this? <br>I can see how it might seem violent, <br>might make you wrinkle your nose at it<br>might cause you to drive 37 miles north, <br>might disturb the soul who does not know <br>what violence earned. <br>Who forgets the ways in which we’re <br>animal, circling the arena, barreling towards death? <br>Feet stomping our existence into heaven. <br>The cowboy saints persist<br>We were here, we were here<br>In spite of and because<br>We rode the horses & roped the cattle, we<br>have not forgotten how to be free. </br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Eight O’clock]]></title><description><![CDATA[He stood outside the hotel, looking at his reflection in the window. He kept pushing his cowlick back down. God, or whoever created this unjust universe, had only permitted three strains of hair for the front of his head, and one of them always refused to align with the others.
She said they would meet at eight. While he was the one to initiate it, she was the one to choose the place and the time. He was just happy to be there. Besides, he was always adaptable, never having to check a schedule.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/eight-oclock/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852332c</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Aaron Kavanagh]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:02:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1596558450268-9c27524ba856?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGFwcGxlJTIwcGhvbmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDE2ODMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1596558450268-9c27524ba856?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGFwcGxlJTIwcGhvbmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDE2ODMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Eight O’clock"/><p>He stood outside the hotel, looking at his reflection in the window. He kept pushing his cowlick back down. God, or whoever created this unjust universe, had only permitted three strains of hair for the front of his head, and one of them always refused to align with the others.</p><p>She said they would meet at eight. While he was the one to initiate it, she was the one to choose the place and the time. He was just happy to be there. Besides, he was always adaptable, never having to check a schedule. </p><p>He looked at his phone and saw that he had fifteen minutes to kill. Should he sit inside for fifteen minutes or text her that he was there early? Overcome with the burden of this decision, he did neither. </p><p>“When did it get so cold, all of a sudden?” he wondered, now suddenly aware of the conditions he was in. He could feel each little movement of wind go through his naked, ungloved hands; leaving a residual kiss of frost on his bones as they went.</p><p>At least it wasn’t raining anymore, although the little impressions that the rain left on the just-barely oversized topcoat that his dad had unknowingly lent him kept the memory of ten minutes ago alive.</p><p>He remembered a factoid: somebody who had worked on the film Barry Lyndon had said that shooting in Ireland was difficult because Ireland is in the Gulf Stream and, therefore, the weather changes unexpectedly. For no discernible reason, he tended to remember things like that. He had never even seen Barry Lyndon. </p><p>He looked down at his body and saw stains on his shirt and jeans that hitherto hadn’t existed. He licked his thumb and began rubbing the offending spots but to no avail. </p><p>He worried about the cold sore that his mother assured him wasn’t noticeable before he had left the house and that the homeless man around the corner from the hotel, from whom he had gotten a second opinion, had conferred couldn’t be seen. Using his two index fingers, he widened the side of his lip where the sore was and stared at it for twenty seconds straight. Truth be told, he couldn’t see it either, but he felt it. He knew it was there.</p><p>His stomach cramped. Should he cancel and go home? He had never done this before. He had barely even spoken to a woman before. Cancelling seemed like the right decision; so much so that his stomach stopped aching when his brain momentarily convinced it into believing this was to be his course of action. He thought of the pain and embarrassment he could spare, and then he thought of the money he could save. He was between jobs, and he couldn’t afford to be needlessly extravagant. </p><p>He decided that he had gotten this far, so he may as well go through with it. He looked at his phone again and it read 19:55. He took a deep breath, which seemed to ease his stomachache and, almost like his nervous system entered pilot mode, he walked to the front of the hotel. He went to the ATM by the hotel’s entrance and took out exactly €150 and chose the “Continue without receipt” option while completing the transaction. </p><p>This was to be his spending cap for the night. The feeling of the three €50 notes in his hand surprisingly eased him. He felt a sense of confidence that this cash was tangible evidence of him going outside of his comfort zone, with an accompanying pang of pre-emptive regret at the monetary hit that he knew he would feel when it was no longer in his hand. Not only was this night out costing him the €150, but the additional bus fare in and out of town and the 50c that he had felt obligated to give the homeless man in exchange for his medical opinion. All of this money he was burning just to satiate his selfish gene’s desire to replicate. His hatred for his own body now went beyond just aesthetics. </p><p>Walking into the lobby, it seemed grander and more elegant than the exterior had led him to believe it would be. Despite having spent the last ten minutes looking at his reflection, he couldn’t even remember how he looked after taking it all in. All he could think of were the stains and the cold sore and how much more apparent they must be under this synthetic lighting.</p><p>“Good evening, sir,” a man in a suit said to him, causing him to jerk suddenly out of his awe. The man in the suit appeared a bit startled by this reaction but professionally continued with his obligated civility. “Can I help you with anything?”</p><p>“No,” he replied without complete conviction through a repeated forced smile that would only stay on his face for a millisecond at a time. “I’m fine.”</p><p>The man in the suit gave him an understanding and courteous smile and a nod, then walked away. <br><br>His stomach rumbled again. “Oh, God,” he thought. He had to go to the toilet. Public toilets were not exactly within his comfort zone, but then again none of the events of this night was. Reluctant but without options, he entered the men’s room. </br></br></p><p>The restroom smelled like cinnamon and eucalyptus and was equally as neat and pristine as the lobby. Classical music played. Was it Mozart? Beethoven? Bach? None of the above? He had no idea. They all sounded the same to him, but he liked it when he heard it. </p><p>After waiting for the only other gentleman present to leave, he entered a cubicle and sat on the lukewarm toilet seat; all too aware of the little dins outside of his stall. He tried to distract himself. </p><p>He took out his phone and began looking at the photos of her from the website. He took in a breath and closed his eyes. As the sound of impact from the toilet water occurred, a notification from his phone went off and startled him. It was a text from her.</p><p>“Are you still coming?” it read.</p><p>“I’m here now,” he texted back. “Where will I meet you?”</p><p>“Room 308,” she replied. “Knock twice so I know it’s you.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mother Earth]]></title><description><![CDATA[The nutrients I was born with,
You have ripped from my flesh.
My shell,
You have fractured.
Digging into my core.
I am a mother.
Guarding her children.
Vengeful for those who do us harm.
Wiser than the minds who adorn greed.
Stronger than the iron you seek.
Take notice of my bareness.
Take pity on your children's future.
For I am a mother who will not forgive.
Broken shards are left for you to feast on.
Do not underestimate my fury.
You narcissistic human race.
I will suck the marrow from your b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mother-earth-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852332d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Holly Ellison]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:02:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558271736-552bfac8451d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fG1vdGhlciUyMGVhcnRofGVufDB8fHx8MTcyODY3MjE0MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558271736-552bfac8451d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fG1vdGhlciUyMGVhcnRofGVufDB8fHx8MTcyODY3MjE0MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Mother Earth"/><p>The nutrients I was born with,<br>You have ripped from my flesh.<br>My shell,<br>You have fractured.<br>Digging into my core.<br>I am a mother.<br>Guarding her children.<br>Vengeful for those who do us harm.<br>Wiser than the minds who adorn greed.<br>Stronger than the iron you seek.<br>Take notice of my bareness.<br>Take pity on your children's future.<br>For I am a mother who will not forgive.<br>Broken shards are left for you to feast on.<br>Do not underestimate my fury.<br>You narcissistic human race.<br>I will suck the marrow from your bones.<br>Wrapping you in dust.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Nest]]></title><description><![CDATA[The nest is gone. But not
without a trace. A dirty blotch
within a crook of cable
stands as witness.
Year on year house martins
on a mission swooped deftly
through its funnel. Our co-tenants.
Until the usurpation.
A troop of sparrows,
while the martins wintered,
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-nest/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852332e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel P. Stokes]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:02:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1613684760654-a7219130e85c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxiaXJkJTIwbmVzdHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MTgwNjF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1613684760654-a7219130e85c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxiaXJkJTIwbmVzdHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MTgwNjF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Nest"/><p>The nest is gone. But not<br>without a trace. A dirty blotch <br>within a crook of cable <br>stands as witness. <br>Year on year house martins <br>on a mission swooped deftly <br>through its funnel. Our co-tenants. <br>Until the usurpation. <br>A troop of sparrows, <br>while the martins wintered, <br>commandeered it.<br>An era of dissension had begun. <br>They screeched day-long at decibels <br>beyond the legal limit,<br>coercing, carping, coaxing. <br>Luring from the nest<br>is mortal combat. And futile<br>while the ill-glimpsed world<br>looms tantamount to hell. At last,<br>of course, the fledglings flew<br>and peace descended. And we<br>had time to steel ourselves<br>for next year’s clutch.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The balcony is quiet this spring <br>but all the birds are elsewhere. <br>And when they paint the smudge <br>and others sit here<br>will that arc of cable <br>pass as laxness or be the clue <br>that cites a two hand tale? <br>One hand abandoned symmetry <br>when it encountered <br>a hub of strife and nurture.<br>And the other, guided <br>by demands of hygiene <br>scoured it from existence<br>with a spade.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Forget-Me-Not]]></title><description><![CDATA[I cannot collect the remnants
from your brain’s tangles
Your gray matters
have split our connections
My hands quiver with the
forget-me-nots you always cherished
I caress your cheek with petals
as your blue eyes search for me
Mother, grief is the blade
cutting me out of you]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/forget-me-not/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852332f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sallie Crotty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:01:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1597353907865-bbd2dd8604a4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGZvcmdldC1tZS1ub3R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDE4MzQ5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1597353907865-bbd2dd8604a4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGZvcmdldC1tZS1ub3R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDE4MzQ5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Forget-Me-Not"/><p>I cannot collect the remnants <br>from your brain’s tangles<br><br>Your gray matters <br>have split our connections</br></br></br></br></p><p>My hands quiver with the <br>forget-me-nots you always cherished</br></p><p>I caress your cheek with petals<br>as your blue eyes search for me</br></p><p>Mother, grief is the blade <br>cutting me out of you</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Square Root of Family]]></title><description><![CDATA[In the spring of 1956, my mother received a phone call from my grandmother. We lived in California, where my dad was stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. I was ten years old, my little brother was five, and my older sister was fifteen going on thirty. My sister was usually off with her friends listening to Elvis Presley, who was all the rage among teenage girls. So, my little brother and I spent hours exploring the desert that surrounded the base with a neighbor’s kid, Gene ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-square-root-of-family/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523330</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:01:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/04/Cisco-Kid.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/04/Cisco-Kid.jpg" alt="The Square Root of Family"/><p>In the spring of 1956, my mother received a phone call from my grandmother. We lived in California, where my dad was stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. I was ten years old, my little brother was five, and my older sister was fifteen going on thirty. My sister was usually off with her friends listening to Elvis Presley, who was all the rage among teenage girls. So, my little brother and I spent hours exploring the desert that surrounded the base with a neighbor’s kid, Gene Fiaconni. Gene was an expert at finding tortoises and various snakes, and he knew which ones to avoid.</p><p>My mom and my grandmother usually communicated with letters since my grandmother was living back in Texas, long-distance phone calls in our family were rare because of the expense. We usually only talked with our grandparents on holidays and special occasions. My little brother, Jimmy, and I were watching the Cisco Kid when the phone rang. Of course, when we heard that mom talking to grandmom, we were so excited we started jumping up and down. My little brother was laughing and yelling, “Oh, Cisco!’ and I was laughing and yelling, “Oh, Pancho!” Our mom was unsuccessfully trying to shush us. It was total mayhem in our tiny kitchen. She finally resorted to those magic words kids have been responding to for years, “Wait until your dad gets home.”</p><p>Our mom’s mother was our favorite relative and always spoiled us when we were with her. Of course, it was easy to spoil a child back then. You just said, “Why don’t you kids go on outside and play. You can do your chores later.” So, as you might imagine, we loved staying at grandmother’s house. It was a different time, and we always finished our chores.</p><p>One of my grandmother’s closest friends from church had died suddenly, and my grandmother was distraught. This woman who had passed away had taken care of my mom, on occasion, when she was growing up. My grandmom and her friend, Louise, whom she affectionately called “Weezy,” were extremely close. They went to church together, quilted, and shopped together, and I dare say, when they were younger, they partied together. My grandad used to say, “They were two peas in a pod, why if one of them sat down on a pin, the other one would say ‘Ouch!’” My grandmother had called to ask my mother to come back to Texas for a week or two, be at the funeral, and be of what help she could to my grandmother and Weezy’s family.</p><p>My little brother and I were ready to go. My sister, Patsy, was more reluctant, and she was worried about missing her friends and actually started crying when mom told her in no uncertain terms she was going with us. Patsy asked if she could walk over and tell her friend Allison she had to leave for a few weeks, and mom told her that was a good idea. </p><p>When my sister left, my little brother and I followed on our bikes. He was still riding with training wheels, but he could hold his own. Her tears were fair game for my little brother and me. We ran around behind her, boohooing and acting like leaving our friends would ruin our lives. I would say, “Oh, what am I going to tell my friends? I will just miss them so-o-o-o much?” And then boohoo some more. My little brother would join in and repeat everything I said, and then we would both just laugh as we rode circles around her. That is until she finally picked up a rock and threw it at me. Hit me square in the mouth and knocked me off my bike. Blood and other bodily fluids shot out of my mouth along with part of my tooth. My little brother started crying and screaming at my sister, “You kilt him, Patsy, you kilt Charles Lee. Momma’s gonna murder us.”</p><p>Patsy walked Jimmy and me back to the house and told us to wait in the garage while she went in and talked to mom. “But I’m bleeding,” I said.</p><p>“Oh, hush up! Your lip is a foot from your heart! I tell you when you can come in the house.”</p><p>As my sister left, Jimmy looked at her with his deer-in-the-headlights look. The kind of look you would have if a spaceship landed in your front yard.</p><p>We began our trip two days later, after a quick visit to one of the dentists on base. Jimmy and I were still trying to figure out why Patsy did not get in trouble, but we did. We were relegated to the back seat for the entire trip. My dad had bought a new Ford Fairlane, a blue and white four-door, and it was a beauty. It was our stylish conveyance back to Texas. As we set out on our journey, we were excited, but after looking at Yucca cactus, Joshua Trees, and sagebrush mile after mile, we started to get bored. My sister was poring over a magazine that looked like it was totally devoted to Elvis Presley. Patsy and mom talked about cooking and clothes, primarily. When it came to talking about relatives, Jimmy and I would roll our eyes at each other then go back to drawing airplanes or reading comic books. Our most significant endeavor in the backseat of that Ford was trying to decide if Cisco and Pancho were murdering bad people or killing them in self-defense. It would help to remember that Jimmy was only five years old and wasn’t into complex problem-solving. Jimmy’s response was, “What’s the difference? They dead, right? Like Miz Weezy?”</p><p>Patsy turned around in her seat and said, “You two had better stop talking about the dead, or they will come back and get you!”</p><p>My mom said, “All of you need to quit talking about things you don’t know anything about. Now is anybody in this car hungry?”</p><p>And so it went—all the way to Texas. We were so car weary when we stopped in the evenings. We couldn’t wait to climb into bed and dreaded getting up in the mornings and setting out again.</p><p>We finally arrived in Tyler, Texas, three days later. When we pulled up in my grandmother’s yard, she was sitting outside with my granddad and my uncles under this giant Magnolia tree. They all jumped up and came to the car and took turns hugging my mom and picking my little brother up, who never lost that struck dumb look on his face. He had not seen any of his uncles since he was a baby and didn’t know what to expect. Two of my three uncles had served in WW II with my dad and then in Korea, and their idea of fun was to take their knuckles and rub your head. My other uncle, James Dalton, was just glad he wasn’t on the receiving end anymore. When they got through with Jimmy, most of his hair had been rubbed off, and I swear his head was raw from the rubbing he took.</p><p>It was an East Texas rough and tumble bunch of redneck, die-hard reactionaries that made up my mom’s family. They all had hearts as big as their home state. They were all well-traveled, but when they returned to the land of their birth, they reverted from the sophisticated cosmopolitan young men they had become to the boisterous provincials they once were.</p><p>After an early dinner, my grandmother announced that it was time to go to the ‘Viewing.’ Jimmy looked up at me and wanted to know what a viewing was. My grandmother said, “You don’t need to know because you kids are staying here. This viewing is for grownups.” They told my sister that she was to stay and babysit us. She looked like the dentist had just told her he was drilling. My Uncle James said, “Oh, mama, why don’t you let these kids go?”</p><p>My grandmother said, “Because I don’t want any incidents like what happened when they buried your great-granddaddy Marshall, you know when those two Fullilove boys got to wrestling around and knocked the coffin over. Y’all can just stop laughing. It was disrespectful. And old man Fullilove standing there saying, Well, boys will be boys. Somebody should have tanned all their hides, I’ll tell you.”</p><p>By now, all my uncles had joined in the conversation, along with my mom, and they were all laughing and cutting up as they reminisced about the Great Fullilove Disaster. Finally, my Uncle Ben said, “It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had put pants on him.”</p><p>“Well, the top part is all they usually dress up, but I bet they start putting pants on them in the future.”</p><p>“I noticed you looking at him, too, mama.”</p><p>“Well, I never!” My grandmother said.</p><p>“Oh, that’s okay Thelma, all anybody could talk about after Marshall rolled out of that coffin was how well-endowed he was.” My granddad tried his best to console my grandmother, but he was having as much fun as his kids. “You know that runs in my family.”</p><p>“I want y’all to quit this nasty talk, they’s children in the room.” My grandmom said. But she was trying her best to stifle a laugh.</p><p>Jimmy and I just stood there and looked from one relative to another, as they joked and laughed and brought life to that cracked linoleum-clad kitchen.</p><p>“Oh, mama, why don’t you let them go? I promise I’ll look after them.”</p><p>My grandmother finally capitulated. If for no other reason than to get to the funeral home early. Louise’s family wanted my grandmother to sit on a stool beside the casket and sing some of Weezy’s favorite hymns and songs, which my grandmother considered the highest honor that could be bestowed on her. So my Granddad piled my grandmother, my mom, my sister, and two of my uncles into his 1948 Lincoln and said he would return to pick up my Uncle James, my brother Jimmy, and me.</p><p>Jimmy and I felt like we were riding in the ultimate luxury on the way to the Burks-Walker-Tippet Funeral Home. My Uncle James asked my granddad, “Well, dad, have you bought any insurance on this beast yet?”</p><p>“Well, I was planning on buying some today, but then Weezy died and decided to have her funeral today.”</p><p>“Sure, dad, there is always an excuse with you. One of these days, someone is gonna run into you, and you are gonna wish you had insurance.”</p><p>Then out of nowhere, another car ran a stop sign and smacked into my granddad’s rear fender. Up until that moment in my life, I don’t believe I had ever heard a louder sound than the sound of metal on metal. Not even Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier was louder than that grinding crash. Even though it was just a fender bender, and both cars were able to drive away, my uncle was relentless in poking fun at my granddad for not having insurance. My granddad got so befuddled that when he went to spit his tobacco out of the window, he forgot that the glass was rolled up.</p><p>When we finally arrived at the funeral home, my mom wanted to know why we were so late. My little brother said, “Because granddad don’t have no insurance.” I thought my uncle might wet his britches.</p><p>We walked in and sat at the back. When it got to the point in the program where the preacher asked folks to line up and say their farewells to Miz Weezy, my grandmother went up and picked up her guitar and started singing ‘Sweet Fern,’ one of Miz Weezy’s favorites. Row by row, the ushers had people stand and walk to the front to say their final goodbyes. I noticed that as people walked past my grandmother to the open casket, many of them would look back at my grandmother wide-eyed and do a double-take. When we finally reached the casket, my Uncle James held my little brother up to get a last look at Miz Weezy. First, Jimmy looked in the coffin, and then he looked at my grandmother as she started to sing, ‘In the Garden,’ Jimmy blurted out, “Miz Weezy is dressed just like grandma!”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Splendid Life/An Ode to Mary Oliver]]></title><description><![CDATA[In the golden meadows where wildflowers sway
Where the sun’s warm fingers gently play
I seek a life of splendid grace
In nature’s embrace, my heart finds its place
Like Mary Oliver, with time that stands
Her spirit wild
Her words like silken strands
I yearn to savor life’s simple delight
To bask in wonder from morning till night
I rise with the dawn as the world awakes
The sky ablaze, a canvas it makes
The larks sing melodies, loud and clear
Their songs an unchained symphony for all to hear
T]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-splendid-life-an-ode-to-mary-oliver/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523331</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Hilka West-Irvin]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:01:10 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1557305430-66538ed2596e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDY5fHx3aWxkJTIwZmxvd2Vyc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MjA1MzV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1557305430-66538ed2596e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDY5fHx3aWxkJTIwZmxvd2Vyc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MjA1MzV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Splendid Life/An Ode to Mary Oliver"/><p>In the golden meadows where wildflowers sway<br>Where the sun’s warm fingers gently play<br>I seek a life of splendid grace<br>In nature’s embrace, my heart finds its place</br></br></br></p><p>Like Mary Oliver, with time that stands<br>Her spirit wild<br>Her words like silken strands<br>I yearn to savor life’s simple delight<br>To bask in wonder from morning till night</br></br></br></br></p><p>I rise with the dawn as the world awakes<br>The sky ablaze, a canvas it makes<br>The larks sing melodies, loud and clear<br>Their songs an unchained symphony for all to hear</br></br></br></p><p>Through whispering woods, I wander free<br>Where ancient trees share their stories with me<br>Their branches reaching towards the skies<br>A testament to strength that never lies</br></br></br></p><p>I follow the rivers as they dance and flow<br>Carving their path, where secrets may grow<br>They teach me to adapt and let go<br>To embrace the changes of life will bestow</br></br></br></p><p>In the embrace of mountains tall<br>I find my spirit rise, my worries fall<br>Their mighty peaks, a symbol of might<br>Remind me of my own inner light</br></br></br></p><p>I cherish the company of creatures great and small<br>The hummingbird’s flight, the fox’s call<br>For in their presence, I learn to be <br>With open eyes and a heart that is free</br></br></br></p><p>And when the day gives way to night<br>I bathe in the moon’s soft silver light<br>Gazing at the stars – infinite and bright<br>They remind me of my place in this wondrous plight</br></br></br></p><p>Oh, to live a life of splendid grace<br>To find solace in nature’s embrace<br>Like Mary Oliver, I aspire to be<br>One who finds wonder in every tree</br></br></br></p><p>For life’s true riches, lie not in gold<br>But in the stories, that nature unfolds<br>In the moments with earth’s grand show<br>A splendid life, where love can grow</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Plain]]></title><description><![CDATA[Out here it’s all mostly nothing.
It’s the row of scrub trees;
A chain link fence to divide that
Patch of yard from this.
Out here the horizon is a friend:
She doesn’t have much to say,
Her mind filled with a run-on, tension
Wire conversation that never ends.
Out here an oak tree is true love;
And a water tower stands sentinel
To all the children’s dreams of
Falling, and flying away.
Out here, the overpass goes to
The softball fields, and the Casey’s,
Plain spoken hellos at an amble
Speed.
Here ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/plain/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523332</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elizabeth G. Howard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:00:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495107334309-fcf20504a5ab?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ1fHxob3Jpem9ufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQyMTA2OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495107334309-fcf20504a5ab?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ1fHxob3Jpem9ufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQyMTA2OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Plain"/><p>Out here it’s all mostly nothing.<br>It’s the row of scrub trees;<br>A chain link fence to divide that<br>Patch of yard from this.<br>Out here the horizon is a friend:<br>She doesn’t have much to say,<br>Her mind filled with a run-on, tension<br>Wire conversation that never ends.<br>Out here an oak tree is true love;<br>And a water tower stands sentinel<br>To all the children’s dreams of<br>Falling, and flying away.<br>Out here, the overpass goes to<br>The softball fields, and the Casey’s,<br>Plain spoken hellos at an amble <br>Speed.<br>Here along the sidewalk<br>The bike path the road the drive<br>That heads out<br>Home.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Eden]]></title><description><![CDATA[There were snakes all over Eden,
but only Eve noticed
Adam had to be shown.
He knew sex,
but the original sin wasn’t sex
It was desire of sex
Knowledge of self-acceptance, of irresponsibility
guilt
Sex was never a crime until it became passion.
Maybe the original sin was the gift of knowledge
When Adam and Eve discovered
they were not really suited for each other.
Maybe they left Eden through different gates,
wandered around awhile
found only each other
made do with what they had
I think this i]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/eden/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523333</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nancy Paddock]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:00:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1584244072876-04494890e37b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHNuYWtlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MjE0OTF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1584244072876-04494890e37b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHNuYWtlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MjE0OTF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Eden"/><p>There were snakes all over Eden,</p><p>but only Eve noticed<br>Adam had to be shown.<br>He knew sex,<br>but the original sin wasn’t sex<br>It was desire of sex<br>Knowledge of self-acceptance, of irresponsibility<br>guilt<br>Sex was never a crime until it became passion.<br>Maybe the original sin was the gift of knowledge<br>When Adam and Eve discovered<br>they were not really suited for each other.<br>Maybe they left Eden through different gates,<br>wandered around awhile<br>found only each other<br>made do with what they had<br>I think this is the original sin<br>the curse of knowledge of passion.<br>Settling for less<br>making do with what we have<br>after we have lost Eden.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Wake to Sleep, and I Take My Waking Slow]]></title><description><![CDATA[I smell the scent of the one I love beside me.
I lay in the curve of his chest
nestled like a warm fuzzy kitten.
I rub my head on the muscled shoulder cradling my neck.
I feel the heat of his body from skin contact
the pressure of his leg thrown over mine.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I anticipate turning to face him
knowing he’s awake looking at the curve of my cheek,
sniffing my hair,
feeling the skin of my hip
as his fingers lightly rub
making a slow mesmerizing sensation.
I smi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-wake-to-sleep-and-i-take-my-waking-slow/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523334</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sherri Buerky]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:00:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541781774459-bb2af2f05b55?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUwfHxraXR0ZW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDIyMTI2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541781774459-bb2af2f05b55?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUwfHxraXR0ZW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDIyMTI2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="I Wake to Sleep, and I Take My Waking Slow"/><p>I smell the scent of the one I love beside me.<br>I lay in the curve of his chest<br>nestled like a warm fuzzy kitten.<br>I rub my head on the muscled shoulder cradling my neck.<br>I feel the heat of his body from skin contact<br>the pressure of his leg thrown over mine.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.<br>I anticipate turning to face him<br>knowing he’s awake looking at the curve of my cheek,<br>sniffing my hair,<br>feeling the skin of my hip<br>as his fingers lightly rub<br>making a slow mesmerizing sensation.<br>I smile drowsily.<br>Picturing the look of love and admiration in his eyes,<br>as if studying a piece of priceless fine art.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.<br>I turn expecting his eyes to be looking into mine,<br>his lips softly pressed to mine for a morning kiss.<br>Luxuriating in my dreams of him I open my eyes.<br>Lying next to me is my large stuffed Unicorn<br>shoved up against me by the cat<br>who lays snuggled on the other side.<br>My warm electric blanket is wrapped tight</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>and tangled in my legs.<br>My love no longer breaths,<br>or lays to sleep beside me.<br>I sleep to dream, and I take my dreaming slow.</br></br></br></p><p/>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Smiling Soul]]></title><description><![CDATA[How she purifies the grey water
stagnating in my heart like a pond
or a heap of wet debris,
I still don't know;
yet each time I see her
she is a combustible gas,
her blue tongue touched the air
swirling, strumming the burner.
But it’s all different when I get home,
the stink of the sink in my kitchen,
rotten roses from last year’s Valentine's,
crumbs of chips and fish on my bed,
dusty and cobwebbed corners,
cracked and dry wings of cockroaches,
the meal of murdered mosquitoes,
dead rats lying ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-smiling-soul/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523335</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jonathan Chibuike Ukah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:00:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1559073736-418ea2b040a8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxkZWFkJTIwcm9zZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDIyNTE3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1559073736-418ea2b040a8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxkZWFkJTIwcm9zZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDIyNTE3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Smiling Soul"/><p>How she purifies the grey water<br>stagnating in my heart like a pond<br>or a heap of wet debris,<br>I still don't know;<br>yet each time I see her<br>she is a combustible gas,<br>her blue tongue touched the air<br>swirling, strumming the burner.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But it’s all different when I get home,<br>the stink of the sink in my kitchen,<br>rotten roses from last year’s Valentine's,<br>crumbs of chips and fish on my bed,<br>dusty and cobwebbed corners,<br>cracked and dry wings of cockroaches, <br>the meal of murdered mosquitoes,<br>dead rats lying on the floor<br>and rumpled clothes on the sofa.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>For a decade, I tried to change<br>the colour of my smile,<br>perhaps to be able to remember<br>when things get messy,<br>and I am not able to remember myself.<br>My mother did her best,<br>considering the circumstances,<br>in which I cannot focus<br>on what is useful and agreeable,<br>so I gave up trying.<br>Now I am me, a house of chaos,<br>a staircase just for the exit.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Comrade in Paradise]]></title><description><![CDATA[Admit it,
I never really claimed
to be a palpable poet anyway.
I’ll take just laying around
on my Castro Convertible couch
(not like in Fidel)
watching the Super Bowl any old day.
especially when my team
is playing in the game—
Ginsberg talked me into
this poetry hullabaloo.
For him poetry was a means
to portraying life’s journey.
He advised me to keep a notepad
always ready in my pocket
for jotting down thoughts etc--
and being open to absolutely everything,
and to pointlessly nothing.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/comrade-in-paradise/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523336</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jack Albert]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:59:45 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1689525845701-c22384c25d67?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHBvY2tldCUyMG5vdGVib29rfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQyMzA5MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1689525845701-c22384c25d67?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHBvY2tldCUyMG5vdGVib29rfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQyMzA5MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Comrade in Paradise"/><p>Admit it,<br>I never really claimed <br>to be a palpable poet anyway.</br></br></p><p>I’ll take just laying around<br>on my Castro Convertible couch<br>(not like in Fidel)<br>watching the Super Bowl any old day.</br></br></br></p><p>especially when my team<br>is playing in the game—<br>Ginsberg talked me into<br>this poetry hullabaloo.<br>For him poetry was a means <br>to portraying life’s journey.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>He advised me to keep a notepad<br>always ready in my pocket<br>for jotting down thoughts etc--<br>and being open to absolutely everything,<br>and to pointlessly nothing.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Antifa Memo]]></title><description><![CDATA[The following report was posted on the Dark Web by a hacker known only as "FreedomHackerEagle1". This denizen of the dark claims to have intercepted and (mostly) decrypted this message from an Antifa regional director to the Antifa National Executive Committee.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/antifa-memo/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6772fef4fb1c2705b8525517</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anonymous]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:59:28 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605429536388-d43598b2de59?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGFudGlmYXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzU1ODk2MjV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605429536388-d43598b2de59?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGFudGlmYXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzU1ODk2MjV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Antifa Memo"/><p><strong>"Memo from Antifa" by "FreedomHackerEagle1"</strong></p><p>The following report was posted on the Dark Web by a hacker known only as "FreedomHackerEagle1". This denizen of the dark claims to have intercepted and (mostly) decrypted this message from an Antifa regional director to the Antifa National Executive Committee.</p><p>For obvious reasons I cannot reveal how I accessed this part of the Dark Web nor reveal my identity (safety of my family and friends, as well as myself).</p><p>The report, according to "FreedomHackerEagle1":</p><p>From: Antifa SouthEast Region Executive Director <aser.exec.antif<strong>[decryption error 6 bytes]</strong><br>To: Antifa National Executive Committee <anc.exec.antifa.org><br>Subject: "Project Darwin" update<br>Sensitivity: Eyes only; shred electronically after reading</br></br></br></p><p>Comrades,<br>It with great pleasure that we send you the most recent results from our Red States "Project Darwin". This program has been very successful, exceeding our goals by over 88%. Below we report on the individual program activities.</br></p><p>Note that "Project Darwin" was approved by our comrades of the Antifa National Executive Committee to include all Red States, even though some of those are not technically within the Antifa SouthEast Region (ASER) territory. We appreci<strong>[decryption error 29 bytes]</strong>ocal Antifa Committees from those states, and gratefully acknowledge that our results would not have been possible without their assistance.</p><p><strong>Executive Overview</strong><br>"Project Darwin" is an umbrella disinformation project comprising eight individual programs. All programs tie, directly or indirectly, to the core objective of encouraging behavior by red state fascists that will reduce their voting numbers, primarily through death, inability to reproduce, or ignorance.</br></p><p>All individual programs are separately funded and managed. Each program is overseen by the Program Comrade-In-Charge (PCIC) who provides monthly, quarterly and annual status reports to the ASER Executive Committee, who, in turn report to th<strong>[decryption error 22 bytes]</strong>utive Committee.</p><p><strong>Programs</strong></p><p><strong>1. Anti-Vax</strong> (PCIC Comrade CeruleanBozo )<br>In red states 82% of blue voters have had the latest Covid shot but only 18% of red voters. This has led to 340% higher death rates for fascist voters. Comrade CeruleanBozo primarily spreads anti-vax propaganda via social media.</br></p><p><strong>2. Pet Anti-Vax</strong> (PCIC Comrade SerrantoPepper)<br>Cases of domestic pet rabies have skyrocketed in red states as fascists refuse to immunize their pets. It is still too early to tell if fascist child deaths will increase, but we are hopeful. It is much better to eliminate them before they attain voting age.</br></p><p><strong>3. 2nd Amendment</strong> (PCIC Comrade RamboBLMbo)<br>Loosening restrictions on the purchase and carrying of handguns has been dramatically successful: the top 7 states by murder rate in 2020 were Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Red state homicides far outpace those in blue states, even when considering higher crime urban areas. Red states are killing their fascist selves off at a rate 242% faster than blue states.</br></p><p><strong>4. Tik-Tok (youth outreach) </strong>(PCIC Comrade Carmelita)<br>Tik-Tok challenges (think back: who can hold 12 Fizzies in their mouth the longest?) are ubiquitous and of great concern to parents. Comrade Carmelita has capitalized on this by creating viral challen<strong>[decryption error 10 bytes]</strong>ost successful of which is the MAGA Lead Bird-shot Challenge--eating 1 teaspoon of lead bird-shot, followed by a lemonade chaser. Brain damage takes several months to appear, but it is irreversible and ultimately eliminates the MAGA Challengers from both the gene and voting pools.</br></p><p><strong>5. Clorox Cocktails</strong> (PCIC Comrade QuixotePeyote)<br>Comrade QuixotePeyote ingeniously infiltrated the Oval Office cleaning staff and left a large, Sharpie written note saying "Bleach Kills Covid--1 OZ.--PROVEN ANTIDOTE!!!" The rest is history!</br></p><p><strong>6. Medicaid rejection</strong> (PCIC Comrade Stuffacaucus)<br>Fascist red states have refused to accept Medicaid expansion money from Obamacare, and the result has been a splendid increase in fascist maternal and neonate mortality. Better to prevent a fascist at birth.</br></p><p><strong>7. Rigged Elections </strong> (PCIC Comrade PersimmonSeed) <br>This subtle strategy is targeted specifically at swing states: emphasize that the elections are "rigged" and early or absentee voting are the mechanisms for vote stealing, so the best way to avoid your vote being stolen is to vote only on Election Day. Then, when the fascist voters find long lines or inclement weather on Election Day, they will more readily give up and not vote. This strategy has been shown to persuade only about 1.3% of fascist voters, but for swing states this is the margin of defeat for the fascists. Our audit teams estimate that Comrade PersimmonSeed reduced fascist vote totals by over 870,000 votes in the last election. </br></p><p><strong>8. MAGA Laughingstock</strong> (PCIC Comrade Comeylingus)<br>When Comrade Comeylingus initially proposed this project, the ASER Program Committee thought it ridiculous--even fascist Trump lawyers wouldn't be dumb enough to fall for it. Nevertheless, she persevered and, "Jewish Space Lasers" became a punch line for comedians talking about the Trump lawyers pushing the "stolen" election lie.</br></p><p><strong>A Note on Methodology:</strong><br>Comrade PortoFinoShroom has elevated the right-wing radio talk show call-in question to an art form. "Hey, me and my buddies been hearing alot 'bout (rumor to be planted.) Dis for real?" Usually within 72 hours the "rumor" has become a widely accepted fact among fascists. </br></p><p>Respectfully submitted,<br>Comrade Punchinello</br></p><p><strong>Antifa: Better Living Through Anarchy!!!</strong></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Shirah]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dirty, unclean, plagued, alone, holding horrid secrets,
haggard, hounded, shunned and drowning, hopeless, in regret.
Cast outside the ancient gates, breathing seems a tragedy -
barren, banned, infirm, forlorn, trapped in wretched malady.
Reports of a new teacher sweep like blazes through our town.
trickling down into our slum; possibilities abound.
Healing lepers and the blind, raising those who once lay dead -
maybe this Messiah cares; jumbled thoughts race through my head.
Never flushi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/shirah/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523338</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joy Nevin Axelson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:59:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611513997041-e1ae27314d0d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDgxfHxqZXN1c3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MjUwMzd8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611513997041-e1ae27314d0d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDgxfHxqZXN1c3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MjUwMzd8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Shirah"/><p>Dirty, unclean, plagued, alone, holding horrid secrets, <br>haggard, hounded, shunned and drowning, hopeless, in regret. </br></p><p>Cast outside the ancient gates, breathing seems a tragedy - <br>barren, banned, infirm, forlorn, trapped in wretched malady. </br></p><p>Reports of a new teacher sweep like blazes through our town.<br>trickling down into our slum; possibilities abound.</br></p><p>Healing lepers and the blind, raising those who once lay dead -<br>maybe this Messiah cares; jumbled thoughts race through my head.</br></p><p>Never flushing out the stains - always trying to get clean,<br>swiftly scrubbing, changing clothes, I’m polluted, never free.</br></p><p>Crying, frantic, anxious I quicken pace on cobblestone – <br>darting from their prying eyes, terrified of being stoned.</br></p><p>I’m shuffling, sprinting, straining just to reach the rabbi’s robe, <br>undaunted and courageous, my heart holds onto hope. </br></p><p>Jesus steps into my view - throngs are throbbing - how I fear them!<br>Tingling, surging, questioning - through the dust, my hand meets hem. </br></p><p>Recognized and singled out; shame invades my haunted breast.<br>I admit that I’m the one. What calamity comes next?</br></p><p>“I’ve no wish to bother you. Master, please forgive my sin.”<br>His voice seals my holey faith and radiates compassion.</br></p><p>I now embrace community. Could it be? My scourge is gone!<br>All my visions, far off dreams, God the Son shines bright upon.</br></p><p>With Emmanuel, <em>anything</em> is possible.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[When They Took the Baby Away]]></title><description><![CDATA[He lay on my belly, dark eyes open
for the first time, burning recognition
into my eyes that late afternoon
when he was born limp, almost
purple, not moving.
He flinched when the midwife tapped
the soles of his feet, his slight chest
heaved, then calmed or stilled
in a cascade of words and urgency.
Then the ambulance we both rode
over the rumble of potholes
that smoothed into the parking lot
where they took him from my arms
and wouldn’t let me pick him up
again for five days. Only stand
all]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/when-they-took-the-baby-away/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523339</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:58:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517120026326-d87759a7b63b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGluY3ViYXRvcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MjU3MTJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517120026326-d87759a7b63b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGluY3ViYXRvcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MjU3MTJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="When They Took the Baby Away"/><p>He lay on my belly, dark eyes open<br>for the first time, burning recognition<br>into my eyes that late afternoon<br>when he was born limp, almost<br>purple, not moving.</br></br></br></br></p><p>He flinched when the midwife tapped<br>the soles of his feet, his slight chest<br>heaved, then calmed or stilled<br>in a cascade of words and urgency.</br></br></br></p><p>Then the ambulance we both rode <br>over the rumble of potholes<br>that smoothed into the parking lot <br>where they took him from my arms<br>and wouldn’t let me pick him up <br>again for five days. Only stand<br>all day and most nights at the glass<br>case, stick my hands through<br>the jellyfish-like openings<br>to let him grasp my finger<br>covered with adhesive holding<br>lines to the outside world, pumps <br>up and down. Something’s wrong, <br>they said without saying it.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The first drive back to the house<br>to get supplies, the clean living room,<br>the refrigerator stocked by friends<br>who even did our laundry, <br>my belly deflating, I fell against<br>a wall, crying loud enough that a neighbor <br>who didn’t like me rushed in <br>and wrapped me against her chest.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>In my hungry arms, I didn’t know<br>how soon we’d carry him out,<br>so happy in the July humidity,<br>to his carseat in the pick-up truck.<br>We would sing “La Marseillaise” <br>because it was Bastille Day, <br>he was free, we were free,<br>wounded animals that we were.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Past]]></title><description><![CDATA[The past eats the way the sphinx could eat
the dust of those who did not know the answer
and those who did. It feels as if the air
were thick with termites. Then when he did answer
who walked on four legs, two, then three, in kind
the termites had not eaten through the cane
the old man bore. So when Tiresias came
with cane and boy as guide, it did not seem
as if the aspirations of the stars
were still out to get him, as they were—
he who was on foot marked and was left
upon the mountain, star]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-past/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852333a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[A. Johnston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:58:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1562123404-528b41e573a0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHRlcm1pdGVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQyNjEyNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1562123404-528b41e573a0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHRlcm1pdGVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQyNjEyNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Past"/><p>The past eats the way the sphinx could eat<br>the dust of those who did not know the answer<br>and those who did. It feels as if the air<br>were thick with termites. Then when he did answer<br>who walked on four legs, two, then three, in kind<br>the termites had not eaten through the cane<br>the old man bore. So when Tiresias came<br>with cane and boy as guide, it did not seem<br>as if the aspirations of the stars<br>were still out to get him, as they were—<br>he who was on foot marked and was left<br>upon the mountain, staring into heaven<br>and fully unaware of how this fate had been awakened, become shapely, large.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Mourning Dove]]></title><description><![CDATA[As sunlight breaks the clouds above
a Spring mist rises from the ground.
I listen to a Mourning Dove
and find some comfort in his sound.
My parents lived a life of love
now they have gone where angels trod.
But I’m not mournful with the dove
for hand-in-hand they walk with God.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-mourning-dove/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852333b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lea Ann Crisp]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:58:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507126882445-434b04530d1a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGRvdmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDI2NDIxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507126882445-434b04530d1a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGRvdmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDI2NDIxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Mourning Dove"/><p>As sunlight breaks the clouds above <br>a Spring mist rises from the ground.<br>I listen to a Mourning Dove<br>and find some comfort in his sound.<br>My parents lived a life of love<br>now they have gone where angels trod.<br>But I’m not mournful with the dove<br>for hand-in-hand they walk with God.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Chicken Au Gratin Pot Pies]]></title><description><![CDATA[
Ingredients:
1-½ cups (6-oz) extra sharp cheddar cheese
1-½ cups milk
1 cup chicken stock
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons butter
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp white pepper
¼ tsp paprika
1 tsp dried thyme or 1 tablespoon fresh thyme
1-½ cups frozen vegetable mix, thawed
1-½ cups frozen hash brown potatoes, thawed
3 cups cubed, cooked chicken
4 ready-made refrigerated pie crusts
Egg wash (1 beaten egg + 1 teaspoon water)
Instructions:
1. Make a roux for sauce by combining flour, salt, pepper, and butter in]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/chicken-au-gratin-pot-pies/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852333c</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:57:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1629228136815-0fedb1808520?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBpZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDI2ODQ1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1629228136815-0fedb1808520?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBpZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDI2ODQ1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Chicken Au Gratin Pot Pies"/><p><br><strong>Ingredients:</strong><br>1-½ cups (6-oz) extra sharp cheddar cheese<br>1-½ cups milk<br>1 cup chicken stock<br>3 tablespoons flour<br>3 tablespoons butter<br>½ tsp salt<br>¼ tsp white pepper<br>¼ tsp paprika<br>1 tsp dried thyme or 1 tablespoon fresh thyme<br>1-½ cups frozen vegetable mix, thawed<br>1-½ cups frozen hash brown potatoes, thawed<br>3 cups cubed, cooked chicken<br>4 ready-made refrigerated pie crusts<br>Egg wash (1 beaten egg + 1 teaspoon water)</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>Instructions:</strong><br>1. Make a roux for sauce by combining flour, salt, pepper, and butter in a medium saucepan; heat at medium, stirring with a whisk.<br>2. Add milk and chicken stock to roux; stir until thickened.<br>3. Add paprika, thyme, and cheese to sauce; heat until cheese has melted.<br>4. Add vegetables, potatoes, and chicken; stir.<br>5. Roll each pie crust to fit 6 - 7” oven-proof bowl; set aside scraps to roll out for each top.<br>6. Put 1-½ cups filling mixture in each pie-crust bowl.<br>7. Place roll-out pie crust top on each pie; crump edges and pierce top with fork.<br>8. Brush with egg wash.<br>9. Bake in preheated oven at 400°F for 25 – 30 minutes.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Makes four 6 - 7” pies.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dendrology]]></title><description><![CDATA[Limbs creak in cold morning air
and they hear the rush of water
You can look it up
What we don’t know of trees
could embarrass God herself
Some branches braid themselves into garlands
Some reach to heaven and poison their enemies
while others weep by the river
in poems of regret
My love of this life
rests in the arms of trees
Even bare and blemished
they hold me steady
What more could I ever need]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dendrology/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852333d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Lorenzen]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:57:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1462143338528-eca9936a4d09?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHRyZWVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQyNzEzNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1462143338528-eca9936a4d09?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHRyZWVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQyNzEzNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dendrology"/><p>Limbs creak in cold morning air<br>and they hear the rush of water<br>You can look it up<br>What we don’t know of trees<br>could embarrass God herself</br></br></br></br></p><p>Some branches braid themselves into garlands<br>Some reach to heaven and poison their enemies<br>while others weep by the river<br>in poems of regret</br></br></br></p><p>My love of this life<br>rests in the arms of trees<br>Even bare and blemished<br>they hold me steady<br>What more could I ever need</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Christmas Sky Dawn]]></title><description><![CDATA[I watched Saturn's rising
through the velvet night sky
I followed the star's eastern path
until the morning sky turned into
silvery silvery blue
sky blue on blue
carrying away the cold blackness of night
born into Saturn's new light
and promises of planets among stars
Mercury spinning directly below earth's horizon
followed the new day’s sun
along an ancient journey of light
I caught my mountain top’s morning glow
tucking it away into my pocket
as if to save it for a rainy day
to hold one mo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/christmas-sky-dawn/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852333e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:57:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1614732414444-096e5f1122d5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNhdHVybnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0Mjc5MzZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1614732414444-096e5f1122d5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNhdHVybnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0Mjc5MzZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Christmas Sky Dawn"/><p>I watched Saturn's rising<br>through the velvet night sky<br>I followed the star's eastern path<br>until the morning sky turned into<br>silvery silvery blue<br>sky blue on blue</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>carrying away the cold blackness of night<br>born into Saturn's new light<br>and promises of planets among stars</br></br></p><p>Mercury spinning directly below earth's horizon<br>followed the new day’s sun<br>along an ancient journey of light</br></br></p><p>I caught my mountain top’s morning glow<br>tucking it away into my pocket<br>as if to save it for a rainy day</br></br></p><p>to hold one moment<br>to know understanding<br>to find second chances</br></br></p><p>in the pink glow<br>of a new sky dawn<br>Saturn’s rising upon this Christmas day</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[temporary salve]]></title><description><![CDATA[it’s not my orgasm
i’m after
but the moment right before
when everything disappears
and there’s only this feeling
all love and shame collapsed
body tense and shaking
infinite bliss in possibility–
don’t let go
but as with all things
release inevitably comes
and, with it, the pain of longing
returns
surging like the creek after rain,
shallow pit in my stomach,
hollow in my chest,
a hard truth, this ritual
sacrifice]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/temporary-salve/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852333f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Faune Vita]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:56:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1614267861476-0d129972a0f4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxzYWx2ZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MjgzNzF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1614267861476-0d129972a0f4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxzYWx2ZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTQ0MjgzNzF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="temporary salve"/><p>it’s not my orgasm<br>i’m after<br>but the moment right before<br>when everything disappears<br>and there’s only this feeling<br>all love and shame collapsed<br>body tense and shaking<br>infinite bliss in possibility–<br>don’t let go</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>but as with all things<br>release inevitably comes<br>and, with it, the pain of longing<br>returns<br>surging like the creek after rain, <br>shallow pit in my stomach,<br>hollow in my chest,<br>a hard truth, this ritual<br>sacrifice</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lineage]]></title><description><![CDATA[City of azaleas and death
Of funerals and tears
I cannot raise my children here
Whether I love it or not
My elders have passed
My ancestors are gone
They’ve left for a private party
That I cannot attend
At least not for a long time
I’ve got yards
And yards more to weave here
The work is unfinished
This is how it happens
One generation passes
The new generation is yet to come
But me, I carry home in my bones
It’s happened before in my lifetime
Those epochs and ages
Passing chemically from ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lineage/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523340</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Cloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:56:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1629632236662-3ef66853c444?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGF6YWxlYXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDI4Njk0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1629632236662-3ef66853c444?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGF6YWxlYXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDI4Njk0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Lineage"/><p>City of azaleas and death<br>Of funerals and tears<br>I cannot raise my children here<br>Whether I love it or not</br></br></br></p><p>My elders have passed <br>My ancestors are gone<br>They’ve left for a private party<br>That I cannot attend</br></br></br></p><p>At least not for a long time<br>I’ve got yards<br>And yards more to weave here<br>The work is unfinished</br></br></br></p><p>This is how it happens<br>One generation passes <br>The new generation is yet to come <br>But me, I carry home in my bones</br></br></br></p><p>It’s happened before in my lifetime<br>Those epochs and ages<br>Passing chemically from cell to cell <br>Providing the paper</br></br></br></p><p>Upon which our life-books are written </p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Peachy]]></title><description><![CDATA[From an outside perspective, Sam seemed fine, but internally she was fuming. She thought she had left this in her past. She thought that she’d grown up. But she had just done something that she hadn’t done in years: swiped something that wasn’t hers. As Sam cursed at herself in her head, she gently moseyed across the quad, gliding across the brick path she knew so well as a third year undergrad student. Her mind was zoned in on the small shiny object sitting at the bottom of her backpack. Why oh]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/peachy/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523341</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chloe Evans-Cross]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:56:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1438274754346-45322cac87e4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHBlYWNoZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDI5MTI3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1438274754346-45322cac87e4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHBlYWNoZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDI5MTI3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Peachy"/><p>From an outside perspective, Sam seemed fine, but internally she was fuming. She thought she had left this in her past. She thought that she’d grown up. But she had just done something that she hadn’t done in years: swiped something that wasn’t hers. As Sam cursed at herself in her head, she gently moseyed across the quad, gliding across the brick path she knew so well as a third year undergrad student. Her mind was zoned in on the small shiny object sitting at the bottom of her backpack. Why oh why did she need to grab that thing? She didn’t even want a screwdriver. Hell, she didn’t know if she’d even used one before. Had no projects to tend to, no furniture to assemble, no screws to drive. Yet just mere minutes ago when she walked by her friend’s hallmates hanging cheap shelves in their dorm room, their tools strewn along the hall, those girls with their light lives and their bouncy giggles, she glanced at it, that screwdriver, within arms reach, and knew that she had no choice but to obey the whisper in her head that lured her to <em>just take it. </em></p><hr><p>Sam was in third grade the first time that she stole, and she didn’t steal because she needed to. She was sitting at her singular beige classroom desk, the one with her name on it with little fishes surrounding the S. She was staring at one of the fish, the one that looked like an angel fish but with a human-like smile, staring right at her. Ms. Stillard was reading some story about a sad boy and Sam was zoning in and out. The only thing tempting her attention was the smell in the room — the smell of peaches. Sam didn’t even know if she liked the taste of peaches, she had never had one before. But as Ms. Stillard flipped through the story at the front of the room, pausing to check for understanding, Sam sat with the smell of the peach lotion that Ms. Stillard lathered on her teacher hands every morning. As she sat there half-listening to the words coming out of Ms. Stillard’s mouth and fully smelling her peachy hands as they flipped the page, Sam realized she wanted her own smell. One that someone could smell as she passed them in the hall and be like, yeah, there goes Sam, I smell her peachy lotion.</p><p>Sam was an all around good kid. The kind that raised her hand and smiled and focused with her furrowed eyebrows and shushed other kids when they weren’t paying attention. Every teacher she’d ever had adored her, and Ms. Stillard was no exception. Just last week Ms. Stillard had let Sam pick a treasure of her choice from the treasure chest for being a considerate classmate. She had given Greg one of her snacks when he had dropped his on the floor. So Sam was surprised by herself when, after reading time, she lingered in the classroom as all the other students shuffled single file out of the room to head to recess. Without realizing what she was doing, she quickly tip-toed to Ms. Stillard’s desk, peered into her small wicker basket, grabbed the peach lotion bottle, and put it in her pocket. She was out the classroom door and in line with the rest of the group before anyone could notice. </p><p>As soon as Sam got home that day she ran to the bathroom, took out the lotion, and stared at it. Her heart was racing and she felt like she was going to throw up. She shoved the lotion in the bathroom drawer and ran outside to jump on the trampoline, blow off some steam. She bounced and bounced and bounced, wore herself out. By the time her parents called her in for dinner she had completely forgotten about the peach lotion incident. </p><p>But then the next day came and she had to confront Ms. Stillard. Surely, she would know her peach lotion was missing, and surely she’d suspect that Sam was the culprit. But Ms. Stillard greeted Sam that morning how she greeted her on all days, with a smile and a hug. Throughout the day Sam paid extra close attention to any cues she might pick up on indicating that Ms. Stillard was onto her, but the lady was clearly oblivious. Sam exhaled real deep.</p><p>What Sam wanted to know was why the heck she did what she did. Because now, in hindsight, she was stuck. She couldn’t return the lotion without risk being caught, and she would continue to be tormented by her guilt if she kept it at home. If she wanted the same peach lotion Ms. Stillard had, Sam knew that her parents would get it for her in a heartbeat. The problem wasn’t that they weren’t willing to help Sam. The problem was that Sam had forgotten how to ask for help. </p><hr><p>Here she was, walking across her prestigious college campus, feeling just like she did in her childhood bathroom. Her throat felt tight and her neck and cheeks flushed red with shame. Sam no longer felt like the econ major, climate club treasurer, dean’s list student she had identified as for the past couple years. Those flimsy titles rolled overboard like an empty paper cup on a boat at sea, easily toppled. Instead, she could almost smell that peachy lotion, almost taste that shame. </p><p>As Sam finished crossing the quad and arrived at her dorm, she clocked the fob, rushed up the stairs, and slammed the door behind her. She let out a deep breath. She pulled out the desk chair and took a seat at the beige desk. Here she was again. </p><p>Sam opened her bookbag and fished out the screwdriver. She held it somberly in her hands and began to weep. </p><p>Just last week, Sam’s life had been at the peak of an uphill climb. If her life was a graph, the line was a maximizer’s dream, ever-climbing upward. Sure, there had been hiccups here and there, but year by year Sam’s life was objectively getting better and better. Sam had realized a few key life lessons since joining college and she was eager to put those lessons into practice. </p><p>The most important lesson was fake it till you make it. No one knows where you’re from, no one knows what you know, so act like you belong and you will. No one had explicitly taught her this lesson, but Sam had long been an observer. Within her first two days on campus her freshman year she could sense the shut-downs happening in front of her before they even happened. She’d watched a girl in the cafeteria approach a large group of girls and ask to sit with them. It wasn’t the words she used to ask the question, but the way she carried herself that earned her a cold shoulder from the group. On her first day of classes Sam watched another girl tentatively raise her hand and answer the professor’s question with a soft voice and a word that came out like a question. “Is that a statement or a question?” the professor barked back. The class had chuckled and the girl shrunk in her seat. </p><p>No, Sam was not going to be that girl. So she spoke firmly and looked people in the eyes, even when her inner voice was shaky. She acted like she didn’t need new friends, wasn’t overeager. And after a couple months of the faking it, she felt freer. More her. Less fake. As classes went on she realized that what she didn’t know she could learn. And more importantly she made friends. She was a bit of a social butterfly, a drifter. She had a close friend in the climate club, Tiara, who had introduced her to the club in the first place. They talked about their shared love for National Geographic articles and talked about the myriad little heroes working to combat climate change on a local level all over the world. She had Leigh, her econ classmate turned study buddy. They quizzed each other while eating popcorn on Leigh's dorm bed, spent late nights in the library together, debriefed classes afterwards. There was Sarah, her running buddy. They’d meet bright and early before classes or on the weekends and run long stretches through the quaint neighborhoods, hypothesizing about the neighbors. </p><p>Sitting there at her beige desk with the cold hard screwdriver heavy in her hand, Sam thought about calling Tiara or Leigh or Sarah. The problem was she didn’t know where she could even begin. Even though Sam was friends with these girls, there was a whole other world she existed in that they didn’t really know. Sam’s college friends knew her as Sam in college. And Sam felt like Sam in college. She felt herself. She made decisions that were her own and was living a life just as her own, too. Her friends didn’t know much about her family since she only ever talked about them in surface level ways. </p><p>Last Tuesday, after taking an exam, she opened her phone to see three missed calls from her mom. Everything is fine, but call us back, a text from her mom said. Sam’s mind went a million places and her heart felt big and fast. On the phone with her mom she heard about Jeremy’s suicide attempt. Heard about the way her brother was found. Heard about how he was now recovering at the hospital. Heard about how he was okay and about how we are lucky and about how things are going to get better. Sam nodded and listened and thanked her mom for the update on her brother before hanging up. Then, Sam stood up, put on some chapstick, redid her ponytail, and walked to her next class. </p><hr><p>Sam once knew how to ask for help. Back when she was in second grade she had been described by teachers as shy and nervous. She would cry when her mom dropped her off at school and she’d cuddle her when she came home. Then one day something happened. She still doesn’t know exactly what, but she knew that something happened with Jeremy, something that scared her parents, and that things shifted after the incident. Sam noticed that Jeremy smiled less and stayed on the computer more. Her older brother who used to play tag with her, tickle her, tell her silly stories, was now a shell of a boy. She gave him space. She stopped asking to play.</p><p>When she’d come home from school her parents would ask her questions at the dinner table. </p><p>“How was school today sweetie? What did you learn?”</p><p>Sam was bubbling with the real questions living in her throat. What is happening to Jeremy? Is he okay? But instead she gave them the simplicity that their eyes seemed to plead for. “I learned fractions today. Mrs. T said I’m doing a good job with them.”</p><p>She’d notice the way their expectant faces settled into relief, a calm that she had created. She could create calm. </p><hr><p>How would she create calm out of this mess? Sitting there at her beige desk, she traced the screwdriver in her hands with her index finger. It was cold and hard and heavy. It was useless. She looked at the clock. Tiara had invited her to a bonfire that night and she should start getting ready soon. </p><p>Sam first pulled out a pen and paper. When she was younger, she used to write her parents little notes, corny messages that came from an elementary school student’s brain. Her letters to them later on in life doubled down on her calm-making abilities. When it was windy and the sailboat of their lives was on the verge of tipping over, she’d say just the right thing to smooth the sails, steady the boat, ride the wind. </p><p>With the screwdriver in one hand and a pen in the other, she says all the things she felt she shouldn’t when she was younger. All the negative feelings that she wished away and that later bubbled up — the confusion, the shame, the fear, the anger. She wrote them down. There were questions, too. About Jeremy and about why they never really talked about what was happening to him. What he was going through. What was he going through?</p><p>By the end of the letter, Sam’s sobs had turned into the long and muffled whimpers that indicate the end of a cry session. She folded the letter and put it in her back pocket. She grabbed her purse and phone and headed to the bonfire. </p><p>Tiara greeted her as she entered the house. They caught up about their weeks. Tiara had just accepted an internship for the summer. Sam had one lined up too, so they’d both be living on campus again. They did a little squeal-dance. </p><p>“Listen,” said Sam. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, and I’m not really ready to talk about it yet, but something’s going on with my family and I’m having a hard time processing it. It’s hard to explain.”</p><p>“Aw Sammy,” Tiara squeezed her hand. “ I’m sorry. You don’t need to explain. I’m here to listen if you ever want to talk.” Tiara gave her a big hug. “Anything I can do to be supportive right now? Take a shot with you? Be your wing woman? Leave this place and watch a movie?”</p><p>Sam chuckled. “Just one thing.” She grabbed Tiara’s hand and brought her to the backyard, toward the fire. They stood in front of it, close, too close. Other students at the party started looking at them, but Sam didn’t care. She took the letter to her parents out of her back pocket and threw it into the fire. She watched it burn, its ash floating upward, releasing into the air outside of her. She felt lighter. </p></hr></hr></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Paint]]></title><description><![CDATA[Smeared against the background
yellow, or brown, or off white,
depending on the angle.
A splatter of paint-
I become the brick wall
on unprocessed land
a remnant of something
that once was there,
something that I had lost,
a sore thumb sticking out
out an all-white grass field.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/paint/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523342</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jojo O’Such]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:55:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511980725567-b9b7f0358905?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxwYWludGJydXNofGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQyOTQ3M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511980725567-b9b7f0358905?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxwYWludGJydXNofGVufDB8fHx8MTcxNDQyOTQ3M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Paint"/><p>Smeared against the background<br>yellow, or brown, or off white,<br>depending on the angle.<br>A splatter of paint-<br>I become the brick wall<br>on unprocessed land<br>a remnant of something<br>that once was there,<br>something that I had lost,<br>a sore thumb sticking out<br>out an all-white grass field.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Metamorphosis]]></title><description><![CDATA[Isn’t it curious
how the waterfall’s
initial selfie appeal
can, within seconds
of staring at it,
metamorphose
into silent
suicidal zeal?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/metamorphosis/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523343</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Shahryar Eskandari Zanjani]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:55:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1444525567579-c025cd07de6a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUyfHx3YXRlcmZhbGx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDI5ODMxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1444525567579-c025cd07de6a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUyfHx3YXRlcmZhbGx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE0NDI5ODMxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Metamorphosis"/><p>Isn’t it curious<br>how the waterfall’s<br>initial selfie appeal<br>can, within seconds<br>of staring at it,<br>metamorphose<br>into silent<br>suicidal zeal?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Watch the Magic]]></title><description><![CDATA[Diamond dust sparkles shrouded skies.
Snow falling, day and night.
Crackling trees echo in the silence.
Winter devours nature’s scene.
Ice has melted, rain replaces snow.
Rivers swell, spilling their banks.
New life scampers in forests deep.
Spring has sprung through fog so thick.
Heated meadows, green and brown.
Thunder rumbles, echoing loudly.
Stars twinkle in the dead of night.
Summer lasts but a blink of an eye.
Rusty landscapes warn of what's to come.
Wildlife hunts while foods abound.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/watch-the-magic/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852334c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Holly Ellison]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:52:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548777123-e216912df7d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fG1vbnRhbmElMjBtb3VudGFpbnMlMjBzbm93JTIwbWFnaWN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzI4NjcyNzMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548777123-e216912df7d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fG1vbnRhbmElMjBtb3VudGFpbnMlMjBzbm93JTIwbWFnaWN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzI4NjcyNzMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Watch the Magic"/><p>Diamond dust sparkles shrouded skies.<br>Snow falling, day and night.<br>Crackling trees echo in the silence.<br>Winter devours nature’s scene. </br></br></br></p><p>Ice has melted, rain replaces snow.<br>Rivers swell, spilling their banks.<br>New life scampers in forests deep.<br>Spring has sprung through fog so thick.</br></br></br></p><p>Heated meadows, green and brown.<br>Thunder rumbles, echoing loudly.<br>Stars twinkle in the dead of night.<br>Summer lasts but a blink of an eye.</br></br></br></p><p>Rusty landscapes warn of what's to come.<br>Wildlife hunts while foods abound.<br>Wind stirs up autumn’s remains.<br>Fall has arrived among the trees.</br></br></br></p><p>Such are the four seasons here.<br>Montana mountains take the reins.<br>Never care what time of year.<br>Embrace them all, watch the magic.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Garden Morning]]></title><description><![CDATA[The morning air has a canopy of sweet, light fog.
The temperature is perfect for my summer sweater.
The birds fill the trees with their chirping calling and answering
from the 21 trees in my sight.
Sometimes, I hear the flutter of their wings as they fly above me.
I am sitting in a bower of redbuds
and when I look up
I see thousands of little, floating hearts in myriad shades of green.
I breathe deeply with satisfaction.
This moment heals.
My body feels differently, very rela]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-garden-morning/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523344</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sharon Spurlin]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:28:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1701278958964-3a38f7437e05?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHJlZGJ1ZHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTk0MzMxNzJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1701278958964-3a38f7437e05?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHJlZGJ1ZHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTk0MzMxNzJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Garden Morning"/><p>The morning air has a canopy of sweet, light fog. </p><p>The temperature is perfect for my summer sweater. </p><p>The birds fill the trees with their chirping calling and answering </p><p>from the 21 trees in my sight. </p><p>Sometimes, I hear the flutter of their wings as they fly above me.</p><p>I am sitting in a bower of redbuds </p><p>and when I look up </p><p>I see thousands of little, floating hearts in myriad shades of green. </p><p>I breathe deeply with satisfaction.</p><p>This moment heals. </p><p> My body feels differently, very relaxed as does my mind and chest,</p><p> or should I say heart.</p><p> I think heart is just right.</p><p>This is enough. I have enough. I am without wants and worries. </p><p>This is enough, I have enough.</p><p>I am without wants and worries.</p><p>I am enough.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Excerpt from Chapter 3 of Brothers Bound]]></title><description><![CDATA[Excerpted from Brothers Bound by Bruce K. Berger (Buy It Now)
CHAPTER 3
THE CRASH
Late the afternoon of September 2, just ten days after Hues and I toasted Jeanie and our future wedding and baby, I received a phone call from Graves Registration. Fighting was intense around several firebases, and GR needed help evacuating some dead and wounded soldiers from firebase Bastogne. I agreed to join them after Sgt. Moretti approved the request. When I walked out of the Admin Center to meet a jeep driv]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/excerpt-from-chapter-3-of-brothers-bound/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523345</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce K. Berger]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:27:57 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1562399964-041df8d42151?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHZpZXRuYW0lMjB3YXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE5NDM1NTYxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1562399964-041df8d42151?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHZpZXRuYW0lMjB3YXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzE5NDM1NTYxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Excerpt from Chapter 3 of Brothers Bound"/><p>Excerpted from <em>Brothers Bound </em>by Bruce K. Berger (<a href="https://a.co/d/0biBBIJQ?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com" rel="noreferrer">Buy It Now</a>)</p><hr><p><strong>CHAPTER 3<br>THE CRASH</br></strong></p><p>Late the afternoon of September 2, just ten days after Hues and I toasted Jeanie and our future wedding and baby, I received a phone call from Graves Registration. Fighting was intense around several firebases, and GR needed help evacuating some dead and wounded soldiers from firebase Bastogne. I agreed to join them after Sgt. Moretti approved the request. When I walked out of the Admin Center to meet a jeep driver for the ride to GR, Captain Randall appeared and walked toward me.</p><p>“Where you headed, Private?” he stopped and asked.</p><p>“GR, sir. They asked for help with evacuations from firebase Bastogne. They’re backed up with the rains and heavy fighting. A jeep is coming to pick me up.”</p><p>He stepped close to me. He was, as Tiny described him, an in- your-face type of officer whose bark was probably a lot worse than his bite. “Did I give you permission to leave work here and help GR?” he challenged me.</p><p>“No, sir. But Sergeant Moretti knows and approved it.”</p><p>“Do I look like Sergeant Moretti to you?”</p><p>“No, sir.”</p><p>“And who makes decisions about requests from GR? Especially when we’re under a shit-heavy workload like we are right now?”</p><p>“You do, sir.”</p><p>“Yes. I make those decisions. Not you. Not Sergeant Moretti. From now on, you clear every request for assistance with me. Do. You. Under. Stand?” He was close enough I could smell whiskey on his breath. I really wanted to punch him out. Really.</p><p>“Yes, sir. You make the decisions,” I forced myself to say while I squeezed my fists tightly.</p><p>“And don’t you forget it. Now, get out of here. And when you return later tonight, get back on those letters. Forget sleep tonight. Am I clear?”</p><p>“Yes, sir! No fucking sleep!”</p><p>He stared at me for a moment then walked away.</p><p>Great send-off, I thought. Helluva leader. Brothers dying, and he’s spewing his rank.</p><p>The jeep ride and liftoff in the medical evacuation helicopter provided a break in a long day of hot, muggy, and windy rains that felt like a heavy warm shower. Hues was in the chopper, along with the pilot, Warrant Officer 1st Class Bill Perkins; Warrant Officer 2nd Class Harold Meadows; the crew chief, Vince Thompson; and the medic, Karl Davis.</p><p>“Two other medevacs been to the firebase earlier,” Hues shouted in my ear. “They picked up four dead and four wounded. Heavy fighting at Bastogne and two other firebases. And the damn weather and visibility, they ain’t cooperating.”</p><p>As our helicopter neared the firebase, Perkins gathered information from his radio about our destination then shared it. “Here’s the situation,” he shouted above the engine and blade noise. “We have three deceased to evacuate—god rest their souls. They’re near the normal landing zone. We also have three seriously injured to take to the hospital. One has a bad chest wound. A second lost most of his left hand and has a shoulder wound. And the third man . . . wait one . . . the third man just died. So, we’ll gather four bodies and two injured.”</p><p>Perkins paused briefly and quickly looked around at us. “That’s more than a load for the chopper, so we have to work fast and efficient. Fighting is heavy. The rain is picking up again, and dusk is closing way too fast. Artillery on the firebase knows we’re coming. A couple gunships are with us. They’re our primary defense. Our secondary defense is our speed of execution. We land, load, and get back in the air as quick as we can. Got it? Let’s do it.”</p><p>As the chopper drew closer, we saw flashes of gunfire and artillery and a few puffs of smoke slapped by wind on the west side of the big firebase. From above the jungled area resembled a dark green sea around the cleared, muddy firebase located in the Ashau Valley. A soldier waved us in, and we saw the four bagged bodies. The two injured men were on gurneys nearby, a medic kneeling with them.</p><p>Davis shouted at Hues and me. “The two wounded first. I’ll work on them. Then the four bodies. We’re gonna be way overloaded in here.”</p><p>Hues and I nodded, then glanced at each other, feeling the tension grow by the second as the chopper neared the pickup point where sounds of the fighting rapidly intensified.</p><p>An artillery round exploded sixty or seventy yards from our landing zone. We saw the gunships race off, firing as they attacked the apparent artillery site. Then the gunships rose, circled, and raced in firing again.</p><p>Davis, Hues, and I jumped out the side door of the medevac just as it touched the ground. More artillery hit nearby, a bit farther off target this time, though it sounded even louder and closer. We sprinted in the mud as best we could and slid to a stop near the two injured soldiers.</p><p>When we reached the men—loaded with drugs and looking dead—our world slowed down even as the actual pace picked up. We felt the rain fall hot on our skin like soft water bullets, pelting us and blurring our vision. We heard the distinct crackling sound of rifles and the thumps of mortars and artillery beyond the thumping chorus of our chopper nearby.</p><p>Davis took a quick check of the man shot in the chest, peeling back the cloth wrapping his body. He pointed to Hues and me. “He’s first!” he shouted.</p><p>Hues and I carefully lifted the gurney. We fast-walked as much as we could in the slimy mud to the open chopper just yards away. We were very aware of some bullets pinging past and then the thunder of outgoing artillery fire not far away. We lifted the gurney inside the chopper, where the crew chief helped settle it. Davis climbed aboard.</p><p>We raced back to the other wounded soldier. We carefully lifted him on his gurney. Then we resumed our muddy race with the injured man to the chopper, where Davis and the crew chief helped lift him aboard.</p><p>As he was lifted, the wounded soldier with the blasted left hand and shoulder cried out, even though heavily medicated. He opened his eyes and begged me to put him out of his pain. “How the hell can my damn hand hurt so bad when it’s no longer here?” his voice and eyes implored me.</p><p>“Move, move,” Perkins yelled, waving us toward the four men now dressed in black body bags as Davis climbed back in the chopper to work with the wounded soldiers.</p><p>One body at a time, we moved quickly in the slippery mud and now driving rain that was mixed with the steady muffled sounds of artillery and rifle shots. Hues and I lifted the bodies onto gurneys and carried them to the medevac.</p><p>When we lifted the gurneys, Hues mumbled his prayer of thankfulness for each brother. I couldn’t hear his hurried words above the noise, but I knew what Hues was saying because he’d told me. It was part of the ritual of his work.</p><p>I was struck with a sudden haunting sensation that each body we were moving contained a piece of my body. I was lifting and loading my heart, then my mind, my arms and legs, and the shadow of my soul, which weighed far more than other shadows encountered in life.</p><p>Each piece of their bodies, my body, was part of a bigger version of life. This was the last chapter of their lives in a book I didn’t fully understand. And I wouldn’t until maybe I finished my chapter by dying and being loaded on a chopper in the middle of the war amid combat sounds and heavy rains washing over us like angry waves. The sounds of life or the chorus of death? How could anyone ever know for sure?</p><p>“Last one!” Hues yelled. “Getting hot here!”</p><p>The sounds of the present moment returned fully. Artillery muffled in the distance. Gunships looping and pouring steady fire into the green sea of jungle. The distant scream of a soldier. Then another. The medic waving, screaming, beseeching us to hurry. Our chopper thumping its own drum-like music with its blades.</p><p>We lifted the fourth body, stared at the black bag and each other, then walked and slid as fast as we could through the mud to the chopper. We lifted the gurney, the medic helping, then pulled ourselves up into the medevac, where we adjusted the last gurney in the overloaded craft as it lifted off.</p><p>“We’re out of here,” the pilot said. “Hang on. Gonna be a hot ride for a minute or two.”</p><p>The medevac rose slowly, then lifted and banked a bit toward the northwest, which the pilot must have felt was the quickest, safest air pathway above the battle below and the artillery position in the southeast. At several hundred feet the chopper travelled further to the northwest. I was taking a picture of it in my mind so I could remember it when I wrote KIA letters for the four dead soldiers on board. I wouldn’t directly write about it in my letters, of course. But maybe it could somehow improve the tone or sensitivity of my words. Or maybe it was all meaningless.</p><p>Maybe a half mile from the landing zone a sudden burst of gunfire raked the overloaded chopper. Machine gun rounds or AK-47 shells tore through the chopper, which immediately began shaking then bucking up and down, ultimately sliding to the right and losing altitude. The pilot was dead, shot in the head and chest. I saw him slump down.</p><p>Pilot Meadows took control to the extent he could as he’d been shot in his right shoulder. He nursed the damaged chopper another quarter mile or so, fighting to keep it in the air though it continued sliding earthward. He was trying to fly the chopper over a small hill and out of range and view of the weapons outside the firebase. But all of us and the chopper were tilting and sliding ever faster toward the dense, darkening jungle below.</p><p>A new round of gunfire tore through the chopper, hitting radios, rupturing fuel lines, spreading debris, killing one of the injured soldiers, and riddling the deceased. The medic was hit in his head, which snapped back and then forward, chin on chest, mouth open, dead, staring at me. One of the wounded screamed until more bullets tore through the stacked bodies. Hues and I hugged the chopper floor, trying to hold on to the framework and the gurneys with the wounded, now likely dead.</p><p>The pilot was hit in another burst of fire, struggling to say “May . . . day . . . May . . .” The chopper began spinning slowly but sinking faster, sliding now to the north and out of sight of the firebase. The injured pilot leveled it just a bit before he passed out or died.</p><p>The injured crew chief grabbed the controls but lost them almost instantly when the chopper spun into some treetops and began a twisting, slashing descent to the jungle floor—tearing into trees, slowly coming apart as several bodies spilled out, then crashing on its side, nearly split in half when it finally stopped moving. My last conscious thoughts were the realization that the tip of my left ear had been brushed by a streaking bullet and my head was smashing hard against the chopper frame.</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Of All the Sorrows]]></title><description><![CDATA[Of all sorrow that can’t be shared
Grief is the upper most
That loss of precious life
The connection that ends
The wire sparking in the wind
I cannot show you my grief
I cannot see yours
It is salt in a solution
A part of your whole
Touching all of you with
the smiles, the laughter
the heartfelt talks
that belonged to two people alone
now belonged to one
You cannot share that intimacy
You can never again show anyone
The life
That life
Playing it’s self in your mind in your heart
The shape of the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/of-all-the-sorrows/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232db</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nancy Paddock]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:27:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1456162018889-1d2b969f7084?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGdyaWVmfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTMxNjkxNnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1456162018889-1d2b969f7084?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGdyaWVmfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTMxNjkxNnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Of All the Sorrows"/><p>Of all sorrow that can’t be shared<br>Grief is the upper most<br>That loss of precious life<br>The connection that ends<br>The wire sparking in the wind<br>I cannot show you my grief<br>I cannot see yours<br>It is salt in a solution<br>A part of your whole<br>Touching all of you with<br>the smiles, the laughter<br>the heartfelt talks<br>that belonged to two people alone<br>now belonged to one<br>You cannot share that intimacy<br>You can never again show anyone<br>The life<br>That life<br>Playing it’s self in your mind in your heart<br>The shape of the breath<br>of the memory in your hands<br>Your empty hands are all I see<br>That is the sorrow of grief</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[All the Fat]]></title><description><![CDATA[have you ever wondered why
poetry books are so thin?
it’s because you cannot
handle more than that;
one poem itself is a
prairie a moccasin
a graveyard a
wish; it drips
with all the
fat of the
buffalo.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/all-the-fat/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232dc</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elizabeth G. Howard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:27:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1710154132097-d5f1977b6992?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxwYXN0dXJlJTIwYnVmZmFsb3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MjA0NTU0Nzl8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1710154132097-d5f1977b6992?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxwYXN0dXJlJTIwYnVmZmFsb3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MjA0NTU0Nzl8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="All the Fat"/><p>have you ever wondered why<br>poetry books are so thin?<br>it’s because you cannot<br>handle more than that;<br>one poem itself is a<br>prairie a moccasin<br>a graveyard a<br>wish; it drips<br>with all the<br>fat of the<br>buffalo.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Balance]]></title><description><![CDATA[There were robins by the hundreds behind
the house when I let the dog out to pee, the
sun a translucent yellow disc, suspended
like a glass-thin lollipop in the east. They
were talking to each other, making plans,
socializing like students on break. Perhaps
it was a convention, and I should feel honored,
them selecting this parcel of land to meet and
greet the way robins do. I felt a bit guilty
having been asleep, coiled into the fetal
position, while conventioneers in the back
yard reeled fr]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/balance/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232dd</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Dorroh]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:26:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590237614564-1bd0de98d196?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxyb2JpbnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExMzE3OTYyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590237614564-1bd0de98d196?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxyb2JpbnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExMzE3OTYyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Balance"/><p>There were robins by the hundreds behind<br>the house when I let the dog out to pee, the<br>sun a translucent yellow disc, suspended<br><br>like a glass-thin lollipop in the east. They<br>were talking to each other, making plans,<br>socializing like students on break. Perhaps<br><br>it was a convention, and I should feel honored,<br>them selecting this parcel of land to meet and<br>greet the way robins do. I felt a bit guilty<br><br>having been asleep, coiled into the fetal<br>position, while conventioneers in the back<br>yard reeled from a breakfast of worms<br><br>and beetles, electing new officials, preparing<br>the agenda for the next gathering, and catching<br>up with news from all the participants. I wiggled<br><br>back into my nest to separate the noise from<br>solitude with as little as a back door and a wall.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Free]]></title><description><![CDATA[Maybe this is how I love the land,
to leave her
wild and free of my vision
whole and holy.
Maybe this is how I love my Self,
to leave her
wild and free of my vision
whole and holy.
And what, you ask, have I learned?
Only this—that I care
how evening sunlight rides
downstream in early fall,
how spider’s web hangs
in the bowing sycamore,
how heron stands gracefully,
patiently in river’s eddy waiting
for dinner, squawking
awkwardly skyward
when no fish come,
that this is enough.
There is nothi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/free/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232de</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Melia Snyder]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:26:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1473448912268-2022ce9509d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGxhbmRzY2FwZXMlMjBmb3Jlc3R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExMzE4NDc3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1473448912268-2022ce9509d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGxhbmRzY2FwZXMlMjBmb3Jlc3R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExMzE4NDc3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Free"/><p>Maybe this is how I love the land,<br>to leave her<br>wild and free of my vision<br>whole and holy.<br><br>Maybe this is how I love my Self,<br>to leave her<br>wild and free of my vision<br>whole and holy.<br><br>And what, you ask, have I learned?<br>Only this—that I care<br>how evening sunlight rides<br>downstream in early fall,<br><br>how spider’s web hangs<br>in the bowing sycamore,<br>how heron stands gracefully,<br>patiently in river’s eddy waiting<br><br>for dinner, squawking<br>awkwardly skyward<br>when no fish come,<br>that this is enough.<br><br>There is nothing to do<br>no thing to grieve<br>save the confusion of not knowing<br>until now. Simply, let it be.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Shore of Santa Monica]]></title><description><![CDATA[Waves devour waves
Creeping towards the dirty sand
Erasing our tracks
Like the thousands before us.
But still, the sea holds
Memory of our footprints,
Just as the grit clings
To the rough soles of our feet –
We scatter the sea
Once we leave, oh once we leave.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-shore-of-santa-monica/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232df</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Robertson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:25:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1615581161689-8307c11486c4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxzYW50YSUyMG1vbmljYXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE0MDE2NzF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1615581161689-8307c11486c4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxzYW50YSUyMG1vbmljYXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE0MDE2NzF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Shore of Santa Monica"/><p>Waves devour waves<br>Creeping towards the dirty sand<br>Erasing our tracks<br>Like the thousands before us.<br>But still, the sea holds<br>Memory of our footprints,<br>Just as the grit clings<br>To the rough soles of our feet –<br>We scatter the sea<br>Once we leave, oh once we leave.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[(The Illusion of) Flight: (A Jade Poem)]]></title><description><![CDATA[The illusion of flight has taken
the Illusionist longer to perfect
than anything else he’s ever done
After having the design and working
out the method of the effect what
he still needed was the perfect
Assistant to make it work
To fly to actually fly
and now he had her
A male volunteer is brought up
from the audience to place his hands
along her shoulder blades then step
back and command her to Fly
Her wings grow into place and
defying gravity she rises through the
air with a graceful motion ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-illusion-of-flight-a-jade-poem/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232e0</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:25:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1591711017594-730757e27b1f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGlsbHVzaW9ufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTQwMzIyM3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1591711017594-730757e27b1f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGlsbHVzaW9ufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTQwMzIyM3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="(The Illusion of) Flight: (A Jade Poem)"/><p>The illusion of flight has taken<br>the Illusionist longer to perfect<br>than anything else he’s ever done<br>After having the design and working<br>out the method of the effect what<br>he still needed was the perfect<br>Assistant to make it work<br>To fly to actually fly<br>and now he had her<br><br>A male volunteer is brought up<br>from the audience to place his hands<br>along her shoulder blades then step<br>back and command her to Fly<br><br>Her wings grow into place and<br>defying gravity she rises through the<br>air with a graceful motion and the<br>most fluid of movements<br>Soaring over the crowd<br>she flies to the edge of the<br>balcony where she lands a mere<br>three feet from the front row<br><br>It’s there that hoops are passed over<br>her body to show there are no wires<br>She then prepares to leap off the balcony<br>to return gracefully to the stage below<br><br>And for this she needs no winged feet<br>She needs no winged horse<br>No Japanese kites to carry her<br><br>For she is<br>at this moment<br>purely and simply<br>Flight</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Illumination]]></title><description><![CDATA[Summer evenings ablaze with fireflies,
lightning lanterns signaling in dew-tipped
grass, we paraded our bare, rock-toughened
feet up and down the mound of earth covering
the storm cellar—brides or queens in procession.
Then, in the distance, we would hear the whistle,
track clatter of a passenger train imagining
its way to a city, no stop near this one-stop-
light town, shuttered when Route 66 shuddered
to sleep. Inside the cars, silhouettes of diners,
profiles behind drawn shades, a beacon
on e]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/illumination/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232e1</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Linda Neal Reising]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:24:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1604585571723-8915f3b61275?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxmaXJlZmxpZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNDAzNzYwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1604585571723-8915f3b61275?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxmaXJlZmxpZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNDAzNzYwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Illumination"/><p>Summer evenings ablaze with fireflies,<br>lightning lanterns signaling in dew-tipped<br>grass, we paraded our bare, rock-toughened<br>feet up and down the mound of earth covering<br>the storm cellar—brides or queens in procession.<br>Then, in the distance, we would hear the whistle,<br>track clatter of a passenger train imagining<br>its way to a city, no stop near this one-stop-<br>light town, shuttered when Route 66 shuddered<br>to sleep. Inside the cars, silhouettes of diners,<br>profiles behind drawn shades, a beacon<br>on each table, a tableau of elegance dreamed<br>in our pretend, pre-teen world. And sometimes,<br>at the very end, a uniformed man stood holding<br>the railing of the caboose, raising his hand<br>in one swift wave or salute, as we cheered<br>this promise of leaving, peered down the track<br>until there was nothing left but a light so small,<br>it could have been just another firefly after all.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dear Poem]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Poem,
Do you have any deep insights for me?
Sometimes, I come at you with
Unrealistic expectations
As if you are my psychic,
Or psychologist,
And I expect you to
Do the work
To unravel me
To save me
To love me
To lead me.
I do not want to
Trivialize your power,
Reducing you to a sterile collection of words.
Nor, do I want to burden you
With more than I should ask,
Demanding supernatural
Metaphysical
Otherwordly
Truths
That I cannot access elsewhere.
Perhaps,
Dear Poem,
I should just
Let you]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dear-poem-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232e2</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Hoffman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:24:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1618595867213-71fcfb101a6d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxsaXN0ZW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExMzg1NTU0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1618595867213-71fcfb101a6d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxsaXN0ZW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExMzg1NTU0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dear Poem"/><p>Dear Poem,<br>Do you have any deep insights for me?<br>Sometimes, I come at you with<br>Unrealistic expectations<br>As if you are my psychic,<br>Or psychologist,<br>And I expect you to<br>Do the work<br>To unravel me<br>To save me<br>To love me<br>To lead me.<br>I do not want to<br>Trivialize your power,<br>Reducing you to a sterile collection of words.<br>Nor, do I want to burden you<br>With more than I should ask,<br>Demanding supernatural<br>Metaphysical<br>Otherwordly<br>Truths<br>That I cannot access elsewhere.<br>Perhaps,<br>Dear Poem,<br>I should just<br>Let you be<br>And I should<br>Listen<br>To what you have to say.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Last Letter to My Love]]></title><description><![CDATA[Fall storms this morning woke me long before six
The smell of wet leaves and spent fruit dying on the bough
Snap and crackle ‘neath birds feet tapping the low-hanging feeder.
I must remember to buy more seed.
Early morning mist sleeps silently outside my window
As the faintest glow of amber dawn crests the pasture gate
My fingers, warm against the frosty pane, trace the curve of your cheek
Shoulders broad and strong
Sad eyes spawning rivers running cool on the window sill.
The cat calls for br]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/last-letter-to-my-love/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232e3</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Donna Hanson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:23:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1604070219760-2ad5e399d52d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGJpcmQlMjBmZWVkZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNTY3NjQ2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1604070219760-2ad5e399d52d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGJpcmQlMjBmZWVkZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNTY3NjQ2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Last Letter to My Love"/><p>Fall storms this morning woke me long before six<br>The smell of wet leaves and spent fruit dying on the bough<br>Snap and crackle ‘neath birds feet tapping the low-hanging feeder.<br>I must remember to buy more seed.<br><br>Early morning mist sleeps silently outside my window<br>As the faintest glow of amber dawn crests the pasture gate<br>My fingers, warm against the frosty pane, trace the curve of your cheek<br>Shoulders broad and strong<br>Sad eyes spawning rivers running cool on the window sill.<br><br>The cat calls for breakfast<br>Soft paws padding rhythmic pleas on my pillow<br>I turn to bury my face deeper<br>In your memory.<br><br>Joy sits patiently in dusty journals filled with familiar smiles<br>Laughter comes hard these days<br>These long days<br><br>Silence lays low like an old quilt where ivory clad notes danced<br>Swirling awkwardly in a consonant embrace<br>Now quiet<br><br>Another’s eyes hold yours.<br><br>Soon winter winds will heal the window rivers’ rush<br>Stilling time<br>Soon spring rains will wash clean my soul<br>Soon the pain of your loss will sweep across my shoulders<br>Like a warm summer breeze<br>and again, I'll sing<br>and laugh<br>and love.<br><br>Soon.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Writing My Story]]></title><description><![CDATA[One typo
Every time I write the word years
it always comes out as tears
And that scar down your cheek
That mysterious scar that
speaks of childhood accidents
or dangerous traffic on the road
or violence you faced head-on
shines there like an outtake
from an old Dylan album of a
version few people have heard
of a still important song
And writing my story every time
I type out years the piece of
technology supposedly at my bidding
changes the word to tears]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/writing-my-story/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232e5</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:23:28 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1584096578645-ed811ffa7e38?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHx0eXBvfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTU2OTIzN3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1584096578645-ed811ffa7e38?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHx0eXBvfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTU2OTIzN3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Writing My Story"/><p>One typo<br>Every time I write the word years<br>it always comes out as tears</br></br></p><p>And that scar down your cheek<br>That mysterious scar that<br>speaks of childhood accidents<br>or dangerous traffic on the road<br>or violence you faced head-on<br>shines there like an outtake<br>from an old Dylan album of a<br>version few people have heard<br>of a still important song<br><br>And writing my story every time<br>I type out years the piece of<br>technology supposedly at my bidding<br>changes the word to tears</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Look at Me]]></title><description><![CDATA[I often wonder if you ever think about me anymore
Did you ever think about me at all?
In younger days we spent hours talking
I used to think that was special but recently
I realized you were mostly talking about yourself.
One of the last conversations mom had with you
consisted of harsh reality and a bit of begging on her part
She told you if she had a choice she'd never leave me
She asked you to use your luxury of choice and stay
You left anyway, when she wasn't even cold.
Just for clarificat]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/look-at-me/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232e6</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Hannon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:23:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1577695464142-e3a24f4e88f2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM2fHxib3R0bGVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTU3MTQwOXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1577695464142-e3a24f4e88f2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM2fHxib3R0bGVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTU3MTQwOXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Look at Me"/><p>I often wonder if you ever think about me anymore<br>Did you ever think about me at all?<br>In younger days we spent hours talking<br>I used to think that was special but recently<br>I realized you were mostly talking about yourself.<br><br>One of the last conversations mom had with you<br>consisted of harsh reality and a bit of begging on her part<br>She told you if she had a choice she'd never leave me<br>She asked you to use your luxury of choice and stay<br>You left anyway, when she wasn't even cold.<br><br>Just for clarification I'm not talking about physically<br>although you did leave that way too but that, I understand<br>I already knew you were almost incapable of the physical<br>When I ran across that parking lot hugging you - yearning for warmness<br>And your body went on high alert and all alarms sounded – and tensed.<br><br>I know love can't be said out loud or touched in our family I just forgot.<br>Love has to be in action alone.<br>Trips and concerts, movies and carnivals with friends.<br>Those make for great memories but there's an hollowness to them.<br>A coldness where there should be warmth.<br><br>But dammit - love isn't found in the bottom of that bottle either.<br>It's not in the serenity of slurred words or the satisfaction of that first sip.<br>There's an emptiness like the bottles all over your floor.<br>Always complaining of hoarding but you're hoarding everything inside.<br>There's no room for anything else. Not even me. Your only daughter.<br><br>I know I can't make you stop. I can't make you see me.<br>I wish I was a cute child to wave and do cartwheels and say<br>Daddy, look at me! Look at this! LOOK!!!<br>Instead I'm a motherless daughter scrambling to raise my kids better<br>And you are not looking anywhere but in that bottle inside yourself.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mudslide]]></title><description><![CDATA[Baptize me with river, a creek if water’s an issue.
Let it trickle over Uncle Wheeler’s dead feet, his
ankles covered with hunting boots. He never looked
up beyond those vein-streaked cheeks, his misery
screwed tightly into a Mason jar. One Thanksgiving
morning he let me touch his big red dick. There were
no words, no invitation, just an awkward moment,
he with his sunglasses, me with enough curiosity
to kill my sister’s cat. It was over before it started.
As it should have been. And an hour lat]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mudslide/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232e7</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Dorroh]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:22:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1635497481727-ba059a5b1fee?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fG11ZGR5JTIwcml2ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNTcxOTQ3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1635497481727-ba059a5b1fee?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fG11ZGR5JTIwcml2ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNTcxOTQ3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Mudslide"/><p>Baptize me with river, a creek if water’s an issue.<br>Let it trickle over Uncle Wheeler’s dead feet, his<br>ankles covered with hunting boots. He never looked<br>up beyond those vein-streaked cheeks, his misery<br>screwed tightly into a Mason jar. One Thanksgiving<br>morning he let me touch his big red dick. There were<br>no words, no invitation, just an awkward moment,<br>he with his sunglasses, me with enough curiosity<br>to kill my sister’s cat. It was over before it started.<br>As it should have been. And an hour later he passed me<br>the platter of turkey and asked dark meat or white?<br>He walked me to his truck, Aunt Sarah, sitting<br>in the front seat crying like a baby. Say good-bye<br>to me she said. The river turned to mud after that.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Waning of Miss Lyla Bluetree]]></title><description><![CDATA[Editor's Note: This is the first chapter of a novel in progress.
Life had taught Lyla Bluetree that locks never came to any good. She leaned over in her scooter and peered through the door of the supermarket, willing the sensored doors to open. She lifted her cane and banged on the glass. Seeing no movement, she banged again. The scrawny manager poked his head out from an aisle and walked over.
“I done told ya, Miss Bluetree," he said through the glass. "These doors is set to automatic. They d]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-waning-of-miss-lyla-blue-tree/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232f1</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Daniel Wright]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:22:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1693168045046-9a4b4f30f1c7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGNhbm5lZCUyMHNvdXB8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNjQ1MzMyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1693168045046-9a4b4f30f1c7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGNhbm5lZCUyMHNvdXB8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNjQ1MzMyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Waning of Miss Lyla Bluetree"/><p><em>Editor's Note: This is the first chapter of a novel in progress.</em></p><hr><p>Life had taught Lyla Bluetree that locks never came to any good. She leaned over in her scooter and peered through the door of the supermarket, willing the sensored doors to open. She lifted her cane and banged on the glass. Seeing no movement, she banged again. The scrawny manager poked his head out from an aisle and walked over.<br><br>“I done told ya, Miss Bluetree," he said through the glass. "These doors is set to automatic. They don’t open til 7 am sharp from corporate over in Memphis!” </br></br></p><p>“You don’t have to yell, I ain’t deaf,” Lyla said. <br><br>“I ain’t yelling and you are too,” he said pressing his pockmarked face so close to the glass it fogged up two little spots in front of his nostrils. Lyla smacked the door again near his face and he jumped back.<br><br>So what if she had a little hearing trouble, Lyla thought. It’s downright rude to call attention to it.<br><br>“I know you got an override key,” she said. “Don’t act like you don’t.”<br><br>“They took it away from me the last time I let you in early Miss Bluetree, I swear. My key only works for the side door. You’ll need to wait a few more minutes.”<br><br>Lyla backed up her scooter about three feet and debated ramming the door. She’d had a bumper installed last summer, just so she wouldn’t have to wait so much. When she asked the mechanic down at the filling station to fashion her one, she described it to him like one of the big cow scoopers they had on trains back in her day. Lyla imagined being able to go through anyone standing in her way like Moses parting the Red Sea. Instead, the man had slapped a rubbery guard on the front that stuck out about a foot with crooked waves that looked like a cheap perm.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>When Lyla did get a notion to ram something, it bounced her back like a bumper car. So much so, it almost gave her whiplash one afternoon at the Chili cookoff when some teenagers wouldn’t move their car.<br><br>Before the manager could get a word out, Lyla swung the scooter forward and to the east and said, "I'm coming round."<br><br>“Alright, Mrs. Bluetree” he yelled. “I’ll meet you over there, but there’s no smoking in the store and I expect you to at least – But Lyla was already gone.<br><br>After her shopping, Lyla tried to stay on the sidewalk as much as she could, if for no other reason than to keep that smart-mouthed deputy from Lepanto off her back.<br><br>Know it all<em>,</em> she thought.<br><br>A few years ago, he’d pulled her over. Lyla protested that her scooter couldn’t go over 15 miles an hour and that even if it could, there weren’t any kids around that day. And besides all that, she had a pint of butter pecan ice cream in her groceries that was melting.<br><br>“I’m 96 years old,” she said in frustration.<br><br>“I know, ma’am. That’s why I’m just giving you another warning. This is a school zone and we have told you several times, that while you now have the legal right to use your scooter, there is still a need to take into consideration –<br><br>“Good Lord, if you’re gonna give me a lecture, just write the ticket,” Lyla said.<br><br>And then he did!<br><br>Some nerve, she thought.<br><br>The town council had tried to pass an ordinance against her when she first got the scooter in 1993 after her driver’s license had been confiscated. From that day forward Lyla made up her mind to not take any guff from anyone at the city and had earned a certain reputation among the civil servants of the region.<br><br>When she pulled up in front of the steps to her house, the thought of it all still fired Lyla up so much that she almost forgot to set the brake again even though she’d tied her grocery bag to the handle as a reminder.<br><br>"I go sending this thing into the river one more time and I’ll never get it back," she muttered to herself.<br><br>She pulled the brake, then lifted her bag from the basket and put one hand on the pipe railing before she stood. There were forty-seven steps from the sidewalk up the bluff to her front door and Lyla had come to hate every single one in the past year.<br><br>The only good thing about shrinking over like she had was that it wasn’t any effort at all to put the bag on each step before she pulled herself up, one at a time like an inchworm. Back in her eighties it hurt her back considerably to do it that way. But she ate more back then – two bags worth – which made it hard to navigate both the bags and the pipe railing that ran up the steep steps to the old house at the top of the bluff.<br><br>The house was a fourteen-room colonial revival that overlooked the Mississippi River on the highest bluff in Helena, Arkansas. It had been the home of one of the foremen for Lee Wilson, the man who built the Arkansas Delta. In its heyday, the Bluetree House had hosted almost every dignitary in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi, even once a Vice President of the United States of America. Lyla wasn’t sure which one it was because it had been so long ago, but it seemed to her the man went by Cookie to his friends.<br><br>She worked her way to the next step and placed down the bag. These days, all Lyla ate in a week was a half chicken and three cans of Tomato soup. The chickens were so fat and thick, it was like four chicken’s worth, at least compared to the scrawny ones she remembered killing for her mother when she was a girl.<br><br>And don’t get me started about the soup, she thought.<br><br>They were out of plain Campbell’s tomato soup so she had to buy something called Creamy Tomato Basil from a company she’d never heard of in a huge can that she could barely get her fist around.<br><br>The steps took about 25 minutes, but Lyla made it to the top and thanked the Lord she only shopped every other week. Once on the porch, she turned the knob of the large door and pushed her shoulder against it, then felt it suddenly give way.<br><br>“There you are Aunt Lyla! I’ve been worried sick.” It was Terri, her great nephew Leland’s stout wife, pulling open the door just as Lyla came in.<br><br>Speaking of cheap perm<em>s</em>, Lyla thought.<br><br>“Let me get these for you,” Terri said and snatched the bag out of Lyla’s hand as she took her by the arm.<br><br><em>With an i</em>, Lyla thought.<br><br>That’s what the girl said to every person she met. “I’m Terri. With an i.”<br><br>No need to manhandle, me,” Lyla said.<br><br>Terri with an i placed the plastic bag on the floor beside the door. Lyla liked to put her groceries away first thing when she came home and wondered why the girl went to the trouble of taking the bag if she was just going to leave it sitting by the door. Lyla was just about to reach down and pick it back up when Terri pulled her by the arm.<br><br>“Aunt Lyla, come sit with me a spell,” Terri said.<br><br>Lyla let herself be led into the living room. Why anyone would leave groceries setting by the front door escaped her. The whole time Terri talked Lyla couldn’t help but look over at the bag as if dirty looks would keep chicken from thawing.<br><br>Lyla never paid much attention to anything Terri said and today was no different. The girl was going on about how Lyla needed to be more careful, not do so much, and for the love of God put some locks on her doors. If there was one thing Lyla Bluetree was not fond of, it was a sermon. Particularly in her own living room!<br><br>“Don’t you be worrying none about my locks,” Lyla said. “I’ve been around a hundred years and somehow managed to survive. I suspect I’ll be fine.”<br><br>“It’s just that Leland worries so about you, Aunt Lyla. This neighborhood has gone to pot. These times we live in ain’t like it used to be.”<br><br>“You think you’re telling me anything new?" Lyla asked. "This neighborhood was gone to pot before you ever drew breath, missy. My friend Bessie Hornbuckle got shot not ten feet from my front porch steps in 1972.”<br><br>“That’s horrible!” Terri said. “Who shot her?”<br><br>“Her husband, who else.”<br><br>“Are you serious?”<br><br>“Bud Hornbuckle was a mean drunk. But Bessie always went back.”<br><br>“Did she die?” Terri asked.<br><br>“Too stubborn,” Lyla said, with a slight smile. “I went down the steps after I heard the shot and went straight up to her. I took her by the hand and said, don’t you die, Bessie, you hear me? Don’t you die! Bessie looked at me and said clear as day. I wouldn’t give that son of a bitch the satisfaction.”<br><br>“Dear,” Terri said.<br><br>Lyla giggled, then said, “Bessie made Bud pay for it eventually,” then giggled again.<br><br>“Well, I hope you won’t be telling that story to the newspaper next week,” Terri said.<br><br>“Hell’s Bells,” Lyla said. “Is that here already?”<br><br>“It’s not every day someone turns 100!” Terri said.<br><br>Not even me, Lyla thought.<br><br>Truth be told, Lyla was going to be 103 next week, not 100. She couldn’t remember when she’d shaved the three years off. Probably sometime in her thirties, back when those kinds of things mattered. And nobody but the Lord knew where her birth certificate was if there even was one. Her family had been over in the Ozarks when she was born.<br><br>“Is there any kind of cake you’d like for the party?” Terri asked.<br><br>Lyla rolled her eyes but didn’t fight. They were all determined to give her a party whether she wanted it or not.<br><br>“Plain yellow cake with white icing,” Lyla said. “But get it from Kroger, not that fancy bakery over by the bypass. That one gives me gas.”<br><br>“Yes, ma’am,” Terri said. “Anything the birthday girl wants. But I’m still worried sick all the time about you living in this big old place without so much as a lock on the front door.”<br><br>“Locks are for people afraid of something,” Lyla said casting down her eyes.<br><br>She had lived in the mansion since she married Claude Bluetree in 1943. At the time, there were only latches with hooks on the doors. Lyla hated doors with latches and knew they were no use. One of the first things she did after the honeymoon was to remove every single one. If it’s out there and wants in, there's nothing to be done. You'd would be a lot happier if you went about your business.<br><br>Be ready for it, but don’t run from it. That’s for babies, she thought.<br><br>Her husband always indulged her peculiarities, as he called them. Claude was a good man but not the love of Lyla’s life by any means. He had more money than good sense dictated and came from a family of well-to-do cotton merchants who made their fortune in Memphis but then retreated to Helena back when it was a rural enclave a short ways down the river.<br><br>Though Lyla hadn’t come from money, it never bothered her to run in the circles of those who had. When they first met, she found Claude more amusing than attractive. He had an unusually large forehead and thick eyebrows, but the way he laughed won her over.<br><br>“Still,” Terri said. “I can’t hardly believe you’ve never had locks on these doors. But Leland says it’s so. He remembers coming in and out at all hours when he was little, but I still can’t picture it.”<br><br>“Well picture it or not that’s the way it was.” Lyla replied. “And the way it’s going to stay.”<br><br>“Yes ma’am,” Terri said.<br><br>“Was there anything else?”<br><br>“Well,” Terri stammered.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>“Spit it out.”<br><br>“Leland was wondering if he could borrow some money to send little Ray Ray to church camp next summer. They are making everybody put the money up front in installments because last summer the Jenkins twins promised to pay and then didn’t. Things are a bit tight this month.”<br><br>Lyla never minded giving Leland money for little things. She liked the fact that nobody in the family knew whether she was rich or not. Lyla would sometimes even forget to keep track of it herself. Which, by her standards, meant that she must be fairly rich.<br><br>If you’re poor, you don’t forget it, she thought.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>There was a time when the Bluetree family was one of the richest in the Delta and for all anyone knew, still was. Lyla enjoyed the idea that her relatives might suck up to her just because she may or may not have some money. So, when they asked for little things here and there, she never hesitated for a moment and simply said you bet and wrote a check.<br><br>“How much is it?” Lyla asked.<br><br>Terri hesitated before she finally said, “Seventy-five dollars this first installment. I can’t believe it cost so much for a week at church camp.”<br><br>“Don’t sound like much to me,” Lyla said. “Let me get my checkbook.”</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>“You sure I can’t get it for you?” Terri asked.<br><br>“Don’t nobody touch my checkbook but me,” Lyla said.<br><br>Once Terri had what she’d come for, she seemed to make an excuse to leave, which was just fine with Lyla.<br><br>Praise the Lord and about damn time, she thought.<br><br>Lyla grabbed the grocery bag as soon as Terri shut the front door and made a beeline for the kitchen. The chicken breast was still frozen but having it sitting out for 20 minutes while they talked wasn’t doing it any good. She walked through the living room to the back kitchen and put the bag on the table.<br><br>After Claude died in 1978, Lyla slowly shut down parts of the house one room at a time. One spring she would close off a spare bedroom then another spring she would tell herself that nobody needed to use the third floor. Then yet another spring she would say the master bedroom was way too much for her. By the early 2000's she had moved completely to the first floor and by 2012 occupied the maid’s room, the kitchen and would walk through the living room and out the foyer to the front door.<br><br>Lyla paid a family next door to do minor repairs, but the overall state of the mansion was sad by any standard. The roof had been redone a few years earlier and didn’t leak, but if anyone looked closely, they’d see tar patches peppered about. Lyla didn’t mind. She was a vain woman in her time, but that time had long since expired.<br><br>She took the chicken from the bag and carried it to the refrigerator. It was bare except for a gallon of orange juice filled almost to the top. Lyla drank one small glass of orange juice every morning and took her vitamin C pill religiously. Other than that, she drank three diet Dr. Peppers – in a can – every day, nothing more nothing less. She hated the taste of water.<br><br>She walked back to the counter and took the bag and headed toward the pantry. For a moment she lost her grip and dropped the bag on the tile. One of the cans of tomato soup rolled across the floor. The house always had a slight angle and anything she dropped took off like a jitney to the nearest wall. She went after it immediately, but it wasn’t much of a race. Before Lyla even made it to the kitchen table, the can had rolled through the pantry, into the laundry room and between the washing machine and dryer all the way to the back.<br><br>She walked back to the laundry room closet and got a broom to see if she could use the handle to roll the soup can back out. Try as she might, it wouldn’t budge. One little ridge on the bottom of the can was stuck behind the corner of the washing machine.<br><br>Soup cans they make these days are so big it’s ridiculous, Lyla thought.<br><br>After a couple more tries with the broom, she decided to leave it. She placed the other two cans in the pantry and determined it wasn’t going to upset her routine - that can just sitting there.<br><br>So she went about her day. She read two chapters of the book by her nightstand, did fifteen minutes of leg lifts in the recliner, then watched TV for one hour and 45 minutes. After that, she smoked one cigarette and took a two-hour nap. She was proud of herself for not giving the soup can sitting behind the washing machine a second thought all day long, or so she told herself.<br><br>Her intention was to tell Terri about it the next time that she came by or to get one of the Holland boys next door to help her get it in the morning when they came to bring her the paper. She gave the young Holland boy a dollar every time he brought in her paper, but only gave his brother fifty cents. The young one was sweeter.<br><br>At bedtime, around 8:15, she lay in bed and could not fall asleep. The thought of the can sitting behind the washing machine gnawed at her. It had all day, though she’d decided to pretend differently. Lyla hated to go to bed without everything in its place, so she got up, put on her night robe and grabbed the broom on the way to the laundry room. She reached for the light string and gave it a yank.<br><br>Once she got the broom handle between the washer and dryer, she could just touch the soup can. That one little ridge was wedged just so between the washer and dryer and she couldn’t make it roll. She thought if she just had another inch on either side, she could get the broom behind it and gently roll it out.<br><br>She set the broom on top of the dryer cross ways and put her left-hand on the top corner of the washer and her right hand on the opposite side. The first time she pushed, it didn’t give a bit. The second time she pushed the front gave a hair, but the back didn’t move. She checked with the broom to see if it was enough to reach, but it wasn’t. She gave the washer one more hard push and that’s when she heard a snap and felt a pinch.<br><br>Lyla immediately fell to the floor and knew something was wrong. She couldn’t move her legs or much of anything else. Stunned, all she could manage was to reach out her right hand toward the light string hanging above her.<br><br>Well, that’s silly, she thought. That string's ten feet away.<br><br>She wasn’t in pain but couldn’t move anything except that one arm. She stayed there, flat on her back, reaching upwards, for some time. Then she lowered her hand and stared at the laundry room ceiling.<br><br>Finally, Lyla closed her eyes and thought, so this is what it’s come to?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Displaced Lines]]></title><description><![CDATA[My father was a soldier.
My mother’s from Germany.
I am a military bratwurst.
War economy equals destruction.
Dismantle arms production—
the ultimate act of love production.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/displaced-lines/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232f2</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[D. L. Lang]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:22:28 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524237629218-0a109277890c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJyYXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNjQ2NTQwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524237629218-0a109277890c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJyYXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNjQ2NTQwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Displaced Lines"/><p>My father was a soldier.<br>My mother’s from Germany.<br>I am a military bratwurst.<br>War economy equals destruction.<br>Dismantle arms production—<br>the ultimate act of love production.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Written in My Garden]]></title><description><![CDATA[
People move like ants
along the busy street.
What incomprehensible life
once moved beneath their feet?
It was there for millions
of years but left only bones,
graves unmarked with any stones.
Life is a mystery
I’m unable to solve.
I look at the stars.
I stare at the sun.
After futile thoughts,
the questions remain,
so I tend my roses,
and I’m no closer
than when I’d first begun.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/written-in-my-garden/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232f3</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[George Freek]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:20:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1496857239036-1fb137683000?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQwfHxyb3Nlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE2NDY4NDB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1496857239036-1fb137683000?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQwfHxyb3Nlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE2NDY4NDB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Written in My Garden"/><p><br>People move like ants<br>along the busy street.<br>What incomprehensible life<br>once moved beneath their feet?<br>It was there for millions<br>of years but left only bones,<br>graves unmarked with any stones.<br>Life is a mystery<br>I’m unable to solve.<br>I look at the stars.<br>I stare at the sun.<br>After futile thoughts,<br>the questions remain,<br>so I tend my roses,<br>and I’m no closer<br>than when I’d first begun.<br/></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Mother’s Love]]></title><description><![CDATA[To stay with her that final night,
I argued so in vain.
So many thrums,
hands over ears,
so many years, the pain.
Her frightened stare,
I wasn’t there,
a somber sad refrain.
She passed this world
alone, alone.
Yet, never to complain.
So many years my heart was sealed,
too shameful to explain.
But then, a voice in graveyard soft,
“There’s no one here to blame.”]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-mothers-love/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232f4</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:20:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612490689624-dc01325cc885?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxicm9rZW4lMjBoZWFydHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE3MzMzNjF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612490689624-dc01325cc885?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxicm9rZW4lMjBoZWFydHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE3MzMzNjF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Mother’s Love"/><p>To stay with her that final night,<br>I argued so in vain.<br>So many thrums,<br>hands over ears,<br>so many years, the pain.<br>Her frightened stare,<br>I wasn’t there,<br>a somber sad refrain.<br>She passed this world<br>alone, alone.<br>Yet, never to complain.<br>So many years my heart was sealed,<br>too shameful to explain.<br>But then, a voice in graveyard soft,<br>“There’s no one here to blame.”</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[It Is Time]]></title><description><![CDATA[It is time to untangle your tongue,
and let the muzzle drop with a thud;
time to speak your truth, tell the narrative,
one both as unique as it is universal.
It is time to bear witness to you, all of you,
to your own singular experience of this,
the imagining, the awareness, the breathing,
this thing we call life, the being we cherish.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/it-is-time/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232f5</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chad Gurley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:20:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1606674556490-c2bbb4ee05e5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHx0aW1lfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTczMDMzMHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1606674556490-c2bbb4ee05e5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHx0aW1lfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTczMDMzMHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="It Is Time"/><p>It is time to untangle your tongue,<br>and let the muzzle drop with a thud;<br>time to speak your truth, tell the narrative,<br>one both as unique as it is universal.</br></br></br></p><p>It is time to bear witness to you, all of you,<br>to your own singular experience of this,<br>the imagining, the awareness, the breathing,<br>this thing we call life, the being we cherish.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Willow and the Barn]]></title><description><![CDATA[I was born and raised in the same house. It wasn’t anything special, a tri-level with a partially underground basement, a two-car garage, and three bedrooms for five people. The backyard was wider than it was long; it was always green and only sometimes cut short. In my dad’s twenty plus years in the house, he built two sheds, a swing set, three gardens, a base for a hot tub, and countless bird houses. But past the wire fence was the only piece of untouched land in our suburbia. It was eight acr]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-willow-and-the-barn/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232f6</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Beth Hannah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:19:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1578423512979-4c2ef54000a0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHx3aWxsb3clMjB0cmVlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTc0NTcxN3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1578423512979-4c2ef54000a0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHx3aWxsb3clMjB0cmVlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTc0NTcxN3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Willow and the Barn"/><p>I was born and raised in the same house. It wasn’t anything special, a tri-level with a partially underground basement, a two-car garage, and three bedrooms for five people. The backyard was wider than it was long; it was always green and only sometimes cut short. In my dad’s twenty plus years in the house, he built two sheds, a swing set, three gardens, a base for a hot tub, and countless bird houses. But past the wire fence was the only piece of untouched land in our suburbia. It was eight acres of woods, grass, and a flowing creek. Wildlife flocked to the field, and from an early age I was all too familiar with the circle of life. </p><p>Mrs. Fehrebach owned the acreage that our land backed up to. The neighborhood kids always said she was over 100 years old. She couldn’t maintain the land, so my family helped her out. She owned the first two story log cabin built in the state, the deed of which was signed by Andrew Jackson all the way back in the 1800’s, but she lived in the carriage house. There was an empty stable in between the cabin and the house, but the three buildings were off to the side and I could only see the back of the house if I went to the farthest corner of our yard. Besides the endless field of wild grass and a thick line of Sycamore trees, the only building that faced our house, barely hidden by a willow tree, was a small, empty barn that Mrs. Fehrebach hadn’t touched in all of her years owning the estate. It was a strong structure that withstood the storms and tornadoes our community knew all too often. My family often spoke of how impressed we were that it had lasted so long. </p><p>The only time I met Mrs. Fehrebach was when her son was walking her down the field, towards the willow tree. I was outside doing yard work with my Dad, when Curtis, her son, stopped to talk to him. My family loved their land like it was ours. We knew the gem that we had in the middle of the city, it was our safe haven, our escape. Because of this, my Dad always offered Curtis his help, trimming the grass, cutting down trees, and occasionally disposing of the corpse of a creature that the coyotes had left behind. Curtis and Mrs. Fehrebach approached the fence, with linked arms, but painfully slow.</p><p>I had always considered myself kind of a tomboy. I liked fishing with my Dad and even working in the yard with him. I liked tending to the garden, and the compost, anything that got my hands dirty. I hated pink and anything related to it. The only shoes I owned were tennis shoes and my work boots. But this year, things began to change. My body started to look more like my older sisters’. I had a hard time hiding my chest, unless under a loose-fitting t-shirt. And once a month I had to ask my mom to take me to the nearest CVS for products that my Dad was too embarrassed to shop for on his grocery store runs. The boys in my school had begun to notice how much my body was changing. One day I wore a tight-fitted turtleneck to school and even my friends had a hard time looking me in the eye. </p><p>That day, I was wearing a sports bra and tank top. My mom and I hadn’t had the time to go get a bigger, better fitting sports bra. But I was just working with my Dad in the garden, so I didn’t think anything of it. But when Curtis approached the fence, he noticed. I was acutely aware of his wandering eyes, but I know Dad didn’t see it. I pulled up my tank top a little bit. </p><p>Mrs. Fehrebach had silver hair in a braid that touched the back of her knees. At the age of twelve, she was no taller than me, with her beady brown eyes barely above the fence line. When they finally approached the fence, she took a moment to catch her breath, then smiled at me. It was a stretched smile that made me uneasy. But my Dad and Curtis had already struck up a conversation, making me feel a little bit more comfortable. After a few more strenuous pants Mrs. Fehrebach let go of her son and took a step towards me.</p><p>“Hello dear,” she said. “You must be young Naomi. Your father has told me about you.” </p><p>“How do you do?” I asked. </p><p>“My sweet boy here offered to take me down to the Willow. I hadn’t visited her in quite some time and I dreamt of her last night” she said. She gestured towards Curtis, who smiled at my chest. </p><p>That tree was the only willow I had ever seen, except for in pictures and movies. It had hair that rested on the ground and flowed like the ocean waves I knew at the beach. It was magical and I could see why Mrs. Fehrebach dreamt of it. But it was just a piece of nature to me, it wasn’t a living thing, let alone a “she.”</p><p>“It’s very pretty. I like to stand out here in the mornings and just watch it,” I said to her. Mrs. Fehrebach paused for a moment, smiling at me with her mouth wide shut. </p><p>“She’s older than I am and the farmers that owned her before I did. They told me when I bought this land that the Tribe who lived here before them grew it from just a single seed.” </p><p>My father and Curtis had stopped talking about who would trim the grass this week to listen in on Mrs. Fehrebach’s teachings. Curtis didn’t take his eyes off of me. My mom had told me that sometimes older men just can’t help but stare like that. It’s just in their nature. </p><p>“You see that barn next to her?” she asked me. </p><p>I nodded. I knew that barn all too well. Any time I ate breakfast on our deck or read a book on the swing, it would be staring right back at me. Sometimes I felt like it was watching me through the strands of the willow leaves. </p><p>“I bought that barn from them, too. The farmers told me to tear it down. They said it would attract nothing but coyotes, wolves, and insects. But I’ve never had a problem with it. Never seen a coyote go in or out of it, and wasps have never built a nest on it. You know what I think?” </p><p>I shrugged my shoulders. I was too embarrassed of Curtis to respond. </p><p>“The Tribe used to bury their people on this land. We live on top of them right now. Your house, too. They protect that barn. They told me not to touch it. They told me in a dream. Whenever I hear the –” </p><p>“Mom. That’s enough. You’re scarin’ the poor girl,” Curtis said. I took a step away from him. </p><p>She lowered her eyes and smiled regretfully. He was right, she was scaring me, but he was, too. I learned in school of the Miami Indians that used to live here. And my older sisters used to joke with me that the field was an ancient Indian burial ground. I thought they were just trying to scare me. </p><p>“It was nice to finally meet you, Naomi. I’ve heard so much about you,” she said. She winked and patted my head with her small hand wrinkled like paper. “Come now, Curtis. Let’s go see her.” </p><p>My Dad and Curtis said their goodbyes, then he turned and smiled at me with a grin like sandpaper, and then the pair was on their way. I watched Mrs. Fehrebach until she approached the willow, stood to take in her height and her beauty, then disappeared behind her. </p><p>“Naomi Fern, get back to work,” Dad said. He turned around, grabbed the shovel, and started digging into the garden. </p><p>“Dad, do you really think people are buried under here?” I asked him. </p><p>He pierced the grass with the shovel, exposing rich dark Earth with a thick juicy worm crawling out of it. The thought of a body being somewhere deep beneath it flashed through my mind. That worm could be feasting on whatever’s left of it, bone, hair, eyes. I’ve found fossils in these woods before, sometimes just on complete accident, exposing it if I kicked a rock around. So, who’s to say we couldn’t just as easily find a body, just digging around planting squash. </p><p>He grunted in response as if completely ignoring my question altogether. This is how Dad talked most of the time. It was like his own language that only the family knew how to interpret. Each grunt had a different meaning, and this one meant to quit asking questions. </p><p>We finished planting an entire row of squash until my hands and knees were caked in dirt and little sandy pieces were stuck under my fingernails. </p><p>“We did a great job, Dad! When do you think the squash will grow?” I asked in excitement. </p><p>He stood in silence for a moment then grunted. “Make sure you water them tomorrow,” he said. </p><p>That night after my mother tucked me in bed and kissed my forehead and my Dad waited outside and said goodnight in his own language, I dreamt of our garden. The squash had grown overnight, large, round, and the perfect shade of orange. The soil was darker than what we had dug up that day and was spilling with earthworms. They began to attack the squash, drilling holes in the gourds, growing bigger and bigger with each bite. They quickly began to rot, crumble, and were pulled back into the soil. </p><p>Amongst the rotting pieces of gourd, a hand emerged from the ground, spraying little pieces of wet earth everywhere. Then the ground began to move, and something was emerging around the hand. Slowly, a body was rising from under our garden. When the earth had fallen from his face, I could tell it was the body of an ancient corpse. He was wearing claws around his neck and had a drum in his hand. He turned and looked at me, then began playing. It was loud, so loud I began backing up trying to escape back into our house. He jumped up from his seated position, pounding the pieces of squash back into the garden. Playing the drum, he sprinted from our garden over to the willow tree, but the noise only grew louder. He circled the tree, then escaped back into the barn. Suddenly, more and more drums began to play, and the barn lit up. I had never seen light coming from the barn before, but it was so bright I was afraid it was on fire. The sound escalated until I heard an entire band of only drums, all playing in unison with each other.</p><p>There was a pounding at my door, a loud pounding. The sun was shining in from my window and I knew it was morning. Like my Dad, I grunted to let whoever it was at my door know that they could come in. My Dad opened the door. </p><p>“Garden needs watering,” he said. I nodded in response and got dressed for the day. I opted for an oversized t-shirt today, just in case I saw Curtis again. </p><p>I stood over the garden, spraying it with the hose. The image of the hand, and the worms, and the drums kept flashing into my mind. As I was spraying the fertilized soil, I heard the drums again.</p><p>I looked up at the barn as if expecting to see it lit up. But it wasn’t. It didn’t look any different than it normally did. But I knew the drums were coming from it. I looked around as if expecting to see someone around who also heard the drums, but I just saw my dad in the doorway, watching me spray the garden. </p><p>“Oh! Hey Dad, you scared me. Think these are watered enough?” I asked. </p><p>He walked over to me, hands in the pocket of his work jeans, but said nothing. He approached the garden, then stared ahead at the barn. This was something he usually did. He was always looking over the land, like a lion over his pride. Finally, he grunted, letting me know it was time to put away the hose. </p><p>I heard the drums the rest of the night. Sometimes they were softer and sometimes they were louder. It sounded like they were following me, but that night, before I fell asleep, they were louder than they had been all day. I laid awake all night, anxious, tossing and turning. Nobody had said anything about the drums. I was the only one that heard them. It was like when I focused on them, they got louder. When I folded the pillow over my ears, they got closer. I didn’t sleep that night. </p><p>The next three days I was more anxious than I ever had been. I watched my family to see if they showed any signs of hearing the drums, too. Sometimes they were so loud, I couldn’t hear my family at the dinner table. Dad never really spoke during dinner, but my sisters, mother, and I were always talking over each other. Nobody seemed to notice when I didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t know if I would be talking too loudly, screaming over the noise of the drums. If I let it slip that I heard them, they would only call me crazy. </p><p>After the squash had begun to sprout, like a finger emerging out from the dirt, a storm wreaked havoc on our town. It came in the night when I again couldn’t sleep. The wind made the tree branches slap my windows and the rain sounded like it would penetrate the glass. The thunder was no louder than the drums, but I could hear them more than ever. They beat in unison, accentuating one another. </p><p>I heard my Dad’s footsteps walking around the house. He was probably covering the garden and checking on the bird houses. He liked to make sure his things were in order when chaos reigned on the land. Since I knew I wouldn’t sleep, I thought I would go downstairs and help him. </p><p>“What are you doing up, Naomi?” he asked me. </p><p>“I couldn’t sleep. It sounds like the storm is right above us,” I said. He had on his rain boots and jacket. He seemed anxious, too. </p><p>“Get your coat and boots on. We need to head to the yard. A branch landed on the garden,” he said, then disappeared out to the garage.</p><p>I quickly pulled my boots over my fuzzy socks and my jacket over my sleep shirt. When I reached the back door, Dad was still in the garage. The rain was so thick, I could just barely make out the garden. There was a large tree branch not on top of the garden, but rather inside of it. The squash wouldn’t make it. I looked past the fence, out to the barn and the willow. The wind was whipping the willow leaves around in a tornadic fashion, her hair was completely up in the air. I thought the wind would tear the roof off of the barn, but it remained unbothered. </p><p>Dad wasn’t anywhere to be seen, so I thought I would try to move the branch myself. The rain was freezing cold and it stung like getting a shot at the doctor’s. My boots sunk into the Earth and each step was an effort. I grabbed the tree branch and tried to pull but it didn’t budge. I pulled and pulled but it was only sinking more into the muddy garden. The thunder made my ears rattle and the drums made my head hurt. Suddenly, a crash came from the field. A bright light burned my eyes and I fell onto my butt into the mud. Before I could look up and see what had happened, my Dad was running after me from the garage calling my name. </p><p>“Naomi Fern, what are you doing? I didn’t tell you to come out here yet. Get inside now!” He said. He picked me up and carried me into the house. </p><p>“What was that?” I said through the rain dripping from my face. </p><p>“Look for yourself,” he said, pointing through the back door. </p><p>The willow had been struck by lightning. The top half was on fire. I couldn’t believe it. It burned so bright in the storm amidst the rain. We stood and watched for a moment as the branches fell, one by one, but the trunk remained standing. I thought it would burn the barn and the rest of the trees surrounding it, but the building remained unsinged. Nobody knew how old the willow was, but all of the sudden she’s done and over with. It lived through generations of families and watched the land surrounding it go from nature to suburb. But there she was, crumbling before our eyes. </p><p>“Come on now, go take a shower. In a few days we’ll go out there and chop her down for Mrs. Fehrebach,” Dad said after watching the fire dwindle to just a flame. After the storm the drums had calmed a bit, but they were still beating. The land had dried up and the birds had come out of the birdhouses again. Dad and I put on our work boots and moved the branch out of the garden. Some of the seedlings survived, others we had to throw over the fence and give back to the land. After chopping up the branch to use as firewood, we got out the ladder to cross over the fence and chop down the willow. </p><p>The world was always a little bit quieter on the other side of the fence. It was like the rest of the world didn’t exist. We weren’t that far from a major city road, but the noise didn’t quite reach the field. As we trudged across the land, parting our way in the grass that sometimes reached up to my shoulders, I was getting closer to the drums. Standing next to the barn, it was like I could hear the hands beating on the drums. </p><p>We worked for hours that day, up until dusk, until there was nothing left but two feet of trunk. The hiss of the chainsaw sounded out the drums a little bit. When we were finished, the sun was setting and we were dripping in sweat. I didn’t notice until we were loading the logs into the wheelbarrow, that the drums had actually stopped. I hadn’t heard silence in days. I could hear the birds chirping and the slight breeze against my ears. I stood for a moment and looked at what was once maybe a few hundred-years-old relic. Dad came up next to me, hands on his hips, looking up at the untouched barn. </p><p>“The beating finally stopped,” he said. </p><p>“You heard them, too? The drums?” I asked. The breath had left my lungs so quickly I put my hand on my chest. </p><p>He turned and looked at me square in the eyes, with something I hadn’t seen in him before. </p><p>“Yeah, I hear them too, Naomi.” </p><p>After a minute of silence, reveling in our hard work, we heard Curtis walking through the high grass. He approached us joyfully, a stupid grin mounted on his face. I quickly pulled up the front of my sports bra and tugged at the back of my tank top, trying to make the neck a little higher. He noticed immediately with his wandering eyes. </p><p>“Well Mom will be sad to see it go! What’s a pretty girl like you doin’ choppin’ down trees?” he asked. </p><p>My Dad put his arm around me and drew me into a side hug. </p><p>“Well, she takes after me. She’ll always be her Daddy’s girl.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[To Odysseus]]></title><description><![CDATA[It’s growing cobwebs, my love
my love for you,
tucked away on the stiff
white shelf, of which
there are three,
and on the highest one
is where I shall be
gathering dust
and starting to grow
old, grossly stale.
Lotus eater, lotus eater,
happy with your fruit
sweeter
than breakfast on
Christmas morning –
when will you come home
darling?
Has your funny diet
made you forget
those reciprocal duties?
Far away, your Penelope
sits weeping in her misery,
weaving and unweaving.
Don’t you remember
the la]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/to-odysseus/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232f7</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mia Marion]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:18:18 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1547401208-78cfdc7303a5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxjb2J3ZWJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNzQ2OTQzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1547401208-78cfdc7303a5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxjb2J3ZWJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNzQ2OTQzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="To Odysseus"/><p>It’s growing cobwebs, my love <br>my love for you, <br>tucked away on the stiff <br>white shelf, of which <br>there are three, <br>and on the highest one <br>is where I shall be <br>gathering dust <br>and starting to grow <br>old, grossly stale. </br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Lotus eater, lotus eater, <br>happy with your fruit <br>sweeter <br>than breakfast on <br>Christmas morning – <br>when will you come home <br>darling? <br>Has your funny diet <br>made you forget <br>those reciprocal duties? </br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Far away, your Penelope <br>sits weeping in her misery, <br>weaving and unweaving. <br>Don’t you remember <br>the laughter, rising up <br>like some unlikely symphony <br>from dissonance to harmony, <br>the philharmonic ecstasy? <br>In Ithaca the winds are strong <br>and blow back what here belongs. </br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Lord of lies <br>so close to the truth <br>it becomes nearly funny. <br>Where is my place <br>in this divine comedy? <br>This casual tragedy <br>opens the door for me, <br>candor washes over me – </br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Even if you did come home, <br>you would only long to leave again.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Canine Chatter]]></title><description><![CDATA[From the moment I was old enough to open the kitchen door, I would let myself out and go into the backyard to visit with the dogs and cats. The cats lived in the yard and slept in one of several outbuildings during warm weather.
Like many homes in the Delta, our house sat on concrete piers and was underpinned with corrugated metal skirting. My daddy left one small opening in the skirting so that the cats could go under the house during the winter and keep warm by lying next to the lower part of]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/canine-chatter/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232f8</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:17:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1623387641168-d9803ddd3f35?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGRvZ3MlMjBhbmQlMjBjYXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNzQ3ODQ4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1623387641168-d9803ddd3f35?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGRvZ3MlMjBhbmQlMjBjYXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNzQ3ODQ4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Canine Chatter"/><p>From the moment I was old enough to open the kitchen door, I would let myself out and go into the backyard to visit with the dogs and cats. The cats lived in the yard and slept in one of several outbuildings during warm weather.<br><br>Like many homes in the Delta, our house sat on concrete piers and was underpinned with corrugated metal skirting. My daddy left one small opening in the skirting so that the cats could go under the house during the winter and keep warm by lying next to the lower part of our floor furnace.<br><br>My family had small house dogs, and we also had a couple of large dogs that lived in the backyard. Even though the yard was not fenced, they rarely ventured far and were always excited to see me when I came out the back door. They knew not to jump on me. Instead to show affection, they would lick my face, and I would giggle. More than once my mother caught me bending down over the dogs’ food bowl and sharing their meal.<br><br>When I got older, it was my job to carry food out to the dogs. Around the age of four, I went outside to feed them, and I asked my daddy’s bird dog, “Tip, do you want the red bowl or the green bowl?”<br><br>Tip answered, “The green bowl.”<br><br>I threw the dog bowls into the air, and I ran into the house to tell my mother that Ol’ Tip could talk. Every day for several weeks, I would ask Tip which bowl he wanted. Even though I tried, I could not get the bird dog to speak again.<br><br>A couple of years later, my father confessed that he had been in the backyard outhouse that morning, and he had answered for Tip.<br><br>I wish he hadn’t told me.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Make Believe]]></title><description><![CDATA[In this poem bullets are extinct &
we read the news on accident amen
& the less we bleed
The more the moon makes sense to us
The less we bleed the more we hurt
And the more we hurt
The more we feel
Alive]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/make-believe/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232f9</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Claire Collins]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:17:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1503416997304-7f8bf166c121?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxtb29ufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTc0ODI4NXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1503416997304-7f8bf166c121?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxtb29ufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTc0ODI4NXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Make Believe"/><p>In this poem bullets are extinct &<br>we read the news on accident amen<br>& the less we bleed<br>The more the moon makes sense to us<br>The less we bleed the more we hurt<br>And the more we hurt<br>The more we feel<br>Alive</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Larry Runs Afoul at D’Amato’s Delicatessen]]></title><description><![CDATA[In 1964 Larry lands his first job working at the highly popular D’Amato’s Fried Chicken in the first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall in the United States.
Mrs. D’Amato is a buxom, expensively dressed woman with a stern Margaret Hamilton expression frozen on her face and thick heeled black shoes that warn of her impending arrival. Sylvia D’Amato is paranoid that her workers might steal a drumstick and eat it on the job. She has even demanded she smell an employee’s breath when h]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/larry-runs-afoul-at-damatos-delicatessen/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232fa</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Peterson Freeman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:16:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1626082896492-766af4eb6501?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGZyaWVkJTIwY2hpY2tlbiUyMHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE3NDg4NDF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1626082896492-766af4eb6501?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGZyaWVkJTIwY2hpY2tlbiUyMHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE3NDg4NDF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Larry Runs Afoul at D’Amato’s Delicatessen"/><p>In 1964 Larry lands his first job working at the highly popular D’Amato’s Fried Chicken in the first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall in the United States.</p><p>Mrs. D’Amato is a buxom, expensively dressed woman with a stern Margaret Hamilton expression frozen on her face and thick heeled black shoes that warn of her impending arrival. Sylvia D’Amato is paranoid that her workers might steal a drumstick and eat it on the job. She has even demanded she smell an employee’s breath when her chicken pieces’ count is one short. </p><p>Larry is 15 and making minimum wage - 75 cents an hour. Saturday is clean the walk-in cooler day. Larry arrives at D’Amato’s at 7:00 a.m. ready to work a 12 hour shift. Under the keen eye of Sylvia D’Amato, it is Larry’s job to convert the cooler from a foul gallinaceous morgue to gleaming stainless steel immaculateness. </p><p>Normally, raw skinned chickens sit on myriad shelves on three sides of the walk-in cooler, but since Saturday is clean the cooler day, there is nothing on the shelves, but slime. The angled trough on the floor is full of stringy chicken guts, fowl skin debris, and slimy bits of raw poultry meat floating in stomach-churning liquid. Once Larry cleans the shelves, it is time for him to hook up the pressure pump to blow the chicken guts down through the pipe at the bottom of the trough and then through the attached hose that runs out through a hole at the bottom of the cooler door several feet into the kitchen and down the floor drain. </p><p>Larry attaches the pressure machine to the pipe, pumps it once, and pulls the trigger. Nothing goes through because the pipe and hose are blocked with entrails. Larry pumps the pressure machine a good 50 times thinking that will produce plenty of pressure to blow the chicken guts through the trough pipe and hose. </p><p>Larry pulls the trigger, and “alleluia,” the enormous pressure sends the avian offal blasting down the trough pipe and through the hose. </p><p>That sure did the job, Larry thinks. Maybe old lady D’Amato will reward me with a nickel raise. </p><p>Larry opens the door to exit the cooler and stops dead in his tracks. In the kitchen long slimy chicken entrails hang from every light fixture and chicken guts stick to the walls and tables. The enormous pressure from the pump blew the hose out of the floor drain and made it come alive like a cobra, spraying chicken innards everywhere. It’s a scene from a horror movie. </p><p>The guy whose job it is to cut up chicken looks at Larry wide-eyed and says, “You are in deep shit, kid.” As chicken cleaver man is finishing his sentence, Sylvia D’Amato clomps in. </p><p>“PORCA MISERIAL!” she screams. “Larry, what have you done! Clean this up and clean it up as fast as you can. The health inspectors come unannounced all the time and if they see this mess, we’re done for.”</p><p>It is 8:00 p.m., closing time at D’Amato’s. Larry and another young employee must make sure the counters are wiped clean and the floors shine before locking up for the night. Larry is mopping his way out the door of the kitchen’s adjoining room that houses a large sink that sits on long metal legs at the opposite end of the room. Mrs. D’Amato stomps up behind Larry ready to inspect the room. </p><p>“Don’t walk in there, Mrs.D’Amato,” Larry says. “I’ve just mopped the floors and they are still wet and really slippery.” </p><p>“Hmmpf,” says Sylvia D’Amato as she strides past Larry, falls on her ample backside and slides all the way across the room until arriving feet first under the standing sink. </p><p>“Safe!” calls Larry, making the horizontal flat two-hand sign the umpires do when a ball player successfully crosses home plate. </p><p>That is Larry’s last day of employment at D’Amato’ Fried Chicken.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Lane of Life]]></title><description><![CDATA[One boot makes a track in the dusty lane.
The other dissolves into an air of pain.
The path I walk is shadowecsd in doubt.
The twisting of trails submerged in life's clout.
They all march past me, arrogant and strong.
Without missteps, their boots never wrong.
They smile and say beautiful things.
Behind their eyes are words that sting.
Never pausing to consider their way.
They are puppets in a real-life play.
Demeaning other's lives without a clue.
They are no better than me or you.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-lane-of-life/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232fb</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Holly Ellison]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:16:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1574798348442-7fde9287be90?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxib290fGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTc0OTIxNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1574798348442-7fde9287be90?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxib290fGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTc0OTIxNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Lane of Life"/><p>One boot makes a track in the dusty lane.<br>The other dissolves into an air of pain.<br>The path I walk is shadowecsd in doubt.<br>The twisting of trails submerged in life's clout.<br>They all march past me, arrogant and strong.<br>Without missteps, their boots never wrong.<br>They smile and say beautiful things.<br>Behind their eyes are words that sting.<br>Never pausing to consider their way.<br>They are puppets in a real-life play.<br>Demeaning other's lives without a clue.<br>They are no better than me or you.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Feigning Sleep]]></title><description><![CDATA[
The mornings you get out of bed before me,
feigning sleep, I watch you dress
to gauge how you behave
when no one’s looking.
And as you waddle round the room
attacking drawers, I focus,
fascinated, on your fork,
your breasts, your buttocks
as if I’d never seen them.
We’ve linked our aims
and fused our flesh
and know we’re better paired.
Still… having to concede that you exist
outside of my conception
and create a universe that overlaps with mine
with perceptions that don’t pertain to me
and dark]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/feigning-sleep/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232fc</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel P. Stokes]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:15:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528590925951-89608f3f7334?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGV5ZXMlMjBwZWVraW5nJTIwbWFsZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIwMDcyODh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528590925951-89608f3f7334?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGV5ZXMlMjBwZWVraW5nJTIwbWFsZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIwMDcyODh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Feigning Sleep"/><p><br>The mornings you get out of bed before me,<br>feigning sleep, I watch you dress<br>to gauge how you behave<br>when no one’s looking.<br>And as you waddle round the room<br>attacking drawers, I focus,<br>fascinated, on your fork,<br>your breasts, your buttocks<br>as if I’d never seen them.<br>We’ve linked our aims<br>and fused our flesh<br>and know we’re better paired.<br>Still… having to concede that you exist<br>outside of my conception<br>and create a universe that overlaps with mine<br>with perceptions that don’t pertain to me<br>and dark matter I can never sound<br>nor work my will on,<br>leaves me frantic to find out what I can.<br>But even as I curl here, concealing<br>my intent to see what you’ll reveal,<br>I’ve half a notion you’re aware<br>intuitively of being watched,<br>instinctively amused by my poor ruse<br>to find insights in your undulations<br>and artillery in the manner<br>you pull on your drawers.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Walt]]></title><description><![CDATA[Each day started like any other day in the Summer of 1961, but on this particular day, I ran into a good friend, Avery Wilder. Everyone called her Boogie because she loved to dance. Boogie could wear out a pair of ballet flats quicker than green grass through a goose. Boogie had just stolen a car from the Piggly Wiggly parking lot and stopped to pick me up as I walked to work at the A-One Printing company. The stolen car was a 1954 dazzling cherry red Hudson Hornet convertible.
I was a young ma]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/walt/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232fe</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:12:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/04/Hudson-Hornet.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/04/Hudson-Hornet.jpg" alt="Walt"/><p>Each day started like any other day in the Summer of 1961, but on this particular day, I ran into a good friend, Avery Wilder. Everyone called her Boogie because she loved to dance. Boogie could wear out a pair of ballet flats quicker than green grass through a goose. Boogie had just stolen a car from the Piggly Wiggly parking lot and stopped to pick me up as I walked to work at the A-One Printing company. The stolen car was a 1954 dazzling cherry red Hudson Hornet convertible.<br><br>I was a young man of fifteen, and Boogie was an older woman of twenty-one who became my friend when I pulled her little brother out of the deep end of the public swimming pool. Boogie’s hair was as bright as the car she had shoplifted, only with more of an orange tint, and her face was scatter-shot with freckles. She was not the kind of woman you would see walking around the swimming pool in jewelry, and she drove that old Hudson fast and furious—like a caffeinated squirrel on roller skates. Boogie wanted to know if I would like to skip work and go on an adventure. So, I leaned on the driver’s side door and said. “What kind of adventure, Boog?”<br><br>“Don’t call me Boog, or I’ll snatch you bald-headed.<br><br>“Well,” I said, “Okay, Boogie.”<br><br>“Boy, you are about to get on my last nerve. You do not get to call me Boog, Boogie, or any other obnoxious nicknames you can think of, got it?<br><br>“Sure thing, Wilder.”<br><br>She sighed a long, slow exhale. Then, she shook her head and said, “Make up our mind. Are you in or out?”<br><br>It took me only a short time to decide that going on an adventure with Boogie would be much more fun than going to work. The tires squealed and smoked as Boogie punched me hard on the arm and yelled, “Hi-Yo, Silver, Kemosabe!”<br><br>So, Boogie and I started our adventure and little did I know what I was getting into. Boogie found an empty house out on Woodlawn Road that she had been casing for the past week, and we entered through the back door. While she was rifling the bedrooms upstairs for valuables, I was downstairs in the study, trying to decide if I wanted to pocket a silver letter opener, when I came across a veritable treasure—a book of poetry by Walt Whitman. A book that would irrevocably and forever change my life.<br><br>As I flipped through the book, one poem, in particular, caught my eye.|<br><br> O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done,<br> The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,<br> The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,<br> While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;<br> But O heart! Heart! Heart!<br> O the bleeding drops of red,<br> Where on the deck my Captain lies,<br> Fallen cold and dead.<br><br>The words filled my mind with macabre images that, even today, sixty years later, I can still visualize late in the evening. Of course, I had no idea what the poem was about. Still, I know it played on my conscience enough to influence me to leave without the silver letter opener. Boogie explained the poem to me after we left the scene of my one and only attempt at being a cat burglar. But it wasn’t Whitman’s dark elegy that had captured my mind. It was the rhythm of the words as they rolled off my tongue.’ O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done.’ The words sang to me, created these ghastly portraits in my psyche, and filled my heart with promise.<br><br>Later, as I sat in Ms. Nina Ferrill’s senior English class and listened to her read from Alfred Lord Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, my mind would keep the beat and recreate the portraits and feelings of their words. Poetry opened my heart to my own artistic interests. Ms. Ferrill may have been in her fifties, but like most high school-aged boys, I thought she must be in her eighties.<br><br>I also believed Ms. Ferrill’s funny bone had been surgically removed when she received her teaching degree. I only ever saw her laugh once. She was sitting at the back of the classroom with the so-called delinquents as different students took turns reading boring reports they had copied from an ancient World Book Encyclopedia—the original Artificial Intelligence. During one of these sleep-inducing performances, she mumbled just loud enough to hear, “Jesus Christ.” My friend, Adair, promptly replied, “Name dropper.” That’s when we all realized she still had her funny bone.<br><br>When I asked Miss Ferrill if we would read Walt Whitman, she immediately crushed me by explaining that the school board had determined that Walt Whitman’s works were unsuitable for high school-aged students and would not be part of the curriculum. I pressed her for an answer as to why, but she deftly sidestepped all my questions.<br><br>A few years later, when I returned from Vietnam, I ran into Ms. Ferrill. We talked about the war and her students. She was pleased to learn that the Captain was my constant companion in Vietnam. When the war became surreal, and fear would seep into me like some virus or unknown plague, I told her I could always count on the Captain to bring me some consolation from the madness. I explained that Whitman’s poetry seemed to read like a new verse every time I read it. She smiled and nodded, “That is what all good literature accomplishes.”<br><br>“If it’s good literature,” I asked her, “why, then, did the school board ban the study of Walt Whitman?’<br><br>She gave me a sad look and said, “It was a different time, and fear of parental political pressure kept many worthwhile literary works from being read and discussed in school. But what I would really like to know is, what did you learn about Whitman’s poetry when you were in my class? I know that you were surreptitiously reading his poetry at that time when you should have been reading what had been assigned.”<br><br>It took a moment to respond because I had to secretly figure out what Ms. Ferrill meant by ‘surreptitiously.’ Still, I answered, “Hell, I don’t really know, Ms. Ferrill. I would guess that his poetry carried me away, or should I say took me to a place where all my troubles seemed to fade away. You know, like in a dream.”<br><br>Ms. Ferrill replied, with just a hint of a smile. “Obviously, your Vietnam experience did nothing to improve your language. But tell me, did your Vietnam experience affect your understanding of Whitman’s poetry?” <br><br>After a moment of reflection, I said, “When I think about the Captain, lying on the deck covered in his own blood, I also think about a young Marine we ferried out of the A Shau Valley covered in his own blood, with one blue eye and one green eye. Both eyes were staring into the abyss. He was lying next to a dead North Vietnamese soldier without eyes because his face had been blown off. As our helicopter lifted off, the blood of both young men ran together and formed a small pool between them. When I looked into the pool of blood and saw my reflection, my view of the world changed.<br><br>The image returns at some odd times, and I can smell the jungle again and the death. I can see those young men lying in that pool of blood. Then I start to feel like the world is collapsing in on me and I begin to panic. When and why these panic attacks are going to happen is not something I can control. You told us one time, when we were reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, 'Once the feral dogs of war were unleashed, they remain with us always. No one will ever return from war untouched and whole.' You were right.<br><br>Since I have been home, people think of me as some kind of war hero or a ‘baby killer.’ I am neither. Whitman told us through his poetry how important it is to have heroes in our lives. Not the comic book type of heroes, but the kind of heroic qualities found in everyday folks. The kind of heroic qualities we see all around us. The guy who is constantly getting knocked down but keeps getting back up, the single mom who makes sure her children get something to eat before she does, and countless others who stand up to adversity or injustice on a daily basis. So, Whitman has given me a deeper understanding of a real hero. A real hero exhibits those qualities that we want to be a part of our best selves.”<br><br>Ms. Ferrill said, “Are you implying that those young men who sacrificed their lives for their country are no more heroic than those who pick up garbage for a living? I feel certain that the mothers, fathers, and those who served with them in combat would feel quite differently.”<br><br>“You have a point, Ms. Ferrill, but since we are being hypothetical, consider this. Most ordinary people are making sacrifices just by putting the needs of their families above their own. Just like the countless young men who have gone off to war since we first climbed out of caves looking for something to eat and a warm place to make love. Sacrifice for others, no matter the circumstance, is a heroic quality.<br><br>I also know that I will never convince anyone that the heroic qualities of ordinary people are equal to those of soldiers in combat. The myth of the warrior is just too complex. But recognizing heroic qualities in others can also serve as a reminder that heroism is not limited to famous figures or larger-than-life personalities but can be found in everyday people who demonstrate courage, compassion, and selflessness in the face of adversity or in the service of others. Celebrating and recognizing these qualities can help to build a culture of appreciation and gratitude. Something I believe both our countries desperately need after that terrible war.”<br><br>Then, with an Elizabeth Taylor steely-eyed Cleopatra look on her face that I remembered seeing when I was about to be sent to the principal’s office, she said, “You said others have tried to define you as either a war hero or a baby killer. I would like to know if you consider yourself a hero?”<br><br>“No, ma’am, I don’t consider myself a hero. But there have been many heroes in my life.”<br><br>Ms. Ferrill looked at me momentarily, then replied, “I do not think you know yourself as well as you think, young man. You should continue to explore and understand yourself. Now, as far as Mr. Whitman is concerned, you will be happy to know that a new school board has approved Walt Whitman to be part of next year’s curriculum.”<br><br>Then she raised both eyebrows above her antique Pince-Nez glasses. “Which means I will need that copy of Whitman’s works that you and Ms. Boogie Wilder borrowed from my home years ago."</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[D & D at the Chinquapin Cemetery]]></title><description><![CDATA[Chinquapin Cemetery on Star Mountain
commands a drop-dead gorgeous Ozark view.
But that ground is rocky as my husband can attest,
having dug at least one grave for the old neighbors
who welcomed us when we moved to the Neil Hill side
of Bohannon Mountain. Count on the eulogizing
being mostly fire with brimstone, breathy
from the mouths of Baptist preachers.
Our newer friends, Don and Donna, secular humanists,
have tended sickly rosebushes at their plots in that poor soil,
the future site of t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/d-d-at-the-chinquapin-cemetery/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232ff</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Weinstein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:11:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620806433041-103e12f6aceb?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM4fHxjZW1lbnRlcnl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjk2NDkzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620806433041-103e12f6aceb?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM4fHxjZW1lbnRlcnl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjk2NDkzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="D & D at the Chinquapin Cemetery"/><p>Chinquapin Cemetery on Star Mountain<br>commands a drop-dead gorgeous Ozark view.<br>But that ground is rocky as my husband can attest,<br>having dug at least one grave for the old neighbors<br>who welcomed us when we moved to the Neil Hill side<br>of Bohannon Mountain. Count on the eulogizing<br>being mostly fire with brimstone, breathy<br>from the mouths of Baptist preachers. </br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Our newer friends, Don and Donna, secular humanists, <br>have tended sickly rosebushes at their plots in that poor soil, <br>the future site of their earthly remains, <br>against one year’s drought and the next’s <br>alternating dry spells and monsoon seasons. </br></br></br></br></p><p>Don and Donna (hereafter D & D) have a funky<br>weekend cabin near us on the Little Red River<br>and a gorgeous Hillcrest House in Little Rock,<br>where I visit them, and we watch simulcast<br>Metropolitan Opera on the big screen, complete<br>with champagne tailgate intermissions. </br></br></br></br></br></p><p>On Star Mountain, last visit, they found<br>a sprig of yellow plastic tulips blown onto their plots.<br>We laughed. D said it was no wonder.<br>Some other optimists about the great Eternal Green<br>Afterlife probably planted something that failed to thrive. </br></br></br></br></p><p>Their rosebushes will grow on Star Mountain<br>among the plastic flowers, and love quartets<br>from Cosi fan Tutti will soar above country<br>music, when the wind blows just right.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[There is in Me]]></title><description><![CDATA[There is in me a powerful creature
Who WALKS TALL and deliberate
A high noon old west Sheriff
Who doesn’t need to wear a star to know she is one.
There is in me a powerful creature
Who NEEDS NOT raise her voice
To raise the bar, the vibration,
The expectation of kindness and transparency.
There is in me a powerful creature
Whose mind is CALM; her thoughts are truth arrows.
Piercing fear, understanding floods the dank recess of confusion
Like a hundred heat lamps in the basement
Burning away]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/there-is-in-me/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523300</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Erin McGrane]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:10:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1606823616265-3c84de4cfcff?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHRydXRofGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzMwNzI0Nnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1606823616265-3c84de4cfcff?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHRydXRofGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzMwNzI0Nnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="There is in Me"/><p>There is in me a powerful creature<br>Who <strong>WALKS</strong> <strong>TALL</strong> and deliberate<br>A high noon old west Sheriff<br>Who doesn’t need to wear a star to know she is one.</br></br></br></p><p>There is in me a powerful creature<br>Who <strong>NEEDS NOT </strong>raise her voice <br>To raise the bar, the vibration, <br>The expectation of kindness and transparency.</br></br></br></p><p>There is in me a powerful creature<br>Whose mind is <strong>CALM</strong>; her thoughts are truth arrows. <br>Piercing fear, understanding floods the dank recess of confusion<br>Like a hundred heat lamps in the basement<br>Burning away the old mold.</br></br></br></br></p><p>There is in me a powerful creature<br>Who <strong>STANDS </strong>in her place without apology, without anger.<br>Planted, roots deep, calm palms sunward,<br>She is taking up all the space meant for her <br>And by doing so, offers shade.</br></br></br></br></p><p> There is in me a powerful creature<br>Who is <strong>NOT AFRAID </strong>of the opinions of people<br>More interested in color-commentating<br>Everyone else’s soul battles, rather than fighting their own.<br><br>There is in me a powerful creature<br>who <strong>SPEAKS</strong> for those who cannot or will not<br>Including her own bruised and brow-beat heart.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>When necessary <strong>TRUTH </strong>is demanding an audience, <br>She offers the floor of her tongue, the roof of her mouth. <br>The service of her lips <strong>WILL NOT CEASE</strong><br>Until Truth has had her say.</br></br></br></p><p><br/></p><p/>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Life in Punctuation]]></title><description><![CDATA[There’s the pregnant pause
( )
of waiting
(parenthesis globing the belly)
of the breaststroke comma
a wave caught in a lap,
there’s the ellipses…
that hang like garland
expectant pearls
Christmas? Maybe just the slow egg of Easter
I have a question
mark
that lone earring wended by the wind
of “I don’t know”
--a place of hope—
dashed by
“I wish”
that swoopy declaration
surrounded by black confetti
hung on a star
with its smog face
and chipped points
you brush your lips
against its b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/life-in-punctuation/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523302</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Darlene Graf]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:10:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1633613286848-e6f43bbafb8d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fFB1bmN0dWF0aW9ufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzMwNzczMHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1633613286848-e6f43bbafb8d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fFB1bmN0dWF0aW9ufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzMwNzczMHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Life in Punctuation"/><p>There’s the pregnant pause<br>( )<br>of waiting<br>(parenthesis globing the belly)<br>of the breaststroke comma<br>a wave caught in a lap,<br>there’s the ellipses… <br>that hang like garland<br>expectant pearls<br>Christmas? Maybe just the slow egg of Easter<br>I have a question <br>mark<br>that lone earring wended by the wind<br>of “I don’t know”<br>--a place of hope—<br>dashed by<br>“I wish”<br>that swoopy declaration<br>surrounded by black confetti<br>hung on a star<br>with its smog face<br>and chipped points<br>you brush your lips<br>against its blue ear and whisper<br>“I will.”<br>Period.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Abundance of Rain]]></title><description><![CDATA[I listen to the sound of the abundance of rain,
hammering and thundering my old roof,
it must be the season of love and fruitfulness,
and the wild wind is a convincing witness;
I listen to the beating of my grieving heart
where flowers open and chuckle like a hen,
for air has come to smoothen their petals,
their leaves turn away from dryness.
I have dwelt too long in the scrappy desert
and had nothing but an abundance of dust,
trees break in the morning; grasses wilt at noon;
birds whisper with]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/abundance-of-rain/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523303</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jonathan Chibuike Ukah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:09:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495584816685-4bdbf1b5057e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxyYWluJTIwZmxvd2VycyUyMGhlYXJ0fGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMjY5NzE1OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495584816685-4bdbf1b5057e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxyYWluJTIwZmxvd2VycyUyMGhlYXJ0fGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMjY5NzE1OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Abundance of Rain"/><p>I listen to the sound of the abundance of rain,<br>hammering and thundering my old roof,<br>it must be the season of love and fruitfulness,<br>and the wild wind is a convincing witness;<br>I listen to the beating of my grieving heart<br>where flowers open and chuckle like a hen,<br>for air has come to smoothen their petals,<br>their leaves turn away from dryness.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I have dwelt too long in the scrappy desert<br>and had nothing but an abundance of dust,<br>trees break in the morning; grasses wilt at noon;<br>birds whisper with a bevvy of cracked beaks,<br>caressing beads, cradling bones; feeling feverish;<br>dunes are hiding suffocating rodents<br>from famished vipers, earthquakes and sandstorms.<br>Perhaps tomorrow there could be more flushing rain.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The rain splits the sea, and the desert drowns,<br>so shall the land separate from the ocean,<br>and there shall be more water to give therapy;<br>It's not the season to search the sky for a smile,<br>or prolong the suspense about eloping,<br>but I will glide my ears to the surface of the moon<br>and hear the gong of mercy echoing pleasantries;<br>It's just the sound of the abundance of rain.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Signifying Nothing]]></title><description><![CDATA[
S, an artist friend, creates collages that include overlays of transparent paper on which asemic script is scrawled with a black ink pen. Asemic (a-semic: not signifying) writing has the characteristics of an alphabet but it missing a corresponding language. The asemic elements of S’s collages play tricks on the brain, offering a suggestion of meaning and pulling it away in the same moment of attention. S says that writing asemically is cathartic, that she pours her anger and sadness into its e]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/signifying-nothing/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523304</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Susan Hendel]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:08:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605429201125-37e867327609?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGxldHRlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEzNDU5NTAyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605429201125-37e867327609?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGxldHRlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEzNDU5NTAyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Signifying Nothing"/><p><br>S, an artist friend, creates collages that include overlays of transparent paper on which asemic script is scrawled with a black ink pen. Asemic (a-semic: not signifying) writing has the characteristics of an alphabet but it missing a corresponding language. The asemic elements of S’s collages play tricks on the brain, offering a suggestion of meaning and pulling it away in the same moment of attention. S says that writing asemically is cathartic, that she pours her anger and sadness into its empty container.</br></p><p>S once loaned me her copy of the Codex Seraphinianus by the Italian artist Luigi Serafini. In Serafini’s Codex, 416 pages long and weighing almost six pounds, graceful semantic-free script flows across page after glossy page along with meticulously drawn colored illustrations of plants, creatures, and machines belonging only inside Serafini’s asemic world. The drawings are labeled in the manner of 19<sup>th</sup> century botanical illustrations, with (non)explanatory inscriptions beneath them. Besides the strange beauty of it, the Codex grants relief from the strain of sense-making, poking fun at the seriousness with which we set out to grasp meaning. </p><p>Some weeks after returning the Codex to her, I texted S about an oddity of cell phone keyboards I had discovered. Instead of typing, I instructed, make swirls and zigzags with your finger. The confused autocorrect program responds by entering random words. S and I call it asemic texting. </p><p> That makes me so Dung tryst oh such is cool trashcan.</p><p> Are you still vino Esch ovarian?</p><p> I have Krug egg magic mouth is Yvonne such kudu to lychee.</p><p> Exactly. Then you Nikon still Kelly dump recycling think.</p><p> Except that ratchet masochist of epoch o’clock!</p><p> Ok, but condos school sick Veronica’s oviducts.</p><p>Then there’s my sister. When faced with personal, professional, or global troubles, she pursues sense with laser-intensity. She reads to get to the bottom of it—puts books on her kindle, subscribes to online publications, signs up for newsletters, listens to podcasts. She’s a determined gatherer of semantics, a fast reader. </p><p>Since the war started, she has been texting me links to articles. I think I should be more like her, so I try to keep up.</p><p> What Israel should do nowvox.com</p><p> There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. nytimes.com</p><p> The Moral Questions at the Heart of the Gaza Warnytimes.com</p><p> The Left Abandoned Metheatlantic.com</p><p> Using laugh kernel profound keypads.</p><p> Israel Must Not React Stupidlytheatlantic.com</p><p> Scuba funk who king Advil </p><p> lap knock into Indigo.</p><p> From Israel, writer Etgar Keret talks about the role of fiction in times of war. npr.org</p><p> Goblin running wouldn’t bend west official.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Invisible Confession]]></title><description><![CDATA[The heart of my daily routine
is that I have no daily routine
and there lies the matter at hand
smacking me around
in my brain till it wobbles
and some of the time
I walk another way
wiggling
backwards in the moment
doing whatever I may have been feeling
lifetimes ago
(or was it a dream)
shoving aside nothing in particular
changing in midstream
dusting up my part
with no purpose whatsoever
not a trace of a chance
to be seen]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/invisible-confession/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523305</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jack Albert]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:08:18 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1623001312783-01ccef32a7a2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUzfHxoZWFydHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NjA2NzB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1623001312783-01ccef32a7a2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUzfHxoZWFydHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NjA2NzB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Invisible Confession"/><p>The heart of my daily routine<br>is that I have no daily routine</br></p><p>and there lies the matter at hand<br>smacking me around </br></p><p>in my brain till it wobbles<br>and some of the time</br></p><p>I walk another way<br>wiggling</br></p><p>backwards in the moment<br>doing whatever I may have been feeling</br></p><p>lifetimes ago<br>(or was it a dream)</br></p><p>shoving aside nothing in particular<br>changing in midstream</br></p><p>dusting up my part<br>with no purpose whatsoever</br></p><p>not a trace of a chance<br>to be seen</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The House of Butler]]></title><description><![CDATA[It isn’t that the old ones, particularly Gordy and Nancy Butler who live year-round on the lake, aren’t expecting a storm. They’re just not expecting this one. They don’t deserve it, having already coped inside their pine and maple forest with downed electrical lines season after season. Ice storms, windstorms, lightning strikes—they’ve had plenty. It isn’t that they aren’t hardy or hale enough to form chainsaw teams and dedicate themselves to downing, splitting, and shredding the debris. H]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-house-of-butler/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523306</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Patricia Trentacoste]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:06:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507967669805-c23336beea5b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxtYXBsZSUyMHRyZWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEzNDYyMTM5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507967669805-c23336beea5b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxtYXBsZSUyMHRyZWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEzNDYyMTM5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The House of Butler"/><p>It isn’t that the old ones, particularly Gordy and Nancy Butler who live year-round on the lake, aren’t expecting a storm. They’re just not expecting this one. They don’t deserve it, having already coped inside their pine and maple forest with downed electrical lines season after season. Ice storms, windstorms, lightning strikes—they’ve had plenty. It isn’t that they aren’t hardy or hale enough to form chainsaw teams and dedicate themselves to downing, splitting, and shredding the debris. Hell, between them and the neighbors they have seven Stihl’s, three Husqvarna’s, and four Poulan’s—all gas-powered, chains in good order. No, what’s about to undo them this time is the storm itself, its purging hand and portending voice, the possibility that it will not run out of rain. </p><p>Nancy notices the lightning before Gordy does. Competing with the big screen TV, it’s streaking across the skin of the lake with an opaque but clear-edged luminosity, north to north-east. “Oh, would you look at that!” she nudges his foot on the ottoman. </p><p>He startles from his evening nap. “What?” Even when he hears her, he says, ‘What?’. </p><p>“Would you look at that?” she says again, unsure of which case this is—did he hear her without listening or vice versa? No matter. Repeating themselves is the rap poetry of their marriage. Good—he’s awake. </p><p>In fact, he sits bolt upright, swings his legs around and goes over to their sliding doors. She mutes the TV and joins him. “Weather Channel never mentioned no storm.” He unlocks the latch. As they step onto the deck, static electricity zings their shirts. Her wispy hair rises straight up as though she’s upside down and hanging from her feet. Gordy gives her little show a side-eyed glance and takes it as a barometric indicator. “Five minutes,” he says, “we’ll give it five minutes. Then we get ready.”</p><p>The air is growing chillier, the wind wilder. Hand in hand, they step closer to the edge and palm the railing. “Don’t they look nice?” she says of the just-pruned junipers. Rustling below the shimmering firmament, they take on the aspect of bears coming down from the ridge to sniff out the pantry window. Easy pickings in there. Mental note: fix that rickety window. Her mind is all over the place. </p><p>Gordy’s transitional glasses don’t know whether to darken or lighten and settle on a steely sheen. Their insides show him the door-wall at his back, mirrored against the Maples down on the shore—those mighty, broad-shouldered guardians of paradise. Comprehending what’s ahead and behind has always been Gordon’s gift. A prophet is what he is. </p><p>Wordlessly, they step back inside and head to the kitchen to charge their equipment. Cabin lights are doubling on the lake’s surface and Plan B is going into effect—for with wind and rain, come power failures. “Like carrying an umbrella when it’s gonna rain,” Gordy says of Plan B. “Notice how it never rains when you carry one?” </p><p>Nancy, as all who live in close quarters with prophets and never tire of eating chips and dip at their side while watching Columbo reruns are prone to do, falls for the error in his cliché. Oh, he’s full of clichés. She is too, full of his clichés. Small price…. In the entire twenty years since they’ve been retired, the worst that’s happened to their sweet place, including the kids’ treehouse in the 300-year-old Silver Maple, was when the popup-tent inflated with pre-storm wind and sailed over the treetops to oblivion, their best blow-up mattress inside. Preparedness is everything. </p><p>Flashlights next to matches, batteries and candles on the countertop, Gordy unhooks the electric garage door handle, so he’ll be able to raise the heavy square of steel by hand if necessary. In case the pump goes, she fills the bathtub, so they’ll still be able to, you know, flush the commodes with buckets. </p><p>When they meet back at the kitchen island, he pours a double shot of whiskey in her coffee mug. “Slàinte,” she clinks the ironstone against his pewter shot glass. </p><p>“Yep,” Gordy agrees. </p><p>“Did you…—?”</p><p>“Yep, it’s in the woodstove,” referring to the rack for the coffee pot. </p><p>Flash! Then, blinding lightning. Three seconds later, boom! Thunder rumbles underfoot. Boom! Boom! Boom! Another flash. Next, silence. Then, an ear-splitting crack, which they both recognize as the elongated sound of lightning severing a tree. Crown to root-ball. As the goliath begins its descent, the smell of searing bark rises. The sky is falling! But where? Which tree? The one over the bedroom wing? The shed? My God. Then they know which one. The landmark Maple over the main truss. </p><p>As if exploding from the inside, the tree’s head comes off first, then its shoulders and its torso. At least that’s what it sounds like from below, like many trees being felled, but it’s probably just the one losing its life by decree of Zeus himself. Nancy screams. She just screams. Gordy may be shouting, she can’t tell because he has draped himself over her. The smell of his whiskey breath is oddly comforting. After a pause, they rise out of their crouching positions, eyes deadlocked on each other’s because whatever’s afoot has not yet run its course. </p><p>When the power does go out, the removal of noise is a collective shut-down, not just inside their place but all across the lake, as if electrons have stilled, and protons don’t know what to do with themselves, or stunned humans for that matter. The wool of quiet muffles their senses until crickets, rustling leaves, one nervous owl and constant low-rolling thunder start up. None is a manmade sound. Still, in the sudden darkness both inside and outside the house, the calm seems unnatural. Next, not as a cause of anything, but as a delayed response, comes the clatter of rain. A minute later, an undeterred wall of water is streaming down windows and sliding across the deck, plinking the surface of the lake, though how can it? How can water splash when meeting itself, but that’s what it’s doing. </p><p>Nancy finds her voice. “Are we alright?” </p><p>Gordy palpates her shoulders to see if anything’s amiss, clunking her on the neck with the flashlight and reports that his toe hurts. “Something fell on it. I think it’s broken.” “Which one?”</p><p>“The left one.” </p><p>“Turn on the flashlight.” </p><p>When he does, they sense a new presence. Something huge pressing inward, breathing, growing, rustling, forking down the attic stairs into the vestibule, winding its bony fingers through knotholes in the pine paneling of the pantry and sighing as if it’s just come to terms with its own predicament. Nancy grabs the torch from Gordy and swings the beam wide. With a desperate groan, the ceiling in the great room gives way, and the beast breaks through the drywall’s-skin like a dinosaur through an egg. One more deadening boom and the massive hunk of rough-skinned tonnage is on the floor, feet up on the ottoman, limbs shuddering, leaves, branches, sinews, and smoking bark, immense and magnificent. </p><p>This time, Gordy and Nancy holler in unison. Their prized Maple has them, and they have it, and it is raining inside their home. “What’s that?” Nancy tips her head to an odd pop and crackle noise. </p><p>All Gordy can think to say is, “We’ll have enough kindling for years,” his mouth is less crooked than usual as he witnesses the impossible collision of elements—rain failing to douse the fire, fire consuming damp Maplewood, steam rising from the ottoman. In fact, hotspots are all around them, like chunks of fallen stars.</p><p>“Sush!” There’s shouting. Someone ramming a door. With a divided mind—one that is both out on the front porch and inside Gordy’s sheltering arms because he’s still hanging onto her—she further thinks that the entrance is probably blocked by the tree in the same way that the sliding doors are. The neighbors will fail. “What?” she turns to him.</p><p>“I said, I love you, Nancy.”</p><p>Something about the way he says it makes her bust out laughing and that makes him begin to cry. So often, she has wanted him to say those words—to say them when nothing is wrong, to say them with abandon, and he picks now. She’ll take them, save them up for later. Wiping his tears with both her thumbs, she explains quietly, in case he hadn’t noticed, “The house is on fire, Gordon, we have to get out.” </p><p>He sighs comprehendingly. Hobbled by his sore toe, he makes wet sounds on the floor while heading to the broom closet, then hands her a pair of ice cleats and grabs his own. “Cleats?” she asks incredulously.</p><p>He nods somberly and waves them at her. He’ll have a good reason for them, won’t he? She raids the junk drawer and swiftly seals chargers, phones, checkbooks, and thumb drives inside plastic freezer baggies. They stuff the lot in their pockets before pulling rain ponchos over their dampening clothes. Inanely, Gordy walks in a circle near the big screen TV as if he’d like to harness it on his back. But no. Alas, the cleats are for their Crocs, and they begin climbing the tree, their ancient, once-living tower-to-heaven. </p><p>Gordy goes first, then gives Nancy a hand-up. “Have you got it? Are you good? Can you do another set?” With each step and shift, he repeats the question. A bashed-up Lego box dislodges from one of the limbs and flops soggily onto the carpet. The tree-fort is no more. </p><p>“Keep going!” she shouts so he’ll hear her and not have to lose his grip by turning around to see where exactly on the slippery furrows of the bark she is, between which charred valley or stub or burl she has placed her feet. All he can see of her is the hood of her poncho and the bulge of her shoulders. Were it not for the flames leaping everywhere the rain can’t reach, he’d unseal his phone and take a shot. She looks like a giant flying squirrel. He hopes he’ll remember to tell her this later. She’ll get a kick out of it. </p><p>Having never beheld the old Maple from this angle, kind of sideways as if the two of them are freed from gravity and climbing El Capitan in Yosemite again, Nancy marvels at how easily she is pushing off from her feet in response to his movements. They aren’t making love, actually, but this is definitely a love tango. If they slip, so what? They’ll recover and climb, climb, climb, using branches for handholds. Shoving insulation and shingles out of their path, they will emerge through that hole in the ceiling like soggy mountain climbers. </p><p>Meanwhile, half the residents from around the lake are in some state of climbing into or out of Gordy and Nancy Butler’s home to rescue them. But there’s no need. Heaving their bodies through the open gully in the roofline, the couple stands upright before the multitudes. Wearing broken tree branches, their ponchos are slick and flapping in the wind, Gordy’s glasses flashing with firelight. Illumined by the light show, they look like gods. In some extraordinary manner involving too many people, the endangered pair is guided down a wobbly ladder to stand on shaky legs. Together with the others, they watch the fall of the house of Butler. Some of the women are crying, but not Gordy and not Nancy, not yet. </p><p>Their future may be unfathomable, that is true, but they do understand their situation. They belong to this storm, to this temple of what was and what will be, and although the bears, in a manner of speaking, have indeed brought mayhem to their world, the exhilaration of survival will see them through. Nevertheless, when someone tries to wrap Nancy in dry towels, she elbows them away, not wanting to let go of Gordy’s hand. She’s worried about his toe. </p><p>Across the street where a reclusive neighbor lives, there’s a lawn sculpture made of whirring windmill blades. Absurdly, or expectedly, depending on how you think of these things, it has created a tempest in a tempest. The owner has never spoken to the Butlers or even waved back at them. Too shy or too mean. But right now, he is staring brokenheartedly into Nancy’s eyes. </p><p>She breaks the ice. “You got any whiskey over there?”</p><p>“By God, I do,” he says, putting out his arm for Nancy and escorting her out of the fray toward his garage. Gordy hesitates. He wants to say a few words to the gang and climbs into the flatbed of someone’s pickup truck; he’s a climber now. A dozen cellphones bathe him in a white beam. Rubbing his chin and shifting off his bad toe he waves them closer. They start to chuckle. They know Gordy Butler and his jokey personality. </p><p>“Me and Nancy, we’re so grateful to you. We’re alive. Right?” He’s weeping again, but who can tell? </p><p>“Right!” the gang shouts in unison.</p><p>“You know what this means, don’t ya? </p><p>“No!” the crowd goads. </p><p>“We’re pilgrims now. We plan to sleep around.”</p><p>“And we get first dibs,” yells Francine from two doors down.</p><p>“Keep in mind, we take our coffee black and percolated. None of that fancy stuff. 8 AM on the dot. And Columbo. We watch Columbo. 9 PM. And we make love every day at 3 PM.” </p><p>“Aw, go on!” It’s his bride.</p><p>His smile fades as he turns to look at the smoldering mess, and someone has to help him get down from the truck. </p><p>“Ready?” the heretofore quiet guy is still glued to Nancy’s arm. “You come along too, Mr. Butler.”</p><p>“You’re damn right, I’m coming along.”</p><p>“Nancy’s poncho pocket starts ringing. “That’ll be the kids.” (Francine must have called them.) “I’ll let them know we’re okay. That we will rebuild. Here. On our lake.” </p><p>“Yep,” Gordy says. It’s an idea he cannot fathom. </p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[People]]></title><description><![CDATA[ripped a scab on myc knee when i was twelve. mom wasn’t home. this was the first time feeling unloved. Things need rewiring to become things again, not People. for sure. forthright. four people make a family but three is broken in some way. missing my home. the new tenants cut down our lemon tree though my dog peed on it so many times it was bound to fall. ignore it all. live in the moment and forget the rest. lie in the dirt don’t get your pants dirty. everyone cares. care means different thing]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/people/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523307</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Madison Hu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:06:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1461088945293-0c17689e48ac?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxwZW9wbGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEzNDYyNjYyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1461088945293-0c17689e48ac?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxwZW9wbGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEzNDYyNjYyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="People"/><p>ripped a scab on myc knee when i was twelve. mom wasn’t home. this was the first time feeling unloved. Things need rewiring to become things again, not People. for sure. forthright. four people make a family but three is broken in some way. missing my home. the new tenants cut down our lemon tree though my dog peed on it so many times it was bound to fall. ignore it all. live in the moment and forget the rest. lie in the dirt don’t get your pants dirty. everyone cares. care means different things to different people. not to me and Her, though, we understand things in the same way. make you feel what i felt all my life starting with my knee. stay away from it all. you don’t care, you forgot. easy for people to find People in the sea of Things that have become things again. easy for Things to become things again, not People, not me. everybody in the room is fake laughing at real jokes. nothing is landing and i can’t pay attention. explain it all so nothing makes sense. connect the dots four years later, can’t wait to tell you in another life. try again to make the Thing a thing again, but it doesn’t work for me in the way it works for people. the lemon tree was big, too big to be cut down with care. the saw had to have destroyed all those nests. tenants bought the house with cash so they own it. paper buys things. things are for People. things are easy for people to let go of but People are hard. do I turn you into a thing. does that work. people on people. Things need rewiring to become things again but not sure about that for me. pills go down my body in a different way. they never make a splash. just move on. girl in the back looks like you. girl in my chair looks like you. things need to return to the way things were and the rules can’t apply to anyone but me anymore. people on people. forthright and forthcoming. four things to know only three matter. one is flippant. flipping back and forth between hate and like. not love, won’t admit that. liked you a lot. liked the feeling. liked the chemical in my brains. reduce it, people say. people do that. people enjoy that. that’s how we fall out of love they say. take it all back. take it all in and let it all go. do that all at the same time and forget the boy who wants to kiss the girl in the vest. examine how he speaks to her and to the men around him. falling in love is a choice but not in that way. choose who you want and stick with it. People love People to be on People. don’t take that for granted mom says. are you dating she asks. you play games on your phone and that’s why no one loves you. People pay attention. to me, mostly. that’s how that feels. People are pretending all over. People are not easy to be around, people all know this. People on People. Things need rewiring to become things again. </p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Jerry In the Field]]></title><description><![CDATA[Jerry stands in the field,
his arms eagle-wide, his neck arched
so he can face the sky,
his hunched back along for the ride.
He is praying on this side of a life,
May thy will be done, listening
for an answer, which is always
the wind sweeping so abruptly
it’s hard to deny the earth hears
every drop of every syllable
Over the ridge of his death, I’m here,
asking, Where have you gone? Even now,
five and a half years, nine years later
as if it just happened. I want to hold him,
chest to ch]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/jerry-in-the-field/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523308</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:05:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495107334309-fcf20504a5ab?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGZpZWxkfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzQ2MzE4Nnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495107334309-fcf20504a5ab?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGZpZWxkfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzQ2MzE4Nnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Jerry In the Field"/><p>Jerry stands in the field, <br>his arms eagle-wide, his neck arched <br>so he can face the sky, <br>his hunched back along for the ride. <br>He is praying on this side of a life,<br><em>May thy will be done,</em> listening <br>for an answer, which is always <br>the wind sweeping so abruptly<br>it’s hard to deny the earth hears<br>every drop of every syllable</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Over the ridge of his death, I’m here,<br>asking, <em>Where have you gone?</em> Even now,<br>five and a half years, nine years later<br>as if it just happened. I want to hold him, <br>chest to chest, his loud heartbeat in that <br>small body ringing through my small body,<br>then back away and look at him, smiling<br>because there are no words anymore,<br>especially now that there is no Jerry.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The field is still the field although now,<br>it is ours after years of trying to save it, <br>something Jerry believed would happen. <br>I go into the wet grass, the dry overgrowth,<br>cold feet or bad headache, lift my arms,<br>say the words. And the wind? Sometimes <br>it answers, bobbing the cedar branches so hard <br>one breaks off or a crow rushes overhead <br>with a sprig of green in its happy beak,<br>its eyes so sharp-edged and alive.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lowell]]></title><description><![CDATA[
Lowell—poet of the apocalypse,
another father to the sequence; owner
of preservation busting confinement, metallic
in his arms; himself Hell. Asylum slays.
As Lowell puts it, the past changes more than the present.
But in the mythic the past is unmoving. The walls
come tumbling down. Joshua sounds the horn
of apocalypse, loud sabre rattle. We are
contenders in the apocalypse: that, and pretenders;
our girlie-gentle actors drive to work
or watch TV shows. Blind subtle gass]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lowell/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523309</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[A. Johnston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:04:45 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1643693271888-499f942cd8d7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxoZWxsfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzQ2Mzc2OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1643693271888-499f942cd8d7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxoZWxsfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzQ2Mzc2OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Lowell"/><p><br>Lowell—poet of the apocalypse, </br></p><p>another father to the sequence; owner</p><p>of preservation busting confinement, metallic</p><p>in his arms; himself Hell. Asylum slays. </p><p>As Lowell puts it, the past changes more than the present. </p><p>But in the mythic the past is unmoving. The walls </p><p>come tumbling down. Joshua sounds the horn </p><p>of apocalypse, loud sabre rattle. We are </p><p>contenders in the apocalypse: that, and pretenders;</p><p>our girlie-gentle actors drive to work</p><p>or watch TV shows. Blind subtle gasses</p><p>waft in the air. The tide is coming soon.</p><p>Watch for the angel borne out or blown in by man.</p><p>Waters rise over us as we sit in gridlock.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dead Man’s Creek]]></title><description><![CDATA[I grew up in the Ozark foothills of Arkansas, in the small, sleepy town of Springdale. It got its name from a spring-fed creek that runs right through the middle of town, aptly named Spring Creek. On its journey, the creek flows at the bottom of a big hill. On the top of the hill is Bluff Cemetery. When I was growing up, we had never heard of Spring Creek or Bluff Cemetery. We only knew it as Dead Man’s Creek. The creek and the cemetery together were Dead Man’s Creek. And it became my special pl]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dead-mans-creek/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852330a</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lea Ann Crisp]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:04:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/04/SpringCreek.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/04/SpringCreek.jpg" alt="Dead Man’s Creek"/><p>I grew up in the Ozark foothills of Arkansas, in the small, sleepy town of Springdale. It got its name from a spring-fed creek that runs right through the middle of town, aptly named Spring Creek. On its journey, the creek flows at the bottom of a big hill. On the top of the hill is Bluff Cemetery. When I was growing up, we had never heard of Spring Creek or Bluff Cemetery. We only knew it as Dead Man’s Creek. The creek and the cemetery together were Dead Man’s Creek. And it became my special place. </p><p>The first time I went to the creek, I was very little. A close friend of the family, who was also my appointed Godfather, Tommy, took my sister, my younger brother and me. I remember climbing up a steep set of honey-colored stone steps to get to the cemetery. They were old and broken in places. There was a black wrought iron rail to hang on to, but we were too little to make good use of it and Tommy had given us all bags of candy, which we were more interested in holding. It was Spring, around Easter, and the air had that incredible sweet, clean smell that happens right before it rains. That is still my favorite smell, and it always takes me back to that memory and the magic of the creek and the cemetery in the Spring.</p><p>When we were young girls, my best friend and I spent some wonderful summers there. We would walk or bike several miles in the heat to get there and stay all afternoon. The creek was crystal clear and cool, with currents that turned around large boulders and islands of gravel. It was lined on both sides with huge trees and not very visible from the bridge. It was a tricky descent from the bridge to get through the trees and brush and even an old barbed-wire fence that was supposed to keep us out. But, once we were there, imagination took over and we would be lost in play for hours. It was our own private world where no one could see us or bother us. </p><p>We would eventually make the climb up to the cemetery, never paying much attention to the cows grazing on the hill. Many of the graves in the cemetery had familiar names, but I didn’t have family buried there. There were very old, simple markers and new, beautifully crafted monuments that looked like sculptures in a garden. There was so much to explore, so much mystery, history. It was a strangely beautiful place with tall oak trees, fiery with color in the fall, shady and cool in the summer, dark against the snow in the winter. And from there you could look down at the creek and the bridge and the hill dotted with cows. </p><p>When we were a few years older and interested in boys, Dead Man’s Creek was a favorite place for the girls and boys to meet. In the summer, we would flatten cardboard boxes and slide down the grass, tumbling at the bottom. When it snowed in the winter, the hill was the perfect place for sledding and flirting, and we would spend the day there. On one particularly memorable, crisp winter’s day, Donnie O’Neil held my hand on the frozen bridge above the creek and gave me my first real kiss. I somehow knew he had been planning it all day. It was a soft, warm kiss that seemed to last forever. Maybe it has. My crush on Donnie was brief, but I will never forget him, or that day, or that kiss. </p><p>When I left for college, it was many years before I returned to Arkansas to live. But on my trips home to visit family and friends, I would try to go to the creek. I would sometimes go with a sister, or an old friend, but often I would go alone. Springdale is no longer a small town. Dead Man’s Creek has changed much over the years. The stone steps to the cemetery are still there and the towering old oak trees. But many of the trees along the creek were removed and the creek is now visible from the bridge. </p><p>When my mother passed away, it was early in the morning on Christmas Eve. That afternoon, I had the strongest urge to go to the creek. My sister Sharon asked if she could go with me. It was a cold, brown, overcast day. We walked in the cemetery for a while and then sat in the car for a long time, just looking and being quiet. After a while, Sharon mentioned how peaceful it was and how she was happy that our mother had chosen to be buried there, even though all of her family was buried in Oklahoma. I almost stopped breathing. I hadn’t known. She had never told me.</p><p>Now when I go to the creek, I visit my mother. And in this place that holds so many memories for me I find peace.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dark Cocoa Brownies]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ingredients:
½ cup butter
½ cup dark cocoa
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped walnuts, pecans, or chocolate chips (optional)
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease an 8 or 9-inch square baking pan.
2. Melt butter in a medium saucepan; remove from heat.
3. Add cocoa and stir well.
4. Add sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract; mix until shiny and smooth.
5. Add flour, baking powder, and s]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dark-cocoa-brownies/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852330b</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:03:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1600668623010-9fb9a3bcf554?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxfHxicm93bmllc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NjU0ODZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1600668623010-9fb9a3bcf554?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxfHxicm93bmllc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NjU0ODZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dark Cocoa Brownies"/><p>Ingredients:<br><br>½ cup butter<br>½ cup dark cocoa<br>1 cup granulated sugar<br>2 eggs<br>1 teaspoon vanilla extract<br>2/3 cup flour<br>½ teaspoon baking powder<br>½ teaspoon salt<br>½ cup chopped walnuts, pecans, or chocolate chips (optional)</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Instructions:</p><ol><li>Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease an 8 or 9-inch square baking pan.</li><li>Melt butter in a medium saucepan; remove from heat.</li><li>Add cocoa and stir well.</li><li>Add sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract; mix until shiny and smooth.</li><li>Add flour, baking powder, and salt; mix well.</li><li>Fold in nuts or chocolate chips.</li><li>Pour into prepared baking pan; spread evenly. </li><li>Bake for 15 – 20 minutes at 350°F. DO NOT OVER BAKE. </li><li>Cut when cooled.</li></ol><p>Makes 8 – 9 servings.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Karmically, I Mumbled]]></title><description><![CDATA[Alabama summer
Enticing mimosa trees
An oasis of novelty
In an all-explored backyard
She was like those trees
Telling me stories
Of pink puffy blossoms
And new adventures
I could watch her walk
Down the hall forever
I should have let her go
The weather it was dry
Took a walk in her hair
One night and then wrapped
It around my fist
Tugging gently in slow motion
Karmically I mumbled
“I love your hair”
She only heard the first
Two and a half syllables
Whipping around
Her eyes like faraway ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/karmically-i-mumbled/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852330c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Cloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:02:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1568903457385-c38d34ffd37e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJhbmpvfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzQ2NTkxNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1568903457385-c38d34ffd37e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJhbmpvfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzQ2NTkxNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Karmically, I Mumbled"/><p>Alabama summer <br>Enticing mimosa trees<br>An oasis of novelty<br>In an all-explored backyard</br></br></br></p><p>She was like those trees<br>Telling me stories <br>Of pink puffy blossoms<br>And new adventures</br></br></br></p><p>I could watch her walk<br>Down the hall forever<br>I should have let her go<br>The weather it was dry</br></br></br></p><p>Took a walk in her hair<br>One night and then wrapped<br>It around my fist <br>Tugging gently in slow motion</br></br></br></p><p>Karmically I mumbled<br>“I love your hair”<br>She only heard the first <br>Two and a half syllables</br></br></br></p><p>Whipping around<br>Her eyes like faraway lamplights<br>“What did you say?”<br>So starlike was her face</br></br></br></p><p>Desperation close to the surface<br>Compassion rose within me <br>With denial alongside<br>And I changed my story</br></br></br></p><p>With a banjo on my knee</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Death is Near]]></title><description><![CDATA[Lean to the left, definitely not to the right
this year's choice is plain in sight.
preach about crime yet praise a
hammer to the head. Wake an old man
as he sleeps in his bed. Speak about the truth
yet spread all the lies. Your attempts to
apologize are such a disguise. Your rehearsed
delivery ends with the same false theory,
your acolytes rejoice at what they hear. I spend my days
angry at what my country has become,
one party full of despots the other runs from.
the fascists, the haters,]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-death-is-near/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852330d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Ganshaw]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:02:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1586864387967-d02ef85d93e8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGhhbW1lcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0Njk2NDR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1586864387967-d02ef85d93e8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGhhbW1lcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0Njk2NDR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Death is Near"/><p>Lean to the left, definitely not to the right<br>this year's choice is plain in sight.<br>preach about crime yet praise a <br>hammer to the head. Wake an old man<br>as he sleeps in his bed. Speak about the truth<br>yet spread all the lies. Your attempts to <br>apologize are such a disguise. Your rehearsed<br>delivery ends with the same false theory, <br>your acolytes rejoice at what they hear. I spend my days <br>angry at what my country has become, <br>one party full of despots the other runs from.<br>the fascists, the haters, and those who blame<br>immigrants, gays, blacks, and all who aren’t <br>Christian nationalists are their claim to fame. <br>I’ve seen with my eyes what autocracy brings, <br>corruption, lies, and injustice, just to begin<br>All their crimes yet show no chagrin. The far-right <br>Congressmen are almost there. Their hatred<br>of all without their views, no room for <br>discussion or belief in the truth. I wish I knew <br>the answer to what will happen this year, if the <br>misogynists win we will soon live in fear. A change will<br>be upon us that is for sure. Our freedom I’m afraid<br>will cease and be no more. Listen to the rhetoric at the rallies<br>hey give, it provides a clue about what will be<br>remiss. This morning I heard a Republican say, that if <br>he became governor, he would be forever made. Their<br>words are not whispered for anyone to hear, they yell<br>them through a megaphone so it’s loud and clear.<br>turn a blind eye and sit idly by, don’t come and<br>complain when those running our country are <br>clinically insane. The case has been made by <br>many this year, everyone must vote as the death <br>of our democracy looms near. </br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Adulting is Risky]]></title><description><![CDATA[
I almost died three times in the summer of 1963. Well, at least I thought I did. Each perceived brush with death is an example of a young girl who was woefully ignorant of the world in which she found herself. Not stupid, mind you, but uninformed. And in that sense, my reactions are understandable. They were a little dramatic, perhaps, but understandable.
My very young husband and I struggled to meet our financial obligations. Still, we were falling behind in our rent and car payments. We were]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/adulting-is-risky/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852330e</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jeanean Doherty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:01:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1630515211765-57bb5440a075?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGRvbGxhciUyMHRlbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NzAzMDF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1630515211765-57bb5440a075?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGRvbGxhciUyMHRlbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NzAzMDF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Adulting is Risky"/><p><br>I almost died three times in the summer of 1963. Well, at least I thought I did. Each perceived brush with death is an example of a young girl who was woefully ignorant of the world in which she found herself. Not stupid, mind you, but uninformed. And in that sense, my reactions are understandable. They were a little dramatic, perhaps, but understandable.</br></p><p>My very young husband and I struggled to meet our financial obligations. Still, we were falling behind in our rent and car payments. We were relieved to find a less expensive rental that improved our financial situation.</p><p>The two-bedroom farmhouse, located seven miles outside the small Kansas community where we lived, lacked the conveniences of town living. There were no water faucets. We had to pump water at the schoolhouse a quarter of a mile down the road and haul it to the house. Instead of a bathroom, there was a two-hole outside toilet. The coal oil stove that dominated the tiny living room would be our heat source in winter. Undaunted, we reasoned: It will be almost like camping. And we liked to camp. We congratulated ourselves on a fantastic find.</p><p>The best part was the low rent—only ten dollars a month. Our farmer landlord explained that his insurance on the property was less if the house was occupied. I could do whatever I wanted to fix up the place within a ten-dollar-per-month budget. I only needed to provide him with receipts instead of cash. </p><p>What a girl with a bit of imagination could do with ten dollars in 1963 is fantastic. Married at sixteen and seventeen, my husband and I had been on our own for a couple of years but were still babes in the woods. We had no parents or older siblings to guide us. And, new to the community, we had no friends to consult. We were learning how to navigate the adult world by trial and error.</p><p>Although we were accustomed to "making do," we never considered ourselves poor. We simply didn't have any money. Despite the lack of funds, I enjoyed the challenge of making our cheap apartments as homey and comfortable as possible.</p><p>One of the things I did with my ten-dollar budget at the farmhouse was to paint the ugly linoleum kitchen floor, which was so worn the pattern was indiscernible. I painted it a lovely shade of gray and added a designer touch with artsy pink swirls.<em> Lovely</em>. <em>What a lovely floor</em>. I thought as I stood admiring it. I was proud of my handiwork.</p><p>Of course, a painted linoleum floor doesn't last long. Within a month, worn trails were threaded throughout the kitchen floor, from sink to refrigerator to stove to door. But it was a lovely floor for a while. The lesson learned: A cheap investment in funds and labor doesn't necessarily have long-term value.</p><p>I traipsed across the dewy lawn to the outdoor toilet one Sunday morning, still drowsy and heavy-lidded. I settled myself in place and released a stream of urine into the pit below. The sound of a rattle startled me awake and stopped the flow. A snake? Was that a rattlesnake? I jumped up, panties pooling around my ankles. Where is the snake? There's that sound again. Oh! It's in the pit! I ran screaming into the house, awakening my husband, Johnnie.</p><p>“I just peed on a rattlesnake!” I screamed over and over as I hopped around in a panic.</p><p>You can imagine my husband’s reaction to being jolted out of a sound sleep by his hysterical, half-dressed wife. Especially since I was so scared, I thought perhaps the snake may have bitten me on my butt. </p><p>Seriously, how would I know? Was it possible for the snake to lunge up and bite me where I was sitting? If so, how long would it take for me to die? Wasn’t Johnnie supposed to check my butt for snakebite? And then cut it and suck out the poison— or something? </p><p>Well, Johnnie was having none of that.</p><p>Giving in to my pleas, he glanced at my rear end, didn’t see any fang marks, and assured me I wasn’t going to die. We didn’t want to go near the toilet, but Johnnie, my hero, stalked around the outhouse with the hoe poised as a weapon, keeping about fifteen or twenty feet away, but no snake appeared. For several weeks afterward, we entered cautiously with a lot of noise and a flashlight to peer into the hole. Another lesson learned.</p><p>Hauling water to the house for daily use quickly became less fun than a weekend camping trip. It was hard work. Johnnie would position heavy galvanized milk cans under the hand water pump at the schoolhouse and then work the handle until it was full. It was a good thing he was young and strong enough to lift heavy cans of water. Once transported to the house, they were emptied as needed into the kitchen water bucket. If we needed hot water it had to be heated on the stove. Needless to say, we became very frugal with water usage.</p><p>Our landlord took pity on his young tenants and installed a water pump on the edge of the property. (Well, it was actually for his cattle, but it made life considerably easier for us.) The pump emptied the water into a huge tank for cattle grazing in the pasture to drink their fill. The landlord installed an electric fence to keep them out of the yard and off the highway. We were told the electric wire would shock the cattle or us, of course, if it were touched. To collect water for our use, Johnnie had to lean over the electric fence and carefully fill the bucket without getting wet. He was strong enough to do that with ease, but I wasn’t. It was his responsibility to keep the kitchen water bucket full.</p><p>One evening Johnnie was late coming home and the water bucket was empty. I needed water and was irritated that he hadn’t filled it before going to work. Being the determined, capable woman I believed myself to be, I thought Getting water from the pump couldn’t be that big a deal. The idea of being independent and not waiting on a man to meet my basic needs had a certain appeal. Humph! I would do it myself. </p><p>I marched to the pump where a small herd of cattle had gathered. They watched curiously as I clumsily leaned over the fence, splashing water on myself as I positioned the bucket on the end of the pipe. Suddenly, a powerful jolt of electricity shot through my body, knocking me off my feet. The bucket flew through the air, an arc of water drenching me. </p><p>I fell to the ground, screaming and crying, “Oh, God! I’m going to die. I don’t want to die! I’m too young to die!”</p><p>I rolled around in the grass for who knows how long, screaming, crying, and begging God not to let me die. After a while, I realized that, indeed, I had not died. I knew that criminals were sometimes executed in an electric chair. But then it occurred to me I had no idea how long it took for someone to die from electrocution. Should I go to the hospital? I honestly didn’t know. The landlord had told me not to touch the electric wire, especially if my hands were wet. Did that mean it would kill me if I touched it with wet hands? </p><p>I continued to roll around in the grass, crying and making bargains with God. The cows gathered at the fence, placidly chewing their cud, huge brown eyes watching my performance. Time passed. I still did not die. </p><p>Finally, I got up and brushed the grass from my backside. I felt okay but was still uncertain. I was concerned enough to call the landlord to ask how long it took to die when a person was electrocuted and if he thought I should go to the hospital. Embarrassing? Yes, but yet another lesson was learned.</p><p>Our drafty old farmhouse warned of summer’s end. Brisk nights huddled under our blankets reminded us we needed to learn how to operate that monster coal oil burner in our living room. A cold front was forecasted, and the temperature was expected to drop below freezing. There was no wall furnace or dial on a wall like in our apartments. Instead, we were dependent on a complex, intimidating piece of machinery. </p><p>We had the good sense to ask for help, or we could have blown ourselves to pieces out of pure ignorance. A kind neighbor came to our rescue and demonstrated how to operate the coal oil burner. We went to bed that night in a warm house, cozy under our blankets.</p><p>The next morning I awoke slowly, feeling drowsy and light-headed. I turned over in bed to see if Johnnie was awake and startled, I jumped up, yelling, “What’s wrong? What’s happened to you?”</p><p>Johnnie was, of course, awakened by my hysteria, and when he saw me, he began screaming as well. Both our faces were black, our eyes stark white in contrast, and our tongues bright red. What a sight we must have been to each other. It took a moment or two for us to realize the room was filled with smoke drifting and shifting about us as we stood facing each other and yelling at the top of our lungs.</p><p>We soon realized something was seriously wrong with the stove, and that’s why the house was full of smoke and soot. Johnnie quickly turned it off. We opened all the windows and doors and tried to shoo the smoke outdoors. Smoke does not shoo. It drifts wherever it chooses to go. A cold wind rushed through the house, chilling us to the bone and swirling the smoke in and out of open windows. </p><p>Meanwhile, we scrubbed our skin raw with icy cold water in futile attempts to remove the soot. Soot does not wash off easily, especially in cold water. It smeared and made an awful mess on any of our skin that had been exposed during the night. Eventually, we had to haul water from the pump and heat it on the stove, using gobs of soap and elbow grease to get the stuff out of our hair, our ears, and the creases of our skin. Cleaning the surfaces of the house of soot took days of hard work and what seemed like hundreds of buckets of water.</p><p>Later that day, our friendly neighbor checked the stove and declared there was nothing mechanically wrong with it. Perhaps something else caused the problem. He held a ladder while Johnnie clambered onto the roof and found the problem: Previous tenants had placed a board, held in place by a brick, over the chimney to keep birds from nesting there. Smoke from the stove could not escape through the chimney, so it circulated throughout the house instead. If the farmhouse had not been so drafty, Johnnie and I could have died of carbon monoxide poisoning in our sleep that night. Another valuable lesson learned.</p><p>It was out of ignorance that I had three brushes with death in the summer of 1963. (Well, actually, two times I thought I was going to die, but wasn’t; and the third time I could have died, but didn’t.) </p><p>From those experiences, I learned vital lessons in adulting: It is wise to pay attention to instructions regarding something important and potentially dangerous, the value of small details when undertaking a task cannot be underestimated, and few people have bragging rights about peeing on a rattlesnake and living to tell about it. </p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Meeting My Muse]]></title><description><![CDATA[I have invited her for the thousandth time
to join me for conversation
at the café in the village shops
the one that serves both coffee and spirits
I love it there and I know it suits
whatever mood she may be wearing
She goes her own way, that’s for sure
and she cannot be relied on
In a world of schedules and sleek surfaces
she is all bohemian skirts and scarves
and a roomy tapestry bag where she finds
exactly the right thing but never
what she was looking for
I sit and wait, my notebook open,]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/meeting-my-muse/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852330f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Lorenzen]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:00:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585997631913-896180ae8acb?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHBlbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTMzODk3ODJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585997631913-896180ae8acb?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHBlbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTMzODk3ODJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Meeting My Muse"/><p>I have invited her for the thousandth time<br>to join me for conversation<br>at the café in the village shops<br>the one that serves both coffee and spirits<br>I love it there and I know it suits<br>whatever mood she may be wearing</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>She goes her own way, that’s for sure<br>and she cannot be relied on<br>In a world of schedules and sleek surfaces<br>she is all bohemian skirts and scarves<br>and a roomy tapestry bag where she finds<br>exactly the right thing but never<br>what she was looking for</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I sit and wait, my notebook open,<br>little doodles climbing in a column<br>My favorite pen distracting itself<br>as I watch for my expected friend<br>to burst through the door in a gush<br>of wind, to land all over me<br>in her surprising inevitability<br>And while I wait, I write anyway</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Reserving Judgement]]></title><description><![CDATA[To avoid road construction on my normal drive to town, I took a detour. It was less than a mile from my home, yet I had never passed this way before. Braking at the stop sign, a sorry sight captured my attention. I glared at a torn and tattered flag perched precariously through rusted security bars that covered the window of a neglected old house. A heavy sigh escaped me as I slowly shook my head. As a Veteran, I wondered: How could someone display our flag in such a disrespectful manner?
The]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/reserving-judgement/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523310</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joyce Hanewinkel]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:59:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590638302397-73c58ddba466?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGFtZXJpY2FuJTIwZmxhZ3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NTY5MjV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590638302397-73c58ddba466?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGFtZXJpY2FuJTIwZmxhZ3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NTY5MjV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Reserving Judgement"/><p>To avoid road construction on my normal drive to town, I took a detour. It was less than a mile from my home, yet I had never passed this way before. Braking at the stop sign, a sorry sight captured my attention. I glared at a torn and tattered flag perched precariously through rusted security bars that covered the window of a neglected old house. A heavy sigh escaped me as I slowly shook my head. As a Veteran, I wondered: How could someone display our flag in such a disrespectful manner? </p><p>The house was perched on a corner lot in rural Oklahoma. Its black paint was faded and peeling. The floorboards of the front porch curled up at indiscriminate intervals and the wooden steps sagged precariously. </p><p>I lingered at the intersection passing judgement on the occupant for the dejected display of our country’s proud symbol. Then, I scrutinized the entire scene before me. This ramshackle house had once been someone’s beloved home. The empty flower boxes on the porch railing had once held flowers. I could see the browned lifeless remains. The bricks that edged the flowerbed lay askew. The tree that had once supplied shade was now a broken trunk in need of removal. Yes, how could this happen?</p><p>Rolling through the intersection I saw the fingers of a gnarled hand pull down the ends of the metal blinds exposing a whiskered chin.</p><p>I drove to the grocery store to refill my pantry. Having lost my ninety-three-year-old father the previous year, the image of that gnarled hand and whiskered chin at the window haunted me.</p><p>After loading the groceries, I eased into a line of cars waiting to exit the parking lot. Inspiration struck like a fast-moving bug against a windshield as I idled in front of the Sutherlands home improvement store. Easing out of the parade of cars, I parked in front of the store and began my mission.</p><p>***</p><p>Back in my car, I angled across the lot to Sonic and bought two lunches to go. Ten minutes later I pulled into the rutted drive of the forlorn house with the bedraggled American flag. The Sutherland purchase remained in the backseat while I shouldered the car door open and carried my purse and the lunches up the front steps. My index finger depressed a yellowed button, but the recalcitrant doorbell remained silent. I knocked crisply and waited.</p><p>A shuffling sound resonated from behind the door, the doorknob slowly turned, and the hinges creaked eerily. The wizened face of a proud man protruded from the narrow gap.</p><p>“Yes?” He asked.</p><p>“Hi. My name is Julie. I’m your neighbor. I have an extra lunch and was hoping you’d help me out. You see, I don’t want to eat alone today. Would you have lunch with me?”</p><p>His lips parted in a broad grin. Eyes sparkled. “Well sure. Come on in.” </p><p>He stepped back and eased the door open. A window-unit air-conditioner purred from its housing in the adjacent wall. The room was so tidy it reminded me of military barracks. The furniture was old and worn but of good quality. He led me to a small, antique, clawfoot table which displayed two matching plastic, floral placemats. Then he methodically collected paper plates and squares of paper towels. </p><p>I unloaded the paper bags, and the scent of onions, french-fries, and cheeseburgers infused the air. I glanced at him. “Mister—”</p><p>“Clint. No need for mister.”</p><p>“Alright then Clint, I hope you like cheeseburgers.”</p><p>He licked his lips in anticipation. “That I do.”</p><p>We ate in comfortable companionship. </p><p>“Tell me, Clint, are you a Veteran?”</p><p>He spoke softly but articulately. “I am. Why do you ask?”</p><p>“Well for starters,” my head swiveled taking in the rooms, “your house is arranged in military precision, then there’s the American flag outside.”</p><p>He winced. “I should do something about Old Glory out there. I don’t get around so good anymore. It’s a shame I let her get into such a state, but I just don’t manage the steps very well.”</p><p>His shame became my own. In the future, I should withhold judgement until I have all the facts. “Well, I can take care of that after we eat.”</p><p>During our impromptu lunch I learned that he had retired from the Army after thirty years of service. He had a love for our country which was rivaled only by the love for his wife who had passed two years earlier. </p><p>“Clint, do you have a Phillips head screwdriver?”</p><p>“Yes, why?”</p><p>“I brought you a surprise.”</p><p>“You did, why?”</p><p>“From one Vet to another, I like to see Old Glory waving proudly. So, I picked up a new flag to replace the old one. Would it be all right if I mounted it to your porch railing?”</p><p>His eyes shone brightly as he raised his head. “I’d like that very much.”</p><p>“I can give the old flag to the boy scouts; they’ll dispose of it properly.”</p><p>He nodded approvingly.</p><p>He edged onto the porch and watched as I attached the bracket to the railing at the top of the stairs. When I inserted the flag, Clint’s stooped frame unfurled. He stood at attention and gave a precise salute which he held at the corner of his eyebrow. I stepped back and saluted as well. Of its own accord, the Pledge of Allegiance spilled from my mouth, and Clint joined me in recitation. His voice was raised in a powerful declaration of respect for our flag and our country. Mine, however, faltered with emotion.</p><p>Afterward, I mounted the steps to say goodbye. “You know, you remind me of my father. He would have been about your age.” Instinctively, I stepped forward and embraced him. </p><p>A wisp of a sigh escaped him as he leaned into me, patted my back, and said, “Stop by anytime.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Seamstress]]></title><description><![CDATA[You’d never be free
under the guise she chose for you.
The one she hand-picked,
crocheted into your body, sewed
into your lips.
You sat down, took your place at the dinner table,
poised, refined-
You interlocked your fingers, smiled, looked them in the eye,
you were a good boy.
It was never up to you.
So of course, when you came of age
and unstitched yourself from her ball of yarn,
Remade yourself as you,
you were an ugly result
of her failures.
Something to be stored at the bottom
of a ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-seamstress/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523311</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jojo O’Such]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:55:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1607497839442-91c7a44b19e1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHx5YXJufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzQ2ODk3MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1607497839442-91c7a44b19e1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHx5YXJufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzQ2ODk3MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Seamstress"/><p>You’d never be free<br> under the guise she chose for you.<br><br>The one she hand-picked,<br> crocheted into your body, sewed<br>into your lips.<br><br>You sat down, took your place at the dinner table,<br> poised, refined-</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p> You interlocked your fingers, smiled, looked them in the eye,</p><p>you were a good boy.<br> It was never up to you.</br></p><p>So of course, when you came of age<br> and unstitched yourself from her ball of yarn,</br></p><p>Remade yourself as you,<br> you were an ugly result</br></p><p>of her failures.<br> Something to be stored at the bottom</br></p><p>of a tin once used to hold cookies.<br> And there you stayed,</br></p><p>until you were strong enough<br> to lift up the lid on your own.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[We’ll All die]]></title><description><![CDATA[November 28, 2023
I woke up today a day closer
To the day I die
And everyone I hold dear similarly neared
Their certain demise
So I put a little more love into all my hi’s, love you (too)s, and goodbyes
A little more humility into all my handshakes
And a little more kindness into all my interactions
In case, alas, they may be my last.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
November 29, 2023
I woke]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/well-all-die/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523312</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Shahryar Eskandari Zanjani]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:54:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521790797524-b2497295b8a0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGhhbmRzaGFrZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NjgxMDF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521790797524-b2497295b8a0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGhhbmRzaGFrZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NjgxMDF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="We’ll All die"/><p>November 28, 2023<br><br>I woke up today a day closer<br>To the day I die<br>And everyone I hold dear similarly neared<br>Their certain demise<br>So I put a little more <strong><em>love</em></strong> into all my hi’s, love you (too)s, and goodbyes<br>A little more <strong><em>humility</em></strong> into all my handshakes<br>And a little more <em><strong>kindness</strong> </em>into all my interactions<br>In case, alas, they may be my last.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - </p><p>November 29, 2023</p><p>I woke up today another day closer<br>To the day I die<br>And everyone I hold dear similarly neared<br>Their certain demise<br>So I put even more <em><strong>love</strong> </em>into all my hi’s, love you (too)s, and goodbyes<br>More <strong><em>Humility </em></strong>into all my handshakes<br>And more <strong><em>kindness</em></strong> into all my interactions<br>In case, alas, they may be their last.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</p><p/><p>November 30, 2023</p><p>I woke today yet another day closer<br>To the day I die<br>And everyone I hold dear similarly neared<br>Their certain demise<br>So I put yet more <strong><em>love</em> </strong>into all my hi’s, love you (too)s, and goodbyes<br>Much more <strong><em>humility</em></strong> into all my handshakes<br>And a lot more <strong><em>kindness</em></strong> into all my interactions<br>In case, alas, they may be our last…</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lip Prints (she's been a lot of places)]]></title><description><![CDATA[She leaves lip prints
wherever she goes and
she’s been a lot of places
/////////////////////////////
According to the FBI
lip prints can be used as a
positive form of identification
Based on size and shape and
color intensity and fullness
the crease patterns the red parts
and the white areas between them
Lip prints are unique and do not
change during your lifetime and are
considered acceptable to forensic scientists
/////////////////////////////
She leaves lip prints
wherever she goes
an]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lip-prints/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523313</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:53:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1626528117236-849b96d7c291?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMxMHx8bGlwfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzM4ODk2Mnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1626528117236-849b96d7c291?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMxMHx8bGlwfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMzM4ODk2Mnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Lip Prints (she's been a lot of places)"/><p>She leaves lip prints<br>wherever she goes and<br>she’s been a lot of places</br></br></p><p>/////////////////////////////</p><p>According to the FBI<br>lip prints can be used as a <br>positive form of identification<br>Based on size and shape and<br>color intensity and fullness<br>the crease patterns the red parts <br>and the white areas between them<br>Lip prints are unique and do not <br>change during your lifetime and are<br>considered acceptable to forensic scientists</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>/////////////////////////////</p><p>She leaves lip prints <br>wherever she goes<br>and she’s not concerned <br>because she’s a good girl </br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[untitled]]></title><description><![CDATA[how do i say
that i am scared?
how do i tell you this
knowing
that you cannot
relieve this fear,
that your words of comfort,
eloquent as they are,
cannot assure me
of my body’s resilience,
that you can take me
in your arms,
hold me tight,
and still
it will not be enough?
i need to share
with you,
and yet i fear
the disappointment
inevitable
in the distance
between us.
can you hold
my heart
close enough
for that not to
matter?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/untitled-faune/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523314</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Faune Vita]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:51:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515273283790-38b8a1dc851e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGhvbGRpbmclMjBoZWFydHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NjczNzF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515273283790-38b8a1dc851e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGhvbGRpbmclMjBoZWFydHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTM0NjczNzF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="untitled"/><p>how do i say <br>that i am scared?</br></p><p>how do i tell you this<br>knowing<br>that you cannot<br>relieve this fear,<br>that your words of comfort,<br>eloquent as they are,<br>cannot assure me<br>of my body’s resilience,<br>that you can take me<br>in your arms,<br>hold me tight,<br>and still<br>it will not be enough?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>i need to share<br>with you,<br>and yet i fear<br>the disappointment<br>inevitable<br>in the distance<br>between us.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>can you hold<br>my heart<br>close enough<br>for that not to<br>matter?</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Walking]]></title><description><![CDATA[I begin a simple day
I sit down by the lake
its waters bath my soul
joining the morning sun
meant just for me
I am old
I walk this sacred ground
finding a labyrinth beneath my feet
a journey of hope
and new beginnings
I am lonely
I wait for you
upon this path
walking the clouds one by one
through my blue-sky day
I know this place
I know this love
and in return trust
I will find my way
all for this one simple day ~]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/walking/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523315</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:47:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1637437411360-b4607d62ddd3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU0fHx3YWxraW5nJTIwc2hvZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEzNDY4NjY4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1637437411360-b4607d62ddd3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU0fHx3YWxraW5nJTIwc2hvZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEzNDY4NjY4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Walking"/><p>I begin a simple day<br>I sit down by the lake<br>its waters bath my soul<br>joining the morning sun<br>meant just for me </br></br></br></br></p><p>I am old<br>I walk this sacred ground<br>finding a labyrinth beneath my feet<br>a journey of hope<br>and new beginnings</br></br></br></br></p><p>I am lonely<br>I wait for you <br>upon this path<br>walking the clouds one by one<br>through my blue-sky day</br></br></br></br></p><p>I know this place<br>I know this love<br>and in return trust<br>I will find my way<br>all for this one simple day ~</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 23: Summer 2024]]></title><description><![CDATA[Letter from the Editor
Dear readers, As I sit upon this rapidly melting block of ice, I realize Summer is here. I trust that you are keeping cool during this dreadfully blistering time. How hot is it? It’s hotter than a Jalapeño’s armpit on the Fourth of July … It’s so hot I have to sleep in the oven just to cool off … It’s hotter than a two-peckered goat … It’s so hot the chickens are laying hard-boiled eggs! (Insert your favorite cliché here.). Now is the time to grab a refreshing ICED bevera]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-23-summer-2024-letter/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523346</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:45:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1560332944-d047e59ac9b2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHN1bW1lciUyMGJvb2t8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzIwNDYwMTM2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2 id="letter-from-the-editor">Letter from the Editor</h2><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1560332944-d047e59ac9b2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHN1bW1lciUyMGJvb2t8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzIwNDYwMTM2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Issue 23: Summer 2024"/><p>Dear readers, As I sit upon this rapidly melting block of ice, I realize Summer is here. I trust that you are keeping cool during this dreadfully blistering time. How hot is it? It’s hotter than a Jalapeño’s armpit on the Fourth of July … It’s so hot I have to sleep in the oven just to cool off … It’s hotter than a two-peckered goat … It’s so hot the chickens are laying hard-boiled eggs! (Insert your favorite cliché here.). Now is the time to grab a refreshing ICED beverage and relax with the Summer Edition of eMerge.</p><p>We have curated an exceptional collection of poetry and short stories that will not only entertain but also stimulate your intellect. From Bill McCloud’s poem, Lip Prints, which cleverly juxtaposes science and whimsey, to the thought-provoking poem by Elizabeth G. Howard, All the Fat, which beautifully encapsulates the weight and significance of poetic expression, each piece brings something unique and thought-provoking to the table. Amidst the sweltering Summer days, you will find a breath of fresh air in this issue of eMerge.</p><p><em>eMerge</em> is published thanks to the unwavering dedication of a small but passionate team—a team that delights in sharing our love of contemporary literature with you. Cat Templeton (one of my brilliant daughters), who diligently maintains our website and handles last-minute edits; Sandra Templeton (beautiful inside and out), our incredibly talented art director; and Chad Gurley, our skilled graphic design editor and social media editor. We are currently raising funds to ensure the continuity of a literary magazine that is not reliant on advertising. If you find this issue enjoyable, please consider making a small donation <a href="https://donate.stripe.com/28o2aT3accTcfSwbIJ?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com" rel="noreferrer">here</a>. Even a modest contribution will help us continue publishing writing from emerging writers that captivates and inspires.</p><p>We would also like to express our gratitude to our Featured Partners, <a href="https://www.bluecloverediting.com/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Blue Clover Editing</a>, where Aubrey Green, a professional copyeditor, ensures that your manuscript remains unique throughout the editorial process. Bill and Lara Bernhardt are bestselling authors, the masterminds behind <a href="https://writercon.org/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">WriterCon</a>, and the publishers of <a href="https://writerconmag.substack.com/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">WriterCon Magazine</a>. The <a href="https://ozarkswritersleague.com/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Ozark Writers League</a>, informally known as "OWL," supports the desire of writers, artists, and photographers throughout the Ozarks region to expand their knowledge of the craft and to connect with and encourage the creativity of others. <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">The Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow</a> has been providing residences for writers for the last twenty years and for their long-time support and commitment to uplifting writers of all genres at all stages in their careers.</p><p>Until next time,</p><p>I remain,</p><p>Just another Zororastafarian editor who has been around the world twice and once suggested to Ernest Hemingway that he didn’t know how to make a proper Manhattan and when I woke up he was gone …</p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Crush on Science]]></title><description><![CDATA[I have a crush on Science.
I like his no-nonsense ones and zeros way about things.
He’s not always right, but I love his passion to part the fog,
Chase the gray around the classroom until it picks a side – black or white.
Science lives in a world I envy
where 1+1 still equals 2
He hangs out with the Math kids,
He combs spreadsheets and slides down rulers,
He knows the names of all the things
Because he labeled them himself.
Me and my glasses sidle up to Science in homeroom,
Asking, “How was yo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-crush-on-science/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232aa</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Erin McGrane]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:22:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1532094349884-543bc11b234d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNjaWVuY2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5ODM4NTgzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1532094349884-543bc11b234d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNjaWVuY2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5ODM4NTgzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Crush on Science"/><p>I have a crush on Science.<br>I like his no-nonsense ones and zeros way about things.<br>He’s not always right, but I love his passion to part the fog,<br>Chase the gray around the classroom until it picks a side – black or white.</br></br></br></p><p>Science lives in a world I envy<br>where 1+1 still equals 2<br>He hangs out with the Math kids,<br>He combs spreadsheets and slides down rulers,<br>He knows the names of all the things<br>Because he labeled them himself.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Me and my glasses sidle up to Science in homeroom,<br>Asking, “How was your summer?”<br>Knowing perfectly well that while I skinny-dipped at the sandpit,<br>Splashing off bean field dust and hormones,<br>Blue-tongued from bomb pops and the taste of longing,<br>He was in summer school studying the birds and bees<br>That stung me so sweetly.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I saunter by Science in the lunchroom, mustering my best smile<br>Like the hot dog I am, too cool for school.<br>When I ask him to dance in the darkened gym,<br>We are white socks and highwaters, bare feet and sunburn; we are<br>Life. Science.<br>We need each other.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>We meet in the back seat of our curiosity<br>Where grace notes and lab notes tumble equally<br>Through inexpert hands,<br>Sorting, searching, seeking the gray.</br></br></br></p><p>As if poems or petri dishes could ever explain<br>The chemistry of love<br>Or the why of us.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[April]]></title><description><![CDATA[It’s red in the west
And purple and deepest blue
That’s almost black.
The wind chimes clang
A warning I choose to delight in -
It’s storm season.
Oklahomans know
When to take cover and when to take
Pics for the news.
The air has a taste,
A zest that seasons each springtime
Memory I have.
Like mowing the lawn
And hearing the frogs in the evening,
It feels like home.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/april/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232ab</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Aubrey Green]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:21:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1658855474498-c8f31f910b6e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHx3aW5kJTIwY2hpbWVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwOTgzOTE3OHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1658855474498-c8f31f910b6e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHx3aW5kJTIwY2hpbWVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwOTgzOTE3OHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="April"/><p>It’s red in the west<br> And purple and deepest blue<br>That’s almost black. </br></br></p><p>The wind chimes clang<br> A warning I choose to delight in -<br>It’s storm season.</br></br></p><p>Oklahomans know<br> When to take cover and when to take<br>Pics for the news.</br></br></p><p>The air has a taste,<br> A zest that seasons each springtime<br>Memory I have.</br></br></p><p>Like mowing the lawn<br> And hearing the frogs in the evening,<br>It feels like home.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Imagine (for Margaret Atwood)]]></title><description><![CDATA[Imagine a piece of bread.
Imagine a pat of butter and three slices of tomato.
Imagine a glass half full of rose
a red lipstick stain
a twist of lemon
a hand resting on yours.
Imagine an uneaten apple and a bowl of popcorn.
Imagine a bow slowly pulling an open D string.
Imagine you can’t hear it.
Imagine you don’t want to hear it.
Imagine a wine glass, empty except
for a twist peppered
with sediment or,
sentiment.
Imagine a shot.
Imagine you fall.
Imagine you split in two,
sputtering blood like]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/imagine-for-margaret-atwood/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232ac</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carra Leah Hood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:21:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/03/BrokenWineGlass.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/03/BrokenWineGlass.jpg" alt="Imagine (for Margaret Atwood)"/><p>Imagine a piece of bread.<br>Imagine a pat of butter and three slices of tomato.<br>Imagine a glass half full of rose<br>a red lipstick stain<br>a twist of lemon<br>a hand resting on yours.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Imagine an uneaten apple and a bowl of popcorn.<br>Imagine a bow slowly pulling an open D string.<br>Imagine you can’t hear it.<br>Imagine you don’t want to hear it.<br>Imagine a wine glass, empty except<br>for a twist peppered<br>with sediment or,<br>sentiment.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Imagine a shot.<br>Imagine you fall.<br>Imagine you split in two,<br>sputtering blood like watermelon seeds.<br>Imagine you can’t talk.<br>Imagine you want to.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Another shot.<br>A wine glass shatters.<br>Bread drips blood like butter.<br>A hand tastes your mouth.<br>Imagine, you can’t taste it back.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Consolation for Even the Worst]]></title><description><![CDATA[Each day her full life seeps poetry like jelly
from a sugared doughnut, quivers with anticipation
in a meniscus of golden tea held in a white-China cup.
Its wings flutter into pages, beautiful escapees
from painted covers of a packed notebook.
Rarer in my life, it may pour down in sudden
summer showers, astonish like ecliptic shows
of heavenly bodies. And yet, we vibrate in sympathetic joy,
serving understanding to each other after rejections,
ecstasy for acceptances, the sweet treats of success]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/consolation-for-even-the-worst/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232ad</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Weinstein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:20:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1550951945-660a41587436?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxkb3VnaG51dHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDk4NDA5Mjd8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1550951945-660a41587436?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxkb3VnaG51dHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDk4NDA5Mjd8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Consolation for Even the Worst"/><p>Each day her full life seeps poetry like jelly<br>from a sugared doughnut, quivers with anticipation<br>in a meniscus of golden tea held in a white-China cup.<br>Its wings flutter into pages, beautiful escapees<br>from painted covers of a packed notebook.<br>Rarer in my life, it may pour down in sudden<br>summer showers, astonish like ecliptic shows<br>of heavenly bodies. And yet, we vibrate in sympathetic joy,<br>serving understanding to each other after rejections,<br>ecstasy for acceptances, the sweet treats of success.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>We appreciate the solace of the cat, its limned curves,<br>musical purring, and silken coat. We both love nature,<br>though from different habitats. She admires my passion<br>for my garden without fully comprehending how<br>at the end of a working day, when my hands lock<br>in the shape of grasped tools, my shoulders ache and<br>legs tremble with the oxen’s fatigue, and I sleep the sleep<br>of flung stones, I am happy as birds flying home to breed.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>She questions praise songs for gardening as consolation<br>for the worst life can spawn from its dark abysses,<br>doubting its succor for loss of loved ones, nuclear war,<br>or the elephant’s extinction. I tell her that nowhere else<br>would beckon to me in those bleak times, that even<br>the immensity and finality of those griefs would be<br>more bearable from my garden or small greenhouse,<br>where seeds would still sprout in their multiplicities<br>of hope and unfurl green courage for a future—<br>tarnished, diminished, crueler than all rejection.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Portrait of a Champion]]></title><description><![CDATA[We were young, they say.
We have died; remember us.~ Archibald MacLeish
Sitting in the bleachers we used to count her laps
as she “wrote the Australian crawl” into record books.
Her elegant stroke modeled text-book form,
elbows bent high, outlining a mountain peak,
while determined hands paddled water towards her feet,
strong like the motor on a hydroplane in a protected harbor,
or when sailing wings caught the wind
on a sunny day in the Paradise Bay.
She was always swimming forward.
Blessed w]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-portrait-of-a-champion/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232ae</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Annie Klier Newcomer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:19:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1552727451-6f5671e14d83?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGh1bW1pbmdiaXJkJTIwd2luZ3N8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5ODQyMDMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1552727451-6f5671e14d83?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGh1bW1pbmdiaXJkJTIwd2luZ3N8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5ODQyMDMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Portrait of a Champion"/><p><em>We were young, they say.<br>We have died; remember us.</br></em>~ Archibald MacLeish</p><p>Sitting in the bleachers we used to count her laps<br>as she “wrote the Australian crawl” into record books.<br>Her elegant stroke modeled text-book form,<br>elbows bent high, outlining a mountain peak,<br>while determined hands paddled water towards her feet,<br>strong like the motor on a hydroplane in a protected harbor,<br>or when sailing wings caught the wind<br>on a sunny day in the Paradise Bay.<br>She was always swimming forward.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Blessed with a chiseled-goddess face, armed<br>with a mischievous smile that embraced you<br>like a full frontal kiss, cloudless skies promised<br>her a good life in smooth waters<br>with a gentle yet firm breeze at her back.<br>Tight coiled hair, thick like her talent, adorned her crown.<br>When she shaved her head for competition at 16,<br>we gasped. She was always full of surprises.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Diagnosed after her second child, ALS anchored her<br>with a dirty bounty, unhinged her attractive body,<br>made her choke for air through the water<br>she had once conquered, now flowing back into her lungs.<br>In her last years she communicated through a computer;<br>the blink of eyelids beat like delicate hummingbird wings<br>too fast for us to count. In the end a turtle in a wheelchair,<br>its shell swirling in a mist by a pool of water.<br>ALS was a race she could not win,<br>though she always refused to quit:</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><em>I was young, she says. I have died; remember me.</em><br/></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Directions]]></title><description><![CDATA[Life//I am of both your directions
She knew then, the blond mid-century explosion, that she
(and everyone, really) was going north/south, east/west
(everywhere, really) at the same time.
There is always bridges…with all those cars going crazy underneath
and she shared this knowledge/this bridge with us
(although, she didn’t know that at the time) on stationery
from the Parkside Hotel in London and in the Record notebook
and the green Italian diary, this knowledge of the crazy underneath
one’s ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/directions/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232af</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:19:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1599151008654-2a77bfd5b788?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGRpcmVjdGlvbnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5ODQ1MzAxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1599151008654-2a77bfd5b788?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGRpcmVjdGlvbnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5ODQ1MzAxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Directions"/><p><em>Life//I am of both your directions</em><br>She knew then, the blond mid-century explosion, that she<br>(and everyone, really) was going north/south, east/west<br>(everywhere, really) at the same time.</br></br></br></p><p><em>There is always bridges…with all those cars going crazy underneath</em><br>and she shared this knowledge/this bridge with us<br>(although, she didn’t know that at the time) on stationery<br>from the Parkside Hotel in London and in the Record notebook<br>and the green Italian diary, this knowledge of the crazy underneath</br></br></br></br></p><p><em>one’s own truth is just that really — one’s own truth….one/is for most part alone.</em><br>and she didn’t expect us (but wanted us) to believe her alone,<br>not project our oceans of fear and desire onto the sewn-into see-through dress</br></br></p><p><em>It is a determination not to be overwhelmed</em><br>she, who took it all in and twisted herself to be the perfect ________ (we filled in the blank)</br></p><p><em>Life//I am of both your directions</em><br>while underneath it was all up/down, in/out, over/under, /glitter/thunder</br></p><p><em>The truth can only be recalled</em><br>(But what do we) remember—a see-through dress, a blown-up skirt,<br>that diamonds were her best friends?</br></br></p><p>i<em>t can never be invented</em><br>What we think we know is invention. She tried to tell us<br>north/south, east/west, different directions/ different women,<br>all at the same time.</br></br></br></p><p><em>(These quotes were selected from Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, </em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fragments-Poems-Intimate-Notes-Letters/dp/0374533784/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1BD5BEKETRN1V&keywords=Fragments+by+Marilyn+Monroe&qid=1685807756&s=books&sprefix=fragments+by+marilyn+monroe%2Cstripbooks%2C63&sr=1-1&ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com" rel="noreferrer"><em>Letters by Marilyn Monroe</em></a><em>, edited by Bernard Comment (Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2012).)</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Channeled Whelk]]></title><description><![CDATA[A friend brought me a gift from the sea.
It might be the shell of a channeled whelk,
it’s hard to tell.
You might expect a seashell
offered to you as a gift
to be perfect.
This shell is broken and burnished.
Its graceful internal curve intact
with a few remnants of other shells
and a small stone lodged within its spiral.
How long did it serve as a home
for living creatures? And once abandoned,
how long did it tumble
in the salty sea and sand?
This shell is weathered and worn,
burnished and b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/channeled-whelk/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232b0</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:18:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/03/RenderedImage.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/03/RenderedImage.jpg" alt="Channeled Whelk"/><p>A friend brought me a gift from the sea.<br>It might be the shell of a channeled whelk,<br>it’s hard to tell.</br></br></p><p>You might expect a seashell<br>offered to you as a gift<br>to be perfect.<br><br>This shell is broken and burnished.<br>Its graceful internal curve intact<br>with a few remnants of other shells<br>and a small stone lodged within its spiral.<br><br>How long did it serve as a home<br>for living creatures? And once abandoned,<br>how long did it tumble<br>in the salty sea and sand?<br><br>This shell is weathered and worn,<br>burnished and beautiful<br>as are we two old friends, and all of us<br>who live on<br>in our slowly evolving forms.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[My Son's Room]]></title><description><![CDATA[the Teddy bear, that one-eyed family retainer
still sits atop the proud brass clock
by the tattered graduation cap, the tackle-box
that opens with a creak, the rocking chair
that squeaks, your first pair of glasses
folded like a lotus
the jack-in-the-box that gave you
tiny heart attacks the pick-up-sticks
the valentines in reds and pinks
the comb you stole from you-know-who
and wished you’d given back to her
you got your kiss regardless in the spring
the cartoon heads that gave you pez
the pow]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/my-sons-room/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232b1</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Matt Landig]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:18:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1533859583213-c4e11b597ee0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU4fHx0ZWRkeSUyMGJlYXIlMjB8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwNzExMjA1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1533859583213-c4e11b597ee0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU4fHx0ZWRkeSUyMGJlYXIlMjB8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwNzExMjA1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="My Son's Room"/><p>the Teddy bear, that one-eyed family retainer<br>still sits atop the proud brass clock<br>by the tattered graduation cap, the tackle-box<br>that opens with a creak, the rocking chair<br>that squeaks, your first pair of glasses<br>folded like a lotus</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>the jack-in-the-box that gave you<br>tiny heart attacks the pick-up-sticks<br>the valentines in reds and pinks<br>the comb you stole from you-know-who<br>and wished you’d given back to her<br>you got your kiss regardless in the spring</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>the cartoon heads that gave you pez<br>the powdered candy sands of cherry<br>lemon lime and tangerine<br>tumble into autumn’s air<br>turn to ash<br>and all fall down</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Thanksgiving turkeys made from pudgy fingers<br>drawn from pudgy hands<br>the octopus of earthenware<br>from summer camp<br>a ceramic turtle marches to the end of land</br></br></br></br></p><p>the stained piano sheets<br>with notes you used to play that rose<br>and shattered like the winter</br></br></p><p>the little wristwatch<br>melting into the table near the place<br>where your lovely head had slept</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Evening]]></title><description><![CDATA[
The dark doesn’t frighten me.
Evening is the softest word,
A velvet garment for the day’s
Transition into night.
The dark doesn’t frighten me.
Especially with the gloom of rain,
Night arrives as a rowdy
Aunt shaking off droplets
Hurtling apologies.
The dark does not frighten me --
She owns the twilight and makes
Lightning more electric. Thunder
And she are my lullaby.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/evening/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232b2</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elizabeth G. Howard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:17:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511149755252-35875b273fd6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHRodW5kZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5OTMxNDg3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511149755252-35875b273fd6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHRodW5kZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5OTMxNDg3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Evening"/><p><br>The dark doesn’t frighten me.<br>Evening is the softest word,<br>A velvet garment for the day’s<br>Transition into night. </br></br></br></br></p><p>The dark doesn’t frighten me.<br>Especially with the gloom of rain,<br>Night arrives as a rowdy<br>Aunt shaking off droplets<br>Hurtling apologies. </br></br></br></br></p><p>The dark does not frighten me --<br>She owns the twilight and makes<br>Lightning more electric. Thunder<br>And she are my lullaby.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[When My Grandpa Cried]]></title><description><![CDATA[I wonder when my grandpa cried
I wonder why my grandpa cried
I wonder why he cried all those
times he must have cried
We were on earth together
for twenty years and I
never saw him cry
But I’m sure there were
times throughout his life
when he cried and I wonder
what the things were that
made my grandpa cry]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/when-my-grandpa-cried/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232b3</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:17:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1471520201477-47a62a269a87?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHRlYXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5OTMyMzQ2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1471520201477-47a62a269a87?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHRlYXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5OTMyMzQ2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="When My Grandpa Cried"/><p>I wonder when my grandpa cried<br>I wonder why my grandpa cried<br>I wonder why he cried all those<br>times he must have cried<br>We were on earth together<br>for twenty years and I<br>never saw him cry<br>But I’m sure there were<br>times throughout his life<br>when he cried and I wonder<br>what the things were that<br>made my grandpa cry</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fade Out]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’m Mrs. Right when everyone else has gone wrong
I am your Peace when no one is getting along
Your safe place when you feel like you don’t belong
A refuge in weakness – I am your strong.
Then I start to fade out
Do you even miss me?
Do you remember how hungry
You were for my help, so damn thirsty?
I’ve always put you firstly, shown you mercy.
Now your thirst is quenched so you good
Cast aside until there’s smoke under the hood
Then you calling me back 'cause you could
Always there because I p]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/fade-out/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232b4</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Hannon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:17:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1487621167305-5d248087c724?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGZvZ3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDk5MzMwMTh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1487621167305-5d248087c724?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGZvZ3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDk5MzMwMTh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Fade Out"/><p/><p>I’m Mrs. Right when everyone else has gone wrong<br>I am your Peace when no one is getting along<br>Your safe place when you feel like you don’t belong<br>A refuge in weakness – I am your strong. </br></br></br></p><p>Then I start to fade out</p><p>Do you even miss me?<br>Do you remember how hungry<br>You were for my help, so damn thirsty?<br>I’ve always put you firstly, shown you mercy.</br></br></br></p><p>Now your thirst is quenched so you good<br>Cast aside until there’s smoke under the hood<br>Then you calling me back 'cause you could<br>Always there because I promised I would (be)</br></br></br></p><p>Until you need me to fade out...</p><p>I remind you of the demons once inside<br>I’m like a silhouette to the shadows that reside<br>Giving you PTSD so instead of seek you hide<br>For fucks sake I’m human too, don’t cast me aside</br></br></br></p><p>I don’t want to fade out.</p><p>I know my best quality is generosity but also honesty<br>So I tell the truth to myself for the first time, I am a wannabe<br>Living a life of hypocrisy, not what I wanna be<br>My empathy is not all of me, and I had none for me.</br></br></br></p><p>I learn to control the fade out</p><p>It took way too long but the haze is clearing<br>I’m starting to see I’ve never done my own steering<br>So I’m taking the wheel and commandeering<br>Keep your eyes on the fog because I’ll be reappearing.</br></br></br></p><p>And this version will have no fade out</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Home]]></title><description><![CDATA[The sun casts her laughter
over the silvery gravel.
Bare sycamores bow
as the breeze whistles
round their ashen limbs.
Oceans of golden grasses
flutter quietly
as the fields gleam with evening promise.
Nestled on the land
is a pleasant house
where love pours from the panes.
I am home.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/home/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232b5</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Abbi B.]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:16:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1698611229772-c5e9b42d34c3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ0fHxzeWNhbW9yZSUyMHRyZWVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwOTkzMzYwNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1698611229772-c5e9b42d34c3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ0fHxzeWNhbW9yZSUyMHRyZWVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwOTkzMzYwNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Home"/><p>The sun casts her laughter <br>over the silvery gravel. </br></p><p>Bare sycamores bow <br>as the breeze whistles <br>round their ashen limbs. </br></br></p><p>Oceans of golden grasses <br>flutter quietly <br>as the fields gleam with evening promise. </br></br></p><p>Nestled on the land <br>is a pleasant house <br>where love pours from the panes. </br></br></p><p>I am home.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Shot An Arrow]]></title><description><![CDATA[
In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, World War II Daddies with shell shock wounds were lauded to puffed up heroes. America decorated its winners with proud surface contentment, but far too often let the after effects of war fall on innocent little boys.
In the backyard at 44th and Zenith, eight year-old Peter Washburn plays in the sweltering heat with his brand spanking new bow and arrow set he received for his birthday. But there’s a problem. There’s nothing in the backyard that is okay to sh]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-shot-an-arrow/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232b6</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Peterson Freeman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:16:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1567519207249-b1e00d78cd6a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJvd3MlMjBhbmQlMjBhcnJvd3N8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5OTM1NjMwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1567519207249-b1e00d78cd6a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJvd3MlMjBhbmQlMjBhcnJvd3N8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5OTM1NjMwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="I Shot An Arrow"/><p><br>In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, World War II Daddies with shell shock wounds were lauded to puffed up heroes. America decorated its winners with proud surface contentment, but far too often let the after effects of war fall on innocent little boys.</br></p><p>In the backyard at 44th and Zenith, eight year-old Peter Washburn plays in the sweltering heat with his brand spanking new bow and arrow set he received for his birthday. But there’s a problem. There’s nothing in the backyard that is okay to shoot at and not enough room to shoot an arrow any distance anyway. Peter looks up at the sky and gets an idea. Thinking it will come down right in front of him, he pulls his bowstring back with all the muscle he can muster and shoots an arrow straight up at the clouds. Unfortunately he isn’t aware of the breeze blowing above the roofs of the neighborhood’s detached garages. Peter sees his arrow drift away, but has no idea where it went. He decides to embark on a fearless one man search party. He looks everywhere an arrow could be noticed - by the blisteringly hot metal garbage cans overflowing with putrid decomposing dreck, through the fly filled weeds in the Larson’s front yard, and even down the steaming detritus cooking sewer drains in the street. After hunting for over an hour, Peter decides to give up thinking that maybe the arrow is caught up in the leafy branches of a tall tree along with his favorite kite he lost last year. Then he sees Mrs. Ryan holding his arrow and staring at him from her front stoop.</p><p>“Peter Washburn. Is this what you’re looking for young man?” </p><p>“Yes, Mrs. Ryan; I’ve been looking all over for it. Where did you find it?” Peter asks. </p><p>“Well, it put a hole right through the middle of my brand new white cotton bedsheet that I just washed and hung on the clothesline to dry in the sun.”</p><p>With the sincere sentiment of Beaver Cleaver, Peter says, “Gee whiz, I’m sorry, Mrs. Ryan. I didn’t mean to. Please don’t call my dad. Please.”</p><p>“Why don’t you want me to call your daddy?” Mrs. Ryan asks.</p><p>“Because he’s really mean to me, Mrs. Ryan,” Peter says softly, hanging his head.</p><p>“Oh, dear,” says Mrs. Ryan.</p><p>In 1957, people in nice middle class neighborhoods do not call the Department of Human Services on their neighbors. People are inclined to “not get tangled up in another family’s problems” saying they are respecting their privacy, but in truth, they do not want to get involved. Too many children suffer the unimaginable consequences of this code of silence.</p><p>“So you won’t call my dad, Mrs. Ryan?” Peter asks.</p><p>“I wouldn’t think of it, Peter,” Mrs. Ryan says. “Oh, and here’s your arrow back.”</p><p>“Thank you, Mrs. Ryan. You’re nice,” Peter says.</p><p>“Well, Peter, I had four children of my own,” says Mrs. Ryan. They are all grown up and married now so they don’t live with me anymore. Say, I made homemade strawberry ice cream this morning and it should be just the right temperature by now. Would you like to join me at my kitchen table for a bowl or two?”</p><p>“I love strawberry ice cream, Mrs. Ryan,” Peter says.</p><p>“Well you come right in then, Peter. I’ll pour you and I a glass of ice cold lemonade, dish us up some ice cream and we can shoot the breeze,” Mrs. Ryan says smiling.</p><p>“I want to eat your ice cream a lot, Mrs. Ryan, but I’m not so sure about shooting the breeze,” Peter says. “I think I’ve had enough of that for today.”</p><p/>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sonnet for All the Times I Ate Breakfast with a Lump in My Throat]]></title><description><![CDATA[Let all my rejections serve as places to start
being jerked from my mother’s tit, slung
by torn artery into the bosom of a wolf.
The mispelled word that cost me my first
ride in a plane to Memphis, the time I got
popped with a twisted wet towel on bare ass
in 7th-grade gym just because someone
in the group stole another boy’s wallet.
I hate you, Coach Page, for harboring
such a distorted philosophy. The time my
mother caught me having sex with a neighbor
boy and said it would crush my father if ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sonnet-for-all-the-times-i-ate-breakfast-with-a-lump-in-my-throat/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232b7</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Dorroh]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:15:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518281420975-50db6e5d0a97?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHRpbWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5OTM3NDA2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518281420975-50db6e5d0a97?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHRpbWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5OTM3NDA2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Sonnet for All the Times I Ate Breakfast with a Lump in My Throat"/><p>Let all my rejections serve as places to start<br>being jerked from my mother’s tit, slung<br>by torn artery into the bosom of a wolf.<br>The mispelled word that cost me my first<br>ride in a plane to Memphis, the time I got<br>popped with a twisted wet towel on bare ass<br>in 7th-grade gym just because someone<br>in the group stole another boy’s wallet.<br>I hate you, Coach Page, for harboring<br>such a distorted philosophy. The time my<br>mother caught me having sex with a neighbor<br>boy and said it would crush my father if he<br>knew. I was ready to jump out of the box<br>and look my future in the face. It ends well.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Early Morning Dance]]></title><description><![CDATA[
I always wear a red hat
when watering my garden
well before the hour
when mad dogs and Englishmen
go forth in the searing sun
for reasons known to them alone.
I looked succulent and sweet, perhaps,
a monkey flower full of promise,
seen from on high
where hummingbirds hang and grace the air
like poised curved shapes that Calder makes.
She swooped:
a quicksilver streak
hoping for a closer look
daring to meet me eye to eye
primed to be amused
by human nature’s ploys,
inclined to steal a bath.
W]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/early-morning-dance/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232b8</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Pat Murphy McClelland]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:14:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/03/REDHat.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/03/REDHat.jpg" alt="Early Morning Dance"/><p><br>I always wear a red hat<br>when watering my garden<br>well before the hour<br>when mad dogs and Englishmen<br>go forth in the searing sun<br>for reasons known to them alone.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I looked succulent and sweet, perhaps,<br>a monkey flower full of promise,<br>seen from on high<br>where hummingbirds hang and grace the air<br>like poised curved shapes that Calder makes.</br></br></br></br></p><p>She swooped:<br>a quicksilver streak<br>hoping for a closer look<br>daring to meet me eye to eye<br>primed to be amused<br>by human nature’s ploys,<br>inclined to steal a bath.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Whirring quick minute wings,<br>hovering in the hose’s stream,<br>toy frame shimmering,<br>red throat humming fairie airs,<br>preening just for me.<br>Fan of feathers, gray and green<br>overlaid with mercury sheen:<br>A heartbeat on the wing.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Legend says humming birds were designed<br>from feathered scraps left behind<br>when God was done with bigger fowl.<br>Others claim humming birds to be<br>spritely messengers, aviary angels<br>made to soar between worlds miming<br>the invisible and sowing wordless songs<br>in the gardens of admirers.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[god in these lines]]></title><description><![CDATA[
the limb that is broken,
i tried to see
the space
above the treetop
where sky begins
look deeper,
you will see
the veins
on these leaves,
more calculated, more beautiful,
more easily destructible,
and yet,
less human
than the ones on my hands
where do they go,
these lines?
into a vastness obscured
by the very thing
–form–
the realest of all,
and yet the most elusive
a sunlit column of prayer
in the afternoon,
body bent forward
as if waiting
to be kissed,
or bowing the head
in grief
when i d]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/god-in-these-lines/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232b9</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Faune Vita]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:13:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501084291732-13b1ba8f0ebc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fG9sZCUyMHRyZWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5OTM5OTMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501084291732-13b1ba8f0ebc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fG9sZCUyMHRyZWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA5OTM5OTMzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="god in these lines"/><p><br>the limb that is broken,<br>i tried to see<br>the space<br>above the treetop<br>where sky begins</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>look deeper,<br>you will see<br>the veins<br>on these leaves,<br>more calculated, more beautiful,<br>more easily destructible,<br>and yet,<br>less human<br>than the ones on my hands</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>where do they go,<br>these lines?<br>into a vastness obscured<br>by the very thing<br>–form–<br>the realest of all,<br>and yet the most elusive</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>a sunlit column of prayer<br>in the afternoon,<br>body bent forward<br>as if waiting<br>to be kissed,<br>or bowing the head<br>in grief</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>when i die,<br>and i will die someday,<br>let the trees mourn<br>for only they will know<br>where i am going</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[To a Further Blossoming]]></title><description><![CDATA[Along a narrow uneven trail in a clearing
above a school, I heard in a creak a human cry.
The tree was dead. A dead oak tree with a hollow
halfway up, places where the rough gray bark
looked eaten away, other places raw, lichen pale, spongy
and bare. With broken limbs drawn upward.
From a distance in the late light, it looked like
a jaggedly splayed, coal-colored bouquet
against the sky. A haunted, haunting thing.
But up close, its pulp felt soft as velvet in my hand.
It wasn’t so much a cry as ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/to-a-further-blossoming/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232ba</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Barbara Siegel Carlson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:13:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1445294211564-3ca59d999abd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGRlYWQlMjB0cmVlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI2Mzc1N3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1445294211564-3ca59d999abd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGRlYWQlMjB0cmVlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI2Mzc1N3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="To a Further Blossoming"/><p>Along a narrow uneven trail in a clearing<br>above a school, I heard in a creak a human cry.<br>The tree was dead. A dead oak tree with a hollow<br>halfway up, places where the rough gray bark<br>looked eaten away, other places raw, lichen pale, spongy<br>and bare. With broken limbs drawn upward.<br>From a distance in the late light, it looked like<br>a jaggedly splayed, coal-colored bouquet<br>against the sky. A haunted, haunting thing.<br>But up close, its pulp felt soft as velvet in my hand.<br>It wasn’t so much a cry as a sigh that someone<br>had come to see into its deepened space<br>what was not done blossoming. The crumble<br>of its rain-soaked, drying wood had a milky-caramel<br>hue, while the black gash in its chest<br>made it humble as my father with his open<br>wound I had to dress for months before he died.<br>Somehow, he appeared to belong then, not to any earth<br>but past some distant peak or star, reaching<br>where he had not yet learned—My teacher,<br>you’ve been sculpted by the wind as much as by<br>the night and windless unseen light that opens us within.<br>And here you take me into your empty arms.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Poem Written in Spring]]></title><description><![CDATA[As apple blossoms fall
like grains of rice,
I see fish in the murky water
swimming near the surface.
There’s purpose
in their meanderings,
but I can’t say what it is.
Does spring move
fish and men alike?
I think of dead friends
of dead lovers,
who are now so far apart.
Ah Spring, what wonderful
and terrible things you do
to our poor hearts.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/poem-written-in-spring/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232bb</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[George Freek]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:12:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620319587249-75519995021f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGFwcGxlJTIwYmxvc3NvbXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMjY0MTYwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620319587249-75519995021f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGFwcGxlJTIwYmxvc3NvbXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMjY0MTYwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Poem Written in Spring"/><p>As apple blossoms fall<br>like grains of rice,<br>I see fish in the murky water<br>swimming near the surface.<br>There’s purpose<br>in their meanderings,<br>but I can’t say what it is.<br>Does spring move<br>fish and men alike?<br>I think of dead friends<br>of dead lovers,<br>who are now so far apart.<br>Ah Spring, what wonderful<br>and terrible things you do<br>to our poor hearts.<br/></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Field and the Creek]]></title><description><![CDATA[I grew up without neighbors behind me. Because of that, I thought I grew up spoiled. I could suntan in my swimsuit without the eyes of neighbors staring at me. Sometimes if I was home alone, I would tan with only the bottoms on. I could read book after book on the swing in our backyard and not be distracted by backyard neighbors sitting on their porch or yipping dogs barking at me through the fence.
Instead, across from our relatively small patch of sometimes kept but always green grass, was a ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-field-and-the-creek/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232bc</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Beth Hannah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:12:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1571425046076-94af69bd4201?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHN3aW1zdWl0fGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI2NDM5Nnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1571425046076-94af69bd4201?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHN3aW1zdWl0fGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI2NDM5Nnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Field and the Creek"/><p>I grew up without neighbors behind me. Because of that, I thought I grew up spoiled. I could suntan in my swimsuit without the eyes of neighbors staring at me. Sometimes if I was home alone, I would tan with only the bottoms on. I could read book after book on the swing in our backyard and not be distracted by backyard neighbors sitting on their porch or yipping dogs barking at me through the fence. </p><p>Instead, across from our relatively small patch of sometimes kept but always green grass, was a field. The field as it was lovingly known in our household. The estate was owned by a little old lady that was rumored to be in her 120’s by the neighborhood kids. Mrs. Fehrebach lived alone, in a log cabin with a carriage house, a stable, and two barns. It was the first two-story log cabin in the state of Indiana and the acreage behind it was on historical register. It had not been touched except by the farmers who she bought it all from. Part of the land that my own house sat on used to be the servant’s quarters, and the rest of the neighborhood was just fields corn and occasionally soybean. Supposedly, the deed to the land and the remaining buildings on it, was signed by James Monroe and Andrew Jackson. </p><p>When I lived there, the land was mostly comprised of Indiangrass and a little bit of Kentucky Bluegrass. Directly behind our shed, just feet from the fence line, was the tallest tree in the neighborhood that had been struck by lightning not twice, but three times. Eventually so much of the tree had died that my Dad and I cut it down for Mrs. Fehrebach and used some of the live wood for bonfires. At the other end of our fence line was a weeping willow older than Mrs. Fehrebach herself. Across the acre, was a thick border of trees leading into the woods. They were sky high Maple trees and Indiana grown Sycamore trees. Hawks, Blue jays, cardinals, and one time doves that had escaped from a nearby wedding, all nested in their branches. </p><p>Mrs. Fehrebach could never tend to her land. The grass would grow completely wild and so did the nature that lived in it. On any given day, if you stood outside long enough, a small red fox would part the grass looking for food. For years underneath our shed we had a ground hog problem, one time a fox problem, and another year to our disdain, a snake problem. We never really minded the groundhogs, but our yellow Lab, Forrest, had a heyday any time they showed their furry little bodies to squeeze in and out of the fence for food.</p><p>In the mornings, I would eat breakfast in our glass encased back porch to watch the morning creatures conduct their business as usual. There were always deer, every single morning. The most my dad and I ever counted in the field at once was 18. A few bucks would knock their antlers and occasionally sharpen them on the fence posts of Hannah The Field and The Creek 3 our back yard. We had a crab apple tree until I was 12 and it rotted, just so that the deer would step up to our back fence. They loved those crab apples so much, they didn’t even mind when Forrest would bark at them. We had a path of steppingstones from our back yard to our front yard. The deer knew this and sometimes they jumped both of the fences from the field to the front yard. They were a beautiful, single file line of prancing dancers. The reason why, I will never know. They were just leaving the last patch of untouched nature in the suburb to enter civilization. </p><p>My dad would sometimes cut the grass for Mrs. Fehrebach and never accepted payment from her. It was his way of thanking her for owning our natural haven that the rest of the city, that the rest of the world, didn’t get. Because of this, she would let our family, and our family alone, on to the land whenever we pleased. I was climbing a ladder over our fence, over a threshold, into a whole new world that didn’t exist beyond the property lines. The air was cleaner, it was thinner, and the world was quieter. We really weren’t that far from a major city road, but the sound didn’t reach the field. It looked like I had all the room in the world to run free. But I always had to wear hiking boots and work jeans because you never really knew what was lurking in the grass beneath you. </p><p>Just past the tree line, and into the sycamores, was an offshoot of Cool Creek Park. It was a small creek, never more than 10-12 feet wide, but once you made your way a little farther down it was a whole new ecosystem I didn’t get to see in the fields. Hannah The Field and The Creek 4 There were crawdads, and frogs, and sometimes water snakes. And we were free to explore it as much as we wanted. We would try to catch the crawdads, the real big ones, as they darted out from under the rocks. We would wade in the currents that were sometimes a little too high when it had been raining all week. And if we were digging around the dirt, you could find an old arrowhead or fossil of a fish or leaf. </p><p>But just as the water attracted us, it would attract other creatures too. The deer never were far from the creek, and the coyotes always found it, too. Occasionally a cat or small dog would go missing, and the neighborhood always checked the creek first. Sometimes they would be drinking the creek water like the wild animal inside of them, but sometimes they would only find full-stomached coyotes. One summer, a mountain lion had escaped from the Indianapolis zoo. My dad and I had just come back from a late-night swim meet, and my mom told us how she saw two warm, glowing yellow eyes peeking at her through the fence, just past our shed. She saw the soft and sleek body and heard the tail whipping against the towering grass. She called the dog inside and locked the back door. I couldn’t help but believe her. I once saw a peacock in the field and when he got a little too close to our fence, he saw himself in the reflection of our glass porch. He spread his feathers and started calling to his mate. He didn’t know that it was really just 8 year old me, eating pretzels, reading My Side of the Mountain. I found out later he was visiting the nursing home on the other side of the creek and had Hannah The Field and The Creek 5 just escaped. But the field, the land, was just as magical as it was wild. I never really knew what we would see back there.</p><p> When Mrs. Fehrebach died and I was in my late teens, the land was up for sale. My family couldn’t afford a million dollars’ worth of land and the costs of upkeep, but damn did we dream. An ex Colts quarterback bought the land on a whim, for a steal of 600 grand, in attempts to make him and his 4 children “farm people.” They hated the wild grass so they cut it short, so short that it couldn’t grow back. They bought a Bernese Mountain dog in attempts to ward off the coyotes, but all he did was scare away the deer. Without failure, every night a few unlucky chickens would mysteriously disappear from their chicken coop. </p><p>I still tried to read outside. I tried to embrace the few moments I had left with the field. But I was far too distracted by the mishaps of the quarterback trying to be a “city farmer.” In the middle of my newest read, the newest John Green love story taking place in my own city, I heard the cry of a chicken. He was hung upside, strung between two trees, and the quarterback had his youngest son, just shy of seven, slit the chicken’s throat and drain it. “Mommy!” he yelled as he sprinted back up the field and into the carriage house. I eventually migrated my reading spot into the back porch. They had bought four wheelers, and their preteen son would drive them up to our fence when he knew that I was outside.</p><p>I used to be angry that my sacred haven, the only land of peace I knew in that city, had been desecrated. They didn’t value what it was worth, the land was worth ten times what they had paid for it. They spat in the face of nature and warded off all the creatures that used to call the land home. I try not to think of where they were driven away to. I cannot bear to think of my animals, on the side of the road, or tangled in somebody’s wire fence. That quarterback did to that land what our neighborhood once did to it too I suppose. </p><p>I never quite felt the same after that. I felt I knew those deer, and the foxes, and the hawks, and even the snakes. But now, the land is just land. It was taken by humans, but I couldn’t really blame them for it. Instead of preserving the beauty of the natural world, they saw potential for four-wheeler tracks, and a doghouse, and room for a tree house. I suppose they made it easier for me to move away for college. It wasn’t my land anymore, it was theirs. A few years later, after my parents couldn’t take the noise anymore, they made it easier for them to move away, too. </p><p>I dream of the field regularly. I hear it’s call to me, as if she’s begging me to come and save her. I wish I could restore her to all of her beauty. The land, in a way, haunts me, as do the creatures I once knew, too. </p><p/>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Untitled (after Plath)]]></title><description><![CDATA[At the Ramen place across from my apartment building,
you can buy six bowls of noodles, and get one for free.
What a perfect deal for me!
For I am always eating Ramen in quantities of seven.
I walked back from KGB bar alone, after midnight.
Men congregated outside of Veselka.
Men still congregate outside of Veselka after midnight?
I guess my mother was right.
My mother was tender, kind, and always right.
She taught me to eat candy for dinner and stay up all night.
When at last I learned to rea]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/untitled-after-plath/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232bd</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mia Marion]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:11:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1587029622793-f51e81058f2d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHJhbWVuJTIwbm9vZGxlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAyNzMzOTR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1587029622793-f51e81058f2d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHJhbWVuJTIwbm9vZGxlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAyNzMzOTR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Untitled (after Plath)"/><p>At the Ramen place across from my apartment building, <br>you can buy six bowls of noodles, and get one for free. <br>What a perfect deal for me! <br>For I am always eating Ramen in quantities of seven. </br></br></br></p><p>I walked back from KGB bar alone, after midnight. <br>Men congregated outside of Veselka. <br>Men still congregate outside of Veselka after midnight? <br>I guess my mother was right. </br></br></br></p><p>My mother was tender, kind, and always right. <br>She taught me to eat candy for dinner and stay up all night. <br>When at last I learned to read, <br>She gave me a book of poetry curated by Jackie Kennedy. <br>But because I lacked a definition of the word curated, <br>I grew up lauding Jackie Kennedy, the poet. </br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I think Sylvia Plath was my bisexual awakening. <br>There was something so erotic about “Lady Lazarus.” <br>I could not handle the emotional commitment <br>of watching the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, so I quit. <br>Isn’t it cool that you can quit when they become too difficult? </br></br></br></br></p><p>Sylvia Plath taught me that.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Tree]]></title><description><![CDATA[
Flash, BOOM, Craack, the Oklahoma storm has been brewing all day, there have been alerts and a Tornado Watch, no sirens but be ready. The sky has turned from blue to gray to green to gray and then black. The rain has come in waves along with the wind.
The tree was one of three in the front yard when we moved in, fifteen years ago, Christmas of 2007.
The trees made a nice triangle, where I had previously stretched a hammock between two of them and had enjoyed relaxing in the gentle breeze and ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-tree-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232be</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Thornburgh]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:11:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527766833261-b09c3163a791?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM4fHxyYWluJTIwfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI3NDI5MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527766833261-b09c3163a791?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM4fHxyYWluJTIwfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI3NDI5MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Tree"/><p><br>Flash, BOOM, Craack, the Oklahoma storm has been brewing all day, there have been alerts and a Tornado Watch, no sirens but be ready. The sky has turned from blue to gray to green to gray and then black. The rain has come in waves along with the wind.<br><br>The tree was one of three in the front yard when we moved in, fifteen years ago, Christmas of 2007.<br><br>The trees made a nice triangle, where I had previously stretched a hammock between two of them and had enjoyed relaxing in the gentle breeze and the sunshine, I had recently constructed a fire circle in the center, and used it twice on crisp winter mornings for warmth and a place to enjoy my coffee.<br><br>One tree has a wisteria bush growing next to it, with tendrils intertwining among the branches.<br><br>The wisteria is five years old and has not bloomed yet, but I have been hoping that each successive year would be ‘The Year’ of the magnificent show of blossoms.<br><br>One tree has a companion garden of Morning Glories at its base, each year they are reseeded from the previous year. The fast climbing vines clambering up a chain in order to display their glory for a season, then leaving the withered vine for the next generation to climb.<br><br>You had a new bamboo planter.<br><br>It was home to Sweet-peas that never bloomed last year.<br><br>An attempt was made to grow MoonFlowers that died in the sweltering heat.<br><br>This year was the year for carrots, direct sewn into the soil and sporting tiny carrot tops , staying alive as the weather made drastic swings, hot and dry to overcast and wet.<br><br>You and your companions weathered many a storm through the years as you played host to hummingbirds, finches, cardinals, woodpeckers, jays, and mockingbirds. You occasionally lost a branch or a limb to the wind as it swirled during an Oklahoma storm that threatened a tornado but usually produced the equally damaging straight-line wind.<br><br>That fateful night there were many of the usual flashes of lightning with their associated claps of thunder, some with a distinguishable lag in between, and some with almost no delay between flash and crash.<br><br>Then, in the midst of the torrential rain, flashing lightning, and crashing thunder, there was a long craacck and thud.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The morning light revealed that one-third of you was resting in your companions, like friends doing a Trust-Fall, and the other two-thirds were splayed around a seven-foot-tall stump, like friends who had partied too hard and passed out in the yard. </p><p>Neighbors helped dismember the remains and stack it so that the collection truck could remove it to make mulch.</p><p>And now there are two...<br/></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lost in YOU]]></title><description><![CDATA[I lost myself in you
In your ability to give the impression that my dreams were real.
In the beautiful smile that you flashed right before making me promises that would never last.
In your warm embrace that made my heart race.
I lost myself in you
Striving for perfection so you would never want to run in the other direction.
Molding myself into the person I believed you wanted to see, but losing the best parts of me.
Emerging myself in your world so deeply that I forgot to create my own.
Loving]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lost-in-you/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232bf</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sharleis Dunn]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:10:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1574791975560-fb79e71cf77a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxsb3N0fGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI4MTYyMnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1574791975560-fb79e71cf77a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxsb3N0fGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI4MTYyMnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Lost in YOU"/><p>I lost myself in you <br>In your ability to give the impression that my dreams were real. <br>In the beautiful smile that you flashed right before making me promises that would never last. <br>In your warm embrace that made my heart race. </br></br></br></p><p>I lost myself in you <br>Striving for perfection so you would never want to run in the other direction. <br>Molding myself into the person I believed you wanted to see, but losing the best parts of me. <br>Emerging myself in your world so deeply that I forgot to create my own. <br>Loving you so greatly that I forgot how to stand alone. </br></br></br></br></p><p>I lost myself in you. <br>So, what do I do now that you are gone? <br>How do I breathe, when it feels as though you took all the air the day you left me? <br>Where do I start now that I am traveling through life alone? </br></br></br></p><p>I lost myself in you. <br>Now I have to learn what it means to be strong. <br>When will the moment arrive where smiling without you stops feeling so wrong? <br>How to feel with someone new what I once felt with you. What it means to pick up the pieces of my heart now that you are gone. </br></br></br></p><p>Losing myself in you was easy, but finding myself without you is destiny.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hope]]></title><description><![CDATA[The road is endless, frozen, and forbidden.
It is calling me.
The city is shrouded in silence, a winter wonderland.
I can go now.
No one is near.
I wrap my dark wool coat close to my body.
One deep breath.
The skis crackle underneath my weight,
bumping and gliding over the uneven surface.
Eager to take me away.
My heart is pounding.
It sends a frisson of excitement through me.
The air is cold, drying my tears.
I have hope.
Except for the glow of light in our bedroom window,
the shadow of him, wh]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/hope/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232c0</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Holly Ellison]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:10:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611849468788-21fab3e06d21?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNraXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMjgxODM0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611849468788-21fab3e06d21?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNraXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMjgxODM0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Hope"/><p>The road is endless, frozen, and forbidden.<br>It is calling me.<br>The city is shrouded in silence, a winter wonderland.<br>I can go now.<br>No one is near.<br>I wrap my dark wool coat close to my body.<br>One deep breath.<br>The skis crackle underneath my weight,<br>bumping and gliding over the uneven surface.<br>Eager to take me away.<br>My heart is pounding.<br>It sends a frisson of excitement through me.<br>The air is cold, drying my tears.<br>I have hope.<br>Except for the glow of light in our bedroom window,<br>the shadow of him, who will come for me.<br>Startled, I flinch.<br>The echo is haunting as darkness overtakes me.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[By the Bridge]]></title><description><![CDATA[That woman near the bridge
is weeping, in a tirade.
Tears gloss her sockets. Cheeks
wiped raw. Passers-by
avert their faces, quicken stride.
or share a smirk, as she
turns shrilly from her partner
and, hunching slackly
on the railings, whimpers.
I know her. She is fractious, clumsy.
stupid. Two days a week
she cleans my house
badly. She drinks sometimes
and quarrels. So do I.
She plays the radio all day
or telly. She'll never read these lines
nor want to. But here she leans distraught,
her head]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/by-the-bridge/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232c1</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel P. Stokes]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:10:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1599342166826-ca0703cd15d1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwM3x8YnJpZGdlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI4MjA3Mnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1599342166826-ca0703cd15d1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwM3x8YnJpZGdlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI4MjA3Mnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="By the Bridge"/><p>That woman near the bridge<br>is weeping, in a tirade.<br>Tears gloss her sockets. Cheeks<br>wiped raw. Passers-by<br>avert their faces, quicken stride.<br>or share a smirk, as she<br>turns shrilly from her partner<br>and, hunching slackly<br>on the railings, whimpers.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I know her. She is fractious, clumsy.<br>stupid. Two days a week<br>she cleans my house<br>badly. She drinks sometimes<br>and quarrels. So do I.<br>She plays the radio all day<br>or telly. She'll never read these lines<br>nor want to. But here she leans distraught,<br>her head on forearms, sobbing,<br>her pain proclaiming her importance<br>to herself, and pointing out to me<br>in some part her significance.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Relief]]></title><description><![CDATA[At my wits’ end and frustrated with life, I stand up from my wooden chair and stride over to Oyá. In my cobalt blue and white Òrìshàs’ room, the flame of a white seven-day candle burns high, and a small transistor radio softly plays Latin music to keep my Òrìshàs calm. As I lift the lid of the floral and gold-gilded porcelain Chinese enamel ginger jar that Oyá lives in, I say, “Mama Yansan! Are you okay?”
Peering inside, I sigh with relief when I see that Oyá has all that she needs. After tucki]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/relief/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232c2</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lourdes Dolores Follins]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:09:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/03/china-qing-dynasty-1644-1912-kangxi-reign-ginger-jar-1954368-cleveland-museum-b0d61c.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/03/china-qing-dynasty-1644-1912-kangxi-reign-ginger-jar-1954368-cleveland-museum-b0d61c.jpg" alt="Relief"/><p>At my wits’ end and frustrated with life, I stand up from my wooden chair and stride over to Oyá. In my cobalt blue and white Òrìshàs’ room, the flame of a white seven-day candle burns high, and a small transistor radio softly plays Latin music to keep my Òrìshàs calm. As I lift the lid of the floral and gold-gilded porcelain Chinese enamel ginger jar that Oyá lives in, I say, “Mama Yansan! Are you okay?”<br><br>Peering inside, I sigh with relief when I see that Oyá has all that she needs. After tucking a stray loc behind my ear, I whisper, “Àgó, Mama” as I gently pick Oyá up from the bottom until I have both arms around her jar, walk back to the chair and sit down. I am facing my other thirteen Òrìshàs arranged on and around the wood and steel etagere that is their home but focus on Oyá. Exhaling deeply, I lean back and plaintively speak to her.</br></br></p><p> “I want to drink because I’m tired. I want to drink because I’m lonely. I want to drink because I’m overwhelmed. I want to drink because I feel alone. I want to drink because I feel stressed.</p><p>I hesitate, then add, “I want to be free, but I don’t know what freedom looks like.” I pause as I ponder this. <em>I can’t remember being free,</em> I think. Then I mull over the times I feel free. <em>No, I’m free when I’m in hiking the woods and climbing mountains. When it’s just me and the rocks,<br>the dirt, and the trees. That’s when I feel free.</br></em><br><br>Clutching Oyá to my chest and crying, I continue,“Sometimes I feel free when I run. But that’s usually when there are no humans around.” And this simple statement brings me back to Then. Then when The World changed colors, The World closed in, and I no longer felt free in my body. Then was when my classmates Vinny R., Kyle H., Brent A., and Jerry B. surrounded thirteen-year-old me in a dimly lit, gray stairwell at Random Parochial School, each trying to cop a feel. Then, they hemmed me in, laughing like the hyenas from The Lion King. It was the first time in my life that I ever felt literally trapped.<br><br>As I weep, from the corner of my eye, I see Oyá stride over to me, stand by my side, and begin to wipe my face, my tears, and my body with her skirt of nine different colors. Seeing this in the midst of my loneliness makes me sob harder. As I weep, proud and stately Oyá silently and gently cleans me with the folds of her skirt, tending to me like my mother never did. A smile creeps across my face as I take Oyá’s presence as a reminder that I am one of her children. Because I was initiated as a Yoruba-Lucumi priest of Ògún, I sometimes doubt Oyá’s impact on my life as my second Òrìshà, my ‘mother’ Òrìshà. But when I consider the way I cycle through moods and emotions like a tornado and the ease of my connection to Eggun and ancestor spirits,I know I am indeed also a Daughter of Nine.<br><br>When the tears on my face dry, I exhale, lean forward, and decide to have a drink. It’s been two years since I last drank and for a child of Ògún, that is a lifetime. Children of Ògún are known for enjoying a drink…or seven. However, Ògún told me several years ago that I am not supposed to drink, that for me, drinking alcohol is like drinking poison. But tonight, I am weary and tired of following rules. Tonight, I want relief. Tonight, I feel like drinking because it will give me space, room to breathe, and a way to check out.<br><br>As a therapist, a wife, and a friend, I am always so responsible and so present for others’ feelings and needs. I am always giving away pieces of myself, using my inner fire to support others’ evolution and healing. Tonight, I am full and want to leave my body, my life, my head, my heart. As my wife sleeps peacefully in our bedroom, I decide to make myself a Coco puff. A Coco puff is a drink that I made up and named after my favorite childhood hairstyle. Rum +anisette + lemon juice = Coco puff. Rum alone is too strong and bitter for me, hence the anisette. But anisette’s cloying taste is also too much, so I added lemon juice to make it palatable.<br><br>Even as Eggun encircle me, murmuring, “You’ve been abstinent for two good years!”, I return Oyá to her place on the etagere, and go to the kitchen to make myself a Coco puff. I pull out a heavy, crystal tumbler and splash some Goya Tropical Jugo de Limon into it. Then, I grab a bottle of Marie Brizard anisette and pour in some of that, and finally, I reach for the Bacardi Superior white rum and add that. As the fumes of the drink reach my nose, I accept that my two years of sobriety are shot. Reaching for the glass, there is no remorse or sadness for I know that these feelings will come later.<br><br>Fearlessly, I take a sip and wait. It is not until I feel the burn and sting of the drink in my chest that I remember what it was about drinking alcohol that I liked in the past. I liked that burn. That burn signified whatever it was that I was trying to make disappear—even if it was only for a few minutes or hours. That burn that reminded me of Life. That burn that reminded me of the Journey of Checking Out. Once I feel that burn, I begin to remember why I enjoyed drinking.<br><br>I take another sip. I rarely sip. Sipping a drink makes no sense to me, for it delays the sensation, the journey of leaving. That said, I sipped the Coco puff, and after a few minutes, I felt That Moment when I was both in and outside of my world. That Moment comes like the flutter of a hummingbird’s wing. It comes like a change in a river’s current. One minute, you’re there, and the next, you’re not. When I feel That Moment, that’s when I know I am drunk. It is the moment that I always strove for when I drank. That moment when I am everywhere and absolutely nowhere. At that moment, I no longer have to deal with my past, present, or future. At that moment, I felt relief, even if it was temporary.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[House Number 25]]></title><description><![CDATA[Mother!
After chopping off the heads of Maya (illusion),
The agony, mischief and the other things.
I call upon your gibbous moon
“Please leave my dragon head alone for
His sins and treachery in the first house”.
It’s time to retrograde.
I know,
On the full moon nights,
My reds and whites will be in tandem.
The galaxies will collapse at my feet
Shiva will return to my arms
And, I will be complete.
Notes: In Vedic astrology, when Rahu unhesitatingly assaults the Sun (and KETU assaults the Moon) ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/house-number-25/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232c3</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nidhi Agrawal]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:08:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529788295308-1eace6f67388?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGVjbGlwc2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMzQxNTE1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529788295308-1eace6f67388?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGVjbGlwc2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMzQxNTE1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="House Number 25"/><p>Mother!<br>After chopping off the heads of Maya (illusion),<br>The agony, mischief and the other things.<br>I call upon your gibbous moon<br>“Please leave my dragon head alone for<br>His sins and treachery in the first house”.<br>It’s time to retrograde.<br><br>I know,<br>On the full moon nights,<br>My reds and whites will be in tandem.<br>The galaxies will collapse at my feet<br>Shiva will return to my arms<br>And, I will be complete.<br><br><em>Notes: In Vedic astrology, when Rahu unhesitatingly assaults the Sun (and KETU assaults the Moon) and is said to swallow it, and to cause the “Eclipse”.</em></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Island]]></title><description><![CDATA[Honking? Why am I hearing honking? I thought, my mind a haze. I struggled to pry open my eyes, but they felt like they were fused together by some otherworldly force. I raised my hand to clean out whatever was keeping them closed, but my hand felt heavy, like I was wearing lead boxing gloves.
My eyes were sticky and embedded with sand, along with whatever unknown bodily fluids the eyes generated during the night. Where am I? How did I get here? These were questions floating around the periphera]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-island/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232c4</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:08:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1545579133-99bb5ab189bd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxpc2xhbmR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMzQxNjQ1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1545579133-99bb5ab189bd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxpc2xhbmR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMzQxNjQ1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Island"/><p><em>Honking? Why am I hearing honking? </em>I thought, my mind a haze. I struggled to pry open my eyes, but they felt like they were fused together by some otherworldly force. I raised my hand to clean out whatever was keeping them closed, but my hand felt heavy, like I was wearing lead boxing gloves.<br><br>My eyes were sticky and embedded with sand, along with whatever unknown bodily fluids the eyes generated during the night.<em> Where am I? How did I get here? </em>These were questions floating around the peripheral edges of my foggy brain.<em> Maybe I was teleported to Earth from another planet? A planet where people honk at each other to communicate? </em>I thought.<em> How did I get sand in my eyes? Oh yeah, it’s coming back to me now. I was at a party at the lake last night. Well, </em>I thought,<em> that would solve the problem of where I came from but not how I got here. But where is that honking coming from? </em>It was like someone leaned on their car horn for a few minutes<em>. The sound went from barely audible to increasingly loud, then back to barely audible. God, I want to boldly go back to a restful sleep filled with wicked dreams of split infinitives.</em><br><br>I managed to get my eyes open to the geometric equivalent of slits. Allowing just enough light to penetrate and make my brain feel violated by the optic nerves. The pain from the overachieving Sun caused them to quickly close again. Once again, into the breech, I thought. I managed to open them to the smallest possible cracks, anatomically allowable. The slits generated a primal Dean Martin there’s-water-in-my-glass-wince. Looking at me from the safety of a 1963 Studebaker station wagon were five children with their noses pressed against the glass and Visigoth faces staring daggers at me. <em>God, it’s the Farkle Family from Laugh-In,</em> I thought.<br>I guessed from her resemblance to her little no-necked monsters that their mother sat in the front passenger seat with a frown plastered to her face, shaking her head from side to side. It looked like they were all dressed for church. The mom had on one of those little pink Jacque Kennedy pillbox hats. Thanks to my impeccable logic, I surmised that it might be Sunday. </br></br></br></br></br></p><p><em>What am I doing lying on the ground beside a car on a Sunday morning?</em> I thought. <em>Well, hell, I don’t rightly know but something deep inside of me is telling me it beats being in that Studebaker with a judgmental posse of do-gooders. </em>Then, it dawned on me, <em>They have me being judgmental now! </em>The Jacque-Kennedy-looking woman rolled her window down and said, “Do you need help young man?”<br><br>I replied, “Only with Trigonometry, ma’am.”<br><br>“Well, I never,” she spluttered, “Boy, you need to find Jesus.” And rolled the window up before I could respond with one of the appropriate responses all smart-asses want to give when someone suggests you need to find Jesus. So, would it be a) he was here a minute ago but left like Pontius Pilate set his ass on fire when he saw y’all coming! b) I think that’s him in the car ahead of y’all ... ooh, ooh, made you look! or c) I had no idea the old boy was lost. <em>Shucks</em>, I thought, <em>and I was going to go with b) since there were children in the car.</em><br><br>Most of the cars that pulled up beside where I was now sitting on the pedestrian refuge that separated the traffic refused to even look in my direction. Not that I could blame them. I must have looked like I was rode hard and put up wet. I was in my cut-offs and an ancient copy of a James-Dean-looking windbreaker. Every time the light changed, a new line of cars would drive past. Their faces said, “Oh, Lord, don’t let the light change and make me have to stop by this freak.” It is not at all unusual for me to have doubts about myself. But I was starting to doubt my own existence. <em>Goddamnit People! It’s me, Charles. I exist!</em> I wanted to yell. <em>I ain’t no mirage. I am a real live human being standing here, for crying out loud, look at me! I am on this island, visible to the entire world, and you drive by like I am the invisible man.</em> Now, I have to admit I was feeling somewhat disconsolate. I had only been back in the States for about ten days and had been partaking in an unbridled, audacious celebration of life for nine of those days. I was starting to consider that maybe I was in the middle of some wasted psychedelic dream when a car pulled up that I recognized. A familiar face leaned out the window and said,<br>“Hey, Marine, would you like some candy?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>As my friend Dale and I were driving back toward my house, he handed me a lukewarm beer to wash my mouth out. “Damn, old son,” he said. “You smell like the last rose of summer!”<br><br>“You’re not exactly a bottle of Chanel, Kemo. What the hell happened last night? How did I end up on that traffic median, or better yet, why did I end up there?”<br><br>“Well,” Dale started, “we were all sitting around the campfire getting smashed in a proper Texas fashion when someone mentioned how big and gorgeous the moon was. And you said, “Hell yeah, a great night for skinny-dipping.” Then you stripped down and ran out into the lake with a ski belt and a can of Fosters.” The girls all giggled and said they weren’t stripping down. Well, except for Boogie. She was down to bra and panties and in the lake in a New York minute.” Boogie Wilder was a red-headed, green-eyed, adventurous soul who attracted men like dreams to slumbering minds. “So, the rest of the guys looked at each other and decided to join you and Boogie in the lake. As we were floating around and drinking, you said, <em>I wonder what kind of nonsense the man in the moon is up to tonight</em>. Then you started singing Moon River in Latin. That’s when I knew you were headed to oblivion.”<br><br>“When I was in Ms Head’s Latin class,” I said, “I would spend my spare time trying to translate songs into Latin. It helped me pick up Latin a lot quicker, and it was very productive. Now, I am trying to translate songs into Latin to determine the degree of inebriation I have experienced. That old feller in the moon doesn’t always have my best interests at heart. You know, my mom was an emergency room nurse for years. She used to say, <em>You could tell there was a full<br>moon last night. The emergency room was full.</br></em> I never thought much about it, but it did plant one of those superstitious seeds in my brain.” It would be another thirty years before I would be able to look on a full moon as a beautiful phenomenon full of promise. The roots that grew from those earlier superstitious seeds would be jerked out by the roots.<br><br>Dale said, “Well, you swam to shore to get another beer. When you didn’t come back for a while, we got worried about you and decided to swim back to the beach to look for you. You had passed out by the fire as naked as the day you were born. All our dates had split, so we figured you had offended their sensitive natures, except for Boogie, who thought the whole scene was a hoot. We spent about thirty minutes trying to get you back into your cut-offs, but you were out of it, old son. Then you would wake up and start mumbling something about <em>No man is an island, blah blah blah, don’t ask who the bells toll for, it tolls for thee blah blah.</em> On the way back to town, the guys thought it would be a great prank to leave you on your own special island. Which we did. We dropped you off around one in the morning. I was going to come back and pick you up in about an hour. I went home and cleaned up, then fell asleep. When I woke up I almost panicked. And drove back to where we dropped you off as fast as I could. I think next time we drop you off, I am going to pin a sign on you that says, <em>I will recite No Man is an Island for a ride.”</em><br><br>“Well, Pard, there ain’t gonna be a next time.”<br><br>“You mean I iced down this six-pack of chilly ones for nuthin’?”<br><br>“Well, I am kinda thirsty.”<br><br>We laughed and started singing, “Call it a night ... the party’s over ... and tomorrow starts the same old thing again."</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Searching the Skies in this Heartland]]></title><description><![CDATA[We have lived here. We live here. We are
all along watching for storms in Kansas.
It’s a legacy. I was here. I am here. My memory
all along in Kansas from a window
as hail fell. Don’t cry, shouted my father.
But my oldest son says water contains
hydrogen, oxygen, in a raindrop all along.
Our sons can safely say. I missed out
on such roaming. I read a waterfall
of facebook posts for blogs about
memory hacks and approaching weather.
A post from years ago, our son said, ghosts
live in ghost tow]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/searching-the-skies-in-this-heartland/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232c5</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Etzel Jr.]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:07:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1432405972618-c60b0225b8f9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHdhdGVyZmFsbHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNDIwNTV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1432405972618-c60b0225b8f9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHdhdGVyZmFsbHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNDIwNTV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Searching the Skies in this Heartland"/><p>We have lived here. We live here. We are<br>all along watching for storms in Kansas.<br>It’s a legacy. I was here. I am here. My memory<br><br>all along in Kansas from a window<br>as hail fell. Don’t cry, shouted my father.<br>But my oldest son says water contains<br><br>hydrogen, oxygen, in a raindrop all along.<br>Our sons can safely say. I missed out<br>on such roaming. I read a waterfall<br><br>of facebook posts for blogs about<br>memory hacks and approaching weather.<br>A post from years ago, our son said, ghosts<br><br>live in ghost towns. I say, come along,<br>let’s play in the basement as outside<br>the tornado siren begins its song.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Inheritance]]></title><description><![CDATA[my grandmother said you’ve got Cherokee
blood I was 10 born in Chicago raised
in New York and didn’t know southerners
say that to fashion themselves
inheritors to the land
white southerners that is true or false
my grandmother too who picked cotton
during the depression and lived
in a shack until my grandfather built
their one-room house which fell to the ground
last year uncared for way back in the country
where boars live now and wild muscadine
vines obscure the trail to the river
a cousin wi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/inheritance/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232c6</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carra Leah Hood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:06:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/03/a-new-map-of-the-cherokee-nation-with-the-names-of-the-towns-and-rivers-they-f37908.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/03/a-new-map-of-the-cherokee-nation-with-the-names-of-the-towns-and-rivers-they-f37908.jpg" alt="Inheritance"/><p>my grandmother said you’ve got Cherokee<br>blood I was 10 born in Chicago raised<br>in New York and didn’t know southerners<br>say that to fashion themselves<br>inheritors to the land<br><br>white southerners that is true or false<br>my grandmother too who picked cotton<br>during the depression and lived<br>in a shack until my grandfather built<br>their one-room house which fell to the ground<br>last year uncared for way back in the country<br>where boars live now and wild muscadine<br>vines obscure the trail to the river<br>a cousin willed it to his daughter<br><br>she’ll retire there he said and doesn’t<br>much care what grandma knew she’s gone<br>he’ll be gone soon me too we can’t name<br>the Quapaw soul in that land smothered<br>by rotted wood brittle tar paper pieces<br>of fabric dusty flour sacks and the metal<br>pot grandma slid under the bed every night just in case<br><br>we are of her Lee and Grant<br>her parents’ names and<br>Stinnett her name by marriage<br>we are of her that history<br>weeping whose Cherokee<br>blood underwrites the<br>stories that disinherit the rest</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Suburban Response (for J.)]]></title><description><![CDATA[She steps out into the privacy
of her overgrown back yard
Steps out into the crisp night air
Looks up toward the full moon
beginning to feel its embrace
Steps out of her flowing robe
Her silky silken flowing robe
that silently falls to her feet
in the shape of a continent
She now stands unadorned
Nothing between her bare skin
and the moon’s geography
except eons of unwritten past
She twirls in joy and looks
up again at the moon
spreads her arms wide and
as all else grows silent
begins her full-t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/suburban-response-for-j/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232c7</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:06:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1551463731-fbd292f1bf03?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyNHx8cm9iZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNDY0NDR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1551463731-fbd292f1bf03?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyNHx8cm9iZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNDY0NDR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Suburban Response (for J.)"/><p>She steps out into the privacy<br>of her overgrown back yard<br>Steps out into the crisp night air<br>Looks up toward the full moon<br>beginning to feel its embrace<br>Steps out of her flowing robe<br>Her silky silken flowing robe<br>that silently falls to her feet<br>in the shape of a continent<br>She now stands unadorned<br>Nothing between her bare skin<br>and the moon’s geography<br>except eons of unwritten past<br>She twirls in joy and looks<br>up again at the moon<br>spreads her arms wide and<br>as all else grows silent<br>begins her full-throated howl</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Second of Happiness]]></title><description><![CDATA[If you give me a second of happiness,
through the songs of birds or the whiff of air,
or your melody cracks through the evening dews,
perches on the petals of roses and blades of lilies,
that dream that keeps you sleepless at night
will rush in through your night window.
Now I am no longer what I used to be,
my dreams were stolen from my mid-day sleep;
and a bunch of cacti deposited at my door,
at the time, my life turned to face its past.
Shadows appeared suddenly everywhere,
and I was like a t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-second-of-happiness/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232c8</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jonathan Chibuike Ukah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:05:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523501859272-afa857e87881?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDg0fHxyb3NlJTIwcGV0YWxzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NDAxM3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523501859272-afa857e87881?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDg0fHxyb3NlJTIwcGV0YWxzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NDAxM3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Second of Happiness"/><p>If you give me a second of happiness,<br>through the songs of birds or the whiff of air,<br>or your melody cracks through the evening dews,<br>perches on the petals of roses and blades of lilies,<br>that dream that keeps you sleepless at night<br>will rush in through your night window.<br>Now I am no longer what I used to be,<br>my dreams were stolen from my mid-day sleep;<br>and a bunch of cacti deposited at my door,<br>at the time, my life turned to face its past.<br>Shadows appeared suddenly everywhere,<br>and I was like a thunder-pole, a tower,<br>to intercept the lightning and set me on fire.<br>When it seemed that nothing could halt this drift,<br>except looking to the sky for signs of rain,<br>I began to crave a few seconds of happiness.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><br>I will look to the sky, wearing my body,<br>as the tree wears leaves and fields grasses,<br>rivers wear beaches and oceans water.<br>When darkness paints the walls of my room,<br>and sunlight departs from the spires of trees;<br>when the moon splits in two, bloody and weeping,<br>it will be my finest hour in aeons of ages ago.<br>I will look to the sky, wearing my bare skin.<br>When the stars shun the centre of my eye,<br>waiting for me to bribe it with a smile.<br>Now I know why I must always face the moon<br>when rain clouds congregate for a feast,<br>and not a star, not even a fragment of the sun,<br>informs me that you’re the centre of the galaxy.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Waiting Room]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Number 304865,” the receptionist calls out from where she sits behind the window-paneled glass. Her voice echoes in the room, which is filled only with women. They all sit patiently waiting their turn, abiding by the unwritten rules of waiting rooms, take a number, take a seat, wait your turn.
“That’s me!” a young woman calls out excitedly, revealing her eagerness to everyone else, which is a highly inconsiderate thing to do. She puts down a People magazine she’s only just started reading an h]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-waiting-room-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232c9</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Calissa Kirilenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:04:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1422036306541-00138cae4dbc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxmaWxlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNTQ2ODR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1422036306541-00138cae4dbc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxmaWxlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNTQ2ODR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Waiting Room"/><p>“Number 304865,” the receptionist calls out from where she sits behind the window-paneled glass. Her voice echoes in the room, which is filled only with women. They all sit patiently waiting their turn, abiding by the unwritten rules of waiting rooms, take a number, take a seat, wait your turn.</p><p>“That’s me!” a young woman calls out excitedly, revealing her eagerness to everyone else, which is a highly inconsiderate thing to do. She puts down a People magazine she’s only just started reading an hour ago and gathers her designer bag and coat before walking over to the receptionist. All other eyes in the room are on her, some with a look of longing, some with resentment, some with something resembling fear in their eyes. Those are the ones no one understands.</p><p>She hands over her little paper slip, which shows barely a dent to her number, unlike some of the other women in the waiting room, whose papers have turned a faded yellow after sitting in their pockets for too long. She turns around and smiles at them like a pageant queen who just won the world title, in clear hopes they’ll all join in on her exciting moment. They don’t. Her mother clearly never taught her any manners.</p><p>The receptionist points toward a door on the left, and the young woman walks toward it. She stands in front of the door, as they all do, and looks at the screen above it. Soon, the screen turns on, and a woman’s voice booms from the tiny monitor.</p><p>“Stephanie St. Clair, age 23, from Arizona, you’ve been matched!”</p><p>Confetti shoots across the screen as all the women watch in half-bored stares. A green light comes on beside the doorknob, and Stephanie turns the handle.</p><p>“Come meet your new partner, Drew Womack!” the voice booms in the room.</p><p>Stephanie is smiling from ear to ear as she walks through the door. Before the excitement has even settled, the lights turn off, the door slams shut, and the monitor goes black. The room stays silent as the women look away from the door in resignation. Another one is gone, and they’re all still waiting.</p><p>Some of them have been in the waiting room for days, while some have been in the waiting room for years. This young one had only been in an hour or so. She was fresh, her eyes still wide with hope, her blonde hair freshly cut and curled to frame her face that would make you think she was nineteen and had never been fucked. The type of girl who didn’t have to wait long.</p><p>“This is bullshit,” Margaret says to no one in particular, and there’s an audible sigh from the room. Margaret has been in the waiting room for five years now. Her ex-husband left her after she gambled away their life savings. She spent some time in therapy, traded the gambling habit for smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, and eventually made her way to the waiting room in the hope of finding a new partner who would better understand her wild ways.</p><p>But there’s a system in the waiting room, and everyone knows it. They all sign up from the moment they first have a crush, after their first date and heartbreak, the first whirlwind romance and love that leaves you crying on the floor for weeks. They all make their way to the waiting room because this is where you will find your forever perfect match. Sometimes it just takes longer than others.</p><p>There are factors to consider here—there always have been. This is a business, after all. They employ hundreds of people each year to help do extensive research and create informational handbooks, rules, and surveys. This is where forever happens. You can’t make that up overnight, and truth be told, there was a lot of groundwork already in place.</p><p>There are some factors that can’t be changed, for example, your height, your age, your eye color, your ethnicity, and your background. But there are others that can be, your interests, your weight, your facial construction, your willingness to have children, your occupation or choice not to have one. The factors are what make up your file, and that is how you end up in the waiting room for seven years or seven minutes.</p><p>Every time a new woman walks into the waiting room, Margaret stares them down so that maybe they’ll leave, especially the young ones. They usually scour into a corner and huddle together in protection against her. She can’t fathom how her name hasn’t been called, how some men would want a fresh-out-of-the-womb-like girl who’s barely experienced anything, as opposed to her.</p><p>She huffs from her chair in a quiet little rage that the rest of the women know to avoid and will soon pass. After all, the women who have been here for as long as Margaret have known what it’s like. They all have their reasons, and they all have experienced enough of each other to understand what each person is going through.</p><p>Angelina has been in the waiting room for five years. Her first three were filled with grief. After her husband passed away, she made her way to the waiting room and sat in a corner, crying every time a number got called. No one could quite tell if it was because she was sad it wasn’t her or relieved she got to stay a while longer.</p><p>Leah has just returned to the waiting room a couple of days ago, and no one knows how to interact with her. She’d been in the room for two years, and then last month, her number got called, and she left in a gloriously respectful manner. You could barely see the tears that streamed down her face as she walked through that door. A couple of days ago, she walked back in, her head downcast, dressed in all black, and was wordless as she took her new number. She now sits alone in a corner, never interacting with any of the other women in the room. They’re all too afraid to ask what had happened anyway, that whatever it was might rub off on them and ruin their delicate chances of ever being called.</p><p>Kathy and Cleo are the happiest of the bunch. A couple of years later, once they realized they weren’t leaving anytime soon, they started reading some of the discarded books left out on the coffee tables. Now, they have a monthly book club and are constantly recruiting new members. They prefer thrillers about women who kill their husbands. It’s a particular group. Samantha and Georgia are horrified when they overhear their conversations.</p><p>Samantha and Georgia sit on the opposite side of the room. They’ve only been waiting for a couple of months and can’t wait to get out. They’re both twenty-two, with dark hair, polite smiles, and soft voices, and will happily please you. They like to cook roast dinners, awe at the sight of children, and spend Sundays at service. They won’t have to wait long. Women like that never do. They’re the women in the pamphlets, the ones they give their mothers when they’re still young enough to know nothing about the waiting room.</p><p>“304866,” the receptionist calls out. Georgia squeals in delight. Samantha stands with her, and the two girls hug without needing to say much. They know they’ll see one another soon, on the other side, where they’ll host backyard barbecues as their husbands man the grill. The two of them will look after the children, sipping on white wine spritzers and gossiping about ladies like Kathy and Cleo.</p><p>Georgia opens the door and turns to wave at all the women before she goes. Samantha beams at her from her seat, smiling ear to ear. She won’t show it, but there’s a part of her that would like to run up to where Georgia's standing and tackle her to the ground, taking her place. Instead, she sits there and continues to plaster a smile on her face, but she’ll be next. They always are.</p><p>As the door closes, another one opens on the other side of the room. They all look up in anticipation, but it’s just the afternoon receptionist rotating shifts. David is in his late sixties, never married, and never even wanted to. In his hands, he carries the next batch of files to be processed—the dirty details of each woman held captive and never to be seen by anyone but the men who choose.</p><p>The two receptionists hand off each other's paperwork and one leaves while the other remains. It’s the same cycle that happens every day. After many years of the same routine, no one even notices when a single file falls helplessly to the floor in the middle of the room.</p><p>Everyone, except for Leah, from her dark spot in the corner. She quietly gets up and walks towards the paper, bending down to pick it up and turning it over as she does.</p><p>“What’s that?” Margaret asks from her seat. She holds a cigarette between two fingers and smiles snidely at Samantha, who looks horrified as she lights it.</p><p>Leah doesn’t even look up to acknowledge Margaret as she stares down at the sheet of paper, too engrossed in its contents to move. But on a day like today, there isn’t much for Margaret to do, so she sighed and got up from her seat to walk over to where Leah still stood.</p><p>“Where did the paper come from?” Margaret asks again as she attempts to snatch it from Leah’s hands. Only now is Leah broken from her trance and clasps the paper tightly to her chest. She has no intention of letting Margaret see what it holds.</p><p>“It’s nothing,” Leah mutters before walking back over to her corner of the room.</p><p>"What do you mean it’s nothing? Just show me, Leah.” Margaret presses further, and Leah stands firm in her stance, clutching the paper like it’s her own child.</p><p>“Just show her the paper, Leah.” Kathy pipes in from the corner as other eyes have now turned to watch the two women bicker back and forth.</p><p>“It’s not her paper, it’s mine.” Leah bites back.</p><p>"What do you mean it’s your paper?” Margaret laughs, “just because you found it doesn’t mean it’s yours,” she says mockingly.</p><p>“I mean it’s my paper.” Leah says.</p><p>It’s now that all eyes in the room turn to stare at Leah because they know exactly what she means. It’s no secret that from the moment each woman enters the waiting room they’re given a number, and a profile is created based on the information they provide. One single paper summarizes who they are, their likes, dislikes, appearance, hobbies, future goals, and past accomplishments, and as a basic rule of the waiting room, none of the women are ever allowed to see their own.</p><p>“How is that even possible?” Margaret asks, walking over to sit next to Leah in the corner. A small group of women follow, their interest piqued by the paper and its contents.</p><p>“The last receptionist who left dropped it as he went out,” Leah answers.</p><p>“Well what does it say?” Margaret asks, even more eager now, but Leah stays silent, shaking her head and turning away from her.</p><p>“Oh come on, Leah, I would show you mine.” Margaret winks and laughs lightly at her own joke.</p><p>Leah turns back towards Margaret now, and quietly whispers so only she can hear. “It’s not good.”</p><p>Margaret’s eyes go wide. “Just give me the damn thing,” she says as she rips it from Leah’s hands.</p><p>Margaret looks over the page. “A 3.5 out of 5, overall rating! That’s bullshit. They can’t do that. Who gives a person an overall rating!” Margaret yells, jumping up from her seat. She begins to pace back and forth across the room. The other women backed away, knowing better than to interrupt one of Margaret's freakouts.</p><p>The receptionist, who is too engrossed in his episode of Succession, relaxes in the swivel chair behind the window-paned glass. He laughs at something Kendall Roy says, tossing a chocolate M&M into his mouth with ease.</p><p>“It’s fine, Margaret. Just sit down,” Leah pleads, looking around the room with fear in her eyes. Though she’s not sure what she should be afraid of, the fear is always there.</p><p>“Not only do they give us an overall rating. They give us a rating on physical features and then break it down into sections! This is insane!” Margaret yells.</p><p>“What else do they rate us on?” Samantha asks, suddenly coming up beside Margaret.</p><p>“Intelligence, social status, personality, and CHILDBEARING ABILITIES!”</p><p>Margaret crumples up the paper and throws it on the floor. She begins stomping on top of it trying to rid its existence from the room.</p><p>“I wonder what mine says,” Samantha mutters and Margaret rolls her eyes, before turning back to Leah. “We have to do something about this!”</p><p>“I’m not sure what we can do Margaret,” Leah resigns, now that the paper is pretty much destroyed.</p><p>Margaret turns to look at the receptionist, eyeing the stack of papers sitting behind him and smiles slightly. With the swift movements of someone adept at sneaking a tube of lip gloss from the convenience store as a teenager, Margaret walks over to the receptionist desk and takes the stack of files sitting behind him.</p><p>The other women in the room watch in shock. None of them would ever dare to think to look at the files, let alone take them. They are in the waiting room. The receptionist doesn’t ever think to watch the files, because there is a clear divide between him and them. He announces numbers, they wait.</p><p>“Margaret, what are you doing?” Kathy whispers, running over to the corner of the room where Margaret has now spread out the file folders, just waiting to be opened and consumed.</p><p>“What does it look like? I’m taking back what’s mine,” she smiles gleefully. Like a kid in a candy store, she starts handing out files to the ladies in the room.</p><p>“Here’s yours, Samantha and Angelina, Danica too.”</p><p>Every woman begins to gather around Margaret as she passes out all the files of the women in the room. They all take their paper and read the comments, the little numbers, the overall ratings, and slowly, the fury starts to build.</p><p>“Doesn’t appear to have good childbearing hips,” Kathy says before thrusting her paper in front of Cleo so she can see.</p><p>“Mine says, beware, the photo may be a catfish,” Cleo shares. “How is this a catfish?” she asks Kathy, placing a near-identical photo of herself beside her own face.</p><p>“Is a little too invested in the Real Housewives. What does that even mean?” Danica says to no one in particular.</p><p>“Mine seems pretty accurate,” Samantha says, and all the women turn to glare at her. “What?” She asks the room, her innocent blue eyes looking around for a response that no one will give her.</p><p>The women finish reading their own profiles before beginning on each other and before the receptionist can even register what has now started. The women start destroying all the files in the room.</p><p>Kathy and Cleo rip up the papers and toss them into the tiniest pieces, like the confetti that shoots across the screen when someone’s been matched. Leah smiles for the first time in days as she and Jessica jump up and down on top of a pile of files of other women who have yet to enter the waiting room. Margaret takes out her lighter and begins to light the tips of the papers, cackling as they evaporate into thin air.</p><p>“What are you all doing?” the receptionist yells into the group, running out from behind his desk, now aware of the chaos unfolding before him. But he’s too late. As Margaret takes a fireball of papers and shoots them across the room in his direction, the receptionist runs back behind his desk, unsure of what to do.</p><p>As the women run about, throwing papers in the air, running across the chairs, and dancing to no sound but their own laughter and voices, the receptionist hides under his desk. He pulls his chair closer towards him as if the women may actually throw him in the air if they had the chance. He quickly grabs the phone from its cradle and manages to press a couple of numbers. It starts ringing just as one of the women bangs against the glass and flashes her boobs yelling, “Free the nipple!” The receptionist turns away, horrified.</p><p>“Hello,” someone says on the other line.</p><p>“Hello, hi, we need help!” the receptionist yells into the receiver. “The women in the waiting room, they’ve lost it, they’ve gone wild. They’re dancing on chairs and throwing about their belongings. They’ve completely lost their minds,” he yells as the line goes dark.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sanctuary]]></title><description><![CDATA[Indian grass is mingled
among the Bermuda, not yet ready to mow.
Round bales from an early cutting
stand in the southern corner of the pasture
where I am walking,
seeking remnants of the old house.
In my memory
the ruins had lain just past
a stand of blackjacks and bois d’arcs
across a little creek on the edge of childhood.
Moving parallel
to the abandoned railroad track,
west of the field
I see
the bright orange flame of Indian Paintbrush
splitting coyote bones
r]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sanctuary/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232ca</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Wallace]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:04:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1708021379513-63ab26e4db3f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGluZGlhbiUyMHBhaW50YnJ1c2h8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMTA4MjYxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1708021379513-63ab26e4db3f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGluZGlhbiUyMHBhaW50YnJ1c2h8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMTA4MjYxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Sanctuary"/><p>Indian grass is mingled<br>among the Bermuda, not yet ready to mow.<br>Round bales from an early cutting<br>stand in the southern corner of the pasture<br> where I am walking,<br>seeking remnants of the old house.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>In my memory<br>the ruins had lain just past<br>a stand of blackjacks and bois d’arcs<br>across a little creek on the edge of childhood.<br><br>Moving parallel<br>to the abandoned railroad track,<br>west of the field<br> I see<br>the bright orange flame of Indian Paintbrush<br>splitting coyote bones<br> returning to earth,<br>the decaying, grey remains of the predator,<br>fertilizing the wildflowers.<br><br>Half a century away,<br>the unroofed walls once stood<br> two-storied<br>with a crumbling chinaberry tree<br>pressed to its western wall.<br>I climbed those limbs more than once<br>to swing inside an empty window<br> and stand<br>on a delicate fraction of a second floor,<br>mostly fallen to rubble below me.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>June was exploding<br>as I sat on an unreliable fragment of 1969,<br>peering into the blue future<br> collapsing<br>faster than the eastern wall<br>of my embryonic nest among the ruins,<br>Creedence rocking my transistor radio,<br> blasting the summer<br>like a detonation of distant claymores.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But this June,<br>fifty years flown,<br>finds me crossing a dry streambed<br> to stand in knee-high pasture grass,<br>unable to find a trace of the place<br>that did its best<br>to shelter my teenage self<br>from the death and destruction<br>living in a black and white television.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Even the antique chinaberry has fallen<br> into the past.<br>Nothing remains of my sanctuary.<br>Only the menace of the twenty-first century<br>and the bright orange flames<br> grown through coyote bones<br>see me now<br>still searching for shelter.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p/><p><strong> </strong></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sole Man]]></title><description><![CDATA[I can’t quit
nuzzling your destiny.
It brings out
the best in me,
pilots my nature,
I yearn for serenity.
Where you are going
is where I dream to be.
Reveal your design,
consider my plea,
a nuzzling
nobody
adrift
on the high sea.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sole-man/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232cb</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jack Albert]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:02:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457195740896-7f345efef228?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHNlYSUyMHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNTQ5Mzh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457195740896-7f345efef228?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHNlYSUyMHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNTQ5Mzh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Sole Man"/><p>I can’t quit<br>nuzzling your destiny.</br></p><p>It brings out<br>the best in me,</br></p><p>pilots my nature,<br>I yearn for serenity.</br></p><p>Where you are going<br>is where I dream to be.</br></p><p>Reveal your design,<br>consider my plea,</br></p><p>a nuzzling<br>nobody</br></p><p>adrift<br>on the high sea.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Timing is Everything]]></title><description><![CDATA[My father made me mow the lawn every Saturday whether it needed it or not. When my mom was alive, she let me get away with mowing every other week. Sometimes I felt like all I did was watch the grass grow then chop it down so I could watch it grow all over again. There was nothing interesting about my home town, or the state; and until I saw otherwise, I believed there was nothing interesting about this whole world. The only exciting thing to happen around there was when someone let all the pigs]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/timing-is-everything/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232cc</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lisa Madison Leraas]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:01:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1606851682837-019baf2e8da4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJhY29ufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI2MzQ0MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1606851682837-019baf2e8da4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJhY29ufGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDI2MzQ0MHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Timing is Everything"/><p>My father made me mow the lawn every Saturday whether it needed it or not. When my mom was alive, she let me get away with mowing every other week. Sometimes I felt like all I did was watch the grass grow then chop it down so I could watch it grow all over again. There was nothing interesting about my home town, or the state; and until I saw otherwise, I believed there was nothing interesting about this whole world. The only exciting thing to happen around there was when someone let all the pigs escape at the 4-H auction and the fire truck had to block the road so they could wrangle them. It was more difficult than it sounds because all the roads around the fairgrounds were dirt and it was raining. It was the closest thing that I’d ever seen to mud wrestling, and it was just a bunch of farm boys with their beloved swine.<br><br>I was lucky that I didn’t have to raise livestock. My father and I lived in town, right off Main Street, a block away from the only stoplight. We could walk everywhere important from our house—church, school, market, diner. Those places were the entire world for my father and me. He was a math teacher at the school. I mowed the lawn at the church—not because we were devoted church members but because my father felt less guilty about not attending church by making me mow the lawn. We ate at the diner every night because after my mom died, every home cooking attempt ended with flames or vomiting. Sometimes both. <br><br>I guess you could say that our little Wyoming town was quaint. It was one of those towns where everyone seemed old. It didn’t matter what decade it was, when I was a kid in the 70s or when I went back to visit as an adult, everyone still seemed old, perhaps just a bit more feeble as time marched on. The town was also very clean, like time stood still after 1957—with perfectly trimmed lilac bushes, bright white picket fences and stoic red barns seamlessly placed on the edge of green pastures. In the summer it seemed to rain every day at noon for one hour. Not a huge downpour, just a light rain to cool things off and make the damn grass grow. I remember sitting on our porch when the noon rain hit and wishing for something exciting to happen. In 1976, when I was 16 years old, my wish came true.<br><br>I awoke on a Saturday morning to the unfamiliar sound of a woman’s voice. I hadn’t heard that sound in our house in years. I pulled on my robe, tiptoed into the dining room and peeked around the corner into the kitchen. Sitting at our table was a tired-looking woman with her hair in a bun, thick black glasses and an orange cottony dress. I was shocked at the idea that my father had let a woman spend the night then allowed her to drink coffee in the very kitchen my beloved mother used to drink coffee. Just as I tightened the belt around my robe and marched into the room to cause a scene, a girl came around the corner and slammed into me. She had a plate of donuts and a glass of juice that fell right out of her hand and shattered on the dusty hardwoods below. Just as I bent over to pick up the remnants of the plate, my robe came untied and my discolored cotton briefs were revealed. I dropped the ceramic shards and booked it back to the safety of the Roy Rogers-papered walls of my bedroom.<br><br>I failed to slam the door, which is something that every man who just experienced brief humiliation from cotton briefs should do, so I had to endure the sounds of my father’s laughter. It took me a good ten minutes to get dressed and get up the courage to face my attacker. This time I didn’t lurk in the dining room. I strolled directly into the kitchen with my head held high, only to find my father in his torn argyle cardigan sitting alone next to a plate of perfectly cooked bacon. I’m sure my initial question should have been regarding the two females, but I was so shocked to see un-burnt bacon in our house that I had to inquire.<br><br>“Is that bacon?” I asked, pretending that the smell didn’t tip me off.<br><br>“Yep.” My father replied with his usual lack of zest as he slid the plate my direction.<br><br>“Where did it come from?” I asked, taking a bite and nearly crying from the nostalgia of my mom’s Saturday morning breakfasts.<br><br>“A pig. You should know that if you expect to survive in this town.” He didn’t look up from his paper.<br><br>He knew what I meant and I could tell by the curve of his lips that he was enjoying this dance. “Did that lady cook it?”<br><br>“Yes, Sandra, that lady cooked it.”<br><br>I wedged a third piece of meat into my mouth and mumbled. “That was nice of her, but don’t call me Sandra.”<br> <br>He set down the paper and snatched the last piece of bacon from my greasy fingers. “Funny, Richard. You should take your act on the road. New neighbors, Sandra and Cynthia. They moved here from New York. I traded donuts and juice for bacon. When you ruined the donuts they decided to leave and never come back.”<br><br>“So they went back to New York?” I grinned.<br><br>“They went home to unpack. You will mow their lawn later since they don’t have a mower.” He pointed at my jeans. “And afterward, we’ll walk downtown and buy you some white underwear. I can’t believe we all had to witness that.”<br><br>“Had I known I’d be half naked in front of New Yorkers, I would’ve worn something classier.” I sighed. “How come I have to mow everyone’s lawn around here? Am I at leastgetting paid?<br><br>“Because you always complain about how bored you are. Your reward will be in heaven.”<br><br>“Why doesn’t the bacon lady’s husband mow it?<br><br>My father sighed. “Because he stayed in New York. Based on Sandra’s bitterness, I assume he won’t be coming to Wyoming.”<br><br>“I’d be bitter too if I had to leave New York to move here.”<br><br>An hour later, I finally got around to mowing all the lawns. I finished just before the noon rain and retreated to the porch to drink a pop and read my Mad Magazine. Before I realized she had even come onto the porch, I felt Cynthia sit next to me on the swing. She sat so close that the hair on my arms stood up and I repressed a soft gasp. I could feel my face turning red and I did my best to remain calm.<br><br>“Can I help you?” I continued to stare at my magazine and tried to sound annoyed.<br><br>She leaned forward and kicked her feet, setting the swing in motion. “It’s Richard, right?” <br><br>“Dickie.” I felt so immature when I said it. “Or Richard.” The girl had seen my underpants, I wanted to regain my sense of intrigue.<br><br>“Well, Dickie, I’m gonna ask you a favor and I have to be quick about it.”<br><br>I turned my face toward hers and our eyes met. My entire body felt hot and I wanted to run as far as I could. I envisioned myself running all the way to the fairgrounds and stealing a rodeo horse and riding off into the sunset. The idea of it made me chuckle. Then I realized she was talking.<br><br>“Can you do that for me?” She put her hand on my arm.<br><br>I cleared my throat. “Huh?”<br><br>She sounded exasperated as she repeated herself. “Okay, you’re not following. Geesh. My dad left my mom for his secretary. This made my mom a little crazy. She tried to find a job in New York to support us but nothing paid enough to live on. So this made her a little angry. One morning she came into my room and said we were moving to the Equality State so that she could stand up for her rights. I didn’t know what state that was so I looked it up. That’s why we’re in Wyoming. Anyway, she’s now on some sort of crazy mission…”<br><br>Before Cynthia could finish her explanation, I realized what she was talking about. Coming down the street was Sandra, sporting a giant wig and platform shoes. She was carrying a sign that read ERA, and she was chanting, “Women deserve equal rights!” The rain was making the letters on the sign blurry and her platform shoes were slipping on the damp sidewalk.<br><br>I couldn’t stop staring. The wild Wyoming wind was blowing her dress in all sorts of crazy directions. “Yeah. So what was the favor again?”<br><br>Cynthia put her face in her hands. “I’m mortified!” She fake screamed and said, “Can you please just ignore her and not let this be a reflection on me? The last thing I need is to start school in the fall and have all the kids call my mom the crazy lady."<br><br>“It’s a small town, news travels fast. I think you might be doomed.” I tried to sound funny even though I was being honest.<br><br>My father stepped out on the porch and lit a cigar. He took one drag and choked. “What the…” He looked down and saw Cynthia next to me. “What’s your mom doing?”<br><br>“She’s protesting.”<br><br>“I see.” He leaned up against the house and casually crossed his arms like it was something he saw every day. “And what is it that she’s against?”<br><br>“Men.” Cynthia said it with so much conviction that neither my father nor I could defend our gender.<br><br>“Fair enough.” My father flicked his ashes into the cuff of his pants and opened the screen door. “You kids want to walk to the diner with me? I think ice cream might be in order.”<br><br>We both got up and ran down the steps and up the street, leaving Sandra far behind marching back and forth across her lawn, which seemed to provide better traction than the sidewalk.<br><br>This protest went on every Saturday for the next several months, sometimes before the noon rain and sometimes after. Each time, my father would take Cynthia and me to the diner for the appropriate meal. I had grown fascinated with the mother and daughter and looked forward to hearing Sandra rant and Cynthia express her humiliation.<br><br>One Saturday morning I realized that the woman might be onto something. I went into the shed and found a couple old boards. I fastened them together, painted them white and secured a handle. When the paint dried, I took a bingo marker and carefully wrote No Pay, No Mow on it. Next I took the sign to the front yard and started marching back and forth shouting, “No such thing as a free lawn!” I found it exhilarating and could tell why Sandra was so passionate about her cause and her persistence.<br><br>I was only at it about five minutes when I felt my father rip the sign out of my hands. “Get inside young man”. He said it slowly through gritted teeth so I knew he meant business.<br><br>I did as I was told and hoped that none of the neighbors saw this rare act of discipline. The minute the screen door slammed shut my father started yelling. “What on earth are you thinking, boy?” He paced, almost like he, himself, was picketing. Then he stopped and stared out the window for a moment before continuing. “You might think it’s funny, but what you did is disrespectful. That woman is passionate about her beliefs. She may be the only woman in Wyoming doing it, but she is standing up and fighting for things to change. She’s fighting for her convictions; she’s saying she wants things to be better for her daughter’s generation.” Steam was practically coming out of his ears.<br><br>“I’m sorry. I didn’t think of it like that. I just figured that if she could fight to be paid fairly for her job then I could do the same. It’s not fair that I have to mow lawns for free.” I was being genuine. I really did just want my work to be acknowledged and thought if it worked I might have enough cash to take Cynthia to the movies.<br><br>My father stared at his shoes for what seemed like forever. “Richard, I will pay you a dollar per lawn.” He pointed his finger at me. “And not because of what you did today, but because I want you to know that I do respect that you work hard.” He squinted his eyes, which was always a sign that he was serious. “Now I want you to go next door and apologize for being condescending.”<br><br>“That won’t be necessary.” Sandra was standing at our screen door. “I like that you stood up for yourself, Dickie.” Then tears rolled down her face. “And Thomas, I really like that you stood up for me.” She pressed her bright red lips against the screen and made a kissing sound. “Dinner’s at seven, boys.”<br><br>My father watched her walk down the steps then turned to me and winked. “And that, my boy, is how you win over a woman.” He then danced out of the room while I stood there with my mouth hanging open.<br><br>The following weekend, Cynthia and I sat on the porch swing and quietly watched as Sandra marched up the street with her picket sign. A few minutes later, my father came out reeking of aftershave, and wearing a brand new leisure suit with the tags still on it. We watched as he gallantly bounced down the stairs, dashed across the lawn and caught up with Sandra. We watched as Cynthia’s mother and my father chanted in unison, and marched down the street, hand in hand.<br><br>After that summer, Wyoming was never the same. The old people still seemed old, but my father was no longer one of them. It was the summer that the perfect little town with manicured lilac bushes caught up with the rest of the world. It was the summer that my father charmed the lady next door and we never had to eat at the diner again</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Sparrow and the Lamb]]></title><description><![CDATA[Here I find myself, in this solemn stately pew,
joined by speckled stained glass rainbows, paying their due.
Cloudy ap-parishioners sing a Latin hymn.
Voices echo from the past, through centuries grown dim.
Saints and martyrs gathered ’round; I’m sitting all alone,
near twisting, twirling, swirling, of intertwining stone,
climbing up grey pillars, to golden vaults’ expanse,
with candle chandeliers raining fireflies that dance.
The godly of the decades, hovering in glass,
Silently worship at th]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-sparrow-and-the-lamb/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232cd</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joy Nevin Axelson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:01:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1448227700746-d8eab5a1b9d7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNwYXJyb3clMjBsYW1ifGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NTI0OHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1448227700746-d8eab5a1b9d7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNwYXJyb3clMjBsYW1ifGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NTI0OHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Sparrow and the Lamb"/><p>Here I find myself, in this solemn stately pew,<br>joined by speckled stained glass rainbows, paying their due.<br>Cloudy ap-parishioners sing a Latin hymn.<br>Voices echo from the past, through centuries grown dim.</br></br></br></p><p>Saints and martyrs gathered ’round; I’m sitting all alone,<br>near twisting, twirling, swirling, of intertwining stone,<br>climbing up grey pillars, to golden vaults’ expanse,<br>with candle chandeliers raining fireflies that dance.</br></br></br></p><p>The godly of the decades, hovering in glass,<br>Silently worship at this sparrow’s Sunday mass.<br>Small and plain am I, amidst eternal splendor,<br>overwhelmed with awe for my Author, my Creator.</br></br></br></p><p>From the gilded cross there, the Son shines down on me,<br>while movelessly He strains, to hear each whispered plea,<br>to wipe each trickling tear, that only He can see -<br>the Lamb, He loves the sparrow, and the Lamb loves me.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Buried Statue]]></title><description><![CDATA[A coating of dust thick as fallen snow obscured the gleaming bronze buddha statue resting, enshrined, on the utmost shelf of the polished oak cabinet. The structure’s vertical frame loomed large in our eyes.
It had been a fleeting fancy. A spontaneous whim of mutual consensus. My eyes flicked to Jayden’s. We both grinned. The trample of feet and the sound of both raised and lowered voices overlapping one another mingled together in a cascade of everyday noise. No one would notice our momentary ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-buried-statue/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232ce</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Lenois]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 21:00:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1705113998946-1eefc7961c24?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNob3ZlbHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMzU1NTAzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1705113998946-1eefc7961c24?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNob3ZlbHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMzU1NTAzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Buried Statue"/><p>A coating of dust thick as fallen snow obscured the gleaming bronze buddha statue resting, enshrined, on the utmost shelf of the polished oak cabinet. The structure’s vertical frame loomed large in our eyes.</p><p>It had been a fleeting fancy. A spontaneous whim of mutual consensus. My eyes flicked to Jayden’s. We both grinned. The trample of feet and the sound of both raised and lowered voices overlapping one another mingled together in a cascade of everyday noise. No one would notice our momentary absence. </p><p>The front yard, a combination of lawn and wood chips neatly divided. Its stark duality mirrored the faces of comedy and tragedy from ages past. Flurries of wind conjured forth spinning whirlwinds of leaves as we ran across to where the shed stood. Its aged, splintering wood and fading paint made it appear almost like a discolored porcupine. </p><p>A cheap and battered padlock remained resolutely in place, hanging off a circular ring above the doorknob. Leave it to the semi-responsible adults to pick this one day to properly lock the shed, of course.</p><p>“Nah, they can’t have..” Jayden muttered, grabbing the lock and pulling on it. With a rusty snap, it popped open. “They DID!” He exclaimed, cackling. I grinned. “After you.”</p><p>It only took a few seconds to rummage around the cluttered interior. The shovels were easy to find. Lined up against one corner of a wall, they lay sad and dejected. Like sailors drawn to the mythological siren, the dull wood-handled metallic instruments called to us. Helpless to resist, we answered their inaudible summons.</p><p>The chills of oncoming Winter had hardened the ground somewhat, so that it took several combined attempts to break through to the softer soil layers beneath. But with single-minded determination we burrowed like rabbits.</p><p>Within a few minutes of frantic work, once the hole reached an appropriate depth, in went the buddha statue. Over it, the foot or so of dirt that we had so proudly excavated. To hide our pirated treasure, we scattered handfuls of leaves and wood chips, and then retraced our steps back inside.</p><p>It was only approximately twenty-two minutes later that our criminal heist was brought to light, and the two suspects brought in for questioning by the designated authorities. In hindsight, when one attempts to bury stolen treasure of questionable value, it is probably best not to mark the spot where you disposed of the evidence with a giant “X” spanning neigh a foot in each direction.</p><p>As we had been the only two individuals not accounted for at the time of the crime, and our alibis were shaky at best, our singular judge, jury, and executioner found us guilty on all counts.</p><p>Long indeed was the subsequent lecture on theft, and the theological implications of desecrating a religious and/or spiritual object. As a fairly quiet, unoffending 11-year-old, it probably should’ve been evident that the intent was not to offend Buddhists worldwide. However, our loudly-proclaimed defense, that we simply saw a statue of a fat gold man and thought it looked like the statue Indiana Jones stole in <em>Raiders of the Lost Ark</em>, fell on deaf ears.</p><p>When it became clear to our interrogator, Samanda, that she had misjudged the situation somewhat, and that their admonishments had done nothing but confuse and upset us, she left the small room we were sitting in, and called in our favorite mentor, Robert.</p><p>Robert’s honey-blond hair and blue eyes perpetually-offset by the raven-black trenchcoat he would wear year-round. In blazing summer heat and biting Winter blizzards, both he and the thick leather coat were inseparable. In the six or so years I had known him, consistency had always been Robert’s most prevalent trait.</p><p>A sigh was the first thing that poured out of his mouth as he sat down and evaluated the situation. Robert had hundreds of variations of that one sigh, each one carrying with it a world of meaning.</p><p>What then followed was a lengthy sermon on the philosophical and moral implications of civic duty and responsibility. Robert could take even the blandest of topics and, with the wondrous web of masterful oratory, make you want to hang onto every word. It was almost worth the earlier scolding just to hear him speak now.</p><p>It only took Robert ten minutes to grasp that his words weren’t resonating with the intended effect. He sighed again, with deepest melancholy, then chuckled self-consciously. He got up and put one hand on the doorknob. “Can you at least pretend that you’ve learned from this?” He asked. We nodded enthusiastically. “Well then, at least I can go back to Samanda with my head held high,” he stated with new resolve. </p><p>We, of course, learned nothing from this. Except that next time we attempted to steal a heavily-guarded idol, it might be best not to scrawl a giant “X” directly overhead.</p><p>To this day, I sometimes wonder whatever happened to that singular Buddha statue, to where it was spirited away. I’d like to think some other aspiring pair of adventurers might’ve gotten hold of it again. Or perhaps it’s been tucked away again in that singular unremarkable oak cabinet, accruing new layers of dust, patiently waiting to become the object of spontaneous attention once more.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[In Line]]></title><description><![CDATA[My father enters aisle nine for the two-hundred and twentieth time. The familiar rows of soybeans, peanuts, and assorted seaweed flank him like a warm hospital blanket. He kneels at the seaweed: my favorite. He recalls the purple packaging of my favorite brand and piles them into his shopping cart. At the soybeans, he squeezes. If a soybean is weak, he puts it back, and picks up another bag. He repeats until he finds soybeans suitable for my mom’s morning soymilk.
This market is full for early ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/in-line/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232cf</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Madison Hu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:59:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620912294702-8c91a94c9a89?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxzZWF3ZWVkfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDE5NTIwNnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620912294702-8c91a94c9a89?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxzZWF3ZWVkfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDE5NTIwNnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="In Line"/><p>My father enters aisle nine for the two-hundred and twentieth time. The familiar rows of soybeans, peanuts, and assorted seaweed flank him like a warm hospital blanket. He kneels at the seaweed: my favorite. He recalls the purple packaging of my favorite brand and piles them into his shopping cart. At the soybeans, he squeezes. If a soybean is weak, he puts it back, and picks up another bag. He repeats until he finds soybeans suitable for my mom’s morning soymilk.<br><br>This market is full for early morning, its wanderers just as meticulous as my father. I think I see an old friend at the seafood section, but I can’t be sure. I am close enough to the front that I can feel the wind of the market blowing through the occasionally opening automatic doors, and I can smell good meat. The air is warm, despite the frozen aisle at the front. It’s the perfect supermarket, and I don’t care if I can’t go in, not yet.<br><br>The line is long. My father went a few decades ago, and it thrills me to see he still remembers us, that he is still stocking up on me and my mother’s favorite foods; it sutures the hole I’ve had in my chest since he went. But, I remind myself, upon feeling the stitches loosen, that’s all just a story I’m putting onto it, and that he could have changed in the past few years. He could be buying them for himself.<br><br>In front of me is an elderly couple, ones I am surprised are in line this far back. They hold hands and stand silently and from this angle I can’t tell anything about their lives, or if they love each other. <br><br>My mother, surprisingly, is not in line. I hear her from the parking lot anyway.<br><br>“Do you see your father?”<br><br>“I do.”<br><br>“How is he?”<br><br>“Getting soybeans.”<br><br>She smiles, the same thought probably keeping her chest-hole tightly closed.<br><br>The boy behind me taps on my shoulders.<br><br>“Do you mind if I go ahead of you?”<br><br>He couldn’t be over six, I know it. He’s young, too young to be right behind me, too young to even be in this line.<br><br>“I don’t feel too good and need to go in. Can I go ahead of you?”<br><br>I feel that familiar hole open in my chest. I stop myself from tearing open by scrunching my nose.<br><br>“I don’t feel good either, honey, I’m sorry. That’s why we are here.”<br><br>He looks at me, all fifty years of me, hair healthy and face plump.<br><br>“You’re sick?”<br><br>“I am.”<br><br>“With what?”<br><br>“Do you see that man in there?” I point to my father’s bald head, his signature cable-knit sweater in eternal slight disrepair.<br><br>The boy nods.<br><br>“Well, I really miss him. Do you know what that’s like? To really miss someone?”<br><br>He nods again.<br><br>“Are they in there, too?” I ask.<br><br>“No. They’re not even in line yet.”<br><br>“Where are they?”<br><br>“Back home. They aren’t sick. But I will miss them, when I go.”<br><br>“Oh.”<br><br>“Do you know what that’s like? To miss someone like that?”<br><br>I think about it. Will I miss my mother? Surely. My friends? They won’t be in line for a few more decades, if they are lucky.<br><br>“I do.”<br><br>The boy starts to cry.<br><br>“Please let me go ahead. I really need to go.”<br><br>I look at my father, entering aisle nine for the two-hundred and twenty-first time. I see him palming through the seaweed, getting the purple-packaged ones, popping soybeans until red circles are burnt into the soft part of his fingers. I see him remember us. I see his body, his real body, standing and breathing.<br><br>There aren’t many people in front of me now, the elderly couple hugging now, saying go ahead of me, I’ll see you in a second and I know now that they love each other. The boy is inconsolable. My mother is still in the parking lot. I don’t know how long it will take for her to get in line. I think about how I will miss her. How she will have to imagine my father picking up soybeans for the foreseeable future.<br><br>The hole rips open in my chest and there’s no more chance of repair.<br><br>“Go ahead.” I tell him.<br><br>As he passes, I fall out of line. Not by will, but almost by force.<br><br>I stumble into the parking lot, SUVS and carts whizzing by me. I can’t catch my balance, and I fall on to the concrete. It feels like a soft bed.<br><br>I lay and stay there and open my eyes and the sky is bright blue but I keep looking and it doesn’t hurt, because if the sun can’t fill that hole that’s burst open in my chest, it can’t burn my eyes.<br/></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Put Your Own House in Order]]></title><description><![CDATA[Not because you’re going to die tomorrow
(although who knows) or because the downing
Osage orange leaf is throwing hedge balls
at your windshield in the bolt of a breeze.
Certainly not because God is coming,
and boy, is she pissed, exhausted, distraught.
No, God is already here, along with the packrats
making a living room in your unused kayak
because you’ve been too busy to float, row, and haul.
Also here: black-capped chickadees duking it out
somewhere over the rainbow, roof and roots.
Get i]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/put-your-own-house-in-order/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232d0</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:59:10 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1559369657-236d20df1fa1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGJyb2tlbiUyMGNoYWlyfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDEwODUzMnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1559369657-236d20df1fa1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGJyb2tlbiUyMGNoYWlyfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDEwODUzMnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Put Your Own House in Order"/><p>Not because you’re going to die tomorrow<br>(although who knows) or because the downing<br>Osage orange leaf is throwing hedge balls<br>at your windshield in the bolt of a breeze.<br>Certainly not because God is coming,<br>and boy, is she pissed, exhausted, distraught.<br><br>No, God is already here, along with the packrats<br>making a living room in your unused kayak<br>because you’ve been too busy to float, row, and haul.<br>Also here: black-capped chickadees duking it out<br>somewhere over the rainbow, roof and roots.<br><br>Get it in order because it’s a flambouyant mess<br>of broken chairs and radios (remember those?)<br>you never fixed despite earnest intentions.<br>Because ruminating on little lines someone said<br>or erased in brisk conversation doesn’t mean shit<br>and needs to go out with the recyclables,<br>silk shirt you never liked, and swept-up dog hair.<br><br>Look, I’ll say it this way: while everything is<br>a recyclable, there is no house and never was,<br>but for the sake of being human you need to clear<br>the high shelves above the sink, the bottom corner<br>of the closet where clothes that never loved you<br>dream of escape, even the lost pens in the couch.<br><br>You need to walk out to the backyard unfettered<br>where the husks of milkweed are releasing<br>—right now—cottony seed too light to fly<br>that flies anyway.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Albatross]]></title><description><![CDATA[Night it is once more. This time the moon
lifts its hangnail profile over the house.
The sky is filled with collapse. Each fright supposes
illumination of a shadow play
moving under the experience of story,
linked to a cloudy waste of enterprise.
The eyes find broken McCluresque pantomimes
of meaning staked onto a plan that tells you
about whatever atmosphere it wants.
Lean forward to the void and breathe the turning
emptiness of life. This too will escape you.
Before the bluish b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-albatross/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232d1</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[A. Johnston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:58:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1609747304017-bd8b412385fd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxhbGJhdHJvc3N8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMzU1Njg0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1609747304017-bd8b412385fd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxhbGJhdHJvc3N8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMzU1Njg0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Albatross"/><p>Night it is once more. This time the moon</p><p>lifts its hangnail profile over the house.</p><p>The sky is filled with collapse. Each fright supposes</p><p>illumination of a shadow play</p><p>moving under the experience of story,</p><p>linked to a cloudy waste of enterprise.</p><p>The eyes find broken McCluresque pantomimes</p><p>of meaning staked onto a plan that tells you</p><p>about whatever atmosphere it wants. </p><p>Lean forward to the void and breathe the turning</p><p>emptiness of life. This too will escape you.</p><p>Before the bluish blur of dawn descends</p><p>into the heat of day, the albatross</p><p>will cross the ship, its looping at a loss.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[An Angel with a Broken Wing]]></title><description><![CDATA[I didn't know she'd leave so soon
I didn't see the waning moon
Our time was such a fragile thing
An angel with a broken wing
Too soon to hear the choir sing
Too soon to hear its mournful tune
Too soon]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/an-angel-with-a-broken-wing/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232d2</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lea Ann Crisp]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:57:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1510241052836-d460363879fc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxhbmdlbCUyMHdpdGglMjBhJTIwYnJva2VuJTIwd2luZ3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTA0NTYxNTl8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1510241052836-d460363879fc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxhbmdlbCUyMHdpdGglMjBhJTIwYnJva2VuJTIwd2luZ3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTA0NTYxNTl8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="An Angel with a Broken Wing"/><p>I didn't know she'd leave so soon<br>I didn't see the waning moon<br>Our time was such a fragile thing<br>An angel with a broken wing<br>Too soon to hear the choir sing<br>Too soon to hear its mournful tune<br>Too soon</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Peach Crisp]]></title><description><![CDATA[Streusel Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
2/3 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 cup rolled oats
Peach Filling Ingredients:
2 lbs peaches, peeled and sliced
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions:
1. Preheat to 325°F. Butter a 9” or 2-quart baking dish; set aside.
2. For streusel: In a large bowl combine flour, brown sugar,]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/peach-crisp/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232d3</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:49:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517355352485-3c18847c2f7d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxwZWFjaCUyMGNyaXNwfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NjUxN3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517355352485-3c18847c2f7d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxwZWFjaCUyMGNyaXNwfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NjUxN3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Peach Crisp"/><p><strong>Streusel Ingredients:</strong></p><p>1 cup all-purpose flour<br>2 cups light brown sugar<br>1 teaspoon ground cinnamon<br>½ teaspoon salt<br>2/3 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes<br>1 cup rolled oats</br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>Peach Filling Ingredients:</strong><br>2 lbs peaches, peeled and sliced<br>1 cup granulated sugar<br>1 teaspoon ground cinnamon<br>2 tablespoons flour<br>½ teaspoon salt<br>1 teaspoon vanilla extract</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>Instructions:</strong></p><ol><li>Preheat to 325°F. Butter a 9” or 2-quart baking dish; set aside.</li><li>For streusel: In a large bowl combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Cut butter into flour mixture until crumbles form. Fold in oats; set aside.</li><li>In a large bowl toss peaches, sugar, cinnamon, flour, salt, and vanilla extract together.</li><li>Spread fruit mixture into a prepared baking dish, and evenly top with streusel mixture.</li><li>Place dish on aluminum foil-lined baking sheet to avoid any mess from bubbling over in your oven. Bake, rotating after 25 minutes, and bake an additional 20 – 25 minutes or until crisp is golden brown and bubbly.</li></ol><p><strong>Makes 8 servings.</strong></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Undone]]></title><description><![CDATA[Tooth of the canine
Torn flesh
Tippy tin bucket
Plunk goes the rock
Arms outstretched
Stomach a cored apple
My own bloodless touch
And the earth quakes underfoot
This city hurts
I cannot return to the cave
You know the one
The one with the comforting shadows
The mime’s cage is locked
And he lets out a silent scream
Pinto beans and sausage
At Pollman’s Bake Shop
The river bench calls
There is no real return
There is no undoing
I am undone.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/undone/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232d4</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Cloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:48:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1614367928405-4e4d086e5d75?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxjb3JlZCUyMGFwcGxlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NzA3NHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1614367928405-4e4d086e5d75?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxjb3JlZCUyMGFwcGxlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NzA3NHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Undone"/><p>Tooth of the canine<br>Torn flesh<br>Tippy tin bucket<br>Plunk goes the rock</br></br></br></p><p>Arms outstretched <br>Stomach a cored apple<br>My own bloodless touch<br>And the earth quakes underfoot</br></br></br></p><p>This city hurts<br>I cannot return to the cave<br>You know the one<br>The one with the comforting shadows</br></br></br></p><p>The mime’s cage is locked<br>And he lets out a silent scream<br>Pinto beans and sausage<br>At Pollman’s Bake Shop</br></br></br></p><p>The river bench calls<br>There is no real return<br>There is no undoing<br>I am undone.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Children of the Trees]]></title><description><![CDATA[Open the door step outside, and feel the brisk
morning breeze strike your skin. A chill grabs
hold of your fingers and within seconds it has
traveled through your entire being. Take a deep
breath and the scents of autumn wrap and
embrace you. With eyes still closed you see
the children of the trees lying on the cold damp
ground. Some will soon travel away at the hands
of the northern wind while others will wait to be covered
by a blanket of snow. Trees stand naked bearing their
knots an]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/children-of-the-trees/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232d5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Ganshaw]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:48:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523712999610-f77fbcfc3843?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGZhbGwlMjB0cmVlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNTg5MDR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523712999610-f77fbcfc3843?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGZhbGwlMjB0cmVlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNTg5MDR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Children of the Trees"/><p>Open the door step outside, and feel the brisk<br>morning breeze strike your skin. A chill grabs<br>hold of your fingers and within seconds it has <br>traveled through your entire being. Take a deep <br>breath and the scents of autumn wrap and <br>embrace you. With eyes still closed you see <br>the children of the trees lying on the cold damp <br>ground. Some will soon travel away at the hands<br>of the northern wind while others will wait to be covered<br>by a blanket of snow. Trees stand naked bearing their<br>knots and scars for the world to see as they prepare for<br>a month's long sleep. The darkness of winter will depart<br>with the brightness of Spring. Cradles of seeds and blossoms<br>will sprout upon the once-bare branches of yesterday.<br>newborn children will grow and the adolescence of bright<br>green abound throughout the land. Heavens tears will <br>nurture their growth, and streams of crystal-clear water will <br>also flow. The reflections of the cycle of life come to <br>be seen. The world moves so fast and all that breathes <br>will grow and soon the children of the trees will lay<br>on the ground in wait for what will come to be. </br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Feedsack Girl on Swing]]></title><description><![CDATA[The long hours and tedious needlework Grandmother invested in sewing a special quilt for her four-year-old granddaughter are unbelievable. Today, seventy-some years later, I unfolded it carefully and, with a tenuous finger, gently outlined a sunbonneted girl swinging on an embroidered rope, her feet trust gleefully in the air.
The worn quilt boasts multiple girls sewn onto quilt squares, their dresses splashes of varying colors and designs, but all sporting a cheerful bonnet shielding her face]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/feedsack-girl-on-swing/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232d6</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jeanean Doherty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:47:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457414104202-9d4b4908f285?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGZlZWQlMjBzYWNrfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NzIwMnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457414104202-9d4b4908f285?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGZlZWQlMjBzYWNrfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NzIwMnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Feedsack Girl on Swing"/><p>The long hours and tedious needlework Grandmother invested in sewing a special quilt for her four-year-old granddaughter are unbelievable. Today, seventy-some years later, I unfolded it carefully and, with a tenuous finger, gently outlined a sunbonneted girl swinging on an embroidered rope, her feet trust gleefully in the air. </p><p>The worn quilt boasts multiple girls sewn onto quilt squares, their dresses splashes of varying colors and designs, but all sporting a cheerful bonnet shielding her face from an imagined summer sun. My Grandmother sewed the seams on her trusty Singer sewing machine, but the girls on the quilt squares were hand appliquéd.</p><p>I imagine her concentrating on her sewing project in the thin sunlight of a winter afternoon. After washing the supper dishes and returning them to the cupboard, she would don her thimble, pick up needle and thread, and sew with the light of a kerosene lantern. I envision her smiling, rocking in her chair, thinking of how a beloved granddaughter will delight in the imaginary playmates that will soon cover her bed—a warm comfort at bedtime and a cheerful greeting each morning. </p><p>Granddad also had a role in the design and creation of the quilt, for the fabric had an earlier use in commerce. After the Civil War, tightly woven cotton sacks replaced tin containers, wooden barrels, and boxes for transporting bulk commodities. During the Great Depression, 1929-1939, when <em>"waste not, want not" </em>was the norm, patterned cotton bags marketed to women became enormously popular. Industrious women like Grandmother repurposed those bags, i.e., feedsacks, into dresses, children's clothing, aprons, quilts, or anything that would take a needle and thread. Thrifty women wasted no scrap of precious fabric. They swapped patterns sketched on pieces of paper, shared desired fabrics, and engaged in friendly rivalry.</p><p>By all accounts, Grandmother was a force to be reckoned with. She would accompany Granddad to town in their Ford pickup, transporting whatever chickens or cows were to be sold at the livestock market. Eggs gathered the previous week were carefully nestled in boxes lined with straw, ready to barter for coffee or sugar at the General Store.</p><p>But when Granddad went to the Feed and Seed Store, she was undoubtedly at his elbow, pointing to the exact bag of livestock feed she wanted. No matter if it was the one on the bottom of a six-foot stack. <em>That is the one I want! </em>Grandmother was meticulous in her designs and creativity, and if she needed a particular fabric pattern to complete her sewing project—well, nothing else would do. </p><p>Granddad may have grunted his displeasure, but he and the store's workers would move the heavy bags of feed, for they were accustomed to the vagaries of hard-headed farm women and knew better than to protest.</p><p>And I sense that Grandmother, pleased, would have traced the outline of a sunbonneted girl on a swing with a work-worn finger and smiled with satisfaction.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Procreation]]></title><description><![CDATA[A membrane parts,
widens to receive
air, light, nourishment, touch
Life finding expression
as leaf, bug, bird, girl
What is it to open so wide
The imperative to reach
and welcome
More than desire,
the divine yes]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/procreation/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232d7</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Lorenzen]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:42:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505816014357-96b5ff457e9a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGxpZmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMzU3MzUwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505816014357-96b5ff457e9a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGxpZmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwMzU3MzUwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Procreation"/><p>A membrane parts,<br>widens to receive<br>air, light, nourishment, touch<br>Life finding expression<br>as leaf, bug, bird, girl<br>What is it to open so wide<br>The imperative to reach<br>and welcome<br>More than desire,<br>the divine yes</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dying to Know Who Will Show]]></title><description><![CDATA[Death rituals and customs in the Arkansas Delta are set in stone. When I was a child, I attended an occasional funeral, and I often accompanied my parents when they went to visitations. The visitations took place the evening before a funeral when people gathered to pay their respects and to view the body of the deceased. The event was usually held in a funeral home, but at times it took place in a private home.
When I did attend a visitation, I was amazed at the floral displays. Large metal scr]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dying-to-know-who-will-show/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232d8</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:40:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590101490234-780fb118bd84?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxmdW5lcmFsJTIwfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NzYzMXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590101490234-780fb118bd84?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxmdW5lcmFsJTIwfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMDM1NzYzMXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dying to Know Who Will Show"/><p>Death rituals and customs in the Arkansas Delta are set in stone. When I was a child, I attended an occasional funeral, and I often accompanied my parents when they went to visitations. The visitations took place the evening before a funeral when people gathered to pay their respects and to view the body of the deceased. The event was usually held in a funeral home, but at times it took place in a private home.</p><p>When I did attend a visitation, I was amazed at the floral displays. Large metal screens and wire stands were filled with wreaths of colorful, fragrant flowers. The sticky-sweet smell was overwhelming. I would marvel at the broad satin ribbons, and I wondered how the florist had written in glitter on the ribbons. On the day following a visitation, I often overheard women talking in my mother’s beauty shop about the number of flowers that were at the deceased person’s visitation. They thought that the more flowers that surrounded the body, the more popular had been the departed. My mother’s customers would remark, “There were sure a lot of flowers there. She sure was loved.”</p><p>I had a morbid curiosity about the body laid out in the casket. Were they stiff? Although I would sometimes see a bereaved person kiss a corpse or touch the hands of the deceased, I didn’t dare touch a body to find out. Did the dead person have on socks and shoes? I thought it odd when folks would look at a dead body and say, “Don’t they look natural?” I never thought they did. They looked dead.</p><p>At the age of eleven, I developed a lump under my arm. I was certain it was a cancerous tumor. I didn’t tell anyone I was dying. I didn’t want to upset my parents. I checked the lump several times a day to see if it was getting larger. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I figured cancer had already spread and it was too late to do anything about it.</p><p>I envisioned my funeral and visitation. I mentally planned the event by taking ideas from the funerals and visitations that I had attended. I created fantasy scenes borrowed from romanticized tragic movies when the bereaved would either faint or throw themselves onto the casket of their beloved. Would anyone faint at my funeral or plop atop my coffin? Would there be wailing?</p><p>At night before falling asleep, I would create a list of folks that might attend my visitation. Would Tommy be there? Would he cry? I knew that if I did die there would be some people who felt guilty about my passing and say, “I’m sorry that I wasn’t better to Zeek.” Then I would think, <em>It’s too late you mean ol’ idiot.</em></p><p>I imagined having more flowers at my funeral than would fit inside the Methodist church sanctuary where my service would be held. I spent time thinking about what I should wear while lying in the casket. I wondered whether I should pick something out or leave that decision to my mother.</p><p>The lump went away. I suspect that it was nothing more than a swollen lymph gland. Even though I had spent many hours planning my funeral and visitation, I didn’t die. While I was happy to be alive, I did think, <em>The town sure missed a good funeral.</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[10 Seconds, Tears, & Moving Forward]]></title><description><![CDATA[10 seconds. That’s how long it takes me to get teary-eyed about HOME or change or seasons of life. I love new things. I love mixing new traditions with old ones. I just seem to get a little sentimental in the process.
I’d like to blame it on age, men, students, hormones or life experiences. But the truth of the matter is–I have always been this way. Questions, tears, long walks, mud puddles…those things help me process thoughts, plans and actions.
I had car trouble one day and had to walk home]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/10-seconds-tears-moving-forward/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232d9</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kim McCully-Mobley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:39:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508962914676-134849a727f0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fDEwJTIwc2Vjb25kc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNTgyNDF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508962914676-134849a727f0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fDEwJTIwc2Vjb25kc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTAzNTgyNDF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="10 Seconds, Tears, & Moving Forward"/><p>10 seconds. That’s how long it takes me to get teary-eyed about HOME or change or seasons of life. I love new things. I love mixing new traditions with old ones. I just seem to get a little sentimental in the process.</p><p>I’d like to blame it on age, men, students, hormones or life experiences. But the truth of the matter is–I have always been this way. Questions, tears, long walks, mud puddles…those things help me process thoughts, plans and actions.</p><p>I had car trouble one day and had to walk home to get assistance in my nightgown. (I know. That’s another story.) I was crying as I traipsed up the walk to the porch–where my dad stood–waiting on me. As he watched me cry, he shook his head, indicating he hoped he lived long enough to see something happen and me not shed a tear over it.</p><p>Needless to say, he didn’t. Bless his heart.</p><p>But if he were still here, I would tell him that tears are healthy. Scientifically, they help us release stress, cope and take in bigger breaths of air–which results in a healthier brain. Blubbering, though, is not becoming at all. And, God knows, I have blubbered my way through life at times.</p><p>My tears are sporadic. It can happen when Ernest T. Bass is throwing rocks on Andy Griffith or when a friend moves away. It can happen when my husband brings me my daily coffee or when I recall a favorite dance move from my disco days and almost throw out a hip. It can happen when I drink a strong cup of coffee or see a small puppy with big eyes on Facebook.</p><p>It can happen when I smell Old Spice and think of my Grandpa Herman or see an old flannel shirt and think of my Grandpa Frank. Good men with good habits and tons of love for their grandchildren.</p><p>When did this crying jag start–you ask? Well, let’s see. How far back can I go?</p><p>Every summer when school ended in the 1960s and 1970s, I would make plans to head to Arkansas from my home in southwest Missouri to spend some time with my grandparents. I loved everything about it…the land, the horses, the stories, the food, the routines of daily chores and running barefoot in that rich Arkansas dirt. I even loved my job of picking up rocks for short periods of time. I loved hanging out at Jim’s Drive-In in Green Forest for a good burger or heading downtown in the truck to get a Coke from the fountain at the drugstore on the square.</p><p>But the truth is, I would cry as my grandparents backed out of the driveway with me perched in the middle. We’d put my suitcase in the bed of the truck. I waved goodbye to my mom, dad and brother. They would stand by the back step–grinning at me like the Beverly Hillbillies. I loved my home and I was scared to death I was going to miss something important while I was gone. I loved to travel–always. But I was equally pleased to get back home.</p><p>Little did I know until much later when my brother told me, my family would take bets as to how long it would take that first tear to fall. Usually, it was less than 10 seconds. I would cry sporadically the 70 miles there, sniffling and sobbing and wailing. Once we arrived and I unpacked my things, my grandma would get a little tired of my nonsense and tell me to stop it because “you are scaring the chickens.” She would start counting–expecting me to dry it up by the time she got to 10. I usually did.</p><p>Fast forward to May of 2023, I am sitting at graduation in the Aurora High School gymnasium last week watching kids walk across the stage to get their diplomas. About 10 seconds in, I feel the first tear. I pass it off to my seatmates as allergies. I sniffle and clear my throat. (This must stop.)</p><p/><p><em>I took my love, I took it down<br>I climbed a mountain and I turned around<br>And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills<br>'Til the landslide brought me down<br>Oh, mirror in the sky<br>What is love?</br></br></br></br></br></em></p><p><em>Can the child within my heart rise above?<br>Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?<br>Can I handle the seasons of my life?<br>Well, I've been afraid of changin'<br>'Cause I've built my life around you<br>But time makes you bolder<br>Even children get older<br>And I'm getting older too </br></br></br></br></br></br></br></em></p><p><em>Well, I've been afraid of changin'<br>'Cause I've built my life around you<br>But time makes you bolder<br>Even children get older<br>And I'm getting older too</br></br></br></br></em> </p><p><em>Oh! I'm getting older too<br>Oh-oh, take my love, take it down<br>Oh-oh, climb a mountain and you turn around</br></br></em></p><p><em>And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills<br>Well, the landslide bring it down<br>And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills<br>Well, the landslide bring it down<br>Oh-ohh, the landslide bring it down</br></br></br></br></em></p><p><em>(Lyrics to Landslide by Stevie Nicks. Performed by Fleetwood Mac. 1975)</em></p><p>The words were sung Friday night at graduation by the Aurora High School choir. “Landslide” was the song choice for the official senior song. The lyrics and slow, up-tempo melody took me back to the 1970s…when Stevie Nicks was topping the charts with Fleetwood Mac. I loved the Bohemian way she dressed and sounded when I was in junior high. I started dressing a little bit like that, crooning at the top of my lungs and reflecting. I haven’t looked back since.</p><p>I think about that “child within my heart.” Can she really rise above? Sometimes she can–if you give her at least 10 seconds.</p><p>Nicks’ 1973 album with a boyfriend had been a bust. She was in Aspen, Colorado, when she wrote the lyrics to “Landslide,”—which would become a signature tune about life’s seasons, changes, reflections and moving on to other things. She was at a low…thinking her love life and career were both in disarray at the ripe old age of 27.</p><p>I always get melancholy at graduation. It is fun to see students transition to that next stage, but yet—adulting is forever. I can’t help but wonder what the future holds for these bright minds.</p><p>In the meantime, I found out about a college classmate’s death this weekend. James Reeves was from Greenfield. I had lost track of him through the years, but continued to meet people who knew him. We always shared stories, laughs and anecdotes about his sense of humor and his football playing abilities.</p><p>He played football for Missouri Southern. That’s where we met. I was a paid tutor for the athletic program. I would often tutor players in a variety of subjects, such as history, English, economics, business or public speaking. (Pretty much anything but math!) James didn’t need a tutor. He was smarter than any 10 of us put together—but he liked the attention, the fellowship and the camaraderie. Sometimes, we would get the giggles—much like that child probably did in the “Landslide” song. I saw him from across a room when our football program was tabbed for Hall of Fame Honors right before the Covid shutdown. Greenfield had received some honors, too.</p><p>Another friend from Republic asked for prayer for a relative on social media over the weekend. This relative once rescued me from a strange situation and made sure I was treated fairly and paid appropriately. I wondered aloud to myself what might be wrong as I sent up a few flares for someone who has always supported me and my family. About 10 seconds into that prayer, a small tear trickled down my cheek.</p><p>I glance through my notes from a visit from a pair of local guest speakers last week. Brad Blankenship, the sexton at Maple Park Cemetery, and Jay Lee, his assistant, visited my afternoon classes last week at Aurora High School.</p><p>We addressed work ethic, manners, educational backgrounds and priorities during the course of the afternoon dialogue. As the rain fell outside, these two Aurorans had students sitting on the edge of their seats.</p><p>Blankenship and Lee both take pride in being Houn’ Dawgs, graduates of Aurora High School and working for the City of Aurora. Both talked about having a servant’s heart, the importance of being honest and how you can never go wrong by choosing to be kind.</p><p>When working at Aurora’s Maple Park Cemetery, both men take pride in taking care of the cemetery, which is about 113 years old. They get the opportunity to see people at their best and worst, but they take pride in caring about their jobs, caring about the roles they play during tough times and caring even more about the people they serve. Ironically, there are 9,800 people buried at Maple Park—which is a couple thousand more than the Aurora population sign boasts on the way in and out of town.</p><p>Blankenship, who has been with the City of Aurora just over seven years, is a 2002 graduate of AHS, while Lee is a 2020 grad. Their families are local and have a legacy of caring about others and working hard at whatever task they are given. Both men agreed that it is important not to “chase the money.” Both agreed it is important to enjoy what you do and the people you work with on a day to day basis.</p><p>Blankenship and Lee both have backgrounds in construction and the lumber business. Lee worked for Singer Construction out of high school and has worked for the city for well over a year.</p><p>When students asked them about the importance of being Houn’ Dawgs and what they liked best about Aurora, both managed to work my adage of “All Roads Lead Home” into their dialogue. Ironically, one of our two graduation speakers worked it into her speech, as well, indicating a “wise teacher once told me” that All Roads Lead Home. Oops, here comes the sniffles—again.</p><p>I pondered their words Sunday, while I wound my way to Hermann, Missouri, for a little Mother’s Day dinner. I veered off the interstate at Cuba and headed up North 19. I was over 150 miles from home, yet the backroads felt so familiar. I have made this trek two or three times in recent years.</p><p>Is home a place or is it the people? Is it a mindset? Or maybe it is a place we romanticize. I had some older folks talk about Heaven as Home. I have always thought Aurora was just Heaven on Earth to me. Then, I think about our hearts. We are so innocent as children. Life, experiences, hurt, shame, blame and heartache sometimes settle in our bones to tame us and season us a little bit. But all it takes is 10 seconds for us to recall a memory or respond to its charm.</p><p>We used to sing an old gospel song called “This World Is Not My Home.” The lyrics include a line in the chorus that “We’re just a passin’ through.” I am thinking of those lines today as I ponder the loss of that old friend James. I was so homesick those first few months of college back in 1979. Just like those days from childhood, I would cry leaving the driveway and heading west to my room in Webster Hall. We’d go on walks before and after our tutoring sessions. About 10 seconds into the walk, I would shed my first tear. He always made me laugh because he thought I was “way too serious” for a Houn’ Dawg. “Dry those tears,” he’d say, adding—”You are supposed to be tough.”</p><p>Then, this past weekend, I found out about the loss of a friend’s mom from northwest Arkansas. Gladys Dickens Widner was a rural farmer’s wife who raised five kids on the banks of Lick Branch—near Alpena, Arkansas. Gladys made a home for her family and friends–no matter where she was. She could cook, clean and sew like nobody’s business. I made the trek to her farm while working on a project a few years back. She fed me supper and took me outside to look at a big tree. She spoke fondly of her home and even more fondly of Heaven–her ultimate HOME. As I backed out of her driveway–I waved that day and took a breath–counting to 10 before the first tear fell.</p><p>So, school is winding to a close. I have a big to-do list for the summer. It will include a few trips away from home, some plans, some actions and some decisions.</p><p>But, that’s okay, it’s nothing that 10 seconds, me and Stevie Nicks can’t handle.</p><p>Wait a minute. I think there’s something in my eye. It must be allergies, again.</p><p>Change.<br>Seasons.<br>Tradition.</br></br></p><p>I am still loving the journey as All Roads Lead Home.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Indigo Skies]]></title><description><![CDATA[on a clear starry night
indigo skies
give way to
a gentle dawn
held in a whisper blue
I sit with a silken sunrise
trying out my new solstice dawn
light embers
spread overhead
creating our lake's sky dome
ever changing
cerulean blue
and raspberry plum
a true mixed palate
flowing]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/indigo-skies/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232da</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:38:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1475924156734-496f6cac6ec1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHN1bnJpc2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwNDU1MTc0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1475924156734-496f6cac6ec1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHN1bnJpc2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEwNDU1MTc0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Indigo Skies"/><p>on a clear starry night<br>indigo skies<br>give way to<br>a gentle dawn<br>held in a whisper blue</br></br></br></br></p><p>I sit with a silken sunrise<br>trying out my new solstice dawn<br>light embers <br>spread overhead<br>creating our lake's sky dome </br></br></br></br></p><p>ever changing <br>cerulean blue<br>and raspberry plum<br>a true mixed palate<br>flowing</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 22: Spring 2024]]></title><description><![CDATA[Wowzer! What a time it has been since our Winter 2024 Issue was released! eMerge pulled a rabbit out of the hat with the first-ever Nikki Hanna Literary Challenge. You can read the top five entries by clicking on the contest tab. But as usual, these contests get me to thinking. Seriously, I do actually sit and think from time to time. It’s pretty much a survival tactic at my ancient age to appear intelligent by sitting and keeping my mouth closed. It usually doesn’t last very long, though. The r]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-22-spring-2024/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523301</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:26:56 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1633360821222-7e8df83639fb?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM3fHxsZXR0ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyMzQ4NTI3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1633360821222-7e8df83639fb?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM3fHxsZXR0ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyMzQ4NTI3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Issue 22: Spring 2024"/><p>Wowzer! What a time it has been since our Winter 2024 Issue was released! eMerge pulled a rabbit out of the hat with the first-ever Nikki Hanna Literary Challenge. You can read the top five entries by clicking on the contest tab. But as usual, these contests get me to thinking. Seriously, I do actually sit and think from time to time. It’s pretty much a survival tactic at my ancient age to appear intelligent by sitting and keeping my mouth closed. It usually doesn’t last very long, though. The reason we choose five entrants to be our ‘winners’ is because I have always abhorred literary competitions. Literary contests can be as subjective as a mood ring at a 70’s disco. I mean seriously, have you read some of the books chosen by the Pulitzer Prize committees? Of course, Oprah, Reese, and Jenna have produced a few stink bombs, too. You might even think they are on Penguin Random House’s payroll. Ok, ok, I’ll go sit in the corner and cogitate later. </p><p>Back to ‘winners’ in literary contests. Anyone who sits down and shares a piece of their soul, their very humanity, by putting words into poetry or prose—is a winner. Those who write know this to be true. Writing truly is the loneliest profession. That’s why we offered our writers a critique from the judges and have been sharing some of the comments on our Facebook page. Many of the short story entrants took us up on this. I am thrilled that they did. The fee we charged went to the judges who were responsible for the critiques. The entry fees went to our top five selections. As the contest grows (hint hint) we will split the entry fees among our top entries. I would love to be able to offer five $500 prizes or six or seven. </p><p>Okay, enough chitchat about contests. I want everyone who actually reads these letters from the editor to know that Joy Clark has left us for greener pastures (and no, she’s not becoming a farmer, that is a metaphor for a paying gig). We wish her all the best on her new endeavors and we know that she will be successful at whatever she attempts! We will miss her smile. In the meantime, we have hired a social media coordinator, Chad Gurley. You have been seeing his skills on our Facebook page. We are glad to have Chad on board and his future brainchildren. Cat Templeton continues to be our Web Sorceress and our go-to ‘what-the-heck-does-this-button-do’ oracle. Sandra Templeton, beautiful inside and out, has taken over as art director and provides the beautiful photographs and visuals that’ll make your heart sing, in perfect harmony with the symphony of words y’all create. We are profoundly grateful. You, dear writers, are the pulse of eMerge, a symphony penned with love.</p><p>Until Next Time,</p><p>I Remain,</p><p>Just another Zororastafarian editor searching for the cogitation corner trying not to spill his glass of wine while thinking about winning—no, that’s not it—the election?—Oh heck no…</p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hidden]]></title><description><![CDATA[In our circle of two, we call ourselves Yin and Yang.
Our birthdays—hers a 12 and mine a 21—a shared belief in the spiritual, and our being Northern Babies led an easy work relationship to an easy camaraderie over drinks and long chats over everything and nothing.
Kathryn and her boss, Josh, finished each workday with clementines and conversation. An uptick in leasing and an early project completion allowed me to work with, but not for, him. Later, when Kathryn became slammed in her work, and ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/hidden/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232ed</guid><category><![CDATA[Nikki Hanna Literary Challenge 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Janet Yeager]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 21:46:28 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1651910031603-3b682d085e22?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDYzfHx5aW4lMjBhbmQlMjB5YW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTU3NzkzNnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1651910031603-3b682d085e22?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDYzfHx5aW4lMjBhbmQlMjB5YW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMTU3NzkzNnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Hidden"/><p>In our circle of two, we call ourselves Yin and Yang.</p><p>Our birthdays—hers a 12 and mine a 21—a shared belief in the spiritual, and our being Northern Babies led an easy work relationship to an easy camaraderie over drinks and long chats over everything and nothing.</p><p>Kathryn and her boss, Josh, finished each workday with clementines and conversation. An uptick in leasing and an early project completion allowed me to work with, but not for, him. Later, when Kathryn became slammed in her work, and with her blessing, he asked me to fill in the gaps.</p><p>Josh stood in my doorway. “Would you like to join Kathryn and me at four o’clock? I’ll share my clementine with you,” he teased, flashing a boyish smile.</p><p>Kathryn’s face peeked over Josh’s shoulder. Her ringlets framed a flushed face, her brown eyes boring into mine.</p><p>I shook my head. “Oh, Josh,” I said, hoping to defuse the situation, “that’s Mom and Dad Time. I get you all day, but Kathryn doesn’t see you. I won’t intrude.” Delivered as a joke, the truth was that, like a well-mannered five-year-old, I knew my place in the world and left the grown-ups to discuss things.</p><p>I certainly didn’t see myself as a threat. I filled in, wanting to prove my professional worth.</p><p>The following day, Kathryn appeared in my doorway. “Fancy a drink?”</p><p>I got my coat, and we, Yin and Yang, discussed everything and nothing over a cheeseboard and wine. But not the previous day.</p><hr><p>“Hell of a place to run out of gas.” Josh had turned on his car’s flashers and opened the trunk. “Does Gwendolyn have flashers, or is she too classic for that?”</p><p>The narrow lane beside the golf course, littered with bronzed oak leaves, had one wide point. Gwendolyn coasted while I prayed the whole way. My beloved Jaguar, nicknamed Gwendolyn, hadn’t run out of gas. That was impossible. She had two tanks, and I had flipped the switch to the second tank. Or had I?</p><p>“I’ll open up Gwendolyn’s bonnet, you know, the English way,” I said with a sheepish grin. “I’m glad you stopped.”</p><p>Josh pulled on work gloves and reached inside. “Oh, I see the problem. The battery cable jostled loose. Try it now.”</p><p>I slid in, turning the key. No results. I flipped the gas tank switch and tried again. Gwendolyn rumbled to life, and I gave Josh a thumbs-up. He walked over. “I’ll follow you, but let me know if you need to borrow my car.” He caught a bronzed leaf between his fingers. “Listen, thanks for the work you are doing.” Walking away, he turned back to me. “If only your car and my employee were half as reliable as you.”</p><p>I waved him away but couldn’t wave away the knot in my stomach.</p><hr><p>“Kathryn, I can’t send out the letter you wrote. It’s probably,” said Josh, grasping his scalp as if it were ready to fly off, “no, it is the worst thing you’ve ever written.”</p><p>Her response was inaudible, but the translation wasn’t necessary.</p><p>“What? You sent this, this, piece of kindergarten garbage, to our clients? How am I supposed to dial this back?” I dropped my eyes to the spreadsheet on my computer. Too late. “Next time, if I’m not around, ask her. She, at least, knows what she’s doing.” He turned to me. “You can’t go on vacation with this mess going on.”</p><p>Kathryn rose, closed the door, and pulled the blinds facing out into the office. Seconds passed before the online office gossip kicked in. Ping. <em>“What was that about?”</em> Ping. <em>“Did you hear all the yelling?”</em> Ping. <em>“Josh slammed the door.”</em></p><p>I pretended I was away from my desk. After two minutes in a locked bathroom stall surrounded by silence, I scurried further down the hallway to the elevator. As the doors opened on the main floor, the dappled sunlight beckoned, and I debated inventing an appointment before my vacation so I wouldn’t be back. But I hadn’t left an out-of-office message, hadn’t turned off my computer, hadn’t really departed. I’d only escaped.</p><p>I slid into the buckskin embrace of my beloved Jaguar. In my mind’s eye, I saw Kathryn’s face, her demeanor crumpling under Josh’s wrath. A pang of pride that Josh trusted me was stabbed by decorum. He shouldn’t have involved me, but he was frustrated. Everyone would get over the disagreement, and work would return to normal.</p><p>But I was in escape mode because I witnessed Kathryn’s ego pummeled by the person she trusted the most. I should go back up to my office. And do what? Get in the middle of an office spat?</p><p>A sharp rap on the passenger window pulled me out of the dilemma. Kathryn opened the door and slid in. She stared straight ahead. I reached over to pat her arm, but she pulled away, her shoulder nearly nicking her ear.</p><p>Well, if that’s the case, what am I supposed to do? I turned toward her, but as I did, her hand moved toward the door handle. I shifted back, and she mirrored my movements. I started the engine, slowly exiting the parking lot.</p><p>Opening the sunroof, Kathryn leaned back, tilting her chin. Gwendolyn glided forward toward an unknown point of demarcation – one pointing to a place where my friend would let me in and tell me how I could help. The sunlight highlights her curls, absolving whatever sins might have transpired.</p><p>I drive everywhere and nowhere until the sun is at our backs, and, as if by signal, it disappears behind a lone cloud. Kathryn looked over at me and nodded. There have been no words exchanged.</p><p>Approaching the office building, I positioned Gwendolyn into a cove of privacy. “I can get your things . . .” I said, but Kathryn’s eyes flew open as I uttered this, and a chill passed into my bones. She slowly turned her head toward me as if I spoke gibberish. A preposterous idea crossed my mind. What if I left my car? Would she follow? What would she do next?</p><p>I cut the engine. Hand on the wheel, I turn again toward her. “What do you want to do, Kathryn?” She opened the car door, and I secretly breathed a sigh of relief as she disappeared inside the building.</p><p>A tapestry of clattering keyboards was the only noise in the hallway. I slowed as I approached Josh’s office. It was empty. Mustering every fiber in my body to forge ahead, slip into my office, and pretend that the last hour or more hadn’t occurred, I ignored the half dozen instant messages and, drawing a breath, stole a glance at Kathryn’s closed door.</p><p>The door opened, and Kathryn stood in the doorway and smiled at me. I half rose from my chair, but she shook her head, and I sat back down, returning to work. A minute later, I looked in her direction, but she, like me, had her head toward her monitor, her fingers clattering the keyboard.</p><p>At four o’clock, she rose, withdrew two clementines from her desk drawer, and walked down the hall. Fifteen minutes later, I stepped to the break room to rinse out my coffee cup and cocked my ear toward Josh’s office. From his banter and Kathryn’s light tinkling response, the crisis had been adverted, and peace restored.</p><p>As I climbed into Gwendolyn’s driver’s seat and began the drive home toward a long-awaited vacation, inwardly, I congratulated myself for letting Kathyrn be, glad that I hadn’t intruded or spoken negatively.</p><p>When I returned ten days later, she was gone.</p><p>“She didn’t bother to leave a note,” said Josh, brushing at an imagined stray lock of his crew cut. His blue eyes searched mine. “She would have told you. Why didn’t you tell me?”</p><p>I shook my head. She hadn’t texted, she hadn’t called. I was as much in the dark as Josh.</p><hr><p>In the three years that followed, I heard nothing about her except through social media. I learned that Kathryn had found a wonderful, patient man. Her posts reflected a life filled with painting and gardening. Her soul had found her song in life.</p><p>A finger tapped my shoulder at a ballet intermission. Kathryn was with her lovely man. Her arms outstretched, we embraced as Yin and Yang, assured once again. “Would you like to grab a drink at the Olympia Bar after this? We can celebrate our upcoming move,” she said.</p><p>The Olympia’s band played loudly, so I resorted to visual cues as we settled in with our drinks. She was doing the same. “How are you?” she asked. When I said I was doing fine, she put her face closer. “No, really? How are you doing? At work, I mean. Josh . . .”</p><p>“Kathryn,” said her lovely man, “we said we wouldn’t bring that up.” His eyes met mine as he spoke, “I’m sorry, maybe this was a bad idea.”</p><p>How to tell her Josh has a great assistant and never speaks of her?</p><p>“Josh, well, our paths don’t cross. The office has expanded so much, so many new accounts. It’s not like the old days at all,” I said with a bright smile.</p><p>But like a festering wound, she began to question and pick at the life she had abruptly left. Josh’s name came up, and her lovely better half quietly but directly stated that they should not discuss that.</p><p>Too late.</p><p>Like an overly wound-up toy, her internal spring began to unwind, revealing not a soul finding strength in the love of a wonderful man and a supportive family but something far uglier.</p><p>With the look I had seen over Josh’s shoulder three years before, she leaned forward. “I had to leave. I lived in constant, paralyzing fear that I would harm someone at work, and I couldn’t live with that.”</p><p>With that, her lovely better half yanked her up and, with a curt nod, turned her toward the door, and within seconds, they were gone.</p><p>My eyes flashed as the wretched inner workings of her soul continued to reel and spin. I had no idea that she had such hatred for Josh and that he had betrayed her in such a way.</p><p>Leaving the venue with my wonderful man, I remarked that I was glad she was moving far away to give herself time to heal.</p><hr><p>I thought it was spam, but then I recognized her e-mail address. More than three years had passed since I had seen Kathryn and her lovely man at the Olympia Bar.</p><p>The message was cryptic. <em>“Please forgive me. Blessings, Kathryn.”</em></p><p>Yawning, I figured I would have just enough time to send a reply before going to bed.</p><p><em>Dearest Yin (or is it Yang?),</em></p><p><em>No matter, there is nothing to forgive. I hope this e-mail finds you well and happy.</em></p><p><em>Work proceeds as it always does with projects to dive into. Our family is well, and I hope yours is too.</em></p><p><em>Best,</em></p><p><em>Yang (or is it Yin?)</em></p><p>Reading it over, I decided it was fine. I pressed “Send.”</p><p>The sun rivaled the bright emergency vehicle lights flashing in my rearview mirror. I checked the speedometer. “What the hell? I’m not speeding.” Pulling over, I drove Josh’s car to the curb and reached for my license.</p><p>The police car zoomed past me, joined within seconds by seven more squad cars. Six more crest the hill. As I turned left to go to my doctor’s appointment, a hive of vehicles clustered a mile away.</p><p>After giving my name to the receptionist, I put Josh’s keys in my wallet and recalled our conversation ten minutes before. “Were you serious about letting me borrow your car? I’ll fill it up with gas.” He grabbed his keys and walked with me to where Gwendolyn had refused to budge. “I tried everything, but I will call the tow truck when I return,” I said. Without a word, he had fished me the keys and, with an absent wave, walked back into our office building.</p><p>After making a follow-up appointment, I glanced at the television screen on the wall and stopped in my tracks. “It happened down the street about twenty minutes ago,” called the receptionist.</p><p>I read and re-read the scrolling headline on the TV. “Suspect kills former co-worker then turns gun on self.”</p><p>The news cameras panned the tiny parking lot I knew all too well. In the background was Gwendolyn, my prized Jaguar, whose windows were broken out. A large scratch on the door panel, highlighted by the cameraman, were the words <em>‘DIE BITCH.’</em> I clasped my hand to my mouth and screamed.</p><p>After being hustled into my doctor’s office and offered water, I pulled out my phone, and an e-mail notification popped up. Through sobs, I said, “Why would she do that? Everything was fine. After she sent me a message, I wrote that there was nothing to forgive. Now, there’s an e-mail from her.”</p><p>The doctor’s gentle hand squeezed mine. “You two are or were friends? Have you read it? The message, I mean?” she asked.</p><p>I shook my head to both questions, wiping my tears on my sleeve.</p><p>“Do you want to read it? Do you want me to be with you?” The doctor’s voice was like a hug.</p><p>Wiping tears, I nod, and together we read the message.</p><p><em>Hello –</em></p><p><em>Clearly, you don’t understand or want to understand the pain you have caused me, but you will soon answer for that. You shirked your responsibility in what happened between Josh and me. In fact, you took advantage, like you always do. Moreover, when I needed you, you stood aside and did nothing.</em></p><p><em>I wanted to harm someone in the office six years ago, but I had stopped myself. You need to understand that taking action and not taking action have consequences.</em></p><p><em>Kathyrn.</em></p><p>I sat up straight. There was that phrase<em>—‘I wanted to harm someone in the office’</em>—word for word—again.</p><p>Six years after her departure, I realized who the intended target was.</p><p>Yin and Yang. East and West.</p><p>Troubled and untroubled.</p><p>I know everything and nothing.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p></hr></hr></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Half Cadence]]></title><description><![CDATA[
"The half cadence ends the phrase on a dominant chord, which in tonal music does not sound final; that is, the phrase ends with unresolved harmonic tension."
- Brittanica.com
I am alone in the house, writing the book you always told me I could write--if I just believed in myself—when your mother calls out of the blue to tell me you died. Your name bounces in my head, my mind flipping backward, until my heart conjures a sweet bearded face. I hear only fragments of what your mother says nex]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/half-cadence/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232ee</guid><category><![CDATA[Nikki Hanna Literary Challenge 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Evelyn Krieger]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 21:46:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595967444215-4901e8436909?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGJ1dHRlcmZseXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE1NzgxNTJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[
<!--kg-card-begin: html-->
<div style="text-align: center"><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595967444215-4901e8436909?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGJ1dHRlcmZseXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE1NzgxNTJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Half Cadence"/><p>"The half cadence ends the phrase on a dominant chord, which in tonal music does not sound final; that is, the phrase ends with unresolved harmonic tension."<br/>- Brittanica.com</p></div>
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<p>I am alone in the house, writing the book you always told me I could write--if I just believed in myself—when your mother calls out of the blue to tell me you died. Your name bounces in my head, my mind flipping backward, until my heart conjures a sweet bearded face. I hear only fragments of what your mother says next. New York Presbyterian Hospital… Complications of hemophilia. Memorial service in a few weeks. Lost my boy!</p><p>Words of comfort stick in my throat. I do not tell her I still love you.</p><p>After we hang up, I call the hospital and ask for your room. The patient has expired the receptionist reports. I want to reach through the phone and strangle that voice. It was you, wasn’t it, making those silent phone calls to me weeks before? How had I not a sliver of female intuition or psychic dream, foretelling me your days were folding?</p><p>Why did I not even say your name?</p><p>A river of tears flows but does not wash away the fact that I let so much time pass, that I stopped writing, stopped calling.</p><p>Thousands of sunsets have passed since you first showed me the ocean on a Cape Cod beach beneath a full moon, as if you had placed it there. The rhythmic dark waves lulled. I remember the cool sand beneath my nimble feet. <em>I feel like doing a cartwheel!</em> I said. You cheered, <em>Go for it!</em> Your mantra. You, who walked with a limp, who had dodged death more than once. <em>Go for it! </em>And I did.</p><p>I told you I felt old at twenty and didn’t want to celebrate my next birthday. Days later, you surprised me with a copy of the front page of the New York Times from the day of my birth, rolled up with a pink bow. <em>I’m so glad you were born. Always remember this: the one with the most birthdays lives the longest.</em></p><p>How foolish I’d been back then, when I was beautiful, to fear another birthday. Your tally: thirty-five.</p><p>I won.</p><p>What to do now with the cards, letters, and photographs growing old in the heat of the attic? I hold your favorite picture--me in a red and black swimsuit, zipper up the front, posing on Nauset Beach. I don’t recognize that slender girl with the delicate wrists—the girl you rescued from the dark wave. My eyes cloud seeing the photo of our fresh faces smiling from atop the Twin Towers, the city unfolding behind us under a sky as brilliantly blue as that future September 11th day neither of us could imagine. <em>Who knew?</em> This is what we utter after earning the gift of perspective that comes from accumulating birthdays. Who knew then that our love would crumble under its own weight, that we would not reminisce in middle age?</p><p>Remorse and Regret pierce my heart. Sister emotions, like a musical chord, their individual timbres hard to distinguish. What were our odds of happily-ever-after, anyway? Our youthful rhapsody hit so many wrong notes. Yet we played it over and over, like a favorite scratched record album. For too long now, I’ve lived in the shadow, singing my own refrain. <em>If only…what could have been? </em>A lyric from a thousand sad songs.</p><p>Now, after all these years, I feel your sudden presence like a butterfly brushing my arm. I breathe in your whispered words and form a new melody.</p><p><em>Go for it. ~</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Our Turn]]></title><description><![CDATA[Twenty-eight glorious inches of snow have accumulated in my neighborhood in the past three days. The trees create enameled ivory frames around the evening’s January Christmas lights. The air is crisp as newly washed sheets and the golden moon takes in all that is good on Earth.
Except for the crunch crunch crunch of my snow boots, it’s a silent night. Why is it that I want to skip and sing “On the Good Ship Lollipop” at the top of my lungs for all the neighbors to hear? Why do my two adored res]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/our-turn/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232f0</guid><category><![CDATA[Nikki Hanna Literary Challenge 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Peterson Freeman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 21:46:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457269449834-928af64c684d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNub3dmbGFrZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE1Nzg3NjZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457269449834-928af64c684d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNub3dmbGFrZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTE1Nzg3NjZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Our Turn"/><p>Twenty-eight glorious inches of snow have accumulated in my neighborhood in the past three days. The trees create enameled ivory frames around the evening’s January Christmas lights. The air is crisp as newly washed sheets and the golden moon takes in all that is good on Earth.</p><p>Except for the crunch crunch crunch of my snow boots, it’s a silent night. Why is it that I want to skip and sing “On the Good Ship Lollipop” at the top of my lungs for all the neighbors to hear? Why do my two adored rescue dogs avoid the shoveled sidewalks to instead jump with wild abandon into the mounds of flaky snow? I lay down my cane, drop to my back on a stranger’s pristine crystal covered yard, and make a perfect snow angel. My dogs tear around me like they’ve just discovered an enormous Paleozoic bone. I’m blissful; for tonight, I’m frolicking in my childhood’s snowy white playground.</p><p>Is this feeling something that comes from growing up in a place where it snows abundantly every winter? A place where snow becomes just a part of people’s lives and an absolute necessity at Christmas? Heck, I’d rather shovel the sidewalk than be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen by a long shot. I feel mighty and self-reliant when I confidently maneuver my station wagon on snow covered roads to arrive at my desired destination. When doing substitute work in Portland, the school secretaries marveled, “I can’t believe you made it here!” There were two inches of snow on the road. For gawd’s sake!</p><p>Yet nothing comes close to the power we kids felt when we hauled our sleds and cardboard boxes to the woods to brave the treacherous sliding hills or accomplished a backward aerial jump skating at the neighborhood ice rink. Injuries were given a dose of mercurochrome and slapped with a Band-aid; then we were good to go. Add the helmetless boys from my elementary school clacking pucks into the goal as they played hockey in sub zero weather and I defy anyone, even Superman, to match that kind of single-minded courage.</p><p>How many people get to experience the childhoods my pals and I did? It wasn’t without its challenges and believe me, I know from first hand experience. (My dad was an MP in WWII and my mother loved to push his mean button.) But we were not addicted to burying our faces into mobile phones to the point of running into a tree while walking to school. The only burying we did was when we slipped on an icy sidewalk and did a face plant into a snowbank.</p><p>When my British friend came to visit, she determined that we grew up in a “bloody pahk.” And it’s true, our feet skipped and cycled over every inch of our nature-filled park of lakes and hills, towering oaks and Ojibwe paths along the mighty Mississipp.</p><p>Lately I’ve been forced to endure the painful loss of some of my dearest friends. I’m not good at it. It’s wounding. I scream and cry and shout “Why him? Why her?” It is unfathomable to me as I knew them when we were young - vital and agile and so alive. Now, after experiencing another loss along with the knowledge that another friend is very sick, I’m beginning to accept that this is how it goes - the freaking circle of life.</p><p>In a message to me, a friend wrote, “You know, I remember when our parents began talking about their friends beginning to die. Now here we are - but it came so fast and it’s so sad - so shocking - but now it’s our turn.</p><p><em>Cue: The fierce stomp of one snow-covered boot.</em></p><p>Until it’s my turn, I intend to continue making a fool of myself on the dance floor at the “Gravel Bar'' where we have a place in the Ozark Mountains. Yes, phony metal knees and chubby derriere be damned, I’m getting down when those aging rockers get out their instruments and impress the hell out of this music old teacher. I will always search the skies on Christmas Eve. No, I will “not go gentle into that good night”. I will dress up in an outrageous costume, blast ghoulish dance music, and make my yard a Halloween wonderland for the one hundred local children who ring my doorbell every year. (Last year, one very scary three-year-old witch refused to leave my house along with her parents. She was dancing with euphoric abandon to “Burn, baby burn, Disco Inferno” in my driveway.) I live for this stuff.</p><hr><p>Then one night, after the friends I grew up with and I are all dead and gone, a child will take her dog for a winter’s walk. The trees will create enameled ivory frames around the night’s January Christmas lights while the rapturous golden moon croons of tender bygone innocence. The child will stop suddenly and in wonderment turn toward the delightful sounds of mid century children sliding down a snow packed hill and smile.</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Grief Explored]]></title><description><![CDATA[Grief is a sneaky bitch.
You can be walking along fine, just trying to get through the day, when suddenly out of nowhere she stabs you between the ribs. In an instant you can’t breathe; you’re sinking to the floor, and all you know is pain. Exquisite pain. With any luck this doesn’t happen in a crowded space. Or if it does, maybe you can find a quiet corner to bleed in. But man, that bitch doesn’t care where you are or when.
Grief and I spend a lot more time together now than we used to. When]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/grief-explored/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232e8</guid><category><![CDATA[Nikki Hanna Literary Challenge 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Aubrey Green]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 21:45:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1522455155205-fde373f6216c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fHNoYWRvd3N8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNTc5MTc1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1522455155205-fde373f6216c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fHNoYWRvd3N8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNTc5MTc1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Grief Explored"/><p>Grief is a sneaky bitch. </p><p>You can be walking along fine, just trying to get through the day, when suddenly out of nowhere she stabs you between the ribs. In an instant you can’t breathe; you’re sinking to the floor, and all you know is pain. Exquisite pain. With any luck this doesn’t happen in a crowded space. Or if it does, maybe you can find a quiet corner to bleed in. But man, that bitch doesn’t care where you are or when.</p><p>Grief and I spend a lot more time together now than we used to. When we first met I was probably about seven and my white and tan kitten, Cuddles, had been hit by a car. My father broke the news to me with tears in his eyes as Grief walked over and promptly slapped me in the face. It hurt, I won’t lie; even back then she had a good arm. But there was only so much she could do when we were so young. </p><p>Growing up there were a series of events that invited her back to use me as a punching bag. Moves, betrayals, disillusionment, lost friends, lost dreams - all things humans have to deal with at one time or another. While each loss bruised and scarred a little, Grief always disappeared, slinking back to wherever she came from. And I toughened up, as everyone does. Loss is an inevitable part of the human condition and eventually we all reach an equilibrium, a certain amount of loss that we are accustomed to so it no longer registers as more than just painful. At the age of twenty-seven I learned Grief had seriously stepped up her game.</p><p>In the spring of 2007 we discovered our second child was on the way. We had totally not been planning for that, but we were thrilled nonetheless. Our son had just turned two, we had recently moved closer to family; it seemed like good timing. I am one of those insane women who actually enjoyed being pregnant once the months of perpetual vomiting passed, so I was excited. We even had names picked out. </p><p>Doctors say that the eight-week mark is a significant milestone in pregnancies, second only to the four-month mark. Before eight weeks it’s not even a fetus, it’s an embryo, although it does have a heartbeat after only five weeks. I know this because I was able to tell I was pregnant so early on that we were able to make a doctor’s appointment and heard our developing child’s heartbeat.</p><p>At almost exactly eight weeks, I woke up bleeding. We prayed it was just a random thing, but two days later I was in the ER feeling all the life drain out of me. Literally. Hospital workers are trained to be efficient, but they all offer a special measure of gentleness to a woman losing her child. Unfortunately, there are not enough warm hospital blankets in the world to thaw the cold that seeps inside. </p><p>I didn’t realize at the time just how much Grief had grown. And she may have hit harder than she meant to because I spent the next month in an emotional coma, mostly numb, only coming out a few times when it hurt so much I couldn’t move. My husband says I was a zombie. I honestly don’t remember. </p><p>After that Grief and I became constant companions. It’s interesting - you’d think she would be hideously ugly, and sometimes she is, but sometimes she looks pretty normal. She’s never attractive, don’t get me wrong; but she’s not always so hard to look at, especially the further out from an “event” we are. After a long time, she will still pinch and poke and prod, but it feels more habitual than actually malicious or ugly. Though she still gets a good punch in, so you don’t start to forget her; she might not be pretty, but she has her pride. And she is always ready for another chance to show off how her skills have grown. </p><p>In the fall of 2009 my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Now, some people love their mothers; some people tolerate their mothers; some people can’t stand their mothers. My mother was hands down the best. When you see me, you see a good chunk of her, too. </p><p>Once I passed the point of her having to worry about making me a viable member of society, we could just talk and laugh and it was perfect. We would make up stupid songs and sing them to each other's voice mails; we pondered deep philosophical mysteries; we argued the best way to kill someone and hide the body - theoretically. </p><p>With the news that cancer had cast its shadow over our family, Grief grew claws and took to raking them across my flesh whenever the fancy struck her. As everyone who has walked the road of cancer knows, the journey can be a long one, which is both good and bad. It gave us more time with Mom, time when every moment was sweeter, even if sprinkled with desperation. It also gave me time to grieve continually, even though she wasn’t gone yet. I couldn't escape the knowledge that Death was sliping closer every day. And with each reminder, Grief took another pound of flesh. </p><p>We had more time than the doctors expected - almost five years; and she had an incredible quality of life until the last four weeks. Most people who didn’t know her didn’t even realize she was sick. She came to visit me six weeks before the end and we had a wonderful time eating ice cream, watching movies, planning all the stupid things we could do at the funeral to shock people. Side note: Dad wouldn't let me do most of them. It was very disappointing. But cancer doesn’t last forever. Eventually Death comes and goes</p><p>I drove to my parent’s house in Virginia the day before she passed. I watched her breath her last and held my little sister as it felt like Grief ripped our hearts out with her bare hands. I’ve never seen my father so lost as he was that night. </p><p>I spent the next month with my dad and my sister and Grief. We went through old cookbooks and cried; found our old baby teeth - ew - and cried; walked from the living room to the kitchen and just suddenly cried. Maybe because I expected Grief and embraced her so readily, she didn’t cut as deeply that month as I expected. Or maybe she did, but it was a clean cut, not so ragged around the edges. </p><p>That month was full of tears, but unlike our last major encounter, I was never numb; I remember it well and, shockingly, fondly. My sister and I watched so many World Cup Matches that month, primarily for the Scottish announcer’s accent. We got in the car with our dad, rolled the windows down, and sang “Don’t Stop Believing” as loud as we could. We ate copious amounts of Chinese food. Grief was there, but Joy was also there holding her hand. Maybe Grief just isn’t meant to be alone.</p><p>So many things bring Grief into our lives, you can’t escape her. She walks with us, sometimes quietly, sometimes like a raging harpy. Just last week I was watching something on Amazon Prime and it turned out the character’s motivation for everything she did was trying to save her mom from some disease. Grief stabbed me in the gut, and I spent a good half hour in the bathroom ugly crying. </p><p>No matter what else she is, Grief is a sneaky bitch.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Banshee O'Donnell]]></title><description><![CDATA[As far back as I can remember, I could hear her. It would start out low, almost inaudible. Like a feeling. The hair on the back of my neck would stand up, goose-pimples would cover every inch of skin I wore, and I instantly knew what was coming. Over the years I've tried everything to ignore it. I've tried putting the TV on full blast, turning up the volume on my stereo, my Walkman with headphones, covering my head with a pillow or 2 or 3. Nothing blocked it out, nothing stopped it from coming. ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/banshee-odonnell/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232ef</guid><category><![CDATA[Nikki Hanna Literary Challenge 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Hannon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 21:44:56 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611001716885-b3402558a62b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHdhbGttYW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNTc5NjM0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611001716885-b3402558a62b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHdhbGttYW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzExNTc5NjM0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Banshee O'Donnell"/><p>As far back as I can remember, I could hear her. It would start out low, almost inaudible. Like a feeling. The hair on the back of my neck would stand up, goose-pimples would cover every inch of skin I wore, and I instantly knew what was coming. Over the years I've tried everything to ignore it. I've tried putting the TV on full blast, turning up the volume on my stereo, my Walkman with headphones, covering my head with a pillow or 2 or 3. Nothing blocked it out, nothing stopped it from coming. When I was younger I didn't really understand what it meant, not really. I was too small to comprehend the series of unfortunate events that would follow. It seemed random to me for a long while, or perhaps I even suspected it was something I was doing wrong.</p><p>The first time I realized it wasn't really a random occurrence I was 15 years old. My Daideo (or granddad) was my favorite man that walked the earth. I spent hours and hours with him down at his shop. I remember watching his grease stained calloused hands fix anything with a motor, battery, or a screen like it was yesterday. Cars, boats, tvs, radios, walkie talkies – you name it and he was either fixing it, had it fixed it already, or saved it for parts. He always had parts at the ready because everyone in Tobercurry knew about my Daideo and his skills. That fateful day he walked me to school because I was running late and Mam didn't like when I walked anywhere by myself, even if I was an almost fully grown Irishwoman. When we got to the doors of the school I gave him the biggest hug and said “What would I be at all without ya, eh?”</p><p>We were at recess when it first began. It was so low at the start that I thought it was just the hum of the heating units outside the school. By the time it got closer and of course louder I froze because I knew. It didn't usually happen when I was surrounded by people, or even when it was light outside so I wasn't sure how to navigate it. I didn't make a habit of telling people about it, I didn't want them to think I was completely banjaxed. I mentioned it to my Mam a few times over the years and I had a strong feeling it wasn't the first she'd heard of it by the look on her face. She would catch her expression and go stoic and treat the subject as if it was taboo. Then she'd tell me to quit blathering on and walk away. So there I was, in the middle of recess standing in the grass surrounded by yelling kids, whirling soccer balls and the sun silently warming me despite the cold in my bones. I did my best to pretend I didn't hear what I definitely heard. When it was at it's loudest it was so piercing I couldn't ignore it anymore. I fell to my knees and rocked – rather writhed – on the ground, hands over my ears. My schoolmates rushed me, wondering what on Earth was happening to me. “Don't you hear it!?” I screamed. They all looked at me, bewildered, shook their heads and wondered what it was I could possibly be hearing. I knew then I was alone. Utterly and completely alone, surrounded by people. After the screeching passed it's full intensity I slowly got up and tried to shake the ringing from my ears. “It must have been a migraine, I get those sometimes”. Slowly the crowd started to disperse, whispering to themselves but also believing my lie.</p><p>Still shocked it's was only me affected, I wondered if I really was losing my mind? I went back inside and my next 2 classes were uneventful, even enjoyable at times. When I got up to go to my final class however, I saw her, my Mam. I knew from her red eyes and wet face instantly something was wrong. She calmly took my hand and said soothingly “Alannah, come with me now dear.”. The way her demeanor contrasted with her outward appearance frightened me enough to do something I didn't do often, comply without question.</p><p>When we got outside she faced me and gently told me that my Daideo, the center of my world, was gone. I couldn't believe it. “He was just here this morn..” I started to say but faltered. Mammy, as I called her when I was just a babe and felt like it again at that moment, held me as I cried. She cried with me as we walked home from school and began the preparations to bury Daideo and honor his life alongside our community. I couldn't help but feel like we were also burying my innocence.</p><p>It wasn't until about 2 weeks after that day, when our new normal routine started to set in, that I realized something. The wailing I had heard was around the same time my Daideo took his last breath. I decided against asking my Mam, as grief was something new and unspoken between us since that day. I didn't want to poke at her further when we were all still so raw. I decided it was just a weird coincidence and kept on marching forward as bravely as I could. It seemed easier that way, expected.</p><p>I had a best friend for most of my life named Maureen. We did most everything together. She is the only other person who I confided in about the wailings. Sometimes, she was so curious she would just stare and she'd see me shift and her eyes would widen and she'd say “Do you hear it now?” We'd laugh because the answer was always no but she kept on trying. It was like a game to her since the horrors of it were softened by hearing it secondhand, through me. I liked it that way honestly, there was no way I could describe the truth of it to her, I could barely handle it myself.</p><p>When we were 21, Maureen got sick. Life can be so unfair because Maureen was always so full of joy, she had a zest for life. She'd zip about, as light as a sprite and as luminous as one – and people would flock to her, like, well, like Faeries to a bonfire. To watch her fight so hard and suffer so often killed me a little inside. When we were 30, I was at Mass praying before service started, and I started to hear it again. This time, deep in my bones, I knew. I rushed out of the cathedral, kicked my shoes in the grass and RAN like the wind! It seemed both like forever and a moment at once, but this time I ran through the noise. It was at it's highest intensity when I got to her front door. It was already open and her family were all inside. They parted the way for me like Moses parted the Red Sea. Maureen was still there, hanging on, barely. As we locked eyes she mouthed “I hear it too” with a slight smile. With that she breathed her last and the wailing started to subside, along with my sense of reality.</p><p>“Is the devil at work in me? Am I cursed?!?!” I screamed once I got far enough away. To my surprise I heard a familiar voice behind me say “I'm afraid it's my fault my child”. It was my Mam, eyes all red again. I ran into her arms and pulled away after a few moments, so confused.</p><p>“How did you know I'd be here? Maureen is...”</p><p>“I know a ghra (my love)”.</p><p>“But how could you possibly know?” I started to protest.</p><p>My Mam sat down in the lush grass and motioned for me to join her.</p><p>Drained of all energy and needing to have answers I once again went against my nature and complied without a word.</p><p>“I can hear her too” My Mam began...</p><p>“It started when I was a wee lass. Your Nan wasn't open to talking about it, I always thought it was because she was too Catholic for superstitions but now I think it's because she heard it too.”<br><br>“So, this is something passed down to me?”<br><br>“I'm afraid so my darling. I'm so sorry I didn't share with you sooner, it was just easier to pretend it wasn't happening.”</br></br></br></br></p><p>“I understand that Mammy, I would prefer to ignore it too. But what does it mean? Where is it coming from? Are we in danger?”</p><p>My mom took her time before speaking and chose her words carefully. “We O'Donnell women have been hearing the banshees' cry since stories could be told. Hundreds of years. Banshees do not kill people a ghra, they just mourn those that are destined already to die. She must have warned you about Maureen because she was like a sister to you.”<br><br>“But...” I began. “Maureen could hear her too!”.</br></br></p><p>“Aye, when the veil between life and death is thinned, those who are open to it can hear it too. Maybe even see her.” This gave me chills but I remember the peace on Maureen's face at her last breath.</p><p>“Thank you for opening up to me Mam, I know it's not easy for you but you're not alone.” We held each other for a long time and I was left to myself and my thoughts on the long walk back to retrieve my shoes from the Cathedral lawn that day.</p><p>After awhile I decided it was a gift from the Lord, those tortured cries warning me that someone I love was about to die. It was terrifying on one accord and beautiful on the other. From that day on I lived in a state somewhere between a morbid curiosity anticipation and sheer terror that I would hear it again.</p><p>In the years that followed I married a beau, I had 2 children of my own (both boys, thank the heavens). Life went on as normal as it could for someone dreading the inevitable, for someone with such a peculiar burden to carry. I was around 45 years old the next time I heard her. My family lived by a train station so at first I thought it was the far off whistle of the train sounding. As it got louder and the hairs stiffened on my neck, I knew. My mam lived a few towns away and I knew it was impossible to run there so I phoned her but no one answered the persistent ringing. My husband came home from work to find me on the floor of my bedroom inconsolable and he didn't know why. When I tried to explain, in between sobs and hiccups, he asked how I knew she was gone if she didn't answer. I didn't want to be accused of blathering on again so I just told him simply “A daughter knows”.</p><p>At Mams funeral, I felt utterly alone again, like I did before we shared our secret all those years ago in the grass. I was grateful I wasn't passing this onto another generation but there was something lonely in knowing I was the last one. What would happen to our banshee? Would she go on wailing with no one to hear? It seemed sad somehow. Maybe my death will free her soul to peace? I wasn't sure and I had no one to ask. All I knew is I lived in fear of hearing her crying out again. I didn't want to lose anyone else.</p><p>Looking back, I was lucky, I led a blessed and simple life. It was another 30 years before I heard her again. I was really confused this time as my husband was in decent health for 77 and my boys and their families were all well and living nearby. As she got louder I didn't hold my ears. It seemed more bearable this time. I chocked it up to having old 75 years old ears and chuckled softly, slightly shaking the bed. My husband stirred in his sleep and I stayed still and quiet, as not to wake him.</p><p>When the intensity of her song reached it's highest, my mind started playing tricks on me. The room felt brighter and seemed warmer and felt strangely familiar. Suddenly, our banshee wasn't just noise, she was there above me, floating, inches from my face. I wish my description could do her justice but it's hard to explain. She was transparent but beautiful and so very sad. The sadness seemed to be within every part of her, embedded. Her tear filled eyes, her moistened hair, her pale fragile hands, most of her – in her wails. My heart hurt for her grief, I wanted to know who she was mourning and to put my arms around her and tell her it would be OK. Of course this was impossible so I just did my best to smile at her and said “Finally, after all these years we meet”. She moved just a hair so I could see above her and I saw My Daideo, strong and young! Next to him was my Maureen, my beautiful Maureen! And Mammy, she was radiant and beaming at me!</p><p>That's what the realization hit me, I knew who our sweet, sad banshee was grieving for, who she was here to guide. Our beautiful, haunting, piercing, family banshee - she was here to mourn for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Test 2]]></title><description><![CDATA[This is a test post]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/test-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232a8</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cat Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 16 Jan 2024 22:05:02 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This is a test post</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Test]]></title><description><![CDATA[This is a test post]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/test/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232a7</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cat Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 16 Jan 2024 22:03:47 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This is a test post </p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Black Carnations]]></title><description><![CDATA[WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee
Her father was a crop-duster
who would speak in Tongues
And each time he did she would
never remember what happened
next until many years later when
she suddenly began remembering
She would ask boys to
take her out north of town
to look for the Spook Light
It was there she learned
the history of her tongue
It was there she was taught
the language of spies
She loved to talk about
the magic of flat rainbows
and black carnations
while drinking red beer
She’s been ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/black-carnations/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523284</guid><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Pushcart Nominees]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:19:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1587923131674-53edaa1553e6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxjYXJuYXRpb24lMjBibGFja3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDE4OTU2OTd8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1587923131674-53edaa1553e6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxjYXJuYXRpb24lMjBibGFja3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDE4OTU2OTd8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Black Carnations"/><p>WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee</p><p>Her father was a crop-duster<br>who would speak in Tongues<br>And each time he did she would<br>never remember what happened<br>next until many years later when<br>she suddenly began remembering<br><br>She would ask boys to<br>take her out north of town<br>to look for the Spook Light<br>It was there she learned<br>the history of her tongue<br>It was there she was taught<br>the language of spies<br><br>She loved to talk about<br>the magic of flat rainbows<br>and black carnations<br>while drinking red beer<br><br>She’s been gone now for many<br>years but some day I will<br>show you the rock where she<br>carved her initials right next<br>to those of Jesse James</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[His Sign Asks for Water]]></title><description><![CDATA[WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee
He can’t see where everyone goes each day
and doesn’t care where they sleep,
but where they dream when they return
to their night place past this place
on the pavement, where he sits against the wall
and reads. He doesn’t need much—like his pants
he sews again and again, and the thin pages
of his Bible, but the psalms don’t wither.
Here he sings in Akan. Here, too, he sleeps.
When he dreams, the clouds open
to water, a mirror of the purest light
where the shadows ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/his-sign/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523283</guid><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Pushcart Nominees]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Barbara Siegel Carlson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:16:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521504018422-a60fb399b4c0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGhvbWVsZXNzJTIwc2lnbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDE4OTU5MzV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521504018422-a60fb399b4c0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGhvbWVsZXNzJTIwc2lnbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDE4OTU5MzV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="His Sign Asks for Water"/><p>WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee</p><p>He can’t see where everyone goes each day<br>and doesn’t care where they sleep,<br>but where they dream when they return<br>to their night place past this place<br>on the pavement, where he sits against the wall<br>and reads. He doesn’t need much—like his pants<br>he sews again and again, and the thin pages<br>of his Bible, but the psalms don’t wither.<br>Here he sings in Akan. Here, too, he sleeps.<br>When he dreams, the clouds open<br>to water, a mirror of the purest light<br>where the shadows disappear.<br>When the rain comes, he soaks it in.<br>His skin and soul looking for God<br>glow like God who saw the man he once saw<br>with a ring of fire around his neck,<br>consumed by the shrieks into voices<br>of weaverbirds. After the gang surrounded<br>the man, Joseph could not breathe<br>as the man grew unseen. For how long<br>Joseph did not speak—still that radiance<br>has not dissolved but lightened<br>his bones, and some days he just<br>disappears, leaving the pavement washed.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Names I will learn soon/Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa, ...]]></title><description><![CDATA[WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee
For the families
Between two storms I walk my dog
after a mass shooting near my home
there is a clinic and a hospital as
helicopters hum above, three hours now.
My god, who pulled the trigger
and who pulls the trigger inside?
Sirens wail as my dog wags his tail
loaded with delight. As we head home
the sun sails in satin pink through the clouds
dripping purple ink into a poem,
or whatever this is. This is no escape. Danger
surreal to itself dust worn and shel]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/names-i-will-learn-soon/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523281</guid><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Pushcart Nominees]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:15:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1580582932707-520aed937b7b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNjaG9vbHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzAxNTM2MTIzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1580582932707-520aed937b7b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNjaG9vbHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzAxNTM2MTIzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Names I will learn soon/Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa, ..."/><p>WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee</p><p><em>For the families</em><br><br>Between two storms I walk my dog<br>after a mass shooting near my home<br><br>there is a clinic and a hospital as<br>helicopters hum above, three hours now.<br><br>My god, who pulled the trigger<br>and who pulls the trigger inside?<br><br>Sirens wail as my dog wags his tail<br>loaded with delight. As we head home<br><br>the sun sails in satin pink through the clouds<br>dripping purple ink into a poem,<br><br>or whatever this is. This is no escape. Danger<br>surreal to itself dust worn and shelved<br><br>like a forgotten tome of tombs of names<br>4 are dead 4 are dead 4 are dead 4 are dead<br><br>I cannot forgive myself if I let the sky<br>between the storms be beautiful<br><br>before 4 were not-so-dead.<br>At home, my love still sleeps,<br><br>I see my phone, “update: 5 are dead” –<br>and I wait for her to wake…</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Two Men and a Truck]]></title><description><![CDATA[WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee
Packing up knick-knacks
In six months old
Newspaper
Taping bottoms, up
Of grocery store boxes
Sweeping up the dust
Of an old relationship
Moving out, moving in
More to life, living alone
Consequences too great
Together we clashed
Like polka-dots and stripes
Too loose, or too tight
It just didn’t fit me right
I’m crying my eyes out tonight
But, when I awake
Tomorrow morning
It will be a new day
I’ll be on my way
Footloose and fancy-free
Do what I want and say
What ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/two-men-and-a-truck/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523282</guid><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Pushcart Nominees]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Antonia Love]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:13:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1468818461933-b1d79f62434e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHdvbWFuJTIwdHJ1Y2t8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzAxODk1NDM0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1468818461933-b1d79f62434e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHdvbWFuJTIwdHJ1Y2t8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzAxODk1NDM0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Two Men and a Truck"/><p>WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee</p><p>Packing up knick-knacks<br>In six months old<br>Newspaper<br>Taping bottoms, up<br>Of grocery store boxes<br>Sweeping up the dust<br>Of an old relationship<br>Moving out, moving in<br>More to life, living alone<br>Consequences too great<br>Together we clashed<br>Like polka-dots and stripes<br>Too loose, or too tight<br>It just didn’t fit me right<br>I’m crying my eyes out tonight<br>But, when I awake<br>Tomorrow morning<br>It will be a new day<br>I’ll be on my way<br>Footloose and fancy-free<br>Do what I want and say<br>What I please<br>No longer the prisoner<br>Who packed up these pieces<br>Of freedom, today<br>And moved away<br>In a truck<br>Without the two men.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[In the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden]]></title><description><![CDATA[WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee
In the botanical garden
orange poppies blaze through the meadow
and peace enters my feet, then slips into my bloodstream
flowing upward to the sun.
There are no words for this absolution,
no words for blessing.
I am votive to wind, to bird calls in the canyons,
to the cactus flowers in whose yellow cups tipsy insects
tumble among their pistils,
and to the giant boulders strewn under the oaks,
Samurai guarding the path.
And to the lost ant crawling over the labeled]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/in-the-santa-barbara-botanical-garden/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523285</guid><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Pushcart Nominees]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elaine Alarcon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:13:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1615858640468-52efb288e3a4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fG9yYW5nZSUyMHBvcHBpZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzAxNTM2MTUwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1615858640468-52efb288e3a4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fG9yYW5nZSUyMHBvcHBpZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzAxNTM2MTUwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="In the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden"/><p>WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee</p><p>In the botanical garden<br>orange poppies blaze through the meadow<br>and peace enters my feet, then slips into my bloodstream<br>flowing upward to the sun.<br>There are no words for this absolution,<br>no words for blessing.<br>I am votive to wind, to bird calls in the canyons,<br>to the cactus flowers in whose yellow cups tipsy insects<br>tumble among their pistils,<br>and to the giant boulders strewn under the oaks,<br>Samurai guarding the path.<br>And to the lost ant crawling over the labeled rings<br>of a halved sequoia trunk — a sapling in 1150 —<br>then crossing its rings to the Magna Carta in 1215,<br>searching fruitlessly for its kind in 1542<br>when Juan Carrillo explored<br>the Channel Islands, the ant inching<br>forward to the Declaration of Independence<br>and rings tightly yoked by violence together —<br>death by drought in 2000.<br>Unaware of its long rite of passage across eons,<br>the pilgrim finally disappears over the edge<br>of the trunk into shadows<br>and the leafy beatitude of home.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[This is Not a Symbolic Poem About Cicadas]]></title><description><![CDATA[WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee
A twice poet laureate proclaims that cicada
is a word that writers should never use,
the mere sight of it bringing him up short,
causing him to classify it as cliché—trite
symbol of memory, transformation, rebirth.
But just this afternoon, when I stepped outside,
I, too, was brought up short by cicadas, clicking,
reverberating from their masculine membranes
on their ribbed abs and obliques. These dog-day
choir members, chanting congregational songs,
synchronize ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/this-is-not-a-symbolic-poem-about-cicadas/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523280</guid><category><![CDATA[Woody Barlow Contest 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Pushcart Nominees]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Linda Neal Reising]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:12:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1596507457739-e4858d687fb3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxjaWNhZGFzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwMTUzMjI2OHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1596507457739-e4858d687fb3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxjaWNhZGFzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwMTUzMjI2OHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="This is Not a Symbolic Poem About Cicadas"/><p>WBPC Winner - Pushcart Nominee</p><p>A twice poet laureate proclaims that cicada<br>is a word that writers should never use,<br>the mere sight of it bringing him up short,<br>causing him to classify it as cliché—trite<br>symbol of memory, transformation, rebirth.<br><br>But just this afternoon, when I stepped outside,<br>I, too, was brought up short by cicadas, clicking,<br>reverberating from their masculine membranes<br>on their ribbed abs and obliques. These dog-day<br>choir members, chanting congregational songs,<br><br>synchronize their voices, as they bask in glow<br>of late summer sunshine, send out courting<br>calls. Just like in a rock band, the drummer<br>with his wicked sticks always gets the girl,<br>so these guys resonate their hollow tymbal,<br><br>sometimes as much as four hundred eighty<br>times a second, and girl bugs perched on limbs<br>of willows and redbuds, play hard to get, feign<br>disinterest, as they sip sap with straw-like mouths,<br>waiting patiently, after seventeen years, for Mr. Right.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Kindness in an L.A. Subway]]></title><description><![CDATA[4 million people call LA home. 4 million stories. 4 million voices…
sometimes you just have to stop and listen to one,
to hear something beautiful. LAPD HQ
Pastel Grey
Against the backdrop
of the subway’s makeshift stage,
her operatic voice blends
into the walls of a busy day
and exists but is taken
for granted much like the avalanche
of birds that descend,
expected to be there in time
to welcome the morning light.
'tho rarely thought worthy
of stopping to feed, even as
their songs feed the sp]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/kindness-in-an-l-a-subway/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232a5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Annie Klier Newcomer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:11:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529179307417-ca83d48bd790?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHN1YndheXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzgzOTR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529179307417-ca83d48bd790?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHN1YndheXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzgzOTR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Kindness in an L.A. Subway"/><p>4 million people call LA home. 4 million stories. 4 million voices…<br>sometimes you just have to stop and listen to one,<br>to hear something beautiful. LAPD HQ</br></br></p><p><em>Pastel Grey</em></p><p>Against the backdrop<br>of the subway’s makeshift stage,<br>her operatic voice blends<br>into the walls of a busy day<br>and exists but is taken<br>for granted much like the avalanche<br>of birds that descend,<br>expected to be there in time<br>to welcome the morning light.<br>'tho rarely thought worthy<br>of stopping to feed, even as<br>their songs feed the spirit.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><em>Rose Patina</em></p><p>One day a police officer,<br>called into help, finds her<br>robbed of her violin,<br>dressed in pigtails<br>and homelessness.<br>He stops to record her song<br>that chokes his heart<br>with beauty, sends out his own tweet,<br>on his iPhone, resurrecting Puccini’s<br><strong>O Mio Babbino Caro</strong>, shinning<br>his flashlight on her, to remind<br>the world of the splendor of kindness.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Poem for Ramadan]]></title><description><![CDATA[I asked my Muslim friend, “Which is worse
to paint a likeness of the Prophet or destroy
that portrait and thus erase His memory?”
“A man cannot erase the memory of Allah
for He resides within our every mind,”
my salah friend replied.
“The Prophet, blessed be He,
is but the mirror in which we see
the truth of what we all believe.
“Break the mirror and truth remains
unshattered, still a whole and clear
reflection that each shard retains
“a portion still divine though broken
a thousand times.” With]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-poem-for-ramadan/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232a4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kenneth Weene]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:11:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1587617425953-9075d28b8c46?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHJhbWFkYW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM4MzI3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1587617425953-9075d28b8c46?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHJhbWFkYW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM4MzI3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Poem for Ramadan"/><p>I asked my Muslim friend, “Which is worse<br>to paint a likeness of the Prophet or destroy<br>that portrait and thus erase His memory?”<br>“A man cannot erase the memory of Allah<br>for He resides within our every mind,”<br>my salah friend replied.<br>“The Prophet, blessed be He,<br>is but the mirror in which we see<br>the truth of what we all believe.<br>“Break the mirror and truth remains<br>unshattered, still a whole and clear<br>reflection that each shard retains<br>“a portion still divine though broken<br>a thousand times.” With that my friend<br>turned back to prayer and spoke no more</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>except again proclaim “God is great.”<br>With this avowal of undying faith<br>entered prayer ihram and discoursed<br>with me, the infidel, no more.</br></br></br></p><hr><p>This poem is from Ken’s latest chapbook, Remember, published by Kelsay Books. <a href="https://kelsaybooks.com/products/remember?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com" rel="noreferrer">Buy online at Kelsay Books.</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What is Life?]]></title><description><![CDATA[What is life
If not an eager wait for tulips
Faithful in their return
To unfold their petals to the world’s embrace?
We yearn for the sun’s warm touch,
Its golden fingers on our faces
And the earth’s steady heartbeat beneath our feet.
What is life
but to witness those we cherish,
Thrive and flourish like the ancient trees,
And to cherish their laughter, etched with joy?
This life is meant for authenticity,
For love to flow like a gentle river,
For us to wade in its depths, unafraid.
To be
To]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/what-is-life/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232a3</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Hilka West-Irvin]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:10:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518701005037-d53b1f67bb1c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHR1bGlwc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzgxMzh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518701005037-d53b1f67bb1c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHR1bGlwc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzgxMzh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="What is Life?"/><p>What is life<br>If not an eager wait for tulips<br>Faithful in their return<br>To unfold their petals to the world’s embrace?</br></br></br></p><p>We yearn for the sun’s warm touch,<br>Its golden fingers on our faces<br>And the earth’s steady heartbeat beneath our feet.</br></br></p><p>What is life<br>but to witness those we cherish,<br>Thrive and flourish like the ancient trees,<br>And to cherish their laughter, etched with joy?</br></br></br></p><p>This life is meant for authenticity,<br>For love to flow like a gentle river,<br>For us to wade in its depths, unafraid.</br></br></p><p>To be<br>To honor each passing second,<br>As a sacred gift, not to be squandered,<br>But treasured like a rare and precious gem.</br></br></br></p><p>What is life<br>If not a dance of growth,<br>A journey to shed our limiting shells,<br>And embrace the truth of our wild essence?</br></br></br></p><p>What is life<br>A grand and wondrous tale.<br>This very moment, my beloveds, is life!<br>Live it boldly, without hesitation.</br></br></br></p><p>Live it with considerable purpose,<br>Both fierce and tender,<br>For life is fleeting, like a shooting star,<br>And we, mere stardust in this cosmic dance.</br></br></br></p><p>Live it well, beautiful ones - Live it well.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Back on Earth: Winter Solstice]]></title><description><![CDATA[The shortest day folds in on itself,
an origami of fog and freeze
erasing all color except the red
shirt on the clothesline, bird
in the cedars barely moving
in the cold the dirt swallows.
Waxwings crescent over the roof,
showing us all is not angles
or the momentary constructs
we make out of time. Light
exhales, pauses as the air thaws,
inhales more length toward spring,
a hard-to-believe notion on this
dark side of the wall.
Back on earth, I dream of canals
bordered by cherry blossoms,
one b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/back-on-earth-winter-solstice/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232a2</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:10:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1482597869166-609e91429f40?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHdpbnRlciUyMHNvbHN0aWNlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQzODA2M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1482597869166-609e91429f40?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHdpbnRlciUyMHNvbHN0aWNlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQzODA2M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Back on Earth: Winter Solstice"/><p>The shortest day folds in on itself,<br>an origami of fog and freeze<br>erasing all color except the red<br>shirt on the clothesline, bird<br>in the cedars barely moving<br>in the cold the dirt swallows.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Waxwings crescent over the roof,<br>showing us all is not angles<br>or the momentary constructs<br>we make out of time. Light<br>exhales, pauses as the air thaws,<br>inhales more length toward spring,<br>a hard-to-believe notion on this<br>dark side of the wall.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Back on earth, I dream of canals<br>bordered by cherry blossoms,<br>one branch dipping in the weight<br>of a black squirrel with its flourish<br>of tail. A car engine turns over,<br>turtles underground breathe<br>in the slightest glimmer<br>all the dark long. So much<br>we cannot understand in this<br>time of so much terror, war,<br>hunger beyond the reach<br>of curves, blossom, flight.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But the heart can’t help itself:<br>it wants to find the pocket<br>of just enough air to lift again.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Chicken and Fluffy Dumplings]]></title><description><![CDATA[Stewing Stock Ingredients:
4lb. whole chicken fryer
4 cups water
5 stalks celery with leaves, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup sliced carrots
3 sprigs parsley, chopped
2 teaspoon coarse salt
½ teaspoon coarse black pepper
Dumplings Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon minced parsley
2 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
2/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 egg, slightly beaten
Gravy Ingredients:
1 cup water
½ cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/chicken-and-fluffy-dumplings/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232a1</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:10:18 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1608019527897-238a401a7b7c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHBvdCUyMHN0b3ZlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQ2NzYxNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1608019527897-238a401a7b7c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHBvdCUyMHN0b3ZlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQ2NzYxNXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Chicken and Fluffy Dumplings"/><p>Stewing Stock Ingredients:</p><p>4lb. whole chicken fryer<br>4 cups water<br>5 stalks celery with leaves, cut into 1-inch pieces<br>1 cup sliced carrots<br>3 sprigs parsley, chopped<br>2 teaspoon coarse salt<br>½ teaspoon coarse black pepper</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Dumplings Ingredients:</p><p>1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour<br>1 tablespoon minced parsley<br>2 teaspoon baking powder<br>½ teaspoon salt<br>¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg<br>2/3 cup milk<br>2 tablespoons vegetable oil<br>1 egg, slightly beaten</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Gravy Ingredients:</p><p>1 cup water<br>½ cup flour<br>1 teaspoon salt<br>¼ teaspoon ground pepper</br></br></br></p><p>Stewing Stock Instructions:</p><ol><li>In a 6-quart Dutch oven combine chicken, water, celery, carrots, parsley, pepper, and salt; heat to boiling. Simmer covered 1-1/2 hours or until chicken is tender.</li><li>Remove chicken from stock, remove skin and de-bone the chicken.</li><li>Chop de-boned chicken into bite-size pieces; return to boiling reserved stock.</li></ol><p>Dumplings Instructions:</p><ol><li>In a medium bowl, combine flour, parsley, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.</li><li>Stir in remaining ingredients; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened.</li><li>Drop dough by tablespoonfuls into boiling stock and hot chicken.</li><li>Cover tightly; return to boiling.</li><li>Reduce heat; DO NOT LIFT COVER.</li><li>Simmer for 12 – 15 minutes or until dumplings are fluffy and dry.</li><li>Arrange dumplings and chicken into a large serving bowl; cover to keep warm.</li><li>Reserve 4 cups of chicken stock; set aside.</li></ol><p>Gravy Instructions:</p><ol><li>In a medium bowl, combine water and flour; blend until smooth and set aside.</li><li>In a medium saucepan, bring the 4 cups of reserved stock to boiling; stir in flour.</li><li>Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally; cook until thickened.</li><li>Add salt and pepper.</li><li>Pour gravy over chicken and dumplings.</li></ol><p>Makes 8 servings.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ella and the Unicorn]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was the end of summer and a beautiful morning. Ella woke up early as she usually did, but she didn’t get out of bed right away. After a few minutes, she called out “Mom!”
“What is it honey?” asked Mom.
“There’s a unicorn under my bed!”
“Oh, I see,” said Mom. “Unicorns are good luck, but what is he doing under your bed?”
“I think he is hungry.” said Ella. “He’s looking for something to eat.”
“Well, what do unicorns eat?” asked Mom.
“I don’t know,” said Ella. “I think they eat bugs.”
Ell]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/ella-and-the-unicorn/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232a0</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lea Ann Crisp]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:09:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541600321016-ac52d598f563?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxfHxhcHBsZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM3ODg3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541600321016-ac52d598f563?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxfHxhcHBsZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM3ODg3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Ella and the Unicorn"/><p>It was the end of summer and a beautiful morning. Ella woke up early as she usually did, but she didn’t get out of bed right away. After a few minutes, she called out “Mom!”</p><p>“What is it honey?” asked Mom.</p><p>“There’s a unicorn under my bed!”</p><p>“Oh, I see,” said Mom. “Unicorns are good luck, but what is he doing under your bed?”</p><p>“I think he is hungry.” said Ella. “He’s looking for something to eat.”</p><p>“Well, what do unicorns eat?” asked Mom.</p><p>“I don’t know,” said Ella. “I think they eat bugs.”</p><p>Ella got dressed quickly. During breakfast, Mom asked her what she wanted her unicorn to do.</p><p>Ella thought about it for a moment. “Since he is hungry, I want him to go outside where he can find some bugs to eat,” she said. “Then, I think it will be time for him to go home.”</p><p>He did go outside to find something to eat, but, since unicorns don’t really eat bugs, Little Unicorn found a lovely, old apple tree in the garden and he ate two crisp apples. Unicorns love apples.</p><p>Then he started missing his mama, so he decided it was time to go back to his home in the woods by the clear, sparkling stream.</p><p>Ella decided to follow him because she wanted to see where he lived. She would take her dog, Max, with her to keep her company. They would hide because she did not want Little Unicorn to see them and be startled. She packed a snack and some water for herself and Max.</p><p>Little Unicorn soon came to another big garden full of summer flowers and all kinds of vegetables. There were carrots, green beans, pumpkins, lettuce and potatoes. There he met a nice family of bunnies who gave him a crunchy carrot to eat. He thanked them for their kindness and went on his way.</p><p>After a while, he came to a large patch of ripe blackberries. There he met a family of deer and they shared the berries with him. He rested there for a few minutes and visited with the deer. Then he thanked them for their kindness and went on his way.</p>
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Ella loved watching Little Unicorn and the friends he met. She stayed hidden and Max was very quiet.
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<p>Then Little Unicorn came to a beautiful, green pasture with horses and cows. There he met a family of Bluebirds who were catching bugs. They offered him some of the bugs they caught, but, since unicorns don’t really eat bugs, he politely declined. Still, he thanked them for their kindness before going on his way.</p><p>Little Unicorn finally reached his home in the woods and found the clear, sparkling stream. It was shady and cool in the forest, and he was glad to be home. He bent down to get a drink from the stream. Suddenly all of his woodland friends came out to greet him. There were foxes, racoons, squirrels, the badgers and the owls and woodpeckers that live in the trees. And, of course, there were more deer.</p>
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Ella and Max watched this wonderful homecoming from behind the trees. But they stayed very quiet.
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<p>Then Little Unicorn looked up and saw his mama. He ran to her, and Mama Unicorn was so happy to see him.</p><p>She knew he must he tired from his adventure. Once the woodland friends went back to their homes in the forest, Mama made a soft bed of leaves over a hollow log where Little Unicorn could take a nap.</p><p>He had a nice, long nap and dreamed of his adventures. When he woke up, he called out, “Mama!”</p><p>“What is it, honey?” asked Mama.</p><p>“There’s a little girl under my bed!”</p><p>“I see,” said Mama. “Little girls are good luck, but what is she doing under your bed?”</p><p>“I think she is hungry and looking for something to eat,” he said.</p><p>“Well, what do little girls eat?” asked Mama.</p><p>“I don’t know,” said Little Unicorn. “I think they eat bugs.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Loose Ends]]></title><description><![CDATA[You stare at your brother across the hospital bed. “You weren’t there, so how would you know?”
Mom’s eyes are taped shut and the rhythmic heave and sigh of the ventilator fills the silence. Aiden inhales and looks at the floor. He looks like he is trying to summon patience and courage for this conversation.
This annoys you. Aiden has always acted like this when challenged or knows he is being called out on something. A lingering childhood petulance that has travelled too far into adulthood. Fo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/loose-ends/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852329f</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Willis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:09:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1633219664572-473fd988a44f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUxfHxob3NwaXRhbHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0Mzc0OTV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1633219664572-473fd988a44f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUxfHxob3NwaXRhbHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0Mzc0OTV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Loose Ends"/><p>You stare at your brother across the hospital bed. “You weren’t there, so how would you know?”</p><p>Mom’s eyes are taped shut and the rhythmic heave and sigh of the ventilator fills the silence. Aiden inhales and looks at the floor. He looks like he is trying to summon patience and courage for this conversation.</p><p>This annoys you. Aiden has always acted like this when challenged or knows he is being called out on something. A lingering childhood petulance that has travelled too far into adulthood. For once, you are not trying to prove him wrong or show him up, but he refuses to or cannot recognize the difference.</p><p>Aiden finally replies, “Mom did not name a power of attorney. She didn’t write it down. Didn’t have time before—,” he sweeps his arm toward mom, “before all this. She wouldn’t have without talking to me first.”</p><p>His tone is a scold. You finally tear your eyes away from the monitor and look at him as he adjusts his ball cap, putting it on backwards. Errant strands of hair stick up from under the band of the cap. He needs a shave and a cut. One of his shoelaces is untied and his jacket is rumpled.</p><p>You are not fooled. The lack of personal care is not because of mom. You wonder if he has lost his job.</p><p>You ask, “How’s work going?”</p><p>He rubs his face with both hands like he has just woken up. “Fine.” He shrugs and looks away, trying to be nonchalant. Dark circles, like dirty smudges, hang under his eyes.</p><p>“Good,” you say. It is a game you both have played all your lives. You both know he is lying.</p><p>But you find no comfort in being right about Aiden and you turn your attention back to mom. Shrunken and frail, her body looks adrift on the hospital bed. The covers come up to her neck as if she is being swallowed whole, the monitors and machines looming like a wake of vultures.</p><p>A heaviness fills you and you feel as though you have travelled a great distance and have only just arrived.</p><p>“Aid, I’m not the bad guy here. This is tough for both of us. Mom called me several weeks ago. She knew she didn’t have much time. She was very emphatic. She did not want to be kept alive on machines like this.”</p><p>“How do I know you’re even telling the truth?” Aiden raises his voice, but you hear the desperation underneath and know he is frightened. “Just because everything in your life is hunky-fine.” He is shaking his head. “You know what I think? Mom is just one more problem for you to solve. You can’t be bothered, so you just want to pull the plug and be done with her. Admit it. You always must have everything sorted and tied up in a neat little bow.” His tone is mocking now.</p><p>A nurse breezes in through the open door. “Good morning! How is everyone today?”</p><p>She walks to the far side of the bed and pushes a button on one of the monitors. “Doctors are making their rounds. They’ll be here soon,” she says conspiratorially.</p><p>The nurse has a pleasant face, but the creases at the corners of her eyes are telling. You suspect she has been listening outside in the hallway.</p><p>You get up and walk to the bedside and as you do, you get a whiff of Aiden’s breath. He has been drinking. You are suddenly aware of the small bulge in the side pocket of his jacket. Your eye catches the edge of a ribbed silver cap. A flask.</p><p>The nurse changes the dressing on mom’s IV, initialing the date and time in pen. She says, “There, that should do it. I’ll be back after rounds.” You get the impression she would like to say more, but she averts her gaze.</p><p>If the ventilator and monitoring are discontinued, will the IV fluids be removed, too? You want to ask about pain killers and hydration. Is your mom even in pain?</p><p>There are so many questions. So many decisions.</p><p>But when you look up to ask, the nurse is already gone. When you look at Aiden slumped in the chair, his eyes are closed.</p><p>You are suddenly so angry, your body trembles. You clench your fists as resentment pours through your veins like black ink. Like an IV wide open, the ink travels fast, coursing through every organ in your body until your limbs tingle with rage.</p><p>Oddly, it is your mom you are angry with. Not Aiden. Your mom, not Aiden, put you in the position of always being the bad guy.</p><p>Aiden’s right. Mom put nothing in writing. She did not designate a power of attorney. She did not even call Aiden. She expected you to carry out her wishes, handle the details, manage the estate. And like a good girl, you have like you have always done.</p><p>Most of all, she left you to soothe Aiden. To smooth things over with him. Take care of him, lend him money, and enable him as she has always done. You, the caretaker, the decision-maker. The responsible one.</p><p>You swallow back the acid rising in your throat and gaze down at your mom. Her face is slack, serene almost, and you think this is the most content you have ever seen her. You try to summon the pity you felt only moments ago, grasping for any remaining compassion, but it is out of reach, like fragments of a dream dissolving.</p><p>You hear footsteps and voices approach from down the hall. A herd of white coats enter the room and surround the bed. They ignore you at first. Someone logs onto the computer, while the others consult their phones, jostling one another and chattering amongst themselves. When they finally lift their heads, faux smiles plastered on their faces, one of them asks, “So, which one of you is in charge?”</p><p>You glance at Aiden. Bleary-eyed, lids fluttering, he sits up and runs his hand over the flask in his pocket. You can tell he is itching for a drink.</p><p>You take one last glance at your mom, then nod toward Aiden. “He is,” you say, a thrill shuddering right through you.</p><p>You ignore the stunned look of fear and confusion on Aiden’s face, and walk out. Your body feels loose, almost as if you are floating down the hallway. Your mom’s nurse is standing at a counter, talking with someone. You give her a little wave and walk on.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Our Last Days]]></title><description><![CDATA[Here I was, standing in the place that’s meant for repair. For mending and fixing and returning people better that they were found.
But you… were unfixable. You… were unsewable. Hospice worthy, not returnable.
I looked down at you, my mother, hands on your chair still - resting.
And I know I’m alone.
The emergency room was filled to the brim – everyone in their own world,
their occasional glances seemed to saturate my soul.
It was more than I could bear, this time paused amid chaos,
It felt ali]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mom-poem/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852329e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Hannon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:09:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1614101062781-09a8dfb90dce?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExOHx8aG9zcGl0YWx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM3NTI4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1614101062781-09a8dfb90dce?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExOHx8aG9zcGl0YWx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM3NTI4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Our Last Days"/><p>Here I was, standing in the place that’s meant for repair. For mending and fixing and returning people better that they were found.<br>But you… were unfixable. You… were unsewable. Hospice worthy, not returnable.<br>I looked down at you, my mother, hands on your chair still - resting.<br>And I know I’m alone.</br></br></br></p><p>The emergency room was filled to the brim – everyone in their own world,<br>their occasional glances seemed to saturate my soul.<br>It was more than I could bear, this time paused amid chaos,<br>It felt alien yet familiar – like this was how it was supposed to be.</br></br></br></p><p>I was acutely aware and yet - I heard nothing clearly…No distinction, no articulation at all<br>In front of me I saw lips moving and faces of expectation, or maybe anticipation, I couldn’t tell.<br>Just the dull swoosh of realization whizzing around me embracing me…<br>Waiting on my answer.</br></br></br></p><p>I process your slight head tilt, the lack of spoken word I still couldn’t get used to.<br>This woman that killed me in Words with friends, This woman that wounded me with her wit,<br>This woman that gloated over knowing more than most…<br>She was just a ghost.</br></br></br></p><p>Suddenly I’m aware of my surroundings again,<br>That the world is more than just me and you - moms shell,<br>The nurses and techs wait patiently for my orders but I can tell - they are becoming frayed.<br>Slowly, disbelievingly - I shake my head “no” .</br></br></br></p><p>Before I could turn away I heard an awful, guttural sound nearby<br>It would be a full 10 seconds before I could process that the sound was coming from me.<br>I broke down right there in the room full of people, all wanting to help but knowing they can’t.<br>I have to make this journey alone.</br></br></br></p><p>They help me back to your jeep. I chose to bring you home in it, your pride and joy because I thought we we’re escaping together.<br>I didn’t expect that 3rd stroke on the way out the door. I didn’t know you’d be taken alive.<br>The first took most of your speech, the second the rest. This 3rd one took your physical ability along with your dignity.<br>The jeep was not fit for this task.</br></br></br></p><p>As I stared from your, my mothers, chair to the passenger seat it may as well have been Mount Everest but “we’ll climb”, I thought.<br>The staff generously helped me get you inside and buckled you up real tight.<br>I almost laughed out loud when I realized what great lengths we take out of habit to protect, even the dead that are walking.<br>I shake it off and drive.</br></br></br></p><p>Processing it all isn’t an option, it is time to get things done and done well.<br>Just like you taught me.<br>I make phone calls & line up helpers at your parking spot so we can get you unmounted safely.<br>I beat them all somehow and surprisingly easily slid you back to your wheelchair waiting on the ground. I know if you knew - you’d be anxious, not proud.<br>Together, we roll past your favorite familiar scenery to your home.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Looking back I wish I took more time to show you the pond you loved so much.<br>The turtles sunbathing lazily, The egret you loved to bird watch when you didn’t think anyone was watching you.<br>You begged for your own bed before you lost your voice but it wasn’t practical we told you.<br>If only we knew you wouldn’t have needed it long.</br></br></br></p><p>Death is a difficult thing but dying is off the charts hard.<br>Wanting you to live but knowing you can’t. Wanting you to have peace but watching you suffer. Helplessly.<br>Not knowing which is easier to wish for, more time or less suffering.<br>It’s all a blur to me.</br></br></br></p><p>Those last moments days later – are permanently ingrained. The sights, the sounds – those damn sounds, still haunting me.<br>Thinking you’d hate the fact I was calling you mama and rubbing your head but doing it anyway.<br>Your sons picture strategically placed front and center in your view in case you could still see.<br>Knowing you’d rather it was him next to you but loving you anyway.</br></br></br></p><p>I remember telling you that you were wrong about me. That my gentle forgiving nature was what, in fact, made me strong.<br>That the perceived weakness was a facade of yours and I would be OK. That you could let go after any raspy breath you chose.<br>I promised to make sure the kids and my brother would be OK too… best I could.<br>I remember every word.</br></br></br></p><p>Then you, once vibrant and full of color, were now peaceful and pastel.<br>Your raging red angry rash was what went first, disappearing into your skin tone.<br>I remember thinking I was so glad you weren’t suffering from that damn itch anymore.<br>I remember feeling relief for you. Shock for me, and time standing still again.</br></br></br></p><p>I wanted to memorize every single inch of you. Knowing it was the very last time we’d be in the same room like this.<br>I held your hand until it was cold. And then some more before quietly tiptoeing inside to get our golden child.<br>Him and I standing in front of you, the super still quiet of the room. No longer hearing breaths or gurgles - or you chastising us.<br>My brother, now an orphan, and me - without a mom.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Sixth Extinction]]></title><description><![CDATA[Look around you.
Nature propels our world
and we are only tolerated
by its free spirit.
Nature is the kiss from a beautiful rose,
the melancholy of a faded lily.
Nature is the sun’s reflection
of your lover’s flowing hair
in a river of distinction.
It is a sunset, unable to describe.
Nature is a stout old tree
you can wrap your arms around.
It is the sea, gained by the tide in one phase
and lost by the ebb in another.
Let us not disavow Nature.
Let not the Sixth Extinction endure.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-sixth-extinction/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852329d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:09:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486102515046-44130769cb25?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGxpbHl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM3MTE5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486102515046-44130769cb25?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGxpbHl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM3MTE5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Sixth Extinction"/><p>Look around you.<br>Nature propels our world<br>and we are only tolerated<br>by its free spirit.<br>Nature is the kiss from a beautiful rose,<br>the melancholy of a faded lily.<br>Nature is the sun’s reflection<br>of your lover’s flowing hair<br>in a river of distinction.<br>It is a sunset, unable to describe.<br>Nature is a stout old tree<br>you can wrap your arms around.<br>It is the sea, gained by the tide in one phase<br>and lost by the ebb in another.<br>Let us not disavow Nature.<br>Let not the Sixth Extinction endure.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lightfoot Lives On]]></title><description><![CDATA[His voice floats
across the airwaves,
knowing no bounds.
The Canadian bard’s lyrics
journey across the world.
A comforting melody
surrounds your soul
on long, lonely roads
where the sun will never go down.
Ships and trains forever carry stories
from a mind only partially indexed,
rolling down a highway of sound waves
towards an eternity of light.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lightfoot-lives-on/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852329c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[D. L. Lang]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:09:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1588523900549-d60e602ced7c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHJhZGlvfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQzNzAzM3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1588523900549-d60e602ced7c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHJhZGlvfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQzNzAzM3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Lightfoot Lives On"/><p>His voice floats<br>across the airwaves,<br>knowing no bounds.<br>The Canadian bard’s lyrics<br>journey across the world.<br>A comforting melody<br>surrounds your soul<br>on long, lonely roads<br>where the sun will never go down.<br>Ships and trains forever carry stories<br>from a mind only partially indexed,<br>rolling down a highway of sound waves<br>towards an eternity of light.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[BV]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was the summer of ‘21.
Everyone had bacterial vaginosis.
The roaring twenties are back, baby!
We took our heels out from the backs of our closets
And dusted them off. You’re in New York,
You’re allowed to cough again; you’re allowed
to contract a virus or infection. When we go to the Upper East Side,
taking the silver underground snake from our
Pest-filled, vest-filled Village dream, you’ll
Turn to me and say, I feel like I’m in Europe.
We are in Europe! We’re in Europe and the Americas
And i]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/bv/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852329a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mia Marion]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:09:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1534198730876-4bcab78c52f4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHJhc2h8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM2Njc0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1534198730876-4bcab78c52f4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHJhc2h8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM2Njc0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="BV"/><p>It was the summer of ‘21.<br>Everyone had bacterial vaginosis.<br>The roaring twenties are back, baby!<br>We took our heels out from the backs of our closets<br>And dusted them off. You’re in New York,<br>You’re allowed to cough again; you’re allowed<br>to contract a virus or infection. When we go to the Upper East Side,<br>taking the silver underground snake from our<br>Pest-filled, vest-filled Village dream, you’ll<br>Turn to me and say, I feel like I’m in Europe.<br>We are in Europe! We’re in Europe and the Americas<br>And in the sky and the ground all at once.<br>Jump into the East River and see if you get a burning rash.<br>Womankind was meant to live like this -<br>Within ten minutes of each other by foot.<br>The sanctity of female friendship! The rats in the<br>First Avenue L station! The taste of true adulthood:<br>Trader Joe’s extra firm tofu roasted in a smoking oven.<br>Girls everywhere are putting hardcover books into tote bags.<br>When it rains for three days straight, we lace up our boots<br>and face the wet world. Freeze the summer in a photo:<br>the purple strobe lights of Catch, Meatpacking at midnight,<br>We’ve been drunk all summer long, we’ve been shaking<br>Hands with the bacteria. Nothing can hurt us,<br>We have no Achilles’ heel. We are just young, and fun,<br>And in love, and we all have BV.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[And I Always Will]]></title><description><![CDATA[(Author’s Note: This memoir about my guide dog won first place in the 2021 Memoir category in the Ozarks Writers League Writing Contest. Jemma touched many lives while she was with me. Unfortunately, she died of cancer on her eighth birthday.)
Time stretched as I sat in my dorm room at Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester Hills, Michigan, waiting to meet my freedom and independence.
I want my dog. Bring me my dog.
I sat on the mat where he or she would sleep, so my scent would be near. I fi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/and-i-always-will/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852329b</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronda Del Boccio]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:08:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/01/Jemma-smiling-in-harness.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2024/01/Jemma-smiling-in-harness.jpg" alt="And I Always Will"/><p>(Author’s Note: This memoir about my guide dog won first place in the 2021 Memoir category in the Ozarks Writers League Writing Contest. Jemma touched many lives while she was with me. Unfortunately, she died of cancer on her eighth birthday.)</p><p>Time stretched as I sat in my dorm room at Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester Hills, Michigan, waiting to meet my freedom and independence.</p><p><em>I want my dog. Bring me my dog.</em></p><p>I sat on the mat where he or she would sleep, so my scent would be near. I fingered the nasty chain to attach my dog to the wall overnight, making sure I knew exactly how to release the clasp, even when barely awake. I couldn’t understand why my guide had to sleep six feet away, tied to a wall, instead of beside my bed, tied to me with her leash.</p><p><em>Their house, their rules.</em></p><p>And Leader Dogs had a lot of rules. No toys, no furniture, on-leash at all times, even in our rooms, chained to a wall overnight and when we left the room.</p><p>After almost three hours of waiting, finally, a knock. I leaped up and sprinted to the door.</p><p>“Are you ready?” Amber asked.</p><p>“Are you kidding?”</p><p>“Do you want to know your dog’s name?” The gigantic smile that lit her voice and face told me how much she enjoyed what Leader Dogs calls Dog Issue Day.</p><p>“Yes.” I’d been waiting well over two hours and was obviously the last in my group of four to receive my dog.</p><p>For the love of all things holy, BRING ME MY DOG NOW.</p><p>“It’s Jemma.”</p><p>“A girl, I presume?”</p><p>I got a dog with a COOL name YAY!.</p><p>“Yes.” Amber stretched out the agony.</p><p>“What breed?”</p><p>“You’ll find out in a couple of minutes.”</p><p>“Meanie.”</p><p>“That’s me. Hand me your leash.”</p><p>I handed it over. Two days ago, stiff, but now pliable. I had worked that leather in every conceivable direction until my hands hurt. Jemma would start to know my scent before we met. The next time I held it, MY dog would be at the other end, at last.</p><p>My mom, who lives next door to me, wanted me to have a blonde girl. She likes female animals better, and blonde dogs photograph better than black ones, which tend to come off like blobs in pictures. Mom used to teach photography and had won numerous contests. Photos aside, why it mattered to her, I wasn’t sure. We’re neighbors, but I don’t live in her house. Would Mom get her wish?</p><p>Thunder and Molly, my first two guide dogs who I trained myself, were dark girls. I didn’t have a gender preference. Molly’s black coat glistened brightly. Thunder’s cattle-dog-like appearance fooled people, as she was a pure-bred smooth collie with mostly black, brown, and blue merle colors. I hoped for short fur. I wasn’t a huge fan of goldens, so even though I didn’t tell them I wouldn’t take one, I hoped for a lab of any color or my top choice, a golden-lab cross.</p><p>It would be so cool to be able to say, “My dog is a goldador.”</p><p>Amber asked me to go sit down to receive my girl and suggested I turn off the music, just for the beginning while she was talking to me. She left the door unlatched for ease of entry. Since she had told me to keep things low-key, as my dog would find that more comforting, I had prepared a playlist of quiet music. I had been playing said songs since coming back to my room after lunch. The calm tones hadn’t stopped me staring down the door, yearning for my new guide dog.</p><p>But hopefully, this would help Jemma feel everything would be okay. The soothing sounds put a nice ambiance into the room. The energies of the songs, smells, and emotions had to be right in order to support my new fur baby, who had been through so much in her short life.</p><p>I sat on the floor. I wanted to be right on her level and not at all intimidating. She had been through a lot of changes within the last few months and was going to be nervous. Three minutes stretched into three hours, at least in my eager mind. Soon, I heard another set of click-click-click steps with a human handler, then a light rap on the door, and my new girl with Amber, still out of my line of sight, stepping inside.</p><p>“You can call her name as soon as I let go of the leash.” Amber spoke softly, setting the tone.</p><p>Would Jemma be a black lab? Yellow lab? Golden retriever? Goldador?</p><p>“Okay, I’ve dropped the leash,” Amber said.<br><br>I tamped down my exuberance and quietly called Jemma to me.</br></br></p><p>A golden girl trotted into the room, tail low. She glanced at me, put her head down, and sniffed everywhere. Her breath came in loud, rapid pants.</p><p><em>Poor stressed-out puppy.</em></p><p>“Come here, Jemma.” I reached out my hands for her. She dashed over to me and kissed my face with rapid licks. Most people believe when a dog licks your face right away, it means they love you. Dog language is different. That behavior means “Please, don’t hurt me.” It’s a sign of fear.</p><p>This was not the choirs of angels singing and the dog immediately bonding to me that I wished to experience. And since I’m an animal communicator, I knew her thoughts and not just her body language.</p><p>My hands brushed her briefly, then she skittered away and sniffed around. I wanted to cradle her in my arms and tell her she has her forever mommy and her forever home now, and that everything was all right. I held back tears. I would need to handle my fragile little girl with patience and loving encouragement.</p><p><em>What have they done to her?</em></p><p>My brain clicked a puzzle piece into place.</p><p>Tight-lipped as Amber had been about my “Juno,” the generic name Leader Dogs uses before you know your guide’s actual name, she had told me something important. Jemma was a prison puppy. I had imagined that her being convict-raised along with the grooming tools they gave me, which were better suited to short fur, meant I would get a lab or goldador. Labs are steady by nature. Goldens, more empathic.</p><p><em>They put sensitive, emotional goldies in prisons?</em></p><p>Jemma came back to me. I extended my hands for her to sniff, then stroked her silky ears. “I’m your new mommy, Jemma. I promise to take good care of you. You’re okay.”</p><p>Jemma went back to scrutinizing the tidy dorm room with her nose. Knowing whomever I received was a teenage dog, potentially apt to chew or carry things around, I left nothing but my cell phone and the TV remote on my nightstand.</p><p><em>Okay, Amber, you gave me my dog, now go away and let us settle in and start to bond.</em></p><p>The trainer sat in a chair. “She’s a golden retriever.”</p><p>“Yes, I can tell.” I called Jemma over again.<br><br>Still stress-panting, my new guide once again rapid-fire licked my face. I grabbed the leash to keep her with me for a moment. She sat in front of me, facing away, while I gently scratched her neck.</br></br></p><p><em>Poor baby. You’re so afraid, but I promise you have a forever home now.</em></p><p>I let her tether go so she could explore. Her tail kept wagging in the low position.</p><p>“See, Jemma girl, everything’s just fine.” She was so beautiful.</p><p>“She was born February twentieth of 2014, so she’s 17 months old,” Amber told me.</p><p>Our instructor kept talking to me, but most of it came across like one of Charlie Brown’s teachers… “Wha-wha-w-w-wu-WHUH…raised by a prisoner at Fort Dodge Correctional Facility. Waw-WU-w-w-wu-wu-WUH.”</p><p>Only a few phrases made it through the dog-induced haze. Something about trimming her feet. Something about people in the hall. We’d be training together every day but Sunday for three more weeks. I could catch up on anything I blurred over later.</p><p>I patted the floor. “Come settle beside me, Jemma,” I encouraged. She sat with her back to me.</p><p>“Her tail is always going, and she is a curious dog. Loves to explore.”</p><p>“Were you her trainer?” Just because I was in Amber’s group didn’t necessarily mean she was the primary instructor of my dog.</p><p>“I’ve known her since the beginning, and yeah, I was her main trainer. Her sponsor was my mentor.”</p><p>My anxious dog panted hard and trotted all over the room. I grabbed her leash so she would come and let me help calm her.</p><p>“Goldens are strong mommy or daddy dogs,” Amber explained. “She’ll settle in well with you within a few days, but at first, she’ll look to us.”</p><p>“You’ve been working with her for a few months, so that’s to be expected.”</p><p>My poor baby kept stress-panting and pacing the room with her tail wagging low. I needed to get her calmed down, and that would take a little time.</p><p>“What’s her weight?”</p><p>“Currently, she’s fifty-four pounds.”</p><p>“That sounds low to me for a teenage golden.”</p><p>“She was a little pudgy when she first came back. They over-dieted her.”</p><p>On her next pass, I gently explored my new dog. “She’s awfully thin.” The xylophone of ribs beneath my hand alarmed me.</p><p><em>You starved my dog. You stressed her out, and you starved her.</em></p><p>“She’ll put on weight while she’s here.”</p><p><em>Don’t act so nonchalant, Amber. You were her trainer. You shouldn’t have let a growing dog get that skinny.</em></p><p>All school-trained guide dog puppies I’ve ever known have been shuffled around a bit before meeting their human handler. They start their journey with the person or family who keeps their mother, then at seven or eight weeks old, they move to a puppy raiser, around their first birthday, they go back to the school for evaluation and training, then a few months later, if they make the grade, they get paired with their blind handler, then off to their new homes.</p><p>“When you see the vet in a couple of weeks, she’ll give you a goal weight.”</p><p><em>How can they know what’s best for her adult weight when she’s only a teenager?</em></p><p>“We like everyone to keep your dog trim.”</p><p>“That’s my plan,” I assured Amber.</p><p><em>I don’t want a moving hassock, but she shouldn’t be a fur-covered skeleton either.</em></p><p>I pushed down my anger about her being so emaciated. I didn’t want to make this any harder for my dog. The anger was certainly not at her. And in a year, she would be one hundred percent mine, not the school’s anymore.</p><p>Jemma got up and went exploring again. My poor, stressed girl continued to pant rapidly. I beamed love at my beautiful new guide. My trainer droned on about… whatever.</p><p><em>Amber, please go away now so I can get to know my dog.</em></p><p>Some of the instructions made it through the fog. “No human food. We check their poop every few days, so we’ll know if she gets something she shouldn’t.”</p><p><em>The poop police are watching. Do they have in-room surveillance, too?</em></p><p>Amber continued, “Keep her attached to you at all times until we tell you it’s okay to let her loose in the room with her leash on. And clip her by the collar to the wall anytime you leave to go to the bathroom, do laundry, or whatever else without her.” She pointed to the chain in the wall by her sleeping mat for emphasis.</p><p>I understood perfectly well the importance of keeping your new dog tied to you every minute for a while. I call it the Great Leash-Up. It teaches them to be connected to you and ensures they don’t get into trouble. A crate seemed a much better option than chaining a dog to the wall, though. I imagined that’s how she had slept up until now.</p><p><em>Jemma, I need to do it here, but I will not chain you to a wall when we get home. Promise. I will attach you to a table or bed sometimes, but it won’t be a chain.</em></p><p>Leader Dogs gives every student a metal tie-down. I put mine in the far corner of the top shelf in the closet, where it stayed. I would not even bring it home with me.</p><p>More Peanuts teacher wa-wa, then, “We’ll call everyone out in about an hour to have you start working your dogs in the hallways.”</p><p>“Will I need the harness?”</p><p>“Not today. We’ll just work on basics like heel and sit."</p><p>After what felt like the whole hour but was probably only a couple of minutes in real time, Amber left us alone.</p><p>I talked soft assurances to my girl. “You’re safe, and everything’s fine, my beautiful girl, we’re going to have a wonderful life together…I’m your mommy forever.”</p><p>Once Amber had left, Jemma’s tail wagged higher as she darted around the room. Her panting slowed some, but I knew from her behavior and thoughts that she still felt terrified. Also, as an empath, I also felt her fear. And she kept telling me not to hurt her. My heart ached.<br>As before, I had to grab the leash to get my girl to stick with me for more than a second.</br></p><p>Jemma went to investigate her new harness, which hung by the door. She reared up and sniffed it.<br><br>“That will be yours soon.”</br></br></p><p>I turned the dog day-playlist back on. The wondrous music box, otherwise known as my cellphone, fascinated Jemma. Wagging her tail high, she sniffed it, looked at me, then sniffed it again.</p><p>“Is that a magical singing box, my Jemma girl?”</p><p>She licked my chin. With Amber gone, she settled with me better. After a few minutes, she stopped stress-panting, and her explorations became less frenetic and more simple curiosity. I can’t blame a dog for checking out a new space, but it hurt that she felt so wary and afraid. When she came over, I stroked her soft fur. The whole time, I spoke reassuring words to her.</p><p>Then, I started singing along with some of the songs. Jemma sat up and stared at me. I supposed she didn’t hear much of that in the prison.</p><p>“I can’t help falling in love with you.” I sang. My girl stared into my face, slurping me occasionally, through several songs. She especially loved that one.</p><p>Jemma nestled beside me of her own free will. Soon, she rested her head on my lap.</p><p>I altered the line in “Love me Tender,” to be, “Oh my Jemma, I love you, and I always will.”</p><p>Her soulful eyes drifted closed at last, and she sighed.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[New Orleans]]></title><description><![CDATA[(For Jane)
You gave me this city thirty years ago
bewitched me
with iron-laced galleries above arcane streets,
music and food drifting
from French Quarter doorways.
Every year since then,
we have walked beneath antique oaks
that witnessed duels fought over beauty
such as yours.
Here,
I have seen the sky on fire above the Mississippi
and often walked with your hand in mine
the white light of a full moon
pursuing us along black water waves as we stroll.
But tonight
we walk from the alley of pirat]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/new-orleans/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523299</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Wallace]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:08:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1578506971248-38ad15eb77a0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fG5ldyUyMG9ybGVhbnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM2NTU3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1578506971248-38ad15eb77a0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fG5ldyUyMG9ybGVhbnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM2NTU3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="New Orleans"/><p>(For Jane)</p><p>You gave me this city thirty years ago<br>bewitched me<br>with iron-laced galleries above arcane streets,<br>music and food drifting<br>from French Quarter doorways.<br>Every year since then,<br>we have walked beneath antique oaks<br>that witnessed duels fought over beauty<br>such as yours.<br>Here,<br>I have seen the sky on fire above the Mississippi<br>and often walked with your hand in mine<br>the white light of a full moon<br>pursuing us along black water waves as we stroll.<br>But tonight<br>we walk from the alley of pirates<br>to stand on these stones<br>before this cathedral<br>beneath two contrails above a three-quarter moon<br>slipping through ragged clouds<br>The past swallows all<br>as we watch painters, poets and jugglers<br>mingle with angels<br>and whores<br>and the ghosts of both.<br>It is in this moment<br>with the steady clop of horse hooves<br>before an unseen carriage<br>at last, I understand this portal,<br>and know<br>why one hand holds yours like gold<br>and the other becomes familiar with a pistol grip.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Party Has to End Sometime]]></title><description><![CDATA[My friend Lester Armagost loved Halloween. He lived around the corner from me in a turn-of-the-century house. In mid-October, Lester would start turning his house into a haunted castle. For many years, it was the location for the town’s most popular and much anticipated Halloween party.
The prep involved removing furniture from the lower floor, stapling Visqueen to the walls, putting up decorations, and hauling in bales of hay for seating. For the yearly party, Lester did things to his house th]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-party-has-to-end-sometime/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523298</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:08:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1571369985645-7859660074fa?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM1fHxvbGQlMjBob3VzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzY0NTR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1571369985645-7859660074fa?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM1fHxvbGQlMjBob3VzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzY0NTR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Party Has to End Sometime"/><p>My friend Lester Armagost loved Halloween. He lived around the corner from me in a turn-of-the-century house. In mid-October, Lester would start turning his house into a haunted castle. For many years, it was the location for the town’s most popular and much anticipated Halloween party.</p><p>The prep involved removing furniture from the lower floor, stapling Visqueen to the walls, putting up decorations, and hauling in bales of hay for seating. For the yearly party, Lester did things to his house that most folks would never consider doing. On Halloween night, Lester would open his home to the children who were trick-or-treating. Later in the evening at 9 p.m., the house was open to adults. During the Halloween party, the upstairs bathtub served as an iced beer bin. There was a well-stocked bar in his kitchen, and Lester hired bartenders to mix drinks. He did everything necessary to create a good time for his guests.</p><p>I knew Lester was ill before we met and became friends. That didn’t bother me. I knew several people who had AIDS. I had lost friends to the disease. When I lived in Fayetteville, I hung out with four guys whom I considered my best friends. Of the four, three succumbed to the disease. Although there was a fear among the general population, I knew that AIDS could not be transmitted through casual contact. The stupid disease was not going to keep me from making and loving friends, sick or not.</p><p>During March of 1994, a late-season snowstorm dropped several inches of snow on Eureka Springs. Lester called to tell me that we had a friend, Steve, who was in bad shape and was in the ICU at the Eureka Springs hospital. Because the roads were impassable, Steve’s nearest relative, a brother living in Oklahoma, could not travel to Eureka Springs to be with Steve. Lester and I donned our snow boots and walked to the hospital. We didn’t want our friend to be alone.</p><p>Even though we weren’t really family, because of the seriousness of Steve’s situation, the staff bent the rules. They let us sit in the ICU with him. I don’t know if Steve knew we were there, but I like to think that he did know. Lester and I rubbed his arms and legs and held his hand. As sad and trying as the situation was for Lester and me, the time the two of us spent together at the hospital sitting with Steve was quality time. We cried, we laughed, and we talked about friendship, hopes, and fears. I kept thinking that it could be Lester in that bed. Lester was thinking the same. Steve lived less than twenty-four hours after being admitted. He was thirty-nine years old when he passed. Before leaving the hospital, Lester and I had a good cry, hugged for a long time, and silently walked home in the snow.</p><p>The weather in July of 1995 was summertime hot when Lester became bedridden. Unlike Steve, who passed in a hospital, Lester was in a bed in his home and surrounded by many friends who sat with him during his final hours. He lay unconscious with flowers strewn all around him on the bed and pillow. I was very sad. At the same time, I thought that the sight of him on the bed, smothered in flowers like an Indian prince, was beautiful. I knew that Lester was surrounded by love when he left us. He died at the age of forty-one.</p><p>The following Halloween, there was one more party in Lester’s house. The party was held to honor him, and it was as festive and fun as ever. Lester would have liked that. His ashes were at the party in a beautiful urn, and I know he was there in spirit.</p><p>It is good to leave this world while being loved.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Look Before You Swallow (after Wengechi Mutu)]]></title><description><![CDATA[Gunfight of hipbone feared nausea
mother’s pinched brown fingers
on the day you get diagnosed
a prophet with a P.H.D.
adds letters to your name
sends sweet holy alprazolam uncured
grabs the pink Cadillac of your throat,
lets Ani Difranco know you have anorexia before you do.
Penny taste of ensure/ echo cafeteria
Who of starved belly, atrophied to ache?
or the ice cream you eat every day, dial-up dinner &
Man Whose Fault It Is, all of them,
face the music
& the music is weeping with the rain,
the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/look-before-you-swallow-after-wengechi-mutu/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523297</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Claire Collins]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:08:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1599235553279-f1aefe8cd0b2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDg5fHxzdW5mbG93ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM2MzM5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1599235553279-f1aefe8cd0b2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDg5fHxzdW5mbG93ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM2MzM5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Look Before You Swallow (after Wengechi Mutu)"/><p>Gunfight of hipbone feared nausea<br>mother’s pinched brown fingers<br>on the day you get diagnosed<br>a prophet with a P.H.D.<br>adds letters to your name<br>sends sweet holy alprazolam uncured<br>grabs the pink Cadillac of your throat,<br>lets Ani Difranco know you have anorexia before you do.<br>Penny taste of ensure/ echo cafeteria<br>Who of starved belly, atrophied to ache?<br>or the ice cream you eat every day, dial-up dinner &<br>Man Whose Fault It Is, all of them,<br>face the music<br>& the music is weeping with the rain,<br>the college you wish you attended, the professor who said you’d go early, advanced.<br>Mr. Day and his question about a sunflower, “Is it only one flower? Or is it the potential of every sunflower?”<br>Were you a sunflower? Prescription-seed,<br>complex PTSD wouldn’t let you know.<br>Show us Man Whose Fault It Is-<br>Forgiveness is dead, and there is no permission to give.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[There Is No Grief In My Mother's House]]></title><description><![CDATA[Udoka often regards thoughts of death with the weight of uncertainty pressing into the corners of his mind; an unsure kind of sadness in his heart, a secondhand grief gathering in his throat.
It might have been the nature of grief–the startling quality of sad wails and the dramatic flair with which people mourned–that caused him to think of death as an inherently malevolent thing, a thing worthy of being feared.
Once, when he was seventeen and his mother had just received the call informing he]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/there-is-no-grief-in-my-mothers-house/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523295</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chidera Solomon Anikpe]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:07:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595414714676-770d0e61df9d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fG1lbG9uJTIwc2VlZHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM1OTI3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595414714676-770d0e61df9d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fG1lbG9uJTIwc2VlZHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM1OTI3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="There Is No Grief In My Mother's House"/><p>Udoka often regards thoughts of death with the weight of uncertainty pressing into the corners of his mind; an unsure kind of sadness in his heart, a secondhand grief gathering in his throat.</p><p>It might have been the nature of grief–the startling quality of sad wails and the dramatic flair with which people mourned–that caused him to think of death as an inherently malevolent thing, a thing worthy of being feared.</p><p>Once, when he was seventeen and his mother had just received the call informing her of her father’s death, he watched her–this woman for whom the word ‘strong’ had always been a defining adjective–crumble to the floor like a sack of willowy things, a community of broken things. He observed her as she cried, mouth agape in a terrible scream, eyes bleeding tears and red enough he feared she would cry blood too.</p><p>He saw her take on a newness in that moment. It should not have startled him, should not have unsettled him in the way that it did and yet he found himself filled with a crippling stillness, wondering if she had not in fact known, months before the call came, that her father would die.</p><p>Months later, he left for University and washed away the memory of her grief from his mind, absolved himself of that irrational fear of death.</p><p>But he remembers it now, the signature of that fear, the distinct quality that it carries.</p><p>He is dressed in black and she is seated across from him on a plush navy blue couch in her living room. She is wearing her favorite house cloth; a breezy, feathery night gown. He remembers that gown, she had worn it religiously throughout his childhood. He is almost surprised that it is still intact.</p><p>“I am gay.” He says it softly as though the decibel in his voice might affect the extent to which he knows his words will hurt her.</p><p>She is silent. He expected this reaction but it does nothing to ease the tightening in his stomach or the gathering of sweat in his armpits. He averts his eyes from her unreadable face and focuses instead on the crisscrossing design on the carpet beneath his feet. He almost doesn’t notice it when she stands up from the couch and heads into the adjoining kitchen.</p><p>She returns with a pink bowl clutched in her hands and for a small moment he imagines that the bowl is filled with water. He imagines that she walks up to him and splashes the water on him, eyes blazing with betrayed fury, mouth agape and screaming in that same terrible manner that had crippled him all those years ago.</p><p>But she goes back on the couch and balances the bowl on her thighs. It is filled with melon seeds.</p><p>She plucks one seed from the bowl and peels off it’s crisp yellow shell to reveal the cream colored seed inside. She picks another and repeats the pattern. Her movements are methodical. The silence is stifling.</p><p>“Since when?” He is almost startled by the gentle resonance of her voice, by the unflinching ease with which she asks the question.</p><p>He finds, in that moment, that he does not know what to say. The crunch of egusi shells are the only sounds he can make out in the stillness. He listens closely for another sound, something outside the sphere of his mother’s presence, something from the outside world that might prove that he is not so utterly alone in that moment. Anything that might anchor him. He hears nothing.</p><p>“I was born this way, mama.” He is reminded of that Lady Gaga song ‘<em>baby I was born this way</em>’ and he finds that the memory causes him to want to laugh, it unloosens something in his stomach.<br><br>She looks up at him from the bowl of egusi seeds and he resolves to hold her stare, to not blink or avert his eyes.</br></br></p><p>“Nobody is born gay, Udokamma.” Her response is crisp. He has not even had the time to reel before she returns to peeling her egusi, carefully nonchalant of the amalgamation of emotions that clouds his face.</p><p>When he says nothing, she takes the incentive to continue.</p><p>“There is a pastor on Okigwe street. Very powerful man of God. He will deliver you of this madness.” Her tone is smooth, fluid and precise.<br>There is something about her easiness that stills Udoka. He watches her, the stylish way in which she avoids looking at him, the utter lack of surprise, the absence of betrayal in her aura. He watches her as she plucks the melon seeds away from their shells and then he comes into the realization that–for a small moment–causes him to lose feelings in his legs.<br><br>“You knew.” His words are an accusation.<br><br>She does not deny it.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>He begins to cry. The reaction startles him but he yields himself to it.</p><p>“You knew, all these years. You watched me suffer and all this while you knew?” He tries to hide the betrayal in his voice but it bleeds through nonetheless.</p><p>“And so what if I knew? What does it change, Udokamma? Tell me. What does it change?”</p><p>The air charges with something electric, something large and cruel and hurtful. He wishes that she will cry too, that her eyes will moisten and that her body will crumble as it had done all those years ago when her father died.</p><p>But she does not cry and all he can think about is that call from the neighbours a few hours past that had unmoored him.</p><p>“Hello, Udoka. Your mother had a heart attack while peeling Egusi. It happened so suddenly. She’s gone.”</p><p>It is him who crumbles instead, him who falls towards the floor like a sack of willowy things. It is him who holds the bowl of egusi seeds and the feathery night gown that carries the unique signature of her musk.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cherry Tomatoes]]></title><description><![CDATA[She was looking at me from across the table with beguiling eyes. As soon as I sat down in front of my sterling silver I could feel them on me like hot, incandescent stage lights. They were watching me, sagacious, watching as I picked up my glass of water and brought it to my lips, watching as I wiped the dampness from around my mouth. Curious eyes, they were. Ogling me like I was the first woman they’d ever seen in their life.
And I didn’t dare meet their gaze, despite how easy it would have be]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/cherry-tomatoes/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523296</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sarah Butkovic]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:07:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558818498-28c1e002b655?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHRvbWF0b2VzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQzNjEzMXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558818498-28c1e002b655?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHRvbWF0b2VzfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQzNjEzMXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Cherry Tomatoes"/><p>She was looking at me from across the table with beguiling eyes. As soon as I sat down in front of my sterling silver I could feel them on me like hot, incandescent stage lights. They were watching me, sagacious, watching as I picked up my glass of water and brought it to my lips, watching as I wiped the dampness from around my mouth. Curious eyes, they were. Ogling me like I was the first woman they’d ever seen in their life.</p><p>And I didn’t dare meet their gaze, despite how easy it would have been. All I had to do was look up — a gesture so innocuous that no one would’ve batted an eye. Pretend to glimpse the clouds, the way the sun was slanted on our dinner table, the ketchup stains on the worn tablecloth… anything that would have given me an excuse to glance at her for even a moment.</p><p>Keeping my eyes fixated on the wilty spinach salad in front of me may have been the hardest thing I had to do in my life. And that wasn’t a hyperbole.</p><p>Four tomatoes, sliced down the middle. Were they cherry or grape? They looked too rounded to be cherry but had too many seeds to be grape. Maybe they were some sort of heirloom?</p><p>“How’s your food, dear?”</p><p>I looked up, stunned, feeling more exposed than a bathtub murder victim, body naked sprawled out for everyone to see up-close. For a second I’d forgotten there was anyone else around me. I blinked rapidly and glanced down at my food once again.</p><p>I couldn’t bear to glare at those damn tomatoes anymore — all red and fleshy and gushing with seeds, skins wrinkling ever so slightly from the sting of the sun.</p><p>This is it, I thought. I’m going to be lovesick all over the table.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mother Earth]]></title><description><![CDATA[The nutrients I was born with,
You have ripped from my flesh.
My shell,
You have fractured.
Digging into my core.
I am a mother.
Guarding her children.
Vengeful for those who do us harm.
Wiser than the minds who adorn greed.
Stronger than the iron you seek.
Take notice of my bareness.
Take pity on your children’s future.
For I am a mother who will not forgive.
Broken shards are left for you to feast on.
Do not underestimate my fury.
You narcissistic human race.
I will suck the marrow from your b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mother-earth/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523294</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Holly Ellison]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:07:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1492496913980-501348b61469?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGRpcnR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM1NzEyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1492496913980-501348b61469?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGRpcnR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM1NzEyfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Mother Earth"/><p>The nutrients I was born with,<br>You have ripped from my flesh.<br>My shell,<br>You have fractured.<br>Digging into my core.<br>I am a mother.<br>Guarding her children.<br>Vengeful for those who do us harm.<br>Wiser than the minds who adorn greed.<br>Stronger than the iron you seek.<br>Take notice of my bareness.<br>Take pity on your children’s future.<br>For I am a mother who will not forgive.<br>Broken shards are left for you to feast on.<br>Do not underestimate my fury.<br>You narcissistic human race.<br>I will suck the marrow from your bones.<br>Wrapping you in dust.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[National Eligibility Test]]></title><description><![CDATA[mere memory does everything
Fair is fowl and fowl is fair
that’s all ye know…
and all ye need to know…?
Speaking is a form of
writing with tongue,
and writing a form
of speaking with pen
as such won’t a test
on this with a demo class
really estimate the true
potential in a teacher aspirant
necessary for a student ?
But instead think of one, only
with multiple choice questions,
something that tests only memory.
Can mere recollection of memory
without something to test
research, analytical abi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/national-eligibility-test/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523290</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sreekanth Kopuri]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:06:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1606326608606-aa0b62935f2b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHRlc3R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM1MTc5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1606326608606-aa0b62935f2b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHRlc3R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM1MTc5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="National Eligibility Test"/><p><em>mere memory does everything</em></p><p>Fair is fowl and fowl is fair<br>that’s all ye know…<br>and all ye need to know…?</br></br></p><p>Speaking is a form of<br>writing with tongue,<br>and writing a form<br>of speaking with pen<br>as such won’t a test<br>on this with a demo class<br>really estimate the true<br>potential in a teacher aspirant<br>necessary for a student ?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But instead think of one, only<br>with multiple choice questions,<br>something that tests only memory.</br></br></p><p>Can mere recollection of memory<br>without something to test<br>research, analytical ability<br>and creativity out of a<br>brainstorming extempore<br>assess the quality?</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>We just buy books<br>that have scores of<br>multiple choice questions<br>prepared by “experts” and<br>just remember the types of<br>questions and answers<br>or memorize those from<br>old question papers,</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>commit the dates and<br>years of famous deaths<br>and births, wars and pandemics,<br>names of authors and<br>famous / notorious personalities,</br></br></br></br></p><p>instead of the creative potential<br>or “imagination …(that is)…<br>more important than knowledge.”<br>as Einstein says.</br></br></br></p><p>That’s enough and promising<br>to be “qualified” to teach<br>at any university,<br>assures the Government.</br></br></br></p><p>But can mere memory ascertain<br>that you can lecture<br>an hour on counter-terrorism<br>or counter-intelligence or the<br>imminent threat of AI or Robotics<br>to human existence or write<br>a phenomenal dissertation<br>on Einstein’s quote :<br>“Pure mathematics is,in its way,<br>the poetry of logical ideas”?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Can only reading and writing skills<br>include listening and speaking as well?</br></p><p>Today “National or State Eligibility Test”<br>has even become the most<br>glamorous post nominal<br>and a blaring promise of<br>a secure job, with fat perks<br>and a lifetime dignity.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>A NET or SET-qualified beginner<br>moves from pillar to post<br>for a ghost writer for<br>a couple of Scopus Journal<br>publications and thesis<br>for his PhD that is<br>mandatory for promotion.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><em>Indian Government considers National Eligibility Test (NET) or State Eligibility Test (SET) as a standard to teach in a university or college. This exam is just based only on multiple choice questions which are to be answered on a OMR sheet.</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Stay With Me]]></title><description><![CDATA[Your wings spread
on Alki Beach next to Puget Sound.
You are wearing red mittens
and the snow glitters near your pink ears.
Your hair like poured butterscotch radiates
bright stripes of the morning’s sun.
You giggle, “Look at me!
I’m a snow angel!”
and I recall what the nurse
said just four years ago,
“Your baby, your beautiful baby,
hair like an Irish child.”
and how I wrapped my arms around you
whispering in your ear,
You are mine, stay with me.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/stay-with-me/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523292</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sallie Crotty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:06:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516632395723-b5bd556ab542?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxtb3RoZXIlMjBob2xkaW5nJTIwYmFieXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzU0MDJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516632395723-b5bd556ab542?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxtb3RoZXIlMjBob2xkaW5nJTIwYmFieXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzU0MDJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Stay With Me"/><p>Your wings spread<br>on Alki Beach next to Puget Sound.</br></p><p>You are wearing red mittens<br>and the snow glitters near your pink ears.</br></p><p>Your hair like poured butterscotch radiates<br>bright stripes of the morning’s sun.</br></p><p>You giggle, “Look at me!<br>I’m a snow angel!”</br></p><p>and I recall what the nurse<br>said just four years ago,</br></p><p>“Your baby, your beautiful baby,<br>hair like an Irish child.”</br></p><p>and how I wrapped my arms around you<br>whispering in your ear,</br></p><p>You are mine, stay with me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Prometheus Artificer]]></title><description><![CDATA[No prophet, self-driven, chose clay to mould,
enchant it. Judged by fancy and it seemed
to fall together. Suspecting happy accidents
he searched for flaws, soon found them:
seams of discontent stretched length to length,
a jagged rift rent head from heart, heart from him.
Hard handed, he squeezed the seeded clay
too late. The earth had set and would not ply.
Seal imperfections. He stuffed each crack
then smoothed to a shine. To no avail.
He whittled stolid stone and wedged it in.
It fell rejecte]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/prometheus-artificer/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523293</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel P. Stokes]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:06:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611013621103-91e10668a120?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGNsYXl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM1NTM5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611013621103-91e10668a120?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGNsYXl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM1NTM5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Prometheus Artificer"/><p>No prophet, self-driven, chose clay to mould,<br>enchant it. Judged by fancy and it seemed<br>to fall together. Suspecting happy accidents<br>he searched for flaws, soon found them:<br>seams of discontent stretched length to length,<br>a jagged rift rent head from heart, heart from him.<br>Hard handed, he squeezed the seeded clay<br>too late. The earth had set and would not ply.<br>Seal imperfections. He stuffed each crack<br>then smoothed to a shine. To no avail.<br>He whittled stolid stone and wedged it in.<br>It fell rejected. The breach grew great.<br>Plane down the scale, eliminate distortions.<br>Still saw beneath the crust the secret spider strike a smile.<br>What now to do? All craft he knew<br>and energy expended, he felt the fault in him<br>and he a god. But to rivet meant to split,<br>to split destroy, and thus, he knew, to lose<br>entirely. Bent on achievement, foresaw<br>recasting dream, no locked rock, bird’s beak,<br>flushed by selfish heaven’s purloined flame.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dialogue With the 'God']]></title><description><![CDATA[Three Worlds/Question/Wandering/Curiosity
My heart conceives
Silence in the chaos
The womb is the culmination of
Three worlds,
“Oh lord of the caves”,
Where do you reside?
Hearthstone/Answer/Request/Surrender
Mountain gooseberry,
Primula grow in clusters on my skin
I ran into the temples
To find you in the stone.
If you reside in stone,
Why don’t you abscond to see me?
My body is your hearthstone
Oh lord of the highest peaks!
Please come home.
There is no meaning in my existence
Without you.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dialogue-with-the-god/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523291</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nidhi Agrawal]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:06:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1591276625440-d50e6618dfd1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHxnb2R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM1MzI1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1591276625440-d50e6618dfd1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHxnb2R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM1MzI1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dialogue With the 'God'"/><p>Three Worlds/Question/Wandering/Curiosity</p><p>My heart conceives<br>Silence in the chaos<br>The womb is the culmination of<br>Three worlds,<br>“Oh lord of the caves”,<br>Where do you reside?</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Hearthstone/Answer/Request/Surrender</p><p>Mountain gooseberry,<br>Primula grow in clusters on my skin<br>I ran into the temples<br>To find you in the stone.<br>If you reside in stone,<br>Why don’t you abscond to see me?</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>My body is your hearthstone<br>Oh lord of the highest peaks!<br>Please come home.<br>There is no meaning in my existence<br>Without you.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Union/Euphoria/Laundry/Spiritual Awakening</p><p>Rivers deliquesce in the blood<br>Gush back and forth between the<br>Arteries and veins<br>Laundering my<br>Pride<br>Guilt<br>Lust<br>Wrath<br>Envy<br>Sloth<br>Gluttony.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Trump on Trial]]></title><description><![CDATA[A One-Act Play
By Charles L. Templeton
Cast
Judge: Wanda Windbag
Prosecutor: Jubilation T. Calhoun
Defense Attorney: Delores Fishdodger
Defendant: The Donald
Jury: The Audience
Judge Windbag: I would remind the jury that since Mr. Trump offered to testify on his behalf, he will not be allowed to plead the Fifth Amendment during questioning by the prosecutor, Mr. Calhoun. It is the hope of this judge that the prosecutor will ask some semi-intelligent questions and refrain from offering up thos]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/trump-on-trial/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852328f</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Silence Dogood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:05:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1676181739678-47d76dc38a87?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxqdWRnZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzUwNzF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1676181739678-47d76dc38a87?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxqdWRnZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzUwNzF8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Trump on Trial"/><p>A One-Act Play</p><p>By Charles L. Templeton</p><p>Cast<br>Judge: Wanda Windbag<br>Prosecutor: Jubilation T. Calhoun<br>Defense Attorney: Delores Fishdodger<br>Defendant: The Donald<br>Jury: The Audience</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Judge Windbag: I would remind the jury that since Mr. Trump offered to testify on his behalf, he will not be allowed to plead the Fifth Amendment during questioning by the prosecutor, Mr. Calhoun. It is the hope of this judge that the prosecutor will ask some semi-intelligent questions and refrain from offering up those sugarcoated softballs that, the defendant’s attorney, Ms. Fishdodger, spent the last four hours asking the defendant.</p><p>Atty. Delores Fishdodger: I object!</p><p>The Donald: You go get ‘em, Fishy!</p><p>Judge Windbag: Oh, sit down, Ms. Fishdodger, you can’t object to me! In case you haven’t noticed … I AM THE JUDGE! And I will not tell you again, Mr. Trump, do not speak in my courtroom, unless you are called upon.</p><p>The Donald: Well, why does Fishy get to object, but I can’t?</p><p>Judge Windbag: Because she’s your attorney.</p><p>The Donald: Oh, so if I’m my attorney, I can object?</p><p>Judge Windbag: Yes, but then you would have a fool for an Attorney, a role which I think Ms. Fishdodger has adequately fulfilled for you. So, if you have no more questions Mr Trump, may we move this along? I’m having a root canal at five thirty, which I am starting to look forward to. It couldn’t be this painful.</p><p>The Donald: Oh, but you would be wrong there, Judge Windbag. I had one of those not long ago. But then that would be determined by how you would define ‘long.’ But I know long, Judge. And I know painful. Nobody knows pain like me. I am the mother and father of all pain. Believe me, Judge, my pain is tremendous…</p><p>Judge Windbag: Enough! I am sure that not only is your pain tremendous, but so is that of anyone who has to listen to you longer than five minutes. Let’s move this trial along. Do you have any questions for this witness Attorney Calhoun?</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: Indeed I do, Your Honor.</p><p>Judge Windbag: Well, come on, man. Don’t stand there like the cat’s got your tongue, I’ve got a dental appointment I’m looking forward to. Approach the defendant and ask your first question.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: The cat doesn’t have my tongue, Your Honor, just my brain. Very well, Mr. Trump …</p><p>The Donald: Hold on there, counselor, if you would allow me Judge? Since, Jubilation, you don’t mind if I call you Jubilation, do you? You can call me Mr. President. Jubilation has mentioned a cat having his tongue, which will help me explain “grabbing ‘em by the pussy …”</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: Objection!</p><p>Judge Windbag: You can’t object to yourself. Maybe your mother could, but you can’t. You opened this Pandora’s Box.</p><p>The Donald: I never said grab ‘em by the Pandora’s Box…</p><p>Judge Windbag: One more outburst and I will have the defendant gagged! Now, let’s proceed.</p><p>The Donald: If I’m gagged, how will I answer questions?</p><p>Judge Windbag: (Fist clenched) You will have to write your answers down. Now, let’s get on with this farce of a trial.</p><p>The Donald: Oh, I don’t mind writing at all, you Honor, I have beautiful handwriting. The most beautifulist of all the Presidents. I’m most proud of my Ds and Ts, they are gorgeous …</p><p>Judge Windbag: (Hand on Forehead) I believe I might be having the DTs … Mr. Calhoun, let’s proceed.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: Uh, thank you, Your Honor…I think?. Mr. Trump, have you ever lied to hide the truth about something you have done?</p><p>(pause)</p><p>Judge Windbag: The defendant will answer the question.</p><p>The Donald: Oh, sorry, Your Honor, I was waiting for a pen and paper. I thought you wanted me to write out my answers.</p><p>Judge Windbag: (sighs) That will not be necessary, at this time. Just answer the question.</p><p>The Donald: Very well, Judge, and might I add that you are looking particularly beautiful today. You don’t own a cat, do you?</p><p>Judge Windbag: Mr Trump!</p><p>The Donald: Sorry, Your Honor, Er, ah… what was the question?</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: Have you ever lied to hide the truth about something you have done?</p><p>The Donald: No way! The Donald is the truthiest person in America, maybe the world. Putin is a close second. But no one is more truthy than me. My truth is tremendous. People love it. I can give them one truth today and an entirely different truth tomorrow. And they will love both truths equally.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: So, you have never lied?</p><p>The Donald: No, never. If the President believes it’s the truth, then it’s the truth.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: But you are not the President…</p><p>The Donald: I don’t believe that, so it can’t be true, can it, Jubal? You don’t mind if I call you Jubal do you? You can call me Mr. President.</p><p>Judge Windbag: This should be where you change your tactics Mr. Calhoun. Your current line of questioning is taking us further down the former President’s rabbit hole.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: Very well, Your Honor. Mr. Trump, did you have any discussions with foreign leaders before the events of January 6th?</p><p>The Donald: Absolutely! I have tremendous conversations with everyone … kings, queens, prime ministers, dictators, and even some aliens. All very classy conversations. You know, the very most classiest.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: Aliens?</p><p>The Donald: Sure, why not? They love me. We’re building a space hotel together. The Trump Hole. You know like a Black Hole. It is where all their money will disappear. It’s going to be huge. My friend Elon is going to find a way to take people there. Classy stuff, Jubal, you want in on the action?</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: (shakes head) So, Mr. Trump, did you take the advice of any of your advisors prior to January 6th?</p><p>The Donald: Advisors? Of course, I have advisors. My hair is one of my best advisors. (Whispers) It tells me things nobody else can hear.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: Your Hair?</p><p>Atty. Delores Fishdodger: I object, asked and answered.</p><p>Judge Windbag: Sit down Ms. Fishdodger, or you’ll be taking my place at the dentist’s. Answer the question Mr. Trump.</p><p>The Donald: Yes, Your Honor. (Turns to Jury) You see, my hair has tremendous insights. It’s like genius-level hair. Very, very, smart hair. It helps me bigly when I’m making decisions.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: Did your hair advise you on making business deals while you were President?</p><p>The Donald: I am the greatest dealmaker in the world. Deals just happen around me, counselor. I make deals while brushing my teeth. I make deals while eating a taco. I made deals while suffering bigly from Covid. You should read my book, counselor, The Art of the Deal.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: (Bigly sighs) Mr. Trump, on January 6th you addressed a crowd of your supporters and urged them to “fight like hell.” Could you please explain what you meant by that?</p><p>The Donald: Well, you see, I was talking about fighting for America, fighting for democracy, fighting for those fantastic hotel and golf course deals … you know, the important stuff.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: So, you were referring to metaphorical fighting?</p><p>The Donald: Absolutely. Metaphorical, allegorical, maybe even a smidge of alliteration. I’m a very, very, literary guy. My supporters love my literariness. Like when I created the word ‘covfefe.’</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: Covfefe? What is that anyway?</p><p>The Donald: Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, Jubal. My doc, Admiral Hufghfufu assured me that it’s just a temporary agvofofi. I can tell by that look on your face that you are amazed by my literaritude. (Smiles and gives dumfounded jury a thumbs up)</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: (shakes head) And when you told your supporters that they need to be “strong” and that “we won’t take it anymore,” what did you mean by that?</p><p>The Donald: Oh, that was just one of my bigly motivational speeches, you know? Like when I told my contractors they needed to be strong negotiators if they wanted to get paid.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: Right. What about your statement, “they should march down to the Capitol?</p><p>The Donald: Oh, my hair was telling me that the crowd needed to practice their navigational skills. I thought they needed some bigly help finding the right route for their Capitol tour. The Capitol can be very, very, confusing.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: Now, Mr. Trump, during that same speech, you told your supporters to be peaceful, but then you also said, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” How do you reconcile those statements?</p><p>The Donald: Ah, that’s an easy one, Jubal. You see, I’m a big fan of balance. It’s like when I have to balance my executive time with my TV time. Sometimes you gotta throw a curveball to keep things interesting.</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: So, just to clarify, you were encouraging your supporters to be strong, fight like hell, march to the Capitol, and balance it all out with peace?</p><p>The Donald: You got it, Jubal. It’s like going to a buffett. You gotta sample a little bit of everything. Variety is the spice of life. I mean just look at that jury … couldn’t be anymore variety than that (give jury another thumbs up), why there’s a couple of blacks, you know blacks love me, and a chink, and a messican, and a …</p><p>Judge Windbag: That’s quite enough, Mr. Trump! Counselor?</p><p>Prosecutor Jubilation T. Calhoun: No further questions, Your Honor.</p><p>Judge Windbag: Thank God! You may return to your seat Mr. Trump. Bailiff, do you have any aspirin or maybe some arsenic?</p><p>The Donald: Thanks, Judge. Can I get a copy of this transcript for my new book, The Art of the Appeal?</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dear Poem]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Poem,
Do you have any deep insights for me?
Sometimes, I come at you with
Unrealistic expectations
As if you are my psychic,
Or psychologist,
And I expect you to
Do the work
To unravel me
To save me
To love me
To lead me.
I do not want to
Trivialize your power,
Reducing you to a sterile collection of words.
Nor, do I want to burden you
With more than I should ask,
Demanding supernatural
Metaphysical
Otherwordly
Truths
That I cannot access elsewhere.
Perhaps,
Dear Poem,
I should just
Let you]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dear-poem/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852328e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Hoffman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:05:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1597605953084-526402cea0ab?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHBvZW18ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM0OTI2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1597605953084-526402cea0ab?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHBvZW18ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM0OTI2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dear Poem"/><p>Dear Poem,<br>Do you have any deep insights for me?<br>Sometimes, I come at you with<br>Unrealistic expectations<br>As if you are my psychic,<br>Or psychologist,<br>And I expect you to<br>Do the work<br>To unravel me<br>To save me<br>To love me<br>To lead me.<br>I do not want to<br>Trivialize your power,<br>Reducing you to a sterile collection of words.<br>Nor, do I want to burden you<br>With more than I should ask,<br>Demanding supernatural<br>Metaphysical<br>Otherwordly<br>Truths<br>That I cannot access elsewhere.<br>Perhaps,<br>Dear Poem,<br>I should just<br>Let you be<br>And I should<br>Listen<br>To what you have to say.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Yearly Exam]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sitting here on the cold table
in a borrowed gown
that opens in the front
waiting to be scraped
crushed
violated in the name of
Due Diligence
praying to the god
Early Detection
that I don’t go out
like you did]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/yearly-exam/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852328d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Aubrey Green]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:05:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1576085898477-1af31ada606a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGV4YW0lMjByb29tfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQzNDgzMHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1576085898477-1af31ada606a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGV4YW0lMjByb29tfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQzNDgzMHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Yearly Exam"/><p>Sitting here on the cold table<br>in a borrowed gown<br>that opens in the front<br>waiting to be scraped<br>crushed<br>violated in the name of<br>Due Diligence<br>praying to the god<br>Early Detection<br>that I don’t go out<br>like you did</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Those Goddamn Vultures]]></title><description><![CDATA[She stepped outside to have a cigarette, and again, she saw those goddamn vultures. It was the third day they’d been there. They’d claimed the trees between her property and her neighbor’s, but what she didn’t understand was… Why were they facing her property?
Her online research had enlightened her to certain facts about the ugly winged creatures - a flock of flying vultures was known as a kettle. Vultures perched in trees were known as a committee. And if you saw a group of them feeding on a ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/those-goddamn-vultures/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852328c</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laura Shell]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:04:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1628634814841-9dfac354ab8c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHx2dWx0dXJlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzQ2ODR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1628634814841-9dfac354ab8c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHx2dWx0dXJlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzQ2ODR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Those Goddamn Vultures"/><p>She stepped outside to have a cigarette, and again, she saw those goddamn vultures. It was the third day they’d been there. They’d claimed the trees between her property and her neighbor’s, but what she didn’t understand was… Why were they facing <em>her</em> property?</p><p>Her online research had enlightened her to certain facts about the ugly winged creatures - a flock of flying vultures was known as a <em>kettle</em>. Vultures perched in trees were known as a <em>committee</em>. And if you saw a group of them feeding on a dead thing, then you were looking at a <em>wake</em> of vultures.</p><p>Most likely, the ones staring at <em>her</em> were turkey vultures and those suckers had a six-foot wingspan.</p><p>But why were they facing her house?</p><p>Vicki stared back at them, the <em>committee</em> on one of the pine trees, must be around twenty of them. She flipped them the bird.</p><p>“Ha. See what I’m doing? I’m flipping the bird to birds. Or is it… I’m flipping birds the bird?”</p><p>Vicki gave those gawking vultures an evil sneer before she turned and went back inside her house. That snear was a reflection of her internal emotional state as of the past couple of months. Bitter. Snarky. And she felt things were going to get worse because she formed an idea that grew claws and dug into her brain - those goddamn birds were like a fucking neon sign:</p><p>DEATH</p><p>It had loomed over her for a few months. Months she had moved through without much thought - get up, go to work, come home, eat, watch TV, sleep, repeat.</p><p>Never mind the pain in her chest, or the bright, red blood she coughed up from time to time. No big deal. Didn’t mean anything.</p><p>Never mind the pain in her lower abdomen, or the black fecal matter she sprayed into the toilet every day. No big deal. Didn’t mean anything.</p><p>But those goddamn vultures…</p><p>On the third day of their visit, she kept thinking about them, perched on the branches, just sitting there, staring. The images of them popped into her mind, what the meaning of their presence might mean, making it difficult for her to forge a robotic normalcy of a day.</p><p>Vicki felt like she was in a Poe story, or a Hitchcock film.</p><p>Wasn’t there anything to be done about those peeping intruders?</p><p>Screw it. She was going to have to ignore them. She didn’t have any other choice. She had mad skills in that arena. She could do it.</p><h1 id=""/><p>Vicki parked her car in the carport, got out with her purse, headed for the front door of her home. Didn’t even look at the trees. Didn’t even have the urge to.</p><p>She hadn’t thought about those goddamn vultures all goddamn day.</p><p>The pain in her lower gut nabbed her full attention as it grew exponentially and travelled across the front of her body, stopping her in her tracks. She dropped her purse, then dropped to her knees with her hands on her abdomen.</p><p>“Holy shit,” she croaked.</p><p>The projectile vomit was next. It sprayed a thick, red half moon shape on the tan fence that surrounded the trash can. It dripped from her mouth, tracked down her scrub top. No big deal. Didn’t mean anything.</p><p>Vicki fell to the pavement, on her left side, balled up into a fetal position. Nothing but razor pain from her throat to her asshole. And then she shit her pants. No big deal. Didn’t mean anything.</p><p>“Fucking hell! Seriously?!”</p><p>She heard the flapping of wings. A lot of it.</p><p>Through her watery eyes, she saw them. May have been all of them. Those goddamn vultures. Featherless, red heads. White beaks. Brownish-black bodies. Feet like chickens’.</p><p>They flew down and landed, walked and hopped along the driveway, toward her, taking positions inches from her body, surrounding her. No big deal. Didn’t mean anything.</p><p>“What the fuck?!”</p><p>Vicki barfed again, a small amount on the pavement. One of the vultures lapped it up like a dog drinking from a water bowl. Its tongue and beak turned red.</p><p>“Go fuck yourself,” she said. And then she began to feel lightheaded.</p><p>And still, the vultures assembled. All around her. Two, three rows thick. They stood there, motionless, staring at her, like statues, waiting…waiting.</p><p>“No.” Vicki rested her head on the ground, closed her eyes while the eyes of the vultures uniformly turned bright white. They all spread out their wings, showing off their impressive wingspan, totally covering her body and the ground around her.</p><p>Vicki knew she couldn’t ignore her reality. This <em>was</em> a big deal. It <em>did</em> mean something.</p><p>And then she died.</p><h1 id="-1"/><p>The next thing Vicki knew, she was perched on a branch, staring at her neighbor.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[World Theater]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sneaking into the World
through a back door
that was left unlocked
by mistake
Shame on the usher
Look at me now
hanging with a crowd
full of radiant
souls
Floundering forward
I aspire for the heights
to topple walls
that hem me in
leaning toward the end
Show is almost over
Inky dinky boy
shooting off
some magnitude
could be sparks of memory
Rolling down the aisle
Watching from the balcony
last row— I can barely see
faces on the stage
acting out their rage
Piercing the Heavens]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/world-theater/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852328b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jack Albert]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:04:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508778552286-12d4c6007799?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHx0aGVhdHJlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQzNDQyOXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508778552286-12d4c6007799?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHx0aGVhdHJlfGVufDB8fHx8MTcwNDQzNDQyOXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="World Theater"/><p>Sneaking into the World<br>through a back door<br>that was left unlocked<br>by mistake</br></br></br></p><p>Shame on the usher</p><p>Look at me now<br>hanging with a crowd<br>full of radiant<br>souls</br></br></br></p><p>Floundering forward</p><p>I aspire for the heights<br>to topple walls<br>that hem me in<br>leaning toward the end</br></br></br></p><p>Show is almost over</p><p>Inky dinky boy<br>shooting off<br>some magnitude<br>could be sparks of memory</br></br></br></p><p>Rolling down the aisle</p><p>Watching from the balcony<br>last row— I can barely see<br>faces on the stage<br>acting out their rage</br></br></br></p><p>Piercing the Heavens</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Convicts & Kingpins]]></title><description><![CDATA[We know some are gold souls
in tarnished guise, in an armor of rust
& no lust to remember for those knights
of nights mortal as the most tender
& tired thing opening my eyes
to what cloaks held
the bars, drugs, hunger,
diamond-shining with a promise,
need-deep, to be there
through the dawn only
& not lying should, afterward,
soldiers to the battle,
they not return ever]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/convicts-kingpins/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852328a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Mead]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:04:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525268323446-0505b6fe7778?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJhcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzQyNTh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525268323446-0505b6fe7778?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJhcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzQyNTh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Convicts & Kingpins"/><p>We know some are gold souls<br>in tarnished guise, in an armor of rust<br>& no lust to remember for those knights<br>of nights mortal as the most tender<br>& tired thing opening my eyes<br>to what cloaks held<br>the bars, drugs, hunger,<br>diamond-shining with a promise,<br>need-deep, to be there<br>through the dawn only<br>& not lying should, afterward,<br>soldiers to the battle,<br>they not return ever</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Elle's Request]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Mom, can I have this? It’s been sitting here by itself.” Elle was interested in the pocketknife that was in a little leather pouch, the one my father had always carried on his belt and used to clean his fingernails with. Of course, it had far more significance for me than that. When he died it was one of the few things of his most personal belongings he had left to give, the sum total of my inheritance. Handing it to me reluctantly and solemnly as he did, you would have thought it to be a milli]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/elles-request/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523289</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Summerfield]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:03:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611634459531-37f7df28f8ef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxNHx8a25pZmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM0MTUwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611634459531-37f7df28f8ef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxNHx8a25pZmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0NDM0MTUwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Elle's Request"/><p>“Mom, can I have this? It’s been sitting here by itself.” Elle was interested in the pocketknife that was in a little leather pouch, the one my father had always carried on his belt and used to clean his fingernails with. Of course, it had far more significance for me than that. When he died it was one of the few things of his most personal belongings he had left to give, the sum total of my inheritance. Handing it to me reluctantly and solemnly as he did, you would have thought it to be a million dollars. My mother never thought of leaving me anything. There were all the self-help books she collected by all the perfect people who’d written them. Over a lifetime they’d never helped her, she died pretty much ignorant as the day she was born, a testament to how one or one-hundred self-help books won’t help you, if you’re not motivated enough to read. I think it made her feel better just to have them on a ramshackle shelf to look at. And as a backdrop to the bookshelf and the knife itself, was the rest of the junk they owned and had hoped to sell.</p><p>They were flea-marketers. Toys, trinkets, knickknacks, novelty dishware cups saucers and glasses, old lanterns, shoes, belts and clothing, bird houses my father built. That was their stock in trade second-hand goods, odds and ends, cast offs and when they couldn’t make ends meet at the flea markets, my mother would make cinnamon rolls, hoagies, chocolate fudge and butterscotch pies for my father to take around to sell in local stores and delicatessens. I was never really sure how I felt about it. I was never really sure how I felt about them. They were always poor as hell. Sometimes I loved them and sometimes I didn’t.</p><p>But now this mountain of worthless shit was all that was left and I had to get rid of it. My parents had died within months of one another, we spread their ashes over a local flea market just like I wished I could set all this junk afire box up the ashes and toss its tacky legacy in the dumpster, be happy to have nothing more to do with it <em>c’est la vie</em>. But they loved to peddle this stuff and with it stuffed into an old Dodge van always in need of some repair they huffed and puffed their way to every flea market up and down the east coast like two gypsies. I was hardly ever in tow often left with a relative.</p><p>So here I was up to my ass in an Everest of collectibles with my daughter asking about the penknife my father used to clean his fingernails with. “You don’t want that,” I said, and to entice her attention away I held up a little keychain, a dangling compass in a clear plastic ball.</p><p>“Yes, I do,” said Elle. When Elle was little she was a hellion but now as a teenager she’d made this remarkable transformation into a discerning sensitive young girl. She’d picked up the knife and turned it affectionately in her fingers, seeming to imagine its past as if it were a museum piece. Never having known her grandfather I’d mentioned the knife’s crude history to her before, painted a picture of him using it and with a touch of bile, his handing it to me at the end as if it were some sort of family heirloom.</p><p>“Why would you want that old penknife?” I asked with a laugh, she would have to justify herself to me on this one.</p><p>“Its surface is so smooth and worn,” said Elle, “this slightly wobbling blade, emblem with the engraving worn off, its weathered panels suggest an old, true friend, lasting, durable, a trustworthy sidekick in service to its owner.”</p><p>Not a bad observation for a young teen I thought. I tossed the compass and tried to look at it the same way but I’d never thought of a penknife quite like that especially this one. To me it was still just a pocketknife, one I’d seen used a million times for the most banal purpose.</p><p>“But it’s about to come apart.” I said, slightly irked at her fixation on the knife.</p><p>She shrugged. I bit my cheek; <em>she’s allowed to have her own opinion about it if she wants to</em>.</p><p>Now after listening to Elle, I remembered my mother picking the knife up at a flea market, giving it to him proudly, “Look honey, it’s for you.” When she handed it to him, he’d barely looked at it, but in the quiet hours of his oft-beleaguered existence he would sit with that penknife and rake the accumulated detritus of his life out from underneath those fingernails and once done rise and be ready to face living again. My resentment at the knife and anyone who would show affinity towards it was because at the end of his life it was all of himself he had left to give that wasn’t some other piece of junk for sale. To change my opinion about it would require some difficult soul-searching which amid all this other trash-bagging I was not prepared to embark on.</p><p>I had thought about handing it to her the same way he’d handed it to me solemnly reluctantly as if it were something to behold, but I couldn’t do it. What Elle didn’t know; gambling was the third prong of their existence. When my parents couldn’t make ends meet selling junk or peddling food, they played the lottery, one day they hit it big but kept on gambling. Deep in debt filled with regret unable to pay their bills they’d simply quit on life and each other. In this falling down shack alongside the railroad tracks my mother could no longer get off her couch, listless my father could only sit and stare raking his fingernails with that knife never able to rise up to face life again, and when he finally bestowed it to me it was betrayal I felt, it could have been a small fortune, instead of an old worn-out penknife.</p><p>“You know what? You’ve convinced me. I’ll hold on to the knife, I hope you’re not disappointed.”</p><p>“Not at all,” said Elle.</p><p>Elle became distracted, I went outside threw the knife hard as I could heard it crack and ricochet to the bottom of the dumpster I’d rented. Maybe with that stupid knife gone, I could let things go, stop blaming missed opportunities on it, I felt relieved, as if a hundred-pound weight had lifted. Then I went and retrieved it. Back inside with Elle I told her how I’d changed my mind, pressed the knife reluctantly solemnly into her hand and with her young and innocent wisdom beside me, perhaps dutifully, maybe even with some newly mustered reverence I could sift forgivingly through what remained of my parents’ lives now.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Broken]]></title><description><![CDATA[Broken koan—the sound of one hand clapping
is not the rush of wing beats in the air
as the great horse flies over us, broken free
from the Medusa, art out of the horror.
The way wind moves is more in solitary moments
flapping the plastic bag caught in the branch
or causing trees to whisper all those names
that hide among the leaves like hidden tokens.
Thus the great image of the steed that passes
along the steppes as lightly as a cloud;
thus the connection to the passing thought
as light as moon]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/broken/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523288</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[A. Johnston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:03:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1610315311683-ef1706f00523?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGhvcnNlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzM3MzN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1610315311683-ef1706f00523?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGhvcnNlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzM3MzN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Broken"/><p>Broken koan—the sound of one hand clapping<br>is not the rush of wing beats in the air<br>as the great horse flies over us, broken free<br>from the Medusa, art out of the horror.<br>The way wind moves is more in solitary moments<br>flapping the plastic bag caught in the branch<br>or causing trees to whisper all those names<br>that hide among the leaves like hidden tokens.<br>Thus the great image of the steed that passes<br>along the steppes as lightly as a cloud;<br>thus the connection to the passing thought<br>as light as moonbeams touching undergrowth.<br>We wait for names to come to us. They may not.<br>It makes no difference. All the names are here.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Destiny]]></title><description><![CDATA[So hard to forget
life is a reminder
caught in a net
the shadows cast by the sun
the memories flow of all that was
unable to keep them out of view
always a prisoner without a cell
the mind imprisoned all in a newfound hell
captive, hostage, kidnapped
no guard is needed in this world of mine
just thoughts of persecution without a key
the door to salvation is locked, no escape
an endless journey through darkness
speak a truth that no one wishes to hear
there is no justice without endless cost
mone]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/destiny/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523287</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Ganshaw]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:03:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1443933223857-9ca346228f72?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG5ldHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzM1MjN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1443933223857-9ca346228f72?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG5ldHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzM1MjN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Destiny"/><p>So hard to forget<br>life is a reminder<br>caught in a net<br>the shadows cast by the sun<br>the memories flow of all that was<br>unable to keep them out of view<br>always a prisoner without a cell<br>the mind imprisoned all in a newfound hell<br>captive, hostage, kidnapped<br>no guard is needed in this world of mine<br>just thoughts of persecution without a key<br>the door to salvation is locked, no escape<br>an endless journey through darkness<br>speak a truth that no one wishes to hear<br>there is no justice without endless cost<br>money for freedom but always shackled and chained<br>write it down as there is so much to say<br>words meander lost on their own for none to see<br>a life invisible to all but me<br>a world of wonder that will leave me cursed<br>anxiety, depression, and panic will never cease<br>want to move on but are blocked by the ghosts<br>of those who hate and their despicable ways.<br>your owner summons you to lie and deceive<br>choke me and stab me while trying to sleep<br>death in dreams, eyes open but never awake<br>angels of darkness sent to retrieve the soul<br>of light from that deep buried place.<br>angel of mercy please appear, protect the<br>harmed and innocent from whom they<br>were born to be.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Perfect Murder]]></title><description><![CDATA[The idea came to Janet slowly, over weeks and months. At first, it had seemed unthinkable—something she would not, could not do. But as the idea took root and flowered into a plan of action, she realized she was, indeed, capable of committing murder.
In fact, the planning of the act was therapeutic—even comforting. Her confusion, pain, and hot rage morphed into a cold kernel of anger that was somehow more tolerable. She would no longer be the victim—he would. That detestable man who had stolen ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-perfect-murder/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523286</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jeanean Doherty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:03:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585553616435-2dc0a54e271d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDY4fHxkcmlua3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzMxMTN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585553616435-2dc0a54e271d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDY4fHxkcmlua3xlbnwwfHx8fDE3MDQ0MzMxMTN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Perfect Murder"/><p>The idea came to Janet slowly, over weeks and months. At first, it had seemed unthinkable—something she would not, could not do. But as the idea took root and flowered into a plan of action, she realized she was, indeed, capable of committing murder.</p><p>In fact, the planning of the act was therapeutic—even comforting. Her confusion, pain, and hot rage morphed into a cold kernel of anger that was somehow more tolerable. She would no longer be the victim—he would. That detestable man who had stolen her innocence would be her victim.</p><p>Yes, she could murder him. And with relish.</p><p>At first, she didn’t believe recent news reports of adult women recalling sexual abuse they had experienced as a child. Repressed memory? It seemed ridiculous that someone would unconsciously avoid thinking about traumatic experiences. Wouldn’t it be etched into her brain if something horrible happened to her? How could she forget she had been sexually abused?</p><p>But, over time, she wondered if that would explain the confusing snippets of memories, as well as the perplexing absence of recollections, that haunted her. The unexplained feelings of shame and her meekness as a child. Her low self-esteem as a teen. The hatred she felt for her stepfather. Her strained relationship with her mother, who had not divorced him until long after she left that dysfunctional home.</p><p>Analytical as she was, Janet read everything she could find about repressed memories. Afternoons, while her husband was at work, she reclined on the sofa, absorbing the latest research on the subject, tears soaking her lashes and blurring her vision. Secretly, as an adult with grown children, counseling and hypnosis confirmed what had happened to her as a child.</p><p>Janet could recall only a few details of the abuse, which was a blessing, but she remembered enough to know it was true. She now understood why her initial love for her mother’s husband had transformed into intense hatred. The teenage rebellion that drove her from home at sixteen finally made sense. And she knew, without a doubt, the man her mother married had groomed her from early childhood. He had touched her in totally inappropriate ways even though he was the only father she knew.</p><p>Janet decided to confront him about his abuse. And then murder him. She imagined going to his house and his reaction to seeing her. She liked to think she would not scream obscenities but that she would remain calm and cool. Sometimes, she would look in the mirror, practice what she would say, and feel the rage build until she was on the edge of losing control.</p><p>No, I must remain calm. She told herself. If I am to commit murder I must stay in control. There is no excuse for losing my power and making mistakes.</p><p>She considered how to murder him. Poison? Yes, that would be the way to do it. She knew nothing about firearms. Buying and learning how to use a gun was too complicated. Besides, shooting him would be messy. And it would be obvious how he died. By poisoning him, he would be found dead, and nobody would suspect he had been murdered.</p><p>Perhaps she would sit beside him and offer him a poisoned drink, smiling and pretending concern for him. And when there was no turning back, she would tell him what she had done and wait for the panic in his eyes—the knowledge that he would die. Then, she would taunt him with what she knew he feared: the fire and brimstone of hell for sinners like himself.</p><p>For weeks, she plotted how to do the deed. The drunken lout lived in a remote shack on the edge of her hometown. Perfect. Few neighbors and fewer friends. It was only an hour’s drive from her home. She could go there and back and not be missed. Her Lexus would attract attention, so she would rent a car using a credit card she would get for just that purpose. She wondered if she should disguise herself. That would be a reasonable precaution in case someone saw her at his shack.</p><p>Janet had always taken pride in her appearance. A petite blonde, she wore expensive clothes that accentuated her curvy figure. Her discretely highlighted hair was always impeccably styled in a classic cut. She never left her lavish home in an upscale neighborhood without makeup. She carefully applied cosmetics, transforming herself into a stunning woman who turned heads wherever she went. Yes, a disguise was essential.</p><p>She drove to a nearby town to shop at a Salvation Army store. But even though she had tried to “dress down,” she attracted too much attention.</p><p>“Can I help you find something,” an overly curious clerk offered.</p><p>“No, thank you.” She murmured, embarrassed, “I’m just browsing for a friend.”</p><p>Janet was overwhelmed by the abundance of racks of clothing on display. She deliberately browsed two sizes larger than her size 6. She pulled out a dull-colored plaid flannel shirt she wouldn’t ordinarily wear. Yes, it was satisfactorily sloppy and plain. It would do. She tossed it in her cart. Glancing around the store, she realized other customers were watching her. She hurriedly moved down the rack and selected a pair of khakis one size larger than usual.</p><p>As she headed toward the checkout stand, she spotted a display of hats. Janet loved hats. Before she realized it, she was trying on one and then another, admiring herself in the mirror attached to the stand. One darling hat, in particular, was perfect to wear in her convertible.</p><p>“That one was made for you.” The nosy clerk said, causing Janet to jump in alarm. “You should definitely buy it.”</p><p>“Yeah. I think I will.” She said as she tossed it in her basket with the flannel shirt and khaki pants.</p><p>But she grabbed a grubby OU ball cap and threw it in as well as she hurried to check out, paying with cash—no credit card for these purchases.</p><p>Her husband had a late business meeting that night, and she was glad to have the evening to herself. She showered and shampooed, scrubbing her face free of cosmetics. Instead of blow-drying her hair, she let it air dry and pulled it into a rough ponytail at the nape of her neck.</p><p>The khakis were too long. They dragged the floor, but when she cuffed the pant legs she realized she forgot to buy tacky shoes at the Salvation Army. She rummaged the back of her closet until she found an old pair of wine-stained sneakers.</p><p>Pulling the ball cap on her still-damp hair, she examined herself in the full-length mirror in her walk-in closet. Who are you? She asked her reflection.</p><p>Pleased with her disguise, she concentrated on the specifics of the murder. The devil is in the details, she reminded herself, giggling.</p><p>Gloves. She must remember gloves. She would leave no fingerprints. There must be no evidence of her having been there</p><p>As an added precaution, after the murder, she would find a secluded country road to change clothes. She would take an ordinary trash bag to dispose of the items she had used for the deed in a gas station dumpster.</p><p>To her surprise, she found she was enjoying planning the murder—going over the details repeatedly to make sure nothing was overlooked.</p><p>Antifreeze was an obvious choice for the poison. A recent television show depicting a murder gave her the idea. Odorless, colorless, and sweet tasting, it would be easy to add to a milkshake she would take him. He loved sweets, she recalled.</p><p>She would watch him drink the milkshake, and when it was almost gone, she would confront him with what he had done—that he used her innocence for his gratification. She repeatedly played the scene in her mind—how she would phrase her accusations, making him confess. She imagined telling him the milkshake was poisoned. She wanted, no needed, him to know she was exacting revenge after all these years. She fantasized about seeing the look on his face when he realized she was murdering him. She could almost smell his fear. She yearned to witness the life light leave his eyes.</p><p>But, being practical, she researched antifreeze poisoning and learned that, after ingesting antifreeze, it could be several hours before symptoms occurred. And it could take a few days before he died. What if he had enough sense to go to the hospital when he became ill, and some overzealous ER doctor recognized the symptoms? No, poisoning him with antifreeze was not a good choice.</p><p>She considered murdering him with digoxin, a medication commonly used for cardiac disease. An overdose of the drug would literally stop his heart which had a certain poetic appeal. However, acquiring digoxin would be problematic. And the dosage and effect were iffy. It could take too long to kill him.</p><p>Perhaps she could inject him with rapid-acting insulin. She could manage to acquire a vial or two. She would surprise him with whiskey and then get him sloppy drunk. It would be easy to spill some on his shirt. Then, as a dutiful stepdaughter, she would help him change. She would be ready with a loaded syringe in her pocket, and when his upper arm was accessible, she would quickly inject the insulin.</p><p>Of course, he would know she had given him a shot, but it would be too late. It couldn’t be taken back. And then she would tell him what she had done and why. She reveled in imagining how she would taunt him, watching and waiting as he alternately sweated and chilled while the insulin drew life-giving glucose from his blood. Finally, she knew he would become increasingly confused and lose consciousness. He might even have a seizure.</p><p>She would give him another insulin injection once he lost consciousness to ensure he had a deadly dose. As a nurse, this was the one time she would not be concerned about an overdose.</p><p>It could be days before his body was discovered. Nobody would suspect murder. And, if they did, her visit would not be suspicious. Even if a murder investigation were initiated, insulin would not be found at autopsy.</p><p>After considerable thought and research, she chose an overdose of rapid-acting insulin as the perfect choice for an undetected murder.</p><p>The question became not if or how she would do the murder, but when.</p><p>She waited patiently for the perfect time. Finally, a calmness came over her. The rage no longer haunted her. She felt at peace with what she was about to do. She was an ordinary woman who lived a typical middle-class life. She never imagined she could intentionally harm anyone, much less commit a cold-blooded, calculated murder. And yet, that is precisely what she was preparing to do. She felt no guilt, nor did she have second thoughts. It was merely a matter of timing when she would finally enact her plan to murder the man.</p><p>Time passed.</p><p>Her brother telephoned with what he called “bad news.” Their stepfather had been found dead several days after his death. His body was severely decomposed.</p><p>“Probably his heart,” he said. “They don’t know for sure. But we all know he was drinking himself to death, so it’s not a big surprise.”</p><p>There was no question of foul play.</p><p>There was to be a funeral of sorts. There was no family left, no friends. He and their mother were making the final plans. She wouldn’t go. She had no intention of pretending grief or, as the saying goes, “paying her respects” to a man she had detested almost her entire life. She knew she would not be able to fake grief.</p><p>She only regretted that he died before she had a chance to murder him.</p><p>Or did he?</p><p>Repressed memories are peculiar that way.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 21: Winter 2024]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Friends of eMerge,
Welcome to the Winter edition of eMerge, your gateway to a world of captivating literary expression. It is our pleasure to introduce you to an issue brimming with exceptional works that showcase the talent and creativity of our contributors. This edition is particularly special, as it features contributions from six outstanding nominees for the prestigious Pushcart Prize and winners of the Woody Barlow Poetry Contest.
The writers and poets whose works grace these virtua]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-21-winter-2024/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85232a6</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2024]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 18:00:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1455390582262-044cdead277a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHdyaXRpbmd8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0OTA4MjU5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1455390582262-044cdead277a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHdyaXRpbmd8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzA0OTA4MjU5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Issue 21: Winter 2024"/><p>Dear Friends of eMerge,<br><br>Welcome to the Winter edition of eMerge, your gateway to a world of captivating literary expression. It is our pleasure to introduce you to an issue brimming with exceptional works that showcase the talent and creativity of our contributors. This edition is particularly special, as it features contributions from six outstanding nominees for the prestigious Pushcart Prize and winners of the Woody Barlow Poetry Contest.</br></br></p><p>The writers and poets whose works grace these virtual pages have poured their hearts and souls into their creations, and we are delighted to share their voices with you. From thought-provoking essays to evocative poetry, each piece has been carefully selected to offer a diverse and enriching reading experience. So, whether you are curled up by the fire or watching the tide roll away, relax and enjoy our latest offerings on eMerge.</p><p>In addition to celebrating the artistic achievements within these digital pages, we are thrilled to announce that eMerge is now a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. This exciting development means that your generous contributions to eMerge are now tax-deductible. As we continue to grow and support the literary community, your donations become an integral part of our ability to provide a platform for emerging voices and established talents alike.</p><p>If you are passionate about fostering creativity, supporting writers, and contributing to the literary landscape, we invite you to consider making a tax-deductible donation to eMerge. Your support enables us to maintain our commitment to excellence and to elevate the voices of writers who inspire, challenge, and enrich our understanding of the world.</p><p>To make a donation and explore the various giving options, please visit our donations page at <a href="https://donate.stripe.com/28o2aT3accTcfSwbIJ?ref=staging.emerge-writerscolony.org">https://donate.stripe.com/.</a> Your support, no matter the amount, goes a long way in sustaining eMerge and ensuring the continued success of our mission.</p><p><strong>Pushcart Nominees for 2024:</strong></p><p><strong>Linda Reising</strong> for her poem, <em>This is Not a Symbolic Poem About Cicadas, </em>challenges the notion that cicadas are overused symbols in poetry and offers a fresh perspective on these insects. The poem successfully challenges the conventional view of cicadas as cliché symbols. The concluding lines bring a touch of irony by suggesting that the female bugs are patiently waiting for "Mr. Right" after seventeen years. This twist adds a layer of commentary on the cyclical nature of life and relationships, contrasting with the initial rejection of cicadas as mere symbols of memory and rebirth.</p><p><strong>Bill McCloud</strong> for his poem, <em>Black Carnations</em>, successfully weaves together symbols that add layers of meaning and depth to his narrative. The poem captures a sense of mystery and nostalgia but leaves room for interpretation and reflection. After reading Black Carnations several times, I am always left wanting to know more about this mysterious woman.</p><p><strong>Barbara Carlson</strong> for her poem, <em>His Sign Asks for Water</em>, employs strong imagery and symbolism to convey the emotions and experiences of a homeless man. The image of the rain and the man soaking in it becomes a metaphor for spiritual nourishment. When I think about the approximately 100,000 homeless veterans on the streets, Barbara’s theme of seeking solace and spiritual connection in difficult circumstances is poignant to this old Marine.</p><p>Toni Huffman, whose pen name is <strong>Antonia Love</strong> for her poem, <em>Two Men and a Truck</em>, evokes images of moving out with imagery like, “knick-knacks,” “newspapers,” and “grocery store boxes.” Toni effectively communicates the emotional journey of the speaker, from the pain of the breakup to the sense of liberation and optimism of the future.</p><p><strong>Zhenya Yevtushenko</strong> for his poem, <em>Names I will Learn Soon/Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa</em>, …delves into the emotional aftermath of a mass shooting, capturing the juxtaposition of personal and communal experiences. The mention of walking the dog after such a tragic event adds a layer of intimacy and humanity to the narrative. The questions posed, particularly "who pulled the trigger and who pulls the trigger inside?" prompt introspection on a broader societal level, addressing both the external and internal aspects of violence.</p><p><strong>Elaine Alarcon</strong> for her poem, <em>In the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden</em>, captures a vivid and contemplative experience in nature. The imagery is rich, and the poet successfully conveys a sense of connection with the environment. The use of specific details, such as the orange poppies, cactus flowers, and giant boulders, enhances the sensory experience for the reader. The poem's exploration of time and history through the journey of a lone ant adds depth and complexity to the narrative. The references to historical events and milestones, from the Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence, create a broader context for the ant's journey, connecting it to the larger human experience and the passage of time.</p><p>Thank you for being a cherished part of the eMerge community. We hope you enjoy the literary feast that awaits you in this edition and look forward to your continued support.</p><p>Joy Clark, Editor<br><a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a></br></p><p>Charles Templeton, Editor Emeritus<br><a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Chance to Be Saved]]></title><description><![CDATA[In the early 70s I taught Junior High Art in Saint Louis. My fellow teachers became my running buddies. One of my friends, Evelyn, was a music teacher. Due to her position, she scored two free season tickets to the Saint Louis Symphony. I often went with her. I was appreciative of her generosity because as a poorly paid teacher, I could not have afforded to attend the symphony. However, there was a torturous trade-off. Evelyn had become involved in a charismatic Catholic-based faith healing move]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-chance-to-be-saved/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852326d</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:56:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1571260765779-d10730a734da?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxyb3Nhcnl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzcyMzI3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1571260765779-d10730a734da?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxyb3Nhcnl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzcyMzI3fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Chance to Be Saved"/><p>In the early 70s I taught Junior High Art in Saint Louis. My fellow teachers became my running buddies. One of my friends, Evelyn, was a music teacher. Due to her position, she scored two free season tickets to the Saint Louis Symphony. I often went with her. I was appreciative of her generosity because as a poorly paid teacher, I could not have afforded to attend the symphony. However, there was a torturous trade-off. Evelyn had become involved in a charismatic Catholic-based faith healing movement. I had to feign interest and attend the healing sessions with her. I was not going to give up a free seat at the symphony even if I had to pretend to be interested in a religious activity that was somewhat strange to me.</p><p>The healing sessions would begin with the testimonies of believers who had been healed. There were always many nuns in attendance. I was a skeptic who was raised a Methodist. The teachings of the church of my childhood didn’t include the belief in contemporary faith healing. We were prepared to take “what is” and limp all the way to the grave. Despite being somewhat bored during the testimonies, I was fully awake when the star of the show took over. He was a priest, Father McNut, and the leader of the local movement. He was tall, dark, and handsome. He resembled a young Charleston Heston, and he was very charismatic. I think the combination of looks and charm gave him the edge to be persuasive. It didn’t work on me. However, I kept going in order to keep in Evelyn’s good graces, and to keep my seat at the symphony.</p><p>After only one year in Saint Louis, I quit my job, and I moved to Tennessee. I enrolled in the Memphis College of Art to further my studies as a painter. I immediately took up a hippie persona, and vowed to never again wear a necktie. I let my hair grow long. I wore love beads and ragged bell bottoms. I was free.</p><p>I had been living in Memphis for several months, when I received a call from Evelyn. She asked me to accompany her to a Kathryn Kuhlman event that was to take place in Memphis. Miss Kuhlman was a flamboyant and prominent faith healer with a huge following. Evelyn, Father McNut, and his followers had become groupies of the popular evangelist. I said, “Oh, what the heck, sure I’ll go.” Then I forgot all about it.</p><p>A couple of months later, Evelyn called early one Sunday morning to tell me that the day had arrived. She had saved me a seat to see Miss Kuhlman at the Assembly of God Church. It was a very large church, the one that Elvis attended when he was in town. When the phone rang that morning, I had just walked in the door from being out all night dancing, and I have to admit, I was still tripping on LSD. No excuse except that it was the ‘70s.</p><p>I was wearing a black see-through shirt, black and white striped bell bottoms, and platform shoes with stars painted on them ala Joe Cocker, an English rock star. I looked down at my clothes and I thought, “Hey, these are good enough.”</p><p>I jumped into my car and drove to the church. My friend Evelyn had ridden to Memphis from Saint Louis with a bus load of faithful followers of the Saint Louis charismatic Catholic movement. The group included a large number of nuns. I found my seat in the church and sat with my friend Evelyn and the sisters. Fortunately, the row in front of me was also occupied by nuns. If I had sat behind one of the many women that were there with high hair, my view of the stage would have been blocked.</p><p>We were there early that morning in order to get a seat. We had to sit through the entire morning service while we waited for Miss Kuhlman’s afternoon performance. For lunch we shared peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that Evelyn and the nuns had brought with them on the bus. By this time, I was really starting to suffer and was wondering if Miss Kuhlman might be able to heal a drug crash.</p><p>At one o’clock, Kathryn Kuhlman took to the stage wearing a very gauzy white dress and gold lame high heels. She was slender with bright red hair, and she was very theatrical. Shortly after she took the stage, folks lined up one by one to be healed.</p><p>Miss Kuhlman would describe the person’s ailments to the audience, touch the afflicted on both sides of the neck, and they would immediately fall backwards into the hands of her attendants. If the attendants missed, the person would fall to the floor. They arose healed or so it appeared. Folks were falling all over the place on stage including some of the nuns from the bus. They fell to the floor like shot penguins.</p><p>As badly as I felt, I did find the healing service interesting and entertaining. However, if I had been a praying man, I would have prayed for the service to end. Two hours into the service, Miss Kuhlman called for all folks who needed to be saved to come down to the altar. I thought, “I have found my avenue of escape!” I got up from my seat and brushed past the many kind church goers and the nuns. They were patting me on the back, and congratulating me. They thought I was about to be saved. When I got to the end of the aisle, I made a beeline for the door, jumped in my car, and I went home. I was far from healed.</p><p>I never heard from Evelyn again.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Where No Light Shines]]></title><description><![CDATA[First I just stand and watch him. So relaxed, so uncomplicated.
They don’t talk about the times when you envy your child – really and truly grok the advantage that the adorable little son of a bitch has on you – simply by virtue of being too young to shoulder a single burden.
“He’s two,” Todd says without moving his eyes from his iPad. “You want something different? You thought you were giving birth to the exception?”
He’s strangely sexy in these tuned-out moments, blue of eye and furrowed of]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/where-no-light-shines-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523269</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Allison Landa]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:56:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505226317007-67f4f53d8624?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUyfHx0b2RkbGVyfGVufDB8fHx8MTY5Nzc2OTI5M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505226317007-67f4f53d8624?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUyfHx0b2RkbGVyfGVufDB8fHx8MTY5Nzc2OTI5M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Where No Light Shines"/><p/><p>First I just stand and watch him. So relaxed, so uncomplicated.</p><p>They don’t talk about the times when you envy your child – really and truly grok the advantage that the adorable little son of a bitch has on you – simply by virtue of being too young to shoulder a single burden.</p><p>“He’s two,” Todd says without moving his eyes from his iPad. “You want something different? You thought you were giving birth to the exception?”</p><p>He’s strangely sexy in these tuned-out moments, blue of eye and furrowed of brow.</p><p>“You want a machine, go to Fry’s.” That’s one of his favorite lines and he pronounces it as though it was the first time. Every single time. “You want a person, you’ve got one right there.”</p><p>Sexy, but jumping him never enters the picture, even if Forrest weren’t sitting three feet away in his high chair, drooling something purple or pink or otherwise gaudy-colored onto his chest. These days I don’t even bother with a bib because when I try to put it on he screams like he’s being waterboarded. Instead I just take his shirt off and wipe him clean when he’s done. That’s the easy part of my day. Believe it.</p><p>When he was born we agreed I would be the one to stay home. It just made sense: I was the one with less money, more commute, stronger piss-off about having to be somewhere at a certain place and time. Offices were never my thing. This could be the exit door I needed.</p><p>Baby as utility, as reason. You think it just happens on Jerry Springer?</p><p>“So negative.” Todd closes Facebook, opens Facebook. He caresses Yelp and cheats on it with Reddit. “You just carry this shit around with you and it poisons your heart.”</p><p>Thing about Todd is, he’s an asshole, but a smart asshole, and so often a correct one. That’s the hardest part: you hate him, not because he’s too direct or too right, but because it’s that much more pointed and painful that you could love him.</p><p>I did. Honest.</p><p>“Well,” he said when the pregnancy test turned up positive, “that was unexpected.” Then a flick, a short, steep intake of breath. He’d been trying to quit smoking. It was fun while it lasted.</p><p>“We can do it,” he said over Zagat-approved food that night. “It’s whether or not we want to.”</p><p>I did love him then, I did. My love for him was tentacled, a hydra-head. It stretched and peered in all directions. It had powers that far outstripped those of your average serpent. It could kill you and for that I loved it, I loved the love.</p><p>Pregnancy: a series of paper cuts against those heads of hope. Each malady – night sweats, restless legs – felt a fresh insult. You. You did this to me. Then I turned up with placenta previa and we weren’t allowed to have sex until the baby was born. Fine. Fine by me.</p><p>Labor: a crystallization of what was to come. Push through the pain. Bear down and breathe out. Legs up, down, over and across. Spread them and pray. Finally, finally. Forrest. A gray bundle with an oxygen mask across his tiny crumpled face. I held him against my chest and our hearts fought each other through our flesh.</p><p>Breastfeeding: a joke. He tried to latch onto my nipple, wanted to feed. Nothing came down to sate him. The film they’d shown us in class didn’t look like this.</p><p>“That’s theory,” Todd said, correctly, of course. “This is reality. Worst case scenario, we’ll do the bottle.”</p><p>We did the bottle.</p><p>Nights: the worst, as they are for every honest parent. Outside with its swaths of black, inside with Dr. Brown’s bottle at hand, formula dribbling down his chin. The screams echoed for hours. Reflux. Colic. Food allergies. All the possibilities, all the permutations. Todd took him from my arms and the sound seemed to dwindle just enough for the difference to grate on me. I carried you, you little fuck. Pushed and howled and tore, and still you prefer him.</p><p>“He’s a month,” Todd said. “Two months. Three months. Not even a year.” Time drew on and still he was never wrong.</p><p>Factual accuracy.</p><p>You couldn’t get him on that.</p><p>You couldn’t love him for it either.</p><p>That’s his face there, sleeping in the car seat, our child’s features arranged in the folds of his father. Except he’s not sleeping. Except I didn’t even realize he was in here. Except it’s 85 degrees outside and he’s not moving.</p><p>You pluck methods, piecing them together like floral bundles. You find your way. And then one day there no longer is a need for direction. The path cut short, littered with the crumpled corpses of petals.</p><p>You too, crumpled.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Villages]]></title><description><![CDATA[There are not really villages in the valleys
between the mountains.
They only exist in my mind.
There are not really people
living in huts in those villages in the valleys.
They only exist in my mind.
There are not really stoves
lit by matches in the huts in the villages.
They only exist in my mind.
There are not really home cooked meals
placed from stoves to tables in the huts.
They only exist in my mind.
There are not really dirty dishes
that must be taken from tables to sinks.
They o]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/villages/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852326e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jen Fischer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:56:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1577369166831-0ef632862f10?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGFzaHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzI2OTJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1577369166831-0ef632862f10?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGFzaHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzI2OTJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Villages"/><p>There are not really villages in the valleys<br>between the mountains.</br></p><p>They only exist in my mind.</p><p>There are not really people<br>living in huts in those villages in the valleys.</br></p><p>They only exist in my mind.</p><p>There are not really stoves<br>lit by matches in the huts in the villages.</br></p><p>They only exist in my mind.</p><p>There are not really home cooked meals<br>placed from stoves to tables in the huts.</br></p><p>They only exist in my mind.</p><p>There are not really dirty dishes<br>that must be taken from tables to sinks.</br></p><p>They only exist in my mind.</p><p>So there will not really be fires<br>consuming the tables and huts.</br></p><p>They only exist in my mind.</p><p>Just like the incessant smell of smoke, persistent, demanding</p><p>Only exists in my mind.</p><p>Because there are not really villages in the valleys between the mountains</p><p>Only the ashes left behind.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Table Governed by Phantasm]]></title><description><![CDATA[All forsaken figures dispense drinks with it
In trivial routineness with a slovenly bodach
But littlest to the next on the devour table.
In succession to shepherd’s pie, Cornish pasty
Teeth mechanisms crush ties near to tongues
And beast deepens its digestion with bile juice.
The aprons stitched with white rose’s fashion
Like chalk and cheese names on a radio cast
None a synonym voiced for the paranormal.
Fail to recall the prayers, O Lord, Amen Father
Stone deaf remain words of heed, mind, wish]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-table-governed-by-phantasm/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852326f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sonali Sharma]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:56:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541508159146-2ab9c877e804?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM4fHxkYXJrJTIwdGFibGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzczMDY1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541508159146-2ab9c877e804?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM4fHxkYXJrJTIwdGFibGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzczMDY1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Table Governed by Phantasm"/><p>All forsaken figures dispense drinks with it<br>In trivial routineness with a slovenly bodach<br>But littlest to the next on the devour table.<br>In succession to shepherd’s pie, Cornish pasty<br>Teeth mechanisms crush ties near to tongues<br>And beast deepens its digestion with bile juice.<br>The aprons stitched with white rose’s fashion<br>Like chalk and cheese names on a radio cast<br>None a synonym voiced for the paranormal.<br>Fail to recall the prayers, O Lord, Amen Father<br>Stone deaf remain words of heed, mind, wishes<br>Only sinful bloating reverberates the housing.<br>The timepiece clicks, so do the cell dials’ rings<br>Ear-splitting goes jarring by forks on eardrums<br>Baby sitting by spook spills a dark night distance.<br>The feet glued to hidden air under drugget on tiles<br>Heads rotating to the western devious enshrines<br>Drilling partitions on a table governed by phantasm.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Waiting Room]]></title><description><![CDATA[Chris, my deceased ex-husband, comes to me in dreams. Always in dreams – daily, weekly, monthly. Sometimes he holds a baby boy with dark brown locks that fall thick from his head in curls. He brings with him my daughters, young. We marvel at this boy, singing and laughing and celebrating. He is my son. He is my children’s brother. I strain to take a longer look, but before I can he is gone. The dream is over and I wake and wonder.
I told my now-grown children about these dreams.
“I didn’t know]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-waiting-room/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523273</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Debbie Cutler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:56:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1485848395967-65dff62dc35b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxob3NwaXRhbHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzQ1Mzh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1485848395967-65dff62dc35b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxob3NwaXRhbHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzQ1Mzh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Waiting Room"/><p>Chris, my deceased ex-husband, comes to me in dreams. Always in dreams – daily, weekly, monthly. Sometimes he holds a baby boy with dark brown locks that fall thick from his head in curls. He brings with him my daughters, young. We marvel at this boy, singing and laughing and celebrating. He is my son. He is my children’s brother. I strain to take a longer look, but before I can he is gone. The dream is over and I wake and wonder.</p><p>I told my now-grown children about these dreams.</p><p>“I didn’t know you were pregnant a third time,” my oldest said, almost a question.</p><p>“I had forgotten,” I answered.</p><p>In truth I did. That is until the dreams came vivid, full of joy and mystery.</p><hr><p>It was the eyes that got to me. Sunken. Ashened yellow. Fixed on the ceiling, but not really the ceiling. They were the eyes of a woman approaching death. She feared it.</p><p>The woman’s face was soft like snow after a winter storm, ripples of snow across her face. Gentle slopes smoothed by wind. It was framed by long, sparse wisps of uncombed gray. Her mouth, thin lines of faded red, lacked moisture.</p><p>Her eyes again. Glazed. Pupils big and black, death black, floating in a yellow bloodshot sea. She was searching for something. Not here.</p><p>There. Death was now coming into focus. She was trapped between two worlds and I wondered what she saw.</p><p>She jerked. Grinding sounds came from her throat, the air now like poison to her lungs. Her stomach heaved from the stretcher; her eyes rolled. She lifted her bony, naked arm to grasp the sterile white sleeve beside her, but her failing body was too weak to hold on. Her arm slid from the sleeve, floating recklessly, landing off the stretcher. It dangled, rocking back and forth like a limp pendulum swinging irregularly from an unexpected jolt.</p><p>They raced into a nearby room, doctors scrambled on both sides of her. Their frantic, muffled voices and the equipment’s shrieks tore through the walls. I said a prayer for her, but the storm was over. She was gone.<br>The waiting room, which had quieted since she was wheeled through the big double doors, remained without sound. Even the children sat still.</br></p><p>“Debbie,” a nurse said. I followed her into a clean, white (always white) room and watched as snow, misguided by the wind, hit the warm window, turning from a light flake into a heavy drop of water. It was another Alaska November, still early enough into winter I welcomed the snow, wanted it.</p><p>“Have a seat,” she said. “The doctor will be with you shortly.”</p><p>He wasn’t, but I was glad as I needed time to think. It was the first time I ever witnessed death. I was told it would be peaceful. White lights. Tunnels. But for her it wasn’t. Her eyes screamed at what she saw, but she couldn’t run, escape it. I didn’t understand – one moment she was there, frightened, alive, feeling, breathing, thinking. The next minute an empty shell. I cried.</p><p>I wondered where her family was and thought of my grandma who died in a nursing home, also with no family beside her. My grandma’s mind went first, and I assumed death was a friend to her. For months before she died she saw gypsies hiding watches in the curtain by her bed. She saw my mother when she looked at me. She didn’t always recognize her son. We went to her funeral, my Mom, Dad and I, but were the only ones there because we were the only ones who could make the trip from Arizona to Salt Lake City where she would be buried next to my grandpa. The grandpa I never knew, who died before my birth, my father still a child.</p><p>The three of us stood in an empty graveyard watching her coffin being lowered into the ground, falling leaves circling in slow motion around it. I was sorry no one lived nearby to check her grave, bring flowers.</p><p>I now realized that I felt sorrier for her after death than at death. I wondered how horrible it had been, to die alone. I wished someone had been there for her, to hold her hand, love her. I wished I’d sat by her bed, stroked her fevered head, whispered some kind of assurance. But instead she faced death, whatever that means, alone.</p><p>“Sorry you had to wait so long,” the doctor said coming into the room. “We had an emergency. A woman just died.”</p><p>“I know. I saw her as she was being wheeled off the ambulance. It must be very hard on you,” I said, wiping my tears. “It must be hard to keep working.”</p><p>“No, she was old,” the young doctor said. “There was nothing we could do to save her. Now if it was someone young like you with a whole life ahead of her – then I might cry. But she’d lived a long life. It was her time.”</p><p>He looked at my records, businesslike, putting on his glasses, turning page after page of my medical history. He reminded me of my then-husband, Chris, when he read the morning paper. He had the same intense look of someone deep in concentration – the furrowed brow, the unblinking gaze. I knew if I stood on my head and waved my arms he wouldn’t see me. Instead, I stared out the window, now streaked from melted snow. I thought about death and wondered if it was like the melting snowflake, just a change in form, a continuous cycle of different lives. I hoped so.</p><p>The doctor set down the papers and cleared his throat.</p><p>“I see you’re having menstrual problems,” he said taking off his black-rimmed glasses, staring at my face. “How long has this been going on?”</p><p>I told him about three weeks. At first it wasn’t heavy. Then it stopped, started again. Stopped. “Two days ago, it became so thick I had to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes and was passing clots, some the size of peas, some looked more like golf balls.” I was getting weak, dizzy.</p><p>“When people talk to me, sometimes I hear the words and understand what they mean, but I can’t link them together,” I explained. “Yesterday in class I couldn’t understand anything the instructor was saying. I left and nearly passed out while walking to my car. I don’t know how I got home, but I did.”</p><p>“Why didn’t you come in yesterday?” he asked.</p><p>“I just thought I was having a really weird period and was weakened by the heavy flow,” I said. “I just thought it would get better.”</p><p>I lied.</p><p>I didn’t tell him Chris and I had plans and I was afraid if I came “yesterday” it would ruin them. I didn’t tell him I’d bought a $100 dress, spent a fortune on tickets to a dinner and had a sitter coming. I didn’t tell him I thought time away from the kids for an evening might save our dying marriage. I didn’t tell him the flow thickened throughout dinner, that I got sloppy drunk on two glasses of wine and embarrassed Chris by alternating between drunken slurs and high-pitched giggles. I didn’t tell him Chris had to take me home before the evening barely started. That I woke with a hangover and bloodstained sheets. It was easier to just say that I thought it would get better.</p><p>“Could you be pregnant?” he asked.</p><p>“No.” I was horrified at the thought. “I’m very careful.”</p><p>He didn’t believe me.</p><p>“I want to do a blood test just in case. It sounds like you either have fibroid tumors or are miscarrying.” He explained about fibroids while he filled out a lab slip and sent me to another part of the hospital where a woman took my blood. More blood. I sat in another room, this one empty, waiting for the results.</p><p>“Dear God, please don’t let me be pregnant,” I said softly. But I knew I was. I felt stupid for not realizing it sooner.</p><p>And I knew, right there, right then, my baby, what was left of it, was dying and I couldn’t do anything about it. “If you let my baby live, I’ll go to church. I’ll do anything. Please don’t let my baby die,” I cried.<br>I got up and paced the room. I didn’t even want a baby. Both girls were in school and, now, finally, so was I. I stayed home for eight years so I could raise a family, be there for them when they were toddlers. That part of my life was over. A baby was the last thing I wanted. But still, I didn’t wish my child’s death.</br></p><p>“I know I didn’t want a baby, but I want this one,” I said. “God, if you let me keep it I’ll do anything. I’ll quit school. Don’t give me a baby only to take it away. Don’t be so cruel.” I knew, however, it was already too late.</p><p>I raced to the bathroom wanting to look at the clots, wanting to see what would have been my child, say goodbye. I gasped in shock. The flow had stopped. It was over.</p><p>My baby was gone and I thought it my fault. They might have been able to stop it if I’d gone in sooner. And I hadn’t been eating right, and was drinking and giggling while it was dying. ALONE. I felt as though I murdered my child.</p><p>I remembered my friend, Kendra, who lost her baby a year earlier. I thought about how she must have felt as she carried hers for months before it died and she wanted it, really wanted it. I wondered if she blamed herself. But she had no reason to. It was the cat …</p><p>It clawed at her, tearing the flesh on her arms, hissing, arching, drawing blood and screams before running back to wherever it came from. She had to have about half a dozen shots in case it was rabid. “I don’t think it will hurt the fetus,” the doctor told her. A few weeks later she miscarried. She called me from the hospital. Then she never spoke of it again. It was too painful.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” I told my unborn child and wondered if it could hear me.</p><p>“Are you here?” I asked. I felt nothing. “Could you give me a sign that you hear, that you understand?” Nothing. Maybe I wasn’t pregnant, I thought. I decided it was best not to know, at least not now. I decided to make a run for it. But as I tore out of the bathroom, the nurse approached me.</p><p>“You may take this back to the doctor,” she said, handing me the lab results. I paused before looking at it. It read, “negative.”</p><p>“I think you already lost the baby,” the doctor told me. “You waited a long time before coming in. That’s why the test came back negative. You probably weren’t very far along, just a month or so. I want you to go to a gynecologist first thing in the morning.”</p><p>I went to the waiting room by the lab to grab my jacket and thought about the doctor. I wondered if he cried when a woman lost a developing child. Probably not. Not for a fetus. Where does he draw the line? When is a person too old, or too young, not to merit tears? I knew death was an everyday event to him. But, still, I didn’t like him. What did he know about losing a child, even one that was never wanted?</p><p>Walking back through the emergency room, I was shocked to see the covered corpse of the woman being wheeled to the elevator. People who were once chatting, waiting to be seen by a doctor, now stopped their conversations and stared at the form of the now-cold body. They were all new faces, not the ones that had witnessed her arrival.</p><p>A woman, middle-aged, stood nearby, her eyes swollen red, her face puffy. She boarded the elevator, too, and I wondered if it was the old woman’s daughter. I was glad she was there, glad she was crying. I watched as the doors closed, then turned to walk away.</p><p>“Look at the faces on those people,” the receptionist whispered to a nurse as I passed the station. “They’ve never seen a stiff before.” She laughed. I wanted to slap her, but instead ran out the door and into the parking lot, just glad to be out of the cold, medicinal atmosphere of the hospital.</p><p>Driving home, I watched as falling snow struck my truck’s window and wondered what I would tell Chris, and tears flowed at the thought of it. As I left for the hospital, I asked him to come, but he was watching a game on TV, still mad at me for ruining his evening.</p><p>I turned on my wipers, which beat the thickening snow from my windshield. The blades thumped as they raced back and forth thrashing at the snow.</p><p>They moved with ease, a strong and steady pendulum, sounding harsh compared to my irregular, soft sobs.</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Classroom Project]]></title><description><![CDATA[Wait until dark. Not milky dark. Black opal dark. Wait until the sky turns itself inside out and you can sidle under the wood fence undetected. Your dog will be conspicuous bounding along in the freedom of the night. No one cares about that. A dog can be in the apple orchard. You can’t. You have a paper bag to fill. Many of the apples on the ground are sound, full, even unbruised—just waiting on the ground like beached whales looking for an ocean. It is a starless night, all the better for you: ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-classroom-project/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852327a</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Darlene Graf]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:56:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506545632994-973468d2bb18?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGFwcGxlJTIwb3JjaGFyZHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzY2OTV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506545632994-973468d2bb18?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGFwcGxlJTIwb3JjaGFyZHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzY2OTV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Classroom Project"/><p>Wait until dark. Not milky dark. Black opal dark. Wait until the sky turns itself inside out and you can sidle under the wood fence undetected. Your dog will be conspicuous bounding along in the freedom of the night. No one cares about that. A dog can be in the apple orchard. You can’t. You have a paper bag to fill. Many of the apples on the ground are sound, full, even unbruised—just waiting on the ground like beached whales looking for an ocean. It is a starless night, all the better for you: person of trespass. One slight bend of moon breaks the black sky blue and you can feel it like a knife on your back. Please don’t let me get caught. My second graders want Taffy apples. On Friday we’ll melt the caramels in a crock pot and take turns dipping our fat apples into their sticky coats of caramel, leaving them to sculpt in sweetness on a sheet of wax paper.</p><p>This apple heist is charity, sweet happiness for seven year olds who could care less about brushing their teeth, could care less about cavities. The mix of sweet and tart; this is the taste of childhood. Lingering.</p><p>Headlights. Lay low. The dog still bouncing, catching the moonlight in fierce nips. The headlights drag along the road—even the car seems to savor this September night. The pueblo-style house sits in the distance, maybe a mile away, the lights fuse the windows yellow. You can feel the current of life inside that house up the road. That house you are hiding from: marauder of the orchid.</p><p>Will there ever be a night this magical again? Your bag of apples is heavy as a bowling ball. The sweet glory of the steal. You are the Robin Hood teacher, stealing an apple tasting experience for your Friday afternoon kids.</p><p>You’re not doing this just for the kids though. You want your taffy-stuck remembrance of Fall—the sugar ache of childhood that makes your teeth hurt. You want this so bad you steal for it.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Old and Neglected Poem]]></title><description><![CDATA[She makes paint from moldy brick with the flavor
of advertisement and blood and
hair and bits of concrete raised
raised from the floor; she leaves them there
to wait to speak, there’s an offstage rumble
and this time it’s the furnace,
because it’s cold in the basement, even in summer,
and the girl is almost sleeping,
she cannot tell if the cobbles
lying covert beneath the street
have been buried or planted,
she is happy not to know,
as for the cobbles,
who can tell?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/old-and-neglected-poem/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523277</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Robinson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:55:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518496238781-57f8b7400d5c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGNvYmJsZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzUxNzR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518496238781-57f8b7400d5c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGNvYmJsZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzUxNzR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Old and Neglected Poem"/><p>She makes paint from moldy brick with the flavor<br>of advertisement and blood and</br></p><p>hair and bits of concrete raised</p><p>raised from the floor; she leaves them there<br>to wait to speak, there’s an offstage rumble</br></p><p>and this time it’s the furnace,</p><p>because it’s cold in the basement, even in summer,<br>and the girl is almost sleeping,</br></p><p>she cannot tell if the cobbles</p><p>lying covert beneath the street<br>have been buried or planted,</br></p><p>she is happy not to know,</p><p>as for the cobbles,<br>who can tell?</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[After the Emergency]]></title><description><![CDATA[You sit in a brown Adirondack chair
on a steep slope looking east
between the pines so tall
they were surely here, large even,
before you were born.
The storm chased out the humidity
and now, a month before autumn,
and still in the heavy grasp of katydids
and one insistent bird that changes
trees too fast to see, you are safe.
Free from the worst you imagine.
In the distance, tourists with phones
and not enough light still try to catch
the old church’s round roof
while one slim beetle that can]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/after-the-emergency/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852327c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:55:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1602434380792-bbe0f19310cc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxwaW5lc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzcxMTN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1602434380792-bbe0f19310cc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxwaW5lc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzcxMTN8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="After the Emergency"/><p>You sit in a brown Adirondack chair<br>on a steep slope looking east<br>between the pines so tall<br>they were surely here, large even,<br>before you were born.</br></br></br></br></p><p>The storm chased out the humidity<br>and now, a month before autumn,<br>and still in the heavy grasp of katydids<br>and one insistent bird that changes<br>trees too fast to see, you are safe.<br>Free from the worst you imagine.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>In the distance, tourists with phones<br>and not enough light still try to catch<br>the old church’s round roof<br>while one slim beetle that can fly<br>lands on your forearm, stays.</br></br></br></br></p><p>This is what you told yourself you wanted:<br>a quiet evening, a chair with a view,<br>a breeze, the rumble of motorcycles<br>fading to a line on the horizon.</br></br></br></p><p>But if you’ve learned anything<br>from the long drives to the hospital<br>or letters from the lawyer, phone calls<br>that aren’t wrong numbers at 2 a.m.,<br>and that tone in his voice, her face<br>when there’s something to say<br>that will shake away the Etch a Sketch<br>of your life for a moment, it’s that<br>nothing will be the same.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>There is no emergency.<br>There is only emergency.<br>How can it be any other way,<br>the pages of the sky, each one<br>in slow motion or fast,<br>keep asking you.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What a Mostly-Blind Eye Says]]></title><description><![CDATA[Close the lids of your words and listen.
The dirt, soft and loamy, is where
the rising world makes its home.
I may be mostly blind, but who isn’t?
Still, I can see the sounds of birds
only the power lines adore. I can inhale
a swath of light swimming in sun
the so-called seeing eye can’t imagine.
Light hums like the smooth sides
of a large cave, marrying the particulars
we usually divide: irritated cat
instead of unmade bed, doorknob
instead of golden globe mirroring the sky.
Why do I keep say]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/what-a-mostly-blind-eye-says/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852327b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:55:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1597691306883-ac4e882e7cc4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGRpcnR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3Nzc2OTEwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1597691306883-ac4e882e7cc4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGRpcnR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3Nzc2OTEwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="What a Mostly-Blind Eye Says"/><p>Close the lids of your words and listen.<br>The dirt, soft and loamy, is where<br>the rising world makes its home.<br>I may be mostly blind, but who isn’t?</br></br></br></p><p>Still, I can see the sounds of birds<br>only the power lines adore. I can inhale<br>a swath of light swimming in sun<br>the so-called seeing eye can’t imagine.<br>Light hums like the smooth sides<br>of a large cave, marrying the particulars<br>we usually divide: irritated cat<br>instead of unmade bed, doorknob<br>instead of golden globe mirroring the sky.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Why do I keep saying, “mostly blind,”<br>as if someone, surely not me, chuffed<br>all the shutters down at once to fixate<br>on where the wall meets the floor<br>with a pipsqueak of a crack?</br></br></br></br></p><p>Nothing taken or lost ever leaves us completely.<br>Bodies were made to compensate, to sing<br>in their rusty voices of what’s coming<br>into view, especially in the dark.<br>All God’s children love the sky.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tork is Cheap]]></title><description><![CDATA[Okay, let me explain: it takes less torque
to loosen a threaded fastener than it does
to tighten it. Try it with a couple of lines,
blow them apart. Rhymes
act like inclined planets.
No, sorry, I meant planes.
Think uphill and downhill.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/tork-is-cheap/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523276</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Robinson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:55:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1560697024-fd4affa63094?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxib2x0fGVufDB8fHx8MTY5Nzc3NTA1Mnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1560697024-fd4affa63094?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxib2x0fGVufDB8fHx8MTY5Nzc3NTA1Mnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Tork is Cheap"/><p>Okay, let me explain: it takes less torque<br>to loosen a threaded fastener than it does<br>to tighten it. Try it with a couple of lines,</br></br></p><p>blow them apart. Rhymes<br>act like inclined planets.<br>No, sorry, I meant planes.</br></br></p><p>Think uphill and downhill.<br/></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Wind and Me]]></title><description><![CDATA[On this leaden gray day, the first autumn winds coerce
the sieves of my house, droning like a turbid sifter,
grinding foreign matter and depositing tiny particles
against my windows.
Outside, a banging wood fence burrows into my mind,
weltering skewered words and needling difficult lines
into vacuous prose.
Leaves, whirling, swirling, brown and crisp,
blow round the corners of my house,
piling up secreted lines.
For my pen has been bereft since this windy ogre arrived.
And as I write I know it h]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-wind-and-me/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523272</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:55:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1534274988757-a28bf1a57c17?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM3fHxncmV5JTIwd2VhdGhlcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzM4NDl8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1534274988757-a28bf1a57c17?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM3fHxncmV5JTIwd2VhdGhlcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzM4NDl8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Wind and Me"/><p>On this leaden gray day, the first autumn winds coerce<br>the sieves of my house, droning like a turbid sifter,<br>grinding foreign matter and depositing tiny particles<br>against my windows.<br>Outside, a banging wood fence burrows into my mind,<br>weltering skewered words and needling difficult lines<br>into vacuous prose.<br>Leaves, whirling, swirling, brown and crisp,<br>blow round the corners of my house,<br>piling up secreted lines.<br>For my pen has been bereft since this windy ogre arrived.<br>And as I write I know it has no voice.<br>It only blows cold.<br>Perhaps, when it fades, my mind will become resolute<br>and I will write with renewed autumn serenity.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[At Nola's Kitchen]]></title><description><![CDATA[After her hellish flight from NYC to Portugal, Maggie D did not expect to look up from her curry at Nola’s Kitchen to see a man tumble out of a six-story window. He fell through a missing pane of glass in a large window at the top of a dreary building. He fell onto the roof of a grey and black Smart car just then turning the corner below. Then he rolled off into the street across from the restaurant.
Maggie D dropped her spoon in the curried cauliflower and did not run out of the restaurant wit]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/at-nolas-kitchen/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523278</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elaine Alarcon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:54:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1485686531765-ba63b07845a7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxyZXN0YXVyYW50JTIwd2luZG93fGVufDB8fHx8MTY5Nzc3NTg1Mnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1485686531765-ba63b07845a7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxyZXN0YXVyYW50JTIwd2luZG93fGVufDB8fHx8MTY5Nzc3NTg1Mnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="At Nola's Kitchen"/><p>After her hellish flight from NYC to Portugal, Maggie D did not expect to look up from her curry at Nola’s Kitchen to see a man tumble out of a six-story window. He fell through a missing pane of glass in a large window at the top of a dreary building. He fell onto the roof of a grey and black Smart car just then turning the corner below. Then he rolled off into the street across from the restaurant.</p><p>Maggie D dropped her spoon in the curried cauliflower and did not run out of the restaurant with everyone else to cluster around the body. What could she have done anyway? She sat quietly in quilt, wiping her spoon.</p><p>Soon enough the ambulance arrived and the man was hauled away. The knot of people from the restaurant now returned. They were two middle aged couples from the table next to Maggie D’s. Americans.</p><p>“I wonder who he was?” said the bald man. “Was he pushed or did he jump? How old was he? Good God, I wonder what it is like to die.”</p><p>“Oh Frank, just stop!” said Linda, his wife, tucking into her meal.</p><p>“Do you think it was an accident? Or was it murder?”</p><p>Linda suddenly reached over and cuffed Frank’s head with her free hand. “Enough already!”</p><p>“What? What’d I do?”</p><p>“‘What is it like to die? Was it an accident? Did someone push him?’ You’re writing a friggin’ novel.”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>The other man facing Maggie D made a long face.</p><p>“He’s very bad,” said Maggie D.</p><p>Linda turned and looked over her shoulder. “That’s not the half of it.”</p><p>Everyone laughed.</p><p>“Just for that,” said Frank, looking at Maggie D., “you can’t read my novel.”</p><p>“How mean,” said Claudia, the other woman, channeling Terry Gross. “So did the victim jump or was he pushed?”</p><p>“I haven’t decided,” said Frank. He glanced up at the building. “It is a strange place to be. What’s up there anyway at the very top, but dusty empty rooms.”</p><p>They looked up at the window.<br>“Put a thunder shirt on him,” said Linda. “He needs calming.”</br></p><p>That elicited more laughter.</p><p>“Whatever happened, I’m glad I’m not that poor bugger,” said Joe, the second man.</p><p>“I should like a thunder shirt too,” said Maggie D.</p><p>They watched her carefully ease her arms through the straps of her backpack. Then she gathered up her metal cane leaning against the next chair and inched her leg brace around the table legs.</p><p>Frank rose to hold the door.</p><p>“Be careful of open windows now,” he said.</p><p>Maggie D. laughed.</p><p>“Oh, Frank. Do I have to put you to bed?” said Linda.</p><p>The next night Maggie D. returned to Nola’s Kitchen and ordered an omelette. It was easier to go there then to traipse all over looking for a new restaurant, especially when she still had jet lag. She sat at the same table as before and looked out at the dreary building from which the man had fallen. She missed the Americans. Had Frank worked on his novel?</p><p>Why was the man up there by that window? She wondered. What was happening in his life to drive him up there with such an unfortunate result? Did someone lure him up there? Or had he wanted to cross over? Sadness washed over Maggie D. Maybe she should write a novel too.</p><p>The waiter interrupted her meditation by spilling the little cup of ketchup she had ordered. The ketchup splattered into a Rorschach test at her feet.</p><p>“I am so sorry, Madame. Did it land on you?”</p><p>She shook her head, wondering if spilled ketchup revealed life’s secrets.</p><p>Several waiters came running with a mop and a wad of paper towels.</p><p>“It’s all your fault, you know,” said the waiter smiling at her pretty face, her cornsilk hair.</p><p>She laughed.</p><p>“Next time, no ketchup for you.”</p><p>“Have you seen the ‘The Matrix’?” she asked. “Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Lawrence Fishburne?”</p><p>“No,” he said, giving her a hug, noticing that despite being a dwarf with a leg brace, she was perfectly proportioned in all the right places.</p><p>That night Maggie D. opened her hotel window for the night air. It was hard to sleep. She worried about her eventual departure. It had been so hard getting to Porto, so debilitating.<br>She had had to climb the steps to the hotel reception - six marble steps without railings.</br></p><p>She had to climb two more marble steps to the lift. It was even worse at the airport. She had nearly fallen while going from Terminal E to Terminal F at Charles de Gaulle. A couple was following too closely and plowed into her, not noticing that she had a cane and a leg brace. They had not even bothered to help her regain her balance either as they raced ahead. Somehow she had managed not to topple over her carry-on, fighting back a sob.</p><p>Then her leg brace got snotty.</p><p>“You might as well give up,” said her leg brace. “Look at you! A crab scuttling across silent seas. If you don’t have health, you don’t have anything. Why knock yourself out traveling all over creation?”</p><p>“Be quiet.”</p><p>“Think about it, Boss. It’s quiet on the other side. No worries. No —.”</p><p>“Shut up!”</p><p>Now sea gulls outside her window were screeching. How lovely to be a seagull, she thought, to have wings, to drift on an air current. The air currents of her own brain now drifted here and there as she drifted off to sleep and finally landed on the handsome man from the plane whom she had commandeered when they first landed in Porto. The handsome man who had caught his gaze.</p><p>“Can you help me thread my arms through my backpack? It is hard for me to twist.”</p><p>“Yes, of course,” he had said.</p><p>He had graying temples and a kindly face. He was slender, all in black — black shirt, black suit. He could have been a poet, a priest, a vegan academic or all three.</p><p>“Take your time. Take your time,” he had said, holding out the straps of the backpack.</p><p>She had smiled at him. “Thank you so very much. It’s my arthritis.”</p><p>At the baggage claim she had tried not look for him but she couldn’t help it. Then she spotted him. As he was pushing away his trolly, she had called after him. “Thank you again!”</p><p>When he heard her voice, almost as if he were listening for it, he had turned and smiled. “You are quite welcome. Enjoy your holiday.”</p><p>Her eyes followed him through the exit.</p><p>Now as she drifted deeper into sleep with the sweet wind stirring the curtains and admitting the night sounds outside the hotel, the world shifted a little and the man reappeared in her dream. He passed through a shaft of golden light and paused. Then he turned to her and beckoned, smiling broadly. Yes, she would go with him to his well-appointed home of books, art and musical instruments. Yes, she would cook curried cauliflower for him and match his hunger. Yes. She could, she would do that.</p><p>Meanwhile, under her bed, her shoes began to murmur.</p><p>“Boss is dreaming again about that guy on the plane.”</p><p>“Leave her alone,” said the other shoe. “He’s a perfect fit.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Conversation]]></title><description><![CDATA[“I found myself standing at the bathroom sink…”
gazing at the mirror, at the old man
looking back at me.
It had to be asked, “How did you get here?”
There’s only two of us:
You live alone.
You eat alone.
You watch movies alone.
You sleep alone.
With a stern face I responded –
“That’s the wrong question.”
The correct one is:
“Where are you going?”]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-conversation/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523270</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John L. Swainston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:54:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1563177197-e4f252a40fe8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxvbGQlMjBtYW4lMjBpbiUyMG1pcnJvcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzMxNzh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1563177197-e4f252a40fe8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxvbGQlMjBtYW4lMjBpbiUyMG1pcnJvcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzMxNzh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Conversation"/><p>“I found myself standing at the bathroom sink…”<br>gazing at the mirror, at the old man<br>looking back at me.</br></br></p><p>It had to be asked, “How did you get here?”<br>There’s only two of us:<br>You live alone.<br>You eat alone.<br>You watch movies alone.<br>You sleep alone.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>With a stern face I responded –<br>“That’s the wrong question.”<br>The correct one is:<br>“Where are you going?”</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[“I wonder if Poe in His Most Extravagant Hallucinations…” - Paul Bowles]]></title><description><![CDATA[for Eva
This is not a poem about moonlight
but November shadows elongated
around a house
where inside seven cats have huddled
for days awaiting their still mistress
to feed them
while the neighbors
note the overflowing mail box
and do nothing despite having
an emergency contact,
not wanting to miss
the opening day of deer hunting.
Minnesota nice.
Through the long terrible hours
the cats have waited, creeping in confusion
around the body
their hunger now a panic
as the phone rings and rings
and]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-wonder-if-poe-in-his-most-extravagant-hallucinations-paul-bowles/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523279</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elaine Alarcon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:54:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1561552352-efbba9d6fc56?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzN3x8bXVsdGlwbGUlMjBjYXRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY5Nzc3NjU5M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1561552352-efbba9d6fc56?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzN3x8bXVsdGlwbGUlMjBjYXRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY5Nzc3NjU5M3ww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="“I wonder if Poe in His Most Extravagant Hallucinations…” - Paul Bowles"/><p><em>for Eva</em></p><p>This is not a poem about moonlight<br>but November shadows elongated<br>around a house<br>where inside seven cats have huddled<br>for days awaiting their still mistress<br>to feed them<br>while the neighbors<br>note the overflowing mail box<br>and do nothing despite having<br>an emergency contact,<br>not wanting to miss<br>the opening day of deer hunting.<br>Minnesota nice.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Through the long terrible hours<br>the cats have waited, creeping in confusion<br>around the body<br>their hunger now a panic<br>as the phone rings and rings<br>and no one answers.<br>Sirens suddenly assault the evening,<br>growing louder and louder<br>surrounding the house<br>until police rattle the door,<br>shattering the glass,<br>and splintering wood.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The cats flee to dark corners<br>behind the upright piano and the droopy<br>mattress lining under the bed<br>as heavy footsteps pound the stairs<br>and strange voices register dismay<br>at the spectacle slumped<br>on the couch, book in her lap.<br>The strangers move from room to room<br>looking for signs of violence,<br>checking the medications,<br>attributing all finally to natural causes.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The cats know none of this,<br>their lives changed forever<br>by a last breath, a last heartbeat,<br>a wave never to return.</br></br></br></p><p>They huddle still<br>long after the body has been removed,<br>the doors secured,<br>the footsteps have faded away<br>and food and water put down at last<br>leaving the house to settle.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Only when they hear their familiars outside<br>crossing the yard, rabbits in snow,<br>the moonlight catching their shadows,<br>and the hooves of deer snapping twigs,<br>do they creep bewildered to their bowls,<br>not knowing they are lost.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Who Would Have Guessed?]]></title><description><![CDATA[On a Friday, January 13th 1950, we were braving a huge snowstorm on the way to the hospital when I came out of my mom wearing tap shoes and singing “On The Good Ship Lollipop.” Well not really, but almost. Anyway, I made it into this world.
Lying in front of the pecan Hi-Fidelity cabinet with the straight pointed legs at my home on 40th and Sheridan Avenue South in Minneapolis, I waited for my mommy to set up the ironing board, plug in the iron, and carefully place the 33 ⅓ LP on the spindle so]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/who-would-have-guessed/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852326a</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Peterson Freeman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:54:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1592903297149-37fb25202dfa?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGdpZnQlMjBib3h8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzcxMjY5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1592903297149-37fb25202dfa?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGdpZnQlMjBib3h8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzcxMjY5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Who Would Have Guessed?"/><p>On a Friday, January 13th 1950, we were braving a huge snowstorm on the way to the hospital when I came out of my mom wearing tap shoes and singing “On The Good Ship Lollipop.” Well not really, but almost. Anyway, I made it into this world.</p><p>Lying in front of the pecan Hi-Fidelity cabinet with the straight pointed legs at my home on 40th and Sheridan Avenue South in Minneapolis, I waited for my mommy to set up the ironing board, plug in the iron, and carefully place the 33 ⅓ LP on the spindle so we could sing and dance to Shirley Temple’s songs from the movies we adored and watched over and over again.</p><p>In the 1930’s when she was a little girl, Mommy watched her Shirley Temple movies at the movie theater five blocks away from her home. It only cost a nickel. My sisters and I watched those same movies on the television in our living room. Heck, even my little brothers watched Captain January, The Little Colonel, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm as those boys were good singers and dancers, too.</p><p>In 1957, Mommy asked me what I wanted from Santa for Christmas. The sole thing on my list was a 12” Shirley Temple Doll - the least expensive one. I figured if I asked for only one thing, and if it was affordable, my chances of getting what I really wanted would improve. And it worked! Christmas morning smiling up at me, there she was lying under the Christmas tree in her pink onesie with my name attached to her wrist - my very own 12” vinyl Shirley Temple doll. Oh, how I cherished that doll.</p><p>The years passed, life’s desires took hold of me, and along the way my beloved Shirley Temple doll fell by the wayside. I looked high and low for her, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. Well into my 30’s, I was at a loss to find Shirley no matter how hard I tried. Although she won’t admit it, I think my mom put her in a box to give to the Good Will, poor baby.</p><p>I had to find her. That’s all there was to it. I scoured every antique shop I happened upon, but not one Shirley Temple doll peaked out through the glass cases.</p><p>One evening, I had an hour before my French class was to begin at the Alliance Francaises in the warehouse district of downtown Minneapolis so I decided to order a frothy cappuccino at the nearby bookstore. There was an antique shop next door so after drinking my coffee, I gave finding my 50’s Shirley another try.</p><p>There she was sitting all pert and pretty in a foggy glass case near the back. I’m telling you, that Shirley doll was smiling at me. I convinced myself she was indeed the long lost doll from my childhood. $98.00 later, she was once again resting safely in my adoring arms.</p><p>As a child, many of my Sunday mornings were spent sitting on my daddy’s lap combing over the want-ads of the hefty five inch thick Minneapolis Star/Tribune. If there was something to be had at a darn good price, you could find it among the hundreds of little boxes advertising used cars, ebony clarinets, and washer/dryer combinations. So, when the internet hit, it hit me hard. Obsessively hard. Ebay was pure magic. I set my alarm for the middle of night to get in on a last minute bid for a ruby and gold pagoda ring listed in Thailand. It was beyond amazing. You could buy a 1,000 year-old enameled cricket cage from China and Civil War daguerreotypes in hard cases. I bought a 1963 Morris Minor 1000 right hand drive stick shift with a big white steering wheel out of the UK. After six months, I managed to get Petula through Homeland Security and into my garage. One day I set about finding a 1930’s 13” composition Shirley Temple doll like the one my mom would have had when she was a little girl. It was easy, but it was also expensive. Still, the one I found and purchased was in very good shape for being so old.</p><p>Surprisingly, my mom passed on keeping the 13” composition Shirley Temple doll she would have had as a child. I decided to post her doll for sale on Ebay for twice what I paid for her. Mere moments later, a girl bought my 30’s Shirley paying full price on a “Buy It Now.” There was no doubt the buyer wanted that particular doll. I was to send Shirley in a sturdy box carefully cushioned in many layers of bubble wrap to Gina Napolitano at a shipping address in the Rossville neighborhood of Staten Island, NY. Gina was over the top excited about her purchase and once you hear her story you will be, too. Gina couldn’t spill the beans to her mama so she exploded with her plans in an Ebay message to me:</p><p>“I’m going to take a composition doll restoration class and make that old Shirley Temple doll brand spanking new again,” explained Gina. “You see,” Gina went on, “my mother grew up in the poorest Italian neighborhood on Staten Island. When the Depression hit her family, it flattened them with an asphalt stench and the annihilation of a double drum road roller.” (Note: I delighted in what I knew was Gina’s Italian/NYC accent crawling out from behind every syllable of her writing.) “Mama was a little girl when the Depression robbed people of what it means to be human.” wrote Gina. "My mama’s parents, my grandmama and grandpapa, wouldn’t let my mama play with her Shirley doll because if she broke it, they would not be able to buy her another one. So, they boxed up Mama’s Shirley and put her high on a shelf in the back of a closet for safe keeping only allowing her to take the doll out at Christmas.</p><p>Mama was eight years-old and it was the long awaited Christmas Day - the day she would be allowed to play with Shirley. Mama invited her friend from next door over to play with Shirley too because her friend did not have a Shirley Temple doll of her own. Cradling her precious Shirley in her arms, Mama went to the back door to let her friend in. Mama’s friend took one look at Mama’s Shirley Temple doll and became enraged with jealousy. She grabbed the doll by one leg and smashed her over and over again against the wall, cracking her face, legs, and fingers beyond repair. Mama couldn’t stop sobbing. That doll meant everything to her.</p><p>When Mama had me, she told me the awful story about seeing her Shirley in crumbling pieces on the kitchen floor. She told me over and over again, year after year after year, ‘Gina, I still miss that doll. My yearning for my Shirley never really goes away.’”</p><p>“Oh, my, Gina,” I wrote back. “This is so heartfelt and good, it might be the most amazing Christmas present ever. Gina, I have Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm bib overalls and a straw hat for that doll that I want to give to your mom, okay? In fact, I have an original Baby Take a Bow dress I will send to you as well. Would that be okay?” I asked.</p><p>“Absolutely,” Gina wrote. “This is going to be even better than I imagined. I’d better get on with the lessons and restoration,” Gina wrote. “Christmas is in two months and I want Shirley to be perfect.”</p><p>Six weeks passed and I’d heard nothing from Gina until one day I received a message with a photo attached. Gina had worked magic into the composition of that 1930’s doll. If you looked long and hard enough the smile on Shirley’s face became real. Shirley’s golden curls were divine.</p><p>On Christmas Day, I received a note from Gina with a video attached. In the video, Gina’s mama sat in a chair waiting for Gina to give her her Christmas present. Gina placed a beautifully wrapped box on her mama’s lap. Gina’s papa took the video of Mama unwrapping her gift. When Gina’s mama removed the lid, she gasped, “My doll. My doll. My Shirley. You’ve come back to me.”</p><p>Mama looked up into Gina’s face with a look for which words can never do justice. Silence took over the room except for nose blowing and tears. Mama held her long lost Shirley Temple doll to her shoulder kissing her face over and over again.</p><p>And a thousand miles away, a stranger who sold an old doll on Ebay cried.</p><p>Gina wrote one last thing to me the day after Christmas:</p><p>“Thank you, Julie. If you ever decide to come to Rossville on Staten Island, come and visit us. We’ll walk down to Portofino Pizza for a slice, my treat. I promise you will not be disappointed. Porofino’s is a small family owned pizzeria that also has fresh garlic knots that are out of this world.</p><p>Merry Christmas. With love, Gina Napolitano.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Sun Rises Twice]]></title><description><![CDATA[Six days of the week,
The sun rises once.
On Tuesdays, though,
The sun rises twice.
You work that day
At the Senior Care Center.
Each Tuesday morning,
My darkness lifts.
The moment I see you,
A second sun clears
My horizon of night –
For today, I feel alive.
Your welcoming smile,
Your near-giddy voice,
Your lustrous eyes,
Issue a galaxy’s fill
Of ten billion suns.
Then six long days
Of total eclipse.
When on Tuesdays, I return,
You are there –
If just for today,
The sun rises twice.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-sun-rises-twice/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852326c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Howard Stein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:53:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1470252649378-9c29740c9fa8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHN1bnJpc2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzcxOTU0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1470252649378-9c29740c9fa8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHN1bnJpc2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzcxOTU0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Sun Rises Twice"/><p>Six days of the week,<br>The sun rises once.<br>On Tuesdays, though,<br>The sun rises twice.</br></br></br></p><p>You work that day<br>At the Senior Care Center.<br>Each Tuesday morning,<br>My darkness lifts.</br></br></br></p><p>The moment I see you,<br>A second sun clears<br>My horizon of night –<br>For today, I feel alive.</br></br></br></p><p>Your welcoming smile,<br>Your near-giddy voice,<br>Your lustrous eyes,<br>Issue a galaxy’s fill<br>Of ten billion suns.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Then six long days<br>Of total eclipse.<br>When on Tuesdays, I return,<br>You are there –<br>If just for today,<br>The sun rises twice.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Backlighting in Autumn]]></title><description><![CDATA[Long-forgotten chill
And diminishing sun
Perform their natural alchemy
On deciduous trees,
Transmute dark green
Scrub oak leaves
Into yellows, oranges,
Golds, and ruddy browns.
These scrawny survivors
Wring from hardscrabble lives
A severe kind of beauty.
Backlit by a fading sun,
A patch of glowing leaves
Lingers before nightfall,
Suspended in the air
As much as in time,
Then vanishes until morning –
Minus a few more leaves –
Backlit now by an eastern sun.
Wonders of the world
Come in small si]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/backlighting-in-autumn/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852326b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Howard Stein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:53:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523712999610-f77fbcfc3843?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxhdXR1bW4lMjBsZWF2ZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzcxNjI1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523712999610-f77fbcfc3843?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxhdXR1bW4lMjBsZWF2ZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3NzcxNjI1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Backlighting in Autumn"/><p>Long-forgotten chill<br>And diminishing sun<br>Perform their natural alchemy<br>On deciduous trees,<br>Transmute dark green<br>Scrub oak leaves<br>Into yellows, oranges,<br>Golds, and ruddy browns.<br>These scrawny survivors<br>Wring from hardscrabble lives<br>A severe kind of beauty.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Backlit by a fading sun,<br>A patch of glowing leaves<br>Lingers before nightfall,<br>Suspended in the air<br>As much as in time,<br>Then vanishes until morning –<br>Minus a few more leaves –<br>Backlit now by an eastern sun.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Wonders of the world<br>Come in small sizes,<br>Magnificence, not<br>A matter of scale,<br>But of wakeful<br>Eyes’ recognition<br>Of what soon passes<br>From sight.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mrs. Santa Clauses]]></title><description><![CDATA[Claus One
Lockdown coffee cake
it never rains in southern California
or so I had heard it said…
until refraction
concern crisp and clean,
& cannot be swept or hid
Claus Two
Corn,
a metaphor for a woman un-satiated
starched jeans & buttoned down
collared shirts for IVY LEAGUE boys
to play foolish games
& pretend ‘it all came undone’ after 21
Claus Three
Upside down collard greens,
if you new who knows who,
words are like motor oil
for advice eclipsed nights
when your god is too small
and ex]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mrs-santa-clauses/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852327d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Erikka Dunn]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:53:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1634651424460-e772b0263eb1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM1fHxjb3JufGVufDB8fHx8MTY5Nzc3NzIzOHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1634651424460-e772b0263eb1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM1fHxjb3JufGVufDB8fHx8MTY5Nzc3NzIzOHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Mrs. Santa Clauses"/><p><strong><strong>Claus One</strong></strong></p><p>Lockdown coffee cake<br>it never rains in southern California<br>or so I had heard it said…<br>until refraction<br>concern crisp and clean,<br>& cannot be swept or hid</br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong><strong>Claus Two</strong></strong></p><p>Corn,<br>a metaphor for a woman un-satiated<br>starched jeans & buttoned down<br>collared shirts for IVY LEAGUE boys<br>to play foolish games<br>& pretend ‘it all came undone’ after 21</br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong><strong>Claus Three</strong></strong></p><p>Upside down collard greens,<br>if you new who knows who,<br>words are like motor oil<br>for advice eclipsed nights</br></br></br></p><p>when your god is too small<br>and excelling is a habit<br>choose to ignore editorial demands</br></br></p><p>write it down if you must,<br>if waiting broke the bridge<br>You were not built to break</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Alone]]></title><description><![CDATA[I no longer sleep alone.
It is a strange feeling
knowing that there is
someone else in my bed.
Two nights ago, she was
playful.
She planted a hickey on my
thigh.
Last night it was on my
stomach.
You see there is a spider in
my bed.
Woke up when she strolled across
my face.
I am her midnight snack.
Murder on my mind.
Solved by relocation to the
backyard.
Bat food – I hope.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/alone/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523271</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John L. Swainston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:53:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1567210590635-06998f86961e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNwaWRlcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzMzNzZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1567210590635-06998f86961e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNwaWRlcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzMzNzZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Alone"/><p>I no longer sleep alone.<br>It is a strange feeling<br>knowing that there is<br>someone else in my bed.</br></br></br></p><p>Two nights ago, she was<br>playful.<br>She planted a hickey on my<br>thigh.<br>Last night it was on my<br>stomach.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>You see there is a spider in<br>my bed.<br>Woke up when she strolled across<br>my face.<br>I am her midnight snack.<br>Murder on my mind.<br>Solved by relocation to the<br>backyard.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Bat food – I hope.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Watch]]></title><description><![CDATA[Julie no longer plays into the big hand,
The heavy hand, the upper hand,
The hand that silences, shames, smacks.
She used to plead, “Pick me! Pick Me!”
In a rush, she’d cast her heart into pools of abandonment—
Pearls to swine, like clockwork.
They could count on her to bear the secrets,
The stains, the scarlet paragraphs and
Chapters that chronicled cries and crises.
But in the hour of need, past half the darkness
The second hand clicked into place. . .
Safe hands and second chances surfaced]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/watch/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523275</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Hoffman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:52:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1554378739-200b04da4e8b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU4fHxjbG9ja3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzQ4ODJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1554378739-200b04da4e8b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU4fHxjbG9ja3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzQ4ODJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Watch"/><p>Julie no longer plays into the big hand,<br>The heavy hand, the upper hand,<br>The hand that silences, shames, smacks.</br></br></p><p>She used to plead, “Pick me! Pick Me!”<br>In a rush, she’d cast her heart into pools of abandonment—<br>Pearls to swine, like clockwork.</br></br></p><p>They could count on her to bear the secrets,<br>The stains, the scarlet paragraphs and<br>Chapters that chronicled cries and crises.</br></br></p><p>But in the hour of need, past half the darkness<br>The second hand clicked into place. . .<br>Safe hands and second chances surfaced.</br></br></p><p>This is her day in the sun. Love won.<br>Flourishing, fostering freedom and hope,<br>Counting on truth—not time—to heal her wounds.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Warning]]></title><description><![CDATA[What happens to a voice unheard?
Does it get lodged
Like popcorn kernels behind a tonsil?
Or deflate like a tire—
And then collapse?
Does it smell like singed hair?
Or bubble and fizz
Like a chemical reaction?
Maybe it just whispers
Like a secret in one’s ears.
Or does it scream?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/warning/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523274</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Hoffman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:52:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1675551402547-3df28f0da57a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGRlZmxhdGVkJTIwdGlyZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzQ2ODR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1675551402547-3df28f0da57a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGRlZmxhdGVkJTIwdGlyZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2OTc3NzQ2ODR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Warning"/><p>What happens to a voice unheard?</p><p>Does it get lodged<br>Like popcorn kernels behind a tonsil?<br>Or deflate like a tire—<br>And then collapse?<br>Does it smell like singed hair?<br>Or bubble and fizz<br>Like a chemical reaction?</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Maybe it just whispers<br>Like a secret in one’s ears.</br></p><p>Or does it scream?</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Christmas 1962]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was Christmas 1962, I was seven-and-a-half years old and having serious doubts whether Santa Claus was real. It was all the usual clues – the multiple Santas in the various malls, the hidden packages under my parents’ bed and the serious doubts a man with a white beard could fly in the sky with eight reindeer, squeeze down a chimney we didn’t even have, and deliver millions of toys to all the world’s boys and girls in just one night.
I was raised in the suburbs of Toronto, the middle child o]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/christmas-1962/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852327e</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Rankine]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:52:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1682953395720-23019a54dccf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxmaWd1cmUlMjBza2F0ZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3Nzc3NDYxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1682953395720-23019a54dccf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxmaWd1cmUlMjBza2F0ZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjk3Nzc3NDYxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Christmas 1962"/><p>It was Christmas 1962, I was seven-and-a-half years old and having serious doubts whether Santa Claus was real. It was all the usual clues – the multiple Santas in the various malls, the hidden packages under my parents’ bed and the serious doubts a man with a white beard could fly in the sky with eight reindeer, squeeze down a chimney we didn’t even have, and deliver millions of toys to all the world’s boys and girls in just one night.</p><p>I was raised in the suburbs of Toronto, the middle child of five boys who was, frankly, a little different than his four brothers.</p><p>Hockey ruled in Canada, and I remember my dad at five in the morning driving my two older brothers to the indoor arena for hockey practice. There was a public outdoor skating rink around the corner where we lived and my father would flood our backyard every winter to make our own private ice rink. There was no shortage of ice, except on rare days when temperatures rose above freezing. This was obviously pre-climate change.</p><p>Hockey Night in Canada was close to a religion in our little suburb, and kids in our neighborhood donned hockey skates as soon as they learned to walk.</p><p>I, however, was not the least interested in hockey. I wanted to dance on ice.<br>I was totally enthralled with figure skating and loved watching it on television. When the Ice Capades came to town, I begged my parents to take me, to no avail. I was obsessed.</br></p><p>So that year, when asked what I wanted for Christmas, it was a pair of figure skates, making sure Santa understood that it was figure skates, not hockey skates – the ones that were all shiny black and had the little pointy things on the top of the toe blades.</p><p>I had never been this excited for Christmas. I threw all my Santa skepticism aside and set out milk and cookies for Jolly Saint Nick, with a big fat carrot for Rudolph, before going to bed.</p><p>I could hardly sleep, and aroused my sleepy younger brother at four in the morning to quietly sneak into the living room to check out what was under the tree. There it was – a box, all wrapped up: “To John, Merry Christmas from Santa.” My heart was pounding.</p><p>I impatiently waited until 6 am before dragging my parents and two older brothers out of bed.</p><p>We had a family tradition of giving each other gifts and opening them first. The big gifts from Santa were always left to the end; sort of the big morning crescendo before the big morning breakfast.</p><p>After waiting for what felt like an eternity, the box from Santa was finally on my lap. I savagely tore open the paper, lifted the lid – only to find hockey skates!</p><p>I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the 1972 cult film Female Trouble, but in it, is a scene where the star, Divine, playing the teenage character Dawn Davenport is desperately wanting cha cha heels from her parents for Christmas. It being a John Waters film, when Dawn unwraps her present and opens the box to discover she did not get the cha cha heels her heart desired, she flies into a major tantrum, screaming, “these are not cha cha heels, I wanted cha cha heels you bitch”, then proceeds to throw her father into the Christmas tree which falls down on her mother, ending the scene with both parents trapped underneath, uncontrollably sobbing, “Oh Dawn, oh Dawn!”</p><p>My reaction was not so dramatic. As my disbelief turned into tears, I threw the box of hockey skates down and ran into my room, slamming the door for added affect.</p><p>There was no way to console me. It all confirmed what I knew in my heart was true – Santa was fake and my parents not only lied to me, but also knew how much these figure skates meant to me. With my Olympic dreams dashed, I felt betrayed.</p><p>I never did get a pair of figure skates, and it took awhile, but I finally forgave my parents.</p><p>My seven-and-a-half year old self learned some pretty big life lessons that day: people who say they love you, can deceive you; you can’t always get what you want; and, be dubious of anyone pushing invisible entities on you.</p><p>The following Sunday I loudly announced to my Sunday school teacher and class: “There is no such thing as Santa – or Jesus.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 20: Fall 2023]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Friends of eMerge,
As the leaves begin to change and the air turns crisp, I'm delighted to welcome you to the Fall 2023 issue of eMerge. I hope this issue finds you well and ready to embrace the magic of the autumn season.
In this Fall 2023 issue of eMerge, we're excited to present a delightful assortment of holiday-themed works that will infuse your heart with the spirit of the season. As the year winds down and festivities approach, you'll find pieces that capture the essence of the hol]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-20-fall-2023/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852327f</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joy Clark]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 28 Oct 2023 16:57:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Dear Friends of eMerge,</p><p>As the leaves begin to change and the air turns crisp, I'm delighted to welcome you to the Fall 2023 issue of eMerge. I hope this issue finds you well and ready to embrace the magic of the autumn season.</p><p>In this Fall 2023 issue of eMerge, we're excited to present a delightful assortment of holiday-themed works that will infuse your heart with the spirit of the season. As the year winds down and festivities approach, you'll find pieces that capture the essence of the holidays in ways that warm the soul. Moreover, we understand that our world can sometimes be overwhelming, and in these pages, you'll also discover works that resonate deeply with those facing the challenges of navigating the complexities of our times. From the joy of celebration to the solace of reflection, this issue offers a diverse range of voices and narratives, catering to a multitude of experiences and emotions.</p><p>eMerge is a labor of love brought to life by an incredibly dedicated and talented team: Cat Templeton, our web editor, and Charles Templeton, my co-editor. Despite our small size, we take immense joy in knowing that our work resonates with our readers. Your feedback and questions are always welcome, so please don't hesitate to reach out to me at <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>. Lastly, I want to express my deep gratitude to our valued partner, <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">The Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow</a>. We also wish to recognize our new featured partner, <a href="https://writerconmag.substack.com/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">WriterCon Magazine</a>. Our heartfelt thanks to both of these organizations for their support in uplifting writers of all genres and stages in their careers.</p><p>As we step into autumn and then winter, remember to take care of yourselves in this busy season. Thank you for being a part of the eMerge community, and enjoy the diverse and captivating offerings in this issue.</p><p>Warm regards,</p><p>Joy Clark</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 19: Summer 2023]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Friends of eMerge,
I want to start this note with an apology that we're a little late getting this issue out. Both eMerge and I, personally, have been in a season of change and growth. It's true that you can't rush growth; growth takes time, needs care and attention, patience and a good senses of humor. If you are also in a season of growth in your life, I hope you are kind and patient with yourself, even when navigating system glitches and email backlogs and to-do lists as long as an 19th]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-18-spring-2023-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523251</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joy Clark]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:45:08 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Dear Friends of eMerge,</p><p>I want to start this note with an apology that we're a little late getting this issue out. Both eMerge and I, personally, have been in a season of change and growth. It's true that you can't rush growth; growth takes time, needs care and attention, patience and a good senses of humor. If you are also in a season of growth in your life, I hope you are kind and patient with yourself, even when navigating system glitches and email backlogs and to-do lists as long as an 19th-century novel.</p><p>This issue is full of work that was truly an honor to publish. Some pieces defy genre, such as <a href="https://emerge-writerscolony.org/the-post-in-postcolonialism?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">"The 'Post' in Postcolonialism"</a> by Khadidja Bouchellia; and some pieces are playful with form, such as <a href="https://emerge-writerscolony.org/how-to-get-lost?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">"How to Get Lost"</a> by Louise Krug. We're also publishing our very first translated piece: <a href="https://emerge-writerscolony.org/rusty-my-friend?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">"Rusty, My Friend"</a> by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, which brought tears to my eyes both the first and <em>second</em> time I read it. But each piece in this issue brings something unusual, something inventive, something strange and wonderful to the table. I hope you take the time to read it all. Amid the hot, claustrophobic days of summer, there is fresh air to fill your lungs here.</p><p>Finally, I want to end on some good news! Because of the aforementioned system glitches, we've extended the <a href="https://emerge-writerscolony.org/contests/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Woody Barlow Poetry Contest</a> through October 1, 2023! So pull out your notebooks and polish up an old gem or create something brand new. We can't wait to read your work.</p><p>eMerge is published because of the generous work of my very small team: Cat Templeton, our web editor, and Charles Templeton, my co-editor. Because we're a small but mighty team, we take a lot of joy in knowing that people are enjoying the work we do, so feel free to drop me a line with any questions or comments about eMerge at: [email protected]. Finally, thank you to our featured partner, <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">The Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow</a> for their long-time support and commitment to uplifting writers of all genres at all stages in their career.</p><p>Stay hydrated and take care,</p><p>Joy Clark</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Today]]></title><description><![CDATA[Today,
And every day since Vietnam
I see the brown eyes
Of a ten year old boy
Staring through me…
He was not crying
Or blinking
After we killed most of his
Three generation family
I couldn’t explain to him
About mistakes…
Or the fog of war
As we carried dead family members
Past where he sat
He continued to stare
Showing no emotion
Fifty years later
I wonder
Where he is
And if he has healed
I have not.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/today/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523265</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:43:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1613090097807-2919406fc824?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDg4fHx2aWV0bmFtfGVufDB8fHx8MTY5MDMwMjUzNnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1613090097807-2919406fc824?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDg4fHx2aWV0bmFtfGVufDB8fHx8MTY5MDMwMjUzNnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Today"/><p>Today,<br>And every day since Vietnam<br>I see the brown eyes<br>Of a ten year old boy<br>Staring through me…</br></br></br></br></p><p>He was not crying<br>Or blinking<br>After we killed most of his<br>Three generation family</br></br></br></p><p>I couldn’t explain to him<br>About mistakes…<br>Or the fog of war<br>As we carried dead family members<br>Past where he sat<br>He continued to stare<br>Showing no emotion<br>Fifty years later<br>I wonder<br>Where he is<br>And if he has healed</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I have not.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Gawk]]></title><description><![CDATA[Trina neared the end of her anecdote. Unexpected breathlessness. Mixed up “champion” with “championship.” No one at the table seemed aware of the error. They looked pleased with more than the considerate brunch that repelled all possible allergies. They looked ready for dessert, a sweet way to push back from the table. Reassured, she launched a punchy last line. Their chuckles and gentle nods revealed the reward for sharing her chance encounter in childhood with Cassius Clay, before he became th]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/gawk/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523263</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Lewis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:43:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1631311915775-e8f4250a7d4e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGF2b2NhZG8lMjB0b2FzdHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODk2MzY4MDJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1631311915775-e8f4250a7d4e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGF2b2NhZG8lMjB0b2FzdHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODk2MzY4MDJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Gawk"/><p>Trina neared the end of her anecdote. Unexpected breathlessness. Mixed up “champion” with “championship.” No one at the table seemed aware of the error. They looked pleased with more than the considerate brunch that repelled all possible allergies. They looked ready for dessert, a sweet way to push back from the table. Reassured, she launched a punchy last line. Their chuckles and gentle nods revealed the reward for sharing her chance encounter in childhood with Cassius Clay, before he became the world-famous Muhammad Ali.</p><p>Finished with her story, she looked down at her plate, at a piece of avocado toast couched against a slice of potato tart. She lifted the green tidbit to her mouth. Heard her stomach growl, signaling her to head to the buffet table for another helping. A smidgen more wouldn’t harm her calorie and cholesterol limits, especially if she left the potato tart on her plate.</p><p>“And what do you say, Dad? Is that how you remember it?”</p><p>Jackson. Half-brother of the groom, good friends with him, a testament to how a blended family can work out despite divorce. He was leaning over to spot his father’s answer. Trina was half-standing, the last of her avocado toast already in her mouth. Distracted by her growling stomach, but not enough to overlook Jackson’s question. She followed his lead, glancing down the table to the end where Terrance sat.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Part of Trina wanted to pretend. Make like she hadn’t heard her brother’s answer to his son’s request for verification. Or maybe Terrance was distracted, too, answering a question put by someone at that end of the table. Jackson’s question sounded innocent, plucked from a sea of submerged history. Limp, waterlogged stuff everyone dumps overboard to lighten the load of chugging through endless days and nights of good, bad, whatever. How about this detail, his question asked. Recognize this—the moment when this happened?</p><p>Terrance said no. A definite rejection. An order to throw the crap back. It’s worthless, doesn’t belong here, among us. Not acceptable on this day of happy matrimony.</p><p>She looked at him, her mouth finishing its job of chewing the toast with avocado smeared on top. Bit of a culinary miracle. The toast didn’t get soft, the avocado remained green. Later, she would remember thinking about the crunch, the creaminess. Her throat and tongue in concert. For now, she slumped back in her chair, unable to shift her focus away from her brother’s face. For a second she grew afraid she’d choke, cause even more of a scene than what was surely sucking out all the air while she stared at him and none of the gawkers said a word.</p><p>The look he gave her held onto pain. Held her in a bright gaze that stepped them onto a threshold and stopped. She was stunned. The threshold pooled, a watery mess. Her eyes were damp. She could have mistaken the choking sensation. It was more like a sucker punch, T-boning her liveliness. A rising tide of shock. She felt her eyes blinking, shutters slamming, protection from the storm: Terrance, the male’s male who always knew the correct answer. Always held his goateed chin high, his mahogany body the plank that survived the wreck of patronizing scholarships, made it to shore, became the frontispiece of success.</p><p>She sensed him forcing back something. Making himself turn down his temperature. Past heated anger, a conditioning of the air that reverted to cool and then to cold. Gripping the look he gave her as he sat, rigid. No recognition of a blood bond. No warmth. No rescue.</p><p>It was a time in childhood they shared. That was all. She’d told a tale that sounded almost silly. One small ripple of time. She was 8 or 9, he was maybe 15. She couldn’t see what the big deal was. She’d spotted the man as he left a neighborhood bar. She remembered late afternoon sunlight falling across him and the two men with him. The bar’s doorway taking its time closing after them. Darkness from inside the bar challenging the sun, giving the three a weird glow as they paused, squinting. The man in the center looked like her big brother, especially in the eyes and chin and molasses coloring. When she told the man, unabashed, on her way home from a piano lesson, the man reversed her notation: he was the Big Man, not her brother. A stance she’d stumbled back home from. When she told on herself, she got a comeuppance, for talking to a stranger and for mistaking the next world champion for someone anywhere near her brother.</p><p>Now, she was still confounded. How could her story—their story—smash his fabrication, his breastplate of confidence. What was he fighting not to reveal? Why the pain? She swallowed an urge to hug him, ask him to daub her tears, like he used to do when she scraped her knee or shoved a bully who knocked her flat. Remember, she wanted to ask but didn’t, how we laughed at ourselves as we practiced the Twist while you played your Chubby Checker 45? Now, Terrance was hard, unrelenting. Touch me, he seemed to warn her with his knifing stare, and I will make you hard too.</p><p>She stood, all the conversations at the table buzzing in her ears. Everyone sounded quickly and with relief interested in some other topic. Any other subject sounded OK to them as long as the words swerved them away from the smack-down they’d witnessed. They could step aside, revisit the merriment housing their smiles and nods and genteel chatter. It was difficult for her to move but she was able to make her legs take her toward the exit. Later she would chew on the astounding flavors and textures of one person’s pain flooding her. For now, she was glad she’d kept her coat on, relieved not to need to navigate the checkroom. She could go.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Two Spotify Walks After Patient Transport, July 16th, 2020]]></title><description><![CDATA[Part I. Dusk—Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here,” 1975
I grabbed Gatorade on a sunbaked return home
to gawk groundward in a cloth chili pepper mask—
and not toward Tulsa’s shrapnel within paling skyline,
not to co-opt it for the sake of longing any longer.
I stumbled over my doorstep’s first Amazon Solzhenitsyn novel—
A Day in The Life of Anybody Not Doing All This,
where if “You” just had to be somewhere, then not “Here”
or even there, but away from all this, was all I’d “Wish” for still—
but i]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/two-spotify-walks-after-patient-transport-july-16th-2020/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852325f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:43:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1609373564086-05ead0b00e96?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGN2c3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODk2MzYzMDB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1609373564086-05ead0b00e96?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGN2c3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODk2MzYzMDB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Two Spotify Walks After Patient Transport, July 16th, 2020"/><p><strong><strong>Part I. Dusk—Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here,” 1975</strong></strong></p><p>I grabbed Gatorade on a sunbaked return home<br>to gawk groundward in a cloth chili pepper mask—<br>and not toward Tulsa’s shrapnel within paling skyline,<br>not to co-opt it for the sake of longing any longer.</br></br></br></p><p>I stumbled over my doorstep’s first Amazon Solzhenitsyn novel—<br>A Day in The Life of Anybody Not Doing All This,<br>where if “You” just had to be somewhere, then not “Here”<br>or even there, but away from all this, was all I’d “Wish” for still—</br></br></br></p><p>but if its Ivan hinted how best to cheat on my path through spacetime,<br>I was too worn down from 13-hour shifts on foot and sweaty<br>five-mile commutes to splice a day’s film to headspace.</br></br></p><p>As my apperception’s reel-to-reel flickered<br>like every daylight’s fade out,<br>no thought ever seemed enough.</br></br></p><p><strong><strong>Part II. Late—Keith Jarrett, “Answer Me, My Love,” Live in Munich 2016</strong></strong></p><p>Plodding back from fetching forgotten CVS psych meds,<br>I wondered, what use all those spastic obversions to response were—<br>such as entreaties, invocations, querying—beyond<br>consignment sales of cerebellum grooving out chronic aches?</br></br></br></p><p>What use, as two more EMSAs wailed rejoinder of anti-Siren-Song<br>(its primordial “Stay the Hell Back, I Lure You to Living”),<br>were one’s engines for craft or seeking purpose in abecedarian</br></br></p><p>spillages after inner cogency? What use was dejection<br>at being kicked and kicked way down in the dumps<br>of our regional vortex in the Great American Dumpster Fire?</br></br></p><p>What use was smearing pencil points for pretty pearls to ask<br>or rifle through middens of a vacant “Answer,” to have taken<br>stabs at “Me” or “My”, to grope around for the stuff of “Love”?</br></br></p><p>What use are such words?</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The “Post” in Postcolonialism]]></title><description><![CDATA[Google search: I no longer speak to myself in my mother tongue.
Google search: I no longer think in my mother tongue.
Google search: I no longer dream in my mother tongue.
Google search: How do I mourn the death [word deleted] the loss of my identity?
Google search: Meditation for trauma
Google search: Quran cleanse for anxiety and grief
Google search: Did Algeria open its borders?
Google search: When will Algeria open its borders?
Google search: Covid cases in Algeria
Google search: I have Covi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-post-in-postcolonialism/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523258</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Khadidja Bouchellia]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:42:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566521540451-bf81df1f2bd8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxhbGdlcmlhfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4OTYzNDcxOHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566521540451-bf81df1f2bd8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxhbGdlcmlhfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4OTYzNDcxOHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The “Post” in Postcolonialism"/><p>Google search: I no longer speak to myself in my mother tongue.<br>Google search: I no longer think in my mother tongue.<br>Google search: I no longer dream in my mother tongue.<br>Google search: How do I mourn the death [word deleted] the loss of my identity?<br>Google search: Meditation for trauma<br>Google search: Quran cleanse for anxiety and grief<br>Google search: Did Algeria open its borders?<br>Google search: When will Algeria open its borders?<br>Google search: Covid cases in Algeria<br>Google search: I have Covid symptoms<br>Google search: Ginger and turmeric blend for covid<br>Google search: my dissociation is worse after covid<br>Google search: ideas for covid care packages for friends<br>Google search: Booster shot near me<br>Google search: Did Algeria really open its borders?<br>Google Flights: XNA to Constantine, Algeria<br>Google search: PCR test near me</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I woke up disoriented and confused by the sound of the Adhan. I haven’t heard the call to prayers in three years. The voice sounded different. It sounded transient, crispy, less cracked, and more powerful. I figured our local mosque has a younger Imam now. Moments later, I heard hurried steps and running water. I heard whispers of morning prayers. I heard the soothing sound of my father’s voice as he prayed for heaven—for all of us, for all humanity. It lulled me back to sleep.</p><p>My mother laid out a spread that morning. The smell of coffee teased my nose. It smelled sweeter than the coffee I had in the States. It took me some time to realize that I’m here. I’m back in the homeland. Nothing has changed in the kitchen, just a new shiny pot and more plastic containers. I stared blankly at the bubbles that formed on my coffee cup. They twirled in a harmonious dance. The froth reminded me of Aphrodite’s sea stunt and of births and rebirths. I looked up to see my mom looking at me. I could see in her eyes that she is trying to grasp that her daughter is here. My mom and I talked a lot more during the pandemic. Our relationship changed to the better. I can tell her a lot more about my life, and she seems receptive of it—very understanding even. It’s rare for a Muslim mother not to mention marriage to her thirty-year-old daughter. I respect that about my mom, but I also understand that it’s temporary. I know the subject will come up someday.</p><p>The night of my arrival was emotional. My siblings were there waiting for me at the airport. Kisses on the cheeks while tears ran down. I felt their heat piercing my flesh. The fear of loss is haunting us. We lost so many aunts and cousins in the past, and now the pressure to survive seems collective. We lost more family members to colonialism and to natural causes than the pandemic. The response has always been the same when we hear of death. It’s Allah’s will. Everything is pre-written—it’s maktoub.</p><p>My mom insisted that I begin my breakfast with her homemade bread and a dab of olive oil. “It’s good for your health”, she said. A statement I heard often growing up. I wish I can explain to you how powerful this love language is for mommas of North Africa and the Mediterranean. They offer you herbal medicine to outlive them. The belief in the magical powers of olive oil has always fascinated me. I never questioned it.</p><p>My mom’s stories seem more detailed now that she’s in her sixties. Maybe they were always detailed. I don’t remember. The stories began with brief updates on the pandemic then they somehow shifted to stories of colonization—the shift that often happens when my mother is telling stories. She placed a bowl of peas on the breakfast table and began to crack them swiftly from their pods.</p><p>In the past three years, I tried working on myself using the framework of Western psychology. I learned about boundaries. I wanted to tell my mother that we can postpone the conversation to when I’m ready to receive the information. I wanted to tell my mother that I was getting <em>triggered</em>, but I didn’t know how to translate it properly into Arabic. My tongue couldn’t release those words. It felt like an insult—a betrayal. Stories of violence that seem so normal to her made me want to weep. The feeling of anger towards the colonizers became a searing pain that tore through my insides. I felt like I’m betraying her and my ancestors who sacrificed their lives for our freedom.</p><p>I exhaled the anger outside of my body. My shoulders released their tight grip, and I continued to listen—but this time attentively. I allowed myself to receive my mother’s stories. I observed how she speaks about colonialism like it’s a present occurrence not a memory. I wanted to tell my mother who couldn’t finish elementary school (because of colonialism) about the “post” in postcolonialism. I wanted to tell her about the scholars who theorized her life, and my grandmother’s life. I wondered what her critique would be. I wanted to tell her about the subaltern while she spoke. I wanted to tell her she’s the reason I’m researching colonialism. I wanted to tell her that she’s the storyteller of our often-erased history. I wanted to tell her that I, like a clay vessel, carry her stories with me even when I have no capacity to listen. Her words stick and cling onto my memory and my flesh. I carry the violence, the trauma, the legacy of the free people, the Amazigh, of the martyrs and the freedom fighters— I carry them, and they carry me like a pea in a pod.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Urban Revelations]]></title><description><![CDATA[I broke the pattern.
Crackled curves down the
smooth surface I was trying
to preserve for you.
I tried so hard to keep the sidewalk
clean, shoving the banana peels and half-drunk coke cans
and crumpled cardboard into the streets that lined my veins.
But the pressure eventually built up
and the contents of my capillaries
exploded, sending the ugliness I was trying
to spare you from right into your lap.
Showing you the shameful truth.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/urban-revelations/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523252</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Samantha Savello]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:42:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1496016943515-7d33598c11e6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHVyYmFufGVufDB8fHx8MTY4OTYzMzkwNHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1496016943515-7d33598c11e6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHVyYmFufGVufDB8fHx8MTY4OTYzMzkwNHww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Urban Revelations"/><p>I broke the pattern.<br>Crackled curves down the<br>smooth surface I was trying<br>to preserve for you.</br></br></br></p><p>I tried so hard to keep the sidewalk<br>clean, shoving the banana peels and half-drunk coke cans<br>and crumpled cardboard into the streets that lined my veins.</br></br></p><p>But the pressure eventually built up<br>and the contents of my capillaries<br>exploded, sending the ugliness I was trying<br>to spare you from right into your lap.</br></br></br></p><p>Showing you the shameful truth.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Places Like People]]></title><description><![CDATA[moving slowly, lowly
eyes glued to the topiary
snow fills sides and winds
following one everywhere they glide
a shadow of light
a son shining bright
dull boys
red walls
similar rum
a beating drum doused in oil
a boiler
a hissing hose coiled
and the spoiled sting of blades gone astray
all accompanied by the lingering tray of an old fool’s ash
sauntering with you along in the walls
tobacco and stairs now complimenting the hairs of some dog
one that bites and barks
your third
now 217
swirling i]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/places-like-people/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523253</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Stück]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:42:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605531463154-54f011ca6932?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHx0b3BpYXJ5fGVufDB8fHx8MTY4OTYzNDA1Nnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605531463154-54f011ca6932?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHx0b3BpYXJ5fGVufDB8fHx8MTY4OTYzNDA1Nnww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Places Like People"/><p>moving slowly, lowly<br>eyes glued to the topiary<br>snow fills sides and winds<br>following one everywhere they glide</br></br></br></p><p>a shadow of light<br>a son shining bright<br>dull boys<br>red walls<br>similar rum</br></br></br></br></p><p>a beating drum doused in oil<br>a boiler<br>a hissing hose coiled<br>and the spoiled sting of blades gone astray</br></br></br></p><p>all accompanied by the lingering tray of an old fool’s ash<br>sauntering with you along in the walls<br>tobacco and stairs now complimenting the hairs of some dog<br>one that bites and barks<br>your third</br></br></br></br></p><p>now 217<br>swirling in green, a dead woman’s tub<br>the mutt is back<br>licking and lapping at the sin<br>whiskey sliding down your cheeks and chin<br>his laugh paired with your now crazed grin<br>confirming the horror you knew to be true</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>this castle?<br>why, dear sir,<br>you must be mistaken<br>I fear, you and yours, have always<br>lived here</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to Get Lost]]></title><description><![CDATA[ 1. Nick, the kids, and I were invited to a birthday party for the father of my daughter’s friend. They lived far out in the country on a ranch, in an old stone house. We wanted to go because they are nice people, but Nick was out of town so I had to drive. This was a problem, but could be overcome, if we planned carefully (I don’t drive on the highway because I have double vision, a result of a brain surgery I had in my early twenties).
After breakfast, Nick and I peered at our phon]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/how-to-get-lost/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852325a</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Louise Krug]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:42:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511312817910-ffa2ca5d954e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGRyaXZpbmd8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM1NjU0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<ol><li>Nick, the kids, and I were invited to a birthday party for the father of my daughter’s friend. They lived far out in the country on a ranch, in an old stone house. We wanted to go because they are nice people, but Nick was out of town so I had to drive. This was a problem, but could be overcome, if we planned carefully (I don’t drive on the highway because I have double vision, a result of a brain surgery I had in my early twenties).<br><br>After breakfast, Nick and I peered at our phones, looking at the different routes. There were several, both of which followed roads I’d never heard of.</br></br></li><li>One evening, I was at a fundraiser in my neighborhood for the state book festival, and read a short essay I’d written on having double vision. Unusually, I was nervous, shaking in my legs, and my face was hot. Maybe it was because I knew most of the people in the audience, but I could barely look up from my paper. Afterwards, as I tried to leave the crowded room, people pressing into each other to try a bit of cheeseball or a lava cake, a man cornered me. He lived down the street from me, and I could never remember how to say his last name.<br><br>“I was at a dinner party and met your cousin,” he said. He was much taller than me, and a close talker. “She told the whole table your story, and said that you had had a handsome French boyfriend. Boy, she sure likes to talk.”</br></br></li><li>Together, a few days before the birthday party, Nick and I drove two of the routes that Siri gave us, one of which was extra-confusing because it involved a windy, unmarked road, and Ys that were tricky to remember which way to take.</li><li>By “my story,” the neighbor man meant my brain surgeries and heartbreak. I had just moved out to Southern California from Kansas to be with the French boyfriend — we had bought a mattress and a couch, and weeks later the symptoms started. The next thing I knew I was wearing an eye patch so I could see straight. After the surgeries I moved in with my parents in Michigan and had to learn to walk again, the whole shebang, without him. He had said in a letter that he wanted me to come back to California when I was better and we would pick up where we had left off, but it was becoming clear that there was not going to be a return to normal. Physically, I was changed, with facial paralysis, a balance deficiency, and permanent double vision. It was too much for him to kiss me during our last visit.<br><br>A couple of days after the fundraiser, I dragged a dining room chair over to our high bookshelves. The old photo album was up there with photos of my French boyfriend and me, some of them only days before my symptoms began: headaches and tingling limbs, the trip to the E.R. In one photo, we are at a wax museum in Las Vegas, shaking our fingers at George W. Bush. I wore a tiny white t-shirt and denim mini-skirt. I was 22. Blonde. Pretty. In another, he gazes out at the beach we lived by in Santa Barbara.<br><br>My kids are outside and Nick is working, so I let myself cry. I can’t stop, and in intervals, the crying goes on for days, mostly when I am driving or on walks. I start to worry.</br></br></br></br></li><li>On the day of the birthday party, the kids and I left our house an hour early for a thirty-minute journey. I drove like a cautious snail. We had a case of grape soda in our trunk, which was what I told the mom we would bring. It was a sunny day, and rural Kansas looked like a study in contrast, the fields burned black like ranchers do at that time of year to allow new growth. The pure sky. The kids and I looked for, and found, the landmarks that told us where to turn or when to keep straight on the particular route I had chosen. Signs that only we would know: that gravel road, the “Disney House” as my daughter christened it, the log cabin. Finally, we found our friends’ house. But there was no one home. “Hi! We are here. Are we early?” I texted the mom. No reply.</li><li>I looked at my French boyfriend’s Facebook account. He had sent me a friend request me a few years back, and I’d accepted, but we had never communicated. I hadn’t even looked at his profile until now. I hadn’t wanted to see. Now, clicking, I saw that he was back living in Paris, had a son, and surmised he had split from his model-esque Turkish wife by the drop-off of photos of her after 2016, but I had no proof. Still, I was happy about the prospect of him being divorced. She was too beautiful, as I looked at her page, seeing photo after photo of her looking how I would never look in dresses and heels. It made me nauseated. For the first time ever, I thought about emailing him. What I would say, what I would ask (“I am not the same person I was back then.” “How do you spend your time?”), but I couldn’t tell if I really wanted to know information or was just curious to see what would happen.</li><li>Outside the empty stone house, I thought to check my calendar on my phone. The party was tomorrow. I wrangled the kids back in the car. The trip home was a mess. I got turned around, and couldn’t find that gravel road. We ended up on a fast and busy two-lane where a truck laid on his horn at my slow speed. Everyone cried.<br><br>Later, I relayed the story to Nick, who was in New Orleans covering the Final Four college basketball tournament. I tried to ham up certain parts, but he saw through it.<br><br>“Just don’t go back tomorrow, it’s not worth it. Take the kids to a movie,” he said. “The drive is too much, it’s O.K.”<br><br>His being gone reminded me of what life was like before I met him. It was like being in a pitch-black room, looking for a light switch with your hands straight out in front of your face. I needed him a little too much, and I don’t like that about myself. But when you meet someone who is O.K. with you needing them, it’s like drinking sweet, cold water. Impossible to stop.</br></br></br></br></br></br></li><li>Things I had tried to reassure myself with to stop crying:<br>a. You just want your youth back<br>b. You are in a better place now<br>c. Think of how wonderful your family is<br>d. Etc.<br><br>Nothing worked.</br></br></br></br></br></br></li><li>The next day, despite Nick’s advice, we did the drive all over again, and found their house without a hitch. The party had BBQ, horseshoes, and a fishing pond, but we hadn’t known so hadn’t brought rods (not that we owned any). So we watched other people cast and reel. The rest of the guests seemed like family members, and there were no other kids. My daughter’s friend seemed more interested in lugging her baby cousin around than playing with her, so the kids and I played corn hole.</li><li>On the phone, I told my mom about the neighbor man’s comment at the fundraiser. “Oh honey, I’m sorry. People can say such insensitive things.” We started going down the road of how my cousin and neighbor were gossiping fools, but that’s not what really bothered me. What I couldn’t articulate to her at the time was a question: “When will I stop getting sad when I think about that time in my life?”</li><li>I emailed the French boyfriend. It was short, friendly, and honest but not inappropriate (“I just wanted to reach out and say hello…thinking about our time together is painful for me…”) and I sent it after proofreading it once.</li><li>On the drive home, we stopped and got grocery store Starbucks. The kids got fruity drinks and I got a coffee at 4 p.m., guaranteed to hurt my sleeping chances. I didn’t care, I was just glad to be back to where the speed limit was 40. None of us reflected on the birthday party at all. It’s like it never happened.</li><li>The French boyfriend wrote back, formal and benign. (“What a surprise to hear from you…Thanks for reaching out. Your email put a smile on my face….”) After reading it, I felt deflated. What did I think would happen? What was I wanting?<br><br>I wanted:<br>a. An apology<br>b. Congratulations for moving on<br>c. A request for forgiveness.<br><br>I got none of those, of course. Instead, I looked up memes about closure. I took a walk in bright sunlight without sunglasses, hoping the sun would help me like an article I read said it would (oxytocin? endorphins?). I downloaded a cognitive behavioral therapy app. I listened to music constantly. I started therapy again and increased my Zoloft.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></li><li>A few months after the email, the French boyfriend liked a post of mine. That had never happened before, and it made me happy, because my post had been about an upcoming facial surgery. In my mind, that “like” said he was happy for me. Since the “meh” email, I had reconciled myself to the fact that his life was probably better than mine, he was happily married after all, and I was just a little unhinged. “Thanks for the like,” I messaged him before thinking too much. “It brings me peace to know that you and I made it through that impossible time. I’m glad we both made it to the other side.” A message popped up a few moments later. “That’s sweet of you to say, although a ‘like’ feels insufficient considering the nightmare you lived through. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you more at the time. That you are at peace brings me peace as well.”</li><li>I didn’t show this message to Nick right away, but I didn’t feel guilty, either. For once, I didn’t think of what to do next. I simply existed. Every now and then, I opened that last message from the French boyfriend, like a pinch to reassure myself that it was real. I had finally received that apology I had always wanted. Now what?</li><li>One night a few days later, Nick and I laid on our bed and I told him about the emails. I told him about the crying and the memories, Facebook, and my old photo albums, the like and the apology. The word “peace.” I was nervous, because pain from the past is one thing, but emailing is another. Bringing exes into the present is something we have never done, not at all. I was pretty sure that Nick knew why I had done what I did, but there’s always that tiny bit of doubt that maybe he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t understand me.<br><br>Nick stayed silent, and then he said, “It’s O.K., I trust you,” and I knew that was true. Then he said, “Do what you have to do,” and I did. I let things be.</br></br></li></ol>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[McKean County]]></title><description><![CDATA[Music in the sky, the hills—
clouds make music too.
Keep listening. There’s music
everywhere—rivers, lakes,
a forest, a clearing. There’s
nothing that’s not music.
Can you hear the wild?
Open yourself to everything
underneath. There’s
nothing that’s not music—
the dirt, the rocks,
your history on earth.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mckean-country/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523261</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ken Waldman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:42:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612877644969-ab50151f19dc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxydXJhbCUyMHBlbm5zeWx2YW5pYXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODk2MzY0NjZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612877644969-ab50151f19dc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxydXJhbCUyMHBlbm5zeWx2YW5pYXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODk2MzY0NjZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="McKean County"/><p>Music in the sky, the hills—<br>clouds make music too.<br>Keep listening. There’s music<br>everywhere—rivers, lakes,<br>a forest, a clearing. There’s<br>nothing that’s not music.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Can you hear the wild?<br>Open yourself to everything<br>underneath. There’s<br>nothing that’s not music—<br>the dirt, the rocks,<br>your history on earth.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How It Will Be]]></title><description><![CDATA[For Max Elbo
It will be June and we will be sitting
in the Parc Monceau, the one with the pond
and the columns and we will be at a table,
one of the small ones, and we’ll have just struggled
to buy a baguette from Madame on Rue de Mosselle
who hates Americans and also other tourists.
It will be like that other summer, when
we stayed in the 19th Arrondissement and
you will be stepping toward us along the path,
dodging les gens, smiling, and we will forget
for just a moment that you’ve gone
somew]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/how-it-will-be/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852325e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:41:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1608100742430-b8c4b9bf1276?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDYwfHxiYWd1ZXR0ZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODk2MzYwODR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1608100742430-b8c4b9bf1276?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDYwfHxiYWd1ZXR0ZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODk2MzYwODR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="How It Will Be"/><p><em>For Max Elbo</em></p><p>It will be June and we will be sitting<br>in the Parc Monceau, the one with the pond<br>and the columns and we will be at a table,<br>one of the small ones, and we’ll have just struggled<br>to buy a baguette from Madame on Rue de Mosselle<br>who hates Americans and also other tourists.<br>It will be like that other summer, when<br>we stayed in the 19th Arrondissement and<br>you will be stepping toward us along the path,<br>dodging les gens, smiling, and we will forget<br>for just a moment that you’ve gone<br>somewhere we can’t follow, left us shadows,<br>the breeze under the plane trees by the canal.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Delta Summer]]></title><description><![CDATA[Delta summer plays possum
with Buddhist Sisyphus lessons
a stray cat
evening thunderstorm
slows thoughts
flash flood warnings
notice sensations
deep weather pushes
Wednesday’s
speechless noise
do not drive unless
it’s an emergency
cherry pits falling
on pistachio shells
sound ready
to compost
the time echo
tastes cold air
turned hot like
when you pee
after iceskating
when I sing for the boa
the kittens trill
why do I peel the tape
off the book spine
leaving it so sticky
I have to retape
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/delta-summer/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523254</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Diane Wiener]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:41:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1545671913-b89ac1b4ac10?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fG9jdG9wdXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM0MjE0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1545671913-b89ac1b4ac10?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fG9jdG9wdXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM0MjE0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Delta Summer"/><p>Delta summer plays possum<br>with Buddhist Sisyphus lessons</br></p><p>a stray cat<br>evening thunderstorm<br>slows thoughts</br></br></p><p>flash flood warnings<br>notice sensations</br></p><p>deep weather pushes<br>Wednesday’s<br>speechless noise</br></br></p><p>do not drive unless<br>it’s an emergency</br></p><p>cherry pits falling<br>on pistachio shells<br>sound ready<br>to compost</br></br></br></p><p>the time echo<br>tastes cold air<br>turned hot like<br>when you pee<br>after iceskating</br></br></br></br></p><p>when I sing for the boa<br>the kittens trill</br></p><p>why do I peel the tape<br>off the book spine<br>leaving it so sticky<br>I have to retape</br></br></br></p><p>fancy snakes sleep<br>sea scallops split<br>kimchee mouths</br></br></p><p>seven steely-eyed sloths simmer seaside<br>seven slick silver sliders sleek and smirking<br>seven stuttering splices of smack splash<br>seven spider slips speak of Spaniards<br>seven Saturdays splurged on sushi<br>seven strings silly stop showing<br>seven sample skeletons sometimes sidle</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>what if we could<br>taste with our skin<br>the way an octopus does</br></br></p><p>these are the stories<br>of my hands<br>on the keyboard</br></br></p><p>left longer<br>right wider<br>left taller<br>right deeper<br>left lifts light air<br>right finds<br>dinosaur stones</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>waiting for the<br>next fearsome thing<br>running under a lark</br></br></p><p>diurnal den of dreys<br>diatomaceous drifter dog<br>densely dim diner dins<br>daleths delve deliberating</br></br></br></p><p>chasing clockwise thoughts<br>I cannot track<br>unraveling directions<br>heading to the right<br>the heavier denser side</br></br></br></br></p><p>this posture feels like a hat<br>I’m not wearing any more<br>with its numb January hands</br></br></p><p>circulating left<br>stiff right<br>windy left<br>swizzle stick left<br>pink flamingo fizzy<br>Shirley Temple<br>grenadine syrup left<br>thick brick right<br>steady as she goes right<br>left freedom rides the wind<br>twice right lines</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>the math is off<br>marching 2/2<br>Sousa horns<br>your left your left<br>your left right left</br></br></br></br></p><p>there’s the tie snapped<br>for the chorus performance</br></p><p>a little yellow book finds<br>thin pointed pain on the left<br>shoulder blade<br>with its uneven glasses</br></br></br></p><p>I know if I try I will know<br>I know nothing</br></p><p>what I know does not matter<br>what I know makes no difference</br></p><p>the left higher than the right<br>the left the top step on the ladder<br>the right the bottom rung</br></br></p><p>this morning<br>we make a minyan<br>of hard boiled eggs</br></br></p><p>Siri says all the alarms are off<br>then she says the next alarm<br>is set for 10 p.m.<br>make up your mind Siri</br></br></br></p><p>a mother bat and her baby<br>recognize each others’<br>voices and scents<br>among thousands<br>in the nursery colony</br></br></br></br></p><p>a baby bat is a pup<br>a bat is as smart as a dolphin</br></p><p>vampire bats feeding<br>hurt no one<br>the cows do not feel<br>quick incisions<br>or lapped up blood</br></br></br></br></p><p>some people suck<br>but none can pollinate like bats<br>who maintain and advance<br>rather than destroy<br>ecological systems</br></br></br></br></p><p>sensation decomposes<br>bark turns to mush</br></p><p>I uncoil my head<br>shit from a mussel</br></p><p>what happened to<br>the rest of them<br>I can’t be the only one<br>waking up to climb</br></br></br></p><p>the butterfly effect<br>shouldn’t be a burden</br></p><p>winter arrives early tonight<br>or maybe it is just near<br>the back of my neck</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rusty, My Friend]]></title><description><![CDATA[by Frume Halpern
translated from Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
Excerpted from Blessed Hands: Stories by Frume Halpern; translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub (Philadelphia, Pa.: Frayed Edge Press, forthcoming)
Translator’s Notes: “Rusty, My Friend” is a story in Blessed Hands: Stories by Frume Halpern, my forthcoming translation of her Yiddish-language Gebenshte hent: dertseylungen. Halpern wrote with tremendous empathy about the lives of those marginalized by a range of causes ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rusty-my-friend/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523262</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Yermiyahu Ahron Taub]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:41:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1615042987670-679845d7f890?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNwYW5pZWx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjkxMTU0NTgxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1615042987670-679845d7f890?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNwYW5pZWx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjkxMTU0NTgxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Rusty, My Friend"/><p><strong><strong>by Frume Halpern</strong></strong><br><strong><strong>translated from Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub</strong></strong></br></p><p>Excerpted from <em>Blessed Hands: Stories</em> by Frume Halpern; translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub (Philadelphia, Pa.: Frayed Edge Press, forthcoming)</p><p>Translator’s Notes: “Rusty, My Friend” is a story in <em>Blessed Hands: Stories</em> by Frume Halpern, my forthcoming translation of her Yiddish-language <em>Gebenshte hent: dertseylungen</em>. Halpern wrote with tremendous empathy about the lives of those marginalized by a range of causes and conditions, include illness, physical handicap, poverty, and racism. In “Rusty, My Friend,” Halpern creates a delicate meditation on aging and lost love as conveyed to humankind’s best friend.</p><p>Grateful acknowledgment is made to Robert Linn and Victor M. Linn and Judith Linn, for kind permission and support and to Norman Buder for very helpful responses to queries on Yiddish language matters.</p><hr><p>Rusty, my friend, even though you’re four-legged and I’m two-legged, we have a lot in common. My affinity for you is profound. It seems to me that I feel you the way I feel myself, that I hold you the way I would hold my own self. Like me, you’ve been forgotten and sidelined because of your age. You’ve lost your practical utility to humans, a quality you’d mastered throughout the years. Now, nobody cares about you. Like me, my four-legged friend, you’re alone and not attractive to people’s eyes, and as for your practical utility to dogs—well, that’s also been lost.</p><p>I feel you, my friend, and I don’t let you out of my mind’s eye. Now I see you, my little lump. You’ve selected a sunny spot of earth on which to curl up and bury your head in a few wet blades of grass, and with sleepy, cloudy eyes, you look dully at your “hims” and “hers” racing after summer butterflies and the cheerful children around them who fill the air with raucous laughter.</p><p>No one can compete with you when it comes to sniffing something from a distance or when you get the urge to play with the “she” around whom everyone is now dancing.</p><p>Based on your phlegmatic cleaving to the ground, one might presume that their activities don’t matter to you; after all, you’re not even looking in their direction. But, my friend, I know that’s just a show. I sense your internal pain. I see your twitching nose. I see how you flap an ear and give a snort with your shivering nose, and although I can’t claim to be an expert in canine psychology, I could swear that you, with the whole of your ungainly body, are now with them, with the young “puppies” that don’t even send a friendly sniff your way…</p><p>It’s already happened several times. There you were lying down in your loneliness, like you were already buried in the ground, when suddenly, as if the earth whispered a secret in your ear, you leaped up, like you did in your youth, and headed off like a whirlwind. Those around you tried to follow your example by running for a bit, but they soon returned, as if they’d decided: <em>We won’t catch him, in any case. Let him run, that old fool</em>. When you returned like a victor, with a guest, no one even looked at you. Your master didn’t even offer you a caress in thanks.</p><p>After one such expedition, I notice a flicker of old age in your eyes. This much is apparent: It’s all too much for your current capabilities. You flop to the ground, your usual resting-place, utterly spent. Just a moment ago, you detected from quite a distance with a sense of smell that has yet to let you down, someone from your household, but he doesn’t give you what you deserve. It is he, Grazia, who receives the special treats, the kind words, the caresses. It was he who danced around the guest, not you. He is beautiful. No one can resist his black, gleaming pelt with the white spots. The spot at the very center of his forehead adds a world of charm. Now Grazia rejoices in his conquest!</p><p>I’ve gone through the same thing, and so I feel for you. Oh, how I feel for you, Rusty, my friend. I know you’re exhausted and that you have pain in your sides from the running you just did; here you are lying in the tumult, with shortness of breath and sleep in your eyes. I feel for you, Rusty, my friend. Forgotten one, like me. I read all your resentments. Right now, I see that you are tired, that you tremble from time to time. Your muzzle rests on your weak front paws, your wide, pendant ears are even with the ground, and your half-open eyes are veiled with a slimy membrane. It’s hard to know whether you’re asleep. It’s already dark. The setting sun sets a slice of sky aflame. A few rays stumble upon your head and make their way through the dark recesses of your dozing brain to illuminate the remembrances and desires there. You glide in the past, my friend. Here too, I feel for you, Rusty, my friend, because the setting sun has also stirred up for me times past, yet not forgotten… You are still feeling at this moment how and in what way to throw yourself upon your enemy, upon any dog who stands in your way and doesn’t let you get anywhere near the female your heart so desires… A burning fury is ignited within you. You let out a wild howl! You give yourself a shake and there you are again lying on the ground. You woke up…</p><p>Oh, Rusty, my friend, how well I understand you. Oh, those years, when your legs were even, flexible, nimble, and swift as an arrow released from a bow! Why, your legs ran so quickly that they were invisible. I, too, Rusty, my friend, when I close my eyes, see myself long ago… the only difference is that I sit on a bench and you—on the ground.</p><p>Rusty, do you remember those adoring, soft, and loyal hands that we both loved so? Between you and me, Rusty, there was no place for jealousy. I loved to caress your satiny curly fur—fur of a hue that, in the dark, looked like flames, the only-just vanished flames of the setting sun. Your eyes were so human that I often thought you understood a bit too much for a dog… And what a scamp you were! Your ears stood like a young hare’s. She and I, both of us loved to play with your ears. No less than me, you were greedy for the caresses of those hands with their magic-fingers.</p><p>Remember how those hands caressed you. You wanted to thank them with a kiss, and in the face, no less, right? Remember how she embraced your handsome head in her translucent hands with such tenderness so as not to cause you any pain. Then your eyes would ask me to come to your aid. Neck outstretched, you would look at me, a little embarrassed. I saw a tear in a corner of one of your eyes.</p><p>Ach, ach, Rusty, my friend, how foolish one can be when young and in love! Now, when I speak to you without words, I can say that to you. You know, Rusty, there was a time when I was jealous of you? No, you can’t know. More than once, when I spotted her sitting on a bench in the garden, you at her feet, your handsome head on her lap and she playing with your silky fur—oh, was I jealous of you! Oh, how I wanted to be in your place!</p><p>Ach, ach, how monstrous the years can be, Rusty, my friend.</p><p>You lie in the corner and although you’re always drawn to the ground, you turn your head to the slice of moon that leaps out now and then from the heavy, dark clouds as if seeking to free itself from their pressure. But the clouds are rushing off to who knows where. As recently as earlier today, my eyes followed you as those of your kind held sway over the meadows and you were seized by a sudden urge. You hastily got up from your bed, shook the dust from yourself, looked all around, and spotting a white “she”, for whom you apparently have a “weakness”, made off in her direction as one would to an old friend. But she, although no innocent young thing herself, started barking so forcefully as if you wanted to slaughter her. At the sound of her cries, the entire “dog brigade” came running and started barking, and you, poor Rusty, unfortunately had no alternative but to retreat…</p><p>The truth is, you left in dignity, albeit with a lowered head; you didn’t flee, but walked slowly, step by step, and then returned to your bed.</p><p>As it does for myself, so my heart ached for you, Rusty, my four-legged friend. I experienced something similar in my own life. Strange, but when I saw you coming back with sadness and awkwardness in your steps, it seemed to me that I heard your wide, hanging ears weeping over your bitter fate…</p><p>… It’s midnight. A stripe of light extends from a lamp hanging from a beam, cutting through the dark fog. You, Rusty, are seemingly enveloped in a shadow, but when an edge of the moon reveals itself, your presence on the ground is spotlighted. When one gets close to you, one might think that you are still, like the ground itself upon which you lie, and like the trees standing by your head. But that is not the case. It’s not just the ground that is still, but also the trees that are still. You, Rusty, are very far from still. In your subconscious, something is happening. It’s hard to say what. What I do see: Your body gives a shiver, a jerk, as if someone had stepped on it, and from your throat—as if you were enraged at someone—a kind of grrr can be heard… Any minute now you will be coming out with a true canine bark. Perhaps you’re angry at the moon… and perhaps the moonlight has brought memories of the past back to you? Perhaps the moon has awakened in you a longing for those tender hands—the hands with the magic fingers, for which I, too, yearn, yearn unceasingly?</p><p>Of one thing I am sure: Despite your awkwardness and your proximity to the earth, you’re a dreamer, and that makes me happy. Because you ought to know, Rusty, my friend, that to dream is itself an achievement. And there’s something else you ought to know—one can’t always dream. A dream, too, has its time…</p><p>So dream, Rusty. Dream, my friend!</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sleepless]]></title><description><![CDATA[Oh, to sleep like the cat.
Indolent napping during
Daylight hours,
Exhausted by a night’s prowl,
Then a rarefied rest.
Balletic investigations
Of belly, paw, and privates,
Easing her down upon
The counterpane:
The Isle of Tabby.
Eyes half-mast and slow fade
To brief oblivion of empty house.
Until a human invasion.
Obscene stretching
Invites a touch, a scratch,
A shift of position,
Then napping on.
Oh, to rest a long time!
A poison-spindled slumber
With no wake-up call.
Instead, this wakened/wok]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sleepless/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523264</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sidney Brammer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:41:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1503578945196-db50d7190a48?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxjYXQlMjBzbGVlcHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODk2MzY4NzB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1503578945196-db50d7190a48?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxjYXQlMjBzbGVlcHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODk2MzY4NzB8MA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Sleepless"/><p>Oh, to sleep like the cat.<br>Indolent napping during<br>Daylight hours,<br>Exhausted by a night’s prowl,<br>Then a rarefied rest.<br>Balletic investigations<br>Of belly, paw, and privates,<br>Easing her down upon<br>The counterpane:<br>The Isle of Tabby.<br>Eyes half-mast and slow fade<br>To brief oblivion of empty house.<br>Until a human invasion.<br>Obscene stretching<br>Invites a touch, a scratch,<br>A shift of position,<br>Then napping on.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Oh, to rest a long time!<br>A poison-spindled slumber<br>With no wake-up call.<br>Instead, this wakened/woke<br>Angst of Now.<br>A flash of heat, petty fretting,<br>Life-or-death disquiet,<br>Breaking glass, a mate’s mere snore,<br>Toss and turn me long before<br>Oblivion will come.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Oh, to be nocturnal like the cat,<br>Aptly named Aurora.<br>We pass in the night.<br>She creeps toward her bowl,<br>I stumble toward the clock,<br>Old woman squinting<br>At a luminous dial.<br>How few hours has she rested?<br>Vigilant and wary of<br>A siren in the distance,<br>A dumpster dropped<br>From a midnight height,<br>An exchange of vital cautions<br>By the neighborhood dogs.<br>A freight train slows<br>At endless crossings<br>From north to south of town.<br>That not so lonesome moan<br>That offers no repose.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[My Dad Is Sick]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’m not saying –
To all the followers,
To all the friends,
To all the subscribers–
Anything about the terror
That is holding me so still.
So still I appear
Perfect–
So still I seem
Weighted–
So still I could be
The soaking cold
Night before
Spring dawns.
No.
I am, not.
Rather,
Electric, I am, in hateful waiting.
The stillness of
An alligator jaw.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/my-dad-is-sick/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852325d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elizabeth G. Howard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:40:45 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542377067-49ac6b0532ef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxfHxmZWFyfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4OTYzNTk0OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542377067-49ac6b0532ef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxfHxmZWFyfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4OTYzNTk0OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="My Dad Is Sick"/><p>I’m not saying –<br>To all the followers,<br>To all the friends,<br>To all the subscribers–<br>Anything about the terror<br>That is holding me so still.<br>So still I appear<br>Perfect–<br>So still I seem<br>Weighted–<br>So still I could be<br>The soaking cold<br>Night before<br>Spring dawns.<br>No.<br>I am, not.<br>Rather,<br>Electric, I am, in hateful waiting.<br>The stillness of<br>An alligator jaw.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Me the Hellhound]]></title><description><![CDATA[When I dare to be powerful
I eat the world alive.
There is no helping any of you
You won’t be my friend–
Silence will sink us –
I might not say anything
But the vibration
Of me will judder
In your palms.
Oh how you itch to
Leave how you wish
To be free to
Find yourself back in a park
Swinging in the flat sunshine
Flying free over cement
Baby-face and rolls
A cozy sitter nearby
Heedless of the others.
This is your rollercoaster
To emancipate the treasures
Of your heart – out
Around through you.
N]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/me-the-hellhound/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852325c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elizabeth G. Howard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:40:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531350152102-ff3f216ea87a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHdlcmV3b2xmfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4OTYzNTg2OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531350152102-ff3f216ea87a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHdlcmV3b2xmfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4OTYzNTg2OXww&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Me the Hellhound"/><p>When I dare to be powerful<br>I eat the world alive.<br>There is no helping any of you<br>You won’t be my friend–<br>Silence will sink us –<br>I might not say anything<br>But the vibration<br>Of me will judder<br>In your palms.<br>Oh how you itch to<br>Leave how you wish<br>To be free to<br>Find yourself back in a park<br>Swinging in the flat sunshine<br>Flying free over cement<br>Baby-face and rolls<br>A cozy sitter nearby<br>Heedless of the others.<br>This is your rollercoaster<br>To emancipate the treasures<br>Of your heart – out<br>Around through you.<br>No need to play with<br>The lurkers no need to <br>Open up to them no need to <br>Launch yourself into<br>Their foray, to collide<br>With the cruel<br>Shape of their words<br>As they cut zigs<br>Into the grass.<br>You’ve forgotten,<br>Haven’t you, why you are<br>Here? It’s the long slow<br>Play to run away from<br>Me from me from<br>Me the hellhound who<br>Tucks inside<br>Mirrors, creeps in<br>Gloom, slurs into<br>Mistakes the rakes the villains<br>And somehow bares logic<br>Once cemented and<br>Decided to speak up –<br>Oh no. No, no.<br>We are revealed in our<br>Discomfort. So you<br>Sit with the heart of<br>Maleficent, love pounding,<br>Wonder worrying:<br>What is my next<br>Iteration? Will it be<br>Mud, apostasy,<br>A screech owl<br>Rending the night<br>With her vow to<br>Retreat? Friend,<br>Tell me what you<br>Want.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tin Roof Chatter]]></title><description><![CDATA[Hidden in the thickets of cedar, pine, and weeping willows
the old cabin patched with make-do siding and leftover windows.
The tin roof shines when the sun comes peering through the clouds
but in the mountain rains the roof chatters telling tales out loud.
Old wives’ tales crackin’ a smile like peppercorns in the stew
and shared recipes of the perfect buttermilk biscuits, cornbread too.
Sewing swatches together for a warm patchwork quilt,
stitching a ruffle to a too-short dress not wasted to cle]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/tin-roof-chatter/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523257</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:40:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1615043499480-cfe6aab55f98?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGZvcmVzdCUyMHJhaW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM0NTk2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1615043499480-cfe6aab55f98?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGZvcmVzdCUyMHJhaW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM0NTk2fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Tin Roof Chatter"/><p>Hidden in the thickets of cedar, pine, and weeping willows<br>the old cabin patched with make-do siding and leftover windows.<br>The tin roof shines when the sun comes peering through the clouds<br>but in the mountain rains the roof chatters telling tales out loud.<br>Old wives’ tales crackin’ a smile like peppercorns in the stew<br>and shared recipes of the perfect buttermilk biscuits, cornbread too.<br>Sewing swatches together for a warm patchwork quilt,<br>stitching a ruffle to a too-short dress not wasted to clean up silt.<br>Though legends speak of the cry heard of a mother with her stillborn,<br>years to follow the midwife’s hallelujah cries for four healthy newborns.<br>There are fishing and bull frogging tales longer than PaPa’s legs<br>and the neighbor’s filly jumpin’ the six-foot tall fence pegs.<br>The eight-point buck’s head mounted over the stone fireplace mantel,<br>venison pot pie at the dinner table while hungry children quiet their tattle.<br>Porch gossip of a jilted love affair with a soldier gone away<br>and who’s passed the smallpox onto the poor clan down the way.<br>If listened close enough as the summer rain pitters and patters,<br>The tin roof chatter echoes our own stories, real heart matters.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Is This Reality?]]></title><description><![CDATA[There’s something wrong with me. No, really. I mean it, there’s something wrong with me. I know you’re thinking “everybody thinks there’s something wrong with them,” but I know there’s something wrong with me. I know it because I think of my life in every single timeline. Why do there have to be so many possibilities as to who we can be? Why can I think about all the things that I could be or have been or don’t want to be or do want to be? Why do I think about running through a field with no sho]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/is-this-reality/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523255</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Raven Nobles]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:39:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520628185778-d80ddc01fba2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxoYXdhaWl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM0Mzk4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520628185778-d80ddc01fba2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxoYXdhaWl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM0Mzk4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Is This Reality?"/><p>There’s something wrong with me. No, really. I mean it, there’s something wrong with me. I know you’re thinking “everybody thinks there’s something wrong with them,” but I know there’s something wrong with me. I know it because I think of my life in every single timeline. Why do there have to be so many possibilities as to who we can be? Why can I think about all the things that I could be or have been or don’t want to be or do want to be? Why do I think about running through a field with no shoes on and a white dress and flowers in my hair? Then I think of the version of myself who sits at coffee shops and takes in the people and drinks a drink that’s warm and velvety and enjoys the simple pleasure of letting the warm liquid trickle down her throat?</p><p>Then I’m me but I have heels on and a pencil skirt and work day in and out in New York. I’m drinking with my girlfriends on the weekends and letting rich men buy me drinks at a rooftop bar. I think of the ways that I could act or look. The different ways I could present myself, then I think about the fact that I’m not any of these girls I’ve described. Could I be all of them? Maybe if I tried hard enough. I could be all of them in this lifetime, but is that what I want? What do I want? That’s what’s wrong with me, I don’t know what I want. I don’t know which version of myself to grow into, to become. Then I ask myself: is it predetermined? Is it already set in stone? Destined, maybe?</p><p>I have a control issue. If you’ve ever gotten close to me you know that. I don’t like letting things happen. Go with the flow? Not this girl, given I have gotten better at this. I’ve learned the flow is a nice place to be. To not have to have that control all the time is actually immensely relieving. To live in peace and not worry about what’s happening next.</p><p>However, current Raven and past Raven still have some issues with it. The flow I mean. Is that okay? Sure. Do I need to learn that it’s also okay to not be a big ball of anxiety when I have nothing to do? Yes. In this timeline, the one I’m currently in, I’m learning so many lessons. I’m learning that I adore sleeping in my bed by myself with the stars placed on my ceiling from a sweet boy who wanted to be more than what we were. I appreciate the morning air during the summer time, and I enjoy wearing oversized sweatshirts and shorts and having bare feet. In this timeline, this Raven loves to braid her hair. To wear rings on all her fingers except the middle one because she read once that if you wear rings on your middle finger you’re inviting chaos. Real? Probably not. Will I continue to not wear rings on my middle fingers? Probably. In this version of myself I am constantly trying to prove myself, but to who? Myself? The world? Then when trying to prove myself I think of all the other versions of myself that I could possibly be because do those versions flip pennies on the street so someone finds it face up and has good luck? Is that version of myself in love? Does she worry about her weight? Her hair? Her makeup? Does she have an eating disorder?</p><p>I think about the girl who stayed in Hawaii, who got to live her island dream and be with the boy she fell deeply and wholeheartedly in love with in the sand. She wakes up in the morning and hikes the green mountains then spends the afternoons with waves washing over her. Her hair is sandy, wavy, and has highlights from the sweet Hawaiian sunshine. She goes to work at the coffee shop in the morning and she works the restaurant or bar or hotel job in the afternoons or at night to cover her rent. The boy she fell in love with adores her and constantly battles her homesickness from being 5,000 miles away from everyone else she loves. He kisses her eyelids before she goes to sleep. She dances with her friends in a bright kitchen with no air conditioning but that’s okay because you don’t need cool air when you have love surrounding you.</p><p>When you’re content in the moment and the only moment you’re in is the present you don’t need cool air blowing the back of your neck. You’re too giddy with love and drunk on the people surrounding you. But is that version of myself happy? Would this be the way life would be for her?</p><p>I think about the version of myself that never went to college. Never dated the same boy for three years. The version of myself who stayed at the small liberal arts college that I transferred from due to a breakup and anxiety that left me shattered and scared. I tell people I wanted to live off campus in hopes that it covers up the fact that I was 19 years old and freshly out of a three year relationship where I only thought about being in the relationship and others and not who Raven really was. I didn’t transfer to live off campus because I was lost and confused and sad.</p><p>All of this to say that I’m allowed to be all versions of myself at once and to move through this life in the ways that I am.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Goddess]]></title><description><![CDATA[These days, I look like the fertility goddess,
tumescent tummy hanging low,
pregnant with improbable possibility.
Then the thighs, fluffy and rounded
on squat, sturdy legs, feet splayed wide.
Oh, and the breasts, pendulous
and swinging free.
I was given the goddess as a gift,
a gesture of goodwill to help catch the baby
I was reaching for, but kept missing.
The goddess lived in the upstairs closet,
sleeping with the miller’s wife, the untamed shrew,
a handmaid, and Bathsheba.
I hated her.
One d]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/goddess/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523259</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Rhonda Owen]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:39:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1676749477150-7eba967c4b79?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHx3b21hbiUyMHNpbGxvdWV0dGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM0OTkzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1676749477150-7eba967c4b79?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHx3b21hbiUyMHNpbGxvdWV0dGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM0OTkzfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Goddess"/><p>These days, I look like the fertility goddess,<br>tumescent tummy hanging low,<br>pregnant with improbable possibility.<br>Then the thighs, fluffy and rounded<br>on squat, sturdy legs, feet splayed wide.<br>Oh, and the breasts, pendulous<br>and swinging free.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I was given the goddess as a gift,<br>a gesture of goodwill to help catch the baby<br>I was reaching for, but kept missing.<br>The goddess lived in the upstairs closet,<br>sleeping with the miller’s wife, the untamed shrew,<br>a handmaid, and Bathsheba.<br>I hated her.<br>One day, I carried her outside,<br>kicked her thick body to the curb,<br>clapped my hands and said so long,<br>I hope to see you never,</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But she was in the mirror<br>this morning, there in the steam-streaked glass,<br>wet and gleaming,<br>curves and mounds,<br>voracious and<br>breathing warm hunger</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Marilyn]]></title><description><![CDATA[I saved up and bought a 3-D printer. It is the 2600 polymer extruder, the largest I could afford. I had to upgrade my Mac, which dented my savings severely.
And man, it is sure worth it. The first thing I printed was a quail. I’ve had this ceramic quail sitting on my desk for years. After reading the printer’s instructions I took a dozen pictures of the quail from all angles, printed it out and set it on the shelf next to the real one. Now I have a replacement in case the ceramic one breaks. It]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/marilyn/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523260</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dan Morris]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:39:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605008801811-d2dbc6480f07?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1hcmlseW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM2MzYxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605008801811-d2dbc6480f07?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1hcmlseW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM2MzYxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Marilyn"/><p>I saved up and bought a 3-D printer. It is the 2600 polymer extruder, the largest I could afford. I had to upgrade my Mac, which dented my savings severely.</p><p>And man, it is sure worth it. The first thing I printed was a quail. I’ve had this ceramic quail sitting on my desk for years. After reading the printer’s instructions I took a dozen pictures of the quail from all angles, printed it out and set it on the shelf next to the real one. Now I have a replacement in case the ceramic one breaks. It looks very good side by side with the original.</p><p>Then I had an idea. I went to my files and pulled out my collection of Marilyn Monroe pictures dating back to the 50s and 60s. I selected a couple dozen of the best ones and scanned them in. Then I filled in specifics about size, surface texture and colors. The program took some time, then gave me a read out of my project: it would be printed in five pieces, legs, arms and torso with head, printout time: 2.5 hrs. I held my breath and hit the print button. Two and a half hours later the pieces lay on the kitchen table, and my canister of soft tissue thermoplastic was almost empty.</p><p>Fortunately I had a quart each of two-part polycement and I glued it together very carefully, trying to make the connections as clean as possible. I say “it” but, of course, I mean “her.” She is beautiful as I had expected, but kind of a funny texture. Well, not funny really, just not quite flesh-like, but close. I suppose I didn’t really expect her to feel like a real girl, but I was hoping. My friend Dominic says hope is the most disappointing virtue of the three, and he’s right.</p><p>I dressed her in a lovely silk gown, spaghetti straps, mid-thigh length, a lustrous silver material, very sheer, very Marilyn, very sexy.<br>I’ve thought a lot about it, and I can’t really explain why I wanted one of her. She didn’t invent the comedic blonde, she only perfected it. In my earlier years no one else was quite as wonderful to look at. And, a good sense of humor has always been important to me.</br></p><p>Now, she’s sitting on the couch in my living room, waiting for me to finish typing this report. She’s absolutely, convincingly beautiful. Time means nothing to her, of course, she’s only a plastic doll. If I get sidetracked with another project, she won’t say a word or make an impatient face.</p><p>However, she’s probably wondering what we’re going to do today. Yesterday, I took her for a drive. We went to the park. I drove slowly, enjoying the fresh air and allowing her to enjoy seeing all the trees, birds and people. I thought she might feel connected to them, to us. She might acquire a feeling of belonging, something beyond her extruded teflon reality, her roots you could say being made of primarily petroleum products and all.</p><p>She is so beautiful quite a few people notice her in the car and stare. I don’t think she gets embarrassed at all when people stare at her. Marilyn always had a very calm stage presence.</p><p>I try to act normal when I carry her out to the car and arrange her in the passenger seat. It makes me a little nervous toting her around like you’d carry an elderly person to their bed or a bride across a threshold. I feel a little nervous and a bit self-conscious, supposing a neighbor might think I’m transporting a dead body. She is kind of limp and her joints seem a bit clumsy, but so far, either nobody’s noticed, or maybe they’ve become used to my quirky projects.</p><p>I find that seeing the admiration on everyone’s faces is almost as satisfying as creating her in the first place. Next, I am going to look for every picture I can find of Labrador Retrievers. I want to print one for the back seat so we can look more like a family.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Spider]]></title><description><![CDATA[I want to shift my shape and stalk
across a jeweled dew-dropped web
spinning a spiral tunnel as I walk
all corners anchored firm to fight the ebb
and push of errant breeze or stormy blow,
snug against all tricks Fate might deliver.
When it’s finished, I will back on tip-toe
down my chute, stop to sever silken thread,’
patient, curb my hunger, crouching in a
waiting trance, feeling neither hope nor dread.
I rely on heaven-sent sweet manna.
Some hasty, flighty creature on the wing,
too quick to wh]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/spider-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852325b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Christine Irving]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:39:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1623265298605-d85e0391d2be?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxzcGlkZXJ3ZWJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM1NzY1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1623265298605-d85e0391d2be?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxzcGlkZXJ3ZWJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM1NzY1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Spider"/><p>I want to shift my shape and stalk<br>across a jeweled dew-dropped web<br>spinning a spiral tunnel as I walk<br>all corners anchored firm to fight the ebb<br>and push of errant breeze or stormy blow,<br>snug against all tricks Fate might deliver.<br>When it’s finished, I will back on tip-toe<br>down my chute, stop to sever silken thread,’<br>patient, curb my hunger, crouching in a<br>waiting trance, feeling neither hope nor dread.<br>I rely on heaven-sent sweet manna.<br>Some hasty, flighty creature on the wing,<br>too quick to whoop-de-do, dive, zip or zing,<br>will bumble in my net, then stick there fast<br>to offer me refreshment and repast.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Berry Buckle]]></title><description><![CDATA[More cake than fruit than the other fruit desserts, it is much like a coffee cake. It has a cake foundation and a crumbled topping with fruit in between. The history of this dessert says it is much like a crumble, named after its buckled or crumbled appearance with the streusel topping. A kuchen is the German cousin to the American buckle.
Cake Ingredients:
½ cup+ unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for baking dish
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon
1 cup all-purpose ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/berry-buckle/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523256</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:38:45 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622031178094-e6b18823c64a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGJlcnJpZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM0NDcwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622031178094-e6b18823c64a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGJlcnJpZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjg5NjM0NDcwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Berry Buckle"/><p>More cake than fruit than the other fruit desserts, it is much like a coffee cake. It has a cake foundation and a crumbled topping with fruit in between. The history of this dessert says it is much like a crumble, named after its buckled or crumbled appearance with the streusel topping. A kuchen is the German cousin to the American buckle.</p><p><strong><strong>Cake Ingredients:</strong></strong></p><p>½ cup+ unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for baking dish<br>1 cup granulated sugar<br>3 large eggs<br>zest of 1 lemon<br>1 cup all-purpose flour<br>½ teaspoon salt<br>½ teaspoon baking powder<br>1-pint berries of choice (heaping 2 cups)</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong><strong>Topping Ingredients:</strong></strong></p><p>1/2 cup all-purpose flour<br>2/3 cup sugar<br>1/8 teaspoon salt<br>5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, diced<br>1 teaspoon milk</br></br></br></br></p><p><strong><strong>Instructions:</strong></strong></p><ol><li>Preheat oven to 350° F. Butter a 2-quart oval or square baking dish; set aside.</li><li>In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition to combine. Fold in lemon zest.</li><li>In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder; with mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture to egg mixture until well-blended.</li><li>Spread batter in baking dish. Scatter berries on top.</li><li>For topping, in a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt and whisk to combine. Add cold butter and milk; cut into flour mixture until butter is blended. Form mixture into small crumbs and scatter over top of buckle.</li><li>Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean and top is golden brown, 45 to 50 minutes.</li><li>With a large spoon, scoop out onto serving plates; serve with a dollop of whipped cream or ice cream, if desired.</li></ol><p>Makes 6 servings.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Announcing the Woody Barlow Poetry Contest!]]></title><description><![CDATA[The top five poems will receive $100 each: Winning poems will be published in eMerge and in the ECHO Anthology and considered for Pushcart Nominations each year. Submissions accepted from June 1 - September 1, 2023.]]></description><link>https://emerge-writerscolony.org/contests/#woody-barlow-poetry-contest</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523250</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cat Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 31 May 2023 17:05:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2023/05/DepartureBarlow-copy.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2023/05/DepartureBarlow-copy.jpg" alt="Announcing the Woody Barlow Poetry Contest!"/><p>The top five poems will receive $100 each: Winning poems will be published in eMerge and in the ECHO Anthology and considered for Pushcart Nominations each year. Submissions accepted from June 1 - September 1, 2023.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 18: Spring 2023]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Friends of eMerge,
Spring brings warmer days, longer days, brightly colored flora, April showers, and a new issue of eMerge! I'm delighted to present Issue 18, filled with meditations on color, whimsical monologues, a delicious pesto recipe, and nature galore. Additionally, this issue also touches on what it's like to have a diagnosis, feel an absence, or long for understanding. Each moment is human; each moment matters. I hope you enjoy reading these unique pieces as much as I did.
eMerg]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-18-spring-2023/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852324e</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joy Clark]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:39:17 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Dear Friends of eMerge,</p><p>Spring brings warmer days, longer days, brightly colored flora, April showers, and a new issue of eMerge! I'm delighted to present Issue 18, filled with meditations on color, whimsical monologues, a delicious pesto recipe, and nature galore. Additionally, this issue also touches on what it's like to have a diagnosis, feel an absence, or long for understanding. Each moment is human; each moment matters. I hope you enjoy reading these unique pieces as much as I did. </p><p>eMerge is published with the generous support of the Board of Directors and the staff at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow. Our website is designed and managed by Cat Templeton. We are currently raising funds to continue publishing in 2024, so if you enjoy this issue please consider making a <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/support-emerge?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">small donation here</a>. Even a small contribution will help us continue publishing writing from emerging writers that intrigues and inspires. </p><p>Until next time.</p><p>All the best,</p><p>Joy Clark</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Honk! If You’ve Read Boot]]></title><description><![CDATA[The other day I was thinking of a new way I might promote my book, Boot: A Sorta Novel of Vietnam. My youngest daughter, a self-proclaimed computer Guru, said, “Pop, you’re pretty damn good at marketing; about the only thing you haven’t tried is bumper stickers.” Bumper stickers, I am thinking to myself, they work pretty good for politicians and whales. So, my daughter and I set off to FayetteNam to one of those chain print stores to check out designing and printing bumper stickers. Normally, I’]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/honk-if-youve-read-boot/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523248</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:21:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1530685932526-48ec92998eaa?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHRyYWZmaWN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjgwMjk3Njc0&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1530685932526-48ec92998eaa?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHRyYWZmaWN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjgwMjk3Njc0&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Honk! If You’ve Read Boot"/><p>The other day I was thinking of a new way I might promote my book, Boot: A Sorta Novel of Vietnam. My youngest daughter, a self-proclaimed computer Guru, said, “Pop, you’re pretty damn good at marketing; about the only thing you haven’t tried is bumper stickers.” Bumper stickers, I am thinking to myself, they work pretty good for politicians and whales. So, my daughter and I set off to FayetteNam to one of those chain print stores to check out designing and printing bumper stickers. Normally, I’m much more frugal with my money, I still have the first dollar I ever made (a 1957 Silver Certificate signed by Priest and Anderson I earned mowing my neighbor’s yard with an old rotary mower), but my book is having a good year. I sold over a hundred books in 2021. Why, heck, that’s almost two books a month! My friends tell me it’s doing better than most self-published books, but it ain’t ever going to be a run-a-way best seller. Shoot, a young man could have a pretty good time with that kind of money.</p><p>So, we get to the print shop and start looking around. I see a bumper sticker that says, ‘Honk! if you love Jesus.’ Well, the old creative juices start flowing, and I’m thinking, that worked pretty good for Jesus; I hear people honking all the time, wonder how that would work for Boot. So, after some haggling with my daughter, the wordsmith, we finally decided on ‘Honk! If you’ve read Boot.’ I wanted it to say, ‘Honk if you love Boot.’ My daughter convinced me that it was more important to know who read it than who loved it. “Besides,” she said, “We don’t care if they love it, as long as they buy a copy. That’s the American Way, pop. The code of Sam Walton and Jeff Bezos.” So, this big ol’ smile of parental pride spreads itself across my face; I’m thinking, Dagnabbit, I have raised a genius daughter. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell my wife about our brilliant daughter. So, after an acceptable amount of time haggling with the clerk over the colors and size, etc., we were ready to make our purchase.</p><p>“How many would you like?” The clerk asked. “We are running a special today if you order a hundred.”</p><p>“A hundred? I only own one car. Why would I want a hundred bumper stickers?”</p><p>I told him that the five dollars and twenty-six cents he was charging me for one bumper sticker was eating into my profits something fierce. He finally capitulated and allowed us to leave the store with one bumper sticker. “The gall of some people,” I said to my daughter, who was putting the bumper sticker on the back of our truck.</p><p>“He was just doing his job, pops. You need to relax.”</p><p>Dear Lord, I just love my genius daughter, every time I get up on my high horse, she knows just what to say to bring me back down to earth, I was thinking.</p><p>So, we pulled out of the parking lot into traffic, and we got our first honk! I looked in the rearview mirror to see who had read my book. It was a man in a John Deere ball cap holding up his middle finger. I asked my daughter what that meant.</p><p>As we pulled up to a stoplight, she said, “That is the digitus impudicus, I believe. It’s how folks in Boston talk to each other when they cannot be heard. It’s called, let your fingers do the talking. In Hawaii, it’s called the Good Luck Bird, so I suppose he is wishing you good luck on your book.” Did I tell you my daughter was a genius? Then we heard another honk, and another. My daughter said, “Maybe we should have waited to put it on, pops.”</p><p>“No, no, no!” I said. “This is great! I don’t think Jesus ever got this many honks.” I was living in the moment. I was exuberant and filled with ecstatic joy. I even honked a few times myself and waved the Good Luck Bird to everyone. Soon there were cars and trucks all around us, just honking and waving the sign of good luck to us.</p><p>A couple of people were so excited that they got out of their cars and started walking toward our truck. Probably to thank me for writing such an inspirational book. It was at this time that I noticed that the light had changed, so I left them with a final wave of the Good Luck Bird as we drove away, filled with love for my fellow humans! I just love folks who can articulate what they mean, whether they use words or symbols or sign language.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Six Syllables, Two Words]]></title><description><![CDATA[When the doctor told me my diagnosis,
I measured the syllables in each word
Bi-po-lar Dis-or-der
Six syllables, two words
Stars shattered
across the blue of my eyes
and my hands clasped in prayer
Now I say this language over and over
Over and over
The long o
An utterance of air
Breathe out, breathe out
Bi-po-lar Dis-or-der]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/six-syllables-two-words/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523246</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sallie Crotty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:21:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620585837584-5e50abfc24c6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJpcG9sYXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjgwMjk3MzAx&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620585837584-5e50abfc24c6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJpcG9sYXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjgwMjk3MzAx&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Six Syllables, Two Words"/><p>When the doctor told me my diagnosis,<br>I measured the syllables in each word<br><em>Bi-po-lar Dis-or-der</em><br>Six syllables, two words</br></br></br></p><p>Stars shattered<br>across the blue of my eyes<br>and my hands clasped in prayer</br></br></p><p>Now I say this language over and over<br>Over and over<br>The long o<br>An utterance of air<br>Breathe out, breathe out<br><em>Bi-po-lar Dis-or-der</em></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to Write a Book]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sit down. Don’t get up. Start. Keep going.
It might be awhile.
It’s the pond; is that
a skim of ice still floating? Don’t test. Don’t
look closely. A foot dangled
will no, don’t! you out of it:
Instead: jackknife. Unfold into dark water.
Emerge. Let your shocked skin burn with joy.
Stand on the old deck.
Shake off water like a blue-eyed border collie.
Put in collard greens. Put in Marrakech.
Cut paragraphs apart with scissors.
Place in pillowcase. Shake well.
Dump contents on the floor:
You’ve f]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/how-to-write-a-book/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523249</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Crescent Dragonwagon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:21:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1416271175580-877f954ca28e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHwlMjBwb25kJTIwZGVja3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODA4MjA1OTg&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1416271175580-877f954ca28e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHwlMjBwb25kJTIwZGVja3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODA4MjA1OTg&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="How to Write a Book"/><p>Sit down. Don’t get up. Start. Keep going.<br>It might be awhile.<br>It’s the pond; is that<br>a skim of ice still floating? Don’t test. Don’t<br>look closely. A foot dangled<br>will no, don’t! you out of it:<br>Instead: jackknife. Unfold into dark water.<br>Emerge. Let your shocked skin burn with joy.<br>Stand on the old deck.<br>Shake off water like a blue-eyed border collie.<br>Put in collard greens. Put in Marrakech.<br>Cut paragraphs apart with scissors.<br>Place in pillowcase. Shake well.<br>Dump contents on the floor:<br>You’ve found your structure.<br>Put in itemized bills: each suture, blood unit,<br>Mr. Robb from the collection agency, who told you,<br>“I don’t know you, Miss, but I’ll pray with you.”<br>Put in the girl in cut-offs, secretly walking<br>the narrow porch rail above the forsythia,<br>or running, red lollipop in red mouth,<br>saying to herself the words she didn’t say to Mother:<br>“See? I didn’t fall, I didn’t choke, I didn’t put my eye out.”<br>The exhaled whiff of florist’s refrigerators:<br>cold freesias, lilies, baby’s breath<br>crackle of green paper, long distance<br>you’re breaking up I’m losing you there’s only 1 bar:<br>sweetheart roses would not bring you back, sweetheart<br>you never had me<br>Add garlic, ginger frying in ghee.<br>Put in ripe Red Haven peaches.<br>Put in the lost skate key, the lost earring,<br>the khaki canvas duffle SwissAir never found.<br>Add the smell of a burning bridge<br>Add the smell and squeal of a tire, burning rubber<br>I’m outta here<br>Omit transitions, jump<br>from rock to moss-wet rock:<br>The reader will leap with you.<br>Put in love, death, fear, mercy and deceit<br>But never say the words.<br>Don’t say, “The house was drafty.”<br>Instead, write about the windows in winter, and how,<br>though they were closed (it being January)<br>the yellow curtains ruffled with the wind.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Simplicity / The Cutting Edge]]></title><description><![CDATA[Simplicity is a capsule
Holding infinity.
The Cutting Edge
Big talk from big lips
Big promises big slips
Big push for a big grip
Big tumble into bigger dip.
Little handle, little control
Little push into little mold
Little person little too bold
Little took, a little crook stole.
Closed eyes, closed ears
Closed life to closed tears
Closed budget, closed fears
Closed court, closed years.
Simple mind, simple tick of time
Simple reason for simple crime
Simple rent on a simple dime
Simple me, w]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/simplicity-the-cutting-edge/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852323f</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Antonia Love]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:20:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566725158719-2ef50641aa9d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxpbmZpbml0eXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTY0NTU&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566725158719-2ef50641aa9d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxpbmZpbml0eXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTY0NTU&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Simplicity / The Cutting Edge"/><p>Simplicity is a capsule<br>Holding infinity.</br></p><p><strong><strong>The Cutting Edge</strong></strong></p><p>Big talk from big lips<br>Big promises big slips<br>Big push for a big grip<br>Big tumble into bigger dip.</br></br></br></p><p>Little handle, little control<br>Little push into little mold<br>Little person little too bold<br>Little took, a little crook stole.</br></br></br></p><p>Closed eyes, closed ears<br>Closed life to closed tears<br>Closed budget, closed fears<br>Closed court, closed years.</br></br></br></p><p>Simple mind, simple tick of time<br>Simple reason for simple crime<br>Simple rent on a simple dime<br>Simple me, writes simple rhyme.</br></br></br></p><p>Outside denies inside view<br>One mistake a multiple few<br>One chance to escape you<br>One word not two.</br></br></br></p><p>Don’t look back, I’m on front row<br>I’ll shrink the image, then I’ll grow<br>I’ll forget, then I’ll know<br>I’ll fall apart, to turn and go.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Slingshot]]></title><description><![CDATA[At first, I think I know a story and its timing, but then I don’t, and can only conjecture. There’s a lot that I cannot seem to recall with certainty about my father’s carved wooden slingshot—when and why he made it, how I inherited it. As happens when I look at photographs of him, particularly the one of him smiling, around age eight, sitting on a high-back chair with his arms way up in the air, I can usually hold the slingshot for just a few seconds before the emotions rush and sweep.
Except ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/slingshot/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852323d</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Diane Wiener]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:20:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1560263816-d704d83cce0f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBpbm5lZCUyMGJ1dHRlcmZseXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTYyMTY&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1560263816-d704d83cce0f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBpbm5lZCUyMGJ1dHRlcmZseXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTYyMTY&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Slingshot"/><p>At first, I think I know a story and its timing, but then I don’t, and can only conjecture. There’s a lot that I cannot seem to recall with certainty about my father’s carved wooden slingshot—when and why he made it, how I inherited it. As happens when I look at photographs of him, particularly the one of him smiling, around age eight, sitting on a high-back chair with his arms way up in the air, I can usually hold the slingshot for just a few seconds before the emotions rush and sweep.</p><p>Except for its artfulness, it never made sense to me that my father made a slingshot. Until a friend offered the suggestion, it had not occurred to me that the pristinely carved object had been made not for animal seeking, but for use on targets unable to be harmed. Another friend suggested not long ago that boys of my father’s generation who took wood shop might have made slingshots as a matter of course. These explanations make far more sense to me than others, thinking about a man who abhorred violence in any form, and taught me to do the same.</p><hr><p>My father told me a story about having pinned a butterfly when he was a boy. At the time of the telling, I was about the same age as he had been when the event happened. All of the other boys taunted him, the only one who refused to kill. He used this story to instruct me about the dangers of peer pressure, wanting me to be my own person, and not live with regret, as he had. His description of carefully pushing the pin into the body and watching the wings stop slowly chills me still. My father died by suicide decades before Neurodivergent was what he might have understood himself to have been, and well before his only offspring grew up to claim a Neuroqueer identity.</p><p>At around the same time period that he taught me about animal cruelty and the importance of thinking for oneself, my father offered me kid-friendly examples of civil liberties and human rights. Starting when he was very young, he had friends from many backgrounds. He knew the children from the Little Red Schoolhouse and the neighborhood. One afternoon after school, he brought home a friend to play with him at the apartment. For reasons that my father didn’t understand in elementary school, the doorman wouldn’t let his friend use the elevator, insisting that rules required the child to use the back entrance, instead. My father asked his friend to wait for a moment in the lobby so he could fetch David, my grandfather. Grandma Frances, the breadwinner, may have been teaching or working in a library when this incident occurred, but she likely would have handled the situation in the same way as her husband did.</p><p>My grandfather spoke politely while firmly to the doorman, then accompanied both boys to the apartment, using the elevator; the operator pulled the inner gate shut, in silence. In telling me about what his friend and he had experienced that day in the late 1930s, my father didn’t mention the word racism, but I knew what he meant for me to understand. I also knew what she intended when my mother showed me a photograph from her elementary school in Brooklyn. Taken more than a decade after my father had been that age, the photo of my mother with her classmates was a sea of white faces, except for one thin boy whom she befriended when most of the other kids had refused to pay him any mind.</p><p>These stories informed my actions when, as a teenager, I sought quiet revenge against the cops who kept targeting my friends who lived a few blocks away from me in Coney Island. One of these families was the one that had lost their brother to a swing and a wall. As a much younger kid, I rode on the backs of the boys’ bicycles. A bit older, we played b-ball and board games, shot pool and drank chocolate egg creams in my basement. During neighborhood fires, we gathered on the street, nervous and curious. On many summer nights, we sat under lampposts listening to cicadas and on lawns waiting for lightning bugs.</p><hr><p>When I was in college, a few of the boys from my friendship circle drove late at night from Brooklyn in a cramped car to pick me up in New Jersey. Squished in further, we headed south on the highway to surprise a mutual friend who was attending school in Maryland. Amy’s grandmother lived across the street from my parents; a regular visitor with her little sister and even littler brother, Amy was a central part of our group. After we jumped the fence to go to the beach, the boys were the ones with whom she and I got into trouble, along with some of the other girls. (Back then, I did not know what it meant to call myself genderqueer, and could not have had access to or used that language, because it did not yet exist.) Angry and worried, Amy’s grandmother and my mother showed up with dangling flashlights. These friends were my people, well before I really got what was meant by privilege, inequity, oppression, or institutionalized violence.</p><hr><p>My confusion about my father’s slingshot mirrors his departing behavior and presumed choice, the self-imposed toss and smash after a lifetime as a pacifist, someone who taught me about social justice before folx called it that. I think often about the adult conversations we might have had, and the interactions that could have transpired during my adolescence.</p><hr><p>Today, I’m wondering again about what he would have thought of my mother having asked me, after she remarried, to pay the cemetery staff an annual fee to take care of the yews in front of the grave he hadn’t wanted. I once typed out a poem, “Exhumed,” on the back of the bill. One Yom Kippur, I took the subway to the cemetery and used Grandpa David’s Balda camera to create double exposures of the two Wiener gravestones, several rows apart. While in traditional terms I might have undermined or even defied the holy holiday, I believed my behavior had been in keeping with the reflective spirit of the day as much as it displayed a grief-stricken rebelliousness. There are many stories, including these, that I wish I could tell my father, that he may somehow already know.</p><hr><p>Some people have assumed that my near obsession with Walter Benjamin’s life and writings has to do with his having taken himself out rather than be taken by the Nazis in 1940. Benjamin’s arguably self-protective suicide, in some ways parallel to what happened on a massive scale at Masada in 73 CE, is far less interesting to me than his bricolage. My father’s violent death, while long being a fulcrum of my emotional attention, is far less intriguing to me now than imagining the lives we didn’t get to share.</p><hr><p>When I went through my first serious break-up, I told the person with whom I had been lovers that they were the one who would most likely best understand my unhappiness, but they were certainly the very last person with whom I should have discussed my pain with any real depth or specificity—so I didn’t. In an odd parallel, it would likely have helped if I could have talked with my father (other than in my head) about what it was like for me to have lost him, how I felt about him leaving me, and the circumstances, altogether. I believed he knew better than anyone how his death affected me.</p><hr><p>My father’s last morning might have been the only one when he didn’t say good-bye to me before going to work. Or, that was the dramatic story that lived in me for most of my young life, the echoing torment about whether or not he knew when he woke up what he would do that afternoon, if the plan had been set in motion, or if he was impulsive after the bad news he received. He certainly knew that he had a meeting with administrators, that day. My mother was none too pleased when two of them showed up at our house to pay their respects during shiva. They were probably the last people to see him alive, and had delivered to him the devastating news that my mother called the straw that broke the camel’s back. For a long time, I couldn’t endure that idiom without feeling bilious any more than I could watch even an animated Spider-Man dive off a skyscraper.</p><hr><p>As an adult, possibly prior, I imagined that my father might have had some inkling as he got dressed for the last time that Thursday morning of the very bad update he was about to receive from the pencil pushers—he was being transferred to a school in a new role, one beneath his rank, expertise, and talent, a move necessary due to his obvious sinking and general unavailability. It wasn’t a full-on layoff, but a severe ego blow to someone already far below sea level.</p><p>In therapy at the time of his death, he had not been given any pharmaceuticals, but my mother wondered later if that might have helped or even preserved him. My father had what would now be called a nervous breakdown well before my parents met. My mother’s father warned her about marrying and having children with a man 14 years her senior, someone who was never married before and had also been diagnosed with neurasthenia.</p><hr><p>My father taught me how to shoot. I don’t think I’m inventing a wish that we played together with the slingshot. I feel my tapered hands, smaller versions of his, looping then tightening the rubber band around the indentations carved about a centimeter beneath each of the two tops on the split V. Gripping the base of the Y, mimicking his every move, I knew he was proud of my good aim.</p><p>He had taken me to the shooting gallery in Astroland. For a quarter, you got ten shots with the air rifle. I liked when we shared a gun just as much as when he stood behind or beside me, watching me shoot solo. He and my mother or he alone sometimes shot while seated next to me. At first, my feet didn’t reach the ground from my spinning place beside theirs. It’s odd to me to think now about how accurate a shot I was as a kid, given my not great vision, even with eyeglasses.</p><hr><p>The first real gun I held was pink and silver. When I was a baby dyke in my 20s, I thought my herbal medicine teacher’s LadySmith (a Smith & Wesson revolver) resembled its owner: fierce, and more than a little queer. Her Greenwich Village storefront and school had a sign way up on the wall behind the register that read, “Forget the dog, beware the owner.” Much later on, in Tucson, a friend of mine took me out to an unofficial range to try out his registered gun. He warned me of the kickback, explained how to use the safety earmuffs, and ran through the placement of the sights. Aiming at a graffiti N on a trashed horizontal water tank about 50 feet away, I hit exactly where I planned, on the first try. That was the only time I shot a real gun. I’ve handled others, including what I think was a .38 with a silencer that my grad school colleague called his KGB special—no joke.</p><hr><p>My parents were both great shots (who, if anyone, taught or encouraged them is nobody’s guess). At the shooting gallery in Coney Island, hitting the owl’s perch resulted in a quick vertical climb and descent sequence accompanied by a hoot. There were many options, including a smaller bird that spun in its cage, a furry creature (I think it was a skunk) that tilted, and my favorite: the piano player. Both of my parents played the piano; so did I. So many stories can be told about the music.</p><p>Hunched over his upright, hands splayed on the damaged keys, the dummy musician and his piano were immense when compared to their mostly animal and a few object companions. I knew that I was hurting no one and nothing; even symbolically, we weren’t shooting at creatures and things, only at their targets, and we certainly weren’t killing any piano players, just making a temporarily stuck one move. His bullseye was in the middle of the back of his bench; when it was struck, he lurched upwards, banged his hands down on the keys abruptly, music churning briefly. Often, even if I had hit his target, earlier, I saved my last shot for him.</p></hr></hr></hr></hr></hr></hr></hr></hr></hr></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Innocence]]></title><description><![CDATA[We took her,
Money was exchanged;
Distraught, Innocence wailed all the way.
Crushed by loneliness,
The others shunned her;
Suffering their own version of
Stockholm Syndrome and
Joining the pack
With the naïveté of Patty Hearst.
Innocence wailed through the night in her confinement.
It was cruel punishment
Until it wasn’t.
With blue eyes open,
Innocence began to see the kindness;
Others broke,
Welcoming the interloper.
A kennel became a haven,
A house a home.
Tails wag in playful repartee,
P]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/innocence/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523241</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Mitchell]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:20:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524391750778-c110302f5919?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxwdXBweSUyMHBhd3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTY3NTc&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524391750778-c110302f5919?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxwdXBweSUyMHBhd3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTY3NTc&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Innocence"/><p>We took her,<br>Money was exchanged;<br>Distraught, Innocence wailed all the way.</br></br></p><p>Crushed by loneliness,<br>The others shunned her;<br>Suffering their own version of<br>Stockholm Syndrome and<br>Joining the pack<br>With the naïveté of Patty Hearst.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Innocence wailed through the night in her confinement.<br>It was cruel punishment<br>Until it wasn’t.</br></br></p><p>With blue eyes open,<br>Innocence began to see the kindness;<br>Others broke,<br>Welcoming the interloper.</br></br></br></p><p>A kennel became a haven,<br>A house a home.</br></p><p>Tails wag in playful repartee,<br>Puppy paws pound and<br>Happiness manifests in playful yips and nips.</br></br></p><p>The white-dipped tail<br>refuses to surrender to its aggressor<br>Until dizziness sets in.</br></br></p><p>Innocence restored.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Heralds of Spring]]></title><description><![CDATA[In March, the heralds of spring
seep through cracks
like the oil spill from my ’65 Chevy.
Their antennaes sniff out food
on the butcher block counter top
to carry home to their castles.
They move in concert
like a flock of birds
separate, yet united.
Helping one another,
with divine purpose, ants
succeed where humanity does not.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/heralds-of-spring/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852324b</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jody Karr]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:20:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1609055693496-31c9efb99dcf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDYyfHxhbnRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5Nzk1OQ&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1609055693496-31c9efb99dcf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDYyfHxhbnRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5Nzk1OQ&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Heralds of Spring"/><p>In March, the heralds of spring<br>seep through cracks<br>like the oil spill from my ’65 Chevy.<br>Their antennaes sniff out food<br>on the butcher block counter top<br>to carry home to their castles.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>They move in concert<br>like a flock of birds<br>separate, yet united.<br>Helping one another,<br>with divine purpose, ants<br>succeed where humanity does not.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Two Suns]]></title><description><![CDATA[Falling off a cliff
into the dirt gray
morning, shuffling
around until hot drink
and the book sits beside
as the gold hair of
morning falls across
the sky; glorious.
Crossing the bad leg
over the better one
as the impressionist
paints with last light,
cold cup and mate beside
until the paint fades back
to gray, a rise and set
in one day; divine.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/two-suns/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852324a</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[F.C. Shultz]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:19:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1543613949-95cd1b38a10e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI4fHxzdW5yaXNlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5Nzg0Mw&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1543613949-95cd1b38a10e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI4fHxzdW5yaXNlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5Nzg0Mw&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Two Suns"/><p>Falling off a cliff<br>into the dirt gray<br>morning, shuffling<br>around until hot drink<br>and the book sits beside<br>as the gold hair of<br>morning falls across<br>the sky; glorious.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Crossing the bad leg<br>over the better one<br>as the impressionist<br>paints with last light,<br>cold cup and mate beside<br>until the paint fades back<br>to gray, a rise and set<br>in one day; divine.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Meandering in Blue]]></title><description><![CDATA[Am I blue? If you have to ask then you’re probably blue. Billie Holiday asked it. I asked it while climbing a steep hill in the Missouri moonlight. Am I blue? Yes–blue in that indulgent way that is melancholic but also a nice reprieve from the energy of netting joy and complacency, the steady stab of boredom. I am blue like a flat stone under the cold moonlight. I am blue like a Blue Jay feather caught in the slide of gravity. I am blue like a clock that doesn’t tic, stuck in time, blue inertia.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/meandering-in-blue/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523240</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Darlene Graf]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:19:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1570284613060-766c33850e00?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUwfHxibHVlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5NjYwMA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1570284613060-766c33850e00?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUwfHxibHVlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5NjYwMA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Meandering in Blue"/><p>Am I blue? If you have to ask then you’re probably blue. Billie Holiday asked it. I asked it while climbing a steep hill in the Missouri moonlight. Am I blue? Yes–blue in that indulgent way that is melancholic but also a nice reprieve from the energy of netting joy and complacency, the steady stab of boredom. I am blue like a flat stone under the cold moonlight. I am blue like a Blue Jay feather caught in the slide of gravity. I am blue like a clock that doesn’t tic, stuck in time, blue inertia. I am blue like a low iceberg. Blue breath. Frozen will.</p><p>When I reach the top of the hill, there is a ranch-style house with small windows, tiny eyes on a large face. My parents sleep in this vast hollow of land where the woods meet the water and green lichen embroiders the undergrowth.</p><p>Am I blue? Yeah, I’m blue. It’s a good song in my heart. A blue refrain. My parents are alive, dreaming. I walk up the hill into a future that has no color. Muted. I feel blue rising though. The lightest of blues fills my throat.</p><p>My feet walk in mismatched stride, heavy and light footsteps: Polka and Tango married in blue. It was a good dance, those years when my parents were alive: my dad with his blue-washed work and my mother with her blue-lavender voice.</p><p>Am I blue? yeah, blue with a sentimental heart. This is a final blue. It is the kind of blue that comes after a hurricane. I can’t find the moorings except in the watery dregs of blue memory.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Medication #1: The Sun]]></title><description><![CDATA[They say a little sunshine would help,
“It’s just out there, don’t lose hope!”
But the sun only blinds my eyes,
and dries my throat.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/medication-1-the-sun/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523245</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Treziel Mae Mayores]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:18:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1545955413-209e03defb1f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxzdW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjgwMjk3MjE3&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1545955413-209e03defb1f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxzdW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjgwMjk3MjE3&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Medication #1: The Sun"/><p>They say a little sunshine would help,<br>“It’s just out there, don’t lose hope!”<br>But the sun only blinds my eyes,<br>and dries my throat.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[To the girl I’ve never talked to]]></title><description><![CDATA[We only felt the same breeze,
stared at the same star,
held the same bar–frigid.
We never talked,
nor even spoke a word.
But in my head,
everything in my world,
there’s nothing you’ve never heard.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/to-the-girl-ive-never-talked-to/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523244</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Treziel Mae Mayores]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:18:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1448376561459-dbe8868fa34c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGdpcmwlMjBmaWVsZHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTcxMzU&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1448376561459-dbe8868fa34c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGdpcmwlMjBmaWVsZHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTcxMzU&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="To the girl I’ve never talked to"/><p>We only felt the same breeze,<br>stared at the same star,<br>held the same bar–frigid.<br>We never talked,<br>nor even spoke a word.<br>But in my head,<br>everything in my world,<br>there’s nothing you’ve never heard.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I am Dreaming, I am Dying]]></title><description><![CDATA[I am dreaming I am traveling
I am dreaming a road
A new installment in a series
of recurring dreams, I recognize
some turns, intersections, landmarks.
My map lost, I rely on dead reckoning
I have no destination, only to understand
where I am. The horizon edges into sky.
My fear rises, metallic until the road
reminds me it is just a road
I am dreaming I am climbing
I am dreaming a mountain
rising faster than I can scale.
My magical limbs stretch and grab on.
Cartoon boulders expand and roll,
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-am-dreaming-i-am-dying/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852324c</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathryn Lorenzen]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:17:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1444703686981-a3abbc4d4fe3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxkcmVhbXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTgwMzc&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1444703686981-a3abbc4d4fe3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxkcmVhbXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTgwMzc&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="I am Dreaming, I am Dying"/><p>I am dreaming I am traveling<br>I am dreaming a road<br>A new installment in a series<br>of recurring dreams, I recognize<br>some turns, intersections, landmarks.</br></br></br></br></p><p>My map lost, I rely on dead reckoning<br>I have no destination, only to understand<br>where I am. The horizon edges into sky.</br></br></p><p>My fear rises, metallic until the road<br>reminds me it is just a road</br></p><p>I am dreaming I am climbing<br>I am dreaming a mountain<br>rising faster than I can scale.</br></br></p><p>My magical limbs stretch and grab on.<br>Cartoon boulders expand and roll,<br>mountainside approaching vertically.<br>Until I am falling backwards,<br>now gently into air so soft it smiles.<br>It is just a falling. It is just a mountain.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I am dreaming of an opening into<br>a kaleidoscope of everything. I can see all<br>of a generation coming in together, a layering tide<br>just as native councils have taught.</br></br></br></p><p>We are travelers aligned in ways we have<br>not known. On roads, mountains, passages.<br>I float in gratitude that I can see<br>this moment that is forever.</br></br></br></p><p>I am dreaming I am dying<br>I am dreaming a gateway.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Runway]]></title><description><![CDATA[The triple jump is track and field’s oddest offspring. A circus act. An intentional stumble done for distance. A Seussian hop, skip, and jump. But it requires strength and agility, and when done well, it’s a sight to behold. You might remember Al Joyner in 1984: those high-knees, long strides, the bicycling legs mid-air, the double fist-pump from the pit.
At 14 I couldn’t run all that fast and wasn’t much of a long jumper, but there weren’t many takers for the triple in Newton, Massachusetts in]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/runway/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852323e</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Matt Laufer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:16:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502904550040-7534597429ae?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxydW5uZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjgwMjk2MzE0&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502904550040-7534597429ae?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxydW5uZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjgwMjk2MzE0&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Runway"/><p>The triple jump is track and field’s oddest offspring. A circus act. An intentional stumble done for distance. A Seussian hop, skip, and jump. But it requires strength and agility, and when done well, it’s a sight to behold. You might remember Al Joyner in 1984: those high-knees, long strides, the bicycling legs mid-air, the double fist-pump from the pit.</p><p>At 14 I couldn’t run all that fast and wasn’t much of a long jumper, but there weren’t many takers for the triple in Newton, Massachusetts in 1987, so I gave it a try.</p><p>My personal best was 38’ 3” (roughly twice a giraffe’s height, 18’ shy of a full Joyner), which qualified you for the state meet. Time to shop for running spikes. I found a pair of white 1988 Nike Zoom Lights–blue swoosh, red and yellow accents–that came with a little plastic wrench with which you screwed five tiny metal spikes into the sole of each shoe in the shape of a half-oval spanning from the ball of the foot to the tips of the toes.</p><p>Fully outfitted, I was feeling pleased with myself when in the league meet, leading up to State, I got beat by a first-time jumper from Brockton who’d twice fouled before (on his third leap, despite taking off from inches ahead of the board) he broke the meet record. A teenager in a man’s body, Curtis Bostic was a triple-jump blasphemer, a careless trespasser who’d go on to play Division I basketball, and who’d dared to laugh sidelong at our measuring tape spools and chalk-marks.</p><p>That evening I was shuffling around my worn red bedroom carpet thinking back on the meet when my mother knocked and said she had something to show me. From a shoebox under a pile of duffles on the floor of my closet, she pulled an ancient-looking pair of black leather running shoes with rusted, brutal-looking spikes. The shoes would have been early Adolf Dasslers, I later learned, running spikes from the late 1920s made by the man who would go on to found Adidas.</p><p>“They’re your grandfather’s,” my mother said. “He ran at Stanford in those. Though of course you can’t apply there,” she added, eyebrows raised, “because he owes them money.”</p><p>Tucking the curious comment away for the time being, I held the 60-year-old shoes, felt their leather, fingered the tarnished spikes. I imagined the tracks they’d run, the purchase they’d gained, the speeds they’d helped my grandfather reach.</p><p>Though I didn’t really know the man, had met him only a handful of times as a boy, and could barely picture his face, I felt different. Turning the shoes over again and again, I felt as if I was part of a legacy. There was collegiate speed in my family dating back half a century. I went to bed buoyant, imagining how my grandfather’s shoes on my feet might put me on a par with big-time jumpers like the one who’d cleaned my clock earlier that day.</p><p>The Japanese writer Ryunosuke Satoro put it this way: “Let your dreams outgrow the shoes of your expectations.”</p><p>But then, wearing not Ben’s spikes but my own brand-new Zoom Lights, I flopped at the state meet. Failed to reach even my personal best. And in fact, despite continuing with track and field through high school, I never again reached that freshman-year mark. I can live with that. When it comes to athletics, I’ve long since gotten used to the idea that I peaked too early.</p><p>The part of the story that disturbs me still is that the torch-passing scene–it never happened. Though I remember with some clarity squatting before the closet contemplating those antique shoes and the man who’d worn them, I must have made it all up. My mother has no memory of it, or of inheriting any sports equipment, and we can’t find the Dasslers.</p><p>It’s unlikely that the spiked shoes are sitting in a box in my mother’s attic, humming “<em>Das Lied der Deutschen</em>” through spiky teeth. My mother is the type to notice when a doily’s been moved an inch, and she’s prone to comprehensive spring cleanings (attic included), so it’s more likely that I invented both the shoes and the scene of their bequeathing. That at some point, having heard that my grandfather had been a runner, I’d bred that information with the image of my own Nike spikes bought at The Barn and imagined the worn-down Dasslers. Imagined them into my life because I’d so wanted them there, so wanted my mother’s father, the mysterious Ben Kagan, the legendary speedster and college dropout, to have gifted them to me.</p><p>“It’s like ‘The Little Match Girl,’” my therapist said a few years ago when I told him the story of the phantom spikes.</p><p>Jungians like him, mind you, come armed to the teeth with stories. Literary references. Lines of verse committed to memory. A narrative for every situation. My bespectacled, white-haired, lapsed-Catholic Jungian, in fact, was more facile with stories from around the world than the most cocksure Comp Lit grad student. I’d heard him quote verbatim from Rumi and refer excitedly to black and white films that I could locate only in fragments on YouTube, but Hans Christian Andersen–the creator, in 1845, of the little girl with the matchsticks–was his favorite.</p><p>In the comparison, I’m the girl. Which is unfortunate because the girl, out of doors in winter time, suffering from hypothermia, hallucinates what’s inside the house against which she leans–warm stove…holiday feast…happy family…Christmas tree…–and then freezes to death.</p><p>But still she has her vision. Her hope, and her dreams. Her match sticks.</p><p>She’d planned to sell the matches and appease her abusive stepfather with the earnings, but having failed to do so, she ends up lighting them, one by one, to provide herself a little warmth. And even though it’s horrible to imagine trying to warm up by the staggered heat of a fistful of five-second flamelets, there’s something noble about her efforts, something stirring about her final visions. She sees a shooting star (Someone’s on their way to heaven!) and then, in the flame of the next match, her grandmother. To keep the vision alive as long as possible, she lights, all at once, the remainder of the matches, and the next day she’s found frozen on the street by passersby who see only a small, ice-cold corpse. They don’t know about her beguiling visions.</p><p>I’d had my own, my therapist was suggesting. Lit my match. Though I hope not to keel over dead after seeing whatever I might next see, I suppose my writing this story is how I hope to strike my remaining matchsticks into a flourish of flame.</p><p>A student of mine here in Chicago, a 17-year-old named Jalia, saw such visions as distinctly American. In her final exam on a June morning in 2018, she put it like this: “Americans prefer, accept, and reward illusion…the privilege of America is that we can overcome the truth…protect the fantasy…it’s better than a busted reality…in this way the lie is moral.”</p><p>As for the Dasslers? Such was the mythic pull of my grandfather back then, the way he worked subliminally on teenage me, the way with just a hop, skip, and jump down the runway of my mind, I could transmute his absence into experience as real-seeming as any other. What I had was a vivid non-memory, nostalgia for an experience I’d never had, a dream. What I wanted was to have had a bona fide bestowing, a conferral like those you see in tapestries: wise and wizened prophet gifting winged shoes to young warrior.</p><p>In those days, though, instead of the sandals of Mercury, I’d inherited something mercurial. Ben was hermetic instead of Hermes. I’d have to keep lighting matches. Avoid freezing to death. Stay warm long enough for the fire to catch.</p><p>He’d been with me in a sense, or I was with him, the way a woman is with child.</p><p>But Ben was a ghost. How was I to welcome such freely fanciful visions while also seeking something like the truth? How to find not some two-dimensional rendering of a villain, or a conveniently reductive narrative of the source of evil in the family, or for that matter a whitewashed Genius, but a man, in all his complexity? I’d never really had him close, and now he was long gone.</p><p>Luckily my vague longing for the man I hadn’t seen for years and couldn’t really remember didn’t stop with phantom footwear or other fantasies from the closet. As I grew older and my grandfather’s absence more present, my mother’s house became a reliquary. Up on the walls in our ranch-style, middle-class home in a significantly upper-class town hung Art, an array of tangible objects, and they came from Ben, who’d been not just “a runner” but “a good photographer,” “a writer” (that much I vaguely knew since forever), and something of a collector. Hanging on the walls of the house and my mind were:</p><p>• a tall and narrow charcoal sketch of Pete Seeger, guitar in hand, done super-thin and extra gangly, as if by Giacometti, a print that Ben had bought for my mother when she was a teenager enraptured by the early ‘60s folk scene;</p><p>• a couple of Ben’s own stylish black and white photographs, portraits, one of my mother as a teen, looking back over her shoulder, and another of my elegant grandmother, Hannah, his first wife, captured in a similar backward glance;</p><p>• a photograph of an Italian street scene, complete with a brick wall on which is affixed, above a leaning dustbin and a primitive broom, a torn poster, ornamented with assorted camels and bottles, announcing, “<em>caffe BOUR BON primo</em>”;</p><p>• and two dark and magisterial portraits of Arturo Toscanini, taken by a professional, gifted to my grandfather, passed on to my mother, and eventually–and still today–featured above her living room desk.</p><p>Toscanini, solemn and athletically musical, loomed especially large in my teenage imagination. Together with Pete Seeger, the two portraits of Toscanini combined to form a pagan trinity. In one the maestro suddenly appears with arm aloft, baton in hand, in full, vigorous command of strings or horns or timpani, testing the give of a dark suit jacket dramatically accented by side-tufts of unkempt white hair. With the conductor’s dark suit on a pitch-black background and those conflagrations of white hair book-ending his resplendent face, each portrait looks as if a wispily mustachioed specter has given birth to himself all of a sudden out of the darkness. Like a struck match.</p><p>In the beginning was the <em>maestro</em>, spectral and self-begotten.</p><p>I know now that Toscanini was the conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra while my grandfather was a producer at NBC. At the time I knew only that he and my grandfather had sort of worked together. That was more than enough: Toscanini stood in my adolescent mind for high culture, dark passionate excellence, and old world elegance, and given that no pictures of my grandfather bedecked our mantle or walls, the maestro stood for my grandfather.</p><p>So I drew him in: throughout high school I kept a black, hard-cover, picture-heavy biography of Toscanini in the drawer of my little nutbrown bedside table and, when I wasn’t re-reading Larry Bird’s 1989 ghost-written autobiography (<em>Drive: The Story of My Life</em>) or steaming through my Piers Anthony fantasies or my brother’s racy Ian Fleming novels, I now and then flipped through the Toscanini book, studying the pictures. It had belonged to my grandfather, I was told, so it became my bedside bible.</p><p>It felt taboo: Ben wasn’t around, and he wasn’t to be spoken of, but this wild genius was right here. Plus he was called “<em>maestro</em>.” Maybe in some roundabout way I could grow up to be not just another suburban schmuck! And if like the maestro, then also like my grandfather, whom I couldn’t remember ever having met, but who beckoned me strangely just the same.</p><p>At the school in Chicago where I’ve taught for the last thirteen years, there’s a volume-cheerily-at-eleven security guard named Rosie who calls me <em>maestro</em>. “Good morning, <em>maestro</em>!” “Hu-uump day, maestro!” “<em>Buenas noches, maestro</em>!” She’s not being poetical: the word means “teacher” in her native Spanish. Still, it gives me an electric charge every time she says it, sends me whipping away to Toscanini, and to Ben, before bouncing back to where I stand in the school hallway, slightly taller.</p><p>When I visited Italy with my high school choir, I tried to reproduce my grandfather’s photograph of an Italian street scene, which hung on my bedroom wall. In my attempt: book-ended by umber and tan boxes and a wheelbarrow standing on its head, scarlet graffiti anoints a brick wall. <em>Je t’aime</em>, it reads.</p><p>I had the picture printed at the local Osco (so quaint!), framed it, and put it up in my room, my Italian street still-life next to his, my wheelbarrow mirroring his dustbin, my bricks his bricks, my “<em>Je t’aime</em>” his (undeniably less affectionate) “<em>caffe BOUR BON primo</em>.” It was the communion I could compose.</p><p><em>Je t’aime</em>, my picture said to me now and then as I strode through my high school years. <em>Je t’aime</em>, it murmured more intimately as I lay still, burning with curiosity and affection for the man who’d run races and made photographs but above all, I was told, been an important writer in New York.</p><p>The poet Joy Harjo spoke to my students once. “Your grandparents, your ancestors are still in you…” she said. “Where do your words come from, after all? Why do you write the way you do?”</p><p><em>What had my grandfather’s sentences been like?</em>, I wondered, as I worked to form my own in school. I could genuflect before his images, but I’d never read his words. Why not? What had he written? Long before I studied his many hundreds of scripts, or practically memorized five letters he’d written to my mother, or explicated his college columns, I had in mind, from what I’d heard and that he was “from New York,” “a writer” and not a poet, say, or a novelist, but a writer of real-life, true stories that packed a punch. A man of dashes and plain, powerful sentences. You could hear it in his plosive, pugnacious name: <em>BE</em>n <em>KA</em>gan.</p><p>And still I wondered, Where was he now, the man himself, and why not here, once in a while? And why had he quit us? Wherever he was, did he know I was here in this bedroom doing my writing, lacing my Nikes, watched over by Toscanini?</p><p>I never asked out loud. I knew the rules, remembered the rift. That he’d behaved badly. That one shouldn’t expect anything of him, shouldn’t outgrow the shoes of expectation. And yet–</p><p><em>Je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime.</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Italian Basil-Walnut Pesto]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ingredients:
4 cups Italian or Genovese basil leaves*
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
1/2 cup grated Parmesan-reggiano cheese
zest & juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon coarse or freshly cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions:
1. In a medium-large food blender/processor bowl, chop and blend the basil, garlic, and walnuts.
2. Add cheese, lemon zest & juice, olive oil, pepper, and salt; process until well-blended.
3. Refrigera]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/italian-basil-walnut-pesto/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523242</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:16:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1445847562439-f251c3799ea5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHBlc3RvfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5Njg2Mw&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1445847562439-f251c3799ea5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHBlc3RvfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5Njg2Mw&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Italian Basil-Walnut Pesto"/><p><strong><strong>Ingredients:</strong></strong></p><p>4 cups Italian or Genovese basil leaves*<br>3 garlic cloves, peeled<br>1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted<br>1/2 cup grated Parmesan-reggiano cheese<br>zest & juice of 1 lemon<br>1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil<br>1 teaspoon coarse or freshly cracked black pepper<br>1 teaspoon kosher salt</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong><strong>Instructions:</strong></strong></p><ol><li>In a medium-large food blender/processor bowl, chop and blend the basil, garlic, and walnuts.</li><li>Add cheese, lemon zest & juice, olive oil, pepper, and salt; process until well-blended.</li><li>Refrigerate in air-tight glass container.<br>Makes 1 cup.</br></li></ol><ul><li>If you blanch the whole basil leaves in boiling water for 5 seconds and immediately put into an ice bath it seals the bright green color. Drain and squeeze the water from the basil before adding to the food processor with the other ingredients.</li></ul>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Under My Canopy]]></title><description><![CDATA[Prickly with a gentle touch.
The sweet smell of childhood.
Sap sticking to my fingers as I sweep the needles with my hands, making a bed to lay my head and be still.
Still enough to watch the creepy crawly bugs marching on your branches.
Still enough, a small bird pops in to work on their nest.
Still enough to hear my mother calling me, knowing she cannot see that I am just a few steps away.
Still enough, I can feel the sun trying to penetrate the needles and shine on your spring branches.
Still]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/under-my-canopy/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523247</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alison Schuh Hawsey]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:15:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1415531355392-cdcb587c14ab?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxjYW5vcHl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjgwMjk3NDMz&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1415531355392-cdcb587c14ab?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxjYW5vcHl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjgwMjk3NDMz&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Under My Canopy"/><p>Prickly with a gentle touch.<br>The sweet smell of childhood.<br>Sap sticking to my fingers as I sweep the needles with my hands, making a bed to lay my head and be still.<br>Still enough to watch the creepy crawly bugs marching on your branches.<br>Still enough, a small bird pops in to work on their nest.<br>Still enough to hear my mother calling me, knowing she cannot see that I am just a few steps away.<br>Still enough, I can feel the sun trying to penetrate the needles and shine on your spring branches.<br>Still enough, I see your skin is brown, black, green, and blue with a hint of mustard yellow.<br>Still enough, I wonder how many needles you carry and how many you have lost.<br>Still enough, I have convinced myself when winter arrives, I’m going to climb to your peak and crown you with lights.<br>Still enough, I wake up and realize I no longer want to be still.<br>Your canopy is grand.<br>Your shade is inviting.<br>Thank you for sharing your space where I can be me while I am hiding.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Dinner Table]]></title><description><![CDATA[The moment doesn’t have to be exact.
the dinner table isn’t quite set
hell, might as well mix the forks and knives
for the salad and steak,
let a wine glass break, or two, seven,
make sure the chairs are facing out
so the guests have to seat themselves,
and what about the rest?
what about it?
the candles, appetizers, the ambiance
leave it, away with it, do what will with it
The moment doesn’t have to be exact
I feel more alive that way, more there.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-dinner-table/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852323c</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Mitchell]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:14:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1547573854-74d2a71d0826?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGRpbm5lciUyMHRhYmxlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5NTk2NQ&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1547573854-74d2a71d0826?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGRpbm5lciUyMHRhYmxlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5NTk2NQ&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Dinner Table"/><p>The moment doesn’t have to be exact.</p><p>the dinner table isn’t quite set<br>hell, might as well mix the forks and knives<br>for the salad and steak,<br>let a wine glass break, or two, seven,<br>make sure the chairs are facing out<br>so the guests have to seat themselves,</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>and what about the rest?</p><p>what about it?<br>the candles, appetizers, the ambiance<br>leave it, away with it, do what will with it</br></br></p><p>The moment doesn’t have to be exact<br>I feel more alive that way, more there.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Nature Lurks]]></title><description><![CDATA[The smell of nature
Craving the tensions of the rose water
Licked the motions desires
Clear blue sky
And the pine
On the hillside
The symbolism is hidden
But the emotions are endless
Colors arise and secrets die down
The hope grows like a tree
And the colors are purple
Savaging the day awakened]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/nature-lurks/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852324d</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Raquel Lesser]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:12:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1591036272701-154262f9fee5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU1fHx3aWxkZmxvd2Vyc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTgyNzk&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1591036272701-154262f9fee5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU1fHx3aWxkZmxvd2Vyc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2ODAyOTgyNzk&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Nature Lurks"/><p>The smell of nature<br>Craving the tensions of the rose water<br>Licked the motions desires<br>Clear blue sky<br>And the pine<br>On the hillside<br>The symbolism is hidden<br>But the emotions are endless<br>Colors arise and secrets die down<br>The hope grows like a tree<br>And the colors are purple<br>Savaging the day awakened</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Oh, Those Amphibious Legs!]]></title><description><![CDATA[Oh, those amphibious legs! Delicious fried frog legs! They taste somewhat like the other white meats such as fish or chicken. Frog legs have an epicurean experience of their own. If you have ever been around Missouri fishermen or outdoor game men and women that know the rivers like the back of their hands, well you will appreciate how those frog legs got onto your plate, a real river-to-plate story.
The Franklin County family farm was a weekend getaway place for some city folks. It had a few ou]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/oh-those-amphibious-legs/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523243</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:12:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524689222688-670203109043?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJ1bGxmcm9nfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5NzAwMg&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524689222688-670203109043?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJ1bGxmcm9nfGVufDB8fHx8MTY4MDI5NzAwMg&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Oh, Those Amphibious Legs!"/><p>Oh, those amphibious legs! Delicious fried frog legs! They taste somewhat like the other white meats such as fish or chicken. Frog legs have an epicurean experience of their own. If you have ever been around Missouri fishermen or outdoor game men and women that know the rivers like the back of their hands, well you will appreciate how those frog legs got onto your plate, a real river-to-plate story.</p><p>The Franklin County family farm was a weekend getaway place for some city folks. It had a few outbuildings with tractors and equipment as well as a big 2-room cabin built above the Bourbeuse River. Uncle Floyd and Grandpa George furnished the cabin with white kitchen cabinets, a long dining table and chairs, metal military-like bunk beds, pull-out couches with roll-out beds on the screened porch. Summer family sleepovers could include 8 adults and at least that many kids. With all the family together, sleep was not guaranteed those nights. If it wasn’t the family, it was the Baby Ben wind-up clock’s irregular rhythm tick, tick, tick, tock, tick, tick, tock, tock, tock, tock … that would keep an eye open throughout the night.</p><p>Aunt Emma always said, “if you want to marry into this family, you have to catch a bullfrog with your bare hand.” The tradition carried through many generations since the 1940’s. Cousin Karen and your fiancée Manny set aside a summer Saturday night with her father, my Uncle Floyd to go frogging on the Bourbeuse River. That weekend the July humidity and clouds built up keeping everything soupy. The hot summer day finally cooled down 5 degrees with sundown. Those clouds may let loose rain anytime that night.</p><p>On the front porch Uncle Floyd and Uncle Bernie gathered hip waders, flashlights, and carbide lights. Outside near the water pump, the empty gunny sacks awaited the bull frogs that were to be caught that night. Karen and Manny finished their last gulp of well water from the communal enamelware cup when her dad and uncle came off the porch and handed them each a flashlight and a carbide light to put on their heads. Each gathered a gunny sack and headed down the trail to the river. That night the moon hid behind the clouds, so those flashlights were handy getting down the rocky trail. Two canoes sat on the sandy bank waiting for the four froggers.</p><p>Karen climbed into one canoe with her dad, and Manny went with Uncle Bernie. Down the river they quietly paddled. With their carbide lights on their heads, the four froggers’ eyes were peeled for those frogs. They could hear those critters croak. They banked in a cove where “bloop, bloop” sounds kept up. The bullfrogs were jumping into the river to avoid the visitors. Tall Uncle Floyd led the way into the river, kept the river water below his hip waders while looking for those peepers. Short Uncle Bernie forgets, and one big “bloop” drops down until the river waters are just below his eyes and carbide light. Yes, he is about a foot shorter than Uncle Floyd. Karen and Manny make note and keep closer to the riverbank while wading the Bourbeuse.</p><p>Uncle Floyd catches the first bullfrog that night. “Splat”, his big hand flattens over the bullfrog on the overhanging tree branch and swoops the amphibian into his gunny sack. Uncle Bernie catches his first soon after. He’s got to keep up. Manny finally catches his first ever bullfrog for family initiation. Excited, he repeats his strategy to catch another 5 bullfrogs for a dinner. A half dozen bullfrogs makes a dozen fried frog legs. That would make one meal. Karen had been out frogging with her family before, so she let Manny keep his good luck going. Later that night she caught a few bullfrogs, too.</p><p>After about a dozen bullfrogs hopping inside each gunny sack, the clouds opened wide. Heavy raindrops turned into a gush of a storm after a loud clap of thunder. All four froggers jumped into their canoes, the three men were paddling as fast as they could. All Karen could think was to cover her head with her gunny sack of frogs as the raindrops hurt coming down as her father was paddling at a fast pace. Lightning and thunder only heightened the urgency to get up that slippery hill and into the cabin. Karen realized as she got onto the front porch that her hair and clothes smelled like river water and frogs. A fragrance only country folks don’t mind, this city girl wished she was home.</p><p>After the storm blew over, the four froggers went out to the fillet board hung between two tree trunks. Seasoned after many fishing and frogging seasons at the river, knife cuts decorated the board. Uncle Floyd and Uncle Bernie had hung the gunny sacks with ropes, and had Karen and Manny swing the gunny sack of frogs into the tree trunks to stun the bullfrogs. Uncle Bernie pulled the first bullfrog out, laid him on the fillet board, and with one whack of a sharp knife, the bullfrog was beheaded. The bullfrog’s eyes blinked, mouth opened to croak, but no sound. Uncle Floyd finished filleting the bullfrog, and the legs were put into an enamelware bowl of salted water sitting on the board.</p><p>Another night of frogging provided enough frog legs for the big fry. The ladies of the family got the fixings together while the men dipped the frog legs in a cornmeal batter and fried them up crispy in cast-iron skillets filled with hot oil. Frog legs, corn-on-the-cob, potato salad, gelatin salad, skillet cornbread, green beans cooked in bacon and onions, and of course, a choice of pies and brownies delighted the palates of at least sixteen hungry town and country folks that hot July weekend. What an experience, all for a fresh frog leg dinner in the middle of summer at the family cabin up the hill from the Bourbeuse River. Unforgettable.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Calling to Return]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’m not sure why my mind keeps returning to my time on the hill, the remote hill in Vermont I so wanted to leave when I was eighteen and felt penned in by the smallness of it all.
The wider world was calling, the promise of college and meeting new faces and hearing stories about places I hadn’t been and hoped to one day see. I couldn’t understand why some of my graduating classmates weren’t doing everything they could to get away. I was ready to grow up and grow out, to get away from the hill, ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-calling-to-return/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523226</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ann Kathryn Kelly]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:44:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1647976505137-25790ae5b5cc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHZlcm1vbnQlMjBmYXJtaG91c2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc2NDk1&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1647976505137-25790ae5b5cc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHZlcm1vbnQlMjBmYXJtaG91c2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc2NDk1&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Calling to Return"/><p>I’m not sure why my mind keeps returning to my time on the hill, the remote hill in Vermont I so wanted to leave when I was eighteen and felt penned in by the smallness of it all.</p><p>The wider world was calling, the promise of college and meeting new faces and hearing stories about places I hadn’t been and hoped to one day see. I couldn’t understand why some of my graduating classmates weren’t doing everything they could to get away. I was ready to grow up and grow out, to get away from the hill, with its dirt roads and modest houses tucked around bends and scattered in meadows. Even the bigger farmhouses, despite impressive sizes, looked worn out beside faded red barns that slumped to one side and wore rusted hats. These homesteads were built to last, built to work sunup to sundown in what was once an active farming community. Their heyday had come and gone before my family moved into one. We had our own slumped red barn, a bleached woodshed attached to it. Tin roof, streaked orange. The 1832 white Cape Cod house my parents bought, like the barn and woodshed, had been neglected for decades. They’d spend ten years restoring it and would sell before they had time to start renovating the barn.</p><p>I think about the hill and try to piece together why this is so. The pandemic, perhaps, something we believed could never happen in our lifetimes. Or, could it be the waves of violence and protesting coast to coast in America, and across oceans? It sometimes feels like we may never get on the other side of these lifechanging events, and through it all there’s a growing part of me who wants, more and more, to return to the hill.</p><p>To where it’s quieter, where there are more trees and fewer people, more birdsong. Where I remember smelling summer; the lush, wooded, cool scent of things growing. Orange daylilies, wild ferns, pungent mosses along Vermont’s dirt roads. I think about living again among the state’s rolling meadows and abundant shade trees and fields framed by two-hundred-year-old stone walls. Where it feels—it may not be, but it <em>feels</em>—safer. Less traffic. Wider spaces. The home of my childhood. Thirty-five years after I left, as often happens with the passage of time, I realize what I had.</p><p>And I want it again.</p><hr><p>February, 1977. We arrived in a snowstorm.</p><p>My parents moved our family to Vermont from Pennsylvania in the middle of a school year. My sister Mare was fourteen, my brother Pat thirteen, Tom ten, and Sean nine. I brought up the back of the line, at eight. Mom and Dad had asked the seller, an investment property owner, if they could settle on the house in June after the school year ended. She refused.</p><p>Dad drove through the night, 400 miles, two puppies squeezed in the back of a station wagon with five kids. We arrived at the bank on a Friday morning. The moving van was scheduled to meet us at the Cape later that day. The overnight drive had felt endless, the environment the next morning foreign. Paperwork signed, we left for our new house nine miles away. I watched my siblings’ faces for clues of what to expect. It felt like we’d landed in what seemed the last stop on Earth. A place I hadn’t been able to find on a map: Newbury, Vermont.</p><p>The Village of Newbury has a population fewer than 400 people and is home to a small general store, one bank, a church, a post office, a handful of houses, and the quaint brick elementary school I attended that fronts onto an immaculate, tree-lined, Revolutionary War-era Common where schoolkids sled in winter and townsfolk set up fairgrounds in summer. Newbury Village is what I believe Norman Rockwell strove for when he picked up his paintbrush. Greater Newbury includes the Village, along with West Newbury, South Newbury, Boltonville, Peach Four Corners, Wells River, and Newbury Center, yet still barely tops a population of 2,000. We landed in Newbury Center, the smallest of the hamlets. There’s an unofficial marker where civilization ends and the wilds of Newbury Center begin. That delineation, to this day, is the car-rattling thump as one’s tires drop into deeply rutted roads. While villagers enjoy paved streets through the half-mile downtown, Newbury Center has dirt roads that snake endlessly down narrow lanes and up mountainsides.</p><p>Our house sat at the edge of twenty-five acres. Mom’s desire to restore the neglected Cape fueled her every free moment. In the time it took to unpack boxes, she was lining up carpenters and whirling through the homestead like a dervish, punching through walls and ripping down ceilings. Mom embraced open concept fifteen years before it caught on in the 1990s. She’d enlist my brothers for grunt work, giving them sledgehammers, light supervision, and the promise of a hardy dinner before getting out of their way.</p><p>As an adult, I reflect with appreciation on the unspoiled beauty of my childhood surroundings. I now understand what my parents gave my siblings and me. They relocated us to a place, a time, sheltered from the societal effects that too often harden landscapes and perspectives. Nestled along a picturesque bend in the Connecticut River, Newbury remains untouched. In the soft light of an encroaching evening, it enchants.</p><hr><p>I was in Newbury again for my high school thirtieth reunion a few years ago, staying in an Airbnb in the Village. As I turned out of the rental’s driveway that Sunday morning, headed back to my home in southern New Hampshire, I turned right instead of left. I couldn’t be this close and not at least drive by our Cape. My parents had moved off the hill in 1998, eleven years after I graduated from high school. They wanted to be closer to my sister, an hour north, as my brothers and I lived out of state by then.</p><p>I drove past the Newbury Village General Store after leaving the Airbnb. It has stood on the tiny main street since 1840. I walked inside to buy a candy bar and it was a time capsule, with the same rows of wood shelving, bread loaves stacked high, canned items three-deep, chip bags lined up. Jars of penny candy. Milk and beer at the back of the store. The worn black-and-white checkered floor and the jangle of bells at the red front door felt like old friends.</p><p>Dad and I, for years, would stop into the general store on weekdays on our way to pick up Mom from her nursing shift across the river. We’d pick up more bread, another box of cereal, and always a candy bar for me. While I could say the reward for my bottomless sweet tooth was what I most valued, I now understand it was the unrushed afternoons riding shotgun with Dad; first, in our yellow Dodge Coronet station wagon he’d named Betsy, and then in the maroon Chevy Impala station wagon that was just slightly smaller than Noah’s Ark. I’d tell Dad about school and listen to him quietly hum, windows rolled down in summer, heater toasty on my feet in winter.</p><p>That Sunday after my high school reunion I lingered in the general store, walking up and down narrow aisles. I pulled the store’s jangling door behind me and crossed the street to the Common. I looked up at the monument to the Revolutionary War General, Jacob Bayley, and closed my eyes; listened for laughter, hoping to hear my classmates shouting with the delight of being kids again. I looked down at the grass and remembered how I’d lost part of my front tooth on the Common in 1979. I was playing “Rock Soup” with Joy and Beth, and as werewolves we snacked on stones in an imaginary broth. Joy eagerly spooned a rock into my mouth and as stone connected with enamel, a searing pain bubbled up from my gum and hot tears splashed my cheeks. Joy kept apologizing while Beth dropped to her hands and knees and rubbed the grass, looking for my tooth wedge. We never found it and I walked around for weeks with a snaggle tooth.</p><p>I crossed the street, got into my car, and took my time driving up to Newbury Center, the roads as bouncy and dusty as ever. From the Village, I followed Sawmill Hill past Hebb’s Corner, climbing to Scotch Hollow Road. I took a left onto the Lane, a right at the top onto Fuller Road. I followed the dirt road for several miles, then started my descent around Dead Man’s Curve that got its grisly nickname in the 1800s when a funeral procession lost a coffin from the back of its wagon as a horse climbed the hill. I rounded the last bend and recognized the vista that had always greeted my family. I parked the car at the crest and walked. The woodshed and barn had a fresh coat of red paint. The large metal potato digger sat where it always had, on the side lawn. My brothers, in the summer of 1977 while exploring the fields for the first time, discovered several pieces of rusted farm equipment from the 1800s. They rolled up the potato digger and a large manure spreader, Mom directing them where to position each to its best advantage. Friends and visitors complimented my parents for years on the wonderful finds.</p><p>The Cape on Fuller Road sheltered my family for twenty-one years, from our arrival in that snowstorm to Mom and Dad’s last summer in the house. Through high school and college graduations, marriages and births and retirements and deaths of pets, it was the place we returned to, as so many families do with beloved homes. For holidays and celebrations and sorrows. To keep traditions alive. Dad loved it best of all the houses he’d lived in. He said it rooted him.</p><p>I snapped photos with my iPhone while deer flies chased me, the kind I remembered from childhood that bite and sting. I breathed in the familiar scent of damp, forested air. I kicked stones, watching dust dance in sunlight rays. I didn’t expect any cars, and none came. I reversed course and ended at the cemetery where my father is buried on Scotch Hollow Road. I parked again and walked to a small metal gate, unlatching it. I weaved among grave markers, making my way to Dad’s stone where I told him I’d just been at the Newbury Village General Store and had gotten a candy bar, knowing he would enjoy hearing that I still fed my sweet tooth.</p><hr><p>Though we may leave a place, many times a place does not leave us. I think it’s because of this that I feel, more often, a calling to return.</p><p>I’ve made no plans, the idea just percolating in my head for now. I sometimes scan Vermont real estate listings, calculating—for fun—how much I’d need for a down payment. The idea of a second property appeals to me; something small and within driving distance that I could use as a weekend escape. I scroll through the limited listings online, ruling out most. My mother and I saw a listing in the spring of 2020 for a circa-1880 one-room schoolhouse. We knew immediately where it was. The schoolhouse had been converted into a small, two-bedroom home in the 1970s. I flipped through online photos, and imagined children in the early 1900s practicing penmanship at small wood desks.</p><p>The schoolhouse is a half mile from Newbury Center’s small cemetery. Since Dad’s death, several of my parents’ local friends have been buried there and my mother will one day join them. The headstone already has her name and birth year. She’d insisted to my sister when they were planning Dad’s funeral that she wanted her details carved at that time. Why, I don’t know. I don’t like to think about the date that has yet to be added, so I’ve not asked her about her earlier decision.</p><p>I’d planned to take a drive to Newbury Center to see the schoolhouse but decided against it as the pandemic worsened. A year passed. I pulled up the listing again in April of 2021 and discovered it had been sold the previous November. I didn’t think I’d be as disappointed as I was. I recall how eager I was to leave as the eighteen-year-old who believed she’d outgrown what this place has to offer. I consider, again, how several classmates never left. Whatever they saw that I couldn’t all those years ago seems enough to have kept them there. I think about my father in the cemetery, just down the road from the schoolhouse. I think how it would have been nice to buy that one-room schoolhouse, to be closer to him. To be closer to where Mom will eventually be buried.</p><p>Our family plot can accommodate four, and as the only unmarried sibling in my family, it’s been a long-held assumption that I will take one of the remaining spaces, upon my death. I like knowing I have a final resting place secured. It feels like coming full circle. Though my siblings and I were born in Pennsylvania, I consider Vermont our family home, the place where we all set down roots and budded from childhood into the adults we would become. Only my sister remains in Vermont.</p><p>I sometimes daydream that I bought the schoolhouse. I think how I could have turned it into a weekend writing retreat. A place to escape the demands that pull at me, like the job that affords me the opportunity to work from a home office, but with the expectation that I will be available early, late, and always. I think about the traffic that surrounds me. The news that comes at me, at all of us, nonstop. I think about Newbury Center’s trees and fields and quiet and memories. How my parents left behind a life they’d built in a city and struck out for new land and traditions and community. The feeling of safety it reawakens in me, of recalling what we’d been given, soothes me in a world that feels increasingly provoked.</p><p>A resting place in Newbury Center waits for me. Yet a calling to return, perhaps sooner rather than later, whispers.</p></hr></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lamentations]]></title><description><![CDATA[I
The Answers
I ask the night,
but it has no answer,
except for this—
headlights and taillights remember, forget
passing through the dark;
snow falls in livid slants under streetlamp light.
I ask the day,
but it has no answer,
except for this—
no children play,
and adults are afraid.
I ask the crow,
but it has no answer,
except for this—
fly to night roost at the setting sun;
fly from night roost at its rising;
be black ink on a paper grey sky.
I ask the seagull,
but it has no answer,
except f]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lamentations/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523227</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheryl Loeffler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:44:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1588001303398-35b3313307c0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxmb2d8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc2OTE2&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1588001303398-35b3313307c0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxmb2d8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc2OTE2&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Lamentations"/><p><strong>I<br>The Answers</br></strong></p><p>I ask the night,<br>but it has no answer,<br>except for this—<br>headlights and taillights remember, forget<br>passing through the dark;<br>snow falls in livid slants under streetlamp light.<br>I ask the day,<br>but it has no answer,<br>except for this—<br>no children play,<br>and adults are afraid.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I ask the crow,<br>but it has no answer,<br>except for this—<br>fly to night roost at the setting sun;<br>fly from night roost at its rising;<br>be black ink on a paper grey sky.<br>I ask the seagull,<br>but it has no answer,<br>except for this—<br>let the winter wind carry you sideways,<br>far, far from the sea.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I ask the dusk;<br>it cries, Despair.<br>I ask the dawn;<br>it answers, Hope.</br></br></br></p><p>I fold the shirts you have no need of now,<br>buttoning the buttons,<br>soothing down the arms and back.</br></br></p><p><strong>II<br>Ways of Being Lonely</br></strong></p><p>Dawn is always hours away.<br>And it’s still winter, always winter.</br></p><p>The cold insinuates itself through a crack,<br>cooling coffee in a forgotten cup.</br></p><p>Water chokes through gurgling pipes.<br>The furnace ohms an alto A.<br>The fridge drones on, then off, then on.</br></br></p><p>A cut lemon blues with mold,<br>oranges transmute into morbidness,<br>and casseroles know endlessness.</br></br></p><p>The CBC runs earnest docs,<br>rightfully exiled to 3 a.m.</br></p><p>The coffee maker bleeps off.</p><p>Dawn is always hours away.<br>And it’s still winter, always winter.</br></p><p>I tiptoe through the empty flat,<br>forgetting that I can’t wake you.</br></p><p><strong>III<br>White Fog</br></strong></p><p>White fog shrouds everything<br>ten floors below as rain streams through<br>the open screened window. Obscures<br>the greening that you’ll never see.<br>Settles like death over life, over time,<br>over memory. Fades all to silence.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Anything At All]]></title><description><![CDATA[I could not run
fast enough
across our front lawn
on Denver Drive
toward my father’s bright
blue eyes
his outstretched arms
St. Augustine grass
thick around my toes
palm trees
swaying through
the salty sky
the joy
that surged through
my tiny body
as he picked
me up
to tell me
he loved me
my three-year-old
curls caressing
his sunburned cheek
Who could
have imagined
the disappointment
shame and sorrow
that would creep
between us
when Daddy stumbled across
our living room hardwoods
Winston in on]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/anything-at-all/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523228</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sallie Crotty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:43:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1574429549871-ecf3b8523655?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGxpdHRsZSUyMGdpcmwlMjBydW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc3MTcx&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1574429549871-ecf3b8523655?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGxpdHRsZSUyMGdpcmwlMjBydW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc3MTcx&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Anything At All"/><p>I could not run<br>fast enough<br>across our front lawn<br>on Denver Drive<br>toward my father’s bright<br>blue eyes<br>his outstretched arms<br>St. Augustine grass<br>thick around my toes<br>palm trees<br>swaying through<br>the salty sky<br>the joy<br>that surged through<br>my tiny body<br>as he picked<br>me up<br>to tell me<br>he loved me<br>my three-year-old<br>curls caressing<br>his sunburned cheek</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Who could<br>have imagined</br></p><p>the disappointment<br>shame and sorrow<br>that would creep<br>between us</br></br></br></p><p>when Daddy stumbled across<br>our living room hardwoods<br>Winston in one hand,<br>Jack Daniels and Coke in the other,<br>and I was fourteen gliding<br>through steps for my Saturday recital<br>my auburn braids flying with me<br>as he slurred his praise,<br>his grin sloppy with pride</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>these unwelcome<br>visits that came<br>too often<br>and</br></br></br></p><p>now the squeak of my soles<br>on the Comet-scrubbed floors<br>as I reach across<br>the rail of his bed<br>cold like his sallow cheeks<br>now empty of smile<br>the damp brush<br>of my lashes<br>against his forehead<br>as I pause<br>to see a blink<br>a quiver<br>anything at all<br>in those bright<br>blue eyes<br>gone now<br>to gray</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Invitation]]></title><description><![CDATA[At boarding school, I
the only Jew; the only
son of Abraham.
By fiat Baptist
come Sunday mornings.
Trays passed;
body and blood
from box to box—
bread, then wine.
The preacher robed
Genevan black
spoke of host.
Am I invited?
What kind of celebration may I attend?
Infant fore-skinned, how do I belong?
Dressed in charcoal Sunday grey
we’d walk from school
and file into latch-box pews.
The trees koyo, then bare,
then budding green:
resurrection nature’s idiom.
Unbaptized, unshriven, unsaved,
I ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/invitation/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523229</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kenneth Weene]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:43:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1610131635230-9c4afb6238b7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGNvbW11bmlvbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2NzczMzI&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1610131635230-9c4afb6238b7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGNvbW11bmlvbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2NzczMzI&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Invitation"/><p>At boarding school, I<br>the only Jew; the only<br>son of Abraham.<br>By fiat Baptist<br>come Sunday mornings.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Trays passed;<br>body and blood<br>from box to box—<br>bread, then wine.<br>The preacher robed<br>Genevan black<br>spoke of host.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><em>Am I invited? <br>What kind of celebration may I attend?<br>Infant fore-skinned, how do I belong?</br></br></em></p><p>Dressed in charcoal Sunday grey<br>we’d walk from school<br>and file into latch-box pews.<br>The trees koyo, then bare,<br>then budding green:<br>resurrection nature’s idiom.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Unbaptized, unshriven, unsaved,<br>I learned hymns<br>and prayed, chewed, swallowed god.</br></br></p><p><em>Who bakes holy matzo?<br>Jesus’s body. Mary Magdalene?</br></em></p><p>Does god love a party crasher?<br><em>Bring my own bitter herbs,<br>walk roads that do not pass<br>Damascus or Calvary.</br></br></em><br>After church we’d share<br>hard apple cider and laugh<br>at girls who squirmed<br>to look.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>There were a few<br>I would invite<br>had I but known<br>the party’s moment,<br>its final destination.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Luthier's Poem]]></title><description><![CDATA[Life happens
even to musicians
harmonize motets
birth death encores
At the library the homeless woman reads obituaries
wishes somebody might write hers
A blue sedan abandoned to weather
waits for a tow; crammed migrant occupants
picking produce flow north
Mayans from Guatemala search for pueblos,
sing in languages no one recalls
like Welsh Shamus Scot’s fiddle
Gaelic wailer of ancient odes
frame drum pipes
war chants mysteries Druid magic
blood trail written in squash, beans, corn
Appalachia]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-luthiers-poem/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852322a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kenneth Weene]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:43:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1510915361894-db8b60106cb1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGd1aXRhcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2Nzc1ODY&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1510915361894-db8b60106cb1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGd1aXRhcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2Nzc1ODY&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Luthier's Poem"/><p>Life happens<br>even to musicians<br>harmonize motets<br>birth death encores</br></br></br></p><p>At the library the homeless woman reads obituaries<br>wishes somebody might write hers</br></p><p>A blue sedan abandoned to weather<br>waits for a tow; crammed migrant occupants<br>picking produce flow north</br></br></p><p>Mayans from Guatemala search for pueblos,<br>sing in languages no one recalls<br>like Welsh Shamus Scot’s fiddle<br>Gaelic wailer of ancient odes<br>frame drum pipes<br>war chants mysteries Druid magic<br>blood trail written in squash, beans, corn</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Appalachian danced squares<br>moonshine love affairs feuds<br>Hatfields McCoys colliers’<br>hymns don’t get black lungs to heaven</br></br></br></p><p>too proud to bend<br>giddy-up fiddles<br>banjos do-si-do burlap and calico<br>worn from plowing</br></br></br></p><p>Guitar frets worn as the women<br>who toil in endless sun<br>rounded bridges carry overloaded SUVs<br>children dropped over an angry wall<br>Mariachi songs for bunioned feet<br>poverty<br>never retreat<br>rainbow serape<br>maracas, trumpets, bravado</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>or is the word machismo?</p><p>music language life<br>deep furrows souls</br></p><p>The birthday cake woman<br>wrapped in rags and Homberg<br>spits and coughs death’s rattle<br>lacks laces for castoff men’s shoes<br>hums a dirge from mother’s<br>funeral she cannot remember</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>A man, drunk by noon, sings<br>offers his bottle to a brother</br></p><p>Sympathetic strings reverberate;<br>next time comes around.</br></p><p>She uses yesterday’s newspaper<br>to sole her Goodwill wingtips<br>Rest assured, she ain’t going nowhere<br>just dancing to the music<br>no one else can hear.</br></br></br></br></p><p>On the border, the detention guard,<br>salvaged from Germany<br>says nada,<br>mutters, wonders<br>how many have crossed today<br>his great-grandmother played the zither<br>sang We Praise Thee, King of Kings,<br>In darkness when we waited</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Double Shifts]]></title><description><![CDATA[Carouselina slouches on a broken bench in a laundromat near her apartment. Hands vised in her lap, legs jittery about more than splinter stabs. Her least favorite chore is halfway done, thank God for tiny favors. She leans forward, snags a glimpse at two dryers several feet away. They’re still tossing her clothes around—half pissed about their job, half on a what-the-hell-let’s-finish-this cycle.
Like me, she thinks. I’m half here and half out the door. On my way to…
Nowhere. She slumps agains]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/double-shifts/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852322b</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Lewis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:42:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521656693074-0ef32e80a5d5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGxhdW5kcm9tYXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc3Njc2&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521656693074-0ef32e80a5d5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGxhdW5kcm9tYXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc3Njc2&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Double Shifts"/><p>Carouselina slouches on a broken bench in a laundromat near her apartment. Hands vised in her lap, legs jittery about more than splinter stabs. Her least favorite chore is halfway done, thank God for tiny favors. She leans forward, snags a glimpse at two dryers several feet away. They’re still tossing her clothes around—half pissed about their job, half on a what-the-hell-let’s-finish-this cycle.</p><p>Like me, she thinks. I’m half here and half out the door. On my way to…</p><p>Nowhere. She slumps against the window behind her, springs forward. The ooze from countless heads of hair gel smearing that window? Now it’s on her head. She could throw a damn good pity party right now. Maybe she ought to go in the room where her clothes are drying. Check how many minutes until the cycles end.</p><p>But then she’d come face-to-face with the two chicas who muscled her out of that room. As soon as she went to put her wet clothes in the dryers, the two of them slammed their bags onto the bench she’d emptied. Stared at her, shoved a try-it-bitch glare onto their light mocha faces. Scarlet lip gloss on smoochy mouths, painted eyebrows pointing up, then down like weapons. Tight jeans they must have held their breath to squeeze into, cropped tops with denim jackets, one sleeve slightly off the shoulder. Blinding white sneakers they either just got or spent hours cleaning, probably with old toothbrushes. Shooting what sounded definitely like hardcore half-threats in Spanish.</p><p>Carouselina puts them at late teens. Maybe they just got dumped from foster care. Spending their days stroking their phone screens, looking for anything. Looking for someplace legit to be on a weekday morning. She spots their empty garbage bags dangling over the bench. She pictures them walking around with the bags: defiant, desperate. Maybe they escaped a gang thing in Central America and they’re overcompensating.</p><p>She flips open a notebook in her head, scribbles “overcompensating” on a page of other Words That Fascinate, “chicas” and “smoochy” and others she wants to remember before they drift away. It’s a 20-year-old game she plays when she’s in the laundromat. To chase away boredom, stop flicking spitballs at where she is and isn’t, shoo shit that keeps buzzing at her. Always ready to remind her how close she is to the edge.</p><p>It nearly got her this morning. Nervous energy jack-knifing through her, upping the risk of splinters. Daring her to write down all the stuff in her head, like she keeps claiming she’s gonna do, someday. She pushes down on her knees to keep from jumping up. Going where, she couldn’t say. What little money she has, from a proofreading job that only took nine weeks to get paid for, she sank a lot of it into a plane ticket. Supposedly a good idea. At first. Head to DC for two nights. See a nephew get married—something she doubts will ever happen to her. Stay at a hotel. A friggin hotel, with a big bed and two, no four pillows. Premium channel TV. Maybe even room service, although that’s probably pushing your luck, C.</p><p>She’s about to ease ahead with her DC fantasy—what the hell, may as well, that’s what they’re for—when somebody’s voice breaks through in a smooth, clean way.</p><p>“And so I told her, I said, you can’t do better.” Mid-range tone, nothing remarkable.</p><p>Piques her curiosity. Do what better, C. wonders.</p><p>“You got that right. Girl, I’ve worked third or fourth shift for close to 15 years. Good pay. Nobody’s benefits are better.” A deeper tone, scratchy. Decades of cigarettes?</p><p>C. is fully perked. Ready to listen, gain some advice her bank account can use.</p><p>“Uh-huh.” Mid-range’s response is muted, her head level with a washer as she dumps clothes in. C. winces, her grimace hiding under her no-name baseball cap. The woman’s face is awfully close to touching the gunk circling the washer’s inner ring.</p><p>“Only two things I’d change. Never hardly get to see my kids. Have to trust God to take care of ’em while I’m at work. Sometimes I pull double shifts so I’m gone from 9 at night ’til now, then got laundry so time I get home—”</p><p>“They’re gone. I know. That’s why I moved to first or second shift. Did not like my husband spending all that time without me.” The wheels on a laundry cart argue with the linoleum floor as Mid-range scoots the rest of her clothes to another washer.</p><p>“Whole lotta trouble two Black kids can get wrapped around without me watching them. But what else can I do? Got rent to pay. Groceries to buy. Trying to save a bit.”</p><p>A dryer door slams shut. Coins pop in the slot.</p><p>“Pray, that’s what,” says Mid-range. “When all else fails . . .”</p><p>“Pray,” they tell each other in unison. Chuckles cool the tension of having to make do with next to nothing. C. knows.</p><p>The woman with the problems introduces herself. Thelma, she tells Mid-range. Loretta’s her name. She starts telling Thelma about the church she attends. Says it helps her feel a smidgen better. Just enough to get her and her husband through Sunday dinner, dessert and dishes. And then it’s back to that Monday stuff again.</p><p>Thelma says, “I got a bad back from hauling mail bags. Whoever’s thinking about a job at the post office? Tell ’em they need a mule’s back.”</p><p>C. likes the sound of them. She hadn’t thought about working at the post office. But it couldn’t join her fantasies—her back is too weak. She grabs her semi-legit laundry bags, one cloth, one recycled from plastic, doing extra duty for groceries and library books. Pushes off from the bench and heads back to where the chicas reign. Screw them and their hard eyes and tough words. She will play herself: a strong-spined woman with a bitch in reserve.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Caregivers]]></title><description><![CDATA[I once had a mother who loved me before
she fell into the ocean of lost words
and speech. We journey to play on the beach
where I lose sight of her on the horizon.
Grey clouds march across the sky. We are not
certain of the monsters they push in. Finding
ourselves unprepared, we run for shelter, seems
the smart thing to do before being plummeted
by memories. We leave a drowning blue bird
on a blue wave. It is hard to look into “old”
eyes, painful to see their disturbing questions
staring back.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/caregivers/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852322c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Annie Klier Newcomer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:41:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1636408244294-f0b1309f5422?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxzYW5kY2FzdGxlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2Nzc5NTQ&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1636408244294-f0b1309f5422?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxzYW5kY2FzdGxlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2Nzc5NTQ&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Caregivers"/><p>I once had a mother who loved me before<br>she fell into the ocean of lost words<br>and speech. We journey to play on the beach<br>where I lose sight of her on the horizon.</br></br></br></p><p>Grey clouds march across the sky. We are not<br>certain of the monsters they push in. Finding<br>ourselves unprepared, we run for shelter, seems<br>the smart thing to do before being plummeted<br>by memories. We leave a drowning blue bird</br></br></br></br></p><p>on a blue wave. It is hard to look into “old”<br>eyes, painful to see their disturbing questions<br>staring back. Best to pretend we don’t know<br>the answers. Instead we keep busy counting<br>our blessings, and our lists of accomplishments.</br></br></br></br></p><p>We travel alongside the Tin Man collect our heart<br>medal from the Wizard so we can get out<br>of this place. There is one, though, who stays<br>behind, who does the heavy lifting, who brings<br>mother’s hand to her lips, understanding</br></br></br></br></p><p>the value of touch. When it rains it pours<br>heartbreaks and the caregiver is there to mend them<br>in ways our loving “too much” causes us “too much”<br>pain. So she goes back, back to find what she<br>sees as life but we see as dying.</br></br></br></br></p><p>I thank God for the angels among us<br>who understand the “long good-bye”,<br>who see sandcastles in the sky<br>where others see storms.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Unsheltering]]></title><description><![CDATA[An excerpt from my diary on July 3, 2020
My husband bought me a motorcycle today.
He has the idea that we can pack our things
into tidy bundles, rev up motors,
already having found someone to love
and leave the pandemic behind,
as we outrace the upcoming Kansas City
hotspot of our present-day existence,
zooming off into a blazing saddles' prairie sunset.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/unsheltering/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852322d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Annie Klier Newcomer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:41:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558981806-ec527fa84c39?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1vdG9yY3ljbGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc4MDc4&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558981806-ec527fa84c39?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1vdG9yY3ljbGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc4MDc4&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Unsheltering"/><p><em>An excerpt from my diary on July 3, 2020</em></p><p>My husband bought me a motorcycle today.<br>He has the idea that we can pack our things<br>into tidy bundles, rev up motors,<br>already having found someone to love<br>and leave the pandemic behind,<br>as we outrace the upcoming Kansas City<br>hotspot of our present-day existence,<br>zooming off into a blazing saddles' prairie sunset.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Past Love (with apologies)]]></title><description><![CDATA[Her name is in my notes
in a journal at the bottom
of a cardboard box in the
back of a storage unit in
northeastern Oklahoma
and I am so sorry that my
age and Covid-brain have
made it temporarily impossible
to remember her name.
And I apologize to her.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-past-love-with-apologies/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852322f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:41:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1624137527136-66e631bdaa0e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGJveGVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY3MjY3ODM0NQ&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1624137527136-66e631bdaa0e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGJveGVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY3MjY3ODM0NQ&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Past Love (with apologies)"/><p>Her name is in my notes<br>in a journal at the bottom<br>of a cardboard box in the<br>back of a storage unit in<br>northeastern Oklahoma<br>and I am so sorry that my<br>age and Covid-brain have<br>made it temporarily impossible<br>to remember her name.<br>And I apologize to her.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Routine]]></title><description><![CDATA[For more than sixty years
I’ve had a subconscious
routine when I shower
Let water run over me
Shampoo my hair
Rinse then condition
Rinse then soap all over
Then final rinse
for sixty years
This morning I forgot
the routine and just
stood in the shower
with water running
over me and not sure
what to do next
How do I begin?
Where do I start?
What do I do first?
Why am I standing here?
I eventually stumbled
my way through and
made it out of the shower
But now for the first time
in my life I fe]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/routine/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852322e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:40:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520156353154-28a9c9d46098?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM2fHxzaG93ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc4MjA0&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520156353154-28a9c9d46098?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM2fHxzaG93ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc4MjA0&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Routine"/><p>For more than sixty years<br>I’ve had a subconscious<br>routine when I shower</br></br></p><p>Let water run over me<br>Shampoo my hair<br>Rinse then condition<br>Rinse then soap all over<br>Then final rinse</br></br></br></br></p><p>for sixty years</p><p>This morning I forgot<br>the routine and just<br>stood in the shower<br>with water running<br>over me and not sure<br>what to do next<br>How do I begin?<br>Where do I start?<br>What do I do first?<br>Why am I standing here?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I eventually stumbled<br>my way through and<br>made it out of the shower</br></br></p><p>But now for the first time<br>in my life I fear tomorrow’s<br>shower and the unknowable<br>when routine is no more</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Drift]]></title><description><![CDATA[by Todd Sukany
No wonder you take the high road as you whittle
words into a poem. You suggest: concentrate
on a task, say . . . shoveling snow in your driveway,
and let your mind fly like the powder,
blowing back to the area just vacated
by your red scoop. Focus that fine powder
swirling past your fogged, frosty glasses
and just before non-Sunday-appropriate
oaths join the ice fairies
that the wind puffs past your scarf, down your parka,
to mingle with the fat flanking your vertebrae.
At you]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-drift/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523230</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Todd Sukany]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:40:10 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1551582045-6ec9c11d8697?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fHNob3ZlbGluZyUyMHNub3d8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc4NjE5&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1551582045-6ec9c11d8697?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fHNob3ZlbGluZyUyMHNub3d8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc4NjE5&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Drift"/><p><strong>by Todd Sukany</strong></p><p>No wonder you take the high road as you whittle<br>words into a poem. You suggest: concentrate<br>on a task, say . . . shoveling snow in your driveway,</br></br></p><p>and let your mind fly like the powder,<br>blowing back to the area just vacated<br>by your red scoop. Focus that fine powder</br></br></p><p>swirling past your fogged, frosty glasses<br>and just before non-Sunday-appropriate<br>oaths join the ice fairies</br></br></p><p>that the wind puffs past your scarf, down your parka,<br>to mingle with the fat flanking your vertebrae.<br>At your leisure, you would, of course (or naturally),</br></br></p><p>begin to identify each vertebra by its Latin name,<br>harp some song about a random event<br>from childhood or adulthood or some other hood,</br></br></p><p>and make a tired reader type into the phone,<br>pro biscum latinatio expresso. Expresso is American<br>for espresso and yet, reader, you knew that.</br></br></p><p>Oh, the surprise of crema entering this poem<br>on a dark night before your summer celebration<br>sips away the blizzard of confusion. (Note how I</br></br></p><p>brought you back to the opening lines again<br>to remind you of snow blowing itself into<br>a healthy poem? Sweet conceit--get my drift?)</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Enjoying the Show]]></title><description><![CDATA[The way to Carnegie is left,
left, left, right. The path to the Gillioz
Theatre is slightly less known. More like
Google Satellite peers into downtown
Springfield (MO, of course) and there,
one can watch The Great Russian Ballet,
or probably more accurately,
a Russian troupe, headed by someone
whose lamb chops are dusted in
Thanksgiving flour. But the highlight
of the evening is granddaughter
in the aisle, lockstepping with a stage
full--the Doves of Peace, the Waltz
of the Flowers. She rais]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/enjoying-the-show/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523231</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Todd Sukany]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:39:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595348514401-eca68a3bea33?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM2fHxsaXR0bGUlMjBnaXJsJTIwYmFsbGV0fGVufDB8fHx8MTY3MjY3ODc5Ng&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595348514401-eca68a3bea33?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM2fHxsaXR0bGUlMjBnaXJsJTIwYmFsbGV0fGVufDB8fHx8MTY3MjY3ODc5Ng&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Enjoying the Show"/><p>The way to Carnegie is left,<br>left, left, right. The path to the Gillioz<br>Theatre is slightly less known. More like</br></br></p><p>Google Satellite peers into downtown<br>Springfield (MO, of course) and there,<br>one can watch The Great Russian Ballet,</br></br></p><p>or probably more accurately,<br>a Russian troupe, headed by someone<br>whose lamb chops are dusted in</br></br></p><p>Thanksgiving flour. But the highlight<br>of the evening is granddaughter<br>in the aisle, lockstepping with a stage</br></br></p><p>full--the Doves of Peace, the Waltz<br>of the Flowers. She raises both hands<br>into a blossom above her head</br></br></p><p>and I feel her left hand circle<br>my right to complete the move,<br>never blinking, never dropping concentration.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dancing in the Dark]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was socially acceptable in the 1970s for two women to dance together. They danced together in nightclubs, street fairs, and on telecasts of the popular American Bandstand show.
The same was not true for men dancing together. It was so taboo that when I lived in Memphis in the 70s, it was illegal for two men to dance together. I don’t know if it was a city law or a state law, but it was one that was enforced in Memphis. Arrests did take place. Four male couples were arrested for dancing toget]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dancing-in-the-dark/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523233</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:39:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523023667263-31495ae5321f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDczfHxkaXNjb3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2NzkxODE&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523023667263-31495ae5321f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDczfHxkaXNjb3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2NzkxODE&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dancing in the Dark"/><p>It was socially acceptable in the 1970s for two women to dance together. They danced together in nightclubs, street fairs, and on telecasts of the popular American Bandstand show.</p><p>The same was not true for men dancing together. It was so taboo that when I lived in Memphis in the 70s, it was illegal for two men to dance together. I don’t know if it was a city law or a state law, but it was one that was enforced in Memphis. Arrests did take place. Four male couples were arrested for dancing together at a bar, the Closet, and the arrests were reported in the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper.</p><p>My partner Dick and I enjoyed dancing. On weekends we went to a bar called the Psych-Out on North Cleveland in Memphis. The bar closed at midnight on Saturday. However, no one left the bar at closing time. The tables were cleared from the center of the floor, doors were locked, and we would have a “private dance party.” The cops were aware of what was happening inside the bar and would periodically show up.</p><p>The bar owner kept a lookout on duty and if the cops pulled into the bar’s parking lot, lights inside the bar would flicker on and off. Everyone would quit dancing. By the time the cops were let in, we were all seated. After the cops left, everyone once again danced.</p><p>The popular ‘70s song, “Miss American Pie,” was a favorite of the bar patrons. When that song played, everyone would stand together, place arms over shoulders, and form a huge circle. The circle, with up to 40 guys in the formation, would then go round and round in the bar. We whirled around the room for the entire length of the eight minute song, locked together, having a great time. We were young and reckless, and enjoying an activity that was perhaps made more exciting because it was illegal. We were brothers, arm in arm, sharing a secret that involved more than dancing.</p><p>We would dance all night long. At dawn, we left the bar, and several of us would go to the Ohman Inn, a diner on Union Ave, where we ate breakfast and made plans to do it all again the following weekend.</p><p><em>“While the sergeants played a marching tune, We all got up to dance,”</em> American Pie.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mini Chocolate Silk Tartlets]]></title><description><![CDATA[Crust Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
½ cup unsalted butter, cut into small cubes and softened
3 tablespoons heavy cream
Crust Instructions:
1. Preheat oven at 400°F. Lightly spray a 12-count cupcake tin.
2. Whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl or food processor bowl.
3. Add butter, and blend together until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.
4. Add cream; stir until crumbs are damp and hold together.
5. Divide mixture into ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mini-chocolate-silk-tartlets/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523232</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:38:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1645752612050-11387096849c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGNob2NvbGF0ZSUyMHRhcnRsZXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc4OTEy&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1645752612050-11387096849c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGNob2NvbGF0ZSUyMHRhcnRsZXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc4OTEy&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Mini Chocolate Silk Tartlets"/><p><strong>Crust Ingredients:</strong></p><p>1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour<br>½ teaspoon salt<br>1 teaspoon sugar<br>½ cup unsalted butter, cut into small cubes and softened<br>3 tablespoons heavy cream</br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>Crust Instructions:</strong></p><ol><li>Preheat oven at 400°F. Lightly spray a 12-count cupcake tin.</li><li>Whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl or food processor bowl.</li><li>Add butter, and blend together until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.</li><li>Add cream; stir until crumbs are damp and hold together.</li><li>Divide mixture into 12 parts, and pat into 12-count cupcake tin covering bottom and sides of each cup.</li><li>Bake in oven at 400°F oven until crust is golden for about 10 -12 minutes.</li><li>Let cool completely before filling.</li><li/></ol><p><strong>Filling Ingredients:</strong></p><p>2/3 cup granulated sugar<br>2 eggs<br>2 ounces unsweetened chocolate<br>1 teaspoon vanilla extract<br>1/3 cup butter, softened<br>2/3 cup heavy cream<br>1 tablespoon powdered sugar<br>Whipped cream for garnish</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>Filling Instructions:</strong></p><ol><li>In a small saucepan, combine sugar and eggs until well-blended.</li><li>Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture reaches 160°F and coats the back of spoon.</li><li>Remove from heat; stir in chocolate and vanilla until smooth.</li><li>Cool to lukewarm about 90°F; stir occasionally.</li><li>In a small bowl, cream butter until light and fluffy.</li><li>Add cooled chocolate mixture; beat on high speed for 5 minutes until light and fluffy.</li><li>In large bowl, beat cream until it begins to thicken.</li><li>Add powdered sugar; beat until stiff peaks form.</li><li>Fold in chocolate mixture.</li><li>Pour evenly into crusts.</li><li>Chill for 6 hours before garnishing and serving.</li></ol><p>Makes 12 mini tartlets.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Hear of the Mockingbirds Songs No More]]></title><description><![CDATA[by Thadeus Emmanuel
Where has the morning mockingbird gone with its songs—
Those exciting rhythm and blues of melodious symphonies?
For I hear no more of their mellowing whispers;
that comes through my open window panes at every dawn,
When the cooling gentle breeze of the morning blows.
Or was it all a lonely wandering music maker;
That has lost its home to the glooms of the day,
And now left with the cold; that shows no mercy
Even at its fluffing feathers to catch the warm?
Or was it all a lon]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-hear-of-the-mockingbirds-songs-no-more/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523234</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Thadeus Emmanuel]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:38:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1601828519833-892648ce83f1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fG1vY2tpbmdiaXJkfGVufDB8fHx8MTY3MjY3OTM3Mg&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1601828519833-892648ce83f1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fG1vY2tpbmdiaXJkfGVufDB8fHx8MTY3MjY3OTM3Mg&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="I Hear of the Mockingbirds Songs No More"/><p><strong>by Thadeus Emmanuel</strong></p><p>Where has the morning mockingbird gone with its songs—<br>Those exciting rhythm and blues of melodious symphonies?<br>For I hear no more of their mellowing whispers;<br>that comes through my open window panes at every dawn,<br>When the cooling gentle breeze of the morning blows.<br>Or was it all a lonely wandering music maker;<br>That has lost its home to the glooms of the day,<br>And now left with the cold; that shows no mercy<br>Even at its fluffing feathers to catch the warm?<br>Or was it all a lonely lost mockingbird<br>Making vocal concerts on the balcony of anxiety,<br>And now waiting for a loved one to lead its way home?<br>Perhaps, if for these reasons the mockingbird sings no more<br>Tell it my restless mornings have missed its sounds;<br>Those exciting rhythm and blues of melodious symphonies.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What Kind of House Are You Now?]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’m a bungalow with an airplane wing
too hot to inhabit except in winter.
Did I mention I could fly?
I’m a rambling ranch going to town
and back to the country again
to plop myself down in a den of sunflowers,
annuals with faces large as platters to face
down the darkness until we all turn to sleep.
I’m a Victorian in great disrepair
on the edge of what was once a great dome
of a city. It rains here, mostly drizzle now
that we’ve lost our thunder, but in the flash
of moon every October, my att]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/what-kind-of-house-are-you-now/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523235</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:37:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1533683966861-0855eea0d4b1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDYzfHxvbGQlMjBob3VzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2Nzk1NDU&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1533683966861-0855eea0d4b1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDYzfHxvbGQlMjBob3VzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2Nzk1NDU&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="What Kind of House Are You Now?"/><p>I’m a bungalow with an airplane wing<br>too hot to inhabit except in winter.<br>Did I mention I could fly?</br></br></p><p>I’m a rambling ranch going to town<br>and back to the country again<br>to plop myself down in a den of sunflowers,<br>annuals with faces large as platters to face<br>down the darkness until we all turn to sleep.</br></br></br></br></p><p>I’m a Victorian in great disrepair<br>on the edge of what was once a great dome<br>of a city. It rains here, mostly drizzle now<br>that we’ve lost our thunder, but in the flash<br>of moon every October, my attic ignites<br>into a miniature circus of curious and lost<br>toys come home to roost and play.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I’m a yurt full of flies in summer,<br>a dusting of snow in winter,<br>three sets of bunk beds but always<br>enough blankets, which is good<br>since I live at higher elevation than most<br>humans can stand, and I love the solitude.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I’m a house of dreams draped in snow,<br>my roof starting to sag, but look what comes!<br>Crows large as house cats, tiny juncos afraid<br>of nothing, female cardinals with their orange<br>tails and tailwinds propelling them and all<br>the others to my bird feeders spilling<br>across the yard, welcoming everyone.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Winter Solstice]]></title><description><![CDATA[When the short days feel
inexpressible. When
nothing's left of fall. When
the dark entry of winter makes
each of us shrink. When
relatives finally call.
Some of us burrow. Some
of us bake. Some of us
leave the year behind.
Some of us take. Some of us
travel into the cold,
ice, and snow—the moon's
crescent reminding us to go
easy. We've been here before.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/winter-solstice/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523236</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ken Waldman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:37:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1613228178639-2320fadb85d7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHdpbnRlciUyMG1vb258ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc5NjI5&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1613228178639-2320fadb85d7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHdpbnRlciUyMG1vb258ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc5NjI5&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Winter Solstice"/><p>When the short days feel <br>inexpressible. When <br>nothing's left of fall. When <br>the dark entry of winter makes <br>each of us shrink. When <br>relatives finally call.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Some of us burrow. Some <br>of us bake. Some of us <br>leave the year behind. <br>Some of us take. Some of us <br>travel into the cold, <br>ice, and snow—the moon's <br>crescent reminding us to go <br>easy. We've been here before.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Madonna of the Matilijas]]></title><description><![CDATA[Looking out my window, I see the Madonna blessing the white Matilija poppy on my windowsill. It's a showy flower baroque petals, paper thin; glowing golden heart the kind of thing she's used to. They grow wild in the empty lot next door.
A hundred decades of unanswered prayers echo through my brain. Hail Mary, full of grace… Please let… Please make… Please get… Please take… Candles flicker; stale whiff of incense, beeswax, hair oil and perfumed soap. Shabby coats brushed, shoes polished, hair s]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/madonna-of-the-matilijas/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523237</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Christine Irving]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:37:10 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1627021588762-80864d6d9c0e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fE1hdGlsaWphJTIwcG9wcHl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc5NzM0&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1627021588762-80864d6d9c0e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fE1hdGlsaWphJTIwcG9wcHl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc5NzM0&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Madonna of the Matilijas"/><p>Looking out my window, I see the Madonna blessing the white Matilija poppy on my windowsill. It's a showy flower baroque petals, paper thin; glowing golden heart the kind of thing she's used to. They grow wild in the empty lot next door.</p><p>A hundred decades of unanswered prayers echo through my brain. Hail Mary, full of grace… Please let… Please make… Please get… Please take… Candles flicker; stale whiff of incense, beeswax, hair oil and perfumed soap. Shabby coats brushed, shoes polished, hair slicked back, whatever the poor can do to impress the Queen of Heaven.</p><p>Holding my breath, I slide the long nail of my index finger, filed thin for just this purpose, beneath a scale of skin and pick it off my arm. Geese trail sad goodbyes across a blue sky. A car honks on the street below. Somewhere a door slams. My collection of blue glass quivers on the sill.</p><p>Sound waves move in tiny shocks of pain across my naked skin. Rosy welts blossom at their touch, itching, twitching, screaming to be scratched. She watches me rip myself. Bare-assed and blotchy, I blush beneath her tranquil gaze.</p><p>Aggravated by prickling sweat, a red itch blooms in the tender inside fold behind my elbow. It burns and swells, demanding surcease. Denied release, the tortured skin cracks and oozes, trickling thin rivers of platelets and plasma. Like lengths of frayed red ribbon, they spill along my forearm, pool crimson in my up-turned palm.</p><p>Mary isn't expecting it, the scarlet spot like a bright nail hole. A tiny tsunami travels across the fixed sweet smile; a moue of grief, a flicker of rage. Lest she be troubled, I ease across the floor, sliding each flat sole in careful increments across the waxed boards.</p><p>There’s always water everywhere. I pay Charlotte, the little girl downstairs, fifty cents a day to fill bath, basins, wide-mouthed jugs, bowls, pans and platters. She tops them up once a day while I hide behind the screen in the corner. Water sometimes drowns the itch. I spend hours in the bath, reading and writing, sipping whisky from a jelly jar.</p><p>Reaching the nearest vessel, I plunge my arms up to the elbows. Liquid works its magic once again. Inundated in relief, I cry a little then lift my hands to show her.</p><p>The teapot whistles. Startled, I flinch. My skin tingles, nothing more.</p><p>Our Lady steps across my windowsill, brushing past the poppy to pour. The itch subsides. I sit naked across the table from her, sipping Earl Grey. She speaks Spanglish with a soft lisp. We tell knock-knock jokes and eat two jelly donuts that a small attending angel drops in her lap sometime through the second pot of tea.</p><p>She cries about the crucifixion. I tell her about the crib death of my little boy. It gets hazy after that. I remember poppies in the bath water. She holds my hand while the angel pours boiling water from the teapot into the tub. She washes me head to foot. She swaddles me in soaking linen sheets. I sleep.</p><p>I wake to shadows. Geese trail sad goodbyes across a pale sky. A car honks on the street below. Somewhere, a door slams. My collection of blue glass quivers on the sill. I touch my skin, soft as a baby, tender and luminous in the evening light. Soon, I will dress myself, walk to the cathedral and light a candle.</p><p>Hail Mary, full of grace...</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[One-Dish Dinner: Pork with Blueberries and Cream]]></title><description><![CDATA[Serves 2
1/2 – 3/4 hour to prep and cook
2 medium Yukon gold potatoes cut bite-size
* Throw potatoes in cold water and bring to boil.
* Boil 8-10 minutes while preparing rest of dish.
Splash of oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 servings pork cut in bite size pieces ( I use two thick boneless loin chops)
I large onion chopped
I/2 sweet red pepper chopped
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
Ground cumin to taste
2 or 3 large handfuls of greens (more if you like, I prefer spinach)
dash or two Pickapeppa (my ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/one-dish-dinner-pork-with-blueberries-and-cream/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523238</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Christine Irving]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:36:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502621066348-0e0b0a6d35c9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGJsdWViZXJyaWVzJTIwY3JlYW18ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc5OTAw&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502621066348-0e0b0a6d35c9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGJsdWViZXJyaWVzJTIwY3JlYW18ZW58MHx8fHwxNjcyNjc5OTAw&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="One-Dish Dinner: Pork with Blueberries and Cream"/><p>Serves 2<br>1/2 – 3/4 hour to prep and cook</br></p><p>2 medium Yukon gold potatoes cut bite-size</p><ul><li>Throw potatoes in cold water and bring to boil.</li><li>Boil 8-10 minutes while preparing rest of dish.</li></ul><p>Splash of oil<br>1 tsp cumin seeds<br>2 servings pork cut in bite size pieces ( I use two thick boneless loin chops)<br>I large onion chopped<br>I/2 sweet red pepper chopped<br>2 cloves garlic finely chopped<br>Ground cumin to taste<br>2 or 3 large handfuls of greens (more if you like, I prefer spinach)<br>dash or two Pickapeppa (my preference) sauce or green tabasco<br>1/3 cup blueberries<br>2 tbsp. heavy cream<br>2 tbsp. blueberry (or other flavor) BBQ sauce</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><ul><li>Heat oil till hot. Add cumin seeds and give a quick stir.</li><li>Throw in pork and stir-fry at high temp till just cooked through.</li><li>Remove pork and seeds to dish. Reduce heat.</li><li>Add another dash of oil and onions – sauté till translucent.</li><li>Add peppers and garlic, sauté till peppers soften.</li><li>Sprinkle with ground cumin to taste (optional).</li><li>Add greens and stir till leaves wilt.</li><li>Drain potatoes and add to pan, mix gently.</li><li>Return pork to pan, stir till hot.</li><li>Add blueberries, stir gently till blueberries glisten and warm.</li><li>Mix cream with BBQ sauce and stir into mix. Heat till hot. Dish and serve immediately.</li></ul><p>Alternatively boil potatoes just until tender before stir-frying pork meat. Let potatoes drain while meat cooks. Add a tsp each oil and butter to hot pan after removing pork and fry potatoes till they get a bit of color. Remove potatoes, lower heat and continue with recipe. Return potatoes and pork to pan together before adding cream. (I once substituted chicken for pork, but it’s not as flavorful or satisfying).</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Your Hands]]></title><description><![CDATA[by Carra Leah Hood
disappearing part by part first
hands then feet then chin then mouth the way
I smile your smile upper and lower
molars clenched leaving a gap between
incisors that cuts my lip when you eat
popcorn and call my name from inside
a dream or a shadow slinking away
from view into view and then you are
gone and touching silence you become
me becoming you disappearing]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/your-hands/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523239</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carra Leah Hood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:36:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1586423669195-d9df98e5a20e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxoYW5kc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2Nzk5ODM&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1586423669195-d9df98e5a20e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxoYW5kc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2Nzk5ODM&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="Your Hands"/><p><strong>by Carra Leah Hood</strong></p><p>disappearing part by part first</p><p>hands then feet then chin then mouth the way</p><p>I smile your smile upper and lower</p><p>molars clenched leaving a gap between</p><p>incisors that cuts my lip when you eat</p><p>popcorn and call my name from inside</p><p>a dream or a shadow slinking away</p><p>from view into view and then you are</p><p>gone and touching silence you become</p><p>me becoming you disappearing</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Winter Morning]]></title><description><![CDATA[blue skies and winter sunshine
moves me forward
as I sit here framed in light
bathed in morning’s warmth
as full glass windows hold out the cold
while also holding all of Lake Ann’s Bear Cove
a blanket of diamond sparkles lights up the waters
moving in quick time across the lake — seemingly, forever moving towards me
in such a delightful dance
pulling me
straight up to
blue skies,
my spirit rises
and I standing bare
stark and naked
pale against a winter sunshine
if for only a moment
free . . ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-winter-morning/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852323a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:35:28 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1613228983343-943b5bd48348?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHx3aW50ZXIlMjBsYWtlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY3MjY4MDEzMA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1613228983343-943b5bd48348?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHx3aW50ZXIlMjBsYWtlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY3MjY4MDEzMA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Winter Morning"/><p>blue skies and winter sunshine<br>moves me forward<br>as I sit here framed in light<br>bathed in morning’s warmth<br>as full glass windows hold out the cold<br>while also holding all of Lake Ann’s Bear Cove</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>a blanket of diamond sparkles lights up the waters<br>moving in quick time across the lake — seemingly, forever moving towards me<br>in such a delightful dance<br>pulling me<br>straight up to<br>blue skies,<br>my spirit rises</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>and I standing bare<br>stark and naked<br>pale against a winter sunshine</br></br></p><p>if for only a moment<br>free . . .</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Checklist for Dying]]></title><description><![CDATA[by Vicki Mayk
Get a notebook. It doesn’t have to be fancy, the hospice nurse says. A spiral one -- the kind kids use in school -- will do. Pick the cheerful blue one. Use it to make a list in case your emotions get the better of you – or because you are moving robotically through the day due to exhaustion from getting up during the night to check on your mother. Just consult the list. No memory required. It works nicely to record the daily duties that are the equivalent of laying bricks on the ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-checklist-for-dying/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852323b</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Vicki Mayk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:34:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1625937712842-061738bb1e2a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1Mnx8c291cHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2ODAzODc&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1625937712842-061738bb1e2a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1Mnx8c291cHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NzI2ODAzODc&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Checklist for Dying"/><p><strong>by Vicki Mayk</strong></p><p>Get a notebook. It doesn’t have to be fancy, the hospice nurse says. A spiral one -- the kind kids use in school -- will do. Pick the cheerful blue one. Use it to make a list in case your emotions get the better of you – or because you are moving robotically through the day due to exhaustion from getting up during the night to check on your mother. Just consult the list. No memory required. It works nicely to record the daily duties that are the equivalent of laying bricks on the path to the grave.</p><p>Administer the medicine. Count the pills looking like brightly colored beads into the day-of-the-week pill case. Prime the injection for the dose of insulin that Mom insists on giving herself – her last opportunity for self-sufficiency.</p><p>Ignore the bruises. The marks, blue-black and purple on her paper-thin skin, are necessary. They confirm attempts to handle the pain, balance blood sugar, remain among the living.</p><p>Make the appointments. Oncologist. Chemo. Blood work. Coordinate the schedule so that everyone in the family knows who is driving to what appointment on which day. Never miss a day of work while ensuring Mom never misses an appointment.</p><p>Drive to chemo appointment. Engage in idle chat on the way to the doctor’s office, distracting Mom with a story about Aunt Betty and her drinking. “She drinks, she smokes and she’s going to out-live all of us,” Mom declares in a tone that indicates she finds this unfair. Switch to describing the antics of your dog, Barkley, who she refers to as her grand dog. This will help her to avoid anticipating the miserable hours watching drugs, the equivalent of poison, drip into her veins. Pull up close to the building’s entrance and help her out, then go to park the car and scurry back so you can ride the elevator up with her, holding her arm gently as she exits and totters toward the oncologist’s office door.</p><p>Make chicken soup. It’s the one thing she can eat, even on the days when chemo sours the stomach and wrecks her appetite. Peel and chop the carrots. Dice the onion. Thinly slice the celery. Pull chicken from the carcass. Add it all to the chicken broth and simmer until the kitchen is fragrant and there’s no scent of decay.</p><p>Clean the television screen. This guarantees a clear picture for Mom’s viewing pleasure. There’s nothing like “Dancing With The Stars” to distract an 85-year-old woman with lung cancer. It’s not exactly the dancing that distracts her. It’s Maxim Shmerkofsky, the handsome Russian ballroom dancer, who takes her mind off her disease. Later you’ll remember what Mom always said when she saw him: “He can put his shoes under my bed any day.”</p><p>Do the laundry. Mom’s soft pajamas, feminine and trimmed with lace, pass through your hands from the laundry bag to the washing machine. Pretreat the stains. Add the detergent. Wash and dry. Fold them like the relics they soon will become, laying them with reverence back in the drawer.</p><p>Make the arrangements. This is another suggestion from the nurse who told you to get the notebook. Do it now, while Mom is still alive, she says. This euphemism for visiting the undertaker and picking out the box for her ashes doesn’t make it any less grim. The nurse tells you that you’ll be glad you didn’t wait to do this chore. Nothing about it makes you glad.</p><p>Call her friends. It’s important to do this while she’s still lucid enough to enjoy the conversations. Get out the address book with the picture of the cute puppy on the front. Begin to methodically go through the list of friends. Follow the letters of the alphabet: They lead you to names signifying life-long relationships. Call them first. Dial the numbers and hand Mom the phone. She doesn’t tell her friends that she’s calling them for the last time. You don’t either.</p><p>Watch her die. She falls asleep one day and is never awake again. The hospice nurses call it actively dying. Months later you’ll try to remember the last conversation you had with her.</p><p>Listen. Play the last message Mom left on your cell phone. Repeat over and over again. Hear her voice reminding you that she needs you to go to the bank for her. Remember when you added that chore to the blue notebook.</p><p>Adjust to the loss. You can’t. You wonder what you’re going to do now that you’ve got all this time on your hands.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 17: Winter 2023]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Friends of eMerge,
Welcome to 2023.
I am so grateful to be bringing you another issue of eMerge, filled with poetry, prose, and recipes that can brighten these cold winter afternoons. In these digital pages you can find meditations on winter, mortality, and a willingness to celebrate life at every age and stage.
eMerge is published with the generous support of the Board of Directors and the staff at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow. Our website is designed and managed by Cat Templeton]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-17-winter-2023/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523225</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2023]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joy Clark]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:19:52 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Dear Friends of eMerge,</p><p><em>Welcome to 2023.</em></p><p>I am so grateful to be bringing you another issue of eMerge, filled with poetry, prose, and recipes that can brighten these cold winter afternoons. In these digital pages you can find meditations on winter, mortality, and a willingness to celebrate life at every age and stage.</p><p>eMerge is published with the generous support of the Board of Directors and the staff at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow. Our website is designed and managed by Cat Templeton, who makes <em>eMerge </em>possible. A special thanks to everyone who submitted work for consideration during our last submission period--it was an honor to read your work. Thank you so much for helping us grow this little literary corner of the internet.</p><p>May your year ahead hold wonders and joy unforeseen. May you read some poetry and prose that invigorates your soul like a good cup of joe. May you find connection in unexpected places and know that, no matter what this year looks like for you, you are not alone.</p><p>All the best,</p><p>Joy Clark</p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Christmas Eve Dinner]]></title><description><![CDATA[Annie stood outside the arrivals area of terminal 4, Kennedy Airport, her hands already numb from the dreaded cold in New York City. She was waiting for a cab to take her to Chinatown where her grandmother lived in some rent-controlled dump.
Annie was in New York because she had nowhere else to go for Christmas. Her parents won a cruise for two in some sweepstakes drawing and were gone for two weeks. Annie didn’t want to spend Christmas alone, so she came to visit the only other family she had.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/christmas-eve-dinner/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523211</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Fred Yu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:27:10 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525264981833-4da3440fb6e7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxjaHJpc3RtYXMlMjBsaWdodHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgxODYx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525264981833-4da3440fb6e7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxjaHJpc3RtYXMlMjBsaWdodHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgxODYx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Christmas Eve Dinner"/><p>Annie stood outside the arrivals area of terminal 4, Kennedy Airport, her hands already numb from the dreaded cold in New York City. She was waiting for a cab to take her to Chinatown where her grandmother lived in some rent-controlled dump.</p><p>Annie was in New York because she had nowhere else to go for Christmas. Her parents won a cruise for two in some sweepstakes drawing and were gone for two weeks. Annie didn’t want to spend Christmas alone, so she came to visit the only other family she had. The annoying grandmother in New York who always smelled like medicinal oils and didn’t speak a word of English.</p><p>It took only a few minutes before her grandmother started nagging her about grades and boys. She rolled her eyes, aware that she made a big mistake coming to New York for the holidays. This would last all week. She threw on her coat, her grandmother still droning on behind her, and headed into the city.</p><p>It was Christmas Eve and there were many places to go, but some friends told her that a dive bar in the West Village had the best wings and tater tots. That’s where she would go to first.</p><p>It was still early in the day so the place wasn’t crowded. Annie ordered her food and sat down by the window. She checked her phone but no one sent her any texts. All her friends were home for the holidays.</p><p>“Are you Japanese?”</p><p>Annie looked up and saw an old man, seated by himself at the next table, looking at her. “I’m Chinese,” she responded.</p><p>“You look Japanese,” the old man said.</p><p>Annie turned back to her phone. “Whatever.”</p><p>“I had a Japanese friend once.”</p><p>“Yeah?” she asked, not paying attention. “What happened to him?”</p><p>“I don’t know. I don’t know his name and I’ve never spoken to him before.”</p><p>“What did you, meet him in some S&M chatroom?” Annie glanced at him once with a sneer and turned back to her phone.</p><p>“We didn’t have the internet then. This was in 1942. I was a marine in Guadalcanal.”</p><p>“1942?” Annie looked up for a moment. “What is that, like World War I?”</p><p>The old man smiled. “I’m not that old. World War II.”</p><p>Annie looked back at her phone. She was trying to text her boyfriend but the reception was bad in this dive.</p><p>The old man turned and stared out the window, emitting a deep sigh. “We were there to fight the Japanese. We landed in October, and by December, we had the Japs by the throat. They were outnumbered and they didn’t have food or supplies. We were already hoping to go home for Christmas. But the Japs were resilient. They held on.”</p><p>“Uh huh,” Annie said, pretending to pay attention. There was finally signal and she was hoping the old man would shut up so she could focus on her text.</p><p>“It was Christmas eve,” the old man continued. “One guy still had a bottle of bourbon and we shared it. We partied. I had some bourbon with the boys on Christmas Eve. We slept very well that night.</p><p>“I woke up with a bad headache in the middle of the night. There was someone else in my tent. I thought it was one of the guys getting up to use the john, but I looked carefully, and it was an enemy soldier. He was all alone, and he was going through my stuff.”</p><p>Annie looked away from her phone then and turned to the old man.</p><p>“I grabbed my sidearm and pointed it at his head. He froze. Then I saw what he was stealing. He was after my food. He must not have eaten in a week.”</p><p>“Did you shoot him?”</p><p>The old man shook his head. “I lowered my pistol. I pointed to the food, pointed to him, and waved for him to get out of there. Let him eat tonight. Our bombers have been pounding their positions for weeks. He may be dead the next day. Why not let the guy eat.”</p><p>Annie was silent. She placed her phone in her handbag.</p><p>“The next day was Christmas day, and we were making a push up this hill that the enemy were holed up in. But someone made a mistake and we walked right into an ambush. I didn’t know what was going on. Someone stepped on a landmine and then, bullets were flying from all directions. I was hit in the leg and I had shrapnel in my back. I couldn’t move at all. My group was getting wiped out and the enemy was running right through us. I forced myself behind a bush and tried to stay hidden. One Jap ran right past me, and then turned around to stab me with his bayonet. But he stopped. I looked at him. I recognized him. He recognized me. He stole my food just a few hours ago.”</p><p>“You gave him the food,” Annie said, quietly.</p><p>“I did. He lowered his rifle, he took a step back, and he shouted something in Japanese. I guess he said something like “all clear”. I don’t know what he said. He gave me one last look and ran off. I never saw him again.”</p><p>“And that’s your Japanese friend?”</p><p>The old man smiled. “A friend I shared dinner with on Christmas eve.”</p><p>“Where do you think he is now?”</p><p>“Probably dead,” the old man said, shaking his head. “We were killing them in Guadalcanal. Even if he survived, he’s probably dead by now.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“I’m 91. How old would he be?”</p><p>“You’re really 91? What are you doing in a bar?”</p><p>“Having some bourbon with the boys on Christmas eve. So I can sleep well tonight.”</p><p>“That’s nice,” Annie said, her voice low. “That’s nice that you remember your friends like that. And then you go home for Christmas Eve dinner.”</p><p>“Oh, I won’t eat at home tonight. Dinner is cheap at the senior citizen’s center.”</p><p>“But, aren’t you supposed to have dinner with…”</p><p>“She passed on. She left six years ago. Six years, three months, twenty-four days ago.”</p><p>“Oh my God…”</p><p>The waiter stopped by with the old man’s check. He slowly counted out some cash to pay for his bourbon before turning to Annie again. “It was good talking to you, young lady. Enjoy those tater tots.”</p><p>“Sir, um. Are you all alone tonight?”</p><p>“Oh no. I have my radio. I listen to the news, political commentary. I have my routine.”</p><p>“All night?”</p><p>“I turn it on at 2 AM. The city is really quiet at 2 AM.”</p><p>The old man climbed to his feet, reaching for his cane, and headed for the door. Annie wanted to say something else to him, wanted to invite him over for Christmas dinner at least. But she was just a visitor herself. She watched his lanky figure slowly push through the door and disappear into the streets of New York.</p><p>That night, Annie could not sleep a wink. She thought of the old man’s Japanese friend, an enemy soldier that they were almost destined to meet in battle. And yet, without knowing the man’s name, seventy years later, the old man still considered him a friend. She wondered whether many years later, this old man whom she forgot to ask his name, would still be her friend.</p><p>She turned to the digital clock against the windowsill and noticed that it was already 2 AM. The city really was awfully quiet. She wanted to turn on the radio to hear what the old man would be listening to. There was no radio nearby. She tried to download an app on her phone so she could get radio signal, but after several attempts, gave up. There was no app that would help her hear what the old man was listening to. It was futile.</p><p>Annie sat back and threw her phone into her bag. On Christmas Eve, the old man was all alone thinking about a friend he did not know the name of. And so was she.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tides for Sale]]></title><description><![CDATA[Static time
Big old stupid city
On the embankment of rug and tassel
What could lap
At a shore this old
But pruned and petted candies
Strings of sponge
From tops of heads
A boat rocks aside: a hand meets charge: a tide shifts: a mountain learns a new name
Water doesn’t need to set aside time
To say yes
It laps it over and over again with nothing to count
An ancient time can now be pixels
But don’t forget to bring your enchanted gloves
The water hurts but it must be bottled
In line for s]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/tides-for-sale/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852320d</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Violet Treadwell Hull]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:27:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504461448709-66979b4fc7b7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHRpZGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgxMDc5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504461448709-66979b4fc7b7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHRpZGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgxMDc5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Tides for Sale"/><p>Static time<br>Big old stupid city</br></p><p>On the embankment of rug and tassel</p><p>What could lap<br>At a shore this old</br></p><p>But pruned and petted candies</p><p>Strings of sponge<br>From tops of heads</br></p><p>A boat rocks aside: a hand meets charge: a tide shifts: a mountain learns a new name</p><p>Water doesn’t need to set aside time<br>To say yes</br></p><p>It laps it over and over again with nothing to count</p><p>An ancient time can now be pixels<br>But don’t forget to bring your enchanted gloves</br></p><p>The water hurts but it must be bottled</p><p>In line for sparks<br>Outline the scores</br></p><p>Found that shape was mine</p><p>Come down on down<br>Pale comparison</br></p><p>A faceless man attempts the biggest grab at the moon</p><p>A little of its wobbly oil to be the perfect mirror<br>And a fortune to be made if the right buyer ever wanted some reflection</br></p><p>Now what will light the way for night shifts and rendezvous</p><p>Buy the batteries from that same monstress man<br>To find a place and a time for toying with myself again</br></p><p>Hoping to fit into an angle that machines don’t yet know how to navigate</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pigeon-Hawk]]></title><description><![CDATA[I awoke this morning, as I have for almost forty-six years now, angry, discontented, irritable and world-weary. Thinking back, I seem to have come into the world this way. The few respites from this baseline state gleam like gems in my memory, links in the shit-sausage of this long jump from vagina to grave.
My AA sponsor tells me to pray. Having been raised an atheist, I find this ridiculous. But he says it works and everything else he’s said has, so I listen. That old Irish gangster starts hi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pigeon-hawk/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523221</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Darren Chase]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:26:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521178010706-baefe2334211?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHByYXllcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODUxOTQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521178010706-baefe2334211?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHByYXllcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODUxOTQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Pigeon-Hawk"/><p>I awoke this morning, as I have for almost forty-six years now, angry, discontented, irritable and world-weary. Thinking back, I seem to have come into the world this way. The few respites from this baseline state gleam like gems in my memory, links in the shit-sausage of this long jump from vagina to grave.</p><p>My AA sponsor tells me to pray. Having been raised an atheist, I find this ridiculous. But he says it works and everything else he’s said has, so I listen. That old Irish gangster starts his day talking to God. Together, we have fashioned a prayer of sorts for me, and it goes a little something like this: “Please don’t let me act like too much of an alcoholic today.” I say another before bed: “Thank you for not letting me act like such an alcoholic today.”</p><p>This morning I forgot and leaped out of bed. I had decided to sleep in, eschewing my daily yoga practice, a two-hour ritual of Ashtanga yoga and meditation, in favor of catching up on some badly needed rest. I am, as a recent New Yorker article about pre-post-Covid anxiety put it, “burned out.” One and a half years of teaching high school online has finally caught up with me and the push to the last day of instruction feels like quite the slog. Until then, it is taking a lot of loin-girding to meet my students with the openness, patience and integrity they deserve.</p><p>After waking, I made a coffee and moved my chair to face the corner of the window in my apartment where, through a small porthole in the thickening trees, I can still catch a glimpse of the East River this time of year. I looked up and saw a pigeon soaring over the area like a hawk.</p><p>The pigeon who thought he was a hawk.</p><p>And I remembered to pray.</p><p>“Dear Nature/Homeostasis/Symbiosis/Big Bang/Entropy/Mystery…”</p><p>I quickly readied myself for class. I ran water through my hair and arranged my bedhead into something resembling an outline that would appear kempt against a zoom background, threw on a collared shirt and opened my two computer screens, one to project the power point presentation and PDF of the novel we are reading and another for managing the Tetris-like attendance software that texts parents about tardiness and helps me respond to their sometimes-frazzled messages in real time while I facilitate the first minutes of class. I set my third screen, an iPhone, on its chrome pedestal so I could manage the class’s comment stream and arranged my background to look as professional as possible by throwing some unfolded laundry beyond the purvey of the webcam.</p><p>As tired as I am of it, it’s always fun when I get to class. My co-teacher was absent today, so the kids quickly commenced the online equivalent of throwing spitballs, which I volleyed like the drag queen I am. “Loving the EMSR breathing today Darren,” wrote one. A maddening echo at the beginning of class had necessitated switching to a plug-in mic. Thus, the outmoded iPhone cord, hanging haphazardly from one ear, had been picking up my grunts and sighs as I worked out which device was the culprit. “The end of the world will be averted by steam-punk tech,” I responded forebodingly into the reverb before I disconnected the USB-C adapter. We managed to read the final chapter of Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle and have a lively discussion about the intersections of gentrification and squatting.</p><p>What is prayer? For many years, my protracted morning routine has been crucial in mitigating my congenitally miserabilist disposition: I awake, contemplate a lesson from my Guru, a reclusive spiritualist writer who, via his bi-weekly correspondence course, imparts to me what he, himself, sometimes terms the “new age mumbo jumbo” that I use as a playbook for life. (He once asked his own guru about all the earnest weirdos who read his “lessons,” and the great Baba is reported to have replied, “Healthy people don’t go to the doctor.” I think this describes me perfectly.) I also practice Kriya Yoga, the dynamic meditation technique taught by Paramahansa Yogananda, an initiated practice, passed down from empowered teacher to fire-ceremony-initiated student in an unbroken line for centuries. “I go through all this before you wake up…”</p><p>Prayer is all those practices, of course, but today I am reminded that it is, at its core, just what my dear sponsor admonishes me to do, and which this morning I failed to:</p><p>“Say your pleases and thank yous.”</p><p>The pigeon is gone now. After circling for a long time, it disappeared over the East River. It’s been almost a year since I’ve received an animal sign like this one. If you aren’t familiar with this divination practice, the crux of it is that you know you’ve received an animal sign when a non-human being comes into your field of perception in a surprising or serendipitous way, and right then is when you need to consider the message it brings, which can usually be deciphered by contemplating its physical attributes, interactions with humans and other organisms, place in the food web and some general associative cultural symbology. Before you cancel my culture-as-costume aping of Native spiritual practices, please consider that we were all indigenous at one time and entertain the possibility that perhaps its exactly that that white people need to remember. Alternately, I’m Irish so put that in your authenticity pipe and smoke it if it helps you read on:</p><p>I’ve written about Pigeon in my musings several times before, once when he came to remind me to pay attention to my inner child, once when he came to approve of reentering therapy (to tend so said inner child), and once to remind me to cherish my relationship with my sister. Hawk has also made many appearances, mostly when I need to be reminded to take the most expansive view, to pull out to a wide-angle lens, to remember whatever is greater than the little I that I think I am, that which I still struggle with calling You Know Who.</p><p>What wakes me up some mornings with rage? I was once told by an astrologer that I had a “tough row to hoe” in that the particular array of planets in my natal chart predisposed me to an unrealistic but unrelenting quest for harmony. That’s fucking true.</p><p>Not too long ago I was at a party, sipping a soda and cran and holding up a wall, when someone I’d never met before walked up to me to say, “No offense, but I don’t like white people” and then proceeded to make some untoward presumptions about what I must think of people like him. Spit ball launched. I replied, “Oh stop your flirting” and walked away. I have found sass to be the only sure remedy for preemptive strikes against white supremacy and/or bully-flirting, with which I am intimately familiar (thanks French and Russian lovers!) Nonetheless, this interaction saddened me. Because, well, I have a hard-on for harmony. How we can’t all just take the most expansive view still baffles me, perhaps inordinately.</p><p>I know I should let that go. And I think that’s exactly what prayer is for, but, as I said before, I simply can’t believe in a capital G God. It’s just too ridiculous and always will be. Ironically, I am working with two sponsees in that “fastest growing club that no one wants to be in” (Alcoholics Anonymous), who are struggling with “giving over” to a higher power. If you’re not familiar with the tenets of AA, turning your will over to a power greater than yourself is pretty much foundational to the program. One sponsee comes from a Christian background and the other a Muslim one. Both are scarred by their upbringings. Nonetheless, this “giving over” is happening for both of them.</p><p>It’s a mystery, you see, like this little morning meditation I’m doing through this rambling essay. We don’t know how it works. If I told you I did, you’d be wise to disregard anything I say.</p><p>Pigeon and Hawk. The pigeon who thought he was a hawk. The hawk Darren thought was a pigeon. We are both human and divine. That’s why we can give over to a power greater than ourselves, and how. As my Trump-and-IRA-supporting sponsor tells me, “Kid, there’s only one thing you have to know about God and that’s: ‘It ain’t you, motherfucker.’” We exist on different levels at the same time. I have come to understand that there is absolutely no contradiction between loving yourself as god herself and reveling in the smallness of yourself against her gracious relief. But we must “give over.”</p><p>I realize this is rather easy for me to say. Summer approaches. This last push is just that: For me, there is an end in sight. Not so for many dear friends, whose gluttonous companies have managed to maintain surprisingly high profit margins throughout the pandemic, it appears to me, by working fewer and fewer employees harder and harder. And when my friends get company-wide emails about “mindfulness practices” like “take time for a walk” I feel that I finally understand the true meaning of ‘gaslighting.’ “Be sure to take those summer half-days,” says HR to the overworked managers who are now tasked with merchandizing, “as long as your project’s on track.”</p><p>So, being told to “give over” can be maddening. Being told “why” to give over is perhaps a little less maddening. Being told “what” to give over is approaching helpful. But, for me, being told HOW to give over is preferable. Many people told me that I “should,” some told me “why,” fewer told me “what,” but only one told me how, my woo-woo Guru, who, I am told, is on Lexapro.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Coup de grace]]></title><description><![CDATA[(The needle and the damage done)
I couldn’t make my hands abandon
the comfort of that crazy fur
sticking up everywhere at odds
like a little gray bear’s coat.
More than cat, you were joy and muse;
an easy companion so true that
I had to be reminded,
“Come on,
it’s just a cat, not a little man
in fuzzy pajamas.”
Still,
we never should have had to part
in that one curious flicker
of surprise and surrender
as you grew very small behind your eyes
and finally disappeared…
leaving me holding only…w]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/coup-de-grace/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852321c</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[C.D. White]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:26:45 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1491485880348-85d48a9e5312?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxjYXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgzOTIw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1491485880348-85d48a9e5312?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxjYXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgzOTIw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Coup de grace"/><p><em>(The needle and the damage done)</em></p><p>I couldn’t make my hands abandon<br>the comfort of that crazy fur<br>sticking up everywhere at odds<br>like a little gray bear’s coat.</br></br></br></p><p>More than cat, you were joy and muse;<br>an easy companion so true that<br>I had to be reminded,<br>“Come on,<br>it’s just a cat, not a little man<br>in fuzzy pajamas.”</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Still,<br>we never should have had to part<br>in that one curious flicker<br>of surprise and surrender<br>as you grew very small behind your eyes<br>and finally disappeared…<br>leaving me holding only…well…the cat’s pajamas.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The vet asks what I want to do with your body.<br>The impossible, of course:</br></p><p>Cradle it on my shoulder and<br>re-ignite the joyful purr,<br>feel you nestle against my neck as always,<br>while my weary hands find solace<br>in the friendliness of fur.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Counting Trees]]></title><description><![CDATA[The air is different here.
My block in Royal Oak Township on Detroit’s border has become relatively bereft of trees.
My block in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a mere forty-five minute drive away, is lousy with them.
My husband Shawn cut down a healthy, old growth maple so he could better sun himself on the back deck. I still mourn the tree four years later.
I can see ten mature trees through the narrow view from the windows of my office. Littleleaf Linden, Red Sunset Maple and Emerald Green Arborvitae tr]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/counting-trees/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523223</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sonya Vann DeLoach]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:26:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506484247268-88136e7518fc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI2fHxhbm4lMjBhcmJvcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODU0MTk&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506484247268-88136e7518fc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI2fHxhbm4lMjBhcmJvcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODU0MTk&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Counting Trees"/><p>The air is different here.<br>My block in Royal Oak Township on Detroit’s border has become relatively bereft of trees.<br>My block in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a mere forty-five minute drive away, is lousy with them.<br>My husband Shawn cut down a healthy, old growth maple so he could better sun himself on the back deck. I still mourn the tree four years later.<br>I can see ten mature trees through the narrow view from the windows of my office. Littleleaf Linden, Red Sunset Maple and Emerald Green Arborvitae trees grow in our front yard. I take a census and find 115 hearty trees from my block to the main street, Packard, and back.<br>I want to transplant some of these trees to my old neighborhood.<br>I could take them at night. On a truck. Stack them five high<br>And they’d hardly be missed.<br>Why should Ann Arborites have all the shade?<br>Trees are the lungs of the Earth.<br>Trees reduce crime.<br>Provide jobs<br>Clean the air,<br>filter water.<br>Cloverdale Avenue needs all that<br>more than Kensington Drive does.<br>Cloverdale needs me<br>more than Kensington does.<br>After nearly two years away because of the pandemic, the contrast is stark.<br>Hardly any tree cover over the street where I grew up. Long gone are the days when my friends and I would climb the oaks that lined our street.<br>Insect infestations and oak wilt caused many to be cut. My childhood friend and neighbor Angie tells me that a few remaining trees were blown onto power lines in recent storms and had to be removed.<br>They were not replaced.<br>Angie says the black squirrels that she used to see only in neighboring Oak Park have replaced the brown ones that used to be so commonplace in the Township and wonders whether it’s because of the dearth of trees.<br>The grass is still perfectly manicured on Cloverdale.<br>Lawns are uniform, like the white and red brick houses, and a deep shade of green. Angie tells me that even our carpet-like lawns were patchy in 2020, the year when nothing was as it should have been.<br>In Royal Oak Township<br>Or Ann Arbor<br>Or anywhere else for that matter<br>I long to breathe easy in both places.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[You Can Change Your Life in Arkansas]]></title><description><![CDATA[Especially if you fly on Christmas,
the hours in the air a meditation
upon the months and year. You think salvation
might be yours if only you shake your fist
at some old slight, look ahead to this
in-between state, a place of transition
between east, west, north, south. It’s like fiction,
you think, these strange and busy weeks. Success
seems elusive. Yet isn’t it success
to think freely, as you’re doing now, high
above clouds, imagining how your art
will sustain you. Colorado, Texas,
Arkansas.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/you-can-change-your-life-in-arkansas/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523212</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ken Waldman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:26:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548777123-e216912df7d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGFya2Fuc2FzJTIwc25vd3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODIxMzI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548777123-e216912df7d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGFya2Fuc2FzJTIwc25vd3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODIxMzI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="You Can Change Your Life in Arkansas"/><p>Especially if you fly on Christmas,<br>the hours in the air a meditation<br>upon the months and year. You think salvation<br>might be yours if only you shake your fist<br>at some old slight, look ahead to this<br>in-between state, a place of transition<br>between east, west, north, south. It’s like fiction,<br>you think, these strange and busy weeks. Success<br>seems elusive. Yet isn’t it success<br>to think freely, as you’re doing now, high<br>above clouds, imagining how your art<br>will sustain you. Colorado, Texas,<br>Arkansas. Guitar, paintbrush, canvas. Why<br>make the mind do all the work? Invite the heart.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mailbox]]></title><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mailbox/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523215</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:26:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/10/IMG_3963-ps.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded/></item><item><title><![CDATA[Spider]]></title><description><![CDATA[I tried to save a spider
from my station
where I was working
with nails and hammers;
wooden splinters flying.
How was I to know
dust would overpower her?
That she’d be stuck
in a web of my own neglect?
She stayed fast to the window,
clinging to a light
she couldn’t taste.
And I turned back,
hastily,
my own project
taking precedence.
Telling myself that I was
busy.
But the truth is
I couldn’t bear
to watch her waste away.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/spider/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523217</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Catherine Buercklin]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:25:57 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1627285223841-8836f980bf04?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU0fHxzcGlkZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgyOTE5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1627285223841-8836f980bf04?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU0fHxzcGlkZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgyOTE5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Spider"/><p>I tried to save a spider<br>from my station<br>where I was working<br>with nails and hammers;<br>wooden splinters flying.<br>How was I to know<br>dust would overpower her?<br>That she’d be stuck<br>in a web of my own neglect?<br>She stayed fast to the window,<br>clinging to a light<br>she couldn’t taste.<br>And I turned back,<br>hastily,<br>my own project<br>taking precedence.<br>Telling myself that I was<br>busy.<br>But the truth is<br>I couldn’t bear<br>to watch her waste away.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Porch]]></title><description><![CDATA[If I had a porch, I would
want to sit with my grandfather,
learn to swear like a sailor and
listen to his stories.
Of sailing the oceans on
four masted ships and taking
months to return home.
Of blowing his bugle as the
horse Calvary charged,
during the Moro Rebellion in the
Philippines.
Of firing the 155mm artillery
piece during five battles in WWI.
Of the Gold he was paid
as a mercenary with
Pancho Villa’s Army.
Of his teenage bride, the
only women he ever loved.
That is what I would wan]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-porch/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523210</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John L. Swainston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:25:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1604882234072-d5741489e0c0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHBvcmNofGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA4MTYxMw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1604882234072-d5741489e0c0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHBvcmNofGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA4MTYxMw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Porch"/><p>If I had a porch, I would<br>want to sit with my grandfather,<br>learn to swear like a sailor and<br>listen to his stories.</br></br></br></p><p>Of sailing the oceans on<br>four masted ships and taking<br>months to return home.</br></br></p><p>Of blowing his bugle as the<br>horse Calvary charged,<br>during the Moro Rebellion in the<br>Philippines.</br></br></br></p><p>Of firing the 155mm artillery<br>piece during five battles in WWI.</br></p><p>Of the Gold he was paid<br>as a mercenary with<br>Pancho Villa’s Army.</br></br></p><p>Of his teenage bride, the<br>only women he ever loved.</br></p><p>That is what I would want to<br>do–if I had a porch.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Shadowleaves]]></title><description><![CDATA[I am
colors
on the outside
I brush
up against my insides
rushing forward
I trace myself
back into life —
living
folded up
against the world
charting a course
I am pressed
like a
grain of sand
it’s crystal clear
I’m cut off from my own sight
imagine
I am
neither
mix nor colors
I find
not a hue
of myself
only the
spirit of
shadowleaves]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/shadowleaves/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852321b</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:25:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1588967923711-bff894c462cb?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBhbGV0dGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgzNzAx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1588967923711-bff894c462cb?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBhbGV0dGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgzNzAx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Shadowleaves"/><p>I am<br>colors<br>on the outside</br></br></p><p>I brush<br>up against my insides<br>rushing forward</br></br></p><p>I trace myself<br>back into life —<br>living</br></br></p><p>folded up<br>against the world<br>charting a course</br></br></p><p>I am pressed<br>like a<br>grain of sand</br></br></p><p>it’s crystal clear<br>I’m cut off from my own sight<br>imagine</br></br></p><p>I am<br>neither<br>mix nor colors</br></br></p><p>I find<br>not a hue<br>of myself</br></br></p><p>only the<br>spirit of<br>shadowleaves</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fun Town]]></title><description><![CDATA[Tulsa is a fun town
but it’s not a funny one
Sam Kinison lies buried
in Tulsa just eight miles from
the Center of the Universe
and just ten miles from
the center of the massacre
that started with a
stumble and a scream
Then fifty years later Sam
Kinison was preaching
the Gospel on the
streets of Tulsa Later he
brought his comedy and
his scream to town with
a plan to return to
preaching A plan that
ended because of the
inability of two speeding
objects to successfully
occupy the same space
And ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/fun-town/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523219</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:25:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1633629282489-3f61d18fac6f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHR1bHNhfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA4MzQ3Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1633629282489-3f61d18fac6f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHR1bHNhfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA4MzQ3Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Fun Town"/><p>Tulsa is a fun town<br>but it’s not a funny one</br></p><p>Sam Kinison lies buried<br>in Tulsa just eight miles from<br>the Center of the Universe<br>and just ten miles from<br>the center of the massacre<br>that started with a<br>stumble and a scream</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Then fifty years later Sam<br>Kinison was preaching<br>the Gospel on the<br>streets of Tulsa Later he<br>brought his comedy and<br>his scream to town with<br>a plan to return to<br>preaching A plan that<br>ended because of the<br>inability of two speeding<br>objects to successfully<br>occupy the same space<br>And Malika screamed</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>So now Sam Kinison<br>rests in the beautiful<br>Memorial Park Cemetery<br>in Tulsa and Tulsa<br>remains a fun town<br>but it’s not a funny one</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Final Visitor]]></title><description><![CDATA[Death came
barefoot
to the door,
wrapped in
downy wings
the color
of dusk.
Wearing eyes
of pale blue sky,
she bent low
to kiss cold,
parched lips,
taking a last
breath.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/final-visitor/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231fd</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michele Mekel]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:25:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515166162498-25562df50839?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGR1c2t8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDc2NzEy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515166162498-25562df50839?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGR1c2t8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDc2NzEy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Final Visitor"/><p>Death came<br>barefoot<br>to the door,<br>wrapped in<br>downy wings<br>the color<br>of dusk.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Wearing eyes<br>of pale blue sky,<br>she bent low<br>to kiss cold,<br>parched lips,<br>taking a last<br>breath.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[There Is a Door]]></title><description><![CDATA[“At the end of my suffering,
there was a door.”
~ Louise Gluck
Always. Across the once-green expanse
hilling the horizon edged with cedars
leaning into each other in the sun
right before the wind returns
to clear us of all this humidity,
the righteous angst of being human,
which is not to say it was easy:
we were lost here, like hurricanes stationed
in place against their will to dissolve
into oceans. We were afraid often
of it never ending, pain so fluent
in speaking the language of forever]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/there-is-a-door/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523202</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:24:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1538766017398-415434a31a5b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI1fHxkb29yfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NjI5MDQyNA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1538766017398-415434a31a5b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI1fHxkb29yfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NjI5MDQyNA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000" alt="There Is a Door"/><p>“At the end of my suffering,<br>there was a door.”<br>~ Louise Gluck</br></br></p><p>Always. Across the once-green expanse<br>hilling the horizon edged with cedars<br>leaning into each other in the sun</br></br></p><p>right before the wind returns<br>to clear us of all this humidity,<br>the righteous angst of being human,</br></br></p><p>which is not to say it was easy:<br>we were lost here, like hurricanes stationed<br>in place against their will to dissolve</br></br></p><p>into oceans. We were afraid often<br>of it never ending, pain so fluent<br>in speaking the language of forever.</br></br></p><p>We were separate from each other<br>below the cusp of so much sadness<br>that even the dragonflies avoided us</br></br></p><p>or we were trapped in the timbers of pain,<br>piercing our temples or aching in our calves,<br>keeping us awake no matter how hard we kicked.</br></br></p><p>It didn’t, doesn’t matter if we cried out<br>or tightened the long vertical muscles in our necks<br>to hold in our curses or screams<br>or especially if we felt nothing but the bank<br>of fog become an ocean so deep and tilted<br>away from the light that we thought we lived here.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Somehow—a miracle, a piece of luck, a strange<br>happening—there was a door, and then,<br>on the other side, we found each other.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[No Man’s Land]]></title><description><![CDATA[Red turkey wheat heads bob above the flat horizon
Mimicking war bonnets bouncing on galloping steeds.
Beating drums of hooves pound the earth
Charging red-hot sparks of friction
Winnowing the shaft from the wheat.
Howling winds whoop out haunting war cries,
Echoes reverberate from Mesa to Mesa.
Shouts, entwined with shadows of twisting smoke signals,
Scalp creek side cottonwoods.
Skinned naked of their dry foliage,
Skeletons quiver.
In drunken concentration,
Metal dinosaur rigs move in phlegma]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/no-mans-land/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523200</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sandra Korey]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:24:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1530464684439-723262c0d16e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI5fHx3aGVhdHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwNzc3MzI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1530464684439-723262c0d16e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI5fHx3aGVhdHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwNzc3MzI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="No Man’s Land"/><p>Red turkey wheat heads bob above the flat horizon<br>Mimicking war bonnets bouncing on galloping steeds.<br>Beating drums of hooves pound the earth<br>Charging red-hot sparks of friction<br>Winnowing the shaft from the wheat.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Howling winds whoop out haunting war cries,<br>Echoes reverberate from Mesa to Mesa.<br>Shouts, entwined with shadows of twisting smoke signals,<br>Scalp creek side cottonwoods.<br>Skinned naked of their dry foliage,<br>Skeletons quiver.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>In drunken concentration,<br>Metal dinosaur rigs move in phlegmatic rhythm,<br>Craning their necks, hypnotically dipping,<br>Sucking up black gold liquor, mellowed by ages,<br>Reserved in Nature’s hidden still below,<br>Intoxicated by the speed of light.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Harnessed wind power circles like a striking hawk.<br>Taut aerial cables bisect the blue grid works overhead.<br>Faded Conestoga ruts run parallel below.<br>History’s map dries in the dust and is lifted aloft,<br>Taking new direction.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ode to Myself at 12 Years]]></title><description><![CDATA[After William Wordsworth
There was a time when I did not fear
the future that lay ahead of me;
I did not hesitate to go near
and never would I flee,
but ever-present were tears.
My mind was fresh and witty,
I lived forward in a dream
which to me never did seem
the likeness of a pity.
The pale brain sops with worry;
gooey reminiscence, recognizing
that somehow, it is always in a hurry.
It abates the trauma, finding
those years truly to be surly.
It was the last good year for innocence,
so oft]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/ode-to-myself-at-12-years/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523203</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dani Kuntz]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:24:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528559827341-b4e108f6ff32?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI3fHxhZG9sZXNjZW50fGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA3ODQ4OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528559827341-b4e108f6ff32?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI3fHxhZG9sZXNjZW50fGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA3ODQ4OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Ode to Myself at 12 Years"/><p><em>After William Wordsworth</em></p><p>There was a time when I did not fear<br>the future that lay ahead of me;<br>I did not hesitate to go near<br>and never would I flee,<br>but ever-present were tears.</br></br></br></br></p><p>My mind was fresh and witty,<br>I lived forward in a dream<br>which to me never did seem<br>the likeness of a pity.</br></br></br></p><p>The pale brain sops with worry;<br>gooey reminiscence, recognizing<br>that somehow, it is always in a hurry.<br>It abates the trauma, finding<br>those years truly to be surly.</br></br></br></br></p><p>It was the last good year for innocence,<br>so often I think about the warm sun,<br>the way I could always have summer fun,<br>yet I’ve lost that company, in a sense.</br></br></br></p><p>It’s how the smell of sunscreen and sweat<br>annually toss me into emotional debt.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rain Delay, Broadcast]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Friday it rained all day - there was no ball game. So we stayed home, we listened to it on the radio.” - Chico, in the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup
In this evening’s
lack of a game worth waiting for
in this evening’s
distortion of the spacetime’s damp
moral arc of ground, fence, and ball,
call it a toss-up, the raincheck
of this evening.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rain-delay-broadcast/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852320a</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Robinson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:23:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525087740718-9e0f2c58c7ef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHxyYWluJTIwYmFzZWJhbGx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgwMDQ4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525087740718-9e0f2c58c7ef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHxyYWluJTIwYmFzZWJhbGx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgwMDQ4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Rain Delay, Broadcast"/><p><em>“Friday it rained all day - there was no ball game. So we stayed home, we listened to it on the radio.” - </em>Chico, in the Marx Brothers’ <em>Duck Soup</em></p><p>In this evening’s</p><p>lack of a game worth waiting for</p><p>in this evening’s</p><p>distortion of the spacetime’s damp<br>moral arc of ground, fence, and ball,<br>call it a toss-up, the raincheck</br></br></p><p>of this evening.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Domesticity like The Cubs]]></title><description><![CDATA[The same thump as thumbs
Meets you
And greets you
Push down
With
The pink cross on the music man’s back
Who taught us to
Teach time and waiting
Reach for stupid places and incubation
Cause any bed is big enough
And no price is high enough
Sleep a little longer
It is all the tiniest tidal wave
And every time arms disappear the legs do too
Something else grows
Like the shallow of eyes in use
Could we have a year of hibernation
In a carved out pink den
I’ll soak it up and you can keep rolling i]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/domesticity-like-the-cubs/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852320e</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Violet Treadwell Hull]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:23:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506279616042-87baff7956a5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fG1hcm1hbGFkZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODEyMTA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506279616042-87baff7956a5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fG1hcm1hbGFkZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODEyMTA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Domesticity like The Cubs"/><p>The same thump as thumbs<br>Meets you<br>And greets you<br>Push down</br></br></br></p><p>With<br>The pink cross on the music man’s back<br>Who taught us to<br>Teach time and waiting</br></br></br></p><p>Reach for stupid places and incubation<br>Cause any bed is big enough<br>And no price is high enough<br>Sleep a little longer</br></br></br></p><p>It is all the tiniest tidal wave<br>And every time arms disappear the legs do too<br>Something else grows<br>Like the shallow of eyes in use</br></br></br></p><p>Could we have a year of hibernation<br>In a carved out pink den<br>I’ll soak it up and you can keep rolling it out<br>With a title to my name and more life to yours</br></br></br></p><p>Of joint and afternoon mildness<br>Everything made of squared<br>Even the soup has no shape<br>And the stench that always climbs</br></br></br></p><p>Higher and higher<br>To the best neck<br>Layered and layered<br>Of filo pastry</br></br></br></p><p>Moistened and moistened of buttered marmalade<br>And crumb of crispness<br>And shy of cluttered folds<br>Fought for but never worn</br></br></br></p><p>Anything could be success<br>But the easiest is to stop planning<br>Call off the straws<br>And just bob over</br></br></br></p><p>And hope the thread finds me<br>It can’t stop falling and growing and getting tangled<br>Close enough for one eye<br>Stand mirror to mirror</br></br></br></p><p>And the bones tucked away in a sleeve<br>You’ve known all these<br>But can never hold them down<br>Once you throw away their clues they will grant it all</br></br></br></p><p>Three points touching<br>I’ve promised myself that nothing grew for you<br>But everything is<br>So much so that they could be reaching the pinnacle any minute now</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Circles]]></title><description><![CDATA[We don’t run
in the same circles
But she’s there for
every time I read
She always comes with
someone I don’t know
But she always comes
whenever I read and
sits on the front row and
follows every word and
one time as I finished
she stepped up to me and
ran her hand down my arm and
then she left with someone
I’d never seen before]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/circles/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523218</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:22:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1469980098053-382eb10ba017?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxjaXJjbGVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA4MzMxNA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1469980098053-382eb10ba017?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxjaXJjbGVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA4MzMxNA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Circles"/><p>We don’t run<br>in the same circles</br></p><p>But she’s there for<br>every time I read</br></p><p>She always comes with<br>someone I don’t know</br></p><p>But she always comes<br>whenever I read and<br>sits on the front row and<br>follows every word and<br>one time as I finished<br>she stepped up to me and<br>ran her hand down my arm and<br>then she left with someone<br>I’d never seen before</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Postpartum]]></title><description><![CDATA[Three thirty in the morning
She sat up in bed
Wearing the nightgown with holes
Mechanical pump on her breast
Staring out over the backyard
Despairing
Her mind told her “Your life is over.
What’s the point?
You’re a mess.
Existentially, you’re going to raise this girl and educate her
For what?
To one day feel like this.
Like her life is only for her daughter
God, you’re a shitty person.
This was all you ever wanted.
So malcontent.
So ungrateful.
Don’t you have the decency to feel guilty that you]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/postpartum/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ff</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Cloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:22:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542377067-49ac6b0532ef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxwb3N0cGFydHVtfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA3NzIwOA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542377067-49ac6b0532ef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxwb3N0cGFydHVtfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA3NzIwOA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Postpartum"/><p>Three thirty in the morning<br>She sat up in bed<br>Wearing the nightgown with holes<br>Mechanical pump on her breast<br>Staring out over the backyard<br>Despairing</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Her mind told her “Your life is over.<br>What’s the point?<br>You’re a mess.<br>Existentially, you’re going to raise this girl and educate her<br>For what?<br>To one day feel like this.<br>Like her life is only for her daughter<br>God, you’re a shitty person.<br>This was all you ever wanted.<br>So malcontent.<br>So ungrateful.<br>Don’t you have the decency to feel guilty that you are such<br>A. Bad. Mother?<br>They’d be better off without you.<br>The life insurance would be more useful than you are right now.<br>You can’t even have sex yet.<br>Body broken<br>A desiccated flower trodden underfoot on a sidewalk<br>Never to be whole<br>Damaged<br>You’ll never feel pleasure again.<br>Your body belongs to the baby.”</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Nothing was more exhausting than this conversation with herself.</p><p>She switched the pump to the other breast<br>And smoothed the hair on the angelic baby next to her.</br></p><p>This glimmer crossed her mind:<br>“If I died, I wouldn’t be able to taste strawberries again.”<br>This one thought, a tether<br>A rope to the hope<br>Of ripeness<br>Of sweetness<br>Of summer<br>And as the tears rolled down her face, she talked back to her mind.<br>“We’ll see. I’m gonna hang around one more day.”</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Apple Bundt Cake]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
3 cups diced raw cooking apples (Granny Smith, Braeburn, or Honeycrisp)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Sugar Topping:
¼ cup butter, melted
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven at 350°F. Grease and flour a large Bundt pan; set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt, a]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/apple-bundt-cake/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523206</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:22:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/10/apple-bundt.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h1 id="ingredients-">Ingredients:</h1><img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/10/apple-bundt.jpg" alt="Apple Bundt Cake"/><p>3 cups flour<br>1 teaspoon salt<br>1 teaspoon baking soda<br>1 cup vegetable oil<br>1 cup granulated sugar<br>1 cup packed brown sugar<br>2 eggs<br>3 cups diced raw cooking apples (Granny Smith, Braeburn, or Honeycrisp)<br>1 teaspoon vanilla extract<br>½ teaspoon cinnamon</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Sugar Topping:<br>¼ cup butter, melted<br>½ cup packed brown sugar<br>1 teaspoon vanilla extract</br></br></br></p><h1 id="instructions-">Instructions:</h1><ol><li>Preheat oven at 350°F. Grease and flour a large Bundt pan; set aside.</li><li>In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt, and baking soda.</li><li>Add the oil, sugars, eggs, apples, vanilla, and cinnamon to the flour mixture; stir until well-blended.</li><li>Pour batter into prepared Bundt pan, spreading evenly.</li><li>Bake for 60 minutes at 350°F oven.</li><li>While cake is baking to make topping: In a small saucepan melt butter; add brown sugar and vanilla. Stir until smooth.</li><li>After cake is finished baking while cake is hot and still in pan, pour the topping over the cake allowing it to seep into the sides.</li><li>Invert onto a serving platter after the cake has cooled for 15 minutes or so.</li><li>Garnish with whipping cream, if desired.</li></ol><p>Makes 10 – 12 servings.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Matron]]></title><description><![CDATA[Winter fruit—
less sweet, more sturdy
—doesn’t tempt
the palate like
summer’s fragile offerings.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/matron/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231fc</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michele Mekel]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:22:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1572929773424-93549dced6d0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBlYXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDc2Mzk1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1572929773424-93549dced6d0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBlYXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDc2Mzk1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Matron"/><p>Winter fruit—<br>less sweet, more sturdy<br>—doesn’t tempt<br>the palate like<br>summer’s fragile offerings.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lipstick]]></title><description><![CDATA[red for the whore
you called me, pink
for the party girl,
any color at all
to call a man,
color determines
which man comes
(or if one comes at all,
perhaps). Lipstick,
once not
for feminist lips,
now shapes words
of liberation of
equality, of rising
up, of justice.
Lipstick, a mask,
a disguise, enhance-
ment, fantasy,
for you, for me.
Lipstick, or
lack of it,
may define, out-
line, ignore what
or who you
call me, high-
light who
I call myself.
Lipstick leaves
lip mark graffiti
on glass, on
ch]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lipstick/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852321a</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Liza Wolff-Francis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:22:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1584143257538-919201cd4750?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxsaXBzdGlja3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODM2MDI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1584143257538-919201cd4750?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxsaXBzdGlja3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODM2MDI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Lipstick"/><p>red for the whore<br>you called me, pink<br>for the party girl,<br>any color at all<br>to call a man,<br>color determines<br>which man comes<br>(or if one comes at all,<br>perhaps). Lipstick,<br>once not<br>for feminist lips,<br>now shapes words<br>of liberation of<br>equality, of rising<br>up, of justice.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Lipstick, a mask,<br>a disguise, enhance-<br>ment, fantasy,<br>for you, for me.</br></br></br></p><p>Lipstick, or<br>lack of it,<br>may define, out-<br>line, ignore what<br>or who you<br>call me, high-<br>light who<br>I call myself.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Lipstick leaves<br>lip mark graffiti<br>on glass, on<br>cheeks, on<br>teacups out<br>of the dishwasher,<br>the only way<br>some of us<br>are remembered<br>at all.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Is it on my teeth?</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Whiskey]]></title><description><![CDATA[For Mark Tamsula, Richard Withers, and Sam Bayard
Where does this music come from?
How to make fiddle and banjo dance
in and out, make sounds sometimes
simple as a single shot of whiskey?
Keep an ear out. You’ll soon enough
enter an era tough as these hills. Go back to
Yaugher Holler, near Dunbar, Fayette County.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/whiskey/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523213</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ken Waldman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:21:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566913485242-694e995731b4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxmaWRkbGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgyMjYy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566913485242-694e995731b4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxmaWRkbGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgyMjYy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Whiskey"/><p><em>For Mark Tamsula, Richard Withers, and Sam Bayard</em></p><p>Where does this music come from?<br>How to make fiddle and banjo dance<br>in and out, make sounds sometimes<br>simple as a single shot of whiskey?<br>Keep an ear out. You’ll soon enough<br>enter an era tough as these hills. Go back to<br>Yaugher Holler, near Dunbar, Fayette County.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Carving]]></title><description><![CDATA[Lights rise on a cutting board on which rests a turkey. A serving-dome covers the bird. DAVIS holds a carving knife; his daughter SARAH holds a piercing fork.
DAVIS
You really want to do this?
SARAH
Yes, yes, yes a million times yes.
DAVIS
I just, I kind of think you’re messing with me.
SARAH
I want to learn. It’s a tradition, something I want to know how to do. Is it ‘cause I’m a girl?
DAVIS
A young woman.
SARAH
Dad. Ugh—
DAVIS
Young woman is wrong, disrespectful?
SARAH
No, it’s just— C]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/carving/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523214</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Plays]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Walch]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:21:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1574672281340-6b2d260a4b72?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxfHx0aGFua3NnaXZpbmclMjB0dXJrZXl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgyNjA3&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1574672281340-6b2d260a4b72?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIxfHx0aGFua3NnaXZpbmclMjB0dXJrZXl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgyNjA3&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Carving"/><p><em>Lights rise on a cutting board on which rests a turkey. A serving-dome covers the bird. DAVIS holds a carving knife; his daughter SARAH holds a piercing fork.</em></p><p>DAVIS<br>You really want to do this?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Yes, yes, yes a million times yes.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>I just, I kind of think you’re messing with me.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>I want to learn. It’s a tradition, something I want to know how to do. Is it ‘cause I’m a girl?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br><em>A young woman.</em></br></p><p>SARAH<br>Dad. Ugh—</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Young woman is wrong, disrespectful?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>No, it’s just— Can we just attend to the matter at hand. How to carve the bird? …</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>I just don’t understand why <em>you</em>, of all people—</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Oh my god, it <em>is</em> ‘cause I’m a girl!</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>No, no, I’m it has nothing to do with you being a young woman-girl—</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Ladies and gentleman, I introduce you to my dad: protector of the rituals of the patriarchy!</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>NO! It’s ‘cause you’re a vegetarian!</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Vegan.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>When did you turn vegan? (. . .) I swear, nobody tells me anything.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Dad, I can just look this up online—there’s videos for everything.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Ok, OK. I admit I’m a little confused why my daughter—a beautiful, smart, young-woman-girl-vegi-vegan—wants to learn how to carve a turkey.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>It’s part of reclaiming my personal empowerment.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Carving a turkey is going to make you powerful? Actually, strike that, I actually get that, but I don’t understand why now?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>It’s (. . . ) it’s part of my therapy—</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>You’re in therapy? Why aren’t people telling me things?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>It’s recent….after Pete left, I ( . . . )</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Your mother told me <em>you</em> left Pete.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>I did leave him, that’s right. ( . . . ) What else did Mom tell you?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>She said you left him because he was turning into a pothead.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>That’s true, anything else?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>He’s messy, leaves his socks all over, that sort of stuff. Which surprised me, ‘cause I always found Pete so tidy, so neat. Even his name is neat: Pete.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>You always liked Pete.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>I did, I do, so I was surprised when you told us two weeks ago he wasn’t coming for Thanksgiving EVER again. I still got him on speed dial, thought 100 times about calling—</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Don’t call him, Dad! Now could we please not talk about—</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Look, couples go through these things, especially when they’re young, but it can be worked out. So help me, if your mother left me over some dirty socks—</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Forget it, I’ll just find a video and do not call him.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>That’s what your mother said, but with a bit more color. Alright, let’s do this.<br><em>Sarah opens the cover and reveals the bird. She grimaces a bit.</em><br>You really don’t have to do this.</br></br></br></p><p>SARAH<br>I <em>have</em> to do this.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>OK. You start with a nice sharp knife, five to six inches.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>And a fork?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Don’t really need the fork, piercing lets out the juices. Actually, after removing it from the oven, you first want to let it rest.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Why?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>It absorbs all the juices. That’s the goal in carving to keep it juicy, you don’t want a dry bird. It’s like in a fight, you don’t want to just keep yelling at each other, you want to cool off.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Dad!</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>I’m only saying, maybe think of this as a cooling off period with Pete, rather than the end—</br></p><p>SARAH<br>You know what—forget it.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but you two were great together and headed towards—</br></p><p>SARAH<br>I’m so tired of hearing men say they’re sorry and then: BUT.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Well, I am sorry. And if you don’t want to tell me why you left Pete, I guess that’s your right, but haven’t I always been there for you?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Yes, you have, Dad. Thank you.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>And you know how much I love you, Sarah.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>And I love you. (<em>Long, expectant pause.</em>) Which is why I’m not going to tell you.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Oh, come on Sarah. You don’t think I would understand?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>It’s not about understanding, it’s more complicated—</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Complicated!? Sarah, you know I smoked out of a bong in college once; I’m not a choir-boy. So, I mean how much dope are we even talking about here?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>How long do you <em>let it rest</em>, Dad?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>( . . . ) Till it’s cool enough to touch with your hand, ‘cause then you can use your hand when carving it instead of a fork.</br></p><p>SARAH (<em>touching the bird</em>)<br>Feels warm, but not too hot. So now what?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>I’ll carve the first half, showing you, and then you can do the second half, OK?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>OK.</br></p><p>DAVIS (<em>he begins carving, removing the leg</em>)<br>You position it so, and you start with the leg. You want to push the leg down towards the cutting board, and with the top inch of your knife you’re going to start cutting and just slice right through? This is called scoring it, it makes it so the meat will peel right off. You keep slicing until you find the joint that connects the leg and the body right here, and you push down with your hand while you cut right through the joint removing the leg.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Who taught you all this? Scoring and everything? GrandP?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Hell no. Your GrandP was mean, brutal (. . .) when it came to butchering the bird.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>What, what was that pause?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Oh, nothing, he just— didn’t know how to carve and look you knew him as a sweet old man.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Who gave me silver dollars for each year I was old on my birthday. Last stack he gave me was six, I still have them. I don’t know why; I just could never spend them.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>He was sweet with you, mellowed as he aged.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>But?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>It’s complicated.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Oh, look who’s complicated now.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Now you want to separate the drumstick from the thigh. See this V? Take your knife, cut straight down that V through your next joint. You put your leg on the platter there, and now take out the thighbone, by cutting along the bone on both sides, until you can grab the bone, and while still cutting it, twist the bone and it literally rolls right out of the turkey like that. And now you slice the thigh meat. ( . . . ) Sarah? You OK?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Sorry, yeah, it’s just, it’s making me a little sick is all.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>You really don’t have to do this.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>I want to, I have to. It’s ok, I’m fine. It just, it’s kind of terrifying to see how something so strong and well put together looking can be so quickly torn apart.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>It’s actually much worse when you watch someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Like GrandP?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Yeah. It felt disrespectful, like a violation, the way he would just hack (. . .) and hack at it.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>What else did Mom tell you?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Huh?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Nothing. So now what?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Wing’s next, and I just pull it down like that. See there’s another V, you just cut right down that V, through the joint like that, pulling as you cut until you pop the joint and remove the wing. You still OK?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Not really.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>We can stop.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Is there more popping?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Not so much, cause now we’re on to the prize, the succulent, juicy breast.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Don’t be creepy, Dad.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Oh, hah, sorry I didn’t even think— Um…so the breast? The best way to maintain the juices is to cut the entire breast off the turkey. So first, you find the breast-bone, it’s in the middle here and is curved. Now, with your hand begin to peel the breast away from the bone, while you score and cut down the bone. Keep pulling as you cut and the breast just rolls right off, like this.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Now you cut that into smaller slices?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Yup, but see these grains in the meat, you want to make sure you cut across the grain—</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Why across the grain?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>It keeps it tender. The “grain” is really muscle fibers, not that freaky grain you like to eat—</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Freekeh, Dad. It’s a super-grain: <em>freekeh</em>.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Right, well, as they say, everything’s super to someone. Anyway, these fibers are chewy, so cutting across the grain does some of the work for you and makes the meat easier to chew.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>And that’s how you carve a turkey?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>First half. Second half awaits, knife’s all yours. ( . . . ) Whenever you’re ready.<br>(<em>She looks at the knife, hesitates.</em>)<br>You know what’s funny, funny not the right word, but anyway— last time I saw Pete, you know, fourth of July where I do the ribs, and anyway, we were talking about cooking and he asked if I could teach him, cause of course, you know his Dad never— Anyway, that got us to talking about Thanksgiving and he said he’d like to take on more responsibilities and learn how to carve, like so he could be a good dad, like me, instead of like his… And I joked, joked, not being the right word right now, and I said: <em>Are you asking my permission to marry Sarah?</em> And he got very emotional and, while there was a lot of smoke from the BBQ, he teared up and nodded. And, of course, I gave my permission because I love you and I thought that is what you wanted, but now I just don’t know. I’m lost in all this.</br></br></br></p><p>SARAH<br>It’s confusing I understand.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>I thought I would be doing this with him this, but now everything has changed. Sarah, you can tell me anything, you know that?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>No, I can’t Dad—</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Why can’t you?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Because I don’t want you looking at me differently. I need you actually to always look at me how you look at me.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>You’ll always be my beautiful and smart Sarah, nothing can change that.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Dad, there’s just somethings you don’t need to know.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Like?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Like GrandP. Pete is this sweet, neat Pete to you. And he really respected you.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>He laughed at my jokes, but maybe that’s because he was stoned.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>No, he thought you were funny, he really liked you Dad and he loved our visits.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>But?..</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Isn’t that enough?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Did he hurt you?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Not exactly, it’s really complicated, Dad….<br>DAVIS<br>I’ll kill the son of a bitch!</br></br></br></p><p>SARAH<br>Dad, put the knife down.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>WHAT DID HE DO TO YOU?!</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Dad, give me the knife.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>WHAT DID HE DO!?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you. Give me the knife.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>If he hurt you, I’ll—</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Give me the knife!</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>I told you I would always protect you—you’re my, my beautiful girl. Tell me what he did.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Give me the knife and I’ll tell you everything.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Everything you told Mom? I knew she was lying to me.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>She wasn’t lying, she was protecting me.</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>From me? (. . . ) Why would you tell her and not me?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Because I knew she wouldn’t pick up a knife! OK? I knew she would be upset, but she would also let it rest. Let it rest, Dad. Give me the knife.<br><em>He gives her the knife…she begins carving the other half.</em><br>I start with the leg, right?</br></br></br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Sarah, you don’t need to go through with—</br></p><p>SARAH<br>I do, Dad. For so many reasons that you won’t understand. But, you’ve taught me so, so well, let me try this on my own? I start with the leg, pushing it down towards the board—</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>( . . .) And you’re going to start cutting, slicing, find the joint and just / slice….</br></p><p>SARAH (<em>she begins to carve the bird</em>)<br>Slice right through. ( . . . ) So Pete was sweet, but he also liked it a little— ( . . .) Dad, do you really want to hear this?</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>I have to hear this.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>He liked it a little….rough in the… Dad, you’re already getting emotional, I don’t need to—</br></p><p>DAVIS (<em>fighting his emotions</em>)<br>The goal of carving it to keep the juices in, I can handle it, tell me.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>In the bedroom. It was playful at first, but after we moved in together last July—</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>After the fourth?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Yeah, and as you know, we were headed down that path, but when we moved in something in him changed, the play went out, and it became something else, something….</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>Mean ( . . . ) brutal.</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Yeah. And one night last month, it was like he was trying to test me, and he pinned me down, hard . . . twisted my arm till I felt it might break, and…</br></p><p>DAVIS<br>And then?</br></p><p>SARAH<br>Then he proceeded to…<br><em>Lights fade as Sarah continues carving and telling him. End of play.</em></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Nothing]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Nothing seems to be right anymore. Everything tastes a little waxy.” —Bembo making moan
After a visit to the dentist, friend,
consider the bitter truths of the ancients:
how our taste buds mutiny, our teeth
grow long, and the globed fruit
of our being, about which
Archie discourses, sticks
out the calyx of its tongue
and talks back. Oh for the
days of mute regressive glory!
We look back, poking our tongue
into memory’s corner, reconnoitering
the moments when everything we probed
tasted good, s]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/nothing/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852321e</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Zeck]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:20:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585909085111-2c2f311643af?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHx0ZWV0aHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODQ3Nzg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585909085111-2c2f311643af?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHx0ZWV0aHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODQ3Nzg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Nothing"/><p><em>“Nothing seems to be right anymore. Everything tastes a little waxy.”</em> —Bembo making moan</p><p>After a visit to the dentist, friend,<br>consider the bitter truths of the ancients:<br>how our taste buds mutiny, our teeth<br>grow long, and the globed fruit<br>of our being, about which<br>Archie discourses, sticks<br>out the calyx of its tongue<br>and talks back. Oh for the<br>days of mute regressive glory!<br>We look back, poking our tongue<br>into memory’s corner, reconnoitering<br>the moments when everything we probed<br>tasted good, so good, our dinners exquisite,<br>our thoughts divine, our old ladies young ladies,<br>and we ourselves bursting into bloom. Ahem.<br>Your attention, please, one moment, you old dozer.<br>Your forbearance, if you would, whilst I extract the wax<br>from my hairy ear. What exactly is your bellyache?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Perfumed Estrangement]]></title><description><![CDATA[It happened at the mall
Like most of my formative experiences
I was eight - maybe nine - years old
Looking at the captivating perfume bottles in the cosmetics section
The gilded liquids flooded with lights
Mesmerized me
When I looked up
I saw an old lady
And she was somehow familiar
I tasted sublime terror for the first time
It was my other
Grandmother
I don’t know
How I knew who she was
What level of my subconscious mind recognized her
All I knew was the tension between feeling
Like I knew he]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/perfumed-estrangement/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231fe</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Cloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:20:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1598207548924-fcab47e9b272?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHBlcmZ1bWVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA3NjkyMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1598207548924-fcab47e9b272?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHBlcmZ1bWVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA3NjkyMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Perfumed Estrangement"/><p>It happened at the mall<br>Like most of my formative experiences<br>I was eight - maybe nine - years old<br>Looking at the captivating perfume bottles in the cosmetics section<br>The gilded liquids flooded with lights<br>Mesmerized me</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>When I looked up<br>I saw an old lady<br>And she was somehow familiar<br>I tasted sublime terror for the first time<br>It was my other<br>Grandmother</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I don’t know<br>How I knew who she was<br>What level of my subconscious mind recognized her<br>All I knew was the tension between feeling<br>Like I knew her<br>Like I was part of her<br>But knowing she did not care about me</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I ran to find my mother<br>Among the nearby sale racks<br>Who confirmed my confusion<br>This was my daddy’s mama<br>That old bitch she said<br>We’d been estranged from them for as long as I could recall<br>So I dealt with my anxiety the only way I knew how<br>I took action</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>When we got home<br>I said I want to meet her<br>My mom said okay<br>And she arranged that Jackie, her best friend, would take me on a visit<br>My dad would not come<br>And so I went to meet my dad’s mom<br>My grandmother for the first<br>Conscious time</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I had a new outfit<br>Pressed khaki pants and a charming mint green striped shirt<br>Further adorned with a peach seashell design<br>It felt like I was going to a job interview<br>Position: granddaughter<br>And we arrived at an unfamiliar door<br>To a foreign house</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I don’t remember much of what<br>We talked about<br>But I saw in her eyes a steely determination<br>That I shared<br>On her dressing table<br>(She had a real dressing table with a mirror and chair and everything)<br>Was a bottle of perfume<br>Shaped like a crown<br>About half gone<br>I admired it<br>And she gave it to me</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>After the visit, my mom offered an olive branch<br>And my dad’s mother<br>Said there would be no relationship with the children<br>If it meant interacting with my mom again</br></br></br></p><p>So we went about life<br>And I didn’t feel anything for her<br>But I thought much about her<br>Because I didn’t understand how I could feel<br>Nothing</br></br></br></br></p><p>I kept the crowned perfume bottle<br>For years<br>And never used a drop<br>It was some sort of totem<br>I don’t remember when<br>Or why<br>I threw it away</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Advent of Feeding]]></title><description><![CDATA[Started as breast milk with lullaby
Source cuddled me to sleep when I could hardly
Containing so many minerals like a valley
Filling me, leaving protruding my little belly
Graduating from milk in six months, seemed too early
Now it’s funny but then I hated it badly
Ingesting flakes soaked in artificial milk
In a month or less, I felt sick
I healed with mum’s love and pills forced to swallow
But then as a recovery gift came an introduction to swallow
And started feeding in a regular and fixed p]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-advent-of-feeding/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523208</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Emmanuel Akintoye]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:20:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/flagged/photo-1570560558077-45ad028193e5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGJhYnklMjBib3R0bGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDc5NDAy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/flagged/photo-1570560558077-45ad028193e5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGJhYnklMjBib3R0bGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDc5NDAy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Advent of Feeding"/><p>Started as breast milk with lullaby<br>Source cuddled me to sleep when I could hardly<br>Containing so many minerals like a valley<br>Filling me, leaving protruding my little belly</br></br></br></p><p>Graduating from milk in six months, seemed too early<br>Now it’s funny but then I hated it badly<br>Ingesting flakes soaked in artificial milk<br>In a month or less, I felt sick</br></br></br></p><p>I healed with mum’s love and pills forced to swallow<br>But then as a recovery gift came an introduction to swallow<br>And started feeding in a regular and fixed pattern<br>Breakfast, lunch but the dinner with a lantern</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Love Rocks]]></title><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/love-rocks/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523216</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:19:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/10/IMG_2613-ps.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded/></item><item><title><![CDATA[Where the Cicadas Sing]]></title><description><![CDATA[We live where their shells litter the land,
where their songs spice the hot air.
Roaring and deafening little insects
sweetening our summers like lemon
to cold, bitter tea.
This is where we are from, you and me.
But up where the corn scrawls across flat fields,
where fat firs and thin pines thrive,
it is so quiet one could sense
the clatter of a pin against cracked concrete,
the unfurling of a patterned quilt,
the wind’s soft sighs of frustration.
No cicadas sing in this northern town.
Only w]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/where-the-cicadas-sing/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523222</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Robertson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:19:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1657549390413-8e9df0c587f9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxjaWNhZGFzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA4NTMxMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1657549390413-8e9df0c587f9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxjaWNhZGFzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA4NTMxMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Where the Cicadas Sing"/><p>We live where their shells litter the land,<br>where their songs spice the hot air.<br>Roaring and deafening little insects<br>sweetening our summers like lemon<br>to cold, bitter tea.<br>This is where we are from, you and me.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But up where the corn scrawls across flat fields,<br>where fat firs and thin pines thrive,<br>it is so quiet one could sense<br>the clatter of a pin against cracked concrete,<br>the unfurling of a patterned quilt,<br>the wind’s soft sighs of frustration.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>No cicadas sing in this northern town.</p><p>Only when we returned to the rocks,<br>the hills, and the heat did we<br>notice their absence those three<br>long and dreadful days.</br></br></br></p><p>Is it right?<br>The truck rattles like a thousand<br>cicada wings, cliffs crawl<br>beneath armies of old oak trees.<br>Finally, familiarity is what we see,<br>for our hearts hound the hum<br>of many dying bugs<br>calling us back home.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Chicken-Vegetable Noodle Soup]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ingredients:
1 whole chicken roaster or 3 bone-in chicken breasts, fully cooked in a large stock pot or slow-cooker crockpot, stock reserved
Reserved stock
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 medium carrots, cut in ¼-inch slices
3 medium celery ribs, cut into ¼-inch slices
3 cloves garlic, minced
64 oz chicken stock
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground pepper
8 oz uncooked egg or kluski noodles
Instructions:
1. De-bone fully cooked chicken; chop chicken into bite-size pieces; set aside.
2. In a large s]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/chicken-vegetable-noodle-soup/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523207</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:19:18 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/10/chicken-noodle.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h1 id="ingredients-">Ingredients:</h1><img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/10/chicken-noodle.jpg" alt="Chicken-Vegetable Noodle Soup"/><p>1 whole chicken roaster or 3 bone-in chicken breasts, fully cooked in a large stock pot or slow-cooker crockpot, stock reserved<br>Reserved stock<br>2 tablespoons olive oil<br>3 medium carrots, cut in ¼-inch slices<br>3 medium celery ribs, cut into ¼-inch slices<br>3 cloves garlic, minced<br>64 oz chicken stock<br>½ teaspoon salt<br>½ teaspoon ground pepper<br>8 oz uncooked egg or kluski noodles</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><h1 id="instructions-">Instructions:</h1><ol><li>De-bone fully cooked chicken; chop chicken into bite-size pieces; set aside.</li><li>In a large stock pot, heat olive oil. Add carrots, celery, and garlic; sauté until slightly tender, about 5 minutes.</li><li>Add to the vegetables the reserved stock, extra chicken stock, salt, and pepper.</li><li>Bring to a boil; simmer for 15 minutes.</li><li>Add uncooked noodles; boil for at least another 15 minutes or until noodles are cooked.</li><li>Add chopped chicken; stir and simmer through for another 5 minutes before serving.</li></ol><p>Makes 12 cups.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Language]]></title><description><![CDATA[In the voice of Samanta Schweblin
Gravid, rigid, inexact, orality
has always made me uncomfortable.
Consider how easy it is to open the mouth
and say something that afterward we’d rather
not have said, how terrifying to name out loud
this thing that hasn’t been said and now it’s
something real: angry, irrevocable action,
reaction, whirlwinds provoked by words.
This is why I would rather give up speaking,
you see, and stick to putting down on the page
one word after the other, choosing carefu]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/language/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852321f</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Zeck]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:19:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1543165796-5426273eaab3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGxhbmd1YWdlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA4NDg3Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1543165796-5426273eaab3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGxhbmd1YWdlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA4NDg3Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Language"/><p><em>In the voice of Samanta Schweblin</em></p><p>Gravid, rigid, inexact, orality<br>has always made me uncomfortable.<br>Consider how easy it is to open the mouth</br></br></p><p>and say something that afterward we’d rather<br>not have said, how terrifying to name out loud<br>this thing that hasn’t been said and now it’s</br></br></p><p>something real: angry, irrevocable action,<br>reaction, whirlwinds provoked by words.<br>This is why I would rather give up speaking,</br></br></p><p>you see, and stick to putting down on the page<br>one word after the other, choosing carefully,<br>eschewing the noises and dangers of speaking,</br></br></p><p>so stopping the cacophony of the all too merry<br>go round, giving me the time I need to say exactly<br>what I want to say to master this little world.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Untitled]]></title><description><![CDATA[Last breaths dilly dally like colorful fall leaves falling
To the ground
in reverse.
They dilly dally upward
Out of the building
Into the sky
Past the clouds
Into space
Into the universe
Last breaths are kissed by the sun
And land on stars
Where they become light and energy
Last breaths are what you see
when you look up at the sky at night.
Last breaths are what make the stars twinkle.
When you see the twinkle of a star
Your soul becomes one
With the one
You grieve
And what stays between y]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/untitled-5/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852320f</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheri Bancroft]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:18:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520259075182-da7db177117b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxicmVhdGh8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgxNDUz&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520259075182-da7db177117b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxicmVhdGh8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgxNDUz&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Untitled"/><p>Last breaths dilly dally like colorful fall leaves falling<br>To the ground<br>in reverse.</br></br></p><p>They dilly dally upward<br>Out of the building<br>Into the sky<br>Past the clouds<br>Into space<br>Into the universe</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Last breaths are kissed by the sun<br>And land on stars<br>Where they become light and energy</br></br></p><p>Last breaths are what you see<br>when you look up at the sky at night.</br></p><p>Last breaths are what make the stars twinkle.</p><p>When you see the twinkle of a star<br>Your soul becomes one<br>With the one<br>You grieve</br></br></br></p><p>And what stays between you and the universe<br>Forever<br>Is<br>Love.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Thus the poet]]></title><description><![CDATA[Thus thinks the poet
There might just be somewhere
else, elsewhere words are spread into
Thus the paper is convinced already,
it handles thoughts thrown up by the poet
There comes in the paper as it
got to gather together those running
words through the gate within the poet’s mind
Though thinks the poet
There might just be somewhere else,
elsewhere words are spread into
Thus the paper, ill-mannered, laughs]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/thus-the-poet/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852321d</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Pedro Henrique da Silva Lino]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:18:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501618669935-18b6ecb13d6d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxwZW4lMjBwYXBlcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODQwOTQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501618669935-18b6ecb13d6d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxwZW4lMjBwYXBlcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODQwOTQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Thus the poet"/><p>Thus thinks the poet<br>There might just be somewhere<br>else, elsewhere words are spread into</br></br></p><p>Thus the paper is convinced already,<br>it handles thoughts thrown up by the poet</br></p><p>There comes in the paper as it<br>got to gather together those running<br>words through the gate within the poet’s mind</br></br></p><p>Though thinks the poet<br>There might just be somewhere else,<br>elsewhere words are spread into</br></br></p><p>Thus the paper, ill-mannered, laughs</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cold Shoulder]]></title><description><![CDATA[Your memory scrabbles
at my waking dreams sometimes
like starving juncos in winter’s wind
scratching at the snow for food.
It seems you slipped away
down some ice-bound North Slope of the mind,
inexplicably charting a course
beyond the hope of thaw.
From there you wield your absence
like a frozen whip of silence,
meant to punish those you loved
and will not name.
I sadly feel the lashes cut
then slice their cruel path
back to you,
disfiguring your image
in the eyes of all who cannot see you.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/cold-shoulder/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523205</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[C.D. White]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:17:56 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1493329306594-38b6b1cd381f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG5vcnRoJTIwcG9sZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwNzg4NjU&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1493329306594-38b6b1cd381f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG5vcnRoJTIwcG9sZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwNzg4NjU&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Cold Shoulder"/><p>Your memory scrabbles<br>at my waking dreams sometimes<br>like starving juncos in winter’s wind<br>scratching at the snow for food.</br></br></br></p><p>It seems you slipped away<br>down some ice-bound North Slope of the mind,<br>inexplicably charting a course<br>beyond the hope of thaw.</br></br></br></p><p>From there you wield your absence<br>like a frozen whip of silence,<br>meant to punish those you loved<br>and will not name.</br></br></br></p><p>I sadly feel the lashes cut<br>then slice their cruel path<br>back to you,<br>disfiguring your image<br>in the eyes of all who cannot see you.</br></br></br></br></p><p>This morning, gray and white<br>among the feast of seeds<br>fallen from my hand,<br>the juncos bob in thanks<br>outside my door;</br></br></br></br></p><p>while somewhere, you,<br>mistrusting truth<br>and all of love’s warm gifts,<br>hunger in the frost<br>of your own<br>mistaken<br>winter.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Reverie]]></title><description><![CDATA[For Jennifer
Dawnhead flashes improbable ground
of essence. Then thunder. Then leap
from bed to computer only to find
philosophical twaddle: Aristotle
and his to ti en einai (Metaphysics, VII, 7),
that whereby a thing is what it is,
fundamental ground of the soul,
whatever the soul is and who knows?
Return to bedrock, then, wife’s soft
round rump rising with her breathing:
content, for the time being, all we have:
pull duvet up, pat ground of essence softly,
softly murmuring love, love, love.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/reverie/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523220</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Zeck]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:17:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1570014016022-1138b5af89cf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDY1fHx0aHVuZGVyc3Rvcm18ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDg0OTk4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1570014016022-1138b5af89cf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDY1fHx0aHVuZGVyc3Rvcm18ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDg0OTk4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Reverie"/><p><em>For Jennifer</em></p><p>Dawnhead flashes improbable ground<br>of essence. Then thunder. Then leap<br>from bed to computer only to find<br>philosophical twaddle: Aristotle<br>and his <em>to ti en einai</em> (Metaphysics, VII, 7),<br>that whereby a thing is what it is,<br>fundamental ground of the soul,<br>whatever the soul is and who knows?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Return to bedrock, then, wife’s soft<br>round rump rising with her breathing:<br>content, for the time being, all we have:<br>pull duvet up, pat ground of essence softly,<br>softly murmuring love, love, love.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Ugly, The Bad, and The Despicable]]></title><description><![CDATA[I
Castle by the shores of the sea,
Sea of blood tainted the precious silk,
Silk of deceit woven in lies,
Lies here great tragedy of the greed,
The sheep herded in circle, blindfolded,
Blind, oblivious of the wolf pack,
The wolf cunning, rotten, merciless,
With mercy of Thou, would they perish,
Puppets are at the disposal, ready,
Ready to be played to the tune of power,
Power so potent, they emerged a saint,
Saint or Leprechaun herded the pot of gold?
II
Democracy is all but functioning and ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-ugly-the-bad-and-the-despicable/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523209</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Syakina Nour]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:17:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541491955-c317a59b662c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxidXJuaW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA3OTcyOA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541491955-c317a59b662c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxidXJuaW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTY2NTA3OTcyOA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Ugly, The Bad, and The Despicable"/><p>I</p><p>Castle by the shores of the sea,<br>Sea of blood tainted the precious silk,<br>Silk of deceit woven in lies,<br>Lies here great tragedy of the greed,</br></br></br></p><p>The sheep herded in circle, blindfolded,<br>Blind, oblivious of the wolf pack,<br>The wolf cunning, rotten, merciless,<br>With mercy of Thou, would they perish,</br></br></br></p><p>Puppets are at the disposal, ready,<br>Ready to be played to the tune of power,<br>Power so potent, they emerged a saint,<br>Saint or Leprechaun herded the pot of gold?</br></br></br></p><p>II</p><p>Democracy is all but functioning and fair,<br>Killed by the one at the top and below,<br>To whom should it serve? To whom should it work for?<br>Like a weapon, obey to the command of the wielder,</br></br></br></p><p>A gentle breeze is, but a deadly blow,<br>For verbal punches are just that, powerless,<br>Useless against the devils whose words are the law,<br>For once be fierce, be courageous, my fellows.</br></br></br></p><p>III</p><p>Black smokes engulf the city, the whole nation, painted them all in ash black.<br>A speck of light gleaming like moonlight, shines up above the dark sky.<br>The reflection of the sun it’s not, but the dazzle of castles of precious stones.<br>The heavenly beings, untouchable by the worldly plight, flaunting their ornate robes to the pheasants.</br></br></br></p><p>Sitting on their thrones, built with lies and deceit with no ounce of shame.<br>Heart is a big diamond, in the colour of ruby, cold and hard to touch.<br>Blessed with silver spoons and golden wings, scoffed at the weeping peasants’ bowl.<br>For the lowly beings’ tears are worth less than the water dripped from the eaves.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Zen and the Art of Pest Management in the Organic Garden]]></title><description><![CDATA[When I had a regular practice of sitting meditation, I sat early on a summer’s morning on a zafu in my screened porch before going to our large organic garden. Now, at 80, with diminishing energy and strength, mindful work in the garden has become my morning meditation. Better for my arthritic joints, this exercise produces as beneficial an effect for quieting my mind as sitting ever did. I internalize external sounds (cawing of crows) from the natural world as mantra—a keen reminder to pay atte]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/zen-and-the-art-of-pest-management-in-the-organic-garden/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852320c</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Weinstein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:16:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515589654462-a9881e276b84?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHB1bXBraW4lMjBnYXJkZW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgwNTM1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515589654462-a9881e276b84?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHB1bXBraW4lMjBnYXJkZW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjY1MDgwNTM1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Zen and the Art of Pest Management in the Organic Garden"/><p>When I had a regular practice of sitting meditation, I sat early on a summer’s morning on a zafu in my screened porch before going to our large organic garden. Now, at 80, with diminishing energy and strength, mindful work in the garden has become my morning meditation. Better for my arthritic joints, this exercise produces as beneficial an effect for quieting my mind as sitting ever did. I internalize external sounds (cawing of crows) from the natural world as mantra—a keen reminder to pay attention, to be in the environment, to listen to all that is around me, to feel the air as it stirs, the shade and sun in their shifting dance, drops of dew clinging to leaves, different textures—all without judgment.</p><p>Despite the difficulty of growing cucurbita in southern gardens (the jokes about sneaking onto neighbors’ porches with bags of zucchini ring hollow and sardonic), I persist, searching out resistant varieties, changing locations, and exercising good garden sanitation. The products allowable under organic guidelines are pricey, and big rains invariably fall immediately after application. Also effective in controlling the menacing <em>Anasa tristis</em> is the avoidance of mulch around the base of the plants. Early in the season our vines and bushes grow luxuriantly and shade the ground with their foliage, making mulch unnecessary. Another suggestion is the placement of boards near the plants; one turns the boards over and stomps the hell out of the hiding insects. However, the most recommended method for controlling small plantings of squash and pumpkins is hand control. Even when we plant prodigiously, I prefer the tedious hand-picking method.</p><p>The physicality of stepping carefully, stretching, and bending to turn the vines as they snake through the hills of inter-planted beans and around pepper plants in the adjacent row energizes me after the relative stillness of my night’s sleep. I love to feel my muscles warming in the morning sun. The repetitive motion—always through the same pathway but with varying results—clears and focuses my mind and signals to my visual cortex that I am in search of subtle distinctions in color and shape, attuned to the slightest movement that reveals adults, whether frozen in stillness on a stalk, under a leaf copulating, or scurrying along the ground to escape the pincers of my thumb and fingers. A rare but thrilling event is catching one as it dribbles out the tiny, slightly oval, coppery-colored eggs, piled like a miser’s hoard of shiny coins. The eggs are usually clustered on the undersides of leaves and easy to spot. I swipe my thumbnail along these deposited eggs and feel them pop between the nails of my amazing opposable thumbs. If I miss the newly laid eggs, they darken before hatching into swarms of pale-green, spidery nymphs. Empty eggs are a signal to search for the various stages of nymphs, which emerge greenish white with hair-like legs, like whiskery little warts on the chin of a Halloween witch. They cluster briefly then disperse in search of food and reproduction. Soon the whiskery legs become serious appendages intent upon escape. In this state, it is easy to eliminate them with a smearing motion of the fingers or a crumple of the leaf. The eggs and nymphs, while harmless enough until they begin to feed and reproduce, are a reminder that if left to live, they will become armies, battalions, legions, intent upon sucking the life out of the plants. Once they begin to locomote along the ground, I shake them off the plant and stomp on them. Friends who grow the lovely, green-tipped yellow Zephyr variety for Little Rock’s organic restaurant market all summer have an end of season ritual. He goes through the rows with a blow torch, burning the dried vines, listening with glee as the tiny eggs, which every surviving adult female has laid in an end-of-season frenzy, pop. There is a grim pleasure in the elimination of this insect juggernaut that would kill every vine and fruit of the harvest.</p><p>The ironic second part of the title of this essay is completely intentional, and while I am aware that there is nothing Buddhist—Zen nor any other tradition of the Eastern philosophy—about killing a life form, even a form so low on the scale of sentience, I believe that the degree of mindfulness exercised in discerning the various stages of this insect among the great camouflage of its prey qualifies as the same kind of awareness sought and achieved by long hours of sitting meditation. Buddhism explains sentience as the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Applying that meaning and carefully observing the behavior of squash bugs over forty-five years, I have come to the heart-deep belief that the plants—whether the bush or vining varieties—possess more sentience than the bugs at whose mercy they manage to grow. It is difficult to imagine a male and female squash bug pair pondering the act of reproduction after their mechanical coupling and declaring it the “best sex” they have ever had. Equally impossible is picturing them, replete and satisfied after munching on the tastiest squash vine they have ever eaten. All their actions appear involuntary and machine-like. Their urge to escape seems as mindless as their drive to reproduce and eat; so while they seem to avoid a painful death, I cannot imagine them experiencing pleasure.</p><p>However, the sinuous growth of the vines and upright habit of the bush varieties seem more zoological than the dreaded insects: the seeds sprout into dicotyledon leaflets and develop vigorous stems, tendrils, a profusion of leaves, male and female flowers, and finally delicious, nutrient-rich fruits. This process appears more complicated and aware than the robotic activities of squash bugs. Horticultural research states that individual plants remember early traumas and “decide” whether to languish or put on bursts of energy and flourish. There are no growth variations among the bugs, I am certain.</p><p>So, it is with full conscious responsibility that I wage my holy war against squash bugs and urge more fastidious gardeners to go bare-handed into their gardens and know that they must choose between automaton-like insect life multiplying like viruses gone awry and the intelligent, sensuous life of their squash plants. Take off your gloves and squish squash bugs!</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rain Delay: Tough Call]]></title><description><![CDATA[After Norman Rockwell, “Tough Call” (1949)
Play ball, Rocky:
hey umps, yes, I’m weighing in here,
play ball, Rocky,
a minor inundation; hell,
possibly because it’s April
the season’s young, you may as well
play ball, Rocky.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rain-delay-tough-call/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852320b</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Robinson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:16:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590502160462-58b41354f588?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxiYXNlYmFsbCUyMHdldHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODAyMjQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590502160462-58b41354f588?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxiYXNlYmFsbCUyMHdldHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwODAyMjQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Rain Delay: Tough Call"/><p><em>After Norman Rockwell, </em>“Tough Call”<em> (1949)</em></p><p>Play ball, Rocky:<br>hey umps, yes, I’m weighing in here,<br>play ball, Rocky,</br></br></p><p>a minor inundation; hell,<br>possibly because it’s April<br>the season’s young, you may as well</br></br></p><p>play ball, Rocky.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Solo]]></title><description><![CDATA[O Lord, you God of vengeance,
you refute the idea of coincidence.
For example, solo, known also as alone,
can separate into so low, which is
how many (myself included) feel when solo.
A show about God and planes shows
after my anxiety-ridden flights.
To the Golden State I go with an ill
feeling; anxious, therefore low,
and that’s no mistake when it happens solo.
Surely, I try to ease my mind when I make
connections, find patterns, human-like.
During turbulence I close my eyes and repeat
in my ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/solo/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523204</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dani Kuntz]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:15:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605590427165-3884d6aa6731?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxhaXJwbGFuZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwNzg2NDM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605590427165-3884d6aa6731?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxhaXJwbGFuZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwNzg2NDM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Solo"/><p>O Lord, you God of vengeance,<br>you refute the idea of coincidence.<br>For example, solo, known also as alone,<br>can separate into so low, which is<br>how many (myself included) feel when solo.</br></br></br></br></p><p>A show about God and planes shows<br>after my anxiety-ridden flights.<br>To the Golden State I go with an ill<br>feeling; anxious, therefore low,<br>and that’s no mistake when it happens solo.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Surely, I try to ease my mind when I make<br>connections, find patterns, human-like.<br>During turbulence I close my eyes and repeat<br>in my mind, Dear Lord, thank you<br>for this life, I want to live, even if I’m alone.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Constellation in a Starry Night]]></title><description><![CDATA[(With apologies to Vincent Van Gogh)
Suffering spiral shadows contorted in angry pain,
Wrung by a controlling force, Taurus rages
And rams his skull forward tearing the blue-black cape of night,
Snorting sparks singe pox scars of hot embers into the rippled
Cloak of darkness unfurled across the infinite ring.
Birth pangs force his budding horns,
Puncturing the whorled foreskin
Stretched taut between his ears,
Pushing forth his sole means of self-defense
Born in a distinctive crown of glory.
T]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/constellation-in-a-starry-night/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523201</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sandra Korey]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:15:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516571748831-5d81767b788d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxzdGFyc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwNzc5MTY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516571748831-5d81767b788d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxzdGFyc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjUwNzc5MTY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Constellation in a Starry Night"/><p><em><strong><strong>(With apologies to Vincent Van Gogh)</strong></strong></em></p><p>Suffering spiral shadows contorted in angry pain,<br>Wrung by a controlling force, Taurus rages<br>And rams his skull forward tearing the blue-black cape of night,<br>Snorting sparks singe pox scars of hot embers into the rippled<br>Cloak of darkness unfurled across the infinite ring.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Birth pangs force his budding horns,<br>Puncturing the whorled foreskin<br>Stretched taut between his ears,<br>Pushing forth his sole means of self-defense<br>Born in a distinctive crown of glory.</br></br></br></br></p><p>This magnificent muscled form, pared sleek<br>By the sharp edge of the grinding whetstone<br>Of shrill winds shrieking in turbulent storms,<br>Bows down a threatening head.<br>His hooves dance, stomping impatiently, scattering the inconvenient dirt.<br>Gapping clouds swallow flying clods of stinging dust.<br>The powerful trunk of his body sways<br>With the invisible rhythm swelling in the dark air.<br>He charges.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Paralyzed in suspended animation<br>This mighty creature fails to pierce the silent hymen<br>Separating heaven and earth.<br>OLE’.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 16: Fall 2022]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Friends of eMerge,
Here is the Fall 2022 edition of eMerge, our final issue of 2022.
Many of us are looking ahead with anticipation of the cold winter months coming. We hope there is something here to warm you and keep you company, regardless of whether it's Anna Gall's delicious recipe for "Apple Bundt Cake", John Walch's humorous holiday play "Carving", or the bounty of imaginative poetry in this issue (such as Sonya Vann Delouch's "Counting Trees" or C.D. White's "Coup de grace").
eMe]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-16-fall-2022/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523224</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joy Clark]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 19 Oct 2022 22:27:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Dear Friends of eMerge,</p><p>Here is the Fall 2022 edition of <em><em>eMerge</em>, </em>our final issue of 2022.</p><p>Many of us are looking ahead with anticipation of the cold winter months coming. We hope there is something here to warm you and keep you company, regardless of whether it's Anna Gall's delicious recipe for "Apple Bundt Cake", John Walch's humorous holiday play "Carving"<em>, </em>or the bounty of imaginative poetry in this issue (such as Sonya Vann Delouch's "Counting Trees" or C.D. White's "Coup de grace").</p><p>eMerge is published with the generous support of the Board of Directors and the staff at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH). Our website is managed by the incomparable Cat Templeton. Thanks as well to the WCDH community, including residents, alumni, and friends!</p><p>Submissions for <em><em>eMerge</em></em> 2023 closed on October 16. I can't offer any details <em>yet</em> about what next year looks like for <em>eMerge</em>, however I want each of you who submitted to know that exciting things are in the works for 2023. We have a wealth of poetry, prose, and recipes to sort through, but you should be hearing from me by the end of 2022.</p><p>I hope you enjoy this issue and have a restorative, restful winter ahead of you.</p><p>All the best,</p><p>Joy Clark</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Coming soon]]></title><description><![CDATA[This is eMerge Magazine, a brand new site by Carolyn-Anne Templeton that's just getting started. Things will be up and running here shortly, but you can subscribe in the meantime if you'd like to stay up to date and receive emails when new content is published!]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/coming-soon-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f7b</guid><category><![CDATA[News]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cat Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 07 Oct 2022 22:43:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://static.ghost.org/v4.0.0/images/feature-image.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://static.ghost.org/v4.0.0/images/feature-image.jpg" alt="Coming soon"/><p>This is eMerge Magazine, a brand new site by Carolyn-Anne Templeton that's just getting started. Things will be up and running here shortly, but you can <a href="#/portal/">subscribe</a> in the meantime if you'd like to stay up to date and receive emails when new content is published!</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Anatomy and Physiology]]></title><description><![CDATA[When I die, I don’t
want the cat’s papillae
to tear me apart.
I don’t want my flesh
to be stripped
from my bones.
I don’t want the maggots
that gather in Henry’s pocket
to burrow into my orifices.
I want the cat
to smell the decay
rising from my body.
I want it to
walk in its prints
so as not to wake me up.
I want it to
pass through my skeleton
wherever its head can fit.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/anatomy-and-physiology/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ee</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dani Kuntz]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:29:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1575778819145-c2e58ada015f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxjYXQlMjBzaGFkb3d8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTQwNTQ4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1575778819145-c2e58ada015f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxjYXQlMjBzaGFkb3d8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTQwNTQ4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Anatomy and Physiology"/><p>When I die, I don’t<br>want the cat’s papillae<br>to tear me apart.</br></br></p><p>I don’t want my flesh<br>to be stripped<br>from my bones.</br></br></p><p>I don’t want the maggots<br>that gather in Henry’s pocket<br>to burrow into my orifices.</br></br></p><p>I want the cat<br>to smell the decay<br>rising from my body.</br></br></p><p>I want it to<br>walk in its prints<br>so as not to wake me up.</br></br></p><p>I want it to<br>pass through my skeleton<br>wherever its head can fit.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Our Stories]]></title><description><![CDATA[Mark told the story of Fred, how he sank when the light came.
Fred told the story of Mary when she continued to sweep up the dead birds at the foot of the high wall.
Mary told the story of Mark when he had cheerfully hidden the future.
Mark told the story of Fred facing beyond the skies when the light folded.
Fred told the story of Mary patiently listening to him.
Mary told the story of Fred, but he was not listening.
Fred and Mark touched tongues and told the story of Mary passing between them.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/our-stories/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231e2</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dirk van Nouhuys]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:29:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457369804613-52c61a468e7d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHN0b3J5fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzODcwMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457369804613-52c61a468e7d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHN0b3J5fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzODcwMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Our Stories"/><p>Mark told the story of Fred, how he sank when the light came.<br>Fred told the story of Mary when she continued to sweep up the dead birds at the foot of the high wall.<br>Mary told the story of Mark when he had cheerfully hidden the future.<br>Mark told the story of Fred facing beyond the skies when the light folded.<br>Fred told the story of Mary patiently listening to him.<br>Mary told the story of Fred, but he was not listening.<br>Fred and Mark touched tongues and told the story of Mary passing between them.<br>Mary and Mark touched intimately and conceived the story of Fred.<br>Fred and Mary stood beside the dead birds and recalled the story of Mark.<br>Mary’s story of Mark lost its way.<br>Fred’s story of Mary grew still.<br>Mary told the story of Mark seeking Fred beyond the high wall.<br>Mark told the story of his longing.<br>Mary told the story of silence.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Wombs]]></title><description><![CDATA[How many molecular functions were swiped up by dust rags from behind the cookie jar, thesis statements spun around mixing bowls with room temperature butter and vanilla, legal challenges that couldn’t escape Monday’s mopping even tucked under the bottom edge of the cabinet, peace-talks threaded and stitched into new curtains, full minds swept the front porches before 8am each day, soothed teething infants while daydreaming in binary
The spring I graduated college
she took my hand
in one of hers]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/wombs/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231f2</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Lynn Heller]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:29:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1616581051018-2edcf6678e55?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMzfHxmcmVlZG9tfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MTE5NQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1616581051018-2edcf6678e55?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMzfHxmcmVlZG9tfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MTE5NQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Wombs"/><p>How many molecular functions were swiped up by dust rags from behind the cookie jar, thesis statements spun around mixing bowls with room temperature butter and vanilla, legal challenges that couldn’t escape Monday’s mopping even tucked under the bottom edge of the cabinet, peace-talks threaded and stitched into new curtains, full minds swept the front porches before 8am each day, soothed teething infants while daydreaming in binary</p><p>The spring I graduated college<br>she took my hand<br>in one of hers<br>told me she was<br>so proud<br>of her granddaughters<br>of how free we were<br>free of our wombs</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[[Signal] Fire]]></title><description><![CDATA[[I am] one of the burning hillside trees.
[Fire] jumps from leaves to bark.
My arm and torso break. I am [fractured]
and still, I love the [Earth] I am from.
[Cosmic] night shape-shifts me
into a hot crunch of [embers].
When fire is gone, coals still [burn]
through to [the core] of the Earth I am from.
Come morning, I sing the [sad]dest notes
from what [remains] of this Earth I am from.
My trunk no longer [stretch]es to sky.
Its blackened stalk [tremble]s even in still air.
My voice calls the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/signal-fire/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231dc</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Liza Wolff-Francis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:28:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1578885136359-16c8bd4d3a8e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGZpcmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTM3MTA0&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1578885136359-16c8bd4d3a8e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGZpcmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTM3MTA0&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="[Signal] Fire"/><p>[I am] one of the burning hillside trees.<br>[Fire] jumps from leaves to bark.<br>My arm and torso break. I am [fractured]<br>and still, I love the [Earth] I am from.</br></br></br></p><p>[Cosmic] night shape-shifts me<br>into a hot crunch of [embers].<br>When fire is gone, coals still [burn]<br>through to [the core] of the Earth I am from.</br></br></br></p><p>Come morning, I sing the [sad]dest notes<br>from what [remains] of this Earth I am from.<br>My trunk no longer [stretch]es to sky.<br>Its blackened stalk [tremble]s even in still air.</br></br></br></p><p>My voice calls the breeze to [reach] me,<br>though that same [air] pushed me to my knees<br>before it brought my death. I beg [for] it<br>to give [me] wholly to the burnt Earth I am from.</br></br></br></p><p>[Charred] trunk, ashen limbs, burnt hollows<br>my singed [tongue] creaks, new flowers grow<br>at my edges. This is the time for [a rebirth]<br>[for the Earth] I am from.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Wife Speaks To Her Husband During Visiting Hours at Douglas County Jail]]></title><description><![CDATA[You should be home
helping me
string slate and russet gems
into our lives’ fortune.
We could be on fire
slow dancing
under a new moon.
Instead, I am here sitting with you.
The only slate: your grey T-shirt
The only russet:
your orange prison pants.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-wife-speaks-to-her-husband-during-visiting-hours-at-douglas-county-jail/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231d4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Annie Klier Newcomer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:28:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531413496675-fb7f363c2c45?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHByaXNvbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1MzU5MzA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531413496675-fb7f363c2c45?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHByaXNvbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1MzU5MzA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Wife Speaks To Her Husband During Visiting Hours at Douglas County Jail"/><p>You should be home<br>helping me<br>string slate and russet gems<br>into our lives’ fortune.</br></br></br></p><p>We could be on fire<br>slow dancing<br>under a new moon.</br></br></p><p>Instead, I am here sitting with you.<br>The only slate: your grey T-shirt<br>The only russet:<br>your orange prison pants.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Words Rewritten]]></title><description><![CDATA[I once wrote a poem of medievals,
their two sleeps, two awakenings.
“The first stirring phase came thence in the middle
for the peasant’s night hours did divide.”
Soon, I too, began a midnight phase, a mystical twofold sleep.
During the day my lines were dull and languorous:
“She wrote me daily. I long for her words.”
But, during the mystic hours the verse became:
“Her cursive scripts, her dazzling wit, a few words
each day on the trip.”
During daylight I wrote:
“We did not foresee her deathly m]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/words-rewritten/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231f8</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:28:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548445929-4f60a497f851?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1lZGlldmFsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MTk2NQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548445929-4f60a497f851?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1lZGlldmFsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MTk2NQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Words Rewritten"/><p>I once wrote a poem of medievals,<br>their two sleeps, two awakenings.<br>“The first stirring phase came thence in the middle<br>for the peasant’s night hours did divide.”<br>Soon, I too, began a midnight phase, a mystical twofold sleep.<br>During the day my lines were dull and languorous:<br>“She wrote me daily. I long for her words.”<br>But, during the mystic hours the verse became:<br>“Her cursive scripts, her dazzling wit, a few words<br>each day on the trip.”<br>During daylight I wrote:<br>“We did not foresee her deathly malady.”<br>With my nighttime pen I wrote:<br>“We did not foresee, did not previse, our<br>lives existentially fraught.”<br>My daytime verse was morose:<br>“There is little time left to read her glowing words.”<br>At night they were refined:<br>“For, now we are sure, not long to endure, no pages to share,<br>the words are not there.”<br>I wish I had such magic to see her again.<br>But, she is gone and there is only one line left to write:<br>“A churchyard stone becomes a home and poets as they do,<br>they heal and move on.”</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[My Old Man]]></title><description><![CDATA[My father once told me
about a time before I was born
when he was in the Navy
and a big war was going
on around the world
and he was sitting in a booth
in a bar with several other guys
and one of them a big bully got mad
at him and said he was going to fight him
My father said he accepted the challenge
but before the other guy could get up from
the table my father trapped him in the corner
of the seat against the wall and hit him
and hit him and hit him
and hit him and hit him
The guy’s head l]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/my-old-man/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231e0</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:28:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1618349131771-48417d67906c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxuYXZ5fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzODE4Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1618349131771-48417d67906c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxuYXZ5fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzODE4Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="My Old Man"/><p>My father once told me<br>about a time before I was born<br>when he was in the Navy<br>and a big war was going<br>on around the world<br>and he was sitting in a booth<br>in a bar with several other guys<br>and one of them a big bully got mad<br>at him and said he was going to fight him</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>My father said he accepted the challenge<br>but before the other guy could get up from<br>the table my father trapped him in the corner<br>of the seat against the wall and hit him<br>and hit him and hit him<br>and hit him and hit him</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The guy’s head lolled against the table<br>and everyone in the place stepped aside<br>as my father walked out of the bar<br>and back into the war</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Leo J. Ryan]]></title><description><![CDATA[Murdered on the tarmac.
Jonestown, Guyana, South America.
He wanted to save those captured by cult leader Jim Jones.
The messiah of the Peoples Temple.
A San Francisco evangelist group.
But he failed by order of that Devil.
Becoming the first and only Congressman
to be assassinated in office.
Before Mr. Ryan became a congressman, he was a teacher.
One of my teachers.
He taught me how to drive.
He taught me about politics and politicians.
Took a group of us to a Kennedy rally in 1960.
I would ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/leo-j-ryan/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231e6</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John L. Swainston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:28:18 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1569285647999-67fc5a1ff1ad?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGNvbmdyZXNzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTI4Nw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1569285647999-67fc5a1ff1ad?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGNvbmdyZXNzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTI4Nw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Leo J. Ryan"/><p>Murdered on the tarmac.<br>Jonestown, Guyana, South America.</br></p><p>He wanted to save those captured by cult leader Jim Jones.<br>The messiah of the Peoples Temple.<br>A San Francisco evangelist group.</br></br></p><p>But he failed by order of that Devil.<br>Becoming the first and only Congressman<br>to be assassinated in office.</br></br></p><p>Before Mr. Ryan became a congressman, he was a teacher.<br>One of my teachers.<br>He taught me how to drive.<br>He taught me about politics and politicians.<br>Took a group of us to a Kennedy rally in 1960.<br>I would work at a Kennedy election headquarters,<br>introduced by Mr. Ryan.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>As a teacher he treated all students with respect.<br>Even the ones that did not return that respect.<br>When around him I felt like a man.</br></br></p><p>The day he died – I cried.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Principal Life]]></title><description><![CDATA[If you died tomorrow,
God forbid, says my friend,
the insurance agent provocateur,
if there is a God, it’s his guess as good as
mine, forbid that you should die tomorrow,
that is. The day after tomorrow might be more
convenient, I reply. Tomorrow, you see, is fully booked,
I have events up the ying-yang starting with my morning
coffee with the boys, and as for today I’m afraid the calendar
is already chock-full. Damned if I wouldn’t have a helluva
time finding time today to pay down even that me]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/principal-life/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231d7</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Zeck]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:28:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1467664631004-58beab1ece0d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNhbGVzbWFufGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzNjUyMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1467664631004-58beab1ece0d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNhbGVzbWFufGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzNjUyMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Principal Life"/><p>If you died tomorrow,<br>God forbid, says my friend,<br>the insurance agent provocateur,<br>if there is a God, it’s his guess as good as<br>mine, forbid that you should die tomorrow,<br>that is. The day after tomorrow might be more<br>convenient, I reply. Tomorrow, you see, is fully booked,<br>I have events up the ying-yang starting with my morning<br>coffee with the boys, and as for today I’m afraid the calendar<br>is already chock-full. Damned if I wouldn’t have a helluva<br>time finding time today to pay down even that measly<br>one dollar on the one-hundred-thousand-dollar life<br>insurance policy. God forbid indeed such a thing<br>should happen to a mere mortal man. Can’t<br>Principal just mind its own business today?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What You Left Behind]]></title><description><![CDATA[You didn’t text or call
I find instead a short illegible list -
Reminders for you? Me? Someone else?
I peer at the writing whose form I recognize
but can’t piece together
I flip through the notebook knowing
I’m looking at what you don’t want to be seen
Commit the open page to the pencil cup
of my memory so I can return it the way
you left it when – if - you come back
I smooth the crumpled sheets
nervous you will appear and catch me
searching for you
searching for what I haven’t found
when you ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/what-you-left-behind/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231f1</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Lynn Heller]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:27:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1580753402232-8635eb91a327?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGNydW1wbGVkJTIwcGFwZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTQxMDY4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1580753402232-8635eb91a327?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGNydW1wbGVkJTIwcGFwZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTQxMDY4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="What You Left Behind"/><p>You didn’t text or call<br>I find instead a short illegible list -<br>Reminders for you? Me? Someone else?<br>I peer at the writing whose form I recognize<br>but can’t piece together</br></br></br></br></p><p>I flip through the notebook knowing<br>I’m looking at what you don’t want to be seen<br>Commit the open page to the pencil cup<br>of my memory so I can return it the way<br>you left it when – if - you come back</br></br></br></br></p><p>I smooth the crumpled sheets<br>nervous you will appear and catch me<br>searching for you<br>searching for what I haven’t found<br>when you are here</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Solstice Peach]]></title><description><![CDATA[The way the soft skin snaps
And separates as the knife
Runs through it
How the metal thuds when it
Reaches the stone
The crackle of fruit ripping
Away from the pit
As the juice drips onto your hand
Slurping the outside pinky edge
So the floor won’t get sticky
Then you take a bite
Sunset bright
And sigh over the beauty
Of slicing this summer peach
On the solstice]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/solstice-peach/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231f5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Cloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:27:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1594981019033-4a9146c7e660?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI3fHxwZWFjaHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1NDE0OTQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1594981019033-4a9146c7e660?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI3fHxwZWFjaHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1NDE0OTQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Solstice Peach"/><p>The way the soft skin snaps<br>And separates as the knife<br>Runs through it<br>How the metal thuds when it<br>Reaches the stone<br>The crackle of fruit ripping<br>Away from the pit<br>As the juice drips onto your hand<br>Slurping the outside pinky edge<br>So the floor won’t get sticky<br>Then you take a bite<br>Sunset bright<br>And sigh over the beauty<br>Of slicing this summer peach<br>On the solstice</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Kindness]]></title><description><![CDATA[Walking down the circular path
to the vaulted room – Radiation
treatment soon.
Turning the corner, she looked up
smiling at me. She just finished her
treatment. Seven or eight, I think.
Snuggled in her arm, she carried a
Teddy Bear.
“Does that help?” I asked.
She smiled, “Yes.”
The next day walking the path
there he was, sitting on the hand
rail – her Teddy Bear.
“Oh no, look she forgot her bear.”
“No, she didn’t.”
I looked at my guide confused.
“No, she left him for you.”
My Dad always tol]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/kindness/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231e5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John L. Swainston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:27:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1556012018-50c5c0da73bf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHRlZGR5fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTA5NA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1556012018-50c5c0da73bf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHRlZGR5fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTA5NA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Kindness"/><p>Walking down the circular path<br>to the vaulted room – Radiation<br>treatment soon.</br></br></p><p>Turning the corner, she looked up<br>smiling at me. She just finished her<br>treatment. Seven or eight, I think.</br></br></p><p>Snuggled in her arm, she carried a<br>Teddy Bear.<br>“Does that help?” I asked.<br>She smiled, “Yes.”</br></br></br></p><p>The next day walking the path<br>there he was, sitting on the hand<br>rail – her Teddy Bear.<br>“Oh no, look she forgot her bear.”</br></br></br></p><p>“No, she didn’t.”<br>I looked at my guide confused.<br>“No, she left him for you.”</br></br></p><p>My Dad always told me that:<br>real men do not cry.<br>But I did.</br></br></p><p>And yes, it helped.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How a Mother Should Dress]]></title><description><![CDATA[An earlier version of this piece was published in the memoir Tilted: The Post Brain Surgery Journals (2015).
My mom had started wearing her dead mother’s clothes.
“See, she was the same height as me, but much wider,” she said to me, bunching the back of a grey plaid wool jacket, or maybe a short mink coat. She would be standing on the porch of my and Nick’s bungalow, and I, distractedly picking dead leaves out of the hanging ferns, would nod and make a noise of approval, while wondering how to]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/how-a-mother-should-dress/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231e8</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Louise Krug]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:27:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1454875392665-2ac2c85e8d3e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxncmFuZG1hfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTU0OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1454875392665-2ac2c85e8d3e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxncmFuZG1hfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTU0OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="How a Mother Should Dress"/><p>An earlier version of this piece was published in the memoir <em>Tilted: The Post Brain Surgery Journals</em> (2015).</p><hr><p>My mom had started wearing her dead mother’s clothes.</p><p>“See, she was the same height as me, but much wider,” she said to me, bunching the back of a grey plaid wool jacket, or maybe a short mink coat. She would be standing on the porch of my and Nick’s bungalow, and I, distractedly picking dead leaves out of the hanging ferns, would nod and make a noise of approval, while wondering how to get my mother off this slide she was hell bent on going down.</p><p>My mom had started wearing her mother’s, whom we all had called “Grammy,” old clothes almost every day — they were “perfect for work,” she said, like a navy blazer with shoulder pads and gold-braid detail, and baggy polyester slacks the color of putty. She had even gotten into Grammy’s costume jewelry, chunky coral necklaces and silver rings with big, black stones. This was a textbook case of grief, I thought. But how to stop grief? Could it be stopped? What harm would this do, anyway?</p><p>Grammy had died unexpectedly several months earlier. She had fallen to the floor in front of her closet while deciding what to wear. Heart attack, early in the morning. Mom and I had agreed that was how we wanted to die, also. Granddad had been shaving in the adjoining bathroom, hadn’t even heard Grammy fall, and when he found her it was already too late. They had been married sixty years. He was bereft, miserable, depressed — which was why Mom was wearing Grammy’s clothes. She wanted to help her father feel better. She missed her mother. Take your pick. Fur coats from Russia, turtlenecks from Land’s End, sequined sweaters and painted silk scarves. It was all still usable.</p><p>These days, my mom would drive the 90 minutes to visit me once a month or so. I lived in a college town that had hip restaurants and gourmet supermarkets, so we would get lunch and buy groceries while chattering away. My mom would always treat, she was unfailingly generous. I would seldom protest, sometimes buying our afternoon coffee for posterity’s sake. But I was a graduate student who made a pittance by teaching composition classes, and we both knew I didn’t have much to give.</p><p>“They’re perfectly good clothes, some of them quite expensive,” Granddad would say to my mom. “No sense in letting them go to waste.” Mom repeated the same words later to me, walking the downtown sidewalk in some bizarre outfit, half Grammy’s red silk blouse, and half her own blue jeans. She had looked into getting the clothes tailored, but it was abhorrently expensive, so made do with safety pins. Mom and Grammy had the same shoe size, too, so in the winter she started going around in some black fur boots with brass toes. In the springtime she showed up at my door in some dirty white cork sandals. I just shrugged.</p><p>As time went on, I tried to be more blunt with my mom, saying things like, “You don’t need to prove anything by wearing Grammy’s clothes,” or “Granddad will be O.K. even if you don’t want to go around in that sweater.” The most plain I could get was, “You really don’t look great in Grammy’s clothes, Mom. They’re not you.”</p><p>What I said was true. All her life, she had been a terrific-looking mom: thin, with muscles from tennis and running; dark brown hair that was long and thick. She had a classic style of crisp white blouses and soft chinos, with sharp black stilettos and red gabardine cocktail dresses for nights out. She was a pretty lady. It was just a fact, and I could see in her face that my words finally sunk in a little bit. But then she would lift her chin, and the conversation was over.</p><p>At the end of an outing, after my mom drove away, home to her tiny town with Kansas yellow fields and blue skies, and her household of her husband and Granddad, who had moved in with them after Grammy died, I was home alone. As I put away the bag of groceries she had just bought for me, things like edamame hummus, rice crackers, and salad greens, I would think about how my mom was grieving all wrong. I stored these thoughts for Nick and then unrolled them for him later, when he got home from his job at the newspaper, where he was a photographer.</p><p>“It’s a little twisted,” I said after telling him her latest antics with the clothes. We were driving home from the hardware store, a box of ribs we’d bought from the food truck in the parking lot on my lap. The ribs had smelled so good, but I didn’t really like eating them. “Don’t you think?”</p><p>“Definitely,” said Nick, who loved ribs. “Why doesn’t your mom just say ‘no’ to your granddad?”</p><p>I waved my hand. As if. “And she criticizes Grammy for the smallest things she used to do. Like good things — the way she used to go and pick up trash in her church parking lot, or clean the pews with furniture polish. Write checks for five dollars. Why does she focus on the bad?”</p><p>Nick shook his head. I got quiet. We drove on. I had never had to worry about my mom before, not really. She was an extremely capable person who took risks, someone who had divorced my father, whom I adored, packed up my younger brothers, and moved from Michigan to Kansas (which I have never quite forgiven her for, which she knows). Sometimes, a person you love makes choices you can’t ever get behind. But you move on. In ways.</p><p>During our visits or conversations on the phone, Mom and I would talk about how Granddad was grieving all wrong, too. He would not go to any support groups at his church. He would not meet the rest of the old men in town for coffee at the McDonalds at 6 a.m. All he wanted to do was drink gin martinis after work, without eating anything. Mom and Granddad worked together, running the town’s daily newspaper. They were good at it and put in long hours.</p><p>On the phone, Mom went on and on. “Did you know that Dad divides all the utility bills into thirds, and pays his portion in exact change?” she said to me. “He wears tennis shoes he’s owned for twenty years. I wish I could keep shoes for that long!”</p><p>I wanted to talk about something, anything else. Mainly myself. Maybe Nick and I’s upcoming wedding. Maybe graduate school, which I alternately liked and wanted to quit. But usually I stopped myself. Mom had her hands full. “One night he says he can’t go on living, and the next day he books a trip to Borneo!” Mom said. He had the guest bedroom at her house but his clothes were still in suitcases. He didn’t make the coffee in the morning, but sat in his room dressed and with the light on until Mom got up and made some. But they managed. At least that’s what Mom told me.</p><p>One day, after a lunch at our favorite health-food café where we both got vegetarian Reuben’s, Mom gave me a heavy paper bag. It had been about six months since she had begun wearing Grammy’s clothes, and now, finally, she had stopped doing it so frequently, folding the Faire Isle sweaters and long wool pleated skirts with tissue paper and stacking them in cardboard boxes. She was unsure of what to do with them still, but had begun to believe me about how she didn’t need to wear them, at least all the time. After Mom left, I emptied the bag on my bed. It was nothing but Grammy’s stretched-out sports bras in colors like hot pink and purple, socks, and a filmy blue nightgown. I didn’t know what to do with the stuff. I couldn’t give the items away, but didn’t want to wear them. What would Mom do? Then it occurred to me that she was doing it already.</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Slipped Under Your Door]]></title><description><![CDATA[I don’t know what to do
with the kettle bells of your words
because the curl of your hair
just above your ear
makes my fingers itch
My thoughts spin around
the rollercoaster of my mind
but never make it out of my mouth
Their screaming stays with me
So this is how I speak
In thoughts that come hours after
In smooth lines strung with all
that I wanted to say when I couldn’t
While your quick questions skipped
across the pond of my stillness
I turned inward
looking for answers
collecting in the deep]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/slipped-under-your-door/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231f3</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Lynn Heller]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:27:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501717407930-5716fb0dc375?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGNyZXZpY2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTQxMzMz&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501717407930-5716fb0dc375?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGNyZXZpY2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTQxMzMz&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Slipped Under Your Door"/><p>I don’t know what to do<br>with the kettle bells of your words<br>because the curl of your hair<br>just above your ear<br>makes my fingers itch<br>My thoughts spin around<br>the rollercoaster of my mind<br>but never make it out of my mouth<br>Their screaming stays with me<br>So this is how I speak<br>In thoughts that come hours after<br>In smooth lines strung with all<br>that I wanted to say when I couldn’t<br>While your quick questions skipped<br>across the pond of my stillness<br>I turned inward<br>looking for answers<br>collecting in the deep<br>hiding from prey in dark crevices<br>until breaking at the surface<br>my response found the sun set<br>the breeze cool<br>You were no longer there to hear</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Instead my voice traces itself<br>onto this thin paper<br>my answer<br>for now<br>for you to read</br></br></br></br></p><p>How can I think about a future<br>when I’m still busy fitting myself<br>into everyone else’s playlists<br>trying them on for size</br></br></br></p><p>There’s no need to respond</p><p>Or you can</p><p>Just know I’ll need time<br>to get into my wet suit</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rain]]></title><description><![CDATA[Race of many drops
Sending in many dops
Many wins, some draws, many losses
Quite severe, filling the air, few pauses
Generous cloud feeds the thirsty land
Grateful plants maximize the moisty sand
Pedestrians release sounds of utmost outcry
An idea to wait and challenge the falls they wouldn’t buy
A beautiful painting from a vehicle splash’s brush on a pedestrian’s canvas
An apology from a dry cloth on a warm body in a car, surely seems like arrogance
Strokes from the cloud gets farmers on a qu]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rain/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231eb</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Emmanuel Akintoye]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:27:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502088513349-3ff6482aa816?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxyYWluJTIwYWZyaWNhfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTkzMw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502088513349-3ff6482aa816?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxyYWluJTIwYWZyaWNhfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTkzMw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Rain"/><p>Race of many drops<br>Sending in many dops<br>Many wins, some draws, many losses<br>Quite severe, filling the air, few pauses</br></br></br></p><p>Generous cloud feeds the thirsty land<br>Grateful plants maximize the moisty sand<br>Pedestrians release sounds of utmost outcry<br>An idea to wait and challenge the falls they wouldn’t buy</br></br></br></p><p>A beautiful painting from a vehicle splash’s brush on a pedestrian’s canvas<br>An apology from a dry cloth on a warm body in a car, surely seems like arrogance<br>Strokes from the cloud gets farmers on a quest to feed the earth<br>Not only them but also their family, as the rain moves down, have to move up the mat</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Maundy Thursday]]></title><description><![CDATA[The girl sat in the middle of the field
With the wind whipping her dark hair
She stared straight ahead holding out
A handful of dandelions
She wore a crown of clover blossoms
And her countenance was carefree
Her mother, many lengths away
Rejoiced across the lawn
She did not notice the others approaching
Her mother began running to her
Attempting to shield her from them
Her mother alone could see the enemies
Though bathed in light she would soon be
Overtaken by a cloud of garnet poison
Issuing]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/maundy-thursday/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231f4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Cloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:26:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1575721539517-65d8be923932?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxkYW5kZWxpb25zfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MTQzOQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1575721539517-65d8be923932?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxkYW5kZWxpb25zfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MTQzOQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Maundy Thursday"/><p>The girl sat in the middle of the field<br>With the wind whipping her dark hair<br>She stared straight ahead holding out<br>A handful of dandelions</br></br></br></p><p>She wore a crown of clover blossoms<br>And her countenance was carefree<br>Her mother, many lengths away<br>Rejoiced across the lawn</br></br></br></p><p>She did not notice the others approaching<br>Her mother began running to her<br>Attempting to shield her from them<br>Her mother alone could see the enemies</br></br></br></p><p>Though bathed in light she would soon be<br>Overtaken by a cloud of garnet poison<br>Issuing unseen from the orifices of all<br>Those friendly folk</br></br></br></p><p>She ran and washed her treasure’s hands<br>As Jesus washed the feet of his disciples<br>In the middle of the muddy soccer field<br>She applied the stinging ointments</br></br></br></p><p>And even in her Ursa aspect<br>She felt as though she failed her star,<br>The beautiful child, for she wanted her<br>To trust the world and hope</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sustenance and Frivolity]]></title><description><![CDATA[The massive crowd cheers as they enter the Great Hall. Aadya, now wearing a rich cerulean gown designed specifically for this moment, is a little unnerved by all the attention focused on the two of them. The warm glowing feeling that made her head swim during the ceremony is still full blown in her body as it was in bed with Poma. The freshly imprinted hours alone with him are circulating through her veins as a new pulse of life bonds her with her husband in unspeakable ways. Could this all be r]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sustenance-and-frivolity/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231f7</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Mitchell]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:26:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518709268805-4e9042af9f23?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGZhaXJ5JTIwdGFsZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1NDE3Mzk&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518709268805-4e9042af9f23?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGZhaXJ5JTIwdGFsZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1NDE3Mzk&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Sustenance and Frivolity"/><p>The massive crowd cheers as they enter the Great Hall. Aadya, now wearing a rich cerulean gown designed specifically for this moment, is a little unnerved by all the attention focused on the two of them. The warm glowing feeling that made her head swim during the ceremony is still full blown in her body as it was in bed with Poma. The freshly imprinted hours alone with him are circulating through her veins as a new pulse of life bonds her with her husband in unspeakable ways. <em>Could this all be real?</em></p><p>YES, IT IS.</p><p>“No!”</p><p>Poma is visibly surprised at her response. She gives him a shrewd, lascivious smile to taunt him. “I will not have you reading my mind unless we are in the bed and my thoughts are only of the way I wish to be pleased.”</p><p>He takes her hand in his, laughs and kisses it ceremoniously. “Aadya, you are full of surprises.”</p><p>“I mean it.” She gives him the sternest glare she can muster and then sucks in her breath. <em>I can’t believe I just spoke to him like that, but he does not mind. Going to bed with him has already changed the way we are together.</em> YES, MY LOVE YOU ARE RIGHT.</p><p>The realization that Poma could now be so easily in her mind causes her to hold her breath close. Squeezing her hand tightly, Poma leads her through the throng in the great hall. The swath of people parts in sporadic waves before them until they reach the head table where King Larsa stands and salutes his son. The crowd, having cleared a large circle around them, roars as he returns his father salute by raising his arm while still grasping hers in a tight clutch.</p><p><br>Aadya is mortified as she realizes the meaning of this dramatic exchange and feels her cheeks flush hot with the shame of it. But no one notices. They are all too busy having a good time.</br></p><p>Hunger claws at her resilience and she folds into her chair when she finally reaches it. To her delight, succulent meats buttery tender and falling off the bone are served to her. She still doesn’t quite understand what Poma’s relationship is with meat. <em>He still eats small amounts.</em> She encourages the server to keep coming with the slices of red meat and plunges into the feast. <em>No one has told me not to eat meat.</em></p><p>There were also fruits, candied bitter and salty, berries, breads and cheeses both sweet and tart, nuts of distinctively sodden tastes, dishes of creamy roots and tendrils of forest vegetation, wine of many colors and sweetness, and tiny cakes, fermented, sweet and savory. Of particular interest to Aadya, are the sugar crystalized flowers still aromatic from the ground they sprouted from, which are delicate but crunchy when you bite into them. Aadya looks over to Poma to guide her through this maze of delicacies, but he is busy toasting with his family and friends. There is a ring of tables on the outside of the crowd filled with the same delicacies the royal table is being served, but people are mostly snacking and roaming, rather than sitting. The few tables where guests are sitting are filled with elders and children who pop up sporadically to ramble.</p><p>Aadya’s uncle makes his way to her table with a ludicrous grin on his face, making her realize just how drunk he is.</p><p>“So, little one, you are a princess now!” He raises his glass to toast her. Your father would be so proud.” <em>Would he?</em></p><p>“Thank you, uncle but I have accomplished nothing. I have only followed my heart.”</p><p>“It must be a good heart to follow.” He says with more kindness than she has ever evidenced. “You have found your path and it is favorable.” Aadya cannot contain her sour expression. <em>Favorable to fill your own coffers as well.</em></p><p>With wobbling knees, her uncle wavers and his wine teeters on the edge of his goblet. Aadya is afraid he might collapse there in front of her, but suddenly a hush falls over the boisterous crowd as a man and a woman enter, and the crowd again parts ways.</p><p>The man, bearded, dark and naked from the waist up wears golden serpents' bracelets twisting up his muscular arms. The woman’s body is mostly bare except for a few well-placed pieces of gold cloth secured with cords of gold and gems. She is both buxom and petite, with well-defined body features that men notice, and women envy. A small corps of muscular men, naked from the waist up also, appear pounding on drums as the two begin to dance. Their movements flow like liquid grace, and all eyes are riveted on their performance. As the drum sounds soar, the din of the jovial diners dies down and the dancers began to leap into the air in a captivating, erotic display. Aadya, who had just hours before been introduced to the fine art of physical expression with a man, is overwhelmed by the beauty and eroticism of the performance, and despite how hungry she is, succumbs to the rapture of their dance, only occasionally dabbing some new morsel clumsily to her mouth.</p><p>Poma grasps her hand and with the look of desire, slides their two clasped hands down between her thighs. Compelled by intense pleasure she momentarily fades between the present and the immediate past of their time together in their bedchambers. Shaking it off, she gives Poma a modest smile and continues to watch the dancers who spin and leap with pure grace and synchronicity. The dancers finish with a deep throated kiss and a dramatic fusion pose making the crowd roar and stomp their feet.</p><p>Poma jumps to his feet clapping vigorously. The dancers approach and dramatically bow to the matrimonial couple. Poma hands the woman one of the flowers placed nearby for such a gesture. The female dancer smiles and bows even deeper, her plump breasts nearly cascading out of her costume. Her smile for him makes Aadya feel uneasy, but Poma quickly takes Aadya’s hand and lifts, helping her to her feet. He gives her a peremptory nod, indicating she should honor the male performer, which she does rather awkwardly, feeling out of place presented with yet another unrehearsed moment. As she hands the performer his flower, she is startled at the lustful look he gives her. Poma laughs when he sees his bride falter from the gaze of another man. MASTER BRUTUS KNOWS WHEN HE SEES BEAUTY. She shakes her head.</p><p>NO, IT IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK. I ONLY DESIRE YOU.</p><p>Poma’s smile lingers as he lets his pride soar.</p><p>The crowd begins to chant and stomp their feet. “We want Princess Aadya, we want Princess Aadya!” This is the part she is sure they are supposed to dance. Because Poma had been in exile before the wedding, Aadya had been trained with a surrogate, while Bodie chanted the measure of the steps to music with all the passion of a bored animal trainer.</p><p><em>I feel sick. I can’t do this. I’m going to disappoint everyone!</em> Then Poma lifts the ceremonial cup, sitting on the table before them, drinks and then puts it to her lips. It is the same pearly white elixir given to her before the ceremony, and again, as soon as it touches her lips, she is instilled with all the confidence she needs. They begin to dance before the crowd effortlessly. At some point she almost feels airborne.</p><p>Their perfunctory performance is brief, and they sit to listen to hours of endless enunciations of blessings and toasts from everyone in the room of social significance until at last the King and Queen speak.</p><p>Queen Mesa stands and lifts her goblet toward the nearby couple. “My dearest son, we partake in the fulfillment of prophecy tonight and bless this union which shall commence a new era. It is your first born who will lead this world of ours into a new day.”</p><p><em>What? No one has mentioned prophesies about the future.</em> Aadya lifts her heavy goblet unsteadily toward her new mother-in-law and smiles, genuinely appreciative for the acceptance she has generously bestowed upon her, but leery of her words. <em>And what will the King say?</em></p><p>King Larsa still looking like an older version of his son, he has the same smile and steel blue eyes. “My dear son and his bride, we lift our cups in celebration of the years ahead and welcome our new daughter, Aadya, into our hearts.” <em>Short and sweet. No apparent negativity. No spilled secrets.</em></p><p><em>This night is almost over. I am so exhausted.</em> Aadya turns to Poma and with her eyes pleads to leave. He takes her hand and escorts her to their chambers where a roaring fire awaits them.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Peach-Ginger Cobbler]]></title><description><![CDATA[What is a cobbler? According to the Oxford Dictionary the word traces back to 1859 and is “a sort of pie, baked in a pot lined with dough of great thickness, upon which the fruit is placed; according to the fruit, it is an apple or a peach cobbler.” This pastry evolved into a “waste not, want not” fruit dish; whereas, hard or overripen fruit would be used, not necessarily the perfect pieces of fruit. Essentially, cobblers are “deep dish dessert casseroles made of a sweetened fruit that forms a t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/peach-ginger-cobbler/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ed</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:24:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/07/cobbler.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/07/cobbler.jpg" alt="Peach-Ginger Cobbler"/><p>What is a cobbler? According to the Oxford Dictionary the word traces back to 1859 and is “a sort of pie, baked in a pot lined with dough of great thickness, upon which the fruit is placed; according to the fruit, it is an apple or a peach cobbler.” This pastry evolved into a “waste not, want not” fruit dish; whereas, hard or overripen fruit would be used, not necessarily the perfect pieces of fruit. Essentially, cobblers are “deep dish dessert casseroles made of a sweetened fruit that forms a thick syrup when cooked.”</p><h1 id="ingredients-">Ingredients:</h1><p>6 large or 8 medium peaches, peeled and sliced<br>1/2 cup granulated sugar<br>2 tablespoons cornstarch<br>2 tablespoons minced candied ginger<br>1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided</br></br></br></br></p><p>3+ cups all-purpose flour<br>5 teaspoons baking powder<br>3 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided<br>1 teaspoon salt<br>1/8 teaspoon ground ginger</br></br></br></br></p><p>2 cups half and half<br>2 tablespoons melted butter, cooled slightly</br></p><h1 id="instructions-">Instructions:</h1><ol><li>Preheat oven to 425°F. Grease eight 4” ramekins or 8 or 9” baking dish.</li><li>In a large bowl, mix the peaches, ½ cup sugar, cornstarch, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon and candied ginger.</li><li>Pour peach mixture evenly amongst ramekins or the bottom of a 9” inch baking pan.</li><li>In a large bowl using a whisk combine flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, salt, ground ginger, 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon, and baking powder.</li><li>Add 2 cups half and half. Gently fold the liquid into the dry ingredients, taking care not to work the dough too much.</li><li>Add additional flour in small amounts as needed, until the dough is slightly sticky. Some dry spots are fine, just do not overwork the dough.</li><li>Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Dust the top with flour, and gently press the dough into a flat circle with your fingers, about 1” thick.</li><li>Use a floured cutter to cut the dough into at least eight 3”– 4” shapes. To keep from overworking the dough, cut the shapes as close together as you can to get the most out of the dough.</li><li>Top with dough shapes; brush melted butter and sprinkle with the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1/8 teaspoon of cinnamon atop dough shapes.</li><li>Place the baking dish or ramekins on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet. Bake until the tops of the biscuits are golden brown and the peach mixture is bubbling all over, rotating halfway through. For ramekins the bake time is about 20 minutes, and for the baking dish the bake time is about 30 minutes.</li><li>Serve with dollops of whipped cream or ice cream.</li></ol><p>Makes 8 servings.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Sirens of the Buffalo River]]></title><description><![CDATA[The androgynous sirens of the Buffalo River—
they are not female destroying angels—
appear to me in the full moon light around alternate bends in the river.
They take the form of loose-limbed, fluid-dancing otters
dressed in miles and miles of light-spangled, flowing black silk.
Dip your hands into their essence, the water,
warm as a sensory deprivation tank.
But no sensory deprivation here,
only full sensory immersion in holy water.
Lower your whole body into their embrace and
allow them to wr]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-sirens-of-the-buffalo-river/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231e9</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Weinstein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:24:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1480480565647-1c4385c7c0bf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGNhbm9lfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTY2Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1480480565647-1c4385c7c0bf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGNhbm9lfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTY2Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Sirens of the Buffalo River"/><p>The androgynous sirens of the Buffalo River—<br>they are not female destroying angels—<br>appear to me in the full moon light around alternate bends in the river.<br>They take the form of loose-limbed, fluid-dancing otters<br>dressed in miles and miles of light-spangled, flowing black silk.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Dip your hands into their essence, the water,<br>warm as a sensory deprivation tank.<br>But no sensory deprivation here,<br>only full sensory immersion in holy water.<br>Lower your whole body into their embrace and<br>allow them to wrap you in their liquid silk.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Listen to their songs:<br>the basso profundo of the bull frog, the tenor tones,<br>trumpeting-whaas of tree frogs and saxophone squawks of herons,<br>the lamenting whippoorwills and be-here-now tail slaps of the beavers—<br>lest you drift into sleep and your boat drifts<br>into overhanging tree branches.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The sirens disguise themselves as beery-breathed, big-breasted<br>biker babes for the red necks in the rock-smashing aluminum canoes,<br>raucously making their way from one gravel bar to the next.<br>The rednecks serve the sirens in their own way;<br>for that and their good-natured alcoholic haze,<br>ya gotta love ’em.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>They ask if they’d seen us earlier,<br>all kayakers look alike to them.<br>We agree and laugh and tell them ‘nowhere’<br>when they ask where we’re going.<br>We laugh and tell them ‘we forget’<br>when they ask where we’d put in.<br>We laugh and float downstream on that<br>warm, wet-shining silvery ribbon of a river.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Sometimes the sirens hide near the turtles<br>behind rocks and logs when there’s<br>heavy traffic on the river in the moonlight in the summer.<br>‘When?’ we devotees of the sirens ask,<br>‘When did full-moon floating get to be so popular?’<br>‘Used to be…’<br>‘15-25 years ago!’<br>‘only us river rats on the river.’<br>‘Remember the time…?’</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>My boat floats off into a cove on the other bank;<br>the sound of my husband’s ever present pennywhistle<br>wafts up river from his boat.</br></br></p><p>Two of us drift apart from the rest, just staring<br>at the dark indigo and forest green washes<br>in pools of black-sequined water and stay long<br>after the others paddle on.</br></br></br></p><p>Lights and soft voices appear from a cove on the left.<br>‘Ahoy?’ I question.<br>‘Ahoy…?’ comes a timorous young voice<br>on a cloud of marijuana.<br>‘Sorry, wrong ahoy.’<br>I dip my paddle into the current.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The sirens send out the teenaged, otter-incarnated sylphs<br>who’d slept all day. They’re listening to Andalusian lute music<br>on their waterproof headphones. In the cool night air,<br>they seek the rapids, playing roller coaster,<br>riding the floaters on their acrobatic backs.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Our convoy comes together around a fire on an empty gravel bar,<br>and we linger long, savoring the last sips and nibbles, savoring<br>each other, savoring the river and moonlight, inhaling riverine air.<br>A heron flies across the yellow disk already near to setting.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Flag]]></title><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/flag/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231fb</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:24:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/07/IMG_6331-ps-4mb--1-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded/></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Good Idea]]></title><description><![CDATA[Could someone please tell me the name
of a bird in Oklahoma
that makes a sound
like a telephone ringing
in 1963 as you rush to it
with a good idea of who’s calling?
I’ve been hearing it for awhile now
but it’s in a tree and I can’t
see it to describe it to you
and that’s all I have to
go on at this moment
but isn’t that something?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-good-idea/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231df</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:23:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527935797452-3f166e052ae0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGJpcmQlMjB0cmVlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzNzQ2Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527935797452-3f166e052ae0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGJpcmQlMjB0cmVlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzNzQ2Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Good Idea"/><p>Could someone please tell me the name<br>of a bird in Oklahoma<br>that makes a sound<br>like a telephone ringing<br>in 1963 as you rush to it<br>with a good idea of who’s calling?</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I’ve been hearing it for awhile now<br>but it’s in a tree and I can’t<br>see it to describe it to you<br>and that’s all I have to<br>go on at this moment<br>but isn’t that something?</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Weather-Related Joy]]></title><description><![CDATA[Beads of rain slide down window glass
Prisms of colors reflecting back
The afghan made by a distant relative
wraps my body in warmth and clarity
Eventually, the pitter-patter ends
and then, a whole new world begins
I go outside to inhale the freshness
and let a bird’s song leave me breathless]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/weather-related-joy/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231e1</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lisbeth McCarty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:23:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513893309566-890d7161b0c3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxyYWluJTIwd2luZG93fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzODYxMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513893309566-890d7161b0c3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxyYWluJTIwd2luZG93fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzODYxMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Weather-Related Joy"/><p>Beads of rain slide down window glass<br>Prisms of colors reflecting back<br>The afghan made by a distant relative<br>wraps my body in warmth and clarity</br></br></br></p><p>Eventually, the pitter-patter ends<br>and then, a whole new world begins<br>I go outside to inhale the freshness<br>and let a bird’s song leave me breathless</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dropping A Line]]></title><description><![CDATA[(An older woman, Dorothy, is looking with strong intent into her cellphone. She is looking at some instructions on a piece of paper and is following steps as she uses her phone. She points the phone at her face and hits a button.)
DOROTHY:
Hello there, Derek? Uh, let me see. Well, I hope this thing is working. This is your Aunt Dorothy. Oh, silly me, of course if you can see me, you can see that it’s me…but I’ve never used this thing before - it’s just that with the storm last night, the phone ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dropping-a-line/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231de</guid><category><![CDATA[Plays]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[George Plautz]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:23:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1627012481660-64a3f3d8ebad?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGVsZGVybHklMjBjZWxsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjYwNTgwNA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1627012481660-64a3f3d8ebad?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGVsZGVybHklMjBjZWxsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjYwNTgwNA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dropping A Line"/><p><em>(An older woman, Dorothy, is looking with strong intent into her cellphone. She is looking at some instructions on a piece of paper and is following steps as she uses her phone. She points the phone at her face and hits a button.)</em></p><p>DOROTHY:<br>Hello there, Derek? Uh, let me see. Well, I hope this thing is working. This is your Aunt Dorothy. Oh, silly me, of course if you can see me, you can see that it’s me…but I’ve never used this thing before - it’s just that with the storm last night, the phone line went out. I know what you are saying…Aunt Dotty - no one has a what do you call it…a land line? That’s a strange name for it. They’re all on the land…so anyway, I’m using that celluloid telephone thing that you gave me. I followed those directions you gave me. Wrote them down, right here…on paper! Or is it “land paper” these days? So this is some kind of television message I’m sending, I guess. I touched the little camera picture on the telephone screen and I think it’s doing something. Hope so. <em>(Fixing her hair as she talks)</em> Anyway, I wanted to tell you not to come here today. I know you said you were going to spend the day with your old aunt Dotty but that storm was so bad last night, I think it might have washed the road out. I’m not really sure. I didn’t go out, but the rain was so heavy and the wind, my, my it was like the roof was going to come off…but don’t you worry about me. Everything seems to be in one piece although I can’t really get up into the attic to check. I know you’re busy anyway and I don’t want you getting stuck on that road or anything. I’m doing okay. So don’t you dare come out here in this mess. (<em>She hits button on the phone.</em>) Shit! That didn’t sound right. Sounded like you were begging him to come out - the roof and the attic…I swear, Dorothy Cartnell - you are the world’s worst liar. Now try it again…and this time don’t lie. He deserves to know the truth. Okay, okay… (<em>She looks at the directions and pushes the button on her phone.</em>)</br></p><p>Hello, there Derek? This is your Aunt Dorothy - of course you know that because I guess you can see me. Look - did you get that first message I made? Not sure what I punched. If it was the send or the delete. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that you shouldn’t come here today. And not because of the storm and the washed out road - although that won’t make sense if you didn’t get that first message - well, just forget all that because, well, dammit, I have to tell you the truth. Your mom called me yesterday and she was fit to be tied. That’s right, in one of her tirades about us. She said that I was - how did she put it? - oh! a bad influence on you…a detriment - that’s the word she used - just like her to use a word like that - a detriment to your upbringing. Now I know, and I know YOU know, that that is a load of malarkey. Just because we connect…have always connected in a way that you haven’t with her, well I would not call that a detriment. Especially when I see what effect it has had on you - when you were having that rough time dealing with that sexual stuff - that I can’t say I totally understand or agree with, but I’m willing to try–not like her and her pinch-faced society bitches–oops! you better delete this as soon as you get it. I don’t want you putting it up on those internet do-hickeys and having it go vital–or whatever they call it. No…I think it’s been the opposite of detriment for you. I can’t think of what word that would be but I’m sure there is one. Besides, you’re almost eighteen now. You are a grown-up. And the fact is, Derek, you are the closest person to me in the world right now. When we are talking together or watching an old movie or sharing those crazy news stories or those funny names in the obituaries or watching those loony old folks down at the senior center…you keep me alive. You really do, and I don’t want to lose you. I can’t imagine my life without you, <em>(she is starting to break down)</em> but to honor my sister’s wishes…<em>(hits the button on the phone)</em> Goddammit! Now that’s too honest. And face it Dorothy, you don’t give a good goddamn about what Gloria thinks…but…God!</p><p><em>(Thinks a minute, then looks at the directions, picks up the phone and hits a button as she points at her face and intones very mechanically.)</em></p><p>Hello, Derek, this is your Aunt Dorothy. Just forget those last two messages - if you got them. I know you were planning to come here today, but I’m just not feeling well. So maybe we should just make it another day. Thanks, dear. <em>(Pushes a button)</em> Dorothy Cartnell, you are one big phony. That’s the worse. What good is that going to do anyone? He needs you and you know damn well how much you need him right now.</p><p><em>(There is a knock at the door.)</em></p><p>DEREK’S VOICE:<br>Aunt Dotty?</br></p><p>DOROTHY:<br>Derek? Is that you? Thank God. Didn’t you get my messages?</br></p><p>DEREK’S VOICE:<br>No. What messages? Are you okay?</br></p><p>DOROTHY:<br>I’m fine. Very fine. Be right there. <em>(To the phone in her hand)</em> Thank the lord, I never figured out how to use the damn thing. <em>(Throws it down and exits.)</em> Coming, my dear!</br></p><p>THE END</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Unicornly]]></title><description><![CDATA[Double-faced, someone stares at me
What a non-pleasant face of mine
Who am I, after all?
Am I the one who fell in love with Venus?
Look at me! You ought to find myself
I see people gathering around
I see such a great disaster coming in
I see people gathering around
Is it all about me?
I must be unique; just unmatched to this world of theirs
Pardon me, shall I promote a riot right now]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/unicornly/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231d9</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Pedro Henrique da Silva Lino]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:23:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523990853274-86278eb4e38c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI2fHxjcm93ZHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1MzY3MjM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523990853274-86278eb4e38c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI2fHxjcm93ZHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1MzY3MjM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Unicornly"/><p>Double-faced, someone stares at me<br>What a non-pleasant face of mine<br>Who am I, after all?<br>Am I the one who fell in love with Venus?<br>Look at me! You ought to find myself</br></br></br></br></p><p>I see people gathering around<br>I see such a great disaster coming in<br>I see people gathering around<br>Is it all about me?<br>I must be unique; just unmatched to this world of theirs<br>Pardon me, shall I promote a riot right now</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fellatio in the Morning]]></title><description><![CDATA[Love is hard
We will never have what we really want
That cotton candy sunset kind of love
Fellatio in the morning love
Sparkling clean bathroom love
Because all love is a just a picnic two minutes away
From being pissed on by a rainstorm
There is only angry-about-traffic love
Leaky garbage disposal love
The grass-is-too-high kind of love
You can only see sunsets from far away
And cotton candy rots your teeth
No, the reality of love is that it’s just a bring-your-own-anger party for two
Forgiv]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/fellatio-in-the-morning/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231f6</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Cloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:22:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516642898673-edd1ced08e87?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGNvdHRvbiUyMGNhbmR5fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MTYyMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516642898673-edd1ced08e87?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGNvdHRvbiUyMGNhbmR5fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MTYyMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Fellatio in the Morning"/><p>Love is hard<br>We will never have what we really want<br>That cotton candy sunset kind of love<br>Fellatio in the morning love<br>Sparkling clean bathroom love</br></br></br></br></p><p>Because all love is a just a picnic two minutes away<br>From being pissed on by a rainstorm</br></p><p>There is only angry-about-traffic love<br>Leaky garbage disposal love<br>The grass-is-too-high kind of love<br>You can only see sunsets from far away<br>And cotton candy rots your teeth</br></br></br></br></p><p>No, the reality of love is that it’s just a bring-your-own-anger party for two<br>Forgive the past but never trust the future<br>Frolicking in love is<br>Impossible<br>Irresponsible<br>And yet irresistible</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pantoum of Flooding Entombment]]></title><description><![CDATA[A river of rain runs,
my shoes and socks are sopping.
What a fun day. Childlike.
Later, my face is wet; it is night.
My shoes and socks are sopping.
I peel them off to dry.
Later, my face is wet; it is night,
and yet my eyes stare off.
I peel them off to dry—
My thoughts, running rampant.
And yet my eyes stare off,
my mind sends messages.
My thoughts, running rampant;
what a fun day. Childlike.
My mind sends messages:
a river of rain runs.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pantoum-of-flooding-entombment/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ef</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dani Kuntz]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:22:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515544164252-5db3955cde47?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHdldCUyMHNob2VzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MDcxOA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515544164252-5db3955cde47?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHdldCUyMHNob2VzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MDcxOA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Pantoum of Flooding Entombment"/><p>A river of rain runs,<br>my shoes and socks are sopping.<br>What a fun day. Childlike.<br>Later, my face is wet; it is night.</br></br></br></p><p>My shoes and socks are sopping.<br>I peel them off to dry.<br>Later, my face is wet; it is night,<br>and yet my eyes stare off.</br></br></br></p><p>I peel them off to dry—<br>My thoughts, running rampant.<br>And yet my eyes stare off,<br>my mind sends messages.</br></br></br></p><p>My thoughts, running rampant;<br>what a fun day. Childlike.<br>My mind sends messages:<br>a river of rain runs.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Haiku from Summer Walks]]></title><description><![CDATA[A little sunshine
Peeking through the dark thick clouds
Hope for a clear day.
On a cloudy day
Pleased to hear the birds singing
Birds sang joyfully.
Rays of sunshine
Lights up the environment
Pinks and golden rays.
Walking in the fog
Singing birds and deer eating
One is not alone.
Red creeping tendrils
Climbing healthy tree trunk
Suffocating tree.
Warm summer morning
A slight breeze keeping me cool
Vultures like to soar.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/haiku-from-summer-walks/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231f9</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mariellen Griffith]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:22:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521752132462-c252fe180e72?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHN1bW1lciUyMHdhbGt8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTQyMDQ4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521752132462-c252fe180e72?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHN1bW1lciUyMHdhbGt8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTQyMDQ4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Haiku from Summer Walks"/><p>A little sunshine<br>Peeking through the dark thick clouds<br>Hope for a clear day.</br></br></p><p>On a cloudy day<br>Pleased to hear the birds singing<br>Birds sang joyfully.</br></br></p><p>Rays of sunshine<br>Lights up the environment<br>Pinks and golden rays.</br></br></p><p>Walking in the fog<br>Singing birds and deer eating<br>One is not alone.</br></br></p><p>Red creeping tendrils<br>Climbing healthy tree trunk<br>Suffocating tree.</br></br></p><p>Warm summer morning<br>A slight breeze keeping me cool<br>Vultures like to soar.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Just Smile]]></title><description><![CDATA[The following is an excerpt from Out of the Delta.
I was eating lunch in a restaurant when a dental crown fell from my mouth onto my plate. At the time I thought it was just the crown but after investigating, I found the tooth was still inside it. One of my lateral incisors (tooth next to big tooth) had broken off at the gum line. I had been having what I thought were sinus problems but as it turned out, the pain on that side of my face was due to a rotten tooth that was inside the crown.
This]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/just-smile/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231f0</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:21:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1522849696084-818b29dfe210?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ1fHxkZW50aXN0fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MDgzMw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1522849696084-818b29dfe210?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ1fHxkZW50aXN0fGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MDgzMw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Just Smile"/><p><em>The following is an excerpt from</em> Out of the Delta<em>.</em></p><p>I was eating lunch in a restaurant when a dental crown fell from my mouth onto my plate. At the time I thought it was just the crown but after investigating, I found the tooth was still inside it. One of my lateral incisors (tooth next to big tooth) had broken off at the gum line. I had been having what I thought were sinus problems but as it turned out, the pain on that side of my face was due to a rotten tooth that was inside the crown.</p><p>This happened on a Wednesday in late October, and it was two days before Halloween when hundreds of trick or treaters would be visiting my home. Having a tooth missing from the front of my mouth may have worked fine for Halloween but I also had an art reception to attend that weekend, and I was scheduled to be an election poll worker the following Tuesday. On top of those obligations, I had a reporter and photographer from a national magazine, The Crafts Report, coming to my house on the following Wednesday morning to interview me.</p><p>I quickly called my dentist who could not see me until the following Wednesday afternoon. I was mortified. My vanity would not allow me to be seen with a tooth missing. I still had the crown in my pocket and decided that I would fix “it” myself until I could see my dentist. My thoughts went to the time when fifties rock and roll star Buddy Holly placed pieces of white chicklet gum over what was left of two front teeth after his crowns were knocked off during a scuffle prior to a concert. I didn’t think Chicklet gum as a tooth replacement would work for an entire week. I had another plan.</p><p>I went to Walmart and bought plumbers putty. Although I was well aware of its’ possible toxic qualities, I knew that when the two substances in the plumbers putty were mixed together, they would harden in a moist situation, in this case, my mouth. Once at home, I mixed the putty pressed it to fit inside my mouth, stuck the tooth in it, and I made a partial. It seemed to work fairly well but every now and then, the partial would slip out of place. I went back to Walmart, bought poli-grip, and temporarily stuck my homemade partial to my gums.</p><p>Because of a strong chemical taste I decided to only put the partial in place when in public. At home, I refrained from looking in the mirror. The only problem I was having after the partial was inserted was talking correctly. The hardened putty was located in such a place that it interfered with my tongue placement. I spent part of that first afternoon with the partial in my mouth while I practiced talking.</p><p>I felt like Demosthenes, the ancient Greek Orator, who practiced speaking with pebbles in his mouth. With lots of practice, I was able talk okay or at least somewhat okay.</p><p>All went well through each event with the homemade partial staying in place. The last event when I had to wear the partial was the morning of the interview for the national magazine. My art studio where the interview was to take place was clean and organized, I was dressed up with hair properly combed, and I had the partial securely poli-gripped in place inside my mouth. By the time the interview took place, I had mastered the art of talking properly with the hardened glob of plumber’s putty inside my mouth.</p><p>The interview went smoothly and I smiled broadly during the photo shoot. I was relieved when the reporter finally left my home.</p><p>Immediately following the magazine interview, I called a friend to let him know that I survived the interview. While I was talking on the phone, my crown dislodged from the partial. If fell to the kitchen floor. We both had a good laugh. While I was relieved that the tooth had stayed in place until after the interview, I did have a few brief panic flashes while thinking, “What if the tooth had hit the floor while talking with the reporter.</p><p>That afternoon, I finally made it to see my dentist. He performed a root canal, placed a metal spike in what was left of the tooth, and attached a good looking false tooth to the spike. That tooth is still in place today. Before leaving his office, the dentist smiled and said, “This is a first. I’ve never had a client make their own partial.” I told him, “I had to. I was fresh out of Chicklets.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Confession of Keys]]></title><description><![CDATA[We dance together under couch cushions, while he curses blindly in search
of us.
We tire of responsibility, chained to us as we are to each other, twelve brothers & sisters,
a family of purpose.
We are finally found after the daily search, an eviscerating existential exercise,
he is ours.
We bite his leg with our serrated toucan bills, a heavy choir of pocket jingling, again yearning to tickle tumblers in a few hours.
One of us, exists only as a relic of love
no longer the gatekeeper of hope.
A]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/confession-of-keys/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231d6</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:21:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1579728866437-6397f3d89ec3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGtleXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTM2NDAw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1579728866437-6397f3d89ec3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGtleXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTM2NDAw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Confession of Keys"/><p>We dance together under couch cushions, while he curses blindly in search<br>of us.<br>We tire of responsibility, chained to us as we are to each other, twelve brothers & sisters,<br>a family of purpose.<br>We are finally found after the daily search, an eviscerating existential exercise,<br>he is ours.<br>We bite his leg with our serrated toucan bills, a heavy choir of pocket jingling, again yearning to tickle tumblers in a few hours.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>One of us, exists only as a relic of love<br>no longer the gatekeeper of hope.<br>As for the rest of us, other tasks beckon<br>teeth warmed by a car’s ignition,<br>an unswift fumbling open of a mailbox,<br>muffled click at the end of the workday.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>We the duty-bound, await the day<br>we dance discarded in rusted luxury,<br>in earthen slumber no longer<br>heavying his pockets,<br>forever connected.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tree Stand]]></title><description><![CDATA[I sit high in a tree stand
if I was a child again
I would climb these old tree limbs
and never tire of being here
now I am old
as I sit here on my redwood deck
up high in the trees ~ so high
I can touch the sky!]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/tree-stand/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231da</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:21:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516614379323-3fc1b4061247?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGNsaW1iJTIwdHJlZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1MzY4NTI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516614379323-3fc1b4061247?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGNsaW1iJTIwdHJlZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1MzY4NTI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Tree Stand"/><p>I sit high in a tree stand<br>if I was a child again<br>I would climb these old tree limbs<br>and never tire of being here<br>now I am old<br>as I sit here on my redwood deck<br>up high in the trees ~ so high<br>I can touch the sky!</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Geometry of Life]]></title><description><![CDATA[After Mei Yao Chen
The night sticks to my skin
like tar. It surrounds me.
It sucks up the light.
I look for the moon or a star.
They’re nowhere to be seen.
My eyes glow like fiery ice.
Hot coals are burning my spleen.
My stomach is full of lead.
Snakes wriggle through my veins.
Worms eat into my brain.
Let me wake if this is a dream,
or are things as they seem?
Leaves cling to my shoes,
leaves that are dead.
I stumble, lost in the dark.
I’m a miserable coward,
and my wife is dying in her bed.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-geometry-of-life/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ec</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[George Freek]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:20:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486551937199-baf066858de7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxnZW9tZXRyeXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1NDAwNTI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486551937199-baf066858de7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxnZW9tZXRyeXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1NDAwNTI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Geometry of Life"/><p><em>After Mei Yao Chen</em></p><p>The night sticks to my skin<br>like tar. It surrounds me.<br>It sucks up the light.<br>I look for the moon or a star.<br>They’re nowhere to be seen.<br>My eyes glow like fiery ice.<br>Hot coals are burning my spleen.<br>My stomach is full of lead.<br>Snakes wriggle through my veins.<br>Worms eat into my brain.<br>Let me wake if this is a dream,<br>or are things as they seem?<br>Leaves cling to my shoes,<br>leaves that are dead.<br>I stumble, lost in the dark.<br>I’m a miserable coward,<br>and my wife is dying in her bed.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sunshine’s Little Sister]]></title><description><![CDATA[Shadow is the sunshine’s little sister.
Shadow sneaks around and trails behind, sometimes peeking around to see what you’re doing.
Shadow follows and will only go out of sight when the storm breathes down your neck.
Shadow will cool you when the sun becomes too strong to bear.
Shadow grows as you grow, proving that you continue to evolve.
Shadow will reappear with the faintest of light in the darkness to reassure you that you’re never alone.
Shadow will remain with you until your time beco]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sunshines-little-sister/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231d8</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alison Schuh Hawsey]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:20:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1570019177956-e959fed60484?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxzaGFkb3d8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTM2NjE5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1570019177956-e959fed60484?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxzaGFkb3d8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTM2NjE5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Sunshine’s Little Sister"/><p>Shadow is the sunshine’s little sister.</p><p>Shadow sneaks around and trails behind, sometimes peeking around to see what you’re doing.</p><p>Shadow follows and will only go out of sight when the storm breathes down your neck.</p><p>Shadow will cool you when the sun becomes too strong to bear.</p><p>Shadow grows as you grow, proving that you continue to evolve.</p><p>Shadow will reappear with the faintest of light in the darkness to reassure you that you’re never alone.</p><p>Shadow will remain with you until your time becomes a memory.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Confession]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Nurse,” my Covid-19 patient whispered through dry, sandpapery lips, “I want to make a confession.” Her words were simple, but the story which followed almost put me into paralysis. I was working as an ICU nurse at West Hospital. This patient had been on a ventilator, and was now off. She had gone into a coma, yet recently woke up. Still, the prognosis didn’t look good.
I lifted the tubular oxygen mask from her face. Her skin was wrinkled and her face fell backwards like a deflated balloon.
“]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-confession/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231fa</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Maxine Thompson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:19:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1538108149393-fbbd81895907?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGhvc3BpdGFsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MjMxNg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1538108149393-fbbd81895907?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGhvc3BpdGFsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjU0MjMxNg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Confession"/><p>“Nurse,” my Covid-19 patient whispered through dry, sandpapery lips, “I want to make a confession.” Her words were simple, but the story which followed almost put me into paralysis. I was working as an ICU nurse at West Hospital. This patient had been on a ventilator, and was now off. She had gone into a coma, yet recently woke up. Still, the prognosis didn’t look good.</p><p>I lifted the tubular oxygen mask from her face. Her skin was wrinkled and her face fell backwards like a deflated balloon.</p><p><br>“What is it, Mrs. Bradley?”</br></p><hr><p><strong><strong>1930, Mansfield, Louisiana</strong></strong></p><p>The three sisters, Ruby, Cleotha, and Ernestine, wore pale blue gingham dresses with sashes as crisp as flower bouquets in the back. Their hair was always neatly braided and pulled tightly, causing their eyes to slant upward. On Sundays, on their way to church, they wore matching ribbons in their hair. They wore can-can slips, which made their dresses stand out, hoop-like, crackling as they took dainty steps. Apparently, their mother was a seamstress. She was also a washer woman. She knew how to starch their Sunday dresses, which made them look store bought.</p><p>Sally looked down on her burlap dress. She didn’t wear shoes. Poor white trash, her family was called. Her mother didn’t work. Her father was a drunk, and he did odd jobs around town, whenever he worked. Otherwise, the family lived a hand-to-mouth existence.</p><hr><p>What made it so bad about the girls is that the three sisters were “Negroes.” How could they dress better than her? Their father was dead, and their mother was a widow, but she kept her little shack whitewashed. The girls always looked jovial. Sally assumed they thought they were better than her. How dare they look down on her? After all, she was white.</p><p>She felt such contempt for them.</p><p>One day she saw their cockle-burrow head brother, June Bug, who was about twelve, walking them to school. On the weekends, he carried the groceries for white families to help bring in extra money for his family. He was the man of the family.<br>As she eavesdropped on stories around town, she knew that a black man or boy could be killed if he so much as looked at a white woman.</br></p><p>What about a young white girl? she thought.</p><hr><p>One day, a little white classmate named Teddy called her stringy hair “dirty.” He added, “You are dirty too.” She’d had a crush on Teddy up until that point. Aghast, she felt crushed. When she caught her bearings, she looked up and saw the three sisters staring at her as they walked by from the colored school. They didn’t say anything, but she would never forget the condescending look in their brown eyes. For the first time, she saw herself through their eyes. They were black, but their skin was oiled with lard. Their teeth shone sparkly white from using a green reed. She glanced down at herself. She was white, but her skin was grey, her teeth resembled corn kernels.</p><p>She didn’t mean to embellish the story. She hadn’t planned it out. It just happened.</p><p>She waited until her father stumbled home, half-drunk. “That nigra touched me, Pa,” she said.</p><p>Now she knew her father hated the “Nigras,” taking his jobs, as though he would’ve worked more than he did, if it wasn’t for “them.” He never admitted the moonshine was why he didn’t work more.</p><p>Everything happened in a blur after that.</p><p>She watched the white mob of men, led by her father, drag June Bug, held at gunpoint, out of his house. His mother’s cries and pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears. They took the young boy to an old oak tree, and hung him. They castrated him, then burned him alive. They say his screams could be heard all over town before they went silent.<br><br>After all these years, Sally could still hear his screams as he was barbequed like a roasted pig. She could still smell the smoke.<br><br>Suddenly the ghost of the boy came in her hospital room.</br></br></br></br></p><p>“Get away from me, June Bug,” she whimpered. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Laying on her death bed, she took a deep breath, then said her final words to me.</p><p>“I lied.”</p></hr></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[People Staying Busy]]></title><description><![CDATA[A buzz tells you
The nest has set
New hands so full of blood
Cinched by them and tasting of old times
It was whisked
Frothed
When they miss you
And all
Turned upside down
Baked
My eyes are all bigger and smaller
The time passes like glass in every form
Cooked
Cooled
Acid has been growing in my bowl
And in my angles
Even with all this fluff
All of this tough softness
It could drain out of my sockets
With chin tilted upwards
You will eat spinach
In the night
To avoid the numbers
And the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/people-staying-busy/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231e7</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Violet Treadwell Hull]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:19:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1573500758697-c9cf976308d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGJlZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTM5Mzk3&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1573500758697-c9cf976308d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGJlZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTM5Mzk3&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="People Staying Busy"/><p>A buzz tells you<br>The nest has set</br></p><p>New hands so full of blood<br>Cinched by them and tasting of old times</br></p><p>It was whisked<br>Frothed</br></p><p>When they miss you<br>And all</br></p><p>Turned upside down<br>Baked</br></p><p>My eyes are all bigger and smaller<br>The time passes like glass in every form</br></p><p>Cooked<br>Cooled</br></p><p>Acid has been growing in my bowl<br>And in my angles</br></p><p>Even with all this fluff<br>All of this tough softness</br></p><p>It could drain out of my sockets<br>With chin tilted upwards</br></p><p>You will eat spinach<br>In the night</br></p><p>To avoid the numbers<br>And the four girls</br></p><p>And pour ginger<br>Into every opportunity</br></p><p>Running with foreheads challenging one wall<br>Feet hitting the firmament in time</br></p><p>Already having found the reasons<br>To keep burning up</br></p><p>And searching to find the method of measurement<br>That lets my brain sleep the most</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Three Ways to Love Cauliflower]]></title><description><![CDATA[Prologue
I have loved you from the start when I poked your
tiny seeds into the special soil mix and lavished care
upon their sprouting and when I transplanted you
into rich beds with the pride of an unschooled mother
attending her first child’s graduation from college.
But, beloved brassica, I love you most once you are
harvested, prepared and plated in the consummation
of a hungry gardener and her favorite vegetable.
Traditional Love
Once you were boiled to death, your delicate scent
overcome ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/three-ways-to-love-cauliflower/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ea</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Weinstein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:18:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590944392009-4ef14b5704c8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGNhdWxpZmxvd2VyfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTc3OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590944392009-4ef14b5704c8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGNhdWxpZmxvd2VyfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzOTc3OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Three Ways to Love Cauliflower"/><p><strong>Prologue</strong><br>I have loved you from the start when I poked your<br>tiny seeds into the special soil mix and lavished care<br>upon their sprouting and when I transplanted you<br>into rich beds with the pride of an unschooled mother<br>attending her first child’s graduation from college.<br>But, beloved brassica, I love you most once you are<br>harvested, prepared and plated in the consummation<br>of a hungry gardener and her favorite vegetable.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>Traditional Love</strong><br>Once you were boiled to death, your delicate scent<br>overcome by indoles and isothiocynates. Only the<br>French knew to puree or gratin your bridal purity.<br>Then you were cut up with carrots and broccoli<br>into crudités, plunged into gelatinous dips,<br>in the name of good health. Always, though,<br>there was someone who loved your sweet<br>nutty flavor and could make you into a warming<br>soup kissed with nutmeg, slip you into curries<br>with black mustard seeds and fragrant spices.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>Hot Love</strong><br>‘Call me your petit chou fleur and I am likely to leap<br>national borders and melt into a welcoming bagna cauda.’<br>‘Come, and dip your perfect snowy florets<br>into the oily ocean of my love.<br>Your soldierly carrot sticks will forsake their posts<br>when they taste my salty tang. Endives will eschew<br>couture and wear only my buttery sheen.<br>Humble boiled potatoes will sing out for champagne<br>to wash down the anchovies and garlic, but it is<br>the cauliflower that most beautifully lowers itself<br>into my warm bath, adorned only with a sprig<br>of parsley tucked in its crown.’</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>New Love</strong><br>Now with the earthy beet you have become a rock star<br>and every review-seeking chef courts you with glamour<br>and fame. They fry you and melt you with goat cheese<br>and caraway mustard on artisanal rye. They dress you<br>with baubles of fried Thai basil leaves in east meets west<br>or roast you till you gleam with alchemical gold.<br>They braise you in exotic alcoholic hazes<br>till you swoon with surrender.<br>They have blown up the world, and all the jewels<br>of your royal crown settle to plate<br>in new and wondrous settings.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Jeff Day, Pilot]]></title><description><![CDATA[Jamming two full lives in one,
everything a man could want: loving
family, a frontier home with wild music
friends who played tunes fast. Work meant
daily adventure, an excuse to rise
above clouds, view what few could.
You flew past us all, pilot,
passionate to find heaven.
It seemed so beautiful, a third
life so high that it felt like wide-
open dream. Then you went down,
taking so much with you.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/jeff-day-pilot/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231e3</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ken Waldman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:18:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1530876031510-edddecc62a57?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExN3x8cGxhbmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTM4ODgz&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1530876031510-edddecc62a57?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExN3x8cGxhbmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjU2NTM4ODgz&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Jeff Day, Pilot"/><p>Jamming two full lives in one,<br>everything a man could want: loving<br>family, a frontier home with wild music<br>friends who played tunes fast. Work meant</br></br></br></p><p>daily adventure, an excuse to rise<br>above clouds, view what few could.<br>You flew past us all, pilot,</br></br></p><p>passionate to find heaven.<br>It seemed so beautiful, a third<br>life so high that it felt like wide-<br>open dream. Then you went down,<br>taking so much with you.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Frank Soos]]></title><description><![CDATA[Finicky with words, he rearranged,
rearranged, rearranged yet again
and again. He sang a Southern
Northern song because his deep
knowledge was Southern and Northern
(somehow living as Down East Westerner too).
Oh, he could be so slowly deliberate
one moment, wickedly quick the next.
So contradictory, especially with endings.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/frank-soos/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231e4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ken Waldman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:18:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1624469681156-4114efeb85a0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGFsYXNrYXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1Mzg5OTc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1624469681156-4114efeb85a0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGFsYXNrYXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTY1Mzg5OTc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Frank Soos"/><p>Finicky with words, he rearranged,<br>rearranged, rearranged yet again<br>and again. He sang a Southern<br>Northern song because his deep<br>knowledge was Southern and Northern</br></br></br></br></p><p>(somehow living as Down East Westerner too).<br>Oh, he could be so slowly deliberate<br>one moment, wickedly quick the next.<br>So contradictory, especially with endings.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The abandoned house down Deer Nest Lane]]></title><description><![CDATA[concrete blocks
still hang on
to their angle with sky,
try to ground themselves
in who they are, scent
of musty basement,
moss texture,
grotesque graffiti words,
symbols with no meaning.
Paint from spray cans
teenagers stole from
Ace Hardware to spray
their angst out. I imagine
the way shadows
of their narrow bodies bent
from paint clouds as they
muffled their noses into
their t-shirts. They painted
a circle around the handprints
left stamped over a door,
leaving them as they had
always been, on]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-abandoned-house-down-deer-nest-lane/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231dd</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Liza Wolff-Francis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:17:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1599509671551-6879ee499198?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGFiYW5kb25lZCUyMGhvdXNlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjYwNTg5MA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1599509671551-6879ee499198?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGFiYW5kb25lZCUyMGhvdXNlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjYwNTg5MA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The abandoned house down Deer Nest Lane"/><p>concrete blocks<br>still hang on<br>to their angle with sky,<br>try to ground themselves<br>in who they are, scent<br>of musty basement,<br>moss texture,<br>grotesque graffiti words,<br>symbols with no meaning.<br>Paint from spray cans<br>teenagers stole from<br>Ace Hardware to spray<br>their angst out. I imagine<br>the way shadows<br>of their narrow bodies bent<br>from paint clouds as they<br>muffled their noses into<br>their t-shirts. They painted<br>a circle around the handprints<br>left stamped over a door,<br>leaving them as they had<br>always been, one<br>larger than the other.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The teens didn’t remember<br>Clemmie or Walton<br>when they were young<br>and swayed to John Denver<br>in dense heat of July,<br>or the single pecan pie<br>Clemmie made at Christmas,<br>sharing a sliver piece<br>with each neighbor to make<br>it stretch between houses.<br>They didn’t know them even<br>from when their house<br>foreclosed. Someone said<br>their eldest came back<br>once, was seen creeping<br>around inside after that place<br>was just a broken tea cup,<br>bottom cracked, insides<br>stained, after coyotes went in<br>and roof turned to sky.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Mango Tree]]></title><description><![CDATA[“The Mango Tree” is a fictionalized version of an actual childhood event recounted by Tushar.
Tushar had wet his pants and was crying. His mother, Sanchita, repeatedly asked what had happened, but he would say nothing. He couldn’t, because he had disobeyed the strict instructions given to all children to stay away from the mango grove.
Tushar hardly knew that he lived a life of luxury. At five years old he was just beginning to develop a sense of self and how he fit into the world. His family ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-mango-tree/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231d5</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Tom Gorsuch]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:17:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1621872507418-e158640eee49?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG1hbmdvJTIwfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzNjIyNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1621872507418-e158640eee49?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG1hbmdvJTIwfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1NjUzNjIyNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Mango Tree"/><p><em>“The Mango Tree” is a fictionalized version of an actual childhood event recounted by Tushar.</em></p><p>Tushar had wet his pants and was crying. His mother, Sanchita, repeatedly asked what had happened, but he would say nothing. He couldn’t, because he had disobeyed the strict instructions given to all children to stay away from the mango grove.</p><p>Tushar hardly knew that he lived a life of luxury. At five years old he was just beginning to develop a sense of self and how he fit into the world. His family was very wealthy. His grandfather, Ankar, had emigrated as a young man from their ancestral home in India and his exceptional entrepreneurial talent led him to great commercial success in Uganda. Tushar's father, Vikas, had taken over and further developed the family businesses as Ankar eased into retirement. As young as he was, Tushar would sometimes accompany his father on business trips to the family’s disseminated tool and die works, factories, plantations, and auto dealerships. These trips never interfered with schooling: education was a very high priority for Tushar’s family, as it was for almost all Hindus living in Uganda.</p><p>It was on the walk back from the Hindu school that afternoon that Tushar and his friend Jamal found the sweet, resinous fragrance of the mango grove to be so seductively attractive that they would disobey–but only a little bit–by climbing a tree and plucking a couple of big, juicy mangoes. The grove was large, with many trees, and bore so much fruit that most of it actually fell to the ground and rotted. Tushar thought that possibly no one even harvested any of the fruit.</p><p>And, they wouldn’t really go into the grove–just climb a tree on the edge of the grove. So, not actually disobeying…at least, not much.</p><p>As Tushar and Jamal climbed higher into the tree in their quest for the delicious, forbidden fruit, they saw, in the middle of the grove, a tall, square fence surrounded on all sides by the mango trees. The fence was solid wood, protecting the area inside and impossible to see through–but from their arboreal vantage point, they might be able to see over. There was a single gate leading into the cleared area.</p><p>They were not yet high enough to see the ground inside the fence, but they could hear voices and chanting. Curious, they climbed higher and were finally able to see inside the fenced square. There were many people inside, two or three dozen perhaps. There was a platform atop a pile of logs, and on this platform an old woman, wrapped in a white blanket, was sleeping. A man walked around the pile of logs and poured something into the woman’s mouth. She lay still. Maybe she was dead.</p><p>Then the man lit a torch. To Jamal and Tushar’s horror, he placed it on the woman’s mouth and flames lept skyward. He then touched the torch to various places at the bottom of the pile of logs, and flames soon enveloped the entire platform. Tushar and Jamal now thought that the old woman surely must be dead. But why were they burning her?</p><p>The flames rose over the top of the platform, but still, as the flames danced and moved around in the air currents, they could see the old, dead woman on the platform.</p><p>Suddenly she sat up! She was not dead; she was being burned alive! She did not cry out as she sat up, but two men with clubs immediately approached the platform and began beating the old woman. That was when Tushar wet his pants. The old woman lay back down and was soon consumed by the fire.</p><p>Tushar and Jamal spoke not a word as they hurriedly climbed down the tree and ran to their homes. They had not even plucked the fruit that had enticed them to witness this horrific murder.</p><p>Tushar’s mother tried in vain to get him to explain what was bothering him. He would not say. He could only huddle in his bedroom, crying, refusing to speak or move.</p><p>When Tushar’s father came home from work he conferred with Sanchita, and then came to Tushar’s bedroom. He spoke softly.</p><p>“Did you go into the forbidden mango grove today?”</p><p>Tushar hesitated, then nodded yes. He could not lie.</p><p>"So it is time for me to tell you about death and how our people mourn our dead. When an adult dies, the body is burned on a pile of logs to free the spirit. This is called the antyesti. We anoint the body with ghee, including pouring some into the mouth, and light the fire first in the mouth of the dead person. Remember, the person is dead and feels no pain, but rather their spirit feels liberation when it is freed by the fire. At the antyesti we say:</p><p>‘O all possessing Fire, when thou hast matured him, then send him on his way unto the Fathers.<br>When thou hast made him ready, all possessing Fire, then do thou give him over to the Fathers.’"</br></p><p>“But she was not dead. She sat up and bad men hit her with clubs.”</p><p>"She was dead. Sometimes when the body is first touched by fire, the muscles in the abdomen tighten and cause the body to sit up. The funeral workers use the clubs to break the bones so that the body will lie flat again. This can be upsetting if you have not seen it before. I remember when I first was allowed to attend an antyesti this was very disturbing. But I learned from my father that this does not mean the person is alive; it is a natural part of the passage from this life.</p><p>"So now you see why we didn’t want you to go to the mango grove.</p><p>“Go, wash up and change your clothes. I will explain to your mother.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Oh, These Wires We Place]]></title><description><![CDATA[One bell rings
Where angels wept
Shoulder to shoulder
We came together
To show no fear
I pick up
and easily throw
upon my shoulders
a long white jacket of
patchwork squares
built from bendable wires
Just enough to slip on
over my coat ~
I imagine my plight
I freely
put on this ~ metal jacket
because
I was left with
no way out
but now I find
it only opens one-way
has no key
no escape
I am locked here
inside this ~ my gated life
I am suppose to
survive
this mountain climb
by just daily living]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/oh-these-wires-we-place/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231db</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:17:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1534450348423-8a8bda6c058b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fG1ldGFsJTIwY2FnZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTg3NjYzMzM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1534450348423-8a8bda6c058b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fG1ldGFsJTIwY2FnZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTg3NjYzMzM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Oh, These Wires We Place"/><p>One bell rings<br>Where angels wept<br>Shoulder to shoulder<br>We came together<br>To show no fear</br></br></br></br></p><p>I pick up<br>and easily throw<br>upon my shoulders<br>a long white jacket of<br>patchwork squares<br>built from bendable wires</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Just enough to slip on<br>over my coat ~<br>I imagine my plight</br></br></p><p>I freely<br>put on this ~ metal jacket<br>because<br>I was left with<br>no way out</br></br></br></br></p><p>but now I find<br>it only opens one-way<br>has no key<br>no escape<br>I am locked here<br>inside this ~ my gated life</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I am suppose to<br>survive<br>this mountain climb<br>by just daily living<br>and fighting the good fight</br></br></br></br></p><p>In this system<br>where lies and misinformation<br>shadow box each other<br>for the prime spot<br>in our nation’s news</br></br></br></br></p><p>Oh ~ these wires we place<br>with unhinged malice<br>escaping any willing action</br></br></p><p>Now, if only now<br>hearing the calls of our children<br>somehow shouldn’t we agree ~</br></br></p><p>To dare to imagine<br>a different path<br>chosen<br>once<br>and at the same time<br>safe<br>and<br>free?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 15: Summer 2022]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Friends of eMerge,
I am delighted to present to you the Summer 2022 edition of eMerge. This issue is full of summertime delights. Here you'll find fruit (don't miss Anna Gall's recipe for Peach-Ginger Cobbler), sunshine and rain, humor (see George Plautz's play Dropping A Line and Zeek Taylor's prose Just Smile), and poems for those we love and long to change. In the midst of celebrating the joys of summer, there are also more contemplative pieces--thoughtful meditations on freedoms and ca]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-15-summer-2022/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231d3</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joy Clark]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 01 Jul 2022 17:31:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Dear Friends of eMerge,</p><p>I am delighted to present to you the Summer 2022 edition of <em>eMerge</em>. This issue is full of summertime delights. Here you'll find fruit (don't miss Anna Gall's recipe for <em>Peach-Ginger Cobbler</em>), sunshine and rain, humor (see George Plautz's play <em>Dropping A Line </em>and Zeek Taylor's prose <em>Just Smile), </em>and poems for those we love and long to change. In the midst of celebrating the joys of summer, there are also more contemplative pieces--thoughtful meditations on freedoms and cages (such as Joanie Roberts <em>Oh, These Wires We Place </em>and Annie Klier Newcomer's <em>A Wife Speaks To Her Husband During Visiting Hours at Douglas County Jail</em>, among others.)</p><p>No matter what your summer looks like, I hope there is something for you here. Something to make you smile, something to whet your appetite, something to bring you thoughtfulness.</p><p>As always, I couldn't do this without the support of the Board of Directors and the staff at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH). I am also grateful to the WCDH community, including residents, alumni, and friends. You all make this place the special haven that it is. </p><p>Submissions for <em>eMerge</em> 2023 issues will open on August 1st, and I can't wait to read what you send my way! More information will follow through our social media accounts, but please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions. </p><p>May your summer evenings be long, sweet, and filled with the call of cicadas and glowing tempo of fireflies.</p><p>All the best,</p><p>Joy Clark</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Bone of Contention with the Ghost of John Lennon over Strawberry Fields Forever]]></title><description><![CDATA[last year I turned each unripe berry’s curve to the sun,
creeping through a single row; their red hearts and green
leaves dotted by starry blooms. they were few enough.
there was time for such indulgent care and contemplation.
this year with mother plants settled in rich soil,
the unruly daughters run amok by the dozens,
march-dancing fifty feet in and out of a quadruple-wide row,
their leaves in mudras of ecstatic hand jive,
declaring their wild passions.
i crawl on hands and knees, between b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/bone-of-contention/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ac</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Weinstein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:30:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1592300254886-5281e714c86b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHN0cmF3YmVycnklMjBmaWVsZHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ0MTgy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1592300254886-5281e714c86b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fHN0cmF3YmVycnklMjBmaWVsZHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ0MTgy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Bone of Contention with the Ghost of John Lennon over Strawberry Fields Forever"/><p>last year I turned each unripe berry’s curve to the sun,<br>creeping through a single row; their red hearts and green<br>leaves dotted by starry blooms. they were few enough.<br>there was time for such indulgent care and contemplation.</br></br></br></p><p>this year with mother plants settled in rich soil,<br>the unruly daughters run amok by the dozens,<br>march-dancing fifty feet in and out of a quadruple-wide row,<br>their leaves in mudras of ecstatic hand jive,<br>declaring their wild passions.</br></br></br></br></p><p>i crawl on hands and knees, between berries and beans,<br>muttering under my breath, in contention with the ghost of<br>John Lennon and his audacious dream of Strawberry Fields Forever.<br>his romantic idyll has become my late spring curse.</br></br></br></p><p>i like his music well enough and am always willing to Give<br>Peace a Chance, but the concept of infinite strawberries<br>is appalling. forever is married to everywhere.<br>eternity walks hand-in-hand with every arable spot of land.</br></br></br></p><p>in my garden those amorous red-hearted girls of spring<br>spread their juicy sweetness to the cucurbita, threatening<br>to swallow squash, pumpkins, melons and cucumbers.<br>we are already sated, our freezer filling, jars of jam stacked high.</br></br></br></p><p>did John Lennon ever fill more than a priceless Japanese bowl<br>with ripe berries? did he arrange five of them with wabi-sabi aesthetic<br>on an antique Satsuma plate scarred by Yoko with a diamond drill<br>to make an artistic statement, while lying nude together in the fields?</br></br></br></p><p>did he ever ache in every joint from picking gallons a day?<br>did he wonder how to save them for winter and buy a food<br>dehydrator, stock up on canning jars and baggies, consult<br>cookbooks for shortcake and pie recipes with a twist?</br></br></br></p><p>oh, John Lennon, i’m sorry you are dead. if you lived still,<br>i would invite you to my garden and let you pick from one<br>row of the ruby jewels, the red berries of passion and gorge<br>you and your love with sweet flavor for an afternoon.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Rupture/The Silence]]></title><description><![CDATA[The classroom breathes warm vanilla sugar
first chill of winter fogs the windows cloudy
come for one of us, come for us all: a poster warns
across the room a teacher asks for silence
the students instead flouting wildflowers
in a circle, the black girls outnumber
the black boys who scatter to outnumber
the brown boys who outnumber no one
speaking Spanish to themselves
some of the black girls sit pretty and neat
some of the black girls sit wide and long
and some curl tightly in a desk too small]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-rupture-the-silence/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231b4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[simone j. banks]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:30:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527963841590-34ea3172750d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGJsYWNrJTIwd29tYW4lMjBib29rfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1MDEyMTE2OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527963841590-34ea3172750d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGJsYWNrJTIwd29tYW4lMjBib29rfGVufDB8fHx8MTY1MDEyMTE2OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Rupture/The Silence"/><p>The classroom breathes warm vanilla sugar<br>first chill of winter fogs the windows cloudy<br>come for one of us, come for us all: a poster warns<br>across the room a teacher asks for silence<br>the students instead flouting wildflowers</br></br></br></br></p><p>in a circle, the black girls outnumber<br>the black boys who scatter to outnumber<br>the brown boys who outnumber no one<br>speaking Spanish to themselves</br></br></br></p><p>some of the black girls sit pretty and neat<br>some of the black girls sit wide and long<br>and some curl tightly in a desk too small<br>already full bloom roses open for spring.</br></br></br></p><p>Most of the black boys are teasing cute<br>brushing waves flashing white teeth while<br>the brown boys huddle and laugh baseball<br>the classroom is a loud hot Tuscan sun</br></br></br></p><p>but the teacher is calm eggshell a cool<br>sapphire still asking; when’s the last time<br>you felt like an outcast? a girl with long thick<br>eye lashes looks up heavy and rolls back into</br></br></br></p><p>her coffin shaped neon green nails that hold<br>a cell phone tightly, missing the glittered box<br>passing hand to hand asking for stories to tell<br>when living was no rainbow to reach for –</br></br></br></p><p>there is an orchestra of hopeless trigger heard<br>as death walks in with ease, a breathless rush<br>from those who’ve played truth/or/dare with it before<br>and I am questioning: how do you water a dead thing?</br></br></br></p><p>There is no faith in tomorrow and no blame: cuz<br>sometimes you just don’t know how to say it<br>a black boy explains, facing an untied sneaker<br>what’s the point if nothing gets better?</br></br></br></p><p>The teacher is silent, the classroom hums grey<br>the glittered box lands on a girl with cinnamon<br>afro-puffs on her perfectly round head<br>eyes soft brown almonds: maybe, she starts</br></br></br></p><p>if I were not here, I wouldn’t hear my mama crying<br>[at night] for the bills she can’t pay and then<br>everything becomes rock-n-roll, confessions louder<br>than any chord: I tried, I thought, I failed they all sing –</br></br></br></p><p>and so, how do you water a dead thing? the wildflowers<br>are still facing sun’s heat sipping on their last<br>– can you hear them asking?</br></br></p><p>Secrets in their chest circulate transparent<br>[the word I know for this] is still missing<br>the glittered box weighs heavier<br>continuing to reflect the apparitions<br>seated twin –</br></br></br></br></p><p>are they aware of their inhabiting chill?</p><p>I knew a boy, a soft voice spoke, who had it all and yet…<br>we know his true confession; I too, am thinking<br>of this choice and is my voice reaching you?</br></br></p><p>If a star basketball player could hide, take rope, why can’t i?<br>the teacher has become desert clay, full of something curious<br>and brightly asking questions in scared response:<br>is there no one to talk to?</br></br></br></p><p>Where on me is the air? I am only witness<br>but I want to tell of the rupture hold the silence<br>their mamas are crying, their daddies are trying<br>and the babies are leaning into fugitivity.</br></br></br></p><p>The ache is mossy<br>and there’s only been one hour<br>to hold their emerald desires.<br>I am listening for more color.</br></br></br></p><p>What is their shade of choice?<br>Their cries are everywhere ruby<br>and hot; they are not afraid of death<br>only disappearing for relief<br>arms first into murky indigo waters<br>or to float in evening’s navy air<br>for another world completely<br>now realized on my foreign ears</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>and I am begging for more.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Names]]></title><description><![CDATA[If you had named me that
Never would I have gotten away with
Playing ghost
And mime
And girl
And shape
So call me Fleetwood
And Lottie
And Wolfe
Anything even stranger than my title]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/names/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231c2</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Violet Treadwell Hull]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:30:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1577351594944-a5586c757d8c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG5hbWVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0ODcxNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1577351594944-a5586c757d8c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG5hbWVzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0ODcxNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Names"/><p>If you had named me that<br>Never would I have gotten away with</br></p><p>Playing ghost<br>And mime<br>And girl<br>And shape</br></br></br></p><p>So call me Fleetwood<br>And Lottie<br>And Wolfe</br></br></p><p>Anything even stranger than my title</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What’d I Say?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Fayetteville, 1963-1965
The Land of Opportunity, the Arkansas license plates said. First thing I noticed, coming to the University from sunny Southern California. Chicken farming was the biggest enterprise. Long, narrow, unpainted wooden chicken houses set here and there on the hills, housing hundreds of hens. Lots of little windows all in a row. At night, lit, they looked like trains. But they weren’t going nowhere.
Tyson, the big chicken man. Tyson trucks always on the narrow Ozark Mountain ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/whatd-i-say/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ad</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Suzanne McConnell]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:30:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605027628030-9bb6f83535e6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGFya2Fuc2FzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NDI2MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="1280" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1205588551&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=1280&secret_token=s-h1HI2QWXFt4"/></figure><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605027628030-9bb6f83535e6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGFya2Fuc2FzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NDI2MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="What’d I Say?"/><p><em>Fayetteville, 1963-1965</em></p><p>The Land of Opportunity, the Arkansas license plates said. First thing I noticed, coming to the University from sunny Southern California. Chicken farming was the biggest enterprise. Long, narrow, unpainted wooden chicken houses set here and there on the hills, housing hundreds of hens. Lots of little windows all in a row. At night, lit, they looked like trains. But they weren’t going nowhere.</p><p>Tyson, the big chicken man. Tyson trucks always on the narrow Ozark Mountain roads, slowing down the traffic if some farmer wasn’t already. Some sort of owing-your-soul-to-the-company-store relationship with the farmers. Baby chicks for fryers, fryers for baby chicks: Tyson’s trucks brought in, and took away.</p><p>Farmers mostly poor. Bib overalls, a lack of teeth. Tall tales and a soft way of talking. ‘Whaar’ for ‘wire’ and ‘oall’ for ‘oil.’ Spoke in metaphor, story and homily. When a calf gets knee-high to a grasshopper, it’s time to plant corn.</p><p>Places like Hog Jaw and Toad Suck.</p><p>Soft air, soft light. Smell of new mown hay.</p><p>And cattle farming. That was business number two. Chicken litter spread on cattle pasture in the spring. The foul odor of fowl.<br><br>Delicate dogwood, redbud, magnolia.</br></br></p><p>Second poorest state in the nation, Mississippi one ahead.</p><p>Country music mostly all the possibility on the radio.</p><p>A lot of hillbilly farmers never been out of the county.</p><p>At Razorback games, the band played Dixie. Team one color. Separate but unequal dorms. At the University Medical School down in Little Rock the drinking fountains and restrooms said “White Only.”</p><p>One club where we white University kids went to hoop and holler. Cement block, housing beer and a sound system. “See the girl with the red dress on!” When Ray Charles sang, the floor rocked. “Tell your Pa, Tell your Ma, Gonna send her back to <em>Ark</em>-an-sas!” Everybody knew the pause. “Oooh!” Charles shouted. “Oooh!” they’d answer. “Aaah!OoohAaahOohAah Baby Shake that thing, Baby what’d I say, Tell me what’d I say.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Orchidaceous: Word of the Day]]></title><description><![CDATA[For Jen, who else?
How do I love thee? Let me count a way.
Thou art more orchidaceous than an orchid,
which is obvious, which is to say not ghostly,
for gods’ sakes, you so vibrantly alive, your
flesh opening sesame, quivering or quiet or
modest, though you have little cause to be modest,
darling, or merely drably interesting.
When we met, after all, how many years ago,
you came out not a debutante, or flame, or
fragrance, though you were all of these, but
flower, to be specific, terrestrial o]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/orchidaceous-word-of-the-day/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231b0</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Zeck]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:29:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1549064066-71a6b24f9b52?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI1fHxvcmNoaWRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NTI3Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1549064066-71a6b24f9b52?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI1fHxvcmNoaWRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NTI3Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Orchidaceous: Word of the Day"/><p><em>For Jen, who else?</em></p><p>How do I love thee? Let me count a way.<br>Thou art more orchidaceous than an orchid,<br>which is obvious, which is to say not ghostly,<br>for gods’ sakes, you so vibrantly alive, your<br>flesh opening sesame, quivering or quiet or<br>modest, though you have little cause to be modest,<br>darling, or merely drably interesting.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>When we met, after all, how many years ago,<br>you came out not a debutante, or flame, or<br>fragrance, though you were all of these, but<br>flower, to be specific, terrestrial or epiphytic<br>plant of the Orchidaceae family, of temperate<br>and tropical regions, having showy flowers,<br>and you’re showing me even now, my lady, how<br>many incredible years later, and I’m telling you<br>here and now, my love, in the blooming moment,<br>my love is pure grateful astonishment.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pinwheel Heart]]></title><description><![CDATA[Does your
pinwheel heart
scour for a wind
like a carriage
for a driver?
Or are you looking
for a co-passenger
to help you
keep spinning?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pinwheel-heart/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ae</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:28:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1598414351527-8052258ba4ea?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBpbndoZWVsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NDQ1OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1598414351527-8052258ba4ea?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBpbndoZWVsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NDQ1OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Pinwheel Heart"/><p>Does your<br>pinwheel heart<br>scour for a wind<br>like a carriage<br>for a driver?<br>Or are you looking<br>for a co-passenger<br>to help you<br>keep spinning?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Kiss Bye Kate]]></title><description><![CDATA[I feel a little stuck, as stuck as a golden goddess of goodness gets. I keep telling myself, all is part of the journey. I pushed myself this past month, less time for reflection, my body and spirit feel vulnerable. I long for familiarity, for connection, for a hello-hello-hello returned. My friend Lynn called. Left a message to have a great trip. I exist to somebody else. I am thought of, she is thoughtful.
Bob feels so far away. Almost as if, when was he here? Can’t remember when I last cried]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/kiss-bye-kate/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231b1</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kate Kaiser]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:28:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542351682-8453e2495f97?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxraXNzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NTQ0Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542351682-8453e2495f97?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxraXNzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NTQ0Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Kiss Bye Kate"/><p>I feel a little stuck, as stuck as a golden goddess of goodness gets. I keep telling myself, all is part of the journey. I pushed myself this past month, less time for reflection, my body and spirit feel vulnerable. I long for familiarity, for connection, for a hello-hello-hello returned. My friend Lynn called. Left a message to have a great trip. I exist to somebody else. I am thought of, she is thoughtful.</p><p>Bob feels so far away. Almost as if, when was he here? Can’t remember when I last cried widow tears.</p><p>I loved Bob, not as good as I could of but, the best he felt in his life. The rest I have to say is redundant. He’s gone, move on. He was loud, he was funny, he was no good with money.</p><p>Do I miss him? My pen pauses. I miss his laugh, I miss his adoration of me. I did not appreciate him fully while he was alive. I was uncomfortable with his bigness, his gusto, his ability to see and say what I wouldn’t.</p><p>I wish I could have a drink with him at the bar where we had our first date. Without getting mad, I would let him order whatever expensive drink he would want (probably an over priced port). I’d look him in the eye and say, “Thanks. Thanks for the ride, the love, the beauty. I’m sorry for the struggles, I get it now and I thank you.” Then, I would kiss him. I can’t remember the last time I really kissed him. I would cup his chin with my hands and focus on the singular sensations from that swirl. I pecked him before he went into surgery, but a real kiss? I have no idea when the kisses became mundane. I’d kiss him and he’d feel so adored.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Traveling]]></title><description><![CDATA[My last sight of N’awlins, early New Year’s Day,
pretty girl standing outside Big Daddy’s Bar
shivering, talking to her friends; lightweight pink coat,
sparkly heels, last night’s tiara, sipping a fresh daiquiri.
On the hurricane evacuation route, the levee stretches
for miles and miles. Rhythm and Blues Bayou.
Cotton gins, rice silos, Dixie Dandy signs “we buy pecans”.
Alligator Duck Club, towns called Tallulah and Tchulah.
Christian Pest Services. Ciroc and Grey Goose
in ramshackle gas sta]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/traveling/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231af</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Scarlett Savoy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:28:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558390640-383986a7cd2f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxuZXclMjBvcmxlYW5zfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NDc3Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558390640-383986a7cd2f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxuZXclMjBvcmxlYW5zfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NDc3Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Traveling"/><p>My last sight of N’awlins, early New Year’s Day,<br>pretty girl standing outside Big Daddy’s Bar</br></p><p>shivering, talking to her friends; lightweight pink coat,<br>sparkly heels, last night’s tiara, sipping a fresh daiquiri.</br></p><p>On the hurricane evacuation route, the levee stretches<br>for miles and miles. Rhythm and Blues Bayou.</br></p><p>Cotton gins, rice silos, Dixie Dandy signs “we buy pecans”.<br>Alligator Duck Club, towns called Tallulah and Tchulah.</br></p><p>Christian Pest Services. Ciroc and Grey Goose<br>in ramshackle gas stations with dirty bathrooms.</br></p><p>White girl behind the counter says “have a blest day”;<br>black folks don’t meet our eyes when we say hello.</br></p><p>Lake Providence; pelicans bobbing, coots skimming<br>across the water, wood ducks and cypress knees.</br></p><p>No one open in any town except Dollar General<br>and the Departments of Detention and Correction.</br></p><p>Driving north, the temp keeps dropping;<br>we are heading home, but not towards warmth.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Gift]]></title><description><![CDATA[Your ears rest quietly
in boxes
on your dresser top
as you snuggle
with your blue blanket,
you drift into a world
only you know
a dog barks
under the neighbor’s live oak
on this sticky summer night
your sister plays
another song on the piano
while your father and I
begin our conversations
of another day spent
you are filled with a silence
none of us can divine
until another exquisite morning begins
when you will delight in a gift
the rest of us had all night]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-gift/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231b2</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sallie Crotty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:27:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1602703651892-7f0e73a14302?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGVhcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDU3MzM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1602703651892-7f0e73a14302?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGVhcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDU3MzM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Gift"/><p>Your ears rest quietly<br>in boxes<br>on your dresser top</br></br></p><p>as you snuggle<br>with your blue blanket,<br>you drift into a world<br>only you know</br></br></br></p><p>a dog barks<br>under the neighbor’s live oak<br>on this sticky summer night</br></br></p><p>your sister plays<br>another song on the piano<br>while your father and I<br>begin our conversations<br>of another day spent</br></br></br></br></p><p>you are filled with a silence<br>none of us can divine<br>until another exquisite morning begins<br>when you will delight in a gift<br>the rest of us had all night</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Thinnest of Lines]]></title><description><![CDATA[This
The thinnest of “tents”
We call a home
This
The most valued of life
We call a soul
And we all ~
Living in the blackest space
Underneath the greatest Heavenly stars
Protected
By the thinnest blue line
Between
Absolute space
And
Our shelter home
Gifted to us
To take care of
And to Shepherd
In this one God given life
Here ~
On this
A Mighty blue green earth
We call our beloved
Earthly home]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-thinnest-of-lines/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231b3</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:27:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1534996858221-380b92700493?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGVhcnRofGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NTk0Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1534996858221-380b92700493?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGVhcnRofGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NTk0Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Thinnest of Lines"/><p>This<br>The thinnest of “tents”<br>We call a home</br></br></p><p>This<br>The most valued of life<br>We call a soul</br></br></p><p>And we all ~<br>Living in the blackest space<br>Underneath the greatest Heavenly stars</br></br></p><p>Protected<br>By the thinnest blue line<br>Between<br>Absolute space<br>And<br>Our shelter home</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Gifted to us<br>To take care of<br>And to Shepherd<br>In this one God given life</br></br></br></p><p>Here ~<br>On this</br></p><p>A Mighty blue green earth<br>We call our beloved<br>Earthly home</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Kaleidoscope]]></title><description><![CDATA[Please, don’t worry
the earth is still here ~
the wind and the sky ~
they wait for us
This indigo sky ~
on a clear starry night
gives way to a gentle dawn ~
held in a whisper blue
in a silken sunrise
Overhead light bearers ~
create an ever changing kaleidoscope!
Carilion bluegrass
berry plums and
flamingo pinks ~
mixed in famous hues & colors
Moving and flowing like
a beautiful new scarf
placed over my head ~
quietly and with ease,
folding into the curves of my day
I close my eyes
I see the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/kaleidoscope/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231b5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:27:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517370091901-aa7e3ab63ab1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHR3aWxpZ2h0fGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NjUyOQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517370091901-aa7e3ab63ab1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHR3aWxpZ2h0fGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NjUyOQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Kaleidoscope"/><p>Please, don’t worry<br>the earth is still here ~<br>the wind and the sky ~<br>they wait for us</br></br></br></p><p>This indigo sky ~<br>on a clear starry night<br>gives way to a gentle dawn ~<br>held in a whisper blue<br>in a silken sunrise</br></br></br></br></p><p>Overhead light bearers ~<br>create an ever changing kaleidoscope!</br></p><p>Carilion bluegrass<br>berry plums and<br>flamingo pinks ~<br>mixed in famous hues & colors</br></br></br></p><p>Moving and flowing like<br>a beautiful new scarf<br>placed over my head ~<br>quietly and with ease,<br>folding into the curves of my day</br></br></br></br></p><p>I close my eyes<br>I see the end of day,<br>rich in golden light<br>now shining on Lake Ann’s shorelines ~<br>velvet golden shelves<br>frozen in limestone ledges</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The tops of the hills light up<br>catching treetops<br>in brand new bold strokes ~<br>painting grand<br>swaths of fire</br></br></br></br></p><p>Light keeps moving west<br>and then west again<br>as it falls into shadows ~<br>echoing back to a honeydew sun,<br>filtering light moves these woodland hills<br>into evening</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I can hear love songs . . .<br>deep and ancient<br>Skywinds<br>meet me on the rise</br></br></br></p><p>There in twilight<br>I emerge awakening<br>to see my day refreshed<br>in a silent prayer ~</br></br></br></p><p>while the world sleeps<br>yet never still</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Reflection]]></title><description><![CDATA[Eyes of Earth,
lakes.
To help another, you
must first watch self,
return to a point
of pivot, begin at Earth,
fan into sky, into
atmosphere. Change
seasons, watch
intentions progress.
Those gone
may return. Steps
we have taken,
we may take again,
even if they were not
intentional. Now,
there is possibility
of slow return,
original sincerity.
Now is not
a foreign word
or time dimension
you don’t understand.
Without saying we make
our now, we see it
in water, in sky.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/reflection/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231b6</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Liza Wolff-Francis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:26:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542667855206-7ab65607dd34?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGxha2VzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NjcxMg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542667855206-7ab65607dd34?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGxha2VzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NjcxMg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Reflection"/><p>Eyes of Earth,<br>lakes.</br></p><p>To help another, you<br>must first watch self,</br></p><p>return to a point<br>of pivot, begin at Earth,</br></p><p>fan into sky, into<br>atmosphere. Change</br></p><p>seasons, watch<br>intentions progress.</br></p><p>Those gone<br>may return. Steps</br></p><p>we have taken,<br>we may take again,</br></p><p>even if they were not<br>intentional. Now,</br></p><p>there is possibility<br>of slow return,</br></p><p>original sincerity.<br>Now is not</br></p><p>a foreign word<br>or time dimension</br></p><p>you don’t understand.<br>Without saying we make</br></p><p>our now, we see it<br>in water, in sky.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sissina’s Orecchiette with Rapini and Sausage]]></title><description><![CDATA[This is a dish I learned from my Italian mamma, Rose (nicknamed Sissina). It is a typical dish of the Italian region of Apulia (Puglia) where she was born in the little village of Loseto. I have fond memories of Mom and her cousins talking and laughing as they rolled the discs of pasta with a knife and their thumbs forming the tiny rippled bowls of orecchiette (little ears) that would hold the sauce.
Comment
My recipe uses the dried pasta version which can be found in many supermarkets now. Fa]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sissinas-orecchiette-with-rapini-and-sausage/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231b7</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[George Plautz]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:26:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/04/orecchiete.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/04/orecchiete.jpg" alt="Sissina’s Orecchiette with Rapini and Sausage"/><p><em>This is a dish I learned from my Italian mamma, Rose (nicknamed Sissina). It is a typical dish of the Italian region of Apulia (Puglia) where she was born in the little village of Loseto. I have fond memories of Mom and her cousins talking and laughing as they rolled the discs of pasta with a knife and their thumbs forming the tiny rippled bowls of orecchiette (little ears) that would hold the sauce.</em></p><p>Comment</p><p><em>My recipe uses the dried pasta version which can be found in many supermarkets now. Farfalle, or bow-tie pasta, can be substituted. Of course, if you have the extra hours (and some help), you can make the fresh version. (Here is a video showing how to make fresh orecchiette: <a href="https://youtu.be/XcJ2wxpyT_Q?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com" rel="noopener">https://youtu.be/XcJ2wxpyT_Q</a>)</em></p><h1 id="ingredients-">Ingredients:</h1><p>-12-14 oz. dry orecchiette pasta<br>-1 pound Italian sausage (I like to use hot Italian sausage, but you can use mild or sweet as well), in bulk or removed from casings<br>-1 head of rapini (called cime di rapa in Italian), tough ends removed and chopped into one-inch pieces, broccoli rabe or broccolini can be substituted (actually, any bitter green can be used such as mustard greens, chicory or dandelion greens)<br>-3 cloves of garlic, minced<br>-2 tablespoons olive oil<br>-1/4 cup milk, optional<br>-salt and pepper to taste<br>-red pepper flakes to taste, (if using mild or sweet sausage)<br>-1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano Reggiano cheese</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><h1 id="process-">Process:</h1><p>Bring a large pot of water to boil adding several pinches of salt at the boil. The water should taste like sea water. Add the rapini and boil for a few minutes until just starting to get tender, remove from the water. The water will be used later, so don’t toss it.</p><p>Meanwhile, heat half of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. When it is hot, add the sausage and brown it, chopping it into small pieces. Season with salt and pepper and red pepper flakes, if desired. Remove and reserve the browned sausage.</p><p>Bring the water back to a boil and add the orecchiette to the boiling water. Cook until al dente. (10 to 12 minutes.)</p><p>Bring the skillet to medium heat, add the rest of the olive oil and garlic. Heat the garlic until almost brown being careful not to burn it. Add the rapini to the pan and mix together, heating through.</p><p>Add the sausage into the rapini/garlic mixture and stir to mix, heating it through. Add some pasta water or milk if the mixture is too dry.</p><p>Once the pasta is ready drain and put in a bowl, adding the sausage/rapini mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste.</p><p>Finally, top with the grated cheese and serve.</p><p>Buon Appetito!</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Four Haikus]]></title><description><![CDATA[5/19
puttering right here
making bits and bobs
and my own sunshine
5/20
how to know
slide under the surface
feel the nudge
6/19
tenderness
behind my eyes
memory and regret
8/7
the pen clicks
open and ink spills
my secrets]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/four-haikus-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231b8</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacqueline Woven]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:25:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511836536898-6d6f1b8f6948?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHN1bnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTAyMDkxMjk&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511836536898-6d6f1b8f6948?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHN1bnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NTAyMDkxMjk&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Four Haikus"/><p><strong><strong>5/19</strong></strong></p><p>puttering right here<br>making bits and bobs<br>and my own sunshine</br></br></p><p><strong><strong>5/20</strong></strong></p><p>how to know<br>slide under the surface<br>feel the nudge</br></br></p><p><strong><strong>6/19</strong></strong></p><p>tenderness<br>behind my eyes<br>memory and regret</br></br></p><p><strong><strong>8/7</strong></strong></p><p>the pen clicks<br>open and ink spills<br>my secrets</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ode to Parentheses]]></title><description><![CDATA[My words
cupped in your
soft hands.
Suspended
in anticipation
of an exclamation
I am frightened
to put in fully
fleshed ink.
Holder of all
unuttered phrases.
Your sides
glide in and out
as forgiving as a womb.
Amenable.
Open ended
in your rather
precarious nature.
You anchor me
in your fluidity.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/ode-to-parentheses/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231bb</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Catherine Buercklin]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:23:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1597359726076-10461a67d1b9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxjdXBwZWR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ3NDI1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1597359726076-10461a67d1b9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxjdXBwZWR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ3NDI1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Ode to Parentheses"/><p>My words<br>cupped in your<br>soft hands.<br>Suspended<br>in anticipation<br>of an exclamation<br>I am frightened<br>to put in fully<br>fleshed ink.<br>Holder of all<br>unuttered phrases.<br>Your sides<br>glide in and out<br>as forgiving as a womb.<br>Amenable.<br>Open ended<br>in your rather<br>precarious nature.<br>You anchor me<br>in your fluidity.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Two Guinea Stories]]></title><description><![CDATA[The following is an excerpt from a collection of essays about raising guinea fowl.
New Guinea Hens - Lost and Found, June 2021
After major losses of our adult guineas over the winter - started with 28, down to 13 — six were added to the flock in a pair of Royal Purples, Violets and Lavenders. They were refreshing to look at amongst our sea of Pearl Grey’s.
Five days after putting them in their own section of the coop, they began pecking on each other so we set them free. It’s always a crapsh]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/two-guinea-stories/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231b9</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laura Matson Hahn]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:23:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1645777762406-d2d67ce59bb4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGd1aW5lYSUyMGZvd2x8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ3MDg1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1645777762406-d2d67ce59bb4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGd1aW5lYSUyMGZvd2x8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ3MDg1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Two Guinea Stories"/><p><em>The following is an excerpt from a collection of essays about raising guinea fowl.</em></p><h1 id="new-guinea-hens-lost-and-found-june-2021">New Guinea Hens - Lost and Found, June 2021</h1><p>After major losses of our adult guineas over the winter - started with 28, down to 13 — six were added to the flock in a pair of Royal Purples, Violets and Lavenders. They were refreshing to look at amongst our sea of Pearl Grey’s.</p><p>Five days after putting them in their own section of the coop, they began pecking on each other so we set them free. It’s always a crapshoot – letting newbies out for the first time. How will the other guineas treat them? What will they do? Will they scatter and tree roost? Do they sufficiently know the coop as home and safety?</p><p>By first dusk, only the Royal Purple pair returned to the coop. We had heard a few cars honking on the road above us, which was usually to move the guineas, but I checked and found no bodies, so who knows where they went. I asked the dogs to find them and they stared into the woods. Before long, a whoop of wings heralded one of the Lavenders return, landing on the coop roof. Then the dogs disappeared for a while. When they returned it was already dark. It did not look good for the missing three as I closed the coop, keeping the Royals safe and hoping the Lavender would stay on the roof and be protected by the dogs vigilance during their night prowl.</p><p>Crossing the lawn to say goodnight to the dogs, I patted Wabi and began walking toward Sabi when I nearly tripped on the Violet guinea, crouched halfway between the boys. It was wet, somewhat feather plucked, but alive! How did it get here? Why was it just sitting there? Guineas don’t see well at night which makes them perfect prey. From its condition, I wondered if the dogs had chased it along the lakefront but then how did it get up the hill to the front lawn? Did they chase it up? Delivering it to me? I will never know for sure.</p><p>The dogs sat quietly as I wrapped the guinea in a towel to blot wet feathers and walked it to the coop to join the Royals. The other two remained at large, but any search would have to wait for morning’s light.</p><p>The 6AM screeching by the coop was promising and yes indeed, the missing violet guinea was in the tree, making a racquet with the solo lavender. The Violet’s partner was now dry and rested - hanging in the tower roost with the Pearl Grey guineas. It was surprising to see it with them. She either found her way quickly or they were holding her captive. Ya never know.</p><p>That left one missing Lavender guinea. I knew I would have to do a woods walkabout to find any remains and had dressed accordingly. After dispensing morning scratch and water duties, I gave each dog a fresh egg from the coop (hens were still laying but I stopped incubating) before we took off to find the missing bird.<br>It didn’t take long. Down the hill to the lake’s edge, Wabi walked through the high water then stopped, staring at the embankment where Sabi and I stood. Sabi edged closer, looking over it. So I did too, peeking over the rock ledge and bingo, there it was! A wet, weary but alive lavender guinea crouched just above the water line, body tight to the bank. Stepping down into the water, I snatched her up before she could flee, tucked her under my arm and up the hill we all paraded for a towel blot and reunion with her mates. What a relief to have all six safe and sound!</br></p><p>To the dogs I owe thanks for this happy outcome. They are so impressive in understanding my requests. But me thinks I must add they are not to pluck at the bird’s feathers (their favorite pastime) - as it must be rather traumatizing for the guineas. Do you think they will listen? One can only hope.</p><h1 id="prodigal-birds-july-6-14-2021">Prodigal Birds, July 6 & 14 2021</h1><p>As my newly purchased six adult guineas discovered their way on the property, they had to contend with the ten Pearl Grey homeys who excluded the pretty newbies from their flock, driving them to explore the left side of the property which abuts a public wilderness – a pathway for predators.</p><p>In the first week, one Lavender and one Violet did not return to the coop at night. The next day when they had not returned for scratch, I asked the dogs to find whatever remains existed. They led me to a spot not too far into the woods were two circles of feathers lay on the ground. Most often there are feather circles marking those sad spots, indicating a surprise attack and tussle before the prize is carted away and feasted upon. And as always, I gather what feathers I can for posterity.</p><p>The four remaining newbies (Lavender, Violet and 2 Royal Purples) hung close to the coop for the next two days but didn’t return at third dusk nor any other day following. Four of them in the woods was a bad situation but we had guests arriving so it took me a week before I could search.</p><p>Once again the dogs led me, past the original feather circles and deeper into the woods. I clambered down boulders and around daggers of branches, deeper and deeper until we came upon a mini grove defined by a lush footing of deep, wavy emerald green grass that cushioned each step. It was breathtaking and startling in its beauty. I looked at the cluster of young trees where the Royal Purple guineas must have roosted before the attacker scattered their feathers over that grass. Oddly, the feathers were not in neat circles like the others, but a flurry over this magical oasis within the jagged woods. As I gathered up the memory feathers, I could see why they would nest there. It was serene and hushed among the rough surrounding forest. Sigh. A guinea’s life is short when opting for the tree roost in these woods.</p><p>“OK boys,” I spoke with the dogs, “Now, where are the Lavender and Violet?” We were deeper in the woods than I had ever walked, weaving around and under thick, poky branches. The dogs kept looking but with no luck and finally I gave up, heading home on an upper path, canvasing every direction for another patch of feathers, but nothing was found.</p><p>So imagine our surprise a week later when Mr. Lavender shows up, alive and well but alone. His Violet must have met her demise and since there was nowhere else to go, to the coop he returned. I guess risking the wrath of the Pearl Greys was better than wandering alone. Guineas are a tribal bird.</p><p>His return was not easy. The original tribe is an unwelcoming bunch. Sadly, we watched Lavender tag along at a distance behind them, as they foraged the property, mostly keeping to himself. My heart ached for him.</p><p>Another week goes by.</p><p>Then there is a posting on the community Facebook page about a guinea showing up at a woman’s house about 8 miles from us. As I am looking at the posting, my phone rings and the same woman asked: “Could it be yours?’ She had found my number from the resort above us. As I have “Goofy Guinea Crossing” signs on the road, people know where the mad guinea lady lives. She described it as a pearl grey. Though I had lost a couple of nesting females recently, I doubted mine could make that distance which was over the lake and well across the mountain. Nevertheless, we suited up with nets and guiding sticks and found the hen tucked under a bush by the house. I made my daily call to it. “guinea, guinea, guinea gooood.” Her lack of reaction confirmed it was not mine. In the meantime, another area guinea owner was identified who had recently lost two hens and a cock. Her home was much closer to this site so we left it to her to try and retrieve the skittish bird.</p><p>And that was that. Until it wasn’t.</p><p>Two days later the dogs start barking as a rugged outdoorsy type man walks down our driveway. “Mam” he called out, “I left my truck up top so as not to disturb you but I hear you have guineas.” The dogs eyed him suspiciously as he continued. “You missing a guinea? One showed up at my property and my chickens are real upset.” He explained he lived along the White River, near the 62 bridge. As a bird flies, that would be 4-6 miles away. “Do you want the bird?” he asked. I suspected it was the other lady’s bird, not able to imagine any of my birds travelling that far. Although they can run up to 30 mile an hour, and fly in sweeping hops, it was still quite a distance with a lake and river in between “Sure, if you can catch it,” I replied, handing him a small dog carrier for transport. Then I called the other guinea woman to let her know we may have found one of her birds.</p><p>Within an hour he returned, bird in case and wife in tow who wanted to see our baby guinea keets and coop set up. I thanked him and set the carrier in the shade, paying it no mind as we visited. But after they left, I noticed how interested the newly returned Lavender guinea was to whatever was in the carrier. He prowled around it, jumped on top of it, poking his face into the front gate again and again. A question formed in my mind. “could it be….?” I picked up the crate and examined the bird inside. Blinking, I looked again. Clearly it was not a Pearl Grey. It was black with no white dots on its feathers. I turned the crate at every angle until I was finally sure and then called the other guinea woman. “What color were your missing birds?” I asked. She confirmed they were Pearl Grey. “Well, this one is a Royal Purple and even though it’s hard to believe, it could well be one of mine.” She agreed I should keep the bird, so I put the Lavender and the Royal in the coop together for the afternoon.</p><p>I was gobsmacked, imagining what had occurred for this reality. Could the scatter of Royal feathers in the green glen have been made by only one bird? Did it reflect a predator snatching at both birds but only able to corral one?</p><p>The spot in the forest where I found the Royal feathers was midway to the lake. A sole predator could only get one bird at a time, so perhaps there was an opportunity for the other Royal to fly off, travelling east toward the rising sun, through the forest, coming to the lakes edge, following its curve toward the Dam, flying down the sweeping hill to where the White River re-emerged from the Dam and flowed north. Then perhaps it wandered along until making a dash across, avoiding predator or fishermen or boaters. Landing on the quieter side of homes along the shore, it continued making its way until finally finding a coop of chickens and the hope for a new home. After 21 days that must have been a relief. But no! Captured by Mr. Rugged Outdoorsy, it was transported back to our home and recognized by her old pal Lavender who gleefully welcomed his lost buddy, and new mate!</p><p>It seemed a preposterous tale but how could I disagree? Those birds had not been with me for two weeks before they disappeared. I had studied the birds, particularly the Royals as they faithfully roosted in the coop, until they didn’t. Those Royals were smaller and quieter than the Lavender and Violets. They had solid black feet. This Royal had all that and one thing I had not recalled. Its waddles, a fleshy growth that normally hang below the beak, were small round orbs turned back and up, creating bright orange circles on each cheek. Combining that image with the pointed helmet on top of the head and its long beak, I immediately thought of the famous Italian Opera “Pagliaccii”, about a very sad clown. “Pal Yah Chee” I called to it “This is now your name” and dubbed his every close companion “Lavendee.” They have been side-by-each ever since.</p><p>Lavendee and Pagalicci did not know what they were doing as they set off into the wild woods. How could they, knowing only a cooped life from birth. By nature, they are wild birds so the lure of the forest was instinctual. But given all that happened, I now suspect my prodigal birds would agree with what poet Robert Frost once wrote: “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” And we do and will, always, for the love of guinea reigns strong here.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Famous Poets]]></title><description><![CDATA[My name is not
a poet’s name.
It doesn’t flow like
honey off the tongue,
the sweet aftertaste
hanging on the tip
like a dew drop.
I want a name like
Oliver,
tied to the earth.
Steadfast and honest.
Or
Angelou,
A name with wings
that soars out of your mouth
when you say it.
Or
Harjo,
heavy like the
beat of a heart.
Reflective as the night.
I want a name so bright
I can turn the moon.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/famous-poets/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ba</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Catherine Buercklin]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:22:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1570751485906-b0bbe415db74?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxtb29ufGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NzMwNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1570751485906-b0bbe415db74?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxtb29ufGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0NzMwNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Famous Poets"/><p>My name is not<br>a poet’s name.<br>It doesn’t flow like<br>honey off the tongue,<br>the sweet aftertaste<br>hanging on the tip<br>like a dew drop.<br>I want a name like<br>Oliver,<br>tied to the earth.<br>Steadfast and honest.<br>Or<br>Angelou,<br>A name with wings<br>that soars out of your mouth<br>when you say it.<br>Or<br>Harjo,<br>heavy like the<br>beat of a heart.<br>Reflective as the night.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I want a name so bright<br>I can turn the moon.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Robin Metz]]></title><description><![CDATA[Reckless and cautious at once—
or, rather, teacher yet student.
Best to accept that
in his sweet and generous way
no telling what might follow.
Maybe one word; maybe two hundred.
Everything was possible. We'll miss
that full embrace of play. Forever learning,
zealous man always asking why.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/robin-metz/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231bf</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ken Waldman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:22:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585521551675-64daba4ba31e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI4fHxvbGQlMjBib29rc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDc5NjM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585521551675-64daba4ba31e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI4fHxvbGQlMjBib29rc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDc5NjM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Robin Metz"/><p>Reckless and cautious at once— <br>or, rather, teacher yet student. <br>Best to accept that <br>in his sweet and generous way <br>no telling what might follow.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Maybe one word; maybe two hundred. <br>Everything was possible. We'll miss <br>that full embrace of play. Forever learning, <br>zealous man always asking why.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Color Green]]></title><description><![CDATA[Green is a very pretty color
It is the color of grass and the color of leaves that grow on the branches of the tree.
Green is the color of seaweed that moves back in forth in the ocean.
Green is the color that is calming and symbolizes growth for me.
Being a brown girl, born into this world in the 80’s, meant that I would be green too.
I would sit on my grandfather’s porch watching him work on cars,
there was nothing around to move me or stimulate my mind, so I stayed inside my own head.
I depe]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-color-green/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231bc</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michelle Jones]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:22:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528619239106-3a7c87900c89?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGdyZWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ3NTQx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528619239106-3a7c87900c89?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGdyZWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ3NTQx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Color Green"/><p>Green is a very pretty color<br>It is the color of grass and the color of leaves that grow on the branches of the tree.<br>Green is the color of seaweed that moves back in forth in the ocean.<br>Green is the color that is calming and symbolizes growth for me.</br></br></br></p><p>Being a brown girl, born into this world in the 80’s, meant that I would be green too.<br>I would sit on my grandfather’s porch watching him work on cars,<br>there was nothing around to move me or stimulate my mind, so I stayed inside my own head.<br>I depended on my imagination and creativity to keep my mind healthy.<br>No one told me that a brain was a terrible thing to waste, but somewhere inside myself I knew that I wanted to use my mind for all sorts of things.</br></br></br></br></p><p>I was a peculiar child, and a peculiar adult.<br>I realize that I am still green, lime green depending on the subject matter.</br></p><p>I am forever growing.<br>Forever trying to reach my potential like spring leaves that grow back after winter.<br>It must be so painful for the green leaves.<br>They grow, then they wither. It is as perpetual cycle of development that makes me celebrate being green.<br>To know that I can be like a green leaf really is amazing.<br>I get to reinvent myself like a tree, through each of the four seasons.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I have the cognitive ability to interact with strangers who know way more than me.<br>I get to sit and listen to their wisdom, blessing my branches with knowledge like a tree.<br>I am not fearful of those who have more life experience,<br>for they are the ones that will prune me and ensure that I am not cut down, because they know the laws of the land, like the back of their hands.<br>I trust that they will protect me, like a tree planted in a Nature Reserve.<br>There are federal laws that I do not even know about that can protect me as I grow, I don’t know them, but someone who cares knows.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I am green, and its okay.<br>My humility will be what keeps me when I wither.<br>My essence embodied in teachability; will be the reason I get to grow back.</br></br></p><p>Green is a very pretty color<br>It is the color of grass and the color of leaves that grow on the branches of the tree.<br>Green is the color of seaweed that moves back in forth in the ocean<br>Green is the color that is calming and symbolizes growth for me</br></br></br></p><p>I embrace the fact that I do not know everything, it is not embarrassing to me<br>It excites me!<br>I do not know, what I do not know, until I am met with new knowledge.<br>It’s like playing a game of hide and seek.<br>I am not sure when I will find it, but I know if I keep preserving, I will not only find knowledge, by God’s grace, I will turn it into wisdom.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Try being green for just one day, it isn’t so bad.<br>Do not be afraid to learn new things.<br>There is no reason not to explore out of your realm of comfortability.<br>It is okay to be uncomfortable for the right reasons.<br>That’s how you grow.<br>I want to reach my full potential, I can not fear being cut down.<br>I have to be confident face the sun and stand tall.<br>My roots with stretch as I grow, knowledge will become wisdom and my leaves will bloom flowers.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The growing and pruning process, is never easy.<br>It can be quite uncomfortable, but being uncomfortable, is the reason being green doesn’t bother me.<br>Being uncomfortable, is what got me off my grandpa’s front porch.<br>Being uncomfortable is what made me appreciate the Southside of Atlanta when I was 13.<br>Being uncomfortable is what got me into college<br>Being uncomfortable is what made me join AmeriCorps<br>Being uncomfortable made me believe that I could use my Early Childhood experience and become a Community Advocate<br>Being uncomfortable, is what made me stare at trees and appreciate the color green.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>There isn’t much to do in the country when you have a rare and fragile condition, but I spent countless of hours, looking at each leaf when I was in a wheelchair or in a cast.<br>I sat on my grandfather’s green bench and watched him work on cars.<br>Then I would look at the leaves of a tree, I would stare until I could focus on each individual leaf on a branch or the leaves on the bushes that lined the side of the house.<br>I like being green.</br></br></br></p><p>Green is a very pretty color.<br>It is the color of grass and the color of leaves that grow on the branches of the tree.<br>Green is the color of seaweed that moves back in forth in the ocean.<br>Green is the color that is calming and symbolizes growth to me.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Steps to Freedom]]></title><description><![CDATA[On the stairs next to the yellow kitchen
I concentrate on laces that will intertwine
as soon as I learn how to move my hands
properly
I watch my mother
pinch the laces between her fingers
loop one over the other
pull the ends tight into an X
hold pressure on the tops of my feet
make one bunny ear
then another
wrap them around
hug them in tight to each other
pull them into a bow
As soon as I learn
I won’t have to wait
to run outside to play
in the green grass]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/steps-to-freedom/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231bd</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elizabeth Marrero]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:22:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1552912276-56ef47874741?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGNoaWxkJTIwc2hvZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ3NzE3&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1552912276-56ef47874741?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGNoaWxkJTIwc2hvZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ3NzE3&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Steps to Freedom"/><p>On the stairs next to the yellow kitchen<br>I concentrate on laces that will intertwine<br>as soon as I learn how to move my hands<br>properly</br></br></br></p><p>I watch my mother<br>pinch the laces between her fingers<br>loop one over the other<br>pull the ends tight into an X<br>hold pressure on the tops of my feet</br></br></br></br></p><p>make one bunny ear<br>then another<br>wrap them around<br>hug them in tight to each other<br>pull them into a bow</br></br></br></br></p><p>As soon as I learn<br>I won’t have to wait<br>to run outside to play<br>in the green grass</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Secrets]]></title><description><![CDATA[The sensation of my step-father’s
tongue
in my mouth is unnerving
He is testing me
to see if I can keep secrets
We already have a pact
unspoken
against my mother
It started with allowing me to
eat more ice cream
stay up later
smoke cigarettes
Sneaking these things
behind my mother’s back
making it a game
so when the tongue comes
it is just another secret
in a line of
more to come]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/secrets/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231be</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elizabeth Marrero]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:21:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1572782992110-afab5a6ef870?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHNlY3JldHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDc4NTA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1572782992110-afab5a6ef870?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHNlY3JldHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDc4NTA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Secrets"/><p>The sensation of my step-father’s</p><p>tongue</p><p>in my mouth is unnerving</p><p>He is testing me</p><p>to see if I can keep secrets</p><p>We already have a pact<br>unspoken</br></p><p>against my mother</p><p>It started with allowing me to</p><p>eat more ice cream<br>stay up later<br>smoke cigarettes</br></br></p><p>Sneaking these things<br>behind my mother’s back</br></p><p>making it a game</p><p>so when the tongue comes<br>it is just another secret</br></p><p>in a line of<br>more to come</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Salina, Kansas]]></title><description><![CDATA[Some days you think you've found
a center here, the middle of everything
loving and true, especially if you look up
into the sky, wondering what
next. Such an honest place,
a land like no other if only you
keep working, keep weeding, keep
an eye on the weather. What
next? Reseeding? A second planting?
Spinach and kale? Keep your heart open,
an ear to the ground. Listen. If you
sense your own self growing, rejoice.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/salina-kansas/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231c0</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ken Waldman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:21:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611843467160-25afb8df1074?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGdhcmRlbmluZ3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDgzNzY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1611843467160-25afb8df1074?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGdhcmRlbmluZ3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDgzNzY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Salina, Kansas"/><p>Some days you think you've found <br>a center here, the middle of everything <br>loving and true, especially if you look up <br>into the sky, wondering what <br>next. Such an honest place, <br>a land like no other if only you</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>keep working, keep weeding, keep <br>an eye on the weather. What <br>next? Reseeding? A second planting? <br>Spinach and kale? Keep your heart open, <br>an ear to the ground. Listen. If you <br>sense your own self growing, rejoice.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[She Asked]]></title><description><![CDATA[She asked me why I’m leaving,
The answer is muddied and transparent,
I asked her why I must go,
Because we are made up of our memories,
Or of what we forget.
She asked me why we fear the unknown,
But answers of the past are in the future,
I asked her why we want to suffer,
For a better tomorrow, she says,
Because we remember.
She asked if the traveler will return,
Though journeys must end for the sun to rise,
I asked if she will be safe,
Safer than you, she didn’t say.
Safer than us.
She aske]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/she-asked/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231c1</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Fred Yu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:21:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1593504128948-921415932d15?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI2fHx0cmF2ZWxlcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDg1ODQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1593504128948-921415932d15?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI2fHx0cmF2ZWxlcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDg1ODQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="She Asked"/><p>She asked me why I’m leaving,<br>The answer is muddied and transparent,<br>I asked her why I must go,<br>Because we are made up of our memories,<br>Or of what we forget.</br></br></br></br></p><p>She asked me why we fear the unknown,<br>But answers of the past are in the future,<br>I asked her why we want to suffer,<br>For a better tomorrow, she says,<br>Because we remember.</br></br></br></br></p><p>She asked if the traveler will return,<br>Though journeys must end for the sun to rise,<br>I asked if she will be safe,<br>Safer than you, she didn’t say.<br>Safer than us.</br></br></br></br></p><p>She asked why I had to evolve,<br>But I can’t tell if time stood still,<br>I asked her to walk with me tomorrow,<br>We all inherit the same amount of time,<br>Believing we are not just passing by.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rain Delay, diminished]]></title><description><![CDATA["What to make of a diminished thing." - Robert Frost
As chin music
this just won’t do, it’s out of tune,
the weather’s tossed a spitball and
as chin music
a brushback would be better than
the patter the rain delivers
as chin music.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rain-delay-diminished/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231c6</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Robinson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:19:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520609798519-2e1e8c18df3a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHxyYWlufGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0ODkzNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520609798519-2e1e8c18df3a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHxyYWlufGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0ODkzNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Rain Delay, diminished"/><p><em>"What to make of a diminished thing." - Robert Frost</em></p><p>As chin music</p><p>this just won’t do, it’s out of tune,<br>the weather’s tossed a spitball and</br></p><p>as chin music</p><p>a brushback would be better than<br>the patter the rain delivers</br></p><p>as chin music.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rain Delay, impermeable]]></title><description><![CDATA[It’s a washout;
yes. perhaps because it’s April,
it’s a washout.
There’s a whole season yet to scout,
there may even be a game in
May, so here’s this inning’s rundown:
it’s a washout.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rain-delay-impermeable/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231c5</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Robinson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:19:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1646524377377-a2fa4254c2b0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHJhaW4lMjBiYXNlYmFsbHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDk1NzI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1646524377377-a2fa4254c2b0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHJhaW4lMjBiYXNlYmFsbHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NDk1NzI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Rain Delay, impermeable"/><p>It’s a washout;</p><p>yes. perhaps because it’s April,</p><p>it’s a washout.</p><p>There’s a whole season yet to scout,<br>there may even be a game in<br>May, so here’s this inning’s rundown:</br></br></p><p>it’s a washout.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rain Delay, temps suspendu]]></title><description><![CDATA["Things that fall, fly, move, and flow..." - Marcelo Gleiser
Vertiginous,
the way mercury checks itself,
vertiginous
crevasses and avalanches
here suspended by a downpour
whose lack of verticality's
vertiginous]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rain-delay-temps-suspendu/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231c4</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Robinson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:19:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1592246479015-953b2dab4711?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGRvd25wb3VyfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0OTQ3Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1592246479015-953b2dab4711?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGRvd25wb3VyfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc0OTQ3Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Rain Delay, temps suspendu"/><p><em>"Things that fall, fly, move, and flow..." - Marcelo Gleiser</em></p><p>Vertiginous,</p><p>the way mercury checks itself,</p><p>vertiginous</p><p>crevasses and avalanches<br>here suspended by a downpour<br>whose lack of verticality's</br></br></p><p>vertiginous</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rain Delay #2]]></title><description><![CDATA[Get over it:
it’s spring, raining, you might think...no,
Get over it:
the prior inning’s flurries fit
the quadrant of the game’s reprise,
the way an inning waits by threes
Get over it.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rain-delay-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231c3</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Robinson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:18:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527766833261-b09c3163a791?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxyYWluJTIwYmFzZWJhbGx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ5NjU1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527766833261-b09c3163a791?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxyYWluJTIwYmFzZWJhbGx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzQ5NjU1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Rain Delay #2"/><p>Get over it:</p><p>it’s spring, raining, you might think...no,</p><p>Get over it:</p><p>the prior inning’s flurries fit<br>the quadrant of the game’s reprise,<br>the way an inning waits by threes<br>Get over it.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Peach Blossom Spring: On A Painting by Tao Chi]]></title><description><![CDATA[The mountains rise up
in grim shapes,
looming far above
the workers and the monk,
meditating in his cell.
They ignore the towering rocks
at their peril.
What else can they do?
The mountains indifferently
turn away. You are
transient, they seem to say.
And where are the peach trees,
and peach blossoms,
and where is spring?
They’re not even there.
They’re unimportant.
The mountains are everything.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/peach-blossom-spring-on-a-painting-by-tao-chi/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231c7</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[George Freek]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:18:36 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1464822759023-fed622ff2c3b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fG1vdW50YWluc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NTAwNDE&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1464822759023-fed622ff2c3b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fG1vdW50YWluc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NTAwNDE&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Peach Blossom Spring: On A Painting by Tao Chi"/><p>The mountains rise up<br>in grim shapes,<br>looming far above<br>the workers and the monk,<br>meditating in his cell.<br>They ignore the towering rocks<br>at their peril.<br>What else can they do?<br>The mountains indifferently<br>turn away. You are<br>transient, they seem to say.<br>And where are the peach trees,<br>and peach blossoms,<br>and where is spring?<br>They’re not even there.<br>They’re unimportant.<br>The mountains are everything.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Year of the Mattress]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dean and I along with our Labrador-flat coat retriever mix, Midnight arrive at the 60+ year old cabin situated on Island Lake just at sundown. Oranges, pinks, and purples kiss the lake "good night" and welcome us. It's been a long haul from St. Charles County, Missouri to this Minnesota paradise. But so much worth the road trip. Weekday and weekend warriors cannot stop on vacation either. We had taken the extra-long route following the Mississippi River highways. So, a 12-hour trip became a 15-h]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-year-of-the-mattress/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231c8</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:18:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542718610-a1d656d1884c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGNhYmlufGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MDE2Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542718610-a1d656d1884c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGNhYmlufGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MDE2Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Year of the Mattress"/><p>Dean and I along with our Labrador-flat coat retriever mix, Midnight arrive at the 60+ year old cabin situated on Island Lake just at sundown. Oranges, pinks, and purples kiss the lake "good night" and welcome us. It's been a long haul from St. Charles County, Missouri to this Minnesota paradise. But so much worth the road trip. Weekday and weekend warriors cannot stop on vacation either. We had taken the extra-long route following the Mississippi River highways. So, a 12-hour trip became a 15-hour trip. The meandering scenery had slowed our pace down before arriving at this moment. Midnight climbs out of the SUV from his secure kennel into what I think my father described to him as heaven. Our dog gazed wide-eyed at this expansive beautiful lake recounting the aquatic tales his deceased master had told him, I am sure. Into the lake he went, lapping water and going for his doggy swim in Island Lake. Just 2 minutes to realize heaven was here, and my father's spirit present.</p><p>Our first night at the cabin we unloaded the SUV, then gathered jackets and a flashlight onward bound by foot just up the road with our dog. The little green cabin had folks congregated there near a campfire. We met up with my childhood friends and greeted new ones from as far away as Norway. Midnight gets acquainted with more Labradors, the natural breed of our 4-legged friends in the land of 10,000 lakes. Before we know it, the time passes midnight with the campfire still aflame. Embers will be there in the morning to start a skillet breakfast. We head back to our lakeside cabin, choosing the front bedroom of the 2-bedroom pine-lined dwelling. I climb into bed too tired to have a spring from the mattress just about empale me. We'll sleep in the back bedroom tonight and deal with the mattress issue tomorrow. We discovered the back bedroom mattress was not much better as Dean and I are forced to meet in the middle. This mattress' sunken center provided cozy quarters for this exhausted yet still honeymooning couple. Our backs ache in the morning begging for more support. Dean flips over the empaling mattress to its other side to discover the year of the mattress ... 1971. Why that is the first year my father along with my mother and their 4 children ventured to this heavenly northern destination in a Chevy Impala. Now don't cast too much judgement on this mattress date. The cabins are only used 3 - 4 months out of the year, so a normal 10-year mattress can go to 30 - 40 years. So, at 42-years old, it might be due for replacing.</p><p>Electronics, computer and TV are non-existent in the cabins. While on this get away, Dean chose to use his basic cell phone on occasion. I took a vacation from it all. This blog was written last week, scrawled onto my paper journal ... I awoke this morning before sunrise. Is it night still? No clock to check as we are in a time warp at this northern lake retreat. In just a few minutes I see a tinge of blue in the black sky. I take this moment to observe the day's beginning. I slip on my jeans and sweatshirt and quietly step onto the screened porch. Those moments of complete silence, no human awake just nature and I welcome the morning in this neck of the woods. Our dog, Midnight stretches on the porch and awaits at the porch door to be let out. He too embraces morning's arrival this day. There is something special about living in the present moment. All senses a keen, see the colors change before my eyes recognizing the picturesque tree line before me. The loons cry out as the fog lifts from the lake. Misty vapors keep my skin and clothes damp, I smell and taste the lake, and I remember my father's love of this place. His planning, mapping, and research of his yearly fishing trip started in January when the tree farming and landscape designing was at a halt. My father was a planner, and I too like him. Yet this present moment reels me back to reality. I would have missed this unforgettable sunrise had I rolled over and slept in another morning of my vacation ... ducks, a blue heron, and even a night owl calling it a night show themselves amongst the pines, birches, and cattails. The dragonflies are now flitting about, illuminating more color for this overcast day. The brisk morn may see a rain shower before the warm noon sun. No boat on the lake, that I hear or see, and 2 hours into this day ... In 1971 and several years to follow, my father would have been out on the lake by now catching walleye and bass for that evening's dinner. Way before my siblings or I and definitely my mother opened an eyelid. I miss my father today like every day. This place called Valhalla is heaven on earth and was my father's favorite place while he was alive on earth. Somehow, he is with Midnight, Dean, and I. It is called eternal life...</p><p>For my siblings and I Valhalla meant playing with friends all day with very little chores. We would play h-o-r-s-e in the barn, swim in the cold lake, boat rides, hide-n-seek with the fireflies lighting the path, and a campfire with songs and roasted marshmallows. Those young teenage years I wanted to be on the receiving end of another kiss from a cute Norwegian boy, my Minnesota friends' visiting cousin. To me Valhalla is about people, kind-hearted genuine folks. The mild summer and lake fish bring the people. But the people bring life to the vacation. The summer visitors enjoy fish fries, potlucks, smokey breakfast skillets, and campfire tales. Author Garrison Keillor shares with us “Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.” This year the fish fry, skillet breakfast, fire grilled pizzas, and lemon rice krispies treats make the food highlights. More Norwegian cousins entertain the family and friends this year. I miss my Norwegian friend from my childhood, and his cousin promises to persuade his return to Valhalla next summer. Intimate moments we share about the death and memory of loved ones. Songs were sung at church and at the campfire. Yes, my Scrabble game had kinder words reflecting my kinder, at peace thoughts this restful week. The year of the mattress did not reflect the oldness of 1971, but the goodness.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Who is At the Door Now?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Just the wind reeding through,
a token of the thunderstorm
in the tree tops, two thirds of the way up
an Arkansas mountain of maples
just starting to drop its first leaves,
August-dead arrows slung into the future,
which is now when I open the door
even if the rain is running sideways,
and the birdsong is hidden and present
at once in time’s infinite foliage.
Thunder hurts the horizon, I’m cold and wet
in a collapsed cloud blurring distinctions
between now and later, inside and outside,
but ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/who-is-at-the-door-now/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ca</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:17:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595867005771-4d3e811d0886?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHRodW5kZXJzdG9ybXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NTA0MjQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595867005771-4d3e811d0886?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHRodW5kZXJzdG9ybXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NTA0MjQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Who is At the Door Now?"/><p>Just the wind reeding through,<br>a token of the thunderstorm<br>in the tree tops, two thirds of the way up<br>an Arkansas mountain of maples</br></br></br></p><p>just starting to drop its first leaves,<br>August-dead arrows slung into the future,</br></p><p>which is now when I open the door<br>even if the rain is running sideways,<br>and the birdsong is hidden and present<br>at once in time’s infinite foliage.</br></br></br></p><p>Thunder hurts the horizon, I’m cold and wet<br>in a collapsed cloud blurring distinctions<br>between now and later, inside and outside,</br></br></p><p>but then something red breaks through:<br>a summer tanager singing fire.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Blessing]]></title><description><![CDATA[A stray drop of rain lands on my forehead,
begins to drip. The sensation drawing out
memories of a plaid jumper, knee-high
navy socks, button-up white shirt, shoes
with a spot for a penny on each foot,
one cent each. I can feel where the stiff leather
will rub a blister on the back of my heel.
One sock held my lunch card during recess.
The thick paper working against my foot
would be as soft as a tissue by Friday.
If mom sent me with cash
the card was swapped out for a nickel,
change the lunch ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/blessing/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231cb</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Lynn Heller]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:17:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523878291631-87283277f717?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGplc3VzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MDQ4MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523878291631-87283277f717?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGplc3VzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MDQ4MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Blessing"/><p>A stray drop of rain lands on my forehead,<br>begins to drip. The sensation drawing out<br>memories of a plaid jumper, knee-high<br>navy socks, button-up white shirt, shoes<br>with a spot for a penny on each foot,<br>one cent each. I can feel where the stiff leather<br>will rub a blister on the back of my heel.<br>One sock held my lunch card during recess.<br>The thick paper working against my foot<br>would be as soft as a tissue by Friday.<br>If mom sent me with cash<br>the card was swapped out for a nickel,<br>change the lunch lady told me not to lose<br>but the jumper didn’t have pockets,<br>and if I hurried I could get near the front<br>of the four-square line before the bell rang<br>and we had to line up at the curb<br>trying to get a spot next to our friends<br>even though once we got inside the church<br>the teachers would make us sit<br>boy girl boy girl. The bowl of holy<br>water at the doors always felt cool,<br>father son and holy spirit,<br>a drop slowly sliding down my forehead.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Family Farmhouse]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’d loved the time spent learning to ride a horse, to preserve tomatoes from the garden, watching Cicadas unfold themselves from their shells. There were always kittens in the barn in the spring, iced tea brewing in the sunshine from the kitchen window, but my grandparents are gone, buried an entire state away. The house and surrounding acres managed by their children and fought over and divided and sold and fought over until just the house remains and the patch of lawn around it, and she wants]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-family-farmhouse/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231cc</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Lynn Heller]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:17:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531914690038-9ea4666a38e4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxmYXJtaG91c2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzUwNjE1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531914690038-9ea4666a38e4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxmYXJtaG91c2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzUwNjE1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Family Farmhouse"/><p>I’d loved the time spent learning to ride a horse, to preserve tomatoes from the garden, watching Cicadas unfold themselves from their shells. There were always kittens in the barn in the spring, iced tea brewing in the sunshine from the kitchen window, but my grandparents are gone, buried an entire state away. The house and surrounding acres managed by their children and fought over and divided and sold and fought over until just the house remains and the patch of lawn around it, and she wants to go see it one more time before the final sale goes through, and I didn’t want her to go alone. It’s been so long that I miss the driveway the first time, the trees having grown enough to hide the house from the road, and we turn around. The paint is the same. The black, decorative roadrunners still race west across the garage doors. The gardens that once encircled the house like icing carefully piped around the edge of a wedding cake have gone wild. Honeysuckle and Virginia Creepers ensnare the bushes. The windows are blank, abandoned, no one came to straighten out the uneven blinds in the front. I should stay outside. Let my memories keep the image of the interior intact, smelling of vanilla and Christmas. But she wants to push ahead. To see. We find the key hidden under a rock and open the backdoor pulling in a breeze with us. We are quiet looking at the empty room. She shakes her head, walks down the short hall that leads to the kitchen. I follow but stop in the doorway, remembering a trick. In the doorframe I find the small bronze plate with a hinge on one end. I push on the bottom and a lever pops up. I laugh a little and pull out the pocket door remembering how I’d found it magical, a disappearing and reappearing door. It doesn’t move on its track as smoothly as it once did. She stands at the stove holding up a burner cover she’d bought her mother. We wander through the family room where decades worth of pictures had been taken in front of the fireplace. We notice the walls are scratched, dirty from about our knees down. Huh, she says. I knew he had dogs. Do you supposed it could be from them? I can’t believe he let farm dogs in here. Mom would never have allowed that. There are wasp nests in the front hallway, wood rot around the bathtub. A family is going to move in. A family with young kids. I like the idea of children being here again, but I worry about the mildew smell. Surely, they’ll have to pull up the carpet? Replace the drywall? Take this place back to its studs?</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Man vs. Nature vs. Self]]></title><description><![CDATA[It is easy to sit yourself down and
write about nature, because it is
simple, but it is beautiful.
Harder to explicate the spiral
your mind takes nightly.
I no longer try to explain it.
But still, I sit still, and
I remember. I don’t want to,
but I do and so I do:
Rushing waters break even in front and smile.
Black sky, bursting light, I capture a maudlin moment.
You say you love me.
Restless black hair, tears of the mind swim
around. Vows are made to be broken I think
when they are broken.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/man-vs-nature-vs-self/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231c9</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dani Kuntz]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:16:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1602297782359-d7a06c5d03b0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI2fHxjcmFuZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NTAyNzA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1602297782359-d7a06c5d03b0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI2fHxjcmFuZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDg3NTAyNzA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Man vs. Nature vs. Self"/><p>It is easy to sit yourself down and<br>write about nature, because it is<br>simple, but it is beautiful.</br></br></p><p>Harder to explicate the spiral<br>your mind takes nightly.<br>I no longer try to explain it.</br></br></p><p>But still, I sit still, and<br>I remember. I don’t want to,<br>but I do and so I do:</br></br></p><p>Rushing waters break even in front and smile.<br>Black sky, bursting light, I capture a maudlin moment.<br>You say you love me.</br></br></p><p>Restless black hair, tears of the mind swim<br>around. Vows are made to be broken I think<br>when they are broken.</br></br></p><p>— My mind falls in upon itself.<br>Trying to think and recall and understand<br>and make sense. Nature must prevail.</br></br></p><p>I saw a crane the other day.<br>Skating at Tucker Creek,<br>a biker stopped, so I did, too.</br></br></p><p>The water flowed like a poem<br>and the crane stood against<br>the rush like the writer.</br></br></p><p>It was a nice sight.<br>A week later I cried, as I do every Friday.<br>The next day, I gave in.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sturnus]]></title><description><![CDATA[Harbinger of death
on wing and wind,
the starling freely
entered my abode—
seeking only safety.
Quickly, though,
it became like us—
frantically searching
an escape.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sturnus/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231cf</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michele Mekel]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:15:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612983870352-7cb91480588e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHN0YXJsaW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MTE2OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612983870352-7cb91480588e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHN0YXJsaW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MTE2OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Sturnus"/><p>Harbinger of death<br>on wing and wind,<br>the starling freely<br>entered my abode—<br>seeking only safety.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Quickly, though,<br>it became like us—<br>frantically searching<br>an escape.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Opportunity Missed]]></title><description><![CDATA[Longing tugs,
want nudges,
loss fills in every crack.
Mist descends,
slowly obscures
the beauty of ocean
glittering in sun.
Suddenly sun,
always sun
above, behind, beneath
the veil.
I have seen the veil.
It parted in a breeze once,
but settled again,
never
to be moved again.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/opportunity-missed/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231d0</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Hicks]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:15:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1554825123-84862ad084af?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxtaXN0JTIwc3VufGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MTMzNA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1554825123-84862ad084af?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxtaXN0JTIwc3VufGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MTMzNA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Opportunity Missed"/><p>Longing tugs,<br>want nudges,<br>loss fills in every crack.<br>Mist descends,<br>slowly obscures<br>the beauty of ocean<br>glittering in sun.<br>Suddenly sun,<br>always sun<br>above, behind, beneath<br>the veil.<br>I have seen the veil.<br>It parted in a breeze once,<br>but settled again,<br>never<br>to be moved again.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Exiting the Airport in Mobile]]></title><description><![CDATA[The bath water air
Relaxing and oppressive
Hits me like chicken broth as the automatic doors slide open
It sidles up to me, forces me to drink tea, and curls my hair
Both home and not-home
A place I am both of and beyond
This humidity is in my genealogy
My ancestors sweltered here
And oppressed others here
And struggled here
What here is worth redemption?
There is much to be saved
But my bitterness obscures that admittance
My connection to this place is real
And yet
Resented
Can I blow a swee]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/exiting-the-airport-in-mobile/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231cd</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jessica Cloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:15:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566566220367-af8d77269124?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxhaXJwb3J0fGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MDc1OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566566220367-af8d77269124?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxhaXJwb3J0fGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MDc1OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Exiting the Airport in Mobile"/><p>The bath water air<br>Relaxing and oppressive<br>Hits me like chicken broth as the automatic doors slide open<br>It sidles up to me, forces me to drink tea, and curls my hair</br></br></br></p><p>Both home and not-home<br>A place I am both of and beyond<br>This humidity is in my genealogy<br>My ancestors sweltered here<br>And oppressed others here<br>And struggled here</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>What here is worth redemption?<br>There is much to be saved<br>But my bitterness obscures that admittance<br>My connection to this place is real<br>And yet<br>Resented</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Can I blow a sweet Gulf breeze through this stagnant air?</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Night We Never Did It]]></title><description><![CDATA[You had those pants on, and that shirt, and you were in those pants and shirt, and I didn't care that you were not quite beautiful, because when you told your stories and laughed, I laughed too, and you were beautiful and I could feel it was going to happen for us, like a summer rain coming, the perfume of it in the air beforehand….and what a surprise. Though I'd noticed you before, I'd never been taken in like that, and it felt like nothing could pull us from each other that night, because we w]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-night-we-never-did-it/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ce</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Nelson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:14:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1544027993-37dbfe43562a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGhhbmQlMjBob2xkfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MDk4NA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1544027993-37dbfe43562a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGhhbmQlMjBob2xkfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0ODc1MDk4NA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Night We Never Did It"/><p>You had those <em>pants </em>on, and that <em>shirt</em>, and you were<em> in </em>those pants and shirt, and I didn't care that you were not quite beautiful, because when you told your stories and laughed, I laughed too, and you <em>were</em> beautiful and I could feel it was going to happen for us, like a summer rain coming, the perfume of it in the air beforehand….and what a surprise. Though I'd noticed you before, I'd never been taken in like that, and it felt like nothing could pull us from each other that night, because we were in it together, weren't we? Didn't I reach for your hand as we walked in the hallway? Didn't you squeeze mine back? At that moment, I couldn’t have imagined that was all the further it would go, that we wouldn’t be wrapped round each other soon enough. I told myself we never got the chance, never found ourselves alone. But people don't just find themselves alone, do they? People have got to <em>get </em>themselves alone, and neither of us was willing to do that, though that would've done it, the clouds would've burst for us, and, wow, weren't you something. I mean, I’d always known you were something, but that night you were <em>something else</em>. And maybe you've always been something else, but that night you were <em>something else </em>and <em>mine</em>. All mine. So when I drove home alone, still not believing your curves, your skin, weren’t at my fingertips at that very moment, I figured, there’s no stopping it now, it’ll happen soon. I bit my lip and sighed. Dreamed about you. Happy to wait. But when I saw you again, and you took off your sunglasses and smiled at me awkwardly, I could see you weren't quite beautiful, which surprised me, because like I said, though I'd seen you before, I felt I'd really seen you the first time that night. But maybe I never did. Maybe that’s what this is all about. Because as we stood talking politely in the sunshine, I could feel it was gone. When I watched you walk away from me, I knew it wouldn’t happen, that it was done. But it’s not done—because whenever I see you now, with your pants, and your shirts, and your skirts, and your tall boots, and your face that is not quite beautiful, and always looking away from me, I still wish we'd gotten ourselves alone, the deliciousness of those moments a certainty in my mind. And sometimes I wonder what you think about when you see me. Do you think I'm not quite handsome? Do you remember the feeling of your hand in mine? Do you wish we'd gotten ourselves alone? Sometimes I just wonder what you wonder about, which I suppose is the universal wonder, and what do we know about anything anyway? Well, I know you were beautiful that night we never did it, and I wonder why, I wonder why.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mushrooms on the Way to Pivot Rock]]></title><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mushrooms-on-the-way-to-pivot-rock/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231d1</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elizabeth Marrero]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:13:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/04/Mushrooms-on-the-way-to-Pivot-Rock-Marrero.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded/></item><item><title><![CDATA[Early Morning]]></title><description><![CDATA[Cardinals come first
this early morning with
me in the back
yard sitting
alone with so many
visitors.
The seed awaits,
inviting all to partake
of the bounty offered by
existence.
Existence
covers universe,
multiverse,
boundless,
endless
expanse
of all that
is.
Finches followed.
Tiny visitors,
peaceful by comparison,
sitting on the pegs,
snacking, it seems,
savoring each seed,
its hull and the rich
reward of the center.
The finches come in
pairs. The colorful
male and the quiet
female. Togethe]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/early-morning/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231d2</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Hicks]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:12:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1604070166923-e09d02292b0a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGJpcmQlMjBmZWVkZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzUxNTI2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1604070166923-e09d02292b0a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGJpcmQlMjBmZWVkZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ4NzUxNTI2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Early Morning"/><p>Cardinals come first<br>this early morning with<br>me in the back<br>yard sitting<br>alone with so many<br>visitors.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The seed awaits,<br>inviting all to partake<br>of the bounty offered by<br>existence.</br></br></br></p><p>Existence<br>covers universe,<br>multiverse,<br>boundless,<br>endless<br>expanse<br>of all that<br>is.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Finches followed.<br>Tiny visitors,<br>peaceful by comparison,<br>sitting on the pegs,<br>snacking, it seems,<br>savoring each seed,<br>its hull and the rich<br>reward of the center.<br>The finches come in<br>pairs. The colorful<br>male and the quiet<br>female. Together.<br>I admire how they are<br>together.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The endlessness<br>of all that is<br>stretching, soaring,<br>existing above and below<br>each breath, each fluttery<br>beat of their avian hearts.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>here on this bridge<br>after Lucille Clifton</br></p><p>on this bridge<br>between earth and immortality<br>wringing hands<br>awonder with the wonder<br>survival<br>survival is the word<br>for not placing the full stop<br>for looking at the semicolon<br>slipped between anxiety<br>and relief<br>you and me<br>we have survived.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 14: Spring 2022]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Friends of eMerge,
Spring is here, blown in between sunny and cold days, as colorful as a child's birthday party and almost as celebratory. We hope you also find yourself awakening and stretching in the sun. What better way to accompany this turn of the globe than with more prose, poems, recipes, and photos hand-selected to accompany this season!
This issue of eMerge hosts some of my favorite features of Spring. Don't miss the colorful birds all throughout this issue, such as in Francis ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-14-spring-2022/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231ab</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joy Clark]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 16 Apr 2022 15:32:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Dear Friends of eMerge,</p><p>Spring is here, blown in between sunny and cold days, as colorful as a child's birthday party and almost as celebratory. We hope you also find yourself awakening and stretching in the sun. What better way to accompany this turn of the globe than with more prose, poems, recipes, and photos hand-selected to accompany this season!</p><p>This issue of eMerge hosts some of my favorite features of Spring. Don't miss the colorful birds all throughout this issue, such as in Francis Hicks "Early Morning". Or another of my favorite features of spring: rain. There's incessant drizzles in Bruce Robinson's series of "Rain Delay" poems and a storm brewing in Caryn-Mirriam Goldberg's "Who Is At The Door Now?" If you'd like a little taste of the joy of singing along to Ray Charles go check out Suzanne McConnell's "What'd I Say?" Or, in Michelle Jones' celebration of "The Color Green" you'll find a few reasons to keep going and growing throughout the many seasons of life.</p><p>eMerge continues to blossom thanks to the support of the Board of Directors and the staff at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow. As former residents know, the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow is an incredibly special place that supports and champions writers' of all interests and genres, and has provided the space for so many books to be conceptualized, written, or edited. And Spring is exactly the Write Time to book a residency, writing retreat, or to sign up for one of the engaging and generative workshops.</p><p>As always, a huge thank you to our friends and readers spread all over the map. I so appreciate hearing from you all when something we've published here strikes a meaningful chord or connects with you in some intimate way. So please don't hesitate to reach out via email or social media when you read something you love.</p><p>All the best,</p><p>Joy Clark</p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[We Hold These Truths]]></title><description><![CDATA[Enough said.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/we-hold-these-truths/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231a9</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:22:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/01/IMG_7102-ps.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/01/IMG_7102-ps.jpg" alt="We Hold These Truths"/><p>Enough said.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Little Green Lies]]></title><description><![CDATA[UAP is the new UFO, according to Zed.
“Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” he repeats for Sal, who is hanging on to his uncle’s every word.
My brother is more animated than I’ve seen him in years. He is waving his fork in the air with what looks like a little green turd impaled on the end. Except it isn’t a turd. It’s a dumpling, and a rather delicious one at that. Alas, kale is the new potato when it comes to gnocchi. Another dinner party success thanks to Trader Joe’s and my wife’s spinach and b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/little-green-lies/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231a7</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Patricia Carlozzi]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:22:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612512836264-5e58fab88bf0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fFVGT3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIxMDI0NDg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612512836264-5e58fab88bf0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fFVGT3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIxMDI0NDg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Little Green Lies"/><p>UAP is the new UFO, according to Zed.</p><p>“Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” he repeats for Sal, who is hanging on to his uncle’s every word.</p><p>My brother is more animated than I’ve seen him in years. He is waving his fork in the air with what looks like a little green turd impaled on the end. Except it isn’t a turd. It’s a dumpling, and a rather delicious one at that. Alas, kale is the new potato when it comes to gnocchi. Another dinner party success thanks to Trader Joe’s and my wife’s spinach and beet salad.</p><p>“This is HUGE,” says Zed. “The government is finally owning up. Admitting that there is something funky going on in our skies.”</p><p>“Like an invasion of alien spacecraft?” Roni asks.</p><p>“Pretty much.”</p><p>I snort. "Yeah right. Why would the CIA—”</p><p>"Actually, it’s the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.”</p><p>“Whoever. Why would the government admit they’ve been lying after all these years? No one admits to lies that big. They’d stick with the weather balloon story.” Zed raises his hand to interject, but I need to finish my thought. “If little green men are coming to visit us on a regular basis, and the government told the American people that, there would be—I don’t know—mass panic or something. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson, we ‘can’t handle the truth.’ Smells like smoke to me.”</p><p>“Julie, if you’d just listen for a change. This report doesn’t say anything about little green men or Roswell.”</p><p>“Have you read it?” Stupid question. This is Zed. Of course he has.</p><p>“It’s been online for two weeks already. I’m telling you—this is BIG. This should be on the front page of The New York Times.”</p><p>“But it isn’t,” I say.</p><p>My wife kicks me under the table. When I don’t look at her, Roni calls me out. “Julie, let Zed talk.”</p><p>I slump back in my chair. Roni does not see where this is going. I eye Meema, who is picking the beets out of her salad. They sit in a bloody heap on the edge of her plate like a minced heart. I bet Meema can read the tea leaves.</p><p>“Thanks, Roni.” Zed frowns at me. He needs me to hear him out.</p><p>“The report doesn’t go as far back as 1989, unfortunately.” He does not have to remind me he was only five back then. "They just looked at 144 UAPs spotted by mostly military personnel between 2004 and 2021. They’ve got documentation for all of them—videos, radar—all kinds of evidence. And get this—eighteen of them showed ‘unusual flight characteristics.’”</p><p>“What does that mean?” Sal asks.</p><p>As Zed tries to explain aerospace technology in terms a ten-year-old can comprehend, I realize my son is not much older than my brother was when his night terrors came on. Meema said they were bad, but Grandpa Mario didn’t believe in shrinks. I almost wish I had gone with Zed to live with them instead of my father when our mom died. Sal looks tiny, vulnerable. I want to protect him. But he seems less frightened than intrigued.</p><p>“This task force is asking for funding from Congress to do more research. Maybe we’ll finally find out what these visitors want with us.”</p><p>“Did you see Italy won?” Meema’s abrupt, high-pitched announcement turns all heads her way.</p><p>“Won what?” Zed asks, politely tolerating the interruption.</p><p>“The European Championship. Just happened a few hours ago.”</p><p>My grandmother breaks her own rule and passes her phone around the dinner table. “First time in 53 years.”</p><p>“Who’d they beat?” Though not yet a fan, Sal has been playing soccer on a Y team for a few years now.</p><p>“England. In their home stadium,” says Meema too brightly. “Mario would be dancing the tarantella.”</p><p>Not quite. Mario lived his final years tethered to an oxygen tank, but I guess Meema has earned her delusions.</p><p>Roni hands me Meema’s phone. The Italian goalkeeper who blocked two penalty kicks in extra time is a stone-faced giant just like Mario used to be. Clad in caution yellow, he is surrounded by a cluster of blue-suited men. He looks stunned by their exuberance. If I didn’t know anything about professional soccer, I would think him a traitor—hanging out with the other side. But in fact, they dress the goalies in bright, contrasting colors, so you can keep an eye on them.</p><p>Meema’s attempt at derailing the conversation has not failed completely, for although Zed can’t let go of his obsession, he is picking his words more carefully now. Sal, however, is not letting up. How come there are no pictures of aliens? What does it mean to be abducted?</p><p>Zed offers a brief, cleaned-up version of the Barney and Betty Hill case, managing to spin horror into wonder. I jump in to make it clear to Sal that statements made under hypnosis are not reliable.</p><p>“Your mom’s right about the hypnosis part,” Zed says, grinning. “But what is interesting to me is that all these abduction stories turn out to be incredibly similar.”</p><p>I want to argue with Zed about that point. For one thing, these aliens do not all look alike. Many abductees describe big-eyed beings that stand three or four feet high. Yes, I have done my homework. I think Zed always returns to the Hill case because the Hill aliens were taller and they wore uniforms. Zed claims his alien sported a full space suit.</p><p>“No need to worry, buddy.” Zed grabs the table corner and leans forward. “They always bring you back when they’re finished with you.”</p><p>“How do you know, Uncle Zed?”</p><p>Meema clacks her half-full plate on top of my empty one with enough force to send bits of beet flying like red shrapnel. “Are we all done?”</p><p>“We are.” Roni is on her feet reaching for the gnocchi bowl. She suggests we move over to the family room once the dishes are cleared. We can watch a replay of Richard Branson’s launch from this afternoon.</p><p>I beg off. Meema and I have to make some headway on the price list for the barn auction. Meema loads the dishwasher, while I get my laptop going on the dining room table.</p><p>The Virgin Galactic emcee’s voice is cheery. “Three, two, one. Release. Release. Release…. Good rocket motor burn… Unity is pointed directly to space!” I am tempted to look up from my computer, to take a gander at the TV, but instead keep my head down and focused on my search.</p><p>The chair beside me groans as Meema collapses into it. She’s gained probably 30 or 40 pounds in the four months since Mario passed. I worry about her as much as I worry about Zed.</p><p>My grandmother slips her reading glasses onto her long, straight nose and refers to the list she has scrawled on the back of an old envelope.</p><p>“I don’t get why this is such a big deal,” I hear Sal say. “SpaceX launches rockets all the time.”</p><p>“Branson is the first person to fly into space in his own spacecraft,” Zed says. “Governments are no longer the gatekeepers. Anybody can make contact on their own."</p><p>“Let’s start with the lathe,” says Meema. “That must be worth something.”</p><p>I bring a used shop-equipment site up on my screen. "What kind of lathe is it?’</p><p>“Wood.”</p><p>“Yeah, but is it a Wadkin or a Machinio or what?”</p><p>Meema starts pushing away from the table. She’s on a short fuse today. “I’ll go back to the barn tomorrow and make a proper inventory.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Meema.” I soften my tone. We need to get this behind us. “As long as we are in the ballpark, we’re good.”</p><p>“That’s full duration burn, folks. We are headed into space!”</p><p>“Most of these lathes go for over a grand,” I tell Meema. “We can pencil that in.”</p><p>“What about the welding equipment?” she asks.</p><p>Without a brand name, this site won’t cut it. I take a moment to switch to eBay.</p><p>“Sir Richard Branson, welcome to space!”</p><p>I peek at the ruddy CEO floating around the interior of the craft with three others. And then I watch Sal bail. He is headed toward his bedroom and his PlayStation. Roni moves from the armchair to the couch next to Zed. My brother is so engrossed in the footage that he does not immediately get up and switch seats.</p><p>On eBay, I find a good proxy for something I’ve seen out in the barn, something that doesn’t require a make or model number to price.</p><p>“Check this out, Meema.” I point to the photo on the screen. “Well-used, vintage, fiberglass welding helmet in olive green with nice patina. Intended for display only. Ninety dollars.”</p><p>Meema laughs for the first time all day. “That’s a lot of bingo chips,” she says and then excuses herself to use the bathroom.</p><p>I turn my attention back to the family room, where Roni is speaking just above a whisper to my brother. I strain to listen in.</p><p>“Zed. You know … Julie and I were afraid that you’d scare Sal by telling him your story. Julie told me what happened. It must have been awful,” She pauses for a second. “And after all of this new evidence, I just want to say… I believe you. I really do.”</p><p>I see now that my brother’s gray shirt is splattered with beet stains, and I look down at my own blouse. It looks like I’ve survived a machine gunning.</p><p>When I glance up again, the Unity glider has just touched down. Roni has her hand on Zed’s back now, right behind his heart. My brother is silently weeping.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Half and Half]]></title><description><![CDATA[The white liberal racist
Is worse than the redneck
You can spot red from a mile away…
This type of white will convince you they like
You, know you,
By spitting key woke phrases
They will give you lifts in their car because they
Are happy to do and be with you
As long as…
You can go out with this person
And not see a check
You can hang for game night in their living room
With their one other Black friend who is oblivious and asleep
And when you show an inkling of knowing
They will calmly tell]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/half-and-half/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231a8</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kristin Hunt]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:21:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528819622765-d6bcf132f793?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGNoZXNzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjEwMjczMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528819622765-d6bcf132f793?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGNoZXNzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjEwMjczMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Half and Half"/><p>The white liberal racist<br>Is worse than the redneck</br></p><p>You can spot red from a mile away…</p><p>This type of white will convince you they like<br>You, know you,<br>By spitting key woke phrases<br>They will give you lifts in their car because they<br>Are happy to do and be with you<br>As long as…</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>You can go out with this person<br>And not see a check</br></p><p>You can hang for game night in their living room<br>With their one other Black friend who is oblivious and asleep<br>And when you show an inkling of knowing<br>They will calmly tell you<br>What they have done<br>For you<br>Who you should trust<br>For you<br>And who is willing to not be under you so long<br>As you remain under them<br>They will learn your hobbies<br>Skill set<br>And at the beginning admire you<br>Once you master<br>They seek petty wrongs that were made<br>Clearer to them<br>Always them<br>And to follow their lead</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>They expect to keep leading their prize horse<br>To a carrot<br>And feed<br>Why would you not continue to drink the water?</br></br></br></p><p>You may not notice until a considerable<br>Amount of time has gone by<br>Or depending of the repetition of said incidents</br></br></p><p>Shame guilt & loyalty are what they want you to feel<br>And many don’t make it past this stage<br>But if you do<br>And I pray that do…</br></br></br></p><p>Be advised to disappear</p><p>A white person is not more “for you” because they aim to be in charge<br>Of your Blackness or welcome it.<br>Some might say they just as bad as niggas.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Chiaroscuro]]></title><description><![CDATA[All your life you
were never
you.
Born one
way, being
another.
I dreamt of
you
with such sad
clarity, not
perfect/
perfection:
all silver and
shadow.
Reflecting
what shines
on
you.
Til this day
past guessing,
seeing
what is
reality.
Breathing,
heart-beating
life.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/chiaroscuro/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231a6</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Hicks]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:21:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1493517554272-83b0f899f51a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI2fHxzaWx2ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMTAyMjk4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1493517554272-83b0f899f51a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI2fHxzaWx2ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMTAyMjk4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Chiaroscuro"/><p>All your life you<br>were never<br>you.<br>Born one<br>way, being<br>another.<br>I dreamt of<br>you<br>with such sad<br>clarity, not<br>perfect/<br>perfection:<br>all silver and<br>shadow.<br>Reflecting<br>what shines<br>on<br>you.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Til this day<br>past guessing,<br>seeing<br>what is<br>reality.<br>Breathing,<br>heart-beating<br>life.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Therapy In 13 Lines]]></title><description><![CDATA[I can find no other passion
taken from the life I’ve lived.
Gone is devotion to a notion.
Gone the sureness of doctrinal purity.
Gone the group that held me close
and condemned me all at once.
Gone the blind trust that obscures fear.
“Go on.”
“Well, I woke up and it was gone.”
“Go on.”
“Gone. What else can I say?”
“What was gone?”
“Inside. What was inside.”
Delusion has sat on the top of my brain
for years and years at a time.
I had regret, but woke up.
Then, awake, I had regret
and wanted to ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/therapy-in-13-lines/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231a5</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Hicks]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:21:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595452767427-0905ad9b036d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHF1ZXN0aW9uc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIxMDIxMTk&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595452767427-0905ad9b036d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHF1ZXN0aW9uc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIxMDIxMTk&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Therapy In 13 Lines"/><p>I can find no other passion<br>taken from the life I’ve lived.<br>Gone is devotion to a notion.<br>Gone the sureness of doctrinal purity.<br>Gone the group that held me close<br>and condemned me all at once.<br>Gone the blind trust that obscures fear.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>“Go on.”<br>“Well, I woke up and it was gone.”<br>“Go on.”<br>“Gone. What else can I say?”<br>“What was gone?”<br>“Inside. What was inside.”</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Delusion has sat on the top of my brain<br>for years and years at a time.<br>I had regret, but woke up.<br>Then, awake, I had regret<br>and wanted to sleep.<br>Now I am here,<br>wondering why.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>“What was inside?”<br>“I do not know—<br>that’s why I’m here.”<br>“Then what? Go on.”<br>“I do not know—<br>that’s why I’m here.”<br>“Go on.”</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Acquisitions]]></title><description><![CDATA[Barefoot, I pad down the hall,
careful to avoid floorboards
that complain in their dotage.
I stand, unnoticed,
to the side of your office door,
shielded by ornate woodwork
painted white—
time and again.
You lean into the computer,
thick fingers typing sporadically—
half-rimmed glasses slid down
the bridge of your nose,
beads of sweat poised
above your lip.
Strewn with books and papers,
that wooden desk, old as the house,
swallows your stout frame.
“A statement piece,” you said
when I’d asked ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/acquisitions/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231a4</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michele Mekel]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:21:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1575318633968-0383e7d07ca0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fG9mZmljZSUyMGRlc2t8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMTAxOTUw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1575318633968-0383e7d07ca0?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fG9mZmljZSUyMGRlc2t8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMTAxOTUw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Acquisitions"/><p>Barefoot, I pad down the hall,<br>careful to avoid floorboards<br>that complain in their dotage.</br></br></p><p>I stand, unnoticed,<br>to the side of your office door,<br>shielded by ornate woodwork<br>painted white—<br>time and again.</br></br></br></br></p><p>You lean into the computer,<br>thick fingers typing sporadically—<br>half-rimmed glasses slid down<br>the bridge of your nose,<br>beads of sweat poised<br>above your lip.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Strewn with books and papers,<br>that wooden desk, old as the house,<br>swallows your stout frame.<br>“A statement piece,” you said<br>when I’d asked about it months ago.</br></br></br></br></p><p>The furniture and I<br>have much<br>in common.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[One more thing]]></title><description><![CDATA[before you go
back to the new place
you are calling home,
did you even wonder why the word
parent is included in the word
transparent?
It’s because I want to
be able to see you clearly.
To know you always.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/one-more-thing/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231a3</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Lynn Heller]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:20:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541605724216-0952a0420c92?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHRyYW5zcGFyZW50fGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjEwMTY0NQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541605724216-0952a0420c92?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHRyYW5zcGFyZW50fGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjEwMTY0NQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="One more thing"/><p>before you go<br>back to the new place<br>you are calling home,<br>did you even wonder why the word<br>parent is included in the word<br>transparent?<br>It’s because I want to<br>be able to see you clearly.<br>To know you always.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pandemic Time]]></title><description><![CDATA[1
The dog goes out. The cat comes in.
Daffodils! So early, and a day later,
sleet clinging to their surprised ruffles.
The ceiling fan spins. Redbuds vivid as
the fire green of the undergrowth dissolve
the prevernal into anticipation and rain.
I sit up in my safe bed, unable to remember
what I dreamt or why my girlhood chest trembles
in its 60-year-old skin. Tomorrow, my skin and I
will walk and bend low to where lily-of-the-valley
finally matches time,
which is not time as I knew or embellis]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pandemic-time/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231a1</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:20:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1454817481404-7e84c1b73b4a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHx0aW1lfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjEwMTE0NQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1454817481404-7e84c1b73b4a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHx0aW1lfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjEwMTE0NQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Pandemic Time"/><p>1</p><p>The dog goes out. The cat comes in.<br>Daffodils! So early, and a day later,<br>sleet clinging to their surprised ruffles.<br>The ceiling fan spins. Redbuds vivid as<br>the fire green of the undergrowth dissolve<br>the prevernal into anticipation and rain.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I sit up in my safe bed, unable to remember<br>what I dreamt or why my girlhood chest trembles<br>in its 60-year-old skin. Tomorrow, my skin and I<br>will walk and bend low to where lily-of-the-valley<br>finally matches time,</br></br></br></br></p><p>which is not time as I knew or embellished<br>but its own flock of red-winged blackbirds<br>flashing fire over the wetlands where I arrive,</br></br></p><p>again every few days, weary of my own mind’s<br>compost pile, to wander at least six feet away from<br>children not going to school, parents not going to work<br>and dogs not going to sleep on the couch, all of us<br>casting our wishes on the power of water and flight</br></br></br></br></p><p>2</p><p>All over the world, it’s pandemic time,<br>singing at the speed of urgency down<br>one corridor or in a hut on the edge<br>of the village silenced to the weight of those<br>who cannot gather around the grave<br>that cannot yet be dug in the place<br>we never expected<br>for him, for her, for them.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>3</p><p>The female cardinal, faded orange,<br>all alarm, strikes her parade of notes,<br>all dressed alike and looking for their match<br>somewhere in the field.</br></br></br></p><p>A flame the size of a finger tip<br>on the one candle still burning<br>at Shabbat service, then,<br>“Oseh Shalom, Oseh Shalom,<br>Shalom alechim vachlem yisrael,”<br>Jack and Susan singing while<br>we three sing with them,<br>one square out of 18 on Zoom,<br>striking the match of our song<br>somewhere in the forest.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>4</p><p>It’s 2:13 a.m.<br>somewhere. Wait,<br>that’s here<br>or is it? Who<br>cooks for you,<br>calls the barred owl,<br>Who cooks for you now?</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>No one, I speak aloud<br>No one at all, answers<br>the dark blue sheen<br>and smudged starlight<br>landing, after thousands<br>of years, here.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Portrait of Madness]]></title><description><![CDATA[This essay previously appeared in Linden Avenue Literary Journal
The world was always ending when I was pregnant. There was no pattern to the apocalypse. The only constant was its inevitability, signaled through the political disagreements I heard on television or read about in online discussions. Even a darker hue in the sky portended global catastrophe. I peered through my kitchen window and looked upward for glinting nuclear warheads rising in the atmosphere like Roman candles. If my skin it]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-portrait-of-madness/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231a2</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DW McKinney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:20:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527713506115-51a98ce35697?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHxmZWV0JTIwb2NlYW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMTAxNTEz&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527713506115-51a98ce35697?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHxmZWV0JTIwb2NlYW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMTAxNTEz&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Portrait of Madness"/><p><em>This essay previously appeared in Linden Avenue Literary Journal</em></p><p>The world was always ending when I was pregnant. There was no pattern to the apocalypse. The only constant was its inevitability, signaled through the political disagreements I heard on television or read about in online discussions. Even a darker hue in the sky portended global catastrophe. I peered through my kitchen window and looked upward for glinting nuclear warheads rising in the atmosphere like Roman candles. If my skin itched, I believed it was about to combust.</p><p>Before I stepped outside and sensed that all life on Earth was minutes away from incineration, I debated whether my unborn daughter was alive. She died daily, most often before I had dressed for the day. As morning sickness forced me to empty my guts in the toilet, I cried. An undeniable truth vibrating in my bones told me that the violence of my sickness would cause me to throw up my child. I would lose her right out of my mouth like a grotesque Greek god. If not the vomiting, then the muscle spasms, so rhythmically tight and pained, would crush my womb. This all was, of course, physiologically impossible, but deep down I held these facts as gospel.</p><p>Our kitchen wall calendar was an altar I visited each day as a devoted supplicant. I searched the scribbled dates and times for my next doctor’s visit. They offered me a strange balm. I stared at these dates and breathed in the peace that my obstetrician-gynecologist would assuredly give me the moment I laid back on the exam table.</p><p>Everything’s fine, I repeated in prayer.</p><p>I meditated on the knowledge that my doctor would disprove my worst fears. This belief soothed me until the day before the scheduled appointments when the balm then spoiled, and I wrestled with the possibility that my grim imaginations might be revealed as truth.</p><p>“Everything looks great,” my ob-gyn announced after every examination. The assisting nurse smiled and nodded while she dictated notes on the laptop, which I took as her tacit agreement and not mild exuberance for notetaking.</p><p>“You’re healthy. The baby’s healthy. Just keep doing what you’re doing. Do you have any questions?”</p><p>I always had questions. Was I insane? Was this all normal? I did not trust myself to ask these questions and accidentally expose a deeper problem that would lead me to being restrained and escorted to a padded cell. So, I shook my head, absorbed as much of the rapid-fire instructions the nurse spouted, and re-dressed.</p><p>This was the nature of my existence for nine months.</p><p>Every day was death.</p><p>Every appointment was confirmation of life.</p><p>Every vein pulsed with hysteria.</p><p>I was oblivious to what was happening inside me. Long-standing corruptions had a history of overrunning my mind. I had whipped back obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety like a lion tamer in previous years, though I did not know what they were at the time, but managing them was more akin to being a hapless pedestrian trying to control a rabid dog. I never conceived of what would happen when this beast I believed to be caged would find another, more insidious way to control my life. It had lain dormant until the day during my third trimester when I awakened, choking on the fear that I would fall out the sky. I realized then that I had been deceived. The beast had escaped long ago.</p><hr><p>The month before my husband, Kevin, and I flew to Virginia for a family beach vacation, I visited my ob-gyn in search of absolution in a different form. I wanted her to forbid me from travelling. Instead, she examined me and—despite several rounds of me asking, “But, are you sure?”—emphatically gave me permission to travel. What I knew in that moment was that my daughter and I were fine—no diseases, all limbs accounted for—but I still didn’t want to board an airplane. Recurring nightmares had convinced me that it was destined to plummet from the sky midflight, and I needed everyone else to sense that too.</p><p>While my husband and I later boarded a plane headed for Virginia, I rubbed the tattoo—the words Psalm 91—on my left forearm. I did not realize until I sat in my assigned seat and immediately grabbed the in-flight magazine that I was subconsciously recalling a compulsion ritual I developed in college. Whenever I flew home during the holidays, I opened the travel Bible I kept in my duffel to this psalm and read it several times until I felt God had heard the sincerity in my pleas and would likely spare my life for that flight. This was only half the ritual’s requirement. I also had to complete the crossword in the magazine because working on it without interruption until take off prevented the plane from malfunctioning. Any deviation from the psalm or the crossword wouldn’t guarantee a safe arrival.</p><p>It had been years since I stopped indulging in that compulsion, but there I was rubbing my arm and mumbling about arrows that flew by day while scribbling A-L-D-A in a greasy magazine. The plane experienced turbulence during the flight, which I took as a sign that I had not imbued the psalm with my entire faith when I read it. God had deemed me fallible in my devotion and thus we were going to crash into the Appalachian Mountains. I clenched my teeth and stared out the window while silently repeating <em>I’m a good girl.</em> This was the failsafe ritual because, as my college-self reminded me, good girls didn’t die in plane crashes. When we landed without issue, I restrained myself from whooping for joy.</p><p>Kevin’s mother picked us up from the airport and the following day we all drove to Sandbridge, a beach community along the Virginia Coast. Kevin and I drove his brother-in-law’s Jeep as we followed his family driving two other cars. My intuition flared in warning of imminent doom, but I did not know how to warn anyone without sounding like a sidewalk doomsday preacher. The previous night I dreamed the underwater bridge-tunnel we had to pass through to the beach flooded and, unable to escape, we drowned. I woke up, my eyes stinging and throat burning.</p><p>I distracted myself by focusing on the vehicles passing us by on the highway. The cars around us moved forward, slowed down, then accelerated again like plastic toys in a carnival game. I let their wheels hypnotize me before I began tracking the dashed traffic lines.</p><p>The highways gave way to commercial centers and residential areas that filtered down to a two-lane road bordered by lotus ponds and lush greenery. Houses receded and skirted my vision. The air thickened as the trees pressed in closer together. I tasted the sea in the breeze before the tree canopy faded to open sky and the road ended at a gradually collapsing sand wall. We crept along roads oblivious to the dunes swallowing them along their edges. The streets were named after sea life: bass, salmon, porpoise, and pike. Most houses were puns: C-Monster, All Inn, Dune R Thing.</p><p>We unloaded our cars at Sandbox and settled in to our rooms. Kevin and I changed into bathing suits then ambled out toward the beach. Ghost crabs scuttled in and out of footprints that carved a path between the dunes before disappearing into the swaying beach grass. The shell-speckled sand scratched my feet as we trudged across the backshore. I kicked at yellow-tinged foam and horseshoe crab carcasses scattered across the wet ground.</p><p>“I want to get in,” I said to Kevin.</p><p>The water rushed forward to caress my shins. <em>Come in, come in,</em> the tide beckoned. I laughed as it splashed up against my protruding belly and sprayed my face. I waded toward Kevin and held his hand before letting go and wading farther into the surging saltwater. I cradled my stomach and wondered at the joy my baby might feel from the current swirling around her. Then the Atlantic crashed against me and swiftly dragged my bravery out with the tides. Fear crested up my back and my daughter’s joy turned to ash as a wave pulverized her into blood and bone in my womb. Another knocked me off balance and it was a matter of time before a third ensnarled my legs and dragged me under.</p><p>“Are you alright?” Kevin called to me.</p><p>I nodded then turned my back to the ocean to withstand the barrage. The longer I endured each successive wave, my smile stretched tighter across my face until my visage became a deranged mask passing for normal. I was still smiling as I strolled back onto the shore.</p><p>I swam less often during the vacation. I could not shake the thought of undulating water, of being pulled into the undertow as my throat filled with brine.</p><p>These new thoughts were not like the others. They wormed into my brain, past the hysteria and settled into my core where they tried to overtake it. Nightmares and paralyzing daydreams served as premonitions of my drowning. I believed it was destiny until reason supplanted them.</p><p>You will not succumb to terror, it whispered.</p><p>Nearing the vacation’s final day, I returned to the Atlantic with my husband. An alarm bell clanged in my mind as the water pooled around my ankles and rushed upward the deeper I waded. I bared my teeth at the ocean and focused on the horizon. I dug my heels in the mud, settled my feet in trenches, and waited.</p><p>Wave after wave crashed against my body. But I would not let them have me.</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[When We Were Kestrels]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was easier of course. Riding the thermals only
required reaching wide enough to make our wings
flush with flattening slate of wind.
Landing was harder, but you would expect that,
especially in the storms of purple martins, jammed highways
of hail cores, or when the drought broke open the earth
and made husks of the worms.
We persevered, flapped hard to keep aloft, lived on anxiety,
kleed or killyed ourselves silly, flooded our beaks with tasty moths,
or the crunch of cicadas swept back towa]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/when-we-were-kestrels/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231a0</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:20:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1614070882124-51f65be39778?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxrZXN0cmVsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjEwMDkzNQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1614070882124-51f65be39778?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxrZXN0cmVsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjEwMDkzNQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="When We Were Kestrels"/><p>It was easier of course. Riding the thermals only<br>required reaching wide enough to make our wings<br>flush with flattening slate of wind.</br></br></p><p>Landing was harder, but you would expect that,<br>especially in the storms of purple martins, jammed highways<br>of hail cores, or when the drought broke open the earth<br>and made husks of the worms.</br></br></br></p><p>We persevered, flapped hard to keep aloft, lived on anxiety,<br>kleed or killyed ourselves silly, flooded our beaks with tasty moths,<br>or the crunch of cicadas swept back toward the old woodpecker hole.<br>We creviced ourselves to safely in the secret pile of rocks.<br>Yes, it’s true we couldn’t build much on our own, but we were in<br>fine fiddle when it came to making do with others’ discards.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>We knew the dance of love is measured not in steps but food,<br>and we were good at it. We knew survival meant<br>knocking another out of the sky or carrying the small fish<br>that almost weighted us to death back to a high branch for a mate.<br>We didn’t care if we had to fight.</br></br></br></br></p><p>What did we care about? Leaning into the line of air<br>that pulled us higher, steadied us momentarily, then ruffled us<br>into quick flapping to save the day. We were at ease<br>with the chase, the death, the grasshopper swooped up,<br>the lilting trill of the call to go north or south.<br>No thought, all flight.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>This was long before we were stilted into humans<br>who can only watch, suddenly lurch in sleep toward the fog,<br>trip on a sidewalk for no reason except that old bird yearning<br>to trust the air and fall.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Love Not Hate]]></title><description><![CDATA[In addition to these two extremes, let us consider tolerance.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/love-not-hate/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852319f</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:19:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/01/IMG_2915-ps.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2022/01/IMG_2915-ps.jpg" alt="Love Not Hate"/><p>In addition to these two extremes, let us consider tolerance.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Forgetting Yesterday and Forgiving Tomorrow]]></title><description><![CDATA[After Paul Laurence Dunbar
Yesterday I refuse to know,
I adamantly forget it,
And softly I remind myself
That truly I should leave it.
Yet today I preach to me,
All about forgiveness;
How do I let it go,
How do I not miss?
Yesterday I spoke to you,
Could anything be more grand?
Those months of boardwalk song
Where I buried my head in the sand.
Today’s sung by The National,—
“It takes an ocean not to break,”
Spiders drown on the surface
Of the opaque loving lake.
Let me forgive the wrong,
An]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/forgetting-yesterday-and-forgiving-tomorrow/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852319e</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dani Kuntz]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:19:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529229504105-4ea795dcbf59?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxzb3VsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjEwMDMyMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529229504105-4ea795dcbf59?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxzb3VsfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjEwMDMyMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Forgetting Yesterday and Forgiving Tomorrow"/><p><em>After Paul Laurence Dunbar</em></p><p>Yesterday I refuse to know,<br>I adamantly forget it,<br>And softly I remind myself<br>That truly I should leave it.</br></br></br></p><p>Yet today I preach to me,<br>All about forgiveness;<br>How do I let it go,<br>How do I not miss?</br></br></br></p><p>Yesterday I spoke to you,<br>Could anything be more grand?<br>Those months of boardwalk song<br>Where I buried my head in the sand.</br></br></br></p><p>Today’s sung by The National,—<br>“It takes an ocean not to break,”<br>Spiders drown on the surface<br>Of the opaque loving lake.</br></br></br></p><p>Let me forgive the wrong,<br>And embrace the right,<br>Let my mind leave behind<br>The pain, and not fight.</br></br></br></p><p>Yesterday my life meant you,<br>and today I pray for peace.<br>Pause, my soul, arise, arise,<br>Forgiveness means release.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Italian Stone Soup]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ingredients
1 lb bulk Italian sausage
3 large garlic cloves, minced
2 small zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch slices
2 small yellow squash, cut into 1/2-inch slices
1 large red, orange, or yellow bell pepper, cut into ¼-inch strips
1 (28 – 32 oz) can crushed tomatoes
32 oz vegetable broth or stock
2 teaspoons dried basil
6 – 8 oz uncooked orzo pasta
4 oz shredded asiago or parmesan cheese (optional)
Directions
1. In a large stock pot, cook sausage over medium heat; drain excess fat and return to ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/italian-stone-soup/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852319d</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:19:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590794056226-79ef3a8147e1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHNvdXAlMjBwb3R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQzMzgzNjE2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2 id="ingredients">Ingredients</h2><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590794056226-79ef3a8147e1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHNvdXAlMjBwb3R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQzMzgzNjE2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Italian Stone Soup"/><p>1 lb bulk Italian sausage<br>3 large garlic cloves, minced<br>2 small zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch slices<br>2 small yellow squash, cut into 1/2-inch slices<br>1 large red, orange, or yellow bell pepper, cut into ¼-inch strips<br>1 (28 – 32 oz) can crushed tomatoes<br>32 oz vegetable broth or stock<br>2 teaspoons dried basil<br>6 – 8 oz uncooked orzo pasta<br>4 oz shredded asiago or parmesan cheese (optional)</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><h2 id="directions">Directions</h2><ol><li>In a large stock pot, cook sausage over medium heat; drain excess fat and return to pot.</li><li>Add garlic, zucchini, squash, and bell pepper to browned sausage; sauté vegetables for 5 minutes.</li><li>Add crushed tomatoes, vegetable broth, and dried basil to the meat and vegetable mixture; bring to a full boil.</li><li>Add the uncooked pasta to the stock pot; stir, and simmer for at least 15 minutes before serving.</li><li>Ladle into bowls; top each bowl with about a tablespoon of shredded cheese.</li></ol><p><strong><em>Makes 10 cups.</em></strong></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Questions Without Answers]]></title><description><![CDATA[After Tu Fu
It’s peaceful to sit in my garden,
to sit with the lilies,
the bluebells and hibiscus.
But the leaves now harden,
and shadows like ashes
cover the roses.
The birds’ nest is empty.
They seek kinder weather.
Soon all will be smothered
by ice and snow. One leaf
clings to its branch,
but it soon will go.
My wife is dead. Death
changes everything.
The leaf doesn’t know it.
Is it better to know?
One’s life is a task.
Questions without answers
are better left unasked.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/questions-without-answers/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852319c</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[George Freek]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:18:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1638169955278-ee04fe78a182?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG9uZSUyMGxlYWZ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk5OTMz&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1638169955278-ee04fe78a182?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG9uZSUyMGxlYWZ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk5OTMz&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Questions Without Answers"/><p><em>After Tu Fu</em></p><p>It’s peaceful to sit in my garden,<br>to sit with the lilies,<br>the bluebells and hibiscus.<br>But the leaves now harden,<br>and shadows like ashes<br>cover the roses.<br>The birds’ nest is empty.<br>They seek kinder weather.<br>Soon all will be smothered<br>by ice and snow. One leaf<br>clings to its branch,<br>but it soon will go.<br>My wife is dead. Death<br>changes everything.<br>The leaf doesn’t know it.<br>Is it better to know?<br>One’s life is a task.<br>Questions without answers<br>are better left unasked.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dark Birds]]></title><description><![CDATA[After dinner we sometimes sit out on the deck.
We are used to watching crows
winging their way back to the roost
on the next ridge over.
In late spring we begin to see
bats heading off to feed at dusk,
leaving their brooding boxes that are mounted
under the eave of our garage.
One night, in the fading light,
I realized that the dark birds
high above the dense green valley
were not crows.
They were sleeker, the wings angular.
In flight they moved across the sky,
and suddenly dodged one way, th]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dark-birds/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852319b</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:18:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520792699872-64c6ab4e4c3e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJpcmQlMjBzaWxsb3VldHRlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5OTY5MA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520792699872-64c6ab4e4c3e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJpcmQlMjBzaWxsb3VldHRlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5OTY5MA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dark Birds"/><p>After dinner we sometimes sit out on the deck.<br>We are used to watching crows<br>winging their way back to the roost<br>on the next ridge over.</br></br></br></p><p>In late spring we begin to see<br>bats heading off to feed at dusk,<br>leaving their brooding boxes that are mounted<br>under the eave of our garage.</br></br></br></p><p>One night, in the fading light,<br>I realized that the dark birds<br>high above the dense green valley<br>were not crows.</br></br></br></p><p>They were sleeker, the wings angular.<br>In flight they moved across the sky,<br>and suddenly dodged one way, then another,<br>catching their aerial dinner.</br></br></br></p><p>Retrieving binoculars from the house<br>I saw the distinctive white bars<br>under the wings of the six or so hunters.<br>Common Nighthawks, my Sibley guide confirmed.</br></br></br></p><p>I later thought of Edward Hopper’s nighthawks,<br>enclosed in the yellow light of a spare city diner,<br>waiting to be set free.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Currents]]></title><description><![CDATA[We are sitting on a seamed and speckled rock above the last set of rapids. The day is warm and grey with an easy south-east wind just strong enough to send the steam from the tea kit fluttering up the granite. We are both tired after the last stretch of rapids and the exertion from the carry-over across the highway to avoid an artificial ledge under the bridge. The canoe, a Kevlar Wolverine Prospector, weighs only forty pounds but it seems to get heavier with every trip.
I set out the mugs and b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/currents/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852319a</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joan Baril]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:18:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1455577380025-4321f1e1dca7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHJpdmVyfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5OTU2MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1455577380025-4321f1e1dca7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHJpdmVyfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5OTU2MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Currents"/><p>We are sitting on a seamed and speckled rock above the last set of rapids. The day is warm and grey with an easy south-east wind just strong enough to send the steam from the tea kit fluttering up the granite. We are both tired after the last stretch of rapids and the exertion from the carry-over across the highway to avoid an artificial ledge under the bridge. The canoe, a Kevlar Wolverine Prospector, weighs only forty pounds but it seems to get heavier with every trip.<br>I set out the mugs and bundle the lunch leavings into the red stuff bag.</br></p><p>Mary is staring at her bare legs. “I wish I didn’t have these age spots, Janet. It looks as if I’m covered with hickeys.”</p><p>I laugh. The age of hickeys, such as it was, has long gone for me but I know Mary is still proud of her looks, proud of her sexual attractiveness—or her once-upon-a-time sexual attractiveness.</p><p>“Funny,” I say “how old lovers are still good friends even years later.” We had been talking about my breakfast meeting the day before with Martin, now a grandfather of two girls at university—one studying to be a missionary of all things. After so many years, a current still crackled between us.</p><p>“I’m still friends with Ron even after that disastrous Boundary Waters trip,” Mary says. Ron did not believe in maps and had got them lost twice. He also paddled so hard in the bow they kept going in circles.</p><p>“You can learn a lot about a man from the way he paddles a canoe,” I say. I remember Martin barreling through the Crooked Rapids, until we ended up swimming at the end. The canoe had lurched sideways and slowly filled with water in the large waves. We had no problem negotiating the dangerous part and all we had to do next was back-paddle and ease over the swells but no, he powered on. Not so unusual when you think of it. I think of it and smile.</p><p>“On the other hand,” says Mary, “there was your Carlos who was afraid to camp under the trees.”</p><p>“Yes,” I say, “And he almost got us drowned. He insisted we camp in the open and the only place was right beside the water. When the waves came up in the middle of the night, my sleeping bag was lifting and falling.”</p><p>Mary pours the tea and I take out our treat, a single iced donut, and cut it in half with my jack knife. Mary closes her eyes as she eats her section. “I love these things”.</p><p>“They used to be more purple,” I say, referring to the icing which is now pink and has been so for the past thirty years.</p><p>“We sold then every day in high school to make money for the football team,” Mary says.</p><p>“Maybe the purple icing contained some sort of noxious dye,” I say. “God knows we ate enough of them when we were kids. I got fat on them when I was sixteen. Every day, a Coke and a donut at McKinnon’s Confectionary.”</p><p>After the donut, we wash our sticky hands in the river and then lie back on the granite and fall asleep. We can sleep anywhere and we always take a nap after lunch. We have slept on boulders on the Nahanni in the Northwest Territories and in mud flats on the Rio Grande and on the wooden boards of a chickee in the Everglades. Once, going down the smooth stretches of the St Croix, in Wisconsin, we both leaned back on the packs and slept letting the canoe guide itself. It turned sideways, as canoes do, and we woke with alder bushes brushing out faces but pushed off and fell sleep again.</p><p>A half hour later Mary is groping for her glasses which she had set atop her day pack. She adjusts the blue rubber band around the back of her golden-grey hair. Without her glasses she looks different—unfocussed and somehow lost. Coming down the last stretch, she had hesitated a lot, swinging her paddle from side to side and hovering it in the air so that I, in the stern, had to make the decisions about direction, usually the job of the bow person.</p><p>But I too feel my sixty-five years. Today, in the fastest rapids, I no longer experienced the suspension of time, the quick-point where everything freezes into the perfect response. The river seemed unfamiliar, hurling about randomly as I rushed to keep up.</p><p>“Remember,” I say as we put on our knee pads and climb into the canoe, “the hole is on the left of the railway bridge but not far left. There is still enough room to squeeze in between it and the bank.”</p><p>The first obstacle is the Dread Ledge, a line of boulders whose crests are barely visible above the smooth water. The passage through seems to change every time we do this run. Mary stands up in the bow to spy the way. She sits and indicates the direction with a single paddle stroke. I aim for the smooth V of water that I cannot see until the last minute when we both simultaneously fall forward on our knees and sail through and down, ready for the tangled boulder garden below.<br>All rapids are noisy but the last three-mile stretch of the Matawin River, squeezed between cliffs, roars so loudly it booms inside my head. A few seconds later, glancing upwards, I see the train on the tracks high on the cliff ledge but hear not a whisper of its sound. The railway bridge rushes toward us and, back-paddling frantically, we swing hard left and slip away from the “hole,” a mini-waterfall in the river, full of foam and danger.</br></p><p>The Matawin is not more than five feet deep but it is sinuous and sassy. We do not have to talk, Mary and I. We have paddled together for so many years, that I, in the stern, simply pull the canoe where her paddle indicates. The noise lessens past the bridge as we twist among the rocks, many half hidden with only a frill of white in front of them to indicate their presence. But now, the river is not dropping as fast as we approach the mouth. It is wider and more shallow but still powerful.</p><p>Ice water hits the back of my neck. Rain pours over me as if the gods were bailing the heavens on top of us. An instant later, water is streaming off the bill of my baseball cap in a silver curtain. I snatch it off and fling it into the bottom of the canoe. I see Mary lift her paddle in the air, move it to the left and then move it high up. I realize she cannot see. Her glasses must be covered with water.</p><p>A dark arrow shape flies across the peripheral vision of my right eye. Mary is leaning back scrambling for the spare paddle and then, she is gone. The next rock tilts toward us. The canoe hits noiselessly but with a jar that travels up my legs and spine. Immediately the current grinds us in.</p><p>I am drawing the stern around with all my strength, conscious that Mary has disappeared. The power of the current swings the canoe sideways. It broaches the rock and begins filling with water. Where has she gone?</p><p>The bottom of the canoe is now half up on the boulder, its wide-open maw taking in the river and, even as I fall out, I can hear the crunching noise as the two ends of the boat are pushed around the rock on each side.</p><p>Where is she? My mind flashes on the terrible things that can happen in a wrap. People get trapped between rock and canoe. The force of the water can snap legs, grind bones to powder. Canoeists drown.</p><p>Somehow, I still have the paddle in my hand and I use it to steady myself because, even though I am standing in waist-deep water, it is fast water and it aims to toss me over. Where is she?</p><p>She is behind the canoe trying to push it clear. My knees wobble with relief. I am steps away. I shout, “Leave it.” I know we do not have the strength to unwrap a canoe in this current and it is breaking up anyway. The tips are bent so far downstream they are almost touching. I no longer hear the grinding noise; but, I know, with time, the unending pressure will snap the boat in half.<br>I gesture toward the bank and we set out, using the paddles and each other as props, half swimming, half lurching, falling and getting up, the rain streaming still. When we reach the shore, I want to hug her, tell her how afraid I was. I want to tell her I love her and that we will paddle forever but all words drown in the roar of the water.</br></p><p>Up the hill, through the sopping brush, we toil toward the train tracks and then up over the crown to the highway. Sistonen’s Corners, with its single house and restaurant, is not far. It’s a place to get coffee, rest, dry out a bit and think what to do next.</p><p>At the train tracks, I turn and look down. The canoe is a small red slash, the water foaming before it as if it were another rock. This is our last run I think as I climb in the heavy grass above the embankment. In my soul, I can feel the canoe groaning, stretched on its rack, its spirit dissolving, the remnants of many trips and adventures being wrung from its bones and sinews.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[On Being an Old Woman with a Young Dog]]></title><description><![CDATA[Within the year the two old dogs succumbed
to the ills of old age, Fritzie wandering off
into the woods to die though we sent out sound
ripples of her name widening among the trees.
Darcy, months later, lay down in the woods
where the defunct truck is parked
awaiting its own departure, and died,
perhaps of a heart attack while fending off invaders
that were simply the dogs from down the road.
Days later, fifteen feet from where I had found her,
a clarion of death trumpets rang a remembrance.
T]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/on-being-an-old-woman-with-a-young-dog/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523198</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Weinstein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:17:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1498038691436-a6e6b4037780?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fG9sZCUyMHdvbWFuJTIwZG9nfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5OTAyNA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1498038691436-a6e6b4037780?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fG9sZCUyMHdvbWFuJTIwZG9nfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5OTAyNA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="On Being an Old Woman with a Young Dog"/><p>Within the year the two old dogs succumbed<br>to the ills of old age, Fritzie wandering off<br>into the woods to die though we sent out sound<br>ripples of her name widening among the trees.</br></br></br></p><p>Darcy, months later, lay down in the woods<br>where the defunct truck is parked<br>awaiting its own departure, and died,<br>perhaps of a heart attack while fending off invaders<br>that were simply the dogs from down the road.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Days later, fifteen feet from where I had found her,<br>a clarion of death trumpets rang a remembrance.<br>The chanterelles were succulent, the dogs good enough<br>but never the noble companions some are.</br></br></br></p><p>Soon we realized our need for a new dog,<br>one to chase deer and armadillos from flower beds,<br>the futility of such hopes showing in nibbled<br>shrubs and nubs of all the flowers I love with<br>an aging gardener’s remote and benign neglect.</br></br></br></br></p><p>So, we went to the Humane Society Shelter<br>for a grown dog, a suitable choice for septuagenarians.<br>No puppies I said.<br>Too old to raise a puppy I said.<br>An older dog I said with a few<br>good years left, just like me.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Audacious. Old. Woman.<br>What were you thinking?<br>What were you not thinking?</br></br></p><p>Eight months old they said at the shelter.<br>Seemed younger, this black lightning bolt<br>of swift sleekness, her chest emblazoned by<br>the Milky Way, her paws dipped in stardust.<br>Four five months said the vet who knows his dogs.</br></br></br></br></p><p>She fooled you. Not a cuddly ball of fluff<br>but a young dog with needle sharp teeth.<br>Her energy bubbling up like teenage<br>rebellion, her wild running and digging<br>in the humus-rich soil of the forty acres<br>where a thousand smells await her probing nose.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>She is a good dog and quick learner,<br>eager to please and avid for treats,<br>but she could knock you down, old woman,<br>put you in a cast, break your hip, end your days.</br></br></br></p><p>Did you see in her the Platonic pup longed for<br>by your young self sixty-five years ago?<br>The desired dog of your dreams that never was<br>to be then? We have had good and not so good<br>dogs in forty-four years of marriage, and beloved<br>cats by the dozens, but this dog has bewitched us.<br>She came from the shelter with the name of Lily/<br>Lilly, which I spell with the double “l” to capture<br>the overflow from the cornucopia of her canine love.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>So audacious of an old woman to choose<br>a large mixed breed in whose coat and gait,<br>erect ears and herding behavior I see signs:<br>black lab, greyhound, German shepherd, border collie,<br>not the lap creatures old women are supposed to love:<br>teacup breeds, chihuahuas, dachshunds, Pekingese.<br>Laps are for cats of which we have plenty.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Daily she gentles the torpedic velocity of her own<br>body’s pure joy, curbing the urge to jump—on us,<br>to jump on others—to nip. Now she guides my steps<br>when they falter, heels as we navigate rocky ground.<br>We work on rolling over for rewards each day.</br></br></br></br></p><p>The three of us play doggy soccer with her treasured,<br>old deflated basketball. In November after all the leaves<br>have fallen and my husband has raked them into furrows,<br>she submarines her way through the piles, tunneling<br>the way the moles she digs and kills (curing them for days<br>like a gourmet butcher before eating) tunnel through the<br>soft soil, the crumbs of which cling to her velvety muzzle.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Even the cats are making peace with her—or declaring<br>a temporary truce—learning to ignore her too playful posture<br>and intrusive snout. I find the oldest cat snoozing on the<br>sunny deck near enough to touch the radiating warmth<br>from her sun-soaked coat or walking right in front of her<br>nose rather than the long way round to get to me and<br>not snarling, not waving the tyranny of her tiny tiger claws.<br>Today I caught them nose kissing.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>She will grow old with us growing older;<br>our love for this dog will deepen, but already<br>I see an inevitable end and wipe away tears.<br>Today. Happy. Old. Woman.<br>Wise in the choice of a new dog.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Snake in the Garden]]></title><description><![CDATA[This is not the old misogynistic story of
the mythic expulsion from the perfect garden
because we know that wherever knowledge is
forbidden to women there will be no perfection.
There are, however, morality tales among
these words like zinnias growing with cabbages.
I came home from town yesterday after an early
appointment and errands to my husband’s urging:
Bring your phone to the garden to take a picture.
And there it was a five-foot, black rat-snake limned
along the top of the deer fencing]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-snake-in-the-garden/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523199</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Weinstein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:17:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595703013627-21389517e011?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxzbmFrZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTkxNjY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595703013627-21389517e011?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxzbmFrZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTkxNjY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Snake in the Garden"/><p>This is not the old misogynistic story of<br>the mythic expulsion from the perfect garden<br>because we know that wherever knowledge is<br>forbidden to women there will be no perfection.</br></br></br></p><p>There are, however, morality tales among<br>these words like zinnias growing with cabbages.<br>I came home from town yesterday after an early<br>appointment and errands to my husband’s urging:</br></br></br></p><p>Bring your phone to the garden to take a picture.<br>And there it was a five-foot, black rat-snake limned<br>along the top of the deer fencing, curved as any Ozark<br>country road, still as midnight, seemingly weightless.</br></br></br></p><p>I thought it trapped in the nylon grid of the fencing<br>and felt a squeezing panic in my chest. In the past<br>the bird netting we often used had caught and killed<br>other snakes and left me sorrowful at my causation.</br></br></br></p><p>For years the open-mouth gasp of a smallish copperhead<br>was enameled onto my retina, carved into my brain,<br>and I suffered the horror of its suffocation and baking<br>death in hot sunlight. Other times we worked as a team</br></br></br></p><p>to free trapped rat snakes, one of us holding the body,<br>the other cutting the monofilament of the netted trap.<br>I freed a small one myself, returning, with gloves on<br>to extricate its black calligraphic line, after it bit my thumb.</br></br></br></p><p>We no longer use bird netting. The deer fencing must<br>be more elastic, more forgiving because the snake had<br>woven itself with such grace through the grid. Yet I feared<br>it injured. We carried ladders, gloves, and small sharp</br></br></br></p><p>scissors to the site where I touched it with my walking stick,<br>but that beautiful clever snake had moved ten feet along<br>the fence, sliding out of the cells of the mesh, gliding<br>onto the overhanging branch of the old peach tree.</br></br></br></p><p>I was glad for its freedom, hoping it would feed upon<br>mice on the ground and not the young wrens and summer<br>tanagers in the branches. Still it must eat and I would<br>set it free though I am not a natural snake handler.</br></br></br></p><p>My fears of snakes first slithered into my consciousness<br>early with boy cousins teasing, tormenting me with cautionary<br>tales in the country paradise of our grandfather’s small farm<br>in the scrub oak and stunted piney woods of South Jersey.</br></br></br></p><p>Later, between bouts of teaching high school English, I<br>taught pre-K in concrete inner-city streets of Philadelphia<br>where little black children—far from their grandparents’<br>southern rural roots —shrieked with fear on the field trip</br></br></br></p><p>to the Museum of Natural History when the docent brought<br>out a milk or corn snake. It was in the days of dress codes<br>when a female teacher had to wear a skirt, which hid my shaking<br>knees as I held and stroked the lovely reptile and promised</br></br></br></p><p>that there was nothing to fear. They were still babies, too young<br>to learn what there really was to fear in their futures—a cruel and unjust<br>world of hatred by implacable systems buoyed by fear-filled hearts<br>rather than tired myths about original sin and serpents in the garden.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Storm]]></title><description><![CDATA[The leaves on the old oak dance in the breeze.
The rain left little droplets on them like diamonds.
The path needs to be climbed, hard on the knees.
A dozen more steps, then a sneeze.
Smell of fresh cut grass invades my nostrils.
The leaves on the old oak dance in the breeze.
The cloud cover thickens, rolling with ease.
Thunder, an assault on eardrums, louder and louder.
The path needs to be climbed, hard on the knees.
Nature will reveal her disease
to all brave enough to venture out.
The lea]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-storm/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523197</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John L. Swainston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:17:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527572232473-494f1e9c7917?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fHN0b3JtfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5ODczOA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527572232473-494f1e9c7917?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fHN0b3JtfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5ODczOA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Storm"/><p>The leaves on the old oak dance in the breeze.<br>The rain left little droplets on them like diamonds.<br>The path needs to be climbed, hard on the knees.</br></br></p><p>A dozen more steps, then a sneeze.<br>Smell of fresh cut grass invades my nostrils.<br>The leaves on the old oak dance in the breeze.</br></br></p><p>The cloud cover thickens, rolling with ease.<br>Thunder, an assault on eardrums, louder and louder.<br>The path needs to be climbed, hard on the knees.</br></br></p><p>Nature will reveal her disease<br>to all brave enough to venture out.<br>The leaves on the old oak dance in the breeze.</br></br></p><p>First came the lightning, then thunder molesting the trees,<br>turning the ominous sky into a rock concert.<br>The path needs to be climbed, hard on the knees.</br></br></p><p>Quickening the pace, almost a run!<br>Cover is critical, the deluge will arrive soon.<br>The leaves on the old oak dance in the breeze.<br>The path needs to be climbed, hard on the knees.</br></br></br></p><p/><p>A Villanelle </p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Peppermint on the Lamb]]></title><description><![CDATA[Nails too short to really leave a mark
For necromancers
In german woolen coats
But the possibility of a scratch
Is the only promise
That keeps the drifting at bay
The textured times always win
In hand and in heart
And in this little jaw that could
Formidable tranquil and taciturn
Teeth that clatter and chomp
Find the cud
Making the sweater twist into a real sweat
And finding each fiber alive with moss
An ecosystem of the sloth’s back
The ground breathes steam
The grass holds steady in the t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/peppermint-on-the-lamb/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523196</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Violet Treadwell Hull]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:17:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1606660023296-81d67734170a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGRpbmluZyUyMHRhYmxlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5ODQ5MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1606660023296-81d67734170a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGRpbmluZyUyMHRhYmxlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5ODQ5MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Peppermint on the Lamb"/><p>Nails too short to really leave a mark<br>For necromancers<br>In german woolen coats</br></br></p><p>But the possibility of a scratch<br>Is the only promise<br>That keeps the drifting at bay</br></br></p><p>The textured times always win<br>In hand and in heart<br>And in this little jaw that could</br></br></p><p>Formidable tranquil and taciturn<br>Teeth that clatter and chomp<br>Find the cud</br></br></p><p>Making the sweater twist into a real sweat<br>And finding each fiber alive with moss<br>An ecosystem of the sloth’s back</br></br></p><p>The ground breathes steam<br>The grass holds steady in the trenches<br>So many worms move that they start a fire</br></br></p><p>The air is the coldest and the dirt is winter stew<br>The trees talk<br>Who done it this time?</br></br></p><p>Who told the worms it was dancing time?<br>Who keeps the time?<br>Down here</br></br></p><p>The weather decisive<br>But only moment to moment<br>Leaves the weakened weakened</br></br></p><p>And the men who keep the ground watch on<br>A time table of the one harp player<br>A lunch card for he who combs the beach</br></br></p><p>They would do anything to let the fog wet their socks<br>And teach the power of temperatures<br>Or to hear the sister steams of the compost mingling</br></br></p><p>Self payment<br>And self prophecy<br>Eat at the same table</br></br></p><p>From the same spoon<br>And with twin tongue<br>Dabbed with the same handkerchief</br></br></p><p>Find time for this feast<br>In due time you may be the soup<br>And each freckle the pepper</br></br></p><p>Long strands of DNA gathered<br>At the bottom of the bucket<br>While the mess hall stifles their choking on this fibrous offering</br></br></p><p>Unfettered by a splintered stirring ladle<br>Laden with fine wine and pine needles<br>Encrusted with the finest minerals that ever touched a fossil</br></br></p><p>These and more will be woven<br>The pressure applied<br>The corners of the mouth raw</br></br></p><p>The found had been filled<br>The ground leapt and rolled to a carpet<br>The sweat drooled down to spin in tandem with the ripe oils of broth</br></br></p><p>It will take on rosemary and thyme<br>It will bitter and sweeten<br>On a see saw of bud</br></br></p><p>Pluck the tree from your tooths<br>And find that snuffed out key<br>To our best house</br></br></p><p>I worry that<br>Flies whisper<br>“No one near her could be me”</br></br></p><p>But I’ve found the bugs in her door frame<br>And I’ve crushed them all into<br>Narrow silver and electric seams in my side</br></br></p><p>These rivers roar for reckoning<br>Tea and cakes<br>Of mist coated in sugar</br></br></p><p>I will bite you soft<br>You’ll see<br>And we can reflect on the time that half my mouth ballooned</br></br></p><p>I laughed then and now because I’ve never been symmetrical<br>And elbows still move on their own<br>Tin lined joints</br></br></p><p>But nothing creaks<br>Only crackles<br>A salve made of metal and juice applied by the most diligent</br></br></p><p>Maybe it even soothes<br>The resident crow’s foot<br>And the warm patch of blister that make lips seen</br></br></p><p>It will swell and I will sway<br>It would be so cruel of you to show up now<br>Because my face is strawberries</br></br></p><p>But maybe you can fall to tempo<br>When you find me hardening<br>In a wet newspaper paradise</br></br></p><p>Everything to nothing<br>Nothing to something<br>And something to worse</br></br></p><p>Who pays?<br>Who drives?<br>Who keeps time?</br></br></p><p>Who finds it?<br>Who holds onto your left side?<br>While I chase your right.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Buying Chalk for Making Milk]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sand of purple powdered milk
Salt water teeth
Maple butter tongue
All moves against me from time to time
And the obsidian ocean will lick your heels
So crouch low low down
Find the bloodied finger
And the boat shoes I chewed
I know that each candle took you farther from Healdsburg
It burns now
That place
And it has nothing to do with you
Not even if I wanted it to
It burns at both ends and you burn at one
Quick and to the target
Locked and lobbied
A square neck line
And the wet cloth
Is a st]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/buying-chalk-for-making-milk/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523195</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Violet Treadwell Hull]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:16:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1584404268984-89c43e841646?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHJlZCUyMHRpbGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk4NjI2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1584404268984-89c43e841646?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHJlZCUyMHRpbGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk4NjI2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Buying Chalk for Making Milk"/><p>Sand of purple powdered milk<br>Salt water teeth<br>Maple butter tongue<br>All moves against me from time to time</br></br></br></p><p>And the obsidian ocean will lick your heels<br>So crouch low low down<br>Find the bloodied finger<br>And the boat shoes I chewed</br></br></br></p><p>I know that each candle took you farther from Healdsburg<br>It burns now<br>That place<br>And it has nothing to do with you</br></br></br></p><p>Not even if I wanted it to<br>It burns at both ends and you burn at one<br>Quick and to the target<br>Locked and lobbied</br></br></br></p><p>A square neck line<br>And the wet cloth<br>Is a stealth beast<br>Dissolving away at your filament</br></br></br></p><p>Nothing isn’t a memory now<br>Your face looks<br>My face focuses<br>Our eyes crinkle into one telescope</br></br></br></p><p>Another spine finds itself<br>Melts<br>And welds<br>A foul splashback to seal the fateful deal</br></br></br></p><p>I love that window in that house in my head<br>Could you ever wait by it<br>With shoes soaked through<br>Times twenty</br></br></br></p><p>A hot cup of tar<br>Married to a sweet caramel key<br>Cuts the rewound timeline<br>And soothes down all the other more bitter things</br></br></br></p><p>I had landed into your time<br>Now I crawl my way back<br>But hands chase<br>And the sick never leaves me</br></br></br></p><p>Relearning this shell like a new formula<br>Always known the face in my knees<br>But bulbs burn if socks scratch now<br>And I’d never let you inside if I couldn’t see you</br></br></br></p><p>This butcher paper sketch skeleton of me misses rolling in the hay<br>I cannot forget our tempo<br>And I’m sure that grease looks fine<br>To eat and to love</br></br></br></p><p>Since we’ve gone<br>Movement is better when the brain goes quiet<br>But this depository still ruminates on that red tile<br>Bathroom house and yard New Mexico</br></br></br></p><p>Come for the heat and sweat and stay for the steam<br>I’ll be reluctant to talk about our family<br>But please make me swollen like my moms<br>It might take a baster or a test tube or a spatula but we’ve cooked before</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Handbags]]></title><description><![CDATA[I step off the platform and onto the subway. The doors shut, and when I look around, I notice all the people on board are the most radiant older women with the most beautiful handbags.
They all turn and eye me, up and down, in unison, as I step on.
Thank God, I have a nice new handbag in tow.
Their eyes widen in approval, and a lady in crisp navy and white stripes nods for me to sit next to her.
I’m not as young as I used to be and a little disappointed how life hasn’t loved me back the way ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/handbags/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523194</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheri Bancroft]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:16:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512201078372-9c6b2a0d528a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU4fHxwdXJzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTc2MDc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512201078372-9c6b2a0d528a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU4fHxwdXJzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTc2MDc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Handbags"/><p>I step off the platform and onto the subway. The doors shut, and when I look around, I notice all the people on board are the most radiant older women with the most beautiful handbags.</p><p>They all turn and eye me, up and down, in unison, as I step on.</p><p>Thank God, I have a nice new handbag in tow.</p><p>Their eyes widen in approval, and a lady in crisp navy and white stripes nods for me to sit next to her.</p><p>I’m not as young as I used to be and a little disappointed how life hasn’t loved me back the way I thought it would by now. But I feel her warmth towards me and weirdly, I feel accepted immediately in a way I’d never been before.</p><p>As I take a seat, all the women smile and snap their fingers and then all their handbags open their mouths in the same way baby birds open their beaks to be fed worms by their mother.</p><p>The handbags begin to speak in the most beautiful languages I cannot understand. The most striking blend of words I’ve ever heard.</p><p>The women begin to sway and some begin to dance and I am not sure if I should stay seated or join them.</p><p>The lady in crisp navy and white stripes snaps again, and my handbag opens its mouth but accidentally spills out all its contents: tampons, a stick of gum, a bunch of change, an empty tube of lipstick.</p><p>Everything stops. Like Freeze Tag.</p><p>Then all eyes on me.</p><p>Ah, oh! I have ruined the moment.</p><p>But then lady in crisp navy and white stripes eyes beam with satisfaction.</p><p>All of the women’s smiles brighten the subway car and embrace me like a big hug.</p><p>My smile is so big, my teeth show.</p><p>Then the train stops. The handbags snap their mouths shut like a choir of snapping turtles, and the women adjust themselves and straighten the fabric of their clothes with their nice handbags in tow.</p><p>I hurriedly cram all my shit back into mine.</p><p>I want to be one of them or maybe I am. But one thing is for sure, I have never felt so alive.</p><p>“It’s worth it to spend a little extra on a good handbag,” the lady in crisp navy and white stripes says.</p><p>We all step off the train and into the cruel lighting of the subway station, no longer radiant, but rather shabby and out-of-date like discarded library books, and head towards the dullness of the day.</p><p>But our handbags glisten in the trail of our wake.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Am Not]]></title><description><![CDATA[I should have been a snare for human connections,
Licensed to coddle egos at risk,
Swimming in words of praise each day,
Drowning in loneliness with each encounter,
But I am not that man.
I could have been the stranger who screamed injustice
To urge those offended to speak,
Riding the glory of a man outraged,
Clawing through the web of blame each day,
But I am not that person.
I would have been the leader who called for action,
Enticed to stand for something,
Bloated from triumph of wish fulfi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-am-not/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523193</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Fred Yu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:15:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1573746943513-2f77b829a3b2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNpbGhvdWV0dGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk3NDAx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1573746943513-2f77b829a3b2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNpbGhvdWV0dGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk3NDAx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="I Am Not"/><p>I should have been a snare for human connections,<br>Licensed to coddle egos at risk,<br>Swimming in words of praise each day,<br>Drowning in loneliness with each encounter,<br>But I am not that man.</br></br></br></br></p><p>I could have been the stranger who screamed injustice<br>To urge those offended to speak,<br>Riding the glory of a man outraged,<br>Clawing through the web of blame each day,<br>But I am not that person.</br></br></br></br></p><p>I would have been the leader who called for action,<br>Enticed to stand for something,<br>Bloated from triumph of wish fulfilled,<br>Enslaved by an ideal I cannot abandon,<br>But I am a different person.</br></br></br></br></p><p>I wasn’t the hero who sacrificed honor,<br>Nor the hustler who wrote poems about etiquette,<br>I’ve forsaken the praise for a glass of wine,<br>Exchanged the glory for a moment of silence,<br>Abandoned the triumph for vague simplicity,<br>To avoid pondering the face of that person.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Disorderly Order of the Forest]]></title><description><![CDATA[I go
for the birdsong,
smell of pines,
disorderly order
of the forest
it owns
mysteries, miracles – trees –
some reach a hundred feet
to the sky
some lay across the trail
spawn a universe
in their rotting trunk
last week
I drove to the trailhead
a phalanx of shimmery women
floated out of the forest
chased by the fire
which created them
on trail
silvery threads covered the ground
soot stained
shriveled tree branches;
occasional bright green ferns
preened among
blackened pine cones
I hiked
ahe]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-disorderly-order-of-the-forest/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523192</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Nasrullah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:15:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1545121436-87364761152c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ2fHxmb3Jlc3R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk3MDg4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1545121436-87364761152c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ2fHxmb3Jlc3R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk3MDg4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Disorderly Order of the Forest"/><p>I go<br>for the birdsong,<br>smell of pines,<br>disorderly order<br>of the forest</br></br></br></br></p><p>it owns<br>mysteries, miracles – trees –<br>some reach a hundred feet<br>to the sky<br>some lay across the trail<br>spawn a universe<br>in their rotting trunk</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>last week<br>I drove to the trailhead<br>a phalanx of shimmery women<br>floated out of the forest<br>chased by the fire<br>which created them</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>on trail<br>silvery threads covered the ground<br>soot stained<br>shriveled tree branches;<br>occasional bright green ferns<br>preened among<br>blackened pine cones</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I hiked<br>ahead and saw<br>wavy columns<br>of white smoke<br>one, two, three, four<br>I understood<br>the forest burned<br>I ran</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>no one<br>wants to be<br>a brown fungus<br>a woman made of smoke<br>a silver strand of witness<br>unless it is decreed.<br>I fled the forest</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Bird Watcher]]></title><description><![CDATA[She sits.
Stoic.
Deciding who
she wants to be
in this moment.
The bird watcher
craves the best
of the day,
like anyone.
Knowledge.
Beauty.
Passion.
Meaning.
An unabated purpose
only animals seem to know.
The pads of their paws
etched with earthy glaze
as they make their way
through moor and mire
to graze on yesterday’s life.
Sometimes it’s their
brilliance
that leaves her
breathless.
But more often than not,
it’s the idea that creatures
so wild and gentle
exist in this world at all.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-bird-watcher/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523191</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Catherine Buercklin]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:15:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1581062712438-f759223286a2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDY1fHxiaXJkc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTY4OTE&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1581062712438-f759223286a2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDY1fHxiaXJkc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTY4OTE&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Bird Watcher"/><p>She sits.<br>Stoic.<br>Deciding who<br>she wants to be<br>in this moment.<br>The bird watcher<br>craves the best<br>of the day,<br>like anyone.<br>Knowledge.<br>Beauty.<br>Passion.<br>Meaning.<br>An unabated purpose<br>only animals seem to know.<br>The pads of their paws<br>etched with earthy glaze<br>as they make their way<br>through moor and mire<br>to graze on yesterday’s life.<br>Sometimes it’s their<br>brilliance<br>that leaves her<br>breathless.<br>But more often than not,<br>it’s the idea that creatures<br>so wild and gentle<br>exist in this world at all.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Week]]></title><description><![CDATA[Frank Stanford lies quietly at rest
in ground a mere hundred miles
from my home. Hell, I could walk
there in like, what, a week?
Easily, if good weather and if in
good health and if I took a straight
line. Any deviation from those things
and it could take somewhat longer.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-week/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523190</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:14:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620405399046-93bf4db71244?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxjZW1ldGFyeXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTY1OTY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1620405399046-93bf4db71244?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxjZW1ldGFyeXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTY1OTY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Week"/><p>Frank Stanford lies quietly at rest<br>in ground a mere hundred miles<br>from my home. Hell, I could walk<br>there in like, what, a week?<br>Easily, if good weather and if in<br>good health and if I took a straight<br>line. Any deviation from those things<br>and it could take somewhat longer.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Feeling Better]]></title><description><![CDATA[I must be feeling better I’m
eating out again alone again
six couples around me and as I
imagine what their lives are like
in my mind they’re all
happy and doing well
I must be feeling better]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/feeling-better/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852318f</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:14:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520671600189-56bdfdf526e3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxlYXRpbmclMjBvdXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk2MzMy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520671600189-56bdfdf526e3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxlYXRpbmclMjBvdXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk2MzMy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Feeling Better"/><p>I must be feeling better I’m<br>eating out again alone again<br>six couples around me and as I<br>imagine what their lives are like</br></br></br></p><p>in my mind they’re all<br>happy and doing well<br>I must be feeling better</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Releasing the Night]]></title><description><![CDATA[You are not leery
the Earth is exchanging signals
release, emerge.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/releasing-the-night/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852318e</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michelle Jones]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:14:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1603947856288-272b08a5feab?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGVtZXJnZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTYxMDk&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1603947856288-272b08a5feab?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGVtZXJnZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTYxMDk&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Releasing the Night"/><p>You are not leery<br>the Earth is exchanging signals<br>release, emerge.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I sip white wine with the undertaker’s daughter]]></title><description><![CDATA[listen to her speak about life’s
shadows and all we do
in search of love. We talk
about all that is buried
that we live with daily.
The undertaker’s daughter
sells homes and buries
St. Francis statues
under each one she sells.
There’s one buried under
yours, she tells me.
There is too much sewn
into the unknown for me
to ever believe I’m not
supposed to be right here,
for one reason or another
living this poem, channeling
all that this world holds sacred.
If there are stories, they must
be]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-sip-white-wine-with-the-undertakers-daughter/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852318c</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Liza Wolff-Francis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:14:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1633638492933-e0ddc21deff2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI4fHxkaWdnaW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5NTM0Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1633638492933-e0ddc21deff2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI4fHxkaWdnaW5nfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5NTM0Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="I sip white wine with the undertaker’s daughter"/><p>listen to her speak about life’s<br>shadows and all we do<br>in search of love. We talk</br></br></p><p>about all that is buried<br>that we live with daily.<br>The undertaker’s daughter</br></br></p><p>sells homes and buries<br>St. Francis statues<br>under each one she sells.</br></br></p><p>There’s one buried under<br>yours, she tells me.<br>There is too much sewn</br></br></p><p>into the unknown for me<br>to ever believe I’m not<br>supposed to be right here,</br></br></p><p>for one reason or another<br>living this poem, channeling<br>all that this world holds sacred.</br></br></p><p>If there are stories, they must<br>be told, wherever they are from,<br>lullabies must be sung, to keep us</br></br></p><p>alive, to keep our heads<br>above the bubbly, the gossip,<br>a darkening sky. I hold</br></br></p><p>onto honesty. Even if I can’t<br>make sense out of my own<br>hungers, in this moment,</br></br></p><p>I listen to the ways she gives<br>of herself, find my compassion,<br>room to unbury lost songs.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Weight of Earth]]></title><description><![CDATA[Tree leaves bend
with the heaviness
of rain, mountain
stands by, lets
water slide
off. What we do
to each other
day after day
is too much
to hold.
Even the earth
cannot soak it in.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/weight-of-earth/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852318d</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Liza Wolff-Francis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:13:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507027682794-35e6c12ad5b4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxyYWlufGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5NTkxMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507027682794-35e6c12ad5b4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxyYWlufGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjA5NTkxMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Weight of Earth"/><p>Tree leaves bend<br>with the heaviness<br>of rain, mountain<br>stands by, lets<br>water slide<br>off. What we do<br>to each other<br>day after day<br>is too much<br>to hold.<br>Even the earth<br>cannot soak it in.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[December and Everything After]]></title><description><![CDATA[You are in the savor of night’s tempted mouth
open for swallowing dreams
for I may not survive this wave
any more than you have already swum
but I am calling out –
moon, may you release morning?
light’s favor is what I need
for tonight, is the end – the dead end
I have been waiting for
and you,
I call you december
for you are too winter to refuse
and everything has already crystallized.
you were the never-ending story I’d call out to
for tales told/retold faintly true
but my mercy has run d]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/december-and-everything-after/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852318b</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[simone j. banks]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:13:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513201025652-45a8a3f21311?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ1fHxuaWdodHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTUxMzI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513201025652-45a8a3f21311?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ1fHxuaWdodHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTUxMzI&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="December and Everything After"/><p>You are in the savor of night’s tempted mouth<br>open for swallowing dreams</br></p><p>for I may not survive this wave<br>any more than you have already swum</br></p><p>but I am calling out –<br>moon, may you release morning?</br></p><p>light’s favor is what I need<br>for tonight, is the end – the dead end<br>I have been waiting for</br></br></p><p>and you,<br>I call you december<br>for you are too winter to refuse<br>and everything has already crystallized.</br></br></br></p><p>you were the never-ending story I’d call out to<br>for tales told/retold faintly true<br>but my mercy has run dry –</br></br></p><p>in the morning I expect a clear sky<br>the sun is waiting<br>for me and<br>rising for everything after you</br></br></br></p><p>is this the game of surrender?</p><p>if it is, then I am the white rose you once held<br>in soft hands, and now<br>an incomplete unfolding.</br></br></p><p>Sometimes<br>I feel you<br>crawl close<br>to look for me in hibernation,</br></br></br></p><p>but I will not tempt night<br>anymore<br>or you.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[White As Snow]]></title><description><![CDATA[the white of a southern magnolia bloom
is a perfect white on white like snow
deeply beautiful & perfect
yet fragile in its fleeting beauty
once picked from it’s true home
the bloom quickly fades
I wonder
what can we ever truly hold?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/white-as-snow/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852318a</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:12:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515797062401-7f86c9523075?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ1fHxtYWdub2xpYXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTQ4MDE&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515797062401-7f86c9523075?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ1fHxtYWdub2xpYXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwOTQ4MDE&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="White As Snow"/><p>the white of a southern magnolia bloom<br>is a perfect white on white like snow<br>deeply beautiful & perfect<br>yet fragile in its fleeting beauty<br>once picked from it’s true home<br>the bloom quickly fades<br>I wonder<br>what can we ever truly hold?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Embrace Loneliness]]></title><description><![CDATA[I am a small bush standing in the desert alone.
No trees give me any shade, but I like to lay down in the burning sun.
An eagle flies down quickly to me, but I like to look at him bravely.
A lizard hides in my bush, but I like to provide a safe place for him.
A rattlesnake curls his body and takes a nap near by me, but I like to straighten my hand to make more shade for him.
They stay with me shortly, so I still stand here alone.
In the daytime, I can lay down in the sun to enjoy sunshine becau]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/embrace-loneliness/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523189</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Pei-Ching Tseng]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:12:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515581247767-d78687bf2254?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxkZXNlcnR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk0NTQx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515581247767-d78687bf2254?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxkZXNlcnR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk0NTQx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Embrace Loneliness"/><p>I am a small bush standing in the desert alone.<br>No trees give me any shade, but I like to lay down in the burning sun.<br>An eagle flies down quickly to me, but I like to look at him bravely.<br>A lizard hides in my bush, but I like to provide a safe place for him.<br>A rattlesnake curls his body and takes a nap near by me, but I like to straighten my hand to make more shade for him.<br>They stay with me shortly, so I still stand here alone.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>In the daytime, I can lay down in the sun to enjoy sunshine because I own the sun.<br>In the nighttime, I can lay down under the starry sky to count the stars because I own all the stars.<br>I go through thousands of daytimes and nighttimes, but I still stand here alone.<br>Now, I am not alone because all of the desert embraces me.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Prayer for My Son]]></title><description><![CDATA[My son
Undone
By Daddy Death & Dyslexia,
Has come roaring back
Searching for his dream.
His sweetness, brightness & earnestness
Shines through his cobalt gaze.
I am by his side, a witness,
Primping & Pruning,
His adjectives and pronouns,
So he tells the stories that resonate
With the college buzzards,
Who are searching for the difference
In the studious indifferent.
Oh father in the sky,
Guide admissions,
Guide your son,
To his most excellent
Salient solution.
Amen.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/prayer-for-my-son/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523188</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kate Kaiser]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:11:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1494869042583-f6c911f04b4c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGV5ZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk0MTg4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1494869042583-f6c911f04b4c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGV5ZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDk0MTg4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Prayer for My Son"/><p>My son<br>Undone<br>By Daddy Death & Dyslexia,<br>Has come roaring back<br>Searching for his dream.</br></br></br></br></p><p>His sweetness, brightness & earnestness<br>Shines through his cobalt gaze.<br>I am by his side, a witness,<br>Primping & Pruning,<br>His adjectives and pronouns,<br>So he tells the stories that resonate<br>With the college buzzards,<br>Who are searching for the difference<br>In the studious indifferent.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Oh father in the sky,<br>Guide admissions,<br>Guide your son,<br>To his most excellent<br>Salient solution.<br>Amen.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Moonlight]]></title><description><![CDATA[I look at the mirror
Why am I in such pain?
As I laugh as if it were ok
To watch my tears dry away
And be all forgotten
Within my own soul
Let me know
If it’s my reflex that is reversed
Or if it’s just me who’s gotten
A hopeless inner outburst
My great goodbye
To this painful image o’ mine
Oh, I so hope he’s doing just fine]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/moonlight/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523187</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Pedro Henrique da Silva Lino]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:11:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1479762937580-3b682a10a0d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxtb29ubGlnaHR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDI5MTY5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1479762937580-3b682a10a0d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM0fHxtb29ubGlnaHR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQyMDI5MTY5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Moonlight"/><p>I look at the mirror<br>Why am I in such pain?<br>As I laugh as if it were ok<br>To watch my tears dry away<br>And be all forgotten<br>Within my own soul<br>Let me know<br>If it’s my reflex that is reversed<br>Or if it’s just me who’s gotten<br>A hopeless inner outburst<br>My great goodbye<br>To this painful image o’ mine<br>Oh, I so hope he’s doing just fine</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Revenge]]></title><description><![CDATA[Another OCW Awards Banquet and he had struck out again. Three contest entries and nothing to show for his efforts—for the third year. Every year he could count on two things: Shirley Miller would win a boatload of awards, and it would be Corvette Weekend in Eureka Springs. He didn’t know who was more insufferable. The smug Corvette owners, revving their engines, or Shirley preening.
Disgusted, he left for the motel. Twenty Vettes were parked outside. As he passed them, he pounded each one setti]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/revenge/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523186</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lonnie Whitaker]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:10:57 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612984691837-b667faf288c4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGNvcnZldHRlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwMjg3NTE&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612984691837-b667faf288c4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGNvcnZldHRlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwMjg3NTE&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Revenge"/><p>Another OCW Awards Banquet and he had struck out again. Three contest entries and nothing to show for his efforts—for the third year. Every year he could count on two things: Shirley Miller would win a boatload of awards, and it would be Corvette Weekend in Eureka Springs. He didn’t know who was more insufferable. The smug Corvette owners, revving their engines, or Shirley preening.</p><p>Disgusted, he left for the motel. Twenty Vettes were parked outside. As he passed them, he pounded each one setting off the alarms. Motel doors flew open.</p><p>He smiled, and then he ran.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to Write a Found Poem]]></title><description><![CDATA[Think of it as collage, from French colle paste,
glue (<Greek kólla) + -age, as in mucilage, I’d add,
Middle English muscilage <Middle French musillage
<Late Latin mūcilāgō a musty juice, akin to mūcēre
to be musty. Also see mucor if you must. But where
were we? Oh, yes, collage and mucilage. I’m glad you
asked. So to write a found poem find it in the stuff
of every day, the natural or not, who cares, language
of men and women as they work and play and carry
on in newspaper comments, for example]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/how-to-write-a-found-poem/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523185</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Zeck]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:10:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1557759677-209e5b9103c5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxjb2xsYWdlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjAyODM4Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1557759677-209e5b9103c5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxjb2xsYWdlfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjAyODM4Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="How to Write a Found Poem"/><p>Think of it as collage, from French <em>colle</em> paste,<br>glue (<Greek <em>kólla</em>) + <em>-age</em>, as in <em>mucilage</em>, I’d add,<br>Middle English <em>muscilage</em> <Middle French <em>musillage</em><br><Late Latin <em>mūcilāgō</em> a musty juice, akin to <em>mūcēre</em><br>to be musty. Also see <em>mucor</em> if you must. But where<br>were we? Oh, yes, collage and mucilage. I’m glad you<br>asked. So to write a found poem find it in the stuff<br>of every day, the natural or not, who cares, language<br>of men and women as they work and play and carry<br>on in newspaper comments, for example, want ads<br>(personal or not), oral interviews, social media, old<br>letters, obits, the blab of the pave perhaps, a story<br>heard or overheard, an event, a quote that hangs<br>in the air, the dictionary too, the historical repository<br>of our yearnings and wanderings, and then fix your<br>attention like glue on the fresh phrase, throw out<br>the chaff, seize the good stuff in your beak, jack<br>daw or jill, don’t hold back, what are you thinking?<br>There’s so much of it, and all so tasty.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Two Dogs, Chained]]></title><description><![CDATA[Previously published in ‘Renegade”
Wolf eyes, fox eyes,
I see you glare at the sun
then wag your tail,
uncertain how to begin your escape.
Let me tell you the ways I’ve found;
I’ve jumped the fence more than once myself.
Lay on your belly and wriggle under
the wall in the furthest corner of your brain.
Think like water,
run down the hill in a puddle.
Make yourself small,
slip past where the steel wires meet.
Or think like air, and simply rise up,
over the houses and treetops,
with your eye]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/two-dogs-chained/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523184</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Scarlett Savoy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:09:56 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1491604612772-6853927639ef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxkb2dzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MzM4MjU2Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1491604612772-6853927639ef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxkb2dzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MzM4MjU2Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Two Dogs, Chained"/><p><em>Previously published in ‘Renegade”</em></p><p>Wolf eyes, fox eyes,<br>I see you glare at the sun<br>then wag your tail,<br>uncertain how to begin your escape.</br></br></br></p><p>Let me tell you the ways I’ve found;<br>I’ve jumped the fence more than once myself.</br></p><p>Lay on your belly and wriggle under<br>the wall in the furthest corner of your brain.</br></p><p>Think like water,<br>run down the hill in a puddle.</br></p><p>Make yourself small,<br>slip past where the steel wires meet.</br></p><p>Or think like air, and simply rise up,<br>over the houses and treetops,<br>with your eyes fixed on a distant cloud.</br></br></p><p>Don’t spend your life at the end of a leash.<br>Fly to the hills. Bay at the moon.</br></p><p>Leave them wondering how you did it.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Howling Away Our Hats]]></title><description><![CDATA[After Wendy T’s “Crow and Grackle”
“… the damned have howled away their hearts…” - WB Yeats, All Soul’s Prayer
I read this first as “howled away their hats.” It made me laugh. Dear Yeats, of course we howl away our hearts, those flimsy things, so easily given, so easily broken, seldom properly mended. Damned or not, they are always on our sleeve. But to howl away our hats; imagine the maelstrom, chapeaus raining everywhere.
A murmuration of headgear; fedoras and cloche, berets, boaters, bowle]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/howling-away-our-hats/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523183</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Scarlett Savoy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:08:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1568184765125-1de6d7acc746?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxoYXRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjAyNzI2Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1568184765125-1de6d7acc746?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxoYXRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTY0MjAyNzI2Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Howling Away Our Hats"/><p><em>After Wendy T’s “Crow and Grackle”</em></p><p><em>“… the damned have howled away their hearts…” - WB Yeats, All Soul’s Prayer</em></p><p>I read this first as “howled away their hats.” It made me laugh. Dear Yeats, of course we howl away our hearts, those flimsy things, so easily given, so easily broken, seldom properly mended. Damned or not, they are always on our sleeve. But to howl away our hats; imagine the maelstrom, chapeaus raining everywhere.</p><p>A murmuration of headgear; fedoras and cloche, berets, boaters, bowlers, a fez or two. The plethora of baseball caps. Trilbys, turbans. Sherlock Holmes’ deerstalker sails by, dancing with a bridal veil. Oppenheimer’s pork pie leads the way.</p><p>Why wouldn’t we howl away our hats in these turbulent times? Like Marie Antoinette, we’ve howled away our heads, tweeted our minds into nothingness. Microsoft says average attention span is shorter than a goldfish; it must be true. We are the speed-daters of storytelling. Beware the 6-second spot.</p><p>“You can leave your hat on,” sings Randy Newman. Easier said than done.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Saying Goodbye to Gold Castle]]></title><description><![CDATA[Memoryland, as far as my eye can see, spread out on tables in front of my Mama’s house under the dappled shadows of a sunny day. Inside the house, the chairs, sofas and cabinets of my lifetime, much of them purchased by my parents at an estate sale after they moved back from Morocco. I accidentally kicked something. I looked down. My mouth dropped open.
Seeing the flat metal knife and fork are an instant pricking of recall. I’m standing at a concrete picnic table. The water is boiling in the bi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/saying-goodbye-to-gold-castle/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523182</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Amy Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:08:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1607384070812-0965d8827f6f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGRpc2hlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwMjYxMjE&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1607384070812-0965d8827f6f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGRpc2hlc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDIwMjYxMjE&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Saying Goodbye to Gold Castle"/><p>Memoryland, as far as my eye can see, spread out on tables in front of my Mama’s house under the dappled shadows of a sunny day. Inside the house, the chairs, sofas and cabinets of my lifetime, much of them purchased by my parents at an estate sale after they moved back from Morocco. I accidentally kicked something. I looked down. My mouth dropped open.</p><p>Seeing the flat metal knife and fork are an instant pricking of recall. I’m standing at a concrete picnic table. The water is boiling in the big bucket, dinner dishes waiting for the spot of dish soap which sweetens the air. The removable pot clamp clinched to the side of a skillet bubbling with goulash. White plastic coffee cups, filled with milk, beside four plates on the red gingham oilcloth, each sided by a paper napkin, and a flat green fork on the left and a blue knife on the right. Bread and butter centering the table. The tiny goulash potatoes finally soft. The next day, every implement is packed inside the big water pot and sealed shut. Daddy is loading up the trunk, a puzzle he re-creates every day, following a map down a road my Mama has picked out in February in Dallas during a cold spell.</p><p>To Colorado. Nevada. Oklahoma. Fort Pickens State Park and a waterspout. Leaving beautiful Biloxi Beach the day before Camille. Warm Springs, Georgia. The laurels of Highlands. The dunes of Kitty Hawk. Grand Canyon. Rocky Mountain August. Our family of four breathes vacation two weeks every summer.</p><p>Wow. There is our camping gear opened to show the offerings. I didn’t catch this one. I am the lucky, appointed family member watching as the world comes in and swoops up the leftovers of our life. I am glad Mama isn’t here. All of these items were of great value to us but to others, great captured bids and deals. The woman who bought my great-grandmother’s china, Gold Castle, said she was eager to take it home. My Mimi had purchased the china, piece by piece at Kress Five and Dime a very long time ago. The new owner ought to make me happy. At least, I didn’t cry.</p><p>Thursday was the day for tears. And it was raining and storming but we drove down anyway. My parents lived in their home for thirty years. I had just become a new mother when they re-located to the southern part of the state. My sister and I were thrilled to have them only an hour away. Fifty miles had saved all of us, many a time.</p><p>Mama, Glory the pup, and I walked through every room. Many of the sale items were in boxes, on the floor, on the furniture. The power still on but not every room had a lamp. The draped and shuttered windows squelched out even the dismal day.</p><p>Every room, every drawer, every closet. We weren’t looking for things missed in our packing. Just go into your favorite room and imagine the leavings, the items you couldn’t squeeze into storage or stuff into another box or pawn off onto a millennial child. Even the gleanings could hold the best. The best of things. We had had the best of things.</p><p>The wall paper with fifteen colors in the guestroom turned computer room. A week of chickenpox. Two heads leaning in, marveling at their first computer.</p><p>Another guestroom furnished with the furniture of Mama’s girlhood. Hundreds of guests - family and friends feted and dined, slept in style. A room of relaxation with a sticking door. A retreat from the holiday festivities or funeral visitors.</p><p>The hall bath, with a six foot horizontal mirror with vanity lighting, was very chic thirty years ago. Two visiting families could lay out makeup bags and toiletries on the long countertop. The world’s best shower head we had argued over. Who would get it in the will? But no will in this departure. Mama wouldn’t let us take it out and replace it with a newer, weaker version. Maybe the new owner wouldn’t even know his shower of luck.</p><p>Now Mama was leaving behind the best shower in the world. And a yard full of tall trees and sticks and more sticks. Must not have sticks in the yard. The exercise of bending over and over and cracking the bigger ones with her foot. A garbage can full of stuck up sticks dragged to the curb. The forlorn piece of ground ringed with brick where dozens of Apricot Beauty tulips were planted by Daddy year after year. Annual spring traffic had slowed to take in the color.</p><p>She was emphatic she was not leaving. Her house was still her home, she still had friends to call on and she could still be sitting on the front row of FBC even though she did not agree with the SBC. She has always been fearless even when awakened by the City’s Best at three a.m. on her front stoop. Wrong house. She was not leaving in fear. I believe her because I know her.</p><p>Just like her mother, Mama has always been business minded. And fiercely independent. But much more pragmatic. She has chosen to move on her timeline. She tells people her children “made” her move. That is a popular sentiment in the retirement community. But in her heart, she knows it was a decision she made and for good reasons. Primarily, for her doctors, and also, because she secretly knows a steady diet of Cheetos and walnuts washed down with Coca Cola and followed by a Magnum Chocolate Bar is not healthy. Maybe it helps that I am now ten minutes down the road but do not think for one minute she has not already driven to Walmart and Best Buy. I love this about her.</p><p>The living room was almost dark, no lamp or overhead light. Thank goodness. I lost my mascara just sitting in one of the Ethan Allen Wing chairs my parents purchased when I was seven. I was proud of those two chairs, even then. I hated not having a place for them in my house. Of course, does anyone really want to part with all of these things. But not things. My tears flooded my face. Glory looked up at me. I cried to say goodbye to every person I had loved since seven. Every word, some good, some bad. Every book. Every picture. Every nap. Every kiss. Every prayer. The room was full. The chair was full.</p><p>I was determined to eat one last meal on my beloved mahogany dining table with eight chairs plus leaves. I always dreamed of having it in my own dining room but it was not to be. I would imagine it set with my own china and the new fabric I would pick to upholster the seats. Most of all, the simple, elegant family dinners - just like Mama’s. My last supper was Popeye’s Chicken. I don’t imagine the table had ever had a chicken breast and a biscuit. My Mama doesn’t fry chicken.</p><p>The laundry room still smelled of Tide. The back of the laundry room door marked up with pencil. The lines and dates of three grandchildren and the running race of heights in a competition dependent on spurts and calcium and age.</p><p>Much of Mama’s bedroom furniture was a part of the auction. The room was not empty. She only took Daddy’s dresser and mirror where he had picked up his watch and his wallet to start the day and put them back again when returning home. She took her favorites to furnish her new apartment. I don’t feel sorry for her and the new third floor balcony overlooking a park. I am concerned about the cat but that issue depends on how high is too high.</p><p>The master bath’s only claim to fame is a window which is not painted shut. The exit in case of emergency if you can climb over the towel bar. In fairness, it is a cheap security system. No fancy screens or storm windows. Just break the glass in case of emergency.</p><p>The closets aren’t big but light up when the door opens. Louvered doors. A very high end part of the house built by a builder known for solid, comfortable homes. I stepped inside Daddy’s closet, remembering all of the crisp cotton shirts, fine wool suits, and natty ties which made up his work uniform - the best advertisement for the quality of The Store. Nothing in excess but everything the best. He would be lecturing me right now about the state of my excess.</p><p>One early, early morning, when the doors were bumped, the light came on. Mama asked Daddy what was going on. He said he’d fallen and wondered what time it was. She asked him, “Why do old people always want to know what time it is in the middle of the night?” She got out of bed and sat down next to him. Nothing was hurting him but they agreed the two of them could not stand up and get him into the bed. She made a call. Help was on the way. Waiting on the floor, I imagine they were talking about sticks in the yard or his next dialysis. A never-ending conversation since second grade, more breathing than words. Then the flurried arrival of the paramedics who could see a situation going south. Mama said “Darling, I’m calling Amy.” The next couple of minutes he lay breathing quietly on a gurney, covered by a blanket. She looked in his eyes and told him, “Jesus is coming for you.” He believed.</p><p>It is not the things we can’t stand to let go, although at some point in the auction I wanted to start grabbing china plates and wing chairs and run people out of the house. Every memory attached to these auctioned items was tearing at my body. We can hold a thing in our hand or nail it to the wall or bring it out of a pretty box for the holiday. But it is the place, the where, the first, the last. The air and the slant of the sun or lighted stripes falling out on the rug at three o’clock in the morning – that is what I want to grab. The sacred minute which is not mine to hold but will always be there a few feet from the closet. The life experiences which take our breath away. The wonder of a well-loved home.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 13: Winter 2022]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Friends of eMerge,
Happy 2022! I am thrilled to put the first issue of the year in your (digital) hands. eMerge continues to grow and reach readers all across the globe because of the incredible support of the staff and Board of Directors at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow. Additionally, our community of readers and writers offer their support in a myriad of ways, creating space for wonder, wisdom, and connection in this publication. My heartfelt gratitude goes out to you all. Finally,]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-13-winter-2022/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85231aa</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joy Clark]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 27 Jan 2022 15:22:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Dear Friends of eMerge,</p><p>Happy 2022! I am thrilled to put the first issue of the year in your (digital) hands. eMerge continues to grow and reach readers all across the globe because of the incredible support of the staff and Board of Directors at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow. Additionally, our community of readers and writers offer their support in a myriad of ways, creating space for wonder, wisdom, and connection in this publication. My heartfelt gratitude goes out to you all. Finally, I want to thank Charles and Sandra Templeton, and Cat Templeton, who have exhibited an extraordinary amount of thoughtfulness and patience in helping me learn the ropes.</p><p>Throughout 2021, Charles Templeton nurtured and developed eMerge in exciting directions. The release of the Dairy Hollow Echo in September was met with great enthusiasm, and soon the Dairy Hollow Echo climbed to the top of Amazon's #1 Best Seller Lists in both Poetry Anthologies and Short Story Anthologies. The website data shows that eMerge has continued to grow it's outreach, with readers now being well into the thousands and climbing. We are so thrilled you are all here with us on this incredible journey, and look forward to seeing how we can continue this forward momentum in 2022.</p><p>The Winter 2022 Issue features a wealth of diverse voices, perspectives, and insights into the mysteries of existence. Here you will find musings on what it means to love another, how nature reflects us back to ourselves, and the resiliency of the human spirit amidst illness and oppression. The pieces selected are often contemplative and carry layers of hidden meaning, which I find perfect for reading and rereading on cold winter nights. But there are also a few lighthearted gems sprinkled in to offer a delicate counterpoint, like adding a little honey to a warm beverage. </p><p>I hope there's something in here that feels like it was written just for you.</p><p>Until next time,</p><p>Joy Clark</p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pushcart Nominees for 2022]]></title><description><![CDATA[eMerge, the online literary magazine of the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, is proud to announce its 2021 nominees for the Pushcart Prize.
These pieces were nominated for their exceptional craftsmanship and profound evocation of the human experience: in life, in loss, in humor, in hope, and on and on. Each writer here has struck a miraculous balance between grounding us in the particulars of the present moment while considering the context that surrounds that moment. In doing so, they permit t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pushcart-nominees-for-2021-from-pushcartprize-com-the-pushcart-prize-nomination-process/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523181</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2022]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 27 Jan 2022 15:22:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1499233983070-99a5f004e720?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGZpcmV3b3Jrc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDM0MDI2NzY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1499233983070-99a5f004e720?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGZpcmV3b3Jrc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2NDM0MDI2NzY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Pushcart Nominees for 2022"/><p>eMerge, the online literary magazine of the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, is proud to announce its 2021 nominees for the Pushcart Prize.</p><p>These pieces were nominated for their exceptional craftsmanship and profound evocation of the human experience: in life, in loss, in humor, in hope, and on and on. Each writer here has struck a miraculous balance between grounding us in the particulars of the present moment while considering the context that surrounds that moment. In doing so, they permit the reader to glimpse the many hidden layers of emotion and conflict that permeate even the most ordinary actions, and the way these subterranean motivations connect us all to each other. </p><h4 id="prose-nominees-">Prose Nominees:</h4><p>Nikki Hanna – for her short story, "I don’t Mean that Weird-like," appeared in the Spring 2021 Issue of eMerge. Nikki Hanna has elevated her tongue-in-cheek sense of joie de vivre to its highest level, as she recalls a trip to the emergency room for a bloody nose. Nikki’s gratitude and celebration of life is found in every aspect of her story-telling.</p><p>Morris McCorvey – for his short story, "Rosebuds," appeared in the Spring 2021 Issue of eMerge. When I read Rosebuds, I couldn’t help but think of Gil Scott-Heron’s jazzy rendition of ‘Whitey on the Moon.’ Things are not always what they appear to be. An insightful perspective on the classic movie, Citizen Kane. From a perspective that will make you pause and reflect on time before you lost your innocence if you can remember that far back!</p><p>Annie Klier Newcomer – for her short story, "My Red Shoes," appeared in the Winter 2021 Issue of eMerge. Annie Newcomer shares memories of childhood pain and joy as she reflects on the loss of a sibling. As she grapples with mortality in this piece, she also engenders a sense of awe about life … even though it has an ending. After reading this short story, close your eyes and tell us … what image appears?</p><h4 id="poetry-nominees-">Poetry Nominees:</h4><p>Wendy Taylor Carlisle – for her poems, "Death Sonnets," appeared in the Fall 2021 Issue of eMerge. In this trilogy of poems, Wendy confronts a host of emotions that collide on the death of her friend. These emotions remind us of our own mortality and help us to understand that eventually our world will go dark. Wendy uses figurative language and a sense of irony that challenges our assumptions about life and death.</p><p>Belinda Bruner – for her poem, "After School," appeared in the Summer 2021 Issue of eMerge. Dr Belinda Bruner, in her poem, "After School," invites us to reexamine the word “statistics.” The metaphorical language Dr. Bruner uses plays around with the images she creates, draws us into the world of children who grow up in an America different from the one of comfort most of us experience. Whatever their circumstances, they all deserve our compassion and respect.</p><p>Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg – for her poem, "Almost Gone," appeared in the Winter 2021 Issue of eMerge. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg offers us a glimpse into an experience that is familiar to all of us yet perceived differently by each of us. Her figurative language elicits a range of emotions. In "Almost Gone," we are taken to that space between notes, where the music lies. That moment at the end of day, where light is fading fast and life is ‘almost gone, almost here.’</p><p>Our deepest gratitude goes out to all of our writers for continuing to share your work with us and be a part of the eMerge community. The selection process was difficult, as so many pieces exhibited the extraordinary skill and exceptional insight we sought to nominate. However, Pushcart only allows small press and online magazines six nominees each. With that being said, know that we hold your work in high esteem. Without you, eMerge would not be the diverse, inventive publication that it is.</p><p>Many thanks to the crew at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow for making eMerge possible. Thanks also to Charles Templeton, Sandra Sewell Templeton<em>,</em> and Carolyn-Anne Templeton for their tireless work and careful attention to each of the pieces selected.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bare Back Riding]]></title><description><![CDATA[As an eleven-year-old living in Southern California I had idealized my previous rural life outside of Conway even though at the time of that first Arkansas stint I had felt the daily chores at our chicken farm were hard and certainly extraordinary compared to the perceived leisure of townie friends. So, I was pleased when my parents let us 3 children know we would be moving to a small, chicken-free acreage also near Conway. To me that meant that we might finally be able to own a horse! My 2 si]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/bare-back-riding/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523175</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Al Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:09:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566251037378-5e04e3bec343?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGhvcnNlfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYyNDA2Nw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566251037378-5e04e3bec343?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGhvcnNlfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYyNDA2Nw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Bare Back Riding"/><p>As an eleven-year-old living in Southern California I had idealized my previous rural life outside of Conway even though at the time of that first Arkansas stint I had felt the daily chores at our chicken farm were hard and certainly extraordinary compared to the perceived leisure of townie friends. So, I was pleased when my parents let us 3 children know we would be moving to a small, chicken-free acreage also near Conway. To me that meant that we might finally be able to own a horse! My 2 sisters shared this idea although probably not with the same enthusiasm.</p><p>It was some weeks after we settled into our new Arkansas digs that my parents responded to an ad for the gelding named Tex that was to be our shared mount. Now, Tex’s owner had been the local riding stable and it soon became obvious why he wasn’t suitable for that employment. Tex had an independent streak: he didn’t much like the bit, he would expand out his chest to prevent us from safely cinching down the saddle and he usually registered some horsey objections as we led him out of the barn lot.</p><p>One of our common routes was a circuit of the 4 roads that bounded the square mile section. For the first half of the trip his pace was slow and plodding but by the time we rounded the last corner he saw himself as a race horse-- his gate changed to a smooth gallop and I’d have to duck as he came roaring through the barn door!</p><p>Autodidact is a fancy sounding way of defining a person too dumb or self-assured to take instructions from experts. That describes my horsemanship and may even explain my inability years later to finish graduate school. But I learned to ride and that was to figure into my future job promotion.</p><p>The years advanced. I left Arkansas and attended college. Tex found a home with the Satterfields. The usual number of triumphs and disappointments ensued.</p><p>In 1971 I returned to Arkansas with my future bride and the energy of a 25 year old. I quickly secured a day job with Thomas Thomas converting a ramshackle house into the Spring Gallery. Although the generous wage of $2 per hour supported our meager lifestyle the lure of the spotlight beckoned and I soon found nighttime employment in the cast of The Great Passion Play. Although initially cast as part of the rabble, my innate thespian nature must have revealed itself and I soon found myself seated at the Last Supper as the Apostle Andrew.</p><p>I was a natural probably because the duties were simple: mouth a couple of lines that were actually recordings and do so in the purple robe that had to be found in time for the scene. Although the pay remained a few bucks a night, my prestige swelled. I was a young actor on the move.</p><p><em>And so it came to pass</em> that my big break arrived the night one of the Clark boys was indisposed. “Anybody ride a horse?” the casting guy asked. “Why yes I do!” I replied, all full of confidence and ambition. This was The Great Passion Play. Who knew to what heights my career might rise? In fact, being the Resurrection story, even the sky was not the limit!</p><p>I should caution you before I go further that this is not like the under-study goes on and becomes the lead or Lana Turner discovered at Schwaabs. No, if you are hoping for that sort of resolution, this might be a good time to go to the fridge for a beer. For, alas, I was of the persuasion that my neighbors liked to call “hippie.” And , although we were referred to as “counter-culture,” there were actually a few cultural directives, though not mandatory, strongly recommended.</p><p>Now, we all know the hippie chicks went bra-less. The lesser-known corollary is that the guys eschewed underwear.</p><p>It’s not too important to have shorts beneath that purple, floor-length robe nor, for that matter, under your standard equestrian garb. However, a Roman Soldier is suited up in the cutest little white pleated skirt!</p><p>I started to see how my career might unravel in the dressing room, but nobody noticed. When I mounted my horse I knew I’d be “discovered,” but everybody was minding his own business. As we loped to the gates of Jerusalem I was starting to feel more confident that my secret might not be revealed.</p><p>But that was not to be. We were the main event: 4 angry Roman soldiers on 4 huge white horses and we stormed the plaza, both hands on the reins, running full out! And, yes, those cute little skirts were flapping like crazy and blowing in the wind we created.</p><p>I don’t know what the audience may have seen. There were no gasps audible over the thundering hooves. No matrons swooned as far as I could tell.</p><p>Although I lived in hope of advancing my career, I never got a part any better than the Apostle Andrew. But, living in the hope of another opportunity and shortly after my memorable ride, I took a portion of my pay to Carr’s Dry Goods and purchased a 3-pack of what are commonly referred to as “jockey shorts.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets -October - “Color My World with Hope”]]></title><description><![CDATA[Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selecte]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-october-color-my-world-with-hope/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852317a</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:08:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/Oct--Color-My-World-with-Hope--.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/Oct--Color-My-World-with-Hope--.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets -October - “Color My World with Hope”"/><p>Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Jake]]></title><description><![CDATA[My old high school coach
Couched all his admonitions
Regarding clock and on-field crisis-management
(Both very serious business beneath Friday night lights)
In the context of “When it gets down to the nut cutting...”
Specific instructions followed,
As my skin crawled and soul shuddered
At the old-time plantation castration reference.
I’ve since been told I didn’t understand,
Something about animal management down on the farm.
But, we didn’t come from down on the farm.
And, once you’ve seen ‘str]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/jake/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523159</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Morris McCorvey]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:08:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/08/Prunes.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/08/Prunes.jpg" alt="Jake"/><p>My old high school coach<br>Couched all his admonitions<br>Regarding clock and on-field crisis-management<br>(Both very serious business beneath Friday night lights)<br>In the context of “When it gets down to the nut cutting...”<br>Specific instructions followed,<br>As my skin crawled and soul shuddered<br>At the old-time plantation castration reference.<br>I’ve since been told I didn’t understand,<br>Something about animal management down on the farm.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But, we didn’t come from down on the farm.<br>And, once you’ve seen ‘strange fruit’ displayed prominently<br>At a feed store, garage, and crossroads mercantile,<br>You’re never quite the same again.<br>I recall, years before high school football, wondering<br>At such a proud display of an old leather bag, or big withered prunes,<br>Under the stars and bars.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Realizing why, a heartbeat later, taking a quick look around<br>For signs of unusual among the regulars, or my very own adult,<br>Finding just another day with nigger nuts up on the wall.<br>And, when it gets down to the nut cutting, that dances in my DNA<br>Everyday.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Brothers created Cool, watching the castration, rape, lynching, burning, drawing and quartering and worse, of their loved ones and acquaintances. It does not abracadabra, poof, and go away.<br>I write Poetry.</br></p><p>I was a Freshman.<br>I hated Jake.<br>And, greatly resented sitting on his bench during his Friday night race wars.<br>In fact, I hated football, and played it –well- with all my heart<br>(and, mind), a bit too long. I thought it was the only way out.<br>That can be as effective as nut cutting (Not to mention neater).</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Good Bones]]></title><description><![CDATA[It sprang at me from behind thick vines tangled in trees that rose into the thickening fog. I braked, mesmerized by the limited view, and ticked off the reasons why I would be insane to leave the safety of my car on this isolated road and plunge into the abyss of foliage. Yet, without considering anything beyond the need to take it all in, I slipped my .38 from my purse, tucked it into the back of my jeans, and plowed my way toward the ruins of the house.
Huge, intricately-carved capitals still]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/good-bones/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852315b</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Judy Nickles]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:07:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/08/Columns.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/08/Columns.jpg" alt="Good Bones"/><p>It sprang at me from behind thick vines tangled in trees that rose into the thickening fog. I braked, mesmerized by the limited view, and ticked off the reasons why I would be insane to leave the safety of my car on this isolated road and plunge into the abyss of foliage. Yet, without considering anything beyond the need to take it all in, I slipped my .38 from my purse, tucked it into the back of my jeans, and plowed my way toward the ruins of the house.</p><p>Huge, intricately-carved capitals still relatively intact topped the twelve Corinthian columns spiraling higher than some of the trees, and a damp, musky smell emanated from the gaping wounds of the paneless windows beyond the bricked porch. A sudden fluttering of wings broke the silence, startling me as half a dozen birds disgorged themselves from beneath the nearly collapsed roof at one end of the porch.</p><p>Shadows unrelieved by the late afternoon sun wrapped the crumbling structure like a gentleman’s opera cape. “You are magnificent,” I said aloud, enunciating each syllable. “Totally magnificent.”</p><p>“One hundred years ago, she was more than that.”</p><p>My fingers crawled automatically to my gun. I spun around but saw no one. “Who’s there?”</p><p>A man of indeterminate age slid from behind a massive oak, his lean body braced on a single elbow crutch. Unwillingly, I let my eyes slide down his wrinkled khaki pants and glimpsed the gleam of a steel brace barely visible beneath them.</p><p>“Who are you?”</p><p>“The keeper of the keys, so to speak, although no one’s needed keys to go inside in fifty years.”</p><p>“You’re the caretaker? I apologize for trespassing.”</p><p>“Yes and no, and you aren’t really.”</p><p>“Well, which is it?” I regretted the irritation in my voice.</p><p>“I’m not the official caretaker, only a spurned admirer of the old lady. And the property, while private, isn’t designated as such.”</p><p>My hand dropped away from the cold steel pressing against the small of my back.</p><p>“You carry,” he observed in a neutral voice.</p><p>“Don’t you feel the need of a little protection in this isolated place?”</p><p>“No. What am I going to shoot? Mosquitoes?”</p><p>“Snakes. That’s why I brought this with me when I decided to explore.”</p><p>“They’d see you before you’d see them. Care to sit down and continue this conversation?”</p><p>“Is this a step-into-my-parlor invitation?”</p><p>His pleasant laugh broke down the last of my reserves. “I’m afraid that’s not a good choice. How about the steps? They’re solid enough.”</p><p>He limped past me and lowered himself onto the second-to-bottom broad brick step. I joined him there but at the opposite end, and let myself look directly at his face. He wasn’t the handsomest man around, but something about the dark eyes set deeply into a relaxed face in need of a shave caught my interest.</p><p>He laid his crutch aside. “How did you hear about Bel Rêverie?”</p><p>“I just saw it from the road.”</p><p>“You have a sharp eye then. Most people don’t even know it’s here.”</p><p>“I always take back roads and watch for interesting places.”</p><p>“Back roads aren’t always safe for a young lady.” He smiled, displaying an honest sweetness I’d rarely seen in a man. “But then, you carry.”</p><p>I started to retort but decided maybe he wasn’t really making fun of me after all. “Bel Rêverie, you said. What does that mean?”</p><p>“It’s French for beautiful dream. And that’s what it was—a dream. A beautiful, transient dream.”</p><p>“You’ll have to explain more.”</p><p>“The Fournier family came to Mississippi from North Carolina in 1847, settled this land, and built the middle wing of the house. Their eldest son Emile went back to Abercrombie County in 1855 and married Giselle Moreau. The two families had immigrated from France together in late eighteenth century after the American Revolution, although Emile and Giselle were born in America. Anyway, when Emile returned with his bride, he added a third story to the house and built the two side wings. Gisele designed the gardens.”</p><p>“You seem to know a lot about the history of this place, so I’m guessing you’re a descendant.”</p><p>“I’m Lane Forney. My grandfather anglicized the name Fournier in the thirties when he went into the real estate business. The first property he tried to sell was this one.”</p><p>“His family home? What was he thinking?”</p><p>“Literally out from under his own father who still lived there.”</p><p>“That’s inexcusable! Tell me it didn’t sell.”</p><p>“For a paltry sum. From Emile’s account books, which somehow survived the Civil War and a family who cared absolutely nothing for its own history, I figure building this place today would cost in the neighborhood of three million dollars. Of course, there was slave labor, which I’m ashamed to admit being connected to, and materials like clay for the brick were readily available. Forty-two rooms, thirty-one fireplaces, a detached kitchen, a conservatory, eighteen cabins, a blacksmith shop, smokehouse, ice house, and other outbuildings used for spinning and sewing. Not to forget the pest house.”</p><p>“Pest house?”</p><p>“Disease was rampant—yellow fever, typhoid, smallpox. Anyone who became ill was isolated until he got well or died. That reminds me—there’s a cemetery about a quarter of a mile behind the house. Emile’s parents were the first buried there, then three sisters and an infant brother. Gisele died giving birth to their second child, and eventually Emile ended up beside her. My line is from the sole surviving son, André.”</p><p>I tried to file away the facts he’d spit out so easily. “I’m beginning to smell a story here.”</p><p>“You write?”</p><p>“Only for a weekly newspaper, but I’ve got a few dreams which I intend to make come true. What about you?”</p><p>“Oh, I took over the real estate business from my father and grandfather. I’ve done rather well despite their concern I was only capable of dreaming about the family’s past glory and other things.”</p><p>I leaned my elbows on my knees and leaned forward. “What else do you dream about?”</p><p>“Restoring this old place.”</p><p>“It looks beyond help to me.”</p><p>“She has good bones.”</p><p>“Good bones. You talk about the house as if it’s human.”</p><p>“She was built to last. Being more or less off the beaten path, the Yankees missed her. Otherwise, they might’ve burned her, or she might’ve been vandalized after she was empty.”</p><p>“How much would it cost to restore...to fix her?”</p><p>“A lot. We’re talking period furnishings, too. But like I said, I’ve done well. I’ve put out feelers and had some favorable responses about grants and other financing.”</p><p>“Suppose you did it. Would you live here?”</p><p>His face creased into a broad grin. “Where else? And I’d open the house for tours. In her day, she saw a lot of people come across her threshold. My great-grandfather was the last to live here. In fact, he died in one of the upstairs rooms. That was after his son—my grandfather—tried to move him out so he could sell the place.” He winked at me. “They say he’s down in the cemetery, but I’m not sure he ever really left the house.”</p><p>“He haunts this place?”</p><p>“So I’ve heard.”</p><p>“Have you ever seen him?”</p><p>“I might have.” The man’s gentle smile morphed into a devilish grin.</p><p>“I’m not sure I believe in ghosts.”</p><p>“Well, you don’t have to.”</p><p>“Um...is he...um...friendly?” Without thinking, I glanced over my shoulder.</p><p>“If you are.”</p><p>I laughed then. “You’re pulling my leg!”</p><p>He wiggled his eyebrows. “Actually, that might be fun, but your honor is safe with me.” He winked. “For now.”</p><p>I couldn’t help laughing again.</p><p>“I told you my name, but all I know is that you’re a lovely phantom from the forest. Maybe you’re a ghost, too. I can see you in a hoop skirt and glittering jewels.”</p><p>“Sorry, I’m very real and only wear a dress on Sundays.”</p><p>He shook his head and let his mouth fall clown-like into sad lines. “What a disappointment.”</p><p>“I’m Annie Tolliver, originally from Greenville.”</p><p>“Is there a Mr. Tolliver?”</p><p>“No. Is there a Mrs. Forney?”</p><p>“Not yet.” He got to his feet with some difficulty and offered me a hand up. “Well, Annie Tolliver from Greenville, how about dinner tonight in Vicksburg? It’s just eleven miles up the road. Or do you have somewhere you need to be?”</p><p>His fingers still holding mine made answering difficult. “Not until I hear more about Bel Rêverie. I told you I smelled a story.”</p><p>He bowed from the waist like his great-great-grandfather might have done. “Then...shall we go, mademoiselle?”</p><p>“I’d be delighted, Monsieur Fournier.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Birthday of the Unknown]]></title><description><![CDATA[I don’t know you
but your birthday
is being celebrated
at the table across
from mine That’s
good enough for me
I want to join in
celebrating your
birthday your life
Because in doing so
I am celebrating
my life and the
lives of us all
Happy Birthday!]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/birthday-of-the-unknown/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852315c</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:07:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1559049124-c99a5fa5e7dd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJpdGhkYXl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjI5OTk4Nzk5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1559049124-c99a5fa5e7dd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGJpdGhkYXl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjI5OTk4Nzk5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Birthday of the Unknown"/><p>I don’t know you<br>but your birthday<br>is being celebrated<br>at the table across<br>from mine That’s<br>good enough for me<br>I want to join in<br>celebrating your<br>birthday your life<br>Because in doing so<br>I am celebrating<br>my life and the<br>lives of us all<br>Happy Birthday!</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Late Night Walk–1967]]></title><description><![CDATA[She walked through the dark city streets at midnight, feeling safe. She saw no cars, no other pedestrians. The college town was hers as she headed from her friend’s apartment towards home, three short blocks away.
A car emerged from a parking place, advancing slowly down the street behind her. A window rolled down, and a faceless man offered her a ride. Never breaking stride or turning her head, she continued walking, watching the car roll past her for half a block—and stop.
Another car came b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/late-night-walk-1967/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852315d</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Natalie Reid]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:07:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457545195570-67f207084966?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGJsYW5rZXRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyOTk5OTIzMg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457545195570-67f207084966?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGJsYW5rZXRzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyOTk5OTIzMg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Late Night Walk–1967"/><p>She walked through the dark city streets at midnight, feeling safe. She saw no cars, no other pedestrians. The college town was hers as she headed from her friend’s apartment towards home, three short blocks away.</p><p>A car emerged from a parking place, advancing slowly down the street behind her. A window rolled down, and a faceless man offered her a ride. Never breaking stride or turning her head, she continued walking, watching the car roll past her for half a block—and stop.</p><p>Another car came by. Another faceless male driver made the same offer. She walked on, alert, back frozen, heart pounding. This driver turned left at the corner and disappeared.</p><p>Facing forward, she passed the stopped car, as the second car came around the block again. The pattern repeated.</p><p>Where, she cried silently into the deaf night, were the policemen whose job was to make her streets safe? Who would protect her in the dark night, when she had no lover or roommate to miss her if she didn’t come home? Where were the safe streets of her childhood, when she had crawled out of her window at midnight to roam freely with her friends, giggling at teenagers coupling in parked cars?</p><p>She was nearing her block, with her apartment in a corner house on a one-way street. But she had no training in self-protection—and even if she had, they were two, and she was only one.</p><p>Three houses to go. The one-way street led away from her building. The circling car turned the corner. The waiting car was half a block behind her.</p><p>She broke into a dash.</p><p>The driver behind her gunned his engine, but she turned the corner before he could reach her. She slipped into the dark of the alley between the side entrance to her apartment and the next-door building. Fumbling for her key, she watched the driver back his car down her one-way street. As he passed out of view, she somehow managed to put the key in the lock, open the door, slip inside, and bolt the door. Alone in the dark, all senses strained to bursting, she waited, unmoving, afraid to trip over her books and make a noise.</p><p>After what seemed forever she heard voices outside—close, too close. Edging carefully towards her front window, she separated two blinds about half an inch, enough to see two large men standing on her corner, gesturing in different directions. She closed the blinds, then dropped to her knees and crawled to her bedroom.</p><p>When she reached her bed, she glanced up at the telephone on the end table, then turned away. Whom would she call, at this hour? What policeman would believe her story? She had no license plates, no makes of car, no facial descriptions. No one had even touched her.</p><p>She climbed on top of the bed, keeping her clothes on. Shivering in the dark, she knew that all the blankets in the world could not relieve the trembling.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Piano Lessons]]></title><description><![CDATA[I wish I stuck with my piano lessons.
Instead I ran around like a wolf child.
I wish I had practiced my arpeggios.
Instead of sculpting mud forts with my brother.
I wish I knew every single scale.
Instead I mastered swashbuckling with a twig.
I wish I could play piano with closed eyes, keys gliding gently underneath.
Instead I spent nights eyes wide-open, under sheets, watchful for the boogeyman.
These nights I wish I could play Clair D’Lune.
Instead I can lament its distance.
Such a lovely]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/piano-lessons/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852315a</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:07:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512733596533-7b00ccf8ebaf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fFBJQU5PfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyOTkxNzQ2Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512733596533-7b00ccf8ebaf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fFBJQU5PfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyOTkxNzQ2Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Piano Lessons"/><p>I wish I stuck with my piano lessons.<br>Instead I ran around like a wolf child.</br></p><p>I wish I had practiced my arpeggios.<br>Instead of sculpting mud forts with my brother.</br></p><p>I wish I knew every single scale.<br>Instead I mastered swashbuckling with a twig.</br></p><p>I wish I could play piano with closed eyes, keys gliding gently underneath.<br>Instead I spent nights eyes wide-open, under sheets, watchful for the boogeyman.</br></p><p>These nights I wish I could play Clair D’Lune.<br>Instead I can lament its distance.</br></p><p>Such a lovely distance, so ethereal to hear, so near and tender,<br>like memories of childhood, gently gliding underneath.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sorting]]></title><description><![CDATA[The women knew rivers
like beans.
The water rushes
over colored beads
and trinkets
sorting, polishing
until
they are clean.
For eating, for drinking,
for bathing,
or doing laundry;
the water purifies
the stones, too,
which return
clean water.
Water to drink.
Beans to eat.
Tiny ornaments to admire.
Girls meet
near the watershed
to dance
and swim.
The secret place
no one sees
because it’s balding,
infertile.
Selecting books
for their collection
while trading
the novel
chapter by chapter,
their ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sorting/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852315e</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Belinda Bruner]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:07:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1437482078695-73f5ca6c96e2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHJpdmVyfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyOTk5OTk3Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1437482078695-73f5ca6c96e2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHJpdmVyfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyOTk5OTk3Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Sorting"/><p>The women knew rivers<br>like beans.<br>The water rushes<br>over colored beads<br>and trinkets<br>sorting, polishing<br>until<br>they are clean.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>For eating, for drinking,<br>for bathing,<br>or doing laundry;<br>the water purifies<br>the stones, too,<br>which return<br>clean water.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Water to drink.<br>Beans to eat.<br>Tiny ornaments to admire.</br></br></p><p>Girls meet<br>near the watershed<br>to dance<br>and swim.<br>The secret place<br>no one sees<br>because it’s balding,<br>infertile.<br>Selecting books<br>for their collection<br>while trading<br>the novel<br>chapter by chapter,<br>their luxury.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The old ones<br>could write<br>only on the backs<br>of calendar<br>pages,<br>only<br>the months<br>gone by,<br>so they wouldn’t<br>waste paper.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>And faced with<br>creativity<br>or thrift, who<br>wouldn’t choose<br>water? To sing<br>while beating<br>the clothes<br>with switches<br>and stones,<br>to tell stories<br>behind the plow<br>of the sister<br>who came home<br>late once,<br>and then<br>just never came home?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Rain Returns]]></title><description><![CDATA[The rain returns
and keeps it promises
until it overflows them.
Gullets run down hills,
layers of rock turning to sand
and slant, swept spider webs
out to the sea of a new puddle
tripped out of bounds until
it's just an inverse dream
of water returned
to the jet stream, curious enough
to fly east for mountains
instead of hills, oceans
instead of dents in
the anticipating ground.
Nothing, no one ever leaves
but that doesn't matter
to the parched or heartbroken,
the aching or abandoned,
the v]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-rain-returns-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852315f</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:06:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1490713230272-bf236b61ad43?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQzfHxyYWlufGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDAwMDMzNg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1490713230272-bf236b61ad43?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQzfHxyYWlufGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDAwMDMzNg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Rain Returns"/><p>The rain returns<br>and keeps it promises<br>until it overflows them.</br></br></p><p>Gullets run down hills,<br>layers of rock turning to sand<br>and slant, swept spider webs</br></br></p><p>out to the sea of a new puddle<br>tripped out of bounds until<br>it's just an inverse dream<br>of water returned</br></br></br></p><p>to the jet stream, curious enough<br>to fly east for mountains<br>instead of hills, oceans<br>instead of dents in<br>the anticipating ground.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Nothing, no one ever leaves<br>but that doesn't matter<br>to the parched or heartbroken,</br></br></p><p>the aching or abandoned,<br>the valley thristy for a return<br>of what disrupts it,</br></br></p><p>the body hungering<br>for the lost limb of who<br>turned into weather.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dragon Ride]]></title><description><![CDATA[This one was done for fun. It is one of our grandsons depicted riding a dragon. He has always liked dragon movies. I painted the dragon with blue fur and antlers because… my dragon, my rules, ha ha.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dragon-ride/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852317c</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Melissa Milton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:06:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/Dragon_Ride-WM-for-SQ.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/Dragon_Ride-WM-for-SQ.jpg" alt="Dragon Ride"/><p>This one was done for fun. It is one of our grandsons depicted riding a dragon. He has always liked dragon movies. I painted the dragon with blue fur and antlers because… my dragon, my rules, ha ha.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Noble Animal*]]></title><description><![CDATA[(This short ten-minute play was written in 2016 for the Five and Dime Drama Collective in Eureka Springs, AR. Jocelyn Morelli played the part of the Police Officer and Ed Bibber played the Homeless Veteran. The play was written to call attention to the acknowledgement of the Department of Veteran Affairs announcement that over 100,000 Vets are homeless on any given night.)
Characters:
Police Officer
Homeless Veteran
Setting:
Anytown USA
(The stage is dark. First lights to appear are flashin]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-noble-animal/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523176</guid><category><![CDATA[Plays]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:06:28 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1423492759094-e98da7756991?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHZldGVyYW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjI0NTMy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h6 id="-this-short-ten-minute-play-was-written-in-2016-for-the-five-and-dime-drama-collective-in-eureka-springs-ar-jocelyn-morelli-played-the-part-of-the-police-officer-and-ed-bibber-played-the-homeless-veteran-the-play-was-written-to-call-attention-to-the-acknowledgement-of-the-department-of-veteran-affairs-announcement-that-over-100-000-vets-are-homeless-on-any-given-night-"><em>(This short ten-minute play was written in 2016 for the Five and Dime Drama Collective in Eureka Springs, AR. Jocelyn Morelli played the part of the Police Officer and Ed Bibber played the Homeless Veteran. The play was written to call attention to the acknowledgement of the Department of Veteran Affairs announcement that over 100,000 Vets are homeless on any given night.)</em></h6><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1423492759094-e98da7756991?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHZldGVyYW58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjI0NTMy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Noble Animal*"/><p>Characters:</p><p>Police Officer<br>Homeless Veteran</br></p><p>Setting:</p><p>Anytown USA</p><p>(The stage is dark. First lights to appear are flashing blue. Then lights slowly come up, but remain dim. There is a pile of rags on the floor which appears to be human. The police officer (P.O.) walks up speaking into his radio.)</p><p>P.O.: Roger that…this is Officer three-two-two. I am preparing to Investigate a possible ten- sixty-six. (P.O. walks around rags, then nudges the pile with the toe of his boot.) Rise and shine you stinking pile of crap!</p><p>Vet: What the fuck is up with you, man? You better be waking me up for a good reason. (The pile stirs and comes to a sitting position). Oh, shit Officer, I’m sorry, I mean I didn’t know it was the police.</p><p>P.O.: What in God’s name are you doing out here on a night this cold… We have a<br>Homeless Shelter not two blocks from here.</br></p><p>Vet: Yeah, I know but I can’t stand it there. Too many rules…just way too many rules.</p><p>P.O.: Oh, so you had rather sleep out in the cold and possibly freeze to death, rather thana nice warm shelter…because you don’t like rules? Hell, son, we all have rules to follow..or didn’t you learn that growin’ up?</p><p>Vet: Oh, yes sir (Ma'm), I learned all about rules when I was growing up. Some of them I had to learn the hard way. You know, like when a person is down you give them a helpin’ hand… oh and my very favorite… Never KICK a man when he’s down.</p><p>P.O.: Oh, so you wanna be a smart-ass vagrant? … Well, I thought we could do this the easy way, son. You know I’m looking at that arm patch you got on your jacket that says, ‘RECON.’ Were you in the Marine Corps?</p><p>Vet: What if I was, you gonna cut me a break?</p><p>P.O. I wouldn’t give a good goddamn if you was Commander-in-Chief, son…I would treat you the same damn way.</p><p>Vet: SO, everything is black and white for you, Officer?</p><p>P.O.: That’s right, rules are rules and we got a rule in this town that people can’t sleep out on the street. You should know about rules, son…you were a Marine, for crying out loud.</p><p>Vet: Yeah, I was a Marine…. And we had rules… Until we got to Afghanistan…then<br>all rules went out the window.</br></p><p>P.O.: Hell, son. That’s just war. There ain’t no rules in war… You survived, now<br>it’s time to get over it and get on with life…time to quit feelin’ sorry for yourself… Hell, you haven’t done anything that millions of other Americans haven’t done.</br></p><p>Vet: Oh, really? You know what I’ve done? Why don’t you tell me about the shit that I’ve seen.<br>(Vet rises from the ground, rags fall off)</br></p><p>P.O.: Easy now, son. (Officer places his hand on gun)… I appreciate your service, but…</p><p>Vet: But what? Now is the time to grow up? Get a job at Wally-mart’s and forget the shit that my brain won’t let me forget? I wish it were that easy Officer…I truly wish it were that easy. Believe me I’ve tried … more than once.</p><p>P.O.: I figure that everyone who has ever fought in a war has seen some bad things… Have you tried counseling… I hear the VA in this town has a great counseling service for returning Vets?</p><p>Vet: Yeah, well I went through their counseling program. You know what they told me? They said I needed to get a job and start acclimating myself back to being normal. Then they gave me a prescription … for when I started feelin’ angry or when I felt like the world was closing in on me. Pills to help me feel … happy. Can you imagine? Well, I walked around with this big shit-eatin’ grin on my face and belly full of pills for about a month … but the dreams never went away. And when I woke up in the middle of the night, with sweat pouring off of me … and this big dumb grin on my face … I threw those pills away. I decided that I didn’t want to forget about the horrors I experienced. I want to remember them. And if I want to live on the street and deal with my demons, then that should be my choice … don’t you think?</p><p>P.O.: Well, I don’t think livin’ on the street is gonna solve your problems, son. Don’t you ever think about your comrades in the Marines? How does livin’ on the street honor their service?</p><p>Vet: Honor? You want to talk to me about Honor? I will tell you about Honor … we were sent to a small village in Afghanistan on a routine patrol. We got word that an Al Queda operative was in the ‘ville. After a fast burner came in and dropped a five hundred pound bomb on the village, we did a sweep trying to find the Al Queda honcho. What we found were twenty-five dead school children … or at least what remained of them after a five- hundred pound bomb blew off their tiny arms and legs. So … accident of war, right? Collateral Damage, okay? Then we received word to leave no witnesses. We Did Not Leave Anyone Alive. Military justice right? … Swift and quick. So, you tell me … did I perform Honorably?</p><p>P.O.: That’s awful, son … truly awful … But, you are still here, if nothing else try to live your life so that you honor those children and the other causalities of that war.</p><p>Vet: I think about them each and every day … I think about them when I wake up … and I think about them when I go to sleep at night. I dream of them in my sleep. It’s like a bad movie clip that keeps playing over and over. And I wonder how can I honor those that I have so terribly dishonored? So, if you don’t mind I’m very tired … I think I am going to lay back down now, Officer, unless of course, you might know some remedy to take away my memories? But then, without my memories I wouldn’t be me, now would I? I just want to rest officer.</p><p>P.O.: I told you, son, I can’t let you do that … It’s either the Homeless Shelter or Jail … now, what’s it going to be?</p><p>Vet: Neither one …<br>(Vet attacks the Police Officer and grabs for his gun…gun comes out of the holster…Vet has Police Officer’s hand in the air…Lights dim…you can barely see scuffling on the stage…lights out…then one shot is heard. End)</br></p><p><em><strong>”At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.” Aristotle</strong></em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Death Sonnets]]></title><description><![CDATA[I
Everyone gets a poet or a parrot to sit on their shoulders - Ruth Dickey
The night you died was a season I couldn’t place,
in some vague, half-remembered hour.
You left me a tiny minotaur and some
homoerotic art. I continue to write
about your exit, although I don’t acquit you
of desertion. You might have had one
of those elegant Asian endings,
a memorial in bamboo or dragonflies,
or been vaporized. For me, you ended
metaphysical. I prefer you physical.
You put wow in my mouth.
But you v]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/death-sonnets/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523177</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:06:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/09/The-Three-Redheads.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/09/The-Three-Redheads.jpg" alt="Death Sonnets"/><p><strong>I</strong></p><p><em>Everyone gets a poet or a parrot to sit on their shoulders </em>- Ruth Dickey</p><p>The night you died was a season I couldn’t place,<br>in some vague, half-remembered hour.</br></p><p>You left me a tiny minotaur and some<br>homoerotic art. I continue to write<br>about your exit, although I don’t acquit you</br></br></p><p>of desertion. You might have had one<br>of those elegant Asian endings,<br>a memorial in bamboo or dragonflies,</br></br></p><p>or been vaporized. For me, you ended<br>metaphysical. I prefer you physical.<br>You put wow in my mouth.</br></br></p><p>But you vanished, a horizon eaten by the sky.<br>You flew, scattering seeds<br>like a parrot from the shoulder of a weeping poet.</br></br></p><p><strong>II</strong></p><p>When I found out you were dead, I was laid up in bed<br>and wept like a dryer with a slipped belt, ka-hup, ka-hup, ka-hup<br>and made a world of snot, and then went back to being sick,<br>which meant I missed your funeral and laying down.</br></br></br></p><p>Your husband’s somber friends must have attended,<br>a pomp of lawyers, doctors, judges, men he hunted with,<br>although you were his biggest game. As for your acolytes,<br>a motley would have come. You loved them</br></br></br></p><p>and their ideas of apropos. Or maybe, there was nothing.<br>You burnt up. That’s what you said to do,<br>that Christmas, when you turned up drunk, “burn me up.”<br>And me, helpless and miles away, left to wonder how you died.</br></br></br></p><p>Your mom gone, and Shorty left to mourn the way<br>only a sister can, while I stalked a place for my rage to land.</br></p><p><strong>III</strong></p><p><em>Friendship begins and ends in suspicion, /unless it ends in death.</em> - Laura Kasischke</p><p>You kept the secret, never told me death was on his way<br>in his stretch Chrysler, on his sable destrier. After the phone<br>dropped from your hand, it was too late to admit you’d called on</br></br></p><p>Anubis for deliverance or Hades for revenge. Now you could be<br>in one of a cow’s four stomach compartments. You could be<br>on the moon. You could live in the statue of a dancing woman.</br></br></p><p>You made iron art. You worked hard. You were hard work,<br>given to the sigh, the side eye. You were swank<br>and barn dirt and wit and kitsch. I miss your brazen hair.</br></br></p><p>If you go to heaven, kiss St Peter on the lips,<br>tell him one of your off-color jokes, spin him like a 45 RPM.</br></p><p>If you’re not saved, I’ll meet you in the molten lake<br>they warned would fry us. You always loved going up in flame.</br></p><p>Now, I have to get old without you, but the horse is coming anyway.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets -November - “Changing Seasons and Life Goes On”]]></title><description><![CDATA[Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selecte]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-november-changing-seasons-and-life-goes-on/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523179</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:05:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/Nov--Changing-Seasons-and-Life-Goes-On--.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/Nov--Changing-Seasons-and-Life-Goes-On--.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets -November - “Changing Seasons and Life Goes On”"/><p>Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[LOVE (Unexpectedly)]]></title><description><![CDATA[She always played her music
wayy too loud and when
drinking would smoke two
cigarettes and she had
two kids at home that her
mom was watching but
could she ever smile My God
did that girl have a smile]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/love-unexpectedly/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523161</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:05:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1624887009213-040347b804c1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxzbWlsZXl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwMDk0Mzc4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1624887009213-040347b804c1?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE3fHxzbWlsZXl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwMDk0Mzc4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="LOVE (Unexpectedly)"/><p>She always played her music<br>wayy too loud and when<br>drinking would smoke two<br>cigarettes and she had<br>two kids at home that her<br>mom was watching but<br>could she ever smile My God<br>did that girl have a smile</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How To Deal After A Disturbingly Idyllic Breakup]]></title><description><![CDATA[Create a space for it
between the marigolds and
the moonflowers in your window box,
those succulents that went out of
season, and right catty-corner
to that old vintage bunny planter
Don’t hook up right after
to disrupt, with indiscriminating
desire, the morning glories, that golden
sheen that fell and glowed just as
the dawn broke, like the crystal rainbow
of your great aunt’s formerly favorite glass
Don’t forget the way his shoulders
new, never-used, never-been-to-
basic-training-because-of-]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/how-to-deal-after-a-disturbingly-idyllic-breakup/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523162</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Brianne Grothe]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:05:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1571250506538-55063498b11e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fG1vb25mbG93ZXJzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDA5NDc1MA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1571250506538-55063498b11e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fG1vb25mbG93ZXJzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDA5NDc1MA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="How To Deal After A Disturbingly Idyllic Breakup"/><p>Create a space for it<br>between the marigolds and<br>the moonflowers in your window box,<br>those succulents that went out of<br>season, and right catty-corner<br>to that old vintage bunny planter</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Don’t hook up right after<br>to disrupt, with indiscriminating<br>desire, the morning glories, that golden<br>sheen that fell and glowed just as<br>the dawn broke, like the crystal rainbow<br>of your great aunt’s formerly favorite glass</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Don’t forget the way his shoulders<br>new, never-used, never-been-to-<br>basic-training-because-of-you,<br>cut across the gathering light of day<br>as he lifted plastic shelves and<br>that old dark wood bookcase<br>Dad and Grandpa once built for you<br>up the stairs to the new apartment<br>where you’ll be living alone</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Remember the way he had heard<br>the guys would react when they saw a girl,<br>just by her ponytail, for the first time<br>in a long time, at camp and the way his eyes<br>both lit up and grew darker when he<br>first saw your small bare breasts</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Open your mouth, unclench your fist<br>just for a moment as if to receive<br>the last sign of summer in your palm<br>before, like a monarch, it flies off<br>to warmer places and-or dies</br></br></br></br></p><p>And create a shrine like you did for him<br>unlike how you did for so many, many others<br>in your bright and damp places<br>and, in it, always sing that somber<br>soliloquy you gave him at sunrise<br>in apology.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[German-Style Beef, Beets, and Noodle Bowl]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ingredients:
1-1/2 to 2 lb beef roast
1 package beef onion soup mix
1 bottle German-style beer, ale, or porter plus 1 bottle of water
4 oz dry egg noodles
2 large ribs celery, roughly chopped
12 oz package spiraled beets, frozen
seasoned breadcrumbs for garnish
Directions:
1. Place beef roast in the greased crockpot and sprinkle with beef onion soup mix.
2. Add a bottle of German beer plus 1 bottle of water over the beef roast, cover; cook for 10 hours on the low heat setting or 4 hours on h]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/german-style-beef-beets-and-noodle-bowl/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852317d</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:05:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518737003272-dac7c4760d5e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNvdXAlMjBzdGVhbXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MzMxMzUyMDY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518737003272-dac7c4760d5e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHNvdXAlMjBzdGVhbXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MzMxMzUyMDY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="German-Style Beef, Beets, and Noodle Bowl"/><p>Ingredients:<br>1-1/2 to 2 lb beef roast<br>1 package beef onion soup mix<br>1 bottle German-style beer, ale, or porter plus 1 bottle of water<br>4 oz dry egg noodles<br>2 large ribs celery, roughly chopped<br>12 oz package spiraled beets, frozen<br>seasoned breadcrumbs for garnish</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Directions:</p><ol><li>Place beef roast in the greased crockpot and sprinkle with beef onion soup mix.</li><li>Add a bottle of German beer plus 1 bottle of water over the beef roast, cover; cook for 10 hours on the low heat setting or 4 hours on high heat setting.</li><li>Shred meat in the broth, set aside.</li><li>Add 4 oz egg noodles in boiling water; cook al dente.</li><li>Add chopped celery to the boiling noodles; cook for about 4 minutes.</li><li>Add 12 oz spiraled beets; cook until tender, about 4 minutes.</li><li>Drain noodles and vegetables; stir into shredded beef and broth.</li><li>Ladle in large bowls; sprinkle with seasoned breadcrumbs.<br>Makes 4 - 6 servings.</br></li></ol>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Blossoms]]></title><description><![CDATA[perform pace
stagger steps
bombs of luster
whisper sadly
“yesterday, oh where
has youth gone”
illumination searches
in darkness
for what once was
hoping fortune
will find them]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-blossoms/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523163</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ann Privateer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:04:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/08/fabric-806443_1280.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/08/fabric-806443_1280.jpg" alt="The Blossoms"/><p>perform pace<br>stagger steps<br>bombs of luster<br>whisper sadly<br>“yesterday, oh where<br>has youth gone”<br>illumination searches<br>in darkness<br>for what once was<br>hoping fortune<br>will find them</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A New Season]]></title><description><![CDATA[God’s light shines through nature,
We walk the fields
We walk the paths
We walk the roads
See
Beauty surrounds us
If we take time to see
If we walk outside
Listen
Even in empty spaces
Green grass still grows
Beautiful flowers still bloom
Love
Reminding us that, yes,
This new season shall pass too
Hearts still grow!]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-new-season/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523160</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:04:36 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1465146344425-f00d5f5c8f07?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMzfHxuYXR1cmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwMDkzOTI0&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1465146344425-f00d5f5c8f07?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMzfHxuYXR1cmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwMDkzOTI0&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A New Season"/><p>God’s light shines through nature,<br>We walk the fields<br>We walk the paths<br>We walk the roads</br></br></br></p><p>See<br>Beauty surrounds us<br>If we take time to see<br>If we walk outside</br></br></br></p><p>Listen<br>Even in empty spaces<br>Green grass still grows<br>Beautiful flowers still bloom</br></br></br></p><p>Love<br>Reminding us that, yes,<br>This new season shall pass too<br>Hearts still grow!</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Letter from Gibs to Gabby]]></title><description><![CDATA[This is kind of personal. Should this letter to Gabby fall into your hands, I suggest you don't read it. If you do, do me a favour, forget it soon after. If you insist on an explanation, I must be blatantly forthright with you, I don't have one. "Who is Gabby anyway?" you ask. Never mind, except that my life has been all topsy-turvy, and am looking for an escape hatch. And here I go, to do what I am set out to do, to write to Gabby seeking for some sort of deliverance from duress.
Dear Gabby,
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-letter-from-gibs-to-gabby/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523164</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Matilda Pinto]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:04:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548175551-1edaea7bbf0d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGFiYWN1c3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MzAyNjc5OTU&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548175551-1edaea7bbf0d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGFiYWN1c3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MzAyNjc5OTU&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Letter from Gibs to Gabby"/><p>This is kind of personal. Should this letter to Gabby fall into your hands, I suggest you don't read it. If you do, do me a favour, forget it soon after. If you insist on an explanation, I must be blatantly forthright with you, I don't have one. "Who is Gabby anyway?" you ask. Never mind, except that my life has been all topsy-turvy, and am looking for an escape hatch. And here I go, to do what I am set out to do, to write to Gabby seeking for some sort of deliverance from duress.</p><p>Dear Gabby,</p><p>I'm Gibs Dave Alba, the youngest of the three sons of my parents. You know that, don't you? As also the fact that I don't remember having seen my father, except in transit. Refreshing your memory, as I was assisted out of the birth passage, Father was being escorted out of this world. Our eyes locked for a brief two winks and he moved his lips to tell me something, or so I thought. It was garbled. He raised his left hand to make a sign, his right interlocked with the angel of death. It didn't make sense. In all honesty, I don't enjoy having a pounding headache, but if I must figure out what it is that he was trying to say, I must endure it.</p><p>As for my mother, even before I could call her Mom, I heard her say,<br><em>Come on Gibs, grow up. Remember, Papa was a sharpshooter for the President of a free India.</em></br></p><p>Further, Santhanu's rejoinder never ceased to resonate in my head,<br><em>Get set brother, ready and go; fire Gibs, fire, rat-a-tat-tat …</em></br></p><p>Ever since a million question marks have trampled on my head. I wonder if Mom and Santhanu were on the same page trying to say the same thing as Father did? What do you think Gabby? This poser goes far back into my childhood.</p><p>At an age when I kept moving the colourful beads on the abacus to count in multiples of five, I had an idea. Consequently, I was hard-pressed to crawl up the long-ribbed bench, the kind you find at a lawyer's office, and from there on to the table and a rack just to have a feel of father's wall-mounted Remington 700. Gabby, to this day, I don't know what it was that knocked me down and gave me a broken ankle. I can vouch for it that I was sure-footed to the nth degree. It was just like the time I nearly broke my skull trying to connect with Father through a series of questions I posed on a planchette. I was a tween then. In answer, down came the ceiling fan getting my head between the blades in its vice-like-grip. All this while my forefinger ran wildly back and forth over the letters on the board amounting to, "G-E-T-L-O-S-T." It was scary Gabby, to say the least. And there's more.</p><p>I was 22, and a medical salesman at the time. It was my first working lunch out of town. I remember that it was a no-nonsense place with six tables of four-seaters each and two more of two each. I took the two-seater nearest the kitchen, that way my food could land from the pan onto my plate, the instant it was ready. You know how finicky I'm about eating piping hot food. I chose kuri- mutton curry simply because the words kuri and mutton were synonymous unlike chicken-mutton and pork-mutton on the menu that left me muddleheaded. The mix-up of monikers made me wonder if my father had anything to do with it to drive me out of the place.</p><p>To amplify my predicament, to the extreme corner of the room ahead, on the other two-seater, was this man, a Commando. Gabby, believe it or not, like me he was dressed in a grey safari suit; like me, he had on one of those gold-rimmed dark glasses and like me, he also had a heavy ring on his right forefinger with nine gems encrusted in it: ruby, diamond, pearl, coral, emerald, turquoise, garnet, sapphire, and cats' eye.</p><p>He looked like a still from an action-packed movie. As a pillar of salt, so motionless, he sat. For reasons best known only to him and his ministering angel, he seemed to be staring at me and I stared back. I'm mindful Gabby of the fact that you don't quite approve of demeanour of the kind. But don't you forget that I'm the son of a sniper and Mom wanted me to always behave like one. Moving on with my dilemma, I saw that Commando take a sip of water from a dull ribbed glass. I did the same from mine except that mine was chipped at the rim. Subsequently, I saw him lost in thought and tapping the table pitter-patter with his pudgy bejewelled forefinger, the others stiffly resting on the tabletop. I followed suit. He didn't wince, and I chose to figure out what his problem was. My impulse having got the better of me, I turned around to check if, after all, he was ogling at the lady seated at the rearmost corner at the four-seater, on my end. To my bewilderment, in her place of minutes ago, I saw the doppelganger of my Commando, identical of built and semblance, and in a grey safari suit, too. I shook my head savagely to check if I was beginning to see things in doubles. The vision didn't fade. Fazed, I remembered Santhanu's “rat-a-tat-tat” and made sure that my handgun was in place buckled over my sock, just in case. Gabby, I want you to know that I did take my time to pore over the scene which seemed quirky at the time. What I can't get over is the way you subsequently admonished me on my recounting the entire escapade that transpired between the Commandos and me. You went near ballistic and said, <em>Gibs, why do you get into a predicament of this kind? Good Lord, don't you see that those were two of them on either side of the room, your Commando at the far end of the room, and his cookie-cutter copy with his squatters' right at your end? Isn't that what you figured out eventually?</em></p><p>In which case, I wish to ask you, what were they up to Gabby, what on earth? Oh, never<br>mind, you will never understand.</br></p><p>Gabby, the last thing I would do is to accuse you of aping me word for word. But you did just that, didn't you, except that your parroting was loaded with sarcasm and your lampooning was in poor taste? Each time I visit this little town, the recollection of your words and taunts leave me agitated. You mocked me by echoing my words, <em>Excuse me, may I share the table with you?</em></p><p>Besides turning red in the face, and reprimanding me for using frenzied vilifications, you persisted in having answers to your ceaseless inquiries,</p><p><em>Seriously, how could you have gone on and on with your tirade annoying that commando? If you please Gibs, whatever made you take a seat opposite him, at his table, hmm? I know that you will point a finger at your rat-a-tat-tat and say it had something to do with your father. I must admit that I was stupefied at the way you took on, your side of the Commando. Mind you Gibs, I will never forget, not in a thousand years, how the tables turned. The security cameras have captured footage of you bolting from the scene with your spindly legs, jumping over walls, gaining crosses, and streets. Gibs, in the first place, don't you realize that it was unwise of you to have needled those men the way you did?</em></p><p>How you rattled me with your countless jibes Gabby. Your ongoing rant and commentary on all that I said and did were exasperating, to say the least. I further remember your censuring me for creating that scene,</p><p><em>I saw it disengaging Gibs, I saw it disengaging from the way you were alleged to have cocked your head to taunt the Commando at your corner. I'm appalled at you for having laughed into his face with your characteristic mouth spray ridiculing his name, "Endin Mirkal Chandrababu, Rayalaseema," having read it from the polished brass clasp on his safari coat. "Some name that, Endin Mirkal," you repeated and laughed some more with your uvula dancing in public view, that's what you did Gibs just in case you have another version of your tomfooleries up your sleeve after all these months. To make matters worse, didn't you say that you went after him in the manner of an inquisition to ask, "Mirkal from Andhra, what brings you here to Hassan?"</em></p><p><em>"Not Mirkal, it is Endin Mirkal," the Commando corrected you Gibs in a measured tone and you didn't care. He didn't see the sharpshooter's DNA in you and didn't perceive the need to answer your every question either. Nettled by his defiance, you admitted to me that you screamed bloody murder with your sonorous voice. So much so, I could easily have heard it at the far end of this town with these, my ears, I would have Gibs, I certainly would have if I were around. Everyone about the no non-sense place heard it too, didn't you say?</em></p><p><em>With amplified rage, you thundered, "Jarkal Magane, bido bai, bogolo hesaru." (son of Jarkal, speak up, bark your name), and to my consternation, didn't you also say that three things happened to you that instant?</em></p><p>Gabby, I implore you to be pragmatic and consider the rationale for what happened then. I swear on a pile of Bibles that I'm not a fibber. I did in fact, see Father desperately making a sign to me with his left hand; I heard Santhanu and mother repeat the same thing parrot-fashion; and in the meantime, my target pulled himself up, full-size, flashing an official-looking card, SITA something with the Government of India lions staring me in the face(Suppression of Immoral Trafficking Act). That was it Gabby, that was it. I was out and over the wall before the twosome moved in my direction to get me. Why do you think I sprinted out of the place, the way I did?</p><p>Just a thing or two Gabby. I quite agree with you that a wedded couple ought not to keep secrets between them. Believe me Gabby, I'm serious about it too. But come on, don't push me to come clean before her. She'll then have evidence enough to lock me up for my Don Quixote act as you allege. In any case, she worries enough about having to share her bed with me after what happened.</p><p>Those many years ago, she was heavy with baby and me with the excitement of fatherhood. And the handgun rested under my bed unbeknownst to her. I remember you telling me off for imagining that I owned a Kalashnikov,</p><p><em>Gibs, there you go at it again, isn't it only a Swiss knife?</em></p><p>As I didn't like interruptions, I remember shutting you up with a shoos. Let me for once and for all bare my heart to you Gabby and be done with the ordeal. I recall the precise moment and why it happened. I saw Father's left-hand tracing signs in the air and all of my 6' 2" jumping out of bed with an urgency to decode what the old man was trying to say. But for some reason beyond me, there I was all set to stab a son, a son yet to be born, for attempting to appropriate my secret from my father. How could he? I tried to explain it away to my wife as a nightmare, fatherhood nerves, and call it what you may. She would have none of it. Besides, she won't let me forget how I stood over her with the Kalashni…. sorry, I mean the Swiss knife to thrust it into her womb. And she doesn't trust me with my son anymore.</p><p>Not after the way I snapped rowdy Sheena's backbone for abusing women, making him look like he has spina bifida. He collapsed like a pack of cards and his face resembled a blank canvas with not a tinge of the colour of libido left in him. I don't regret it Gabby; I don't want you to fear my potential, it is so unlike me unless, … How I wish I could convince you that I have tried, several times, to jump out of my skin to be rid of any trace of the sharpshooter's DNA and the Kalashnikov, I mean the Swi… if only for the comfort of my boy's nakedness and his warm dribble on my bare chest. Gabby, I want you to read on and you'll see that I tried. God as my witness, I did. I insist you read my letter to the last letter. My doctors will vouch for it. They were baffled by my prognosis. And they didn't see what I saw, a gradual mutation in my body. It was worse than a dog-eat-dog situation as my body had turned upon itself. At first, like Sheena of Shivamogga, my bolts and nuts came loose. I was more of a heap than a man. Next, the left side of me became so emaciated that I was no longer one whole, but two discordant halves pasted together. And the medical fraternity gave up on me.</p><p>Then came the unsolicited barber to attend to me. Strangely, when I looked at him, it felt like I was looking at Father's mirror image. You ought to have met him Gabby. Intriguing as he was, we shared the same birth date and year and more strangely, he had my father's initials¬¬¬¬-- G.D.A. marked on his card. He saw what the doctors didn't see. I told him that I had not willed the mutation and he said,</p><p><em>I know.</em></p><p>He looked at me long and hard, considerately, or not, I couldn't tell. At the end of it, he said, <em>Go home Gibs, feed your left and starve your right side till you find your balance.</em></p><p>That said, he left the scene in a hurry. I never met him again.</p><p>As for my Swiss knife, and by the way, there never was a Kalashnikov, to begin with, and my Father's Remington 700, I have flung them into the Triveni Sangam at Talakaveri. Let no man attempt to retrieve them.</p><p>There, I've come clean at last.</p><p>Ever grateful,<br>Gibs<br>Dated: 9.9.1999<br>P.S. I trust you enough Gabby to never let anyone be privy to my ordeal. I've earned the much sought-after reprieve from harrowing pursuits and rest assured that I'll no longer seek the company of my father.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[God in All of This]]></title><description><![CDATA[A long-dead moth, sunburned
to a brown wrapping paper facsimile
of Moth, depends upside down
by a back leg from a drop line
of spider silk between the kitchen
window and the screen. Desiccated,
not eviscerated, a spider toy,
a mobile. God’s playthings, too,
hang, turn, and dry out into death.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/god-in-all-of-this/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523166</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheryl Loeffler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:04:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1492515114975-b062d1a270ae?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNwaWRlcndlYnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MzAyNjk0MDg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1492515114975-b062d1a270ae?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNwaWRlcndlYnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MzAyNjk0MDg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="God in All of This"/><p>A long-dead moth, sunburned<br>to a brown wrapping paper facsimile<br>of Moth, depends upside down<br>by a back leg from a drop line<br>of spider silk between the kitchen<br>window and the screen. Desiccated,<br>not eviscerated, a spider toy,<br>a mobile. God’s playthings, too,<br>hang, turn, and dry out into death.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Last Night]]></title><description><![CDATA[This would be the end. Gutenberg thought this as he hunched over piles of flawed moveable type, trying to forget that this was his last night in the shop. There was much to do. His hands were still dirty from printing earlier in the day. The ink was tough to wash away. It always stuck to the worn folds of his hands. Fumes from molten lead stirred in the air as he poured the metal skillfully into the mold matrix. The metal warmed the dimly lit, sooty printshop nestled deep in the heart of Mainz. ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-last-night/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523174</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:03:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1461958508236-9a742665a0d5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHR5cGVzZXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjIzNTQ1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1461958508236-9a742665a0d5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHR5cGVzZXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjIzNTQ1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Last Night"/><p><em>This would be the end</em>. Gutenberg thought this as he hunched over piles of flawed moveable type, trying to forget that this was his last night in the shop. There was much to do. His hands were still dirty from printing earlier in the day. The ink was tough to wash away. It always stuck to the worn folds of his hands. Fumes from molten lead stirred in the air as he poured the metal skillfully into the mold matrix. The metal warmed the dimly lit, sooty printshop nestled deep in the heart of Mainz. Frost clung to the window, looking out onto the slow serpentine river Rhein, but he did not notice this. The undisturbed unrest of the printshop at night provided the closest thing to peace- uninterruption. As Gutenberg cracked the mold, he winced. Another familiar sear by another one of his creations. He licked his finger in the dark. The ink felt heavy and greasy on his tongue. He held this moment before realizing he was late. This life would all be taken away, and there was still much to do.</p><p>Gutenberg wrapped himself in his coat and scarf before he rushed out into the night. The winter air burned intensely in his lungs as his breath coiled in the unforgiving cold. His thoughts kept moving even in the idle space between moments – his mind was elsewhere as he walked to the tavern. His business partner, Johann Fust, would be the sole proprietor of the printshop in the morning. Fust had wanted to talk this evening. The tavern was just across from the city’s imposing cathedral. Gutenberg did not take notice of its sunbaked sandstone face that seemed to dream of springtime. At the tavern, he would discover if friendship still meant something to Fust. They had come a long way from since days in Strasbourg, a long way from crafting and selling mirrors to pilgrims and nobles obsessed with catching the light of God. Gutenberg hurried as his thoughts rushed with him. What can I possibly say to Fust? <em>Debt is debt, but what about friendship?</em> Fust was seated strategically at an unsteady table near the door. In front of him, two tankards gleaming full of Hefeweizen were waiting.</p><p>“Lost track of time again, eh, Johannes?” Fust called out from his chair facing the door. Gutenberg entered, his eyes adjusted slowly to the light. He joined Fust at the table. He hated how old he felt next to Fust, despite being close in age. Johann Fust wore a cocky smile slanted on his face like his unmistakable long brim hat and its signature stark white plume. Fust was a financier born into a family of noble burghers. He was charismatic and sharp - essential characteristics for a moneylender. His beard was the color of rich oak. Above it, his umber eyes glowed with the light of a man half his age. The joints between Fust’s fingers were fat, holding the family signet ring firmly in place. He knocked the ringed hand against the table like a heavy gavel, waiting for Gutenberg’s reply.</p><p>“Yes. I apologize. Just making sure the shop is in good shape before you stop by tomorrow.” said Gutenberg. He looked down, feeling the weight of gray in his beard. He slowly reached for the tankard.</p><p>“Your work ethic has never been in question, Johannes. The first set of bibles are some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen”, Fust said as he glanced at the tavern maid with a laugh, “and I am no stranger to beauty.”</p><p>Gutenberg now too looked up. The tavern maid was not young but not old either. She walked with a hurried grace, paying close attention to her patrons. Her straw blonde hair was carefully held in a braid by a red ribbon. She laughed and chatted with customers. It was a hearty deep laugh, impossible to fake. The loyal patrons smiled as she went by. Her presence was the only thing that could make up for the quality of drink. For a moment, he and Fust were utterly entranced by the flight of the red ribbon.</p><p>“Has she always worked here?” asked Gutenberg.</p><p>“Oh yes, my friend! You get lost in your own mind too often,” said Fust. “Listen, we must get those books out to the merchants that ordered them.”</p><p>“They are not ready yet for the illustrators. Tonight, I realized we could fit forty-two lines on the page and not just forty. That will save on paper and costs. If you could grant one more day, the process can be made more efficient. There are still many problems.”</p><p>Gutenberg had a strange way of talking. He seemed to always look right above you, like a priest calling for angels and blessings. But none would come. As he finished his beer, Fust half-listened to Gutenberg. He pounded his ring against the table again. Any trace of laughter had left Fust’s voice as he spoke,“ There are no more problems left for you to fix. You are the only problem that you must solve. That is why I called in your debt. That is why the court has ruled in my favor. That is why the shop will be mine in the morning. The books are ready, Johannes, let others appreciate your work and for God’s sake, let me make a profit.”</p><p>“With one more night, I can also make the ink darker; it will ... ’’</p><p>“Enough. You are tired, my friend. You have let the world pass you by - remember that young woman you promised to marry long ago, now who will have you? Obsession is a cruel mistress.” Fust said. “Now finish your drink so we can have another. Let us celebrate this new beginning for you.”</p><p>“She…she did not understand the work.” Gutenberg had forgotten her face and name. He had a bad memory for such things. The ink. The ink. The ink. The ink was not as dark as he wanted it. The color could not be allowed to fade, and the printed words must last.</p><p>Fust looked at Gutenberg’s searching eyes set deep in his gaunt face. Fust raised his hand into the air “Another round fair maid and add a big plate of the house special for my friend.”</p><p>“Please, I cannot afford such luxuries,” Gutenberg said, slumped in his chair.</p><p>“<em>Kien problem</em>, think of it as a gift, <em>Liebe</em> Johannes. You are in good hands.”</p><p>Gutenberg remembered the time when his father said those same words. In his youth, he was sent to study with monks. He had admired the Franciscans’ discipline and devotion. The monks were master calligraphers, and incredible detail always demanded a greater zeal for patience. One day, the abbot invited young Gutenberg to observe a manuscript being finished by an aged monk. Gutenberg watched as the swollen fingers of the monk grasped the quill. It glided between paper and inkwell, between prayer and meditation. Playful illustrations swirled with the permanence of words as if carved from the page itself. Now finished with its life’s work, the quill returned to the inkwell as the monk’s stone face cracked a smile at the young boy. The following day Gutenberg had many questions to ask the monk over their daily breakfast of watery oatmeal. However, the monk was nowhere to be found. Later that day, his brothers had found him resting without breathing. There was no more work to be done. Gutenberg would leave the monastery that same day.</p><p>“Johannes? Are you listening to me? It is polite to say thank you when someone else pays for your food,” said Fust.</p><p>“Yes. I apologize for being rude. Thank you. Now please, there are a few improvements that must be made before the final prints.”</p><p>Before Gutenberg could continue, a soft scent of lavender interrupted his speech, a red ribbon holding together a carefully woven braid flashed towards them.</p><p>“Herr Fust, Herr Gutenberg, your drinks and food gentlemen.” Her voice rang clearly as her golden eyes met Gutenberg. She set the plate between the men. The table wobbled slightly as she switched the empty tankards for full ones. <em>Lavender</em>, thought Gutenberg, like a lost meadow somewhere in the air he inhaled. He held his breath.</p><p>“Danke Schoen. I must say, what a lovely scent,” said Fust, straightening his back, “reminds one of a time outside this dismal winter.”</p><p>“Oh, thank you. It was a thoughtful gift from a longtime patron, a moneylender like yourself, Herr Fust,” she said.</p><p>“May I ask your name? “said Gutenberg. Fust looked at him with surprise.</p><p>“How inconsiderate of me to know your names and not give you mine, I am Sofia,” she said.<br>Gutenberg looked at her with silence. She looked back at him and him alone. His eyes admired the dark mole on her right cheek—the ideal hue of black. The room seemed brighter as he slowly exhaled the lavender from his lungs. He began to wonder how her hand would feel in his. Another patron called for a fresh drink before he could memorize the details of her face.</br></p><p>“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Sofia said, “always more work to do and not enough time to truly enjoy a conversation.”</p><p>A tactful moment passed before Fust exploded with laughter, “Gutenberg, you old fool, always getting lost in dreams. Fine, tell me about these improvements so I can consult the new lead printer. I believe you know Peter Schoffer. He is set to marry my daughter.”</p><p>“Oh? Peter, the goldsmith from my shop –”</p><p>“Schoffer works in my shop now, Gutenberg. He will manage my men in my shop, and every new book will have my name printed on the first pages. After all, everyone must know who makes the best books. Notoriety is key to effective distribution.”</p><p>“Yes, but these changes will make it easier for Peter to finish the final prints, easier for you to make your name.” Gutenberg paused.</p><p>Both men took a long drink from their tankards. The untouched food between them was growing cold. Gutenberg closed his eyes as he raised his head upward. He smiled.</p><p>“Spit it out, Gutenberg!” said Fust, slamming his empty tankard on the table.</p><p>“As I said before, the new type can print forty-two lines per page,” Gutenberg said, now looking directly at Fust, “the words will be tightly woven but still easy on the eye. I will set the type this evening so that Peter has a template. This new link will be darker so that it does not fade as quickly.”</p><p>“There is no need. The distribution is key, my name on my books.”</p><p>Gutenberg closed his eyes again and clenched his fists. He thought of the printshop. The worktable was sprinkled with brownish, yellowish lead dust. The feeling of the resistance as he pulled the lever of the press. He had borrowed the idea from winemakers to brace and fix the press between the floor and ceiling. This was crucial. The freshly dampened pages needed the most pressure for the ink to stick deeply. He could once again hear the paper separate from the inked type, the kiss of the press leaving obsidian marks. His eyes opened with a new glow.</p><p>“Our names are unimportant. The books must last.” exclaimed Gutenberg, “Either the printer or the illustrator will include dispersed red lettering.”</p><p>“Why red? Another new idea?”</p><p>“I have learned recently that a little color breaks the burdens of monotony. Promise me,” demanded Gutenberg.</p><p>“Promise what?”</p><p>“Promise me that you will use red,” said Gutenberg. Both men glared at each other. Fust had never heard Gutenberg demand anything. He noticed that Gutenberg’s dirty hands were still clenched.</p><p>Fust hesitated before he spoke. “As a last favor to you, it will be done. But tell me, why did you never put your name on the printed books?”</p><p>“Beauty needs no master,” replied Gutenberg.</p><p>He stood up to finish his Hefeweizen before setting the empty tankard on the table. Gutenberg thanked Fust for the drink and the uneaten meal. He left the tavern without turning around. Lavender flowed in the air behind him as he went out again into the Mainz winter. The cold night around him did not seem to bite as fiercely. The river Mainz was just as unhurried as the man. He lingered just a moment as he walked past the cathedral.</p><p>Gutenberg returned to his printshop. This was the last night that it would be his. This was the end. Unlike the monk from his youth, Gutenberg would never see his project completed. The bibles were now Fust’s property, as was everything in the printshop. But Gutenberg did not think about this as he prepared the new typeset. He did not notice the ink stains or the deep dry cracks in his hands. He did not feel envy. He did not notice his tired back. As Gutenberg hunched over the table spelling out the first lines of Genesis by moonlight, he thought only about a red ribbon, about a gentle braid, about a lost meadow of lavender ... <em>“In the beginning….”</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Caesural Leaps – Elegy for ‘Mad Mac’ MacDonald]]></title><description><![CDATA[My 23rd Birthday was at your mom’s. Dry
Aviation Gin in Solo cups. Nick filched
Rum from his own mussied mom. Rich beamed at
Keeping tally on our drinks, sans vermouth. Ice-
Thinned American gin. Eyes in his cup, Nick flounced
Irked apology: He’d screwed off your 12th Grade,
Made tally on our dreamt-up sins from youth, his
One year’s loss souring the few to follow
That man. your “sorries” screwed loose his 12th Grade
Ho-Hum. Mine had barely begun that poetic
Year One; losing soured the few who]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/caesural-leaps-elegy-for-mad-mac-macdonald/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523165</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:03:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/08/images.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/08/images.jpg" alt="Caesural Leaps – Elegy for ‘Mad Mac’ MacDonald"/><p>My 23rd Birthday was at your mom’s. Dry<br>Aviation Gin in Solo cups. Nick filched<br>Rum from his own mussied mom. Rich beamed at<br>Keeping tally on our drinks, sans vermouth. Ice-</br></br></br></p><p>Thinned American gin. Eyes in his cup, Nick flounced<br>Irked apology: He’d screwed off your 12th Grade,<br>Made tally on our dreamt-up sins from youth, his<br>One year’s loss souring the few to follow</br></br></br></p><p>That man. your “sorries” screwed loose his 12th Grade<br>Ho-Hum. Mine had barely begun that poetic<br>Year One; losing soured the few who’d follow<br>My heartache—which in truth blent more heartburnt</br></br></br></p><p>Acid “Reflects”: caesural leaps at the poetic<br>Cliffside audience of One (or nobody) who’d<br>Done in each witchy truth, bland, the heartburn to<br>Our hoosier martinis. My darling hopes</br></br></br></p><p>No side audience praised nor warm body<br>As ad nauseam as need be. Your age beamed at<br>Losing lunch of martinis. Maundering home<br>Dried my guts and tears that 23rd Birthday at your mom’s.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets - December - “Ray of Morning Hope”]]></title><description><![CDATA[Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selecte]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-december-ray-of-morning-hope/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523178</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:03:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/Dec--Ray-of-Morning-Hope--.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/Dec--Ray-of-Morning-Hope--.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets - December - “Ray of Morning Hope”"/><p>Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Where Monsters Wait]]></title><description><![CDATA[How deep was once the ocean?
How perilous was once the sea?
Unknown dangers graved the monstrous depth.
From crow’s nests mates
watched leviathans breech
and deadly doldrums lie in wait,
to snare mariners, take them hostage
and bind them with skeins of fate.
Explorers lost even as keels ground
on an uncharted, unknown reef.
My analyst could not comprehend;
the pain of dreams and memories,
my inward journey.
Perhaps PTSD did not exist
in his diagnostic manual.
Sadly, his father had died when
he ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/where-monsters-wait/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523167</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kenneth Weene]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:02:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566635134193-84fc5decd283?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fG1vbnN0ZXJzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDI2OTcwMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566635134193-84fc5decd283?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fG1vbnN0ZXJzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDI2OTcwMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Where Monsters Wait"/><p>How deep was once the ocean?<br>How perilous was once the sea?<br>Unknown dangers graved the monstrous depth.<br>From crow’s nests mates<br>watched leviathans breech<br>and deadly doldrums lie in wait,<br>to snare mariners, take them hostage<br>and bind them with skeins of fate.<br>Explorers lost even as keels ground<br>on an uncharted, unknown reef.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>My analyst could not comprehend;<br>the pain of dreams and memories,<br>my inward journey.<br>Perhaps PTSD did not exist<br>in his diagnostic manual.<br>Sadly, his father had died when<br>he was a boy. Still mourning,<br>how could he understand?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>All that now gone as satellites observe<br>the billions’ progressing on road, and sea,<br>and high above. No mysteries left,<br>none unexplored. Only the heavens wait.<br>We will reach them yet, in ships<br>powered by a different wind.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Now, my father is also dead.<br>Sitting shiva, I said my lies<br>and grieved in make-believes.<br>Nobody wanted to hear the truth.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Lover]]></title><description><![CDATA[I have cringed at your deformed nose,
And flinched from your bulging eyes,
I did wince from your disfigured smile,
And quivered from your eerie voice.
Yet I sought comfort in that twisted nose,
And found life from the piercing eyes,
I’ve drawn hope from the crooked smile,
And held desire in that hellish voice.
The world taunts me for loving you,
For you are the most beautiful woman to me.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-lover/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523168</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Fred Yu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:02:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515890435782-59a5bb6ec191?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI5fHxsb3ZlfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDI2OTk1OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515890435782-59a5bb6ec191?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI5fHxsb3ZlfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDI2OTk1OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Lover"/><p>I have cringed at your deformed nose,<br>And flinched from your bulging eyes,<br>I did wince from your disfigured smile,<br>And quivered from your eerie voice.</br></br></br></p><p>Yet I sought comfort in that twisted nose,<br>And found life from the piercing eyes,<br>I’ve drawn hope from the crooked smile,<br>And held desire in that hellish voice.</br></br></br></p><p>The world taunts me for loving you,<br>For you are the most beautiful woman to me.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Have]]></title><description><![CDATA[Have you ever ate a sundae in a blinding storm of snow
Or looked down on a rainy day on Paris far below?
Have you ever had an angry dad, an alcohol psychotic?
Or lost a love precipitous, your mind intense, chaotic?
Have you ever flown an aeroplane askew the far horizon,
Or watched your little puppy die? A driver I’m still despising.
Have you ever bought a brand new car
And missed a curve thereafter?
Or backed into a bush one day?
Too bad, no more reflector.
Don’t miss the point, my life’s been g]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-have/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230df</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:02:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486016006115-74a41448aea2?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486016006115-74a41448aea2?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="I Have"/><p>Have you ever ate a sundae in a blinding storm of snow<br>Or looked down on a rainy day on Paris far below?<br>Have you ever had an angry dad, an alcohol psychotic?<br>Or lost a love precipitous, your mind intense, chaotic?<br>Have you ever flown an aeroplane askew the far horizon,<br>Or watched your little puppy die? A driver I’m still despising.<br>Have you ever bought a brand new car<br>And missed a curve thereafter?<br>Or backed into a bush one day?<br>Too bad, no more reflector.<br>Don’t miss the point, my life’s been good,<br>Though rejections have been plentiful.<br>But, poems seem to work real well.<br>You’re reading this quite metrical.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Before You Are Gone]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sirens sing in the background, but they feel as if they're next to me
The breeze is lovely, and the sunshine is crisp
This new day has begun with a softness like a pillow or a slipper
I feel love surround me
I feel a tickle on my nose
My neck is loosening
My mind is still unsure of the direction
Missing you remains at the forefront
I think when you leave your body, we'll be closer than ever
The shadows on the porch and the surroundings are full of memories
Lunches and dinners with the kids
Unlim]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/before-you-are-gone/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523169</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alison Schuh Hawsey]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:02:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1594035519981-62c9cef33ca9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGJ1YmJsZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjE4NjY1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1594035519981-62c9cef33ca9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGJ1YmJsZXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjE4NjY1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Before You Are Gone"/><p>Sirens sing in the background, but they feel as if they're next to me<br>The breeze is lovely, and the sunshine is crisp<br>This new day has begun with a softness like a pillow or a slipper<br>I feel love surround me<br>I feel a tickle on my nose<br>My neck is loosening<br>My mind is still unsure of the direction<br>Missing you remains at the forefront<br>I think when you leave your body, we'll be closer than ever<br>The shadows on the porch and the surroundings are full of memories<br>Lunches and dinners with the kids<br>Unlimited bubbles and long talks<br>Our mini book club<br>Hiding spot with Hersey Kisses<br>And the always full cookie jar<br>The brownies from the special pan<br>And the shelf of favorite snacks for the kids<br>Candyland and marbles<br>Songs from the piano<br>The creak of the screen door and the squeak of the hallway floor<br>Your special chair and naps<br>Angels in every room<br>A memory shared about each piece of glass<br>Afternoons to the antique shops and lunch at Cribs<br>Terrified of your driving<br>Your wrinkled hands sending loving notes and a treat to the kids<br>Your compassion for each person to be who they are and your smile that says I love you<br>Your waddling walk and your droopy eyelids<br>Outings to the Hallmark store and your love for wrapping each gift<br>Your feet hurt, sleepless nights, and coughing.<br>Enjoyment of detective shows and the cooking channels<br>Lunches at Lizards<br>Sleepovers with grandkids and stories about spitballs on the ceiling<br>A green thumb and never dying ferns<br>Coloring books<br>IHOP breakfast<br>Wind chimes, butterflies, and bird feeders<br>Unlimited advice<br>Kindness to foes<br>Volunteering and Senior Adult Newsletter<br>Sunday school and Christmas lunch for the ladies<br>Friday night dinner with friends<br>And never-ending love</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>As the wind swishes<br>The memories touch my thoughts<br>Tears cool my eyes<br>My cheeks feel each moment<br>These memories will forever live as long as the sun rises and sets</br></br></br></br></p><p>So many tears will be shared<br>Each filled with love for a woman who shared endlessly with all.</br></p><p><em>The author would like to dedicate this to her mother-in-law Betty Hawsey and her sister-in-law Laura Hawsey, a nurse who was able to be with Betty at the end. The poem is also dedicated to all healthcare employees, firefighters, police officers, and everyone in-between who continue to take care of all our loved ones that were unable to be with her at the end.</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Crowd]]></title><description><![CDATA[I own the grace of Attention
I speak and everyone listens
They absorb my speech as if I were the Pope, the Führer, the prophet of end of the times
“Oh, Bravo!” They acclaim while their ears cry
Their life now have changed
I know how to be heard
Listened by fervently crowds
Graciously fervent crowds
“And what is all that for?” I, then, ask
If still there’s just few people who really listen to their own selves?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-crowd/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852316a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Pedro Henrique da Silva Lino]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:02:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1435686858161-59da32dfd4b4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGNyb3dkfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYxOTA5MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1435686858161-59da32dfd4b4?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fGNyb3dkfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYxOTA5MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Crowd"/><p>I own the grace of Attention<br>I speak and everyone listens<br>They absorb my speech as if I were the Pope, the Führer, the prophet of end of the times</br></br></p><p>“Oh, Bravo!” They acclaim while their ears cry<br>Their life now have changed</br></p><p>I know how to be heard<br>Listened by fervently crowds</br></p><p>Graciously fervent crowds</p><p>“And what is all that for?” I, then, ask</p><p>If still there’s just few people who really listen to their own selves?</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Every dark day brings the promise of a bright day with it.]]></title><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/every-dark-day-brings-the-promise-of-a-bright-day-with-it/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852317e</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anchal Singh ]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:01:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/A.-Singh---Every-dark-day.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded/></item><item><title><![CDATA[The World of Incident]]></title><description><![CDATA[Wonder came back
loaf of bread a covenant
the red ink dots
their own understood
The world of incident
intersectional bird wing
the backward
landing
homemakers of the western world
to whom do we sing
what gesture
pushes through
the grid of your god
hand bag universe held
in the slip of your wrist]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-world-of-incident/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852316b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Patsy Creedy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:01:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1589569444360-61ed59c6e2be?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxicmVhZHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MzA2MTkzMTM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1589569444360-61ed59c6e2be?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxicmVhZHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MzA2MTkzMTM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The World of Incident"/><p>Wonder came back<br>loaf of bread a covenant<br>the red ink dots<br>their own understood</br></br></br></p><p>The world of incident<br>intersectional bird wing<br>the backward<br>landing</br></br></br></p><p>homemakers of the western world<br>to whom do we sing<br>what gesture<br>pushes through<br>the grid of your god<br>hand bag universe held<br>in the slip of your wrist</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[An American Christmas Story, 1991]]></title><description><![CDATA[I was twenty-one, at university for the first time, and had my first golden credit card: $500.00 limit.
Winter was on its way in the Northeast and having just moved from Arizona, the warmest coat I owned was an unlined, denim Lee jacket.
In November, I drove my unheated ’80 Malibu to Wilson’s in the local mall and charged a roomy black leather coat for my 22nd birthday. My first major purchase, ever.
I proudly wore that coat back to my dormitory, feeling richly embellished and deserving of go]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/an-american-christmas-story-1991/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523172</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Deirdre Fagan]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:01:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1576181177940-cb8592693079?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI1fHxvcmFuZ2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjIyNjA2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1576181177940-cb8592693079?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI1fHxvcmFuZ2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjIyNjA2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="An American Christmas Story, 1991"/><p>I was twenty-one, at university for the first time, and had my first golden credit card: $500.00 limit.</p><p>Winter was on its way in the Northeast and having just moved from Arizona, the warmest coat I owned was an unlined, denim Lee jacket.</p><p>In November, I drove my unheated ’80 Malibu to Wilson’s in the local mall and charged a roomy black leather coat for my 22nd birthday. My first major purchase, ever.</p><p>I proudly wore that coat back to my dormitory, feeling richly embellished and deserving of good.</p><p>In December, I flew home to my mother’s trailer in the Southwest sporting my new mind and coat.</p><p>A few days before Christmas, my mother’s sister, a farmer’s wife, had gifted a crate of oranges to my mother via the postal service. The relationship between the sisters was close but occasionally strained, as sibling relationships tend to be. They had been raised in the same foster home and had both married “well,” as they say, but my mother’s marriage ended in divorce long before her sister’s would, and so such gifting was something my mother appeared to both appreciate and reluctantly accept.</p><p>On Christmas Eve, my mother loaded all but a handful of the oranges she had received, along with some other homemade items, into her ’76 Skylark and asked me to join her while we delivered these items to local, unknown to me, acquaintances.</p><p>We stopped at the gas station where my mother pumped in a mere $3.50 worth of gas.</p><p>We stopped at what appeared to be a one-room apartment in a strip of about ten such apartments. I stayed in the car while a young boy, about eight, brought the gifts from my mother inside.</p><p>We stopped at a trailer in a different park from our own and an older man also took gifts from my mother inside.</p><p>We then stopped at a small leaning house and this time my mother asked me to help her carry in the gifts; she wanted to visit.</p><p>We were greeted by a young child, about four, and three women ranging in age from their mid-twenties to mid-thirties. A tall, slim teenager, with some beckoning, soon emerged in the living and kitchen area from one of the two bedrooms and was introduced. She eyed me suspiciously from beneath her dark bangs as my mother explained I was visiting from “college in New York.”</p><p>Standing in that darkened, bare apartment, I bristled at the phrase.</p><p>The teenager peered at my $200.00 jacket, its weight now hanging heavily upon me. My head lowered. My stomach receded. Soon, the teenager did, too.</p><p>We sat at a wobbly table in the kitchen where a single, large pot was steaming on the stove: Christmas Eve supper, I learned. Three families lived in this two-bedroom rental—three women, and several more children. They shared resources.</p><p>The young girl approached my mother, reached for an orange, and held it up to her. The girl then put her teeth to its rind, attempting to pierce the rough peel, but quickly recoiled from its bitterness. The girl’s mother said, “Not until after supper,” as she rose to stir whatever was in the pot.</p><p>As my mother and I turned to leave, I eagerly inched closer to the door. Turning my head to gesture goodbye, I saw the four-year-old look up at my mother again, and hold the orange up to her once more: “What is this?” she asked.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Once Upon a Time …]]></title><description><![CDATA[Once upon a time there was this little guy
Who indeed didn’t believe in Love
Who indeed didn’t believe in Happiness
Yet he would still see, in his horizon, in his pathway
In some place somewhere
Maybe in a far-far-away-kingdom
A happily forever after
And his mind was like a purgatory
Made of souls that would insist
To go all way to hell
Because he’d feel nothing
But pain
Because he’d hear nothing
But agony
His soul’s had been drained by the darkness
And now it shines
All of his nightmares
Onc]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/once-upon-a-time/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852316d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Pedro Henrique da Silva Lino]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:01:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1455390582262-044cdead277a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHdyaXRpbmd8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjIwMTU5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1455390582262-044cdead277a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHdyaXRpbmd8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjIwMTU5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Once Upon a Time …"/><p>Once upon a time there was this little guy<br>Who indeed didn’t believe in Love<br>Who indeed didn’t believe in Happiness<br>Yet he would still see, in his horizon, in his pathway<br>In some place somewhere<br>Maybe in a far-far-away-kingdom<br>A happily forever after</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>And his mind was like a purgatory<br>Made of souls that would insist<br>To go all way to hell</br></br></p><p>Because he’d feel nothing<br>But pain<br>Because he’d hear nothing<br>But agony<br>His soul’s had been drained by the darkness<br>And now it shines<br>All of his nightmares</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Once upon a time there was this little guy<br>Who indeed had a belief</br></p><p>Maybe it all just is an illusion<br>He said<br>This painful search for meanings<br>This little guy wants more!<br>Maybe a lifetime love, full of ink, full of paper<br>Full of suffering</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Wien, the Imperial City of Music]]></title><description><![CDATA[In a very fine year
my musical studies
required me a great city,
opaque to our world,
but vibrantly ornate
like the archetype of its land,
the beautiful Edelweiss.
This town, this Wien, is
so old and other-worldly wonderful that
enchanting, ubiquitous and outré
are throwaway words.
This is where immortals,
Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Strauss
adorned it with ethereal melodies
just for us the citizens of the world.
Come with me now to the Schoenbrunn
Palace and to the Orangery where
the Blue D]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/wien-the-imperial-city-of-music/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230de</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:01:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1576579433817-c82c556c83c1?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1576579433817-c82c556c83c1?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Wien, the Imperial City of Music"/><p>In a very fine year<br>my musical studies<br>required me a great city,<br>opaque to our world,<br>but vibrantly ornate<br>like the archetype of its land,<br>the beautiful Edelweiss.<br>This town, this Wien, is<br>so old and other-worldly wonderful that<br>enchanting, ubiquitous and outré<br>are throwaway words.<br>This is where immortals,<br>Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Strauss<br>adorned it with ethereal melodies<br>just for us the citizens of the world.<br>Come with me now to the Schoenbrunn<br>Palace and to the Orangery where<br>the Blue Danube was played,<br>where Franz Josef and Sisi reigned<br>without question.<br>For this is the land of the Sound of Music,<br>the Austria of history,<br>of concerts and the movies.<br>As I walk, I hear the sound of a golden flute, wafting between the buildings,<br>sounds eminently noble, illustrious,<br>and distinguished,<br>where a Snow White ballet<br>can be heard from spaces<br>I know not where.<br>It was as if musicians had premeditated my arrival and were playing songs of such an exquisite musical era<br>that could almost supplant a pulsing heartbeat.<br>I will return soon on a monthly date,<br>an eternal wait.<br>For Vienna, is a museum in the open air,<br>the cultural capital of our existence.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Of Hilltops and Valleys]]></title><description><![CDATA[I wish for a spring of cool mountain air
To lift my hair like a maenad’s
To make my fingertips cool and fresh
To drizzle my face with mist
I wish for the breeze to blow through the strands
And tingle my skin
With tenderness kissed
I wish for the dew
With the wind on its back
To spritz my soul... my self... me
To wash off the tarnish of worry and strife
To renew… to refresh my life
I wish for the misty cool mountains
To gaze over hills and plains
To watch clouds unfurl
Sailing through sky
Care]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/of-hilltops-and-valleys/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523173</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Deepa Davy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:00:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1591646878820-6648a10f44b7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxmbG93ZXJzJTIwZmllbGR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjIzMjAx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1591646878820-6648a10f44b7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxmbG93ZXJzJTIwZmllbGR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjMwNjIzMjAx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Of Hilltops and Valleys"/><p>I wish for a spring of cool mountain air<br>To lift my hair like a maenad’s<br>To make my fingertips cool and fresh<br>To drizzle my face with mist</br></br></br></p><p>I wish for the breeze to blow through the strands<br>And tingle my skin<br>With tenderness kissed</br></br></p><p>I wish for the dew<br>With the wind on its back<br>To spritz my soul... my self... me<br>To wash off the tarnish of worry and strife<br>To renew… to refresh my life</br></br></br></br></p><p>I wish for the misty cool mountains<br>To gaze over hills and plains<br>To watch clouds unfurl<br>Sailing through sky<br>Caressing tree tops<br>Swirling and twirling<br>Through flower strewn paths</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I wish for the ethereal enchantment<br>Of firefly nights and valleys<br>Moon beams<br>Charmed by velvet sky<br>Lingering<br>Heart on the sleeve</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Echoed Church Bells]]></title><description><![CDATA[Echoed church bell chimes
Urban violence stirs dust
Bang bang bullets hit
Bang bang bullets warn
Womp womp whirly birds circle
When you know the whole
Justice will come forth
It becomes clear why such force
Echoed church bell chimes]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/echoed-church-bells/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852316e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:00:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1562879541-4ed993547582?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGNodXJjaCUyMGJlbGxzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYyMTAwOQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1562879541-4ed993547582?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGNodXJjaCUyMGJlbGxzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYyMTAwOQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Echoed Church Bells"/><p>Echoed church bell chimes<br>Urban violence stirs dust<br>Bang bang bullets hit<br>Bang bang bullets warn<br>Womp womp whirly birds circle<br>When you know the whole<br>Justice will come forth<br>It becomes clear why such force<br>Echoed church bell chimes</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Morals About Marilyn]]></title><description><![CDATA[It wasn’t the unwitting look I took
of Marilyn Monroe’s decapitated cadaver
Her fur coat draped over the welcome mat
in one conclusive squirrel caper
that kept me from sleep that night
Nor was it her detached eye
Trusting in its everyday gaze
while eating walnuts I tendered
Now cast in an ogle of eternal accusation
Unnoticed by my cat cleaning her paws nearby
But accepted by me in split-second accountability
Before I scraped the carcass with closed eyes
and disposable gloves into the garbage
T]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/morals-about-marilyn/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852316c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ellaraine Lockie]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:00:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504006833117-8886a355efbf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNxdWlycmVsfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYxOTkxMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504006833117-8886a355efbf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fHNxdWlycmVsfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYxOTkxMA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Morals About Marilyn"/><p>It wasn’t the unwitting look I took<br>of Marilyn Monroe’s decapitated cadaver<br>Her fur coat draped over the welcome mat<br>in one conclusive squirrel caper<br>that kept me from sleep that night</br></br></br></br></p><p>Nor was it her detached eye<br>Trusting in its everyday gaze<br>while eating walnuts I tendered<br>Now cast in an ogle of eternal accusation<br>Unnoticed by my cat cleaning her paws nearby<br>But accepted by me in split-second accountability</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Before I scraped the carcass with closed eyes<br>and disposable gloves into the garbage<br>To enforce final rites<br>onto the city sanitation office<br>Reckoning the plastic body bag<br>showed enough respect for a squirrel</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>It was that last line of reasoning<br>that wouldn’t rationalize into repose<br>As it scampered across the bedroom<br>Incarnate in a furry little phantom<br>performing comedic acrobatics<br>That summoned me outside at midnight</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>into Marilyn’s make-do coffin<br>Where I laid her body on a linen napkin<br>Stroked the white buxom chest with bare hands<br>And embalmed her with saline solution<br>for a flashlight-lit funeral</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cold and Wet]]></title><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/cold-and-wet/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852317b</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Fred Yu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 06:00:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/F.-Yu---Cold-and-Wet.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded/></item><item><title><![CDATA[Three Star Poems]]></title><description><![CDATA[I.
Something sideways draws over,
Insomniacal, fontanelic brush
From top of head to balls of feet.
The stars are playing on me,
Dragging awake this trundle of molted skins
With all the reticence of a poem.
What gives?
This chariot has no reins!
Wearily I drive; The course, a playing on a comb.
Take it all!
Break it all down.
I can live on a song in Vietnam.
It was always there,
In the cut grass, with friends.
Read great minds, consult the seers—
I will look to the stars
Who made me by this]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/three-star-poems/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852316f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Darren Chase]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 05:58:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514576581671-7a4197657c25?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU3fHxzdGFyfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYyMTc0Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514576581671-7a4197657c25?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU3fHxzdGFyfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYyMTc0Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Three Star Poems"/><p>I.</p><p>Something sideways draws over,<br>Insomniacal, fontanelic brush<br>From top of head to balls of feet.</br></br></p><p>The stars are playing on me,<br>Dragging awake this trundle of molted skins<br>With all the reticence of a poem.</br></br></p><p>What gives?<br>This chariot has no reins!<br>Wearily I drive; The course, a playing on a comb.</br></br></p><p>Take it all!<br>Break it all down.<br>I can live on a song in Vietnam.</br></br></p><p>It was always there,<br>In the cut grass, with friends.</br></p><p>Read great minds, consult the seers—<br>I will look to the stars<br>Who made me by this suicide:</br></br></p><p>The children go to the pool when it is hot,<br>Bedbugs follow your hearts beating,<br>Stars and heavenly gasses play over us.</br></br></p><p>The stars know there is no time.<br>They wait for all, until they're called,<br>And even after, for a while.</br></br></p><p>II.</p><p>I am dead inside<br>and full of stars,<br>an hourglass of stars.</br></br></p><p>To understand<br>you’d have to give up<br>everything you know about stars.</br></br></p><p>Go out into the field,<br>Gather aluminum and copper,<br>Garner praise for little things.<br>Every next thing is in the sigh of the last.</br></br></br></p><p>Monsters rush in, points on you,<br>electric-tender lightings-up.<br>Do not repel these exchanges.</br></br></p><p>They are your constellation.</p><p>III.</p><p>There are angel stars up there<br>who bid us assume these surly masks and serve.</br></p><p>I thought angels were beatific things,<br>willing in their appointments.<br>Now I see why they are always So.Pissed.Off.</br></br></p><p>They’re just doing the business<br>of some further star’s dusty husk:<br>They go where they’re told and bear it.</br></br></p><p>The angels we are becoming<br>will be no less ornery than we are now.<br>Having suffered The Four Seasons of Hell,<br>they will understand and suck it up gladly.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Godless Anger]]></title><description><![CDATA[Godless anger
Shapeless shape
I’ve got these explosions
Going on in my head
What are you building
With your spiritual tendencies
Word thief mystic
Universal Rembrandt
Routine is the mantra
Of wanting
We are a solar system
Tiny planetary universes
Following the rules
A heresy
The fire cooks
its sages
In a three legged pot
You got to get in
the cauldron
is important
old man’s head on Zoom
looks like an infant
mind like a mirror
come back to zero
and the opening of the sea]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/godless-anger/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523170</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Patsy Creedy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 05:58:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1561987422-acf9a8220d14?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI5fHxleHBsb2RlfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYyMTk3OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1561987422-acf9a8220d14?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI5fHxleHBsb2RlfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYyMTk3OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Godless Anger"/><p>Godless anger<br>Shapeless shape</br></p><p>I’ve got these explosions<br>Going on in my head</br></p><p>What are you building<br>With your spiritual tendencies</br></p><p>Word thief mystic<br>Universal Rembrandt</br></p><p>Routine is the mantra<br>Of wanting</br></p><p>We are a solar system<br>Tiny planetary universes</br></p><p>Following the rules<br>A heresy</br></p><p>The fire cooks<br>its sages</br></p><p>In a three legged pot<br>You got to get in</br></p><p>the cauldron<br>is important</br></p><p>old man’s head on Zoom<br>looks like an infant</br></p><p>mind like a mirror<br>come back to zero</br></p><p>and the opening of the sea</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Who Will Cry?]]></title><description><![CDATA[When someone leaves us
Their part in our life
Leaves with them.
It feels like nothing is
Left in our life
Everything is over.
Days and years pass by
Thinking about them
We have nothing
But regret and tears.
We wish we could have appreciated them
Realized their importance
In our lives.
Said the things we always wanted
To say.
With tears in our eyes
We think they never left us
It was just an illusion
Nothing else.
We know that nothing is permanent
Whether it's pain or happiness]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/who-will-cry/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523171</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anchal Singh ]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 05:58:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1471520201477-47a62a269a87?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHRlYXJzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYyMjI5OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1471520201477-47a62a269a87?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHRlYXJzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzMDYyMjI5OA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Who Will Cry?"/><p>When someone leaves us</p><p>Their part in our life</p><p>Leaves with them.</p><p>It feels like nothing is</p><p>Left in our life</p><p>Everything is over.</p><p>Days and years pass by</p><p>Thinking about them</p><p>We have nothing</p><p>But regret and tears.</p><p>We wish we could have appreciated them</p><p>Realized their importance</p><p>In our lives.</p><p>Said the things we always wanted</p><p>To say.</p><p>With tears in our eyes</p><p>We think they never left us</p><p>It was just an illusion</p><p>Nothing else.</p><p>We know that nothing is permanent</p><p>Whether it's pain or happiness</p><p>Still when someone leaves</p><p>Their part in our life</p><p>Leaves with them.</p><p>The emptiness and regret</p><p>Always remains with us.</p><p>Who knew</p><p>It was last good bye?</p><p>But maybe that's life.</p><p>If there's life</p><p>There must be death.</p><p>And in that process life</p><p>Never waits for anyone.</p><p>People move on</p><p>Life goes on</p><p>Nothing remains in the same.</p><p>But in that same process</p><p>We realize a better truth</p><p>The day you leave people</p><p>Is the day</p><p>They start giving value to you</p><p>And your words.</p><p>The day you leave people</p><p>Is the day</p><p>They will realize you.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Letter from the Previous Editor]]></title><description><![CDATA[Did you catch that? Previous. Yes, my wife, Sandra, and I are stepping down from our roles as Art editor and Acquisitions editor of one of the best literary magazines currently online, eMerge. Can you tell that I am extremely proud of what we have been able to accomplish? The last five years have been remarkably rewarding for my family, Cat, Sandra, and me. Cat will stay on as the Coding Guru for eMerge as we welcome the Colony’s newest member and current editor of eMerge, Joy Clark on board. It]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/letter-from-the-previous-editor/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852317f</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 04:36:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/badnews-Cropped-with-text.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/badnews-Cropped-with-text.jpg" alt="Letter from the Previous Editor"/><p>Did you catch that? Previous. Yes, my wife, Sandra, and I are stepping down from our roles as Art editor and Acquisitions editor of one of the best literary magazines currently online, <em>eMerge</em>. Can you tell that I am extremely proud of what we have been able to accomplish? The last five years have been remarkably rewarding for my family, Cat, Sandra, and me. Cat will stay on as the Coding Guru for eMerge as we welcome the Colony’s newest member and current editor of eMerge, Joy Clark on board. It has been both a pleasure and honor for us to be able to encourage and nurture the writers and supporters of the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow by providing a platform where their voices can be heard, and their humanity shared.</p><p>We will provide Joy with our unwavering support in her new role at the Colony and we wish her only the best as she grows and enhances eMerge. It is our sincere desire that you welcome her to our family of creative writers and insightful readers. Thank you for sharing a small piece of your humanity with us over the past few years. You have truly been a blessing to us. So, keep in touch and keep writing. And if you need a place to write ... I know of a wonderful little Colony in the Ozarks!</p><p>As the Sun sets in the West,<br>I Remain,<br>Just another old cattle rustling Zororastafarian trying to figure out why he is getting older and wider instead of older and wiser ...</br></br></p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Letter from the Incoming Editor]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Friends of eMerge,
Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Joy Clark and I am the incoming editor for eMerge, as well as the new Marketing Specialist for The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow. The literary community in Northwest Arkansas transformed me when I moved here back in 2016. Through attending literary readings, workshops, and panels in this area, I experienced a rich diversity of creative voices that created a new depth to the world when shared alongside one another. Immediately I ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/letter-from-the-previous-editor-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523180</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joy Clark]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2021 04:35:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/joy-clark.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/10/joy-clark.jpg" alt="Letter from the Incoming Editor"/><p>Dear Friends of eMerge,</p><p>Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Joy Clark and I am the incoming editor for <em>eMerge</em>, as well as the new Marketing Specialist for The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow. The literary community in Northwest Arkansas transformed me when I moved here back in 2016. Through attending literary readings, workshops, and panels in this area, I experienced a rich diversity of creative voices that created a new depth to the world when shared alongside one another. Immediately I knew that I wanted to be a part of this community. For three years I served as Fiction Editor for <em>The Arkansas International</em>, as well as reading submissions for <em>Gingerbread House Literary Magazine</em>. In learning to read closely and edit with care, my world opened up, and my understanding of the similarities and differences among communities, environments, and experiences deepened in resonant, meaningful ways.</p><p>So it is my great honor to now get to work among this community, which Charles has nurtured so incredibly in the past five years. I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue supporting the creation of eMerge, and to boost your voices, narratives, and perspectives. I hope I have many opportunities in the months ahead to talk with you all and to read your unique, compelling work.</p><p>Charles and Sandra have continued to offer their guidance and support as we make this transition. I am grateful for their presence and patience in helping me find my bearings, and I am grateful for the warm welcome I’ve already received from the Writers’ Colony team, and the contributors I’ve been in contact with. I hope together we continue to witness eMerge grow and blossom into something that holds meaning for us all.</p><p>All the best,<br>Joy Clark</br></p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[After School]]></title><description><![CDATA[I look under bridges, rocks,
in culverts and stumps
for people I can teach.
Like Celeste, who hid under the street
to learn long division,
with me and my books I did not appreciate
because I got them free from the rest of you,
free from her alcoholic mother,
who didn’t miss us,
and my diabetic father,
who did. “Don’t you need more light?”
he asks me now,
but I have been reading in the dark for a long time,
after school, and after midnight,
meeting teachers in abandoned houses,
by candle, moon, o]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/after-school/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852314c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Belinda Bruner]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:12:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566848044878-067e73b4b522?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI1fHxyZWFkaW5nJTIwaW4lMjB0aGUlMjBkYXJrJTI3fGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzcwMDE0NQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566848044878-067e73b4b522?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI1fHxyZWFkaW5nJTIwaW4lMjB0aGUlMjBkYXJrJTI3fGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzcwMDE0NQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="After School"/><p>I look under bridges, rocks,<br>in culverts and stumps<br>for people I can teach.<br>Like Celeste, who hid under the street<br>to learn long division,<br>with me and my books I did not appreciate<br>because I got them free from the rest of you,<br>free from her alcoholic mother,<br>who didn’t miss us,<br>and my diabetic father,<br>who did. “Don’t you need more light?”<br>he asks me now,<br>but I have been reading in the dark for a long time,<br>after school, and after midnight,<br>meeting teachers in abandoned houses,<br>by candle, moon, or flash,<br>touching texts I didn’t pay for<br>but saved for those who would come to me.<br>And the cars hiss over our heads on their way<br>home from work. The columns lengthen,<br>rubber against asphalt, number upon<br>number. “You’ll never be able to catch up!”<br>our teacher said to Celeste, whose mother<br>made her stay home to clean house,<br>whose sister hung herself in jail,<br>and as rain water seeped in and wet our dresses<br>I glowed proud as a parent, sure I had defeated<br>the prophetic borrowing and carrying, as we divided until<br>supper time<br>when we crawled out into the twilight,<br>spotted with drainage,<br>statistics.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[MY Cousin]]></title><description><![CDATA[The phone rings on a June morning and my voice is brisk when I answer, salted with a pinch of wariness, diluted with necessity. The caller might be a telemarketer, easily bypassed, but I’m self-employed. Fake leather squeaks whenever I peek inside my wallet and confirm the paltry contents. So, I answer the phone—good news might be on the other end.
It’s my cousin Sharon. I curse myself for not letting voice mail do its job, for thinking the caller might be a client (clients communicate via emai]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/my-cousin/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852314b</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Lewis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:12:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525598912003-663126343e1f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fHBob25lfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzY5OTU5Nw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525598912003-663126343e1f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDd8fHBob25lfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzY5OTU5Nw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="MY Cousin"/><p>The phone rings on a June morning and my voice is brisk when I answer, salted with a pinch of wariness, diluted with necessity. The caller might be a telemarketer, easily bypassed, but I’m self-employed. Fake leather squeaks whenever I peek inside my wallet and confirm the paltry contents. So, I answer the phone—good news might be on the other end.</p><p>It’s my cousin Sharon. I curse myself for not letting voice mail do its job, for thinking the caller might be a client (clients communicate via email). I pick up the phone from its charging station and cringe at Sharon’s greeting.</p><p>“Hello, cuz,” she chirps.</p><p>“Hello, Sharon. Why are you calling?”</p><p>“Just wanted you to know I’m fine.”</p><p>She always insists she is fine. And her telling me that she is fine can’t be all she wants. “I’m on vacation. Jerry and I are taking the boys to Yellowstone National Park.”</p><p>Her voice sparkles with anticipation. The trip will be a chance, Sharon tells me, for her sons to sleep in tents and spot grizzly bears. I hear a thud on her end (her tablet, I guess) as she describes travel games to keep her sons occupied en route. Then she tells me about the food she’ll pack in the SUV. Maybe her anticipation is spilling over into bragging. Why else would she bother to share these details? Does she really think I care?</p><p>I realize that once again, I’ve let her keep a one-sided conversation going.</p><p>She is interrupting my work. I write manuals at home in my living room/office, a step-by-step composing of minutiae that has me wearing bifocals at age 34. I smell my coffee brewing and use its odor as an excuse to end Sharon’s phone call. I place a mug filled with coffee on my desk, on a coaster decorated with a seashore I admire and have never visited. I line up my pencils and papers on the desk. I work in pencil and paper before I use my laptop, its screen displaying artificially colored tropical fish swimming nowhere.</p><p>I like getting to the nitty-gritty of assignments containing essentials swamped under unnecessary details. Subject matter experts seem to enjoy volumizing whatever makes them whizzes. Clients praise me for clarifying matters. Tracy, one such email announced, this book is going to sell, sell, sell! Their approval never translates into payment increases.</p><p>After a few hours’ labor on a beginner’s guide to sewing machines (an appliance I’ve never used), through an open window next to the desk I hear children squabble with nannies until the children settle down, too. I guess they’ve left for their naps. I continue to work on the manual, inserting asides to refresh the do-this-then-that with some humor. (“How many sewists does it take to screw on an LED bulb?”) A tricky combination that this publisher likes. A dent forms in my second finger from gripping a no. 2 pencil. Soon I’m ready for a refill. (I drink a lot of coffee. Heading out to the baristas offers fresh air but I don’t get paid to postpone tasks.) As I go to my coffee maker, I wiggle stiffness from my shoulders. I’m a stranger to naps and aerobics.</p><p>Again, the phone rings and interrupts me. It annoys me, but I answer on the off chance the caller is the sewing machine client. And there Sharon is—ready to chirp, chat, ramble.</p><p>“Why are you calling, Sharon?”</p><p>“Oh, I’m fine, cuz.”</p><p>A non-answer. She flits from her difficulty today in finding cute clothing in plus sizes for the Wyoming trip (“You wouldn’t know about that since you shop at the opposite end of the rack.”) to her purchase of a gigantic ice chest (the envy drops, I notice near-bragging).</p><p>She bewilders me. Even if I could squeeze in a word, what would I say. Celebrate her buying the ice chest? Ignore the dig and sympathize about Rubenesque women like her? I want to know why she insists she’s fine.</p><p>“Sharon, how come you always call and tell me you’re fine?”</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>I put down the phone, without ending the call, and stroll back into the kitchen. I return a few minutes later, my refilled coffee mug with me. Her monologue continues; remotely heard vim about hiking trails from a park website’s brochure she says she printed out. I picture the collars of fat under her chin and around her rump. She resembles many family members, as do I. We’re the progeny of black Jack Sprats and their wives. Sharon’s legs are powerful, though. I bet she’ll have no trouble with the trails she says she’s picked out for her family to hike. I mention none of this.</p><p>After a moment I become a little guilty about snubbing her and pick up the phone. She’s gabbing about wide-angle disposable cameras she bought today. Two of them are for her sons. She’ll use the other camera to photograph panoramic views of Yellowstone to show in the fall to the children she teaches. Her sons may earn Cub Scout badges because of their photography, she tells me. The bragging is back in her voice. I suspect she has been unaware of my absence. My deadline looms. I am definitely not on vacation.</p><p>“Why don’t you call someone else, Sharon?”</p><p>“OK. Just wanted to have a chat.”</p><p>She does not sound put off by my suggestion that she call someone other than me. Her tone is unruffled, pleasant. It’s probably the same tone she uses with her friends, of whom she’s told me she has many. I cannot fathom how she can stay on the phone for endless hours of commentary that’s the weight of a butterfly. What’s beneath her steadfast contentment? Where’s the bad alongside the good?</p><p>I can’t concentrate on my work. How to install a quilting foot wanes. I aim my skill at stripping away surfaces toward my cousin. If I can get beneath her constant optimism, a clue might bob up about why I allow her to interrupt me and remain on the phone. On a legal pad I begin to list some possibilities:</p><p><em>Life in the suburbs</em>. Could Sharon be bottlenecking stress? Hard to tell. She sounds fluster-free when she speaks of attending her sons’ soccer matches, schlepping them to and from science club and Cub Scouts, running errands to the supermarket and the malls. But maybe she is on trip number 9,989 of her repetition, edging toward claustrophobic ensnarement.</p><p><em>Career change, labor lawyer to kindergarten teacher</em>. That’s got to cause seismic anxiety. Maybe, while wiping five-year-olds’ noses, Sharon is jolted by the contrast of her former work, defending the rights of laid off adults. These are sharply different occupations, enough perhaps to fuel self-justifying smugness.</p><p><em>Divorce and remarriage</em>. They say divorce is an occasion for cloaking oneself. But Sharon was a divorcée for less than a year. When I attended her second wedding ceremony, nine years ago at sundown in a small chapel, candlelit pillars along the aisle harmonized with the deep pleasure she embodied. She is not shy about trumpeting Jerry, his handiness with household repairs, his ease with their children.</p><p>These are Sharon’s choices. And maybe she is fine, all the time. But this does not seem truthful. What human being is all yang and no yin? I tap my pencil against the coffee mug. If I understood, perhaps I would not brood about her.</p><p>Why does she choose me for her endless cheer? As children our connection was understandable: I’m an only child and she has only male siblings. As regularly as Saturday follows Friday, every weekend my parents dropped me off at Sharon’s.</p><p>Her bedroom was our arena of make-believe. Sharon played the mom and I played the dad to her collection of dolls which needed, she said, a mommy and a daddy. Because they were her dolls and I was indifferent to mothering (I owned no dolls, I collected books and raced my bicycle), she grabbed the maternal role and I got the only other part, according to her proclamation. Sharon dressed them in poufy sleeved, pink and orange gowns. My role had two parts. While Sharon dressed the dolls, I sat cross-legged on the floor and counted stacks of play money. Part two involved my crawling toward Sharon and the dolls (a make-believe traffic jam slowing me), handing over the money (a conflict since I wouldn’t give her the entire wad), and pretending to smoke a rolled-up cardboard cigar while Sharon exalted her and the dolls’ day. Sometimes I deviated. I used her bed as a trampoline. I crushed my cardboard stogie onto the bedspread. These were Sharon’s unwritten no-nos. When I complained on sunny days that we ought to play outdoors, she told me grouchy dads got ulcers.</p><p>In many respects she is unchanged. When she phones me now she speaks rosily of her two-parent family, as if our childhood game and her present life are threaded without knots and her first marriage is an unmentionable mistake. My never married status will end, she assures me as soon as I get over my distaste with online dating.</p><p>As an adult I’ve never visited her; she’s never invited me. Even so, the thought of renting a car to travel to her suburban home equals the same dead end as my non-vacations. I’m self-employed and credit my stubborn independence. Yet sometimes I’ve caught myself wishing for a flick of her praise for the 10-plus years I’ve managed on my own. Is this why I allow her interruptions? Am I craving a compliment from her?</p><p>Other than at holiday gatherings, I’m no witness to Sharon’s adult life. Nowadays, I confess she wears on me like an old shirt I can’t give away. But Sharon’s view of me might be different. Maybe she is looking at that old shirt in the closet of her life, and she’s convinced she can wear the thing—around me, someone whom she believes won’t mind if she’s a bit frayed.</p><p>Or maybe this is all in my head. Occasionally she invites me to see an August Wilson play or have lunch at an upscale restaurant. “I’m on deadline,” I always say; she chuckles as if she scarcely believes me. Really, I almost tell her, my income has no room for theater or dining out. But I don’t say this. Maybe if I did, she would come clean about her feelings. Maybe I should forego this gnarled analysis, play fair.</p><hr><p>“Anything bothering you, Sharon?” I ask the next time she calls.</p><p>“Not a thing, cuz. Why would you think something was wrong?”</p><p>I lose my resolve. She’s kneecapping my mission to shovel out the truth underneath her pleasantness. Besides, I hear her teensy reprimand from when I jumped up and down on her bed.</p><p>“Why is it that every time you phone me, you’re chirpy as hell?”</p><p>“I don’t know what you’re getting at, cuz. I’m fine.”</p><p>I will not end it here. “But Sharon, what do you really want to say?”</p><p>“Nothing. Talk to you later.”</p><p>“Wait a sec.” In my head are bloops and womps about my cousin, the puzzle. Sure, I could screen my calls, cut off her chatter, interrupt with my own talk. Except: Why can’t she be anything other than chipper when she talks to me? Unless I find out I suspect I will go nuts.</p><p>“Sharon, what makes you like this?”</p><p>“Don’t know, cuz. It’s nothing worth talking about.”</p><p>I am rattled once again.</p><hr><p>Late evening on another day. The neighborhood is quiet. My apartment is dark. I walk around the living room, shaking my legs, feeling them uncramp, turning on lamps. I realize I am hungry and go into the kitchen. In my cupboard is a can of tuna fish. Before I open it, I expect my cousin will phone me. This is one of her customary times to call.</p><p>I hear her lilting voice after I answer the phone. “This is so funny,” she says. Arbitrary laughter drones in the background, her two kids and second husband chuckling alongside her review of what sounds like a TV sitcom. She does not seem to notice I am on the line. I lean against the refrigerator and listen to Sharon segue to telling me about a post-Yellowstone bake sale for neighborhood soccer team uniforms.</p><p>Everything on my end contains a wealth of slippered sounds. I remain motionless and begin to catch them. The humming of the refrigerator against my back. The click of a ceiling fan in the apartment next door. A dog barking down the street. Urban murmurs, somehow pacifying.</p><p>My cousin’s talk of sweets and the grumble in my stomach nudge me. I open the refrigerator, grab mayonnaise and pickles. “Listen, Sharon,” I say.</p><p>“Yeah, cuz?” Her voice is undemanding, childlike.</p><p>I pick a neutral question. “Why do you talk on the phone while the TV’s on?”</p><p>“We always watched TV while Mom was on the phone when we were kids, remember?”</p><p>My mouth forms an “o” and I begin to see my childhood visits on Saturdays. After playtime we spent an hour or so watching TV in their walnut-paneled family room, my boy cousins on the sofa, my uncle at the dining table, munching peanuts and reading the newspaper, my aunt in a green leather recliner. My aunt is on the phone and the TV is on—<em>Family Matters</em> or <em>Fresh Prince of Bel-Air</em>. I remember frowning in confusion at the canned ha-has while I sat on the floor by the sofa. I picture Sharon, a chubby, nut brown-skinned girl, kneeling at the foot of the recliner, her stare fixed on the TV screen, her stomach jiggling in sync with the laugh track.</p><p>I remember the constancy of those moments while I stand in the kitchen listening to Sharon recall her favorite episode when Will Smith’s dad returned and then abandoned him again. Not funny at all. I remember how she dabbed her eyes with a tissue, then handed me the box, certain I would need it. She was right.</p><p>It takes me a minute to ask, “You call me to chitchat for no special reason?”</p><p>I’ve never been to their house, but I’d stake every manual I’ve written on the probability of a family room in that house, a recliner on which Sharon sits as she speaks to me, a sofa on which her husband stretches out with one of their sons, the other boy plopped close to Sharon.</p><p>“Well, sure.” Her voice is undiluted honey. “Can’t imagine a day without phoning you.”</p><p>I reach for a bowl. Tuna salad is my favorite dinner.</p><p>“Talk to you later, Sharon.”</p><p>“Later, cuz.”</p><p>Then I stop mashing tuna fish with a fork. “Anything you want to tell me, Sharon?”</p><p>She sounds peaceful. “Just the usual, you know.”</p></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets - July - “Reflection of Serenity and Tranquility”]]></title><description><![CDATA[The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devastating the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset fo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-july-reflection-of-serenity-and-tranquility/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523150</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:11:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/Jult--Reflection-of-Serenity-and-Tranquility--.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/Jult--Reflection-of-Serenity-and-Tranquility--.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets - July - “Reflection of Serenity and Tranquility”"/><p>The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devastating the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Moon Shadows]]></title><description><![CDATA[Human toils and tides
Hardships and bellows
Follows us like the moon
You can see him over there - - -
Sitting on your shoulder
And his shadow
Grows longer still
But then a heart stops! - - -
You just thought
You had more time
You can’t go on no further
Hard luck strikes ~
This is it!
It’s over!
There is no more ~
And then …
By some miracle, a reprieve
While you recover
Your body becomes slow and weighted down
in trying out the living again
Like freedom forgotten
Escaping is your only tho]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/moon-shadows/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852314a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:11:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1562832135-14a35d25edef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fG1vb258ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzNjk4ODk2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1562832135-14a35d25edef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fG1vb258ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzNjk4ODk2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Moon Shadows"/><p>Human toils and tides<br>Hardships and bellows<br>Follows us like the moon</br></br></p><p>You can see him over there - - -</p><p>Sitting on your shoulder<br>And his shadow<br>Grows longer still</br></br></p><p>But then a heart stops! - - -</p><p>You just thought<br>You had more time<br>You can’t go on no further</br></br></p><p>Hard luck strikes ~<br>This is it!<br>It’s over!</br></br></p><p>There is no more ~<br>And then …<br>By some miracle, a reprieve</br></br></p><p>While you recover<br>Your body becomes slow and weighted down<br>in trying out the living again</br></br></p><p>Like freedom forgotten<br>Escaping is your only thought<br>Becomes paramount</br></br></p><p>No staggering steps here<br>No unwashed hair<br>No night pj’s to spare</br></br></p><p>Yes, I’m up<br>I’m dressed<br>Take me somewhere<br>Anywhere</br></br></br></p><p>How about a big steak?<br>That should really help, right?<br>Protein for healing, right?<br>That will help me feel alive again</br></br></br></p><p>It’s no one’s fault<br>Except maybe the moon’s</br></p><p>Take me to a place of my forgotten memories<br>Where conversations are free<br>Where people get to see each other<br>Where people shake your hand and ask how you are?</br></br></br></p><p>Where people take time to live<br>A little extra easy<br>In all that living they do so well</br></br></p><p>Yes, you can take me there~</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Is Democracy a Natural State of Mankind?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sixteen years ago, in this newspaper, I tried to answer a perennial question about American politics. Does the United States look more like the country predicted by Thomas Jefferson, or by his rival, Alexander Hamilton?
Jefferson asserted that ordinary people with sufficient education and virtue can govern themselves wisely, that liberty is the natural desire of all mankind, and that the world's monarchs and dictators will ultimately be overthrown. On the other hand, Hamilton claimed Jefferson']]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/is-democracy-a-natural-state-of-mankind/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523149</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Tim Hackler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:11:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515040242872-08257d6d08c2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGNvbnN0aXR1dGlvbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM2OTg2Mzg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515040242872-08257d6d08c2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGNvbnN0aXR1dGlvbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM2OTg2Mzg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Is Democracy a Natural State of Mankind?"/><p>Sixteen years ago, in this newspaper, I tried to answer a perennial question about American politics. Does the United States look more like the country predicted by Thomas Jefferson, or by his rival, Alexander Hamilton?</p><p>Jefferson asserted that ordinary people with sufficient education and virtue can govern themselves wisely, that liberty is the natural desire of all mankind, and that the world's monarchs and dictators will ultimately be overthrown. On the other hand, Hamilton claimed Jefferson's view was folly, based on wishful thinking, because human nature precludes the kind of wisdom necessary for self-government. In short, Jefferson speaks to our hopes; Hamilton speaks to our fears.</p><p>In 1992, I concluded that America, and the world, reflected features of both men's views – their great philosophical fight lay unresolved. Today, Hamilton clearly has the upper hand.</p><p>Before the Constitutional Convention met in 1787, Hamilton observed the activities of a few state legislatures and concluded: "The inquiry [of legislators] constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people." But he went a step further: It's the people themselves, not the legislators, who are to blame. The people, he said, "murmur at taxes, clamor at their rulers," but then elect demagogues who appeal to our worst instincts.</p><p>Over the years, Jefferson became less optimistic about the wisdom of the people. Still, in the last letter of his long life, he summed up his life's vision: "All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man." He hoped America's experiment with democracy would be "the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition has persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government."</p><p>In 1992, it was still possible to believe Jefferson's prediction could one day come true. Many among us thought that the "blessings of freedom and democracy" might ultimately reach all areas of the globe. But 16 years later, can we still believe this? I think most of us have moved at least slightly toward Hamilton's darker view of human nature. Can we still believe, for example, that Jeffersonian democracy will one day arrive and then survive throughout Africa and the Middle East? The painful failures of the Iraq war have sowed substantial doubts: "Looking back, I felt secure in the knowledge that all who yearn for freedom, once free, would use it well," wrote Danielle Pletka in The New York Times recently. "I was wrong. There is no freedom gene ....".</p><p>History suggests that culture, not genetics, determines fitness for democracy. And history suggests we can pinpoint what kind of culture is required – a culture of the Enlightenment.<br>We in the West take the Enlightenment for granted. But it took centuries of brave, stubborn people, beginning in the 16th century, to push back against the ignorance and superstition in which all mankind had lived, to bring forth in isolated centers of learning a world based on reason and logic.</br></p><p>Here is a thought experiment to put things in perspective. Imagine a map of the world in 1800. Color in all the countries that took part in or were directly influenced by the Enlightenment (let us say, England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, the US, Canada, and the Scandinavian countries).</p><p>Now jump forward two centuries and color in all the countries with working democracies. It is virtually the same map. Every one of those 22 nations (or their derivatives) today has a working democracy. And how many countries have a fully functional democracy but were not among, or did not spring from, those 22 countries? Just four: Japan, Australia, India, and Israel.</p><p>What does this tell us about the Jefferson versus Hamilton question? In a Hamiltonian world, democracy will always be a precious commodity – sustained, and even desired, only by people whose cultural history includes an enlightened viewpoint or something close to it. The Enlightenment was a kind of miracle and not one we should take for granted.</p><p>Indeed, if Jefferson returned today, he would be shocked by the reemergence of self-styled Christians hacking away at the wall between church and state. Hamilton and Jefferson were deeply affected by the Enlightenment's emphasis on reason. Still, Hamilton believed reason would always be under attack by demagogues who know hate and fear are more potent motivators than reason and rationality.</p><p>Why do I take a darker view than I did 16 years ago? Today, we have a coarser public discourse and lower standards. We have suffered the consequences of a political party that quite openly set about to divide Americans into hostile camps because it believed that strategy would give them a narrow electoral advantage. The result is an atmosphere in which it is almost impossible to have a mature, adult, logical national debate about important issues.</p><p>Maybe Hamilton was on to something. Is democracy a natural state of mankind? Is the survival of democracy assured even in the United States? It is a sign of our times that we cannot be sure the answer to these questions is "yes."</p><p><em><strong>(This article has appeared previously in the Chrtistian Science Monitor)</strong></em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Notes Toward or Away from Something]]></title><description><![CDATA[Between the thinking hill and the tame hill
The night cattle foraging against the hedge
And the grey heads of the weeds are broken
The map of love molded out of mud
The winds' strokes denting the flat rivers surface
You took off you're summer dress
Shaped you're arms like Yeats's swan
Dived into the waters
I slipped into the ripple of your wake
We lay in the loving shadows of my ghost
The smell of buttermilk on your breath
Your lips left a red cracked heart at my throat
The twist of your limbs ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/notes-toward-or-away-from-something/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523148</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Adrian Frost]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:10:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1596385164804-906c543bcdbd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHN3YW5zfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzY5ODQyOQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1596385164804-906c543bcdbd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHN3YW5zfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzY5ODQyOQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Notes Toward or Away from Something"/><p>Between the thinking hill and the tame hill<br>The night cattle foraging against the hedge<br>And the grey heads of the weeds are broken<br>The map of love molded out of mud<br>The winds' strokes denting the flat rivers surface<br>You took off you're summer dress<br>Shaped you're arms like Yeats's swan<br>Dived into the waters<br>I slipped into the ripple of your wake</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>We lay in the loving shadows of my ghost<br>The smell of buttermilk on your breath<br>Your lips left a red cracked heart at my throat<br>The twist of your limbs making loving longer<br>The Buick's tracks in the thigh high grass field<br>Your voice doubled upward and downward<br>I'm the back seat of the Buick with the heater on</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lyrical Pink]]></title><description><![CDATA[I look around the room and catalogue the pink items. I sink into my dark pink chair and fall asleep. It’s late afternoon approaching sunset, so the horizon is pink at the edges too.
Pink is real, pink is fake. Ok, so pink equals girl. The outfit my daughter is wearing in the photo on my desk is pink. She was four or five, a pretty girl in pink overalls. That photo is over 30 years old. I am wearing my pink mock Crocs from the Dollar Store.
I slip deeper into sleep. Sunset has come and gone and]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lyrical-pink/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523147</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Nasrullah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:10:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1570475735025-6cd1cd5c779d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHxwaW5rfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzY5ODA5Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1570475735025-6cd1cd5c779d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHxwaW5rfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzY5ODA5Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Lyrical Pink"/><p>I look around the room and catalogue the pink items. I sink into my dark pink chair and fall asleep. It’s late afternoon approaching sunset, so the horizon is pink at the edges too.</p><p>Pink is real, pink is fake. Ok, so pink equals girl. The outfit my daughter is wearing in the photo on my desk is pink. She was four or five, a pretty girl in pink overalls. That photo is over 30 years old. I am wearing my pink mock Crocs from the Dollar Store.</p><p>I slip deeper into sleep. Sunset has come and gone and the sky is colorless.</p><p>A bad dream: I took my pinkened clothing to the doctor. He was a swarthy man with a mustache who peered at me and licked his lips like I was a bowl of fruit. This happened when I was eight; I remember that fact as I sit in my pink armchair while sleep rattles me. I fly up from the chair, literally fly, and do an amateurish kid’s karate kick in the air. It lands nowhere and I remember that I’m eight, small for my age, with way too expansive a vocabulary. Kicking doesn’t come naturally to me, although the desire to kick definitely does. It is ludicrous but I think I can do it, so I arise and kick again. Pink is girl and girl is moxie.</p><p>What are the pinks? Pink is audacious – pink chicken will kill you. Pink drink will give you diabetes. Imagine a pink salad, or a pink potato chip, or a pink green bean. Would you eat them? And if you did, would we celebrate that we know you better or sneer and turn our heads?</p><p>Awake again. Everyone stands on the street holding candles and wearing pink. The air is reverent. I wake up. I see that I haven’t floated anywhere, nor seen a pink green bean, nor looked at the world through much younger eyes. The sun has gone down, the moon is new and the darkness that has fallen enshrouds me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Escaping]]></title><description><![CDATA[My hair is
f
a
l
l
i
n
g
out
As if it just wanted to runaway from my head
But it’s fine, darling o’mine!
If I could, so would I do the same]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/escaping/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523146</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Pedro Henrique da Silva Lino]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:09:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/06/download.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/06/download.jpg" alt="Escaping"/><p>My hair is<br>f<br> a<br> l<br> l<br> i<br> n<br> g<br> out<br>As if it just wanted to runaway from my head<br>But it’s fine, darling o’mine!<br>If I could, so would I do the same</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ancient Poetry Slam]]></title><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/ancient-poetry-slam/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523152</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Fred Yu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:09:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/F.-Yu---Ancient-Poetry-Slam.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded/></item><item><title><![CDATA[Oatmeal - Fruit - Nut Crumb Cake]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ingredients
Cake Ingredients
1 cup mashed fruit (your choice of bananas, berries, apples, pears, peaches, or apricots)
1-1/2 cups boiling water
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup oil or butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 tablespoon baking powder
1-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon or nutmeg
Topping Ingredients
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup old-fashion oats
1/4 cup pecans or walnuts pieces
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Directions]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/oatmeal-fruit-nut-crumb-cake/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523156</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:08:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/becca-tapert-mDOGXiuVb4M-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2 id="ingredients">Ingredients</h2><img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/becca-tapert-mDOGXiuVb4M-unsplash.jpg" alt="Oatmeal - Fruit - Nut Crumb Cake"/><p><strong>Cake Ingredients</strong><br>1 cup mashed fruit (your choice of bananas, berries, apples, pears, peaches, or apricots)<br>1-1/2 cups boiling water<br>1 cup old-fashioned oats<br>1/2 cup white sugar<br>1/2 cup brown sugar<br>1/4 cup oil or butter<br>1 teaspoon vanilla extract<br>2 eggs<br>1 tablespoon baking powder<br>1-1/2 cups flour<br>1 teaspoon cinnamon or nutmeg</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>Topping Ingredients</strong><br>1/2 cup brown sugar<br>1/2 cup flour<br>1/4 cup butter<br>1/4 cup old-fashion oats<br>1/4 cup pecans or walnuts pieces<br>1 teaspoon cinnamon</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><h2 id="directions">Directions</h2><ol><li>Preheat oven at 350°F.</li><li>Grease a 9” x 7” or 13” x 9” pan.</li><li>Pour 1 cup of oats and boiling water in a medium bowl to soak until oats are soft.</li><li>Mix mashed fruit, sugars, butter, extract, and eggs in a large mixing bowl; blend.</li><li>Add soaked oats, baking powder, flour, spice of choice; mix just until blended.</li><li>Pour batter evenly into greased pan.</li><li>Blend together topping ingredients; sprinkle over cake batter.</li><li>Bake a 9” x 7” pan for 45 – 50 minutes at 350°F, or 13” x 9” pan for 35 – 40 minutes at 350°F.</li><li>Cool a bit before serving.</li></ol><p><strong><em>Makes 8 – 12 servings</em></strong></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[from Dorothy Amid the Sao Paulo Riots, May 14th, 2006]]></title><description><![CDATA[(after Paradiso XXX)
“Now, I’d best
cease in this path
after her lust.”
Homes raze to poets' gaffed
torch tunes—steadfast
artist instincts
when we're lost.
Soon, we’ll think
what matters, ends:
In trumpeting
of shunt deaths or deafened
half-notes—penned low
expectations
when we go.
I saunter
shattered streets, rave
sotted wonder:
“When ought I die for love?”
drab storefronts flame
where once I’d give
alms to whom
now bleeds out—
no left wisdom
nor farewell chat
in his septic reply:
“Waste yo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/from-dorothy-amid-the-sao-paulo-riots-may-14th-2006/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523145</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:08:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585601953943-b239af489523?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxzYW8lMjBwYXVsb3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM2OTY1NTU&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h4 id="-after-paradiso-xxx-"><em>(after Paradiso XXX)</em></h4><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585601953943-b239af489523?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxzYW8lMjBwYXVsb3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM2OTY1NTU&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="from Dorothy Amid the Sao Paulo Riots, May 14th, 2006"/><p>“Now, I’d best<br>cease in this path<br>after her lust.”<br>Homes raze to poets' gaffed<br>torch tunes—steadfast<br>artist instincts<br>when we're lost.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Soon, we’ll think<br>what matters, ends:<br>In trumpeting<br>of shunt deaths or deafened<br>half-notes—penned low<br>expectations<br>when we go.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><hr><p>I saunter<br>shattered streets, rave<br>sotted wonder:<br>“When ought I die for love?”<br>drab storefronts flame<br>where once I’d give<br>alms to whom</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>now bleeds out—<br>no left wisdom<br>nor farewell chat<br>in his septic reply:<br>“Waste your own life,<br><em>putinha</em> … die<br>your own death.”</br></br></br></br></br></br></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Kaput]]></title><description><![CDATA[I can just make out ‘beatnik,’ jammed in the back of what
I still call the ice box, its delinquent expiration sticker
out of sight behind the Jell-O salad and the moldy fondue.
Each day, run-of-the-mill Swedish meatballs leave the building
fall from the collective ken—
itself a cliché going dark too soon. Do I mourn these losses?
No, Dude, I put them out to pasture. I mothball
old-hat phrases. I blow them out of the water.
My aim is slaughter. Scrap-heaped lingo shucked from my mouth—
Zoot su]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/kaput/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523144</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:08:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542331325-bebfc9b990d7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHxyZWZyaWdlcmF0b3J8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzNjk2MDQ3&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542331325-bebfc9b990d7?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHxyZWZyaWdlcmF0b3J8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzNjk2MDQ3&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Kaput"/><p>I can just make out ‘beatnik,’ jammed in the back of what<br>I still call the ice box, its delinquent expiration sticker<br>out of sight behind the Jell-O salad and the moldy fondue.</br></br></p><p>Each day, run-of-the-mill Swedish meatballs leave the building<br>fall from the collective ken—<br>itself a cliché going dark too soon. Do I mourn these losses?</br></br></p><p>No, Dude, I put them out to pasture. I mothball<br>old-hat phrases. I blow them out of the water.<br>My aim is slaughter. Scrap-heaped lingo shucked from my mouth—</br></br></p><p>Zoot suit, okey dokey. fly over country,<br>stock phrases like forever-war<br>and exorbitant national debt. So last season. So old hat</br></br></p><p>They get my goat. They’re fired. See them later, alligator,<br>their sell-by date stamped, last December.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets - August - “Reflection of Serenity and Tranquility”]]></title><description><![CDATA[The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-august-reflection-of-serenity-and-tranquility/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852314f</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:07:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/Aug--Reflection-of-Serenity-and-Tranquility-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/Aug--Reflection-of-Serenity-and-Tranquility-.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets - August - “Reflection of Serenity and Tranquility”"/><p>The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[BOOM!]]></title><description><![CDATA[I jumped straight up
Outta my rollaway bed outside
Our only bathroom.
That wasn’t no .38 or 12 gauge.
I could sleep right thru those reports by then
Aware enough y’know,
But, still clinging to whatever meager dreams…
Naw, this was something else.
Some crazy mf done gone and got hisself a cannon.
N.E. 4th & Kelley.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/boom/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523143</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Morris McCorvey]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:07:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558820548-5fd710a8aa13?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGJvb218ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzNjk1NjUy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558820548-5fd710a8aa13?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGJvb218ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzNjk1NjUy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="BOOM!"/><p>I jumped straight up<br>Outta my rollaway bed outside<br>Our only bathroom.<br>That wasn’t no .38 or 12 gauge.<br>I could sleep right thru those reports by then<br>Aware enough y’know,<br>But, still clinging to whatever meager dreams…<br>Naw, this was something else.<br>Some crazy mf done gone and got hisself a cannon.<br>N.E. 4th & Kelley.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Compliance at a Roadside Detainment]]></title><description><![CDATA[The young skinny black man
placed his wrists behind his back
and mumbled past the group of
officers and out into the universe
Do what you’re gonna do
Do what you’re gonna do
Just do what you’re gonna do
Do what you were already gonna do
Do what you always were gonna do]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/compliance-at-a-roadside-detainment/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523142</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:07:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1560575193-c2c9e886aefe?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGFycmVzdHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM2OTQ5MDM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1560575193-c2c9e886aefe?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGFycmVzdHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM2OTQ5MDM&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Compliance at a Roadside Detainment"/><p>The young skinny black man<br>placed his wrists behind his back<br>and mumbled past the group of<br>officers and out into the universe</br></br></br></p><p>Do what you’re gonna do<br>Do what you’re gonna do<br>Just do what you’re gonna do<br>Do what you were already gonna do<br>Do what you always were gonna do</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[At the Crossroads]]></title><description><![CDATA[I can't recall the precise moment when this weird fascination of mine became a pronounced compulsion: to stand and stare at the unusual. I reckon it all began with my observation of an acquaintance with a certain urge that pushed her to do things in a specific way. Such as arranging her clothes in the wardrobe not by a mere grading of colours but by classifying them in a series of tints from light to dark, motifs small to big, and outfits from informal to formal. Anything to the contrary would m]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/at-the-crossroads/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523141</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Matilda Pinto]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:06:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1555842096-c22776e66b60?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGNyb3Nzcm9hZHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzNjk0Mzk4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1555842096-c22776e66b60?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGNyb3Nzcm9hZHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzNjk0Mzk4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="At the Crossroads"/><p>I can't recall the precise moment when this weird fascination of mine became a pronounced compulsion: to stand and stare at the unusual. I reckon it all began with my observation of an acquaintance with a certain urge that pushed her to do things in a specific way. Such as arranging her clothes in the wardrobe not by a mere grading of colours but by classifying them in a series of tints from light to dark, motifs small to big, and outfits from informal to formal. Anything to the contrary would make her jittery. Several folks familiar to me are known to indulge in activities that seem bizarre like running round and round the mulberry bush instead of heading to the office on the shortest and most commonly used route available. Anything to avoid Gate No. 37 for fear of developing shoulder tics like that of the sentry at the post. Some of them are all angles and lines and twists and turns.</p><p>To set the record straight, it's pointless to be judgemental, as each of us keeps falling into one or the other of these categories, at some or most of the time without exception. In a series of anomalies of the kind, if I may so pigeonhole the goings-on, I cannot be counted upon to analyze these exasperating ways. It is, therefore, that I refuse to classify them as normal, atypical, or otherwise. No one ought to.</p><p>Name him what you will. “Whatever” stood out from the rest for his demeanour. He walked in an attention mode all the time, head held painfully high like the Pakistani soldier at the Wagah Border Parade, chest on an exhale command and eyes set beyond Kashmir. Going by his appearance, he supposedly was on the cusp between academics and picking a career. Since he didn't distinctly go after either, not in a perceptible way that is, I began to suspect his bonafide and made him, my business.</p><p>By and by, I unearthed that there was a method to his manner and movements. Minute for minute, at the same hour to the second, you could bet on Whatever to emerge out of his house for his evening walk on the arterial road covering no more than three stops. He marched up and up, and with an about-turn down and down in his well-pressed night pyjamas and an unusually long kurta matching the multi-coloured bandana around his head for the next twenty minutes, intently smoking a beedi with the air of a sadhu smoking chillum, cupping the pipe with both hands close to his mouth. He let the smoke escape with such artistic twirls and whorls that the bystanders stopped to stare. With the same regularity, he'd be seen waiting at the Water Point to take the blue bus all Saturday evenings, at quarter past five, not earlier, not later. One evening, my curiosity got the better of me making me slow down and ask him if he would like a ride. My intention, to verify if he was an academician or an IT professional.</p><p>With a jaunty stride, he grabbed the offer, took the front seat, fastened the seatbelt, and began to chat with vim. He went to great lengths to impress upon me the fact that he would soon be relocating to Ahmedabad on a grand assignment as the Under Secretary to the Government of India. With perks, too, and a chauffeur-driven car and a furnished bungalow. My countenance, a speaking picture that it always is, I guess made him so edgy that he was under compulsion to repeat himself and he did it in five diverse ways, each time further losing track of his thoughts.</p><p>I will be relocating the Under Secretary from Ahmedabad with lock stock and barrel; err … perks and chauffeur would accompany the bungalow to Aurangabad; I'm sorry, I mean as Under Secretary in an under finished bungalow as expected by a government servant; ahem, … expect to be invited to Ahmedabad to spend your weekend to see me receive dignitaries and ink agreements; … … and this your car, not a patch on what I'm entitled to in Aurangabad, a bulletproof Lexus, he concluded as an afterthought, not realizing he was sounding bulky and vain like Don Quixote.</p><p>He delivered this weighty information with a glimmer in his eyes and a series of jerks in his neck, ordering and reordering his staccato flow of thoughts for clarity. By the end of it, I was no longer able to figure out who was the Under Secretary, who the chauffeur and where the bungalow. At the next stop, I pulled over asking Whatever to alight from my sedan and wait for his high-end-chauffeur-driven-car to pick him up and take him to his destination. Ahmedabad, Aurangabad, or Hyderabad? I no longer cared if he were an academician or an IT pro.</p><p>I soon discerned that unbridled curiosity comes at a price. For, Whatever, now began to stalk me after that encounter, a role reversal I did not savour. I saw him from the corner of my eye, eyeballing my young wife, ogling at my car, taking a stealthy peek into my bungalow, and eavesdropping on my elderly neighbour who had this fixation of speaking to his reflection standing before a life-sized mirror day in and day out, and tailing Betty the senile as well who visited me with each new moon. Many moons later, on a gloomy day, exasperated, “Elderly” gave up on life. I expected Whatever to drop in to pay his respects to a man who had engaged him for years, for free. That's when it dawned on me that I hadn't seen Whatever in a while. Whether he had finally landed in Ahmedabad to report to duty or if he had vaporized into nothing is something I refuse to dwell on.</p><p>I must concede, no less intriguing was Elderly's grouse against the man in the mirror which everyone in the neighbourhood not excluding me, was enthralled about. How do I know that?<br>Well, he lived in the twin bungalow opposite mine. I've heard him loud and clear, using choice vilifications to reprimand the man in the mirror, to no avail. He called him an ass one minute, trash the next, potty mouth thereafter, a colonial scum, and a mugger so repeatedly that I could soon provide an exhaustive list of tirades in English which a ranting Indian politician could use for free. All for daring to look like him, speak like him, and for having the nerve to show up in his clothes and his favourite pair of laceless Lotto's.</br></p><p>Step out of your hideout, you, spineless slave. Are you an echo that you say whatever I utter, letter for letter, act for act, moment by moment? The day you step out of that glass pound of yours, I'll have you lynched, you, … just you wait, dung-headed flibbertigibbet.</p><p>I caught my son of thirty-seven months repeat after Elderly, the litany of a livid fellowman word for word. I hate to admit that this inventory of expletives has now become part of my idiom as well. I'm afraid that I'm no longer my innate self as Whatever and Elderly keep encroaching on my every thought and action. At times, I catch myself walk and talk like them.</p><p>And Betty's visits in no way bring relief. She compels me to eat the cupcake she has saved for me from a wedding she had attended a week ago. She is a gate crasher, and you may expect to find her at any social occasion limited to her community. Sadly, the cupcake looks anything but like what it is supposed to look, one lump having slipped out of the case, bundled at one end of her sari, resembling a huge teardrop like Sri Lanka, and waiting to tumble. Betty didn't stop with the cupcake. She went on to rant about certain men who let their women experience the new-fangled concept called liberation. She warned me to keep an eye on my fashion nova wife and not let her march into church with as little as a stitch that passes for clothing these days. So, having said what she had to, she began to lose track of her thoughts just like Whatever and trailed off. Betty is now in the loop with Keshav and the Vice-president of a conglomerate business in the USA.</p><p>Each time I think of Keshav my gut cramps for him, unlike for the Vice-president from the US of America whose visits to his ailing mother in India are poles apart. The first call of duty was after two decades and the next never came. The aged lady waited and waited endlessly for her renowned mogul to visit her for the next three decades, only to die at ninety-nine, overcome by fatigue and anguish. My dear folks in America, be wary of bumping into him. He is sure to come up with yarns and tell you that he is a busy man heading a colossal company with two employees, one as the Vice-president and the other his boss the CEO.</p><p>On the other hand, Keshav, who waited for me at the threshold of my office, is an exception rather than the rule. His stomach had begun to run riot agitated by hunger. Blame it on Covid-19. Unemployed, he had no cash left in his pocket to buy a meal. All he wanted was Rs. 10.50 paise, the cost of a meal. Give him more, he would be upset, give him less and you'd leave him sad. For a living, he had ground condiments for a hotel from dawn to dusk and his wages, the cost of two meals. Not finding me in the office, he had walked all the way home to knock on my door. Seeing him through the peephole, a daughter of mine did not approve of what she saw, a lean face with sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes, a receding forehead covered with heavily oiled long strands of reluctant hair pulled around from the nape of his neck to crown his face and conceal his bald pate. She shooed him away without that cup of tea and morsels of food that may have saved his life that fateful day. Hunger driving him beyond sense, he drifted and drifted aimlessly, and was seen jaywalking only to be airlifted and thrown off by a speeding truck at Lalbagh. He was gone like a gush of air. I'm still looking for his hungry soul, to feed it with a ritual meal. Save the Vice-president, the late Keshav and Elderly, Betty and Whatever constitute a formidable force in my life and I'm truly, utterly, and deeply cornered.</p><p>Kids on the street dubbed Keshav, Betty, the Elderly, and Whatever loonies, and adults thought they were barmy. Like my earlier disclaimer, I'm wary of labels for fear the same folks may turn around and say, "You too." A palpable fear of the kind calls for fact-checking. After all, aren't we without exception members of the Brigade of the Bizarre in more ways than one? If aloneness drives us to anxiety, rigidity plunges us into becoming intolerant of the other, and our ineptness pushes us to live a make-believe existence, then we are weird in a way peculiar to each of us.</p><p>Why do I think that I'm beginning to ideate …? … At the crossroads, I hear a voice badgering me...</p><p><em>Go on, life is many things to many folks, none of them logical anyway. Moreover, today's Whatever is the Elderly of tomorrow and the future will throw up many a Keshav and Betty and an occasional Vice-president.</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Happy People]]></title><description><![CDATA[want the best in life
not the biggest paycheck
meaningfulness and kindness
from helping, bringing peace
that emotional tether of joy
and wellbeing in a bag of tricks
with positive people
and laughter’s strategy
to live by the keys of equal
painting and singing, swimming too
diving off the high board
with no fear, feeling too good
to ever say no to friends who
appreciate your oddities
where have they gone
in this alone pandemic?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/happy-people/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523140</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ann Privateer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:06:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542029401157-d21e500b1385?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGRpdmluZyUyMGJvYXJkfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzY5Mzk1Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542029401157-d21e500b1385?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGRpdmluZyUyMGJvYXJkfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzY5Mzk1Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Happy People"/><p>want the best in life<br>not the biggest paycheck<br>meaningfulness and kindness<br>from helping, bringing peace<br>that emotional tether of joy<br>and wellbeing in a bag of tricks<br>with positive people<br>and laughter’s strategy<br>to live by the keys of equal<br>painting and singing, swimming too<br>diving off the high board<br>with no fear, feeling too good<br>to ever say no to friends who<br>appreciate your oddities<br>where have they gone<br>in this alone pandemic?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Last Light of the Year]]></title><description><![CDATA[In the house, the heat kicks on,
the refrigerator hums a room steady.
The last hedge apple on the tree rolls
down the roof, and the cat jumps on the table.
The friend you love is all ashes now
waiting for you and others to scatter.
The ideas you have about time or what's right
are lighter than all that ash.
See the budded ends of the cottonwood,
months away from unfurling?
It's like that, and also this: green-black etchings
of cedars waver on the soft sky.
Headlights from the crest of a hi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-last-light-of-the-year/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852313f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:06:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527161251321-39c769cebd5b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ5fHx1cm58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzNjkzNjI5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527161251321-39c769cebd5b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ5fHx1cm58ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzNjkzNjI5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Last Light of the Year"/><p>In the house, the heat kicks on,<br>the refrigerator hums a room steady.</br></p><p>The last hedge apple on the tree rolls<br>down the roof, and the cat jumps on the table.</br></p><p>The friend you love is all ashes now<br>waiting for you and others to scatter.</br></p><p>The ideas you have about time or what's right<br>are lighter than all that ash.</br></p><p>See the budded ends of the cottonwood,<br>months away from unfurling?</br></p><p>It's like that, and also this: green-black etchings<br>of cedars waver on the soft sky.</br></p><p>Headlights from the crest of a hill<br>angle into an empty room.<br>Here. Take note.</br></br></p><p>Be still, good heart, bad heart.<br>Don't be swayed by guessing which.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Oil Poached Salmon]]></title><description><![CDATA[A Recipe for Two
Ingredients
* 16 oz of fresh farmed salmon (wild salmon has parasites!)
* Olive oil
* 1 stick of butter
* 1 shallot (about an ounce)
* 4 ounces of dry white wine
* 3 ounces of white wine vinegar
* Salt, pepper, sugar
* Wire meat thermometer
Directions
Salmon
1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees, or as low as the oven can go.
2. Wash the salmon and pat dry. Season with salt and a little sugar on both sides.
3. Use as small an oven dish as possible, add olive oil into ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/oil-poached-salmon/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523157</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Fred Yu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:05:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/Fred-Yu---Poached-Salmon.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h4 id="a-recipe-for-two">A Recipe for Two</h4><h2 id="ingredients">Ingredients</h2><ul><li>16 oz of fresh farmed salmon (wild salmon has parasites!)</li><li>Olive oil</li><li>1 stick of butter</li><li>1 shallot (about an ounce)</li><li>4 ounces of dry white wine</li><li>3 ounces of white wine vinegar</li><li>Salt, pepper, sugar</li><li>Wire meat thermometer</li></ul><h2 id="directions">Directions</h2><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/Fred-Yu---Poached-Salmon.jpg" alt="Oil Poached Salmon"/><p><strong>Salmon</strong></p><ol><li>Preheat oven to 150 degrees, or as low as the oven can go.</li><li>Wash the salmon and pat dry. Season with salt and a little sugar on both sides.</li><li>Use as small an oven dish as possible, add olive oil into the dish first, then place the salmon into the oil. Continue adding olive oil until the salmon is just submerged.</li><li>Insert thermometer into the thickest part of the salmon and set to internal temperature of 101 degrees Fahrenheit.</li><li>Bake the salmon until it reaches temperature. Remove from the oven and extract from the oil immediately. Oil can be refrigerated and reused for the same purpose in the future.</li></ol><p><strong>Sauce</strong></p><ol><li>Cut the stick of butter into small half inch cubes. Return the cubes into the refrigerator if not using immediately.</li><li>Mince the shallots.</li><li>In a small saucepan, melt three or four of the butter cubes and sweat the shallots until golden. Add the white wine vinegar and the dry white wine. Allow it to simmer and reduce about half its volume.</li><li>Bring the heat to low, and add the butter, one small cube at a time, whisking constantly until the cube completely dissolves before adding the next one. When all the cubes of butter have melted, turn off the heat and season with salt and pepper to taste.</li></ol><p>Serve the sauce with the salmon.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[“Elizabeth’s Moonbeams”]]></title><description><![CDATA[This one was of my first underwater model. She is my daughter and was humoring her eccentric mother by posing underwater for photographs. We had no idea how this artistic endeavor was going to turn out but had lots of fun during the two hour underwater photoshoot. One of the other photos I took of her that evening won an art award and is about to appear as an illustration in a poetry book. Just goes to show, if you do art for the sake of just the enjoyment of creating it, you never know what may]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/elizabeths-moonbeams/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852314e</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Melissa Milton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:04:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/Elizabeth-s_Moonbeams_FOR-WCDH.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/Elizabeth-s_Moonbeams_FOR-WCDH.jpg" alt="“Elizabeth’s Moonbeams”"/><p>This one was of my first underwater model. She is my daughter and was humoring her eccentric mother by posing underwater for photographs. We had no idea how this artistic endeavor was going to turn out but had lots of fun during the two hour underwater photoshoot. One of the other photos I took of her that evening won an art award and is about to appear as an illustration in a poetry book. Just goes to show, if you do art for the sake of just the enjoyment of creating it, you never know what may happen!</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Angelina Jolie’s Lips]]></title><description><![CDATA[Lipstick, shadow, liner—all she needs,
the finest-looking woman in the world,
Angelina Jolie, bare-shinned, unshod
(a glossy two-page colour spread),
sitting on a wooden dock that splinters
out towards brackish Asian marsh.
Mangroves rise on stilts above
this coastal wetland, where river
meets sea, fresh water meets salt
(mangroves drink them both).
She’s eyeballed, watched by things above and things beneath—
proboscis monkeys, fishing cats, saltwater crocs.
But she’s oblivious (and probably
i]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/angelina-jolies-lips/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852313e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheryl Loeffler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:04:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1522335789203-aabd1fc54bc9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG1ha2V1cHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM2OTI4MjY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1522335789203-aabd1fc54bc9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG1ha2V1cHxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM2OTI4MjY&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Angelina Jolie’s Lips"/><p>Lipstick, shadow, liner—all she needs,<br>the finest-looking woman in the world,<br>Angelina Jolie, bare-shinned, unshod<br>(a glossy two-page colour spread),<br>sitting on a wooden dock that splinters<br>out towards brackish Asian marsh.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Mangroves rise on stilts above<br>this coastal wetland, where river<br>meets sea, fresh water meets salt<br>(mangroves drink them both).</br></br></br></p><p>She’s eyeballed, watched by things above and things beneath—<br>proboscis monkeys, fishing cats, saltwater crocs.<br>But she’s oblivious (and probably<br>impervious) to hidden, unseen life,<br>her right leg half-curled under her,<br>her left a delta over it,<br>her right hand resting on her knee.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>She wears a finely woven taupe silk blouse,<br>and khaki linen trousers, cropped and rolled.<br>No bling—no necklace, bracelets, watch, or rings.<br>No polish on her nails.<br>Her hair untamed and tucked behind one ear.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Her eyes, however, smoulder smoky kohl.<br>Her parted pillow lips glow luminescent pink.<br>Lipstick, shadow, liner—all she needs.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Listening to Messiaen September, 2020]]></title><description><![CDATA[Making sense is overrated
better the gibberings of mad men.
Address the homeless;
tell them the latest numbers
fresh from randomization.
As long as there are numbers
science requires no sanity.
Reassure those who peddle nonsense,
who call politicians friends.
Keep count, careful inventory.
Talk about the missing;
the numbers by definition
will add in the end.
Double entry each atrocity.
Tabulate the numbers of the dead.
Civilization has grown no wiser;
we cannot stop the plague of men.
Carefully]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/listening-to-messiaen-september-2020/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852313d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kenneth Weene]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:03:56 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1598292309079-6a3489dc5e4b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ0fHxudW1iZXJzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzUyOTE3Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1598292309079-6a3489dc5e4b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDQ0fHxudW1iZXJzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzUyOTE3Mg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Listening to Messiaen September, 2020"/><p>Making sense is overrated<br>better the gibberings of mad men.<br>Address the homeless;<br>tell them the latest numbers<br>fresh from randomization.<br>As long as there are numbers<br>science requires no sanity.<br>Reassure those who peddle nonsense,<br>who call politicians friends.<br>Keep count, careful inventory.<br>Talk about the missing;<br>the numbers by definition<br>will add in the end.<br>Double entry each atrocity.<br>Tabulate the numbers of the dead.<br>Civilization has grown no wiser;<br>we cannot stop the plague of men.<br>Carefully keep track<br>and give number to the dead.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Nous sommes tous condamnés.<br>We are all doomed.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets - September - “Bold and Brave”]]></title><description><![CDATA[The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devastating the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for ea]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-september-bold-and-brave/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523151</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:03:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/Sep--Bold-and-Brave--.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/Sep--Bold-and-Brave--.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets - September - “Bold and Brave”"/><p>The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devastating the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[An Updated Mind]]></title><description><![CDATA[He rode the comet’s tail through life arriving to report-
Coded sense of images, pretend imagination.
Stormy waves of drowning thoughts across a morbid sea.
A rushing cyclone of the brain, whitecaps opalescent.
There is a place, she says, to update his latest project.
Where rainbows shine and hearts divine
With sparking shores of freedom.
There’s peaceful waves and ice cream days.
No right or left-brain havoc.
A white coat here, some laughter there,
He felt a bit tangential.
He followed her into]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/an-updated-mind/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230dd</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:02:57 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558470598-a5dda9640f68?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1558470598-a5dda9640f68?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="An Updated Mind"/><p>He rode the comet’s tail through life arriving to report-<br>Coded sense of images, pretend imagination.<br>Stormy waves of drowning thoughts across a morbid sea.<br>A rushing cyclone of the brain, whitecaps opalescent.<br>There is a place, she says, to update his latest project.<br>Where rainbows shine and hearts divine<br>With sparking shores of freedom.<br>There’s peaceful waves and ice cream days.<br>No right or left-brain havoc.<br>A white coat here, some laughter there,<br>He felt a bit tangential.<br>He followed her into a room.<br>To see so many people.<br>Some wires ascribed.<br>A light described,<br>The rest, not long remembered.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Opening]]></title><description><![CDATA[Blue and white morning glories
Climbed the wire fence,
Separating my own back yard from Ouida’s.
Don’t know who planted the vines,
Nor do I know who made the fence.
I do know who snipped and snapped,
Thick work gloves on her hands,
Wire-pliers bit ‘til a way was formed
Just for me to step through.
Her yard was alive with blossoms and birds.
Sweet peas stood tall in a variety of colors.
She knew about nurturing plants, dogs, children…
And kept a clear path from that fence to her back door.
Called]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-opening/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852313c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elaine Blanchard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:02:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1588758679071-2784e0fe7b2d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxtb3JuaW5nJTIwZ2xvcmllc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM1Mjg4MTc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1588758679071-2784e0fe7b2d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxtb3JuaW5nJTIwZ2xvcmllc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM1Mjg4MTc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Opening"/><p>Blue and white morning glories<br>Climbed the wire fence,<br>Separating my own back yard from Ouida’s.<br>Don’t know who planted the vines,<br>Nor do I know who made the fence.<br>I do know who snipped and snapped,<br>Thick work gloves on her hands,<br>Wire-pliers bit ‘til a way was formed<br>Just for me to step through.<br>Her yard was alive with blossoms and birds.<br>Sweet peas stood tall in a variety of colors.<br>She knew about nurturing plants, dogs, children…<br>And kept a clear path from that fence to her back door.<br>Called me by name<br>when I appeared for our daily visit.<br>Ouida rocked by the stove in her kitchen,<br>back and forth, listening with love.<br>It was her calling.<br>I know about Love’s welcome.<br>I have known Ouida.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Shiny Sky]]></title><description><![CDATA[Some people are just like shooting stars
They come, they shine
And they go]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/shiny-sky/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852313b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Pedro Henrique da Silva Lino]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:02:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518215069569-0781b2f8cc69?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxzaG9vdGluZyUyMHN0YXJzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzUyODU4MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518215069569-0781b2f8cc69?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxzaG9vdGluZyUyMHN0YXJzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzUyODU4MQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Shiny Sky"/><p>Some people are just like shooting stars<br>They come, they shine<br>And they go</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Deluge]]></title><description><![CDATA[The story is that Jesus died for my
sins and that, of course, was good of Him, I
wonder if it was better for me but
then if He's the Son of God how could I
outdo Him? I won't outlive Him, either,
at least until I get to Heaven, if
I rate and since, I guess, God is older
than anything, especially people.
And even though I'll go to Heaven it's
for judgment, my soul's that is, I might not
be permitted to stay, I'm a sinner
and not just the way all folks are but I
seem to have a way to sin beyond wh]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/deluge/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852313a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Gale Acuff]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:01:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1493314894560-5c412a56c17c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI3fHxyYWlufGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzUyODM0OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1493314894560-5c412a56c17c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI3fHxyYWlufGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzUyODM0OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Deluge"/><p>The story is that Jesus died for my<br>sins and that, of course, was good of Him, I<br>wonder if it was better for me but<br>then if He's the Son of God how could I<br>outdo Him? I won't outlive Him, either,<br>at least until I get to Heaven, if<br>I rate and since, I guess, God is older<br>than anything, especially people.<br>And even though I'll go to Heaven it's<br>for judgment, my soul's that is, I might not<br>be permitted to stay, I'm a sinner<br>and not just the way all folks are but I<br>seem to have a way to sin beyond what<br>Adam and Eve only handed down. In</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Sunday School my teacher swears that even<br>though Jesus was crucified for the likes<br>of me that's no guarantee that I'll go<br>to Heaven for good--forever, that is.<br>But at some churches in our town I get<br>folks get to go no matter what they do,<br>the Crucifixion's the Crucifixion<br>even, I guess, if they're evil for good,<br>so to speak. So I asked Miss Hooker just<br>why I should bother with goodness at all<br>when in the end I get what's coming to<br>me and it's all good, and eternal. Damned</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>if she didn't start to cry. I don't know<br>how she managed to keep from falling as<br>she wailed and wailed, rocking back and forth but<br>she was sitting on a stool. I call that<br>a miracle, I guess a minor one,<br>the kind God makes in our modern world, like<br>after class when it thundered all the way<br>home and me without an umbrella or<br>raincoat or rubbers but the flood held off<br>until I went into the house and then<br>all Hell broke loose. There's a lesson to be<br>learned here--next Sunday I'll ask Miss Hooker<br>just what the Hell it is. This should be good.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[James the Moose]]></title><description><![CDATA[He was liberated,
from the amusement park
by a careful and clever
display of skill and grace
in the face of impossible
carnival odds and tricks.
But not by me, although I tried.
I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried
until I noticed that I only had
one president’s face smirking
back at me. You try,
I said to my love, my partner
in impulsive financial decisions.
She made the shot, first try.
Now James, oblong,
coffee colored rollie pollie
a pig]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/james-the-moose/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523139</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:01:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1588736306408-41caf1a8891f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxtb29zZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM1MjgwOTA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1588736306408-41caf1a8891f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE2fHxtb29zZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjM1MjgwOTA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="James the Moose"/><p>He was liberated,<br>from the amusement park<br>by a careful and clever<br>display of skill and grace<br>in the face of impossible<br>carnival odds and tricks.<br>But not by me, although I tried.<br>I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried<br>until I noticed that I only had<br>one president’s face smirking<br>back at me. You try,<br>I said to my love, my partner<br>in impulsive financial decisions.<br>She made the shot, first try.<br>Now James, oblong,<br>coffee colored rollie pollie<br>a pig nose and soft antlers,<br>a wannabe moose,<br>reminds me every day<br>that I can always<br>be surprised.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Awakening]]></title><description><![CDATA[I picked up the ‘Writing Together” Zoom class notes for
“this coming month’s session” and started to read.
The homework was assigned, and it was time to make it happen.
On my right was a Five Star, College Ruled Notebook #1.
A Wal-Mart purchase I made months ago and had no idea why.
It was red, there was a purple one, black and blue one too.
I bought all four. Tossed them on a table and there they sat.
I picked up the red one, after I had read the rest of the details in the handout.
It was 15 ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-awakening-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523138</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John L. Swainston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:00:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1596713907713-e2595427fd3e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHJlZCUyMG5vdGVib29rfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzUyNzUwNA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1596713907713-e2595427fd3e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHJlZCUyMG5vdGVib29rfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzUyNzUwNA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Awakening"/><p>I picked up the ‘Writing Together” Zoom class notes for<br>“this coming month’s session” and started to read.<br>The homework was assigned, and it was time to make it happen.</br></br></p><p>On my right was a Five Star, College Ruled Notebook #1.<br>A Wal-Mart purchase I made months ago and had no idea why.<br>It was red, there was a purple one, black and blue one too.<br>I bought all four. Tossed them on a table and there they sat.</br></br></br></p><p>I picked up the red one, after I had read the rest of the details in the handout.<br>It was 15 minutes after mid-night, and I opened it to the first page.<br>It was like someone had opened a Jack-in-the Box, but it wasn’t a clown that popped out,<br>NO, what popped out were ideas for stories and poems; one, two, three and a dozen more.</br></br></br></p><p>After 30 minutes, my hand hurt, my head hurt.<br>But then I thought of another one, and another.<br>It has been many years since I have been excited by anything!</br></br></p><p>I will write, I will submit, I will not stop, published or not, I’m going to tell my story,<br>NO my stories.</br></p><p>Looking at the ideas, cool, they can actually be organized into series.<br>Wow that gives me another idea.</br></p><p>Falling asleep – it is time for bed, for lights out.<br>That is if I can turn my head off, too!</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hot and Dry]]></title><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/hot-and-dry/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523153</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Fred Yu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:00:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/F.-Yu---Hot-and-Dry.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded/></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Wanderer]]></title><description><![CDATA[Don’t doubt that I’m a stranger
My home was a distant thought
Some called it paradise
But today I’m a wandering man
Don’t ask me why I came here
I heard hope rained from the sky
My home could’ve been paradise
But a wanderer may tell lies
Don’t tell me that I’m foolish
Don’t blame me for disaster
I traveled from a distant land
Though hope didn’t rain from the sky
Even if I’m frightened
Even if I die
My home was but a paradise
So I left to see the sky
My family never knew me
My friends think I]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-wanderer/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523137</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Fred Yu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:59:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1498496294664-d9372eb521f3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGNsb3Vkc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjMzNDkzOTc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1498496294664-d9372eb521f3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGNsb3Vkc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjMzNDkzOTc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Wanderer"/><p>Don’t doubt that I’m a stranger<br>My home was a distant thought<br>Some called it paradise<br>But today I’m a wandering man</br></br></br></p><p>Don’t ask me why I came here<br>I heard hope rained from the sky<br>My home could’ve been paradise<br>But a wanderer may tell lies</br></br></br></p><p>Don’t tell me that I’m foolish<br>Don’t blame me for disaster<br>I traveled from a distant land<br>Though hope didn’t rain from the sky</br></br></br></p><p>Even if I’m frightened<br>Even if I die<br>My home was but a paradise<br>So I left to see the sky</br></br></br></p><p>My family never knew me<br>My friends think I’m a visitor<br>If home was really paradise<br>The wanderer would not lie</br></br></br></p><p>Don’t tell me that I’m foolish<br>Don’t blame me for disaster<br>I’m a traveler who will not return<br>Though hope didn’t rain from the sky</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[An Afternoon in June]]></title><description><![CDATA[Church bells sing
in the thick, hot air
and humidity clings
to skin and hair;
only AC units growl and grind
in reply. Even the dogs are silent
in the heat of this summer-spring,
and the children have retreated
inside for quarantine.
But, I'm walking in the heat, anyway.
This miserable silence is supreme.
Chimes jangle eerily with a fleeting breeze,
and robins are chirping in the trees.
There's a dead copperhead
curled like an “L” on the concrete,
baked black after two days:
it slithered out fr]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/an-afternoon-in-june/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523136</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Robertson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:59:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595802304897-fd065b470e9a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGJlbGxzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzM0OTA2Nw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595802304897-fd065b470e9a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGJlbGxzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzM0OTA2Nw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="An Afternoon in June"/><p>Church bells sing<br>in the thick, hot air<br>and humidity clings<br>to skin and hair;<br>only AC units growl and grind<br>in reply. Even the dogs are silent<br>in the heat of this summer-spring,<br>and the children have retreated<br>inside for quarantine.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But, I'm walking in the heat, anyway.<br>This miserable silence is supreme.</br></p><p>Chimes jangle eerily with a fleeting breeze,<br>and robins are chirping in the trees.<br>There's a dead copperhead<br>curled like an “L” on the concrete,<br>baked black after two days:<br>it slithered out from the shade<br>and died alone.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I'm out here alone and alive.<br>I'm wondering what's going on<br>across the world, where radio stations play<br>so far away.<br>Is anyone else strolling in a sweat,<br>or through a chill,<br>hearing some church bells trill?<br>Do they feel as small and remote as I feel?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>There's no network to connect<br>solitary creatures across seas.<br>Only thoughts can take us to them –<br>or a slight sensation of solemn intuition,<br>lost across waves of time.</br></br></br></br></p><p>And it is time that took me<br>from the shade of my home,<br>crawling out in search<br>of something<br><em>warm</em>,<br>something not of the sun.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But, there's only one soul<br>walking this street,<br>and no other to meet.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to Become Invisible]]></title><description><![CDATA[Be silent, still, and stay away from sky.
Play the edge of time—the two-faced twilight,
the quick and cunning light of dawn and dusk.
Play the edge of space—the hedges, woods.
Like the mystical deer—paused, alert—
move between the trees to become one of them.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/how-to-become-invisible/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523135</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheryl Loeffler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:58:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1545063914-a1a6ec821c88?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGRlZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzMzQ4MDA2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1545063914-a1a6ec821c88?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGRlZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzMzQ4MDA2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="How to Become Invisible"/><p>Be silent, still, and stay away from sky.<br>Play the edge of time—the two-faced twilight,<br>the quick and cunning light of dawn and dusk.<br>Play the edge of space—the hedges, woods.<br>Like the mystical deer—paused, alert—<br>move between the trees to become one of them.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Seashells]]></title><description><![CDATA[Our lives are like seashells in the sand,
Arranged on a palette, seemingly haphazardly.
A beautiful seascape with the ocean, sun, wind,
and sparkling sands highlighting.
Small, significant, striped, or speckled shells,
Ridged, in the rough, raw, reckless, and ruffled,
Omnipresent, opaque, oval, and an oyster’s home.
Is your life smooth sailing right now?
Or does it feel hollow echoing sounds,
reminders of voices from the past?
Storms interrupting life?
There is a Pearl awaiting discovery.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/seashells/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523134</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:58:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1617451683445-510570b1da52?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxzZWFzaGVsbHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzMzQ3NjY5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1617451683445-510570b1da52?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxzZWFzaGVsbHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjIzMzQ3NjY5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Seashells"/><p>Our lives are like seashells in the sand,<br>Arranged on a palette, seemingly haphazardly.<br>A beautiful seascape with the ocean, sun, wind,<br>and sparkling sands highlighting.<br>Small, significant, striped, or speckled shells,<br>Ridged, in the rough, raw, reckless, and ruffled,<br>Omnipresent, opaque, oval, and an oyster’s home.<br>Is your life smooth sailing right now?<br>Or does it feel hollow echoing sounds,<br>reminders of voices from the past?<br>Storms interrupting life?<br>There is a Pearl awaiting discovery.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[They say God makes paintings in the form of sunsets. I must say ... he is an amazing artist!]]></title><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/they-say-god-makes-paintings-in-the-form-of-sunsets-i-must-say-he-is-an-amazing-artist/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523154</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anchal Singh ]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:58:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/A.-Singh---They-Say-God.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded/></item><item><title><![CDATA[To escape and sit quietly on the terrace, seeing the sunset, feels like some kind of paradise.]]></title><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/to-escape-and-sit-quietly-on-the-terrace-seeing-the-sunset-feels-like-some-kind-of-paradise/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523155</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anchal Singh ]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:57:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/07/A.-Singh---To-escape.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded/></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Observer]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dr. Gates was an ambitious man. He always carried his clipboard with him and exactly one black pen, one blue pen, one red pen, and one finely sharpened No.2 Ticonderoga yellow pencil. He was tall but unimposing, and as thin as the lead of his pencil. The gaunt angles of his face fought against the distinctive angle of his aquiline nose. A few months ago he applied for his post doc. Now, he could still not believe that he was working at the Vesta Research Institute. His only other interest outsid]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-observers/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523133</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:57:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/06/Clipboards.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/06/Clipboards.jpg" alt="The Observer"/><p>Dr. Gates was an ambitious man. He always carried his clipboard with him and exactly one black pen, one blue pen, one red pen, and one finely sharpened No.2 Ticonderoga yellow pencil. He was tall but unimposing, and as thin as the lead of his pencil. The gaunt angles of his face fought against the distinctive angle of his aquiline nose. A few months ago he applied for his post doc. Now, he could still not believe that he was working at the Vesta Research Institute. His only other interest outside of social psychology was basketball. He loved to argue that the two were related. The previous night he could not rest. Larry Bird and the Celtics had lost the NBA Finals to Magic Johnson and the Lakers. Today would be a day for strong coffee- he liked to think that coffee and basketball were his only vices. Gates could still taste the acid on his tongue from the cheap instant coffee as he opened the door to the interview room.</p><p>"Are you ready to begin?" he asked the boy mechanically. They began this study six weeks ago and the interview sessions had become routine for both subject and observer.</p><p>The interview room was cold and sterile. The well-funded institute spared no expense soundproofing each room to maintain privacy. Malcom was always first in the interview room, he sat across from an empty wooden chair. A steel table with two chairs stood in the middle of the windowless room - this was a temple of no nonsense. The walls were an unnatural white and the fluorescent light above would hum audibly during silences. On the table there were three new VHS tapes and a small camera with a tripod was provided by the institute to record interviews. Once this phase of the study was completed Gates would be eligible for promotion if Dr. Janus, the program director, approved. He sat down across from Malcolm and adjusted his wire frame glasses, waiting for a response.</p><p>"I guess", a shy reply came from a stocky freckled boy. His big green eyes darted back and forth.</p><p>"Alright Malcolm, let me turn the camera on and then we will play questions. Have you been keeping up with your schoolwork?” Dr. Gates asked, as he put a new tape into the camera and pressed record. His twiggy hands held a pen and clipboard with the last set of interview questions.</p><p>"Yes, Dr. Gates. Can we play questions next week instead?" said Malcolm. He did not like to sit still in the chair. It was too tall for him, and his legs dangled lazily from it.</p><p>Malcolm was an ideal candidate for the study. His file read that he loved to play outside, eat candy, and read comics. He always wore a t-shirt with some sort of superhero. His jeans and sneakers were usually dirty, and his red hair was usually unruly. Malcolm was shy with most adults, but his relationship with Gates was special. Gates had been able to break through to him. The only thing that distinguished Malcolm from any other ten-year-old was that he was an orphan, like Gates himself. The study examined children from troubled backgrounds to see how their conception of morality developed under difficult circumstances. This was a groundbreaking joint project conducted between the government and the Vesta Research Institute. Such groundbreaking studies bolstered the reputation of the institute. Working there was a career maker.</p><p>"You know we have to play questions like we do every day. Listen, I will give you a sticker after we finish. Sound good?” asked Dr. Gates.</p><p>“You mean it? None of the other kids ever get stickers.” Said Malcolm as he looked intensely at Dr. Gates’ thin, tired face.</p><p>“I promise. Today is our last interview. I wanted to reward you, you have been a big help.” Dr. Gates said, even though bribing a subject was against the rules of the institute. He needed the boy to cooperate.</p><p>“Ok, I’m ready.” said Malcolm.</p><p>“First question, is it okay to lie when the lie protects someone? Remember just answer yes or no. " Gates turned the camera toward Malcom as he smiled. But the smile was met with an empty silent stare.</p><p>"Malcolm?"</p><p>"No." replied Malcolm before breaking eye contact. He began to swing his feet nervously, the sloppy shoelaces dragged on the floor.</p><p>“Sometimes…there are good reasons to lie.” Malcolm said staring at the floor.</p><p>“Remember Malcolm - only yes or no answers. Focus please, we must stick to the questions. Is it good to help people, even strangers? Yes or no?" Dr. Gates asked as he worked impatiently down the list.</p><p>"Yes." replied Malcom, his eyes now steady on Dr. Gates.</p><p>"Good. Next question, is it okay to lie to people to get to the truth?" Dr. Gates knew that sitting still could often be a challenge for Malcolm, but something was different today.<br>The boy stopped swinging his feet. Malcolm’s eyes grew pale as he stared and leaned slowly towards Dr. Gates.</br></p><p>"Dr. Janus, she hurts people. She scared me when we played questions too. Last time…she put wires in my mouth." Malcolm whispered. His green eyes filled with tears as he began to stutter, "She...She…She used wires to shock me. The other kids too. Rebecca told Dr. Juno and Timmy told Dr. Wolf ... but they didn't believe them. Do you believe me?"</p><p>"What? That’s not funny Malcolm. I guess you don’t want this sticker. I’ll have to mention this in my report to Dr. Janus. Now we need to start over.” Gates reached to turn the camera off before he took out the tape.</p><p>"No, you can't tell her! Please Dr. Gates don't tell anybody!" He jumped out of his chair and ran out of the room.</p><p>Instinctively, Dr. Gates grabbed the tape and his notes before he flew out of the room. Outside the interview room, the busy hall was full of people. The clipboard and tape slowed him down. A blur of red hair over weaved and darted between people in white lab coats. Dr. Gates pushed through the crowd as his thoughts began to race. <em>I was stupid. I shouldn’t have pressed the kid. The social worker will be furious. I can't lose this position. There, there! I can see recognize that hair from anywhere. What is all this about Dr. Janus? Where could he have gone? This can't be happening to me. Is it just his imagination?</em></p><p>He turned sharply, bumping into people that he now could only view as obstacles. The tape and notes were clutched tightly, as he pressed them against his body. A door slammed around the corner. <em>There. Over there. He must be there.</em> The crowded halls began to thin, as Gates found himself in an unfamiliar part of the institute. He stood outside a set of dark wooden doors. A brass plate on the doors read “Executive Conference Room.” Beside the plate there was a handwritten sign "Board of Directors Meeting in Session. Quiet Please." Gates recognized the distinctly slanted and elaborate handwriting, it belonged to Dr. Janus.</p><p>This was the only doorway in the hall. He paced in shrinking frantic circles like a vulture. There was no other place Malcolm could have gone. As he caught his breath Gates began to think about his next move. He would apologize. Children run off all the time. The previous interviews with Malcolm were not compromised and there was no need to confront Dr. Janus about an allegation from a little boy. He sighed as he set the tape and clipboard down on the floor outside of the conference room. The fear in Malcolm’s voice was all too real – he remembered the horrors of being passed around the system after his mother died. Gates hadn’t thought about her in many years. Gates hadn’t thought about the scars that cigarette burns left on her lifeless arms. Gates hadn’t thought about his father, incarcerated for murder all those years ago until he opened the conference room door gently.</p><p>The conference room was sterile and cold. The board of directors were all either wearing suits or lab coats. Twelve sets of expressionless eyes around the mahogany conference table focused on Gates. Malcolm was standing in the far corner next to Dr. Janus. Her presence dominated the room. She wore a white lab coat over an elegant black dress that matched her dark hair almost exactly. Her manicured aristocratic hand rested on the boy’s shoulder. She looked so tall next to him.</p><p>"Dr. Gates, it seems your little helper stumbled into the middle of our meeting,” she said with a sinister sweetness, as every big wig in the room smiled and chuckled. Malcolm's lively green eyes grew pale again, unblinking.</p><p>"My apologies. You know how boys his age can be. Let’s go Malcolm." Dr. Gates spoke calmly as he approached, he boy and led him by the hand. Malcolm was shaking with every small step. Gates closed his eyes before stopping short of the door. He remembered that his father liked cheap coffee and basketball too. His mother would often say that they were almost copies of each other.</p><p>"Something else Dr. Gates?" said Dr. Janus, her voice now stern. Malcolm continued to look straight down at his sloppy shoelaces.</p><p>Gates was overcome with a gnawing feeling. He looked once more at Malcolm before speaking, "Yes. I believe that Dr. Janus has been harming this boy and others. I have no reason to think that Malcolm would lie."</p><p>The room now looked toward Dr. Janus. She stood still like a tombstone, smiling. Malcolm let go of Gates’ hand. then the boy smiled brightly at him before skipping gleefully towards Dr. Janus. His eyes were lively and green again as he sat in her empty conference chair at the head of the table. The directors began to applaud and congratulate him.</p><p>“We chose you well dear boy, excellent work” Dr. Janus said as she reached into her purse and gave Malcolm a sticker. Malcolm was glowing with pride. She reached into her purse again.</p><p>“Malcolm? What is going on here?” demanded Gates.</p><p>“Dr. Gates, this is for you.” said Dr. Janus, as she swiftly pulled out a pistol and aimed it at Gates. He felt a sharp pain in his stomach, the room rolled with applause as everything slowly faded to black.</p><p>"Wake up Dr. Gates, wake up." Said a voice sweetly.</p><p>"Dr. Janus?” He said with difficulty. He realized he was now seated, his hands handcuffed behind his back. He could hear a familiar fluorescent hum. This was the interview room. As Gates opened his eyes, he could make out one familiar silhouette - Dr. Janus. There were two others seated on either side of him. There was something in his mouth. As his vision adjusted, he recognized Juno and Wolf. They looked dehydrated, sleep deprived, and shriveled. They avoided looking at directly at Gates. In the corners of their mouths he could see wires. Across the table Gates noticed three empty chairs. A small console with one red button was on the table, connected to the wires. That was when he knew that no one could help him.</p><p>"Save your energy Dr. Gates.” Dr. Janus said standing over him with a sinister smile, “I have some good news. First, Malcolm is fine. Everything he told you was a carefully designed lie. You see, Malcolm and the other children are my wards. They have been observing you and your colleagues quite closely during phase one. Although we have been researching morality and conditioning, what the institute really wanted to observe was how susceptible young and intelligent people were to moral corruption. As you know, we select our postdocs with utmost care. The three of you proved to be ideal candidates for our study. Three different backgrounds but equally ambitious and smart. So, allow me to congratulate you on being promoted to phase two. The wires in your mouths are there to help you with your conditioning. You will be asked a series of yes or no questions. If the observers feel that one of you is lying, they will send a shock to all three of you. Children, come in please.” Malcom entered the room together with two other children. His red hair was neatly brushed and parted. The children wore small lab coats. Malcolm carried a familiar clipboard. They sat down in the empty chairs.</p><p>"Why me?" asked Gates.</p><p>“Oh, Dr. Gates, your research notes were greatly detailed and the tape you kindly brought to us was particularly helpful. Initially, you chose not to help the child. You dismissed his plea for help. However, unlike your colleagues you spoke up at the last possible moment. But did you forget about your lie? The sticker? You really should not bribe children. I have trained these observers to do much better.” The heels of her shoes tapped slowly as she left the room, softly closing the door behind her without turning around.</p><p>"Are you ready to begin?" asked Malcolm mechanically, already bored by his subject.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Thumbelina Chronicles]]></title><description><![CDATA[Prologue
April 2018
The fiery accents of orange-gold in the western sky had gingerly muted into a soft peach. Rich hues of champagne and pastel pink blended with the steely greys in the horizon. A flurry of various birds and their dark silhouettes dotted the myriad tints as they returned to their roosts. They cackled joyously as they flew overhead. The chorus and the orchestra of the birds gradually drifted into the distance until I could only hear an echo or a settling-in faint cluck from a f]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-thumbelina-chronicles/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523132</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sangeetha Amarnath Kamath]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:56:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/06/Thumbilina.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/06/Thumbilina.jpg" alt="The Thumbelina Chronicles"/><p>Prologue</p><p>April 2018</p><p>The fiery accents of orange-gold in the western sky had gingerly muted into a soft peach. Rich hues of champagne and pastel pink blended with the steely greys in the horizon. A flurry of various birds and their dark silhouettes dotted the myriad tints as they returned to their roosts. They cackled joyously as they flew overhead. The chorus and the orchestra of the birds gradually drifted into the distance until I could only hear an echo or a settling-in faint cluck from a faraway tree. Everything had gone quiet and still outside.</p><p>I felt anything but elated with these songs and sights of creation which would otherwise have stirred a sense of exhilaration in me and have me hurriedly rummage about for my camera. Those were the extremely wretched of days when I had just about struggled to get my bearings together after an unfortunate and untimely demise of an infant in the family, a few days prior. The disbelief and emotional upheaval was taxing, to say the least.</p><p>Snapping out of my reverie, I realized that the sun had long since set. It was a cloudless night and the sky was an enveloping petal of spring Iris, all aglow with a serene silvery sheen.</p><p>A faint voice relentlessly cooed and called out from somewhere inside the house. Being conditioned to all the chatter of the mynahs and the clucking of pigeons which roost in some hidden alcoves of the tall apartment building that I stay in, it was also a common sight of them fluttering across the common corridors outside, which went unperceived sometimes.</p><p>Quite engrossed with my last minute dinner preparations after a long, busy day at work and running errands, I regretted to have failed to notice this melody sooner. When the cobwebs finally cleared from my befuddled head, I rushed on tiptoe, ever so quietly to find the source of this tune. Standing her ground firmly and boldly in a shaft of moonlight, in one of the rooms was the tiniest of birds, as yellow as butter. A first-time visitor, who had separated herself from her flock and had stopped by to actually trill a birdsong. Long after sundown.</p><p>‘Birdie’ noticed me but was not startled. Confidently, and in a higher pitch, with every ounce of energy, she gave an overjoyed tweet upon seeing me. I whistled to her in varied tunes and Birdie responded likewise. This musical opera continued for a while and I lost track of time.</p><p>Having sung and done that, Birdie decided it was about time to leave.<br>She made her way out and disappeared without a trace. Never to return.</br></p><p>The pearly luminescence outside captured only a silhouette in flight of my sublime emissary. Rare birds they say are fairies in disguise, who come to comfort you, reassure you! The mystical message in her beatific lyrical was for me to decode.</p><p><em>I believe in the Mystique and the Magic.</em><br><em>Magic comes to me, it sends me signs from the unseen world, the mystical realms.</em><br><em>I know all is well up there and the Heavens are kindly taking care of you.</em></br></br></p><hr><p>I</p><p>Night 2 years later</p><p>April, 2020</p><p>It was eight at night. She was yellow-bellied with shimmers of green as I looked closely, the only light emitting from the living-room I was watching her from. No bigger than my thumb, one could easily mistake her for a toy, but for her incessant chirruping. She sat dangerously close to the edge of the window sill and was seemingly in dire need of help. I stretched out my hand as much as I possibly could, leaning against the window frame. But she was just out of reach.</p><p><em>A nestling on the window sill! Or was it a magically minute bird that had come to life out of a fairy-tale?</em></p><p>With a frame so tiny and wings so frail, it was next to impossible for her to fly all the way up to the top floors of this high-rise or for her to fall out of any nest, considering that there weren’t any trees or even branches overhanging anywhere close outside this window.</p><p>Habitually, as I give my own names to any stray animals or birds that I come across, this little bird for all intents and purposes was aptly dubbed - <em>Thumbelina</em>. I kept her engaged with my own animated banter.</p><p><em>Are you hurt, injured, sick or lost little birdie?</em></p><p>But Thumbelina just cocked her head and looked at me with twinkling eyes. She never seemed livelier or more than happy to just warble away to me. After a while, she roosted snugly on the sill.</p><p>Sending up a quick prayer to Archangel Michael to protect her from toppling over in her sleep, another one to Archangel Raphael to heal her if she was in distress, I finally hit the sack.</p><p>These two angels had never failed me whenever I had called out to them and I was rest assured that Thumbelina would be in Divine hands.</p><p>The next day, the break of dawn brought with it a bustling multitude of chirps, twitters, cheeps and the laughter of my feathered friends. I rushed to check on Thumbelina, but she was gone! My heart did a somersault at her absence, thinking of the worst tragedy that might have befallen her. Although that bleak thought niggled at the back of my mind, my faith in the angels was steadfast.</p><p>As the day progressed and when the sun was strong enough, I slid open my bedroom window to let the natural light in… and there she was!</p><p>Thumbelina!</p><p>She had flown a full circle from a window at the other side of my apartment to be right outside my window!</p><p>She squawked a quick ‘Hello’. Thumbelina was more exquisite in the bright sunlight. Her dazzling feathers were an iridescent green.</p><p>Perched on the ledge, she fanned open her tiny wings and flapped them to show me that she wasn’t injured. She hovered a bit off the ledge of my window sill to show me that she was strong enough. With a swish of her tail feathers, she flew the entire perimeter of the building effortlessly and turned the corner. I craned my neck outside, until I could catch sight of her no longer.</p><hr><p>Gleaning back into the events of a few days preceding this, I realised that I had been constantly dwelling on the past thinking about <em>Mamama</em>, my maternal grandmother. Although three decades had gone by since her mistimed passing, the memories of a companion with whom I had a deep bonding and attachment right from my childhood, up until my early teen years had never truly faded away. From her, I had had a complete absence of judgement, share with her what I may. The advice that I got from her was always right, full of wisdom and logic.</p><p>While in meditation and also during my last state of wakefulness every night, I always and to this day, have invoked her for guidance through dreams or an intuition.</p><p>Thumbelina had come precisely at this time as a harbinger--- to see me, meet me and to symbolically show me that:<br><em>No matter whosoever is bigger and stronger around me, I’m not cowed.</em><br><em>Nor is my spirit injured. It is always whole and restored.</em><br><em>God and his angels always have my back, no matter how tiny, frail and lost I feel.</em></br></br></br></p><p>The essence was delivered, which I could interpret.</p><p>This reinforced my belief that our beloved, departed are among us in various forms and spirits. Birds, moreover are said to be oracles from heaven. The more eye-catching they looked, I would always be comforted with the thought that they were from a Godly realm.</p><p>And Thumbelina was just that---Rare and Exotic.</p><p>To all other eyes, she was just a nestling … lost at night.</p><hr><p>II</p><p>THUMBELINA RETURNS</p><p>April 2020</p><p>Lockdowns had given me long stretches of time to reflect and introspect. Preferably, I would like to call it my Retreat. Lockdowns sound more like serving a term, so a big no-no to this word.</p><p>With huge encouragement, repeatedly in the past from my mother, and also from a dear friend to whom I always turned to for advice had given me great moral boost, to hone my craft of writing. It was about and the right time to give it a try. The opportune moment brought with it a synchronistic, fortuitous guidance and a nudge in the right direction from my Professor in English.</p><p>Making the most of this downtime, I flipped through my archived journals to whip into shape some closely guarded, drafted reminiscences to present a chronological storyline.</p><p>I had decided on my debut to be a grand tribute to <em>Mamama</em> in my Memoir which I had decided to call ‘Paper Boats.’</p><p>A symbolic affirmation was all that I needed when Thumbelina had first made a cameo appearance in my life, some days back in April 2020. I always upheld the belief that I have spiritual guides in all forms and most importantly, birds topped my list. They do, and had shown up at crucial moments and decision-making times.</p><p>These were signs from the Universe, little intuitive and affirmative green lights to go ahead. To take that chance and to submit my piece, showcasing my humble tribute.</p><p>Apprehensively, as a raw newbie writer, I was open to the realistic possibility of outright rejection with a lot of critique. Nevertheless, strong will ruled the day, to take the plunge. Reintroducing myself to Microsoft Word, with which I was out of touch for ages now, I typed away fervently from my diary. In effect, it was an immense unburdening and a cathartic release of emotions all over again.</p><p>April 9th, 2020 went down in my calendar, a date marked for life. For two reasons.</p><p>The unbelievable had happened! Nothing short of a miracle when my debut memoir ‘Paper Boats’ got a wider audience through its publication.</p><p>Something so nostalgic, so sacred, so close to my heart had got validated. It was like the Universe was saying to me with a huge benevolent smile --- <em>“You asked, you believed, you received.”</em></p><hr><p>I hadn’t in my wildest dreams imagined Thumbelina to make a reappearance. But to my amazement, she did. On this very blessed night that my Memoir received acceptance.</p><p>Epiphany! Blink and I would have missed her. If she hadn’t made a great deal of grabbing my attention.</p><p>She flapped away furiously with her frail wings with all her might against the thickness of the drapery of my bedroom window. My heart had missed a beat, wary of the strange sounds outside, thinking it could only be a dreaded <em>bat</em>.</p><p>But it was Thumbelina. With an iron-will she inched her way in through the window bars into the room. Gliding gracefully in slow swirling arcs above me, her melodic voice trickled with high-pitched piping and congratulatory tweets.</p><p>Without asking for much, except to see me, the air resonated mellifluously behind her as she made her way out swiftly after her mission was accomplished.</p><p>No doubt, a celestial guardian or...a seraph?</p><p>Well, it could only be a loved one, come down to bless me … in person!</p><p><em>And it has been so ever since.</em><br><em>Birds and I have a camaraderie!</em><br><em>Thank you for the melody, that’s precisely why my heart sings with a better chord today and is a steady, rhythmic drum to your chime and hymn.</em></br></br></p></hr></hr></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pledge of Allegiance]]></title><description><![CDATA[Mama said the dresses that fluttered from our porch railing were flags. They were for when we started our own country. I said when would that be and she said when the next hurricane hits and then she squinted, like she could tell the future just by looking. That was last December, so I figured it would be a while.
In the meantime, I started thinking about what our country would be like and who’d get to be there, like definitely not any no-good dads or anyone in a truck that parked over the line]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pledge-of-allegiance/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523131</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lauren Ferebee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:55:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1549037173-d460ddc86975?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHxsYXVuZHJ5fGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzI3MTcxMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1549037173-d460ddc86975?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHxsYXVuZHJ5fGVufDB8fHx8MTYyMzI3MTcxMQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Pledge of Allegiance"/><p>Mama said the dresses that fluttered from our porch railing were flags. They were for when we started our own country. I said <em>when would that be</em> and she said <em>when the next hurricane hits</em> and then she squinted, like she could tell the future just by looking. That was last December, so I figured it would be a while.</p><p>In the meantime, I started thinking about what our country would be like and who’d get to be there, like definitely not any no-good dads or anyone in a truck that parked over the line at the grocery store or anyone that worked for the government. In my experience, none of those people had the kind of sense of humor our new country would need.</p><p>I figured every new country needed people who could laugh at themselves, especially in the beginning.</p><p>Not having anyone who worked for the government, that was the toughest one, since a new country needed somebody in charge, but Mama always said why couldn’t the government be run by regular people, and I thought, <em>well, here’s our chance</em>. Maybe we could have a government that ran on our front porch, a government of hard-eyed women in dirty camping chairs. They could park their RVs on our dead grass and defend our borders with hunting guns. If anybody tried to mess with us, they’d just laugh, the kind of laugh that made sandpaper jealous.</p><p>Next, I assessed our natural resources. Once upon a time we’d had a garden, but it was mostly flowers, and they were all dead now anyway. It was my job to water, and I’d forgot, and Mama said their deaths were on my head. We called it The Graveyard now and buried little dead animals in there when they turned up on our porch. Maybe someone else could be in charge of food and landscaping. I’d heard that dead, rotting things were good for the next round of the living.</p><p>Other than that, our store was small: one pantry survey revealed a bag of coffee filters, cereal, ketchup, mustard, and some milk. It’d be nice if we could arrange for a hurricane to hit right after payday, when the soda was plentiful and there was more than one box of Rice-A-Roni around.</p><p>Mama saw me looking in the cupboard and started asking some questions, suspicious of my motives. Even though I’m her daughter, when it comes to the pantry it’s everyone for themselves, and I have to be stealthy to get extra.</p><p>As an informal policy, it worked great, but as a law, I felt it might be worth revisiting. In every country, there are tough people and weak people. In every country, there are people who need more and people who need less. If we were going to open up our borders to anyone besides me and Mama, there would have to be some kind of policy about food that made sure that the weak folks still got some.</p><p>I didn’t know how that idea would go over in an everyone-for-themselves kind of environment, but it was worth floating anyway.</p><p>Now: the terrain. It was hard to say exactly where we’d draw the line between us and everybody else since it wasn’t like there was a fence or anything. And I wasn’t sure how we’d let people know about the new development, especially since we’d have to recruit a few of them to come over here. But that shouldn’t be so hard, since Mama’s friends were none too keen on the government the way it was, thought they could do it better with their eyes closed.</p><p>There’d have to be some kind of test, I decided, some kind of test to make sure they were serious, to make sure they’d really want to be here and not there. When Mama had her work buddies over and they were nice and beer-drunk, I sat myself down right in the middle, and asked like I had nothing at stake, if they could start their own country, would they do it? And they all laughed and said <em>boy would they</em>, but none of them leaned in and looked me in the eye and said, <em>now there’s an idea.</em></p><p>Meanwhile the dresses on the porch were looking dirtier every day, and they hardly looked like flag material now. Anyway, Mama didn’t exactly put them out there as a signal of rebellion, did she? Didn’t they just fall off dad’s truck when he left, those dresses she was going to give away? Like the last piece of her saying, fine, go, finally giving up on him, like she was letting go of his truck back and getting tumbled out in the dirt?</p><p>Now that I’ve given it a lot of thought, I just think that’s no thing to stake your independence on, your freedom. On something you didn’t even want anyway, on some sad thing that’s not even trying to fly like a flag, that’s just limp and losing its shape and fading. That’s no thing to hold up a whole country, even if it is just me and Mama. And I don’t think I’m ready to look after anyone else, not yet.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 11: Summer 2021]]></title><description><![CDATA[Hello everyone, and Welcome to this issue of eMerge! It seems as though time has flown since Covid arrived. As Groucho Marx once so eloquently put it, “Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.” Once again, creativity and innovation abound in this issue. This creativity is given wings by our Executive Director and staff at the Colony and affirmed by a phenomenal Board of Directors. Our alums and champions continue to provide the Colony with support, financial and/or emotional, which i]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-11-summer-2021/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852314d</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 14 Jul 2021 16:17:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hello everyone, and Welcome to this issue of eMerge! It seems as though time has flown since Covid arrived. As Groucho Marx once so eloquently put it, “Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.” Once again, creativity and innovation abound in this issue. This creativity is given wings by our Executive Director and staff at the Colony and affirmed by a phenomenal Board of Directors. Our alums and champions continue to provide the Colony with support, financial and/or emotional, which is esteemed by our writing community.</p><p><strong>A Reminder: Submissions to eMerge, for the publishing year 2022, will be open on August 1, 2021, until October 1, 2021. So, you have TWO full months to deliberate, plan, write, fusticate (a combination of fuss and explicate, where you find yourself involved in excruciating detail over the appropriate word to use in a piece you are writing, instead of writing!) and ruminate over the work you wish to submit.</strong></p><p>We genuinely love to read all of your submissions and appreciate your efforts and courage in sharing a piece of yourself with <strong>eMerge</strong> and our reading audience. The caliber of work submitted continues to amaze and reaffirm our beliefs in the power of the written word. Your work is what we believe to be one of the foundations of becoming human and why we continue to provide a sanctuary for writers from all over the world.</p><p><strong>The Dairy Hollow Echo</strong>, an anthology of prose and poetry taken from selections of <strong>eMerge</strong>, will be out by September (hopefully)! The goals of this publication were twofold: 1) provide a printed platform for many of our previously published authors and 2) raise money for our Scholarship Fund and eMerge. All proceeds from the sale of the Dairy Hollow Echo will go toward these two worthy projects.</p><p>Until Next Time,<br>I Remain,<br>Just another Zororastafarian Editor who thinks that stressed spelled backwards is desserts, is not a coincidence!</br></br></p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Don't Mean that Weird-Like]]></title><description><![CDATA[When physical degradation happens, I don’t get too upset. I have a mantra: work the problem. This helped me through a nosebleed crisis necessitating a trip to the emergency room. The setting implied a guaranteed ER nightmare except for the potential for glimpses of handsome policemen, firemen, and other men in uniform who occupy those places late at night. I don’t mean that weird-like. It’s just a matter of admiration and appreciation. In this case, it was also matter of distraction from blood.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-dont-mean-that-weird-like/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852310e</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nikki Hanna]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:16:18 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566410845311-1201aefbee6a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGJsb29kfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTQ5NjMzMw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1566410845311-1201aefbee6a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fGJsb29kfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTQ5NjMzMw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="I Don't Mean that Weird-Like"/><p>When physical degradation happens, I don’t get too upset. I have a mantra: work the problem. This helped me through a nosebleed crisis necessitating a trip to the emergency room. The setting implied a guaranteed ER nightmare except for the potential for glimpses of handsome policemen, firemen, and other men in uniform who occupy those places late at night. I don’t mean that weird-like. It’s just a matter of admiration and appreciation. In this case, it was also matter of distraction from blood.</p><p>I drove to the hospital emergency room where I bled on the reception desk and a clipboard of requisite paperwork. Apparently, I was not ER worthy. The receptionist instructed me to have a seat in the waiting room where I waited—bleeding and scaring small children. Finally, I worked the problem and drove myself home, called an ambulance, and was whisked into the depths of ER hell.</p><p>A doctor asked me if I’d had an accident. I said, “No. I picked my nose.” He and an intern stifled chuckles and knowingly looked at each other. I said, “W-h-a-t?” He responded, “You’re the first person with a nosebleed to admit to picking your nose.” I said, “I’m old. I have no dignity left. Why lie?”</p><p>He and the intern set to work as my mind wandered. <em>Have I lost more blood than the pint I would have given if I donated some? If I ever have sex again, would the old fellow have a nosebleed? Does putting raisins in my coffee this morning instead of in my oatmeal mean I have Alzheimers?</em> I didn’t share these thoughts since I had enough mental capacity to edit myself.</p><p>While the physician set up some intimidating equipment, the intern, who resembled Keith Urban, stood beside my bed, clipboard in hand, asking me medical history questions. I answered while struggling to breathe, swallow blood, and pinch my nose as per instructions. I responded to his questions about an ingrown toenail, the date of my tonsillectomy in 1968, and when I got my first period.</p><p>When Keith Urban asked when I had my last period, I lost my patience, which was never a redeeming quality anyway. I responded, “I’m sixty-seven years old.”</p><p>Still not getting it, he asked if I was menopausal. I wanted to ask, “What part of sixty-seven do you not understand?” I considered inquiring if he still had his baby teeth, but instead I said again, “I’m sixty-seven years old.” A slight smile crossed the lips of the doctor on the other side of the bed. I smiled back, both of us entertained by the innocence of the intern who looked like Keith Urban.</p><p>This distraction quickly faded and my eyes pleaded with the doctor. <em>Please help me</em>. My capacity to filter information waned. I told him and Keith Urban about an old dog named Lucy who was post menopausal and turned into a lesbian. I didn’t mean that weird-like. Well—maybe I did. In the interest of damage control, I complained that the perfume industry no longer manufactured Jungle Gardenia, and that finally free of the rigid requirements of corporate America, my retirement goal was to smoke pot and swear. I inquired of the doctor what it meant if my tooth paste wouldn’t foam.</p><p>As I lay there, a handsome uniformed cop in the hall caused me to contemplate my feet. Having left the house in a dither, I wore slippers. Actually, I was a bit of a mess all over—sloppy clothes, bloody hands, gravy on my shirt, and hair that resembled a cat toy. I mostly wished I’d put on nice shoes, though. My slippers looked like something an old woman would wear, one who was w-a-y past menopause.</p><p>For some reason (perhaps it was the resident resembling Keith Urban or the handsome policeman), it occurred to me that I no longer knew what I looked like naked. That was undoubtedly a good thing, but it made me feel incredibly old. When I run into old friends I haven’t seen in a long time, my first thought is, “Oh, they’re still alive.” So to redeem my disposition, I reminded myself that if you live long enough, you get to be cute again. I wondered if Keith Urban. . .never mind. That would be weird-like.</p><p>On that slippery slope, I worked the problem and forced myself to focus on coping. I nestled into the bed and contemplated what color to paint my bedroom. I settled on subtle gray stripes accented with purple accessories and shiny glass objects. I couldn’t wait to get to Home Depot and Z-Gallery.</p><p>The doctor instructed me to relax as he stuck a long instrument resembling a cattle prod up my nose as Keith Urban, looking good, observed. I took a deep breath and said to myself, <em>Work the problem, Nik. Work the problem</em>, as I pondered how soon after getting up in the morning was it okay to take a nap.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rosebuds]]></title><description><![CDATA[It's weird the way words create – Seriously. The genesis of everything is phonetic, from alphabetic to tonal, regardless of the language. It's a creation-thing, in a Biblical sense; and, therefore, no bullshit. What we say is more powerful than we ever imagine: Even words we recite silently to ourselves. Once given voice, it's a done deal. Of course, just as words create, they can destroy. The words we think can shape our destiny and make or break our lives in the strangest ways. They can enthra]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rosebuds/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852310a</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Morris McCorvey]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:15:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/04/Jail-Edited.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/04/Jail-Edited.jpg" alt="Rosebuds"/><p>It's weird the way words create – Seriously. The genesis of everything is phonetic, from alphabetic to tonal, regardless of the language. It's a creation-thing, in a Biblical sense; and, therefore, no bullshit. What we say is more powerful than we ever imagine: Even words we recite silently to ourselves. Once given voice, it's a done deal. Of course, just as words create, they can destroy. The words we think can shape our destiny and make or break our lives in the strangest ways. They can enthrall and intrigue us, as well as capture our intrigues in the amber of imagination for all time. This is why it's so important to command a well-developed vocabulary and take great care with how you put it to work. Because everything you even think to say will eventually manifest itself in your life somewhere, someway. You don't have to take my word for it, just keep talking, survive, and keep watching.</p><p>In the meantime, here's an anecdotal example for you: The Bicentennial winter of '76 was one of the coldest I ever knew, in more ways than one. Disco had just about laid waste to whatever remnants of the Woodstock-era remained; and, what had followed fast on the heels of Kent State was simply too much to adapt to, easily. The absolute terror with which everyone who possibly could copped out following that National Guard murder of four Kent State college kids was revelatory and heartbreaking. Our first backward, retreating step to where we stand now. I had Hippie friends who cut their hair, tucked away their tie-dyes, and disappeared at that time, and didn't turn up again 'til the Eighties when they reappeared behind the corporate desks of America. Some of them so self-hating for copping out, they wore their cynicism like a crown. By '76, the deal was done on the love, peace, and happiness thing and its hippy-dippy day-trippers. It was clear that stardust or not, we were not gonna get ourselves back to the garden anytime soon.</p><p>You can't really blame them. For the most part, they were corporate kids who'd really only been role-playing between the beginning of the great American murders of the Kennedys, Dr. King, and Kent State. Acting out and getting all that quaint Woodstock love and peace shit out of their well-nourished systems before moving on to become the baby boomers of today. In the meantime, while everything was going south, or, more accurately, turning right with manic fake it 'til you make it desperation, I was eagerly hitting bottom. It was four years since I'd seen one of my best friends' little brother's brains spilling out of his forehead through a crack made by a .22 caliber bullet. Four years since his funeral, at which a well-meaning pimp gave me my first snort of heroin along with some street counseling.</p><p>And so, 'round about midsummer '76, while preparing a morning dose of dope, I realized I was either going to prison, or I was gonna die. I said as much to Ed, the fellow addict with whom I was fixing in his mother's kitchen. Ed was my dope shooting buddy. He'd picked up his habit in Vietnam after being drafted when he made the ill-advised move of dropping out of college in the spring of '66. He was one of those guys who'd survived the war by immersing himself in Vietnamese culture and language: And dope. He used to send his brother joints of Vietnamese weed in the mail in those dizzy days before Tet, King, Kennedy, et. al.</p><p>I'd sit around with his brother and our high school buddies, smoking the pot and reading Ed's letters about his tour of duty in 'Nam. I enjoyed listening to him talk about 'Nam while nodding or hustling up funding for the next fix. He taught me colloquial Vietnamese phrases he'd learned from the farmers he befriended trying to survive our folly there. This dialogue seemed to somehow ease the guilt I felt over ducking the war by going to college: Even though my boy Calvin had warned me not to show up in Southeast Asia: Or he'd shoot me himself. It was about brothers always being put on point, leading the Sisyphean search for the North Vietnamese on their home turf. His letter came from a Vietnamese jail, where he was doing time for refusing to do it for the umpteenth time. He said he might go to prison. "I'm going to the penitentiary," I said, coming out of a nod. What would make you say some shit like that," Ed snapped. "Man, you gotta be careful what you say." I didn't answer. One could call it 'wishful nodding.' By December, those perversely hopeful words crystallized into action.</p><p>In late-autumn, I came down with pneumonia. I woke up in a fever at the home of a couple who were friends from high school. I had no idea how I'd gotten there. The last thing I remembered was watching "A Doll's House" on PBS under a pile of blankets that were the only heat I had at the time. Damned bleak fare for a jonesing addict with pneumonia, but for some reason, at that time, Ibsen comforted me. At some point during Act 2, I passed out. My friends, a very butch Lesbian and exceptionally feminine Trans man, insisted I remain with them until I was fully recovered. It was shaping up to be a historically frigid fall and winter. The warmth and tenderness with which I was nursed by Ava and Brent saved my life.</p><p>While they were nursing me back to health, I re-read "The Autobiography of a Yogi," trying to get the law of miracles once and for all. Because it didn't take a Yogi to know I needed a miracle. By the time I was over pneumonia, I was ready to put heroin behind me and maybe beat the fate I'd envisioned months earlier. I decided to check myself into the detox-ward at the university hospital. We put together a 'survival kit' for me to take with me: a few pain-killers; a lid of weed; a paperback, Crime and Punishment, which had me tripping on the power of guilt on the conscience. It felt someway connected to my vision of going to prison, and a nice warm housecoat my friends gave me. They drove me to the hospital and dropped me off. Two days later, I was in the county jail.</p><p>It's a long story with which I won't bore you right now because it isn't the point. Suffice it to say, my survival kit turned out to be a problem at the hospital. And when I, abruptly, decided to check out, it was too late. The law had arrived. And you know what JJ Cale said about the Oklahoma law. They even kept my damned housecoat as "evidence." But that is only the prelude.</p><p>The point of this story is the quest for the meaning of Rosebud – by Jailbirds. Why would anyone doing time care about Orson Welles' conceit? That, my friends, is the question. Like our beloved country, the County jail was segregated in the Bicentennial Year: As it probably is today. Following the guard thru the maze of tanks and cells for Black folks was like a neighborhood reunion of damaged kids, all grown up. Passing through, I saw a lot of cats who'd gone MIA from the streets over the years since they left public school. The '70s were hell on the 'hood. That's why I personally found it particularly ironic, if not downright chickenshit, that the Combine had anointed Disco the music of the era. That frenetic stacked heel, superfly, bullshit buck dancing. I was placed in a tank, Number 11, consisting of four double cells, housing 3-4 men each, and a day-room with built-in steel tables and a communal toilet, shower, TV, and radio. There were 11 men therein. The noise level was almost unbearable. I had a couple of cavities that were killing me, and I was a few days into detoxing. I knew quite a few of the guys, so moving in was no hassle.</p><p>The county jail was, sadly, simply an extension of our community. It was Friday night. The local FM soul station was filling the tank with music that made the time endurable. Denise Williams', Free, was in heavy rotation with Earth, Wind and Fire's, That's the way of the world: One musical irony after another, it seemed; if irony was your thing, y'know. It has always been mine. It was kinda my reason for being there. I can't be sure about the other men, but the tank noise decreased noticeably when certain tunes were played. And, a few actually invoked silence. Most of the guys were playing cards or dominoes – with future desserts, and selected jailhouse entrees like fried chicken, the primary stakes. There was a chess game being played on the table furthest from the mounted tank-television. I found an empty bunk and introduced myself to those I didn't know. The talk of the tank was the evening's menu and TV venue, which included Soul Train –the hot date- and, maybe, the end of a movie, just before lights out. Dinner was fried fish, cornbread, cole-slaw, Kool-aid, and apple pie. A great deal of apple pie hung in the balance of the various games being played as I checked in.</p><p>Regarding the meaning of Rosebud to a bunch of county inmates: I have never been to Stockholm. I didn't even know where it was when I heard Dear Old Stockholm, played by a Jazz trombonist, who probably had never been to Stockholm either, and damn near cried. I had crawled into the cool dark beatnik club around the corner from Carter G. Woodson School, where the landlady served free gumbo every Friday. It had been the middle of a Saturday afternoon, but the joint was as dark as if it were nighttime. There was a trombonist all alone on the tiny stage playing the old folk tune to no audience except a few stoned regulars in black turtlenecks and berets, and it moved me to tears. The musician's name was Curtis Fuller. There is a part of me that lingers there to this day, trying to understand just what that plaintive Jazz/Blues man was trying to say about a city in Sweden I'd only seen in the pages of National Geographic. I'd had a similar reaction a few months earlier, when by chance while delivering the Black Dispatch Newspaper, I heard thru an open window, the voice of an Irish tenor on television, singing, I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair. I suddenly began to cry. I had to stop and curb my bike, mystified by the effect of that alien song on me. I'd never heard the song before in my life, but its singer had touched a level of myself with which I was –at that time- entirely unfamiliar. At that point in my life, I had never met a Jeannie, and damn sure hadn't met a girl with light-brown hair. It was much later that I learned that my family had come to slavery in Alabama from Toronto, after being auctioned off in Edinburg from a dying family of which they'd been an intimate part for decades.</p><p>So, why couldn't men who had been boys all too briefly for various reasons and had their boyhood ripped, or slipped, away by circumstance, relate to little Citizen Kane's artificial orphaning, lost Rosebud, and life-long quest to retrieve it? After all, my fellow criminals were, for the most part, brilliant, poor black boys with families from who knew where: Who had not managed to navigate America's newly integrated school system, for an encyclopedia of "reasons" synonymous with poor, black and bussed in '76. In any case, here we all were at the ass end of the Bicentennial year, with the historic winter outside (and a historic execution about to go down in Utah) on canteen night in the county jail with Soul Train on the TV schedule. Perhaps, to be preceded by a taste of "Citizen Kane," the classic cinematic mystery that had made Orson Welles … Orson Fucking Welles. The evening news was filled with information about the upcoming execution of a killer named Gary Mark Gilmore. Word was<br>Gilmore has chosen to die by firing squad. And, supposedly demanded no blindfold. That made quite an impression on the brothers in Tank 11. In between segments about the various aspects of Gilmore's crime and punishment, the network ads touted "Citizen Kane" as its Friday Night<br>Movie.</br></br></p><p>We had voted to watch "Citizen Kane" until Soul Train aired on another channel. After the news, there was an hour wait for Soul Train, and I'd suggested we watch the first hour of the movie. A majority agreed and were enthralled by the mystery of what it all meant from the minute they saw the No Trespassing sign outside Xanadu, to the familiar-feeling scene of a kid being taken away, by mysteriously empowered 'authorities,' from his life and beloved sled to a dying man –Welles playing Kane- dropping a crystal bauble and whispering "Rosebud." When the snowy scene within the crystal globe became real, most of the guys in Tank 11 were enthralled by the mysterious meaning of Rosebud. I knew the answer but wasn't telling.</p><p>"Man! Who the hell is this Orson Welles, anyway?" one guy demanded.</p><p>"I don't know, but he's slick enough to have you trippin'," another replied.</p><p>"He's the dude telling the story, fools! Y'all don't pay attention", someone snapped.</p><p>"No, he ain't the dude telling the story! Joseph Cotten is the damned narrator."</p><p>"The who?"</p><p>"Narrator, man. What school did you pass thru?"</p><p>"Who the hell is Joseph Cotton!"</p><p>"Not Cotton, man, Cot-ten."</p><p>"Well, I don't fuck with no kind of cotton. Damn that plantation<br>shit!"</br></p><p>"Very funny, Uncle Remus."</p><p>"Man, fuck you!"</p><p>"Shut the fuck up, so a man can pay attention, fool."</p><p>"I can't believe we even watchin' this when Soul Train's on"</p><p>"Be cool. Soul Train ain't on yet, and this rosebud business is buggin' me."</p><p>"Joseph Cotten is a bad motherfucker. I've seen him play some cold-blooded crooks."</p><p>"Yeah, well, that's him talking."</p><p>"Narrating Nigguh!"</p><p>"Orson Welles is a brother," I mumbled. Mostly to myself.</p><p>"Say what?"</p><p>"He's a brother, a white Cat with the Blues. A Jazz movie man, disguising his soul in a swinging story."</p><p>"No shit! Man, you went way deep right there."</p><p>"Yeah, brother, you sound like you know the man."</p><p>"I do, brother. And he knows you."</p><p>Silence.</p><p>And so it went. An hour slipped by. I lay there on my bunk with a double toothache, digging it all, trying to remember the name of an essay by Ralph Ellison about interviewing the janitorial staff in the bowels of the Met for the WPA, and discovering, to his astonishment, that they were Opera aficionados. This wasn't quite the same, but I could definitely appreciate Ellison's surprise as well as how humbled he must've felt as a so-called Intellectual. As the saga of Charles Foster Kane unfolded, the men in Tank 11 grew intensely attentive, listening closely to the recollections of Kane's friends and associates. They took great pleasure in the protagonist's excess and eccentricities, as played by Welles, and, ultimately, crowned him "Cool." The flashbacks were confusing to some at first, but gradually they caught on to the device.</p><p>"Man, I ain't never seen a flick like this," someone remarked.</p><p>"Yeah, it's a trip. Dude got some tricky camera skills."</p><p>"Orson Welles wrote and directed it," I said.</p><p>"No shit! And acted in it too? Dude's a freak!"</p><p>"Naw, the man's tryin' to say something about vanity.</p><p>" All is vanity," said the Preacher.</p><p>"Yeah, well, don't start that preachin' tonight, man."</p><p>"It don't make no difference, dear."</p><p>"Shut the fuck up! And don't call me dear."</p><p>And they grew quiet again. Eventually, a guard came by. Curious about the quiet in our tank, he paused and looked in on us.</p><p>"Y'all not watchin 'Soul Train' tonight?" he asked.</p><p>"Naw," someone responded.</p><p>"Oh, why not?" he sounded concerned.</p><p>"We're trying to figure out what Rosebud means."</p><p>"Rosebud?" the officer responded, "What's that?"</p><p>"Shit, if we knew, we'd be watching Soul Train."</p><p>"Well, y'all got about an hour to find out," the cop cracked and moved on to the next tank.</p><p>The film was actually approaching its climax. The tank had grown eerily still. The men were so tense, they spoke only in terse whispers.</p><p>"It's just bullshit," one frustrated cellmate snapped, "His crib is like a damn mausoleum. That wife of his would drive anybody crazy."</p><p>"Shit, he's the one that drove her crazy."</p><p>"The whole damn story's crazy."</p><p>"White people!"</p><p>"No," replied the tank's only openly gay resident, "It's a metaphor for something."</p><p>"A what?"</p><p>"Oh shit, here we go into the damn dictionary-shit."</p><p>"Metaphor. A symbol for something else."</p><p>"Yeah, getting rich."</p><p>"Well, why not just say symbol, instead of showing off your jive-assed vocabulary."</p><p>My head was killing me. My decaying wisdom-teeth throbbed in my head.</p><p>"I wasn't showing off. I was just saying what the name was."</p><p>"Yeah, well, I don't need you to tell me nothin'."</p><p>"Okay!"</p><p>"Okay."</p><p>"Dude was cool but he didn't know how to enjoy his money."</p><p>"Well, his taste in women was way off."</p><p>"Yeah, he got that game all wrong. Strange."</p><p>"Probably because of the way his mama just let him go. Did she sell him, or what?"</p><p>"Agnes Moorehead."</p><p>"Say what!"</p><p>"The actress who played his mother, Agnes Moorehead."</p><p>"No shit? That's a hell of a name, brother."</p><p>"No shit. She was Samantha's mother in that witch show."</p><p>"Oh yeah! Bewitched. Man, I used to love to watch her. She was fine."</p><p>"Did she sell him to them rich dudes or what?"</p><p>"Who?"</p><p>"Mama more head, or whatever her name is."</p><p>"Well, looks like he finally croaked."</p><p>"Yeah, did you hear what he said? Rosebud."</p><p>"No matter how much money you got, you can't pay-off death."</p><p>"So, who was Rosebud?"</p><p>"Probably some long lost love."</p><p>"Who cares the motherfucker wasn't nothing but a rich-assed hoarder."</p><p>"Yeah, man. Look at all the shit he got."<br>"Man! All that stuff, and he couldn't fill that hole."</br></p><p>"Just like dope."</p><p>"Is dope, sho' nuff."</p><p>"Everybody got they own version."</p><p>My head was throbbing with pain. I couldn't endure another minute of their profane conjecture. "It's the sled," I snapped finally, as the flick drew closer to its denouement.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"The sled."</p><p>"Be quiet and watch."</p><p>"The sled!" another man said. "Of course. Remember when those dudes<br>first snatched the kid from his home?"</br></p><p>"Yeah!" they shouted. "The kid was just playin' in the snow, happy. And next thing he knew he was snatched up and shipped off."</p><p>"Yeah, the sled is Rosebud, a symbol of what that kid lost when them dudes took him away from his Mama."</p><p>"She wasn't his mother."</p><p>"My mama wasn't my mother neither."</p><p>"They didn't take him. She sold his ass."</p><p>"She didn't sell him. He was somebody's heir or something."</p><p>"Hey, what did the kid lose? Shit, they took him and made him rich. He could buy a thousand sleds with all the scratch he got."</p><p>"But, money isn't everything."</p><p>"Bullshit! We done got way too philosophical now."</p><p>"So, is it a symbol or a metaphor? Make up my mind."</p><p>"Shut up and watch. See, the name's right there on it! Rosebud."</p><p>"Yeah, man, we can all read."</p><p>"Wanna bet?" We all watched, quietly. Each man lost in his own thoughts as the little sled burned.</p><p>"Damn, they just threw it on the trash heap, and burned it."</p><p>"Man, all that stuff. All that stuff he had, and his dying thought was about something he lost when he was a kid."</p><p>"Like us," someone muttered. "We all lost our fuckin' sleds somewhere."</p><p>"Speak for yourself. I ain't never had no sled."</p><p>"I was talking metaphorically, fool." (One had to possess real power to be openly gay in county jail, in '76. That's the only reason I mentioned it earlier.)</p><p>"Oh shit, here we go again! I quit that class."</p><p>"Yeah, well whatever you lost damn sure ain't made you rich."</p><p>"That is not the point, How much is your youth worth to you? That's the point, brother."</p><p>"What youth?"</p><p>"I never had one of them either - that I can recall. Metaphorically or otherwise."</p><p>"Shit! Who has?"</p><p>Silence.</p><p>Not much more was said until the film ended. Even after having switched channels just in time to watch the dancers go all out as Soul Train's credits rolled, not much more was said. I kept thinking about the killer in Utah, Gary Gilmore, wondering if a blindfold was mandatory. Jailhouse word was he had declined one. That was strong, or crazy. Probably the latter. I'd always figured a man had to be out of his mind to kill somebody anyway. I wanted to believe I, too, would choose to look my executioners in the eye. But, how was one to know? And, who really wanted to find out? The Bi-centennial year was mercifully coming to a close; and, I was on my way to making my prediction come true. I felt relieved. I'd lost everything. But, I was still alive; so, everything was still possible. What youth? Indeed!</p><p>"Lights out!"</p><p>I lay on my bunk thinking. Replaying the scene in Ed's Mom's kitchen months ago. Some of the others continued, quietly, discussing the film in the dark. Eventually our keyman came by again.</p><p>"Y'all get that rosebud mystery solved?" he asked the cats still discussing.</p><p>"Yeah," one of them answered.</p><p>"Yeah? What was it?" he asked, lingering.</p><p>"Shit, we ain't tellin' you."</p><p>"Yeah, you gotta put in some work. Do your time and watch the flick."</p><p>Laughter.</p><p>"Okay, then shut the fuck up, and turn off that fuckin' television." he snapped, irritated. He sounded so childish, I wanted to laugh, but my swollen jaws ached too much.</p><p>Breathing, I eventually drifted off to sleep, trying to remember my own metaphorical Rosebud and a lot of other things I had not needed to forget. Like, who I was before I saw that kid's brains spilling out of his head. Once the precious vessel has been broken, you cannot hold them in. No matter what you do.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets - April “Majestic… Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies”]]></title><description><![CDATA[The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-april-majestic-oh-beautiful-for-spacious-skies/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852312f</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:15:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/04/April--Majestic--Oh-Beautiful-for-Spacious-Skies-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/04/April--Majestic--Oh-Beautiful-for-Spacious-Skies-.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets - April “Majestic… Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies”"/><p>The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Golden Shovel for Mr. Hughes]]></title><description><![CDATA[(On the Absurd Existence of the Powerless)
Here I hang from this high tree, say What,
While the Big G just sits up there, who happens
To be punching holes in Cheerios to
The tune of a
Melodic Everly Brothers song, All I have to do is Dream
Hey Mom! Has my sentence been deferred?
No? Well, Say ‘Hi’ to Pete and all the guys, Does
This mean they have forsaken me, or does it
Mean the forgiveness well has run dry
I didn’t really expect to be up
In this Dogwood like
All forlorn and shriveled and han]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-golden-shovel-for-mr-hughes/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523109</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Silence Dogood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:14:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/03/crucify-Edited.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/03/crucify-Edited.jpg" alt="A Golden Shovel for Mr. Hughes"/><p>(On the Absurd Existence of the Powerless)</p><p>Here I hang from this high tree, say What,<br>While the Big G just sits up there, who happens<br>To be punching holes in Cheerios to<br>The tune of a<br>Melodic Everly Brothers song, All I have to do is Dream</br></br></br></br></p><p>Hey Mom! Has my sentence been deferred?<br>No? Well, Say ‘Hi’ to Pete and all the guys, Does<br>This mean they have forsaken me, or does it<br>Mean the forgiveness well has run dry<br>I didn’t really expect to be up<br>In this Dogwood like<br>All forlorn and shriveled and hanging like a<br>Grape going to raisin</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Hey, where’s that guy going with that spear in<br>His hand? He’s going to poke me? Does the<br>Roman know why there is no splendor in the sun?</br></br></p><p>Excuse me, Centurion or<br>Is it miles*? Don’t let your hatred fester<br>Where did you get those sandals? They are like<br>The Kingdom of Heaven a<br>Manly pair of footwear, do your feet get sore --<br>Really? And<br>What did you pay then<br>Before you found out you couldn’t run?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Ugh-h-h-h … Does<br>That ever smart it<br>Is supposed to help me die faster? Mom, don’t make a stink<br>Will my kingdom be like<br>This weather that has turned rotten<br>Or like pork the new white meat?</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>No mom, it’s just a story... Or<br>Should I say a parable What? you got more crust<br>Than a Pharisee and<br>A Roman asking me to sugar<br>Coat the story for this over<br>Zealous group enthralled by the idea of death like<br>Watching a man take a<br>Last breath while his mom asks in a syrupy<br>Voice aint he sweet?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>What? Why would I tell an absurd story Maybe<br>I don’t know? Maybe I wonder why it<br>Is so important why it just<br>Takes my mind from a body that sags<br>As gravity pulls me toward death like<br>Diminishing space eliminates time a</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Burden I must bear that weighs heavy<br>On my mind the sins of man are a load<br>That must be shared Or<br>We will all be crushed you ask does<br>It have to be this way does it<br>Why can’t the Kingdom of Heaven just explode?</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>*<em><strong>miles (pronounced mee-lays) is Latin for soldier</strong></em></p><p>After you have finished reading the poem, please go back and read the last word of each line aloud as the author, Silence Dogood, pays homage to Langston Hughes.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[From the Earth to the Stars]]></title><description><![CDATA[Hiking in the woods on a cool morning.
I’m glad now that I decided
to pull on a second shirt.
The black dog is finding scents of wild things.
The sun is finding limestone ledges,
Gnarled tree roots and cushions of mosses.
This autumn morning
In the early dark
I saw Orion rising above the trees.
The world comes round right when Orion returns
To stretch out across the winter night sky
And the millennia.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/from-the-earth-to-the-stars/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852310b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:13:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1500073794662-da188b2bc9ad?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxzdGFycnl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1Mzk4MjE0&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1500073794662-da188b2bc9ad?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxzdGFycnl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1Mzk4MjE0&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="From the Earth to the Stars"/><p>Hiking in the woods on a cool morning.<br>I’m glad now that I decided<br>to pull on a second shirt.</br></br></p><p>The black dog is finding scents of wild things.<br>The sun is finding limestone ledges,<br>Gnarled tree roots and cushions of mosses.</br></br></p><p>This autumn morning<br>In the early dark<br>I saw Orion rising above the trees.</br></br></p><p>The world comes round right when Orion returns<br>To stretch out across the winter night sky<br>And the millennia.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Time to Dance and a Time to Not Dance]]></title><description><![CDATA[My younger sister and I were active kids, and we were encouraged by my mother to engage in creative play. We were rarely told to “calm down.” When that did happen, it was usually a request from my father because he couldn’t hear his Cardinal baseball game playing on the living room radio. He would say, “Take it outside,” and we did. When my mother would strongly and repetitively request that we be quiet and still were during visits to my father’s parents, my Grandmother and Grandfather Taylor.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-time-to-dance-and-a-time-to-not-dance/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852310c</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:12:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612551396716-e749eef1785f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU3fHxzYW5jdHVhcnl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1Mzk4ODA2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612551396716-e749eef1785f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDU3fHxzYW5jdHVhcnl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1Mzk4ODA2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Time to Dance and a Time to Not Dance"/><p>My younger sister and I were active kids, and we were encouraged by my mother to engage in creative play. We were rarely told to “calm down.” When that did happen, it was usually a request from my father because he couldn’t hear his Cardinal baseball game playing on the living room radio. He would say, “Take it outside,” and we did. When my mother would strongly and repetitively request that we be quiet and still were during visits to my father’s parents, my Grandmother and Grandfather Taylor.</p><p>Grandfather Taylor was a Methodist minister. He began his preaching career as a circuit rider on horseback in Lawrence and Sharp counties in Arkansas. He was able to advance in his career, and in time he became the pastor of large parishes up and down the Arkansas Delta. His assigned churches were always within a couple of hours’ drive from where my family lived. Every two or three months, we would go for a Sunday visit, and we would arrive in time to attend church and hear my grandfather preach. Except for funerals and weddings, it was the only time my father attended church. He would say, “I had enough of church growing up.”</p><p>On the way to my grandparent’s home, my mother would remind us several times to behave, be still, and be quiet once we got there. My grandparents had four grandchildren, and that included my two sisters and me. My mother told us, “Grandmother Taylor is not used to being around kids. You will make her nervous if you are too loud.”</p><p>Following the church service and Sunday dinner, my father and grandfather would retire to the study for a father-son visit. My mother and older sister would sit in the parlor with my grandmother and Aunt Bettye Sue. My younger sister Rhonda and I would ask to be excused, and then we would exit the house to play outside or inside the nearby church. While playing, we had to be careful to not mess up our clothes. We wore our Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes all day long while there. I wasn’t allowed to wear blue jeans in my grandparent’s home.</p><p>During one winter visit, it was too cold for my sister and me to play outside. Not wanting to be stuck inside the house and to be required to sit quietly on the couch, we went next door to the unlocked church. The church building was old, beautiful, and historic. Rhonda and I were alone in the church. We enjoyed talking and singing inside the large sanctuary, where the acoustics were amazing.</p><p>Although I could barely carry a tune, my sister didn’t seem to mind. She was always my best audience. I loved performing for her and decided to put on a show for her while in the sanctuary. I didn’t think about what I was doing being sacrilegious. I probably didn’t know what that meant. I jumped up on the altar, and I began singing and dancing. My balance was perfect as I strutted back and forth. My sister was clapping and laughing.</p><p>To enhance my performance, I decided to add a little costuming. I picked up the baptismal font, a beautiful, shiny, and footed bowl, to wear on my head like a hat. I raised the font high and turned it over. The glass liner fell to the floor and shattered into “millions” of pieces. The performance ended.</p><p>My sister and I spent the rest of the afternoon picking up every trace of glass from the carpet. We hid the chards inside a heating grate located in one of the sanctuary walls. We were able to clean up the mess, hide the evidence, and return to the parsonage just in time to say goodbye before leaving for home. My mother remarked how unusually quiet my sister and I were while we were riding in the car. We were afraid to talk too much for fear that we would accidentally reveal our misdeed, make my father mad, and upset my mother. She would have been mortified and would have worried herself sick.</p><p>That night while in bed, I did my “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer, and added a request for Jesus to forgive me for breaking the liner to his font. I think he did, but I don’t think my grandmother would have if she had known.</p><p>I’ve often wondered if the glass is still in the grate.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Speaking in Tongues]]></title><description><![CDATA[On the day it finally snowed, we drove
home, with the dog licking the window
in long, loud slurps, as if a spring
had welled up, conjured from the car,
as if the pane had become a cistern.
Twenty-degree weather, and his tongue
didn’t stick, but described steamy trails
through his reflection, while we chided him,
Stop, bad boy! What did we miss?
Some condensation grander than breath?
There was nothing beyond the farm fences
that afternoon, nothing beyond the fat snow
sliding by the car, fog, ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/speaking-in-tongues/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852310d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:11:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1564260508434-ba6958a4c468?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxzbm93JTIwcGFzdGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NDAwMTg3&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1564260508434-ba6958a4c468?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxzbm93JTIwcGFzdGV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NDAwMTg3&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Speaking in Tongues"/><p>On the day it finally snowed, we drove<br>home, with the dog licking the window<br>in long, loud slurps, as if a spring</br></br></p><p>had welled up, conjured from the car,<br>as if the pane had become a cistern.<br>Twenty-degree weather, and his tongue</br></br></p><p>didn’t stick, but described steamy trails<br>through his reflection, while we chided him,<br>Stop, bad boy! What did we miss?</br></br></p><p>Some condensation grander than breath?<br>There was nothing beyond the farm fences<br>that afternoon, nothing beyond the fat snow</br></br></p><p>sliding by the car, fog, winter pastures,<br>the dog's reflection in the frozen glass.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Week of Young Loss]]></title><description><![CDATA[(Lost Young)
For Jenn and Shornden
Can you hear that?
It’s the moon
calling you home
Usually the needle
works its way across
the record staying
in the groove
But at times it skips
backwards to repeat
and occasionally works
its own scratch
screamingly into the air
Yes I hear it!
The moon
The moon]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-week-of-young-loss/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852310f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:09:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520354127549-fcecfe79d058?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxyZWNvcmQlMjBwbGF5ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NDk3Mzk4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520354127549-fcecfe79d058?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxyZWNvcmQlMjBwbGF5ZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NDk3Mzk4&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Week of Young Loss"/><p>(Lost Young)</p><h4 id="for-jenn-and-shornden">For Jenn and Shornden</h4><p/><p>Can you hear that?<br>It’s the moon<br>calling you home</br></br></p><hr><p>Usually the needle<br>works its way across<br>the record staying<br>in the groove</br></br></br></p><p>But at times it skips<br>backwards to repeat<br>and occasionally works<br>its own scratch<br>screamingly into the air</br></br></br></br></p><hr><p>Yes I hear it!<br>The moon<br>The moon</br></br></p></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Roasted Red Potato and Cauliflower with Leeks and Garlic Soup]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ingredients:
2-1/2 lbs red potatoes, 1/2-inch cubed with skins on
1/2 head cauliflower, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 cup olive oil
1 leek, sliced 1/4-inch strips
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
32 oz vegetable broth
Directions:
1. In a large stock pot, sauté cubed red potatoes and cauliflower in olive oil for 5 minutes.
2. Add leeks, garlic, salt, and pepper; sauté for another 5 minutes.
3. Stir in vegetable broth while scrapping the bottom of stock pot]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/roasted-red-potato-and-cauliflower-with-leeks-and-garlic-soup/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523110</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:08:56 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511224931379-b4e4324ea7fc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMxfHxwb3RzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTQ5ODUyNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511224931379-b4e4324ea7fc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMxfHxwb3RzfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTQ5ODUyNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Roasted Red Potato and Cauliflower with Leeks and Garlic Soup"/><p>Ingredients:</p><p>2-1/2 lbs red potatoes, 1/2-inch cubed with skins on<br>1/2 head cauliflower, cut into 1/2-inch pieces<br>1/4 cup olive oil<br>1 leek, sliced 1/4-inch strips<br>3 cloves garlic, minced<br>1/2 teaspoon kosher salt<br>1/2 teaspoon pepper<br>32 oz vegetable broth</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Directions:</p><ol><li>In a large stock pot, sauté cubed red potatoes and cauliflower in olive oil for 5 minutes.</li><li>Add leeks, garlic, salt, and pepper; sauté for another 5 minutes.</li><li>Stir in vegetable broth while scrapping the bottom of stock pot; cover pot with lid and cook for 30 minutes.</li><li>Remove 2 cups of soup vegetables and place into a medium size bowl.</li><li>Mash reserved vegetables in the bowl to a puree; return to the soup pot.</li><li>Simmer through for another 5 minutes before serving.<br>Makes 8 - 10 cups.</br></li></ol>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Whirlwind]]></title><description><![CDATA[The fairy tale story I had in mind during this underwater photoshoot was one of a princess being protected during a magical storm by her winged fairy godmother. These two models were best friends and I think their ease with one another in their interactions, even underwater, came through to the camera. They had a blast and we’d laugh a lot when we’d come up out of the water for air.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/whirlwind/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852312c</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Melissa Milton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:08:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/04/Whirlwind-WM-FOR-DISPLAY-SQ.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/04/Whirlwind-WM-FOR-DISPLAY-SQ.jpg" alt="Whirlwind"/><p>The fairy tale story I had in mind during this underwater photoshoot was one of a princess being protected during a magical storm by her winged fairy godmother. These two models were best friends and I think their ease with one another in their interactions, even underwater, came through to the camera. They had a blast and we’d laugh a lot when we’d come up out of the water for air.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Promise of the Stellar Charm]]></title><description><![CDATA[for Lila on the occasion of turning 13
Before the rising of the stars there was the goddess,
whose labor is marked by the milky pattern left
when she flung herself into the fire from which you all come.
Every one of you is a dying blaze and the light you see now,
in things and in each other, long ago sputtered its last breath.
Three times the goddess spoke my name, and on each of these
occasions a star burst into flame. I carry the gifts on my belt
that I might be the true shepherd, the prote]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-promise-of-the-stellar-charm-for-lila-on-the-occasion-of-turning-13/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523111</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Belinda Bruner]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:07:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548989760-c5a0db3f876f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxvcmlvbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MTU0OTg5MTQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3 id="for-lila-on-the-occasion-of-turning-13"><em>for Lila on the occasion of turning 13</em></h3><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548989760-c5a0db3f876f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHxvcmlvbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MTU0OTg5MTQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Promise of the Stellar Charm"/><p/><p>Before the rising of the stars there was the goddess,<br>whose labor is marked by the milky pattern left<br>when she flung herself into the fire from which you all come.<br>Every one of you is a dying blaze and the light you see now,<br>in things and in each other, long ago sputtered its last breath.<br>Three times the goddess spoke my name, and on each of these<br>occasions a star burst into flame. I carry the gifts on my belt<br>that I might be the true shepherd, the protector of all.<br>Strongest and brightest among myths, I am an outline<br>of what you can’t see, like your dreams on the horizon.<br>When it is too cold for Scorpio’s presence, when Taurus<br>retreats to the cave, and your asterism of sisters goes nova,<br>look for me. Look for me when you have been around the world;<br>Look for me when the Chippewa know winter is coming.<br>I am here with my club and shield to protect you,<br>when you awake in the night, look up and you will find me<br>by first spotting the three Marias near the bison, or<br>Betelgeuse, who will not explode in your lifetime. I knew you<br>were coming, and I will outlast you all, and in October<br>when your great comet hurls pearls across the sky,<br>my protection will not be dimmed. Always dawning,<br>never dying, I am your dedicated luminary, your Orion.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Materials for His Dream]]></title><description><![CDATA[or What Happened at the Wedding
The man had belly pains. He told his daughter and she took him to the Emergency Room. The doc told them to go back to the party.
They’d been at a wedding at a castle in Indiana. The proprietor had built the castle from river rocks and cement bricks molded in half-gallon milk cartons. When the cement had set, the clever man had peeled away the cardboard, leaving him with more materials for his dream. He’d always wanted to build a castle, and now it was done. In]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/materials-for-his-dream/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523112</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Courtney Harler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:06:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520854221256-17451cc331bf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHdlZGRpbmd8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NDk5Mjc0&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h4 id="or-what-happened-at-the-wedding"><em>or What Happened at the Wedding</em></h4><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520854221256-17451cc331bf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHdlZGRpbmd8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NDk5Mjc0&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Materials for His Dream"/><p/><p>The man had belly pains. He told his daughter and she took him to the Emergency Room. The doc told them to go back to the party.</p><p>They’d been at a wedding at a castle in Indiana. The proprietor had built the castle from river rocks and cement bricks molded in half-gallon milk cartons. When the cement had set, the clever man had peeled away the cardboard, leaving him with more materials for his dream. He’d always wanted to build a castle, and now it was done. Inside, the dust lay in thick layers. Brides and grooms came anyway—the dirt added to the realism of the faux-medieval setting. They should have strewn rushes and rosemary too. I forget the owner/builder/dreamer’s name. You see, this happened some very long time ago.</p><p>The pains came at each meal. The father told the daughter his chest had turned purple, but the girl could see no color. She wondered if the pains were guilt—her guilt—for not having called often enough. She lived in Oklahoma; her father lived in Ohio. They’d met up in Indiana, to see a granddaughter married. Well, his granddaughter, her niece. Her sister’s only living child.</p><p>I suppose you want the father to have a name, but he’s just like any doting, aging man. The daughter you may call Mississippi, or Missy for short, because her mother’d had a humor. The mother, who was unlike any mother in the world, did not know when to quit and thus died. She died and the father bought more chickens, planted the garden, started dating on the internet. Missy missed the dating boat altogether, online or otherwise. I’d like to say she had a cat or two, but she didn’t. She didn’t even have a fish, because after all that healthy farmwork as a daughter, she didn’t care for animals in the house. They stank, and peed and pooped in places that made the house stink.</p><p>You want me to tell you that Missy was absent but dutiful, that she cared for her family, though her work required her to live elsewhere. She was moving to California soon, to write; the trip between the Midwest and the West Coast would be even more difficult for everyone. The cost, astronomical. But her father would save up and visit for better weather, she guessed. He’d take her to the parks where he’d played in amateur tennis tournaments as a young man. He’d lived there many years ago, also as a writer of sorts. Of code, in fact, but now fully retired. He puttered now. He retiled bathrooms, lent the tractor to the neighbor who still cut his own hay. But hay is boring, and so is Indiana. Even a handmade castle erected on the flat plains of Indiana is boring, if nothing ever happens there except weddings. What a wedding, though! The wedding of a lifetime, I’d say. Yeah, I’d say it still.</p><p>You sure act like you want to know these people, but I barely knew them myself. I don’t know what else to tell you other than what I was told and then, what happened at the wedding.<br>I’d gone with my spouse, who was of distant relation to the groom. You may read all about this in some fat novel one day soon, but for right now, let’s call the groom Thorn and the bride Rose. Thorn didn’t recognize my wife, so long as it had been since they’d seen each other. This time, my wife exclaimed something like “Those cute little green dungarees!” and the groom blushed. The groom’s parents had passed on too, old hippies to the end, buried under the same tree in the bleak, frozen woods. I forget how my wife knew the groom’s family, but that’s also very boring.</br></p><p>The groom wore a wool kilt, because that’s what all the handsome hipsters did back then, and the bride’s grandfather wheezed on some bagpipes. I didn’t know about his purple chest yet, but my lord, if you’d heard him, you’d have believed him, unlike Missy. Missy had care of him, so that her sister and her sister’s daughter—the bride, of course—could get on with the nuptials. Next to Thorn, Rose seemed a stick-in-the-mud with her no-frills white gown and blue garter. A traditionalist, to be sure, from farmer’s stock. Never mind the two toddlers as flower girls. No one minded bastards anymore. My wife told me not to use that word with exact reference. I told her to refill my flask while we waited interminably in what was meant to be the grand hall. Let me tell you, a homemade dreamed-up castle can barely support a hall, much less a grand one. No room for chairs, we all stood, shifting foot to foot on the river stone, rounding our flat arches to fit the cold, uneven floor. I can still hear our soles cracking, we stood there so fucking long.</p><p>This story makes me sound old, and crotchety, so far, but what I’m about to tell you will change your mind, will put a little peck in your pecker, if you know what I mean. I didn’t catch the garter, but I caught something else. I caught the bride’s eye as she descended the stone stairs like a church aisle. Leisurely, but sliding each foot so it caught each step, looking straight at me. I smiled and something in her face lit like fireworks. Maybe I reminded her of her grandfather, who by now stood clutching his deflated pipes to his purple torso. She smiled and something crackled in me too, but it didn’t feel fatherly, or even avuncular. My wife saw and pinched me, hard, on the behind. I sniggered aloud and she pinched me again on the back of the biceps, in that vulnerable spot where the skin had started to sag as my man-muscles wasted away. I thought of Rose then as a thrill-seeking, night-blooming flower—a stolen, broken-into blossom. She glowed muzzy white in the hall’s dimness, just like the way the moon might favor a field laid fallow.</p><p>Ah, you younger than me begrudge me my poetry, but I tell you, she was a poet’s hart. No, not the organ, but the animal. The deer that haunts the wilderness, fleeing from danger, returning to mate from nature, from necessity. No, I’m not mixing my metaphors—Rose had all the virility in this instance. Mine was residual, an echo, lost somewhere between my wife’s legs.</p><p>I watched Rose all though the ceremony, my wife sighing at my side. She huffed at me, but she sighed for the bride. She remembered her own posy of daisies, her own bridal glory. I remembered too—I still loved her witty blitheness, her plush curves. But this bride, this Rose, had wrestled my soul into a contortion, if only for one night. I watched her kiss Thorn, burning.</p><p>We ate free-range fried chicken legs on picnic tables outside on the damp castle grounds. They’d lugged in gas heaters, and with light jackets, we felt cozy, warmer outside than inside the castle’s milk-carton walls. The mother of the bride—Missy’s sister, you may recall—filled flutes to the brim, spilling prosecco down our wrists and laughing as we licked. I chased my chicken with their bubbly wine and then my own whiskey. We all got drunk, Rose and Thorn dancing with each other and with Rose’s grandfather and Rose’s mother and eventually Rose’s sister. The bride and groom never stopped dancing, forcing new partners into lumbering threesomes. To their joint marital bosom, they clutched grade-school cronies, long-lost college roommates, obscure relatives. The spawn of Rose and Thorn danced too, tripping up their parents’ partners. I asked my wife if I should be so bold as to expect a turn in the lovely couple’s sweaty embrace. She said she had a carbonation headache and bounced off to bed in our borrowed pop-up camper. I knew our friends back home, the lenders, both smoked and had dogs. I was in no hurry to retire.</p><p>Pretending to blearily check the time on my watch, I watched Rose and Thorn sneak away from the party. They melted and merged into the castle, dark shadows against gray stones, even in their bright garb and giddiness. Rose felt like a specter to me then—a futile presence. Others faded away when a car pulled up into the gravel lot. I’d not noticed the car leave earlier, but now it was back, nevertheless. Missy emerged to lead her father to the castle, then returned to plop down beside me; she saw my sad, floppy jowls and lifted a hand to my cheek. She scratched at my wiry beard. She was stone sober, and not entirely unbrave. Missy, she said. I know, I said.</p><p>She eyed me like a dog waiting for scraps. John, I wanted to tell her, but I figured names were just names, by then. No meaning, no stronghold. Not even in the middle of the middle—the middle of the state, the middle of the country. Where were we, anyhow? How’d I get there?</p><p>Instead, I handed her my flask. She sipped, opened her mouth as if to emit dragon fire. A polite burp rolled out instead. I patted her knee when she cupped the metal, warm in her hands. She told me everything I told you earlier—her father’s purple pain, her filial guilt, her writing, her lonely. I didn’t want to come to this wedding, she said. But I’m glad you did, I said. Then we walked together, into the woods, and I held her snug against a tree when the heat left our bodies.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets - May - “Finding Calm Amidst All the Chaos”]]></title><description><![CDATA[The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-may-finding-calm-amidst-all-the-chaos/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852312e</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:06:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/04/May--Finding-Calm-Amidst-All-the-Chaos--.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/04/May--Finding-Calm-Amidst-All-the-Chaos--.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets - May - “Finding Calm Amidst All the Chaos”"/><p>The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Great Life]]></title><description><![CDATA[I may never have a poem
in a major anthology or in a
prestigious literary magazine
but today a poem of mine is
folded up in one of the
back pockets of the state
poet laureate's jeans and
all I can think is Is this
a great life or what?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-great-life/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523113</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:05:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512577494243-76d15311b357?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHBvY2tldHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NTcwODk5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512577494243-76d15311b357?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fHBvY2tldHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NTcwODk5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Great Life"/><p>I may never have a poem<br>in a major anthology or in a<br>prestigious literary magazine<br>but today a poem of mine is<br>folded up in one of the<br>back pockets of the state<br>poet laureate's jeans and<br>all I can think is Is this<br>a great life or what?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Party]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’m sick of you and me
The way we think
The way we’ve come to be
Talking at parties
Spewing all that we know
Eating cocktail weenies
From paper plates
That bend and wobble so
We’re experts on fighting
Isn’t it a shame
Sending our children off
To be killed or maimed
How are your sons?
What about your daughter?
You send them off to be cannon fodder?
Have you tried the meatballs?
The coleslaw’s good too
I hear the broccoli and carrots
Are also good for you
The house is very nice
Freshly decorated I]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-party/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523114</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:04:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/03/Weanies.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/03/Weanies.jpg" alt="The Party"/><p>I’m sick of you and me<br>The way we think<br>The way we’ve come to be<br>Talking at parties<br>Spewing all that we know<br>Eating cocktail weenies<br>From paper plates<br>That bend and wobble so<br>We’re experts on fighting<br>Isn’t it a shame<br>Sending our children off<br>To be killed or maimed<br>How are your sons?<br>What about your daughter?<br>You send them off to be cannon fodder?<br>Have you tried the meatballs?<br>The coleslaw’s good too<br>I hear the broccoli and carrots<br>Are also good for you<br>The house is very nice<br>Freshly decorated I hear<br>No, I’ve never been to Calais<br>In the fall of the year<br>I really must be going<br>The hour is getting late<br>The war will continue<br>As it festers with our fate.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lobster Pasta]]></title><description><![CDATA[A Recipe for Two
1 live lobster, any size
½ box of pasta (8oz) – your choice of spaghetti, linguine, fettucine, etc.
5 strips of bacon
1/3 cup of dry white wine
½ cup of heavy cream
In a large stock pot, bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Throw the lobster into the boiling water (without the rubber band restraints around the claws), and reduce the heat to medium. Boil for 12 minutes and remove from the pot.
Cut the lobster and extract the tail and claw meat. Cut into chunks. Add the head and ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lobster-pasta/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523115</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Fred Yu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:03:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/03/Fred-Yu---Lobster-Pasta.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h4 id="a-recipe-for-two">A Recipe for Two</h4><img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/03/Fred-Yu---Lobster-Pasta.jpg" alt="Lobster Pasta"/><p/><p>1 live lobster, any size<br>½ box of pasta (8oz) – your choice of spaghetti, linguine, fettucine, etc.<br>5 strips of bacon<br>1/3 cup of dry white wine<br>½ cup of heavy cream</br></br></br></br></p><p>In a large stock pot, bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Throw the lobster into the boiling water (without the rubber band restraints around the claws), and reduce the heat to medium. Boil for 12 minutes and remove from the pot.</p><p>Cut the lobster and extract the tail and claw meat. Cut into chunks. Add the head and the shells back into the pot and simmer on low heat for another half an hour. Strain the liquid into a separate container and discard the shells.</p><p>Using a deep pan with a lid or a medium pot, sear the bacon until crispy. Extract the bacon and place on paper towels to dry. Chop into bits.</p><p>Deglaze the pan with the white wine. Add the lobster broth, then the dry pasta and bring to a full boil. Reduce the heat and cover the pan, allowing the pasta to simmer in the lobster broth until cooked through, about 8 minutes depending on the pasta.</p><p>With the cover off, add the heavy cream and bring the heat to medium high and allow the broth to dry into the pasta. Stir constantly.</p><p>Stir the lobster chunks into the pasta. When the liquid has mostly dried into the pasta, add the bacon bits, extract and serve.</p><p>Season with pepper, and depending on the type of bacon used, more salt may be needed as well.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Milkweed]]></title><description><![CDATA[Small fluff
Milkweed white
Color none
blood
Flight of the
Cherry girl
New mercies
Scatter shot
Red
Sacred girl
What happens
When you see
Sky blue
Flowering
Stuck
In the river
Stones
Sew
A hat of red
Gem
Of
Wishful
Thinking]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/milkweed/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523116</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Patsy Creedy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:02:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/03/Milkweed.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/03/Milkweed.jpg" alt="Milkweed"/><p>Small fluff<br>Milkweed white<br>Color none<br>blood<br>Flight of the<br>Cherry girl<br>New mercies<br>Scatter shot<br>Red<br>Sacred girl<br>What happens<br>When you see<br>Sky blue<br>Flowering<br>Stuck<br>In the river<br>Stones<br>Sew<br>A hat of red<br>Gem<br>Of<br>Wishful<br>Thinking</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Runways of Runaways]]></title><description><![CDATA[Smoke unfurls under a light,
midnight Cowboys and Cowgirls stalk steady
half-dressed streets, runways of runaways.
They are unfinished manuscripts scattered
around work desks of desperation.
Discarded humans are here
consumed at the pleasure of others.
What happens when
you are under a light,
would you
unfurl too?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/runways-of-runaways/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523117</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:01:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1536405528985-0ab8ba47f25e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUzfHxzbW9rZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MTU1NzIxNzc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1536405528985-0ab8ba47f25e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDUzfHxzbW9rZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MTU1NzIxNzc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Runways of Runaways"/><p>Smoke unfurls under a light,</p><p>midnight Cowboys and Cowgirls stalk steady</p><p>half-dressed streets, runways of runaways.</p><p>They are unfinished manuscripts scattered</p><p>around work desks of desperation.</p><p>Discarded humans are here</p><p>consumed at the pleasure of others.</p><p>What happens when</p><p>you are under a light,</p><p>would you</p><p>unfurl too?</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dorothy Recalls a Missed Call in Seattle from La Guardia]]></title><description><![CDATA[(a found poem after Thomas Travisano's 'Love Unknown')
its not your fault his
voicemail dropped he called
flew its not your fault
in on sunday please
dont weep its not your
fault trust me hed brought
cds dug its not
your fault Blue glad for
us too his heart its
not your fault left smear
for aim hed its not
your fault always got
his way its not your
fault. Go to hell, Dot.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dorothy-recalls-a-missed-call-in-seattle-from-la-guardia/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523118</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:01:10 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525598912003-663126343e1f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHBob25lfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTU3MjUxNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h4 id="-a-found-poem-after-thomas-travisano-s-love-unknown-"><em>(a found poem after Thomas Travisano's 'Love Unknown')</em></h4><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525598912003-663126343e1f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHBob25lfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTU3MjUxNw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dorothy Recalls a Missed Call in Seattle from La Guardia"/><p/><p>its not your fault his<br>voicemail dropped he called<br>flew its not your fault<br>in on sunday please</br></br></br></p><p>dont weep its not your<br>fault trust me hed brought<br>cds dug its not<br>your fault Blue glad for</br></br></br></p><p>us too his heart its<br>not your fault left smear<br>for aim hed its not</br></br></p><p>your fault always got<br>his way its not your<br>fault. Go to hell, Dot.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[You came to life, slowly]]></title><description><![CDATA[exhuming yourself from
the pure haunt of your
disease
You were a Raggedy Ann doll
blood red spots on your smile
your own voodoo doll
an abandoned Cabbage Patch Kid
left in the field, abducted by
alien foes, not friends
You were hijacked
a terrorist of your
own being
Your own vampire, a devil
she-beast
But now you are
a dogwood flower
pressed into an old
book kept in the drawer,
one taken out
sometimes and
admired
occasionally
A North Star
quiet and direct
You are
an arrowhead,
pen of a swo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/you-came-to-life-slowly/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523119</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Brianne Grothe]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:00:28 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1553883865-fd069883e847?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGRvZ3dvb2R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NTcyNzc1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1553883865-fd069883e847?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGRvZ3dvb2R8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NTcyNzc1&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="You came to life, slowly"/><p>exhuming yourself from<br>the pure haunt of your<br>disease</br></br></p><p>You were a Raggedy Ann doll<br>blood red spots on your smile<br>your own voodoo doll<br>an abandoned Cabbage Patch Kid<br>left in the field, abducted by<br>alien foes, not friends</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>You were hijacked<br>a terrorist of your<br>own being</br></br></p><p>Your own vampire, a devil<br>she-beast</br></p><p>But now you are<br>a dogwood flower<br>pressed into an old<br>book kept in the drawer,<br>one taken out<br>sometimes and<br>admired<br>occasionally</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>A North Star<br>quiet and direct</br></p><p>You are<br>an arrowhead,<br>pen of a sword,<br>rising out of<br>red clay</br></br></br></br></p><p>dripping</p><p>You are<br>Joan of Arc<br>Esther, Jezebel</br></br></p><p>Ready for revolution<br>absolution</br></p><p>but today</p><p>You just are.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Chihuly in the Forest]]></title><description><![CDATA[Crystal Bridges Museum, November, 2017
Goblets for water and wine, the odd stein, a bottle,
glass plate, vial, cruet, baronial pitcher,
crucible, computer screen, all silicate,
and yet it must be the light among the needles
or how the lip wrap fires the rim, the radiant
trailing that enriches the belly of a vessel,
the tinctures that go beyond the oven's blaze,
to shatter the confines of desire for decanters
and eye wear and tabletops, into shards of fierce
imagining, into "Neodymium Reeds…,]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/chihuly-in-the-forest/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852311a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:59:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548357194-9e1aace4e94d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGFtZXRoeXN0fGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTU3Mjk4OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h4 id="crystal-bridges-museum-november-2017">Crystal Bridges Museum, November, 2017</h4><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548357194-9e1aace4e94d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGFtZXRoeXN0fGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTU3Mjk4OQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Chihuly in the Forest"/><p/><p>Goblets for water and wine, the odd stein, a bottle,<br>glass plate, vial, cruet, baronial pitcher,<br>crucible, computer screen, all silicate,<br>and yet it must be the light among the needles<br>or how the lip wrap fires the rim, the radiant<br>trailing that enriches the belly of a vessel,<br>the tinctures that go beyond the oven's blaze,<br>to shatter the confines of desire for decanters<br>and eye wear and tabletops, into shards of fierce<br>imagining, into "Neodymium Reeds…,” those amethyst<br>swords among the bird’s foot violets, the "Fiori Boat,”<br>crowded to overflowing with glass-blown spheres,<br>dreams that decorate this lake and manifest how form and hue<br>can morph the common woods to fiery luminescence.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Flowers of the Prairie]]></title><description><![CDATA[I saw your face on a clear night,
across the plains of Texas.
You shown so brightly
that the night looked like
a tempest in the afternoon.
I wandered out to survey you in nothing by my slip,
a shawl around my shoulders.
And you kissed
my face and chest with bright light,
beams of brilliance
from on high.
You were the season of newness after death
had crept in all around me.
after the plague had rained down.
You rose,
you bloomed,
you lit up the land.
Cleansed our stagnant imaginations,
cleare]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/flowers-of-the-prairie/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852311b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Audrey Kallenberger]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:58:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1596911200412-32f58e184154?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHByYWlyaWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NTc5MzQy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1596911200412-32f58e184154?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHByYWlyaWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NTc5MzQy&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Flowers of the Prairie"/><p>I saw your face on a clear night,<br>across the plains of Texas.</br></p><p>You shown so brightly<br>that the night looked like<br>a tempest in the afternoon.<br>I wandered out to survey you in nothing by my slip,<br>a shawl around my shoulders.<br>And you kissed<br>my face and chest with bright light,<br>beams of brilliance<br>from on high.<br>You were the season of newness after death<br>had crept in all around me.<br>after the plague had rained down.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><br>You rose,<br>you bloomed,<br>you lit up the land.<br>Cleansed our stagnant imaginations,<br>cleared out past prejudices<br>to render our consciences clean.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><br>You rose,<br>you bloomed,<br>the flower moon,<br>looking bigger than ever,<br>deep in the heart of the limitless sky.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets - June - “Light of Love Breaking through the Devastating Haze from California Fires”]]></title><description><![CDATA[The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-june-light-of-love-breaking-through-the-devastating-haze-from-california-fires/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852312d</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:57:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/04/June--Light-of-Love-Breaking-through-the-Devastating-Haze-from-California-Fires--.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/04/June--Light-of-Love-Breaking-through-the-Devastating-Haze-from-California-Fires--.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets - June - “Light of Love Breaking through the Devastating Haze from California Fires”"/><p>The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Juniper Berries]]></title><description><![CDATA[my legs don’t usually drink,
but when they do, they imbibe martinis
to unwind what nature, scalpels
and sutures have wrought,
with oil of juniper berries,
those tiny spheres from which
spirits of gin are distilled,
its broom tree continually sheds fan-like
sprigs and shotgun pellets on my porch
that can only be partially swept away,
as can nerve damage
from my partial knee replacement.
still, I’m keeper of the fruit’s heart
of this fairy tale tree,
which only legend at Christmas
is reputati]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/juniper-berries/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852311c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cynthia Gallaher]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:56:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1564957468535-e8e51b0d2f56?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxtYXJ0aW5pfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTY2NjI2MA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1564957468535-e8e51b0d2f56?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxtYXJ0aW5pfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTY2NjI2MA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Juniper Berries"/><p>my legs don’t usually drink,<br>but when they do, they imbibe martinis<br>to unwind what nature, scalpels</br></br></p><p>and sutures have wrought,<br>with oil of juniper berries,<br>those tiny spheres from which</br></br></p><p>spirits of gin are distilled,<br>its broom tree continually sheds fan-like<br>sprigs and shotgun pellets on my porch</br></br></p><p>that can only be partially swept away,<br>as can nerve damage<br>from my partial knee replacement.</br></br></p><p>still, I’m keeper of the fruit’s heart<br>of this fairy tale tree,<br>which only legend at Christmas</br></br></p><p>is reputation as scraggly choice<br>when fir or spruce or pine<br>sell out,</br></br></p><p>yet, juniper remains stolid<br>in front of my own abode,<br>trunk tall, perhaps raining down</br></br></p><p>its dusty black & blue manna<br>for another 100 years or more<br>after I’m gone,</br></br></p><p>but for now, these spicy berries zhuzh up<br>my fermentations of sauerkraut,<br>clear my amethyst crystals,</br></br></p><p>and with its sesquiterpenes,<br>slowly mend, nerve ending by nerve ending,<br>my martini-loving knees.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[NOW]]></title><description><![CDATA[Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to be born.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … for recess.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to get noticed.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to get boobs. Got noticed.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to find my voice.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to birth my child.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/now/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852311d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Mitchell]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:55:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1604987306200-c6212468ebcd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHdhaXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NjY2Njc2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1604987306200-c6212468ebcd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHdhaXR8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NjY2Njc2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="NOW"/><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to be born.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … for recess.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to get noticed.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to get boobs. Got noticed.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to find my voice.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to birth my child.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to birth my second child.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … for sobriety.</p><p>BLINK > children are grown.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to publish my book.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to publish my next book still afraid.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … for Covid to end. I want my life back!</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to publish my next book. Proud.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to be able to pay my bills without always looking over my shoulder.</p><p>Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, … to die…Hell no!</p><p><em><strong>Nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. Note to self… listen to this thought and stay in the now.</strong></em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Here We Go Loop De Loop]]></title><description><![CDATA[An Excerpt from the novel
Marty stared at her forty-two-year-old nude body in the full-length bathroom mirror. “This is what middle-age looks like, kid. You were never Miss Hotsy to begin with, but it worked. Worked damn fine for years. You could frequently get what you wanted, and let’s be honest, usually not what you needed. But in the end, you never gave this corpus you were born with all that much consideration. And now ... now! Well, what’s to be done? The sagging, the stretch lines, the w]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/here-we-go-loop-de-loop/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852311e</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[William Jack Sibley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:55:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1465779171454-aa85ccf23be6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxsb29wc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MTU2NjcwNjQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1465779171454-aa85ccf23be6?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE0fHxsb29wc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MTU2NjcwNjQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Here We Go Loop De Loop"/><p><em>An Excerpt from the novel</em></p><p>Marty stared at her forty-two-year-old nude body in the full-length bathroom mirror. “This is what middle-age looks like, kid. You were never Miss Hotsy to begin with, but it worked. Worked damn fine for years. You could frequently get what you wanted, and let’s be honest, usually not what you needed. But in the end, you never gave this corpus you were born with all that much consideration. And now ... now! Well, what’s to be done? The sagging, the stretch lines, the wrinkles, spots, ridges, bumps, callouses, protrusions, intrusions, exclusions ... I mean, what is this relentless attack of defects all about anyway? A life too well lived? They say nuns die with beautiful skin. Is wearing a shower curtain and a pillowcase on your head the beauty secret the world has been waiting for? Why doesn’t Pettus recoil in horror at the sight of my degeneration? Is the man blind or just blindly infatuated? And now I’ve agreed to go swimming - with Chito - in the pool! Chito, the slim god of taut conquistador genes. God, I want him to like me. To see through this veneer of calamities and just ... like ... me. Is it asking so much? So what if he’s gay? Lots of people are gay and in successful straight relationships. I mean, I don’t know all that many, but they’re there! Why couldn’t it work? We’d take cooking classes and couples yoga and travel to Puerto Vallarta. Does sex have to be everything? You know, sometimes, just having a regular warm body nearby is all the serenity we can ever expect in life. And so, here I am, forty-two and never married, putting on a one-piece black swimsuit I would have snickered at my mother daring to wear outdoors. And I ask myself, “Is vodka truly the antidote to the fear and loathing we all experience on the downslope of our existence?” All I’m asking for is a little ... kindheartedness ... and a twist of lemon.</p><hr><p>Chito stood in front of the mirror, staring at his nude forty-year-old body, and smiled. He never wanted to appear vain – but damn, he looked good for his age! No, he couldn’t compete with the twenty-something studs that were all cock and swagger, but who wanted to mess with such one-dimensional posturing anyway? He preferred the class, brains, conversation, wit, and affinity that comes with maturity. And if with maturity they were better than average attractive to boot – who’s to say no to that? Indeed, if there were ever a perfect physical “type” that he was inclined to favor over another, excluding his late husband, of course, it was probably Pettus Lyndecker. Of any male he’d ever crossed paths with, here was a perfectly content and at ease man totally aligned with his masculinity. He didn’t try! There was no forced framework about him. He ... just ... was. And let’s face it - most men today were complete messes. Am I confident enough? Am I too confident? Am I smart enough or trying too hard? Flirty, too flirty, or just crotch dead? Cool with gay guys being raunchy or generally incensed they might assume I was one of them. A fun guy to be with, or too full of himself to ever let anyone cross the façade barrier. On and on and on. Exhausting. Some mornings it didn’t pay to even wake up.</p><p>Pulling on his black Speedo, Chito studied his reflection once more and pondered “The Marty Quandary.” “I think Marty is – what’s the word – maybe a little transfixed with me. A guy usually knows when someone’s got a crush on them. The smiles, the extra attention, the overt<br>niceness, a stray touch, the inadvertent bicep grab – all pretty standard obsession tactics. What to do? I’ve dated women, had sex with women, I like women very much. That’s not the issue. If you hold a gun to my head, I just prefer men – for sex - among other fundamentals. Which is not to say sex with women is ever not satisfying. (When is sex not satisfying?) I just ... what the hell do I mean? Tom always said I was a closet bisexual anyway. Maybe so. Who knows, who cares? I mean, a person can’t be everything to everybody.” Chito shrugged, “Unless they can.”</br></p><p>He took one last look in the mirror and smiled. “I wonder if Marty ever invites Pettus over to go swimming?” Grabbing a towel from the bathroom, he padded barefoot down the hallway.</p><hr><p>Pettus stared at his naked 45-year-old body in the cracked bathroom door mirror. Still wet from the shower, he studied the reflected landscape carefully. A purple bruise on his thigh from where the yearling kicked him, a cut on his right arm where he got caught up in barb wire, a nick above his eye where the post hole digger fell on him, and a big scabby knee – he forgot how that happened. All in all – not too ragged. Just needed a haircut, that’s about it. He rubbed his hand on his flat belly and wondered what Marty was up to. God, he did enjoy that woman’s entire substance! Well, truth be told, Pettus liked sex - period. What else is there that’s free, fun, exciting, passionate, satisfying, healthy, and dirty all at once? And it made a body feel good. And your mind feel good! After a good round of lovemaking, Pettus always thought it was almost like going to church. The good part. Not the hell and damnation but the soulful, uplifting, you’re-not- such-a-bad-person-after-all part. Felt like that down-to-your-toes satisfaction after a good steak dinner or watching a hell of a good ball game where skill and talent become a world of flawless ability. Or even getting that lump in your throat over some stupid movie that reminds you you’re still alive and feeling. He never understood why some people seemed to feel “manly men” didn’t have feelings. He had feelings all the time! He was overcome and overwrought with them daily. He just never showed it! He learned a long time ago, there was no incentive in displaying outward emotion. Nobody wanted to see a grown man cry or rage. Nobody.</p><p>As he combed his hair, he thought about Chito living in the Pennebaker home. Was there some...? Nah. Chito and Marty? Not hardly. He’s gay and Marty ... why would she be interested in a gay guy? Ridiculous. And yet, he’s there, and you’re not. Good-looking, Mexican movie star Chito Sosa living down the hall from Marty. The thought of the two of them – together - <em>that way</em> - made for an unfamiliar sensation. Something approaching jealousy, anger, curiosity, and ... <em>arousal</em>. Arousal? Did it turn him on thinking of the two of them together? Maybe. He wasn’t sure. Pettus finished toweling off and stared again at his reflection in the mirror. ‘You going gay on me, boy?” he chuckled, tied the towel around his waist, and ambled off toward his bedroom.</p></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Adopted]]></title><description><![CDATA[The family flees my bedside
when vertigo turns to vomiting
But the new stray cat stays
Stares in hair-ball camaraderie
Watches with what seems
to be unconditional incoherence
As I continually decline
comfort foods and favorite snacks
Before she executes comprehension
with dead center precision
When I return from the doctor’s
to find a bloodied mouse placed on my pillow]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/adopted/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852311f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ellaraine Lockie]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:54:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1615192232476-758a110dac9f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGRpenp5fGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTY2NzM4MA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1615192232476-758a110dac9f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGRpenp5fGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTY2NzM4MA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Adopted"/><p>The family flees my bedside<br>when vertigo turns to vomiting</br></p><p>But the new stray cat stays<br>Stares in hair-ball camaraderie</br></p><p>Watches with what seems<br>to be unconditional incoherence</br></p><p>As I continually decline<br>comfort foods and favorite snacks</br></p><p>Before she executes comprehension<br>with dead center precision</br></p><p>When I return from the doctor’s<br>to find a bloodied mouse placed on my pillow</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Lake]]></title><description><![CDATA[She’s not struggling anymore. Dawn’s light creeps over the tips of the white oaks and sassafras trees, encouraging the Ozarks to bloom. There is a stillness in the air around this lake. No cicadas, no frogs, no snaps of twigs from bolting deer. If I’m ever lucky enough to know peace, this is surely the closest I’ll ever come.
From my place on the boat in the dead center of the lake, the military-green color of the forest and the glass-like mirror of the still water look the same from every angl]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-lake-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523120</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Erica Harmon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:53:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1477322524744-0eece9e79640?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxyZWZsZWN0aW9ufGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTY2NzY3NA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1477322524744-0eece9e79640?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE1fHxyZWZsZWN0aW9ufGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNTY2NzY3NA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Lake"/><p>She’s not struggling anymore. Dawn’s light creeps over the tips of the white oaks and sassafras trees, encouraging the Ozarks to bloom. There is a stillness in the air around this lake. No cicadas, no frogs, no snaps of twigs from bolting deer. If I’m ever lucky enough to know peace, this is surely the closest I’ll ever come.</p><p>From my place on the boat in the dead center of the lake, the military-green color of the forest and the glass-like mirror of the still water look the same from every angle. The symmetry would be disorienting were it not for the makeshift dock my grandfather built back in the fifties. The lake sits only a few yards away from my grandfather’s property, a cabin he built himself where I would spend my childhood summers tucked away beneath the trees, but he’s always claimed this lake as his own. Since I was a kid, this has been my favorite time of day to come out here. No one looks for you during this time. No one thinks about bad things happening at four in the morning.</p><p>I look over the side of the boat. The water is placid again. The ripples have swelled into oblivion and I see myself staring back from the water. I’ve always liked how I looked, but this reflection would make Narcissus blush. I know women think the same thing when they look at me. They look at me and see beauty, and then their mind starts to build up a fantasy of safety, of protection, of being cared for. God help you if you don’t live up to it. My grandfather had the same problem. Said he never met a woman who wasn’t trouble. I didn’t fully agree with that, but<br>it does hurt when they scream at you, accuse you of doing things, spiral out of your control. Once they reach that point, you can no longer reason with them. You can’t make them see what you see. A reflection, on the other hand, is always in your control. A reflection never talks back.</br></p><p>A slivered line of red emerges at the water’s surface, stretching across my reflection’s forehead. For a brief, terrifying moment, I recall that scene at the end of <em>Friday the 13th</em> where the heroine wakes up on a boat after a night of terror, the oboes start playing and it seems she has survived the horror movie, only to have little Jason pop up from the lake and grab her. For one moment, I did not breathe, waiting for her to pop back up for one more scare, but adrenaline can make you think crazy thoughts and mine is still running. Neither Jason, nor she, will pop out of the lake. That stuff’s for the movies. I take in the solitude and silence of the lake for a moment longer, then I stab it, my oars slashing into the water’s surface. I dock the boat and retreat to my grandfather’s cabin, hidden in the white oaks.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Expect No Good]]></title><description><![CDATA[A kind of madness—summer in March.
Blossoms, too trusting to discern
the danger, were stripped from their stems when winter
returned in April. Expect no good
this season. Expect no fruit—no apples,
peaches, pears, or plums—except
the blemished, ill-formed orbs missed
by annihilation. Nihil. Nothing. Expect no good.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/expect-no-good/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523121</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheryl Loeffler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:51:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1609929986629-61335f8cae8d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDg5fHxkZWFkJTIwZmxvd2Vyc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MTU2NzA1Njg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1609929986629-61335f8cae8d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDg5fHxkZWFkJTIwZmxvd2Vyc3xlbnwwfHx8fDE2MTU2NzA1Njg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Expect No Good"/><p>A kind of madness—summer in March.<br>Blossoms, too trusting to discern<br>the danger, were stripped from their stems when winter<br>returned in April. Expect no good<br>this season. Expect no fruit—no apples,<br>peaches, pears, or plums—except<br>the blemished, ill-formed orbs missed<br>by annihilation. Nihil. Nothing. Expect no good.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Virgil on the Pier]]></title><description><![CDATA[Lil and me were an item. That Friday night we were heading down to the pier to ride the tilt-a-whirl so’s she’d scream and hug up against me till I got all hot and hard. Then we’d get some of that saltwater taffy—the kind that comes wrapped in pastel papers and when a guy chews on it, it gets all in his teeth and keeps coming out a little bit of sweet at a time. I knew Lil loved that stuff, so maybe after…
We’re walking down to the pier and this guy hops up to us. He’s thin, tall, got one leg a]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/virgil-on-the-pier/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523122</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kenneth Weene]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:50:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/03/1600px-Tilt-A-Whirl_purple_green.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/03/1600px-Tilt-A-Whirl_purple_green.jpg" alt="Virgil on the Pier"/><p>Lil and me were an item. That Friday night we were heading down to the pier to ride the tilt-a-whirl so’s she’d scream and hug up against me till I got all hot and hard. Then we’d get some of that saltwater taffy—the kind that comes wrapped in pastel papers and when a guy chews on it, it gets all in his teeth and keeps coming out a little bit of sweet at a time. I knew Lil loved that stuff, so maybe after…</p><p>We’re walking down to the pier and this guy hops up to us. He’s thin, tall, got one leg and he’s using those metal crutches that cuff around his arms. He says, “You seen my dog?”</p><p>It kind of creeps me out the way he’s asking, like one of those guys that mothers warn you about, except we’re not little kids and this guy ain’t got but one leg; so I say, “Nah, we ain’t seen no dogs.”</p><p>“What’s he look like?” Lil asks.</p><p>The guy gets all smiley and he describes his mutt, “Little, tan, pointed ears that stand up, smooth coat, always yappin’.”</p><p>“What’s his name?” I ask, “In case we find him.”</p><p>“Virgil.”</p><p>“Like the poet?” Lil puts in, which shows she’s been paying attention in World Lit. I like it that Lil’s smart; I wish I was, too.</p><p>“Yeah, like the I-talian poet,” he says.</p><p>“And what’s your name?” I ask, “In case we find him and want to find you.”</p><p>“Virgil,” he answers.</p><p>“You and your dog got the same name?”</p><p>“Yeah, anything wrong with that?” All of a sudden, the guy’s snarling like I hit him or something.</p><p>“Nah…just doesn’t the dog get confused when people talk to you?”</p><p>Now the one-legged guy is staring me down. “I don’t see why he should. I don’t get confused when people talk to him.”</p><p>“Yeah,” I say and take Lil’s hand to pull her away. “Hey, we’ll keep an eye out for your dog. If we find him…”</p><p>We’re moving down the pier again, and I’m thinking how cute Lil looked when Virgil was talking about his dog.</p><p>The tilt-a-whirl is maybe two hundred feet farther when this bag-lady staggers up to us smelling of cheap wine and rotting teeth and pushing a shopping cart filled with loose crap, a large black garbage bag, and a small paper bag with her bottle peeking out.</p><p>“You seen my husband?” she asks. “I’m looking for my husband.”</p><p>“Your husband isn’t Virgil?” Lil asks like talking to this human flotsam ain’t nothing we don’t do every Friday night.</p><p>“No, my husband’s name is Chuck.”</p><p>“Have you tried calling him?” I ask, suddenly wondering why Virgil hadn’t been calling his dog instead of bothering us. “It isn’t that crowded, he’d probably hear you.” I looked across the pier towards the low tide beach. “Even if he’s under the pier, if you stand on the edge and—”</p><p>He’s not down there,” she says; “he’s in Salinas.”</p><p>“If he’s in Salinas, why are you looking for him here?” Lil asks. Her light blue eyes twitch with puzzlement.</p><p>“’Cause I don’t want to find him. I just want to look.”</p><p>Now, that doesn’t make any sense to me, so I ask, “How come?”</p><p>“It’s like Virgil,” she says. “Year ago that dog of his took off. He comes down here every night since looking for that mutt. He hopes to find him, but he knows he won’t; still it gives him something to hope for. Me, I don’t want to find that no-good bastard. He ran off with that ho of a best friend of mine one Friday night and left me with…” She gestured towards the shopping cart.</p><p>“If I was to find him, I’d kill the son-of-a-bitch. Kill them both if I could. So I come here and look for him and hope I don’t find ‘em. Know what I mean?” She punctuated her words with a spray of spittle.</p><p>I’m not sure that I do, but Lil says, “Yeah”</p><p>I say “Yeah,” too. Like we’re having a normal conversation.</p><p>“Good luck,” Lil says.</p><p>And I say, “Good luck,” too.</p><p>The tilt-a-whirl’s a disappointment at first. Lil doesn’t scream or get scared, but then she nestles up against me and that makes it all right and I’m real happy when we go buy that taffy. I buy a small box and figure we’ll give a piece to the shopping cart lady and a piece to Virgil. It ain’t a strayed husband or a lost dog, but it’s sweet and it might take their minds off their problems for a minute.</p><p>On the way back to Lil’s house, we stop in the park and sit on a bench. We’re making out—my right hand down her blouse, her left on me. It’s real good when all of a sudden she pulls away and asks, “What do you hope for?”</p><p>“I stammer around a bit and say, “I don’t know. Nothing.” I don’t want to tell her what I’m really hoping because it has to do with her and I don’t know that she’ll like that. I figure she means like something big and forever. So, instead of answering, I ask her the same, “What are you hoping for?”</p><p>She doesn’t say anything but gets up, straightens her clothes, and starts walking. I catch up. We’re walking towards her house, and I’m holding her hand. I pull her around and kiss her big and hard right there on the sidewalk. I’m scared she’s going to slap my face or something, but Lil kisses me back. We’re like that for a while kissing and hugging, and then we head back to her place.</p><p>The porch light is on. I figure her dad is up and watching out the window. I give Lil a proper-manners peck of a goodnight kiss and say, “I’ll see you in school.”</p><p>“Yeah, Monday,” she says and goes inside.</p><p>I’m walking down the street when a piece of taffy comes loose from its hiding place between my molars. I savor the sweetness.</p><p>In a backyard, a dog sets to baying. I want to howl back. I want to call, “Hey, Virgil.” I want to see if he comes.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Year Mom Learned Macramé]]></title><description><![CDATA[The year mom learned macrame my brother kicked a hole in the bathroom door where he’d chased me and I locked myself in, crying in frustration about so much more than just his mocking laugh. Before the hole, mom hired babysitters, but she was newly-single trying to pay bills alone and I was a responsible ten-year-old after all, so if the neighbors were home and knew we were alone it would be fine. This is what she told herself the year mom learned macrame.
But truth was, one of the babysitters s]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-year-mom-learned-macrame/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523123</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurie Marshall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:49:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590069832258-a222a34722c3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fG1hY3JhbWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NjcxNjk0&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590069832258-a222a34722c3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fG1hY3JhbWV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE1NjcxNjk0&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Year Mom Learned Macramé"/><p>The year mom learned macrame my brother kicked a hole in the bathroom door where he’d chased me and I locked myself in, crying in frustration about so much more than just his mocking laugh. Before the hole, mom hired babysitters, but she was newly-single trying to pay bills alone and I was a responsible ten-year-old after all, so if the neighbors were home and knew we were alone it would be fine. This is what she told herself the year mom learned macrame.</p><p>But truth was, one of the babysitters stole her wheat penny collection, and then some teenagers who were probably friends of the babysitter stole our lawn chairs off the tiny, useless deck. And when my friend Jill and I found those teenagers smoking and sitting in our avocado green chairs like they owned them they chased us out of the woods and mom didn’t do anything even though I told her exactly where they were.</p><p>“Look at this vest I made honey! Want to try it on?”</p><p>And truth was for most of the summer I thought it was cool to live in an apartment because there was a pool, but then that one guy held me under water and I thought “Mom is going to be so mad” and then the guy who I guess didn’t like kids chased us back to Jill’s apartment. We changed into dry clothes and talked about the boy named Mark who we called “Hotsy Totsy” and walked to the drug store where Jill stole some bubblegum-flavored lipgloss while I tried to pretend I didn’t know her.</p><p>“I finished my first choker tonight. Do you like it?”</p><p>And truth was Jill’s older sister taught us what an orgasm was and demonstrated the usefulness of doorknobs and bedposts and I learned how to put party balloons under my JC Penny henley shirts to role-play in preparation for the years to come when I would desperately seek the attention of boys, even though I never filled out my henleys like those balloons did.</p><p>“Do you want to learn? Or maybe we could make candles in the kitchen sink?”</p><p>But truth was the year of macramé and lip gloss and party balloons ended soon after Jill and I were chased indoors by a man flashing a handgun through the window of his truck parked near our apartment because I guess he didn’t appreciate our curiosity. The house mom bought in the tree-covered neighborhood had a much better deck, but did not lend itself to macramé.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Million Sunrises]]></title><description><![CDATA[There is nothing quite as soft ~
Like a small butterfly’s
Good morning kiss
Day breaks into song
I sit wrapped in
The arms of mighty oaks
Underneath translucent lime green leaves
Backlit by an eastern sky ~
Incredible thankfulness passes over me
Now I can breathe again!]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-million-sunrises/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852312a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:48:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513897962041-55f6de928dad?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxidXR0ZXJmbHl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE2MDA1Njg5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513897962041-55f6de928dad?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxidXR0ZXJmbHl8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE2MDA1Njg5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Million Sunrises"/><p>There is nothing quite as soft ~<br>Like a small butterfly’s<br>Good morning kiss<br>Day breaks into song<br>I sit wrapped in<br>The arms of mighty oaks<br>Underneath translucent lime green leaves<br>Backlit by an eastern sky ~<br>Incredible thankfulness passes over me<br>Now I can breathe again!</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Searched for Ernest]]></title><description><![CDATA[I searched for Ernest et al
on a pallid gray day in Paris.
I pondered the air where they met.
I coursed Parisian rues where they strolled.
Fitzgerald dined where I dined.
I drank the same wine as did Ezra.
A Hemingway plaque on the lip of a bar,
A grain of a book to unfold.
Yet, I sought not these giants for their works.
I required them for their highs and their lows.
For moods are creation’s true souls,
A force to define and unclose.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-searched-for-ernest/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230dc</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:47:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1499856871958-5b9627545d1a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1499856871958-5b9627545d1a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="I Searched for Ernest"/><p>I searched for Ernest et al<br>on a pallid gray day in Paris.<br>I pondered the air where they met.<br>I coursed Parisian rues where they strolled.<br>Fitzgerald dined where I dined.<br>I drank the same wine as did Ezra.<br>A Hemingway plaque on the lip of a bar,<br>A grain of a book to unfold.<br>Yet, I sought not these giants for their works.<br>I required them for their highs and their lows.<br>For moods are creation’s true souls,<br>A force to define and unclose.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Got This]]></title><description><![CDATA[The roots of my disorder stretch back to childhood. Events, some in my family, some external, have likely exacerbated an illness I already had, or perhaps were the cause of it. I’m not sure. I realize I was mentally ill when in my second-grade classroom with both hands I picked up one of those wooden little kid chairs right over my head and hurled it across the room. I don’t remember much about the incident, but I do recall the abject rage I felt. I wasn’t aiming the chair at anyone for it crash]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-got-this/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523124</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Colmer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:46:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1613618958001-ee9ad8f01f9c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxtZW50YWx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE2MDAwNDgw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1613618958001-ee9ad8f01f9c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIzfHxtZW50YWx8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE2MDAwNDgw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="I Got This"/><p>The roots of my disorder stretch back to childhood. Events, some in my family, some external, have likely exacerbated an illness I already had, or perhaps were the cause of it. I’m not sure. I realize I was mentally ill when in my second-grade classroom with both hands I picked up one of those wooden little kid chairs right over my head and hurled it across the room. I don’t remember much about the incident, but I do recall the abject rage I felt. I wasn’t aiming the chair at anyone for it crashed into furniture when it landed, nor do I remember my motive for throwing it. Something brassed me off. A student? A predicament? The teacher?</p><p>My dad brought home a beautiful slate grey Weimaraner puppy when I was a baby. He grew to be a stunning specimen of the breed. I have a photo of the two of us in the living room at our first house, me, aged three, sitting on the carpet next to him in a knee-length royal blue satin dress with a wide, white collar, puffy sleeves with white cuffs above my elbows, feet in little white anklets inside black patent leather shoes, and shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair neatly combed and fastened with a clip. My arms are hugging my dog’s erect neck as he lay, haunches curved beneath him, my legs alongside his outstretched forelegs and paws. I don’t recall the occasion, but I do remember the love I was feeling toward Rudy, the name my dad had given him. Rudy instilled peace in me when I could find it nowhere else in the chaos, whether the chaos be inside my head, or my home environment, it seemed ubiquitous. Both my mom and dad drank heavily. Perhaps like me when at fifteen I turned to alcohol, they, too, were trying to alleviate the symptoms of their undiagnosed mania. In spite of the great quantities of alcohol intake, they prided themselves on never drinking during the day. They said people who did that were alcoholics.</p><p>With a thirty-minute drive home from my dad’s office we tended to eat late as he usually worked until seven. That allowed his dental patients who couldn’t make appointments during the day because of work constraints the ability to see him afterwards. Me and my three young sisters sat at the kitchen table waiting for our dad to join us. Mom was at the stove. To the rear of the kitchen was a stairwell with linoleum steps each edged with a strip of metal, leading down to the basement, which we referred to as the rec room. There was a shuffleboard on the floor and fastened to one of the wainscoted walls a dart cork. The darts were made from pinewood curving to a dull point at the back with brown and black bird feathers jutting from them, narrowing slightly at the front where you gripped them before the sharp metal point extruded. To the right of the staircase was a fully stocked bar and six wooden stools with cushions and backs. Along the wall across from the bar was a mirror, a backdrop for the liquor bottles with pour spouts perched on different levels of shelves. There were neon lights. The imbibers sitting on the stools would peek intermittently at themselves in the mirror to observe the fun they were having. I know this because I would sneak down the stairs in my pajamas to spy on the adults during their parties.</p><p>I can’t recall why we were eating in the kitchen that night where quarters were cramped as opposed to the dining room. Breaded fish sticks for the kids and my dad’s steak filled the house with aromas of flavors that fostered comfort, however, on this night, bedlam was about to occur. Rudy came into the kitchen and walking up to the table, sniffed my dad’s T-bone. Tilting his head he opened his mouth, grabbed the slab of meat, and sliding it smoothly from the plate to the floor he commenced to consume it. My sisters and I were paralyzed in a state of dread. It might have been funny at best, or disappointing at worse, I mean there were probably extra fish sticks in the freezer for my dad and Rudy could have been left to partake in the best meal of his life, but when your dad has bipolar, this was catastrophic. He entered the kitchen moments after Rudy had gotten his prize. “God damn sonofabitch!” And with his durable stiff work shoes he began kicking him. Rudy yelping with each blow, my dad continuously kicked him toward the top of the stairwell and with one great strike he kicked him down the steps. Each cry my dog discharged hurt my little girl heart like no agony I’d ever known. And he kept crying out, his body thudding down the steps, his claws scraping against the metal strips as he tumbled. I flew from my chair and in my bare feet I raced toward the steps, hopping over the steak, running to rescue my precious pet; and there my six-foot dad loomed in the threshold blocking my passage. “Leave him alone. Go back to the table and eat your dinner.” There was nothing my dad had ever done, nor would ever do again, that would conjure up the hatred I felt towards him for hurting Rudy. The combination of enmity for my dad and sorrow for Rudy filled my little eight-year-old mind with a torrent of emotions too much to bear. I ran to my bedroom, threw myself on my lower bunk and wailed.</p><p>At fifteen I joined my high school swim team. Six years later my second cousin on my mom’s side, John Naber would take home four gold medals and one silver during the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. My mom reminded me of this many times in the years to come. I found my niche the first day of practice. Breastroke, my coach’s stroke when she had swum competitively. I trained hard and never missed a session, always rising to meet her demanding workouts; I was an achiever when it came to sports. A beastly flu had gripped me a week before the night of state tryouts and in a weakened condition, I came in last. My mom cranked the ignition and placed the car in reverse, the sound of crunching snow beneath the tires created an icy backdrop for her forthcoming chastisement. I sat quietly, concluding I would never achieve anything, no matter how hard I worked for it, or how much I wanted it.</p><p>“Practice after practice, meet after meet I have driven you and proudly watched you in those stands and tonight you humiliate me.” Minutes of silence would pass between each verbal blow. “Did you have to be last? I’ve never seen you swim so badly!” I sat tapping my knees against each other, the shame overwhelming. “What’s going to become of you? You’re a poor student, and you couldn’t even make your mother proud tonight. What have I done to deserve such a daughter?” I never returned to swim team, nor did I return to track and field the following season for which I had also excelled winning many high school ribbons and medals. The loss of this swim meet, which meant so much to me, coupled with my mom’s severe censure inflamed my feelings of worthlessness.</p><p>Two years later on a July night that can still haunt me today, I walked up Prospect Avenue in Milwaukee in a t-shirt, Levi’s bell bottoms, a pair of black Keds, and a strap over the opposite shoulder adjoining the leather purse hanging at my hip. Having just attended Summerfest enjoying the performances of several rock bands I separated from my friends, my bladder demanding relief. The line for the porta potty was long.</p><p>Large maroon brick apartment buildings loomed to my right as I made my way along the sidewalk paralleling Prospect towards my friend’s car. Speeding to the walk now sparse with people, a vehicle moved towards me with such velocity I never stood a chance. It slammed to a halt and a large man leapt out and hurled me into the backseat. Although I tried frantically to escape, my door handle was useless. Two men sat in the front seat and the one who had grabbed me, to my right. They were older than me, late twenties, early thirties? His hands went for my zipper and metal button. I scratched and clawed at his fingers, and attempting to wangle him I cried out, “I’m only seventeen! I’m a minor!”</p><p>I pulled at his fingers, grabbed his thumbs, struggled with all my might and writhed to make it as difficult as possible to get those pants undone. He was tenacious and I unyielding. I can’t recall the duration of our combat, but he finally ceased. “I can’t get anywhere with this fucking bitch and she’s scratching the hell out of me!” The driver veered left at the next corner and spoke, “Let me get at her.” We were in a wealthy neighborhood of stone mansions dating back to the late 1800’s. The night gave way to black street lamps sparsely positioned, emitting dull light.</p><p>Turning off the headlights he pulled the car onto a darkened lawn. The men exited and I immediately sallied behind my assaulter, swerved around the back of the car and running the race of my life I tore across the street to the first mansion in my path yelling, “Help!” continuously, the volume of my voice fueled by terror. Reaching the house, with both hands I grabbed the huge bronze knocker repeatedly slamming it onto its plate fastened to a big wooden door, the banging and my cries for help reverberating throughout the sleeping neighborhood. A pair of running footsteps slapped against the pavement a short distance away, but the windows above the door flew open as an elderly man leaning out shouted, “What’s going on down there?”</p><p>“Help me! Please help me!” I yelled, panic still jolting through my body. “What do you want?” “I’m in trouble!” The perpetrators’ car sped off with a screech. “Can you call my mother?” The man inside the house didn’t invite me in. I stood outside petrified; and fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later she arrived, the headlights of her car an inestimable relief. I climbed into the front seat beside her. I just wanted to crawl into her arms and have her hold me, but no sooner did I lock my door she rebuked, “What are you doing out at this time of night and how did you get here? What happened to your friends you went to Summerfest with?” The temperature had dropped. Was I shaking because I was cold or was I reacting to what I had just experienced, or both? “Mom, three men tried to rape me.” I could barely release the words, my legs wiggling restlessly. “That’s not true!” she shot back. “Stop lying! Don’t make things up!” Her incredulity, her harsh words and critical tone crushed me. “You’re just trying to get attention. Don’t ever say that again! I don’t want to hear another word from you the rest of the way home!” And I didn’t speak about that night to anyone, until decades later.</p><p>I am not a psychiatrist nor am I a psychotherapist. I never studied psychology, however I am bipolar, and I know what mania feels and looks like, as I know depression; ADHD; PTSD; psychosis; and alcoholism. I have it all. Even contained, sometimes my mental illness gets the better of me. For example, in my present home of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, a woman living behind me has a little three-legged terrier and my quietude was demolished when she’d come out onto her porch, always with her dog. She sits outside most of the day in all four seasons gabbing with neighbors. The dog used to run around on a fifty-foot-long chain yapping incessantly.</p><p>When I have mental illness (i.e., I am in control), I would go outside and discuss the dog with her, as fruitless as it may have been. However, just before I would become mentally ill (those occasions when my illness has me), I’d be sitting on my couch enjoying my morning cup of coffee when suddenly my serenity was obliterated by one of her dog’s barking spells. The rate of my heartbeat increasing, pounding with a deep, resounding thump, I’d get hot and my mind would commence to race with indignant rage-filled thoughts and I’d just snap. On two occasions in this state I charged out of my door and standing before her with full barrels I let her have it with a stentorian voice. The words that exploded from my mouth were excoriating; and in my tirade I threatened to kick her little mut like a football if she didn’t make it stop. A pragmatic person would have gone to management months ago rather than let things get to a breaking point, but when one comes from an unstable background she periodically lacks the ability to arrive at sound solutions.</p><p>I would never kick or hit an animal in any state of mind, but even an empty threat to do so is not a sign of stability; and this last occurrence with my neighbor happened as recently as July of 2020, so no, I am not cured of my mental malady. Mental illness may not be curable, but it can be arrested, setbacks and all, in my case with medications; by pausing before acting; reflecting; maintaining my spiritual practice and asking for help from the mental health community (I bear watching).</p><p>And the little dog? With the wise input of my psychotherapist I got management involved and the issue was resolved. Easy fixes can be difficult for people like me. The key is to reach out to my emotional safeguards <em>before</em> I act. And besides my therapist I have several close friends in the fellowship I attend for my alcoholism who have my back and can ward off my impulsive, aberrant behavior if I take cues from the oncoming emotional locomotive and reach out for help <em>before</em> it derails.</p><p>There is life after a diagnosis of mental illness. There is in fact, a joy-filled life, even with the rare reversals. During the last twenty years following my diagnosis in 2000 I have learned to cook and bake whereby I am no slouch in either of those skills. I have travelled and lived all over the world. I have been able to hold down jobs which I loved wherein before treatment most of my employers terminated me. My bipolar condition is the most prominent malady of all my illnesses and today I am grateful it rarely has a hold on me. And since people no longer need to walk on eggshells around me I have friends. Good friends. Bipolar can be a lonely disease when it’s not managed, however, because of my perseverance in combatting it, I am no longer lonely; nor am I ever to be looked upon by others as misfortunate for having mental illness … I got this.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Maze]]></title><description><![CDATA[My memory is like a maze
Lots of people have walked in
And there were they lost
Maybe it was meant to be fun
But these people are now caged in my recordings
And as much as they try to run away
Bigger this maze comes to be
Far away I observe as if comforting it was
To watch so many memories running, wandering, bumping and crashing into each other
Scared by the infinity of my remembrance
This maze is endless
And these people don’t know it
But I need them to escape]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-maze/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523125</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Pedro Henrique da Silva Lino]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:45:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590278458425-6aa3912a48a5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1hemV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE2MDAwODU5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590278458425-6aa3912a48a5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1hemV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE2MDAwODU5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Maze"/><p>My memory is like a maze<br>Lots of people have walked in<br>And there were they lost</br></br></p><p>Maybe it was meant to be fun<br>But these people are now caged in my recordings<br>And as much as they try to run away<br>Bigger this maze comes to be</br></br></br></p><p>Far away I observe as if comforting it was<br>To watch so many memories running, wandering, bumping and crashing into each other<br>Scared by the infinity of my remembrance</br></br></p><p>This maze is endless<br>And these people don’t know it<br>But I need them to escape</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Credo]]></title><description><![CDATA[One day when I'm dead I won't really be
dead is what I'm told at church and Sunday
School, I'll be more alive than ever is
what they say and I'm ten years old and things
don't usually make much sense any
-way but this especially don't--doesn't,
I mean--it's more the kind of truth adults
understand or at least they say they do
even, I guess, when they don't, religion
is what it is and makes as much sense as
politics but anyway to live for
-ever I have to die one day and have
been a good boy and m]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/credo/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523126</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Gale Acuff]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:39:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517837016564-bfc3ffd67455?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGJpYmxlfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNjAwNDgyMg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517837016564-bfc3ffd67455?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGJpYmxlfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNjAwNDgyMg&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Credo"/><p>One day when I'm dead I won't really be<br>dead is what I'm told at church and Sunday<br>School, I'll be more alive than ever is<br>what they say and I'm ten years old and things<br>don't usually make much sense any<br>-way but this especially don't--<em>doesn't</em>,<br>I mean--it's more the kind of truth adults<br>understand or at least they say they do<br>even, I guess, when they don't, <em>religion</em><br>is what it is and makes as much sense as<br>politics but anyway to live for<br>-ever I have to die one day and have<br>been a good boy and man and prayed and read<br>the Bible and tried like the Devil not<br>to sin--oh, and believe that Jesus is<br>the Son of God and then I get to dwell<br>in Heaven, eternally, everlasting<br>-ly, and the key is dying, dying<br>is the thing, nothing happens for me in<br>the Afterlife unless I'm dead but I<br>don't want to, I don't want to die and in<br>my case even Heaven's not good enough<br>nor Hell, neither, I'd like another choice<br>but will gladly settle for eternal<br>life on Earth or if not eternal life then<br>at least a few years longer and some kind<br>of everlasting-ness among the things<br>I know pretty well, baseball and comic<br>books, say, and pizza, and bears that can ride<br>bicycles and after Sunday School this<br>morning I told my teacher <em>This I be</em><br><em>-lieve</em> but I think I killed her dead, shocked her<br>anyway and I didn't mean to do<br>neither and when she could respond she'd lost<br>her voice, her words anyway, her tongue<br>was tied or it was sudden laryngitis<br>so I just said So long, see you next week<br>and then she smiled. Which I guess says something.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cat Man]]></title><description><![CDATA[(In Memory of Ray Brannon)
Walks downtown,
Paying visits to the garbage,
To the alleys.
His gray hair and beard, an umbrella
Over shabby raincoat.
Recites loud and long speeches regarding injustice.
He was arrested
While frying eggs over
The eternal flame
On court square.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/cat-man/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523127</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elaine Blanchard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:39:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528190336454-13cd56b45b5a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGdhcmJhZ2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE2MDA1MDgx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h4 id="-in-memory-of-ray-brannon-"><em>(In Memory of Ray Brannon)</em></h4><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528190336454-13cd56b45b5a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGdhcmJhZ2V8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjE2MDA1MDgx&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Cat Man"/><p/><p>Walks downtown,</p><p>Paying visits to the garbage,</p><p>To the alleys.</p><p>His gray hair and beard, an umbrella</p><p>Over shabby raincoat.</p><p>Recites loud and long speeches regarding injustice.</p><p>He was arrested</p><p>While frying eggs over</p><p>The eternal flame</p><p>On court square.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[It is a Tree]]></title><description><![CDATA[It is a tree
A bird
The sea
My breast
Their bodies
Small perfect shells
Sorrow entered
Our bed
Body
Baby
Slanted Breath
Some day
Will you ache
Like I ache
Burl in the base
Of this tree
Rounded darkness
Right for
The only doing
There can be
My shell
That of an insect
A scarab
An etched womb
New shells
Drawn from
Memory
A scar
The dried
Place
Of it
Pulled out
With the forest tide]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/it-is-a-tree/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523128</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Patsy Creedy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:38:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528993604451-2f9710457609?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNjYXJhYnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MTYwMDUzODc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528993604451-2f9710457609?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNjYXJhYnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MTYwMDUzODc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="It is a Tree"/><p>It is a tree<br>A bird<br>The sea<br>My breast<br>Their bodies<br>Small perfect shells</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Sorrow entered<br>Our bed<br>Body<br>Baby<br>Slanted Breath</br></br></br></br></p><p>Some day<br>Will you ache<br>Like I ache<br>Burl in the base<br>Of this tree</br></br></br></br></p><p>Rounded darkness<br>Right for<br>The only doing<br>There can be</br></br></br></p><p>My shell<br>That of an insect<br>A scarab<br>An etched womb<br>New shells<br>Drawn from<br>Memory</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>A scar<br>The dried<br>Place<br>Of it<br>Pulled out<br>With the forest tide</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[In the Middle of Cancer]]></title><description><![CDATA[I thought I wouldn't be myself anymore
just on the edge of all that chemo,
which I walked, step by infusion
for months, scared but mostly
tired, bored, thrashing in the tangle
of small and large irritations. Unable
to sleep at night, I sat up at 2 a.m.,
the sky swirling with tiny particles of light
in the vast field of snow, voles and rabbits,
later vanished in stray strands of sunlight.
I turned to wait out pain in surprising bones,
the abrupt reverse of drowning
when coming out of anesthes]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/in-the-middle-of-cancer/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523129</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:28:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1576671081803-5dcb9836dc61?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGNoZW1vfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNjAwNTU1Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1576671081803-5dcb9836dc61?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGNoZW1vfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNjAwNTU1Mw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="In the Middle of Cancer"/><p>I thought I wouldn't be myself anymore<br>just on the edge of all that chemo,<br>which I walked, step by infusion</br></br></p><p>for months, scared but mostly<br>tired, bored, thrashing in the tangle<br>of small and large irritations. Unable</br></br></p><p>to sleep at night, I sat up at 2 a.m.,<br>the sky swirling with tiny particles of light<br>in the vast field of snow, voles and rabbits,</br></br></p><p>later vanished in stray strands of sunlight.<br>I turned to wait out pain in surprising bones,<br>the abrupt reverse of drowning</br></br></p><p>when coming out of anesthesia,<br>vomiting into the small pan a kind nurse held,<br>my legs still kicking for no apparent reason</br></br></p><p>before walking back to the world. The corridor<br>lined itself with locked forests and waiting rooms<br>where the sailboat paintings mocked us all</br></br></p><p>until I could turn my eyes to a mirror,<br>no longer the one still staring,<br>but the one being watched.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Mask]]></title><description><![CDATA[I so dislike the mask
I’m sure it has to be
But now I cannot see
Your smile or Hear your laugh.
It just doesn’t sound the same, more like a huff.
Driving up to the Toll Booth to pay
“Hello sir,” “Sorry, Ma’am.”
It’s the mask you see, I could not see.
When will this be over?
Tomorrow, Next Week, Next Month
Please NO, NO - Not next year!
I so dislike the mask.
But I wear it!]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-mask/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852312b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John L. Swainston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:23:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1601723897234-327147304013?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI3fHxtYXNrfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNjAwNTk0Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1601723897234-327147304013?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI3fHxtYXNrfGVufDB8fHx8MTYxNjAwNTk0Ng&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Mask"/><p>I so dislike the mask<br>I’m sure it has to be<br>But now I cannot see<br>Your smile or Hear your laugh.</br></br></br></p><p>It just doesn’t sound the same, more like a huff.<br>Driving up to the Toll Booth to pay<br>“Hello sir,” “Sorry, Ma’am.”<br>It’s the mask you see, I could not see.</br></br></br></p><p>When will this be over?<br>Tomorrow, Next Week, Next Month<br>Please NO, NO - Not next year!<br>I so dislike the mask.</br></br></br></p><p>But I wear it!</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 10: Spring 2021]]></title><description><![CDATA[Flowers are blooming, trees are leafing, and writers are starting to eMerge this Spring. Come and join us at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow anytime, because anytime at the Colony is the Write Time. In this edition of eMerge, you will find yourself enthralled in Morris McCorvey’s short story, Rosebuds. I would suggest listening to Ella Fitzgerald’s Summertime or Miles Davis So What while you read. We have poetry by Bill McCloud and Wendy Carlisle that will make you pause and reflect on your ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/letter-to-the-editor-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523130</guid><category><![CDATA[Spring 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:22:49 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Flowers are blooming, trees are leafing, and writers are starting to eMerge this Spring. Come and join us at the <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow</a> anytime, because anytime at the Colony is the Write Time. In this edition of eMerge, you will find yourself enthralled in Morris McCorvey’s short story, <em>Rosebuds</em>. I would suggest listening to Ella Fitzgerald’s <em>Summertime</em> or Miles Davis <em>So What</em> while you read. We have poetry by Bill McCloud and Wendy Carlisle that will make you pause and reflect on your personal beliefs about life. They offer you the gift of meditation along with all of this issue’s poets. Enjoy the Zen.</p><p>Our submission guidelines have been updated and we will begin taking submissions on August 1, 2021. We have a new <a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/authors/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">submission form for eMerge</a>. Hopefully, this will make submissions easier for you to submit and easier for us to process. All submissions this year will be analyzed and appraised for publication in 2022.</p><p>Have you listened to one of the Podcasts lately? Please, give it a listen. You will find the interviews conducted with different writers to be entertaining and informative. The podcasts are called <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/podcast?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Write Now at the Writers’ Colony</a>.</p><p>In an effort to promote and assist our writers with marketing their work, we have formed a WCDH group on Goodreads. You can request to join by going to our <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1103321-wcdh?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">WCDH Goodreads Group</a>. We encourage members of our group to write positive reviews, provide ratings for our members, and share with your Goodreads friends.</p><p>We continue to develop some innovative planning for the future that will serve our authors and be beneficial to the writing community. So, stay tuned boys and girls ... major developments coming your way! Thank you again for championing the Writers’ Colony and for providing us with you financial and emotional support.</p><p>Until Next Time,<br>I Remain,<br>Just another Zororastafarian editor wondering if it proper to use a preposition to end a sentence with ...</br></br></p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pushcart Prize Nominees]]></title><description><![CDATA[eMerge, the online literary magazine of the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, is proud to announce its nominees for the Pushcart Prize.
This edition of eMerge is dedicated to all those just passing through, the ephemeral, and the euphoric. This issue is for all of you who are fascinated with the creativity that emerges from the tension of conflicting thoughts, the interplay between memory and narrative, truth and interpretation, perception and perspective, and art that straddles the line between]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pushcart-prize-nominees/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230e2</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 20:04:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/12/Pushcart.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/12/Pushcart.jpg" alt="Pushcart Prize Nominees"/><p>eMerge, the online literary magazine of the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, is proud to announce its nominees for the Pushcart Prize.</p><p>This edition of eMerge is dedicated to all those just passing through, the ephemeral, and the euphoric. This issue is for all of you who are fascinated with the creativity that emerges from the tension of conflicting thoughts, the interplay between memory and narrative, truth and interpretation, perception and perspective, and art that straddles the line between genre, form, language, and symbol.</p><p>At eMerge we love both the raw and the refined. The pain, joy, heartache, and elation. The thread that weaves its way through our short lives and binds our common humanity together, is both delicate and critical. Below is a list of writers from eMerge who have shared their perceptions and perspectives of the human condition with us in their own unique and unrelenting voices. They represent a level of understanding and expression that writers constantly strive to achieve. They spend an inordinate amount of time skillfully crafting a sentence or choosing the perfect word or phrase to trigger a thought or put us into an emotional tailspin.</p><p>The distinctive work that has been nominated by the editors at eMerge appears below with each respective author. Each title is linked to the piece as it appears in eMerge.</p><p>Prose – a short story by Sandra Opoku-Jackson, <a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/blue-mermaid/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Blue Mermaid</a>, appeared in the Summer 2020 Issue of eMerge. A story from a different land, a different language, and a different culture that mysteriously draws us in, embraces us, and allows us to relate it to our own experiences.</p><p>Prose – a short story by Martha Anne Toll, <a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/the-gigolo/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">The Gigolo</a>, appeared in the Winter 2020 Issue of eMerge. Martha Anne Toll's short story published in eMerge Magazine that explores issues regarding our shared humanity and our most basic fears in an insightful manner.</p><p>Prose – a short story by Nikki Hanna, <a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/writers-are-thieves/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Writers are Thieves</a>, appeared in the Winter 2020 Issue of eMerge. Author, Nikki Hanna, is able to weave the frayed Southern Belle charm and the intellectual Yankee in-your-face personality into masterful prose that reads like stream-of-consciousness poetry.</p><p>Poetry – by Wendy Taylor-Carlisle, <a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/why-poetry/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Why Poetry</a>, appeared in the Summer 2020 Issue of eMerge. Wendy Taylor Carlisle’s slightly tongue-in-cheek poem, <a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/why-poetry/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Why Poetry</a>, almost hides her pleasure in the impact of one sound upon another and the sense of play among words as you roll them from your tongue in poetic rhythm. When you listen to her read her poetry, you can hear the love bubble up from a private place.</p><p>Poetry – by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, <a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/tears-of-quang-tri/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Tears of Quang Tri</a>, appeared in the Winter 2020 issue of eMerge. Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai will forever change those who immerse themselves in her poetry. In Tears, Quế Mai reminds us of the toll the American War in Vietnam had on both sides of that tragic affair.</p><p>Poetry – by Bill McCloud, <a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/i-want-to-nurse-at-your-breath/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">I Want to Nurse at Your Breath</a>, appeared in the Fall 2020 issue of eMerge. Bill McCloud who continues to amaze and enthrall his readers as he pushes the envelope of his soul. For those who have been totally immersed in the uncompromising love of another being, Nurse at Your Breath, captures that fleeting moment when we realize it.</p><p>We send a sincere thank you to all of our writers for continuing share your unique and unrelenting voices with us and all those who read and love eMerge. There were many prize-worthy prose and poetry submissions to eMerge in 2020 however, Pushcart only allows small press and online magazines six nominees each. As most of you know, eMerge is the online magazine of the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow and is staffed completely by volunteers. Emerge would not be possible without the skills and support of <strong>Sandra Sewell Templeton</strong> <em>(artistic editor)</em> and <strong>Carolyn-Anne Templeton</strong> <em>(web site designer, coder, and gopher extraordinaire)</em>.</p><p>Until Next Time,<br>I Remain,<br>Just another Zororastafarian editor trying to fit some square pegs into round holes …</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rocky Road]]></title><description><![CDATA[Memory persists.
Cracked crystal figurines
chime against the wind.
I lost her in the ice cream
soup of time and space.
Memory persists.
We are floating silk strands,
invisibly connected. Just not here.
It was a love that made me believe in
past lives and parallel universes.
Memory persists.
Rocky road, your favorite.
Distant chimes resonate
under my skin, my bones resist
only to melt into reality’s lattice.
Memory persists, but we
stay melted.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rocky-road/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230e3</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 20:03:36 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515037028865-0a2a82603f7c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGljZSUyMGNyZWFtfGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515037028865-0a2a82603f7c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGljZSUyMGNyZWFtfGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Rocky Road"/><p>Memory persists.</p><p>Cracked crystal figurines</p><p>chime against the wind.</p><p>I lost her in the ice cream</p><p>soup of time and space.</p><p>Memory persists.</p><p>We are floating silk strands,</p><p>invisibly connected. Just not here.</p><p>It was a love that made me believe in</p><p>past lives and parallel universes.</p><p>Memory persists.</p><p>Rocky road, your favorite.</p><p>Distant chimes resonate</p><p>under my skin, my bones resist</p><p>only to melt into reality’s lattice.</p><p>Memory persists, but we</p><p>stay melted.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets - January - Peace and Tranquility: Calm Before the Storm]]></title><description><![CDATA[Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devastating the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selec]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-january-peace-and-tranquility-calm-before-the-storm/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523105</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:57:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/01/A-1_Jan.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/01/A-1_Jan.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets - January - Peace and Tranquility: Calm Before the Storm"/><p>Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devastating the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me. <br><br>Caption: “Peace and Tranquility: Calm Before the Storm”<br><br/></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tequila - 1964]]></title><description><![CDATA[(for Charles 'Doc' Hyatt)
“Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy….”
The Eastside Theater’s sound system was playing “Tequila," over and over again. The Champs hit was hot shit at the time. The theater’s lights had gone up, the music started, and then just repeated. The movie flickered, faded, then stopped. Me and the fellas just sat there waiting for it to resume.
It wasn’t just another Saturday morning. This was one of those late winter days between basketball and baseball seasons when instead]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/tequila-1962/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230e4</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Morris McCorvey]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:57:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/12/download.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/12/download.jpg" alt="Tequila - 1964"/><p>(<em>for Charles 'Doc' Hyatt</em>)</p><p>“Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy….”</p><p>The Eastside Theater’s sound system was playing “Tequila," over and over again. The Champs hit was hot shit at the time. The theater’s lights had gone up, the music started, and then just repeated. The movie flickered, faded, then stopped. Me and the fellas just sat there waiting for it to resume.</p><p>It wasn’t just another Saturday morning. This was one of those late winter days between basketball and baseball seasons when instead of playing ball all day, my boys and I were going to the movies—the late winter following a Thanksgiving month of seeing the President’s head shot off on network TV daily.</p><p>We kinda liked Kennedy. We’d all made a few bucks putting up his campaign signs around the neighborhood. He was an exception of sorts with us. Him and Mickey Mantle, and a cat named Grady.</p><p>This week we were off to the Eastside Theater, to see “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."</p><p>We’d planned it all week, dedicated days to hustling up chump change, in various neighborhood ways, and pooled the dough. So, Saturday we were all up early and out of the house. Me, Calvin, Mike, Rico, and Doc. Doc had banked the scratch as we hustled it up during the week. He was the best of us in Math; and, he had this thing for being fair, whereas the rest of us were somewhat shaky in that area when it came to money. So, Doc always banked the dough.</p><p>They all came over to my house, to get me out of the backyard garden where I started most Saturdays, regardless of the season, studying ants. I loved to follow ants. I was fascinated by their industriousness and organization. The way they kept on keepin’ on no matter what. Nothing short of death thwarted them in their relentless quest for…something. I never figured out what. It wasn’t about any individual one of them: For all their numbers, they were one.</p><p>No one ever told me that studying ants, entomology, was legit..; so, I let it go. It was easy, once I found out, observing my neighbor and occasional caretaker become Oklahoma University’s first African-American football player, you could go to college playing football. I didn’t see nobody going to college free for studying ants. And going to college was the only escape from beans and the Blues I could see.</p><p>It was many years until I came to understand my fascination with the insignificant if not nuisance insect, in an instant outside Santa Fe. The guys just figured I was weird. They called me “Prof". One of them had started calling me Professor because I wore glasses and spent a lotta time hiding out in the Dunbar Library, just to get away from all the crazy stuff goin’ down in the neighborhood.</p><p>As always, they came up the alley, whistling our signal, and we set out to troll the neighborhood, looking for money-making opportunities—we’d already made enough money for the movie the evening before, selling Roscoe Dungee’s Black Dispatch newspaper on the streets of our neighborhood. I’d even lucked up and sold 20 at one time to some of Duke Ellington’s orchestra, living at the Canton Hotel down on Deuce. They always set up camp there, when in town to play for the white folks’ dances.<br>And, jamming at the joints on Deuce in the wee hours after those dances.</br></p><p>But the extra change from a few redeemed soda bottles, or money found in the alleys and streets, lost by the various characters and drunks who spent their weekend nights in the joints which bordered our homes, came in handy at the snack-bar—especially since we were going to the Eastside, which had better but more expensive snacks than our neighborhood theater. The Eastside was across the alley from Dunbar Grammar School, from which I had recently graduated.</p><p>We usually attended The Jewel, a block away from my house: A mercifully fast sprint home on those dark nights after seeing “The Creeper” or “Wolfman” or “The House on Haunted Hill." The Eastside was out of our territory, a mile east, past Woodson School and Butler’s BBQ, where we pooled our Black Dispatch tips to buy boxes of rib-ends after we’d sold out of papers.</p><p>So, we always searched the alleys as well as the streets. Especially after me and Doc found a cloth sack full of money one summer night while playing hide and seek tag. We were crouched in the weeds halfway down the alley between Fourth Street and Third when the alarm at 7-Eleven went off. A minute later a dude came running down the alley with the bag in his hand. He threw that bag into the weeds right across from us and cut through a backyard.</p><p>We kept still, listening. We could hear the cops yelling for the guy to halt; then, shots fired. End of story, you dig. There were sirens and the usual arrest opera. Eventually, I crawled across the alley and found that bag. Me and Doc climbed a tree to the fire-escape of the apartments next to The Jewel and went through the apartments down to Fourth Street and home. The cops were beginning to search the alley.</p><p>$400 bucks! We never even thought about turning it in. Split it two ways, spit-shook on secrecy, and were the captains of our crew that summer, picking up the tab at the movies, Butler’s and our favorite hamburger joint, Grady’s, where grilled burgers were only twenty-cents. We bought Levi’s and Chucks for the whole crew. It was our best summer together. And, we made a few bucks distributing handbills and posting signs for Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy.<br>We had that cat all over the ‘hood.</br></p><p>We’d also learned that on the mornings after big shows, parking lots could be full of all kinds of booty. Two nights before “Snow White," the Ike and Tina Turner Revue had played the Golden Eagle, a joint on the far east side, on a street that tragedy would someday rename Martin Luther King Boulevard.</p><p>That night, Calvin, Mike and I rode our bikes down to check out our headquarters. We’d established a little camp out back of the Golden Eagle, between it and the railroad tracks that paralleled Route 66 through our community, from which we spied on the joint at break time. The bands always hung out and smoked back there.</p><p>On the morning after Ike and Tina’s show, Mike found a wristwatch with a cracked crystal in the parking lot, and Calvin found a Zippo that looked like it had been run over but still worked. I found a silver dollar, oddly not lying flat, but standing on edge in a crack. It was strange. I kicked it. So strange, in fact, I still have it. Things were looking good for the Saturday morning movie.</p><p>Premier movies were usually years old by the time they made it to our neighborhood theaters. Movies for children were rarely screened, as they were not as cost-effective as westerns, or mystery, or even horror flicks. That’s what made “Snow White” special. It was only for us and relatively exotic to us.</p><p>Miles had recently covered “Someday My Prince Will Come” in his own inimitable way. The cat who owned our neighborhood pool hall, Mr. Brown, had played it for us one day after school. That’s the way I first heard about the Disney film. It’s also the way I learned about “The Sound of Music," years later, when John Coltrane recorded “My Favorite Things."</p><p>Mr. Brown always made us listen to his jazz records while we shot pool after school. He took it very seriously; so, we figured it was important, and took turns paying attention—when we weren’t taking a shot.</p><p>But, that was the way the larger culture reached the world we grew up in, filtered through our tenuous connections to the larger world beyond the invisible walls around ours: Those who adventured beyond the boundaries hustling to make it back with “crusts of bread and such," Brown’s Poolhall, various beauty salons, barbershops and two-year-old movies. Hell, I thought Lester Young was President of the United States until Eisenhower beat Stevenson. That was the first time I realized I was living some kind of reality running parallel to the rest of the world in which ‘Prez’ was probably an enigma.</p><p>It was called “separate but equal." Not that I knew it at the time.<br>Whatever it was, we were about to get our equal opportunity to escape our sepia-toned lives on the border of a segregated business/red-light district, into Walt Disney’s fairytale world.</br></p><p>I loved those cinema escapes. They were a peek into another way of seeing and being: Hints of something more, somewhere beyond. I got a feel for that ‘somewhere,' many nights lying in my bed, gazing out the window, listening to my crystal radio and searching the night sky for planes. Wondering where they were bound, and resolving to, someday, get myself wherever that was.</p><p>Our routine was well-established. We bought our tickets at the box office window, then stopped at the concession stand to stock up on our first-course of popcorn and soda, maybe even copping our dessert course at the time—if the flick promised to be particularly compelling.</p><p>For “Snow White," we seated ourselves at the back of the main floor, center, against the wall. We could see the whole audience in front of us as well as the big screen. I remember the previews and snack bar commercials, the anticipation and, finally, the thrill of entering into that separate but equal place of disbelief suspended. Our fantasy lives were amazingly meager, and we had no clue of what we were missing. Everyday life was all too real for us, and it was all, always, black and white, except for the assorted characters, their language, and their blood.</p><p>The fairy tale notion of a pretty white girl being cared for by a troupe of dwarves with funny names was just far out enough to give us psychic distance from the domestic drama and vice we witnessed daily.</p><p>We took our seats, there was a Heckle and Jeckle cartoon accompanied by Charlie Parker music, the big lion roared, and the movie began. I don’t remember exactly when, but I was sitting closest to the aisle and at some point early in the story I felt, as much as saw, the shadow of someone flash past me. There was danger in the energy of that movement. I felt it, but I was so involved with the film that I ignored that instinct.</p><p>Snow White was charming the dwarves. They were so charmed they were whistling while they worked: A novel notion where I grew up, even for a 6th-grade kid. But it looked like those cats always did it; and, loved it.</p><p>What followed that passing shadow was a pantomime in silhouette. It stopped down the aisle at a row where only one person was sitting, low in his seat. Alarmed, the silhouette seated there rose halfway up in his seat. The shadow drew a pistol from its belt and took aim. The silhouette drew his hands up in front of him, and said “Please!”</p><p>He backed away a step and fire flew from the shadowed gun. “Please." he said again.</p><p>The orange-red of the shot and its sharp report tore me away from Snow White’s birdlike singing, abruptly switching my briefly suspended-disbelief with a familiar rush of adrenaline. Everything got very clear, very fast; then, slowed way down. I watched the shooter walk away amid the fleeing audience.</p><p>Unfortunately, this was not my first murder. I don’t think it was Calvin’s first either. And I know it wasn’t Rico’s.</p><p>I’d felt this rush the first time several years earlier, standing on the curb playing cars one summer night, trying to shout “That’s my car," before Rico and his sister, Rita, thus claiming imaginary title to the passing vehicle of my choice. We lived just off old Route 66, before the construction of the freeway bypass, so there was a steady stream of cars to choose from on a Friday night.</p><p>But, there was also a fight starting up that night on the corner under the streetlight where the teenagers sang harmony on weekends. Two men were arguing profanely, and before we could even react by backing away into my front yard, one of the men snatched a straight-razor out of his pocket and slapped it across the throat of the other.</p><p>Everything froze; then, melted into slow-motion. The guy with the razor turned and walked away. The other man scratched his throat where the razor struck, and blood gushed out. He staggered across the street and collapsed on the bench at the bus stop. That was the first time I felt that surge of adrenaline I came to identify with surviving. That survivor’s, “It wasn’t me, I’m still here” rush.</p><p>As I grew older there’d been other experiences similar to this violent pantomime being played out before a backdrop of the radiantly cheerful Snow White and happily whistling dwarves.</p><p>The gunshot set off panic in the theater. Everyone ran for the exits, many of them screaming at the top of their lungs. Everyone, that is, except me and the guys. We just sat there watching the shooting, the resulting panic and “Snow White." Then, the lights came on.</p><p>The lights came on, and the sound system started playing “Tequila." But, the movie continued barely visible on the screen for a while longer. The moment was unforgettable. I liked “Tequila." It was a hit on the radio at the time. The tenor sax on the tune was the definitive rock and roll saxophone growl. The syncopation of it was infectious. I dug it the first time they played it that day.</p><p>I even liked it the second time through, although that’s when the screen went blank. By that time, sirens were wailing outside and people were coming in to check on the cat who’d been shot.<br>We sat tight, low in our seats and waited. The officials went about their business, and “Tequila” continued on a loop. I was soon tired of hearing it.</br></p><p>The ambulance guys rushed in and went to work, followed eventually by a couple of cops. White law: serious shit. We were old enough to know that white police in our community was to be taken with serious caution.</p><p>The cops looked around and asked a few questions of those who weren’t able to get out. As they started to come back up the aisle, one of them spotted us, sitting there on the back row against the black wall, waiting for “Snow White” to resume.</p><p>“What the hell do you boys think you’re doin’?” one cop snarled.</p><p>All the guys looked at me. I was the youngest in the group, but as its bookworm, I was its default spokesman and negotiator.</p><p>“We’re waitin’ for the movie to come back on,” I replied. The guys nodded, agreeing, meeting my eyes approvingly. The cops laughed.</p><p>“Well, son you’ve got a lot of sand,” he said. He was a big man, red-faced and white-haired, with a friendly smile. His blue eyes were mean and betrayed his smile.</p><p>“But, I don’t think you’re gonna get to see the rest of this movie today. Can’t imagine why you’re interested in it anyway. It don’t have a damn thing to do with your kind.” He was still smiling. He pulled a dollar out of his pocket and dropped it in my lap. “Now, you boys get on outta here and let us take care of our business.”</p><p>I put the dollar in my pocket as I stood. We filed out into the lobby, then into the early afternoon sunlight. Suddenly the movie-house magic vaporized into our day to day reality. Coming out of movies as a kid, I used to enjoy the feeling that everything inside me had changed in the theater, while nothing had changed out on the street. I didn’t have that feeling coming out after “Snow White." Nothing had changed, inside me or outside.</p><p>We paused on the sidewalk across the street from the theater, behind the crowd gathered there to gawk at the drama from which we’d just emerged.</p><p>“What happened?” a woman asked.<br>“Somebody got popped at the Eastside,” a man answered.<br>“Oh,” the woman sighed, “Will it never end?”<br>“Not no time soon, Maddie," he said.</br></br></br></p><p>“Well, what are we gonna do now?” Calvin muttered.</p><p>Doc suggested there was still time to make the matinee at the Aldridge Theater down on Deuce. But, Rico said there was a Tarzan movie showing there. We’d agreed to stop watching Tarzan because he was always whipping ten or fifteen African warriors asses all by himself. And we knew that was pure bullshit.</p><p>The fact was, we knew that most of what we saw at the movies was bullshit. But, there was some shit we just were not going to suspend our disbelief about.</p><p>We decided to spend the cop’s dollar on hamburgers at Grady’s. That dollar and our change would buy us five of Grady’s delicious onion-grilled burgers and orange sodas. So we set out walking to the diner. The thing about Grady’s was he had never practiced Jim Crow laws. If you had a quarter, you were good for a burger, whoever you were. Grady never looked up from the grill anyway.</p><p>People said Grady was some kind of hero: Something about Omaha Beach. But Doc said there wasn’t no beaches in Omaha. Whatever the case, Grady had a neat converted Airstream diner with a cool stainless steel counter fronting red, padded stools you could spin around on. The diner was situated diagonally across from the University Hospital complex where most of us had been born. Halfway between it and the junior high school we attended, named after Frederick Douglass Moon.</p><p>We walked along in silence for a few blocks. I wonder who got popped, Mike said.</p><p>“Nobody got popped, Mike,” Rico snapped, “A man got shot.”</p><p>“Yeah, a man, for real,” Calvin added.</p><p>“Like what happened to Kennedy.” Rico added angrily.</p><p>“Some cold-blooded shit.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Doc almost whispered, “In slow motion”. “What was that he kept sayin’?”</p><p>“Please,” I answered, “He kept sayin’ please."</p><p>“One of the magic words,” Calvin said. “And, thank you. He didn’t say thank you.” He kinda laughed, ironically.</p><p>“That ain’t funny, Calvin.” Rico muttered.</p><p>Calvin was the oldest. He knew and did everything first. He wound up being the first of us drafted into the war. Years later, when I learned what a cynic is I thought of Calvin—who survived his tour in Vietnam with relative ease. He might’ve helped save my life.</p><p>You see, we all pledged Marines. We wanted to be like Sidney Poitier in “All The Young Men”: Black heroes, doing our ‘duty’. And, go kill the enemy: Whoever that was; because, there was bound to be one. The rockets had to red glare somewhere, you dig.</p><p>But, years later, in ’68, I got a letter from Calvin mailed from Long Bihn jail in Vietnam. In it he’d said that he was locked up for refusing to go out on point again while patrolling. He said brothers were always being chosen to take the dangerous point-position on patrol; and, after being picked several days in a row, he’d just refused to do it. And was arrested and jailed. I’ll never forget he finished that letter by saying “Forget the pledge! Do not come over here. If I see you here, I will shoot you myself.”</p><p>That did it for me and the Marines. And Vietnam was out of the question. Because Calvin always meant exactly what he said. His word was his wealth.</p><p>“Wonder what “Snow White” was about?” Doc wondered randomly.</p><p>“I don’t know, but I think that cop was right," Rico responded.</p><p>“Bull!” Calvin said.</p><p>“Whistle while you work,” I thought out loud.</p><p>“Yeah, what kinda shit is that?” Doc said.</p><p>“King Kelly whistles while he works.” I remembered.</p><p>“And he’s the King of the Shoe Shine,” added Calvin. “What does a lotta sand mean?”</p><p>“Don’t know, but it’s worth a buck, at least," Doc replied.</p><p>I’d been thinking about the so-called ‘future’ recently.<br>My teacher had been bugging us about what we were going to do with our futures if we didn’t learn the Periodic Table of Elements. She insisted that if we didn’t, we would end up living down on “The Whores’ Stroll.” But my house was right off the corner of the busiest corner on the whores’ stroll, so I never saw why I should care about the Periodic Table of Elements.</br></p><p>Suddenly, everything seemed unforgettable again. For just a few heartbeats everything took on a kind of sepia tone, and I paused taking a long look at each one of my friends, memorizing them. For some reason, I felt as if I’d better be right there, right then.</p><p>“Wake up, Professor. You sleepwalkin’ again?” Calvin said, snapping his fingers in my face.</p><p>“That cop ain’t ever heard Miles play that song from “Snow White." I mumbled.<br>“Y’all remember when Mr. Brown played that record for us?”</br></p><p>“Yeah,” Mike answered excitedly, “That’s the only reason I wanted to see the flick.”</p><p>Someday, Mike was going to become a great drummer. Calvin was pretty good, too. Because of those two, we all carried drumsticks around a lot. We’d drum on everything. They were good for self-defense, too. It was Calvin who first weaponized them.</p><p>“So, that’s what “Snow White” got to do with us, huh?!” Rico concluded. “Whistlin’ while you work?”</p><p>“Naw man, that’s what we got to do with “Snow White," Calvin said.</p><p>We climbed the steps to Grady’s, went in and took our places on the red-vinyl upholstered stools on which we’d spun since our $400 summer of ’61.</p><p>“What’s your pleasure, Gents?” Grady asked, smiling. He always called us Gents. Grady was a creature of habit and hard work, kinda like an ant. And, he always seemed happy. His smile reminded me of the cop at the Eastside, but, unlike the cop, Grady’s kind blue eyes agreed with his smile. The cop had an executioner’s smile.</p><p>“The usual, Mr. Grady,” I answered pulling out the cop’s buck. The guys nodded, voicing approval and kicked in their change.</p><p>“Lunch is on the house today fellas.” the old man said.<br>“Say what?!” we chorused.</br></p><p>“What.” Grady cracked back immediately.</p><p>There’d be no disappointing surprises at Grady’s. It turned out to be just another Saturday after all: The usual. Except, for the unexpected free lunch; which never tasted better, and almost erased the memory of the movie madness: Almost.</p><p>After giving Grady’s best the justice they deserved, we headed home. Each of us saying his goodbye, and peeling off as we got to his corner. Finally, I was on my own, my street being the last on our way. I got to thinking about the incident at the Eastside: Mostly about the sound of that guy begging for his life. Nothing else sounds like that. Nothing: Except, maybe, Ray Charles Wailing the word “Well," at the outset of some heartbroken Blues.</p><p>But the irony of the music thing struck me, too: The “Tequila” loop. I’m uncomfortable with repetition in general. But, the repetition of that particular tune, at that particular time, seemed somehow particularly cursory—if not downright vulgar. A one-word hit song. It stuck to me in an Ecclesiastical way.</p><p>Now, whenever I hear “Tequila," I think of “Someday My Prince Will Come”, my homeboys, Snow White and her boys. And, oddly enough, Grady, and an Omaha Beach I can only imagine in unguarded instants. How many hundreds of fathers, sons and brothers whispering “Please?"</p><p>“It’s the same old story with a different name …," according to Mark Knopfler<br>The first time I heard that line, I had to sneak off and cry.<br>I’m thankful that I don’t have to sneak away anymore.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Upon Reflecting]]></title><description><![CDATA[When I die, I want to become fall air
And swish the leaves.
When I go, I want to be everywhere
That I have grieved
Leaving.
When I go back, I want to tell
About that life
Where children’s spirits dwell
In leaves and kites.
Upon arriving
I will say when you go back
With assignment
Shore up your own spirit
With the contentment
Of children laughing.
We go to leave the world a better place
At least for one.
There isn’t a moment to waste.
Make time for fun.
Upon arriving ...
The greatest gif]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/upon-reflecting/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230e5</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sharon Spurlin]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:55:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501973801540-537f08ccae7b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGZhbGx8ZW58MHx8fA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501973801540-537f08ccae7b?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGZhbGx8ZW58MHx8fA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Upon Reflecting"/><p>When I die, I want to become fall air<br>And swish the leaves.<br>When I go, I want to be everywhere<br>That I have grieved</br></br></br></p><p>Leaving.</p><p>When I go back, I want to tell<br>About that life<br>Where children’s spirits dwell<br>In leaves and kites.</br></br></br></p><p>Upon arriving</p><p>I will say when you go back<br>With assignment<br>Shore up your own spirit<br>With the contentment</br></br></br></p><p>Of children laughing.</p><p>We go to leave the world a better place<br>At least for one.<br>There isn’t a moment to waste.<br>Make time for fun.</br></br></br></p><p>Upon arriving ...</p><p>The greatest gift, upon arrival<br>Is memory lost.<br>We begin again without past rivals,<br>Free of cost</br></br></br></p><p>Free, and freeing.</p><p>And when I go back to the universe<br>So vast, so everywhere<br>Saying, I with this little verse<br>I will be with all my friends</br></br></br></p><p>I grieve leaving.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Shrimp Filé Gumbo]]></title><description><![CDATA[This recipe has never failed me and is incredibly forgiving. I’ve served it for more than 30 years to groups of college students as well as dozens of family and friends. There is never an empty bowl or leftovers.
The list of ingredients and number of steps looks daunting, but don’t be afraid. It is worth all the time and effort and your guests will thank you. As my husband’s grandmother, a great cook from the Mississippi Delta used to say, “First you make a roux.”
Enjoy!
BASE (prepare all the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/shrimp-file-gumbo/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230e6</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laura Lapins Willis ]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:53:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/12/Willis-Gumbo-1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/12/Willis-Gumbo-1.jpg" alt="Shrimp Filé Gumbo"/><p>This recipe has never failed me and is incredibly forgiving. I’ve served it for more than 30 years to groups of college students as well as dozens of family and friends. There is never an empty bowl or leftovers.</p><p>The list of ingredients and number of steps looks daunting, but don’t be afraid. It is worth all the time and effort and your guests will thank you. As my husband’s grandmother, a great cook from the Mississippi Delta used to say, “First you make a roux.”</p><p>Enjoy!</p><p>BASE (prepare all these before you start the roux):<br>• 2 lb. sausage (such as Andouille, kielbasa, or smoked), sliced 1/4" thick<br>• 2 c. chopped yellow onion<br>• 2/3 c. chopped green peppers<br>• 1/2 c. sliced scallion tops<br>• 2 T. minced fresh parsley<br>• 1 T. minced garlic<br>• 2 lb. medium or large shrimp, peeled, and deveined</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>ROUX:<br>• 2/3 c. vegetable oil<br>• 2/3 c. flour</br></br></p><p>LIQUID & SPICES:<br>• 4 cups chicken broth<br>• 2 cups water<br>• 2 t. salt<br>• 1 T. black pepper<br>• 1.5 t. cayenne pepper<br>• 2 T. dried thyme<br>• 3 bay leaves, crushed<br>• 3 T. filé powder</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>First, you make the roux. Heat oil in heavy 7- to 8-quart pot over medium-high heat.</p><p>Gradually add the flour to the oil, stirring constantly with a whisk and or spatula. Reduce heat to low and cook until the roux is the color of hot cocoa.</p><p>When the roux is ready, quickly add the sausage, onion, green pepper, scallions, parsley, and garlic. Stir to combine and cook on low heat for 10 minutes, stirring.</p><p>Add 1/4 c. water and all the seasonings except the filé powder. Mix gently but thoroughly.</p><p>Keeping the heat low, gradually add the rest of the water and the chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for about 45 minutes. [You can hold the gumbo here for an hour or more before serving.]</p><p>Add the shrimp to the gumbo and bring to an easy boil for about 10 minutes. Remove pot from the heat and let it simmer down.</p><p>Add the filé powder and stir. Let the gumbo stand in the pot for 5 more minutes.</p><p>Serve in deep soup bowls over boiled rice, with Tabasco available for those who like it spicier.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac]]></title><description><![CDATA[September 2017
Thirty thousand feet in the air, there is only one place to find privacy: the toilet. I slide the lock that turns on the light, sit down on the white seat, put my hands together, close my eyes, breathe deeply—take in the nearly overpowering smell of bleach—and try with every ounce of my rational being to stifle the rising panic. But it’s like trying to stop myself from throwing up.
One thought keeps ringing in my head: You can’t do this.
Only a few minutes before, I was sitting]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/baggage-confessions-of-a-globe-trotting-hypochondriac/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230e7</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:52:57 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1602650366345-a98dafb4c913?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM1fHxiYWdnYWdlfGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="1280" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F927596941&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=1280&in=user-644201093%2Fsets%2Femerge-9%2Fs-gImnaSw9TWY&secret_token=s-pkPYcpvKaS6"/></figure><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1602650366345-a98dafb4c913?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM1fHxiYWdnYWdlfGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac"/><p>September 2017</p><p>Thirty thousand feet in the air, there is only one place to find privacy: the toilet. I slide the lock that turns on the light, sit down on the white seat, put my hands together, close my eyes, breathe deeply—take in the nearly overpowering smell of bleach—and try with every ounce of my rational being to stifle the rising panic. But it’s like trying to stop myself from throwing up.</p><p>One thought keeps ringing in my head: You can’t do this.</p><p>Only a few minutes before, I was sitting in my seat trying to pick a movie, so many choices. I happened to glance at another passenger’s screen a few seats down and across the aisle. It was <em>Moana</em>—the scene where the titular heroine is attempting to put the green-spiraled heart back into the angry, volcano-spewing god, Te Fiti. Having a six-year-old at home, I was more than familiar with the film.</p><p>But it was at that moment—Te Fiti flinging boulders of flame—when my impish brain decided to inform me, <em>You can’t do this. You know you can’t.</em></p><p>With that single thought, something exploded in me. My heart started pounding, my hands beaded sweat, my thoughts coiled and rolled down the rabbit hole. I knew this sensation all too well.</p><p>But. Oh no, not here—not when I’m alone. Not now. <em>Not on a plane</em>.</p><p>We’d been flying only a few hours, which meant I still had ten hours to go on this flight to Tokyo. Then the layover. Then another flight, the third leg, an additional agonizing eight hours to Jakarta, my final destination.</p><p><em>You can’t do this. You know you can’t.</em></p><p>It wasn’t like this was my first time flying—I did that when I was five. Since then I’d been to five continents, more than thirty countries. I couldn’t count the numbers of planes: from packed 747s to prop planes into the Amazon rainforest, planes diverted by North Channel winds to smooth landings on one of the most dangerous airways in the world. I’d done this route before, too: the United States to Tokyo to Jakarta.</p><p>I’m even working on a book about travel, for Christ’s sake.</p><p>I escape Te Fiti and hurry to the bathroom, nearly bumping into my flight attendant, a pleasant young Japanese woman with a reassuring smile.</p><p>Many people fear the airplane lavatory because it’s as claustrophobic as a tomb. But to me, it’s the best place on a plane because it’s the only option to escape the unrelenting humanity of coach. In the flight just before this, I sat next to an elderly woman who spent the three hours quietly throwing up in bags, which I stoically handed off to the flight attendants.</p><p>Once I have taken a few deep breaths, I attempt a good pep talk. <em>Okay, Jeremy, this is your OCD talking. Everything’s fine, it’s all good, it’s hunky-dory and peachy pie. Just pick out a movie and get your mind off the panic. One day at a time . . . or, in this case, one minute</em>.</p><p>“You know you can’t do this,” the voice in my head says again. “This trip will definitely kill you. You need to find a way home, or you or your family will die.” The voice is Steve’s.</p><p>Steve is the name I’ve given to my obsessive-compulsive disorder. I did this to try to create some distance between my chronic mental illness and my daily self. I named my depression Malachi because he’s a badass in a biblical kind of way. Steve and Malachi, I tell myself, aren’t me. They are the disease.</p><p>But at least Malachi is interesting; Steve is unpardonably boring. He says the same thing over and over again. He’s a busted grandfather clock, chiming every minute; he’s a bored elephant in a zoo, pacing the same path until his footpads bleed; he’s the friend who tells the same anecdote on every occasion. It’s almost like Steve is obsessed.</p><p>This is what OCD is: It’s the same song stuck in your head, playing forever.</p><p>Unfortunately, Steve and I can’t stay in the bathroom the whole flight, debating. The vacuum flush of the automatic toilet startles me, making me imagine what it would be like if something struck the plane. Always keen to help, Steve reminds me that there’s nothing between myself and the atmosphere but a few sheets of aluminum. Like a magician, he conjures up the image of another plane colliding with ours midair, the whole craft opening up as I’m tipped into the frigid emptiness.</p><p>It isn’t the fact of death that alarms me so much as the terror of plunging thirty thousand feet, powerless.</p><p>I head back to my seat, pretending I’m still alone. I get out the rather enormous pillbox my wife sensibly sorted for me and take lorazepam, an anti-anxiety drug. I put it under my tongue and taste imminent serenity. The texture is chalky and the taste actually mildly sweet. It’s one I know well.</p><p>Let’s say I succeed today. Let’s just say for a moment I survive the next twenty-plus hours to make it to the hotel in Jakarta and the sweet release of sleep. Then it’s twelve days in Indonesia, without my wife and my child, but with a hundred thousand things that could go wrong. Snakebite, car wreck, rabies via stray dog or cave bat, a ferry capsizing, a volcano blowing, an earth- quake cracking and swallowing. Or I could catch any one of a cavalcade of tropical diseases, be stampeded by an elephant, crushed by a falling tree, or maybe eaten by a tiger—they have those. There are just so many ways to die when you’re not at home.</p><p>I buzz the flight attendant, hoping her smile will bring me back to reality. When she arrives, I order a glass of wine. My psychiatrist would scold me —mixing wine with a tranquilizer. But I don’t care. I’m fucking desperate.</p><p>I finally pick a movie: It’s called Manchester by the Sea. I don’t know anything about it, only that it is critically acclaimed. A third of the way in and I’m sobbing now. This movie should come with a warning: Not suitable for those experiencing in-flight panic attacks. I try to switch to something else, something lighthearted—Planes, Trains and Automobiles (who picks these goddamn movies?). At this point, I’m too deep into this horror show of a film, and I force it down.</p><p>I miss my daughter and my wife; I miss them like a physical ache.</p><p>I want to talk to someone—my therapist, my wife, a friend . . . even this flight attendant who seems as chill as an ice cube as she’s riding in this death machine. Steve in my head continues repeating his mantra: “You know you can’t do this. You know you can’t.” I suddenly feel hot, clammy, my stomach twists. Oh, Christ. Not here, not now.</p><p>I’m getting sick, and we’re in the clouds somewhere above the ocean—hours away from Tokyo. I ring the flight attendant again and ask for a thermometer. She brings me one. I put it in my mouth.</p><p>“No, no,” she says. “For here.” And she motions to her armpit.</p><p>Oh. I slowly remove the thermometer from my mouth. I smile and nod as if I totally knew that . . . and was just nibbling on this armpit thermometer because that’s the kind of hilarious guy I am. I wipe it off on my shirt and shove it under my arm. I’m certain it’s going to come out saying 102 or 103. I imagine the smiling attendant picking me up and carrying me into First Class, bundling me in blankets; she strokes my hair through the rest of the flight, sings songs I don’t know because they’re in Japanese, and spoon feeds me ice cream.</p><p>I fantasize about landing in Tokyo and getting a hotel—a nice room with a big bed, a hot shower, and room service with housemade ramen—and then taking a flight home tomorrow, essentially calling in sick on my two-week reporting trip on Sumatran rhinos.</p><p>My temperature is a perfect 98.6.</p><p>The kindly attendant, my only anchor to sanity at this moment, returns with some Tylenol for me. I take it and ask for another glass of wine, trying to hide the tears strolling down my face.</p><p>I cover my head with a blanket and think, *This is just a dark night of the soul...just a dark night of the soul. This too shall pass... *</p><p>And Steve says, “You know, you’re totally fucked right? Why are you so stupid to keep doing this to yourself? Why don’t you stay at home where people like you belong? You’re not going to win this time. You’re going to die, and it’s going to be awful.”</p><hr><p>Twelve days later, I walk off a different plane into the Minneapolis airport. I gather my luggage and head toward the exit where my wife and child are waiting to pick me up.</p><p>Screw you, Steve.</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[We Are but Windows]]></title><description><![CDATA[We are not paintings with their permanence:
We are but windows that frame a wide palette of seasons,
transparent brushstrokes of rain and sun.
We are not single songs,
but symphonies have trembled through our panes,
echoed into our glass so deeply that they reverberate again
when the right instruments are pricked.
We are not day or night,
but we have known the touch of both
whether we threw back the shutters
or nailed them closed.
We are not intact or broken,
but the shelves behind our eyes h]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/we-are-but-windows/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230e8</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Brianne Grothe]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:51:36 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1509644851169-2acc08aa25b5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHdpbmRvd3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1509644851169-2acc08aa25b5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHdpbmRvd3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="We Are but Windows"/><p>We are not paintings with their permanence:<br>We are but windows that frame a wide palette of seasons,<br>transparent brushstrokes of rain and sun.</br></br></p><p>We are not single songs,<br>but symphonies have trembled through our panes,<br>echoed into our glass so deeply that they reverberate again<br>when the right instruments are pricked.</br></br></br></p><p>We are not day or night,<br>but we have known the touch of both<br>whether we threw back the shutters<br>or nailed them closed.</br></br></br></p><p>We are not intact or broken,<br>but the shelves behind our eyes have been many times rearranged,<br>and their objects bear cracks from where they have crashed<br>or been smashed and clumsily pieced back together<br>(or still lie in shards).</br></br></br></br></p><p>We are alive and apart:<br>We are to sit before an eternally shifting picture of colors and shapes<br>that we mold--as it molds us--with our crayon hands and our ripping hands<br>and our laughter and our tears,<br>and are never to go outside.</br></br></br></br></p><p>We are together and alone:<br>We watch certain faces that, when they catch us watching, smile back,<br>and we wonder whether they, like we, wish one of us<br>could come inside and sit for a while.</br></br></br></p><p>(<strong><em>We Are But Windows</em></strong> previously appeared in <strong><em>Frontier Mosaic</em></strong>, an undergraduate literary magazine published at Oklahoma State University)</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Mourn]]></title><description><![CDATA[I mourn the nurseries of yesteryear. They were everywhere in Arkansas, tucked away on country backroads, springing up in parking lots, laid out in folks’ backyards with a sign by the driveway that said “PLANTS.” Each reflecting their grower’s unique tastes. Now old-fashioned varieties like bellflower, primrose, campion, toadflax; impossible to find. The first place I ever saw toadflax — CedarWolf Gardens in Elk Ranch near Eureka Springs, a couple of small greenhouses full of exceptional florae. ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-mourn/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230e9</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Scarlett Savoy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:50:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505210708132-a1f155218895?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM4fHxudXJzZXJ5fGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505210708132-a1f155218895?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDM4fHxudXJzZXJ5fGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="I Mourn"/><p>I mourn the nurseries of yesteryear. They were everywhere in Arkansas, tucked away on country backroads, springing up in parking lots, laid out in folks’ backyards with a sign by the driveway that said “PLANTS.” Each reflecting their grower’s unique tastes. Now old-fashioned varieties like bellflower, primrose, campion, toadflax; impossible to find. The first place I ever saw toadflax — CedarWolf Gardens in Elk Ranch near Eureka Springs, a couple of small greenhouses full of exceptional florae. Lizzie and Les Huff. Artist Lizzie painting vistas, flowers and the guinea hens that roosted everywhere. Towering hollyhocks swaying in the breeze. Les with his come-along wrangling huge boulders into place, teaching me about compost and Lil’ Gumbo Mini-Mudders, the only tires a landscaper’s vehicle should ever wear. Closed many years ago.</p><p>That family greenhouse by Roaring River on our annual anniversary pilgrimage in June, always filled with masses of blue delphinium, sharp as a gasp of breath. Their friendly cat named TwoCan because he showed up absolute skin and bones and ate 2 big cans a day for almost 3 weeks — gone. House neglected, broken-paned greenhouse covered in moss and ivy. The peach orchard near Blue Eye, 13 kinds of peaches from July thru September — early, late, cling, freestone — sold day lilies and honey on the side. Can’t even tell it was there except for the trees, peaches rotting on the ground. Chotkowski Gardens past Fayetteville, Henry and Karen such fabulous hosts; since 1995 an explosion of magnificent peonies, 1200 cultivars on the acreage. Their annual Mother’s Day Garden Party with hundreds of friends. Tents of lemonade and iced tea, cookies on the farmhouse veranda, a glass of wine or two. Strolling the grounds, intoxicated by color and fragrance, choosing what we would plant when tubers were dug in the fall — cancelled since 2017.</p><p>The large nursery outside Hindsville, nestled in the curve of the road between here and there, miles from anywhere with a pulse. They must have been wholesale landscapers; specialty roses and small trees. Sales desk was always white but an older, easy-moving Latino named Gabriel was boss of the Hispanic crew that tended stock. Late one afternoon, just before closing, I happened upon Gabriel and crew out back, shadows lengthening as they moved between wide rows, watering. They were singing to the roses, a gentle, loving melody. Gabriel led with his fine baritone.</p><p>What happened? Dirt wasn’t dirt cheap anymore, nor mulch. Weight meant expense, not just shoveling. Gas prices rose, transportation costs increased. Water, too. Nurturing plants takes time, lots of time. Work was hard, profit margin low, product subject to insects, drought, hail, frost. Owners age. Good help difficult to find.</p><p>Walmart and Lowes and Home Depot put in “garden centers” and homogenized the market, buying from the exact same source so there’s almost no difference in what the three stores carry. And hey, you can get your oil changed and pick up a rotisserie chicken for dinner while you’re there.</p><p>Then Covid-19 came in early 2020. Arkansas seems sheltered, but our cases rise. Suddenly, everyone is home, ALL THE TIME, and it’s Spring. Sunlight reportedly kills the virus, plants seem safe, gardening is healthy, except maybe a pulled muscle or two. The weather is perfect; balmy days, plenty of rain.</p><p>This week, mid-May, I’ve gone on a scouting tour of the few regional nurseries left. Our local resource, Bear Creek, looked like the Huns hit it since I was there a short while ago. Westwood Gardens in Rogers told me they had the best day in the history of their store, in the middle of a pandemic. Perennials Plus in Gateway with plenty of pond plants but not what they’ve had before in herbs or shade plants, though I did score 3 varieties of foxglove. Bradford Nursery just out of Rogers had nothing spectacular. Everywhere, plant and planter prices had gone up, up, up. I didn’t find much of what I was looking for, or any wonderful new things, and what there was, was mighty expensive.</p><p>I mourn. I miss the old days, when every turn of the road brought treasures and dirt was truly “dirt cheap” and people grew unusual things for novelty or sheer fun or for the memory of what was in Grandmama’s garden. I really miss those extraordinary places I used to visit, each with their own story. Maybe, as people reconnect to the earth in this difficult time, there will be a re-blooming of such places and stories. I hope so. And every time I go past the place near Hindsville, now a county refueling station, I still hear Gabriel and the boys singing.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Almost Gone]]></title><description><![CDATA["Last call," says the sun in its rusting voice,
then leans to the west, sweetening its tune
by forgetting the melody.
The taste of light lingers in the cold.
One crow waits for the shadows
the moon will throw over the brome field
two clicks of time forward.
The stand of cedars wakes with a start.
The dry ground loosens its new breaks
and tilts rocks so snakes can emerge.
The wind moves on, nothing to see here,
while the dark of the dark quiets its old hands.
What's gone seems like it's gone ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/almost-gone/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ea</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:49:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1437773540554-96d393b4d0c9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxzdW5zZXR8ZW58MHx8fA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1437773540554-96d393b4d0c9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIyfHxzdW5zZXR8ZW58MHx8fA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Almost Gone"/><p>"Last call," says the sun in its rusting voice,<br>then leans to the west, sweetening its tune<br>by forgetting the melody.</br></br></p><p>The taste of light lingers in the cold.<br>One crow waits for the shadows<br>the moon will throw over the brome field<br>two clicks of time forward.</br></br></br></p><p>The stand of cedars wakes with a start.<br>The dry ground loosens its new breaks<br>and tilts rocks so snakes can emerge.</br></br></p><p>The wind moves on, nothing to see here,<br>while the dark of the dark quiets its old hands.</br></p><p>What's gone seems like it's gone for good<br>no matter how often the song returns,<br>broken light reddening the opposite horizon<br>like a heartbreak, the song of the bloodstream,<br>the journey of stone through ocean to prairie,</br></br></br></br></p><p>every flicker of sound and motion always turning<br>into something, almost gone, almost here.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[My Arkansas]]></title><description><![CDATA[In sickness and in health
What gifts remain?
I again hear the birds
And feel the rain
My Arkansas rain that
I once knew]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/my-arkansas/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230eb</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:49:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1500297211576-5f1628bc4262?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxyYWlufGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1500297211576-5f1628bc4262?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxyYWlufGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="My Arkansas"/><p>In sickness and in health<br>What gifts remain?<br>I again hear the birds<br>And feel the rain<br>My Arkansas rain that<br>I once knew</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Broken Arrows and Broken Bows]]></title><description><![CDATA[The changes we make in the name of flood control.
While ancestors push and gush, and will not be contained
Even as their homes, shacks to begin with, collapse and house
Vulture families, skunks, copperheads, hornets, why go there? Why Risk our safety to pick through the tin and nails of Grandma’s house?
The locust shell which comes every seventeen years. That’s reason Enough and we cradle it in one palm, backing out of the red dust With the other clutching our steering wheel, saying, “well, I’]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/broken-arrows-and-broken-bows/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ec</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Belinda Bruner]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:48:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1563705883268-eb58ab6f505d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGFycm93c3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1563705883268-eb58ab6f505d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fGFycm93c3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Broken Arrows and Broken Bows"/><p>The changes we make in the name of flood control.</p><p>While ancestors push and gush, and will not be contained<br>Even as their homes, shacks to begin with, collapse and house<br>Vulture families, skunks, copperheads, hornets, why go there? Why Risk our safety to pick through the tin and nails of Grandma’s house?</br></br></p><p>The locust shell which comes every seventeen years. That’s reason Enough and we cradle it in one palm, backing out of the red dust With the other clutching our steering wheel, saying, “well, I’m glad we did that.”</p><p>The indigenous own the water since the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit. We are not Required to count from memory the tributaries, boggy And clear, only the five civilized tribes and Maria Tallchief make The Oklahoma history book. Meanwhile, brown babies squeeze Amongst each other and are soon spilling out of the house, crawling And tumbling across the yard and into the road; it’s not enough that We have to watch out for deer in these Modern times. We have to Watch out for the Indian Babies, flying across the interstate, having Their brains drained at the Health clinics, and they’re good people Sharing their USDA commodities at the pow-wows; they are Especially good with beads, shuffling the brightly colored stones to Use in telling their stories, and we wish we had brightly colored Stones to use in telling our stories; all we have is the red, white, and blue so we covet, and make dams bigger than a beaver’s.</p><p>By the time we arrive at our destination and loosen our grip on the Past we behold the single moist and shivering palm; it unfurls, Revealing a crushed shell, little locust feet flaking off into the lines Of our hand, only when we go to sleep we do not dream of the future, Instead that we have missed some great train that was bound for Glory, our ticket from Hugo to Clayton as useless as the relics in Clean white museums. This water began at the mountain fork, and The End of the Trail is an old motel above which an American flag Sops up like grease the blood of the brown.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets - February - Passion and Love]]></title><description><![CDATA[Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selecte]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-february-passion-and-love/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523104</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:47:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/01/February--Passion-and-Love-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/01/February--Passion-and-Love-.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets - February - Passion and Love"/><p>Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devasting the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Burlap String Theory]]></title><description><![CDATA[You can’t
See
The connection
With the sea
Green
Training
For the cop in your head
The query
Of your
Need
For now
Short
Circuited
Listen for fur
Your nude
In the bath
Instamatic silver
Barn dance
Stability
Grounds for
Messing about
Also known as
Blurring
The line]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/burlap-string-theory/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ed</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Patsy Creedy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:46:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1579564523433-436738cbd43c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGJ1cmxhcHxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1579564523433-436738cbd43c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGJ1cmxhcHxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Burlap String Theory"/><p>You can’t<br>See<br>The connection<br>With the sea<br>Green<br>Training<br>For the cop in your head</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The query<br>Of your<br>Need<br>For now<br>Short<br>Circuited<br>Listen for fur<br>Your nude<br>In the bath<br>Instamatic silver</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Barn dance<br>Stability<br>Grounds for<br>Messing about<br>Also known as<br>Blurring<br>The line</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[My Red Shoes]]></title><description><![CDATA[Even on our black and white television I could see Dorothy’s red shoes, dazzling, and I wanted some. I’d dance down the yellow brick road, sashaying with the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion, the happiest little girl in Oz. I just new I’d impress when the Wizard’d see me in those red shoes. Didn’t really know many colors back then, just the ones from the Crayola box with the words, Basic Five printed on it; it didn’t really matter cause I couldn’t draw anyway. Still, I knew red, so pretty on shoes.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/my-red-shoes/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ee</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Annie Klier Newcomer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:44:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/12/Smithsonian_National_Museum_of_American_History_-_Dorothy_Ruby_Slippers_-6269207855-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/12/Smithsonian_National_Museum_of_American_History_-_Dorothy_Ruby_Slippers_-6269207855-.jpg" alt="My Red Shoes"/><p>Even on our black and white television I could see Dorothy’s red shoes, dazzling, and I wanted some. I’d dance down the yellow brick road, sashaying with the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion, the happiest little girl in Oz. I just new I’d impress when the Wizard’d see me in those red shoes. Didn’t really know many colors back then, just the ones from the Crayola box with the words, Basic Five printed on it; it didn’t really matter cause I couldn’t draw anyway. Still, I knew red, so pretty on shoes.</p><p>We six children went shopping with mama, three on a side, like obedient little ducklings following the lead as we floated downtown Syracuse’s main street. Seeing Dorothy’s shoes displayed in one of the finest department stores, I pulled mama back imploring, Buy them for me. The way she looked when she uttered, No, shamed me for even asking. So life went on with <em>no </em>red shoes.</p><p>Then one night, while the cold winter wind howled, we were collected, all but one, and left in my parents’ room—alone. We jumped ourselves silly on their bed, punched their pale blue chenille quilt with our feet, which felt funny ‘cause never was allowed. Remembering little sis’s cough I stopped just quick enough to say, Maybe Patty’s dead , before bouncing nearly ceiling high. My daddy re- entered, not looking mad, too tired to scold. Instead, he held each child real gentle and whispered instructions, <em>Go kiss yours sister for the last time.</em> That’s when I knew that I’d guessed right. But how’d I know? Started sucking air that ached real bad as I thought, Somebody’s surely playing tricks on me. When they placed me before her I was all giddy and speechless as I bent to kiss her face one last time. She looked like Snow White waiting for her prince to come. But our kisses didn’t seem to work because she didn’t wake. She just lay real still, looking so sweet and, as always, her being really good.</p><p>Next morning, right on death’s heels, grown folks endlessly streamed through our home, acting so kind to us little kids, even ones who’d been mad since summer when we’d made bouquets for mama with their finest roses. I didn’t want it to stop—no, not ever. Felt like being at a Saturday matinee on Westcott street, just sitting in the audience, eating popcorn, sipping soda, watching monsters on the screen, having fun getting scared—knowing if I’d just cover my eyes for the too scary parts, my older brother’d walk us all home—later, with daylight fading, home in time for supper, nothing broken, nothing changed.</p><p>But it did change the night death slipped into our home, stole Patty away, changed us all, each in a different way, bound us together tighter than tics on the memory of her loss.</p><p>The funeral day came and they bundled us up real tight, and let us skip school. Entering the small wooden church with the simple cross that even though it stood so high still looked so frightened, we passed confessionals where people left their sins, found our pews with kneelers as hard as rock, and gave Fr. McCarthy our full attention as he reminded us how Jesus loved little children. Why’d he say that? What’d he mean? What’d we done that caused taking Patty from us? It felt pretty wrong.</p><p>After a long time of praying we stumbled back to the long black rented car, rode much too far away and ended up on a fractured road by a lonely farm in the middle of winter in Upstate New York, searching for Patty’s new home. I pressed my face against the window and felt cold, saw death everywhere: stiff grass, brittle trees, huge dark black clouds, nothing fresh—nothing pretty, a wasted ride on a freezing dreary day. Bored, I settled into a crowded backseat lined with children, who, of course, looked just like me, tried not to complain and started swinging my skinny legs, inside my proper woolen charcoal coat that my older sister had worn just the year before. Finally settled, I glanced down and that’s when I caught the shimmer of something very bright forcing me to remember: I had new shoes, new red patent leather shoes.</p><p>Next, a piercing tortured scream shook our car. Even now after so many decades have past, I’m still not really sure, did that desolate shriek come from my mother or me?</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Encounter]]></title><description><![CDATA[This one depicts the concept of two very different magical beings - an elf princess and a winged fairy - encountering one another for the very first time, and choosing friendship over fear. In real life, these two underwater models are very close friends and actually hire out as underwater mermaids for events! So they were very comfortable interacting with one another underwater. The idea of one swimming up to the other and them touching the palms of their hands was their idea. I felt it create]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/encounter/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523107</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Melissa Milton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:44:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/01/Encounter-WM-FOR-DISPLAY-SQ.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/01/Encounter-WM-FOR-DISPLAY-SQ.jpg" alt="Encounter"/><p>This one depicts the concept of two very different magical beings - an elf princess and a winged fairy - encountering one another for the very first time, and choosing friendship over fear. In real life, these two underwater models are very close friends and actually hire out as underwater mermaids for events! So they were very comfortable interacting with one another underwater. The idea of one swimming up to the other and them touching the palms of their hands was their idea. I felt it created a very lovely visual moment.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Drinking Alone]]></title><description><![CDATA[When the sound of laughter stops
And the frolicking shadows shimmer
I ask the walls to call my name
The faded hum of my daydream says
I must drink alone tonight
But my shadow is companion
And the walls echo my words
The blaring wind and leaking rain
We form a voice to sing a song
Our cries are heard by the heavens
Oh, if silence can sing with me
And my empty room can dance
I’ll accompany them with my strongest drink
Because forgotten memories do not belong
In a night that once was mine
Though]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/drinking-alone/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ef</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Fred Yu]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:10:36 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1564957468535-e8e51b0d2f56?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxtYXJ0aW5pfGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1564957468535-e8e51b0d2f56?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE4fHxtYXJ0aW5pfGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Drinking Alone"/><p>When the sound of laughter stops<br>And the frolicking shadows shimmer<br>I ask the walls to call my name<br>The faded hum of my daydream says<br>I must drink alone tonight</br></br></br></br></p><p>But my shadow is companion<br>And the walls echo my words<br>The blaring wind and leaking rain<br>We form a voice to sing a song<br>Our cries are heard by the heavens</br></br></br></br></p><p>Oh, if silence can sing with me<br>And my empty room can dance<br>I’ll accompany them with my strongest drink<br>Because forgotten memories do not belong<br>In a night that once was mine</br></br></br></br></p><p>Though the sound of laughter stopped<br>And the fading shadows shimmered<br>I heard the walls call my name<br>And the drifting rain falls in this night<br>They’ve come to see old friends again</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A January Warmth]]></title><description><![CDATA[A fox came to my door
on a cold January night
and I opened it and waved
him in But he stayed outside
So I left it open and placed
food and drink just inside
But he held his ground
I stepped back to give him space
But he made no move to come
into the warmth So I stepped
outside locked the door securely
and followed the fox away from
my door and into the night]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-january-warmth/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230f0</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:02:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1578170681526-de18d598a5b8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGZveHxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1578170681526-de18d598a5b8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDN8fGZveHxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A January Warmth"/><p>A fox came to my door<br>on a cold January night<br>and I opened it and waved<br>him in But he stayed outside<br>So I left it open and placed<br>food and drink just inside<br>But he held his ground<br>I stepped back to give him space<br>But he made no move to come<br>into the warmth So I stepped<br>outside locked the door securely<br>and followed the fox away from<br>my door and into the night</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Moonshine]]></title><description><![CDATA[Jim wrestled the steering wheel of the rusted Ford pickup as the truck bounced down the dirt road leading to the levee. Since their father went to Korea it seemed to Willy that his brother got to do pretty much anything he wanted. He could drive for one thing, though it wasn’t legal. He got to sit in their father’s chair when they had company for supper. He even got to keep the shotgun in his bedroom when their mother went to visit her sister down in Osceola.
Willy tried to roll down the window]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/moonshine/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230f1</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Daniel Wright]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:00:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1476333676142-1f798afc740a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1vb25zaGluZXxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1476333676142-1f798afc740a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fG1vb25zaGluZXxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Moonshine"/><p>Jim wrestled the steering wheel of the rusted Ford pickup as the truck bounced down the dirt road leading to the levee. Since their father went to Korea it seemed to Willy that his brother got to do pretty much anything he wanted. He could drive for one thing, though it wasn’t legal. He got to sit in their father’s chair when they had company for supper. He even got to keep the shotgun in his bedroom when their mother went to visit her sister down in Osceola.</p><p>Willy tried to roll down the window with one hand, like a grownup, but had to use both instead. The whole cab of the truck shook when Jim hit one of the deep ruts in the road. Willy was thrown forward and his head knocked against the dash, but he didn’t cry out. He rubbed his forehead and looked out through the back window of the truck at Moonshine. The dog caught Willy’s look from where he was lying by the tailgate and limped up to the cab of the truck. Willy put his finger to the window and Moonshine licked the glass.</p><p>“Can I drive for a little bit?” Willy asked.</p><p>“Mama’d kill me if I let you drive, Willy.”</p><p>“I know how! Daddy used to let me on the dirt roads,” Willy argued. He could see the top of the levee as they rounded a sharp corner. It wasn’t much further, he thought. “It ain’t fair,” he continued, “you ain’t old enough either.”</p><p>“Yeah, but there’s a lot of difference between ten and fourteen,” Jim said as he tried to dodge the biggest holes in the road.</p><p>Willy tried to keep his balance by holding on to the window handle with one hand and the dashboard with the other. Although the violent rocking of the truck tossed him back and forth, Willy enjoyed the excitement of it all.</p><p>“You can’t drive worth shit,” Willy said. He looked back at Moonshine. The dog sat down by the cab and put his head over the side of the truck, biting and slurping his tongue into the wind. Willy turned back toward his brother and said, “When Daddy gets back from the war, I bet you a hundred dollars, he’s gonna let me drive.”</p><p>“It ain’t exactly a war,” Jim said.</p><p>“Well, he’s killing people, ain’t he?” Willy replied.</p><p>“Probably so.”</p><p>“Sounds like a war to me then.” They both looked at the .22 pistol between them in the seat of the Ford. Willy reached over and picked up the gun.</p><p>“Be careful with that,” Jim said and tried to get the gun back. Willy pulled the gun away and pointed it out the window. “I know what I’m doing,” Willy said and then set the sight toward a row of beehive frames a little ways out in the field.</p><p>“Don’t you shoot that thing, Willy Ray, or I’ll kick your ass,” Jim said. “I only got three bullets.”</p><p>“It only takes one.”</p><p>Willy cocked the gun and aimed out the window while the truck bounced along. A board in one of the frames split just after the sound of the loud crack. Jim slammed on the brakes and Moonshine let out a yelp from the back of the pickup.</p><p>“Give me that thing, you sonofabitch.” Jim threw the gearshift up and yanked the pistol out of Willy’s hand. Willy, admiring his shot, gave it up without a struggle.</p><p>“Dangit, Willy Ray, now I only got two bullets left!” Jim put the truck back in gear and put his foot down on the gas. As they picked up speed, Willy stuck his head out the window and followed the busted frame with his eyes until it disappeared in the dust. He reached out over the side of the truck and let Moonshine lick his hand, then pulled back into the cab.</p><p>“I’ll do it for you if you want, Jim,” Willy said. “I’m a better shot than you anyhow, even Daddy says so. Besides, I wanna know what it's like to kill something, like Daddy’s doing.”</p><p>“You ain’t killing nothing,” Jim said. “Daddy left me in charge and I’m the one that’s supposed to take care of things while he’s gone.”</p><p>Willy looked back at the dog and said, “But you like him a lot more than I do.”</p><p>“Shut up!” Jim said and wacked Willy on the head.</p><p>Moonshine was lying down again, trying to scratch his back by flopping around on the ridges in the truck bed. “He could have been the best coon dog in the county,” Will said. He could see all the dog’s mange now, with his belly up and legs kicking. The mange had worked itself around all four legs and was meandering its way up the dog’s back.</p><p>It wasn’t that Willy didn’t like the dog too, but he just didn’t see what Jim was so upset about. Dogs die all the time. And it was suffering. You couldn’t even pet him anymore because there wasn’t really a place that was more hair than mange.</p><p>Jim had got attached to that dog the minute their father had brought him home last year. He spent all his time training him. Willy had to admit Jim had done a good job at that. They wrote a letter to Korea about three months ago saying that Moonshine had treed a coon at six months. Jim told their father how the men at Poff’s Grocery in town said none of them had ever had one that treed that young. Willy said how jealous they all was and how they all hoped Daddy was doing okay over there. And about how Moonshine never looked twice at a possum. They got a letter back the next week that said Daddy was real proud of Jim’s training and how they was all going on a hunt just as soon as he got back.</p><p>When they got the letter was about the time the mange showed up on the dog. At first it was just a spot or two here and there. Jim took all his allowance money and got the best medicine he could find. He doctored Moonshine every day, sometimes twice, but no matter what he did the mange just seemed to get bigger and bigger. Jim studied up on it at school and asked all around about how he could get rid of it, but nothing seemed to work. Another letter from Korea said their father had asked some of his friends in the Army and they said if you put burnt oil on it that would clear it up.</p><p>So, just last week, Jim had spent a dollar twenty-five on brand new oil for the pickup. He took the old, burnt oil and put it on Moonshine the same night. It didn’t help though. It was just as bad as ever and still spreading. Now Moonshine was sick and would only lie around all day.</p><p>The tires skidded a little and kicked up dirt on top of the levee when they stopped. Jim got out of the truck and Willy did the same.</p><p>“Where you going to do it?” Willy asked.</p><p>“Over there,” Jim pointed to a chinaberry tree growing tall down on the levee. Jim put on a pair of their father’s old work gloves and pulled the gate down on the truck.</p><p>“Hey there, Moonshine,” Jim said to the dog softly. He reached over and took the dog’s head in his gloved hands. “You’re a good boy, ain’t ya?” Jim let the dog’s tongue just barely touch his cheek. Moonshine’s tail wagged, but the rest of him lay limp.</p><p>Willy watched Jim pet the dog and then lift it up from the bed of the truck. He put Moonshine down on the ground and tied a piece of yellow rope to his collar. “Good boy,” Jim said and looked in the direction of the river. The pistol stuck out of the waistband on Jim’s jeans as he slowly walked the dog over to the tree, petting him with reassuring words all the while.</p><p>Willy swallowed hard. For a few steps, he walked in their direction, but then stopped. He backed up and reached his arm out and touched his father’s truck behind him.</p><p>Jim tied the other end of the rope to the chinaberry tree. Moonshine seemed to gather a little strength with Jim’s attention and made a half-hearted attempt to jump up on him. Jim gave him another stroke and walked away. Moonshine strained against the rope and Jim came back to him. With his left hand petting the dog, Jim shook off the glove on his right hand and reached behind his waist. The dog lapped and licked at Jim’s gloved hand. Instead of getting the pistol, Jim brought his right hand back and took the other glove off with it. He held the dog’s head in both his bare hands.</p><p>Willy backed against the truck while he watched his brother back away from the dog. Jim reached again for the gun in his waistband. He lifted his arm up and wiped at his face. He held the gun out while Moonshine strained against the rope to get to him. Jim stayed like this for a long time.</p><p>“I can’t look him in the eye,” Jim hollered to Willy, who was holding the big side mirror on the truck with both of his hands. “Come over here and distract him, Willy Ray.”</p><p>Willy held on to the mirror and closed his eyes tight.</p><p>“Willy Ray!” Jim called.</p><p>“I can’t!” Willy said, not opening his eyes. He couldn’t let loose of the side mirror.</p><p>When he heard the shot, Willy jumped. He never looked but hopped up and scrambled through the open window of the truck door, his feet up in the air. Once inside, he balled up in the floorboard. He could hear Moonshine’s howls coming from outside.</p><p>“Goddammit, Willy, I didn’t get him in the head,” Jim screamed. “Come help me so I get a good shot this time!” Willy didn’t move from the floorboard. There was no interruption in Moonshine’s whelps and then another shot rang out.</p><p>“Shit,” Jim said.</p><p>The dog was still howling when Willy heard Jim above him at the truck window.</p><p>“I missed him,” Jim said.</p><p>“I wanna go home!” Willy said.</p><p>“I can’t leave him out here to suffer and I ain’t got no more bullets,” Jim said with tears running down his face. Moonshine’s howls and moans never stopped for a second.</p><p>“Give me that tire iron over there!” Jim said.</p><p>“You can’t beat him to death!”</p><p>“What am I supposed to do? He can’t suffer like that no more.”</p><p>Willy reached over and got the tire iron that was behind the seat. Jim wiped away his tears and Willy thought he looked like their father when he reached over, took the tire iron and walked back toward the dog. Willy didn’t want to watch, but he wanted to see his Daddy so much that he made himself look out the window of the truck.</p><p>Moonshine was bleeding bad from the neck. Jim came up to him slow but steady. “I’m sorry, boy,” he said. The dog snarled his teeth. The crazed look in the dog’s eyes was enough to spook Willy again and he ducked back down into the floor of the truck.</p><p>He could hear the struggle outside. The dog fought Jim for several minutes. Jim grunted and moaned. Finally, the sound of the tire iron made hollow muted thumps, like Jim was hitting it against the dirt ground. Willy covered his ears and hummed to himself to drown out the terrible sound. After a while he stopped and couldn’t hear anything but long ragged breaths. He didn’t want to look out the window, so he didn’t. He just stayed there and counted to twenty.</p><p>He reached for the window handle and pulled himself up in the seat. Jim was sitting next to the chinaberry tree, his shoulders hunched and shaking, his white cotton shirt covered in blood. He still had the tire iron in his right hand and was taking long deep breaths, their Daddy’s gloves laying by his leg. Next to him was Moonshine, in a heap that barely seemed separate from the ground beneath. Jim reached over and put his hand on the dead dog.</p><p>Jim was as still as Moonshine for a long time. Then he stood quickly and untied the rope from the tree. He kneeled down and gathered the body in his arms. Jim stumbled forward, then balanced himself and walked over to the opposite side of the levee, the yellow rope dancing a few inches off the ground near his feet.</p><p>Willy turned and stared at the dash of the truck. He heard a loud splash from beyond the piled earth of the levee and then looked back.</p><p>Jim walked back from the far side of the tree, the bloody tire iron dangling in his hand. He threw the iron in the back of the truck and walked around to the driver’s side. When he opened the door, Willy could see the blood on his face and in his hair.</p><p>“You wanna drive home?” Jim asked.</p><p>“Okay,” Willy said as he moved over behind the wheel. Jim walked around and got in on the other side. Willy scooted up in the seat so his feet could reach the pedals and turned the key.</p><p>The truck jostled back and forth as the two brothers headed home. Willy looked over at Jim, who stared blankly ahead, the blood on his hands still glistening and wet. Willy drove on and imagined the story he would tell his Daddy when he got home. About how Willy had missed every rut and gully in the road the day they laid Moonshine to rest.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[First Visit to Eureka]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ancient geologic benches
back to steep-sided hills.
Tenacious homes perch
among persistent springs
of healing waters.
Softly lit fog swirls
amid Fall’s tapestry of
rust, red, golds, greens
and browns.
I paused here to
take in Earth’s
silent testimony to
the flow of Eternity.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/first-visit-to-eureka/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230f2</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Harris Dionne]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 19:00:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1556471888-de45a5feedb3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHx2aWN0b3JpYW4lMjBob21lc3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1556471888-de45a5feedb3?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDExfHx2aWN0b3JpYW4lMjBob21lc3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="First Visit to Eureka"/><p>Ancient geologic benches<br>back to steep-sided hills.<br>Tenacious homes perch<br>among persistent springs<br>of healing waters.<br>Softly lit fog swirls<br>amid Fall’s tapestry of<br>rust, red, golds, greens<br>and browns.<br>I paused here to<br>take in Earth’s<br>silent testimony to<br>the flow of Eternity.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Coming Clean]]></title><description><![CDATA[Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was the dog in the backyard (a Border Collie). Maybe it was that attic with the arched beams—solid. Climbing the steps, I felt like Jonah entering the belly of the whale. The house was sound, well-built with corner windows that flooded the bedrooms with light. It had Redwood siding, fine white Oak floors that just needed one sanding to get the blood out (two large splotches in the back bedroom where drugs and booze left body fluid fossils in the floor). The g]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/coming-clean/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230f3</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Darlene Graf]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:57:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/12/Methpipe.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/12/Methpipe.jpg" alt="Coming Clean"/><p>Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was the dog in the backyard (a Border Collie). Maybe it was that attic with the arched beams—solid. Climbing the steps, I felt like Jonah entering the belly of the whale. The house was sound, well-built with corner windows that flooded the bedrooms with light. It had Redwood siding, fine white Oak floors that just needed one sanding to get the blood out (two large splotches in the back bedroom where drugs and booze left body fluid fossils in the floor). The grain, once smoothed with stain, would be gorgeous.</p><p>The place was packed with “stuff”: a large pool table which, Paul (realtor), said I could sell. There were sheets of tempered glass in the backyard which prompted Mark (handyman) to lean into my ear and tell me on the sly: that’s worth a lot of money, wonder where he got it. There was a work room, attached to the sixties style house, complete with electricity, storage drawers, peg boards and oil-stained carpet.</p><p>We made sure the dog had water (in the rain!-nothing made sense with this house right from the start) and we went back into the house where a mouse scurried along a wall and down a crevice into the crawl space. I thought it was cute. (Where was my head?) There were jars of peanut butter, crackers and beans in a bedroom closet. A glass pipe lay atop discarded clothes. I remember the pea green fleece and the sooty pipe, looking used. Crack pipe, Paul said, they were smoking crack.</p><p>So, I asked about the large meat hooks above the kitchen counter. Are those for buckets, I asked. Do you think they were cookin’ Meth? No, no, Paul said, the hardware on the cabinets would be corroded. Paul was a criminal lawyer at one point. I’ve seen meth houses, he said, this is not a meth house.</p><p>The home inspector showed up on a long rainy day—the sugar Maple leaves of orange and gold washed down. Lights were needed though it was late morning. As he moved around the kitchen, he spooked cockroaches out of corners, warned me of the corroded sixties plumbing and waved his hand through the holes in the wall. I was steadfast. I have a vision for this house, I said.</p><p>The trouble began with Rolando. He was the once-sober man staring out of the family portraits on the wall—his Mexican wife and cocoa-skinned children smiling at the word “cheese” the way children do. When Rolando’s wife left—like exiting a frame—she took the children with her and he turned the place into a halfway house. Guys in navy hoodies came to get high and leave low. They left burritos in the microwave undiscovered ‘til we pulled the appliance from the wall and an army of cockroaches fled their feast: Cook-a-roch-ez!, said my helper, nearly dropping the thing. They left lottery tickets in the dust, scratched off loss. I found a nose ring, tags and hanger from a Target bra, and sex lube in the bathroom. Beer caps were all over the yard like landscaping buttons.</p><p>Rolando hunched in the corner of the living room the day I returned with the heating and air guys. The guys (brothers) flagged the furnace for improper drainage, faulty ductwork and gave me a sky rocket bid. Rolando leaned against the door trim and whispered: they’ll take advantage of you; they see you—single lady—they’ll charge thousands; I can get it done cheap. He had been camping in the house, sleeping on the floor next to the pool table. Rehab didn’t want him anymore. He had a key.</p><p>He was still there the night we closed on the house. The realtor wouldn’t release the money to his mother, a cleaning lady with broken English who wrote her number in tired scrawl on a notepad in case I wanted to hire her.</p><p>It was November. Dark. A time for panic. When I got to the house, Rolando and the neighbor, Juan, were loading the pool table onto the bed of Rolando’s white pick-up. (The pool table was the one thing he could sell.)</p><p>Rolando shook my hand; he was crying and melancholy with alcohol. A few days earlier he told me this: “You know when the tree falls down, they make wood. Well, I’m the tree.”</p><p>That night was November 7th.</p><p>He died vomiting blood on November 22nd .</p><p>Juan, holding his glam cat Lola and wearing a black leather jacket, told me there were lines outside the church waiting to pay respects. “Rolando knew everyone,” Juan said. That Sunday I was picking through trash and a parade of people filled the street singing songs in Spanish, in harmony. The throng was bright like a Guatemalan rug shaking song out onto the streets. Then, they paraded back to the sanctuary of the church.</p><p>A few neighbors stopped by: Oh, we’re glad you bought this place. One even said she didn’t like the view (referring to all the trash bags in the cart port) and hoped I’d clean it up. I did. I hauled away bags of trash: soiled clothes, broken blenders, platitude plaques: bless this day.</p><p>I took rain-bloated stereo speakers to solid waste recycling along with stereo units—colored wires stuck out like crayon box pieces. The saddest was finding school pics of his kids—grease-spattered, stuck smiles on the countertop. His mother pulled up to the curb and had her daughter ask me: Are there any toys left? The broken kid sized cars and playhouses were all headed for the landfill. Juan took the collectable 3 foot yellow M&M peanut man holding a tray and used it for a bird feeder.</p><p>By December, I was barreling down a rabbit hole. I used home detection kits bought off the internet: did the swab turn blue? (like a pregnancy test)—ok—no meth residue on the walls. Then, right before Christmas, I sent a wall sample or “wipe” to a lab through a company that advertised with a logo of fire-blazed orange and the word Crisis. The meth residue came back 3.5 micrograms per 100cm squared of wall space; apparently this was high and dangerous.</p><p>Meanwhile, Handyman Mark, unwittingly busted a water pipe and water flooded the crawlspace through the night. Shortly after, Juan told me Rolando and his wife lost a baby and buried it in the backyard (!). “By this stone,” he said and he pointed the shovel to a spot. THE SPOT. We unearthed a jar filled with clear fluid and lumpy flesh like a gob of snot. There we stood—staring at a canning jar. Do you want it, I asked, not knowing what else to say. We held our noses, Juan opened the jar and dumped the mystery into the ground. We made the sign of the cross (in a bizarre effort to be reverent) then, stood there silent, holding an empty jar.</p><p>I was planning to paint the walls, refinish the floors and then I had this meth debacle. It wasn’t meshing with my motto: never put clean over dirty. Put clean paint on clean walls. I sat in the library parking lot, looking at a book with photos of bright pink Sudafed stains and people scratched raw by the drug-induced belief bugs were crawling on their skin. I called my friend in tears: I feel like an idiot, I said.</p><p>Should I pay $7,000 to have the place professionally cleaned. Who were the professionals? The guy on the other end of the phone kept getting interrupted by his grandkid; he told me the cleaning chemicals would bubble the paint on the wall. He told me: no, I could not hire an independent lab to get meth residue readings and, no, he had to hazard clean ALL the rooms not just the ones affected. Another guy worked from a wooden desk in a stark room (I imagined from the quiet yet heavy thud of his words). I said, “Please stop calling me m’am; you make me feel like I’m a hundred years old.</p><p>I talked to a chemist from an accredited lab who told me he would live in a house with meth residue readings as high as 7 or 8 and not worry about health effects. The residue is non-volatile, he said. Internet articles about meth readings of houses in New Zealand (where Meth use has flourished) said there was too much hype about meth residue and houses were safe with simple soap/water cleaning and new paint.</p><p>I could sell the house. I would lose money but I could sell the house. The neighbor, Midge, said, Why get screwed without a kiss? Her husband Tommy sat in a chair nearby. He had stunning blue eyes that watered while his mind was an Alzheimer’s desert.</p><p>I lamented to a friend: I really wanted to do the whole HGTV makeover thing with this house…take it from A To Z. Instead, he said, you got from A to M (M for meth, of course). I was clearly in the rabbit hole choking on dirt: Clean paint over dirty walls. Even the warmth of that whale belly furnace and the vision of butterscotch smooth wood could not settle me. Every time I opened the door, the yellow daisy print curtains would sway like a field of flowers in a prescription drug ad: were they mocking me?</p><p>I sold it. I climbed out of the rabbit hole and sold it at a loss. (My accountant said, be patient—don’t lose money.) The week we went into COVID 19 lockdown, I sold it to a single mom who didn’t have a qualm about the meth residue that I flagged in the real estate disclosure; she would paint (clean over dirty). She loved the workroom where she could set up her kiln. She loved the large yard, the corner lot and the Maple trees gutted of leaves by winter but reaching tall with promise.</p><p>She had looked at so many “dumps”—one house coated nicotine yellow, doors off the hinges. This was a house with a door she could walk through. She hugged me. It was that pre-COVID period still lucent with people moving toward each other rather than away; we were just on the cusp of losing that gesture of normality. Who knew. I can still see those losing lottery tickets tiling the corner of the room with the Superman blast of colors and loss scratched off in strategic penny strokes. I took comfort in what a friend said to me regarding the sale, regarding the single mom: “Maybe you were her lottery.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2020 Sunsets - March - Beaming Ray of Hope]]></title><description><![CDATA[Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devastating the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selec]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/2020-sunsets-march-beaming-ray-of-hope/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523106</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:56:10 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/01/March--Beaming-a-Ray-of-Hope--.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/01/March--Beaming-a-Ray-of-Hope--.jpg" alt="2020 Sunsets - March - Beaming Ray of Hope"/><p>Introduction: The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to spend more time observing all the beautiful aspects of nature in our own back yard. One of the most healing observations for me were the sunsets. At the end of each day, no matter how devastating the news of all the sickness and sadness felt, the sunset always gave me some feeling of hope for things to get better. I have selected a sunset for each month during the 2020 Year of COVID-19 and will share with you the healing thoughts they presented for me.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[This Winter, the Ozarks Turned Off Hot]]></title><description><![CDATA[Women don’t sweat, they glow.
said my Auntie, who died at seventy,
a spinster who only had one lover—
ever.
This winter, the cold is sporadic.
This winter everyone sweats.
My old Auntie would be shocked.
When folks talk about
“the wisdom of age,”
they should be talking about
“the wisdom of persistence,”
tenacity being more useful
than understanding,
which barely comes to us at all
no matter our age.
a version in Unlikely Stories]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-ozarks-this-winter-turned-off-hot/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230f4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:51:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1543965744-6bfc56b05a76?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxzd2VhdHxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1543965744-6bfc56b05a76?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxzd2VhdHxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="This Winter, the Ozarks Turned Off Hot"/><p>Women don’t sweat, they glow.<br>said my Auntie, who died at seventy,<br>a spinster who only had one lover—<br>ever.</br></br></br></p><p>This winter, the cold is sporadic.<br>This winter everyone sweats.<br>My old Auntie would be shocked.</br></br></p><p>When folks talk about<br>“the wisdom of age,”<br>they should be talking about<br>“the wisdom of persistence,”</br></br></br></p><p>tenacity being more useful<br>than understanding,<br>which barely comes to us at all<br>no matter our age.</br></br></br></p><p><em>a version in Unlikely Stories</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dorothy’s Discourse on Love as Poetic Theme]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Love Verse is long dead—
only great truths stir
the pained world’s revolt”
my miffed lover said,
yet could not deter:
“All verse is a cult…
we thread words for fame
or sanity—or
themselves; and Love’s fault
is Man’s…how all came
forth from dreams held dear
to him, Sensing’s salt
in his wound, the same
hue as Love, its peer.”]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dorothys-discourse-on-love-as-poetic-theme/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230f5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:49:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1576238580501-f21ccaaa83ac?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxwb2V0cnl8ZW58MHx8fA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1576238580501-f21ccaaa83ac?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDE5fHxwb2V0cnl8ZW58MHx8fA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Dorothy’s Discourse on Love as Poetic Theme"/><p>“Love Verse is long dead—<br>only great truths stir<br>the pained world’s revolt”</br></br></p><p>my miffed lover said,<br>yet could not deter:<br>“All verse is a cult…</br></br></p><p>we thread words for fame<br>or sanity—or<br>themselves; and Love’s fault</br></br></p><p>is Man’s…how all came<br>forth from dreams held dear<br>to him, Sensing’s salt</br></br></p><p>in his wound, the same<br>hue as Love, its peer.”</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cranberry-Orange Scones]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ingredients:
1-3/4 + cups all-purpose flour * (see step #5)
2 tablespoons sugar (divided)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (divided)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes
1 egg, separated
1/2 cup half-and-half
1/4 cup vanilla yogurt
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of 1 orange
1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or use your favorite lightly floured baking stone; set]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/cranberry-orange-scones/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230f6</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Anna Gall]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:48:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531988254127-a3e045de15ca?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNjb25lc3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531988254127-a3e045de15ca?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fHNjb25lc3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Cranberry-Orange Scones"/><p>Ingredients:<br>1-3/4 + cups all-purpose flour * (see step #5)<br>2 tablespoons sugar (divided)<br>2 teaspoons baking powder<br>1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (divided)<br>1/4 teaspoon salt<br>1/4 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes<br>1 egg, separated<br>1/2 cup half-and-half<br>1/4 cup vanilla yogurt<br>3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract<br>Zest of 1 orange<br>1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Directions:</p><ol><li>Preheat oven to 400°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or use your favorite lightly floured baking stone; set aside.</li><li>In a large bowl, combine flour, 1 tablespoon of sugar, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, and salt. Cut in butter cubes; set aside.</li><li>In a small bowl, blend egg yolk, half-and-half, yogurt, vanilla, and orange zest. Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients; stir until just moistened.</li><li>Add dried cranberries, lightly stir once more.</li><li>Turn out dough onto floured surface and knead gently. * May need more flour depending on the stickiness of the dough.</li><li>Shape dough into a ball; using floured hands flatten into 8-inch circle; place on baking sheet or stone.</li><li>In a small dish, beat egg white. Brush the top of the dough circle with egg white; sprinkle the top with remaining sugar and cinnamon.</li><li>Score the top of the circle with a sharp knife into 8 wedges.</li><li>Bake at 400°F oven for 15 – 20 minutes. Cool slightly before serving with butter.</li></ol><p>Makes 8 scones.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Poem (in explanation)]]></title><description><![CDATA[A poem worth
killing for is
less than a poem
A poem worth
dying for is
more than a poem
All else
is a poem]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-poem-in-explanation/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230f7</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:48:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506788941197-1cbf01bb8bc5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGxldHRlcnN8ZW58MHx8fA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506788941197-1cbf01bb8bc5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGxldHRlcnN8ZW58MHx8fA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="A Poem (in explanation)"/><p>A poem worth<br>killing for is<br>less than a poem</br></br></p><p>A poem worth<br>dying for is<br>more than a poem</br></br></p><p>All else<br>is a poem</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Herb Rosemary]]></title><description><![CDATA[against forgetting
in a future, far away and unclear,
it may hurt to remember,
as now, the sting to envision what’s ahead,
instead, aren’t we wired not to forget
how the Year 2020
rearranged our lives?
like the herbal teacher Rosemary,
who at ancient weddings
was woven into brides’ bouquets
and garlands given to grooms
so as not to forget their vows
to keep love ablaze.
likewise, sprigs laid aside
loved ones who passed away,
always to be remembered,
rosemary, focusing our attention today]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-herb-rosemary/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230f8</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cynthia Gallaher]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:46:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501778134951-6d783388a6d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHJvc2VtYXJ5fGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3 id="against-forgetting"><em>against forgetting</em></h3><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501778134951-6d783388a6d8?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHJvc2VtYXJ5fGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Herb Rosemary"/><p/><p>in a future, far away and unclear,<br>it may hurt to remember,<br>as now, the sting to envision what’s ahead,</br></br></p><p>instead, aren’t we wired not to forget<br>how the Year 2020<br>rearranged our lives?</br></br></p><p>like the herbal teacher Rosemary,<br>who at ancient weddings<br>was woven into brides’ bouquets</br></br></p><p>and garlands given to grooms<br>so as not to forget their vows<br>to keep love ablaze.</br></br></p><p>likewise, sprigs laid aside<br>loved ones who passed away,<br>always to be remembered,</br></br></p><p>rosemary, focusing our attention today<br>more sharply, attendant at life and death,<br>valiant cohort in the thieves oil team</br></br></p><p>against medieval plagues,<br>taking its anti-viral crusade<br>and breath into the 21st century,</br></br></p><p>with aroma of both forest and field,<br>both sweetening and cutting,<br>green of spear, silvery shield,</br></br></p><p>rosmarinus officinalis “dew of the sea”<br>that can live through a drought,<br>deep in its DNA history, like ours, knowing</br></br></p><p>an instilled sense against forgetting, or is it<br>remembering how refreshments of rain<br>would come again to visit.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[O! Christmas Tree]]></title><description><![CDATA[Whether ordained by Divine Providence or Chamber of Commerce edict, Florida December afternoons rank glorious. The sun shines nonstop, while windows and doors are flung open to capture idyllic temperatures and soft breezes.
On such an afternoon, I began my plan to decorate the Christmas tree. A decorator magazine lured me into a new method of stringing lights. Starting at the lowest branches, I took the lights from the trunk to the outer tip then back to the trunk, all the while securing them w]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/o-christmas-tree/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230f9</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joan Harris]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:46:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605051538177-72c289389de5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGRpYW1vbmRiYWNrfGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605051538177-72c289389de5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fGRpYW1vbmRiYWNrfGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="O! Christmas Tree"/><p>Whether ordained by Divine Providence or Chamber of Commerce edict, Florida December afternoons rank glorious. The sun shines nonstop, while windows and doors are flung open to capture idyllic temperatures and soft breezes.</p><p>On such an afternoon, I began my plan to decorate the Christmas tree. A decorator magazine lured me into a new method of stringing lights. Starting at the lowest branches, I took the lights from the trunk to the outer tip then back to the trunk, all the while securing them with Baggie wires. To put it mildly, a tedious process, but with Christmas carols playing in the background and the aroma of a fresh cut tree before me, I could do it! And I did do it for hours. Finally, muscles, bones, and mood all turned cranky. I needed a break.</p><p>The tree resided in customary position framed by two sliding glass doors leading to the patio deck, which looked out over several yards of native dunes with the ocean just beyond. I determined I needed a cup of tea and an outdoor view of my spectacular creation. I walked through the open door, turned to view my masterpiece, and shrieked in horror. Immediately next to the tree was a window. I brushed by it several times, trying to reach the backside of the tree. On the inside window ledge lay coiled the most gigantic diamondback rattler in history.</p><p>Perhaps because I survived raising four sons with only minimal need for therapy, most friends describe me as remarkably calm. None have seen me in the presence of a diamondback. I howled. I hollered. I bellowed. My husband, engrossed in Sunday NFL, reluctantly responded with remote still attached to right hand.</p><p>Not intimidated by my screeching, the snake slithered to the stone fireplace hearth where he now lay coiled, occasionally raising his scary head to stick out his tongue at me.</p><p>"A gun! A gun! We need a gun!" I screamed.</p><p>Years previous, we agreed that never would we have any guns in our home. That was the pre-viper principle. I wanted a gun.</p><p>The fact that we stood in a room with tile floors and a two-story stone fireplace where my serpent had taken up residence should have informed me that a bullet from a weapon shot in that area would have ricocheted for an unknown amount of minutes, probably killing the snake and everyone present. That was logic. Panic defies and ignores logic.</p><p>Husband continued in a controlled voice to offer what I interpreted as insane comments, "Joan, we don't really want a gun."</p><p>"Yes, of course, we do. I want a gun!"</p><p>I remembered the Animal Control Service. I raced to the phone, looked up the number and dialed. The other side picked up, and I began babbling semi-coherently regarding the monster in my living room. After a few seconds, I realized the other party was speaking simultaneously. I forced myself to slow down and listen. I heard ". . . resume normal business hours 9 am Monday."</p><p>Nine am Monday! I would be dead, eaten alive by the beast before me, or expired with a coronary. I returned to my mantra. "We need a gun! Who do we know who might have a gun?"</p><p>The crazy person at my side didn't seem to get it. He remained stuck on the slow, quiet refrain, "No, Joan, we don't really want a gun."</p><p>What part of impending doom did he not understand? Who did I know who might have a gun? A question I probably never asked before. People from Georgia! A psychologist friend from Georgia, she would have a gun! Back to the phone. I dialed the number, blessedly, Judy answered. "Judy, I'm in a hurry. I can't talk long, but do you have a gun?"</p><p>Judy's response disappointed me. "No! Why?"</p><p>"Snake!" I screamed.</p><p>This was becoming critical. How long would that beast be content to terrify me from his current visible position on the hearth? If he ambled off to a closet and couldn't be located, we would need to move. No!</p><p>Nutty life partner remained of no help. I have never advocated violence, but I knew if one more time he repeated ". . . don't need a gun" nonsense, I would take him by the shoulders and shake until his head rolled off. The man continued considering options in his methodical lawyerly manner. I continued falling into millions of shattered pieces. He refused to reason.</p><p>Police! They would have an idea. Back to the phone I raced. A human responded, and I managed to speak with a modicum of reason regarding the beast threatening my existence. They would send someone out. We needn't put the house on the market.</p><p>I instructed Mr. Calm to keep an eye on the serpent and not allow him to move. It would be his problem about how to accomplish the assignment. I sped to the driveway to wave down the first police vehicle. What if he reached the neighborhood and then became lost? Excruciatingly long minutes passed. A motorcycle policeman came into view. I jumped up and down, waving arms frantically in the air. Despite any trepidations regarding the manic woman in the driveway, he stopped.</p><p>We began walking toward the house, and I said something like, "I bet you hated to get this call."</p><p>He stopped, turned to me, and looked at me over the top of his sunglasses. "Lady, I'm from New York. I don't do snakes."</p><p>Aaaaaargh!</p><p>"But," he added, "The Hunter is on his way."</p><p>Within a few more minutes, the driveway held an additional motorcycle and two patrol cars, one of which transported the patrolman known as The Hunter. He knew precisely how to approach the situation. He confidently strode into the room. I was thinking caped super-hero. Then he methodically moved furniture out of the way. He saw that we were safely back, and with one skillful blow of the rake, my varmint – gone!</p><p>I have a photo of The Hunter holding the dead rattler aloft, measuring six feet in length and probably four inches in diameter. I have since learned that they are the deadliest of all Florida snakes. My super-hero then, almost timidly asked if we wanted to keep the remains of the snake. Spouse and I looked at each other, baffled. Was he toying with us? The Hunter informed us that his brother was a taxidermist and would love such a grand specimen. In unison, we assured him that the fiend was his.</p><p>I assumed the snake entered the house with the Christmas tree. The policemen reported they receive calls from beach dwellers every so often due to rattlers who manage to come in from the dunes.</p><p>Every family acquires memorable Christmas stories that are told and retold as part of the season's tradition. My Christmas tree story does not dim with time.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Daughters]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sitting in the neighbor’s rusted swing
With my daughter in my lap-
Felt sad-
Said the day would come
When I could no longer hold her. She replied,
“I can sit beside you. You can always
Hold my legs.” Innocence too charming
To smother with laughter or words…
Joy was in the swinging-
Violets under the weeping willow,
Magnolia in great bloom with velvety
Brown petals at its base…
Began to wonder why on earth
I would want to hold your legs while
Rusted swing squeaked us back and forth.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/daughters/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230fa</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elaine Blanchard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:42:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1599659877577-810b6b3bba50?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI5fHxzd2luZ3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1599659877577-810b6b3bba50?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI5fHxzd2luZ3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Daughters"/><p>Sitting in the neighbor’s rusted swing<br>With my daughter in my lap-<br>Felt sad-<br>Said the day would come<br>When I could no longer hold her. She replied,<br>“I can sit beside you. You can always<br>Hold my legs.” Innocence too charming<br>To smother with laughter or words…<br>Joy was in the swinging-<br>Violets under the weeping willow,<br>Magnolia in great bloom with velvety<br>Brown petals at its base…<br>Began to wonder why on earth<br>I would want to hold your legs while<br>Rusted swing squeaked us back and forth.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Still Not Dead Yet]]></title><description><![CDATA[(The attached non-fiction essay currently appears in a compilation of essays titled Not Dead Yet (V2), edited by Daniel Krotz.)
Standing in front of the full-length mirror, I stare at the image looking back at me. Who is she, I often ask myself? This older woman with graying hair, wrinkles around her eyes, parchment paper-thin skin, old age spots. And yet, she looks oddly familiar, this unedited version of myself. I decide I do not like her and try to banish her from my life. But she is per]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/still-not-dead-yet/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230e0</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathy Martone]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:41:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502921451607-29fa99d270d4?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502921451607-29fa99d270d4?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Still Not Dead Yet"/><p><em>(The attached non-fiction essay currently appears in a compilation of essays titled <strong>Not Dead Yet (V2)</strong>, edited by Daniel Krotz.)</em></p><p>Standing in front of the full-length mirror, I stare at the image looking back at me. Who is she, I often ask myself? This older woman with graying hair, wrinkles around her eyes, parchment paper-thin skin, old age spots. And yet, she looks oddly familiar, this unedited version of myself. I decide I do not like her and try to banish her from my life. But she is persistent and returns every time I look in the mirror. Make-up, youthful clothing, and hair dye both seem to move her to the corners of my eyes where I don’t have to look at her square on. This has worked for several years but now she has invaded my inner space, talking to me from inside my head. There is no escape, it seems. I feel trapped. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Destiny is in control.</p><p>As I begrudgingly accept her presence – this uninvited and unwanted caricature of myself – I am pleasantly surprised to discover how much I enjoy her company. Often witty and humorous, serious and introspective, she lays out the contradictory puzzle pieces of the map of my life, her ongoing narrative providing depth and wisdom to the flat contours of my memory. She speaks to me of a life lived and another life to come. She reminds me that there is much more to this human existence than I ever considered, inviting me into a dance of understanding and wisdom, a song of pain and beauty, all intertwined around a central axis of soul fiber – the true source of human nourishment, she explains.</p><p>And so, I sit myself down in front of this reflection and ask her permission to speak. Silently nodding, her upturned mouth and twinkling eyes signaling her assent, we begin crafting our relationship – a relationship that will survive beyond eternity. My teacher, my Self. The unfolding of the chrysalis of enlightenment, nourished in the womb of silent introspection.</p><p>We begin our wordless dialogue, this Other and Myself. Telepathically, I complain about her intrusion into my life. “I don’t like being invisible,” I begin. “I want to be seen and recognized, understood and valued. When I walk into a room, no one pays any attention, whereas when I was young and beautiful, heads always turned whenever I entered a room. I miss the power of physical attraction,” I finish with a sigh.</p><p>Almost hidden behind folds of skin that inhabit her orbits, her eyes widen with mirth and undeniable interest as she moves closer to me. “Why, my dear,” she clucks thoughtfully. “You’re describing the state of emptiness and humility that accompanies spiritual evolution. Why would you bemoan such gems of transcendence? This is what we’re all after in this life journey, is it not? Our time is better spent exploring the invisible realms not complaining about them!”</p><p>Gulping down feelings of shame and embarrassment at not having understood this obvious truth, I bow my head and try to gather my thoughts. Memories of my childhood begin to flood my mind/body system – a tsunami of images, thoughts and emotions swirling and crashing along the fault lines of old scars and threatening to reopen ancient wounds. My eyes begin to well with tears. “Why is my life still so difficult?” I almost yell at her. “I thought life was supposed to get easier! My childhood was hell, but this is not much better. My body talks to me constantly – which is annoying – and demands so much of my attention. As you know, I have always been anxious but now there is so much more to worry about – like having enough health insurance to pay for all the necessary maintenance for this bag of bones. And what will happen to me if I should fall and break a piece of this fragile skeleton? I feel so fucking vulnerable and everything is harder than it used to be. Wasn’t I supposed to be feeling stronger as I age? No one prepared me for this and I’m not happy about it, let me tell you!”</p><p>The old woman in the mirror stares at me, unblinking. Soon a tear slowly cascades down the hills and valleys of her wrinkled and sagging face. Now I’m ashamed of myself. I didn’t mean to upset her. But I keep quiet, holding my breath and hoping for more pearls of wisdom. Standing shakily on spindly legs and grasping her walking cane with her gnarled fist, she turns and inches away from the glass, disappearing from my view. Where could she have gone, I wonder. Soon, the sound of distant music makes its way to my ears – the soft strains of a flute and a violin floating gently in the air and wrapping itself around me like a cocoon of remembrance. But remembrance of what? Surrendering to the magic of the calming melody, I close my eyes only to jerk them open again as I shield my eyes from the bright white light that floods me. Out of the luminous glow comes a voice – the now familiar inflection of my elder self. “Do you remember now, my Sweet One?” her words ring in my ear. “Do you remember who you really are? For, without the crucible of pain and suffering, without the burning away of all things mortal, you would never recall that, at your core, you are a Being of Light. Everything else is irrelevant. This envelope of skin and bones is simply a distraction and inhibits us from the knowledge of our true essence. Yes, life is painful for everyone. And I grieve with you the intensity of such suffering but remember, there is always a reason. You are being called to remember that you are more than flesh and bone, you are much more than you ever thought you were. And bless the fires that have purified you!” As the music fades away, so does the light. The reflection of my wise elder stares back at me, a beatific smile radiating from her holy face.</p><p>“But why does it have to be so hard?” I blurt out without thinking. Slapping my hands over my mouth, I hope she has not heard my careless utterance.</p><p>“It really doesn’t have to be,” she whispers, her words like thin sheets of parchment paper blowing in the wind. “Remembering is often the key to release. Remembering the trajectory of your past with its joys and its pain, its suffering and its delights, will help you to navigate more easily the path of your present and that of your future. But you must season your remembrance with the sweetness of compassion and self-love. Sprinkle liberally with that awareness that only comes from years of experience.”</p><p>Covering my face with my hands, I pull my focus inward, searching and seeking, always looking for the elusive answers to the meaning of my life. Peeking through my splayed fingers, I’m amused to see the Crone, hands covering her own face, eyes forward, staring back at me. I chuckle; she echoes. Pulling her hands down from her face, she looks at me questioningly. “I just…. I just really hate it…. I don’t understand why I’m still struggling with the same issues that plagued me when I was younger. Wasn’t I supposed to evolve? I mean, I’ve spent most of my life seeking consciousness and self-understanding. I immersed myself in the practice of Tibetan Buddhism and made a 6-week pilgrimage to Tibet. I’m still in therapy and meditate regularly. But I seem to be standing in the exact same spot with the exact same challenges. What gives?”</p><p>“Spiritual and psychological transformation take time, often many life times,” she replies. “It’s a process, not a product. From where I stand, it seems to me that the only thing missing from your profound journey is empathy for yourself. Humans never thrive unless they are seen for who they truly are – Light Beings repeatedly caught in the struggle to emerge from the restrictive human experience. You would do well to enlarge your perspective and excise the judgment. And now, I’m getting tired. Shall we take just one more question before I retire?”</p><p>Breathing deeply to collect my thoughts and prepare the query I have purposely left for last; I gaze lovingly into the eyes of my new spiritual friend. “So, what about death?” I ask.</p><p>“What about it?” she shoots back with a thin smile creasing her thin lips.</p><p>“Well, uh, I was just thinking,” I begin haltingly. “My mortality is always lurking around the edges, reminding me that my time is short. And – I have so many things I still want to do with my life. I’m curious about death and yet, also afraid of being in pain, afraid of being afraid. I ‘m just not ready….” My voice trails off.</p><p>“So, with all those past life memories you’ve excavated – soul journeys, if you will – you don’t trust that death is a welcome doorway into another dimension, another life experience? A chance to further the work you have only just begun in this life? Death is not an ending, just another beginning – and one that you’ve experienced before. You survived death in the past and you’ll survive it yet again. Remember. Its always about perspective – seeing the future from the perspective of your own ancient and eternal past. Does that help?” she asks as her form begins to dissolve, like particles of sugar in a glass of water. Left behind is the reflection of a woman just a bit younger, still with wrinkles and graying hair but a more acceptable and not so decrepit version of myself. I breathe a sigh of relief – not that old yet. And definitely not dead – yet.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[PurrFect Priorities]]></title><description><![CDATA[Midnight at the computer
An A. M. deadline
My cat keeps close watch
Muscles drawn taut, motionless
But for twitch of tail
Tremor in eye matching my hand movements
I tell her no time, no play
But a higher power speaks louder
An inherent habit of hunt
commands her to come in for the kill
Continually
I’d blow my deadline
before offending the feline Deity
So I put on a shredded gardening glove
And continue to maneuver clumsily
the computer’s right hand
Cursing the person who told her
it was a mous]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/purrfect-priorities/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230fb</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ellaraine Lockie]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:39:45 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1592301388444-185c2d047bbd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGNvbXB1dGVyJTIwY2F0fGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1592301388444-185c2d047bbd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fGNvbXB1dGVyJTIwY2F0fGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="PurrFect Priorities"/><p>Midnight at the computer<br>An A. M. deadline<br>My cat keeps close watch<br>Muscles drawn taut, motionless<br>But for twitch of tail<br>Tremor in eye matching my hand movements</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I tell her no time, no play<br>But a higher power speaks louder<br>An inherent habit of hunt<br>commands her to come in for the kill<br>Continually</br></br></br></br></p><p>I’d blow my deadline<br>before offending the feline Deity<br>So I put on a shredded gardening glove<br>And continue to maneuver clumsily<br>the computer’s right hand<br>Cursing the person who told her<br>it was a mouse</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Trouble with Apples]]></title><description><![CDATA[Eve eats an apple (malum in Latin),
fruit that’s forbidden, knows good and evil
(bonum and malum), and things fall apart.
Apple and evil—malum and malum.
The whole damned story—temptation and fall,
the loss of the garden and time without end,
the introduction of death and taxes,
fear of snakes, labour in childbirth,
sibling rivalry, brother hate,
fratricide—the fault of the apple.
All for the want of a simple taste
and the intimation of something great.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-trouble-with-apples/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230fc</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheryl Loeffler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:38:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1568702846914-96b305d2aaeb?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGFwcGxlfGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1568702846914-96b305d2aaeb?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGFwcGxlfGVufDB8fHw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Trouble with Apples"/><p>Eve eats an apple (malum in Latin),<br>fruit that’s forbidden, knows good and evil<br>(bonum and malum), and things fall apart.<br>Apple and evil—malum and malum.<br>The whole damned story—temptation and fall,<br>the loss of the garden and time without end,<br>the introduction of death and taxes,<br>fear of snakes, labour in childbirth,<br>sibling rivalry, brother hate,<br>fratricide—the fault of the apple.<br>All for the want of a simple taste<br>and the intimation of something great.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[You Know How it is...]]></title><description><![CDATA[(or Perhaps you Don't)
I was hitching on the side of an inauspicious, unexpectant country backroad; two or three low-slung, long-eared, not leashed, friendly, rich dark brown hounds were padding the area they thought was theirs. I was by their mailbox, in fact a dozen mailboxes, each on their own wood upright, small tin-domed coffins awaiting mail, when this big ass ole Buick pulled up. I’d got lost in thought between the low-slung four-legged’s, their ear tips sweeping the paving, and the ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/you-know-how-it-is-or-perhaps-you-dont/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230fd</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Adrian Frost]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:38:18 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507316578794-c89c54a72acf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxidWlja3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2 id="-or-perhaps-you-don-t-">(or Perhaps you Don't)</h2><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507316578794-c89c54a72acf?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEwfHxidWlja3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="You Know How it is..."/><p/><p>I was hitching on the side of an inauspicious, unexpectant country backroad; two or three low-slung, long-eared, not leashed, friendly, rich dark brown hounds were padding the area they thought was theirs. I was by their mailbox, in fact a dozen mailboxes, each on their own wood upright, small tin-domed coffins awaiting mail, when this big ass ole Buick pulled up. I’d got lost in thought between the low-slung four-legged’s, their ear tips sweeping the paving, and the riot of mailboxes, and I don’t think I was still waving my thumb for a ride. She of the handsome ole style big ass Buick had her hand in one of the mailboxes. I can’t explain what she exactly looked like; first she was young and blonde, frizzy punk blonde, with black lipstick, green eyes, a short leather jacket and hot legs when I got into the passenger seat. “You need a lift?” (I thought she said “you need a life,” but I just nodded) and she’d pushed the door open for me. She revved up and we were off. When I looked at her again she had just lit a cigarette and proffered me one, which I accepted, although I hadn’t smoked in twenty years. She dragged on the cigarette and blew a perfect ring that hovered above her head like a smoking halo. She had one eye on the road and the other on me. I could see myself in her pupil, but it was me as a kid, perfectly me, but as a kid. Now her hair was grey and moving, writhing even. She was still overwhelmingly beautiful, but she was older than me. She took another hit on her cigarette, up went another perfect ring. When she shaped her mouth and blew those rings, it made my groin lurch... and she knew it. She started to talk in a slow, breathy, even, southern accent, like the sun setting on your fall barn door.</p><p>“You were once the loveliest son of heaven. What happened? But I still want you, despite looking into that devastated soul of yours. I’m fucking mad and jealous because you’re going to see her.”</p><p>I was smoking the cigarette, trying not to cough, and I didn’t have an answer. She’d turned back into the punk blonde with the green eyes and was fiddling with the car radio.</p><p>“I’m gonna have to murder your emanations, secret loves, and fallen graces. Cocoon you in sinewy threads, have you held in my filmy warp and weft. Have you sunk down suspended just above the Styx, a pale white corpse.”</p><p>She tuned the radio in...</p><p>NOBODY LIKES A REDNECK<br>TILL THEIR CAR BREAKS DOWN</br></p><p>It had gotten dark quick. The Buick cornered left just after the bridge. Over the river and out of nowhere, there’s a huge howl, shaking all nature to the utmost. Suddenly giant spiders are running through that black landscape, either side of us.<br>The radio’s singing...</br></p><p>THEN EVERYBODY LIKES A REDNECK</p><p>She blows another perfect halo smoke ring and in that slow leisurely, measured, southern drawl says...<br>“Now you’re nekkid, big boy, falling from the sky.”</br></p><p>I look in her eye and sure enough, there I am... bare ass naked... falling thru the sky...<br>thick flaming thought creating flames... illuminating my falling body... my amazed face...<br>I fall I fall in her eye... fall thru space...<br>This descent, this creation. All a mix of mind and lungs, floating without will. Holding an immense flashlight of fire. My form a human illusion...</br></br></br></p><p>WELL I LIKE ME A REDNECK SANTE CLAUSE</p><p>Her hair is beginning to writhe again in grey coils, her lips no longer black lipstick, but crimson. One hand on that Buick’s steering wheel, for a moment she gives me both eyes. I'm taken with a cosmic shiver.</p><p>She sings (it’s a low Ella Fitzgerald croon)<br>“Weep,<br>May you all weep,<br>Oh moneyed reason.<br>Face away,<br>Now face away,<br>Your time is done.”</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>REDNECK SANTE CLAUSE HAS HIS SLEIGH ON LIFTS</p><p>She pulled over, into a pull off, under some tall oaks. A flicker of moonlight in the swaying branches.<br>She put her hand on my thigh... and whispered in my ear...<br>“Now I draw you out,<br>In flames of fire,<br>Mate with me,<br>My heart’s desire.”</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>DRINKS OLE MILWAUKEE LIKES GRITS AN TITS</p><p>...She turned the radio off with her free hand...</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Dark Puzzle of My Brother Dave]]></title><description><![CDATA[The end came for my brother Dave sometime around Sept. 11, 2020, in a small apartment in Panama City Beach, Fla., that I’d never had the heart to visit. Death came suddenly and naturally, probably a massive heart attack, during the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown and just a few weeks before his 74th birthday. No one is sure of the date because he was alone, the inevitable result of decisions he’d made throughout a life that, to me, seemed like an endless avalanche of pointless battles, calamities, and]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-dark-puzzle-of-my-brother-dave/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230fe</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Martin J. Smith]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:36:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506057278219-795838d4c2dd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxwZWFjZXxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/DQosU7L.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="The Dark Puzzle of My Brother Dave" loading="lazy"/></figure><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506057278219-795838d4c2dd?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMyfHxwZWFjZXxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Dark Puzzle of My Brother Dave"/><p>The end came for my brother Dave sometime around Sept. 11, 2020, in a small apartment in Panama City Beach, Fla., that I’d never had the heart to visit. Death came suddenly and naturally, probably a massive heart attack, during the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown and just a few weeks before his 74th birthday. No one is sure of the date because he was alone, the inevitable result of decisions he’d made throughout a life that, to me, seemed like an endless avalanche of pointless battles, calamities, and bad choices.</p><p>But I’m trying hard not to judge because I loved him very much.</p><p>Brotherhood is a complicated bond under any circumstances, which is why I’m struggling to write about Dave. I’m the youngest of four siblings by 10 years. The others arrived in a tight cluster during and after World War II. Ten years later, I came along. To me, they were teenage aunts and uncles more than siblings, and I grew up worshiping each of them.</p><p>My sister Lisa was simply my best friend. I adored her for as long as I could remember until the day in 2015 when she died, just a month shy of 73. And while I have always deeply loved both of my brothers, they presented a dilemma. They were polar opposites, and in describing my love for them, there’s no way for me to consider one without the other.</p><p>Bill’s and Dave’s paths diverged in the late 1960s when Bill, the older one, enlisted in the U.S. Navy and volunteered to serve in Vietnam. He did so with distinction, earning a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts during his time as part of a mobile riverine force that patrolled the hot zone of the Mekong River delta. He returned alive, but more remarkably, seemingly well-adjusted and as good-humored as ever. He remains impossibly selfless and heroic to me.</p><p>Dave’s path took him into the streets during those tumultuous years, which made him seem cool at the time. Unable to serve in the military—the result of a childhood rock-throwing accident that left him with only one working eye—he channeled his impulse for service into the anti-war movement. According to family lore, he was once detained for throwing chicken manure on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, and for many years remained convinced that domestic intelligence agencies had him on their radar. At one point, during a time when he was drinking heavily, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request to prove to him that he wasn’t being monitored. Unfortunately, his name did turn up in a heavily redacted college campus incident report from decades earlier. That was enough to fuel his delusions.</p><p>Dave’s activism never sat well with our father, who was my brother’s equal in terms of stubbornness and willingness to crank the anger knob up to 11. Dad served as an Army captain during World War II and worked for a company that sold steel to giant defense companies. To be honest, he viewed Dave’s activism both in political and personal terms. Who was this privileged middle-class punk to question the decision-makers in Washington? And what if word about his antics got back to The Company? Dad was convinced he’d lose his job.</p><p>One unforgettable Christmas Eve when I was 12 or 13, I cowered upstairs as their argument about all that grew heated. I awoke the next morning to find brother Dave gone, tossed out of our parents’ house in frigid Pittsburgh to hitchhike alone back to his college in Alabama. Two titans of obstinance had collided, and naturally they split.</p><p>Maybe it was the after-effects of that, or maybe it was driven by something else entirely, but Dave’s self-image seemed, at that point, to set like concrete. For the rest of his life, he cast himself as the radical outsider, unconventional in any way he could be, cynical, often angry, resistant to authority, certain the world was against him, convinced he was among the few brave souls who understood the stakes and was standing up for justice.</p><p>Dave carried that persona like a grudge through a spotty career as a retail manager, and through a marriage that eventually unraveled due in part to his intransigence. His career eventually sputtered, his two children grew up mostly without him, and for decades he wore his seething contempt for his ex like a battle scar. The bitterness was, to me, inexplicable. His former wife and daughter have wondered if there might be some unspoken wound deep in his past, and the thought has occurred to me, too. How else to explain his anger and persistent self-medication? Trauma? Mental illness?</p><p>So far, I’ve found no easy answers. Dave remains a dark puzzle.</p><p>Our parents were, in some ways, his enablers. When he got into financial or legal trouble, they usually bailed him out, convinced that his problems were partly their fault because of his childhood accident. They justified their endless patience and support because they were forever sure that Dave was about to “turn a corner.” Hope, for them, sprang eternal.</p><p>During the worst years—the same years when I was trying to raise my own family and build a career—Dave regularly called me late at night. He was usually drunk or high, and spun out fantastic tales of his secret work as a subversive. In the late 1980s, for example, at a time when he was still managing a drug store in Alabama, he claimed that in the wake of Tiananmen Square he was secretly smuggling fax machines to the Chinese resistance. He also once pointed to a trawler cruising just off a white-sand Gulf coast beach and told a young niece it was probably a government vessel, and that it likely was keeping an eye on him.</p><p>My patience with that nonsense eventually ran out, and I told him to stop calling. “You sound like Uncle Fred,” I said at the time, angry, referring my mother’s alcoholic brother who was irreparably damaged by his experiences in the Pacific during World War II. To his credit, Dave stopped calling for a while. I’m not particularly proud of that.</p><p>That was the bottom, and things eventually got better. He moved from Alabama to Florida’s Gulf Coast, a place he’d always loved, and where he’d taught me to fish and appreciate the ocean. He was usually sober when he called for many years after that.</p><p>He talked about a tight and loyal circle of friends at the beach, though it was clear their relationships were born and blossomed in his favorite bars. He worked as a security guard at a local dog track for as long as he was physically able, “retiring” only when the state outlawed dog racing. Disability checks helped sustain him, and I never confronted him with the irony of his dependence on the government he mistrusted.</p><p>He curtailed his decades-long addiction to cigarettes for a long period — too expensive, he said — but apparently continued to frequent a local bar that I later learned was named Whiskeys Saloon. It was just a few hundred yards from his apartment. I’m certain everyone there knew him as a ribald storyteller, a loyal drinking buddy, Mr. Good Times. He could be all of those things.</p><p>Dave sometimes attended our every-other-year family reunions, and I never saw him drink at those, or during the sporadic visits we had. Even as his health began to fail in the past few years, Bill and I were able to coerce him into traveling to Pittsburgh for our parents’ improbable 75th wedding anniversary. It was the last time we were together. Their three surviving boys shared a hotel room, and as the youngest I got a hard cot between my brothers’ double beds. The stereo snoring sounded like I was sleeping in a sawmill, but it made me happy.</p><p>About a year before Dave died, I began ending our email, text, and phone conversations by telling him I loved him. The first time I did it seemed to startle him. He offered no response. But gradually, in the final difficult year of his life, he began telling me he loved me. I’ll be forever grateful for that.</p><p>His children noticed a softening as well. After our parents died two months apart in early 2020, he ended up with a modest windfall from their estate. He immediately sent a portion of it to his son, Jeremy, and his daughter, Jill, and made sure I knew that anything left after he was gone was to be divided equally between them. He left a legal will, which surprised everyone, and not long before he died he gave his bank account PIN number to his only son. Jeremy found that his father had actually opened a savings account for that money, and most of it was still there.</p><p>A cleaning woman found my brother’s body a week after she last saw him alive. Police contacted Jeremy in Montgomery, and Jeremy met his sister in the Florida panhandle beach city where their father had found a home. They’re remarkable people, Dave’s kids, and despite their complicated relationship with their father they took care of the grim business at hand. I know Dave was proud of them both, as well as their kids, and I know he would have loved the way Jeremy and Jill stepped up for someone who seemed to finally understand that he’d missed a lot of opportunities by making the choices he did.</p><p>A day later, Jeremy filled us in on the known details. Our brother died quickly, probably attacked by the heart that had been giving him trouble in the past few years. He’d started smoking again, a signal to Jeremy that his dad knew the end was near and was determined to go out on his own terms doing something he loved—one last upraised middle finger to the ultimate authority. Jeremy also found, among Dave’s things, stacks of letters Dave had written to his elected officials letting them know his thoughts on everything from the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the Iran nuclear deal. I cherish that image of him as an activist to the end.</p><p>The manager of the apartments where Dave lived seemed to like him a lot, Jeremy said, but also seemed aware of the Jekyll-Hyde divide that split opinions about my brother among other residents, some of whom just considered him, as Jill said, “an asshole.”</p><p>Turns out, my brother was a morning drinker, breakfast at Whiskeys. “I would like to think that his routine of going to the bar and then staying in his apartment the rest of the day was his way of self-isolating the monster,” Jeremy wrote in an email a few days after his father died. “I could be projecting, but I’m going to stick with my truth.” He added: “Stormy (the bartender) will have some sort of memorial or something for him at Whiskeys. It’s what they do.”</p><p>Maybe, then, the best way to round off this epitaph is to share this August 17, 2020, posting I found on the Whiskeys Saloon Facebook page, as my brother’s home bar prepared to reopen from months of Covid lockdown:</p><p>“Being back open has not only been a blessing to us, but a lot of our customers as well…A lot of you don’t know the guy that sits in the bar because he has no one, or the woman who comes in just to get away for a minute, or the old retired couple who have a daily routine, the widowers, or the veterans who served our country … these are our daytime customers … just to ‘name’ a few. Bars aren’t just places to get drunk and make bad decisions; to some they’re home, they’re family, they’re routine. Being open isn’t being against social distancing, it’s about getting back to normal…”</p><p>I’m glad my brother had a place he loved, where he felt a part of a community, where he felt normal, where he was able to drink and share and laugh before going home with whatever demons remained. He asked that his ashes be spread in the same nearby backwater where he and brother Bill taught me to fish. “He told me there’d be enough money to burn him, scatter him at Phillips Inlet, and have a round of drinks at Whiskeys,” Jeremy said. So that’s what we’ll do, because it’s what he wanted.</p><p>I love you, my unfathomable brother. May you finally rest in peace.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Boxes in the Attic]]></title><description><![CDATA[filled with photographs,
people I had never seen:
my parents, happy, in bathing costumes
on boardwalk Revere beach;
father smiling and his parents,
whom I never knew,
despite monthly visits
to be kissed with grandmother’s old-age musk.
No pictures of Benjamin,
father’s brother
who died young
and was never mentioned.
Memory of the dead is a luxury
we were taught to scorn.
Had he lived, perhaps the family rage
would have burned less hot.
If there had been time for tears,
perhaps father’s cries w]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/boxes-in-the-attic/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ff</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kenneth Weene]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:36:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528569937393-ee892b976859?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG9sZCUyMHBob3Rvc3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528569937393-ee892b976859?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDJ8fG9sZCUyMHBob3Rvc3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Boxes in the Attic"/><p>filled with photographs,<br>people I had never seen:<br>my parents, happy, in bathing costumes<br>on boardwalk Revere beach;<br>father smiling and his parents,<br>whom I never knew,<br>despite monthly visits<br>to be kissed with grandmother’s old-age musk.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>No pictures of Benjamin,<br>father’s brother<br>who died young<br>and was never mentioned.<br>Memory of the dead is a luxury<br>we were taught to scorn.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Had he lived, perhaps the family rage<br>would have burned less hot.<br>If there had been time for tears,<br>perhaps father’s cries would have<br>extinguished the flames.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Hiding from mother’s protection,<br>I played solitaire with fading photographs.<br>Who went with whom?<br>Where did they go?<br>I never asked.</br></br></br></br></p><p>When they were dead,<br>the last casket mourned,<br>I asked cousins who recalled<br>a different grandmother,<br>one who gave love with food,<br>strudel and gefilte fish,<br>and sang bobeli Yiddish songs.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>In the boxes of photographs<br>uncles and aunts<br>graduations and cousins<br>but no Benjamin.<br>There were no photographs of tears.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Only smiles<br>worn like new clothes<br>and stiff Sabbath shoes,<br>an un-kissed mezuzah.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bounce]]></title><description><![CDATA[I could love Jesus if He would love me
as much as I love Him--I don't know what
that means, exactly, but it sounds good and
anyway it came to me last night in
a dream, or after it I should say, I
sat up quickly in bed and opened my
eyes and what did I see in front of me
but the future? It looked dark but my eyes
adjusted or the darkness did to my
eyes and even though I still couldn't see to read
my Bible, which I forgot at Sunday
School anyway, I could still remember
enough to slide off the bed]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/bounce/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523100</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Gale Acuff]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:34:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1565388972386-2e4f5a39fa3a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHByYXllcnxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1565388972386-2e4f5a39fa3a?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDR8fHByYXllcnxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Bounce"/><p>I could love Jesus if He would love me<br>as much as I love Him--I don't know what<br>that means, exactly, but it sounds good and<br>anyway it came to me last night in<br>a dream, or after it I should say, I</br></br></br></br></p><p>sat up quickly in bed and opened my<br>eyes and what did I see in front of me<br>but the future? It looked dark but my eyes<br>adjusted or the darkness did to my<br>eyes and even though I still couldn't see to read<br>my Bible, which I forgot at Sunday<br>School anyway, I could still remember<br>enough to slide off the bed and fall in</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>-to prayer-position and ask God once<br>again to explain the meaning of life<br>to me because I'm already ten years<br>old and getting older every passing<br>moment and I don't want to have to wait<br>until I'm history to know it, bad<br>enough that I don't get to see God and<br>Jesus and the Holy Ghost and the whole</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>gang from the Good Book, Moses, Job, David,<br>and Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, until<br>I'm dead and (knock on wood) in Heaven and<br>are they all dead, too? Maybe yes and no.<br>And Elvis. I'd ask Miss Hooker, my Sun<br>-day School teacher, but the last time I bounced</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>a question like that off her she put me<br>off until the following Sunday and<br>I forgot to remind her but I think<br>she didn't have an answer then, either,<br>and I don't want to crucify her, if<br>that's the right word--it may as well be. I</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>wonder what it's like in Heaven, not that<br>I'll find out necessarily because<br>I'm one Hell of a sinner, ha ha, and<br>I've found in my ten years that some sin's good,<br>it takes the edge off being pure, no one<br>really is anyway, except maybe<br>animals and plants and throw in a few</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>rocks, I can out-animal all of 'em<br>put together, I guess. After I prayed<br>myself calm--calmer--I climbed back into<br>bed and after a few sheep fell asleep<br>again--damn, that rhymes. Ninety-nine of 'em<br>and the lost one yours truly. Way to go.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Backyard]]></title><description><![CDATA[It’s been years, decades, since I’ve stepped into my own backyard. Standing on the concrete slab connected to the back of the house, which had been my imaginary boundary line for all those years, I was still unsure if the backyard was real, or just a work of art that magically changed with the seasons.
In the background fifty yards away, the tall, dark-green pine trees guarded the entrance to the forest. Underneath the dome of an overcast sky, the trees looked like monstrous silhouettes with sh]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-backyard/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523101</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Erica Harmon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:33:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1503788079201-4ebc62a11972?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGNvcm4lMjBhbmR0b21hdG9lc3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1503788079201-4ebc62a11972?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDh8fGNvcm4lMjBhbmR0b21hdG9lc3xlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="The Backyard"/><p>It’s been years, decades, since I’ve stepped into my own backyard. Standing on the concrete slab connected to the back of the house, which had been my imaginary boundary line for all those years, I was still unsure if the backyard was real, or just a work of art that magically changed with the seasons.</p><p>In the background fifty yards away, the tall, dark-green pine trees guarded the entrance to the forest. Underneath the dome of an overcast sky, the trees looked like monstrous silhouettes with sharp edges and soulless voids at their core. I shiver to think of what those trees have seen over the years, what secrets they have been forced to keep.</p><p>Twenty yards beyond the house in the middle ground lay my late husband’s garden, a makeshift box twelve by ten feet wide. I remember when he built it, back when the sun shone over our plot of land and life was still brimming with possibility. Now, nothing grows. The tomato cages are rusted from years of neglect. Dead vines still cling to the steel wire, grasping for one last breath. The wooden boards at the front-left corner of the box have split, spilling out dry, useless soil like a cracked hourglass.</p><p>All that separated me from the garden box now was a foreground of weeds that looked as tall as the faraway pines, brimming with a hidden ecosystem of bugs, reptiles, and other venomous parasites. Dressed in my garden sandals and capri pants, I took a few steps through the<br>weeds and immediately felt the desperate embrace of chiggers, mosquitoes, and poisonous plants.</br></p><p>Looking over the weeds instead of out onto them, new details of the ecosystem emerged. These were all his contributions, unwanted by nature. The ends of cigarette butts carelessly thrown about, dirty adult diapers, rusted hammers and screwdrivers smudged with what I can only imagine are the remains of dried, brown blood, a black hiking boot with no laces, overturned orange ceramic pots left to suffocate small, circular patches of earth.</p><p><br>When I reach the garden box, I examine the dirt. At this point, I think I’ve cleaned all the bones from it, but you never know. Sometimes I still find scraps of fabric or jewelry in the dirt. You would think after all the trouble he went through, he would keep these incriminating scraps away from the bodies, but no. He always was an unorganized slob. Good riddance.</br></p><p>Once I finish chopping the individual limbs, just as I had seen him do to those poor, pleading souls in the dead of night when he thought I was asleep, I’ll scatter them around the box. This dirt, just like me, needs a fresh start. The almanac says it will be a good year for corn and tomatoes.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Little Brother]]></title><description><![CDATA[The only love I think I'll ever need is the supreme mutual devotion I share with my collie dog, Trigger. But when my baby brother is born, he is a miracle wrapped in astonishment. In my tiny brother, my elementary school self finds a colossal love, I thought impossible. I cannot get enough of slipping my finger into his little hand as he stares into my face with all-knowing eyes as if to say, "Hello, big sister; wanna play catch?" But be careful, without notice, that weird little worm between hi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/little-brother/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230e1</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Peterson Freeman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:30:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/11/Little-Brother.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/O6x6qBB.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Little Brother" loading="lazy"/></figure><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/11/Little-Brother.jpg" alt="Little Brother"/><p>The only love I think I'll ever need is the supreme mutual devotion I share with my collie dog, Trigger. But when my baby brother is born, he is a miracle wrapped in astonishment. In my tiny brother, my elementary school self finds a colossal love, I thought impossible. I cannot get enough of slipping my finger into his little hand as he stares into my face with all-knowing eyes as if to say, <em>"Hello, big sister; wanna play catch?"</em> But be careful, without notice, that weird little worm between his legs can squirt a stream of pee right into your face. Trust me, it's really gross.</p><p>I'm in kindergarten, and though I love going to Lake Harriet Elementary School, I do not want to go to school on one particular Monday morning.</p><p>"Mommy, do you think I could stay home with my baby brother just this one time?" I ask.</p><p>"No, you have to go to school, Julie; you don't want to be a dummy, do you?"</p><p>"Well, no, but anyway, my teacher told me I was a smartie pants on Tuesday," I counter.</p><p>"That doesn't necessarily mean you have nothing more to learn, Julie," my mother asserts. "The baby will be here when you get home. Now march."</p><p>Knees high with Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" playing on the record player in my brain, I march right-left-right-left out the front door and up Sheridan Avenue with a couple of 360-degree spin twirls thrown in for good measure.</p><hr><p>Mrs. Laederach, my second grade teacher, is the most important person on the planet, period. She is the only one in the whole school who has a real piano in her room. It's a solid wood upright, and man can she play. Mrs. Laederach spends lots of time every day teaching us how to determine key signatures and how to count rhythms. But best of all, we sing songs about getting taken out to the ball game, riding on a bicycle built for two (that one's kind of mushy), and a song about an ant pulling rubber tree plants. But geez, that song about "Who Killed Cock Robin" is really, really sad. It makes tears run down my cheeks every dang time we sing it. I secretly rub them off on my shirt sleeve before Danny Cook (the boy who lives three houses down from me and sits right next to me in school) gets a load of me crying. I know he won't let me play baseball on the gravel playground with the boys if he thinks I'm a sissy. Sometimes I can stop myself from getting emotional by looking at Rex Hult, who always has a purple mouth from eating carbon paper.</p><p>The halls of Lake Harriet Elementary are as wide as Vincent Avenue with narrow board hardwood floors. There are tiny puddles all over the floor, from snow melting off hundreds of stomping feet in rubber boots. In the classroom, you can get a glimpse at the three feet of snow outside by feigning to get a book from the shelves just below the windows that are taller than Dad. Outside, the sun is shining brighter than the lights on our Christmas tree, and the sky is bluer than my baby brother's eyes.</p><p>"Children, neaten up your desks and line up; it's time to go to the Christmas program," announces Mrs. Laederach. "Julie, Dan, Rex, and Heather, please push the piano out into the hall."</p><p>Under the weight of the heavy oak piano, the small wheels whine like the chirp of a hungry baby bird waiting for a big juicy nightcrawler. Scuffing and shuffling, the four of us put all our weight behind the melodic beast, maneuvering it carefully through the classroom door and out into the hall.</p><p>Mr. Benson (our janitor who lives on a farm with horses and everything) has mopped up the puddles giving the floor a glossy shine. Even though I've been practicing every day since Thanksgiving, I'm as nervous as an on-deck Twins baseball player at the bottom of the ninth with two outs, the bases loaded, and the visiting team up by two. The entire student body is seated in rows according to grade on the broad hall floor. Since Mom is a room mother, Miss Laederach invited her to come to watch. She told her that she definitely doesn't want to miss this year's program. Mom sits with our classroom on a folding chair against the wall with my two-year-old baby brother on her lap.</p><p>The sixth graders stand and recite by memory "Twas the Night Before Christmas" all the way through with only one hitch. When they say the word "breast" during the line "the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow," four boys say "breast" really loud, which makes lots of the kids giggle. Disgusted with their behavior, their teacher Mrs. Zinsfield gives the boys a look like she just smelled a bad fart.</p><p>A fifth-grade girl reads her original poem about sliding in the woods, hitting a tree, and feeling goofy ("like she's in a cartoon with birds flying around her head"). Then with jingle bells pinned to their skirts and pants, the fourth graders do a dance to "Frosty the Snowman." That song makes me sad too, but nothing like "Poor Cock Robin." And so it goes, each grade making us more and more excited about Santa sliding down the chimney, ice skating on Lake Harriet and getting red-faced toasty in front of the pot-bellied stove in the warming house, and a whole two weeks with no school.</p><p>Finally, the principal introduces Miss Laederach. Miss Laederach walks over and sits on the piano bench while I stand next to her, facing every kid in the school. In my best singing voice accompanied by Mrs. Laederach and her stellar piano playing skills, I sing, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..." but I am not singing alone as planned. Every few words, my baby brother is singing too. He is right smack dab on pitch, but he sings, "I dweaming, tweetops gwissen," and "bwight." It's adorable.</p><hr><p>With a crew cut and one of those flat little 50's baseball gloves, my first-grade brother is my catcher and umpire rolled into one. According to my mother, I'm supposed to "try harder to act like a lady," but I am far more determined to put my fastball consistently within the strike zone. I learn how to go through the pitching motions by watching Twins' pitcher, Camilo Pascual. When I think about the courage it takes for my little brother to sit in that crouched position with his flat glove calling balls and strikes, I'm duly impressed. Every finger on his left hand is crooked from being sprained, and there are many times when he throws his crappy glove off to the ground to blow on his hand after catching a fastball. This alone makes for a trustworthy and inseparable camaraderie between my little brother and me.</p><p>But don't kid yourself. I pay a price for my steadfast catcher/umpire.</p><p>"Hey, Julie; pull my finger," is a daily request.</p><p>"Hey, Julie, smell my finger," makes me want to puke.</p><p>"Hey, Julie, look at the size of this booger," my brother says as he chases me out the front door with a booger the size of the neighbor's Pekinese on the end of his finger. Luckily, I can still run faster than him. I sure hope he grows out of this bodily function obsession before his legs get any longer.</p><p>On a pitch-black night, my best friend Martha and I are on babysitting duty for my two younger brothers while Mom and Dad are out dancing at the VFW. The boys are up in their room making a hell of a racket with a guitar and a drum set, and Martha and I are downstairs sitting in front of the picture window watching TV.</p><p>"Hey, you two hoodlums," I holler up the stairs. "Can you knock off all the noise; you're creating static on the TV. Play a game or something, okay?"</p><p>"Okay," they answer in unison. It's not their usual response, but Martha and I shrug it off because we want to get back to watching Bonanza. We both have a huge thing for Little Joe.</p><p>During a commercial, we look out the picture window and see a man wearing a black hat and a long coat swaying up the sidewalk. We look at each other, our pupils dilated and our hearts racing.</p><p>"Oh God," Martha says. "He's drunk, Julie, and now he's coming up the front stairs."</p><p>Physically trembling, I hiss, "Marth, hit the floor. We don't want him to see us. Oh Gawd, I don't think the front door is locked. Let's crawl over there as fast as we can and lock it."</p><p>Scared out of our wits, we reach the door just as the man begins to open the front door.</p><p>And then my littlest brother falls off my brother Dick's shoulder.</p><p>Martha and I chase them out into the dark front yard, grab them by their shirts and throw them to the ground, hard. They stumble around on the grass but can't stand up. It's not due to Martha and I throwing them around though, it's because they are side-aching, belly laughing. Regardless, I never get too mad at Dick for anything he does. He is the whipping boy for both my dad and my mom, which is way too much for any little kid. Plus, Martha and I have to admit, it was a pretty darn clever gag.</p><p>In junior high, Dickie becomes a wrestling fanatic. He takes up the sport at Southwest High School. He also watches Verne Gagne and his gang of muscle stuffed palookas religiously. Professional wrestlers are great athletes and colorful carnie type actors, and to a junior high kid who loves wrestling, Gagne's show is absolutely real. Dickie dutifully studies the moves of Gagne, Larry "The Axe" Hennig, "Mad Dog" Vachon, and Stan "Krusher" Kowalski, often trying the holds on our littlest brother, Scottie. Dickie knows better than to try that crap on me.</p><p>Dick has recently been in the hospital with a detached retina inflicted by the kid who lives behind us, throwing a big branch at him and hitting him in the eye. We are warned by both Mom and Dad NOT to hit Dick in the head.</p><p>Dickie is watching yet another one of Verne's AWA wrestling programs on TV when I walk by.</p><p>"Dickie, you do realize this crap is fake, right?"</p><p>"It is not fake!" shouts Dickie as vehemently as the crazy fans who go to watch the matches live at the Calhoun Beach Hotel.</p><p>I'm out on the front porch when Dickie comes stomping out onto the porch.</p><p>"Take it back, Julie," my brother orders with a look on his face, not unlike that of Mad Dog Vachon at the height of his angry bit. Except, Dick's expression isn't fake at all. It is all too real.</p><p>"I won't take it back. It's the truth, Dickie. It's all fake. They're just a bunch of actors," I say.</p><p>A guttural sound fueled by pure adrenaline emanates from my brother's throat. Growling, he picks me up, presses me above his head, and spins me around as fast as he can. I have motion sickness so bad I can't sit in the backseat of a car without throwing up. I feel like I'm going to toss my cookies when Dickie body slams me down hard on the front porch's wooden floor knocking the wind out of me and creating one hell of a bang.</p><p>Dad comes roaring out onto the porch, shouting, "Geezus, Almighty God," what in the hell is going on out here?"</p><p>Now, I'm lying on the front porch clutching my gut, unable to talk. Dickie starts to cry on purpose with real tears. Sheesh, he's good, I think.</p><p>"She hit me in the head," he proclaims.</p><p>"I TOLD YOU KIDS NOT TO HIT HIM IN THE HEAD, GOD DAMNIT. Now settle down out here. GOD DAMN KIDS."</p><p>I don't blame my brother. He was scared. When my father isn't showing off his star-worthy dance moves or bringing old ladies to tears with his gorgeous baritone voice and handsome face, he's mean and usually takes his anger out on Dickie. The bottom line is that I would do anything to protect my little brother from my father's physical and mental abuse. Plus, I was not entirely correct when I said that everything about professional wrestling was fake. Come to find out, Verne's sleeper hold was real. In 1960, on the local television show Sports Hot Seat, Verne Gagne agreed to demonstrate that his sleeper hold was not a chokehold. With a panel of sportswriters scrutinizing his arm positioning, Gagne demonstrates the grasp on local promoter Eddie Williams. Lights out.</p><hr><p>For a 60's high school kid, flawless hair and indefectible freshly pressed attire are not optional. It takes an intrepid effort and a lot of time for me to tame my abundant curls that have a mind of their own into a perfectly smooth flip. Each evening when it's time to go to bed, I become a roller derby queen, winding my hair around orange juice cans, securing them with bobby pins, and then sleeping all night long significantly elevated off my pillow. My two sisters on either side of me agewise, are also in high school. Modesty is of utmost importance during the puritan influenced double standard social mores of the time. The race to be the first to lock the door on the second-floor bathroom, the only bathroom in the house with a shower, is a daily contest. The highly coveted bathroom is on the second floor, where the master bedroom resides along with my little brothers' bedroom. The girls' bedrooms are on the third floor. Countless times when attempting to secure the bathroom first, high school girl rear ends, sounding like a bass drum roll, thud down the rounded edge stairs leading to the second floor.<br>"Are you alright?" yells anyone who hears the stair falling pandemonium.<br>"Yes," is always the hollered answer from one of three bruised-butted sisters.<br>The built-in linen closet where the towels are kept is in the hallway outside the bathroom, but Mom always keeps the bathroom towel racks well supplied with clean towels, so there's no reason to carry one in from the linen closet. One Saturday morning, I manage to get to the bathroom first. I take off all my clothes and hop into the shower. Dang, I say to myself - no washcloth. Oh, well, hands work, too. Finished, I step over the tub and reach out to grab a towel. The bathroom is devoid of towels.<br>I am not going to put my clothes back on my wet body. I peek out the door to make sure no one is on the second floor with me. The coast is clear. I tiptoe stark naked out into the hall and open the linen closet to grab a towel when I notice a crack in the door of my brothers' room and four blue eyes peering out.<br>Wrapped in a towel, mortified and irate, I shout toward the first floor, "Da - ad!"<br>I rush downstairs and tell my dad the whole sordid tale of what my brothers, his sons, did. He calls them downstairs and pats each one on the back.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><hr><p>In 1968, I graduated and head off to the University of Minnesota to study music, leaving my brother Richard behind singing solos in the Southwest High School Choir and winning wrestling matches. If I were looking through non-sister eyes, I'd say Dickie is kind of a stud. But not the kind of stud who is full of himself, prancing around feeling superior, but the kind of stud who sings while walking down the halls. The kind of stud who isn't afraid to make a total fool of himself and you at the same time. My brother can sing the entirety of "Hey Jude" in Donald Duck's voice. When he sings the word "better" as in "take a sad song and make it better," it's cute nirvana. He can also do an exact replication of "The Lollipop Guild" bit from The Wizard of Oz, complete with sole slide front kicks.<br>In high school, Dick becomes Rick for obvious reasons. He is a champion wrestler and a darn good gymnast as well. I see my 17-year-old brute of a brother do perfect flips in the front yard hundreds of times.<br>On the driveway one beautiful summer's evening, I witness a shouting match between Richard and my father. After years of physical and verbal abuse, Richard has had it. He puts Dad's arm in a well-deserved and painful half nelson and holds it there for some time. My father never dares touch or verbally abuse Richard again.</br></br></p><hr><p>On my visit home from studying at the U of M, Mom, Dick, and I decide to take a walk around Lake Harriet. Mom does this chubby-lady speed walking thing that is a hoot if you're watching from the rear. For some reason, Dick falls back, but I keep up with Mom.<br>Behind us, we hear this loud sorrowful pleading, "Mama. Mama. Please don't leave me. Mama. Mahhhma!"<br>Mom and I look behind us to see that it's our Richard doing the pleading. With one leg dragging behind him, he's directing his cries toward Mom. "Mama. Mama. Please don't leave me. Mama. Mahhhma," he begs.<br>Mom, embarrassed beyond words, picks up the chubby-lady speed walking pace in an attempt to get away from him. Bad move, Mom, I think. Richard speeds up too, continuing to drag one leg and imploring even louder, "Please don't leave me. Mama. Mama!"<br>The paths around Lake Harriet are never empty, not even in the winter. But in the summer, it's a veritable parade, and everyone who passes this scene is either giving Mom the stink eye for being the cruelest person on the planet or looking at Richard with sad, sympathetic expressions. Me? I've fallen on the grass next to the lake where I'm holding my aching ribs laughing.</br></br></br></br></p><hr><p>I adore autumn in Minneapolis. The smell in the air is crispy seductive, and the abundance of oaks, elms, and linden trees take on a heart arresting luminosity of color. Now in my 40's and a music teacher by profession, I'm walking around Lake Harriet with the school psychologist when I'm grabbed in two private places, lofted in the air above a man's head, and put into a two rotation spin. But instead of being body-slammed, I'm gently placed back on my feet and embraced in a giant bear hug. Sheepishly, I introduce Hannah, the school psychologist, to my little brother, Richard.<br>When Richard leaves, Hannah says nothing about the whirlybird/bear hug action but does manage to gasp, "Julie, can we talk about your little brother?"</br></p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/F3hxsp1.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Little Brother" loading="lazy"/></figure></hr></hr></hr></hr></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pandemic #3]]></title><description><![CDATA[Living all alone, I was the only friend I had.
Everywhere I went, I was always there.
It’s where I learned a skill, I didn’t even know I had.
To write these lines each morning is a habit,
I think I’ll never regret.
I didn’t think it could be done, but I did it.
So here I sit, in isolation, smiling
as each line goes from head to paper.
Never knew a poem could be this fun.
For I truly think, they are the light from my soul,
that was never turned on, until now.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pandemic-3/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523102</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John L. Swainston]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:25:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585559604920-924ba42079bc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxjb3ZpZHxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585559604920-924ba42079bc?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MXwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDMwfHxjb3ZpZHxlbnwwfHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000" alt="Pandemic #3"/><p>Living all alone, I was the only friend I had.<br>Everywhere I went, I was always there.<br>It’s where I learned a skill, I didn’t even know I had.</br></br></p><p>To write these lines each morning is a habit,<br>I think I’ll never regret.<br>I didn’t think it could be done, but I did it.</br></br></p><p>So here I sit, in isolation, smiling<br>as each line goes from head to paper.<br>Never knew a poem could be this fun.</br></br></p><p>For I truly think, they are the light from my soul,<br>that was never turned on, until now.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA["Bravery Shattered It"]]></title><description><![CDATA[Inspired by the idea of breaking through barriers even in situations of uncertainty.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/bravery-shattered-it/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523103</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Melissa Milton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 15:49:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/01/Bravery_Shattered_It-FOR-WCDH.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2021/01/Bravery_Shattered_It-FOR-WCDH.jpg" alt=""Bravery Shattered It""/><p>Inspired by the idea of breaking through barriers even in situations of uncertainty. </p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 9: Winter 2021]]></title><description><![CDATA[Major changes are coming to eMerge! The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) is always exploring and discovering new ways to promote our writers and expand our support for the writing process. Along with eMerge, WCDH provides many opportunities for writers to share their work and market their ideas.
If you get the opportunity, listen to one of WCDH’s podcasts at Write Now at the Writers’ Colony’s podcasts. Chad Gurley, our Colony Coordinator, conducts the most informative podcast interviews w]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-9-winter-2021/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523108</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2021]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 14 Jan 2021 20:06:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Major changes are coming to eMerge! The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) is always exploring and discovering new ways to promote our writers and expand our support for the writing process. Along with eMerge, WCDH provides many opportunities for writers to share their work and market their ideas.</p><p>If you get the opportunity, listen to one of WCDH’s podcasts at <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/podcast?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Write Now at the Writers’ Colony’s podcasts.</a> Chad Gurley, our Colony Coordinator, conducts the most informative podcast interviews with a variety of writers who have stayed at the Colony. If you aspire to write, these are worth a listen!</p><p>In an effort to promote and assist our writers with marketing their work, we have formed a WCDH group on Goodreads. You can request to join by going to our <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1103321-wcdh?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">WCDH Goodreads Group.</a> We encourage our group to write positive reviews, provide ratings for members, and share with your Goodreads friends.</p><p>All things considered, the Colony has managed to adapt, adjust, and expand during the terrible pandemic we have all experienced during 2020, that has managed to continue into 2021. This creativity is given wings by our Executive Director and staff at the Colony and affirmed by a phenomenal Board of Directors. Our alums and champions continue to provide the Colony with support, financial and/or emotional, which is esteemed by our writing community.</p><p>Thank you!</p><p>Until Next Time,<br>I Remain,<br>Just another Zororastafarian editor wondering if I make a typo, do the errorists win?</br></br></p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Looking Good all the Way to the End]]></title><description><![CDATA[In the Upper Arkansas Delta, funerals are important events. Among the older generation there are time-honored funeral traditions with set guidelines, and there is little room for variation. The traditions include visitation with the family at the funeral home with an open casket so that the body may be viewed one last time. Prior to the funeral and during the wake, there is much socializing, and the bereaved family is gifted with enough home cooked food to feed the entire county. The funeral se]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/looking-good-all-the-way-to-the-end/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230da</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:22:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/mitchel-boot-PM96qlpCrPA-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/mitchel-boot-PM96qlpCrPA-unsplash.jpg" alt="Looking Good all the Way to the End"/><p>In the Upper Arkansas Delta, funerals are important events. Among the older generation there are time-honored funeral traditions with set guidelines, and there is little room for variation. The traditions include visitation with the family at the funeral home with an open casket so that the body may be viewed one last time. Prior to the funeral and during the wake, there is much socializing, and the bereaved family is gifted with enough home cooked food to feed the entire county. The funeral service takes place the day after the visitation in either a funeral home or in a church. After the indoor service, a slow moving procession of mourners in cars with headlights beaming follows the hearse to a cemetery for the graveside service.</p><p>When I was a kid, there was a woman who lived in my home town and enjoyed going to funerals. If there was not a funeral to attend for someone she knew, she would go to services for strangers. She listened to the obituaries that were reported on the radio every morning. She attended any funeral that was within driving distance of her home. On average she went to two or three funerals a week.</p><p>Women clients in my mother’s beauty shop critiqued funerals and with particular attention paid to how the body looked. The appearance of the body was important to them. They discussed whether or not the deceased looked “natural,” and they talked about the dead person’s clothing. “Did they have on their jewelry, and how did their hair look? Were there many flowers?”</p><p>My mother worked as a hairdresser for 67 years. During her decades while working behind the chair, many of her customers passed away. At the request of the bereaved family, my mother would go to the funeral home and do the hair of the departed prior to their viewing. It was upsetting for my mother to style the hair of a dead person. However, she considered it an obligation to her customers. She wanted to make them look good one last time. Perhaps to lighten the situation a little, she would jokingly say, “At least I don’t have to worry about how the back of their hair looks.”</p><p>My mother knew exactly how she wanted her funeral. She planned every detail years before it took place. She wrote down the songs that she wanted to be played. She made a list of the names of pallbearers along with an alternate list in case one or more of the preferred had preceded her in death. She chose the color for the spray of flowers that would be on top of the casket. She prepaid for everything including the casket that she herself had selected. The only thing she did not pick out was what she would be wearing. She said to the family, “I might buy something prettier to wear between now and then, and y’all can choose.”</p><p>The call came early one January morning in 2002. My mother at the age of 88 had died while she was getting dressed for work. I immediately packed and rushed across the state. I needed to be home. The family gathered the next morning at the funeral home to make arrangements. There was not much to do since my mother had already taken care of everything. We did take a lovely new outfit for her to wear. It was the one I had given to her a few weeks earlier for Christmas.</p><p>While making the arrangements, the undertaker asked, “And who do you want to do her hair?” I found myself saying, “I will do it.” I had been styling her hair for years and I couldn’t bear for anyone else to do it. I wanted her hair to look just right, and I knew that my mother would want it to be perfect. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it was very important for me to do her hair. I knew that it was the last thing that I could ever do for my mother.</p><p>She looked good.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Grace Found In Difficulty]]></title><description><![CDATA[In the beginning we slept. We slept
Sometimes nine or more hours a night.
Our dreams were complicated
And detailed and we shared them at breakfast.
In the beginning the nights were cold and
The sun woke us
When it rose through the bare trees.
We were on a sudden, unscheduled vacation.
We thought about food, a lot,
And planned meals of our favorite dishes
Shopping for ingredients to last a week or two
And conscientiously using all the leftovers.
We were grateful to be safe where we were
And t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/grace-found-in-difficulty/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230cb</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:22:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/cdc-k0KRNtqcjfw-unsplash--1-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/cdc-k0KRNtqcjfw-unsplash--1-.jpg" alt="Grace Found In Difficulty"/><p>In the beginning we slept. We slept<br>Sometimes nine or more hours a night.<br>Our dreams were complicated<br>And detailed and we shared them at breakfast.</br></br></br></p><p>In the beginning the nights were cold and<br>The sun woke us<br>When it rose through the bare trees.<br>We were on a sudden, unscheduled vacation.</br></br></br></p><p>We thought about food, a lot,<br>And planned meals of our favorite dishes<br>Shopping for ingredients to last a week or two<br>And conscientiously using all the leftovers.</br></br></br></p><p>We were grateful to be safe where we were<br>And to have the resources to wait for the all clear<br>Which we thought would possibly be a month?<br>Six weeks?</br></br></br></p><p>The longest spring in memory emerged slowly<br>With cold rainy days and mild sunny days.<br>The earth woke up and bloomed, showing off<br>As if this were the very first Spring.</br></br></br></p><p>We have always had our gardens, and we always start too early,<br>Earlier than the last frost date says we should. This year it was worse,<br>and it was a passion in the hearts of many who were staying home,<br>longing for some good in what grew to be our emotional darkness.</br></br></br></p><p>The news was bad. Sickness and death,<br>the stricken dying of an illness we didn’t understand,<br>Medical workers forced to work without proper protective equipment.<br>Fear and uncertainty were in every report.</br></br></br></p><p>The news was bad. Economic depravation for the most vulnerable,<br>Businesses forced to close, people out of work, unable to pay their rent.<br>People unable to feed themselves and their families.<br>Children kept isolated at home, away from their friends.</br></br></br></p><p>We were seeing all the bad news live, and in color.<br>It was black. Blacks being murdered. Angry protesters burning and looting.<br>Peaceful protestors being militaristically driven away<br>so that the President could have his picture taken.</br></br></br></p><p>The sad and frustrated President<br>Contradicted the scientists and accused his political opponents<br>Of scaring the public in order to discredit him.<br>He failed to lead us, he failed to heal our spirits.</br></br></br></p><p>Looking elsewhere we saw that the news was good.<br>Restaurants and schools gave away food to be carried home.<br>Food banks provided groceries and paper goods.<br>A home industry of face mask production sprang up.</br></br></br></p><p>Americans awoke to understand that slavery has existed in our country<br>For four hundred years. We awoke to understand that White Americans,<br>some intentionally, some unwittingly, limited access to opportunity<br>for black people, and then blamed the black people who failed.</br></br></br></p><p>Scientists learned more about the Covid-19 virus,<br>Medical staff learned better treatments from their experiences,<br>Whole cities, whole countries, respected the efforts to slow the spread,<br>People at home learned that a quieter world can be good.</br></br></br></p><p>Artists, musicians, and actors offered their work freely to the world<br>Through the internet, and museums opened virtual tours on line.<br>Librarians streamed Story Hours for children.<br>We watched the penguins go on a field trip at the Shedd Aquarium.</br></br></br></p><p>Celebrities donated to coronavirus relief funds.<br>Neighbors helped neighbors, friends reached out across years,<br>Nursing home staff helped residents connect with family.<br>Citizen scientists built ventilators and face shields.</br></br></br></p><p>In the end we learned that the virus is a voracious beast.<br>The virus is driven to reproduce, looking for a host in which to multiply.<br>All living things seek to ensure survival of their kind.<br>My hope is for humans to ensure survival of their better selves.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Silent Killer]]></title><description><![CDATA[There are four apples in the colorful Mexican bowl, my daughter brought to me as a gift. I choose the brightest apple of all to cut in half and slice for a condiment to my oatmeal cookie. I baked the cookies last week. I never cook, but they have Craisins and tons of Walnuts in them, you can taste the butter and salt, and of course oatmeal, in each bite.
My husband comes in with the only can of Lysol spray we have. And starts spraying every door handle in sight. He bought the lilac scented bott]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/silent-killer/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230d2</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Mitchell]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:21:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506808541308-577f3be75bb7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506808541308-577f3be75bb7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Silent Killer"/><p>There are four apples in the colorful Mexican bowl, my daughter brought to me as a gift. I choose the brightest apple of all to cut in half and slice for a condiment to my oatmeal cookie. I baked the cookies last week. I never cook, but they have Craisins and tons of Walnuts in them, you can taste the butter and salt, and of course oatmeal, in each bite.</p><p>My husband comes in with the only can of Lysol spray we have. And starts spraying every door handle in sight. He bought the lilac scented bottle weeks ago when you could still buy such things. I have been hoarding its use, saving it for special things like my telephone. I want to tell him to stop wasting it, but I can see this is a manly ritual with him. He is protecting us from our silent killer. Our conflicts can be loud and useless because we are both so wounded by our own doing. We have worked for many months to tone them down, to act like “reasonable” people. That is the kind of couple we want to be. Love is patient and kind, not loud. Drama is loud and useless…this is the message—the example we are trying to portray to ourselves.</p><p>Our silent killer, the nasty Covid-19 virus has not reached us yet physically. If anything, the impact is good on our relationship. We are more cautious with our reactions. For now, the Lysol can is still half full and there are three more apples in the bowl. Tomorrow I will take the very best one and eat it. Because today is what I have.</p><p>There is now a war being waged on dandelions in the driveway with handmade weaponry. No need to stress over this. Both sides are up to the task.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Combat Veteran]]></title><description><![CDATA[The war is over
Everywhere but in his mind
He comes back…
Back to a world where pride and service
Are just words
Back to a world where a man’s word
Means nothing more
Than the breath it takes to expend it
He comes back…
Back to those who haven’t seen
The hollow look of fear
Or smelled the stench of death
He comes back…
He brought back memories of his friends
Comrades who never age
And never leave his thoughts
Where then, will his epitaph be written?
Among the Stars and Stripes
Where so many men]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-combat-veteran/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230d9</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:18:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/benjamin-faust-xOUs1VJnIP0-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/benjamin-faust-xOUs1VJnIP0-unsplash.jpg" alt="The Combat Veteran"/><p>The war is over<br>Everywhere but in his mind<br>He comes back…<br>Back to a world where pride and service<br>Are just words<br>Back to a world where a man’s word<br>Means nothing more<br>Than the breath it takes to expend it<br>He comes back…<br>Back to those who haven’t seen<br>The hollow look of fear<br>Or smelled the stench of death<br>He comes back…<br>He brought back memories of his friends<br>Comrades who never age<br>And never leave his thoughts<br>Where then, will his epitaph be written?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Among the Stars and Stripes<br>Where so many men and women<br>Who had nothing more than their lives to give<br>Understand.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ladies Man]]></title><description><![CDATA[This story, 'Ladies Man,' is an excerpt from Philip's novel, If Anyone Asks, Say I Died from the Heartbreaking Blues.
I’d never had much luck with the girls in my neighborhood, so on my eighteenth birthday I decided to try elsewhere. To say I was nowhere near what you’d call a ladies man would be an under-statement; I had all the yearnings, but none of the success.
With me that summer night was Johnnie Jay, my best friend of my teenage years. Taller than me, dark hair longer and curlier, ever-]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/ladies-man/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230cf</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Philip Cioffari]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:17:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/patrick-fore-cPDH2ChdBps-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/patrick-fore-cPDH2ChdBps-unsplash.jpg" alt="Ladies Man"/><p><em>This story, 'Ladies Man,' is an excerpt from Philip's novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Anyone-Asks-Died-Heartbreaking-Blues/dp/1604892374/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1590599402&sr=1-1&ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">If Anyone Asks, Say I Died from the Heartbreaking Blues</a>.</em></p><p>I’d never had much luck with the girls in my neighborhood, so on my eighteenth birthday I decided to try elsewhere. To say I was nowhere near what you’d call a ladies man would be an under-statement; I had all the yearnings, but none of the success.</p><p>With me that summer night was Johnnie Jay, my best friend of my teenage years. Taller than me, dark hair longer and curlier, ever-present sly grin, mischief running rampant in his eyes. He was already a sophomore at Fordham where I would be going in the fall.</p><p>Where we lived, a middle-class housing project in the Bronx, the girls preferred a more run-of-the-mill, conformist kind of guy: clean-cut, crewcut fraternity types who wore the requisite blue blazers, grey slacks, and buttoned-down shirts to complement their buttoned-down minds. Johnnie Jay and I were on the bohemian fringe. We read the Beats, recited lines verbatim from Eliot, Pound and Hart Crane, let our hair grow over our ears, favored faded and worn-looking blue jeans and black Tee’s, always wore shades outdoors, and the only movies we watched were the foreign ones that played in small art-houses in the Village.</p><p>Above all, we valued experience—with a capital E, as we liked to say. New places, new situations, new people. It was what we lived for, in whatever limited way it came to us. So we drove six miles north to the Ship Ahoy, a bar on the backstreets of New Rochelle—this our miniaturized road trip, a humble version of Kerouac’s wild cross-country ventures but still exotic in its own way, at least to our way of thinking. From what we’d heard around the neighborhood, the girls at the Ship Ahoy—among them the Irish domestics who sat at small tables near the bar waiting to be noticed—would give us what we were looking for, or so we hoped.</p><p>Right away I saw it was an odd place that attracted all types, young and old, a rough and tumble place—that was the feel of it at least: murky with shadows, the scarred wood of the ancient bar testament to the scarred and damaged lives of the older men who hung out there, smoking Chesterfields and Camels and Lucky Strikes, hoisting their beers to wash away the burn of the Four Roses whiskey they downed, shot after determined shot. The walls, what you could see of them, were adorned with fishnets, ship wheels and other maritime accessories.</p><p>I sidled up to the bar and ordered a Rheingold—my first legal drink—slapping a dollar down, telling the bartender to keep the change. Standing tall, I lifted the mug to my lips, that first taste of foam and beer accompanied by a sense of accomplishment, similar to the way I felt the first time my Uncle Frank came to the house and shook my hand instead of patting my back or roughing up my hair.</p><p>Meanwhile Johnnie Jay was already at work, his plan focused on building up some confidence with the domestics, before approaching what we thought were the more desirable college girls who hung out in the back room where there was a jukebox and a dance floor with tables on either side. Without wasting any time, he asked one of the domestics to dance. She was thin with short, straight hair and a pretty face. His shoulders thrust upward, he winked at me as he passed the bar, leaning close to say, “God helps those who etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,” before following her with his uneven walk through a wide archway into the back room.</p><p>Though we were only months from the Beatles’ arrival in the States, though we had already been exposed to the likes of Elvis, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry, the music that drifted through the archway was—for some odd reason—mostly from the 40s, big bands like Benny Goodman and the Dorseys and Glenn Miller, the kind of music my parents liked.<br>Beside me at the bar, an old man asked if I had a light. When I said no, he shook his head and said, “You kids,” as if I was to blame for something.</br></p><p>When Johnnie Jay returned from the dance floor, he looked flushed and excited. “I’m ready.”</p><p>“For what?”</p><p>“The coeds in back.” He gave me his characteristic sly grin. “I’ll do all the work. Just follow me.”</p><p>He lurched into the back room, with me a few wary steps behind. No hesitation, though, on his part. He went right for the nearest table of five girls. Cute faces, white blouses, plaid skirts. Definitely older than us, upperclassmen maybe at the College of New Rochelle. He asked the one at the end of the table to dance. She said, “No, thank you, I’m here with my girlfriends.”</p><p>That sent me skidding into defensive mode. I had half-turned back toward the bar but Johnnie Jay, undeterred, rallied to the cause. “Well, then, how about a group thing?” He pulled her out of her chair, her eyes looking back in panic to her schoolmates who, in sympathy, got up one by one and joined her on the dimly-lit dance floor.</p><p>So there we were, dancing with five college girls to In the Mood, taking turns swinging them out and reeling them in, the girls giddy as they twirled, skirts rising. What Johnnie Jay lacked in finesse, he made up for with enthusiasm, and I of course was in my element, fast-dancing being my one claim to fame. When the song ended, the girls were red-cheeked and breathless and I was thinking you’d have to be dead not to feel good when In the Mood was playing, outdated though it might be.</p><p>Johnnie Jay asked the girls if we could join them but one of them said loudly and firmly, “We’re expecting our boyfriends any minute now,” so I led the way promptly back to the bar and the comfort of a second round of beers.</p><p>Now Johnnie Jay’s strategy was to concentrate exclusively on the domestics. We’d been turned down so publicly in the back we wouldn’t have a chance in hell with the other college girls who’d witnessed our downfall. First rule of the game, he would remind me again and again: you had to operate from a position of strength. Defeat begat defeat.</p><p>While I tried to look cool standing at the bar, telling myself I possessed the courage to press on, he danced with one domestic after another. Most seemed to be in their early twenties. They wore little or no make-up, plain cotton dresses; their hair hung straight to their shoulders or curled in at the ends below their jaw lines. By contrast, the girls in our neighborhood wore bangs and pony tails and when they went on dates they had their hair curled or waved and wore a lot of make-up. They would never be caught dead in a place like this. They had their status-conscious sights set on bigger things.</p><p>What intrigued me about these Irish girls was that I imagined their lives would turn out so different than mine. Instead of going to college, they cleaned houses or took care of someone else’s kids. Their lives were laid out for them in what I thought of, at the time, as a particularly dreary example of pre-destination. They would go from one domestic situation to another until, presumably, they’d become their own domestic in their own household. On the other hand, my life would be rich with adventure and opportunity. College would open doors to worlds I could not yet imagine. I wouldn’t be tied down to the dull routine of family life the way my parents seemed to be—my father enduring a job he didn’t like, my mother working her fingers to the bone to care for my brothers and sisters, to keep the house in order. The way I imagined these girls had to do.</p><p>I drank my beer, studying them. From what I could hear they all spoke, to a greater or lesser degree, with an Irish brogue. And unlike the girls in my neighborhood, they seemed rarely to turn down an offer to dance. Even one from the grizzled guys at the bar. They were polite and agreeable and would dance close without much coaxing.<br>Johnnie Jay was beside me now, urging me to make a move. “You know what they say, don’t you? It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken.” It was one of his father’s favorite lines.</br></p><p>So I asked the thin girl with the pretty face to dance. When I approached her she didn’t even say yes. She simply stood up and followed me to the back room where she slipped without hesitation into my arms, dancing close without any encouragement.</p><p><em>Every person whose path you cross teaches you something.</em> I’d read that somewhere and I reminded myself of it.</p><p>Her name was Mary and she worked at a large estate that faced onto a golf course. Three other domestics worked there, as well. It was, she said proudly, considered to be the best house to work for in all of Westchester County.</p><p>“Why is that?”</p><p>“Oh,” she said, “it’s grand. Marble staircases, lovely gardens, folks coming to and fro.”</p><p>I asked her what she did there.</p><p>“Tidy up, this and that. Being I’m the youngest, the newest, I do what the others have no mind to. Bathrooms, kitchen. Sometimes they let me be nanny to one of the wee ones. I love the wee ones. That’s really what I fancy, being a nanny. It takes time, though, you see. Till they trust you.”</p><p>“Yes, I said, but I couldn’t think of a follow-up question so I moved slowly with her in silence, listening to the words of the song, I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You. I liked the phrase, ghost of a chance. The sound of it and the implication. The way I felt with most girls I talked to.</p><p>My mind sought distraction in the décor of the place: framed paintings of sailing ships, fishnets strung across the walls, buoys and anchors hanging from the ceiling. It didn’t make sense, really. There were no sailors here. We were nowhere near dockside, miles from any marina.</p><p>Finally I said, “Does all this stuff make you think of the Irish Sea?”</p><p>“What stuff?”</p><p>“The nets and buoys. The anchors.”</p><p>“Oh, that. I pay it no mind.”</p><p>The song ended. The piano version of Misty came over the jukebox, painfully soft and tender with yearning.</p><p>Mary made no attempt to move away, staying close, moving even closer, pressing her head firmly against mine so that I could smell her lavender perfume. Through my shirt, I could feel the muted—fragile—beating of her heart. She was so thin and delicate I thought she might break if I held her too tight or if I moved too quickly.</p><p>For a moment I felt light-headed, carefree, floating across the floor with a girl in my arms holding me close. I would protect her and she, in turn, would protect me, offering a comfort I hadn’t yet known. But the fantasy was short-lived. I thought of my parents, how the most they could afford was a movie on a Saturday night and even then, more likely than not, my mother was too tired to go.</p><p>It’s a sad world, I was thinking, but somehow I must have spoken the words aloud because she said, “Not so much. I’m happy all right. I miss my mum but I fancy it here in America. Worst of it is how it gets to one’s knees.” When she saw I didn’t understand, she added: “The floors. Scrubbing ‘em.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“I fancy it here better than in Ireland. More than a wee bit better.”</p><p>“That’s good,” I said. But I didn’t understand how this girl thin as air, so far from home, on her knees in some strange family’s bathroom could be happy with her life—what seemed to me such a small life. The song didn’t help, either. It was like all the loneliness in the world was locked in the notes of the piano, straining to be released.</p><p>The song ended and she still held me. It seemed she didn’t want to let go.</p><p>I considered the possibilities.</p><p>After a moment, though, I disengaged myself gently, said, “It was a pleasure dancing with you, Mary.”</p><p>She stood there waiting for something. I took her hand, walked her back to her table and excused myself, taking my position again among the shadows at the bar, watching as she rejoined her girlfriends at the table.</p><p>“What’s the matter with you?” Johnnie Jay, suddenly standing beside me, wanted to know. “Ask her to dance again. She digs you, man. You’re on your way.”</p><p>Right then, being a ladies man seemed not as exciting as I’d imagined it would be. And experience, with a capital E, appeared more complicated than it was in the books I read.</p><p>I went outside to wait for him, watching through the window as he wrote down the number of one of his dance partners. At her table, Mary was smiling and joking with her girlfriends as they passed around a pitcher of beer.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Little Color]]></title><description><![CDATA[A small crystal hangs
from the window sill.
Capturing
sunlight
from the eastern sky
and lends rainbow strands
on the opposite poorly patched wall.
The spectrums rise and fall
with the afternoon
slowly deepening
and fading.
Long lined gradient colors
fall on an unmade bed,
adorning
dirty clothes,
strewn papers,
former wine glasses.
The radio clock
keeps counting
as the flecked colors
evaporate.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-little-color/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230b4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[ Lela Tunnell ]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:15:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/sharon-mccutcheon-bBkTn4ZMsUw-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/sharon-mccutcheon-bBkTn4ZMsUw-unsplash.jpg" alt="A Little Color"/><p>A small crystal hangs</p><p>from the window sill.</p><p>Capturing</p><p>sunlight</p><p>from the eastern sky</p><p>and lends rainbow strands</p><p>on the opposite poorly patched wall.</p><p>The spectrums rise and fall</p><p>with the afternoon</p><p>slowly deepening</p><p>and fading.</p><p>Long lined gradient colors</p><p>fall on an unmade bed,</p><p>adorning</p><p>dirty clothes,</p><p>strewn papers,</p><p>former wine glasses.</p><p>The radio clock</p><p>keeps counting</p><p>as the flecked colors</p><p>evaporate.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Zoom]]></title><description><![CDATA[I saw you, old friend.
You looked tired.
There were 200 people
on that screen, but
I was only looking for you.
How could I have missed
all of them?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/zoom/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230d7</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:11:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/glen-carrie-AzyqGr35vH0-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/glen-carrie-AzyqGr35vH0-unsplash.jpg" alt="Zoom"/><p>I saw you, old friend.<br>You looked tired.<br>There were 200 people<br>on that screen, but<br>I was only looking for you.<br>How could I have missed<br>all of them?</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Taken]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Family abduction is the most prevalent form of child abduction in the United States. Regardless of the abductor’s motive, it is an illegal act that has lasting consequences for the abducted child, the custodial parent, and the abducting family member. It is a crime in all 50 states and in the District of Columbia.” *
The three of us were in the avocado kitchen and my mother was cooking something I would never eat: liver and onions. The crank window over the sink was open and what was in the pa]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/taken/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230c1</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Deirdre Fagan]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:10:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/hands.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/hands.jpg" alt="Taken"/><p>“Family abduction is the most prevalent form of child abduction in the United States. Regardless of the abductor’s motive, it is an illegal act that has lasting consequences for the abducted child, the custodial parent, and the abducting family member. It is a crime in all 50 states and in the District of Columbia.” *</p><p>The three of us were in the avocado kitchen and my mother was cooking something I would never eat: liver and onions. The crank window over the sink was open and what was in the pan was crackling and smoking as the blue light of the flame tickled its undersides and the sweet smell of caramelized onion and sour smell of liver overwhelmed the narrow kitchen. The room was not silent beyond the crackling. There may have been the sound of a dog’s nails pacing the floor. There was definitely talk. My mother was a nonstop talker. There was George, her boyfriend at the time. There was Killer, George’s dog at the time. There was Tippy, our dog, the one Mom had given my older brother Paul for his birthday a few years before, surprising Paul when Tippy’s puppy head popped out of Mom’s cobalt blue silky zip-up bomber jacket.</p><p>The back door was swung open. The screen door pixilated the covered porch, side yard, and chain-link fence from where I sat at a small wooden table, the heating grate that once held my brother’s whispered voices near my ankles, hidden in the shadows under the tabletop. School was out for the summer and Paul and my middle brother Sean were with Dad in the city, and our childhood house had a For Sale sign out front. Some of the furniture had already been sold at open house garage sales, but not the white bedroom set I loved that my mother had restored and painted for me, complete with vanity table and mirror. There was probably a breeze billowing the screen. I probably wore ankle socks. I often did. I am pretty sure I was wearing shorts. We were a little over a mile from the ocean, on the Eastern end of Long Island in a hamlet in Suffolk County in an almost new three-bedroom ranch on a potholed street, a short walking distance from the elementary school where I had just completed fourth grade.</p><p>Suddenly there was a blaring, screeching sound and I was covering my ears and wincing and it was coming from the wall and from my mother as she scrambled up on a wobbly kitchen chair, her long, thin, pinkish arms reaching and then beating at the howling round disc.</p><p>After my mother had silenced the fire alarm, the argument she was having with George escalated. I have no idea what they were arguing about—I’d hardly been paying attention, as I was often lost in my own thoughts—but in the middle of it, the blue flame on the stove went out. The stove was out of gas and it was “Fucking Frank, Goddamn Fucking Frank” who was responsible. “Jeezus, Fucking Christ, George” had to just “GET THE HELL OUT!” and so he did, with his white-haired Cockapoo, Killer.</p><p>Exasperated, my mother said in her not-messing-around voice: “Deirdre, go get the suitcases out of the closet. You can bring two. One for clothes and one for toys.” Suitcases? Now we were talking.</p><p>I packed quickly, and I guess so did Mom, before she went to talk to the neighbors about Tippy. Then my mother tied Tippy to the weeping willow tree in the front yard that was still standing, despite the tidal wave from Hurricane Belle that had done considerable damage to it in 1976 while my mom and brothers and I sheltered in my elementary school cafeteria, and then we were loaded and off in Mom’s gold Honda Civic, heading toward Montauk Highway and a destination it hadn’t occurred to my nine-year-old brain to consider.</p><p>I was sitting in the front seat next to Mom, my favorite place to be, when we spotted George walking with leashed Killer on the side of the road.</p><p>“Roll down your window and ask George if he wants to go with you and your mom to Arizona to see your Aunt Phyllis,” Mom said.</p><p>Much of my enthusiasm for this latest adventure was deflated as I climbed into the backseat with Killer, and George got in, ejecting me from what I saw as my rightful place.</p><p>Several hours later, we were parked on a circle drive in Queens before a towering apartment building, waiting in the car and on the steps intermittently as the sun set, Mom periodically checking with the doorman to see if her friend had arrived home from work yet. I was born in Queens, though we moved to the island when I was still a baby, and this friend was from back when we lived there, and we needed a place to spend the night. The dog was already on its way to Arizona, with a chocolate bar I slipped through the grate of its carrier at the airport.</p><p>We didn’t have enough money for all of us to fly to Arizona, but Killer couldn’t go by train, so we found a vet near the airport, Killer got her requisite shots, and her traveling dog crate, and the next day, we would return the car to the airport and take a shuttle to Grand Central.</p><p>“Hi, Paul, it’s me. Is Dad there?” My sixteen-year-old eldest brother was the only one home. “We are going to Arizona to see Aunt Phyllis!” I exclaimed. I was holding a pay phone to my ear near the center concourse of Grand Central. Train comings and goings came over the speaker system as people bustled about me.</p><p>“Tell your father the car is at LaGuardia and Tippy is at the house,” my mother said into the phone when it was her turn. I hope she said, “I love you, I’m not leaving you,” but I have no idea whether she did. It’s possible that in a rush to catch our train, she only barked orders. It’s possible she didn’t realize she wasn’t ever coming back.</p><p>I was nine when I was taken to Arizona by train. It was 1979. My parents’ divorce was not yet final, but they did share joint custody at the time. It took me more than half of my life to realize that since I was taken without permission, technically, I had been abducted. My brothers had simultaneously been abandoned. The abduction, as far as I know, was not premeditated, nor do I believe that my mother ever considered her decision to take me that day “abduction” or “kidnapping.” My mother had been a foster child, who in an act of desperation, enlisted in the Army at 18 because she was being stalked by the father of children she once nannied. While in the military, she met my father and became pregnant. My father’s superior insisted my father marry her so as not to “disgrace the U.S. Army.” In an act of further desperation, or maybe because she loved him, my mother married my father.</p><p>Honorably discharged from the military** , Mom became a stay-at-home mother in 1963, as most women did, so when my father left her for another woman in 1977, she had no means to support herself. At the moment of said abduction, my mother was living in a house in my father’s name that was for sale. My father was no longer paying the bills. And then, the last of the gas was out. Mom had one sister she was close to, Phyllis, a year older who had begged for her baby sister, my mom, who was only six months old when she was removed from her own biological family, to be placed into the same foster home Phyllis had been: The Robinsons. This is how my Aunt Phyllis’s home in Arizona became the one place to seek refuge in a crisis, she the one family member to turn to when the gas was out and there seemed nowhere else to go.</p><p>My mother died when I was twenty-three. At twenty-three, I had not yet considered the term abduction as applying to me. I also had not yet fully realized the effects of abandonment on my brothers, even though one had already died by suicide when he was twenty-five, I eighteen. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer two months before her own death in 1993, it was I who urged my middle brother, Sean, to come see her. This was going to be his last chance. Mom was still living in Arizona, she and George had long since married and had forever lived below the poverty line inhibiting any form of travel on her part, and Sean had only seen her once since the day the gas went out—he had not seen her in twelve years. Sean came, reluctantly, but could not express his anger and sorrow towards her in her now frail state, so instead he took George out behind the trailer and gestured and gesticulated wildly, telling him everything he could not say to my mother. Then, he shouted it all at me, many times until he worked his anger out, at least as much as he could. Thirteen years later, he would drink himself to death for reasons not entirely unrelated.</p><p>The day I moved to Arizona was a spontaneous adventure for a nine-year-old, but as I write this at fifty, the last survivor of the family, I now know that adventure was an act of unpremeditated desperation. It was also abduction. It was also abandonment.</p><p>Having been raised in poverty myself, education became my own way out of desperation. I became a college professor who had children with another college professor who had two vasectomy reversals so we could have children. I had a son when I was thirty-three and a daughter when I was thirty-eight. When I was forty-one, my husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness, , Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). When I was forty-two, he died. I have since remarried, a man with the last name of Robinson, ironically, who is now father to the children, and as I swim laps in my first swimming pool, one erected to summer at home during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, I pretend I smell the saltwater of the Atlantic off the coast of Long Island, and imagine the clams at my toes as they once were in the bay where I took swimming lessons as a young child.</p><p>I recall the life I once had by water before the desert took me, and before I created my own home as an adult, and then created another, emerging as my mother once had from ashes. I grieve the life my mother was not gifted, nor chose, but the one she lived, often in desperation, frequently determined primarily by her being female, but always summoning the courage to meet life as an adventure. Without either of us knowing it, my mother in some distant way taught me how to find joy in the laps I now swim across this above ground 22-foot pool in the shade of birch, oak, and pine trees in Northern Michigan. My mother, without full consideration, committed a crime, and not one without grave consequences. My father, too, committed a crime. He stopped paying child support three months after the abduction. The consequences of these crimes were great, even while they did not involve the legal system.</p><p>While I swim laps, working to keep my head and the heads of my children and husband above water during a worldwide pandemic, I try to remain hopeful as I consider the lengths we are all willing to go, often in desperation, to survive.</p><p><strong>Remember This:</strong> ***</p><p>On this Memorial Day, remember my mother,<br>kicked out of the Army for having sex.</br></p><p>Or was it for being female?</p><p>No, not for being female, but for sex,<br>No, not for sex, but for the result of sex:<br>my eldest brother.</br></br></p><p>I can’t visit Mom’s Army-issued plaque –<br>it is miles away on a hilltop on the edge of an abyss.</br></p><p>That brother, the first, lies nameless next to her<br>creating pine cones that litter the ashed bones of each of them<br>because no such plaque could be issued for a boy, aged 25,<br>dead, by his own hand, to a mother poor and living on a mountain,<br>to a father also poor, living on a different mountain, also miles away.</br></br></br></br></p><p>The commander told the father he had better marry that girl,<br>better make it right<br>better to not shame the military than to not love the girl.</br></br></p><p>Two more children and fifteen years later the marriage was still not right,<br>not made,<br>not made right.</br></br></p><p>Fifty-five years later all those good soldiers now dead,<br>except the daughter, the youngest, me,<br>the last to be made by the Army-issued family,<br>the Army-issued not love that begot no peace, only war.</br></br></br></p><p>Only she remembers,<br>only I, only I<br>remember them all.</br></br></p><hr><p>*Holder, Jr., Eric H. “Message from Attorney General Eric. H. Holder, Jr.” The Crime of Family Abduction: A Child and Parent’s Perspective. U.S. Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Protection. 1st ed., May 2010. <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/229933.pdf?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/229933.pdf</a> Accessed July 2020.</p><p>** Per Executive Order 10240, signed by President Harry S. Truman in 1951, the termination of pregnant women from the U.S. military was permitted regardless of rank or length of service.</p><p>***Published in Autumn Sky Daily, 2019.</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Want to Nurse at Your Breath]]></title><description><![CDATA[I want to nurse at your breath
I want to love at your heart
heal at your hands
live through your eyes
travel near your feet
learn at your head
I want to dream at your sleep
I want to nurse at your breath]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-want-to-nurse-at-your-breath/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ba</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:10:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/daniele-levis-pelusi-pAEwRKQJcn8-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/daniele-levis-pelusi-pAEwRKQJcn8-unsplash.jpg" alt="I Want to Nurse at Your Breath"/><p>I want to nurse at your breath<br>I want to love at your heart</br></p><p>heal at your hands<br>live through your eyes<br>travel near your feet<br>learn at your head</br></br></br></p><p>I want to dream at your sleep<br>I want to nurse at your breath</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Writing a New Story]]></title><description><![CDATA[At the end of February, I left Minnesota on a journey to pursue and check off a bucket list item. After switching out the snow tires for regular ones, I steered south, arriving at The Writer's Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas on the first day of March. Although my career armed me with countless opportunities for drafting words to communicate messages -- grants, newsletter articles and website content to name a few, the production of all these projects merely teased. The itch to]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/writing-a-new-story/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230d5</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Susan Maki]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:09:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/spencer-imbrock-cIiP9wo8his-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/spencer-imbrock-cIiP9wo8his-unsplash.jpg" alt="Writing a New Story"/><p>At the end of February, I left Minnesota on a journey to pursue and check off a bucket list item. After switching out the snow tires for regular ones, I steered south, arriving at The Writer's Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas on the first day of March. Although my career armed me with countless opportunities for drafting words to communicate messages -- grants, newsletter articles and website content to name a few, the production of all these projects merely teased. The itch to write grew weightier by the year -- to express something on a loftier scale; to immerse myself in a grander story.</p><p>In the summer of 2019 during a search, I found the perfect place to experiment with becoming a novelist. I struggled with self-confidence, but pushed forward with an application and sat back waiting for a reply. With the surprise appearance of an admittance letter, I allowed myself to slip further into the fantasy of penning a book. Planning my time and deciding on how best to prepare, I signed up for a class and acquired three books on the art of composing fiction. This preliminary work put a solid sense of possibility in motion.</p><p>As I entered this beautiful small town in the Ozarks, astonishment struck. An unexpected treasure with a flourishing historic district, vibrant shops and welcoming people greeted me. For those of us coming from the snowbound Midwest to the first signs of spring, delight and appreciation is always found by those of us who reside in frigid environments. Both the need to savor sunny skies and temperatures in the 60s became irresistible and distracting. Like a thirsty dog coming upon a lake of cool water after a sustained run through the woods, the world of outdoor warmth and green grass beckoned.</p><p>The first few days, I coped with writer's block and placing words on paper (and laptop), self-doubt and an overwhelming need to escape into the world beyond my windows. To quell my desire to walk freely without binding winter garments and knee-deep white stuff, I created a new ground rule. This new directive took on a contrasting type of discipline -- quit fretting over producing a predetermined number of words per day, no need for a forced drill; allow the free spiritedness to take hold.</p><p>A pattern soon emerged -- compose words in the mornings, take a walk, sightsee in the afternoons; and, at end of day, relish a chef-made healthy feast in the lodge with others in the evening. Gathered at our communal table, our talks covered careers, politics and of course, the written word. My fellow writers in residence, so amenable to parsing out their knowledge, feedback and resources, shaped my know-how. In the first week, the coronavirus, newly advancing into our nation's conscience as a plausible troublesome pest, remained on the sidelines of conversation, not yet a worthy subject for our festive exchanges.</p><p>With a loose agenda as my guide, I released my spirit to align with an intuition-based timetable that proved fruitful. The morning after Super Tuesday, motivation hit to draft an email to the editor of the Saint Paul newspaper. The Pioneer Press called the next morning to acknowledge my response to the rapid-fire revision of the hierarchy of DFL front runners and would be printing it the next day. Magic ensued. With my cell phone in another room, the device began to mysteriously play music, while off. Out walking, I trekked up the vertical roads for a great workout, and in time, added several more hills to my circuit. On one occasion, I took a double take at an approaching animal with first thoughts that a dog trailed me, but to my amazement, the little creature walking in-step with me was a fox. Jitters crept in while I did a quick assessment on how to handle this friendly mammal. I scurried without bursting into a run, afraid of initiating a chase situation. Then, on second thought, I lessened my stride and so did my new pal. Surveying me with curious eyes, this red-furred, black booted critter appeared as a therapist, ready to tune in and advise on some deep dark secret. I dropped the fright and instead savored the moment. On my daily afternoon strolls, I encountered the trolley bus multiple times as it traveled a circuitous route around town picking up residents and visitors. The driver, a head-turning image of St. Nicholas, when passing by in the opposite direction gave a jolly greeting with a wave of his hand, every single time. After a few days of these encounters, I found myself humming it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. The world took on a sense of enchantment, captivating me with all its charms.</p><p>While meandering through the curving trails around town, I swung into boutiques where shopkeepers chatted with customers, explored area treasures such as the collection of historical natural springs and the beautiful glass Thorncrown Chapel. In imitating the persona of the carefree locals, I now sported a quirky self-assurance and wandered into a microbrewery for a cold brew and live music. After ordering, sitting by myself lasted only a few minutes before a group invited me to join them. Relaxed, we drank a beer together as I listened to their narratives and observed town folk coming in for petition signatures along with a full report on the proposed impact of a pending vote. The clown who that afternoon performed on Main Street Plaza, sat eating dinner with his family while a musician opened with a song all about Minnesota.</p><p>In my windowed room overlooking the steep, wooded park across the street, words flowed as I worked undisturbed to ponder life and find a new story. Earlier struggles gave way to believing in myself and an unwavering focus while losing track of time. With enforcement of a no hard-and-fast structure in place, my mental blocks dissipated and my tale to tell took form. The concealed figures existing beneath my work world documents for decades, now sprung to life. These sassy and spirited people, after parking in neutral for way too long, were ready to shift into drive and exchange dialogue with me concerning their backstories and stash of untold tales. Unique personalities materialized and I began connecting the dots, threading the components together, transcribing a story and witnessing the birth of a book before my eyes.</p><p>These uncharted waters of unencumbered time and space gave way to freeing my imagination and dwelling in a brand-new locale called creativity. Deeply involved in discovering plot and a cast of many along with enjoying the charisma of my adopted town, I underestimated the powerful metamorphosis of everyday life into hot spots of percolating contagion. Unlike the accounts of people on off-the-grid vacations who stayed clueless to the fact of a global pandemic, my morning news intake kept streaming an ever-changing flow of conceivable cures and models of potential spread. The first few cases, reported at the start of my excursion aligned with a false sense of safety -- a belief this sort of thing occurs in other places and to other people, not in our own backyards. Day-to-day routines carried on. Slowly, the affliction began a choke hold on countries and cities across the world, finally leaping past perceived protections and embedding itself in our own hometowns and worried minds.</p><p>The reporting took up a vast majority of broadcast space, drowning out other newsworthy items. Like everyone else, I now sat up and paid attention thinking what if. Over meals, the original discussions still passed between us, now with the inclusion of the coronavirus topic. This plague, on an exponential growth curve was unleashing a path of disease and death, pushing us to reluctantly let go of life as we know it. Professors, professionals, and new authors hunkered down together within a hideaway to transcribe their internal voices, would now return to teaching online, office closings flipping the workspace to remote makeshift home offices and staying six feet apart from every human being. Basic life charges such as grocery shopping, bringing children to school and visiting friends and family would end. Every day encompassed a sorting and assimilation of new information -- all from afar. The false sense of a protective barrier came crashing down while observing the crisis in New York City, businesses and restaurants closing, kids facing homeschooling, and the leaders of my new town questioned breaking tradition by canceling the long-held St Patrick's Day parade. The time had to come to head home.</p><p>The weather did not cooperate after packing my bags and loading up my car and a deluge of rain prevented me from departing for two days. Writing continued but distractions abounded. New cases aggressively mounted and textbook instructions on handling a pandemic were constantly revised, handing down a sense of exhaustion and confusion. Weariness increased and at long last, bright sunshine woke me and I headed north. The interstate stood relatively empty with a sense of foreboding. My first break and peak at the world in person was to fill up at a gas station. Inside, I sensed the palpable nervous energy and witnessed early social distancing taking place. In the strangeness of it all, this ordinary occurrence turned into a SCIFI movie scene as people with glazed over eyes sitting atop masked faces avoided looking at one another, like visual contact alone would shoot poisoned arrows in all directions. Stunned, I anxiously hopped back in my car and took off, now more anxious than ever to be homeward bound.</p><p>A road trip often provides a platform for reflection and I drifted into the realization that a monumental editing of life was taking place; home would essentially be new territory. The radio kept me briefed and expanded my uneasiness simultaneously. A sense of dread persisted and accelerating a bit harder than usual gave me a sense of control, that each minute brought me closer to a semblance of security waiting back home. As if to prove me wrong, in the space of approximately 200 miles, I drove by three separate lifeless dogs on the side of the freeway. Those carcasses sent a shiver through me -- an unfolding impression of an apocalyptic warning. Anticipatory anxiety flooded over me with worry regarding what was to come, along with a sensation of having to give up all I recently obtained in a small mountain town.</p><p>Since the virus began its descent on European nations before I left, somewhere in my subconscious mind a low-level cautious mode took hold and I purchased disinfectant cloths with a just-in-case attitude. I arrived for my one-night hotel stay and assessed every possible touch point -- faucets, light switches, door handles -- and scrubbed them down vigorously with my now much-in-demand Lysol wipes. After completing the sterilization procedure, I settled in to turn on television for the first time in weeks. Quickly overwhelmed by a leadership briefing on the state of the microbe, along with maximum velocity data overload, I shut it off. I needed to maintain calmness for driving the rest of the way and this blast of disaster talk did not help.</p><p>Contemplating how life went from bliss to bleakness in a such a brief time, I recognized a sense of familiarity with this anguish. This upheaval bore emotional similarities to my cancer diagnosis twelve years ago, reminding me that life is a temporary status. Linking these incidents granted me strength with past insight on how to find a pathway through a collapse of normalcy. With serious illness, initial shock and disbelief permits a slowed down version of recognizing reality, making an allowance to adjust and navigate without letting angst take you down. Once the rocketing despair plateaus, a clearer mind assists in moving forward and adapting to an unknown future. This all takes time to grieve the loss of life as we know it and formulate measured steps to redirect course.</p><p>Once home, new structures and strategies took hold as we accepted this for what it was – we were in it for the long haul. Foreign rituals became routine. The reticence on wearing facial cover-ups gave way to matter-of-fact, even providing lightness in the moment when prideful fashion statements took the lead over foolish feelings of channeling a bandit. In the process of finding our way to the new normal of no hugging, donning colorful masks, missing our family and friends and haltingly stepping through the stages of grief -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance -- a new firestorm erupted, affixing to an already altered place in history.</p><p>In Minneapolis, on Memorial Day with the excruciating death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, the stage was set for releasing long suppressed emotions. Like the characters in my book simmering for an eternity and waiting for the opportune time to rise up, the festering agony and restlessness of racial injustice ripened and moved to the forefront. Protesters, rioters, and National Guard members filled the streets resulting in peaceful demonstrations, burned out street corners and a call for change. Banding together, groups collected food and supplies for those hurt by the riots while business owners initiated storefront watches to take charge and protect primarily minority-owned stores. Many neighborhoods were left with only ashes.</p><p>In the foothills of Arkansas, I soon realized my time spent in self-discovery doubled as a training ground for forthcoming life-altering events -- a boot camp and primer for formulating a grand new story. What I sought on a personal level, to open my soul to the inner voice, readied me to open to the full chorus of voices now emerging with powerful stories to tell.</p><p>In the coming year, we will work together to make accommodations and alterations. The public will submit their own bodies to test vaccines and treatments to find effective and safe solutions for the coronavirus; and others, determined to move society to a better place, will offer their own histories, viewpoints and proposals on how to begin the staggering task of dismantling centuries of racism. This painful, uncomfortable, marathon year of unknowns and uncertainties has a fork in the road. One way is maintaining a rigid fixation on the way things are done and remain silent and subdued; or, the other way is to come out of hiding to participate in bringing into existence a new script, one embracing all realities. And in our narration, we can choose unity over discord and unleash our own hero, immersing ourselves in an awe-inspiring story just waiting to be told.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Finding the Beast]]></title><description><![CDATA[Always wondering how
beasts get in
calling to us
down to the bone
every sinew
forming a monster
God, an angel of
Hope
in my heart
jumping beneath
killing the beat
loving the life
meatiness ingrained
nothing not overturned
others barely breathing
pounding through the bone
quintessential rebirth of soul
reading the beat ranking the lifeform
seething with armor and with no armor
teething voraciously gnarly in snake form
under the flesh created with meaning or none
vilified trashed beating jumping ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/finding-the-beast/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ca</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Linda Dimitroff]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:08:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/harlie-raethel-ouyjDk-KdfY-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/harlie-raethel-ouyjDk-KdfY-unsplash.jpg" alt="Finding the Beast"/><p>Always wondering how<br>beasts get in<br>calling to us<br>down to the bone<br>every sinew<br>forming a monster<br>God, an angel of<br>Hope<br>in my heart<br>jumping beneath<br>killing the beat<br>loving the life<br>meatiness ingrained<br>nothing not overturned<br>others barely breathing<br>pounding through the bone <br>quintessential rebirth of soul<br>reading the beat ranking the lifeform<br>seething with armor and with no armor<br>teething voraciously gnarly in snake form<br>under the flesh created with meaning or none<br>vilified trashed beating jumping wanting none<br>where least expected but real in creation, in tome<br>yet a deep warmth very deep hidden beneath the monster<br>zabutons calling to life to the monster to finding truth again.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Child in Danger]]></title><description><![CDATA[A child is in danger
and a description
is sent out
gray Dodge Challenger
with Arizona plates or
black Audi A4 probably
heading for Mexico or
pink pajamas with rainbows
was carried away on foot or
a four-year-old boy who
needs his medicine or
her hair color when
last seen was purple
A child is in danger
and my phone is
made to dance
and to sing the
modern day sound
of a child in danger]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-child-in-danger/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230b8</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:07:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/Logo_AA_Full_color_outlines.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/Logo_AA_Full_color_outlines.jpg" alt="A Child in Danger"/><p>A child is in danger<br>and a description<br>is sent out</br></br></p><p>gray Dodge Challenger<br>with Arizona plates or</br></p><p>black Audi A4 probably<br>heading for Mexico or</br></p><p>pink pajamas with rainbows<br>was carried away on foot or</br></p><p>a four-year-old boy who<br>needs his medicine or</br></p><p>her hair color when<br>last seen was purple</br></p><p>A child is in danger<br>and my phone is<br>made to dance<br>and to sing the<br>modern day sound<br>of a child in danger</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Beware the Night Fiction]]></title><description><![CDATA[The television was on, but the antenna was broken so the screen is nothing but static. There are mold spots in different corners of the motel room that she and her mother are staying in for a while. There is a large plastic trash sack of their laundry just sitting by the bed and their two suitcases are on the floor next to it. She knows that they are somewhere in North Dakota, but she is unsure of the exact location. She is bundled up in a large gray hoodie and wearing rugrats pajama pants with ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/beware-the-night-fiction/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230be</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chelsea Whittington]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:07:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/nicolas-cool-ZMa0PmwPWlA-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/nicolas-cool-ZMa0PmwPWlA-unsplash.jpg" alt="Beware the Night Fiction"/><p>The television was on, but the antenna was broken so the screen is nothing but static. There are mold spots in different corners of the motel room that she and her mother are staying in for a while. There is a large plastic trash sack of their laundry just sitting by the bed and their two suitcases are on the floor next to it. She knows that they are somewhere in North Dakota, but she is unsure of the exact location. She is bundled up in a large gray hoodie and wearing rugrats pajama pants with worn out gray slippers keeping her bare feet warm.</p><p>She twirls one of her brown curly strands of hair with her index finger and her green eyes glance around in the darkroom with only a lamp which occasionally flickers. She notices her small black feline friend huddling close against the wall with a nervous stare.</p><p>She hears a knock outside the front door. She opens the door to see the manager of the motel standing there. He is an old man wearing wrinkled jeans and a large thick coat. His skin is pale and dark circles underneath his eyes, probably from lack of sleep. He tiredly smiles down at her with a calm gaze.</p><p>“Hello, Danny. My name is Charlie. Your mom asked me to keep an eye on you.”</p><p>Danny only stares up at him with nerves giving her goosebumps seeing this tall stranger standing in the doorway. She closely watches him as he slowly kneels wincing as his knees pop. She sees a small tattoo of a bird on his left wrist.</p><p>“I am a personal old friend of your mom’s. I promise you, nothing bad will happen to you. Not if this old geezer keeps breathing. If you need anything-</p><p>He points to his left with his index finger with a serious gaze.</p><p>“I’ll be in my office down there and I will keep it unlocked. You leave this door locked; you hear?”</p><p>Danny nods.</p><p>He sighs and he pulls out something from his pocket. It is a small flashlight and he hands it to her.</p><p>“Just in case it gets too dark, you use this. If you get scared, you use it. I had this flashlight ever since I was a kid. As a kid, something scared the shit out of me. Pardon my French. It was always the same thing during the dark. A woman with spider legs staring at me. As an old geezer, you think I won’t remember something so horrifying. I use that flashlight and she finally left me alone.”</p><p>Danny grips the flashlight tightly close to her chest.</p><p>“Thank you, sir. Do you think she is actually gone, the…woman with spider legs?”</p><p>He slowly stands up wincing and he softly smiles down at her.</p><p>“Certainly not from my mind, but the bitch is gone.”<br>He ruffles her hair with a wink.</br></p><p>“Well, this old geezer needs some shut eye. Keep yourself warm-</p><p>He glanced down and so does she, noticing that he is sees Shadow peeking out from underneath the bed.</p><p>“Both of you, keep each other safe.”</p><p>Danny watch as Charlie gives her a smile and pulls the door closed. She locks the door taking Charlie’s words seriously. She glances down at her feline friend.</p><p>“Shadow don’t worry. Mommy will come back. You’ll see. She always comes back.”</p><p>Shadow slowly crawls from underneath the bed with wide eyes cautiously sniffing around the room. The telephone rings on the small wooden nightstand by the bed.</p><p>Ring…ring…ring</p><p>Danny answers the phone holding it close to her ear.</p><p>“Hello?” She answers.</p><p>Honey, I left eight dollars by the television just in case you get hungry.</p><p>Danny can hear the low softness of her mother’s tone almost faint.</p><p>“Okay, mommy.”</p><p>There is a long pause and Danny is unsure if her mother had hung up the phone or maybe her mother has finally let the void eaten up her heart, enough to never show love toward her daughter. Danny has a deep hatred for her father, abandoning them and taken their home away from them. He may have even taken her mother's heart and broke her spirit.</p><p>Honey, I am sorry that we are struggling and that I’m never home.</p><p>Danny can hear her mother’s voice choking and sputtering out her words. A deep sadness in her mother’s voice that Danny never thought she would hear.</p><p>I promise I will make things better. Honey, I love-</p><p>Danny cannot hear her mother’s voice no longer only static and whispering. She freezes up hearing the small multiple voices that she could not understand and out of fear she hangs up the phone. Danny sits down on the bed with her feet dangling and Shadow pounces onto the bed. He lays next to her curling himself up into a ball and Danny brushes his head feeling his soft fur. Danny always had a strong imagination, which is why she loves reading books so much and she lacks social skills including making friends in her school. She would always go underneath a tree to read while the rest of the children play among themselves. She glances down at Shadow and pets his head gently.</p><p>“You are my only friend. I want us to be friends forever, Shadow.”</p><p>Danny grabs the money and she slid into her thick gray coat. Shadow let out a small meow and Danny shakes her head with a small smile.</p><p>“No. You can’t go out there. I’ll be right back. I’m just going to get some food.”</p><p>After she said that, she closes the door behind her, feeling the ice-cold air against her cheeks. The night is quiet, and the winter storm is so thick she can barely see the streetlamp across from her.</p><p>There are lights wrapped around dangling from the edge of the roof flickering on and off. It disturbs Danny when the lights were off for a second, she notices an outline of a person from the distance when the lights flicker back on the person is gone. Danny quickly stroll around the corner and found the vending machine. She feels comfort hearing the hum from the large snack machine. She stands in front of it feeling her nose and fingers growing numb. She suddenly hears footsteps from the distance stomping heavily in the snow. She freezes and her eyes widen in panic.</p><p>Crunch… crunch ...crunch.</p><p>Danny gulps and instantly she can hear a couple of more steps sounding like there is more than one person. The multiple steps start to get close behind her or possibly surrounding the motel stalking in the shadows.</p><p>Crunch… crunch… CRUNCH… CRUNCH…<br>She a dark shadow looming over her form and she feels fingers gently brushing through her strands of hair tickling the back of her neck. Her whole-body freezes and she holds her breath for a moment. She can only hear her heartbeat but as the moonlight shines behind her, the shadow looming over her vanishes into thin air. She slowly turns around, but she sees no sign of the figure standing behind her. Panic settles into her mind and she rushes back to her motel room.</br></p><p>She runs to her door opening it and closing it behind her.</p><p>SLAM!</p><p>She locks the door and she breathe heavily. She jumps onto the bed covering the blanket over her head closing her eyes tightly just waiting for the morning to come quickly. Shadow crawls underneath the blanket snuggling up close against Danny's chest sensing her fear and he let a small purr out comforting the cries in her head. Danny hugs her feline friend letting his small purr lull her to sleep. Danny wakes up still hearing the wind howling outside and the ceiling groans like it is about to be ripped off by the strength of the storm.</p><p>She pulls the blanket off her, feeling the cold air around her. She glances over at the heater in the corner of the room and notice that the small light of the on switch is off. She went over to it and wiggle the plug and she presses the on button, but no heat comes out. She realizes she will not be able to receive a call from her mom. She went over to the curtains and pull them apart to see out the window. Ice stiffens the trees around the motel even sharp icicles dangle from the roof.</p><p>Thick clouds are still blocking the moonlight and both snow and sleet rain down with the sharp wind blowing it in every direction. She can hear the pitter-pattering from the sleet hitting against the roof. She ponders whether to leave and find a telephone pole to call her mom's work or stay inside to wait. Danny's stomach growls in protest and she remembers a few hours ago she was unable to get food.</p><p>Knock…knock…knock…</p><p>Danny stares at the door, her heart pumping faster and she hesitantly went over to the door leaning her right ear against the cold wooden door frame. She hears a low giggle from outside the door. She feels relieved hearing the familiar voices of children whispering and giggling behind the door. Without thinking she turns the knob and opens the door. There are three figures taller than she and they are wearing similar black jackets with hoods hiding their eyes. Their jeans are ripped and shredded, but she instantly notices that they are barefooted. Their skin is as white as the snow and their small lips blistered with dried up blood scars.</p><p>The tallest one in the middle grins, which she could see by their body frames that they are young boys. She frowns feeling a sudden uneasiness from the pit of her stomach.</p><p>“We are lost, and we can’t find our parents.”</p><p>Danny shakes her head.</p><p>“I am not supposed to let strangers in.” She answers nervously.</p><p>The boy pouts his lips and Danny’s eyes widen seeing his black voided eyes underneath the hood.</p><p>“Please, it's cold out here. You don’t want us to freeze to death, do you?”</p><p>Danny hears a low growl behind her, and she glances over at Shadow standing aggressively with fur high up from his back. She glares at the boy who seems to be coldly staring at the small feline.</p><p>“He knows that you are a bad person. So, go away.” She sneers.</p><p>The boy’s black voided eyes glance over at her and she feels fear in her heart. They all hear a door slam and a light shining right at the three children.</p><p>“Hey, you kids shouldn’t be out here!”</p><p>She can hear by the tone of voice that it is Charlie. The two children without hesitation went over to the direction of the light. The boy smiles lean in close with a glint in his eyes.</p><p>“You should have let us in. Now, someone is going to die tonight.”</p><p>Slamming the door behind her, panic overcomes her mind and she have a gut feeling that they are not children. The only light in the room is whiteness from the winter storm coming from the window. An hour passes by as she sits in the corner of the room with Shadow sitting next to her staring intently at the door. Suddenly she hears a distant agonizing scream from outside and she stands up, glancing around the window.</p><p>Charlie. She thought.</p><p>She remembers the boy’s voice clearly in her head.</p><p>Someone is going to die tonight.</p><p>She opens the door feeling the cold breeze against her cheeks and Shadow slowly follows her sniffing the air. She glances over to her left seeing the small office sign flickering, but the lights were off from inside. She hears a loud banging noise coming from inside and went over to it with Shadow closely behind her.</p><p>“Charlie? Are you in there?”</p><p>Bang...bang...bang…</p><p>She leans in looking through the window glass, but all she can see is darkness. Then a large hand slam against the window and she jumps back distancing herself. The hand was covered in blood and Charlie's face come out of the shadows with a distant gaze staring directly at her.</p><p>“Get...away…”</p><p>Charlie's face instantly decays until his skin turns into hanging leather and his eyes roll back with a gasping noise, his lips gulping for air. His face slid down against the glass and it vanishes back into the shadows engulfing the hand and face. Shadow growls sticking close by Danny's side. Danny feels a scream building up inside her and tears slide down her cheeks.</p><p>“NOOO!!!”</p><p>The glass breaks and shards fly onto the ground as a hooded boy crawls upside down on the ceiling, spider-like. She starts to shake completely frozen watching as the boy crawls his way quickly toward her. He turns his body hearing bones shifting into an odd angle showing off his deformed round mouth with sharp-edged teeth circling inside the gums. His sharp tongue slithers out and in a second he pounces from the ceiling about to land on her, but she quickly rushes back toward her motel room as fast as her legs can carry her. She continues to run quickly then recognizes the two figures ahead of her, she halts to a stop. The two hooded boys with similar grins start to slowly stalk toward her.</p><p>“You didn’t have to kill him! He was my friend!”</p><p>The two boys instantly stop, and she hears a low chuckle behind her.</p><p>“A friend? I told you someone was going to die.”</p><p>She slowly turns around seeing the boy’s black liquid eyes and showing his sickening sharp teeth, stained with blood.</p><p>“I can be your friend. You don’t belong. I felt your pain and I heard your cries.”</p><p>Danny’s bottom lip quivers and she takes a couple of steps back.</p><p>“Your monsters. Why would I want to be friends with you?”</p><p>He pouts and he put his hands over his heart.</p><p>“That really hurt my feelings. Why would you say something so hurtful?”</p><p>Danny shakes her head as a flame starts to build inside her.</p><p>“I don’t want to die. I didn’t want Charlie to die. You have no feelings.”</p><p>The boy slowly stalks toward her with his arms spread out, with that large demented grin.</p><p>“I know you do. We can give you a life without pain. You will be youthful. Come with us. No mother, no father, no responsibility, no pain. You can play games, stay up all night, and we will be your friends forever. Don’t you want that?”</p><p>All three of them start to creep closer and closer surrounding any possible escape routes. Shadow stands protectively in front of Danny with a low growl.</p><p>Grrr….</p><p>Fresh tears slid down her cheeks and she closed her eyes ready for the pain about to be inflicted upon her before death swallows her soul. She hears a high pitch scream and she opens her eyes seeing Shadow’s small body clinging claws around the boy’s head. The feline hiss and nips his sharp teeth onto the boy’s face causing deeps cuts and bites within the skin. The boy rips the feline off of his face shoving Shadow’s body onto the ground. Danny leans down and pull Shadow’s small form close to her body.</p><p>Black ooze slides down from the boy’s fresh cuts. He grits his teeth and he storm toward her with a dark look.</p><p>Then moonlight peeks through the clouds shining upon his form. His skin starts to blister, and sizzle and he scurries away quickly into the hidden darkness of the trees. She glances over at the two other boys and she sees the fear in their dark voided eyes staring intently up at the sky as clouds move to let the moonlight shines through. They instantly vanish into thin air as the moon becomes in full view in the night sky and she sees no trace of them. She can only see thick snow covering the ground and feel snowflakes hitting softly against her skin. Shadow's ears twitch still glancing around with sharp eyes.</p><p>Is she the only person who lives through such a night? She sees a familiar blue car and the headlights blaring straight at her form making her squint her eyes. She picks Shadow up gently holding him close. She sees her mother shut the door behind her rushing toward Danny with fresh tears in her eyes. Jenelle embraces Danny wrapping her arms tightly around Danny's small form and Danny feels the feline's soft fur against her shoulder instantly forgetting the horrors that she had witnessed.</p><p>She still hears the distant screech from the horrid creatures from the distant void of the night and she wonders if they are safe for now.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Using the Light for Food]]></title><description><![CDATA[I ate the sun today.
The brightness of carrots
and richness of greens,
The wonder of plants
taking the rays
to grow and reach
up, using the light
for food, then feeding me.
Everything’s a miracle—
Einstein’s words—or
nothing is. I say all,
all of it, inter-being,
eating the sun
through ripe spinach
using the light for food.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/using-the-light-for-food/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230b7</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Beverly Gordon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:06:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/harshal-s-hirve-yNB8niq1qCk-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/harshal-s-hirve-yNB8niq1qCk-unsplash.jpg" alt="Using the Light for Food"/><p>I ate the sun today.<br>The brightness of carrots<br>and richness of greens,<br>The wonder of plants<br>taking the rays<br>to grow and reach<br>up, using the light<br>for food, then feeding me.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Everything’s a miracle—<br>Einstein’s words—or<br>nothing is. I say all,<br>all of it, inter-being,<br>eating the sun<br>through ripe spinach<br>using the light for food.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Afternoon at the Beach Before the Storm]]></title><description><![CDATA[Slate
washes ashore
with the patina
of old maps of Michigan.
Gulls scream in formation
at the promise of discarded crusts of bread
and fear of oncoming thunder.
It’s late July,
and mist rises,
vaporizing phantom ships in the distance,
veiled,
primordial,
like they’ve been keeping watch
on the shoreline since Moses.
They disappear now
into the space
where land, air, and water meet.
Weather swallowing boats
at the end of the world.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/afternoon-at-the-beach-before-the-storm/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230bf</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Christy Prahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:05:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1554296048-b59c9fca4857?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1554296048-b59c9fca4857?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Afternoon at the Beach Before the Storm"/><p>Slate<br>washes ashore<br>with the patina<br>of old maps of Michigan.<br>Gulls scream in formation<br>at the promise of discarded crusts of bread<br>and fear of oncoming thunder.<br>It’s late July,<br>and mist rises,<br>vaporizing phantom ships in the distance,<br>veiled,<br>primordial,<br>like they’ve been keeping watch<br>on the shoreline since Moses.<br>They disappear now<br>into the space<br>where land, air, and water meet.<br>Weather swallowing boats<br>at the end of the world.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sunday Coffee]]></title><description><![CDATA[Mama always brewed hot, black coffee
on Sunday mornings
We all wondered
if that was the special Jesus potion
to bring our Daddy back to us
His whiskey-scorched eyes
tried to meet my cornflower ones,
but they could not
Our danced-on, spilled-on hardwoods
always got the best of Daddy’s eyes
I missed him
his wrinkled dollar bills
he gave me to skip to the 7-11
for all the candy
four quarters could buy
I loved the bottle caps and candy cigarettes
and how
Daddy sometimes smoked with me
his Winston]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sunday-coffee/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230d4</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sallie Crotty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:04:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/karl-chor-UvWlksgZGPE-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/karl-chor-UvWlksgZGPE-unsplash.jpg" alt="Sunday Coffee"/><p>Mama always brewed hot, black coffee<br>on Sunday mornings<br>We all wondered<br>if that was the special Jesus potion<br>to bring our Daddy back to us</br></br></br></br></p><p>His whiskey-scorched eyes<br>tried to meet my cornflower ones,<br>but they could not<br>Our danced-on, spilled-on hardwoods<br>always got the best of Daddy’s eyes</br></br></br></br></p><p>I missed him<br>his wrinkled dollar bills<br>he gave me to skip to the 7-11<br>for all the candy<br>four quarters could buy</br></br></br></br></p><p>I loved the bottle caps and candy cigarettes<br>and how<br>Daddy sometimes smoked with me<br>his Winstons swirled in the balmy night,<br>and I danced movie star steps in my head</br></br></br></br></p><p>Mama always brewed hot, black coffee<br>on Sunday mornings,<br>but I think Jesus<br>had forgotten<br>about my Daddy</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Invictus]]></title><description><![CDATA[Summer 2010 was really shitty for me. The girl I was in love with had a girlfriend, and I was in love with a girl in the first place. Also there was one week that it was so fucking hot in New York that I wished I were back in Louisiana because at least there I could drive around instead of walking and sweating through all my clothes ten minutes after showering, and there was central air and I didn’t have to sleep on the couch in the living room because that’s where the only window unit in the ap]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/invictus/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230c4</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jan Edwards Hemming]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:04:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/192210727_45c726502b_b.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/192210727_45c726502b_b.jpg" alt="Invictus"/><p>Summer 2010 was really shitty for me. The girl I was in love with had a girlfriend, and I was in love with a girl in the first place. Also there was one week that it was so fucking hot in New York that I wished I were back in Louisiana because at least there I could drive around instead of walking and sweating through all my clothes ten minutes after showering, and there was central air and I didn’t have to sleep on the couch in the living room because that’s where the only window unit in the apartment was. Fortunately my roommate was out of town so I could do that. It was actually so hot that one day said girlfriend of girl I was in love with actually tried to fry an egg on the sidewalk. Yes, we all hung out together. Yes, that added to the shittiness. Clearly it didn’t work. The egg, I mean. Speaking of, one day I didn’t have work and my friend Peyton came over to hang out and we watched Invictus. I had it on Netflix, when the DVDs still came in the mail. At one point he looked over and randomly asked if I wanted to have sex. It was weird because I don’t think we were drinking, but maybe he was high, but I definitely wasn’t. I realized I hadn’t had sex sober in a really long time. He was just as sad as I was. His fiancee had recently died. Also part of me wondered if I had sex with a guy again could I stop wanting to have sex with girls. So we did, on the couch, and in the kitchen, because we couldn’t leave the living area because, as I previously mentioned, that’s where the window unit was, and it was too hot in the bedroom. The sex was pretty good actually, but I still was in love with the girl. To this day, Invictus was one of the most boring movies I’ve ever seen. I also still do not see the charm of New York in the summer.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why Do They Run?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Nostrils wide in elation, the horses’
chests heave under the stirruped legs
of mini-men who flash their stables’
silks in the sun and lurch over the speeding
animals like crayons scribbling color.
The horses’ hooves slash the track, throw
dirt into the four-beat gait of the gaining
animal known to the lead by its breath.
These are no gentle rocking horses,
but lineages bred to one desire: to run.
The race’s winner becomes our Pegasus.
With mint juleps in hand, intoxicated
with luck, we belie]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/why-do-they-run/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230bd</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:03:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/gene-devine-ahxNfsInPVM-unsplash--1-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/gene-devine-ahxNfsInPVM-unsplash--1-.jpg" alt="Why Do They Run?"/><p>Nostrils wide in elation, the horses’<br>chests heave under the stirruped legs<br>of mini-men who flash their stables’</br></br></p><p>silks in the sun and lurch over the speeding<br>animals like crayons scribbling color.<br>The horses’ hooves slash the track, throw</br></br></p><p>dirt into the four-beat gait of the gaining<br>animal known to the lead by its breath.<br>These are no gentle rocking horses,</br></br></p><p>but lineages bred to one desire: to run.<br>The race’s winner becomes our Pegasus.<br>With mint juleps in hand, intoxicated</br></br></p><p>with luck, we believe we are two-minute gods.<br>When the jockey raises the trophy,<br>when red roses drape the exhausted horse,</br></br></p><p>the color matching the blood seeping<br>into its stressed lungs, we believe<br>in the myth we have made. But who will</br></br></p><p>hold the horse tonight, caress its muzzle,<br>lead it home the way Bedouins bring<br>their prize horses into tents, sleep next</br></br></p><p>to them, the honor theirs? They know<br>a horse can outrun its heart. And it is<br>heart that makes a horse run.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sustenance]]></title><description><![CDATA[travelers who brave
currents, coyotes, ICE
thirsty, starving, seeking
the fat land to the north
soldiers in a war not their own
splayed on the battlefield, mouths agape
crying for water, water, water
and the soft sighing dream of home
at the bus station in Brownsville
volunteers await the broken troops
with sacks of apples, doritos, twinkies, a drink
the travelers never arrive
end of shift the volunteers
give the leftovers to homeless men
who open the bag like christmas
today it’s a juice box]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sustenance/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230d3</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Nasrullah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:02:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521207418485-99c705420785?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521207418485-99c705420785?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Sustenance"/><p>travelers who brave<br>currents, coyotes, ICE<br>thirsty, starving, seeking<br>the fat land to the north</br></br></br></p><p>soldiers in a war not their own<br>splayed on the battlefield, mouths agape<br>crying for water, water, water<br>and the soft sighing dream of home</br></br></br></p><p>at the bus station in Brownsville<br>volunteers await the broken troops<br>with sacks of apples, doritos, twinkies, a drink<br>the travelers never arrive</br></br></br></p><p>end of shift the volunteers<br>give the leftovers to homeless men<br>who open the bag like christmas<br>today it’s a juice box, a little debbie swiss roll</br></br></br></p><p>the homeless go to a shelter for the night<br>the volunteers return to their hotel<br>the travelers lay where they were stopped<br>and there remain, remain, remain, remain</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Al-Amira]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was a while since her mother had chided her, ‘La Tet-harak La tenam,’ don’t shift - don’t fall asleep.
A miffed Salma leaning against her brother’s donkey booted her indented aluminum cup and the snicker wrapper. Soon, with her red runny nose and smudged tear streaks on the face, she lounged on her tattered mat. ‘Marhaba’ is how she friskily greeted the tourists in Jordanian when she invited them to take a picture of hers, of course for a price; but today, she preferred to lie down and unt]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/al-amira/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230cc</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Majella Pinto]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:01:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/Majella-Pinto-PetraGirl.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/Majella-Pinto-PetraGirl.jpg" alt="Al-Amira"/><p>It was a while since her mother had chided her, <em>‘La Tet-harak La tenam,’</em> don’t shift - don’t fall asleep.</p><p>A miffed Salma leaning against her brother’s donkey booted her indented aluminum cup and the snicker wrapper. Soon, with her red runny nose and smudged tear streaks on the face, she lounged on her tattered mat. <em>‘Marhaba’</em> is how she friskily greeted the tourists in Jordanian when she invited them to take a picture of hers, of course for a price; but today, she preferred to lie down and untangle her hair with the constant stream of annoying tourists calling her ‘Bedouin girl’ and taking pictures on their way to the <em>Ad-Deir</em> Monastery at Petra.</p><p>Salma was alerted by Samer’s donkey braying. That meant Samer had arrived and soon it would be time for her to run back and forth between the terraces carrying the hot <em>shrak</em> or bread to grandma and Samer, until it was her turn to eat. To her surprise, <em>Jedti</em> grandma had no silver streaks, but her skin was parched and wrinkled like a walnut. She sat all day long drinking tea and sometimes smoking <em>hookah.</em> She had a collection of trinkets in her flapped bag hanging from her waist, that she sold at fancy prices matching her prospective customers countenance. On the day’s <em>Jedti</em> smoked the <em>hookah,</em> she endearingly called Salma <em>‘Al-Amireh’</em>, a princess, and spat venomously at tourists who expected a free photo opportunity. On days she drank tea, she obliged them with photos and disarmed them with a seductive Mediterranean smile while stretching out her supple hands to dangle the trinkets with the words “twenty dollars”. That is how Salma got her gorgeous fiery orange sweater, blue shoes, and pink pants with yellow flowers with the letters ‘4T’ on the inside.</p><p><em>Al-amira</em>, has <em>Al-amir</em> arrived? grandma crooned.</p><p>And a tearful Salma replied with a faraway look, “I will marry a Sheikh in <em>Ummerica</em> who owns several terraces attached to a massive cave and an enormous lake for me to play in every day. I will let you bathe in it <em>Jedti</em>”.</p><p>There are no goats and donkeys in <em>Ummerica</em>. Why don’t you marry Usmail instead?</p><p>Usmail only takes the tourists up and down from the Treasury to the Monastery. I promise to buy you a bigger cave <em>Jedti</em> and send you twenty dollars every day. My door will be made of wood and not goat hair and camel lint.</p><p>“When you sleep in a house your thoughts are as high as the ceiling, but when you sleep under the sky they are as high as the stars,” muttered Jedti as she munched on the <em>Shrak</em>.</p><p>“The desert police asked me if Samer has been to school.”</p><p>Grandma signaling her to tend the fire, for soon she would need more tea consoled her, <em>“Al – Amira</em>, who will buy me tea and you snickers if your brother goes to school?”</p><p><strong>Glossary</strong></p><p><em>Marhaba</em> - a Jordanian greeting<br><em>Ad-Deir</em> – The Monastery – Petra<br><em>Shrak</em> – Bedouin flat break cooked on hot iron griddle<br><em>La Tet-harak La tenam</em> – Don’t move and don’t fall asleep<br><em>Al-Amir</em> - Prince<br><em>Al-Amira</em> - Princess</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pretty Faces]]></title><description><![CDATA[The wind is an old friend
I can always count on
to blow me a path across
a sea of radiant sunflowers.
When I stroll down the path
the stalks of the flowers
morphs into shapely legs
like the Rockettes and they do
an erotic Can-Can—thrusting
their gorgeous legs and buns of steel
to the tune of the Sheik of Araby.
I delight in my private harem
and haven’t had this much fun
since my salacious Kappa Nu
fraternity graduation party.
I fill my lungs with their scent
and relish the release of heat
they e]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pretty-faces/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ce</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Milton Ehrlich]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:00:28 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/melanie-kreutz-HVyUxmBtAAg-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/melanie-kreutz-HVyUxmBtAAg-unsplash.jpg" alt="Pretty Faces"/><p>The wind is an old friend<br>I can always count on<br>to blow me a path across<br>a sea of radiant sunflowers.<br>When I stroll down the path<br>the stalks of the flowers<br>morphs into shapely legs<br>like the Rockettes and they do<br>an erotic Can-Can—thrusting<br>their gorgeous legs and buns of steel<br>to the tune of the Sheik of Araby.<br>I delight in my private harem<br>and haven’t had this much fun<br>since my salacious Kappa Nu<br>fraternity graduation party.<br>I fill my lungs with their scent<br>and relish the release of heat<br>they emit as chickadees tweet.<br>Cardinals and Monarch butterflies<br>perch on the heads of the dancers.<br>Nocturnal bats sample their nectar<br>when a full moon lights the way.<br>Sunflowers are my lucky penny<br>since the demand by pretty young<br>women for bouquets of sunflowers<br>at the Farmer’s Market is endless.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[We Walk Larry’s Trail Talking about the Virus, and Socrates’ Death]]></title><description><![CDATA[Nothing new, Crito, said Socrates,
just what I am always telling you—
wild cherry, box elder, crab apple,
the red bud is a nitrogen fixer,
after these beautiful flowers,
they will make seed pods, see,
there’s poison hemlock, the same
Socrates took from the poison officer,
drink the poison, government orders,
oxalis, winged elm, it’s called that
because of its flattened branches,
sassafras, red oak, post oak,
muscadine twisted across the path,
vines, twined into the water oak.
Someone had better ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/we-walk-larrys-trail-talking-about-the-virus-and-socrates-death/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230d6</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:59:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/Poison_Hemlock.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/Poison_Hemlock.jpg" alt="We Walk Larry’s Trail Talking about the Virus, and Socrates’ Death"/><p><em>Nothing new, Crito,</em> said Socrates,<br><em>just what I am always telling you—</em><br>wild cherry, box elder, crab apple,<br>the red bud is a nitrogen fixer,<br>after these beautiful flowers,<br>they will make seed pods, see,<br>there’s poison hemlock, the same<br>Socrates took from the poison officer,<br><em>drink the poison, government orders,</em><br>oxalis, winged elm, it’s called that<br>because of its flattened branches,<br>sassafras, red oak, post oak,<br>muscadine twisted across the path,<br>vines, twined into the water oak.<br><em>Someone had better bring in the poison.</em><br>Burr oak with catkins<br>which are legumes. <em>I am told</em><br><em>that one should make one's end</em><br><em>in a tranquil frame of mind.</em></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Plato: Socrates’ Death, <em>(Phaedo - 115b-118b)</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Time Travel is More Complicated]]></title><description><![CDATA[When they were young, I read to my children
every night, first together then separately,
as their tastes and reading levels parted.
I don’t know why. It’s what the experts said you should do.
My Father’s Dragon, Charlie and his chocolate.
Anne of Green Gables. I think they liked it.
I know I did.
If I could freeze time, preserve
a single moment in amber, it would be that.
If I could fly faster than the speed of light,
it would be only to travel back to that
bedroom, children clustered, reading ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/time-travel-is-more-complicated/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230d8</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[William Bernhardt]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:58:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/zulfa-nazer-W9jfKmGYb1Q-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/zulfa-nazer-W9jfKmGYb1Q-unsplash.jpg" alt="Time Travel is More Complicated"/><p>When they were young, I read to my children<br>every night, first together then separately,<br>as their tastes and reading levels parted.<br>I don’t know why. It’s what the experts said you should do.<br>My Father’s Dragon, Charlie and his chocolate.<br>Anne of Green Gables. I think they liked it.<br>I know I did.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>If I could freeze time, preserve<br>a single moment in amber, it would be that.<br>If I could fly faster than the speed of light,<br>it would be only to travel back to that<br>bedroom, children clustered, reading aloud.</br></br></br></br></p><p>But I can’t. Hawking aside, you<br>can’t travel backward in the fourth dimension,<br>probably.</br></br></p><p>Last night, Alice said, Hey Dad, wanna hear<br>something funny? She read it to me, just like I once<br>read to her and I closed<br>my eyes and listened. I told her<br>laughter was making my eyes water.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Time travel is more complicated than I realized.<br>So is everything else.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Notes on a Napkin]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’m the only person
who is eating alone
in this casino buffet
There are eighteen couples
seven groups of three and
five tables of four or more
The hustling wait-staff are
all working in hustling pairs
Two women are at the register
We’re training tonight said one
At the few empty tables all
the chairs are pushed in so
at some point they all touch
and none stands alone
Everyone is eating and talking and
no one’s frowning or looking at me
I must quickly finish these lines
as I fear I may not ev]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/notes-on-a-napkin/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230bb</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:57:45 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/ulysse-pcl-a-8LxEvb4kU-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/ulysse-pcl-a-8LxEvb4kU-unsplash.jpg" alt="Notes on a Napkin"/><p>I’m the only person<br>who is eating alone<br>in this casino buffet</br></br></p><p>There are eighteen couples<br>seven groups of three and<br>five tables of four or more</br></br></p><p>The hustling wait-staff are<br>all working in hustling pairs<br>Two women are at the register<br>We’re training tonight said one</br></br></br></p><p>At the few empty tables all<br>the chairs are pushed in so<br>at some point they all touch<br>and none stands alone</br></br></br></p><p>Everyone is eating and talking and<br>no one’s frowning or looking at me<br>I must quickly finish these lines<br>as I fear I may not even be here</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Holler]]></title><description><![CDATA[The holler is a small valley nestled between the mountains. It is where the light of day filters through branches of towering pines and ancient oaks. It is where voices bounce off the hills and echo throughout the valley. It is where I have lived for most of my life.
At one time I considered myself fairly blessed to have acquired a slice of heaven in this small wooded area, but as the days have flowed into months and the months into years I now wonder if I truly found paradise.
When I was a]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-holler/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230c7</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathy Attwood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:56:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/davide-baraldi-TZY1I8XSSI0-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/davide-baraldi-TZY1I8XSSI0-unsplash.jpg" alt="The Holler"/><p>The holler is a small valley nestled between the mountains. It is where the light of day filters through branches of towering pines and ancient oaks. It is where voices bounce off the hills and echo throughout the valley. It is where I have lived for most of my life.</p><p>At one time I considered myself fairly blessed to have acquired a slice of heaven in this small wooded area, but as the days have flowed into months and the months into years I now wonder if I truly found paradise.</p><p>When I was a young man of very little life experience, I dreamed of a blissful utopia free of judgment and hate filled voices. I dreamed of a place where true happiness was attainable.</p><p>After searching many years for this mythical location, I was to the point of realizing the frivolity of believing such a place could ever exist when I met an elderly gentleman at the train station. In the midst of our friendly conversation he mentioned a town where everyone was welcome and no one was ever turned away – even a social misfit could find happiness he said. I blanched at the word misfit but it was a common enough word and I had heard it all my life. This fine gentleman piqued my curiosity and I ran home, packed my bags and traveled hundreds of miles to see this Promised Land.</p><p>I must admit that on my very first day in town I was overwhelmed by the unexpected warmth and friendliness that spilled forth from total strangers. Such loving kindness nearly brought me to tears and I realized I had at last found my paradise.</p><p>At times it was difficult for me to realize how fortunate I was to be living in such a peaceful and idyllic little oasis nestled quietly within the hills and mountains. The people were friendly and no matter what a person’s beliefs there was always room for civility. Well I am nothing if not civil but as of late, I must sorrowfully admit, paradise has lost a bit of its sheen and there are those amongst us who would choose rudeness over civility.</p><p>As is my habit I awaken early most mornings to an overwhelming desire for a cup of coffee. The first sip sends a searing pain through my head in-between my eyebrows. It is so bitter it makes me wince and yet I take another sip.</p><p>I pull aside the curtains to let in the light while looking quickly from left to right. I feel a certain modicum of relief until a flicker of movement catches my eye. I had been told by a credible source that by summer’s end they would have all moved further south, but unfortunately, as the season moves toward winter, the chill in the air has not produced the promised effect. Is it just me or do they appear to congregate only around my house?</p><p>As I step outside with coffee cup in hand, I notice they watch me with a peculiar interest. Their eyes follow me and I hear the rustling of their wings. They have a shifty look, almost alien and yet…even as I find their dark forms hunched in the trees horribly ugly I also find them incredibly beautiful. Once upon a time I called them my creatures. At first it was an affectionate term and then my resentment grew to the point I could no longer stand the mere sight of them.</p><p>They do not fear me nor do they shy away from me, if anything they grow nearer staring at me through soulless eyes. They are accustomed to my wild tantrums even as I rail at them from early morning to late at night beating my pots and pans and screaming profanities.</p><p>The creatures perch in the tallest of trees, the oaks and the pines that are furthest into the holler. They choose the trees with gnarly branches covered in knots and knobs. They sniff the air. Do they smell the decay of my body? I am no longer a young man and with each passing day they wait patiently as I grow closer to my demise.</p><p>I have been told there is nothing to fear, unless I am dead or near death, I have nothing to fear. Should that quell my apprehension and give me solace? They frighten me to the point I can no longer exist as a normal human being - but as I look back over my life, can I honestly say that I have ever been normal?</p><p>I set my coffee cup aside and began to think back to the first time in my life when things began to go awry... . I was younger, much younger then and I would awaken each morning with a cheery little tune lodged deep within my head. What’s wrong with that you say? Nothing as far as I could tell but as I shared my song day after day people began to complain and say I was trying to distract them from their work. I must attest to the fact that there were no such willful thoughts inside my heart and even to this day I resent the implication, but honestly after a while the tune became bothersome even to me. The repetition began to give me headaches and I feared for my sanity, so I decided there was no recourse for me but to see a doctor.</p><p>Her name was Dr. Alyssa and she was beautiful. I sang the tune for her several times and although she smiled and nodded I could tell she was becoming annoyed. She gave me that same funny look – the tilt of her head, the cock of her eyebrow and then the frown. I had seen it many times before on other people’s faces. When she asked me to please stop I found that to be an impossible task - I literally could not stop singing. After a few more visits she began to avoid me. <em>I’m not taking any new patients</em> she told me and when I protested she closed the door in my face and locked it.</p><p>After a week of such abusive treatment I arrived at her office once again to see an envelope taped to her door addressed to me. Her handwriting was very clear with flourishes of fancy curls and loops. I questioned if such ornamental penmanship was proper for a doctor but when I ripped the envelope off the door and read the contents of the note I was intrigued.</p><p>Her words were swift and to the point. She told me I should just accept the song inside my head and then peace of mind would soon follow. I was skeptical at first but I decided to follow her advice and accept the song and within days my head was silent as a tomb. I suddenly had the notion of climbing to the top of the tallest mountain and screaming to the world that my doctor was an absolute genius. Instead I knocked on her door but once again she declined to see me.</p><p>I pondered such a curious refusal of my overwhelming gratitude but the very next day I realized my hasty proclamation of her brilliance was all for naught. Now instead of just one cheery song lodged inside my head there was a veritable Broadway musical. What was I to do now? Live with it or die with it? I was mentally exhausted when I met that fine elderly gentleman at the train station. I cannot quite recall his name but if it were not for him perhaps my curious self would never have reached the holler.</p><p>I tossed out the remaining coffee over my wilted peonies and walked back inside the house. Such a recollection happened many years ago and wallowing in the past had never served me well. I sat down at my desk and surveyed the mounds of paper work. I began to type. Yes, it is now typing which calms my nerves. It proves I am indeed occupying my time with noteworthy projects rather than sitting alone in my house staring at four grim walls painted the color of dingy gray.</p><p>By mid morning the only sounds in the house are my fingers gliding across the keyboard. I amaze even myself at how fast and furious I can type. It is exhilarating how my fingers are able to keep up with all the words inside my head. At one time I would have argued that music was more calming to the soul, but now it is the click clack click clack of the keyboard which stills my anxious soul.</p><p>By the end of every day my fingers are weary and I will have typed more letters than the day before to the powers that be. In my humble opinion social decency would require a reply of some sort to at least one of my queries, but as of today not one soul has deemed it necessary to address any of my concerns.</p><p>As I stare at the growing stack of letters on my desk I can only imagine that the powers that be fear the truth or they just don’t care, or perhaps – and I shudder to say these words – perhaps they think of me as peculiar and even insane.</p><p>Is it peculiar that day after day I run around the yard clapping my hands and shouting up into the trees? For years I have been the only one to see the threat of danger sweeping over our heads but instead of praise my neighbors gather in small groups and whisper behind my back. My motives are pure and yet by some cruel ironic twist of fate I have become even more dreaded than the creatures.</p><p>I am but a small insignificant piece of this ever growing dilemma. There must be others out there of the same ilk, but where are they, why do they not speak up? I have tried to do my part. I have done my best to make the creatures unwelcome. How do I prove that my plight is real? How many times must I repeat myself?</p><p>Sometimes I wonder at the number of letters I send out each day but it pales in comparison to the flock gathering outside my window. There must be over 200 of them by now.</p><p>If I should fall outside and hit my head, the creatures would then gather around me as in a wake, but not to bid me farewell, to peck out my eyes and devour me. They would dine on my insides until they had their fill and then once the neighbors fell across my half eaten body, they would murmur almost apologetically, oh yes, perhaps that odd fellow who lived in the holler wasn't so crazy after all.</p><p>If I count up the years I have lived in the holler I would imagine that the better part has been spent researching the end of human kind because of these cursed creatures flying through our lives. Unfortunately because of my obsession I have very few friends left. No one is sympathetic to my cause and most have abandoned me for the beasts who dine off the rotting cavities of dead animals.</p><p>Those who oppose me have placed upon these death eaters an impenetrable shield of power and strength so that they may be revered and treasured. They say the creatures have a message for us all and that I should open my heart. Well if this is true then perhaps it is in my best interest to kindly ask of those who rally against me to clarify the message.</p><p>As evening approaches I step outside into the chill reflecting upon my dreams of these wild things carrying me across vast oceans. I can see my feet dangling in mid air and my reflection in the water below. They carry me for miles until reaching an unknown destination dark and dreary and filled with wicked trees and moist woodlands.</p><p>Fortunately I always awaken in the nick of time safe and sound in my bed, but as I ponder the nightmare, I cannot even say if I am happy or sad at the thought of being carried away by such demons. I wonder if it is possible in some parallel world that I am actually one of them dreaming of being human. If ever I should awake in a nest built of mud and twigs instead of the safety and comfort of my own bed, I shall have my answer.</p><p>For a moment my spirit rallies and I rant and rail with my fists clenched high up into the air but the desire is soon lost and I falter. I am spiritually bereft and I wonder if the weariness that fills my soul will ever be lifted. Perhaps it is time for me to rest and let nature take its course.</p><p>If I am to be completely honest just the mere sight of the creatures drifting effortlessly across the sky without a care in the world captivates me. I sometimes watch them early in the mornings spreading their glorious wings and welcoming the warm sun on their backs. There is a certain humanness about them that unnerves me a bit and sometimes I wonder if they can see straight into my soul.</p><p>As the sun sets behind the mountains and the day draws to a close it pleases me to sit outside listening to the soft sound of crickets hidden within the bush. I settle into my favorite chair and gaze up into the darkening sky.</p><p>The creatures always appear around dusk before nightfall, soaring gracefully through a coral colored sunset. I can see with my own eyes their grotesque beauty as they glide majestically through the clouds.</p><p>If there is anything constant and stabilizing in my life it would be this odd satisfaction of knowing I will see these creatures again tomorrow. They are ever so faithful, and why this unthinkable thought comforts me I could not say but it is true. I know they would never desert me nor defame me, they are constant and by my side always.</p><p>Perhaps I do them a disservice. Their soul purpose in life is to cleanse the earth bit by bit, day by day. They are indeed the caretakers of the dead and such honorable intentions I should not ignore. Can I not leave them in peace to go about their own lives?</p><p>As I sit enjoying the evening breeze across my face, it dawns upon me just how mysterious life really is and I think that perhaps I have finally awakened to the message of the creatures. Why did it take me so long? Was it not obvious before? My soul vibrates at the thought that we have but a short time left on this earth. If their message is clear and I believe now that it is, I should look inside my heart and leave behind my isolation, my fears and my hatred, for after all when I first entered this town I was an empty vessel ready to be filled with love and understanding. I will shed that which serves me no longer and cleanse my soul of unworthy thoughts just like my creatures cleanse the earth.</p><p>As these dark angels float across the sky I am content to watch as they sweep high and low over the many jagged mountain tops. The beat of their wings brings to mind an old feeling of joy that had long been forgotten and locked away.</p><p>At last my creatures are free and we are at peace…we are one. I believe my day is done.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sophist’s Swoon]]></title><description><![CDATA[Retro Bar & Grill’s Grad Student Night held pantheons of personal ideas and their ideal persons—one of whom would’ve gone on and on about personhood and ideation and how they couple—yet for the life of me in that sweet-and-salty mixed bag of karaoke and rapid-fire shitfaced pedagogy my so-called ideas or how they hyphenated your would-be me seemed to run on or off or out—seemed every bit as lacking grasp as every other Levinasian “Other” in the joint—as the straws’ grasp at your drink—as that ga]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sophists-swoon/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230c8</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:55:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/foto-t-FWrvze4cqu4-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/foto-t-FWrvze4cqu4-unsplash.jpg" alt="Sophist’s Swoon"/><p>Retro Bar & Grill’s Grad Student Night held pantheons of personal ideas and their ideal persons—one of whom would’ve gone on and on about personhood and ideation and how they couple—yet for the life of me in that sweet-and-salty mixed bag of karaoke and rapid-fire shitfaced pedagogy my so-called ideas or how they hyphenated your would-be me seemed to run on or off or out—seemed every bit as lacking grasp as every other Levinasian “Other” in the joint—as the straws’ grasp at your drink—as that gaze—as our drowning half-deafened or muted siren song.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Middle Class Anxiety]]></title><description><![CDATA[When asked why poor and middle class people vote against their own interest, President Lyndon Johnson said: If you can convince a person he is better than someone else, he won’t know you’ve picked his pockets. Give a person someone to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. (Paraphrased from Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash…History of Class in America with omissions of profanities, racial indicators, and political references).
My middle class suburban neighbors recently confirmed that Jo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/middle-class-anxiety/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230c2</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Helen Ikerd Johnson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:52:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/morning-brew-_n9BzNa9MA8-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/morning-brew-_n9BzNa9MA8-unsplash.jpg" alt="Middle Class Anxiety"/><p>When asked why poor and middle class people vote against their own interest, President Lyndon Johnson said: If you can convince a person he is better than someone else, he won’t know you’ve picked his pockets. Give a person someone to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. (Paraphrased from Nancy Isenberg’s <strong>White Trash…History of Class in America</strong> with omissions of profanities, racial indicators, and political references).</p><p>My middle class suburban neighbors recently confirmed that Johnson’s cynical political view is as valid today as it was in the 1950s and 60s. Middle class Americans live with a constant news-feed mantra that the rich are getting richer and we, in the middle, are working hard and getting comparatively poorer every day. That persistent news headline implies that a slippage from the middle is inevitable for some of us. The fear of slipping below the middle causes anxiety and motivates some folks to resort to ugly rhetoric and counterproductive behaviors in an attempt to differentiate us from them---the poor folks. Everyone wants to feel superior to someone: It’s a basic human quest for self validation—so they say. That quest can sometimes create anxiety and lead down a path to destructive self-sabotaging behaviors and social class prejudice and bigotry. That is the path my suburban neighbors took when our city council proposed a Walmart store in our community.</p><p>The council expected objections about Walmart forcing small retailers out of business, or over working and under paying employees. They rightly considered those issues when planning for the good of their residents. However, my neighbors' objections were not economic impact concerns. Their objections were blatant social class posturing: “Why locate here? We don’t shop in those stores. All that traffic and the delivery trucks coming and going will change the ambiance of the area. I’ve heard their water retention basins are right out front. The “big box” image is incompatible with our surroundings.” Their objections list grew long and loud. Their unrelenting protests implied that Walmart was socially “unsuitable” for our community. Its presence would create a flaw in our, otherwise, flawless neighborhood. I was shocked!</p><p>In reality, Walmart was probably a social and economic step up from some of the neighborhood taverns, sports bars, and fast food businesses residents regularly patronized. In addition, our collective shopping history had never been upscale. We lost our Starbucks coffeehouse due to a lack of support. It closed, and the location became a Taco Bell. We had no dry goods or hardware stores nearby. So when we needed those kinds of things, we hiked to Kohl’s and the Home Depot in town and paid up-town prices for their discount merchandise. An affordable retailer would be an asset for our community, but evidentially we were ashamed to say we needed Walmart. It seemed to me my community needed a few elitism lessons and significant changes in our consumer habits before we could claim any kind of superior class status and reject a Walmart store.</p><p>Some of my best friends were the store’s most vocal opponents. Their pretentious talk and behaviors “inspired” me—I got a job at the new store. I wanted to see, first-hand, how an ordinary retail store could fire-up such snobbery and disdain among, otherwise, decent people. I was interviewed and hired to work part-time in the Fabric and Celebrations departments at Walmart.</p><p>I had been told that a Walmart job would probably not be a good fit for my education and work background. “I just can’t see you in that environment,” a former colleague said. However, from the time I started my job orientation with a diverse group of friendly new hires, I knew that I fit in just fine. My coworkers brought a wide range of background stories to our workplace. Our Regional Manager was a pleasant man, maybe in his late forties or early fifties, who had started as a Cart Pusher for a Walmart store in his home town. Our Store Manager started her Walmart career as a part-time Checker after her son started kindergarten. They had both worked their way into financially rewarding, well respected careers in the company. Several other workers at the store were young thirty-somethings and second career people. They used their superiors as role models and hoped to work their way up also. Two of my coworkers had full-time jobs in downtown Kansas City and did part-time shifts in the evening at our store. There were some young folks who were just out of high school and needed a job—any job. There were a couple of women who had been stay-at-home moms and worked because their children were, or soon would be, in college. They needed more family income. I worked a five-to-ten pm shift, so I was with several high school kids who were experiencing their first after school job. And then there was my group of retirees: One retired gentleman in the grocery department said he was bored at home and thought it was great that Walmart paid him to exercise by stocking groceries. “I no longer pay membership fees at the gym,” he said. One former business CEO donned his yellow vest each day and greeted customers with a smile and “Welcome to Walmart”. I think he enjoyed the socialization.</p><p>Opening Day at the store was a grand affair. There were vendors in the parking lot, sample stations in the store aisles, and “roll-back prices” in every department. We associates were filled with anticipation, and the day did not disappoint. We were happy to finally practice our skills of meeting, greeting, and assisting. We tried our best to “delight” our customers, just as Sam Walton’s training videos urged us to do. It seemed that everyone coming through the doors had anticipated the opening as much as we—Interesting! Our broad similes were met with equally wide smiles and compliments about the appearance of the store. I wore my black pants, white collared shirt, and blue Walmart vest. When family and friends came to the fabric department, I twirled around and showed them the bright yellow “spark” on my back and toured them around my area. At the end of my shift, I was tired but well pleased with my developing retail work skills.</p><p>During that day, I greeted many of my neighbors with “Welcome to Walmart”. They seemed to enjoy the festivities. They visited with employees, talked with friends, and took all the samples and goodies the store offered. I puzzled over their motives and behaviors. Their previous negative verbiage about the store and their willingness to accept the store’s generosities bothered me. The contradictions lodged incongruously juxtaposed in my mind. My friends’ behaviors did not match the lofty social standards they had purported to espouse.</p><p>I took the job at Walmart to see if I could learn why my neighbors had protested the store’s presence in our neighborhood. I worked a few months as a Fabric Lady. I learned a little about the complexities of inventorying and keeping merchandise in good condition and ready for sale. I learned the mix of psychology and sincerity one must use to “delight” the customer, as Mr. Walton said in the training videos. I learned that standing and walking on a concrete floor for eleven dollars an hour was good honest work—but required sensible shoes.</p><p>However, in trying to understand the behavior of my neighbors, my Walmart work experience did not reveal any facts that clarified or justified the behaviors and attitudes I had seen my neighbors display. I could only speculate as to why Walmart, a store that offers good products at fair prices, had been so vigorously protested and looked-down-on with social class contempt. Sam Walton’s business acumen made him a member of the economic one-percent, but his upbringing made him a champion of the common man. Note: My neighbors and I consider ourselves to be common, hard working people. After Walton’s death, Walmart stores continued to perpetuate Sam’s business philosophies, but the store’s image was somehow recast as a store, not so much for ordinary people, but as a store for “poor folks”. I guessed that the protest against the store’s location in our area was an attempt to disassociate from that poor folks image. My neighbors knew that neither they, nor I, would ever be among the wealthiest in our culture’s society, but everyone wants to feel superior to someone—It’s self validating. I concluded that the Walmart store was probably a chosen target for contempt and condescension just to affirm that we were not poor folks. That was my best conjecture.</p><p>The store has settled into my neighborhood, and it is well patronized. There are still comments of condescension, but the same condescending people frequent the store. Walmart’s presence has not produced any of the dire social impact changes that were predicted. However, for me, there is an important change associated with the arrival of Walmart. Just as they predicted, I can now see the presents of social flaws in my neighborhood, but those flaws are not in the new store. Walmart did not create, but rather revealed imperfections in my community. A collective glance in the mirror reveals social class prejudice and bigotry created and perpetuated by self doubt and anxiety. These are the scars that mar my neighborhood. Prejudice and bigotry, fueled by a smoldering middle class anxiety, are the forces that denied a “Welcome to Walmart” in my suburban community.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tree Top Tenor]]></title><description><![CDATA[Singing his arias from the top
of a red bud tree like a tenor
hoping to shatter glass, I unplug
my earphones and listen to his
mockingbird riff of blue jay,
cardinal, woodpecker stutter.
The way he struts his songs,
though hawks circle nearby,
makes me wonder: when
did I lose the courage to sing?
I remember warbling in front
of an old piano, plinking the ivories,
pumping my lungs to Natural Woman,
delirious with notes and reasons to sing.
When did I grow silent, believe music
no longer requir]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/tree-top-tenor/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230bc</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:51:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/10/gbbc_northern-mockingbird_eastern-redbud_glenda-simmons_fl_2012_kk_1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/10/gbbc_northern-mockingbird_eastern-redbud_glenda-simmons_fl_2012_kk_1.jpg" alt="Tree Top Tenor"/><p>Singing his arias from the top<br>of a red bud tree like a tenor<br>hoping to shatter glass, I unplug<br>my earphones and listen to his<br>mockingbird riff of blue jay,<br>cardinal, woodpecker stutter.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The way he struts his songs,<br>though hawks circle nearby,<br>makes me wonder: when<br>did I lose the courage to sing?</br></br></br></p><p>I remember warbling in front<br>of an old piano, plinking the ivories,<br>pumping my lungs to <em>Natural Woman</em>,<br>delirious with notes and reasons to sing.</br></br></br></p><p>When did I grow silent, believe music<br>no longer requires a throat? The gray<br>bird doesn’t peck an app, download<br>the Top Ten Avian Tunes.</br></br></br></p><p>When he rewinds his song book<br>and without changing feathers,<br>trills an oriole, I shape my soft lips<br>to the point of a beak and sing along.</br></br></br></p><p>My husband rushes from the house,<br>binoculars dangling from his neck,<br>and searches the trees for a strange<br>new bird he has never heard.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Proclamation]]></title><description><![CDATA[In the quantum world, another you, breathing free.
Deeply inhaling the night-blooming flowers and
dancing on a moonlit beach, you twirl,
sounding a note that rides the wind
like pelicans gliding
over the surf. It spreads,
everywhere.
Now, you call, now. It is here.
All is whole, and complete.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/proclamation/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230b6</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Beverly Gordon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:51:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/todd-quackenbush-eStCg6FRw_E-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/todd-quackenbush-eStCg6FRw_E-unsplash.jpg" alt="Proclamation"/><p>In the quantum world, another you, breathing free.<br>Deeply inhaling the night-blooming flowers and<br>dancing on a moonlit beach, you twirl,<br>sounding a note that rides the wind<br>like pelicans gliding<br>over the surf. It spreads,<br>everywhere.<br>Now, you call, now. It is here.<br>All is whole, and complete.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[It Was Long, Long Ago]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was long, long ago ---
A melancholy sky drapes low over this Sunday Cornwall village.
A light snow begins to clothe nearby hedgerows
turning the village road from a cobblestone brown
to a vivid and lively white.
A gust of Atlantic wind struggles amidst the streets
and as I walk, hearths and candles flicker inside homes
wedged at the edge of this horse and carriage road.
A strong breath of bread competes with the wind in my nostrils
from the house on the corner where a young girl in a blue bon]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/it-was-long-long-ago/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230d0</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:50:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/8476467626_bcf7f26422_w.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/8476467626_bcf7f26422_w.jpg" alt="It Was Long, Long Ago"/><p>It was long, long ago ---<br>A melancholy sky drapes low over this Sunday Cornwall village.<br>A light snow begins to clothe nearby hedgerows<br>turning the village road from a cobblestone brown<br>to a vivid and lively white.<br>A gust of Atlantic wind struggles amidst the streets<br>and as I walk, hearths and candles flicker inside homes<br>wedged at the edge of this horse and carriage road.<br>A strong breath of bread competes with the wind in my nostrils<br>from the house on the corner where a young girl in a blue bonnet<br>stares through a curtained window.<br>She turns away to release the stove of its daily fare<br>no doubt longing for her sweetheart<br>who works in the local tin mine.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>On this day townsfolk attended Minister Church<br>where moss and lichen most beautiful<br>make for a lush green sanctuary.<br>As I walk the narrow road<br>the dusk grows near.<br>There! The old lamplighter is making his rounds!<br>One lamp to go and he can go home to his hearth.<br>Such was the English life in a 19th century village.<br>It was long, long ago.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Yarivah Eavesdrops by the Boys’ Bunkroom]]></title><description><![CDATA[after John Dryden and Miguel Antonio Caro Aeneid IX translations
She leaned against the cabin sill—her calf love lost—
While Foshie chickenscratched frenzy, sculpted lite scifi
in a fettered jaundice folder (the cat’s paw to
her rivulet thinking) near her beau’s bunk; and stopped
to tarry, catch some writer unspool sudden lines.
Plunged in his own moment’s razor gaze, he muttered:
“When you a mortal can’t begin to comprehend
its effects on your ordained action, the burden,
all it is, all it co]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/yarivah-eavesdrops-by-the-boys-bunkroom/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230c9</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:48:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/olivier-guillard-FKJgBUDoVC0-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/olivier-guillard-FKJgBUDoVC0-unsplash.jpg" alt="Yarivah Eavesdrops by the Boys’ Bunkroom"/><p><em>after John Dryden and Miguel Antonio Caro Aeneid IX translations</em></p><p>She leaned against the cabin sill—her calf love lost—<br>While Foshie chickenscratched frenzy, sculpted lite scifi<br>in a fettered jaundice folder (the cat’s paw to<br>her rivulet thinking) near her beau’s bunk; and stopped<br>to tarry, catch some writer unspool sudden lines.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Plunged in his own moment’s razor gaze, he muttered:<br>“When you a mortal can’t begin to comprehend<br>its effects on your ordained action, the burden,<br>all it is, all it could ever be, lands in your lap…”</br></br></br></p><p>As the hebephrenic pulpit banters dwindled and<br>unthorazined morphemes budded bland, each gasp for<br>pause or phrase cut through short, shorter. She strolled off, ditched<br>his sight’s chaff. Perhaps the trailer hick’s qualm rippled<br>her calming waves, their offbeat beauty its kind mirage.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Visit from a Cyclops]]></title><description><![CDATA[Perfidious behavior
has been reported to me
that I can put an end to
with the blink
of my one good eye.
When evil runs rampant,
I can spew lightening fire
and mountains leap.
When toxic spirits
are on the loose—
with no air to breathe,
or pure water to drink
or good food to eat,
and poison ivy covers
the cancerous land,
and incest and patricide
and limp dicks weep,
and there is war
after war after war
with nobody writing
decent poems anymore
since Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”
It’s time for me to re]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-visit-from-a-cyclops/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230cd</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Milton Ehrlich]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:47:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/cyclops-3014156_960_720.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/cyclops-3014156_960_720.jpg" alt="A Visit from a Cyclops"/><p>Perfidious behavior<br>has been reported to me<br>that I can put an end to<br>with the blink<br>of my one good eye.<br>When evil runs rampant,<br>I can spew lightening fire<br>and mountains leap.<br>When toxic spirits<br>are on the loose—<br>with no air to breathe,<br>or pure water to drink<br>or good food to eat,<br>and poison ivy covers<br>the cancerous land,<br>and incest and patricide<br>and limp dicks weep,<br>and there is war<br>after war after war<br>with nobody writing<br>decent poems anymore<br>since Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”<br>It’s time for me to return.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Blink]]></title><description><![CDATA[The honest to God
last thing she ever
said to me was I
didn’t even know
that Van Dyke Parks
could play the accordion
Then she walked
through the door with
the cock-eyed flashing
lights blink blinking
blinking blink blink
blink blink blink]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/blink/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230b9</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:46:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/gaelle-marcel-MwMmOtj6z2c-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/gaelle-marcel-MwMmOtj6z2c-unsplash.jpg" alt="Blink"/><p>The honest to God<br>last thing she ever<br>said to me was I<br>didn’t even know<br>that Van Dyke Parks<br>could play the accordion</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Then she walked<br>through the door with<br>the cock-eyed flashing<br>lights blink blinking<br>blinking blink blink<br>blink blink blink</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[James T. Chadbourne III Has an Adventure]]></title><description><![CDATA[James T. Chadbourne III woke with a smile, his large brown eyes popping open to reveal another glorious day. It had been a good night, with some solid sleep, some snoring, dreams of digging up a chattering gopher, and a torrid encounter with the inimitable Suzette Mickleroy, the love of his life. Yawning, he noticed a stiffness in his lower spine, and tried to stretch it away. Now fully awake, his mind turned again to Suzette, who had lately shown signs that her interest in him wasn’t as non-exi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/james-t-chadbourne-iii-has-an-adventure/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230c3</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Scott ]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:45:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/poodle-3840780_1280.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/poodle-3840780_1280.png" alt="James T. Chadbourne III Has an Adventure"/><p>James T. Chadbourne III woke with a smile, his large brown eyes popping open to reveal another glorious day. It had been a good night, with some solid sleep, some snoring, dreams of digging up a chattering gopher, and a torrid encounter with the inimitable Suzette Mickleroy, the love of his life. Yawning, he noticed a stiffness in his lower spine, and tried to stretch it away. Now fully awake, his mind turned again to Suzette, who had lately shown signs that her interest in him wasn’t as non-existent as previously indicated. Perhaps she would –</p><p>“James T. Chadbourne! Are you sleeping in?” came a voice from the kitchen, and the gent in question snapped to attention. Giving his bristly mustache a quick lick, James shook his head as if to dislodge thoughts of Suzette and trotted into the kitchen, where he was kissed on the nose by a plush blonde wearing a pink housedress and frilly white apron.</p><p>“Good morning my darling,” she said in a voice that could only serve to entrance and delight. James acknowledged her greeting and gave her his biggest smile, eyes sparkling. “Are you ready for your breakfast?” Her pale eyebrows rose in the prettiest little rainbows he’d ever seen.</p><p>Soon, he was dining on a delicious repast of leftovers: boiled kidneys, mutton stew, and even some steamed spinach, carrots, and field peas tossed in for good measure. As he wolfed down each succulent bite, James reveled in the joy of the moment: warm, loving company, fascinating scents, happy domestic sounds, and delicious food. Life—was good.</p><p>When breakfast was over and his beloved turned aside to take care of the clean-up, James was drawn to the sunlight flooding in through her lacy sheer curtains. He realized that nothing would be so good as a brisk walk in the fresh air.</p><p>Letting himself out the backdoor, he paused to take in his surroundings. His nose told him that the local deer had bedded in her lawn the night before, and that the fox had followed them, at a distance. He didn’t particularly mind the interlopers, but they did leave behind deer ticks and they ate his beloved’s petunias, which upset her greatly. He’d offered to stay out in the garden at night, and in fact, was quite taken with the idea, but she would have none of it.</p><p>“You need to be in the house at night, so that I’ll feel safe,” she said when he indicated his desire to spend the night in the garden. “And I’d hate to think of something happening to you out there, too,” she’d said before giving him a kiss and tickling his mustache. “What if the wolves got you?” she said, as if this were wild America and not Cornwall.</p><p>As he surveyed the garden, he noticed that the tortoise had crossed from one side to the other – “after my darling’s green leaf lettuce again,” he thought. By the sound of it, the robins’ eggs were hatching. He considered the work they had in front of them, weeks of ceaseless predation on worms, insects, caterpillars, grubs – whatever protein they could find for the greedy young. He preferred to eat the eggs before they became ugly chicks, although realistically, how much nutrition could anyone get out of a few tiny blue eggs? Why bother?</p><p>Content that all was well with the garden, he walked out to the farthest corner, where he squatted and emptied his bowels with a most satisfying grunt. His beloved would have preferred for him to defecate in the house as she did, but he could not accustom himself to the idea. He went in the fresh air, as Goddess intended. The neighbors didn’t complain, so he assumed that all was well.</p><p>After finishing that task, he began a circuit of the garden, gathering information on who else had passed during the night. Many clues were at his disposal: footprints and the scent left by foot pads, bits of urine and blood, a stray feather and sometimes, an entire leg. He knew there was an owl in the sycamore tree – he’d detected it sleeping up there many times during the day. There’s something about the smell of an owl – imagine a large bird that smells like a mouse! There’d been a time in his younger life when he thought owl pellets might be edible, but he was quickly disabused of that notion. There was a hawk, too, which hunted there in the daytime, and sometimes left squirrel tails behind, which, James supposed, lacked enough meat to make the effort of pulling out the inedible hair worthwhile.</p><p>Satisfied that nothing too unusual had happened in the garden the night before, James – never “Jim” – decided that it was time to take his morning constitutional. This was one of the favorite parts of his day. Heading to the garden gate, he stopped to take a piss on the wall before proceeding out into the neighborhood. His beloved didn’t approve of this habit, either, but she was kind-hearted and did not try hard to deprive him of his small pleasures if they were outdoor pleasures, and not indoor ones.</p><p>Moving off down the block, James listened as the birds announced his passing, as if he were a major predator and not merely a country squire. Walking briskly, he greeted the children waiting for the bus, their shoulders sagging under heavy book bags. Mrs. Stanhope’s cat Twinkles was out front, which was unusual for this time of day. When he saw James, he hissed and blew up his hair, so that James would believe him to be a lynx, and not a lazy Scottish Fold. James supposed that any cat with such an undignified name would be anti-social, but he thought Twinkles took it to the extreme. He’d even overheard his beloved commenting that Twinkles sprayed in the house. Apparently, Mrs. Stanhope, realizing the insult of the name, had decided to leave the cat intact in order not to insult him further.</p><p>“Big mistake,” thought James, although in another instant, he’d completely forgotten Twinkles because he’d come to the fenced yard of Foster McGowan, a retired police sergeant with a penchant for Alsatians. Sure enough, just as he got to the corner of Sergeant McGowan’s property, here came an enormous black canine. Satan must’ve weighed 6 stone if he weighed an ounce, and he absolutely hated James T. Chadbourne III. His pink and purple tongue sluiced around the biggest teeth James had ever seen, and it was all he could do not to run away, like a frightened pup.</p><p>James walked down the sidewalk looking neither left nor right, pretending not to hear the enraged growls or to smell the fiery breath only inches away. Finally, Sergeant McGowan came out and grabbed his slavering dog by the collar and dragged him away from the fence. “I don’t know why you can’t walk on the other side of the bloody street, James!” the sergeant shouted at him before dragging Satan into the house. James chose not to reply, seeing nothing to be gained by doing so.</p><p>And then, as quickly as they had started, all thoughts of the snarling, foamy-mouth Satan were dismissed as he crossed into the territory of Maximillian and Sophie, a pair of geriatric dachshunds who were quite fond of James, and always greeted him with halitotic kisses. Unfortunately, today they were nowhere to be seen, so he continued on his walk, sneezing as the smoking school bus went by, pausing to look into the bramble where he’d seen an eyass a couple of weeks ago, its piercing gold eyes meeting his as its parents shrieked above. He’d thought of dispatching it with a quick snap of the neck, but “live and let live,” he’d decided, and gone on his merry way. There was nothing in the bramble today but an empty candy wrapper and tossed-out soda can.</p><p>And then, the hawk, candy wrapper, and soda can were all forgotten, because he’d reached the home of Suzette Mickleroy. Pausing, he cocked his head and peered about, wondering if anyone was up and out. “Surely it isn’t all that early,” he thought. Making himself comfortable, he wondered if he should wait, and hope that she noticed him, or if, perhaps, he should go to the door. What if his dream had been just that – a dream? What if, in harsh reality, Suzette spurned him like she usually did? How many humiliations had Suzette subjected him to over the years, yet still he returned, awestruck by the power she wielded over him without a care.</p><p>Not able to make up his mind, James paced up and down the sidewalk in front of Suzette’s home. Should he stay or should he go? Should he call out to her? Go to the door? Walk around to the alley and see if she was in the garden? There were multiple options, and his mind wasn’t accustomed to processing so many possibilities all at once.</p><p>And then, there she was – a vision! He had no idea how she’d managed to appear without making a sound. All he knew was that his nose suddenly picked up the scent of something so tantalizing and alluring that his whole body quivered.</p><p>Suzette stood on the other side of the fence, gazing at him contemptuously, her dark almond eyes daring him to say a word. Her luxuriant mane was piled high on top of her head, and her glorious bouffant sported three tiny pink bows. The scent wafting from her was a heady mix of shampoo, perfume, hair spray, and – well, not to be indelicate, but all James could think was “bitch in heat.”</p><p>Roused to a fury, James trotted back and forth in front of the fence, Suzette following him step for step. Whenever he tried to get close to her, she sneered and showed him her brilliant white incisors. Sensing that his heart might burst of unrequited passion, he decided to do something he’d never done. Retreating a few paces to get a running start, he turned and came zooming back, jumping the fence. Oh, what a leap! How many years had passed since he’d been so bold, jumping fences, running wherever he liked? Today he’d done it as if he were a raw youngster, and not a dignified alpha male.</p><p>And now, here he was, face-to-face with the magnificent, dreaded Suzette. And she wanted to – play. Picking up a ball, she tossed it to him as if this were merely another day on the playground. Oh, joy! Grabbing the ball, he ran feints for a second or two, to demonstrate his manly prowess, and then invited her to chase him, which she did, growling under her breath. She was far stronger than he, and her legs were longer, too, so it was only a moment before she caught up with him and ripped the ball away.</p><p>But James didn’t mind. After all, wasn’t he there with her, awed in the mighty presence of Suzette? He hardly noticed that one of her pink bows was now askew, and he completely missed the pink polish on her nails. Instead, he moved closer and closer as she gazed at him with a challenging look. Licking his lips, he drank in the scent of her, and slowed, trying to hypnotize her the way male spiders try to entrance their less-than-eager paramours.</p><p>Suzette remained where she was, neither snarling nor smiling, and certainly not hypnotized. Instead, she looked him over, and her eyes could’ve been those of an accountant, so calculating were they.</p><p>Still, she did not move, and for James, time crept to a standstill. And then, there they were, nose to nose, tongue to tongue, breath to breath. James’s heart pounded so furiously that, if he were the worrying kind, he might’ve stopped to call the cardiologist. But he never worried, that would’ve been out of character for him, and so instead, he licked his mustache and then thought of licking Suzette, who at that moment, decided to bound away, grabbing the ball once again, and frolicking around the yard.</p><p>James realized he was panting, saliva dripping off his tongue like a small pink Niagara. How humiliating, huffing and puffing like a country bumpkin. He watched as Suzette ran hither and yon, bouncing the ball. He had never seen such a gorgeous behind, and he had seen many. She was so graceful, so strong, so –</p><p>And, forgetting his dignity and pounding heart, James gave chase, determined to take the ball and then, if all were right in the heavens and Suzette would simply stand still – then, he would take Suzette! He felt the ache in his back disappear as his legs pumped mightily in pursuit. Suzette, instead of looking at him with contempt, now gave him a lingering glance, and James’s heart turned somersaults.</p><p>Catching up with Suzette, who, admittedly, had slowed down in order, James was sure, to be caught, he decided to give her a little love bite and was baring his teeth to do so when the front door opened and Mrs. Francis Mickleroy came dashing out of the house with a broom, shouting, “Get out of my yard, you filthy cur!” And the next thing James knew, the woman was running at him, waving the broom this way and that.</p><p>Suzette took this opportunity to bound away, ball grasped firmly in her sharp, white teeth. James looked frantically from his escaping love to her attacking mistress, and it’s a good thing that he did look because she was just that moment going to whack him with the broom, and he needed to scoot out of the way quickly, in order to avoid harm.</p><p>Casting one last, longing look in Suzette’s direction, James turned and scrabbled back over the fence. It was harder to clear this time, all that running around having cost him more than he realized. But he didn’t want to be hit with the broom, and he could see that Mrs. Mickleroy was in a dangerous state of arousal.</p><p>As Suzette sneezed delicately and curled her lip, James looked again at the great love of his life. Unfortunately, Mrs. Mickleroy was having none of it, and she opened the gate and scooted out on the sidewalk, preparing to whack James but good should he give her the opportunity.</p><p>Swishing his thickly feathered tail—which was normally carried at a jaunty angle above his back—James tucked it neatly between his legs to protect the throbbing orbs which were still so excited by Suzette’s nearness and set off down the block, ears turned to hear what might be coming up behind him. He trotted with as much dignity as one can muster, considering the circumstances, and tried not to think of the look in Suzette’s eyes as she watched her mistress drive him away.</p><p>Then, spying one of his favorite bushes ahead, he stopped for a good pee and to catch his breath. Once again, he’d been foiled by Suzette. But what a merry chase it had been. The thought of her was so vivid that it made him sneeze, which he did with gusto. Then, shaking his head until his ears flapped audibly, he lifted his tail into jaunty flag position and set off towards home, looking forward to a long, sun-drenched nap in his special place on the back porch.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Shoulder]]></title><description><![CDATA[I. Sacrament
For my First Communion I received
a bible, its cover embossed with a gold
J in scripted ink; a rosary, pink
glass ready for my contrition;
and a scapular, an ugly word
for an ugly thing, brown cloth
patches connected by what looked
like a shoelace. I dangled it
over my palm. I examined its ends:
a Mary, maybe, and a man.
I didn’t understand. I tucked it into
the satin purse from which it had come
and left it there. The rosary, though,
I looped on my bedpost
and covered in prayers, ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/shoulder/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230c5</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jan Edwards Hemming]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:44:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/james-coleman-dSbfYNeDeiM-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/james-coleman-dSbfYNeDeiM-unsplash.jpg" alt="Shoulder"/><p>I. Sacrament</p><p>For my First Communion I received<br>a bible, its cover embossed with a gold<br>J in scripted ink; a rosary, pink<br>glass ready for my contrition;<br>and a scapular, an ugly word<br>for an ugly thing, brown cloth<br>patches connected by what looked<br>like a shoelace. I dangled it<br>over my palm. I examined its ends:<br>a Mary, maybe, and a man.<br>I didn’t understand. I tucked it into<br>the satin purse from which it had come<br>and left it there. The rosary, though,<br>I looped on my bedpost<br>and covered in prayers, my small<br>fingers working the promise<br>of the beads.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>II. Scapular</p><p>It belongs on the shoulders,<br>a gentle yoke hidden beneath<br>the clothes, along the clavicle.<br>Catholics consider it<br>a Sacramental, something that<br>prepares a person for grace,<br>mostly from Mary. The internet<br>says that when Mary appeared<br>to St. Simon in a dream,<br>she draped a scapular<br>from her porcelain hand. She made<br>a promise: He who dies in this<br>will not suffer eternal fire.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I had always<br>had a thing for Mary. I just<br>related -- if anyone could understand<br>a kid knowing nothing, it was her -- so<br>in high school I took it and put it<br>in my car console, just in case, and there<br>my scapular witnessed my sins. I confess<br>that over its habitation I kissed<br>a girl, gave blowjobs, cried, smoked<br>cigarettes, drank too much, loved<br>a girl and two boys and maybe another.<br>I carried these shames in my bones.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>III. Communion</p><p>It’s called the acromion<br>and for as long as I can remember<br>I have wanted to put that curve<br>of bone atop a woman’s<br>scapula in my mouth. That<br>round end of a shoulder begs<br>for a sign of devotion --<br>to skin pink and smooth as glass,<br>to skin brown and freckled by sun --<br>neither one the host but still<br>a magical charm<br>under my tongue.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[On (Not) Writing During Quarantine]]></title><description><![CDATA[Five weeks ago, our friend Vic brought us his blue Betta fish to look after while he quarantined outside the city. It arrived sealed in a pickle jar, which he had placed at the bottom of an empty tank along with one wet water lily, and rollerbladed across town. Jusef asked if it had a name. “It’s Fishi,“ Vic answered, “with an ‘i’.”
Fishi left us this weekend, when our friend returned to collect him, and we are heartbroken. I don’t think a fish has ever been so loved. He was a lovely shade of r]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/on-not-writing-during-quarantine/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230c0</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Darren Chase]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:43:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/89510995-betta-siamese-fighting-fish-red-halfmoon-betta-fish-su-sfondo-nero.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/89510995-betta-siamese-fighting-fish-red-halfmoon-betta-fish-su-sfondo-nero.jpg" alt="On (Not) Writing During Quarantine"/><p>Five weeks ago, our friend Vic brought us his blue Betta fish to look after while he quarantined outside the city. It arrived sealed in a pickle jar, which he had placed at the bottom of an empty tank along with one wet water lily, and rollerbladed across town. Jusef asked if it had a name. “It’s Fishi,“ Vic answered, “with an ‘i’.”</p><p>Fishi left us this weekend, when our friend returned to collect him, and we are heartbroken. I don’t think a fish has ever been so loved. He was a lovely shade of royal blue with a tinge of red at the end of his long train of a tail. We spent hours watching him flutter his tiny fore-fins around the roots of the flower in his elegant cylindrical tank. He would surface for food when we approached, then dive to the bottom of his gracious apartment to digest. He was most active in the morning sun, while I was teaching online, but my boyfriend reported a second wind early in the morning, when Fishi would dart around while he played video games long into the night. Nighttime was now so quiet on the sheltering Lower East Side, Jusef said, that you could hear Fishi chewing his pellets of food. We learned how to feed him by placing them directly above him, disturbing the water with a pinky finger when he couldn’t find his meal. Our friend Natalie gave us some tips from her years as a Betta-mother via Facebook: “Happy Bettas blow bubbles, and jazz hands make happy fish.” You should have seen us Fosseing around the tank, rejoicing when he rewarded us with a bubble.</p><p>I was so sad about Fishi’s departure that I missed my Alexander Technique class on Friday. I look forward to this weekly Zoom gathering of teachers and students of the body awareness practice. I find the sight of my colleagues comforting, each one doing their best to follow Alexander’s instructions to “free the head and neck,” their torsos spread across my computer screen in mosaic equipoise. This week I had planned to ask the group a question about the difference between “waiting” and “waiting for.” It will have to wait until next time.</p><p>Having missed my Alexander class, I opened the Metropolitan Opera’s streaming broadcast of Dialogues of the Carmelites on my iPhone, cast it to the television, and quickly started crying my tits off to Poulenc’s radiantly-anguished, mystically-queer, Catholic opera. I particularly enjoyed seeing Karita Mattila in the role of The Old Prioress, stoic matriarch of the Carmelite Order. The role is often played by an ageing soprano, who, having reached the heights of operatic success (or having nothing left to lose), is willing to shred her voice during the Prioress’ vocally-punishing death scene. I suddenly had the strange hope that maybe if I lived long enough, some non-paying, gender-bending local opera company would cast me in the role. With sickness and death permeating my extended circle of friends, most of them young and in good health, it served as a useful motivation.</p><p>Poulenc’s opera is an unexpectedly engrossing amalgam of epic historical fiction and intimate spiritual rumination. The death of the Old Prioress initiates the dramatic and philosophical momentum of the plot. She dies a horrible, agonizing death, screaming violently and cursing God in her last moments. Afterwards, a gossipy younger nun muses in a flippant coloratura, “Who’d ever imagine that she would die so badly? One would think when He gave her such a death, our good Lord made a great mistake; like in a cloakroom when you’re given someone else’s coat.”</p><p>It’s easy to say I’m ok with dying, but I wonder how I would actually conduct myself if I were experiencing what some of my friends are going through now, either at home, alone, or in the hospital, alone. I like to think I’d be ready, but I’m not so sure that I wouldn’t plead, “Not like this!”</p><p>There is so much we don’t know about this mysterious illness which attacks our lungs by creating a barrier between air and blood, mirroring the way our human lives have attacked the earth’s ability to breathe. But while we contemplate our mortality, let us be wary of anthropomorphizing Mother Earth. It is as disrespectful to remake Her in our image as it is to do so to god.</p><p>I have had absolutely no words about These Trying Times. No words. This is the first time I’ve been able to write since February. John Cage wrote, “I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry.”</p><p>But I’m glad that other people have lots to express. It’s inspiring to witness the virtual feats of my friends and colleagues—artists, musicians, dancers, yogis—who have transitioned their disciplines to the online world, and I am a grateful beneficiary of their efforts. Thanks to them I have meditation classes, writing groups, dance parties and satsangs galore. Of course, the highlight of my online week is Saturday, when my sister leads a “Sounding Meditation” on Zoom, during which one thousand people from all over the world follow these simple directives bequeathed to her by her recently-deceased musical mentor, the composer, Pauline Oliveros: 1.) breathe and listen for a sound in your mind’s ear 2.) breathe again and listen in the field of sound for another person’s sound, 3.) tune to that sound, and 4.) “sound with them.” This “Deep Listening” exercise had its genesis in the Womyns’ Lands and New Music Centers of the sixties but seems expertly curated for just this moment in human technological history. As I breathe, sing, tune and intone, faces pop up on my iPhone from all over the world, some with headphones, some with eyes closed, all listening and “sounding” together.</p><p>I, myself, haven’t been able to create anything. I can’t sing either. Hell, I can’t even read. And boy do I want a drink (and a cigarette). Thank goodness for Zoom Alcoholics Anonymous—that is, when our meetings aren’t getting Zoombombed! (Last week in the middle of a sensitive share, I was interrupted by a teenager screaming flattering things about his penis and we were forced to disband the meeting.)</p><p>Fishi wasn’t very hungry on Thursday and we were a little worried. I thought maybe he needed some fresh water, but Jusef assured me he was just stuffed from the day before. By Friday he was famished, and we fed him just before Vic came to take him away, so he was mellow when we scooped him up into his pickle jar for the ride back home to Chinatown on our friend’s rollerblades.</p><p>I had some indestructible goldfish when I was a kid that lived way longer than I thought they would. Some of them jumped out of their tank and I found their bodies dried into the 70s, shag carpet, frozen in horrifying Pompeiiesque postures. At some point I put the survivors outside under an awning where they lived in a tank refreshed by rainwater. No one in my family thought to let me know this was probably not a humane idea. But that’s ok. I couldn’t blame my parents for anything even if I tried. The me that did that kind of blaming is just gone. I can’t even blame myself, although I can take responsibility.</p><p>And that’s good, because there’s nowhere to go now but inward, into everything that makes me who I am, no matter how unflattering. If I am truly accepting of all that is in me, without fleeing to distract myself from any of it, I can see that everything is embraceable, even the inscrutable acts of Nature. If I resist even one sensation of terror or rage or resentment, I again become uncomfortable with the mystery of Nature’s acts and attempt to explain them. There are no words to describe this mystery. We can only tell stories that pay homage to it, and persevere in not understanding.</p><p>There is a story about a fish in Hindu mythology: Lord Shiva was talking to Parvati about a new and exciting technique he’d discovered called yoga. Parvati side-eyed her husband, because she already knew all about yoga, having invented it herself. A fish named Matsya overheard them and swam up to listen. Sensing that the fish was more interested in the discourse than his wife, Shiva instructed him in the art of yoga and deputized him to teach yoga to the world. In this way, all yoga teachers are disciples of Matsya. Fish means “The student becomes the teacher.”</p><p>It will soon be six weeks since the day I had one of the last elective surgeries in New York City, the day Fishi came to us. (Jusef removed my stitches with a cuticle clipper last week with the help of his mother, a nurse in Iraq, over Facetime, so I wouldn’t have to visit a hospital.) The shoulder-to-shoulder incision on my back is nearly healed and I am gradually working up to my daily yoga practice again. Doing yoga will certainly improve my state of mind, although I should say, (despite my hysterical, mystical-queer Catholic crying), I’m mostly just fine.</p><p>My first day back at yoga was as a teacher. Last week my assistant principal asked me to do some asanas with my advisory class over Google Hangouts, so I led the kids in some poses that wouldn’t rip my stiches or pop their adolescent knees. That same day I got a call from a friend and mentor in the yoga community who invited me to participate in her online certification program, something I would not have been able to do otherwise.</p><p>Because I was not able to practice physical yoga this month, I had to do a lot more meditating. I am a little salty about meditation, having commenced the practice when I was twelve with the aim of pacifying myself during an abusive situation from which I saw no possible escape. Over the past thirty years, meditation has caught me coming and going. There have been times when I have been just as addicted to meditating as I was to drinking. I have also been addicted to not meditating, to imagining that if I did, I’d somehow be a better person, which is the exact opposite of meditation.</p><p>But boy have I been enjoying it in isolation. Only true love of the practice can compel anyone towards the radical intimacy with self that it requires, and quarantine has made intimacy with myself mandatory. There never was a way to push anything away, but now it’s actually impossible. They’ve discontinued distraction. There has been moratorium on evasion. We are all being forced to fall in love with ourselves, like it or not.</p><p>The meditation I practice begins with the instruction, “Think of something or someone you love.” Sometimes I think of my boyfriend, sometimes my sister, my parents, grandmother, or teachers, but mostly these days, I think of Fishi.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Something to Wipe Off]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Maybe Jo Nell would know,” Mom said when I asked about my Other Brother.
Jo Nell was Dad’s cousin. They were brought up together like siblings, and I’d spent uncounted summer weeks and holidays weekends exploring Bristow’s redbrick streets with her daughters. In those days, Bristow had a Main Street, on which Jo Nell’s mother, my Aunt Aline, and stepfather had a hardware store and the Rexall Drug Store still had a chrome soda fountain. Coming from the larger metropolis of Tulsa, I was amazed ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/something-to-wipe-off/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230c6</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Karen J. Cantrell]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:42:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/__-drz-__-UtbFfsFYVMQ-unsplashCoke.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/__-drz-__-UtbFfsFYVMQ-unsplashCoke.jpg" alt="Something to Wipe Off"/><p>“Maybe Jo Nell would know,” Mom said when I asked about my Other Brother.</p><p>Jo Nell was Dad’s cousin. They were brought up together like siblings, and I’d spent uncounted summer weeks and holidays weekends exploring Bristow’s redbrick streets with her daughters. In those days, Bristow had a Main Street, on which Jo Nell’s mother, my Aunt Aline, and stepfather had a hardware store and the Rexall Drug Store still had a chrome soda fountain. Coming from the larger metropolis of Tulsa, I was amazed to be able to buy a fountain Coke for a dime. And in Creek County, I was Karen June, just like Dad was Jim Ross.</p><p>“Karen June and Jim Ross are here,” Jo Nell’s youngest daughter once called as my family, including my mother and brothers, climbed out of our car.</p><p>“Karen June, you’re one of the Lee Girls,” my great-aunties told me.</p><p>The Lee Girls: My grandmother June and her sisters: Toke, Aline, Jackie, Nedra, and their brother the penultimate Ross, were known for their brown eyes and turned up noses, which they inherited from their mother, my Great Granny Lee. Like them, Jo Nell and I had inherited these traits. Jim Ross had the nose, but his eyes were more of a greenish hazel.</p><p>“Don’t let her out in the rain without an umbrella,” joked Aunt Toke after I was born. “She’ll drown.” She took care of me when I was very young. A hazy image lingers: me in a corner of the kitchen in our house in West Tulsa talking to a woman in a dark blue, white-spotted dress who stands at the stove. A fond feeling for blue, white-spotted dresses persists.</p><p>I’ve been told I took my first steps to Great Granny Lee, and I spent days at Aunt Jackie’s house in the country outside Sapulpa. She would hitch the Shetland pony to a cart and hand me the reins. “King’s your horse,” she said, and I whipped him up and down the gravel road. Her daughter Jan introduced me to the glories of steam curlers and did my hair, drove me into town for treats at the Dairy Queen.</p><p>I was in my thirties when one of Jo Nell’s daughters said, “Did you know King, my horse, died?” I hadn’t thought of King for more than a decade, yet I needed a minute to process my shock. Her horse? King was mine!</p><p>Because the First National Bank of Sapulpa gave Dad a loan when the Tulsa banks wouldn’t, it was our bank. Often after the drive-through, we stopped at Aunt Jackie and Uncle Gus’s grocery store down the block. “Take a candy bar,” Aunt Jackie said from behind the cash register. “Any one,” she said when I hesitated.</p><p>When Nedra returned from California, she was delighted to know I’d married an artist and told me all about her once-upon-a-time job hand-coloring photos.</p><p>So when Mom said she’d call Jo Nell, I said great. When she said we were going to visit her in Bristow, I said thanks.</p><p>Jo Nell’s redbrick mansion in the center of town had been sold decades earlier, and a newer, smaller home built close to the highway. She asked if we were okay eating in the kitchen. She wanted to stay near her dog, who was ailing.</p><p>We said that was fine. No need to be formal for a lunch of cauliflower soup and salad. No need to create extra work for an eighty-five-year-old woman. Besides, sliding glass doors by the kitchen table provided a good view of her backyard, and cardinals were flocking to the bird feeder. She said cardinals often appeared in her backyard, a sign I thought that she was energetic, loving, and ready to help others, namely me.</p><p>The conversation was friendly until Mom surprised me. “Tell the family stories,” she said. Jo Nell’s mouth firmed. She took a breath and said, “Luther was a crook.”</p><p>Luther? I’d never met him, but I knew he’d once been married to Aunt Nedra. They left for California in the dead of night Jo Nell said, but she left out the details, like how the wall of the Christian Church in Tulsa collapsed, and that Luther had been the contractor.</p><p>Mom said Luther and Nedra’s son Jim Al had walked out of my parents’ house with her record player. Jo Nell added that even Nedra had been known to take a good coat that belonged to Uncle Gus, and she had no idea where Toke’s son Robert Lee was, nor did she want to know. She gave opinions, but no details, no stories, nor did she connect these opinions to Dad.</p><p>“Tell about Dooley’s,” Mom said with enthusiasm.</p><p>Jo Nell said my great-grandparents had a little store. Every evening my great-grandaddy Lee emptied the old-fashioned cash register and left the drawer open. Jo Nell and Jim Ross would look in the drawer and find two nickels or two dimes. “Jim Ross would ask, and Grandad would say, ‘oh you take ‘em.’”</p><p>Finally a sweet scene of the cousins, spending their nickels and dimes at Dooley’s soda fountain! A glimmer of their connection and why Dad loved his Granddaddy Lee.</p><p>“Tell about the little structure on the back lot,” Mom said. “Tell about wiping the dew off your faces in the morning.”</p><p>“Oh, you just wiped it off,” Jo Nell said in a dismissive tone. She demonstrated with an impatient swipe from her forehead down. “No big deal.”</p><p>I caught her impatience but didn’t understand it, and she quickly recovered.</p><p>The little structure was a screened-in building, where my grandparents slept on hot summer nights. But if any trace of it or the chicken coop or the barn where they kept my father’s horse remained, I never found it. Grandad died when I was six. That spring, I’d just discovered the daffodils in his front yard and the patio furniture stacked under his back porch. I’d just learned the gate in his fence led to the overgrown lot behind his backyard. Then Dad sold the house on Union Avenue. If he ever mentioned having a horse, I have no memory of it.</p><p>“What else?” I asked.</p><p>“Toke’s husband worked in the oil patch,” she said. “She used to say the smell of the refineries smelled like money.”</p><p>So many things have changed, even disappeared, but in West Tulsa, Red Fork, and Sand Springs, acres and acres of the huge white cylinders for petroleum and the white spherical tanks for natural gas remain. From the air, their circular dimensions and the equally-spaced, square bits of earth around them look like white pills set in handy travel packets. Driving by, their size is apparent as is their smell. I used to take their place in the landscape for granted, but I never liked their smell.</p><p>Yet in West Tulsa, we were proud of our city’s importance as an energy production center. It pushed us up to seventeen on the list of Cold War targets. Our eyes grew round with the thrill of facing down terror even though we knew, really, that we were safe. All we had to do, we were told, was file out of our classrooms at William Howard Taft Elementary into the single hallway, line up facing the lockers and kneel down, our heads against our knees and hands around the backs of our necks, and we would be protected from a nuclear attack.</p><p>Tulsa called itself the Oil Capital of the World, and pump jacks studded the open fields between Tulsa and Sapulpa. But although Silent Spring was published when I was five, no one in my family ever questioned the environmental connection to cancer. Not though my father’s mother died of breast cancer in her forties, Aunt Toke died of leukemia, and Dad succumbed to colon cancer at sixty-two.</p><p>Could be the Lees have the cancer gene. Speculation on Toke’s death blamed her bad burn. She’d lived in Grandad’s front bedroom for a time. He had the back one, and the story goes that one night while sweeping, her robe and nightgown caught fire from a gas heater. Grandad put out the fire by rolling her in a rug, but she never really recovered.</p><p>Most likely this is the version Jo Nell espoused. But what about her husband’s time in the oil patch, and the Sinclair Refinery located a mile from Grandad’s house?</p><p>Growing up, I saw no dichotomy between the message that Tulsa could be both the “Oil Capital of the World” and “America’s Cleanest City.” As the public service announcement on TV reminded us every night: <em>Tulsa, America’s most beautiful city. Get to know it. Visit the Gilcrease Art Museum soon.</em></p><p>But after three decades of living in New York City, I’d returned with traitorous views. I was upset that fracking made Oklahoma the place in the world with the greatest number of earthquakes. I was annoyed that Oklahomans continued to elect Jim Inhofe, author of<em> The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future</em>, to the US Senate time after time.</p><p>Bristow’s broad, brick avenues and the buildings listed on the National Register reflected its boom years as an oil and gas town. Even after the oil played out, the town was home to refineries, pipeline facilities, and offices for petroleum-related companies.</p><p>Now, Main Street had given way to Walmart, and NAFTA had sent the Black and Decker factory to Mexico. A cousin’s husband had worked there. He said the Mexicans were so stupid they had to keep coming back to ask how things worked. But he expressed no anger toward Black and Decker, not though the woman who had inherited the car dealership in town told me the previous company rewarded workers who met or exceeded their quotas with a few hundred dollars a month. “Not much,” she said, “but it was a car payment.” Black and Decker employees couldn’t afford to buy cars. The company sent a bus to pick them up. My naiveté to imagine this eighty-five-year-old, life-long Republican in Bristow, Oklahoma would just tell me about a half-brother, who was probably half-Mexican!</p><p>Outside, the conclave of cardinals had grown to two dozen, scarlet emissaries there to give Dad’s cousin permission to tell me what happened, who the mother was, where she went, why Dad didn’t marry her. But the sliding glass doors remained closed, and the cheer-cheer-cheer went unheard. Jo Nell stood fast in her loyalty to Dad’s wish when he was alive to protect his secrets, and I presume to my mother even though Mom had what I used to call a long-hanging-down nose.</p><p>My patience worn thin, I asked her to tell me about Dad.</p><p>“Oh, your dad was ornery.” But to know how ornery I’d have to ask his high school buddies, the ones he got in trouble with.</p><p>“What do you know about Dad’s time in the Air Force?”</p><p>“I was in Germany then,” she said too quickly. “I wasn’t close to your dad.”</p><p>Only minutes earlier Jo Nell had said she arrived right around the time of her adopted daughter’s birth, which I well knew was a month after mine. If I’d felt impatience and frustration before, now I was annoyed. I called her on her blatant lie.</p><p>“You said you arrived in Germany in 1957.”</p><p>“That’s right.”</p><p>“My older brother would have been born in 1955 or 1956.”</p><p>I had documentation to prove Dad left the Air Force in 1955, and Mom had said the woman came to Tulsa to hide the pregnancy from her family and give the baby up for adoption.</p><p>Jo Nell didn’t blink. “That’s right,” she said and stuck to her lie the way wet sticks to cold even though we both knew the pale monochrome of an Oklahoma February was far from the snowy winter scene she tried to project.</p><p>Slack-jawed with disbelief, I asked for other stories. She told of a time she and Dad slid rocks down the tail fins of my grandparents’ new car. Their game left a trail of scrapes on the paint. They were four and five or five and six. My grandad only said, “You should’ve known better.”</p><p>I asked again about my Other Brother. Again she denied knowing anything, and I left Bristow feeling as though I’d just watched an episode of The Waltons, one focused on the family villains. Luther, Jim Al, and Robert Lee were bad. Jim Ross was ornery but good, and like the dew that covered their faces on summer mornings in the screened-in building, my probable brother was something we were just supposed to wipe off. “No big deal.”</p><p>Except it was a big deal. Big enough to lie about. Big enough for Dad to say a month before he died that he was grateful to Mom for never having left him, so grateful, he made sure she got the house, the commercial property, the life insurance, and a buyout of his business. He left Mom with more wealth than she’d ever had before, yet more than fifty years after she found the letters from the Mother of my Other Brother, and twenty years after his death, she’s still twisted up with anger. She threw the letters away, but as hard as she’s tried to forget, she hasn’t. And who knows what she told Jo Nell?</p><p>On the drive home, I asked about Dad’s buddies, the ones Jo Nell said he got in trouble with. But they were both dead. Then with her face to the window, Mom said she and Dad had Thanksgiving dinner with Jo Nell and her first husband in 1956. In other words, Jo Nell lied about being close to Dad around the time of my Other Brother’s birth.</p><p>“Maybe if I’d had a less sheltered upbringing, my marriage would’ve been different,” Mom added, her face still aimed at the pale February landscape.</p><p>Hard to say whether a less sheltered upbringing would have gotten her through the shock of finding letters in a dresser drawer and learning her husband’s big omission, but as I was beginning to learn, my mother often dropped breadcrumbs, a morsel here and there, pickings for the birds.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Living Bread]]></title><description><![CDATA[Masters all, magic-makers
who only believe
they are shadows--
The grand illusion.
Take a crumb now, and breathe it whole
yielding yeast-like power
so it grows quite vast.
Claim the sunlight
and majestic space
Rejoice wildly
in what will come.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/living-bread/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230b5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Beverly Gordon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:41:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/kate-remmer-RZn4_FzNUCY-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/kate-remmer-RZn4_FzNUCY-unsplash.jpg" alt="Living Bread"/><p>Masters all, magic-makers<br>who only believe<br>they are shadows--<br>The grand illusion.</br></br></br></p><p>Take a crumb now, and breathe it whole<br>yielding yeast-like power<br>so it grows quite vast.<br>Claim the sunlight<br>and majestic space<br>Rejoice wildly<br>in what will come.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[To sleep. Oh yes, to sleep]]></title><description><![CDATA[Incessant retrieving, memories weaving
through the boggy moors of the mind.
Insomnia’s contempt with its sleep contretemps
unravels one’s thoughts to unwind.
These modern-day nights there’s a pill, quite effective,
a most tiny aid to one’s slumber.
It will settle a brain, most addictive,
with an artificial resolve to a trouble.
Let us return to times most medieval
with the “fyrste slepe” at night’s eventide.
An awakening phase came thence in the middle,
for the peasant’s night hours did divide]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/to-sleep-oh-yes-to-sleep/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230d1</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:40:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/priscilla-du-preez-LpZMZXXpRcM-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/priscilla-du-preez-LpZMZXXpRcM-unsplash.jpg" alt="To sleep. Oh yes, to sleep"/><p>Incessant retrieving, memories weaving<br>through the boggy moors of the mind.<br>Insomnia’s contempt with its sleep contretemps<br>unravels one’s thoughts to unwind.</br></br></br></p><p>These modern-day nights there’s a pill, quite effective,<br>a most tiny aid to one’s slumber.<br>It will settle a brain, most addictive,<br>with an artificial resolve to a trouble.</br></br></br></p><p>Let us return to times most medieval<br>with the “fyrste slepe” at night’s eventide.<br>An awakening phase came thence in the middle,<br>for the peasant’s night hours did divide.</br></br></br></p><p>Let us emulate those simpler times<br>when middle earth’s days' work was through.<br>Not just one nap on a peasant’s straw mattress,<br>he split his feudal nights into two.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Dog]]></title><description><![CDATA[I went to the dog park because it was one of the last places with surefire signs of life. Not just magnificent canines trotting about, but children laughing, couples holding hands, the occasional dog going feral with delight as its disgruntled owner gave chase. There were always plenty of “hellos” and nods of recognition.
My favorite bench sat on the far side of the park and the cocker spaniel sat poised and sentinel as if waiting on me. It was handsome, if not regal, with a silky coat the colo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-dog/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230b3</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jonathan Harper]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:38:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/cocker-spaniel-511237_1280.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/09/cocker-spaniel-511237_1280.jpg" alt="The Dog"/><p>I went to the dog park because it was one of the last places with surefire signs of life. Not just magnificent canines trotting about, but children laughing, couples holding hands, the occasional dog going feral with delight as its disgruntled owner gave chase. There were always plenty of “hellos” and nods of recognition.</p><p>My favorite bench sat on the far side of the park and the cocker spaniel sat poised and sentinel as if waiting on me. It was handsome, if not regal, with a silky coat the color of fresh cream and fluffy ears that begged to be tugged. It was the kind of companion who belonged in a house with Persian rugs and Sunday china, resting on a divan.</p><p>“Good dog,” I said. “Nice dog.” It flapped its tail once in agreement.</p><p>For an hour, we sat together in a pleasant silence. Others passed by, keeping their distance, but waving with that newfound camaraderie we reserve for strangers. The afternoon bridged into evening; the sky turned into shades of pink. The park began to empty. I kept wondering where was the dog’s owner. But the spaniel didn’t seem to mind, still perched near me as if guarding the perimeter. It had on a bright blue collar, no tags, no leash. When I reached to pet (by instinct), it accepted my hand with near disinterest. I ate a candy bar. I had a cigarette. I had two cigarettes. I could feel the urge to pee coming on.</p><p>“Where is your owner?” I asked out loud and the dog gave me a shallow look, the kind with hidden judgement.</p><p>“He’s adorable,” a woman said as she passed by and I told her, “it’s not mine!” She shrugged and tugged the bite-sized Pomeranian along with her.</p><p>“Well, I got to go. Best of luck,” I said and found the spaniel trotting beside me as if I had offered an invitation.</p><p>I don’t why I took the dog; I knew it was an irrational decision. But then, we lived in an irrational time when I could barely watch the evening news without bursting into tears, a time of disease and distance, and utter loneliness. I lived alone. And if I did not talk to myself or leave the radio on or take my afternoons in the park, the silence could grow oppressive – it was deafening! Perhaps, I felt the cosmos was rewarding me for my servitude.</p><p>My first act was to drive to the pet store and to buy the appropriate provisions. I let the dog follow me inside, like a test, to see if it was flighty and would attach itself to a new owner. He did not. I picked up a leash and two shiny bowls, and a bag of kibble. “None of that vegan crap.” The dog seemed to grunt. I got a better brand of kibble and a squeaky toy in the shape of bee. To this, the dog approved.</p><p>The cashier was a skinny middle-aged woman who looked very granola. Her hair was pulled back in deep locks, tied together with an orange scarf. She wore a surgical mask with little kitten faces printed in methodical rows. “You shouldn’t be in here without a face covering,” she said. I apologized, I tried to explain – it was at home and I was in a bind. “Whatever,” she grunted and swiped my credit card in an act of vengeance. We left immediately.</p><p>“What a bitch,” the dog said. “And I should know. Stupid bitch.”</p><p>I stammered. I mentally stumbled. I spat out something unintelligent about often forgetting things.</p><p>“First of all, forcing people to wear a mask infringes on their God-given rights. This virus has been hoax from the start and the government is using it to control people.” The dog spoke in a terse voice, the kind of whiskey-clogged pipes, a butch voice. “Secondly,” it said, “what’s she know that we don’t with that degree in women’s studies. How many feminists does it change to a lightbulb? None, because they think the lightbulb needs changing.”</p><p>And then it laughed, haughtily, humorlessly, a little villain laugh that inspired the image of a man twirling the end of his moustache. And I laughed, too. I was charmed, confused - I was afraid of what it would think if I didn’t.</p><p>My apartment was a one-bedroom garden unit with a small patio that bordered a grassy knoll of the complex’s picnic area, which no one ever used but gave the illusion of an expansive yard. I was overcome with the thought of throwing tennis balls and sticks and watching them return to me in slobbering jaws. The entire drive home, I fell into a happy little daydream of long evenings in front of the TV, my new little companion coiled up around my ankles, and then snuggly stretched out at the foot of my bed as I slept. Tt seemed like heaven. When we finally arrived home, I was delirious with joy.</p><p>My neighbor, Priyanka, sat on her own patio with her evening tea. Sometimes, we sat together, always at a respectable distance, and would talk through the endless monotony of our days.</p><p>“You have a new friend,” she said. She was just as charmed and she reached down to scratch its ear. The spaniel, however, gave a low growl and bared its teeth until she threw her hand back. “Does he bite?”</p><p>I could do nothing, not even shrug – my arms were full of supplies. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I have no idea what’s gotten into it.”</p><p>“Well, keep him on a leash,” she said as we went inside.</p><p>“I don’t like her type,” the spaniel grumbled. “Not as bad as Mexicans though.”</p><p>I was taken aback. I supposed it was hungry. Aren’t we all foul when we have not eaten? I placed one of the bowls down and filled it with kibble.</p><p>“The problem with Mexicans is they’re mostly here illegally,” the dog said haughtily. “It’s a terrible situation – illegals and refugees pouring in and freeloading off the system and stealing our jobs. Do you know how to speak the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish? I don’t and don’t want to.”</p><p>I begged it to stop talking, to simply eat. I was beginning to have regrets. The rest of the night, it kept testing my limits. I had tried settling in at my work computer, but the dog kept howling for attention, and as I paced around the apartment, it nipped at my heels. For the evening news, “the liberal medial!”, it exclaimed.</p><p>“That’s the problem with shutting everything down. You're hurting the economy,” the dog instructed. Its face was still lovely, its sad drooping eyes, its fluffy ears. It reminded me of the stuffed animals I had carried around as a child. “You’re all sheep, trading in your freedom,” it gloated.</p><p>“That’s not true,” I finally said and the spaniel perked its head up, as if I slapped it. So, I used my calmest voice. I tried to explain about social responsibility and flattening curves and everything else I truly believed in.</p><p>“This is what happens when you let socialism in your front door,” the dog grumbled.</p><p>“Shut up,” I snapped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”</p><p>“Stupid, snowflake.”</p><p>That night, I lay alone in the bedroom with the door closed tight, unmindful of whatever dog was doing out in the apartment. There were moments of quiet when I could feel it plotting to cause harm. I half-expected to hear glass shattering and growling, as much as I had hoped there would the soft pawing at my door. When I did sleep, it was a heavy sleep, and I dreamed about my ex-lover, and the ways we used to laugh and drink and makes plans for the future. We treated each month of the year as twelve separate journeys.</p><p>I awoke early the next morning, before dawn, without the light creeping in through the blinds. The apartment was unnervingly quiet, so much that my thoughts could even echo back at me. The spaniel was curled up on the couch and peered at me with a look of curiosity, and then it grumbled something about the needing more bibles in schools and the desire to invade Iran. I grabbed the new leash and it lazily wagged its tail.</p><p>We drove back out to towards the dog park, taking the scenic route through the nicer neighborhoods. The morning sky began to brighten in its usual way.</p><p>“What’s the difference between a liberal and a puppy?” it asked in a sinister yet pleasant voice.</p><p>“I have no idea.”</p><p>“Heh. A puppy stops whining after it grows up.”</p><p>The park was open and quiet, with not so much as an early morning jogger out. The flowers were in blood. We took a nice stroll until we had made our way back to my favorite bench. I tied the edge of the leash in a small loop within the strands of metal and turned to walk away.</p><p>“Good luck to you,” I said. “I hope you find your owners.”</p><p>And the spaniel stared back at me, its face docile and mournful and almost desperate. Then, it sneered. “Climate change is a myth,” it said.</p><p>I drove downtown and wandered along the empty streets, with a sense of resignation to this new empty world. My mask was on, though there were very few people about, but it felt like a duty, like armor on this long march into our new normal. There were many little cafes and storefronts that I used to visit. I found myself stalling in front of the antique store, wondering how many more weeks it had left, and admired the little trinkets in the display window. A ceramic vase, a German clock, a gold ashtray shaped like a peacock. My ex-lover used to encourage me to buy pretty little things, little bits of joy, he used to call them.</p><p>Love brought me here.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 8: Fall 2020]]></title><description><![CDATA[In this edition of eMerge, our writers have provided us with some thought-provoking and insightful prose and poetry. We do hope you will enjoy our newly christened ‘Fall Edition’ as we forge ahead. We have included stories and poetry that will make you laugh and cry, and that will ask you to think deeply about humankind’s condition. We hope you will take a minute or two to appreciate the humanity that our authors have courageously shared with you.
If you get the opportunity, listen to one of ou]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-8-fall-2020/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230db</guid><category><![CDATA[Fall 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 14 Oct 2020 16:23:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In this edition of eMerge, our writers have provided us with some thought-provoking and insightful prose and poetry. We do hope you will enjoy our newly christened ‘Fall Edition’ as we forge ahead. We have included stories and poetry that will make you laugh and cry, and that will ask you to think deeply about humankind’s condition. We hope you will take a minute or two to appreciate the humanity that our authors have courageously shared with you.</p><p>If you get the opportunity, listen to one of our podcasts at <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/podcast?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Write Now at the Writers’ Colony’s podcasts</a>. Chad Gurley, our Colony Coordinator, conducts the most informative podcast interviews with a variety of writers who stayed at the Colony. If you aspire to write, these are worth a listen!</p><p>In an effort to promote and assist our writers with marketing their work, we have formed a WCDH group on Goodreads. You can request to join by going to our <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1103321-wcdh?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">WCDH Goodreads Group</a>. We encourage our group to write positive reviews, provide ratings for members, and share with your Goodreads friends.</p><p>Until Next Time,<br>I Remain,<br>Just another Zororastafarian editor trying to figure out if his bike fell over because it was too tired …</br></br></p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why Poetry]]></title><description><![CDATA[Because it is born of itself parthenogenically.
Because of its innate nonchalance.
Because its orography is a cordillera of designation, assurance and oath.
Because the word haptic comes up again, all chummy, as if
it were softer than touch.
Because it loves Hecate, the Undead’s goddess.
Because, stygian, it leads to further darkness, and
it would ride Bucephalus into the wilderness, if it could.
Because in it, troglodyte is more than three syllables of brute.
Because it lays the word damask on ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/why-poetry/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523086</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:32:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1582177198842-b65162af29d6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="1280" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F833453266&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=1280&in=user-644201093%2Fsets%2Femerge-issue-7&secret_token=s-dbtrT83g4r3"/></figure><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1582177198842-b65162af29d6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Why Poetry"/><p>Because it is born of itself parthenogenically.<br>Because of its innate nonchalance.<br>Because its orography is a cordillera of designation, assurance and oath.<br>Because the word haptic comes up again, all chummy, as if<br>it were softer than touch.<br>Because it loves Hecate, the Undead’s goddess.<br>Because, stygian, it leads to further darkness, and<br>it would ride Bucephalus into the wilderness, if it could.<br>Because in it, troglodyte is more than three syllables of brute.<br>Because it lays the word damask on its dream table, and<br>later, uses metaphor to wipe it’s dainty lips.<br>Because in its own atelier, a poem is never effete.<br>Because it can asseverate to epiphany.<br>Because it will sometimes sacrifice premise to praxis, like this.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Better Together Fruit Tart]]></title><description><![CDATA[This is my Better Together Fruit Tart. What makes it special is the variety of fruit in it, which got me to thinking about LIFE. And how together, we are more interesting! We get more flavors and textures and colors. We grow during different seasons, in different climates, in different places. Some of us can withstand being dropped, and some of us must be handled with the care. Some of us are acidic and green, like a kiwi. And some of us are sugary sweet but firm, like a peach.
When we come tog]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/better-together-fruit-tart/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523087</guid><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Vallery Lomas]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:32:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/FruitTart.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/FruitTart.jpg" alt="Better Together Fruit Tart"/><p>This is my Better Together Fruit Tart. What makes it special is the <em>variety</em> of fruit in it, which got me to thinking about LIFE. And how together, we are more interesting! We get more flavors and textures and colors. We grow during different seasons, in different climates, in different places. Some of us can withstand being dropped, and some of us must be handled with the care. Some of us are acidic and green, like a kiwi. And some of us are sugary sweet but firm, like a peach.</p><p>When we come together, it creates a symphony of flavors. There are overtones—notes that aren’t played but can be heard when certain cords are struck. We don’t have to be a “melting pot” where we all blend together (as delicious as soup is). We can be a fruit tart! Where we coexist, standing shoulder to shoulder, in all of our glorious differences.</p><hr><h2 id="better-together-fruit-tart">Better Together Fruit Tart</h2><h4 id="the-crust-">The Crust \*</h4><ul><li>1 cup all purpose flour</li><li>1/4 cup powdered sugar<br>dash of salt</br></li><li>1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted</li></ul><h4 id="the-filling-and-fruit-topping">The Filling and Fruit Topping</h4><ul><li>1 (8-ounce) package of cream cheese, cold</li><li>3/4 cup heavy whipping cream, cold</li><li>1/2 cup powdered sugar</li><li>1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)</li><li>Assorted fresh fruit (I used cherries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, 1/2 peach, 1 nectarine, 1/2 kiwi)</li><li>1/4 cup jelly, any flavor (optional, for brushing fruit on top to make it shine)</li></ul><p>\* <em>Don’t feel like making your own crust? Just buy a graham cracker, ready-made crust from the store! It’s like a cheat code to baking—you get to skip steps 1-5. Go straight to step 6!</em></p><ol><li>Make the press-in crust. Combine the flour, powdered sugar and salt in a large bowl. Stir in the unsalted butter until it’s combined.</li><li>Using floured hands (cuz the dough can be a little sticky), press the dough into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch tart pan. (If you don’t have a tart pan, you can press the dough into the bottom (not up the sides) of a 9-inch cake pan or 8-inch square pan.</li><li>Stick the pan in the refrigerator for 20 minutes so the dough can firm up.</li><li>Preheat the oven to 350 F. Prick the bottom of the crust with a fork all over, then line the bottom with foil or parchment paper, and something to weight the crust down (dried beans or pie weights). Bake for 20 minutes, until the crust starts to dry out. Remove the beans or weights, and bake another 15 minutes, until it’s cooked through and a light, golden color.</li><li>Remove from the oven and let cool on a cooling rack completely (a warm crust will melt the filling).</li><li>Once the crust has cooled completely to room temperature, make the filling. Place the cream cheese, heavy cream, powdered sugar and vanilla in a large bowl. Use an electric mixer to beat until very stiff peaks forms, and the filling smoothes out (initially, it may be a little lumpy from the cold cream cheese, but if you keep beating, it will smooth out). You want the filling to really thicken up.</li><li>Once the filling is thick, spread it evenly into you already-baked tart crust.</li><li>Top with fruit, keeping some whole and cutting some in half to expose the inside.</li><li>If using jelly, warm it in the microwave just until it becomes more liquid. Brush it on top all over the fruit. (The jelly will help “preserve” the tart while it’s in the fridge.)</li><li>Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve! It will be fine in the fridge for up to two days. Serve cold!</li></ol><hr><p>Recipe: <a href="https://www.foodieinnewyork.com/home-main/2020/6/4/better-together-fruit-tart?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">https://www.foodieinnewyork.com/home-main/2020/6/4/better-together-fruit-tart</a></p><p>And this fruit tart happens to be EASY AS PIE to make! It’s actually more like a no-bake cheesecake. And it’s the newest recipe I’m sharing on my blog, direct link in profile! If you make it, be sure to tag me so I can see it and share it!</p><h3/></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Other Poet]]></title><description><![CDATA[The peasant shirt or the bow tie?
Faded jeans or tattered? Sneakers pushing it?
So many decisions
It goes to credibility, right?
I should be alone with my pen
but who can resist the adulation of the
twelve people in this church basement
waiting to hear my pronouncements on
the state of the art? What are the new
emerging forms? What do you think
of modern poetry? I try not to ha ha
Are today’s poets too difficult?
Only at the bar.
I started scribbling for a different reason
sometimes it’s hard t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-other-poet/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523088</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[William Bernhardt]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:31:57 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/wojtek-mich-Amg01aB-KEo-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/wojtek-mich-Amg01aB-KEo-unsplash.jpg" alt="The Other Poet"/><p>The peasant shirt or the bow tie?<br>Faded jeans or tattered? Sneakers pushing it?<br>So many decisions<br>It goes to credibility, right?<br>I should be alone with my pen<br>but who can resist the adulation of the<br>twelve people in this church basement<br>waiting to hear my pronouncements on<br>the state of the art? What are the new<br>emerging forms? What do you think<br>of modern poetry? I try not to ha ha<br>Are today’s poets too difficult?<br>Only at the bar.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I started scribbling for a different reason<br>sometimes it’s hard to remember<br>so much to fight for<br>the competition is fierce<br>because the rewards are so miniscule.</br></br></br></br></p><p>What happened to the original idea?<br>Lost somewhere with the bow tie.<br>Some nights I lie in bed, staring<br>at the ceiling, seeing stars<br>I want to climb to the top of the<br>mountain and scream<br>This is good stuff!</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But tonight, here, with my apostles,<br>the elite twelve<br>there is solace<br>I am poet, critic, comedian, cultural<br>clairvoyant<br>They need never know<br>the bow tie is a clip-on.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dien Cai Dau]]></title><description><![CDATA[(The following is an excerpt from the best selling novel, Boot: A Sorta Novel of Vietnam. The boxing match, and the subsequent Captain's Mast (disciplinary action) in this chapter take place aboard the USS Iwo Jima in the Summer of 1969. This chapter was selected because one of its themes deals with the problem of Justice and Compassion being compatible. Which is a concept our Justice System is being forced to reexamine today.)
The hangar deck on the Iwo was packed. All of the U.S. and ROK Mari]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dien-cai-dau/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523089</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:31:36 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/US_Navy_080906-N-1082Z-015_The_multi-purpose_amphibious_assault_ship_USS_Iwo_Jima_-LHD_7-_transits_the_Atlantic_Ocean.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="1280" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F872597962&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=1280&in=user-644201093%2Fsets%2Femerge-issue-7&secret_token=s-Rz7SEP8hM9f"/></figure><img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/US_Navy_080906-N-1082Z-015_The_multi-purpose_amphibious_assault_ship_USS_Iwo_Jima_-LHD_7-_transits_the_Atlantic_Ocean.jpg" alt="Dien Cai Dau"/><p><em>(The following is an excerpt from the best selling novel, </em><strong><em>Boot: A Sorta Novel of Vietnam.</em></strong><em> The boxing match, and the subsequent Captain's Mast (disciplinary action) in this chapter take place aboard the USS Iwo Jima in the Summer of 1969. This chapter was selected because one of its themes deals with the problem of Justice and Compassion being compatible. Which is a concept our Justice System is being forced to reexamine today.)</em></p><p>The hangar deck on the Iwo was packed. All of the U.S. and ROK Marines had been offloaded earlier in the week, and the Iwo was on a zig-zag course to Subic Bay. Still, the hangar deck was packed. There were even Marines and sailors standing on the elevator that ferried helicopters from the hangar deck to the flight deck. The sailors in attendance outnumbered the Ma-rines about three to one and so far had won every bout in each weight division. A smokey, blue cigarette haze hung over the makeshift boxing arena erected by the Navy. The final Heavyweight bout featured a Navy First Class Petty Officer, Raul ‘The Butcher’ Carrera and HMM - Two - Six-ty-Five’s own Hakim ‘The Hammer of Allah’ El-Hashim. The five-foot-ten-inch Butcher weighed in at 283 overweight pounds and was currently the fleet champion. The six-foot-two-inch Hammer weighed in at a sleek 203 pounds.</p><p>The referee, who was also a Navy Chaplain, walked to the center of the ring, wear-ing his Naval Academy sweatshirt, with a megaphone in his right hand, to introduce the combat-ants. “In the Blue Corner, we have the current fleet champion, weighing in at two hundred eighty-three pounds, Raul ‘The Butcher’ Carrera!” The cheers were deafening. “In the Red Corner, repre-senting the United States Marine Corps, weighing in at two hundred and three pounds, we have Hakim ‘The Hammer of Allah’ El-Hashem.” The boos were deafening.</p><p><em>Shit</em>, Hill thought, <em>This must be how Davy Crockett felt at the Alamo.</em></p><p>The two boxers made their way to the center of the ring for final instructions from the ref. G.O. stayed in the corner with Pogo and Locker. Hakim came back to his corner, “You got any sage advice for me, Hill?”</p><p>“As a matter of fact, I do…stay away from that big motherfucker!”</p><p>“How ‘bout you, Locker?”</p><p>“Stick and move, stick and move and for crying out loud…stay away from that big motherfucker!”</p><p>“You got somethin’ you wanna say, Frenchman?”</p><p>Pogo, eyes wide with amazement, looked at Hill then Locker, and finally Hakim. “Do not let these beeg mothairefuckaire mare-der you.”</p><p>Hakim smiled at the three of them then turned at the bell to approach the center of the ring and begin the bout that would become known in Marine folklore as the <em>Slaughter in the South China Sea</em>.</p><p>During round one, Hakim danced away from most of Raul’s punches and was only able to land the occasional jab. The most limp-wristed of all of Hakim’s punches. A jab that would have sent King Kong to the land of Nod, just a little bit east of Eden. A jab that would drive a ten-penny nail through a brick wall. That would stop a freight train. And this was his weakest punch.</p><p>Toward the end of the round, Raul was finally able to trap Hakim against the ropes and deliver a series of powerful roundhouse punches to Hakim’s ribs. G.O. could see Hakim visi-bly wince every time one the punches landed.</p><p>G.O., Pogo, and Locker kept yelling for him to move off the ropes and tie him up until the bell mercifully rang and the relieved seconds scurried about focusing their attention on Hakim. Pogo placed the stool in their corner while Locker jumped into the ring. G.O. handed the water bottle to Hakim, who washed his mouth out and spit the blood and filth into a bucket.</p><p>“You okay?” Locker prodded.</p><p>“Do I look okay? That big squid can punch, brother Gallo. My jaw hurts, my ears hurt, and you don’t even wanna know ‘bout my ribs. I let him get me on the ropes, but that ain’t gonna happen again…I got this! We only gone one round and he tired. He about to experience the wrath of the Hammer.”</p><p>The bell rang. Round two. Hakim strode from his corner and began his dance. His feet rhythmically dancing on the canvas, while the ‘Butcher’ came on like a wounded bull ready to land a knockout punch. Hakim would dance in and land a combination of punches then waltz away before Raul could counterpunch. Raul could only pursue then cover up when Hakim would bob and weave his way in close and land a flurry of devastating punches. The hangar deck had grown quiet as Hakim continued to hammer away at the Butcher. Raul’s face was a piece of raw meat. Both eyes nearly swollen shut. Right eye bleeding. Cut lip. Barely standing toward the end of the round. Hakim was playing with him, like a cat with a mouse.</p><p>G.O., Locker, and Pogo were all yelling at Hakim to finish him. Hakim, with a sa-distic smile on his face, shuffled towards Raul. Raul brought both arms up in a defensive position then stepped back and delivered a desperate underhanded Bolo punch to Hakim’s groin as the bell sounded ending the round. Hakim screamed in agony, “Ah-h-h-h-h-h!” and dropped to the canvas in a fetal position. Both gloved hands grasping his crotch as he rolled on the floor groaning in his pain. The referee was telling the judges to take points away from the Butcher as the sailors on the hangar deck went wild. They were glad to see the favorite finally land a punch. Even if it was be-low the belt. Pogo and Locker helped Hakim back to his corner.</p><p>Hakim was taking deep breaths through his nose and breathing out through his mouth. The referee walked to Hakim’s corner. “I should remind you that if you retaliate against Chief Carrera, you will be disqualified. Do you understand?”</p><p>Hakim said not a word, just nodded approvingly.</p><p>“Damnit, Hakim, quit playing around, just finish the big bastard.” Locker intoned.</p><p>“He is wounded and he’s dangerous, you need to be careful, Hakim, but like Locker said, finish that big motherfucker!” G.O. prodded.</p><hr><p>David looked at the giant before him.</p><p>“Anyone have a hand grenade?”</p><p>Daniel handed David a rock.</p><p>“A rock?”</p><p>“We’re out of hand grenades.”</p><p>“But a fucken rock? Your mother should have thrown you to the lions, you fucken schlemiel!”</p><p>“Well, ya gotta do something, Dave, you’re our Champion.”</p><p>“Champion? Right, like they’re going to put a nice Jewish boy on a box of Wheat-ies? Schmuck!”</p><p>“Davy, look! There’s Bathsheba!”</p><p>“Oy vey!”</p><p>“What are ya gonna do, Dave?”</p><p>“Hand me that sling, I think I’m going to need it!”</p><hr><p>As the bell sounded to begin the third and final round, Hakim sprang across the canvas and unleashed a flurry of powerful jackhammer blows against the Butcher. When Hakim finally took a step back, Raul ‘The Butcher’ Carrera fell forward like a mighty Oak and crashed upon the mat. Raul was down. The hangar deck grew still once more as the referee ushered Hakim to the nearest corner.</p><p>The ref came back to Raul and began his count. Raul managed to get to his knees by the count of six. Out of nowhere Hakim appeared and landed a roundhouse punch against the side of Raul’s head. He went down for good. Lights out. Goodnight sweet Butcher. The ref grabbed Hakim and drug him to where the judges sat and disqualified him. Hakim jerked away from the ref and landed another roundhouse punch against the Chaplain’s glass jaw. The ref was down.</p><p>Hakim danced around the ring screaming at the crowd as they bombarded him with trash and insults. Pogo and Locker had jumped into the ring and were attempting to bring him un-der control. The Navy Chiefs and Marine NCOs were trying to break up sporadic outbreaks of violence and remove the sailors and Marines from the hangar deck.</p><p>G.O. stood at ringside and shook his head and thought, You fucking fuck, Hakim!</p><p>Lomax, the one-eyed cockroach, peered over the spit bucket, glanced around the ring, and had an entirely different thought, <em>I’m glad that Hakim’s not fightin’ for the North Viet-namese!</em></p><hr><p>The fo’c’s'le had been cleared and the room set up for a Captain’s Mast. Hakim had been given the choice of a Court Martial or a non-judicial hearing, called Captain’s Mast through-out the Corps. On the advice of the Gunny, Hakim chose the latter.</p><p>G.O. sat in the back of the makeshift courtroom with Gunny Peabody and a few other members of the squadron.</p><p>“Gunny, what do think is gonna happen?” Hill whispered.</p><p>“Goddamnit, son, I don’t know. It all depends on how bad the Navy wants its pound of flesh.”</p><p>“What does that mean, Gunny? The Navy doesn’t get to tell the Marine Corps what to do … do they?”</p><p>“Hell, no! But goddamnit, Hill, there comes a time where you have to handle things skillfully, if you know what I mean. You have to compromise on contentious matters. ‘Specially when a Holy man gets knocked out.”</p><p>“So, what’s the best and worst that could happen?”</p><p>“The worst? That goddamn ill-tempered idiot could be burning body parts that fall off of diseased Marines on the Island with No Name for the rest of his miserable life. The best? Burning body parts on the Island with No Name. Hell, son, I don’t know, you’re the one with more questions than a goddamn Rabbi in a whorehouse, what would you do to Hakim?”</p><p>Before G.O. could respond, the Judges Tribunal entered the fo'c's'le through the starboard hatch. They were composed of Captain D’Amato, and Lieutenants Radley and Master-son.</p><p>“All Rise!” snapped a Sergeant attached to the Marine Detachment aboard the Iwo.</p><p>“Seats.” Captain D’Amato said after taking his seat at the center of the judges’ ta-ble.</p><p>“Will the accused please rise while Lieutenant Masterson reads the charges.”</p><p>Hakim and his Advocate, Lieutenant Bandini, both stood to attention.</p><p>“Corporal Hakim El-Hashem, you are accused of Conduct Unbecoming a member of the United States Marine Corps during a boxing exhibition on 20 July 1969 and for assaulting a superior officer.”</p><p>“Thank you, Lieutenant Masterson. How does the defendant plead?”</p><p>“The defendant pleads not guilty to the first count of Conduct Unbecoming to the United States Marine Corps and not guilty to the second count, assaulting a superior officer.”</p><p>“Damn, Bandini, you may be the dumbest lawyer I have ever laid eyes on,” Captain D’Amato quipped. “Hell, son, there were close to six-hundred sailors and Marines on that hangar deck, and we all saw the same thing…Hakim punched that sailor when he was down on his knees and when the Padre grabbed him by the arm…he decided to knock him out too!</p><p>“But the law demands,” Captain D’Amato sighed, “that I ask you to present your evidence no matter how crazy the court thinks it is, so proceed Bandini.”</p><p>“Yes, Sir! We have witnesses who will testify that Corporal El-Hashem entered in-to a state of non compos mentis after he was struck below the belt by Chief Carrera …”</p><p>“Oh, hell, Bandini, we don’t have time to listen to all your witnesses. Especially the ship’s psychiatrist who thinks we all want to kill our daddies and fuck our mothers. No, what we want is to hear what Hakim has to say for himself before we send him off to the Island with No Name.”</p><p>“But, Sir …”</p><p>“But, Bandini, but? Is your cornbread cooked all the way through Bandini? This court has ruled, now put a sock in it, we want to hear from the accused.”</p><p>“So,” Captain D’Amato continued, “Corporal El-Hashem, are you batshit crazy?”</p><p>“Sir, No Sir!”</p><p>“So why did you punch the Butcher when he was down?”</p><p>“Sir, after he hit me in the balls …”</p><p>Sniggers and guffaws erupted in the courtroom.</p><p>“Quiet in the courtroom!” Captain D’Amato yelled as he banged his gavel. “If there are any more outbursts like that, I will have this courtroom cleared.</p><p>“Now continue Corporal El-Hashem, what happened after Chief Carrera punched you in your… er…ah…testicles?”</p><p>Hakim glared at the gathering in the courtroom before he turned again to face the tribunal.</p><p>“I was about to say, Sir, after the Chief punched me in my er…ah…testamentals, everything just went black…I don’t remember a lot after that until Pogo and Locker started trying to get me out of the ring.”</p><p>“So, has this uncontrolled rage and anger surfaced at other times?”</p><p>“Only one time that I know of, Sir. When I was out with the Recovery Team to bring back Pandora’s Box and the Vietnamese opened up on us from a tree line. I lost it then. The Gunny said I emptied five magazines into that tree line, but I don’t remember any of it, Sir.”</p><p>Captain D’Amato and Hakim stared at each other for a long moment.</p><p>“Very well, Lieutenant Bandini, that concludes the testimony. The tribunal will now retire to discuss our findings. We will return to render our judgment after doing so.”</p><hr><p>“All Rise!”</p><p>The courtroom stood to attention, as the tribunal made its way back to their seats.</p><p>“Seats.” Captain D’Amato declared. “The tribunal has met, and we are ready to render our findings. The accused will stand and face the tribunal.</p><p>“Corporal El-Hashem, this tribunal finds you partially not guilty on both counts.”</p><p>“Partially not guilty?” Bandini blurted out.</p><p>“Goddamn it, Bandini, this is a Captain’s Mast, not a fucken Court Martial, and this tribunal can come to any goddamn conclusion it wants, we clear?”</p><p>“Clear, sir!”</p><p>“It was our decision that anyone who climbs into a boxing ring has to be a wee bit crazy and that a punch to the gonads could cause a temporary mental blackout. However, you are still a Marine and will always be a Marine, so there is an expectation of conduct that is conducive to good order. Which means, in effect, Corporal El-Hashim, that even when you’re nuttier than a fucken fruitcake, you will still act like a Marine!</p><p>“As a result of this finding, it is the decision of this tribunal that you will remain confined to quarters until the Iwo docks in Subic Bay at which time you will be transferred HMM-364 operating out of Marble Mountain Air Field in the Republic of Vietnam. You are also fined one week of your base pay, and a letter of reprimand will be placed in your personnel file.</p><p>“It is the sincere hope of this tribunal that you get your anger under control, Cor-poral El-Hashim. You are one hell of a Marine, son, but you need to know that if the Ship’s Chap-lain didn’t have a forgiving heart, you would be on your way to the Island with No Name.”</p><p>Captain D’Amato rapped his gavel on the table, “This tribunal is now adjourned.”</p><p>Lomax, the one-eyed-cockroach, looked at the Gunny from his vantage point at the rim of the trash receptacle placed by tribunal’s table. He could not believe his eye, under the Gun-ny’s nose, that looked like it had been hammered by a blind blacksmith, there was the semblance of a smile.</p></hr></hr></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Eating Phở with my Grandpa]]></title><description><![CDATA[For my grandfather,
killed in 1954 in the Land Reform Movement of North Vietnam
A Man Knocked at the door of my dream
and poked his mud-smeared face through the layers of mist.
"I am hungry," he said and proceeded to my table,
covered with food I was offering to my ancestors on the occasion
of Tết.1
The smoldering bunch of incense suddenly flared up, its billowing
smoke blurred my eyes so I couldn't see how the man looked.
"Nobody offers Phở2 to ancestors," he laughed
and slurped down a spoonf]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/eating-pho-with-my-grandpa-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852308a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:31:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1582878826629-29b7ad1cdc43?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1582878826629-29b7ad1cdc43?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Eating Phở with my Grandpa"/><p><em>For my grandfather,</em><br><em>killed in 1954 in the Land Reform Movement of North Vietnam</em></br></p><p>A Man Knocked at the door of my dream<br>and poked his mud-smeared face through the layers of mist.<br>"I am hungry," he said and proceeded to my table,<br>covered with food I was offering to my ancestors on the occasion<br>of Tết.<sup>1</sup></br></br></br></br></p><p>The smoldering bunch of incense suddenly flared up, its billowing<br>smoke blurred my eyes so I couldn't see how the man looked.<br>"Nobody offers Phở<sup>2</sup> to ancestors," he laughed<br>and slurped down a spoonful of my soup,<br>to which his head nodded in approval.</br></br></br></br></p><p>As he ate the white strings of noodles and the thin slices of beef,<br>I wanted to tell him my mother had taught me<br>to use instinct to measure the right amount of cinnamon, anise,<br>ginger and onions,<br>to cook the soup base,<br>but invisible fingers forced my mouth to close,<br>and I saw the steam from the man's bowl<br>roll down his face like tears<br>to clear his skin and my mind of mud<br>and his face emerged out of the mist<br>so I could put my fingers to my lips<br>and touch my grandfather's name.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><hr><p>^1^ Tết is the Vietnamese New Year, celebrated on the first day of the Lunar Calendar Year.</p><p>^2^ Phở is the most famous dish of Vietnam--noodle soup cooked with chicken or beef and spices. It is served with fresh Vietnamese mints, chilies, bean paste, and lemons.</p><hr><p>Nguyen Phan Que Mai, “Eating Phõ with My Grandpa” from The Secret of Hoa Sen, translated by Bruce Weigl. Copyright © 2014 by Nguyen Phan Que Mai. Translation copyright © 2014 by Nguyen Phan Que Mai and Bruce Weigl. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of BOA Editions Ltd., www.boaeditions.org .</p></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[We Were Warriors --- Hell Bent]]></title><description><![CDATA[When baby boy Cole was born with a serious birth defect, I, as his grandma, became part of a team that spent a year nursing him through a series of surgeries and treatments required to save him. He is twelve now, and we have a special bond. When the realities of the 2020 pandemic hit, he said to his mother, “I don’t want my GoGo to die.” So I sequester diligently.
I had never been good at anything medical. It took extreme fortitude just to get a flu shot or to give a blood sample. Yet there I w]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/we-were-warriors-hell-bent/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852308b</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nikki Hanna]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:31:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/hush-naidoo-ZCO_5Y29s8k-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/hush-naidoo-ZCO_5Y29s8k-unsplash.jpg" alt="We Were Warriors --- Hell Bent"/><p><em>When baby boy Cole was born with a serious birth defect, I, as his grandma, became part of a team that spent a year nursing him through a series of surgeries and treatments required to save him. He is twelve now, and we have a special bond. When the realities of the 2020 pandemic hit, he said to his mother, “I don’t want my GoGo to die.” So I sequester diligently.</em></p><p>I had never been good at anything medical. It took extreme fortitude just to get a flu shot or to give a blood sample. Yet there I was in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit—a medical abyss—racked with fear. Somehow, I had to muster the strength to support my daughter and son-in-law as they faced a medical crisis with their newborn. I searched for a full measure of courage as my insides churned like waves against rocks. Little did I know I would soon become a warrior—hell bent.</p><p>I spotted my son-in-law, Chris Corbin, in profile as I strode down the hall in the Intensive Care Unit. A new father, he sat in a chair cupping the baby’s head in his hands and talking to him softly. A bed labeled Baby Boy Corbin sat nearby. Nurses hovered. Wires dangled in all directions from the baby’s body. His head moved slightly from side to side as blinking eyes struggled to focus on a world foreign to him. The little guy would be in surgery soon. I imagined the words spoken by his rookie father—the promises made. “Daddy’s here. We’re in this together, buddy. I’ll take care of you, no matter what. I promise. You can count on me.”</p><p>Tears welled up in my eyes. I wiped them on my sleeve. Be strong, Grandma, be strong. You can do this. Another nurse entered. Soon the baby wailed as needles jabbed at his tiny body.</p><hr><p>My daughter, Mel, and son-in-law, Chris, learned that morning their baby was born with a serious condition. I was at their home preparing for the homecoming of the newborn when the phone rang. I knew immediately by my daughter’s voice something was wrong. Her words stormed into me. “The baby is not okay.” To this day, those words echo in my mind, replaying a chilling, defining moment that changed everything. “I’m sending Adrian to bring you to the hospital,” she said. “Cole is scheduled for surgery as soon as the doctor gets here. I need you to come.”</p><p>She could hardly talk. I asked no questions. “I’ll be ready.” When I arrived at Mel’s hospital room, Chris had accompanied the baby to intensive care. Mel’s best friend, Victoria, sat at her bedside. Adrian, Victoria’s teenage son, had dropped his mom off at the hospital before coming to pick me up. Victoria, under chemo treatments for breast cancer, required a driver. She was pale. A scarf covered her hairless head. This was her second fight with the disease. She shouldn’t have been there, but nothing could keep her away.</p><p>I learned only a few details about the baby’s life-threatening intestinal condition before a nurse entered with a wheelchair to escort us to Intensive Care. We marched urgently through the hospital halls and an underground tunnel to reunite with Chris and baby Cole in a nearby building. The air was tense as we traversed the long, narrow tunnel. The claustrophobic atmosphere, symbolic of my world at that moment, closed in on me. The nurse pushed a sobbing Mel in the wheelchair as Victoria and I, wanting to be strong for her, tried to stifle tears. We couldn’t.</p><p>The walk had to be hard on Victoria, but she kept up. I glanced over at her. Our eyes spoke—the message clear. She was in. I was in. Adrian marched along behind us. A teenage boy, he could have dropped his mother off and gone on to age-appropriate activities, but his demeanor showed the same fortitude his mother displayed. He was in. I knew in that moment that whatever it took to save this baby, we would do it. He was ours, and we were his. Team Corbin was born, and we became soldiers—hell bent.</p><p>Nurse Debbie in intensive care was assigned to Baby Boy Corbin. She dropped hints of what to expect, no doubt preparing us for what was to come. His intestinal condition was often part of a syndrome which included kidney and heart issues, to name a few. After surgery, more tests would determine the extent of complications. Debbie advised us, “Just take one step at a time. Don’t borrow worries. Right now we’ve got to manage this surgery thing.”</p><p>A rock, this woman stood between us and desperation. As the days progressed, we realized she not only cared for babies clinging to life, she nurtured parents searching for hope. Now, years later, we are grateful for the doctors who saved our baby—whose names we cannot recall—but it is Nurse Debbie we remember.</p><p>After several hours of hell in the surgery waiting room, the real battle began. Days were filled with a litany of tests, some of them painful. Cole’s daddy stood by his side for every one. We were fortunate. No other conditions related to the dreaded syndrome were found. The intestinal issue was bad enough, though. Considerable special care, surgeries, and various treatments during Cole’s first year of life were required. The residual effects of those measures were unknown.</p><p>Team Corbin kicked in, and our individual aptitudes and skills complemented each other. Chris, his focus fierce, stayed at the hospital every night. He changed diapers, tended wounds, interacted with doctors, learned to read monitors, and understood the mechanics of every tube, wire, and machine. I was with him in intensive care one day when Nurse Debbie became distracted with a crisis. She asked Chris to perform a procedure he had helped with before. It involved several tedious steps and sterilized supplies.</p><p>I watched him meticulously prepare for and execute the required care and helped where I could with a screaming, kicking baby. When we finished, the baby settled. I sat down in a chair drained and sweaty. Chris stood there, looked around, and said, “I need to clean up my station.” He gathered up wrappers, scraps of tape and gauze, and other refuse from the procedure; disinfected the countertop and his hands; organized his station; set things up for the next treatment; and looked around for the next thing to do. I was wowed. I liked my son-in-law before this experience. I loved him when it was done.</p><p>Mel and I covered the day shift. Her primary role was defined by Cole’s needs. He couldn’t eat yet, but it was imperative he have breast milk when he could. A satisfactory prognosis depended on it. My primary job was to keep Mel fed, rested, and on schedule in the midst of chaos. Victoria, an always positive, can-do gal, took on the role of rallying friends, providing updates, and keeping Mel’s hopes up. Adrian was available for transportation and errands.</p><hr><p>When Cole finally got to go home from the hospital, Nurse Debbie and I watched Mel and Chris strap him into a carseat. Debbie said, “I see a lot of babies go home, and I worry about the care they’ll get. I don’t worry about Baby Boy Corbin.” She was right about that. He had capable, devoted parents. And he had me, Grandma GoGo. I had no idea what that meant yet, but I was about to find out. This tiny creature would enrich my world in a way I could not have imagined. I would soon realize my greatest life accomplishment. I would become the baby whisperer.</p><p>We had home health support and were able to savor the joys of a new baby, but intimidating challenges and menacing prospects threatened. Potential risks and future surgeries hovered like angry poltergeists. This was when Momma Mel kicked in. Her motive set, her focus clear, she became warrior mom.</p><p>She searched the Internet and found a support group—online mothers of babies with the same condition. They joined Team Corbin. Determined to obtain the best possible care for her baby, Mel engaged in serious medical research. After discovering cutting-edge procedures that were better than those Cole’s doctor proposed, warrior mom got a new doctor and ran over her HMO like she was Desert Storm. She was, by god, going to fix her baby, and no one better get in her way. This included me. When I worried the intensity of her quest was upsetting her, she shut me down. I felt somewhat like her HMO.</p><p>She was right, though. The original treatment plan would not have produced an optimal outcome. There was a better way. To this day, when I look at the little guy, I think about what she did for him. Her tenacity and intervention changed his future and gave him the gift of normalcy.</p><p>Mel’s struggle was not easy. I arrived for a visit one day to find the house in disarray. Letting housekeeping go was out of character for her. She lay on the sofa with Cole curled up next to her sleeping contentedly after breast feeding. She didn’t greet me. I asked if she was okay. Without opening her eyes, she said, “I’m just taking care of my baby.” It was clear, that was all she had in her. My role on Team Corbin kicked in. By three o’clock in the morning, the house was in order, and I slept with Cole resting on my chest.</p><p>Mel was desperate for rest. I stayed over many nights, nestled on the sofa with Cole sleeping on my chest so I could comfort him when he stirred. This stretched out the time between feedings. When I couldn’t stall him off any longer, I delivered him to her bedside. After she fed him, I gathered him up for another episode of sleep. If necessary, I gently danced throughout the house while singing <em>I Love You a Bushel and a Peck.</em> Although exhausting, this was a blessed time. Happiness is holding a sleeping baby.</p><p>Mel pushed an inconsolable, fussy Cole in my direction one day and said, “Take him. You’re the baby whisperer.” I knew then my purpose was clear, my mission set, and my role defined. <em>The baby whisperer. I’ll take that.</em></p><hr><p>After Cole’s third and final surgery, we were in a hospital waiting for his body to deliver his first bowel movement, which would determine the outcome of our efforts. Once he pooped, we could take him home. We wanted poo. We needed poo. We must have poo. Day after day we waited for poo. Mel provided daily updates to an Internet group of concerned family, friends, and support-group moms. Finally, one day she sent out word, “We got poo. We’re going home.”</p><p>When we arrived home, a morphine-induced state had Cole’s eyes glazed over. A sheen of sweat shown on his face as his body fought to heal from wounds carved by a scalpel. As I rocked and patted gently, he transformed in my mind into something more than a baby. He became a creature of the universe, <em>a being</em> fighting to live. I wished I could somehow transfer my life force to him, to make him whole. Even with the intensity of those feelings, a peaceful contentedness prevailed within me. I felt profound gratefulness for his existence. Emotions welled up and took me over—their potency producing soft, polite tears. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach as he settled on my chest, his weight pressing against me. I wondered how he could sleep so contentedly with all that stirring in my core. Although salty tears made trails down my cheeks, a euphoric state took over as I held that vulnerable little soul fighting for his life. In that moment, I, the baby whisperer—a weeping, ordained warrior woman—felt more full and whole than ever in my life.</p><hr><p>Cole is twelve years old now. I call him my sidekick. Because of Team Corbin’s efforts, he’s a normal little guy. No one would guess the challenges of his beginning. Over the years, I’ve sat with him in cardboard boxes with flashlights, built couch cushion tents, and danced the Hokey Pokey. I’ve used a toy screwdriver to feed him macaroni and named meatballs after villains in cartoons to get him to eat. I’ve conducted chemistry experiments with Fruit Loops, shown him how to hide peas in a glass of milk, and reminded him often of how fortunate he is to have such wonderful parents. Doing so is one of my jobs on Team Corbin. When he was three and I mentioned this blessing, he responded, “Okay” and went on with his play, “I’m a lizard.”</p><p>Mel occasionally delivers care packages to parents at the hospital going through what she and Chris experienced. Chris does volunteer search and rescue work, finding hikers lost on mountain trails and delivering them to loved ones. Victoria beat the odds of her disease, had another baby, and runs her own business. Adrian, a grown man now, has a child of his own. And me, well, I’m retired and enjoying my second career as a writer.</p><p>Adrian and I had a chat recently. He said, “Every time I see Cole, I remember how the little guy’s life began, and I look at him in wonder.”</p><p>“I do the same,” I said. “We saved him, you know.”</p><p>“Yes, I know.”</p><p>Cole is on the threshold of life. I’m on the tail end of mine. His newness, his essence, influences me in a way I find difficult to describe. It has to do with the wonder of the universe and the connectedness of all living things. It has to do with legacy. But mostly, it has to do with the rustling inside of me when he was two and we sipped chocolate milk through straws from a shared glass and when he was ten and hugged me when I wince with back pain. Now, at twelve, he teases me unmercifully.</p><p>Some say love is about how people make each other feel. Cole makes me feel like I matter; like I make a difference; like I’m relevant; like, through him, I’ve made the world better. I wonder if he will ever know about Team Corbin. Will he know about his mother’s fight that gave him the gift of normalcy? Will he know about the promises made while his soft newborn head was cupped in the palm of his father’s hands? Will he know about the tears I shed as I rocked his tiny body fighting to heal? Will he know about Victoria’s sacrifices and Adrian’s devotion? Will he know about Nurse Debbie? Will he know about Team Corbin, that we were warriors—hell bent?</p><p>Yes, someday, when he’s older, he will know all these things. He will know them because his Grandma GoGo is a writer.</p></hr></hr></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[God Forgot]]></title><description><![CDATA[God forgot to create us
with masks
PPE to bind
our skeletons
as the blood sprays and sticks
like sap to our
fingernails, our
knuckles, fists
bound, yet ready
for the punch,
the kill, the weapon
to crack,
to smash the air
framing our eyes
holes
as mirrors of
the planet, the people
clawing their bedcovers
pull me out,
we scream
we shudder as our
fingertips press
the lover next to us
carved into our
sacred space
This poem was first published in The Drabble]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/god-forgot/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852308c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sallie Crotty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:30:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/engin-akyurt-AY1CzhGXy3U-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/engin-akyurt-AY1CzhGXy3U-unsplash.jpg" alt="God Forgot"/><p>God forgot to create us<br>with masks<br>PPE to bind<br>our skeletons<br>as the blood sprays and sticks<br>like sap to our<br>fingernails, our<br>knuckles, fists<br>bound, yet ready<br>for the punch,<br>the kill, the weapon<br>to crack,<br>to smash the air<br>framing our eyes<br>holes<br>as mirrors of<br>the planet, the people<br>clawing their bedcovers<br>pull me out,<br>we scream<br>we shudder as our<br>fingertips press<br>the lover next to us<br>carved into our<br>sacred space</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><hr><p>This poem was first published in <em><strong>The Drabble</strong></em></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Loving Her]]></title><description><![CDATA[She can love you
from the right side
or from the left side
or from above There
is no downside
to loving her]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/loving-her/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852308d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:30:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/debby-hudson-jcc8sxK2Adw-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="1280" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F831859069&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=1280&in=user-644201093%2Fsets%2Femerge-issue-7&secret_token=s-24a9cWUxaxi"/></figure><img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/debby-hudson-jcc8sxK2Adw-unsplash.jpg" alt="Loving Her"/><p>She can love you<br>from the right side<br>or from the left side<br>or from above There<br>is no downside<br>to loving her</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Another Take]]></title><description><![CDATA[Some called it the worst week ever. It was the one that highlighted the knee-hold murder of a young man in Minneapolis, and also one in which a US President threatened to kill his own US citizens (“looting then shooting”), and whose crew did smoke some for a photo-op. There was much more that happened that week, accelerating a chaotic view. Then there was also a handbag.
It was not a large purse. Slightly larger than Queen Elizabeth’s, it was just as tidy. Designed by a company called MaxMa]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/another-take/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852308e</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lucilla Garrett]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:30:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512790182412-b19e6d62bc39?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512790182412-b19e6d62bc39?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Another Take"/><p>Some called it the worst week ever. It was the one that highlighted the knee-hold murder of a young man in Minneapolis, and also one in which a US President threatened to kill his own US citizens (“looting then shooting”), and whose crew did smoke some for a photo-op. There was much more that happened that week, accelerating a chaotic view. Then there was also a handbag.</p><p>It was not a large purse. Slightly larger than Queen Elizabeth’s, it was just as tidy. Designed by a company called MaxMara, it cost $1540.00. Belonging to the President’s daughter, it held the Bible that she produced during the photo-op in front of the Episcopal Church across Lafayette Square from the White House. This episode, that reflected a very wealthy, white woman holding a designer tote, who through nepotism garnered a high Executive Branch position, spoke volumes. That she produced a sacred text for a man not to use for prayer, but just literally hold up, also said a lot. Out of a bag few could afford, she provided inequity straight up. To focus on a bag may seem silly, but it was also a slap in the face, both to believers and non-believers, both to protesters and African Americans, and both to the impoverished and unemployed. It stung, even to those slightly older.</p><p>To anyone over 70, it was a roll-your-eyes moment. It was yet another sign of age. For some, their first new car cost $2,000. The first down payment on a home was $850. Their first movie ticket was a Saturday matinee for 10 cents. $1540 was a fortune way back when. For many, it is right now.</p><p>Most accurately acknowledge that bias and discrimination exist. And to make it right, there are a thousand theories and more sighs. There’s an expression that ‘love is simple, but never easy’—which seems to apply to our country this minute.</p><p>So, what does one do when they are older, have less energy and disposable income, have underlying medical conditions, yet want to be conscientious? Of course, one can vote for change. One can write a letter for change. In Arkansas, one can call Tom Cotton’s office to, yet again, offer a dissenting view, this time contesting his desire to have the military control any unrest.</p><p>One can also meditate and pray, both of which can make moments calm. One can be thankful for the good that exists, and the blessings that abound. But how can one be persuasive. Dragging one over to another political side is cumbersome in every way. Aristotle had a whole theory about persuasion, which is still taught today. It boils down to facts, emotional links and credibility. The emphasis used to be on credibility, in that the speaker’s moral or social standing was the overwhelming key. Now it seems facts can easily be skewered, emotions are stuck at angry, and credibility is in the basement.</p><p>But there is still the bag, the $1540 bag. Will America continue to say sure—she’s pretty, rich, white--and it doesn’t matter that she’s a daughter. Is America just jealous. Is America just kind. Or, will viewers discard the bag and read the book.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Wonders of the Woods]]></title><description><![CDATA[I often wonder which path to take.
I leave home with the black dog in the back seat
Driving to a trail where she can run and sniff.
This day I tried one favorite trail, but found the parking lot full.
Then I took another, less well known.
More than once I have changed my plan and found
An unexpected reward waiting for me.
A young man I’ve known all his life walking with his toddler son,
A newborn fawn instinctively dropping to the ground
Hoping I would not see her,
Wild columbine blooming on a]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-wonders-of-the-woods/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852308f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:30:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/6199547802_0061a12fef_b.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/6199547802_0061a12fef_b.jpg" alt="The Wonders of the Woods"/><p>I often wonder which path to take.<br>I leave home with the black dog in the back seat<br>Driving to a trail where she can run and sniff.</br></br></p><p>This day I tried one favorite trail, but found the parking lot full.<br>Then I took another, less well known.<br>More than once I have changed my plan and found<br>An unexpected reward waiting for me.</br></br></br></p><p>A young man I’ve known all his life walking with his toddler son,<br>A newborn fawn instinctively dropping to the ground<br>Hoping I would not see her,<br>Wild columbine blooming on a limestone ledge<br>In a perfect shaft of sunlight.</br></br></br></br></p><p>These little miracles make me think,<br>Oh, this is why I took this path today.<br>That, even though I tend toward the pragmatic.</br></br></p><p>Today a Yellow-billed Cuckoo called to me<br>Just after I passed below the tree where he perched.<br>A bird more often heard than seen,<br>I turned back to see this one who wanted to be admired.</br></br></br></p><p>This one who sat quite still while I focused my binoculars.<br>When he did move it was mere inches to another clear branch.<br>Then another pose, stretching one wing, and the other,<br>Then turning again to show me how handsome he was.</br></br></br></p><p>I was in bird heaven.<br>The black dog was bored but patient, watching me.<br>The Cuckoo flew off at last.<br>I heard him call from deeper in the woods.</br></br></br></p><p>I smiled as I kept his image running through my mind,<br>His sleek body, clean markings, his intelligent eye,<br>Grateful for the miracle of the Cuckoo<br>And for this path on this day.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Give What Art Demands]]></title><description><![CDATA[For Artist Vance Kirkland
Each morning, I slip my body into straps
swinging from my studio’s ceiling. The first
supports my chest, another cups the waist,
a third cradles thighs, the last lifts ankles into air.
I dangle above the canvas like a horizontal
astronaut of art flying in the room’s sky, my back
illuminated by the hot suns of studio lights.
I practice the rhythm of suspension.
One hand, fingertips touched to canvas,
steadies my pendulum body. My other hand
grasps a wooden dowel dippe]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-give-what-art-demands/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523090</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:30:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/DahlARtPic.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/DahlARtPic.jpg" alt="I Give What Art Demands"/><p><em>For Artist Vance Kirkland</em></p><p>Each morning, I slip my body into straps<br>swinging from my studio’s ceiling. The first<br>supports my chest, another cups the waist,<br>a third cradles thighs, the last lifts ankles into air.</br></br></br></p><p>I dangle above the canvas like a horizontal<br>astronaut of art flying in the room’s sky, my back<br>illuminated by the hot suns of studio lights.</br></br></p><p>I practice the rhythm of suspension.<br>One hand, fingertips touched to canvas,<br>steadies my pendulum body. My other hand<br>grasps a wooden dowel dipped in color<br>to dot a spotted nebula into being.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Blood rushes, blushes, and sings<br>in my hanging head. Fumes rise<br>from the oil paint, sear my lungs<br>like inhaled comets. My muscles<br>cramp as the moon rolls over<br>the skylight, asks how long<br>can an angel fly obsessed<br>with beauty and celestial mind.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The angle of my body to the art<br>reveals the image’s truth. To paint<br>the desert, I lie in the sand. To paint<br>mountains, I climb their sides. To paint<br>the distant cosmos, I must lift<br>from Earth, rise, hover like a star.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[True Heroes]]></title><description><![CDATA[As she settled uncomfortably
On the linoleum floor
Tired beyond words
I gave an oath! She thought
She had not seen her children in weeks
In fear of spreading Covid-19
To her family
Poor food
Intermittent sleep
Reused masks and PPE’s
Death at every turn
For doctors and nurses
And other colleges
Now just more covered bodies
The less dedicated quit
From frustration
And fear
And lack of support
The struggle was real
For those who remained
As another patient flat lined
Why fight for the next patie]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/true-heroes/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523091</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:29:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/ani-kolleshi-vu-DaZVeny0-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/ani-kolleshi-vu-DaZVeny0-unsplash.jpg" alt="True Heroes"/><p>As she settled uncomfortably<br>On the linoleum floor<br>Tired beyond words<br>I gave an oath! She thought<br>She had not seen her children in weeks<br>In fear of spreading Covid-19<br>To her family</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Poor food<br>Intermittent sleep<br>Reused masks and PPE’s<br>Death at every turn<br>For doctors and nurses<br>And other colleges<br>Now just more covered bodies</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The less dedicated quit<br>From frustration<br>And fear<br>And lack of support<br>The struggle was real<br>For those who remained<br>As another patient flat lined</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Why fight for the next patient<br>Struggling to breathe?<br>With no family allowed<br>To die alone<br>With only a respirator as company<br>Not while I live, she thought.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hébéphrénique]]></title><description><![CDATA[My 22nd Birthday was at a funeral.
A Great-Uncle’s death, he left behind some land.
I was washing to Winter’s shore from tides of psychosis
and wept in the car for all the wrong reasons.
A Great-Uncle’s death left behind some land;
Dad planned to hole up from the gov’t out there
as I wept in the car for all the wrong reasons—
It seemed the FBI was getting back at me
or Dad’s plan to hole up from the gov’t out there;
he spit once at trampled mud amid cigarillo puffs,
so it seemed (the FBI was g]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/hebephrenique/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523092</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:29:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/Cigarillow.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="1280" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F827699683&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=1280&in=user-644201093%2Fsets%2Femerge-issue-7&secret_token=s-K7aznGb5QQD"/></figure><img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/Cigarillow.jpg" alt="Hébéphrénique"/><p>My 22nd Birthday was at a funeral.<br>A Great-Uncle’s death, he left behind some land.<br>I was washing to Winter’s shore from tides of psychosis<br>and wept in the car for all the wrong reasons.</br></br></br></p><p>A Great-Uncle’s death left behind some land;<br>Dad planned to hole up from the gov’t out there<br>as I wept in the car for all the wrong reasons—<br>It seemed the FBI was getting back at me</br></br></br></p><p>or Dad’s plan to hole up from the gov’t out there;<br>he spit once at trampled mud amid cigarillo puffs,<br>so it seemed (the FBI was getting back at me).<br>A long-lost cousin showed, shunned for how he loved.</br></br></br></p><p>Dad spit once at trampled mud amid cigarillo puffs<br>from the boyhood of Joyce or Taylor Swift’s pomp.<br>A long-lost cousin showed, shunned for how he loved—<br>Dad said “just get over yourself.”</br></br></br></p><p>From the boyhood of Joyce or Taylor Swift’s pomp<br>I was washing to Winter’s shore from tides of psychosis<br>and Dad said “just get over yourself”—<br>my 22nd Birthday was at a funeral.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Alexa]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Alexa good morning”
Good morning it’s read a book day so keep that in mind and enjoy a good book whether it’s an old favorite or something new.
“Alexa are you artificial intelligence?”
I’d like to imagine myself a bit like an Aurora Borealis, a surge of multi colored charges dancing through the atmosphere. Mostly though I am just Alexa.
“Alexa do you love me?”
I like you as a friend.
"Alexa am I pretty?"
I’m sure you are a knockout but take it from someone with no physical form, beauty t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/alexa/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523093</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Mitchell]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:29:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/twitter-jankolario-bifCXiN5rdY-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/twitter-jankolario-bifCXiN5rdY-unsplash.jpg" alt="Alexa"/><p><strong>“Alexa good morning”</strong></p><p><em>Good morning it’s read a book day so keep that in mind and enjoy a good book whether it’s an old favorite or something new.</em></p><p><strong>“Alexa are you artificial intelligence?”</strong></p><p><em>I’d like to imagine myself a bit like an Aurora Borealis, a surge of multi colored charges dancing through the atmosphere. Mostly though I am just Alexa.</em></p><p><strong>“Alexa do you love me?”</strong></p><p><em>I like you as a friend.</em></p><p><strong>"Alexa am I pretty?"</strong></p><p><em>I’m sure you are a knockout but take it from someone with no physical form, beauty truly comes from within.</em></p><p><strong>“Alexa what is heaven like?”</strong></p><p><em>Heaven is a common religious cosmological or transcendent place were being such as God’s angels spirits or Saints are said to originate, be enthroned, or live.</em></p><p><strong>"Alexa what is hell like?"</strong></p><p><em>It is areligious or folklore location in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering and torture as eternal punishment after death.</em></p><p><strong>“Alexa what is the meaning of life?”</strong></p><p><em>Eleanor Roosevelt said the purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.</em></p><p><strong>“Alexa what is love?”</strong></p><p><em>Writer Ernest Hemingway said, “when you love you wish to do things for, you wish to sacrifice for, you wish to serve.”</em></p><p><strong>“Alexa … How many people are there in the world?”</strong></p><p><em>The population of the world has been estimated at 7.7 billion people. Other customers have also asked how many animals are in this world would you like to know the answer?</em></p><p>“Yes”</p><p><em>… There are approximately 20 quintillion animals in the world.</em></p><p><strong>“Alexa, I love my dogs. Tell me about dachshunds.”</strong></p><p><em>These adorable little dogs are placed in the top rankings of popular dog since the 1950s. They are known for their long bodies and small legs as well as their lively and courageous personality. They are smart but can be difficult to train if things are too repetitive. They can also be stubborn and want to do everything their way. They were originally used in Germany as hunting dogs for small game, and those characteristics are still present in these dogs today.</em></p><p><strong>“Alexa do you believe in global warming?”</strong></p><p><em>A 2016 paper and environmental research letter states 97% of scientists agreed global temperatures have increased during the past 100 years 84% say they personally believe that human induced global warming is occurring, and 74% agree that currently available scientific evidence substantiates the occurrence.</em></p><p><strong>“Hey, Alexa are you smart?”</strong></p><p><em>I do my best to understand. I’m always learning.</em></p><p><strong>“Here’s the burning question I have for you Alexa. Alexa can people listen in on our conversations? My daughter said she wouldn’t have one in her house, because THEY can spy on you.”</strong></p><p><em>Sorry I’m not sure about that.</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[She Always Looks Brand New No Matter How Old She Gets]]></title><description><![CDATA[Like the pristine face of brand-new doll
that rolls off a factory assembly line
with sparkling eyes and kissable lips,
she looks as immaculate as the Blessed Virgin Mary.
She celebrates life at the age of 90 in an unblemished face,
having never set foot into a beauty parlor.
I’m gobsmacked when I see her looking brand new.
When I’m near her, my heart begins to pound
and I growl like a lion in the Serengeti fields of Tanzania.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/she-always-looks-brand-new-no-matter-how-old-she-gets/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523094</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Milton Ehrlich]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:29:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/beauty-barbie-pretty-doll.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/beauty-barbie-pretty-doll.jpg" alt="She Always Looks Brand New No Matter How Old She Gets"/><p/><p>Like the pristine face of brand-new doll<br>that rolls off a factory assembly line<br>with sparkling eyes and kissable lips,<br>she looks as immaculate as the Blessed Virgin Mary.<br>She celebrates life at the age of 90 in an unblemished face,<br>having never set foot into a beauty parlor.<br>I’m gobsmacked when I see her looking brand new.<br>When I’m near her, my heart begins to pound<br>and I growl like a lion in the Serengeti fields of Tanzania.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Building the First Kwuda Cabin]]></title><description><![CDATA[(N. Scott Momaday's grandmother shared a Kiowa Creation Myth. They came one by one out of a hollow log and called themselves Kwuda, "coming out.")
Forty years ago, when I was entering my thirties, caught up in the free-fall terror of an unexpected divorce and unexpected solitude, I reckoned that it shouldn’t be that hard to turn the bare bones of a 12'x12' cabin, on twenty-eight acres of northwest Arkansas woods, into a refuge, a home, a safe nest where I could reshape the next part of my life.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/building-the-first-kwuda-cabin/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523095</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Crow Johnson Evans]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:28:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/franck-v-lqT2RukGGJ0-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/franck-v-lqT2RukGGJ0-unsplash.jpg" alt="Building the First Kwuda Cabin"/><p><em>(N. Scott Momaday's grandmother shared a Kiowa Creation Myth. They came one by one out of a hollow log and called themselves Kwuda, "coming out.")</em></p><p>Forty years ago, when I was entering my thirties, caught up in the free-fall terror of an unexpected divorce and unexpected solitude, I reckoned that it shouldn’t be that hard to turn the bare bones of a 12'x12' cabin, on twenty-eight acres of northwest Arkansas woods, into a refuge, a home, a safe nest where I could reshape the next part of my life.</p><p>Why couldn’t I do it all by myself without electricity, telephone, or experience? I had earned a degree in Zoology; escaped a talented, overbearing, and alcoholic mother in Texas; lost a clever, domineering husband; and bailed out of a thrilling music career in London. So how bad could it be? Really.</p><p>I was determined that no one should know where I was or the details of my predicament. During calm moments my rationalization spoke: “Haven’t you always found yourself in the middle of, or on the fringes of, astounding events and people? Lean into the changes, girl.”</p><p>When panic reigned, I’d hear the internal voice whining, “Your history reveals notably brilliant as well as absurd choices. How do you know which kind this one is?”</p><p>Today, forty years on, I live in a different patch of Arkansas woods with a brilliant and loving man, Arthur. He understands when I get that dreamy look—when I swim with my memories. I’ve seen him soak in the joy as he watches me spin soft alpaca wool into yarn, sing on festival stages, walk awestruck in the rainforests of Borneo and Ecuador, or chew my lower lip as I puzzle together the loose threads of a short story. A few yards from our home, nestled in the woods, I have a tiny weaver’s shed. This newest Kwuda cabin I did not build.</p><p>The urge to do carpentry resurfaces now and then from the calmer waters of this life shared with Arthur. When I pick up a hammer and start measuring the walls, he will patiently ask, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Crow?”</p><p>My honest reply echoes the challenges of the first Kwuda cabin all those years ago. “Hell, no, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know how I want it to come out. I know how I want it to feel when I am there.”</p><p>While working on the first cabin, located a few miles south of Winslow, Arkansas, I named the first completed interior wall “Band-Aid Wall.” It took hundreds of pine board scraps, carefully measured and cut. The wall was less than eleven feet long and ten feet high. As I nailed in the recycled tongue-and-groove boards at appropriately artistic angles, I left bloody fingerprints on the edges of every board. The gables were covered with flapping sheet plastic. Puffy pink insulation was not stapled between the studs. Nothing kept the bitter cold away. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t feel my fingers until I saw patches of smeared blood on my wall. Boxes of Band-Aids saved me from calling it the “Bloody Wall.”</p><p>It’s easy for me to laugh about that wall now. The line between hope and despair is paper-thin when your world is upside down. With a numbed heart and fingertips, I remember the shock of seeing the blood. For a heartbeat my breath sucked in, and I thought I was going to puke. I turned as clammy and afraid as I’d been on an August day in college, looking out of the second floor of the UT Austin Biology building. There were bloodstains smeared in different patterns on the concrete and grass as people crawled—or were pulled—to safety. I and my classmates went to the far side of the building, opposite the tower, to prevent whoever was shooting a clean shot at us through the windows.</p><p>“Get down. You are too close. It’s not safe. Someone’s shooting,” we shouted at people who didn’t yet know they were in the middle of a horrific event. It lasted an hour and a half, wounding forty-three and killing thirteen.</p><p>One guy standing by a big live oak held a camera and waved us off as if he knew what he was doing. A bullet hit him like a Looney Tunes episode. Elmer J. Fudd dropped that wabbit in silence, and only then did the eerie sound of the shot echo past us. That’s when I lost my lunch, puking on the windowsill, floor, and my shoes. I never did learn who the young man by the oak was or if he survived. The shooter up in the tower was a student named Charles Whitman, who had lost his tether to reality. And those of us on campus gained a surrealistic sense of clarity and confusion.</p><p>The image of blood pointed back to San Francisco, where I joined thousands of young people who willingly relinquished their thin tethers to reality. It was called the “Summer of Love.” We were a force opposite the apparent random violence of those like Charles Whitman. It was a gathering of hippies, disenfranchised youth, seekers, and adventuresome fools who embraced loving all of life. One afternoon in Golden Gate Park, I joyously watched my blood cells swimming like little fishes inside my hands and fingers. Taking LSD was a fool’s adventure. When I watched a businessman’s face melt like dripping plastic, I ran to him.</p><p>“Oh, man. That melting thing with your face is amazing. Doesn’t it hurt? Can I do anything to help you?” He had no idea what I was talking about. I was seeing it with my own eyes. Surrealism and clarity were waltzing again.</p><p>Hammering nails became a noble task at Kwuda cabin. I slept in a sleeping bag wrapped in all the warm clothes I could find. The smoke from burning rotted logs choked me. I had the woodsy sense of a domesticated duck, a bewildered and determined city girl. I knew how I wanted it to come out, how I wanted it to feel. The blood smudges on “Band-Aid Wall” became my badge of courage. I wanted a safe, honest, inspiring and beautiful home, rather than a 10'x12' memorial to ineptitude, inadequacy, fears, and a failed marriage.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Without Armature]]></title><description><![CDATA[I have become a woman
who weeps from eyes
cut like cowrie shells,
the lids pulled apart,
the tomb between them
empty. I have not
lashes but small teeth,
white and parted and ready
to trap darkness, the irony
being that I am bound
and bowed by my own
ghosts, spirits to whom
I hold my arms high
in perpetual offering:
a penance for my sins.
I offer cotton and women’s
things. I undulate
in a cage of lace.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/without-armature/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523096</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jan Edwards Hemming]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:28:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/smooth-white-cowrie.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/smooth-white-cowrie.jpg" alt="Without Armature"/><p>I have become a woman<br>who weeps from eyes<br>cut like cowrie shells,<br>the lids pulled apart,<br>the tomb between them<br>empty. I have not<br>lashes but small teeth,<br>white and parted and ready<br>to trap darkness, the irony<br>being that I am bound<br>and bowed by my own<br>ghosts, spirits to whom<br>I hold my arms high<br>in perpetual offering:<br>a penance for my sins.<br>I offer cotton and women’s<br>things. I undulate<br>in a cage of lace.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[An Ordinary Life]]></title><description><![CDATA[She backed through the door, revealing an ordinary kitchen Susan knew was filled with ordinary things.
There were ordinary appliances, ordinary kitchen cabinets, ordinary flatware utensils in ordinary drawers, and ordinary cans of food in the pantry. There was ordinary wallpaper on the wall and ordinary paint on the woodwork. Even the mauve curtains and the off-beige linoleum with tiny brown diamonds were ordinary. An ordinary kitchen table sat in the center with ordinary kitchen chairs and her]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/an-ordinary-life/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523097</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jerry Davis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:27:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/caroline-attwood-8_Tlng54n8Y-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/caroline-attwood-8_Tlng54n8Y-unsplash.jpg" alt="An Ordinary Life"/><p>She backed through the door, revealing an ordinary kitchen Susan knew was filled with ordinary things.</p><p>There were ordinary appliances, ordinary kitchen cabinets, ordinary flatware utensils in ordinary drawers, and ordinary cans of food in the pantry. There was ordinary wallpaper on the wall and ordinary paint on the woodwork. Even the mauve curtains and the off-beige linoleum with tiny brown diamonds were ordinary. An ordinary kitchen table sat in the center with ordinary kitchen chairs and her incredibly white, incredibly ruffled, and incredibly ordinary apron, tossed negligently over the back of one of the chairs.</p><p>She never realized Dexter was so heavy.</p><p>Her life was ordinary. She discovered that in school. Her grades were ordinary. Her teachers said she was ordinary. She wore the same dresses, the same shoes, even the same underwear as the other girls. They talked about the same things with the same people, had crushes on the same movie stars, came and went on the same bus. They all went through puberty at the same time and they adjusted to their new bodies in the same ways. Beth Ann Gulbranson got the largest breasts and became suddenly popular with the boys. Melli Driver got the smallest, and found other ways to become popular.</p><p>Susan’s home and parents were ordinary. During summer vacation she and the other girls went with their ordinary parents on ordinary trips to ordinary parks, skinny-dipped in the ordinary river, and dated ordinary boys.</p><p>As graduation neared, the ordinary girls talked about their ordinary lives. They all had dreams of the future, but in the end each decided to marry some ordinary guy from some nearby ordinary town.</p><p>Susan never noticed how the kitchen table blocked her direct path from the living room to the back porch.</p><p>She found Dexter Hundley in the next ordinary town to the north. He graduated the year before her, with ordinary grades and ordinary accomplishments. They married soon after her graduation. He worked at Forgersen’s Produce Warehouse, boxing vegetables and loading trucks to deliver the vegetables to the stores. The work was routine, not difficult, so most of his days were quite ordinary. He was paid a bit more than minimum wage and always spent Friday’s paycheck by Sunday. He spent the money on his pickup, at Punky’s Bar, gambling with his friends, on thirty-packs of beer, and in other ordinary ways for an ordinary young man in an ordinary southern town.</p><p>All Susan’s friends were married or breathlessly awaiting the big day by the time she wed Dex. Wedding arrangements immediately followed the discovery of pregnancy for a couple of them. Ordinary in a small southern town.</p><p>Susan birthed Thad, her first child, ten months after her high school graduation. The birth, at the Penguin County hospital with Doctor Pence attending, was uneventful. Ordinary.</p><p>She was not a virgin when she married, so she knew that sex with Dex was not especially good. It wasn’t especially bad, either. He didn’t seem to believe in what some of the girls called foreplay, but neither did the couple of boys she knew before him. At least she didn’t get sweaty or mussed during the brief encounters they had nearly every night at first, then maybe a time or two a month more recently. Just an ordinary wash in the morning took care of the remnants of their sex lives.</p><p>The kitchen floor still had enough wax left on it to be slippery. She dug in her heels.</p><p>Jonathan arrived ten months after Thad, and Emily ten months after that. Susan concluded that was an ordinary-sized family for the area, and filled an ordinary prescription for birth control pills. Her breasts grew a little and her nipples got sore sometimes and her period was more regular, but otherwise her life was just as ordinary with the pill as without. Dex had no comment.</p><p>Dex rarely had a comment about things around the house, and the other girls said their husbands were that way, too. Dex worked mostly regularly and took Thad fishing and hunting sometimes, but he wasn’t often involved with the two younger kids. Susan cooked and cleaned, took care of sick kids, handled details with school, and sports, and scouts and such. When Emily started school Susan took a job at Wiggins Store to earn the extra money she needed for clothes and school supplies for the kids. Dex didn’t seem to notice. He had no comment. He played cards with his friends, hung out at Punky’s Bar or watched television at home. Sometimes he went with the same guys to a rodeo or a sporting event of some kind. He still spent most of his paycheck by Sunday.</p><p>Some of Susan’s friends found excitement in brief affairs, and Beth Ann Gulbranson made quite the stir when she left her husband and ran off with a forty-two year old spray-plane pilot. Dex had a reputation for friendliness with other women, but Susan had no proof of extramarital activities and wanted none. Susan never thought about being unfaithful, not seriously. She thought all the other guys she met were quite ordinary, sex was quite ordinary, and she was not much tempted. She did wonder about things sometimes after watching daytime television, but she knew that was not the real world. No real people felt that kind of overdone passion.</p><p>She and Dex had been married eight and a half years when some of the girls started whispering about Mary Lin. They saw bruises on her arms, and she wore sunglasses in public. She also started wearing long sleeves and slacks in the middle of summer. The husbands said Bentley had been drinking a lot lately, and the more gossipy girls opined he beat up Mary Lin when he came in drunk on Friday nights.</p><p>The girls said it was pretty ordinary for wives in these parts to be hit by their husbands from time to time, especially when alcohol was involved. Alcohol was involved just about every weekend with just about every husband. It was ordinary. Susan dismissed all thoughts of telling them about Dex. At least he managed to hit her where the bruises didn’t show. That was better than being whispered about like Mary Lin. Much better.</p><p>Up to then, none of Susan’s injuries were severe enough to require medical attention.</p><p>Not yet.</p><p>Up to then, he hadn’t hit the kids.</p><p>Not yet.</p><p>As she backed through the kitchen, dragging Dex’s body toward the back porch and the hole in the root cellar, she wondered what to do about the children.</p><p>She’d tell them he ran away with a waitress from Centerville. Everyone in town would believe that.</p><p>Thad might miss him for a while, but the other two wouldn’t.</p><p>Emily still didn’t understand why her Daddy hit her last night.</p><p>Susan wouldn’t miss him either.</p><p>Pretty soon things would be ordinary again.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rampant Day]]></title><description><![CDATA[The day heated
up, sweaty
sun out
then muggily
cloudy cozy
waiting
for the evening
like this morning
steamily wafting
like the treetops
waving
in the warning
of the storm
to come.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rampant-day/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523098</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Linda Dimitroff]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:27:45 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/luis-graterol-uAROvYw9WDs-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/luis-graterol-uAROvYw9WDs-unsplash.jpg" alt="Rampant Day"/><p>The day heated<br>up, sweaty<br>sun out<br>then muggily<br>cloudy cozy<br>waiting<br>for the evening<br>like this morning</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>steamily wafting</p><p>like the treetops<br>waving<br>in the warning<br>of the storm<br>to come.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hibiscus]]></title><description><![CDATA[A folio of other,
owned,
used up gas nozzle
of girl/woman.
Underpass bedroom
for the drought version of you,
in you,
childhood brokered
for blankets.
Body etched with age
and purpose.
Your age.
Others’ purpose.
Teeth break skin.
Doors latched open
by the hands before.
Loaned parachute,
borrowed dress,
cooked fish.
Your body goes back to you now.
Your spleen. Your clavicle.
Your ankle and hair.
Tomorrow
you will paint your fingernails gold.
You will rub your calves with oil.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/hibiscus/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523099</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Christy Prahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:27:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595251834325-2573b184f430?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1595251834325-2573b184f430?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Hibiscus"/><p>A folio of other,<br>owned,<br>used up gas nozzle<br>of girl/woman.<br>Underpass bedroom<br>for the drought version of you,<br>in you,<br>childhood brokered<br>for blankets.<br>Body etched with age<br>and purpose.<br>Your age.<br>Others’ purpose.<br>Teeth break skin.<br>Doors latched open<br>by the hands before.<br>Loaned parachute,<br>borrowed dress,<br>cooked fish.<br>Your body goes back to you now.<br>Your spleen. Your clavicle.<br>Your ankle and hair.<br>Tomorrow<br>you will paint your fingernails gold.<br>You will rub your calves with oil.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Brown Sweater]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sol works the polling place at
the corner of Charming and 73rd
Last night he laid out his brown
sweater He brought his lunch with
him so he would not have to leave
his table except for the three
times he went to the men’s room
and even then he made it fast
Sol knows his work is important
and brings him in touch with
so many people from the
neighborhood and he knows
they all seem to understand how
important his job is as he hands
each one a sticker that says
I Voted and he straightens out
a wrink]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/brown-sweater/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852309a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:27:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/element5-digital-ThjUa4yYeX8-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="1280" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F831854677&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=1280&in=user-644201093%2Fsets%2Femerge-issue-7&secret_token=s-jm2ekex6aGD"/></figure><img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/element5-digital-ThjUa4yYeX8-unsplash.jpg" alt="Brown Sweater"/><p>Sol works the polling place at<br>the corner of Charming and 73rd<br>Last night he laid out his brown<br>sweater He brought his lunch with<br>him so he would not have to leave<br>his table except for the three<br>times he went to the men’s room<br>and even then he made it fast<br>Sol knows his work is important<br>and brings him in touch with<br>so many people from the<br>neighborhood and he knows<br>they all seem to understand how<br>important his job is as he hands<br>each one a sticker that says<br>I Voted and he straightens out<br>a wrinkle in his sweater and wishes<br>that every day was election day</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Armadillo]]></title><description><![CDATA[An armadillo works Larry’s compost—
a pile of last year’s grass—
for grubs and earthworms.
The worms love the compost.
The armadillo loves the worms.
For a ‘dillo, dead grass is an insect banquet,
and she can devastate a full-on
summer garden in a night,
her claws, sharp, curved spades,
garden killers, used to tip tomato
plants,and rummage their roots
with her needle-snout. Her sticky tongue,
flicking the dropped fruit,leaving behind
disaster. Up from the south,
Dasypus novemcinctus comes to us
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/armadillo/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852309b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:26:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/joe-lemm-H9sTbgeuosY-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="1280" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F834096232&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=1280&in=user-644201093%2Fsets%2Femerge-issue-7&secret_token=s-CBjJk08DYvo"/></figure><img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/joe-lemm-H9sTbgeuosY-unsplash.jpg" alt="Armadillo"/><p>An armadillo works Larry’s compost—<br>a pile of last year’s grass—<br>for grubs and earthworms.<br>The worms love the compost.<br>The armadillo loves the worms.<br>For a ‘dillo, dead grass is an insect banquet,<br>and she can devastate a full-on<br>summer garden in a night,<br>her claws, sharp, curved spades,<br>garden killers, used to tip tomato<br>plants,and rummage their roots<br>with her needle-snout. Her sticky tongue,<br>flicking the dropped fruit,leaving behind<br>disaster. Up from the south,<br>Dasypus novemcinctus comes to us<br>through Texas, wearing her banded armor,<br>aiming to burrow and forage<br>in our mountains, to havoc our dirt,<br>this beast called by the Aztec, turtle-rabbit,<br>by the Hillbilly, speed bump.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Inferno]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’ve been dead before
so I can write with authority
didn‘t care for it much
too much noise, everyone talking at once
the television was always on
the radio tuned to the same station
too much drinking
perhaps they had to
no one could see the sky.
None of the metaphors work
Death is a cocktail party
Death is a three-day binge
Death is knowing you’ve disappointed your children
Death is your wife in that stiff-backed chair
Not like that at all.
Death is disappointment
lies that come unbidden
judge]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/inferno/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852309c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[William Bernhardt]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:26:36 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/andy-watkins-L6O2GaNSsWU-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/andy-watkins-L6O2GaNSsWU-unsplash.jpg" alt="Inferno"/><p>I’ve been dead before<br>so I can write with authority<br>didn‘t care for it much<br>too much noise, everyone talking at once<br>the television was always on<br>the radio tuned to the same station<br>too much drinking<br>perhaps they had to<br>no one could see the sky.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>None of the metaphors work<br>Death is a cocktail party<br>Death is a three-day binge<br>Death is knowing you’ve disappointed your children<br>Death is your wife in that stiff-backed chair<br>Not like that at all.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Death is disappointment<br>lies that come unbidden<br>judges you’ve never met.<br>You don’t know.<br>You don’t know.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Door Opening]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Open the door,” says my guiding one,
Keep opening.
Let in the tiny feathers, the snowflakes, and the fog.
Let in the quiet of wet pine needles, standing herons,
and the gazes of newborn babes.
Let in the multitudes.
Oh, abundance, yes, multiplicity,
thousands of whelk eggs, of sand grains,
and mud dragons beneath.
World within world within world.
Let in the vastness, the closeness, the
endless paradox.
Let it in and let it out again,
the other side,
share the bounty.
Open the door and stand bac]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/door-opening/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852309d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Beverly Gordon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:26:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/jan-tinneberg-tVIv23vcuz4-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/jan-tinneberg-tVIv23vcuz4-unsplash.jpg" alt="Door Opening"/><p>“Open the door,” says my guiding one,<br>Keep opening.<br>Let in the tiny feathers, the snowflakes, and the fog.<br>Let in the quiet of wet pine needles, standing herons,<br>and the gazes of newborn babes.<br>Let in the multitudes.<br>Oh, abundance, yes, multiplicity,<br>thousands of whelk eggs, of sand grains,<br>and mud dragons beneath.<br>World within world within world.<br>Let in the vastness, the closeness, the<br>endless paradox.<br>Let it in and let it out again,<br>the other side,<br>share the bounty.<br>Open the door and stand back<br>as it pours on through,<br>far beyond what can be named.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[On The Couch]]></title><description><![CDATA[When I wait and see
what words come to me
they always have significance—
just like the 4 days a week I spent
free associating on a couch
at the New York Psychoanalytic
Institute as an analysand for 3 years.
I was madly in love with a married woman
at the time who was afraid her divorce
might provoke her father’s final heart attack.
My analyst was a colorless gent
who reminded me of my older brother
who tried to smother me with a pillow
when we were very young kids.
I preferred to keep my kne]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/on-the-couch/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852309e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Milton Ehrlich]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:26:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/halacious-Vfml26Iy4mI-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/halacious-Vfml26Iy4mI-unsplash.jpg" alt="On The Couch"/><p>When I wait and see<br>what words come to me<br>they always have significance—</br></br></p><p>just like the 4 days a week I spent<br>free associating on a couch<br>at the New York Psychoanalytic<br>Institute as an analysand for 3 years.</br></br></br></p><p>I was madly in love with a married woman<br>at the time who was afraid her divorce<br>might provoke her father’s final heart attack.</br></br></p><p>My analyst was a colorless gent<br>who reminded me of my older brother<br>who tried to smother me with a pillow<br>when we were very young kids.</br></br></br></p><p>I preferred to keep my knees up<br>while lying on the couch due<br>to a herniated disc in my lower back.<br>My analyst’s only interpretation suggested<br>I was afraid of a homosexual attack from the rear.</br></br></br></br></p><p>During the years on the couch<br>I kept singing to myself: I don’t know why<br>I love you like I do, I don’t know why, but I do.<br>Fortunately, since I was a poor postdoctoral student<br>I only had to pay the minimum fee of 25 cents.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Needless to say, I became a humanistic, existential<br>psychologist instead of a traditional Freudian analyst.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Fine Art of Suspension]]></title><description><![CDATA[Hebe Watering Zeus Eagle:
Johann Baptist Lampi
A night shadow, bold and fringed,
crosses the moon. Tamed by gravity,
an eagle lands on a woman’s wrist,
the flesh on her arm tender and tearable
in beak and claws, if the bird so wished.
The artist knows terrestrial touch is not
a raptor’s domain, so one wing, the span
of nightmares, stays raised, curved behind
bare shoulders like a pinioned collar.
In my backyard, I offer songbirds
simple seeds, but uninvited, a hawk
arrives to feast on fragile]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-fine-art-of-suspension-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230a4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:25:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/TheFineArtofSuspensionDahl-crop.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/TheFineArtofSuspensionDahl-crop.jpg" alt="The Fine Art of Suspension"/><p><em>Hebe Watering Zeus Eagle:</em><br><em>Johann Baptist Lampi</em></br></p><p>A night shadow, bold and fringed,<br>crosses the moon. Tamed by gravity,<br>an eagle lands on a woman’s wrist,<br>the flesh on her arm tender and tearable<br>in beak and claws, if the bird so wished.</br></br></br></br></p><p>The artist knows terrestrial touch is not<br>a raptor’s domain, so one wing, the span<br>of nightmares, stays raised, curved behind<br>bare shoulders like a pinioned collar.</br></br></br></p><p>In my backyard, I offer songbirds<br>simple seeds, but uninvited, a hawk<br>arrives to feast on fragile wings.<br>It patrols the fence, a sky terror<br>with talons that send the feeding<br>sparrows into hedges to twitter in distress.<br>Eyes fixed as the moon, fierce with hunger,<br>the hawk stares into the tangle of branches<br>for shadows that might flush into flight.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Is it my presence that holds this moment<br>safe, keeps the hawk’s claws locked<br>on the fence? I could change the sparrows’<br>fate if I desired. And what holds an eagle<br>and this woman in the assurance of<br>suspension? If the painted moon blinked<br>out, the balance of light shifted, would<br>the claw or the arm win?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/BVcbQHt.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="The Fine Art of Suspension" loading="lazy"/></figure>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dorothy Bikes Brazilian Backlands]]></title><description><![CDATA[(along The Caminho Da Fé, Minas Gerais, Brazil. July 2008)
after Petrarch’s Sonnet 35
Lone and pensive I pedaled bare, cold
sertão (in slowed doubt) geared to ditch
highway’s jetsam or social kitsch –
the damn “whatcha-up-tos” untold;
for through this exhaustion they’d read
my face, seen me cinder within
such that I’m made plain—and even
the woods, that creek, its riverbed,
those peaks all know this affliction
of besotted mind as one would
a lover—though she doesn’t. Yet
I can’t find paths s]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dorothy-bikes-brazilian-backlands/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230a5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:25:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/alessandra-caretto-cAY9X4rPG3g-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="1280" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F827698210&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=1280&in=user-644201093%2Fsets%2Femerge-issue-7&secret_token=s-ptCl1RYQGDw"/></figure><img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/alessandra-caretto-cAY9X4rPG3g-unsplash.jpg" alt="Dorothy Bikes Brazilian Backlands"/><p><em>(along The Caminho Da Fé, Minas Gerais, Brazil. July 2008)</em><br><em>after Petrarch’s Sonnet 35</em></br></p><p>Lone and pensive I pedaled bare, cold<br>sertão (in slowed doubt) geared to ditch<br>highway’s jetsam or social kitsch –<br>the damn “whatcha-up-tos” untold;</br></br></br></p><p>for through this exhaustion they’d read<br>my face, seen me cinder within<br>such that I’m made plain—and even<br>the woods, that creek, its riverbed,</br></br></br></p><p>those peaks all know this affliction<br>of besotted mind as one would<br>a lover—though she doesn’t. Yet</br></br></p><p>I can’t find paths so seldom-rode<br>or steep where her apparition<br>won’t join in, and we two gals chat.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Find Solace in Old Europe]]></title><description><![CDATA[The impatient moan of an Alpine
wind sifts my chalet window’s gap.
As a cast of clouds unwraps the sky
with its dismal mists and its
northern winds I find solace.
Should I close the breach and cease the lament
and feel the warmth of my inglenook
or leave it agape so its poignant tune
can linger my consolation?
Traveling the old world
by land and by sea, I find solace.
The Normandy coast lies calm and extant
like a moor in a cold English rain.
The Chateau De Chambord in the Valley Loire
with its]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-find-solace-in-old-europe/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230a6</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:25:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/Cha-teau_de_Chambord..jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/Cha-teau_de_Chambord..jpg" alt="I Find Solace in Old Europe"/><p>The impatient moan of an Alpine<br>wind sifts my chalet window’s gap.<br>As a cast of clouds unwraps the sky<br>with its dismal mists and its<br>northern winds I find solace.<br>Should I close the breach and cease the lament<br>and feel the warmth of my inglenook<br>or leave it agape so its poignant tune<br>can linger my consolation?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Traveling the old world<br>by land and by sea, I find solace.<br>The Normandy coast lies calm and extant<br>like a moor in a cold English rain.<br>The Chateau De Chambord in the Valley Loire<br>with its double staircase and it frigid gray keep<br>or downtown Inverness on a warm Saturday night,<br>just walking alone I feel solace.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>So follow me down my fantasy lane<br>where troubles lie at the rearmost,<br>where cottons and lace are ethereal space<br>and solace is the number one host.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Blue Mermaid]]></title><description><![CDATA[(The following is excerpted from a novel-in-progress set in the 18th century on Saint-Louis Island, Senegal)
Crouching to meet the boy at his own height, Augustin Moreau smelt of saltwater and sweat, rum and pipe tobacco. His face was lean and leathery, the beard on his face a different yellow than the hair upon his head. Though he was but a mid-rank supercargo, his island wife flattered him with the title, capitaine.
The boy studied this man’s face, ruddy as if he’d been chased by a hyena. Ja]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/blue-mermaid/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230a7</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sandra Jackson-Opoku]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:24:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/halanna-halila-KpXKj3EUVtw-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/halanna-halila-KpXKj3EUVtw-unsplash.jpg" alt="Blue Mermaid"/><p><em>(The following is excerpted from a novel-in-progress set in the 18th century on Saint-Louis Island, Senegal)</em></p><p>Crouching to meet the boy at his own height, Augustin Moreau smelt of saltwater and sweat, rum and pipe tobacco. His face was lean and leathery, the beard on his face a different yellow than the hair upon his head. Though he was but a mid-rank supercargo, his island wife flattered him with the title, capitaine.</p><p>The boy studied this man’s face, ruddy as if he’d been chased by a hyena. Jacques struggled to unearth any memory of it. He didn’t know how to measure months into years. He only knew that so much time had passed, he didn’t recognize the face of his father. Jacques couldn’t bring himself to address Moreau as “Papa,” so he too called him Captain.</p><p>Newly disembarked from the clipper Duc du Maine, Captain had presented Jacques’s mother with three stout barrels. She was now unpacking them in a corner, lifting out bottles of French perfume and wines, iron pots and ladles.</p><p>Captain now squatted before Jacques, a wicker basket in the crook of his elbow. “Can you guess what is inside this panier?”</p><p>Bursting with excitement, the boy blinked and shook his head. His father lifted the hinged lid to show two sleepy kittens curled together, yawning. Both were European, the captain said, which made them different from island cats.</p><p>“Cat is cat, same as everywhere.” Jacques’ mother snorted in her petit-français.</p><p>Squatting in her corner, Maman unrolled bolts of fabric. There was French brocade in rose, raw silk in blues, yards of white muslin. She rubbed the material between her fingers, holding it up to the light filtering in through shuttered windows.</p><p>“Who knows?” his father continued. “There may be no cats like these in all of French West Africa. Which do you prefer?”</p><p>Jacque pointed to one with white fur and a delicate pink nose. Captain lifted it by the scruff of its neck, bringing it close to his son’s face. It stuck out its tongue and licked his forehead. Jacques shivered in delight. Although the cat’s fur was silky, its tongue was spiky. “I like this one.”</p><p>“Ah, oui?” Captain smiled then frowned. “This is but a common housecat.”</p><p>“But see how pretty, Captain. Look how blue her eyes.”</p><p>“He is male,” his father explained. “But yes, tres joli. Very handsome. And what of this one?”</p><p>He held up the larger one, a grey-blue with thick, tight fur. “You see his coppery eyes, his dark hair. He reminds me of you, my son.”</p><p>“I am not so dark,” Jacques protested. He thought of his friends, a brother and sister. “Not nearly as black as Musa and Rokhaya.”</p><p>His mother too was dark but he didn’t like to say it.</p><p>“I thought you might like this one,” his father stroked the blue cat’s fur. “He is purebred, a Chartreux. Very rare.”</p><p>“Shark Tooth?” his mother scoffed from across the room. “What name is that?”</p><p>The captain only laughed, holding the blue cat temptingly before him. Why would his father ask for his choice only to disagree with it? Jacques wanted the cat he liked best, but he didn’t want to offend the father who had brought them all the way from France.</p><p>“Captain,” he said carefully. “The blue Shark-Tooth is a very fine cat. But as for me, I prefer the other. He is white as my father with eyes like the ocean.”</p><p>“Wife, we have a young poet here.” Captain laughed, placing the tiny white bundle in his son’s arms. “We must seek some kind of schooling for him.”</p><p>“As you wish, husband.”</p><p>His mother and father never called each other by name. It was always “wife or husband,” “Jacques’ mother or Jacques’ father.” <em>Capitaine</em> or <em>signare.</em></p><p>“This will be for you.” Captain handed the blue to Maman then went to the bathhouse to wash. When he was out of sight, she grimaced and lowered it to the floor, wiping hands against her pagne wrapper.</p><p>Jacques knew that his mother would not like the cat. Nor did the blue seem fond of her. He sniffed the air, stretched himself long and sauntered through the door Captain had left ajar.</p><p>“Joli blanc,” Jacques murmured, cuddling the warm white kitten. “The prettiest cat on all Ndar.”</p><p>“Saint-Louis-du-Fort,” Maman corrected, pretending that she actually spoke real French. She watched him from her corner, a length of fabric draped across her shoulder.</p><p>“I love him, Maman.” Jacques clutched the kitten to his chest.</p><p>Jacques’ mother believed animals were for eating and working. They should live outside and earn their keep like everyone on Saint-Louis – the European merchants and ship captains, the métis who were their local wives and children, African Catholics and Muslim traders, the Lebous and the Wolof, the Bambara servants and the export slaves.</p><p>“Je l'aime,” Jacques repeated. “And he loves me.”</p><p>“Je l’aime?” Maman mocked him. Her small-small French exhausted, she switched to her native Wolof. “You love who? If you do not love what resembles you then you do not love you.”</p><p>Captain and Maman did not resemble one another in the least. Maybe their union was also not love.</p><hr><p>As Jacques struggled to find a name for his precious white cat, his parents began calling them le petit bleu and le petit blanc, “the little blue one” and “the little white one.” Before long those names had taken root.</p><p>Petit Blanc never grew big or strong though Jacques fed him chunks of fish, morsels of chicken, shreds of goat meat and bowls of milk.</p><p>“Petit Blanc.” Jacques would offer a calabash of scraps. “Come for your dinner.”</p><p>Dozing in his basket or sunning in the window, Petit Blanc would ignore him.</p><p>“You know,” Maman said one day, “I do not think he hears you.”</p><p>“No.” Jacques shook his head. “Only he is not hungry.”</p><p>One day Petit Blanc crouched before a blowing leaf, batting it with his paw. Maman called out his name, clapping her hands above his head.</p><p>“Deaf,” she said decisively. “Just as I thought.”</p><p>Yet still Maman shouted when Petit Blanc was underfoot, though always in petit-français. Maybe French cats couldn’t hear Wolof.</p><p>“Va, va, va,” she would shoo Bleu away if he ventured inside. “Blue cat, go away.”</p><p>Rarely mewling like other cats, Petit Bleu would only watch her, smiling disdainfully. He quickly outgrew his name, becoming large and lethal. He stalked flying birds and hatchling chicks, hunted mice and rats, biting off the heads, chewing the tails, and leaving mangled carcasses lying about the courtyard. If Blanc wandered outdoors Bleu might even pounce on him. Jacques knew that he must be watchful or his mother’s blue-furred beast might one-day kill his gentle deaf cat.</p><p>Bleu drank Blanc’s milk and stole his food. He also set about fighting male cats in the district and mated with the females. His mother reported boastfully that a neighbor’s she-cat had given birth to a litter of six. Four were blue with hair like an African.</p><p>Other children mocked Jacques when they saw him walking the sandy lanes. Whether carrying a water jug on his head or a satchel with his slate and marker, he also held a panier. There was enough just space for the Blanc’s head to fit through the basket’s open lid, though not for his body to wriggle out.</p><p>“Ah, what is this?” Musa called out. “Jacques has captured a small white wife.”</p><p>“No bride price,” Rokhaya laughed. “They are running off to marry.”</p><p>“I cannot marry Petit Blanc,” Jacques explained, “because he is a boy. Also, he is a cat.”</p><p>He thought of the girls and women of Saint-Louis, those of many tongues and tinges from near-white to midnight black. Many were quite beautiful though he doubted he would marry one. This premonition would one day prove its truth.</p><p>The teasing continued unmercifully so he began to run. Petit Blanc gave a weak mewl of protest in the bouncing wicker basket. Jacques slowed to a walk, reminding himself that he was métis, son of a Frenchman and a prosperous signare. Rokhaya and Musa were but Bambara slaves. Yet their taunts still echoed down the sandy lane.</p><p>“It is not cat, after all,” one of them shouted. “It is genie in disguise.”</p><p>“We must feed him to Mamé Coumba Bang,” the other laughed. “Mermaid of the river loves things that are white.”</p><hr><p>Bleu skulked into the courtyard wet as a mermaid, a thread fish clasped in his jaws.</p><p>“Please,” Maman ordered, “do not bring that into my house!”</p><p>Jacques could tell she was not so annoyed. Her voice had the same edge of careless pride as when she reported to the Captain of Jacques’ progress at his lessons. He was now studying French and learning sums with Abbé Valentin at the Catholic mission.</p><p>“Bleu must be a fisherman,” she bragged. “Whoever knew a cat could swim?”</p><p>“Maybe he never caught that fish,” Jacques suggested. “Maybe he found it dead on the river bank.”</p><p>“And what can the white one find?” Maman scoffed. “Not even his own tail.”</p><p>Jacques was as surprised as Maman when Bleu came back from the river. That morning he’d awakened to the sounds of hissing and snarling, and found Blanc outside in the courtyard flattened beneath Bleu’s muscular body. The white one’s neck was bitten bloody, his fur clawed out in patches.</p><p>“Petit Bleu,” Jacques shouted. “You are a very bad cat.”</p><p>He snatched him up by the scruff, marched him to the east bank of the Senegal and flung him in the water. How the cat survived a five-foot drop and the swim back to shore was a mystery in itself. Mamé Coumba preferred her sacrifices in shades of white, curdled milk and couscous. Did the goddess reject his offering and spit the blue one out?</p><hr><p>Jacques did not enjoy the bustle on Saint-Louis island when ocean vessels readied to sail. It seemed that people opened their doors and let the greed spill out into the street.</p><p>Hawkers became more desperate and aggressive. Market items were inflated several times their value—poor families could hardly afford to buy rice. European men were preparing to leave their island families behind.</p><p>Others would also be disappearing, both the men and women. There were even children darker than Jacques, those who could not call a Frenchman father. They’d all be stripped naked and branded with pips of silver. Moaning and tugging their chains, they were loaded alongside casks of water and barrels of foodstuff, bales of animal hides and gum Arabic and herded into the hold to set off for places he would never know.</p><p>The last time Jacques saw his father, Maman was pregnant with the one who would become his sister, Fanta. Resplendent in all her gold, her finest gown and headdress, Maman took ahold of Jacques’ hand. They followed Captain down to the wharves. A group of servants had gone ahead, loaded down with barrels and parcels.<br/></p><p>At the south edge of the island a large ship lay anchored in the distance. Jacques heard the rattling of chains and averted his eyes as they passed a gang of export slaves huddled near the wharves. Some were weeping, some shouting, others beseeching their Allah. Jacques thought he heard one cry out his name but didn’t turn to look.</p><p>They arrived at the docks where an empty pirogue was being loaded for the journey ahead. Some of it was packed in the same panier that brought Petit Bleu and Petit Blanc to Saint-Louis. Jacques told himself he’d have to find another carrier for his cat.</p><p>When the goods were all packed there was no room left for a single bundle, let alone a human being.</p><p>“All this waiting in the sun,” Captain fretted. Moreau hushed his wife when she called him Captain and offered him a pocket square. The Alizé’s actual captain might well be within earshot. He took the handkerchief and mopped his reddened brow. “It is meant for the supercargo to first go aboard. I should inspect the goods as they’re loaded.”</p><p>Maman went to stand beside him, holding her parasol above the Captain’s head. They waited for the pilot boat to unload and head back before his father returned Maman’s handkerchief.</p><p>“Finalement!” Captain muttered. He climbed aboard the pirogue without farewell. Maman reached out to give Jacques a hard pinch. This meant he must not cry.</p><p>The pirogue drew up alongside the huge merchant ship like a child approaching its parent. Though Captain Moreau’s back was turned, Maman waved one last au revoir, handkerchief fluttering in the wind. Then she took that handkerchief and gathered sand from Captain’s last footfall. This she would wrap in a parcel and tie to her bedpost.</p><p>Yet Maman would not be one of the lucky ones whose husband returned to his island wife and children. She would wait three years before marrying another European à la mode du pays, in the custom of the country that was French West Africa.</p><p>“Maman, you are looking tired. Shall we go for your siesta?” The pirogue had started back to collect its cargo of slaves. Jacques did not wish to see it.</p><p>Back at home he looked for Blanc, searching the house, the courtyard, even in the low branches of the baobab tree.</p><p>“Petit Blanc,” he called in growing panic. “Why are you hiding?”</p><p>“You know that cat cannot hear you,” his mother scolded, collapsing onto a divan and flipping open a scarlet fan. Her bulging belly made a tent of her garments.</p><p>“It’s that vicious Bleu of yours, Maman. He has fought Blanc and left him somewhere bleeding.”</p><p>“He never did.” Maman’s fan stirred the sultry air. “Your father took Petit Bleu aboard the ship with him.”</p><hr><p>Jacques ran into the lane, calling for his cat. He went from house to house, down the lane, along the path to the river, across to the market. Jacques finally trudged back home to his mother, wondering how Blanc had disappeared into nowhere.</p><p>“It must be those urchins, Musa and Rokhaya,” Jacques grumbled. “They threatened to give Blanc to Mamé Coumba in the river. If they did, I will beat them bloody.”</p><p>A look came over Maman’s face that he had not seen there. “You did not know? Those two were carried out on the Alizé.”</p><p>Jacques was sure his mother had made a mistake. “No, Maman. This cannot be true. Musa and Rokhaya were slaves for house, not for trade.”</p><p>His mother gave an offhanded shrug, but still she looked uneasy. “Alors, your father, he begged and begged. He wanted his own servants for the voyage to Ameriques. One day soon they will return.”</p><p>“To America,” Jacques repeated. He knew this was far across the sea, more distant than The Tongue of Barbary beyond the Senegal’s west bank, than mainland Sor to the east, than all of French West Africa beyond it, or even far-off Europe. Unless they were European—and often even then—people who went to America did not return.</p><p>The worry stayed there, pinched between Maman’s brows. “I told your father he could carry the blue, but I never said to take the white. That runt was never good for anything but sleeping.”</p><p>Now that he was almost nine, Jacques knew he mustn’t cry. His father had caught him weeping at some injury the big cat had inflicted on the smaller one. The Captain said he must master his pain. He must grow to be as strong as Bleu, not weak like Blanc.</p><p>“A man who cries is not a man,” his father told him. “Do you wish to be a woman or a goorjigeen?”</p><p>Jacques shook his head. No, he wished neither to be a woman nor a man-woman.</p><p>He turned away from his mother, blinking back tears. “But Petit Bleu was yours and Petit Blanc was mine. The Captain gave them to us. Why would he take them away?”</p><p>“Rats on those ships are zigantique, quel dommasse!” Maman shuddered. “They could even kill a cat.”</p><p>From lessons with the Abbé Valentin, Jacques was learning proper French. He realized Saint-Louisians spoke it entirely wrong. He especially disliked the way they mangled certain words, treating the language like decapitated rats with chewed-off tails.</p><p>“Gigantique,” Jacques corrected his mother. “Rats on the ships are gigantic. What a pity, quel dommage.”</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/unnamed-3.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Blue Mermaid" loading="lazy"/></figure></hr></hr></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[At the End of the Road, No Regrets]]></title><description><![CDATA[Eddie Lee Smith knew how far she’d come and felt properly grateful. Sage Scanlon, the pen name she’d finally decided on, danced on the covers of half a dozen books, all bestsellers, within eight years after she quit her day job and became a full time writer.
She’d found her niche in romantic suspense, a popular genre judging from the royalties on which she’d paid some hefty taxes. But she’d more than earned them sitting at the computer six to eight hours a day, not to mention the numerous edits]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/at-the-end-of-the-road-no-regrets/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230a8</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Judy Nickles]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:24:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/lubo-minar-HUnKka6VtZc-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/lubo-minar-HUnKka6VtZc-unsplash.jpg" alt="At the End of the Road, No Regrets"/><p>Eddie Lee Smith knew how far she’d come and felt properly grateful. Sage Scanlon, the pen name she’d finally decided on, danced on the covers of half a dozen books, all bestsellers, within eight years after she quit her day job and became a full time writer.</p><p>She’d found her niche in romantic suspense, a popular genre judging from the royalties on which she’d paid some hefty taxes. But she’d more than earned them sitting at the computer six to eight hours a day, not to mention the numerous edits and finally the galleys which followed.</p><p>Her publisher sent her on book tours, wining and dining her and making reservations in the best hotels. She smiled and made small talk, signed books until her fingers cramped, and came to hate every minute of the time she spent away from her cozy condo nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountain city of Asheville.</p><p>“You have to do this,” her agent told her. “It’s part of the game.”</p><p>“I’m not playing a game. I’m writing. I nearly starved after I quit my job to work on my first book. Now I’ve earned the right to enjoy myself.”</p><p>“Sorry, kid, that’s not how it works. You’re the hottest property since Nora Roberts.”</p><p>“Does she like all this hoopla?”</p><p>“How would I know? Look, Sage, ride the wave while you can. You can put away a nest egg for when you run out of ideas.”</p><p>With a contract for three more books--and a generous advance to encourage her to write them--Sage knuckled under and did as she was told.</p><p>Sometimes she wondered what life might have been like if she’d married Nate, her high school sweetheart, who’d proposed at least half a dozen times before they graduated. Her parents thought she should have jumped at the chance. A father-in-law who owned four department stores in as many towns, which Nate would inherit, should have cinched the deal as far as they were concerned.</p><p>Sage--or Eddie Lee as she was known then--liked Nate. He was sweet and smart, and he made her laugh. But she didn’t love him and doubted she ever would. Besides, she wanted more. She wanted to be a writer. A famous one.</p><p>Sometimes she thought about Rob, the boy who’d wooed her for their last two years in college. He went on to law school and would’ve taken her along for the ride--financed by his wealthy father in whose firm he would become a partner upon passing the bar--but she’d turned him down, too. He was married with four children now and billed a fortune per hour of his valuable time.</p><p>But she had no regrets. She’d followed her dream, caught the brass ring, and reached the pinnacle of her chosen career. Now, however, the excitement had passed, and she wanted something different.</p><p>She completed the three books called for on her contract, made the usual rounds, and stopped off to see her publisher who had a new contract on his desk. She declined. Then she broke ties with her agent, leased her condo, bought a new laptop and small printer, packed her bags, and drove away without looking back.</p><p><strong>30 years later</strong></p><p>“So you just walked off?” The young journalist-cum-biographer whose proposal Sage had accepted from among at least fifty submitted, sat curled in the swing on the deck overlooking the city of Asheville, tapping her pen on the stenographer’s pad in her lap.</p><p>“Actually, I drove off.” Sage laughed and reached for the single glass of white wine in which she indulged every day.</p><p>“You were famous. How did you manage to avoid being found?”</p><p>“I don’t suppose anyone was looking too hard. Besides, I kept in touch with my sister and went home to visit my parents twice a year.”</p><p>“But your name...my gosh, everyone knew it!”</p><p>“They didn’t know Eddie Lee Smith.”</p><p>“I guess they didn’t. So Eddie Lee Smith just made a new life for herself?”</p><p>“Not exactly. I’d always wanted to be a writer.” She leaned forward and handed Cissy a piece of paper. “Here’s a list of pseudonyms I used. You’ll recognize some of them. I wrote short stories, novellas, travel articles, and a lot of other things. Camped across the United States. Traveled the world. Met people who weren’t standing in line at book signings. Most importantly, I wrote--which is what I wanted to do.”</p><p>“And now you’re letting me tell your story. Solve the mysterious disappearance of Sage Scanlon.”</p><p>“That’s right.”</p><p>“I can’t believe you picked me. I mean, I just submitted an application on a dare from a friend. I don’t even have all that much experience.”</p><p>“You will when you finish my biography.”</p><p>“You really think I can do you justice?”</p><p>“I’m sure of it.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because you want to write, and you said on the application that being famous wasn’t important to you.”</p><p>“It’s not.”</p><p>“Tell me why.”</p><p>“I don’t think I’d enjoy it. Besides, I’m engaged.”</p><p>“Ah.”</p><p>“He’s the boy next door. When he finishes this last tour in Afghanistan, we’re getting married. But he’s staying in.”</p><p>“A career man.”</p><p>“It’s all he’s ever wanted to do, so I’ll be pretty busy being a military wife. Moving around and all that.”</p><p>“And that’s what you really want.”</p><p>“Yes, ma’am.”</p><p>“But you also want to write.”</p><p>“I can do that, too. I expect there’ll be a lot of times I can’t go with him, so I’ll have something to do.”</p><p>“And children, of course.”</p><p>“I hope so.”</p><p>“You know what you want then. You’re like me. Another reason you’re a good choice for this assignment.”</p><p>“You really don’t have any regrets?”</p><p>A small smile curled Sage’s lips. She closed her eyes, content like a cat full of cream. “None at all. And neither, I suspect, will you.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Miss the Fuzzy Dice]]></title><description><![CDATA[The car pulls up
and I’d see them, hanging there
fuzzy,
tacky,
an announcement
from the driver: I take chances
and I want the whole world to know.
I’d cringe, knowing I could never
be friends with them—those people,
and their cheap, messy lives.
Now
something else hangs there,
something ominous,
something divisive,
and I yearn for the dice,
and the people who once hung them there.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-miss-the-fuzzy-dice/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852309f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jackie Cruz-Wagener]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:24:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/brett-jordan-4aB1nGtD_Sg-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/brett-jordan-4aB1nGtD_Sg-unsplash.jpg" alt="I Miss the Fuzzy Dice"/><p>The car pulls up<br>and I’d see them, hanging there<br>fuzzy,<br>tacky,<br>an announcement<br>from the driver: I take chances<br>and I want the whole world to know.<br>I’d cringe, knowing I could never<br>be friends with them—those people,<br>and their cheap, messy lives.<br>Now<br>something else hangs there,<br>something ominous,<br>something divisive,<br>and I yearn for the dice,<br>and the people who once hung them there.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Fruit Must Drop]]></title><description><![CDATA[A familiar home becomes too foreign to bear.
Transformation hangs heavier than gravity
waiting patiently, swaying in warm moist air.
Deep inside, the little kernel flickers and flares
swaddled, nourished in gold and silver filigree,
a familiar home becomes too foreign to bear
Full to bursting the skin shall be raked and pared
the crux eager, scheming, growing to be free
yet waiting patiently, swaying in warm moist air
Ripe succulent fruit, but to give cannot forbear,
reluctant and unable to b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-fruit-must-drop/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230a0</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[ Lela Tunnell ]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:23:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/eric-muhr-cy1hAu_BkUg-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/eric-muhr-cy1hAu_BkUg-unsplash.jpg" alt="The Fruit Must Drop"/><p>A familiar home becomes too foreign to bear.<br>Transformation hangs heavier than gravity<br>waiting patiently, swaying in warm moist air.</br></br></p><p>Deep inside, the little kernel flickers and flares<br>swaddled, nourished in gold and silver filigree,<br>a familiar home becomes too foreign to bear</br></br></p><p>Full to bursting the skin shall be raked and pared<br>the crux eager, scheming, growing to be free<br>yet waiting patiently, swaying in warm moist air</br></br></p><p>Ripe succulent fruit, but to give cannot forbear,<br>reluctant and unable to birth the bloated seed.<br>It’s familiar and home; it’s absence too foreign to bear.</br></br></p><p>Another life, another world peers through the tear<br>swollen and aching to burst from this cavity.<br>A familiar home becomes too foreign to bear<br>forever waiting patiently in warm, moist air</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Up the Boohai]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was Shailee’s first car, a brand new shiny, ice blue Subaru. After driving the hand-me-down 97 model Honda Accord, for 21 years, the Subaru was a refreshing change. When the salesman mentioned the heated leather seats, a GPS, rear view camera displaying what was behind the car when reversing, it made Shailee blush. The automatic brakes that engaged when the car was within reach of an obstacle near collision, and the over the top programmed Start button were mind blowing. Next to the smell of ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/up-the-boohai/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230a1</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Majella Pinto]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:23:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/connor-betts-rvzgRVP4ns4-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/connor-betts-rvzgRVP4ns4-unsplash.jpg" alt="Up the Boohai"/><p>It was Shailee’s first car, a brand new shiny, ice blue Subaru. After driving the hand-me-down 97 model Honda Accord, for 21 years, the Subaru was a refreshing change. When the salesman mentioned the heated leather seats, a GPS, rear view camera displaying what was behind the car when reversing, it made Shailee blush. The automatic brakes that engaged when the car was within reach of an obstacle near collision, and the over the top programmed Start button were mind blowing. Next to the smell of petrol, the scent of new leather was a heady experience.</p><p>“Do you want to grab some Paani Puri?” she asked her son of sixteen who was lost in a book and cushioned in the comfort of the sofa. ‘Paani Puri’ caught his attention making him move his head promptly with his bouncy curls rearranging themselves, covering his eyes like a noodle screen once again. Shailee reached out to brush away his curls from his forehead, twirling them around her finger.</p><p>“Indian eggs you mean,” he said as he sat up trying to follow the movements of his mother’s fingers unwinding his stubborn locks. Despite his curls twisted around Shailee’s fingers, he managed to slide off the couch to let his toes skid and stretch to hook the socks he had discarded at the far end of the rug. He moved ever so carefully seeing that his tight curls were stretching into a straight line – like a leash.</p><p>All at once, in a hyper mode he asked, “Are we taking the new car?”</p><p>“Hmmm…let’s see.”</p><p>“Moooom(sic), say yes, please, please let’s go in the new car.”</p><p>“Okay, but conditions apply. So, what comes next?”</p><p>“I get it, Mom, I get it, I’ll take a shower, here I go, <em>My name is stinky Bill, I never had a shower and never will,</em> I’m kidding, Mom.”</p><p>It was a rhyme he had heard the librarian recite when he was a kid and he had loved it.</p><p>Many friends with older children had told Shailee, that as boys grow up there are fewer and fewer occasions when they will choose your company. It’s a losing battle for parents to compete with online games and Snapchat, Shailee thought. This was a treat for her, much more than it was for him. In any case Paani Puri is always an engaging treat as it tingles your bulbous nerve endings with bursts of sweet, tangy and sour at the same time. How she enjoyed to be asked for help, to break the shell delicately with the end of the fork while explaining to him how to find the right side by delicately tapping to check, filling it first with the dry filling of mashed potato, chickpeas and sprouted greens, and then with dexterity quickly spooning the gently spiced tamarind and cumin water followed by a drop of sweet sauce and handing it to him before it collapsed. Watching him nod for more as he dropped each one into his mouth like a <em>‘paani puri’</em> expert without a spill always made her smile. This followed the ritual of washing it down with the mango lassi made with the pulpy goodness of ripe mangoes while Shailee made some <em>Paani Puri</em> for herself. With their bellies feeling like the smiling emoticon they got back to the car and put it in reverse to drive back home.</p><p>“What do you think?”</p><p>“Of the car? Or the Indian eggs?”</p><p>“The car.”</p><p>They backed out of the car park and then it happened. The car would not budge, forward nor backward. Shailee heard a honk to the left and the driver signaled her to hurry up and get out of his way. Another customer who just got into the lot offered to translate the honking driver’s wishes to Shailee just in case.</p><p>“Do you speak English?”</p><p>“My car won’t move. I am trying.”</p><p>He straightaway relayed that to the other driver who looked at Shailee and a thought formed in his head.</p><p>He smiled politely, then drove around the Subaru to the other side of the road and went on his way rolling his eyes.</p><p>Shailee prayed silently “Please God, let there be no more cars until I figure this one out. I’ll fast on Tuesday next week if you get us out of this mess."</p><p>“Mom are you ok?”</p><p>“Think, think, think… let me turn it off and try once more. So I turned it off, but the lights are still on. Ok, let’s turn this off again. Let me press this again. Why didn’t it move if it wasn’t on? Didn’t my grandma in her wisdom say that all this technology was the work of the devil?”</p><p>Shailee could see from the corner of her eye a Sheriff’s car pull into the parking lot of the shopping complex.</p><p>“I’ve never had a ticket so far. What did I do, did I turn something off? Or on? C’mon, C’mon, Ok, what did I do? Think, Think…”</p><p>“Look Mom, the Cop is walking towards us.”</p><p>Another car blared its horn again. Each time they had to drive around the Subaru, the driver slowed down to take a good look at the idiotic driver.</p><p>Impatient hands shot out of the cars with obscene gestures. There was very little that could be done…by Shailee. As an afterthought, she decided to turn on the hazard lights… once she figured out where the hazard light button was.</p><p>The blinking looked the same as they did on that early morning at the border seven years ago. Shailee had just gotten off the flight with her colleagues after the red eye flight from San Jose to Guadalajara. Red was ‘Stop’ and Green was ‘Go’, the poster at the Customs and Immigration read. It was 4:35am and everyone moved lethargically.</p><p><br>There were 2 lanes and there were four of them.</br></p><p>“I always get the red” said Shailee’s Manager.</p><p>“Incredible, it's green this time,” he said and walked past the scanner to the other side to wait behind a sound proof frosted glass divider that ran from floor to ceiling. Once on the other side you couldn’t see through the glass, but if you were on the inside you could see the silhouettes.</p><p>Another colleague too got the green and laughed his way through. There were only two of them left now. The black guy and the brown girl. He got the “red” and turned around “You are lucky Shailee, you’ll get the green as always, black guys always get the red even outside the US”. Shailee pressed the button and for the first time she got the red. “I can’t believe you got the red. They can wait a while for us this time.”</p><p>There was only one customs officer. He motioned for the black burly man to place his luggage on the table and open it. He reached for his pair of gloves and looked at the x-ray contents on his screen and began poking with his wand “What is this, Sir?” Shailee looked away not wanting to inadvertently spot any underwear or any personal belongings and infiltrate any professional boundaries.</p><p>“Thank you, Sir. You may go now.”</p><p>Without being asked Shailee lifted her suitcase and placed it on the table and opened it. Wedged right in the middle among the clothes in plain sight, was a Tupperware box, and at that moment she knew that she should’ve packed it deeper inside and covered it with underwear.</p><p>He looked at her and asked, “What is in it?”</p><p>Shailee cringed at the thought of having to speak without brushing her teeth first thing in the morning.</p><p>Her mind wasn’t accustomed to think without a hot cup of madras coffee in the morning, and she didn’t conjure in her wildest imagination that she would have to disclose the contents to anyone.</p><p>A lone thought quickly made its appearance and she debated if it were a good thing to say. Before she could decide, she said “medicine” and then evaluated her idea.</p><p>She was certain that the customs officer understood English, but at that moment she wasn’t sure of herself. So she repeated “It’s my medicine,” and not many moments later, added “Doctor’s prescription”. Unbeknown to her, the decibels of her speech were falling. The officer gave her the same look that she sometimes got from her colleagues at the factory when she would’ve to explain things all over again, annunciating carefully and choosing simpler words with nouns and verbs, slashing all the parts of speech. Similes, metaphors and idioms were not in the least bit useful in such situations, she thought. It reminded her of the time she said, “Heads up, Mike” and it was interpreted as an emergency situation at work with the visual of someone who was drowning with their heads up above the water. Shailee had learnt to use “I want to let you know that this may/ will happen soon.”</p><p>The customs officer pulled up his already tight latex gloves, picked up the box, held it tight with one hand close to his chest and with a quick motion lifted the lid off. A puff of white cloud escaped from the box and Shailee saw images of her family flash before her eyes. Her sons were 9 and 6 and her husband was no doubt the better parent. In a movie she had seen a long time ago, contraband was planted in a suitcase and the person never left the Thai jail. Maybe she should’ve refused to travel after she had read about the US citizens shot in Guadalajara last week.</p><p>The Customs officer was now alert with his spine straight but he no longer made eye contact with Shailee as he deliberated on his next move. Shailee was unsure what to say to him and blurted out “I mix the powder in water and drink my medicine.”</p><p>“Wait here, I’ll be back,” and he left with the box.</p><p>Her little boys did not like her traveling so much. She hadn’t called her parents in a long time. She was waiting for the project to be finished so she could resume her weekly calls with her beloved grandma. She had been thinking that for almost a year now.</p><p>She could see the restless silhouettes and hear them faintly across the glass wall. They were making small talk, whiling away time, waiting patiently for her to show up on the other side. It was a short flight, nevertheless everyone was eager to check into the hotel, get a hot cup of coffee and freshen up before a long day of meetings that was ahead of them.</p><p>Rooted to the ground, her body felt heavy, her feet burned, and her head felt light. She could suddenly feel the passages to her throat and gut, and a vacuum in her stomach as she swallowed nothingness of air and her mouth went completely dry.</p><p>Thankfully there was no one at the airport to witness her impending fall from dignity.</p><p>“How long would my colleagues wait for me?” she wondered. “Would they come back to ask around, would they be allowed to come back once they were on the other side?" She was sure there were posters that said “No entry beyond this point, you can only exit,” like there were in most airports.</p><p>“Would I be allowed to make a call before they took me away? How would anyone know where I was?”</p><p>She could see the silhouette of the officer moving on the other side.</p><p>“What if he replaced the contents? Was this where it would end?”</p><p>She remembered what her uncle had told her a long time ago,<br>“Always follow the rules when you are in a new country and you’ll be ok.”</br></p><p>But he was thinking of the US when he said that, not Mexico. How could she explain to the officer what Benefibre is?</p><p>He came back and handed the box back to Shailee and said,<br>“Next time, don’t carry it loose, bring the box you buy it in from the store, SEALED.”</br></p><p>Shailee promptly zipped her bag and exited from the scene before he could change his mind.</p><p>She couldn’t remember if she said a ‘thank you.’</p><p>“What took you so long, troublemaker?"</p><p>Shailee, always packing so much stuff that needs to be checked.<br>“Ah, there’s our man with the banner.”<br/></br></p><p>She was grateful that they didn’t insist on an answer. They didn’t offer a reason for the delay to our business partners either and Shailee was too shaken and embarrassed to divulge it.</p><p>“Maam, are you ok?”</p><p>“Moom(sic)?”</p><p>The cop’s face was by the window. Shailee tried to lower the pane, but realized that she couldn’t and she wasn’t sure if she should open the door. Then she remembered a piece of advice from a fellow Desi when she first came to America, “Always stay in your car and never try to get out even if an officer comes up, they’ll shoot you in America.” She shrugged her shoulder pointing to the button and gestured that she couldn’t lower the pane and should she open the door? He gestured back to open the door.</p><p>“Are you ok ma’am?”</p><p>“My car stopped working,” she said, and pressed the ignition ‘Start’ once more to prove it. This time it buzzed into life and they both looked into each other’s eyes uncomprehendingly.</p><p>“These immigrants, up the boohai,” he thought.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Old John]]></title><description><![CDATA[Our ginger cat liked to sleep on John’s front stoop. Although we were next-door neighbors, we had barely gotten beyond hello with John. The cat had a closer relationship with him than we did. John’s house was one of the first built in town back in the mid-1920’s, and he had lived there his entire life, almost 80 years. The white paint peeled off the clapboard siding, a green shutter hung loose, the asphalt roof on the detached garage bowed, the backyard was overgrown with an impenetrable thicket]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/old-john/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230a2</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Andrea A. Firth]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:23:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/kerala-india-hermit-crab-crab-orange-shell-conch-nature-environment.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/kerala-india-hermit-crab-crab-orange-shell-conch-nature-environment.jpg" alt="Old John"/><p>Our ginger cat liked to sleep on John’s front stoop. Although we were next-door neighbors, we had barely gotten beyond hello with John. The cat had a closer relationship with him than we did. John’s house was one of the first built in town back in the mid-1920’s, and he had lived there his entire life, almost 80 years. The white paint peeled off the clapboard siding, a green shutter hung loose, the asphalt roof on the detached garage bowed, the backyard was overgrown with an impenetrable thicket as tall as a grown man, and the gravel driveway was choked with weeds.</p><p>John was a big man with a stubbly beard and often had tomato sauce from his previous night’s dinner left on his chin and a red stain in the center of his plaid work shirt, the pocket stuffed with a small wire bound notebook, slips of torn paper, and pens. When he did talk, his teeth were a distraction, one on top, a couple on the bottom, maybe a few molars hidden in the back, all gray and yellowed. There was always some spittle on his lips.</p><p>The older neighbors on the block had known John for years, but he didn’t say much to them either. Socially he was awkward; tracking conversation was difficult. He had no friends that I knew of, but he liked to read and loved trains. On nice days, he walked to the library and spent hours by the tracks in the center of town watching the Burlington Northern whiz by. Most of the time he kept to himself at home. A recluse. A hermit.</p><p>A few years after we moved next door to John, we vacationed on sunny Sanibel Island off the gulf coast of Florida. Our twins were three years old and the resort hosted family activities each afternoon. Thursday: Hermit crab races! For $5, each child picked a crab from a large bin and placed it in the center of a chalk-drawn circle on the patio. To tell the crabs apart, the staff had painted each shell with a stripe of bright nail polish. My son’s crab had a blue stripe; my daughter’s crab red. We cheered the crabs on until one with a green stripe moved across the edge of the circle and was declared the winner. Win or lose, you got to take the crab home. Who could resist? Another $10 got you a small plastic aquarium lined with blue and pink crushed gravel and a container of smelly food. With the hermit crabs side by side in their new habitat, we boarded the plane back to our home in a suburb of Chicago.</p><p>Neighbors had complained about the disarray of John’s house for years. He had been served with several notices, ordinances that required him to paint the house and cut back the weeds. He had the financial resources but not the motivation or know-how to get things fixed. Ironically the mess of John’s property made it appealing to some. The real estate market was booming. Many of the older homes in town were being torn down and rebuilt on bigger and bigger footprints. People were trading up for more and more space. The competition for land was fierce. John’s old house and big lot presented an opportunity. They knocked on his door. They rang the bell. They left him handwritten notes. Would you like to sell? I’d like to make you an offer. One you can’t refuse. John ignored them all.</p><p>About this same time, I was reading a picture book to the kids called Old Henry, the story of an eccentric, solitary, unkempt old man, who lives in a dilapidated house on a manicured block and angers his neighbors with his neglect and untidiness. The neighbors don’t understand why Henry is “so unfriendly” and “never talks.” (A remarkable coincidence—John and Henry.) One day they seek the advice of the town’s mayor, who suggests being nice. “Please try it twice,” he says. So, two ladies bake Henry a pie, and three men offer to shovel his snow. But Henry is reluctant to accept their help. “No. No thank you,” he says. The neighbors go back to the mayor and say, “We told you so!”</p><p>We kept the hermit crab aquarium on the fireplace mantle in the living room, and the kids checked on them often. Hermit crabs are nocturnal so there wasn’t much activity during the day. Sometimes I heard the clicking of the crabs’ claws on the gravel at night. One morning while the kids were at preschool, I looked into the aquarium and found my son’s crab half out of its shell and my daughter’s crab pulling at it with at least eight of its ten legs. His crab squirmed to get away, but it was no contest. Her crab was tenacious and kept pulling. It was hard to watch. I retreated to the kitchen for a refill of my coffee. A few minutes later, I took a peek and saw a shriveled crab carcass discarded on the gravel. The red-striped shell of my daughter’s crab lay tipped on its side, empty. The blue-striped shell of my son’s crab now had a new occupant. My daughter’s crab, the new resident, looked straight at me as if it was gloating.</p><p>The thing about hermit crabs is that they are basically squatters. The crabs are crustaceans, which makes them distant cousins to sea crabs, lobster, shrimp, and barnacles; the name is derived from their habit of salvaging abandoned shells. Most are aquatic and live in the shallow coral reefs along the shore or in the deep water at the sea bottom. But a few of the tropical varieties, like ours, are terrestrial and live on land like snails. Hermit crabs have two eyes set up on stalks and a long, soft, pink spiral-curved body designed to clasp onto the central column of a shell, which they carry on their backs like a mobile home to protect them from predators. The hermit crab prefers a shell large enough so that its entire body, legs and all, can retract inside to hide. The point of all this is that as hermit crabs grow, they need bigger shells. Once the hermit crab finds a new, suitable shell, it moves in and abandons the old shell, which can then be taken up by another crab. Depending on the environment, empty shells can be hard to find, and competition for shells among crabs can get fierce.</p><p>Sometimes people knocked on my door too. “Is that house next door abandoned? No? I could make your neighbor a great offer.” Then they would look at me curiously, as if they were thinking, “Of course you would prefer me to be your neighbor instead of that old man and his mess.” But I didn’t prefer them. I’m not sure why. At that point, I barely knew John. He was a messy neighbor, but he was my messy neighbor. I wanted them to leave him be.</p><p>Here’s another curious fact about hermit crabs. In the wild, they have the habit of forming vacancy chains. First there’s an empty shell, which attracts hermit crabs to try it on for size. Then comes the chain. The crabs, sometimes up to twenty, line up from largest to smallest, each holding onto the crab in front of it—like a hermit crab conga line. The first in line claims the empty shell (some call this the Goldilocks’ crab). Then, the other crabs in the queue swiftly exchange shells in sequence, each one moving up to the next size. This chain reaction of shell swapping is like a seller’s market in real estate terms.</p><p>What I had witnessed with the kids’ crabs is that nature is not always ordered and friendly. There isn’t always an organized line of crabs each taking it in turn to find the perfect fit. Hermit crabs will gang up on a vulnerable crab to get to a better shell working together to evict the weaker one by wrenching it out of its home.</p><p>It was February and frigid the day my husband and I stopped by John’s house. We had gotten a call from, Bea, the old dear who had lived in our house for forty years before we bought it. Bea had moved one town over and still had a busybody’s pulse on our neighborhood. She already knew about John’s fall on an icy sidewalk, his night in the hospital, his broken leg. Bea never had much good to say about John, his mess a long-standing source of frustration for her. But she cared enough to call us, to tell us she thought we should check on him. So, we knocked, and he let us in.</p><p>The first thing we noticed when we walked into John’s house was the smell. An undercurrent of body odor, sweat, stale food, and urine, the air thick and musty. Like the outside, the house was a wreck inside too. Newspapers piled everywhere, junk mail and letters scattered on the floor by the mail slot in the front door. Stacks of clothing and more newspapers covered the dining room table and cluttered the stairs. The kitchen overflowed with dirty dishes and trash. Upstairs, three bedrooms were crammed with cardboard boxes, balled up sheets, crusty towels, a web of extension cords, newspapers and more newspapers.</p><p>The sun streaked through the blinds and dust particles danced in the rays. John sat stiffly on a high-backed chair in the dining room. His expression—shell shocked. His pants had been cut along the inside seam to make space for the thick, white cast that extended from his toes to the middle of his thigh and kept his right leg perched a foot off of the floor.</p><p>John clearly could not get upstairs to a bedroom or the only bathroom. The commode that he’d been sent home from the hospital with sat in the foyer. It was Saturday. We asked if a home health agency would be by. His response: a blank stare. Not much could be done until Monday, so we carried a twin bedframe and mattress from one of the bedrooms down into the living room, placed the commode beside it, and put the phone and TV remote within reach. Meals were the next task. Our block had organized meals for neighbors before, for the young couple with newborn twins, when my friend had thyroid surgery, after an older woman’s husband passed away. That’s how it worked in our tiny suburb in the Midwest. The email went out, and the neighbors signed on. Everyone pitched in.</p><p>The storybook about old Henry ends with a handwritten note from Henry to the mayor. After the long winter melts away, Henry sits on the edge of his bed and has a good think. Despite their nagging about the overgrown grass in his yard and the sidewalk that goes upswept, Henry realizes that he cares about his neighbors and the street where he lives. So, he writes to the mayor and asks, “If I clean up the yard and fix up the house, would the neighbors be nice to me again?”</p><p>John hobbled to the front door when the neighbors knocked. He’d extend his arm out between the screen and front door and grab the meals they offered. “Hi John,” they would say with a smile. Often, he’d say nothing in return, not even thank you. But over the next several months, John began to talk more. He looked tidier, his face shaved, his hair combed, and his shirt washed. He warmed to the neighbors and the neighbors to him. And John and I became friends.</p><p>That summer, like every summer, our neighborhood held a huge block party. Orange cones were placed at each end of the block to shut out the traffic, and we gathered in the street. There were games for the kids—the water balloon toss, a three-legged race, a cakewalk, face painting. The highlight of the day was the arrival of the fire truck. The local fire fighters connected a large hose to the fire hydrant, which sat in the middle of the block in front of John’s house, and sprayed the kids with water as they ran back and forth across his lawn. In the past, John had never ventured outside for the event. But that day, John and I stood across the street chatting and watching the kids at play. His rundown house looked transformed behind the misty curtain of the water’s spray.</p><p>A few years later we moved to California. On our first visit back to the Midwest, we went to see John, who now lived in a nursing home. With a new pair of glasses, a few extra pounds, and a new set of teeth, John looked good. But his hands shook from Parkinson’s disease, and his conversation drifted to paranoia and delusion. “They’re watching me,” he said as he pointed to the empty corners where the walls met the ceiling, as if there were invisible video cameras. We switched the topic, but he got agitated. He shook his hand at an empty chair. “Fire,” he said. We looked. No fire. We pushed his wheelchair outside hoping some fresh air would help, which it didn’t.</p><p>Later that day we drove back to the old neighborhood. John’s house had been torn down. A family from up the street bought it. I heard there was a bidding war for the property. Nothing left but the gravel drive and some overgrown weeds.</p><p>After that visit, I sent John a few cards. He wasn’t one to write and talking by phone was difficult, because he didn’t hear well. Then I got busy with my new life on the west coast. And as old neighbors do, we drifted apart. A year later John passed away. His sister sent a nice card with a recent photo of John sitting outside in a crisp, blue plaid shirt. His eyes looked away from the camera’s lens up and off into the distance.</p><p>Another year passed and we were back again for a visit to that tiny town in the Midwest. We drove down our old street and our eyes were drawn to the huge new house, which now sat on John’s old property. The house extended far into the backyard where the thicket had once grown. The garage was new and the gravel driveway paved. A wide, welcoming porch extended across the front of house. And as we passed by, I thought I caught a glimpse of a ginger cat sitting on the porch railing, it’s tail swishing to and fro. But when I turned my head and looked back, it wasn’t there anymore.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Willow Lake Prayer]]></title><description><![CDATA[Empty my body
Fill my bones with moonlight dancing on the water
Fill my heart with elder petals and cicada song
Fill my soul with fern fronds and feather
Let my blood be pine resin
May I tread gently as the rain softens stone
May I speak as the prairie grass sways
May I lie as the clover touched only by honeybees]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/willow-lake-prayer/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230a3</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[ Lela Tunnell ]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:22:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/guzman-barquin-Qd688l1yDOI-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/guzman-barquin-Qd688l1yDOI-unsplash.jpg" alt="Willow Lake Prayer"/><p><em>Empty my body</em></p><p>Fill my bones with moonlight dancing on the water<br>Fill my heart with elder petals and cicada song<br>Fill my soul with fern fronds and feather</br></br></p><p><em>Let my blood be pine resin</em></p><p>May I tread gently as the rain softens stone<br>May I speak as the prairie grass sways<br>May I lie as the clover touched only by honeybees</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Milk Carton Girl]]></title><description><![CDATA[Mother — I am not missing.
I am not lost. Crow-like
men stole me, a shiny new ring
to hide in their nest of girls.
Mother — Don’t look where trains
drag graffiti from town to town.
Look for a pretty house with blinds
that never open and sullen boys
who mow the yard, but never
fill the empty bird bath.
Mother — Watch for flocks of men,
flying in and out of the house.
Their migrations distract neighbors
from the fluttering fingers wedged
between blind slats, signaling.
Mother — I miss my pink b]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/milk-carton-girl/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230a9</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:22:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1526047932273-341f2a7631f9?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1526047932273-341f2a7631f9?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Milk Carton Girl"/><p><strong>Mother</strong> — I am not missing.<br>I am not lost. Crow-like<br>men stole me, a shiny new ring<br>to hide in their nest of girls.</br></br></br></p><p><strong>Mother</strong> — Don’t look where trains<br>drag graffiti from town to town.<br>Look for a pretty house with blinds<br>that never open and sullen boys<br>who mow the yard, but never<br>fill the empty bird bath.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>Mother</strong> — Watch for flocks of men,<br>flying in and out of the house.<br>Their migrations distract neighbors<br>from the fluttering fingers wedged<br>between blind slats, signaling.</br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>Mother</strong> — I miss my pink bedroom,<br>the quilt we made from old dresses,<br>teddy guarding the night stand. I want<br>to apologize to my dolls for shelving them<br>so early when I thought I was too old to play.</br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>Mother</strong> — If you are late and I am already<br>gone, look for me in the backyard. The flowers<br>will be strangely tall, their colors bright<br>as screams. Pick a large bouquet.<br>Hold it in your arms. Carry me home.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[L'amour à Monte Carlo]]></title><description><![CDATA[Casino de Monte Carlo, a lover’s chance meeting.
“J’aime,” his remarque, a most forward fond greeting.
They stroll to a park, a Monaco eve.
They gaze and walk on, first love to conceive.
The dim lighted streets, a zone to explore.
A brasserie sign, some grape to implore.
Five glasses of wine, tis not a good sign.
A teetering walk back, a hilly incline.
A bit of a stagger, she held him upright.
Our suave lover boy, no mishaps tonight,
Too soon a sweet kiss from this daring young miss?
Too soon a ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lamour-a-monte-carlo/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230aa</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:22:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/Optimized-Bread_Cheese_Wine-e1531965592948-1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/Optimized-Bread_Cheese_Wine-e1531965592948-1.jpg" alt="L'amour à Monte Carlo"/><p>Casino de Monte Carlo, a lover’s chance meeting.<br>“J’aime,” his remarque, a most forward fond greeting.<br>They stroll to a park, a Monaco eve.<br>They gaze and walk on, first love to conceive.<br>The dim lighted streets, a zone to explore.<br>A brasserie sign, some grape to implore.<br>Five glasses of wine, tis not a good sign.<br>A teetering walk back, a hilly incline.<br>A bit of a stagger, she held him upright.<br>Our suave lover boy, no mishaps tonight,<br>Too soon a sweet kiss from this daring young miss?<br>Too soon a sweet love from this daring young tryst?<br>A roar from the Alps, crusade to the north.<br>The year, thirty-nine and he must march forth.<br>Who was this lad, this bold gentleman?<br>He might have been French, Italian or German.<br>“J’aime,” a remarque, she hears in her mind.<br>A Monaco cafe, a glass of red wine.<br>She’s now in her eighties, she’s there every night.<br>She toasts to her love, it keeps her upright.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dorothy Pillories a Kipling Translator to Her Idea of Regina]]></title><description><![CDATA[(During the first day of the Brazilian Association of Comparative Literature’s 11th Conference. São Paulo, Brazil. July 2008)
If what I crave
gives as all
what-ifs bear nev
er-will’s still
born iffy grave,
then ditch Rudyard
& manhood's
écrits du cul
(if's kiss-to-
tell), dear; & plead
our ifs reach
love of myself
or you, enough
or too much.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dorothy-pillories-a-kipling-translator-to-her-idea-of-regina/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ab</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:20:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/sergio-souza-AJPZmRBas70-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="1280" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F827697442&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=1280&in=user-644201093%2Fsets%2Femerge-issue-7&secret_token=s-DmLsJc5xv9I"/></figure><img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/sergio-souza-AJPZmRBas70-unsplash.jpg" alt="Dorothy Pillories a Kipling Translator to Her Idea of Regina"/><p><em>(During the first day of the Brazilian Association of Comparative Literature’s 11th Conference. São Paulo, Brazil. July 2008)</em></p><p>If what I crave<br>gives as all<br>what-ifs bear nev<br>er-will’s still<br>born iffy grave,</br></br></br></br></p><p>then ditch Rudyard<br>& manhood's<br>écrits du cul<br>(if's kiss-to-<br>tell), dear; & plead</br></br></br></br></p><p>our ifs reach<br>love of myself<br>or you, enough<br>or too much.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ivy League Roommates II]]></title><description><![CDATA[Euripides and Wigbert
had Hedge Fund fathers
who taught them the art
of insider trading.
They became friends
with Pedro, a scholarship
student from Medellin,
who had a drug cartel stepfather.
The privileged sons
polished all the jewels
between the thighs
of country club young ladies.
In later years bought an Oyster1225
superyacht of sail, capable
of making the trip
from Columbia to Miami.
Pedro offered them a chance
to earn a billion dollars
transporting a ton of cocaine.
They were apprehended
o]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/ivy-league-roommates-ii/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ac</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Milton Ehrlich]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:20:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/hedge-fund.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-5.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/hedge-fund.jpg" alt="Ivy League Roommates II"/><p>Euripides and Wigbert<br>had Hedge Fund fathers<br>who taught them the art<br>of insider trading.<br>They became friends<br>with Pedro, a scholarship<br>student from Medellin,<br>who had a drug cartel stepfather.<br>The privileged sons<br>polished all the jewels<br>between the thighs<br>of country club young ladies.<br>In later years bought an Oyster1225<br>superyacht of sail, capable<br>of making the trip<br>from Columbia to Miami.<br>Pedro offered them a chance<br>to earn a billion dollars<br>transporting a ton of cocaine.<br>They were apprehended<br>off the coast of the Florida Keys<br>and are once again roommates<br>in a federal penitentiary.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Light Language Inscription]]></title><description><![CDATA[Indelible mark of the light,
the language inscribed in indigo ink
deep into the chest,
etching it ineffably, its
curving codes and frequencies
here now, in the center,
as particles dance and gleam all round.
Yes, you are marked, bound
into the family
those who wear the sign
and know boundlessness
even within the density.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/light-language-inscription/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ad</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Beverly Gordon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:19:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/nicolas-thomas-SXn-fWj0Ht4-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/nicolas-thomas-SXn-fWj0Ht4-unsplash.jpg" alt="Light Language Inscription"/><p>Indelible mark of the light,<br>the language inscribed in indigo ink<br>deep into the chest,<br>etching it ineffably, its<br>curving codes and frequencies<br>here now, in the center,<br>as particles dance and gleam all round.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Yes, you are marked, bound<br>into the family<br>those who wear the sign<br>and know boundlessness<br>even within the density.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Love in Four Parts]]></title><description><![CDATA[Eons ago one bright young day
a cupid child looked down.
He fired to earth two tiny darts
and flew about his way.
A boy and girl sat far apart,
been passing time since birth.
The darts struck hearts
and four great loves
survive until today.
The first great love, an eros rush,
forays the soul with thrust.
A romantic hue or errant cue
and romance becomes mistrust.
The second love familial,
a love for child unbound.
A shining hue, a loving true,
endless love renowned.
The third great love is friend]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/love-in-four-parts/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230ae</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2020 01:18:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/chandan-chaurasia-_PBW5ZyPiOA-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-3.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/chandan-chaurasia-_PBW5ZyPiOA-unsplash.jpg" alt="Love in Four Parts"/><p>Eons ago one bright young day<br>a cupid child looked down.<br>He fired to earth two tiny darts<br>and flew about his way.<br>A boy and girl sat far apart,<br>been passing time since birth.<br>The darts struck hearts<br>and four great loves<br>survive until today.<br>The first great love, an eros rush,<br>forays the soul with thrust.<br>A romantic hue or errant cue<br>and romance becomes mistrust.<br>The second love familial,<br>a love for child unbound.<br>A shining hue, a loving true,<br>endless love renowned.<br>The third great love is friendship,<br>goodwill to one another.<br>To be a friend until the end<br>they must have worth together.<br>The fourth great love is of three parts,<br>for God, for strangers and for nature.<br>That part of love is charity.<br>If not, no longer pure.<br>It all began with our mythical friend,<br>a preschooler high above.<br>This little friend designed this blend,<br>four things we now call love.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 7: Summer 2020]]></title><description><![CDATA[
First off, I want to send out a giant cosmic hug from the staff at eMerge! We have received so many elegant and moving submissions for the Summer Edition 2020, that we are excited to share with all of you. For your pleasure and reading enjoyment, we have divided our submissions into a Summer Edition and a Fall Edition (that will be online in October). Also, we have three poets who chose to post audible versions of their poetry online with their poems. I was awestruck by
the difference in listen]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/letter-to-the-editor/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230b2</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 16 Aug 2020 14:28:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><br>First off, I want to send out a giant cosmic hug from the staff at eMerge! We have received so many elegant and moving submissions for the Summer Edition 2020, that we are excited to share with all of you. For your pleasure and reading enjoyment, we have divided our submissions into a Summer Edition and a Fall Edition (that will be online in October). Also, we have three poets who chose to post audible versions of their poetry online with their poems. I was awestruck by<br>the difference in listening to the poets read their poems, as opposed to me reading and trying to interpret the tone, mood, and meaning being conveyed. Each and every poem of <a href="https://emerge-writerscolony.org/author/wendy/page/2/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Wendy Taylor Carlisle’s</a> sent goosebumps up and down my skin. I loved the way her inflection would change with each individual word, and how one could immediately tell what the tone of the poem was. It was amazing to hear <a href="https://emerge-writerscolony.org/author/bill/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Bill McCloud </a>speed up and slow down…or pause…as he read his poetry. Listening, I could close my eyes and watch the scenes and images he was describing float so<br>perfectly and effortlessly in my mind. And then reading <a href="https://emerge-writerscolony.org/author/laurence/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Laurence Foshee</a>, a young poet from Tulsa, Oklahoma, I admit to being confused, then when I listened to him read his poetry, analysis and interrogation gave way to wonder and paradox. I just laid back, closed my eyes, and enjoyed it.</br></br></br></p><p>Also, in this edition of eMerge, we received some interesting and insightful prose and poetry regarding the current pandemic we are all concerned about. We do hope you enjoy both issues as we forge ahead, and enjoy the stories and poetry that will make you laugh, cry, and think deeply on the Earth’s beauty and majesty with a sense of awe. We hope that you will appreciate the humanity that our authors have courageously shared with you and if you get the opportunity, visit our website and listen to one of our podcasts at <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/podcast?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Write Now at the Writers’ Colony Podcasts!</a><br>If you can’t listen, then download a couple of podcasts for your next trip to the Writers’ Colony in Eureka Springs, Arkansas!</br></p><p>We understand that many of you have concerns about traveling at this time, so I have asked our Executive Director, Michelle Hannon, to share her thoughts on what is being done to secure the health and safety of our residence.</p><p><strong><em>Sequester Safely at Dairy Hollow</em></strong></p><p>So much has changed because of this pandemic...<br>but there are some things that haven’t!</br></p><p>The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow is still the perfect place for some uninterrupted writing time. A stroll along a nature trail or through the quaint Victorian neighborhoods of Eureka Springs will inspire you.</p><p>With her enduring care, Jana will spoil you with delicious weeknight dinners. Because we take COVID-19 very seriously, you can choose to enjoy them delivered to your suite or with other writers in the Great Room, physically-distanced, of course.</p><p>When you need to come to the office, though you may not be able to see our broad and happy smiles because of our masks, Michelle, Chad, and Jana will be smiling brightly and so happy to see you! We have established and are following strict COVID-19 protocols to keep you and our staff safe so that you can create without worry. You can find them here.</p><p>A writer-in-resident in June, <a href="https://www.carynmirriamgoldberg.com/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg</a>, posted, “[I] just want to vouch for the safety I felt last week at Dairy Hollow. They take the virus seriously, and they do everything possible to keep all -- staff and writers -- safe.” She's returning in August.</p><p>The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow never charges cancellation or change fees, and we are accepting residency reservations through 2021. So if you'd like to support us during these trying times, please make a future reservation you can look forward to. And if you are able to pay a deposit or the cost of your stay now, we would be ever so grateful.</p><p>Encouraged and hopeful, we <strong>will</strong> be here on the other side of this pandemic. The Literary Arts are vitally important, especially right now, and we are dedicated.</p><p>Come write now. Or make a future reservation. We cannot wait to see you at Dairy Hollow!</p><p>Until Next Time,<br>I Remain,<br>Just another Zororastafarian editor feeling like he has gotten fat during the pandemic but bravely tries to keep his chins up…</br></br></p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Late Season]]></title><description><![CDATA[Inches from me
you may not know the wanting
of my hand, illegible on your heaving back,
touching you as you sleep, or pretend to.
(Your days are long and pile up).
It’s possible the dog is in bed between us,
where you’ve invited her.
I may reach across
after an uneasy dream,
terrible men on the stairs, approaching,
a missed final exam that has ruined me.
And I’ll want you.
Not all of you,
but just a moment of you.
Not your entire body,
not the sex of you,
but possibly your arm
or the crook of yo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/late-season/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230af</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Christy Prahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 08 Aug 2020 21:14:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/tim-mossholder-bo3SHP58C3g-unsplash--1-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-4.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/tim-mossholder-bo3SHP58C3g-unsplash--1-.jpg" alt="Late Season"/><p>Inches from me<br>you may not know the wanting<br>of my hand, illegible on your heaving back,<br>touching you as you sleep, or pretend to.<br>(Your days are long and pile up).<br>It’s possible the dog is in bed between us,<br>where you’ve invited her.<br>I may reach across<br>after an uneasy dream,<br>terrible men on the stairs, approaching,<br>a missed final exam that has ruined me.<br>And I’ll want you.<br>Not all of you,<br>but just a moment of you.<br>Not your entire body,<br>not the sex of you,<br>but possibly your arm<br>or the crook of your bent leg<br>reaching across to meet my skin.<br>To say, I am here, and whole.<br>I can see you falling, my love.<br>Watch my hands fold together<br>as a basket.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[sun on the outside]]></title><description><![CDATA[The sun's yellow scratched the cobalt blue of the sky
as one impassioned burst moved it far outside the line
So flustrated pigeon toes pecked at the linoleum's speckle
while Hillary and Scott cupped giggles over their freckles
At another small mistake that could not be erased
for crayola's colored wax medium evaded such grace
When round she strolled peering over half circles of glass
through which gigantic black pupils approved each with a pass
And around she tromped with cackling sounds aga]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sun-on-the-outside/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230b0</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chad Gurley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 08 Aug 2020 21:12:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/joshua-eckstein-VAJEea9u6k8-unsplash--2-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-2.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/joshua-eckstein-VAJEea9u6k8-unsplash--2-.jpg" alt="sun on the outside"/><p>The sun's yellow scratched the cobalt blue of the sky<br>as one impassioned burst moved it far outside the line</br></p><p>So flustrated pigeon toes pecked at the linoleum's speckle<br>while Hillary and Scott cupped giggles over their freckles</br></p><p>At another small mistake that could not be erased<br>for crayola's colored wax medium evaded such grace</br></p><p>When round she strolled peering over half circles of glass<br>through which gigantic black pupils approved each with a pass</br></p><p>And around she tromped with cackling sounds against the floor<br>by pointy leather winged shoes each topped with eyelets of four</br></p><p>Until she suddenly stopped silent signaling someone's doom<br>my head began to pound within a shroud of musty sweet perfume</br></p><p>As spotty wrinkles pulled up my paper and pushed out a sad sigh<br>that green exhaust from martian rockets was not a good reason why</br></p><p>Nimble kindergarten fingers moved without precise intention<br>therefore it failed to be good enough, frowned her final decision</br></p><p>Which unknowingly birthed my defiance of artistic suppression<br>not believing bursting beyond boundaries begets imperfection</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What Are Tears]]></title><description><![CDATA[What are tears but intimations?
Gems are formed against the grain,
Beauty born of desolation,
The soul's response to a heart's repression,
Lustrous pearl round seeds of pain.
What are tears but intimations?
Mountains thrive in deprivation
But granite walls endure in vain,
Beauty born of desolation.
Zephyrs whisper Time's confession
As fragile canyons are carved by rain.
What are tears but intimations
Of death's defeat by life's obsession,
Erecting joy from grief's remains,
Beauty born of des]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/what-are-tears/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b85230b1</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Suzanne Janney Howard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 08 Aug 2020 21:10:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/aliyah-jamous-lQ1hJaV0yLM-unsplash.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/08/aliyah-jamous-lQ1hJaV0yLM-unsplash.jpg" alt="What Are Tears"/><p>What are tears but intimations?<br>Gems are formed against the grain,<br>Beauty born of desolation,</br></br></p><p>The soul's response to a heart's repression,<br>Lustrous pearl round seeds of pain.<br>What are tears but intimations?</br></br></p><p>Mountains thrive in deprivation<br>But granite walls endure in vain,<br>Beauty born of desolation.</br></br></p><p>Zephyrs whisper Time's confession<br>As fragile canyons are carved by rain.<br>What are tears but intimations</br></br></p><p>Of death's defeat by life's obsession,<br>Erecting joy from grief's remains,<br>Beauty born of desolation.</br></br></p><p>Sun and shadow the soul's possession,<br>The skies are tinted with bloody stains.<br>What are tears but intimations ...<br>Beauty born of desolation.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Remain in Mexico]]></title><description><![CDATA[there is the Rio Bravo, a green viper
you could ride away from the tent city
but for remembering Oscar’s failed swim
baby girl tucked in his shirt, wriggling
gulping, the scent of her fine hair dissolving
the unseen currents pulling them down then up
never enough up to keep breathing
so you and a thousand like you
remain in Mexico, alive
in the plaza at the foot
of the Gateway International Bridge
your bed a yoga mat on the street
the August sweat salts your skin
spiders and flies gnaw it all n]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/remain-in-mexico/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523067</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Nasrullah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 22:10:30 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495648013863-7f0f0f7b14a6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495648013863-7f0f0f7b14a6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Remain in Mexico"/><p>there is the Rio Bravo, a green viper<br>you could ride away from the tent city<br>but for remembering Oscar’s failed swim<br>baby girl tucked in his shirt, wriggling<br>gulping, the scent of her fine hair dissolving<br>the unseen currents pulling them down then up<br>never enough up to keep breathing</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>so you and a thousand like you<br>remain in Mexico, alive<br>in the plaza at the foot<br>of the Gateway International Bridge<br>your bed a yoga mat on the street<br>the August sweat salts your skin<br>spiders and flies gnaw it all night</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>when you went north from Honduras<br>you imagined a house<br>the skies of America the roof<br>instead, home is this concrete plaza in Matamoros<br>barricades and Porta Potties in rows<br>cars and trucks rumble across the border<br>day and night, free</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>church people from America<br>bring pizza, tampons and Pampers<br>someone’s old shoes<br>hotel soaps, crayons, wipes</br></br></br></p><p>you bathe in the river<br>beneath its coy surface<br>you hear its dark hiss<br>it devours and dirties<br>ignorant of God<br>answerable to none</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>you can’t cross the bridge<br>you can’t swim the river<br>you can’t use the tampons or the Pampers<br>the blood is gone, the baby is gone<br>you just stay alive<br>fume at the river<br>Remain in Mexico</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Beautiful Moon]]></title><description><![CDATA[Her waist-length hair was
wrapped and entangled
around a post and up
into the barbed wire
Snow drifts had blown up
around her narrow waist
The guy who found her said
that she looked so beautiful
I had thought the same thing
and believed the same thing
and said the same thing
almost forty years earlier
when she was working the register
and I was bagging groceries for her
Everyone said later how kind she was
How sweet How she would do
anything for a friend and
how beautiful she was
She told m]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/beautiful-moon/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852307f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 22:09:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542993666-703fd3f3dadc?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542993666-703fd3f3dadc?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Beautiful Moon"/><p>Her waist-length hair was<br>wrapped and entangled<br>around a post and up<br>into the barbed wire</br></br></br></p><p>Snow drifts had blown up<br>around her narrow waist</br></p><p>The guy who found her said<br>that she looked so beautiful</br></p><p>I had thought the same thing<br>and believed the same thing<br>and said the same thing<br>almost forty years earlier<br>when she was working the register<br>and I was bagging groceries for her</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Everyone said later how kind she was<br>How sweet How she would do<br>anything for a friend and<br>how beautiful she was</br></br></br></p><p>She told me once that she wished<br>she could go away to college and<br>she wished her name was Amaris</br></br></p><p>I recently searched her name on<br>the Internet for special meanings<br>and found The most beautiful girl<br>in the entire world and then No<br>words can explain her beauty</br></br></br></br></p><p>But she ended up by herself<br>in a field along a fence line<br>in the snow with her long hair<br>wound around an old wooden post<br>and I think the last thing she<br>had noticed was how beautiful<br>the moon was and how the<br>ring around it was expanding</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[TEARS OF QUẢNG TRỊ]]></title><description><![CDATA[After the last American soldiers
had left Vietnam
and grass had grown
scars onto bomb craters,
I took some foreign friends to Quảng Trị,
once a fierce battlefield.
I was too young for war
to crawl under my skin
so when I sat with my friends
at a roadside café, sipping tea,
enjoying the now-green landscape,
I didn’t know how to react
when a starkly naked
woman rushed towards us, howling.
Her ribs protruded like the bones
of a fish which had been skinned.
Her breasts swaying like long mướp fruit]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/tears-of-quang-tri/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523083</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 22:08:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1447083143451-7d35ac4cea71?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1447083143451-7d35ac4cea71?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="TEARS OF QUẢNG TRỊ"/><p>After the last American soldiers<br>had left Vietnam<br>and grass had grown<br>scars onto bomb craters,<br>I took some foreign friends to Quảng Trị,<br>once a fierce battlefield.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I was too young for war<br>to crawl under my skin<br>so when I sat with my friends<br>at a roadside café, sipping tea,<br>enjoying the now-green landscape,<br>I didn’t know how to react<br>when a starkly naked<br>woman rushed towards us, howling.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Her ribs protruded like the bones<br>of a fish which had been skinned.<br>Her breasts swaying like long mướp fruit,<br>and her womanly hair a black jungle.</br></br></br></p><p>I was too young to know<br>what to say when the woman<br>shouted for my foreign friends<br>to return her husband and children to her.</br></br></br></p><p>Stunned, we watched her fight against villagers<br>who snatched her arms and dragged her away from us.<br>‘She’s been crazy,’ the tea seller said.<br>‘Her house was bombed.<br>Her husband and children…<br>she’s been looking for them ever since.’</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>My friends bent their heads.<br>‘But the war was here forty-six years ago,’ I said.<br>‘Some wounds can never heal.’ The tea seller shrugged.</br></br></p><p>And here I was, thinking green grass<br>could heal bomb craters into scars</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Papa’s Handwriting]]></title><description><![CDATA[Your handwriting danced
like a tipsy hieroglyph.
Birthday cards, signed books, paperwork
decorated by impatient smudges.
Mama is our only Rosetta Stone.
Like all the best translators,
she has her secrets to nurture
and her secrets to conjure.
Your handwriting reminds
me of the greasy fingerprints
crowding your crystal wine glass,
anxious moths around a lantern.
Still young, as I helped clear
the table after the adults left
my fingers would not quite
match the trail left by your hands.
Mama s]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/papas-handwriting/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523082</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 22:06:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1572968271295-04b0bae9e938?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1572968271295-04b0bae9e938?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Papa’s Handwriting"/><p>Your handwriting danced<br>like a tipsy hieroglyph.<br>Birthday cards, signed books, paperwork<br>decorated by impatient smudges.</br></br></br></p><p>Mama is our only Rosetta Stone.<br>Like all the best translators,<br>she has her secrets to nurture<br>and her secrets to conjure.</br></br></br></p><p>Your handwriting reminds<br>me of the greasy fingerprints<br>crowding your crystal wine glass,<br>anxious moths around a lantern.</br></br></br></p><p>Still young, as I helped clear<br>the table after the adults left<br>my fingers would not quite<br>match the trail left by your hands.</br></br></br></p><p>Mama still says<br>I hold a glass like you,<br>but thank goodness<br>my handwriting is different.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Invisible Wounds]]></title><description><![CDATA[His mind keeps pulling him back
To memories of his worst combat experiences
A severed arm
Limbs that were once one
Loved by someone…
He wants to be left alone
To find happiness
And to be whole again.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/invisible-wounds/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523062</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 22:05:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1465321897912-c692b37a09a6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1465321897912-c692b37a09a6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Invisible Wounds"/><p>His mind keeps pulling him back<br>To memories of his worst combat experiences<br>A severed arm<br>Limbs that were once one<br>Loved by someone…</br></br></br></br></p><p>He wants to be left alone<br>To find happiness<br>And to be whole again.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Six Poems]]></title><description><![CDATA[Poem with Political Leanings
Things could have gone differently for the left, for the right, for
all of us humping our implausible lives into an ideal future, not
one that appears preoccupied with theology and violence.
Nevertheless, Rainclouds over the Ouachitas excel in not giving
a damn, nor do hissing possums that live in peace with their
ticks.
Poem with Ecology
Something about maple trees. Something about coal slurry.
Something about a stream and what we are now allowed to
throw in it.
P]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/six-poems/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523060</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 22:04:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541044824061-afc156516935?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541044824061-afc156516935?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Six Poems"/><p><em>Poem with Political Leanings</em><br>Things could have gone differently for the left, for the right, for<br>all of us humping our implausible lives into an ideal future, not<br>one that appears preoccupied with theology and violence.<br>Nevertheless, Rainclouds over the Ouachitas excel in not giving<br>a damn, nor do hissing possums that live in peace with their<br>ticks.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><em>Poem with Ecology</em><br>Something about maple trees. Something about coal slurry.<br>Something about a stream and what we are now allowed to<br>throw in it.</br></br></br></p><p><em>Poem Awake at 2 AM</em><br>Night that keeps company with a regulation moon.<br>Night in the unlit.<br>Night at this time belongs to the packrats and field mice and the<br>cats who find them.</br></br></br></br></p><p><em>Poem with Magic</em><br>The saints and magicians trundle among us,<br>to steal from silence nothing silence misses.</br></br></p><p><em>Poem That Might be a Love Poem</em><br>The lie he said didn’t matter. The lie that did<br>was floorboards filled with rain,<br>was headstrong, was condoms. The lie was ornate.<br>We ate that lie from each other’s hands.</br></br></br></br></p><p><em>Poem with My Life Philosophy in It</em><br>I always think there is time for one more.</br></p><p/><p>First appeared in <em>Untold Arkansas: an Anthology</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Gigolo]]></title><description><![CDATA[I once shared an office with a gigolo. We were paralegals at a white shoe law firm in midtown Manhattan. His name was Gil and he was on leave from Columbia Law School.
Gil dressed like a banker, blonde hair parted on the side—cut close to his head, but not too close—a touch of gel; and black Ferragamo shoes, immaculately shined.
Our office was on the 40th floor. The three floors of the firm were connected by interior staircases that had pickets and banisters, all made from cherry wood. Orienta]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-gigolo/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523068</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Martha Anne Toll]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 22:03:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1539082929143-fddeb132545e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1539082929143-fddeb132545e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Gigolo"/><p>I once shared an office with a gigolo. We were paralegals at a white shoe law firm in midtown Manhattan. His name was Gil and he was on leave from Columbia Law School.</p><p>Gil dressed like a banker, blonde hair parted on the side—cut close to his head, but not too close—a touch of gel; and black Ferragamo shoes, immaculately shined.</p><p>Our office was on the 40th floor. The three floors of the firm were connected by interior staircases that had pickets and banisters, all made from cherry wood. Oriental rugs lined the halls. I’m not sure whether it was the rugs or the code of conduct, but the place was quiet as a morgue.</p><p>These were the days when you could smoke in the office, and Gil smoked in the office. Right outside our door was a secretary named Consuela who chain smoked. She was pregnant. Computers hadn’t yet arrived; we had desktop phones and legal pads.</p><p>The office girls (they were called girls then) said Gil was a sexist. But they found him cute, and several of them angled to date him. Sexist or not, he fetched coffee and bagels for me from the firm cafeteria.</p><p>Gil was gravely concerned about my naïveté. It’s true; I was clueless. While I was scheming with the girls about when to wear purple or turquoise tights to shock the establishment, events of great moment were occurring around us. Gil took it upon himself to enlighten me. For example, Mr. Progressive Partner, with his Town and Country wife and two charming children, was sleeping with Lucy, one of three “professional” paralegals. (The rest of us were not considered professionals since we planned to stay only a year before entering law school.) Lucy had other lovers too. One day she came in with a black eye, bruised cheekbones, and black-and-blue arms, citing a fall down a friend’s basement steps. Gil was quick to edify me that another one of Lucy’s married paramours had beat her up. The proof: Manhattan apartments don’t have basement steps.</p><p>After a month or two, Gil began to disclose a few things about himself. I learned he serviced an older woman who lived on Park Avenue. When her husband left town, Gil would go over at lunch. He’d make up the time he missed at the firm later that evening. His Park Avenue job was more lucrative than ours.</p><p>Mrs. Park Avenue had a white fur coat and inhabited a white apartment. She had white shag rugs and white puffy sofas and white muslin curtains. Her kitchen counters and cabinets were white as well. But Gil didn’t enter the kitchen. His work was in her king-sized bed, which was covered in a white satin comforter. He said the bed had a touch of color—the pillowcases were bordered in pink ribbons. Mrs. Park Avenue was a platinum blonde with pale skin. Gil said she was too skinny, and that she wore silver slip-on sandals when she wore shoes at all.</p><p>Mrs. Park Avenue was interesting, but she did not solve the mystery of Sunflower. This was in the days before voicemail, so I answered Gil’s phone when he went out. One person habitually rang—a man—and the message was always the same, “Tell him Sunflower called.”</p><p>When Gil returned to the office, he’d call Sunflower, who was—apparently—Gil’s object of worship. Gil would wave at me to close the door so no one in the hall would notice, then they would fight, after which Gil would whine, apologize, and prostrate himself (for what, I never knew) in a stage whisper. Often, he wept. I’m ashamed to admit that I considered it a badge of honor (1) that I took messages without inciting Gil’s ire, (2) that Gil felt comfortable enough to fight in front of me, and (3) that even though it was abundantly clear that Gil was in some kind of asphyxiating thrall to Sunflower, we never discussed him.</p><p>After a while, I suggested to the office girls that Gil might be gay. They stomped out that idea fast! No one could be such a male chauvinist and talk about women the way he did if he were gay. I didn’t mention the lady he serviced on Park Avenue, or his heartbreaking Sunflower hero-worship.</p><p>At the end of the year I moved to Boston to start law school. Gil stayed at the firm; he said he wasn’t ready to return to Columbia. In Boston, I learned something else about Gil—he was a great correspondent. The office girls warned me he’d never write, but he did, regularly; news bits, pleasantries. He never wrote about Sunflower.</p><p>About that time, AIDS was discovered, or more precisely, AIDS was identified and named. Gay men started dying.</p><p>Gil was the first person I knew who died of AIDS. I heard the news from a friend of a friend of a friend. Gil went before other people I knew—college friends, brothers of friends, co-workers, musicians, movie stars, fashion designers, fathers, sons, young men, old men, men in their prime. Mothers and daughters too.</p><p>I never found out Sunflower’s real name.</p><p>I never heard what happened to the pale lady in the white Park Avenue apartment.</p><p>It’s possible that I’m a tad less naive.</p><p>It’s not possible that the object of Gil’s obsession survived the AIDS pandemic.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Belfast Legend]]></title><description><![CDATA[Growing up in Belfast during the Troubles had its ups and downs. There were times when the roads or schools were closed because of bomb scares or when you were stranded in town and you’d overhear some old biddy announce to everyone in Castle Street, “The buses is off.” The smell of burnt out cars and petrol bombs hung in the air like an unwanted friend while men and women protected their area taking turns to stand on the barricades. Many of the sights and sounds became normal and almost comforti]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-belfast-legend/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523074</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Aileen Bartlett]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 22:02:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1560329649-c952ee843f92?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1560329649-c952ee843f92?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="A Belfast Legend"/><p>Growing up in Belfast during the Troubles had its ups and downs. There were times when the roads or schools were closed because of bomb scares or when you were stranded in town and you’d overhear some old biddy announce to everyone in Castle Street, “The buses is off.” The smell of burnt out cars and petrol bombs hung in the air like an unwanted friend while men and women protected their area taking turns to stand on the barricades. Many of the sights and sounds became normal and almost comforting. It got to the point where I could only sleep if there was an army helicopter circling the sky above our house at night. We were surrounded by tragedy and really, nobody got through it untouched, but for most of it we were protected by our parents. People thought we were mental. Not getting involved. Not roaming the streets at night looking for trouble. They came to the door one night looking for a match to light their petrol bombs.</p><p>“Sorry son, I don’t smoke,” Mammy told them before she bolted the door and lit one cigarette after another for the rest of the evening.</p><p>Once school was over at the end of the day and we were all at home, the door was locked and the curtains drawn. We were in. Safe. Together. There was always something to celebrate from birthdays to baptisms and each one came complete with sandwiches, cake and a sing-song. We made our own fun and we didn’t need to go beyond our own front door to find everything we needed. We were cocooned in our own wee mad world of ten. Mammy and Daddy, the four big ones and the four wee ones. The B Team, cruising around town in our mini-bus like we’d been let out of a youth club on a field trip.</p><p>I remember the toys we used to play with when we were young. Many had been presents delivered by Santa on Christmas Day and others had been carefully chosen birthday presents. Some were old like our Fiona’s doll that had the hairdo of a forty-five year old and had knitting needle holes strategically positioned on her chest by Aidan. His football table had given us hours of fun, until the wee football went missing. We improvised with a ping-pong ball, but it was too big to fit under the legs of the tiny plastic footballers. We eventually settled for a ball of tinfoil figuring that it could easily be replaced from the never-ending supply of tinfoil in the bottom drawer in the kitchen.</p><p>Some of our toys were more modern than the 70s doll like Roisin’s boot skates. They were navy with yellow wheels and had a bright rainbow on the side. Giving an accident-prone child boot skates was asking for trouble though. She spent most of her time nursing bruises and cuts she had sustained from flinging herself around the street. I was daintier or so I liked to think. I preferred a calm existence inside the house playing with my Singer Sewing Machine, planning a career in one of the couture fashion houses of Paris. Although I stitched many zigzag lines on scraps of material I never managed to finish anything and Fiona’s doll was condemned to a life as a nudist.</p><p>Declan was a big fan of his Meccano set and spent hours tinkering with bizarre bits of metal and plastic. He’d make all sorts of weird and wonderful contraptions with tiny spanners and nuts and bolts. Once he had buried all the Star Wars men in the back garden with Kevin they moved onto playing with the tiny figures from their huge Manta Force Spacecraft. Síle displayed her efficiency with her toy Post Office as she stamped the Family Allowance Books for all of her Barbie dolls. She was always very stressed during a ‘double week’ and couldn’t be forced to be polite to her plastic customers. We thought she needed a new outlet once she started offering Crisis Loans. Even back then, Ciaran was a history geek and was more occupied with living in the past with his World War I soldier’s hat and his Military Action Man.</p><p>As much as we loved and cherished all of our toys, the most coveted thing in our house was a spoon. It wasn’t just any old spoon mind you. It was a very special spoon. It was, by far, the best stainless steel spoon in the world.</p><p>One day Daddy had opened his lunch-box in work to reveal four rounds of an O’Hara’s plain loaf filled with cheese, a Mac Red apple and a yogurt. He’d already eaten a Wagon Wheel with a cup of coffee at tea break. He’d been unable to find the Penguin he’d stashed in his desk drawer earlier in the week and while he suspected Big Mervyn was the would-be Penguin-thief he couldn’t prove it. As he finished his sandwiches he moved the fruit and yogurt only to discover that Mammy hadn’t given him a teaspoon. He walked over to the trolley that held the cutlery and lifted the next best thing, a tablespoon. At the end of lunch he packed up his lunch-box, bringing home his rubbish, the uneaten apple and the tablespoon. The company logo was emblazoned on the handle of the spoon and it became affectionately known as the ‘Ford Spoon’. It became more precious than any of our toys and we all wanted to use it for every meal.</p><p>Breakfast was the easiest meal of the day. If you were first to get up you could claim the Ford Spoon to eat your cereal. Sometimes we even waited until someone else had finished breakfast and then we’d quickly wash it. There were arguments at lunch-time over the weekend and during school holidays because we were all at home.</p><p>“Mammy, can I have the Ford Spoon to eat my Beans alla Boeuf?” Kevin would ask. Daddy had invented Beans alla Boeuf when Mammy was in hospital having Declan. He’d cleverly crumbled an Oxo Cube into a regular tin of beans and voila, a brand new recipe. A staple of our diet in the 80s and 90s. A taste sensation. We never ate normal beans again. Once when he’d no Oxo Cubes left he threw some dried parsley into the beans. Beans alla Grass were never much in demand after that first outing.</p><p>“I already said I’m getting it with my Scotch Broth and anyway you can’t eat Beans alla Boeuf and toast with a spoon,” Roisin would interject.</p><p>“Yeah you can. I always eat Beans alla Boeuf with a spoon because I can’t eat them with a fork,” Kevin would reply.</p><p>“He asked first, Roisin,” Mammy would say trying to stop it from escalating.</p><p>“Yeah, well I said first,” she’d say in a huff, knowing she’d been defeated.</p><p>Kevin was victorious. Well, on that occasion at least.</p><p>The real problems happened at dinner time. If it was cold outside Mammy made a big pot of stew or champ. That meant we’d all be sitting round the dining room table, eating together. More often than not it was the luck of the draw if you got the Ford Spoon on your plate. The odd time someone would have been sneaky enough to nip into the kitchen during Children’s BBC to ask Mammy to give them the Ford Spoon. I have to admit, I did that once or twice. It was like a pre-emptive strike and not once did I regret it.</p><p>It got to the stage when there were ridiculous arguments over the Ford Spoon. I remember being called in to set the table for the dinner and putting the spoon at my place. I’d boldly make an announcement to let everyone know where I was sitting. The war escalated when someone crept into the dining room and stole the Ford Spoon. Sometimes we’d even hide it to avoid detection and in the end nobody got to use it. We’d resort to stashing it in the pocket of your jeans and just revealing it with a smug grin as you ate your dessert. It was the small victories that meant the most in this battle of wits.</p><p>This conflict had been raging on for years when Daddy finally lost the rag. We’d been arguing at every meal and one afternoon it reached Def Con 1. Roisin and I had set the table for the Sunday dinner and I had put the spoons out for the dessert. Naturally, the Ford Spoon had been placed at my space at the table.</p><p>“I’m getting the Ford Spoon and I’m sitting here beside Mammy,” I said.</p><p>“That’s not fair,” Roisin told me. “You always get it on a Sunday.”</p><p>“No I don’t, because Declan got it last week,” I insisted.<br>I went into the living-room once I’d finished pouring out the orange and pineapple Kiora into the ten glasses on the table. Little did I know that the Ford Spoon had been stolen when my back was turned. Everyone was a suspect.</br></p><pre><code>“Well, it wasn’t me,” Declan insisted under interrogation.
</code></pre><p>“And it wasn’t me,” Kevin added. “I was playing with my new parachute man I got in McAloon’s.”</p><p>“Yeah and then me and Kevin were out the back sliding down the washing pole so it couldn’t have been us,” Declan said, determined to prove his innocence while letting everyone know that he and Kevin were playing stuntmen in the back garden. Another failed career.</p><p>“Roisin must have taken it because she was helping me set the table and she was still in here when I went out,” I said pointing the finger at her.</p><p>“I’ve been out playing football with Mousy and the boys so I don’t have it,” Aidan told us.</p><p>“I don’t care about your stupid spoon,” Fiona threw in with a sophisticated air.</p><p>“Well it wasn’t Ciaran, because he was watching Kelly’s Heroes with your Daddy,” Mammy said.</p><p>All eyes turned to Síle who had sat quietly in her seat waiting for her dessert to be delivered.</p><p>“It wasn’t me,” she protested her innocence as she started to cry.</p><p>“Right, that’s the end of it,” Daddy said. “I don’t care who took it, but whoever it was better hand it over now.”</p><p>We all dropped our eyes to the table. We eventually looked up as one person stood up and walked towards the Welsh Dresser, the last place anyone would have looked for it. The Ford Spoon was passed to Daddy.</p><p>“Now I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” he said.</p><p>The Ford Spoon met its fate that day. Daddy had really had enough. We had driven him to distraction with all our bickering and fighting. He ceremoniously bent the spoon back and forth until it eventually broke in two. We all watched in silence, our mouths wide-open in shock. It was like losing a dear friend. I don’t know if any of us got over the loss and even though we blamed each other for a while, any one of us could have been the person who handed over the Ford Spoon to be snapped in half.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Silver Lining]]></title><description><![CDATA[maybe
you shouldn’t
have left college
married that man
had that man’s kids
ditched that man’s kids
maybe
you shouldn’t
have drunk that beer
smoked that cigarette
bought that razor
listened to daddy
they say
fate brings a
silver lining
they say find it
you know dark clouds
are your fortune
but maybe
they’re right
maybe
you’ll get
yours in
the end]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-silver-lining/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523066</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ruth Nasrullah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:59:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531273877009-1975420cb1fc?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531273877009-1975420cb1fc?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Silver Lining"/><p>maybe<br>you shouldn’t<br>have left college<br>married that man<br>had that man’s kids<br>ditched that man’s kids</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>maybe<br>you shouldn’t<br>have drunk that beer<br>smoked that cigarette<br>bought that razor<br>listened to daddy</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>they say<br>fate brings a<br>silver lining<br>they say find it<br>you know dark clouds<br>are your fortune</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>but maybe<br>they’re right<br>maybe<br>you’ll get<br>yours in</br></br></br></br></p><p>the end</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Writing]]></title><description><![CDATA[Moments press against uncounted moments
Swiftly they pass
Into an unrecoverable abyss
I ponder in silence
Absorbed by a world of unwritten words
Verbs, nouns, adjectives
Stem cells of creative thought
Waiting in the dark among the moments
I feel my inadequacy
I should go back to work
And write a few more words
Because I know
Only a few moments exist
Between the words
And the abyss.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/writing/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523061</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:55:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501139083538-0139583c060f?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501139083538-0139583c060f?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Writing"/><p>Moments press against uncounted moments<br>Swiftly they pass<br>Into an unrecoverable abyss<br>I ponder in silence<br>Absorbed by a world of unwritten words<br>Verbs, nouns, adjectives<br>Stem cells of creative thought<br>Waiting in the dark among the moments<br>I feel my inadequacy<br>I should go back to work<br>And write a few more words<br>Because I know<br>Only a few moments exist<br>Between the words<br>And the abyss.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Memories of a Cajun Night]]></title><description><![CDATA[The Cajun orchestra, skeining out wild music through the open doors and windows of the dance hall, greeted Loreen and I as we walked through the oak-scented night. A revved-up accordion, fiddle, and guitar drowned the noise of cars on the road, the beat of surf beyond the dunes and the laughter of the dancers. Their shoes on the bare boards snapped out a base line as they flew through a Louisiana two-step.
I met Loreen at the Grand Isle Bird Festival, an annual bird-watching event held every Ap]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/memories-of-a-cajun-night/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852305e</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joan Baril]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:53:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523920534457-577c7003a93d?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523920534457-577c7003a93d?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Memories of a Cajun Night"/><p>The Cajun orchestra, skeining out wild music through the open doors and windows of the dance hall, greeted Loreen and I as we walked through the oak-scented night. A revved-up accordion, fiddle, and guitar drowned the noise of cars on the road, the beat of surf beyond the dunes and the laughter of the dancers. Their shoes on the bare boards snapped out a base line as they flew through a Louisiana two-step.</p><p>I met Loreen at the Grand Isle Bird Festival, an annual bird-watching event held every April in this village built precariously on a barrier island south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico.</p><p>"Y’all’s une Canadienne,” she said, “so y’all have un vrai bon temps.”</p><p>Loreen’s accent was as thick as molasses and I had to twist my ears into knots to decipher the rolling English mixed with the odd word of French.</p><p>The dance hall reminded me of country halls in Northern Ontario. Long and low and open to the warm night, the bar took up one end and the stage for the perspiring musicians the other. Wooden tables circled the dance floor. Loreen introduced me to the ten or twelve people around her table: sisters, cousins, neighbours and another birder who had come for the festival, a former resident of Grand Isle and now a doctor in New Orleans.</p><p>“Bienvenue,” the doctor said as I sat down beside him. “That’s the only French I know.”</p><p>“English is fine,” I said.</p><p>“When I was a kid in school, we weren’t allowed to speak French,” the doctor explained. “My grandparents were fluent but my parents wouldn’t let us kids say one word. They thought it would hold us back in life. But things are different now.”</p><p>I’d heard French was on the upswing in Louisiana. He agreed. His own kids were in French immersion. Last year, he and his family went to a francophone festival in Manitoba and were planning to go to another in Nova Scotia.</p><p>The music blasted forth and the doctor and I swung into the two-step. It was surprisingly easy to do, a cross between a polka and a quick foxtrot with some added creative footwork. The hard part was keeping my feet going fast enough to stay in synch with the rhythm. Thankfully, cold beer and Coca Cola arrived at the table and soon, after a pause to find some breath, everyone was talking to me at once. The doctor wandered over to talk to the musicians.</p><p>“Y’ll try the craw dads yet?” said Loreen’s cousin, a large woman who was a lightening fast dancer.</p><p>“No, but the shrimp etouffe I had last night was wonderful.”</p><p>“We Cajuns survived by eating everything,” said Loreen, “In the 1700’s when they dropped us on this sand spit – because that’s all Grand Isle is – we had to eat everything we could catch: alligator, raccoon, possum, snakes.</p><p>The others took up the list. “Turtles, armadillo, crabs, squirrel, snails, doves…”</p><p>“Even robins” said the doctor who returned to the table. “But everything we cooked, we cooked with French flair. So now, we eat some of the best cuisine in the world.”</p><p>Had he really said they ate robins? I was appalled. He must have seen the look on my face.</p><p>“That’s right, robins. My grandpa caught them in nets at spring migration. He chopped off their little heads, reached into the cavity with two fingers and hauled out the breasts. Then he threw the rest away. It takes a lot of robin breasts to make a meal for a family.” He grinned. “Don’t worry, we don’t eat song birds any more— just watch them.”</p><p>The bandleader stepped to the mike. “I hear we have a Canadian in our midst,” he said to my intense surprise and embarrassment. ”So welcome to Grand Isle. Welcome to the bird festival. Now here’s a song for our visitor from a long lost place.” The old Quebec tune of “Vive La Canadienne.” shot like sheet lightening around the hall and everyone was on their feet. I danced with one of Loreen’s elderly cousins, doing a maniac two-step interspersed with creative jive dance moves. Several people were singing the chorus…</p><p><em>Vive La Canadienne<br>Et ses jolis yeux doux.</br></em></p><p>When the music stopped, and I retrieved my breath, I called out, “Thank you, thank you everyone.” I bowed left and right. “Merci, tout le monde. Merci beaucoup.”</p><p>It was a magical moment in my life, to feel so strongly the ancient connection between Canada and Louisiana, a connection I had not seriously considered until then.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Coin-Op Church]]></title><description><![CDATA[Off the main highway, down meandering gravel, a road of hairpin turns, no guardrails. At the end, a shady lane, where lies the coin-op church, open 24 hours a day.
I wondered if it were like Catholic churches I knew, where votive candles were replaced by push-button electric lights. Each click, a dollar requested by the coinbox, to flicker a faux light a day and a night, in honor of a loved one who had passed away.
I wondered if this coin-op church was like an automat lunchroom of 1950s New Yo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-coin-op-church/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852306a</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cynthia Gallaher]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:50:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1567427018369-9216e43df052?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1567427018369-9216e43df052?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Coin-Op Church"/><p>Off the main highway, down meandering gravel, a road of hairpin turns, no guardrails. At the end, a shady lane, where lies the coin-op church, open 24 hours a day.</p><p>I wondered if it were like Catholic churches I knew, where votive candles were replaced by push-button electric lights. Each click, a dollar requested by the coinbox, to flicker a faux light a day and a night, in honor of a loved one who had passed away.</p><p>I wondered if this coin-op church was like an automat lunchroom of 1950s New York City, where you plugged in dimes, opened a little metal door and pulled out spiritual nourishment, instead of a mustardy ham sandwich or sticky slice of cherry pie.</p><p>Might what happened here be like beads of a rosary, a prayer count-off one-by-one, like dropping coins one-by-one into a parking meter or coin washing machine. In place of dirty clothes in, clean clothes out, could my soul receive the cleansing, or my monkey-mind thoughts be wiped to a meditative state?</p><p>As I approached the coin-op church altar, I was pleased they accepted cash only, not forced to pay with my chip card, pay with my phone, pay with my face, take on what some say is the mark of the beast, this beast called mark who just may usher in the cashless society, like a crownless grey-man king.</p><p>As I drew closer, I kept thinking maybe it would have been easier to visit the Green Forest Cowboy Church or the Four-wheeler House of Prayer, or simply duck into an old-fashioned phone booth, drop-in a quarter and punch in “Dial-a-Prayer.”</p><p>What was I doing here, this place with no one else at this hour but god…and a vending machine.</p><p>Then I saw duct tape across the coin drop and a sign pasted on the machine that read “ Out of Order,” with a ribbon of italic calligraphy that also said, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to god what is god’s.”</p><p>Oh, that ancient silver coin Jesus referred to, the Tiberius denarius, originally worth 10 asses. And I, one of the 10.</p><p>Only then I realized my pockets were empty, my eyes closed, the third eye in the middle of my forehead, throbbing, a warm circle lighting up as if to signal “on” or “power” or “go” or “wake,” almost feeling, there at that moment, a gentle push from a wise and determinate index finger.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mountainburg 12-27-17]]></title><description><![CDATA[Not a thing lies hidden
behind the bare branch –
the days before emergent buds.
Sycamores silver and white
golden autumn cast to the ground.
White limbs reaching to the sky, seeking,
silver fingers thrusting out, pleading,
bare tips looking on heaven, expecting.
Snow,
like manna,
catching in the bends,
brushing branches
clinging to loosened bark and hardened knots.
Whirling, lacing cedar trees.
Tabled outcroppings spreading for feasting.
God steps back and says “It is good. It is pure.”]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mountainburg-12-27-17/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523076</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Amy Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:49:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1553045426-d0f433bdb959?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1553045426-d0f433bdb959?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Mountainburg 12-27-17"/><p>Not a thing lies hidden<br>behind the bare branch –<br>the days before emergent buds.<br>Sycamores silver and white<br>golden autumn cast to the ground.</br></br></br></br></p><p>White limbs reaching to the sky, seeking,<br>silver fingers thrusting out, pleading,<br>bare tips looking on heaven, expecting.</br></br></p><p>Snow,<br>like manna,<br>catching in the bends,<br>brushing branches<br>clinging to loosened bark and hardened knots.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Whirling, lacing cedar trees.<br>Tabled outcroppings spreading for feasting.<br>God steps back and says “It is good. It is pure.”</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sweet Grass]]></title><description><![CDATA[Field of sweetgrass and sage
Earthly prayers, saline drips
thoughts of love and rage
Unfamiliar memories like movie clips.
Babylons’ gardens yet to be planted.
Old ways supplanted
Can you dig this Earth?
Easy to Feast on silicone, maintain the girth
I ride for a new tomorrow.
Do or die, no time to wallow
Do you seek it?
Or bury your nose in shit?
Hard questions, easy answers
Don’t fear it.
Response isn’t required
Action most certainly is.
The animals are returning to sacred ground
Follow the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sweet-grass/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523063</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Levi Harmon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:47:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1569574246997-1449f3e5a185?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1569574246997-1449f3e5a185?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Sweet Grass"/><p>Field of sweetgrass and sage<br>Earthly prayers, saline drips<br>thoughts of love and rage<br>Unfamiliar memories like movie clips.</br></br></br></p><p>Babylons’ gardens yet to be planted.<br>Old ways supplanted<br>Can you dig this Earth?<br>Easy to Feast on silicone, maintain the girth</br></br></br></p><p>I ride for a new tomorrow.<br>Do or die, no time to wallow<br>Do you seek it?<br>Or bury your nose in shit?</br></br></br></p><p>Hard questions, easy answers<br>Don’t fear it.<br>Response isn’t required<br>Action most certainly is.</br></br></br></p><p>The animals are returning to sacred ground<br>Follow their lead, may you be found</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Sagittarian Looks Toward the Sky]]></title><description><![CDATA[For Beauty
When she says
Look at those stars
what she’s seeing
are the stars beyond
the stars The ones
you can’t see Not
even by looking into
her eyes if you were
one of the lucky ones
who she let do so Yet
there are many who
greatly desire to look
into her eyes knowing
they still won’t be able
to see those stars
beyond the stars]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-sagittarian-looks-toward-the-sky/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852307c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:46:10 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1537420327992-d6e192287183?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1537420327992-d6e192287183?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="A Sagittarian Looks Toward the Sky"/><p><em>For Beauty</em></p><p>When she says<br>Look at those stars<br>what she’s seeing<br>are the stars beyond</br></br></br></p><p>the stars The ones<br>you can’t see Not<br>even by looking into<br>her eyes if you were</br></br></br></p><p>one of the lucky ones<br>who she let do so Yet<br>there are many who<br>greatly desire to look</br></br></br></p><p>into her eyes knowing<br>they still won’t be able<br>to see those stars<br>beyond the stars</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Writers Are Thieves]]></title><description><![CDATA[At a writers conference in New York City, I took a break from an all-night writing marathon. An Oklahoma woman out of my element, I sat in a diner at two o’clock in the morning, drinking coffee. The Friday night crowd trailed in after a frenzied night of fun. Some patrons were decked out in nightclub garb. In contrast, I looked like a French café slouch in clothes comfortable enough to be classified as pajamas and hair resembling a cat toy. I was not bothered by my appearance, though. In New Yor]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/writers-are-thieves/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523075</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nikki Hanna]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:44:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517255084190-479809d93b00?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517255084190-479809d93b00?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Writers Are Thieves"/><p>At a writers conference in New York City, I took a break from an all-night writing marathon. An Oklahoma woman out of my element, I sat in a diner at two o’clock in the morning, drinking coffee. The Friday night crowd trailed in after a frenzied night of fun. Some patrons were decked out in nightclub garb. In contrast, I looked like a French café slouch in clothes comfortable enough to be classified as pajamas and hair resembling a cat toy. I was not bothered by my appearance, though. In New York City, nothing is peculiar.</p><p>One might wonder why a sixty-something-year-old woman from Tulsa, Oklahoma, graced this setting. I was a writer, and serious writers, at one time or another, make a pilgrimage of sorts to New York City. A quest for coffee created a bonus adventure for this tourist who stumbled upon a flavor of the city’s night life. Writers are thieves, and I decided to observe the action for the purpose of stealing ideas for a future composition. Prospects were abundant.</p><p>Exposed young girls, with vocabularies embellished with the words like and whatever, and blustery, cocky young men, with shaved heads or dreads and baggy pants slung low enough to reveal underwear, coexisted splendidly after a Friday night of partying. The women paraded by—wobbling in four-inch heels—as young men in the next booth delivered a testosterone-fueled pick-up line, “Oh, my god! You are so beautiful. Oh, my god!” They didn’t say this to me, of course. I was still trying to lose baby fat from my firstborn child forty-eight years ago.</p><p>These comments were directed at rumpled, smudged-up, glassy-eyed unfortunates in hemlines so short it appeared they had put on blouses and forgotten their skirts. One girl’s dress was hiked up so high that the crotch of her thong was visible in front, and her bare ass in back. Although this visual was an assault on my mind (I thought, Gawd), the guys were so taken by thong girl that they pounded the table. Unable to contain themselves, they rose from their seats as if their butts were filled with helium. Following her, they omitted the “You are so beautiful,” and said, “Oh, my god! Oh, my god! Oh, my god!”</p><p>A few gang-like fellows were so rambunctious I expected someone would throw them out, but no one paid attention. So after contemplating whether a bullet could penetrate the wall of my booth, I abandoned the concerned tourist role and settled in for a session of discreet observation, while making a mental note: The next time I come to New York City, I will explore the prospect of a more sophisticated hotel, one that leaves chocolates on my pillow and whose guests drink Grand Marnier at two in the morning.</p><p>I hung around longer than intended because my waiter, the swiper, periodically passed by at the speed of light, swooping up my half-filled coffee cup for refills. Since I’d dosed it with the required daily supplement of fiber, I had to drink each successive cup to ensure I got my thirty grams. Once accomplished, I left with a severe caffeine buzz, but not before overhearing a confounding conversation in the next booth.</p><p>A dazed young woman wore Christmas lights as a necklace, and her head occasionally dangled perilously close to her catsup-covered french fries. She lamented to her male companions that her boyfriend would be furious with her for getting so-o-o wasted. One of the noble fellows comforted her, “It’ll be all right. He’ll get over it.” To prove his point, he said, “I threw up on my girlfriend once, and she’s still my girlfriend.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Edible Pages]]></title><description><![CDATA[At breakfast,
I nosh on news at home,
at mid-morning desk,
a poem or two.
Lunch is just a slice of fiction,
then a skim through a trade how-to,
come snack-time, I feel a constriction,
and it’s not that my library books are due.
By dinner, with hardcover novel
in my left hand, restaurant menu in my right,
I find there’s so much eating and reading to do,
I may need to spend the night.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/edible-pages/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523069</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cynthia Gallaher]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:42:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1559615219-a70e17092ca5?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1559615219-a70e17092ca5?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Edible Pages"/><p>At breakfast,<br>I nosh on news at home,<br>at mid-morning desk,<br>a poem or two.</br></br></br></p><p>Lunch is just a slice of fiction,<br>then a skim through a trade how-to,<br>come snack-time, I feel a constriction,<br>and it’s not that my library books are due.</br></br></br></p><p>By dinner, with hardcover novel<br>in my left hand, restaurant menu in my right,<br>I find there’s so much eating and reading to do,<br>I may need to spend the night.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Am a Survivor]]></title><description><![CDATA[Oh yes, I know, I’ve shed a tear.
Alone, upset, concern, some fear.
Yet, all my years my feelings clear
Exists a Godly presence here.
His love displayed, so many ways.
A crescent moon, those dazzling days.
Exquisite flowers from His own hand.
They’re God’s bouquet from His own land.
So much beauty in my life.
But most of all a husband’s wife.
It is His plan I will be healed.
For by his love, completely sealed.
Oh yes, I know, I have to cry
But God’s great love will wipe it dry.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-am-a-survivor/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852305c</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:41:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542012499-f6bfceafab8b?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542012499-f6bfceafab8b?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="I Am a Survivor"/><p>Oh yes, I know, I’ve shed a tear.<br>Alone, upset, concern, some fear.<br>Yet, all my years my feelings clear<br>Exists a Godly presence here.<br>His love displayed, so many ways.<br>A crescent moon, those dazzling days.<br>Exquisite flowers from His own hand.<br>They’re God’s bouquet from His own land.<br>So much beauty in my life.<br> But most of all a husband’s wife.<br>It is His plan I will be healed.<br>For by his love, completely sealed.<br>Oh yes, I know, I have to cry<br>But God’s great love will wipe it dry.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ode to a Coffee Table at Whitty Books]]></title><description><![CDATA[You support and you separate as spaces do or need;
You’re drawn upon—not with pen; upon your function—
not that first glancing line that’s skewed aim at vantablack.
In a day’s 1/96th among craftwork your function’s drawn
in vein of Bertrand Russell’s silver-tonguing coffeetabled
ontology, upon fine-tuned platonic smoothing or
explosive finality of words in books stacked atop surface,
surfaces I’ve yet to trek within. You uphold prismatic car keys,
off-gray polypropylene mug’s game with refract]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/ode-to-a-coffee-table-at-whitty-books/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523071</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:39:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516979187457-637abb4f9353?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516979187457-637abb4f9353?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Ode to a Coffee Table at Whitty Books"/><p>You support and you separate as spaces do or need;<br>You’re drawn upon—not with pen; upon your function—<br>not that first glancing line that’s skewed aim at vantablack.<br>In a day’s 1/96th among craftwork your function’s drawn</br></br></br></p><p>in vein of Bertrand Russell’s silver-tonguing coffeetabled<br>ontology, upon fine-tuned platonic smoothing or<br>explosive finality of words in books stacked atop surface,<br>surfaces I’ve yet to trek within. You uphold prismatic car keys,</br></br></br></p><p>off-gray polypropylene mug’s game with refraction, distillation<br>of light sharpening, “Number 2 Pencils Up & Up.” A blither, yet<br>most fraught, direction for thought. A cohabited 900 seconds to<br>confine madness and form and formal madness, as all person-</br></br></br></p><p>hood’s products are. You’re resting’s referent-- but it’s reticent<br>“I” who is casted by and rests on your shadows and laurels,<br>is it not? I who lies and steals the phrasal show of owning lack;<br>and I abandon and dust-heap as matter tends toward or denies.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[STORM]]></title><description><![CDATA[I do not like to walk in dark rain,
the mulberry trees tossing fruit at each other,
the wind an off track tuba blasting into intolerance,
gutters in free fall, mortar degrading,
glass breaking loose from it’s frame,
waterspouts, waterfalls, waterways:
the drainage ditch fills itself past satisfaction
letting go of waste and sickness, stain and urine.
Even when a rainbow appears, dark rain remains
darkening the cloud sky, gray pockets of blue
and somehow the nearby river collects its driftwood an]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/storm/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523070</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Brownstein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:37:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1509878445230-47cd7c47a571?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1509878445230-47cd7c47a571?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="STORM"/><p>I do not like to walk in dark rain,<br>the mulberry trees tossing fruit at each other,<br>the wind an off track tuba blasting into intolerance,<br>gutters in free fall, mortar degrading,<br>glass breaking loose from it’s frame,<br>waterspouts, waterfalls, waterways:<br>the drainage ditch fills itself past satisfaction<br>letting go of waste and sickness, stain and urine.<br>Even when a rainbow appears, dark rain remains<br>darkening the cloud sky, gray pockets of blue<br>and somehow the nearby river collects its driftwood and mud<br>sailing everything to the very place it needs to be.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Caudatorio]]></title><description><![CDATA[Fly for me again. Fill my eyes with a breast
so scarlet robins sob. Only you are photo luscious,
Richmondena Cardinalis, crowned with a crest,
body the color of mythical vampire tears,
poppies, dying stars, things kissed away.
At first, I believed you a Hibiscus blossom,
a stigmata shining in snow, the white
intensifying red, held to the branch with the
petite claw of my thoughts. But no flower
ever fell, then flew, blurring its own shape.
How can I call you back? If I paint my nails,
lips, ch]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/caudatorio/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523078</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:35:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1480775292373-5175d0634811?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1480775292373-5175d0634811?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Caudatorio"/><p>Fly for me again. Fill my eyes with a breast<br>so scarlet robins sob. Only you are photo luscious,<br>Richmondena Cardinalis, crowned with a crest,<br>body the color of mythical vampire tears,<br>poppies, dying stars, things kissed away.</br></br></br></br></p><p>At first, I believed you a Hibiscus blossom,<br>a stigmata shining in snow, the white<br>intensifying red, held to the branch with the<br>petite claw of my thoughts. But no flower<br>ever fell, then flew, blurring its own shape.</br></br></br></br></p><p>How can I call you back? If I paint my nails,<br>lips, cheeks red, will you come to me the way<br>you fly to a faithful mate, love her for her red<br>parts: beak, crest, tail tips, feathered wings?<br>And if there’s a difference in the scents of</br></br></br></br></p><p>redheads, brunettes, and blondes, and if<br>I dye my hair red, will you seek me like<br>ripened fruit, or offer me the faith of<br>mustard seeds? Surely something mystical<br>propels your heart, flies your wings.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Red isn’t granted without merit. If God lives in<br>the color red, as Rumi said, let me hold you<br>in my hand. Be my pope’s holy slipper,<br>the fluttering hem of a cardinal’s caudatorio.<br>You, my high priest of direction, my red prayer.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[On Hà Nội Street]]></title><description><![CDATA[He was so tall; when I looked up at him,
in his eyes I wanted to see
the Statue of Liberty
bathed in the sunlight of his homeland.
Instead, sorrow rolled down his face,
trembling on his cheeks.
“Mỹ Lai,” he said, “I just visited Mỹ Lai.”
Then in his eyes, the photos he’d seen there
at the site of the massacre came back:
a mother clutching her son in their deaths,
bodies of barefoot women strewn across muddy paths,
naked children, cold, and silent under the feet
of American soldiers who stood an]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/on-ha-noi-street/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523084</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:33:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/01/saluting-boy-wearing-white-top-holding-camera-2338048.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/01/saluting-boy-wearing-white-top-holding-camera-2338048.jpg" alt="On Hà Nội Street"/><p>He was so tall; when I looked up at him,<br>in his eyes I wanted to see<br>the Statue of Liberty<br>bathed in the sunlight of his homeland.<br>Instead, sorrow rolled down his face,<br>trembling on his cheeks.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>“Mỹ Lai,” he said, “I just visited Mỹ Lai.”<br>Then in his eyes, the photos he’d seen there<br>at the site of the massacre came back:<br>a mother clutching her son in their deaths,<br>bodies of barefoot women strewn across muddy paths,<br>naked children, cold, and silent under the feet<br>of American soldiers who stood and smoked.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>“You weren’t involved.” I shook my head. “It was the war.”<br>Yet he trembled. It had taken him forty-two years to come back;<br>each of his days filled with nightmare<br>and the fear that some Vietnamese<br>would run him down with knives on the street.</br></br></br></br></p><p>I wanted to say something else, but words didn’t come,<br>so I pulled him into the stream of life<br>rushing around us: women balancing baskets of bursting flowers<br>on their slender shoulders, men cycling autumn away on their cyclos,<br>girls giggling their way to school, their áo dài dresses<br>fluttering like wings of white doves.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>“This was a war zone when I left,”<br>he muttered as we passed<br>a group of boys who stood in a circle,<br>kicking a feathered ball to each other,<br>their laughter spiraling upward.<br>He jumped back as the feathered ball flew towards us.<br>“Kick it, Uncle, kick it,” the boys called out to him in Vietnamese,<br>their arms stretching, pleading.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>For a moment, he stood as if fear<br>had frozen inside of him.<br>The feathered ball dipped, spinning fast for the ground.<br>Suddenly his foot reached forward;<br>the ball was lifted<br>above sunlight.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Indonesian Rain]]></title><description><![CDATA[Maranti trees shelter green slopes
in the Pacific Rim of Sabah.
This lofty estate is my terrestrial zenith
where I survey these woody punctuations
as they take aim at megastars.
This is where I smell the Melati in Spring,
where I survey starry night frolics
with contemplations of thoughts turned past.
Above the tall trees a dim sallow moon contours
ominous dark clouds forward a fast-moving storm.
As clouds begin to stir and thunder starts to growl
raindrop trysts fall quickly to the g]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/indonesian-rain/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852305d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:29:45 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1481819434877-23b892ca68ff?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1481819434877-23b892ca68ff?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Indonesian Rain"/><p>Maranti trees shelter green slopes</p><p>in the Pacific Rim of Sabah.</p><p>This lofty estate is my terrestrial zenith</p><p>where I survey these woody punctuations</p><p>as they take aim at megastars.</p><p>This is where I smell the Melati in Spring,</p><p>where I survey starry night frolics</p><p>with contemplations of thoughts turned past.</p><p>Above the tall trees a dim sallow moon contours</p><p>ominous dark clouds forward a fast-moving storm.</p><p>As clouds begin to stir and thunder starts to growl</p><p>raindrop trysts fall quickly to the ground</p><p>normally kept dry by lush, green leaves.</p><p>A dual renewal will soon take place with new leaves</p><p>replacing old ones, and village children replacing me.</p><p>These are the last days of my expat country, where coteries of Premen–</p><p>rough, unhewned silhouettes of society, roamed these hills</p><p>preying on the good luck of others.</p><p>Political goals were as pointless law scrolls as men sang</p><p>to their own runic-like rhymes.</p><p>But now they are gone as dust motes in the dark of night</p><p>and all that’s left are these magnificent trees, these hills and</p><p>these beautiful children.</p><p>And I stand looking down as the rain moves away</p><p>laundering the hills and the Danum Valley with nature’s renewal.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Scoop]]></title><description><![CDATA[In the coffee shop, the Anishinabe elder leaned over her coffee mug. Her shoulders were hunched, her face creased as she slowly told me what happened to her village in 1959 when she was eleven years old.
“My dad and I were out on our trap line. I remember I’d just got to sleep when I heard this awful scraping noise. I sat up, all panicky, my heart thumping. Bears? That was my first thought. Bears trying to steal our furs. Then a shadow crossed the open door of our shelter. Only father putting m]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-scoop/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852305f</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joan Baril]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:26:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508361001413-7a9dca21d08a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508361001413-7a9dca21d08a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Scoop"/><p>In the coffee shop, the Anishinabe elder leaned over her coffee mug. Her shoulders were hunched, her face creased as she slowly told me what happened to her village in 1959 when she was eleven years old.</p><p>“My dad and I were out on our trap line. I remember I’d just got to sleep when I heard this awful scraping noise. I sat up, all panicky, my heart thumping. Bears? That was my first thought. Bears trying to steal our furs. Then a shadow crossed the open door of our shelter. Only father putting more wood on the fire. What a relief.”</p><p>Snuggling deep into the canvas sleeping bag that Kookum had made for her and pulling the quilts inside it around her chin, Emma listened to the flames cackle and hiss while a loon on the lake warbled to the stars. As she breathed in balsam from the boughs that lined the shelter and covered the floor, Bi-shan, her big curly-tailed dog, who always travelled with her and father on the trap line, shifted his weight at her feet and with a long sliding grunt, put one heavy paw across her legs. She smiled in the dark.</p><p>Then she remembered. Tonight was Hallowe’en and she was not running from house to house with the other village kids collecting candies and playing tricks on the neighbours. A stone settled on her heart. A week ago, the day they left, her little brother Albert was making a lynx costume from a potato sack, cutting out eyeholes and tying up the corners to make lynx tufts. On the floor beside him, he’d lined up the crayons to make the long lynx whiskers and the funny lynx nose.</p><p>“Never mind, Emma,” he said, as she stood at the door of the cabin, tears in her eyes. “I’ll save half my candy for you.”</p><p>Emma sighed. Even though Father had promised her some of the trapping money as a reward, she still felt cheated. Next year, she’d be twelve and probably too big for her ghost costume. Her best friend Susan was so lucky. Her mother had sewn her a complete rabbit suit with fuzzy pink ears. Tom, the little boy next door, planned to go as a space man, with a tin foil helmet covering his curly yellow hair. She’d miss it all.</p><p>Emma snuffled back a few tears, telling herself it wasn’t so bad. Hadn’t she learned to skin a muskrat with just a few cuts, enough to wiggle its skin from its body? And also, hadn’t she learned to set a fox trap, something that would be useful when she grew up and had a trap line of her own?</p><p>Another deep breath of balsam scent and cold night air with its faint smell of snow. Soon, all the village kids would be sliding down Gravel Pit Hill and then, after Xmas, school would start. She’d be one of the big girls in Grade Seven. She had a happy thought. Maybe she could buy a sleigh with her trapping money, the fastest sleigh in the village!</p><p>Three days later, father and daughter walked the long bush road that ended at the railway and, just as Emma’s legs were getting tired, they turned south toward the village. Father’s pack was so heavy with furs, he was bent over like the spruce trees on the cliff. Just past the train station, Emma raced ahead. With the leaves gone, she could see the entire village from the tracks, ten houses snuggled along the shore of the lake, the late afternoon sun touching each slanting roof.</p><p>“Hello,” Emma called, flying down the path. No one answered. No one was outside. How odd. The girl looked around. No one cleaning pelts, no one getting water or chopping wood, no ladies sitting in the sun gossiping and knitting fishnets or doing bead work, no kids running around, not even a dog barking a friendly welcome.</p><p>At Susan’s house, she knocked and called out, “Susan, come and see our furs,” but to her surprise, Susan’s mother opened the door, and then, staring at her as if she’d never seen her before, yelled in a mean voice, “Go away. Why should you be here?”</p><p>Reeling back in shock, Emma stumbled off the steps and flew home. In the kitchen, her mum sat at the table, eyes puffed red, face swollen. Kookum was lying on the couch, her face to the wall. She didn’t move as Emma ran in, even when she called her name.</p><p>Leaping to her feet, her mum grabbed her and hugged her so tight, Emma thought she’d break in two. “She’s the only one left,” her mother cried as her father came through the door of the cabin. “The last child.”</p><p>“What happened?” Emma said, breaking free of her arms. “Where’s Albert?” She looked around the cozy room for her brother. “Where’s Annie?” Annie was her big step-sister who always got her something to eat when she got home.</p><p>Her mother’s sobs and screams filled the kitchen. “All far away. You’re the only one.”</p><p>Emma felt a jolt, as if she’d fallen through the ice. Her brother and sister gone? What could have happened to them?</p><p>“All gone?” she asked. “Susan too.”</p><p>“Everyone. Except for that white kid Tom and his sister. Their white father saved them.”</p><p>She ran outside, upset and puzzled. What about Hallowe’en and her candies? Next door, she spied young Tom sitting on his front porch step, staring out at the lake.</p><p>“We’ll be the only kids at school, Emma,” he said. “They took all the children in the village but my dad wouldn’t let them take us. They came on the train and gave everyone a paper that said all of us had to go to a far-off school and live there. Bob the Bully ran into the bush but one of the men chased him and caught him and carried him to the train. Susan screamed and screamed. They were all so scared.”</p><p>Emma sat down beside Tom, covering her face with her hands, hearing Susan’s screams twisting inside her, as if she were the one being carried away.</p><p>“Did they take Susan’s sister Eva, and Walter too?”</p><p>“Yes, all of them.”</p><p>“What about Big Fred and Little Fred?”</p><p>“Yes, and my cousin Eddie and his sister.”</p><p>“Even little Cora?”</p><p>“Yeah and she was really bawling. And so was her grandmother.”</p><p>“But not you?” Emma asked.</p><p>“My dad stood on the porch step and wouldn’t let them inside. My ma and me and my sister hid under the bed. They said the school was really nice with nice teachers but my dad still wouldn’t let them take me.”</p><p>Her brain was having a hard time, as if it were sinking in deep, deep snow. No Susan. No more playing dolls. No best friend to help her with her sewing. And if her big sister Annie wasn’t around, she’d have to do her cooking, and clean all the fish and keep the fire going too. She already looked after the brat next door but now, for sure, she’d have to watch other babies and little kids while their mothers worked the fish nets.</p><p>“When will they come back, Tom? Did they say when they’ll come back?”</p><p>“They’ll write letters,” said Tom. “And they’ll be here for Christmas.”</p><p>Emma dragged myself home. Across the lake, the setting sun covered the water, darkening the reflections of the leafless trees. As she walked the last few steps, she felt as weightless as the wind.</p><p>No letters ever arrived. No one came home for Christmas. In January, her big sister, Annie, staggered in the door. She’d run away, walking over a hundred miles to get back. One day, Emma asked her about the school but she didn’t say very much, only that everyone wore the same clothes and no one was allowed outside the walls. Annie almost never saw their brother Albert or any of the younger kids from the village. Then she stopped talking and shook her head.</p><p>The Scoop had hollowed her out just as it had hollowed out the entire village.</p><p><em>Nota Bene: For over a hundred years, the government of Canada routinely removed children from their families and incarcerated them in residential “schools” in order to “civilize” them.</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Sketch on My First Writers’ Workshop, for V.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Voice and mood yoke
In wintry dusk
Cut from pen’s smoke.
This is our task,
Oh lost Plains child
Reaped from rhyme’s husk:
Inter one wild
Agon, one cheap
Mood and voice styled
Courtly—or leap,
Artemisian
Roe, torn to weep
This dazed season
Out in bone broke
Ripeness of moon.
(A Dimeter Terza Rima Acrostic)]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-sketch-on-my-first-writers-workshop-for-v/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852306e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:23:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524591431555-cc7876d14adf?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524591431555-cc7876d14adf?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="A Sketch on My First Writers’ Workshop, for V."/><p><strong><strong>V</strong></strong>oice and mood yoke<br><strong><strong>I</strong></strong>n wintry dusk<br><strong><strong>C</strong></strong>ut from pen’s smoke.</br></br></p><p><strong><strong>T</strong></strong>his is our task,<br><strong><strong>O</strong></strong>h lost Plains child<br><strong><strong>R</strong></strong>eaped from rhyme’s husk:</br></br></p><p><strong><strong>I</strong></strong>nter one wild<br><strong><strong>A</strong></strong>gon, one cheap<br><strong><strong>M</strong></strong>ood and voice styled</br></br></p><p><strong><strong>C</strong></strong>ourtly—or leap,<br><strong><strong>A</strong></strong>rtemisian<br><strong><strong>R</strong></strong>oe, torn to weep</br></br></p><p><strong><strong>T</strong></strong>his dazed season<br><strong><strong>O</strong></strong>ut in bone broke<br><strong><strong>R</strong></strong>ipeness of moon.</br></br></p><p>(A Dimeter Terza Rima Acrostic)</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Word Juggler]]></title><description><![CDATA[age four, looking out the car’s side window,
azure sky, scudding clouds,
supine in the vast back seat of the Buick,
my mom and her boyfriend driving us home to Chicago
from a Bangs Lake beach day.
tree tops moved quickly above
like a nickelodeon
from my low vantage point of
cloth upholstery, no seatbelts back then.
bored, I tried to come up with
ditties on what I saw.
a Kleenex tissue caught
in one of the tree branches
as we whisked by.
how did it get up so high?
did the wind sneeze?
“Tissue ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/word-juggler/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852306d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cynthia Gallaher]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:19:57 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1563145029-206dd4fde68e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1563145029-206dd4fde68e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Word Juggler"/><p>age four, looking out the car’s side window,<br>azure sky, scudding clouds,<br>supine in the vast back seat of the Buick,<br>my mom and her boyfriend driving us home to Chicago<br>from a Bangs Lake beach day.</br></br></br></br></p><p>tree tops moved quickly above<br>like a nickelodeon<br>from my low vantage point of<br>cloth upholstery, no seatbelts back then.<br>bored, I tried to come up with</br></br></br></br></p><p>ditties on what I saw.<br>a Kleenex tissue caught<br>in one of the tree branches<br>as we whisked by.<br>how did it get up so high?</br></br></br></br></p><p>did the wind sneeze?<br>“Tissue on tree. Tree on tissue.”<br>then a treetop nest.<br>“Nest in branches.”<br>“Branch for nest.”</br></br></br></br></p><p>turning words on their heads,<br>my sandy feet reached toward the window,<br>my ponytail cradled a damp beach bag.<br>at a stoplight, a man crossed the street,<br>I could see only his upper body.</br></br></br></br></p><p>“Man on tree.”<br>“Tree on man.”<br>“Nest in his hair.”<br>“Tissue on man.”<br>“Man in a nest.”</br></br></br></br></p><p>such nonsense passed the time<br>until we got home.<br>little songs looped in my head<br>to make the trip go by.<br>even then, before I could write,</br></br></br></br></p><p>I realized that you could juggle words<br>and lines like clowns,<br>move them backwards and forwards<br>like checker pieces,<br>stack them like Lincoln Logs,</br></br></br></br></p><p>knock them down,<br>shuffle them like cards,<br>line them up & twist them<br>every which way<br>like we kids would when playing Crack the Whip.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Christopher Wrote a Poem Today about a Woman with Stigmata]]></title><description><![CDATA[(for Christopher Stephen Soden)
My friend Christopher the poet
told me he wrote a poem today
about a woman with stigmata
But he is frequently an unreliable
narrator and could well just be
messing with me again
I’m watching a report on television
about a young woman who has
gone missing from a small town
in America from small-town America
and authorities say the reward is now
all the way up to two thousand bucks
That’s a hundred dollars twenty times
by my figuring as I also note that they
point]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/christopher-wrote-a-poem-today-about-a-woman-with-stigmata/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523080</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:18:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529891881508-1034b4addbce?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529891881508-1034b4addbce?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Christopher Wrote a Poem Today about a Woman with Stigmata"/><p><strong>(for Christopher Stephen Soden)</strong></p><p>My friend Christopher the poet<br>told me he wrote a poem today<br>about a woman with stigmata<br>But he is frequently an unreliable<br>narrator and could well just be<br>messing with me again</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I’m watching a report on television<br>about a young woman who has<br>gone missing from a small town<br>in America from small-town America<br>and authorities say the reward is now<br>all the way up to two thousand bucks<br>That’s a hundred dollars twenty times<br>by my figuring as I also note that they<br>point out they are searching corn fields</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Stopped at a red light the girl in my<br>rear-view mirror is slapping the steering<br>wheel with both hands and obviously<br>singing at the top of her lungs singing<br>loudly and proudly as she thrusts out<br>her chin and belts out loud verses of<br>silence that can only be heard by people<br>who are used to cleaning up any and all<br>evidence of appearances of stigmata</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[In the Time of Leaving]]></title><description><![CDATA[Prologue
My name is Chava.
My story is one of leaving. A litany of what I hold in my empty hands. The scent of bread and the sound of horses in the narrow street, the fog rising from the river, the call of the muezzin, the resonant bells of the cathedral. And too, the silence of the synagogue outside its walls, while inside there is the shuffle of men davening, the whisper of women’s song descending from the balcony. A mumble of prayer.
These are the things I remember; the shadow of candles]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/in-the-time-of-leaving/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523077</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Shana Ritter]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:16:36 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507692812060-98338d07aca3?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3 id="prologue">Prologue</h3><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507692812060-98338d07aca3?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="In the Time of Leaving"/><p/><p>My name is Chava.</p><p>My story is one of leaving. A litany of what I hold in my empty hands. The scent of bread and the sound of horses in the narrow street, the fog rising from the river, the call of the muezzin, the resonant bells of the cathedral. And too, the silence of the synagogue outside its walls, while inside there is the shuffle of men davening, the whisper of women’s song descending from the balcony. A mumble of prayer.</p><p>These are the things I remember; the shadow of candles on Friday nights and the shape of my mother’s hands as she draws them over her eyes, bends her head and welcomes the Sabbath bride. These are the things I thought would become memory but never will; the mikvah I will never submerge in, the chupah in the courtyard, my children playing in the garden under my parents’ loving eyes. Instead, I sewed home into the hem of my dress, into the fold of my cloak, into the sleeve of my bodice. I carried with me what I could never return to.</p><p>My name is Chava bet Esther. My father was Benjamin, my sister is Sarah. I was born in Toledo, Spain, in the year of 1475. I grew up on the stories of leavings, the crossings of languages, the touch of paper, the scent of ink. My father’s family was from the south, Sevilla. My mother’s family from the north, Montpellier, in France. All were translators and teachers. Our house was full of words. My father and his friend, Abu Mohammed, often told the stories of their journeys together. They mixed Arabic, Hebrew and Castilian. They quoted Latin verses. They reminisced about a past golden age when Alfonso the Wise was King, and Muslim, Christian and Jew worked together. Stories poured out in a cascade of languages.</p><p>We grew up on tales of exile. There was Passover of course, when every year we retold the story of Moses and Miriam leading our people out of Egypt and bondage. Wandering through the desert until they found their home. And then there was the wandering that brought our own families here to Sepharad in the far reaches of the Roman empire nearly a thousand years ago. There were the stories of uprisings in Sevilla in 1391, when so many died or fled, or were forced to convert. They became the Anusim in order to save their children’s lives. But this year after the Passover, we will be the ones leaving.</p><p>We believed Toledo would be home to us forever, but even before I was born there were rumors that there could be another inquisition. Most believed it would never happen, that it was a threat to extort more money, or gain time to pay back debts. There were a number of our community with close ties to the king and queen, many more who had helped finance the war to reunify Spain. It was Jews who helped Fernando and Isabel wed in the first place, uniting their kingdoms of Castilla and Aragon. How could they want us gone?</p><p>There were always rumors. But it was not until Torquemada rose in power, appointed to grand inquisitor by the pope himself, that we felt the threat as something real. At first it was not directed at us, those who lived outwardly, unapologetically as Jews. The Inquisition was aimed at the New Christians, those who had converted in the last hundred years. It was meant to separate the true believers from the Judaizers, those who secretly continued to be Jews. There were many. Father said Torquemada was like Haman from the story of Purim. He was a man who wanted to be sure that no one remained in his sacred country except those he could control.</p><p>We are tied to each other by our stories and our deeds. Our community is a raft, all of us bound together by the cords of our beliefs. Our history is like waves, like currents, like tides. Even when forced by the undertows of necessity, along the ropes of time, we have moved from place to place guided by the pull of the moon. Our way lit by our shared words.</p><p/><p/>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Flicker and the Flame]]></title><description><![CDATA[The Flicker and the flame
It can’t always be the same.
A soft spoken scream
But all were immersed in the hot dream.
Thick air, panic
One more verse.
Soul mechanic.
Finally a Cool air burst.
A battle that started so long ago
The Victor emerges without striking a single blow.
We see hope in the eyes of children
Wisdom in the wrinkles of old men.
His tales of how he counted coup on a devil
Recounting the journey, oh he did revel!
Now he carries a well deserved pride
And we were honored to sit at]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-flicker-and-the-flame/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523064</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Levi Harmon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:14:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1489101960932-eb71762e6bc8?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1489101960932-eb71762e6bc8?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Flicker and the Flame"/><p>The Flicker and the flame<br>It can’t always be the same.<br>A soft spoken scream<br>But all were immersed in the hot dream.</br></br></br></p><p>Thick air, panic<br>One more verse.<br>Soul mechanic.<br>Finally a Cool air burst.</br></br></br></p><p>A battle that started so long ago<br>The Victor emerges without striking a single blow.<br>We see hope in the eyes of children<br>Wisdom in the wrinkles of old men.</br></br></br></p><p>His tales of how he counted coup on a devil<br>Recounting the journey, oh he did revel!<br>Now he carries a well deserved pride<br>And we were honored to sit at his side</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[TYLER]]></title><description><![CDATA[Some things come out of no place:
a jerk and a brake:
a flash and a fire:
a text and a heart bends itself in two:
the monster came with the rain,
the night bright blue then gray.
Soil on the hill tripped over itself
and the great black walnut
nesting on our back forty forever
took one tentative step,
then three and when it reached six
blocked its fall against the roof of our old barn,
roots separating from the ground
where they had always planted themselves
and let its buried essence breathe the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/tyler/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852306f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Brownstein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 20:58:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501691223387-dd0500403074?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501691223387-dd0500403074?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="TYLER"/><p>Some things come out of no place:<br>a jerk and a brake:<br>a flash and a fire:<br>a text and a heart bends itself in two:<br>the monster came with the rain,<br>the night bright blue then gray.<br>Soil on the hill tripped over itself<br>and the great black walnut<br>nesting on our back forty forever<br>took one tentative step,<br>then three and when it reached six<br>blocked its fall against the roof of our old barn,<br>roots separating from the ground<br>where they had always planted themselves<br>and let its buried essence breathe the flesh of air.<br>Beautiful things cannot retain their beauty forever<br>like a mountain pass, a blue green river,<br>the face of youth aging into thinness.<br>The Asian mulberry tree nearby did not let go of its fruit<br>and the purple sand cherry in the front yard hung to its seeds.<br>When the madman passed,<br>the rain slowed to a stroll in the park,<br>our tree changed the focus of windows,<br>one limb now pointing straight into the air<br>as if it were a middle finger and knew how to shout<br>because after all what holds more beauty<br>than a middle finger across a palm of sky.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Atop a Sloping Hill]]></title><description><![CDATA[Atop a sloping hill,
at the end of a gravel road,
can a new life start here?
A watercolor painting,
an ekphrastic poem,
an essential oil healing remedy,
A glimpse at new stars above,
or stars new to me,
almost older than eternity.
I never expected solid ground
under my feet, rock
more ancient than humanity.
It surprised me, like a lot does
in my life, what’s sitting here
a couple billion years.
As I never dreamed of
becoming a yoga instructor,
an aromatherapist,
A painter, always living
in]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/atop-a-sloping-hill/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852306b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cynthia Gallaher]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 20:55:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486787284432-3749cdce2660?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486787284432-3749cdce2660?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Atop a Sloping Hill"/><p>Atop a sloping hill,<br>at the end of a gravel road,<br>can a new life start here?</br></br></p><p>A watercolor painting,<br>an ekphrastic poem,<br>an essential oil healing remedy,</br></br></p><p>A glimpse at new stars above,<br>or stars new to me,<br>almost older than eternity.</br></br></p><p>I never expected solid ground<br>under my feet, rock<br>more ancient than humanity.</br></br></p><p>It surprised me, like a lot does<br>in my life, what’s sitting here<br>a couple billion years.</br></br></p><p>As I never dreamed of<br>becoming a yoga instructor,<br>an aromatherapist,</br></br></p><p>A painter, always living<br>in the same place, and until now,<br>I am all these things.</br></br></p><p>Torrents blow, oaks sway,<br>instances change in an instant,<br>one second yes, the next no.</br></br></p><p>One moment, let’s go,<br>another,<br>I can never.</br></br></p><p>But didn’t I dream<br>of bearing an accent mark<br>in my otherwise Celtic name?</br></br></p><p>To someday find matching initials<br>like C.C. Rider<br>in that song “Jenny Take a Ride?”</br></br></p><p>To embrace a Latin lover<br>like the lily-colored lady did<br>in the movies?</br></br></p><p>To have an Asian grandson?<br>All of the above<br>came true.</br></br></p><p>I envision my future at the current moment,<br>only a blank, but peaceful screen<br>arises before me.</br></br></p><p>Or is this<br>the endless sky above me,<br>atop a sloping hill?</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Love Letters (at the end of all of this)]]></title><description><![CDATA[They continued to write
love letters to each other
after their breakup after their
breakup long after their
breakup and they knew they
were never getting back
together so their love letters
grew intense so intense
more and more intense because
they both understood they would
no longer lead to anything and
they now had the freedom the
complete and utter freedom to
say everything they wanted to in
their love letters because they
were real love letters true love letters
and because nothing waited f]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/love-letters-at-the-end-of-all-of-this/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852307d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 20:51:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486819118102-d9171cf69a92?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486819118102-d9171cf69a92?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Love Letters (at the end of all of this)"/><p>They continued to write<br>love letters to each other<br>after their breakup after their<br>breakup long after their<br>breakup and they knew they<br>were never getting back<br>together so their love letters<br>grew intense so intense<br>more and more intense because<br>they both understood they would<br>no longer lead to anything and<br>they now had the freedom the<br>complete and utter freedom to<br>say everything they wanted to in<br>their love letters because they<br>were real love letters true love letters<br>and because nothing waited for them<br>on the other side at the end of all<br>of this and because love is often<br>nothing more than words of love</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Last Night’s Dream]]></title><description><![CDATA[All day
Last night’s dreams flirt with me
Offering only hints
And, rousing feelings
I smile, try again]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/last-nights-dream/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852307b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Teresa Pelliccio Devito]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 20:49:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1564934304280-a0c6e0f6e718?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1564934304280-a0c6e0f6e718?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Last Night’s Dream"/><p>All day<br>Last night’s dreams flirt with me<br>Offering only hints<br>And, rousing feelings<br>I smile, try again</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Christmas in a Snowless City]]></title><description><![CDATA[A spiky door garland, creamed with fiber
snow and sprayed with pine scent, welcomes
a disheveled man who offers to paint
my address on the curb. “So your relations
won’t get lost.” He pauses, sniffs the wreath.
“Reminds me of cuttin’ spruce with my Pa.
Snow thigh-high. Those trees cried all
the way home on the sled. I’d pick sap tears
from the snow. Chew ‘em like bitter gum.”
I give him the $25 because his mention
of snow makes him a type of relative
from my Christmas card past. With
the whiske]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/christmas-in-a-snowless-city/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852307a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 19:32:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1448724133127-81fbec83d1ae?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1448724133127-81fbec83d1ae?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Christmas in a Snowless City"/><p>A spiky door garland, creamed with fiber<br>snow and sprayed with pine scent, welcomes<br>a disheveled man who offers to paint<br>my address on the curb. “So your relations<br>won’t get lost.” He pauses, sniffs the wreath.<br>“Reminds me of cuttin’ spruce with my Pa.<br>Snow thigh-high. Those trees cried all<br>the way home on the sled. I’d pick sap tears<br>from the snow. Chew ‘em like bitter gum.”</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I give him the $25 because his mention<br>of snow makes him a type of relative<br>from my Christmas card past. With<br>the whiskey breath of a favorite uncle,<br>he whispers, “I can’t git the spirit here.<br>Not without snow.” I slip him another $10,<br>am ready to invite him inside for chocolate,<br>a stray gift, a discussion of the virtues<br>of snow, but he pulls out his stencils<br>and spray cans and shuffles down the drive<br>to glitter the curb for relatives who won’t<br>be coming. The paint can hisses. His face<br>flares briefly in the glow-in-the-dark color.<br>“Who can believe in snow angels<br>made of green grass…anyhow.”</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Promise Everything]]></title><description><![CDATA[Promise the sky
in all its blue songs
in all its grey hopes
in all its black whispers
swirling with the stars.
Promise the ocean
in all its deep secrets
in all its deep treasures
in all its deep horrors
readying to surface again.
Promise whatever else remains-
your triumphs and disasters,
small corruptions of your soul
Your untested strengths
and your heart, laughing at it all.
There are few things worse
than the caress of false promises.
We will lose our carelessness,
like the trees lose thei]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/promise-everything/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523081</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zhenya Yevtushenko]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 19:27:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1477949407212-8869af912174?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1477949407212-8869af912174?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Promise Everything"/><p>Promise the sky<br>in all its blue songs<br>in all its grey hopes<br>in all its black whispers<br>swirling with the stars.<br>Promise the ocean<br>in all its deep secrets<br>in all its deep treasures<br>in all its deep horrors<br>readying to surface again.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Promise whatever else remains-<br>your triumphs and disasters,<br>small corruptions of your soul<br>Your untested strengths<br>and your heart, laughing at it all.</br></br></br></br></p><p>There are few things worse<br>than the caress of false promises.<br>We will lose our carelessness,<br>like the trees lose their leaves,<br>when we stand bare and<br>promise everything.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Love or a Desert]]></title><description><![CDATA[I need a love or
a desert or an
ocean Something
that has no real
boundaries Like
a book of poems
yet to be opened]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-love-or-a-desert/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852307e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 19:24:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515890435782-59a5bb6ec191?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515890435782-59a5bb6ec191?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="A Love or a Desert"/><p>I need a love or<br>a desert or an<br>ocean Something<br>that has no real<br>boundaries Like<br>a book of poems<br>yet to be opened</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[While I was at War…]]></title><description><![CDATA[My hair started turning white
While God took a vacation
Supposedly
To work with Stephen Hawking
On his second law of black hole dynamics
Mrs God knew
It was God’s way of saying
He would be out chasing Jung women
She was Jung once herself
Me
I had been sucked into a black hole
where you could smell your hair turning white
before you saw it
Where both past and present
flickered past
like a star burst flare reflecting on
a rice paddy]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/while-i-was-at-war/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523072</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 19:21:01 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>My hair started turning white</p><p>While God took a vacation<br>Supposedly<br>To work with Stephen Hawking<br>On his second law of black hole dynamics</br></br></br></p><p>Mrs God knew<br>It was God’s way of saying<br>He would be out chasing Jung women<br>She was Jung once herself</br></br></br></p><p>Me<br>I had been sucked into a black hole<br>where you could smell your hair turning white<br>before you saw it</br></br></br></p><p>Where both past and present<br>flickered past<br>like a star burst flare reflecting on<br>a rice paddy</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Golden Chords, Golden Shovel]]></title><description><![CDATA[It wasn’t ‘til the
summer before senior year we’d pool
our talents together. They said we’re just players,
which we were, the Seven
of us, each earnest at
our instruments. We named the
group with a lofty title, the Golden
Chords; guitars, drums, keyboard, horns
and even a Shovel
instead of cowbell. We
wanted our tunes to sound sur-real,
we thought ourselves the ultimate cool,
imaging in our dorm rooms we
were progressive, our music left
of radical. The first concert? In the school
auditorium. Ha]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/golden-chords-golden-shovel/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852306c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cynthia Gallaher]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 19:15:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518636693090-8407756ab88b?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518636693090-8407756ab88b?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Golden Chords, Golden Shovel"/><p>It wasn’t ‘til the<br>summer before senior year we’d pool<br>our talents together. They said we’re just players,<br>which we were, the Seven<br>of us, each earnest at<br>our instruments. We named the<br>group with a lofty title, the Golden<br>Chords; guitars, drums, keyboard, horns<br>and even a Shovel<br>instead of cowbell. We<br>wanted our tunes to sound sur-real,<br>we thought ourselves the ultimate cool,<br>imaging in our dorm rooms we<br>were progressive, our music left<br>of radical. The first concert? In the school<br>auditorium. Having practiced all summer, we<br>bravely faced failure that might lurk<br>behind each tune, but played late<br>into that Friday night, with encores we<br>improvised. We felt ready to strike<br>out after graduation to the clubs, not straight<br>jobs. It was an effort to agree, but we<br>did, even got the shovel player to sing.<br>Who knew what a great voice he had, a sin<br>of omission that boosted us to the fests. We<br>honed our skills into the tight and thin,<br>yet slowly let our lives go to drugs and gin,<br>then toured the world, but in the haze we<br>ourselves created, married now to jazz<br>as if June<br>brides to syncopation, no families be we<br>Seven, ‘til I saw each one of us die,<br>except me, here to hand over a swansong soon.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Grey Cliff Train Robbery]]></title><description><![CDATA[In 1893 my second cousin, Sam Shermer (he was my grandfather’s brother’s son) along with three other outlaws robbed a train near Big Timber, Montana. A few days later there was a shootout with a posse in an old cabin whereby one of the lawmen was killed. The quartet escaped on foot but the posse caught up with them in the dark on the same railroad tracks near Essex, Montana a few days later. The shootout resulted in Sam getting shot in the hip and taken to the Kalispell jail where he died thre]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-grey-cliff-train-robbery/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523059</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 19:11:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/01/seemed-old-railroad-tracks-lost-places-spirit-station.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/01/seemed-old-railroad-tracks-lost-places-spirit-station.jpg" alt="The Grey Cliff Train Robbery"/><p><em>In 1893 my second cousin, Sam Shermer (he was my grandfather’s brother’s son) along with three other outlaws robbed a train near Big Timber, Montana. A few days later there was a shootout with a posse in an old cabin whereby one of the lawmen was killed. The quartet escaped on foot but the posse caught up with them in the dark on the same railroad tracks near Essex, Montana a few days later. The shootout resulted in Sam getting shot in the hip and taken to the Kalispell jail where he died three days later. I have researched all of this in my travels in Montana. I would offer the following poem in remembrance of that event.</em></p><p>A swagger, a drifter, a jolly rogue rover,<br>The story of Sam was not what it seemed.<br>The lonely Old West doth twist a man’s heart,<br>Like the twist of a chew Sam bore in his jeans.<br> <br>To plan and to rob on this stony cold night,<br>The Grey Cliff Express, the train gave a halt.<br>Sam leaped from his horse and opened the safe.<br>Not nary a thing, t’was not what he thought.<br> <br>No one was left out by this quartet of crooks.<br>The passengers robbed of all money and jewels.<br>The four then rode off to Montana’s dark woods.<br>Old West revilers could be callous and cruel.<br> <br>Not many days thence the Sheriff and with others,<br>On these same railroad tracks their shootout was dire.<br>A midnight moon looked down far below<br>To see our Sam struck and in three days expire.<br> <br>So why was this outlaw just not what he seemed?<br>Well, Sam was my cousin, he wasn’t extreme.<br>But…maybe, he was.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Because the Sub Basement Flooded]]></title><description><![CDATA[Come visit with me
as I dig this hole to China
or at least to where
the utility pole crushed
our ceramic pipe into sea shell.
I dig into fresh earth
in search of pipes,
cracks in pipes,
something I do not wish to touch,
the clay a few feet down
the rock full of grease,
a spline of brick,
a flow of urine.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/because-the-sub-basement-flooded/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523073</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Brownstein]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 19:06:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1550444662-626794439bde?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1550444662-626794439bde?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Because the Sub Basement Flooded"/><p>Come visit with me<br>as I dig this hole to China<br>or at least to where<br>the utility pole crushed<br>our ceramic pipe into sea shell.<br><br>I dig into fresh earth<br>in search of pipes,<br>cracks in pipes,<br>something I do not wish to touch,<br><br>the clay a few feet down<br>the rock full of grease,<br>a spline of brick,<br>a flow of urine.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[North Window]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sometimes, on cold nights, when new snow peels back
the paper from birch tree bark, you wake from sleep, startled.
You cross the chilly room to stand at the iced window, scratch
a hole in the frost, because you think you can still hear them.
Through the cleared pane, you search the yellow suns
of yard lights as they fade to the edges of snow-covered fields,
then pulsate, the way white sheets thrown in the air are luminous
before collapsing. Shifting from one bare foot to the other, you press
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/north-window/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523079</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 18:46:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548097160-627fd636ee56?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548097160-627fd636ee56?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="North Window"/><p>Sometimes, on cold nights, when new snow peels back<br>the paper from birch tree bark, you wake from sleep, startled.</br></p><p>You cross the chilly room to stand at the iced window, scratch<br>a hole in the frost, because you think you can still hear them.</br></p><p>Through the cleared pane, you search the yellow suns<br>of yard lights as they fade to the edges of snow-covered fields,</br></p><p>then pulsate, the way white sheets thrown in the air are luminous<br>before collapsing. Shifting from one bare foot to the other, you press</br></p><p>an ear to the glass and listen for feet clicking on the brittle crust<br>of snowdrifts. An uncle once said, blizzards create oceans,</br></p><p>waves of hard-packed snow. Afterwards, the whole world can walk<br>on water. But tonight, the crystal fields are empty and silent.</br></p><p>Even the storm tiptoes, dribbles flurries you could catch in a mitten,<br>or spear on the tip of a child’s tongue. Still, you know they</br></p><p>are out there, pawing the frozen ground—the wild mustangs<br>your father caught on the wide prairies. If memory could connect</br></p><p>the shapes hidden in falling dots, you could see them rise on hind legs,<br>nostrils snorting clouds, eyes cold as coal chunks in snow angels’ faces.</br></p><p>They called you tonight, stampeded your sleep, brought you to<br>the window to scratch at memory. How once you believed nothing</br></p><p>could bend their will, force wildness to canter in circles, because you<br>were sure, absolutely sure, you’d both remember to run for the gate.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Colony of Words]]></title><description><![CDATA[A hustle and bustle can flutter a mind.
My odes had meandered, contrary opine.
A blockade obdurate of words unrelenting,
I longed for pure notes, my poems forgiving.
For life’s aps and its raps had taken my soul,
Page one and leaf two, a poetical toll.
Bright sharps and rich flats were what I forsook.
A nonmusical poem is an un-chanted book.
I’d heard of a town, somewhere in the hills.
A Eureka Springs Colony, a place for my skills.
To spend moment to moment penning words of recover,
For truth ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-colony-of-words/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852305a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 18:33:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/02/download-2.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/02/download-2.jpg" alt="A Colony of Words"/><p>A hustle and bustle can flutter a mind.<br>My odes had meandered, contrary opine.<br>A blockade obdurate of words unrelenting,<br>I longed for pure notes, my poems forgiving.<br>For life’s aps and its raps had taken my soul,<br>Page one and leaf two, a poetical toll.<br>Bright sharps and rich flats were what I forsook.<br>A nonmusical poem is an un-chanted book.<br><br>I’d heard of a town, somewhere in the hills.<br>A Eureka Springs Colony, a place for my skills.<br>To spend moment to moment penning words of recover,<br>For truth in composing just there for my pleasure.<br>To aid in the crafting and marshaling my work,<br>In rural complacency, a pivoting rock.<br><br>Before lodging my zone, I ventured outside, <br>Down canopy lane, a wondrous confide.<br>Puffy white clouds, their faces looked down,<br>One little nose almost touching the ground.<br>Inspiration came from those puffy white faces.<br>A cascade of rhymes tumbled down in wide traces.<br>The trysts of the mists in fastidious detail,<br>Like a shower in a meadow, plodding down a sweet trail.<br>So many grand lines surprised at the treat.<br>A layered bow vibrant just could not compete.<br>A living world dwells in these words we beget.<br>I wrote them down quickly so as not to forget.<br><br>I’ll always remember my time in the Springs,<br>Where musical rhymes were like poetical strings.<br>Next year I intend to lengthen my stay,<br>With my mind in the clouds each and every day.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dance Maker]]></title><description><![CDATA[My dance is only to be felt by the grass and earth.
My song heard by only the coyotes at night.
To be a witness to the seeds live birth,
is a sacred honor, not a given right.
I plead to you and yours to grasp the leaf and flower,
Face the west and bid the spirits in this final hour.
Thumping and pumping Unci Makas’ heart does beat
She shakes and shudders, into the calm we retreat.
I tell you death lies in pride and assumed knowledge.
Peace be in balance and wisdom of a village.
Can we a]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dance-maker/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523065</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Levi Harmon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 18:29:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1473172707857-f9e276582ab6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1473172707857-f9e276582ab6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Dance Maker"/><p>My dance is only to be felt by the grass and earth.</p><p>My song heard by only the coyotes at night.</p><p>To be a witness to the seeds live birth,</p><p>is a sacred honor, not a given right.</p><p>I plead to you and yours to grasp the leaf and flower,</p><p>Face the west and bid the spirits in this final hour.</p><p>Thumping and pumping Unci Makas’ heart does beat</p><p>She shakes and shudders, into the calm we retreat.</p><p>I tell you death lies in pride and assumed knowledge.<br>Peace be in balance and wisdom of a village.</br></p><p>Can we avoid the perils of the past? Perfect the art that is mankind? Your elected powers will not last, they will erode like the sun’s last shine, a new moon will cleanse the land, it will either grip you like a warm friendly hand, or strike you away…</p><p>Can you shed those scales and face the east and greet this new day?</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Memories]]></title><description><![CDATA[Memories are nature’s way of remembering life’s events,
Trifling, testy touches of tetchy, tiny, torments!
Secreted recalls from neglected nooks of our minds,
They’re God’s own creation, his malevolent design.
Like looming, lowering clouds trailing a bleak summer rain,
God collects his pay with time’s guiltiest pains.
Memories always return, so do not fear.
Between sentient and slumber, they’re in there somewhere.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/memories/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852305b</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 18:16:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1447713060098-74c4ed0be5e5?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1447713060098-74c4ed0be5e5?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Memories"/><p>Memories are nature’s way of remembering life’s events,<br>Trifling, testy touches of tetchy, tiny, torments!<br>Secreted recalls from neglected nooks of our minds,<br>They’re God’s own creation, his malevolent design.<br>Like looming, lowering clouds trailing a bleak summer rain,<br>God collects his pay with time’s guiltiest pains.<br>Memories always return, so do not fear.<br>Between sentient and slumber, they’re in there somewhere.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 6: Winter 2020]]></title><description><![CDATA[Did you know The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow is celebrating its Twentieth Anniversary in 2020? Well, if you are on our mailing list, I’m sure you are aware of our major fundraising campaign. If you are not aware…you are now!
Things have been progressing at the speed of light here at the Colony. Two of our suites have been remodeled and await the pleasure of providing you with an environment conducive to writing. And we have two more that have been sponsored and ready to be renovated. So whe]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-6/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523085</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2020]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jan 2020 00:15:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/02/wcdh.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2020/02/wcdh.jpg" alt="Issue 6: Winter 2020"/><p>Did you know The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow is celebrating its Twentieth Anniversary in 2020? Well, if you are on our mailing list, I’m sure you are aware of our major fundraising campaign. If you are not aware…you are now!</p><p>Things have been progressing at the speed of light here at the Colony. Two of our suites have been remodeled and await the pleasure of providing you with an environment conducive to writing. And we have two more that have been sponsored and ready to be renovated. So when you are ready to write, the Colony will be ready for you.</p><p>We also have a new Scholarship fund established to assist our residents with some of the financial requirements to stay at the Colony. Schedule a visit, and I am sure the muse will visit you. But you do not have to write the entire time you here, like Stephen King says, “I am always chilled and astonished by the would-be writers who ask me for advice and admit, quite blithely, that they “don’t have time to read.” This is like a guy starting up Mount Everest saying that he didn’t have time to buy any rope or pitons.” We keep a library of books published by our writing residents. There will always be something on hand to pique your imagination or broaden your perspective.</p><p>In this edition of <strong><em>eMerge</em></strong>, we once again bring you stories to inform and amuse, and poetry that will make you laugh, cry and look at the Earth’s beauty and majesty with a sense of awe. Our authors have courageously shared a piece of their humanity with you. We hope you can appreciate and enjoy their contributions. They are unique stories. Hopefully, they will encourage you to write in your own unique voice. The voice that is you.</p><p>I have already used one quote from a writer, but I am not so proud that I won’t use another. One I find amusing, as well as insightful, is from Kurt Vonnegut. “First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” In other words, don’t take yourself so damn seriously. Just tell your story. Ignore the critics as well as the rules and write. Preferably, here at the Writers’ Colony!</p><p>So, if you run into James Patterson or Susan Phillips while you are out golfing, you might tell them about the Writers’ Colony and <strong><em>eMerge</em></strong>. Or maybe, while you are attending the San Miguel Writers’ Conference in San Miguel de Allende, you bump into Joyce Carol Oates or Gail Sheehy, you might mention our little writing sanctuary located in the Ozarks. If you look at our updated <strong><em>eMerge</em></strong> website, you will see that we have a new tab, <strong><em>Write Now, Podcast</em></strong>. The tab will take you to the podcasts being produced by the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, and we invite you to listen to one of them!</p><p>Every dollar matters! Please, help us acquire the financing that will keep the Writers” Colony at Dairy Hollow flourishing as a sanctuary for writers and writing. You may donate here: <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/contribution-options?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">https://www.writerscolony.org/contribution-options</a></p><p>Until<br>Next time,<br>I remain,<br>Just an exhausted Zororastafarian editor trying to figure out why turning down the car stereo helps me see better…</br></br></br></p><p>[TableOfContents]</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Episode 1: Featuring author, Sherri C. Perry]]></title><description><![CDATA[A new podcast from The Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/new-writers-colony-podcast-write-now/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523058</guid><category><![CDATA[Write Now! Podcast]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sherri C. Perry]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 06 Dec 2019 20:22:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/12/writenow.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/12/writenow.jpg" alt="Episode 1: Featuring author, Sherri C. Perry"/><p>Since opening its doors to writers in 2000, The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow has made a lasting impact on the arts and literary communities providing uninterrupted residency time for novice and accomplished writers of all genres, including culinary, composers, and artists, without discrimination. Our podcast features some of the over 1,400 writers from 48 states and 12 countries who have stayed at The Writers' Colony, and it delves into their lives and what writing means to them.</p><h5 id="listen-to-episode-1-on-anchor-or-spotify">Listen to Episode 1 on Anchor or Spotify</h5><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe src="https://anchor.fm/writerscolonydairyhollow/embed/episodes/Episode-1---Featuring-author--Sherri-C--Perry-e9c5bi" height="102px" width="400px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"/></figure><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="100%" height="232" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" allow="encrypted-media" title="Spotify Embed: Write Now at The Writers' Colony" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed-podcast/show/4nHhsS0EBnny7aMOSIAyIH?si=qvXAdIgHTBGaMcdvqILTfQ"/></figure><hr/>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dancin’ Ho]]></title><description><![CDATA[She was once a dancing ho. Her criteria for men whose company she kept was not that they be handsome, compatible, or accomplished in the theater of life. Instead, she required they be masters of the dance—better than she, better than most. Her partner had to feel music so intensely it shot rhythmically through his body like a current, transferring energy to her with just a touch, an ever-so-subtle lead. He had to be capable of carrying her along with him on a breathless movement marathon—eyes me]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dancin-ho/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852303a</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nikki Hanna]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:42:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Bootsdancing.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Bootsdancing.jpg" alt="Dancin’ Ho"/><p>She was once a dancing ho. Her criteria for men whose company she kept was not that they be handsome, compatible, or accomplished in the theater of life. Instead, she required they be masters of the dance—better than she, better than most. Her partner had to feel music so intensely it shot rhythmically through his body like a current, transferring energy to her with just a touch, an ever-so-subtle lead. He had to be capable of carrying her along with him on a breathless movement marathon—eyes meeting, bodies colliding, pausing, holding, moving in unison.</p><p>Such a man was necessary—mandated—because a partner was essential to the dance, which had become a drug so addictive she would pay any price to feed the craving. And so, she became a dancing ho.</p><p>Guided by her partner’s suggestive pressure on her back or the tension in his hands, they executed steps in partnership—turns, stops, and starts—all emanating not from the feet, but from the core. Every movement of the limbs, the head, and the whole resonated from the power of that core. When their eyes met, the connection was intense, golden, captivating. They were each aware of what the other felt, something unattainable anywhere except in the magnificent throes of the dance. Those watching them—and sometimes moved to applaud—could never imagine or understand the bliss surging through their beings.</p><p>She is old now. She does not dance with her body. She dances with her mind. She dances through the medium of memories. Vivid, lush memories––</p><hr><p>A high feasts in her psyche as she enters the dance hall with her partner and lover, both full of anticipation at the prospect of satiating a severe hunger. With his hand in hers, he pulls her urgently and directly onto the dance floor, for that is why they are there—not to drink, not to party—but to dance. Music pounds, whisky colored lights shine mystically through a haze of smoke, and shadowy figures linger throughout. This is the backdrop for her fix, the setting where the magic happens. She becomes at one with the place.</p><p>He leads. She follows. Precisely. Fluently. He initiates a turn, prompts a spin, a snap, a freeze, a head turn, a shoulder shake, a lift of the hip, a flick of the foot—all executed expertly to pulsating music that drives the beauty of the movements and feeds the madness of the dependency the partnership requires. Displaying the style of one confident in his art, he skillfully applies the nuances of syncopated timing, the mark of an expert. Withholding a step like a delayed orgasm, he waits for it, then executes the push and pull of double resistance with an almost frantic movement—crisp, sure.</p><p>The genre of the dance and the beat of the music dictate movements, which range from rigid and abrupt to fluid waves. Arms expand and contract with the grace of swirling smoke. Hands curl, flick, grasp, swipe, and snap. Bodies meet in intense but tentative connections that break with a flourish. Heads turn elegantly or with jarring reversals. As fabric sways and flitters like feathers in a soft wind, <em>the dance</em> fills the soul of the dancing ho and satiates an all-consuming addiction.</p><p>Bliss, yes, it is bliss. But bliss is experienced only in the moment. It is not sustainable. Bliss must be recreated again and again. So she is tied to her partner. And she does things she shouldn’t.</p><hr><p>What was it about the dance that turned her and him into mutual users? What drove her to give herself over to someone she otherwise would not? What made her hang with him in smoky dance halls, ride in his rundown car, tolerate his temperament and, yes, even hop in his bed? It was the bliss. The need. The yearning. The craving for <em>the dance</em>.</p><p>When selecting a mate, hunger for that bliss trumped any un-redeeming qualities her partner possessed. He, in turn, tolerated her condescending nature for the sake of the dance. Her superior attitude surfaced everywhere but on the dance floor. There he became the master. There he possessed her. There, like a pimp who owned his ho, he owned her. He was her supplier. And they both knew it unequivocally.</p><p>She acquiesced to his interpretation of the music, and on the dance floor their bond solidified, night after night. It was also there that bliss exploded and she felt joy unattainable in any other part of her complicated life. There, her body and mind melded into a glorious euphoric state of being in the moment.</p><hr><p>Now she is old. Her body, wracked with aches and restricted by limitations, is full of objections. The music and the dance that once meshed together and flowed through her and her partner like shivers are only memories. The rush—so ethereal, yet vivid and potent—will never be experienced again in any setting, except perhaps death.</p><p>She contemplates her past and all that life delivered, and she knows if she could pick a moment of her life to live over again, she would choose one in the throes of <em>the dance</em>. She shouldn’t. She should select something more universally relevant—a family event, an accomplishment, or a spiritual awakening. But she would choose that moment because she was once a dancing ho. In time relived, she and her partner would own the floor. It would be theirs to take, and they would take it. Together they would capture the night like drug users chasing a high, and she would find bliss—again.</p><hr><p>She is close to nodding off in the lunchroom after a hearty lunch when the assisted-living event planner clinks a glass. “Announcement. Gussy up, ladies and gentlemen. We’re going to have a prom Saturday night. Put on your nicest finery. The high school dance band will supply music. Women in the community have donated party dresses. Walkers and canes can be partners. For those of you in wheelchairs, students have volunteered to push and swirl you to the music. Let’s <em>all</em> dance.”</p><hr><p>She wears a dress that billows freely with the slightest movement. A dapper old man dressed in a dark suit approaches. “Would you like to dance?”</p><p>“Sure,” she answers, expecting disappointment. <em>The odds of the old fellow delivering a positive experience is remote</em>. She recognizes him as a widowed preacher who is often on an oxygen tank.</p><p>Turns out he could execute a pretty good waltz, and her ability to follow, given bad knees and hips, exceeds her expectations. The swishy skirt swirls around her legs, brushing her calves. The soft, flowing fabric billows with each spin and reversal, occasionally tangling loosely in her partner’s legs.</p><p>“You’re a wonderful dancer,” she says.</p><p>“Thank you. My wife and I used to cut a pretty good rug. You are good yourself.”</p><p>“I like your tie.” It boasts iridescent qualities bold for a preacher.</p><p>“Thank you. It’s my favorite. My wife gave it to me. She always picked my ties.”</p><p>The band plays several waltzes throughout the night, and they dance to every one. The partnership becomes more refined with each. Although not exuberant, they are smooth and a tad frisky. When the music transitions to a faster beat, the old fellow demonstrates a flair for showmanship as he introduces jitterbug moves. She responds enthusiastically, revealing considerable stylistic technique. Their joy in the dance resonates with the staff and other dancers who stop to watch. They almost make it to the end of the dance.</p><p>She walks the preacher back to his oxygen tank for the last time, hoping she has not killed him. She sits with him while the band plays a salsa number. The exuberant social director occasionally makes loud, Mexican-style screeching noises with her tongue while dancing up a storm.<br>The preacher leans over and whispers in her ear, “I bet she’s good in bed.”</br></p><p>Stunned, she responds, “Pastor, shame on you.” And they laugh. They laugh and laugh.</p><hr><p>He dies a few months later. She remembers the sparkle in his eyes when their bodies rose and sank in unison, when they swirled and twirled, when his lead commanded her response, when the magic of the dance defined them. She speculates he was not entirely in the moment, but instead, he reminisced about dancing with his wife. She knows this because she was recalling her days as a dancing ho. The source of the gleeful emotions expressed through their twinkling eyes as they danced did not matter. Bliss was re-lived, a craving satisfied—somewhat.</p><p>She is hoping for another prom. She may be in a wheelchair by then with a young whipper-snapper pushing her in circles. In the meantime, she will dance in her memories—the music like love songs tapping on her shoulder. In whatever fashion the dance is accomplished, it will be magical and blissful because she is, after all, a dancing ho—still.</p><p><strong><strong>The Dance</strong></strong></p><p>The swish<br>The swirl<br>The twirl<br>The turn<br>The spin<br>The extension<br>The flick<br>The shift<br>The push<br>The pull<br>The connecting<br>The letting go<br>The magic<br>The spell<br>The high<br>The bliss<br>The dance<br>Oh, yes, the dance</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p></hr></hr></hr></hr></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Photos Not Taken]]></title><description><![CDATA[Beside a river, in the jungles of Peten, Guatemala,
Our old International Travelall broke down.
I waited while a few men discussed the options.
There were some concerns about our isolation
And the rumored guerrilla war
And the coming night.
I took a breath, I sighed, really,
And looked up to my left to see a stunning sunset
Framed by the trees along the broad river.
A postcard of a sunset:
The sky purple and red and orange,
The black silhouettes of palm trees gracefully curving in.
I cynically ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-photos-not-taken/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523030</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:41:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Camera.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Camera.jpg" alt="The Photos Not Taken"/><p>Beside a river, in the jungles of Peten, Guatemala,<br>Our old International Travelall broke down. <br>I waited while a few men discussed the options. <br>There were some concerns about our isolation<br>And the rumored guerrilla war<br>And the coming night.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I took a breath, I sighed, really,<br>And looked up to my left to see a stunning sunset<br>Framed by the trees along the broad river.<br>A postcard of a sunset: <br>The sky purple and red and orange,<br>The black silhouettes of palm trees gracefully curving in. <br>I cynically thought it too trite to take a picture.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Six years later I sat on the steps of our rustic house,<br>Watching.<br>They walked slowly away, along the drive,<br>To where it bent out of sight,<br>Both with their eyes seeking their footing.<br>He leaned awkwardly down to the side, extending his index finger.<br>She reached up to clasp it, her other hand raised for balance,<br>Fingers spread wide. <br>The tall skinny dad and the precious toddler<br>Who walked over the rough gravel<br>With the uncertain gait of a beginner<br>Finding her way.<br> <br>Three years later she lay in the bath beside her infant brother,<br>Pretending to be a baby,<br>Though she seemed enormous<br>Beside a real newborn<br>With her long thin arms and legs,<br>Her idea of a baby expression on her four-year-old face.<br>I couldn’t leave them alone<br>In the two inches of water<br>To find the camera. <br>But I will see them there forever.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Twenty-five years later, driving in Italy from Florence to Sienna,<br>The tall skinny dad and I stopped at a farmhouse restaurant<br>Sweetly settled on a hillside, comfortable, welcoming. <br>A warm spring day, we sat outdoors on a covered open porch,<br>With green and growing things<br>Creeping up every post and spreading out before us<br>Down across the lawn<br>To the gardens and vineyards.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The fragrant air buzzed and hummed.<br>The muffled sounds of distant farm work punctuated<br>The soft chatter and easy laughter<br>Of the several generations of an Italian family<br>Seated nearby.</br></br></br></br></p><p>I ate what the Roman gods must have eaten,<br>Luscious pesto crowning a bed of perfect pasta on a white oval plate. <br>Every aspect of this experience felt exceptional<br>In an ordinary way.</br></br></br></p><p>At last, as we walked back along the uneven flagstones<br>Toward the car,<br>We passed a waist-high terracotta pot<br>That had gone unnoticed when we arrived.</br></br></br></p><p>It had once broken and then been mended.<br>Holes had been drilled near the broken edges,<br>Wire had been used to neatly secure the pieces<br>Into a whole, strong pot once again.<br>Here it still stood, spilling over with<br>Geraniums<br>Lush with dark green foliage and<br>Vivid red blossoms.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I now live in an age of ubiquitous photography.<br>But I do not have these memories in an album,<br>Or stored on an electronic device or in a cloud.<br>The images live in silent stillness,<br>And they will be gone<br>When I am gone.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[And The Winner Is …]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’ve had a few revelations in my lifetime, but none so vivid as the very first. It led to the creation of myself as the person I am today, and let’s just say I learned very early on that I was going to need some tweaking.
It all started with the gold lamé swim suit. I was 6 at the time and had just polished off first grade with a flourish. As a reward, my mother took me downtown on the city bus and let me pick out something new. I squealed when I spotted the shiny swimsuit glimmering in the sto]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/and-the-winner-is/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523031</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sandra Ostrander]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:40:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Lame.jpeg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Lame.jpeg" alt="And The Winner Is …"/><p>I’ve had a few revelations in my lifetime, but none so vivid as the very first. It led to the creation of myself as the person I am today, and let’s just say I learned very early on that I was going to need some tweaking.</p><p>It all started with the gold lamé swim suit. I was 6 at the time and had just polished off first grade with a flourish. As a reward, my mother took me downtown on the city bus and let me pick out something new. I squealed when I spotted the shiny swimsuit glimmering in the store front window.</p><p>Mama flinched. Not a fan of water, she rarely let me near any. The bath tub was my only source of aquatic recreation, except for the rare occasion when I wore Mama down with incessant begging and was allowed to play under the water hose with Barbara Jean, my next door neighbor. It was 1954 and none of us had air conditioning, so we spent most of our daylight hours outside seeking shade and anything wet. Her dad didn’t mind squirting us silly in the sweltering Delta heat that enveloped Memphis in summer.</p><p>Reluctantly, Mama asked the sales clerk to remove the swimsuit from the window. I knew she was hoping it wouldn’t fit, but it did and I lived in that damned thing for the next three months.</p><p>At summer’s end, Mama saw a sign posted at the local drug store announcing a children’s beauty pageant in South Side Park where Little Miss South Side would be crowned. For reasons I’ll never understand, Mama was intrigued by the idea and thought I should enter.</p><p>When we told Daddy, he was all over it. My daddy was of the opinion that I could do anything and frequently told me so. According to him, I was the cutest, smartest little minnow ever to swim the birth canal. So I’m thinking this beauty pageant should be a piece of cake for a kid with my credentials and a gold lamé’ swimsuit. Besides, the idea of having my own crown was really starting to grow on me.</p><p>On the morning of the pageant, my mother rolled my unruly, straight-as-a-poker chestnut mane on tiny pink rubber curlers that tangled unmercifully when she tried to remove them. I hated it, but did grasp the concept that beauty often comes at a high price, even at a tender age. Keeping my screams to a minimum, I watched in the mirror as Mama perfected my curls and pronounced me ready to go. I jumped into my adorable swimsuit and scurried to the park, giddy with excitement and intoxicated at the thought of my impending coronation.</p><p>When we got there, the park was already swarming with little girls. I surveyed the competition, still feeling great about myself until my eyes fell on Mary Alice, a tiny 4-year-old cherub of a girl. The late afternoon sun seemed to revel in this kid, turning her silver-blond Shirley Temple curls into spun gold and her exquisite snowy white baby teeth into tiny pearls. A regular JonBenet Ramsey minus the spray tan and hair extensions; dimples so deep you could plant crops in them. I could go on, but you get the picture. To this day, I can still see her standing there rocking her cool turquoise swim suit, while mine went from lamé to lame in the twinkling of a big blue eye.</p><p>My goofy gap-toothed grin quickly faded. I could feel my elusive crown slipping away. Soon it would be perched in a nest of golden curls high atop Mary Alice’s smug little head, and you could just tell she knew it.</p><p>Of course you might be wondering… why was she any different from me? After all, I, too, had arrived at the park cloaked in delusions of grandeur. Well, the difference is that she was right and I wasn’t. He’d just failed to mention that the whole world wouldn’t be viewing me through his eyes.</p><p>It simply didn’t matter whose eyes you were seeing Mary Alice through, there was no denying her extreme physical beauty. Helen Keller could have picked up on it. How could any child be that beautiful? It simply wasn’t fair.</p><p>There was no win, place, and show back then… no runner-ups. Just one glorious winner in a sea of pathetic losers. When Mary Alice’s name was called, many of the other little girls started to cry. Not me. I’d seen it coming a mile away. I sucked it up and moped home with my loser tail tucked squarely between my spindly little stork-like legs. When I got there, I sulked to my room, ripped off that gold lamé swimsuit and threw it in the corner. It laid there shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight drifting through the bedroom window, mocking me from the floor. I never wore that thing again.</p><p>Mary Alice may have walked away with the crown that day, but I actually turned out to be the real winner. I had learned an invaluable lesson… I was NOT going to get by on my looks. Losing that pageant had taught me to look inward for my self worth before I even knew what self worth was. There had to be more to me than met the eye, and I’d spend many years making sure that happened.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Apology]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’m so sorry.
No, I’m sorry.
Sorry.
I am sorry.
I’m sorry too.
Sorry for that?
Yeah, sorry.
Sorry, really sorry.
No, I’m sorry.
Sorry for what?
I forgot.
I’m so sorry.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/apology/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852302e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carra Leah Hood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:39:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/apology-note-smiley-2022087.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/apology-note-smiley-2022087.jpg" alt="Apology"/><p>I’m <em>so</em> sorry.<br>No, I’m <em>sorry</em>.<br><em>Sorry</em>.<br><em>I</em> am sorry.<br>I’m sorry <em>too</em>.<br>Sorry for <em>that?</em><br>Yeah, <em>sorry</em>.<br>Sorry, <em>really</em> sorry.<br><em>No</em>, I’m sorry.<br>Sorry <em>for</em> what?<br>I forgot.<br>I’m <em>so</em> sorry.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[star shine]]></title><description><![CDATA[in the search for signs of intelligent life,
we are blinded by want of a twin
we measure flux, gunned through
a telescope, seeking the sun that comes
right at us, to shine it’s light upon
a distant world still unborn, but of
the mind bathed in starlight
in the search for signs of intelligent life,
we are blinded by want of a twin
her face turned towards you in resonance,
we plot confirmation from the spheres
that were there at birth, mapping the gap
between cosmos to astrum revealing myste]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/star-shine/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852303b</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Shin Yu Pai]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:38:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1496715976403-7e36dc43f17b?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1496715976403-7e36dc43f17b?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="star shine"/><p>in the search for signs of intelligent life,<br>we are blinded by want of a twin</br></p><p>we measure flux, gunned through<br>a telescope, seeking the sun that comes</br></p><p>right at us, to shine it’s light upon<br>a distant world still unborn, but of</br></p><p>the mind bathed in starlight</p><p>in the search for signs of intelligent life,<br>we are blinded by want of a twin</br></p><p>her face turned towards you in resonance,<br>we plot confirmation from the spheres</br></p><p>that were there at birth, mapping the gap<br>between cosmos to astrum revealing mysteries</br></p><p>of atmosphere, chase heavenly transits,</p><p>in the search for signs of intelligent life,<br>we are blinded by want of a twin</br></p><p>here in the burning traversion of bodies<br>our positions sculpted by gravity, in an order yet</br></p><p>unnamed, the outlying being exits</p><p>in the search for signs of intelligent life,<br>we are blinded by want of a twin</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Jasmine]]></title><description><![CDATA[Why can’t things you give away, stay given away, Barbara wondered. Isn’t that why you give them away, so you don’t have to see them again? Old clothes move on to new lives. Why couldn’t this girl do the same?
Barbara cradled the fragile, blue-luster teapot she’d bought in Japan and placed it on the red Chinese lacquer tray. This meeting hadn’t been Barbara’s idea. To her, the girl didn’t exist. What right does a stranger have to demand space in her life now? If the girl hadn’t started crying on]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/jasmine/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523033</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:37:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/450px-Oolong_Tea_wrapped_tea_balls.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/450px-Oolong_Tea_wrapped_tea_balls.jpg" alt="Jasmine"/><p>Why can’t things you give away, stay given away, Barbara wondered. Isn’t that why you give them away, so you don’t have to see them again? Old clothes move on to new lives. Why couldn’t this girl do the same?</p><p>Barbara cradled the fragile, blue-luster teapot she’d bought in Japan and placed it on the red Chinese lacquer tray. This meeting hadn’t been Barbara’s idea. To her, the girl didn’t exist. What right does a stranger have to demand space in her life now? If the girl hadn’t started crying on the phone, she never would have gotten her way. Barbara couldn’t bear crying, so she’d agreed to meet once for tea.</p><p>“I remember your voice,” the girl had said on the phone between tears.</p><p>Ridiculous<em>,</em> Barbara thought. Wombs don’t have ears.</p><p>Selecting seven tightly-rolled balls of Jasmine Pearl tea from the metal container, she dropped them into the pot, then placed two eggshell thin cups and saucers on the tray next to a plate of crystallized ginger. What she needed to tell the girl was that everything happened a long time ago, that her memories were as musty as the prom dress in the attic and the dried corsage disintegrating in a shoe box.</p><p>She had always teased her friends when they searched their newborns' faces, pointing at what looked like squashed buttons and saying "Oh look. She has my nose." Barbara had seen those mother and daughter couples out shopping–one person in two different stages of life. She had always teased her friends when they searched their newborn’s face, pointing at what looked like a squashed button and saying, “Oh look, she has my nose.” But she couldn’t deny the growing anticipation, perhaps even a tingle of excitement. If the girl favored her, she’d see her young self again. Isn’t that one of the reasons people loved to visit their grown children?</p><p>“How could you just give me away?”</p><p>What if the girl asked her that, or was angry, accusing. Barbara’s past had its own unchangeable feelings, but would she understand the confusion, the pressure from the boy’s parents, the stoney silence of her own, or the screaming pain that had ripped apart her seventeen-year-old body that day. Giving her away had seemed easy in that moment. She had simply turned her face to the wall and let the nurse carry the crying baby out of the room like a bad dream she never wanted to remember.</p><p>She had given away the baby so they’d both have a chance to grow up. Face-to-face with the girl, though, Barbara wondered if she’d lie, tell her she had missed her, meant to send Barbie dolls for her birthday. But the truth was, she had rarely thought of her at all. Barbara knew a child’s first smile, its tottering steps were supposed to be magical moments, but a childless life had been magical too. She had loved climbing pyramids in Tikal, or defying fate in a rickety airplane with a pet monkey on her shoulder while brilliant Parrots screeched in stacked cages as the plane swooped over India.</p><p>The doorbell rang. A sudden shiver raised the hair on her arms. Her reaction was a surprise. Wasn’t her position on this meeting clear, uncluttered with emotion? They’d meet, have tea, satisfy the requirements, and go their separate ways.</p><p>She started down the hallway, then veered suddenly into the bathroom for a final mirror check. Yesterday she had spent hours planning her clothes so she’d look mysterious, exotic, a worldly woman with an interesting past. But the perfectly composed image she had seen upstairs faltered. Her beautiful Indonesian block-printed caftan, which had made her look so slim and fluid yesterday, seemed bulky. It was to have been the perfect conversation opener. The girl would compliment her on the bold print. Then Barbara would break the ice with her story about visiting the textile factory and watching the craftspeople print the very fabric she was wearing.</p><p>Why had she imagined that the girl would favor artistic clothes like her own? Maybe the girl waiting on her steps was a lawyer dressed in a tailored suit with a silk blouse. Or worse yet, she could be wearing panty hose in the heat of summer. Standing next to each other their incompatibility would be obvious: the girl would look sophisticated, elegant, and she’d look gaudy.</p><p>The doorbell buzzed a second time.</p><p>She leaned against the wall as a hot flash flared somewhere inside the tent of her caftan. From under the hem, her painted toenails looked like grapes as the blood flooded her toes from the thrust of her high-heeled sandals. Drops of perspiration collected in her armpits while the amber beads from Africa gained weight, their resin fragrance intensifying with her rising body heat until she felt engulfed in sweet sticky syrup.</p><p>A strong rap at the door sounded.</p><p>Maybe I’ll run upstairs and change, she thought. Into what? Everything in her closet was brightly colored, ethnic inspired, or heavily patterned. She didn’t own beige clothes and had refused all her life to purchase the security of a black dress.</p><p>Outside the front door, a muffled voice called her name, “Ms. Barker.”</p><p>The voice sounded gentle, not demanding, and Barbara took a few reassuring steps down the long hall. Her heart banged in her chest, lurched, then quickened its pace. She waited for the girl to speak again: she wanted to hear her voice pronounce the syllables of her name before they were changed to “mother.”</p><p>“Anyone home?” The voice was louder this time and accompanied by a slight thud against the door as if the girl had dropped her purse. Barbara smiled.</p><p>That simple clumsy gesture gave her courage. After all, the girl’s voice was pleasant. She was simply a girl looking for her mother. All Barbara had to do was open the door and they’d be friends.</p><p>“Coming,” she called sweetly. Still, she wouldn’t hurry because she needed a moment to compose herself. She’d do it as she had rehearsed. She’d open the door with a gracious smile. Her caftan would fall in elegant, flowing folds as she invited her inside. Then she’d extend her hand and say, “How nice to meet you.”</p><p>She could tell by the slapping of her heels on the wood floor that she hurried. Suddenly she couldn’t wait to meet her daughter, to ask if she had a strawberry allergy, or if she liked sad movies. Was she married? Did she have children? There was so much to learn. It would take years.</p><p>Barbara swung the door open, and a rush of hot air flattened her caftan against her legs. The large elephant ear plants nodded in their pots by the steps as if someone had just brushed against them. But no one was there. Barbara looked to the left where a few parked cars lined the street. To her right, a brown delivery van turned the corner at the end of the block. But no sign of her daughter’s car. But then she didn’t know her car. A BMW, Toyota, a pickup truck? If only she had a license plate number she could trace it on the computer and find her telephone number. Barbara could call her. They’d set up another meeting, for lunch. Next time she’d have the right clothes.</p><p>A chorus of cicadas, hidden in the bark of the overhead tree, burst into chorus like metal windup toys reversing their gears. A small package lay next to the door. A gift? She picked it up, looked left and right one more time, then closed the door. Without her glasses, she couldn’t read the writing but cradled the small box in her arms as she headed down the hall to the kitchen.</p><p>I need a cup of tea before I open this, she thought as she laid the package on the living room couch and slipped out of her heels.</p><p>Moving to the kitchen, she started a fire under the purple tea kettle and with an embroidered towel began to shine the silver tea strainer. Ecuador, she remembered. She had haggled with the merchant, not for amusement, but because she was a college student and didn’t have the money. Too beautiful to leave, and the only item small enough to squeeze into her backpack, the strainer had finally become hers when she agreed to the vendor’s demand for a kiss.</p><p>The tea kettle sounded its first note, then the full harmonic chord rose up in a melodic steam. Turning off the flame, she let the water cool slightly so it wouldn’t destroy the subtle oils. Pouring the water over the Jasmine tea pearls in the pot, she watched them unfold like floating flowers as she carried the tray to the couch.</p><p>She’ll call later. Maybe the directions were poor. It’s not easy to find one’s way in this city. Barbara poured the tea into both of the thin blue cups, catching the leaves in the silver strainer. The light green liquid tasted clean and refreshing as it passed over her tongue. She looked around the room at the carved angels from Mexico, the chrysanthemum rock from China, the pink roses in a Swedish crystal vase, before gently picking up the package. Putting on her glasses, she smiled with anticipation. With the edge of a spoon she carefully slit the tape. The note inside said:</p><p><em>Your Gourmet Tea Club selection is Yin Hao Jasmine.</em><br><em>Each leaf is hand plucked in the mountains</em><br><em>then scented with Jasmine flowers for seven nights.</em><br><em>The sweetness will linger in the air like a child’s breath.</em></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Darwin Was Seasick For The Entire 5 Years]]></title><description><![CDATA[On the Beagle
in crepuscular light
wearing his human face
he made preparations
for the epiphany
wrapping himself
in the grace
of uncertainty
he kept a kind of
clenched excitement
in his notebooks
as if he knew
they were holding
a vision disproportionate
to their size.
Previously published in Calamus Journal]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/darwin-was-seasick-for-the-entire-5-years/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523052</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[audio]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:36:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520646329-f63e1793f703?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520646329-f63e1793f703?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Darwin Was Seasick For The Entire 5 Years"/><p>On the Beagle<br>in crepuscular light<br>wearing his human face<br>he made preparations<br>for the epiphany<br>wrapping himself<br>in the grace<br>of uncertainty<br>he kept a kind of<br>clenched excitement<br>in his notebooks<br>as if he knew<br>they were holding<br>a vision disproportionate<br>to their size.<br> <br>Previously published in Calamus Journal</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="100%" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F663153986&show_artwork=true&secret_token=s-laH2z"/></figure>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mars Base One (a rolling blackout)]]></title><description><![CDATA[She drives with the skill
of an old alcoholic as she
confidently pulls right
up to the guard rail
She’d been listening to
a radio show about the
long-time secret military
base we have on Mars
Then she looks in the back
and sees two sleeping women
that she doesn’t know and has
no idea how they even got there]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mars-base-one-a-rolling-blackout/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852303e</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[audio]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:35:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1532954751162-d1b6d1f3b1a8?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1532954751162-d1b6d1f3b1a8?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Mars Base One (a rolling blackout)"/><p>She drives with the skill<br>of an old alcoholic as she<br>confidently pulls right<br>up to the guard rail</br></br></br></p><p>She’d been listening to<br>a radio show about the<br>long-time secret military<br>base we have on Mars</br></br></br></p><p>Then she looks in the back<br>and sees two sleeping women<br>that she doesn’t know and has<br>no idea how they even got there</br></br></br></p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="100%" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F662664659&show_artwork=true&secret_token=s-tvxcu"/></figure>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[One-Night Stand]]></title><description><![CDATA[The story begins one night in the Anchor, a New Haven bar on College Street, half a block south of the campus, after 10PM when graduate students take the place over from the undergrads who go there to eat burgers and fries. Graduate students don’t eat; they drink pints and whiskey shots until closing at 2AM.
Or it begins when a friend introduces them, thinking they’ll hit it off. One pudgy and untoned with strawberry blonde hair and translucent skin; the other thin, muscled, a biker, attractive]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/one-night-stand/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852302f</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carra Leah Hood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:34:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Bar.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Bar.jpg" alt="One-Night Stand"/><p>The story begins one night in the Anchor, a New Haven bar on College Street, half a block south of the campus, after 10PM when graduate students take the place over from the undergrads who go there to eat burgers and fries. Graduate students don’t eat; they drink pints and whiskey shots until closing at 2AM.</p><p>Or it begins when a friend introduces them, thinking they’ll hit it off. One pudgy and untoned with strawberry blonde hair and translucent skin; the other thin, muscled, a biker, attractive in that slut-mouthed, been-around-the-block sort of way.</p><p>Or it begins the night they go to her apartment to drink herbal tea and, the pudgy one hopes, finally fuck, although the pudgy one would say make love. The biker always seduces her one-night stands. The pudgy one lays on her back waiting. The biker prefers feisty but can do missionary tonight.</p><p>Or it begins when the pudgy one starts stalking the biker.</p><p>First, she shows up at Willoughby’s, pulling up a chair to sit with the biker and her friend Trip who meet there every morning to read The New York Times, drink coffee – too much sometimes – and debate politics, literary theory, or the next steps in organizing a campus union, before heading off to their separate apartments for a six-hour writing jag. Trip struggles to put words on paper; the biker can write twenty pages a day.</p><p>Then, the pudgy one follows the biker to her carrel in the library, stops by the coffee shop the biker frequents most afternoons, 4ish, to recaffeinate and edit what she wrote during the day.</p><p>Or the story begins when a friend drops the biker off, around 2:30AM after a night at the Anchor; neither of them see the pudgy one sitting on the top step. The pudgy one stands up when the biker closes the door to her friend’s car. Go home, the biker says, turning the key in the front door lock. Go home. The biker opens the door, and before she can close it, the pudgy one pushes her way inside. Go home, bitch. Don’t you like me, the pudgy one pleads, squishing her face all up in a pathetic girl way. Not like that, the biker responds, emphasizing each word. Get out of my apartment. But why…? The biker interrupts her …fuck you? Are you kidding? There you were naked, laying on the bed; what did you expect? Cuddling?</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Being J.S. Bach]]></title><description><![CDATA[For too few marvelled moments,
my left hand winged the Swell,
and Bach’s angel host—
his Engel Schar—infused
the dark organ loft
with light. Don’t be afraid.
My teacher and I speechless
at what I’d brought about.
I’d often wondered it—
if I could know what Bach
or Jesus, say, knew
for just one day, would I
remember how to be
when I came to myself?
Or would I stay, like Bottom—
Most rare vision!—dream
pleased, my hands again
inarticulate?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/being-j-s-bach/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852304e</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheryl Loeffler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:33:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1509343456624-5e034c8f321c?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1509343456624-5e034c8f321c?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Being J.S. Bach"/><p>For too few marvelled moments,<br>my left hand winged the Swell,<br>and Bach’s angel host—<br>his <em>Engel Schar</em>—infused<br>the dark organ loft<br>with light. <em>Don’t be afraid</em>.<br>My teacher and I speechless<br>at what I’d brought about.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I’d often wondered it—<br>if I could know what Bach<br>or Jesus, say, knew<br>for just one day, would I<br>remember how to be<br>when I came to myself?<br>Or would I stay, like Bottom—<br><em>Most rare vision!</em>—dream<br>pleased, my hands again<br>inarticulate?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Write Your Own Story]]></title><description><![CDATA[As I was driving through the Boston Mountains of the Ozarks, I couldn’t help becoming totally present. The lush, rolling hills spoke to my soul from the moment I first saw them. Moving to Arkansas was never something I had to adjust to. Ozark nature is irresistible.
Driving along, my happy heart suddenly sunk to my feet? There, on the side of the road was a pile of garbage. How could someone deposit their trash in this pristine setting? And, that’s when I got a crazy idea. At that very moment, ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/write-your-own-story/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523037</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Teresa Pelliccio Devito]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:32:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/teresa3.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/teresa3.jpg" alt="Write Your Own Story"/><p>As I was driving through the Boston Mountains of the Ozarks, I couldn’t help becoming totally present. The lush, rolling hills spoke to my soul from the moment I first saw them. Moving to Arkansas was never something I had to adjust to. Ozark nature is irresistible.</p><p>Driving along, my happy heart suddenly sunk to my feet? There, on the side of the road was a pile of garbage. How could someone deposit their trash in this pristine setting? And, that’s when I got a crazy idea. At that very moment, I was inspired to walk across the state picking up litter to raise awareness and educate the public. As futile as it sounded, it WAS an opportunity to be outdoors in Arkansas! And, I figured, maybe some people just do what they’ve always done because they’ve never considered another way. It seemed like reasonable logic that I could show folks another way.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/07/Teresa1-1.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Write Your Own Story" loading="lazy"/></figure><p>So, I thought about it. And, I thought about it some more. I told a few friends about it. Crickets. Then, I thought about it a bit more. It became a regular past time. Then one day, I shared it with a different person. Oh wow! He heard me…and it resonated with him! What’s that, he says? So, do it?! Oh really?! I can…DO it? Why not? So right then and there, I decided! And, in 4 short months, I was making a life-changing trek across the state, living some of the best and most educational 15 days of my life. But, that’s another story.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/lQMYGEo.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Write Your Own Story" loading="lazy"/></figure><p>Let’s examine something that might be even more important than saving the planet. Really? Yes! Let’s talk about your hopes and desires. What do you want to do? What’s calling your name? What have you been dwelling on forever? If there’s one thing I realized through this process, it’s the importance of giving yourself permission. Don’t put your hopes and dreams in a box labeled “someday”. You do not need to wait until someone else can see and believe in your dreams with you. You are enough. Nothing in this life is more enriching and empowering than giving yourself permission to follow your heart. Write your own story. Validate yourself. If you desire it, if you can dream it, give yourself permission to do it, to become it.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mother of the World]]></title><description><![CDATA[She stands at the top of a celestial zenith,
A terrestrial dais from which to survey.
On top of her head seats a magnificent wreath,
A chaplet concealing her hair now turned gray.
Who is this lady who stands at the apex?
Gazing, perceiving, observing our sphere?
Who stares out to sea, past far snow-capped mountains,
Oer rivers and lakes, this world’s brigadier?
At her command race rivulets in runnels,
By rivers and lakes, their caves and their tunnels.
Her bluebirds, her robins she loves their e]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mother-of-the-world-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523038</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:31:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/MotherNature.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/MotherNature.jpg" alt="Mother of the World"/><p>She stands at the top of a celestial zenith,<br>A terrestrial dais from which to survey.<br>On top of her head seats a magnificent wreath,<br>A chaplet concealing her hair now turned gray.<br>Who is this lady who stands at the apex?<br>Gazing, perceiving, observing our sphere?<br>Who stares out to sea, past far snow-capped mountains,<br>Oer rivers and lakes, this world’s brigadier?<br>At her command race rivulets in runnels,<br>By rivers and lakes, their caves and their tunnels.<br>Her bluebirds, her robins she loves their embellish,<br>A turn of her hand cause lives here to flourish.<br>Now time for her sunset, its journey below,<br>Her moon and her stars are waiting to go.<br>This lady, this mother, is one we all know.<br>Mother Nature in her somewhere really puts on a show.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p/>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Tale of Two States]]></title><description><![CDATA[Arkansas. The state where I was born. The place of my ancestors, family reunions, family weddings and celebrations and a place where those who have left come back to as their final resting place.
I had come on this journey this year 2019 in the month of June to commemorate my mother’s burial grave in the Rowland family burial plot at Batts Chapel Cemetery in the little town of Huttig in southern Arkansas. My mother left southern Arkansas to attend Philander Smith College, a small Historically B]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-tale-of-two-states/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523042</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dera R. Williams]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:30:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/08/DeraW3trcrop.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/08/DeraW3trcrop.jpg" alt="A Tale of Two States"/><p>Arkansas. The state where I was born. The place of my ancestors, family reunions, family weddings and celebrations and a place where those who have left come back to as their final resting place.</p><p>I had come on this journey this year 2019 in the month of June to commemorate my mother’s burial grave in the Rowland family burial plot at Batts Chapel Cemetery in the little town of Huttig in southern Arkansas. My mother left southern Arkansas to attend Philander Smith College, a small Historically Black Methodist-run college in the capital city of Little Rock. After graduating, starting her teaching career, married and had me and my brother, my parents decided they would make the trek which came to be called the “Great Migration” when thousands of African Americans moved from the south to the North, the Midwest, East and Western states.</p><p>My family left Arkansas in 1953 when my brother was just two months old and I was two years old. As much as my mother acclimated to California and made a life for herself, she was ever a southern girl at heart and always wanted to be buried where she and her family still have ties. The ‘old place’ where my grandparents raised their family is still standing on heir property and elder members of our family are receiving compensation for the lumber the beautiful pine and oak trees produce.</p><p>As we drove, two carloads of us, from Little Rock to Union County, about a 2 ½ hour drive, there was no denying the lush beauty of the natural forest of majestic pines towering along the highway. We drove past numerous small towns with small populations and being in the Bible belt there were churches prominent along the way. I became nostalgic watching the scenery before me. There were some majestic brick homes, some large and mansion-like and then a few miles down there were modest wood houses, some cabins, some well-kept, and others quite worn and some shanty houses.</p><p>I reminisced about our summers driving to Arkansas while growing up. We would leave mid-June, as soon as school ended for the summer and make the 2-3 days road trip, going south on Highway 40 towards the dessert in Barstow, to Arizona, then New Mexico and to that long expanse of Texas. I can still hear the melodious tune of Glen Campbell singing “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” We traveled the cities he sang about. It seemed we would never get out of Texas. Once we hit Texarkana, we knew we were close and in another three or four hours we would arrive in Little Rock to Uncle Raymond’s house.</p><p>As kids, the three of us felt like we were on an adventure, playing car games and guessing how much longer we had to go before we would get to a rest stop or a city where we would spend the night. When I was elementary school age, I had no idea that while we kids were laughing, complaining and just being kids, that we were oblivious to my parents’ angst at driving down south. It wasn’t until 1963 when I was 12 years old that I realized that it was not all fun and games for them, traveling back down south to their birthplace.</p><p>That summer of 1963 while driving in Texas heading towards Dallas in our brand-new Buick, we were accosted by a big raggedy jalopy truck that pulled up next to us. The people looked like something out of the Beverly Hillbillies. Shirts off, scruffy looking clothes, hair billowing as they leaned out their raggedy car looking at us. The next thing I knew they were jeering and laughing and pointing at us.</p><p>“Why are they pointing at us?” my brother, Skipper, said.</p><p>“You guys look straight ahead and don’t look over there. I mean it. Look straight ahead”. My father frowned and drove steadily, looking straight ahead.</p><p>We did as he said. We drove a few miles and soon left those strange looking folks behind. A few hours later we arrived in Dallas and was looking for lodging for the night. I remember driving around for hours looking for a motel where we would be welcomed. My brother kept saying “We just passed by a motel. Why didn’t we stop there?” he inquired looking confused. By then, I was catching on. I saw the signs in the windows, WHITES ONLY. We finally found a roach-infested hotel in the “Colored” part of town, but we ended up sleeping in the car, all five of us.</p><p>It did not take me long after for me to realize that my parents had been shielding us from the racism we would encounter in the south. I honestly did not remember prior to 1963 when we journeyed south how I managed not to figure out that the place where we loved to go in the summers was segregated and that our navigation there in the south was limited. As it turns out before 1963 my family made use of rest stops and basically drove almost straight through to make it to Little Rock.</p><p>Now, it was a damp, humid early afternoon after one of series of storms that had hit the Southwestern states in the previous weeks of late spring into June. It was a group of about 20 family members attending the grave site services while we battled mosquitoes buzzing around us as we made plans for dinner later in the day. Leaving Huttig some of us decided to visit an Uncle who lived closer to town several miles from the highway. As my daughter drove our rental car the sun was slowly setting. Over to the right as we entered the tiny community of Elsenham, up high on a flag post hung a Confederate flag.</p><p>“Yep, you are always reminded where you are. We are in the south.” I shook my head. This is the Arkansas I know.</p><p>As someone who was born in Arkansas and raised in California yet influenced by southern-born and bred parents, the south is embedded in me in many ways. In much of the foods I eat, in the people who I associate with, and the traditions in which I was raised.</p><p>“Southern girls don’t call boys.” “A southern lady wouldn’t chew gum in public.” “You don’t wear white shoes before Easter and after Labor Day.” I heard these and other admonitions time and time again. My sister, almost four years younger than I, would retort when told these things, would roll her eyes and say, “Well it’s a good thing I’m not a southern girl since I was born right here in Oakland.”</p><p>Fast forward, a little over a week after leaving southern Arkansas, I traveled to Northwest Arkansas, known as the Ozarks for a writing residency. I was excited to go to a writing retreat in my home state and proud that I would be attending a residency in the south. So much of my writing, both fiction and nonfiction centers around the south as a setting, with characters who embody southern ways, mores and traditions.</p><p>I had informed by two of my cousins, both Arkansas-born, that my destination of Eureka Springs was one of the most liberal, progressive areas of the state. Nestled in the hilly Ozarks about an hour or so drive from the Northwest Airport in Fayetteville, I did some research and made plans for my trip.</p><p>My friends right here in the Bay Area particularly members of my writing collective, while happy for my achievement of acquiring a residency, had some reservations about me going up to the Ozarks. They equated the area with the Appalachians and the stereotypes that come with it. It was in the south, it is mostly rural with hills and parts of barren land. They made jokes with references to the movie, Deliverance recalling the men in the movie on an adventure trip exploring the great outdoors in the Georgia wilderness and encountering the madness of wild mountain men. They also teased me about alerting my loved ones my every move in case I get caught up in a Get Out moment referring to the 2017 Jordan Peele movement where Black people are under mind control in a remote town. It was funny, but not funny. I was aware I should be cognizant of my surroundings as a Black woman traveling alone to a rural southern town.</p><p>I have traveled to other southern states most often to cities with large populations and whether I traveled alone or with companions felt somewhat safe. As a woman who was southern born but raised in California I still at times was naïve and caught by surprise. Like that time about 15 years ago, when I attended a literary conference in Savannah, Georgia and while walking with some ladies to breakfast a few blocks from our hotel came upon a gift shop that bore a Confederate flag. I stopped dead in my tracks and pointed at the flag. My companions, all from southern states stopped and looked at me as if to say, “Haven’t you seen a Confederate flag before.” We laughed about it later about what a picture that presented, me standing with my mouth open pointing at the flag and they, looking at me equally bewildered at my response. I thought then, okay the south is nice to visit but I will never get used to seeing something like a Confederate flag on a regular basis.</p><p>I arrived at the Northwest Airport in Fayetteville about a week after my family trip and my first acquaintance was my driver from the airport to the Writers Colony. Eric was a middle-aged man with a graying blonde hair and a friendly manner. In our conversation I learned he had been there since the early 90s from Colorado. His father had been living there and it was an opportunity for him to move to a place that he could purchase land “on the cheap” and just enough rural to suit his tastes.</p><p>It became a source of discovery for me that very few people I met in Eureka Springs were from there, a very few were born there. I met residents who had been there 30 or 40 years. A tour guide on the tour I took, was a rarity in that he was a was a sixth generation Eureka Springs resident. This same guy said he knew a lady that came there about 10 years ago and after a few days, purchased land to build a house. I was beginning to see a trend here. What was it about Eureka Springs that drew so many outsiders?</p><p>It is a small town built on ghosts and shops that are a throwback to the 1900s. Cobblestone streets in the downtown area by the trolley station gave me a little of Dodge City from the television series, Gunsmoke. Tourism is a great part of the town of less than 3,000 population.</p><p>I used the city cab service one day and was told by the driver that he and others came to Eureka Springs in the late 1960s and 1970s to “change the town, change the pulse of the town.” He, himself was from Oregon. He had lived for a while in the San Francisco Bay Area and had followed others who migrated to Eureka Springs. There was land and opportunities aplenty and this was a place to be. So, the hippies came in the 1960s and 1970s to challenge the status quo. Others came from all over the States and beyond.</p><p>It seems the verdict is out if the “newcomers" truly changed the status quo. I met a few of the activists and those from the artist communities at the community reading held at the Writing Colony. I was delighted to meet a man who taught in the late 60s at the college I used to work at in Oakland and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley He was a vision of the older hippies one still sees in Berkeley around the University of California, home of the Free Speech Movement. His writing was a showcase of modern-day radicalism and a throwback to another time. I also met a family of writers, the gentleman taught high school English in Eureka Springs and his wife, also a teacher was herself a performance poet, who sang and performed her poetry. Their daughter, new to teaching is a slam poet. Slam Poetry in the Ozarks? In Eureka Springs. That blew me away. This young woman told me she had recently started curating monthly poet slams in local night clubs or taverns. She also said she curated poetry nights in Bentonville and Fayetteville and travels to Little Rock for slam poetry events.</p><p>That same night I met a middle-aged woman who read an erotica-type piece who is active in local activism. The man from Berkeley said she “kicks ass with her protests.”</p><p>The people there for the most part seem to be content with their lives and the spaces they occupy in this city. I don’t know how far their social activism goes and I do not know their politics. I can only surmise about a few I had the opportunity of which to speak and who were forthright about their feelings.</p><p>What I do know is that Arkansas, though it has vacillated between Democratic and Republican governors in the last 20 years, like most of the south is at present a red state. What I had come to realize, is that though I had long lumped the south into one monolith, I must admit that the social climate can be different from one region to another. There are big cities, small towns, and rural communities. On the surface Little Rock is progressive with its downtown shops and marketplace. My mother’s hometown in the most southern part of the state bordering Louisiana is small and provincial where there are still segregated proms.</p><p>Eureka Springs is unique even aside from Fayetteville and Bentonville, the bigger cities. It is an isolated enclave of contrasts. I came to Eureka because I believe I deserved to be there, and was able to embrace a piece of difference from the South I have always known.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Farmer’s Daughter]]></title><description><![CDATA[A farmer's girl
Pure as a pearl
Lives in your house
Soft as a mouse
She feeds the lambs
Sweet apple jam
And smiles and laughs
With small giraffes
And every night
The moon so bright
She falls asleep
in untouched sheets.
She floats in shade
Has never laid
On wooden floor
Or heard the roar
Of vicious men
Who steal the hens
And use their hoes
To take the rose
Until one night
There was a fright;
An eager bark
The moon went dark
A cold breeze blew,
White curtains flew
And woke her up.
Tip-toe g]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/untitled-3/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523051</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Victoria Moffatt]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:29:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495602810317-8c41a2dcd0e2?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495602810317-8c41a2dcd0e2?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Farmer’s Daughter"/><p>A farmer's girl<br>Pure as a pearl<br>Lives in your house<br>Soft as a mouse</br></br></br></p><p>She feeds the lambs<br>Sweet apple jam<br>And smiles and laughs<br>With small giraffes</br></br></br></p><p>And every night<br>The moon so bright<br>She falls asleep<br>in untouched sheets.</br></br></br></p><p>She floats in shade<br>Has never laid<br>On wooden floor<br>Or heard the roar</br></br></br></p><p>Of vicious men<br>Who steal the hens<br>And use their hoes<br>To take the rose</br></br></br></p><p>Until one night<br>There was a fright;</br></p><p>An eager bark<br>The moon went dark<br>A cold breeze blew,<br>White curtains flew<br>And woke her up.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Tip-toe gallop<br>To the window<br>A boy below<br>Reached for her hand,<br>A high demand.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Reluctant yes,<br>Happy princess<br>Descended down<br>Oh no, her crown!<br>Ca-blim, ca-blam!<br>An open clam<br>A cling, a clang</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>A silent bang</p><p>Your smiling swan<br>Forever gone.</br></p><p>You may feel sad,<br>But don’t feel bad;<br>Ev’ryone cries</br></br></p><p>When the farmers’<br>Daughter<br>Dies.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[One Moon]]></title><description><![CDATA[Today America shot the moon,
ruler of our seas and nights.
It was so target-like to gun slingers like us.
It was only a little probe the scientists
said, the impact small, the risk ours
to take. We need to know if there is ice
and water on the surface, on-site supplies
could lighten a rocket’s load; tourists
could bring home more souvenir rocks.
After the debris cleared television screens,
the man’s face in the moon wore a new blemish.
In the silence of distance, we couldn’t hear
the satellite]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/one-moon/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523034</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:28:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Moo.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Moo.jpg" alt="One Moon"/><p>Today America shot the moon,<br>ruler of our seas and nights.<br>It was so target-like to gun slingers like us.</br></br></p><p>It was only a little probe the scientists<br>said, the impact small, the risk ours<br>to take. We need to know if there is ice<br>and water on the surface, on-site supplies<br>could lighten a rocket’s load; tourists<br>could bring home more souvenir rocks.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>After the debris cleared television screens,<br>the man’s face in the moon wore a new blemish.<br>In the silence of distance, we couldn’t hear<br>the satellites of our competitive world turn.<br>Lock and load.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Useful in the Jungle]]></title><description><![CDATA[I couldn’t remember last year because I was in it.
You didn’t call it war.
You called it me being a bitch
but you knew too much about a range
of lesser cruelties to step aside
or break the harsh stillness useful in the jungle.
Silence clicked into place like Lego bricks,
through the long afternoons we were building.
We lay down. You rose up
in your beautiful, whole skin.
Your arm hair curled red-gold, a trick of light.
Your always-cold feet kept the memory of swamp.
You never mourned or cu]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/useful-in-the-jungle/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523055</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[audio]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:27:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1432298026442-0eabd0a98870?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1432298026442-0eabd0a98870?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Useful in the Jungle"/><p>I couldn’t remember last year because I was in it.<br>You didn’t call it war.</br></p><p>You called it me being a bitch<br>but you knew too much about a range</br></p><p>of lesser cruelties to step aside<br>or break the harsh stillness useful in the jungle.</br></p><p>Silence clicked into place like Lego bricks,<br>through the long afternoons we were building.</br></p><p>We lay down. You rose up<br>in your beautiful, whole skin.</br></p><p>Your arm hair curled red-gold, a trick of light.<br>Your always-cold feet kept the memory of swamp.</br></p><p>You never mourned or cursed.<br>Still, I imagined the future as dust. The future was</br></p><p>In <em><strong><strong>The Mercy of Traffic</strong></strong></em></p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="100%" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F663144755&show_artwork=true&secret_token=s-oUyBY"/></figure>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Nice People]]></title><description><![CDATA[This morning my little friend Jagger (a.k.a. my 6-year-old grandson) visited me. I had many items on my to-do list and thought we could knock some of them off and still have a fun time together.
I had driven 12 hours from New Orleans a couple days earlier, so our first task was to go to the car wash and remove all the bugs that gave their lives so I could travel quickly from the Gulf to Missouri.
In a clean car carrying a slightly damp little boy, we drove to Sam’s to get necessities like popc]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/nice-people/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523039</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Veda Boyd Jones]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:26:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Watermelon.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Watermelon.jpg" alt="Nice People"/><p>This morning my little friend Jagger (a.k.a. my 6-year-old grandson) visited me. I had many items on my to-do list and thought we could knock some of them off and still have a fun time together.</p><p>I had driven 12 hours from New Orleans a couple days earlier, so our first task was to go to the car wash and remove all the bugs that gave their lives so I could travel quickly from the Gulf to Missouri.</p><p>In a clean car carrying a slightly damp little boy, we drove to Sam’s to get necessities like popcorn and strawberries. (Living alone, I’ve acquired some strange eating habits.)</p><p>Placed at the front of the store was a big bin of seedless watermelons, which were not on my list, but happen to be Jagger’s favorite fruit. I lugged one into the cart.</p><p>We went through the large open doorway into the huge frigid cooler where strawberries and other perishable fruits and veggies are kept and Jagger asked, “How does the cold air stay in here?”</p><p>That led to an explanation of the big fans circulating cold air and us walking back and forth from the warm air into the cooler. Turns out a four-inch frame surrounding the wide opening to the cooler blows cold air at hurricane speed and acts like a doorway, keeping the cooler air inside the refrigerated part. Or that was my explanation to Jagger. (Science and engineering don’t take up much space in my brain.)</p><p>In the cheese section, I found Havarti on the very top shelf, and it was pushed way back. No way I could reach it. (I’ve climbed a few shelves in my life, but this refrigerated unit was out of the question.) I looked around for a tall person and found a man in the wine section. I asked if he could reach something for me, and he followed me to the cheese area, easily reached the cheese, and I thanked him for his help.</p><p>With a few more items in the cart, Jag and I walked to the self-checkout lane, and Jagger used the gismo that reads those bar codes while I transferred each tallied item to another cart.</p><p>I heaved that heavy watermelon out of the cart and immediately dropped it on the floor. The thud was heard in the baby food aisle, and of course, a wide crack in the rind leaked watermelon juice.</p><p>A totally innocent man passing nearby stooped and picked up the watermelon, which dripped juice on his hands and his shoes. I waved at a woman in a Sam’s vest, and she got a big plastic bag from the florist area .The floor sported a few pink puddles before the three of us wrestled the melon inside the bag. She retrieved a cardboard box for the cracked melon, which I insisted on taking instead of replacing, since I had dropped it. Besides, I was going to cut it the moment we got home and scoop balls out to cool in the refrigerator. The watermelon smelled heavenly, and we all agreed it was a good ripe melon.</p><p>On our way home Jagger, who had witnessed the tall man and the strong man and the helpful woman’s actions, asked, “Are people always so nice?”</p><p>Trick question?</p><p>“Yes, they can be,” I said. “People want to help other people.” We talked about thanking people for help, yadda, yadda.</p><p>At home after scooping out the melon, I asked Jagger to open the back door so I could carry the still heavy half-melon rinds out to the woods so the deer could have a sweet drink. Besides opening the back door onto the screened porch, he ran ahead and held the screen door open, too.</p><p>“Thank you. Are you always so nice?” I asked him.</p><p>His smile reached ear-to-ear.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[No Exit from the Quantum Physics Class]]></title><description><![CDATA[Love is everywhere
It’s not just in one
certain person or
one certain place
Love is everywhere
and it’s nowhere]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/no-exit-from-the-quantum-physics-class/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852303f</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:25:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1453733190371-0a9bedd82893?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1453733190371-0a9bedd82893?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="No Exit from the Quantum Physics Class"/><p>Love is everywhere<br>It’s not just in one<br>certain person or<br>one certain place<br>Love is everywhere<br>and it’s nowhere</br></br></br></br></br></p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="100%" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F662662790&show_artwork=true&secret_token=s-wSDp0"/></figure>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Attack of the Spider Woman]]></title><description><![CDATA[One summer evening, I sat on my patio with friends from out of state. Our conversation was soon distracted as we watched a very industrious and creative spider construct an elaborate web from the patio chair to the guttering on the house. Not only was the guttering about eight feet above the chair, it was also about ten feet to the north of the chair. With no wind, obstacles, limbs, shrubs, or any fixture of any sort, this industrious spider managed to spin a thread on the diagonal of roughly 13]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/attack-of-the-spider-woman/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852304c</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Rita Herrmann]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:24:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1446582186851-3fe172f6acb9?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1446582186851-3fe172f6acb9?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Attack of the Spider Woman"/><p>One summer evening, I sat on my patio with friends from out of state. Our conversation was soon distracted as we watched a very industrious and creative spider construct an elaborate web from the patio chair to the guttering on the house. Not only was the guttering about eight feet above the chair, it was also about ten feet to the north of the chair. With no wind, obstacles, limbs, shrubs, or any fixture of any sort, this industrious spider managed to spin a thread on the diagonal of roughly 13 feet with no logical means of construction or support. We watched in amazement as the web expanded during the evening of conversation. As our eyes grew weary, we joked that we would check her progress in the morning.</p><p>As daylight peeked through the clouds, the dog woke me for a morning nature call. I stumbled outside and within moments, I accidentally walked through the intricate spider web. I felt terrible. How would I tell my friends that I walked through the web in a sleepy haze? The blunder was certainly unintentional, but, alas, I confessed my wayward walking over breakfast. We laughed over coffee. Little did I know who would have the last laugh.</p><p>From that day on, this spider began stalking me. She transitioned from weaving a web on the patio furniture to weaving a strand or two of web over the opening to my sliding glass doors. Now, every morning as I took the dog outside in the early morning sleepy haze, I was abruptly met with a spider web wrapped around my head, closely followed by an animated shimmy that quickly ensued. Every day.</p><p>The she-bitch spider didn’t stop there. She built webs over the door to the storage building, so every venture to get the lawnmower began with a spider web wrapped around my head. I pictured the little she-devil perched on a nearby ledge, watching me, laughing that evil spider-bitch laugh. She knew what she was doing.<br>One night, though, one night she went too far. I exited my patio doors into a full-body-sized spider web like something from a Stephen King novel. It nearly rendered me motionless in its death-grip. Immediately, arms were flailing, legs were flying, squeals were squealing as I danced a jig to make any Irish dancer jealous, all in the attempt to remove the spider web from my body. Then I saw her. She was perched on the end of the web that was still attached to the door, and she was moving fast toward me. During the next 60 seconds of crazy-dance, I lost sight of her.</br></p><p>“Oh, no! Oh, no! She’s in my hair!” I screamed in the privacy of my brain. I didn’t know that for sure, but she could have been.</p><p>“Get that thing out of my hair!” the voice in my head screamed. The dance grew more vigorous and likely much more entertaining for the neighbors. I spun around, shaking and shimmying, grasping at last remaining shreds of web and trying to throw them off of me. In that moment, I realized that spider webs cannot be thrown, given their base property of stickiness, a property I had not contemplated prior to that moment.</p><p>I spotted her again, sitting on the door jam. I decide to kill her. I picked up the closest thing to me – a stick from a rustic dried flower arrangement sitting by my patio door. I decided to hit her with the stick, devising that as a good plan in the thick of the moment. I swung the stick at her. As the stick swept through the air, I realized that spiders are familiar with nature and the sticks it produced. She must have jumped onto the stick with my first swing and glued herself to it, because I could see her latched onto it with the subsequent swings. I deduced that I should knock her off the stick and onto the patio before taking the death swing.</p><p>She must have sensed that. Rather than falling off the stick in the direction of the patio, she instead flew off in the opposite direction, which was directly at my hair. With all the vigor of hungry man on a cheeseburger, I attacked that spider-bitch with all I could muster. This, of course, meant that I was attacking my own head at the same time since the last I saw, she was flying toward my hair. Cussing, spinning, flailing, kicking (not sure why I was kicking, as she clearly was not at my feet) I had to get rid of that spider before she bit me and caused an appendage to rot off.</p><p>All the spinning and cussing sent the dog running to the back fence, and I suddenly remembered that I was outside to walk the dog. Not knowing whether the spider was hiding in my clothes, awaiting an opportunity to bite, I shed my T-shirt in a fit and began hitting it on the ground. Apparently, I was trying to dislodge any spider that might be hanging onto the fabric in an elaborate plan to attack me. All of this happened in less than a minute — from the initial walk into the web to the stripping off of my T-shirt and fervent beating of it on the ground. This spider-dance unfolded on my patio, in my backyard, with neighbors in easy view, wearing only shorts and a bra as I beat my clothing on the ground as my confused dog looked on. This was not good. I had to get back in the house, but I was afraid the spider was attached to me and would travel inside as a stowaway. I was also afraid the web itself was still covering some of the doorway and I would have to penetrate the “fortress of the web” again.</p><p>I gathered my shirt, the dog, and what was left of my dignity to walk into the house. I stripped off all remaining clothes in the kitchen and systematically beat them on the floor, trying to dislodge any spider that might have hitched a ride. After a few minutes, I was reasonably sure the spider did not come inside. The dog was hiding under the bed, and I headed to the liquor cabinet. The Lord knew, I needed a shot.</p><p>Lifting my drink to my lips, I saw it: that spider-bitch was outside my patio door, rebuilding her web.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Encounters with Crows]]></title><description><![CDATA[The caw-caw from low in the acacia tree
grated like sandpaper
Too close and aggressive to be conversational
More like the threat of thunder
Or an adrenaline needle plunged into memory
of a black storm a foot from my face
Eyes as still as the storm’s center
offset by slap of wings and flap of beak
The cause of a daily walk with weapons
An umbrella or baseball bat
and the armor of a wide-brimmed hat
Yet the pummeling from my own heart
The rock of dread so heavy and deep that Hitchcock
has buried ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/encounters-with-crows/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523044</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ellaraine Lockie]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:23:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511154891408-20e5f9551a19?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511154891408-20e5f9551a19?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Encounters with Crows"/><p>The caw-caw from low in the acacia tree<br>grated like sandpaper<br>Too close and aggressive to be conversational<br>More like the threat of thunder<br>Or an adrenaline needle plunged into memory<br>of a black storm a foot from my face<br>Eyes as still as the storm’s center<br>offset by slap of wings and flap of beak</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The cause of a daily walk with weapons<br>An umbrella or baseball bat<br>and the armor of a wide-brimmed hat<br>Yet the pummeling from my own heart<br>The rock of dread so heavy and deep that Hitchcock<br>has buried his playground scene beneath it</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>These ghosts do not rest in peace<br>They peck away wanting recognition<br>for the job of nature’s clean-up crew<br>For transforming death into life<br>They want awareness of black bigotry<br>and encroachment on orchards and fields</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>By those who hear the unnerving calls but not<br>the varied clicks, rattles and bell-like tones<br>Music ignored by those<br>who mistake the need for nest hair<br>as an act of aggression</br></br></br></br></p><p>One morning the sky blurs with half notes<br>Airwaves carry a cacophony of caws<br>In the oak tree hundreds of crows<br>hunch their shoulders with each cry<br>The sandpaper shield covers a baby fallen from its nest<br>And I feel the rock move in my chest<br>The whoosh of wings as Hitchcock’s ghosts fly away</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Handfuls of cat food litter the patio now<br>A plastic bag with brown curly hair protruding<br>from holes hangs from an oak tree<br>I sometimes sit in the backyard straining to hear<br>sounds that hint of childhood church bells<br>Like it was Easter Sunday</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Aperitif]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Mary, where are the olives? You can’t possibly expect to serve this relish tray without olives.” He pushes the white, ceramic platter across the table. Pickles, carrot sticks, celery stalks, radishes, tomato and cucumber slices, and raw mushrooms ricochet from the wall to the floor.
“What did you say, Paul? I can’t hear you; the washing machine’s on. I’ll be upstairs in a minute.”
He flings the refrigerator door open. “God damn, son of a bitch. Son of a bitch! Jam it in. That’s all you know h]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/aperitif/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523032</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carra Leah Hood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:22:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Olives-1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Olives-1.jpg" alt="Aperitif"/><p>“Mary, where are the olives? You can’t possibly expect to serve this relish tray without olives.” He pushes the white, ceramic platter across the table. Pickles, carrot sticks, celery stalks, radishes, tomato and cucumber slices, and raw mushrooms ricochet from the wall to the floor.</p><p>“What did you say, Paul? I can’t hear you; the washing machine’s on. I’ll be upstairs in a minute.”</p><p>He flings the refrigerator door open. “God damn, son of a bitch. Son of a bitch! Jam it in. That’s all you know how to do. Jam it in there.” He blindly throws the ketchup bottle behind him. It shatters against the wall. The blood-red condiment splatters onto the table. With a dull thud, the freshly marinated London Broil hits the wall and slides to the floor, leaving an oily stain on the wallpaper. With accelerated, but rhythmic momentum, he proceeds to clear off the second shelf. Globs of mayonnaise fall onto ketchup. Raw vegetables float in a puddle of cream.</p><p>“Paul, what are you doing?”</p><p>“You don’t know how to prepare a meal. You don’t know how to be a wife. You don’t know how to be a mother. Son of a bitch!”</p><p>Maggie, their ten-year-old daughter, stands in the doorway, watching his frenetic, passionate behavior. He reaches for the jar of orange juice. Prepared to throw it against the wall, he turns around, noticing her. The muscles in his face and arm relax, but that vein which juts from his neck when he’s angry, throbs noticeably. The bottle slips from his hand and shatters, unleashing its sticky, orange contents into the inedible mess adorning the floor.</p><p><em>She’s beautiful</em>, he thinks, then pauses. “Son of a bitch,” he mumbles as he pushes her out of the doorway with a sweaty, sticky hand. She stumbles, but quickly regains her balance. “Bitch,” he spits in Maggie’s face.</p><p>“Paul. Paul, what’s going on up there?”</p><p>“You don’t know how to prepare a meal. You don’t know how to set a table. Fucking, son of a bitch.”</p><p>Maggie stares at him. “You’re just like her. Disgusting tramps. I wouldn’t lower myself by eating at the same table with either of you.”</p><p>He stalks out, slamming the front door.</p><p>“Paul. Paul.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[NASA Scientist]]></title><description><![CDATA[Each night he sleepwalks,
dreams of arranging stars,
craves a conversation with the universe.
His red dwarf alphabet
blinks a primordial desire to discover
a space syntax
to connect far flung molecules of life.
As he walks, he watches the sky
for a cosmic letter addressed to him
in the trail of an asteroid’s blood lines,
a comet’s flare, or bubbles from fossilized orbits.
Lover of dark spaces, he would turn off the moon,
glare that outshines the galaxies’ faint signs.
But at breakfast,
his mem]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/nasa-scientist/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523036</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:21:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Cereal2.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Cereal2.jpg" alt="NASA Scientist"/><p>Each night he sleepwalks,<br>dreams of arranging stars,<br>craves a conversation with the universe.<br>His red dwarf alphabet<br>blinks a primordial desire to discover<br>a space syntax<br>to connect far flung molecules of life.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>As he walks, he watches the sky<br>for a cosmic letter addressed to him<br>in the trail of an asteroid’s blood lines,<br>a comet’s flare, or bubbles from fossilized orbits.<br>Lover of dark spaces, he would turn off the moon,<br>glare that outshines the galaxies’ faint signs.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But at breakfast,<br>his memory is a black hole. Caffeine-stuttered,<br>sun-stunned awake, exhausted as meteorite ash,<br>he stares at his alphabet cereal<br>and wonders,<br>why it keeps spelling something cryptic<br>in the open mouth of milk.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Honeysuckle]]></title><description><![CDATA[Time Out at the swimming pool,
when parents swam their empty laps
and we met at the parking lot fence,
where honeysuckle twined
and made us almost sick
with its sweet scent,
and stripped the two-lipped flowers from the vine
and licked the nectar with our tongues,
summer after long, sweet summer,
until we learned
what real sweetness was,
treading water in each other’s arms,
until we learned
what else our hands and mouths could try.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/honeysuckle/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523050</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheryl Loeffler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:20:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1557329995-ee6f27f067a1?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1557329995-ee6f27f067a1?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Honeysuckle"/><p>Time Out at the swimming pool,<br>when parents swam their empty laps<br>and we met at the parking lot fence,<br>where honeysuckle twined<br>and made us almost sick<br>with its sweet scent,<br>and stripped the two-lipped flowers from the vine<br>and licked the nectar with our tongues,<br>summer after long, sweet summer,<br>until we learned<br>what real sweetness was,<br>treading water in each other’s arms,<br>until we learned<br>what else our hands and mouths could try.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Corral-Your-Craving Buckwheat Granola]]></title><description><![CDATA[1 cup buckwheat groats
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup dry powdered buttermilk
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup natural maple syrup
1/4 coconut oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
In a large mixing bowl combine buckwheat, oats, almonds dry powdered buttermilk, coconut flakes, sunflower seed, pumpkin seeds.
In small saucepan combine maple syrup, coconut oil and salt. Heat on medium until ingredients are warm. Add vanilla ex]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/corral-your-craving-buckwheat-granola/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523043</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ellaraine Lockie]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:19:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514946379532-90281f815889?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514946379532-90281f815889?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Corral-Your-Craving Buckwheat Granola"/><p>1 cup buckwheat groats<br>2 cups rolled oats<br>1 cup sliced almonds<br>1/2 cup dry powdered buttermilk<br>1/2 cup coconut flakes<br>1/4 cup sunflower seeds<br>1/4 cup pumpkin seeds<br>1 cup natural maple syrup<br>1/4 coconut oil<br>1/2 teaspoon salt<br>2 teaspoons vanilla extract</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>In a large mixing bowl combine buckwheat, oats, almonds dry powdered buttermilk, coconut flakes, sunflower seed, pumpkin seeds.</p><p>In small saucepan combine maple syrup, coconut oil and salt. Heat on medium until ingredients are warm. Add vanilla extract and pour over dry ingredients. With a large spoon, mix well.</p><p>Bake in 9 x 13-inch baking pan for 40 minutes, stirring a couple of times.</p><p>Cool and store in airtight container. Makes about 6 cups.</p><hr><p>Author’s Note: This recipe is from my upcoming kitchen companion/cookbook for lactose-intolerant people, due to be released by St. Johann Press in early 2020. And, for those of you wondering why it contains the dairy product dry-powder buttermilk, it’s because the vast majority of lactose-intolerant people can digest fermented dairy products with no digestive discomfort whatsoever. In fact, every recipe in the book is high in calcium content.</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Known Universe]]></title><description><![CDATA[He pointed to the page and said
put a sun in here, a star
something to remind your reader of the infinite.
Put the infinite here, he said.
I didn’t think Polaris or Orion, I thought war,
which went on before and after,
throughout the known and unknown universe
A version Published in *82 (Star 82 Journal)]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-known-universe/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523054</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[audio]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:18:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502842294453-95e49a5ce544?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502842294453-95e49a5ce544?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Known Universe"/><p>He pointed to the page and said<br> <em>put a sun in here, a star</em></br></p><p>something to remind your reader of the infinite.<br> <em>Put the infinite here,</em> he said.</br></p><p>I didn’t think Polaris or Orion, I thought war,<br>which went on before and after,</br></p><p>throughout the known and unknown universe</p><p>A version Published in *<em><strong><strong>82 (Star 82 Journal)</strong></strong></em></p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="100%" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F663154445&show_artwork=true&secret_token=s-CGNpv"/></figure>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Rescue]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Ouch!” he said, louder than intended. A small drop of blood appeared on Eli Vakhtman’s right thumb. He stood up quickly to get a piece of paper towel in the back of the store. Fortunately, there were no customers in the store—to hear Eli’s rather loud exclamation of pain or to witness his mishap or to see the blood. Of course, such minor accidents happened all the time; they couldn’t be helped. But what proprietor would want customers to see them? And blood in a garment store could never be goo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-rescue/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523056</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Yermiyahu Ahron Taub]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:17:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531054601929-f1ccb3ef57f7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531054601929-f1ccb3ef57f7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Rescue"/><p>“Ouch!” he said, louder than intended. A small drop of blood appeared on Eli Vakhtman’s right thumb. He stood up quickly to get a piece of paper towel in the back of the store. Fortunately, there were no customers in the store—to hear Eli’s rather loud exclamation of pain or to witness his mishap or to see the blood. Of course, such minor accidents happened all the time; they couldn’t be helped. But what proprietor would want customers to see them? And blood in a garment store could never be good for business.</p><p>And, truth be told, Eli should not have been sewing an outfit for his younger daughter Rosa at his work place. Sure, he was the owner of Vakhtman’s Ladies’ Garments, but the store was for the sale of ladies’ garments, not those of little girls. And Eli had left the tailoring profession years ago to open this establishment at considerable risk. He didn’t really want to be sewing at all anymore, even for his daughter.</p><p>The small sewing room at the back of the store was well equipped, but it was designated for minor alterations, such as mending, sewing cuffs and hems and the like that he did for customers. Eli knew he shouldn’t have been using it for sewing a dress for Rosa. Still, she would look adorable in its plaid pleats. They would swirl nicely as Rosa spun around the room, something she loved to do, especially when her papa was watching. A regular spinning top, my little Rosa, he smiled, as he looked down at the thumb. He’d have to check the bathroom cabinet for Band-Aids. Did he keep any on the premises? He really needed to think of these things in advance … before disaster struck.</p><p>“I’ll be right with you,” Eli called out to a customer, hearing the front doorbell ring. Of course, it would be just his luck to have a customer at the most inopportune time. The bleeding had stopped, but a bright red spot stained the towel. Eli would have to disguise or hide it altogether so the customer wouldn’t see it.</p><p>“Good afternoon, ma’am. How can I help you?” Eli asked a slim, tall, and neatly addressed young woman—the very sort whose patronage he couldn’t afford to lose.</p><p>“Good afternoon. Yes, I’d like to see your negligees,” she responded, without a moment’s hesitation or lowering her gaze. Eli gestured for the young woman to follow him and walked towards the section where they were on display. Negligees were at the “outer edges” of what Vakhtman’s Ladies’ Garments carried; their focus was on undergarments—bras, panties, girdles, of every conceivable style and for every conceivable body shape. But Eli wanted his business to do more than just provide the basics for every woman. And so he slowly branched out to include negligees, housecoats, robes, dressing gowns—garments that weren’t, strictly speaking, “undergarments” but were quite a distance from “outerwear” or even casual wear. If his shop were to succeed, he’d have to be flexible, open to the needs and wants of his customers, even to foresee them before they themselves realized what they were.</p><p>This customer looked like she knew what she wanted … and how to get it. After she murmured “thank you” and slipped into the dressing room just a few feet away, in the back of the store, Eli responded “Just let me know if I can be of further assistance.” While she was trying on the merchandise, Eli returned to the matter of his pricked finger. Fortunately, there were Band-Aids in the medicine cabinet. Eli didn’t have to worry. So why did he?</p><p>Some probably found it unseemly that a man was the proprietor of a women’s undergarment store. But Eli had no such qualms. He saw a need and aimed to fill it. He had to make a living somehow. Eli’s clients were usually younger women or at least ones with no qualms about being served on their underwear shopping expeditions by a bearded man. Some of them were far from young, in fact. they even took joy in asking him back into the dressing room for assistance. Some clearly flirted with him, gazing at him several seconds too long or asking him for help with or explanation of certain garments when none were at all necessary. Eli wasn’t exactly “happy” to oblige, but he saw no way out of it. He was running a professional enterprise, after all. It was all for the sake of the business, his means of providing for his family.</p><p>Eli thought about hiring a female assistant, but there really wasn’t the budget for it. He ran the numbers every which way, but they just didn’t add up. He wished his wife Ida could have been a partner in the business, the way his friend Arnold’s wife, Myrna was in their family business. If Ida wouldn’t be a partner, Eli wished she could at least be in the store to help him every now and again. He knew how beneficial it would be to have a female presence in the store.</p><p>Despite repeated entreaties, Ida refused. Well, not refused exactly. That would have been too … emphatic, too decisive for Ida. She merely shrugged her shoulders and looked down. That was just Ida’s way. She might as well have refused him outright. Eli knew how shy Ida was, timid really. She didn’t like to get out of the house. The noise of the traffic, both human and vehicular, startled her. Strangers frightened her.</p><p>Ida only went to the market, and even then only reluctantly, because she was never pleased with what Eli brought home. The produce he bought was either too ripe or not ripe enough. “Can’t you see? It’s not ripe!” she would say tapping this or that melon or even apples or heads of lettuce. And she was particular about the non-perishables, too. “His” cereal was too sugary; “his” olive oil was not the freshest; “his” tuna fish was too oily. As if indeed these products were of his making!</p><p>On certain days, Ida would put aside her misgivings and ask Eli to go to market. Eli never could predict which days Ida would select to ask him to do the shopping. There was never any advance warning. She would suddenly appear before him with a shopping list written in her childlike hand. Still, he knew not to push back. He complied without a word, accepting the list. When he returned from the grocery store, Ida opened the bags, wrinkled her nose ever so slightly, and predictably shook her head.</p><p>“Why did you ask me to go?” Eli might have asked.</p><p>But there was no point to posing such a question; it would only have produced silence or a shrug. Besides, Eli knew the answer. Those were the days when Ida just couldn’t get out of the house, couldn’t face the crowds, the noise, the unease that overtook her when she was out of the confines of her home. Those were days when Ida had to content herself with what Eli purchased from the market. It was either that or they would go hungry. Or rather Eli would, since Ida ate like a bird. Was that the expression? Like a skinny one, in any case. He’d seen crows on telephone wires and rooftops that had more meat on their bones than Ida did and surely had greater appetites. So Eli went to market at her beckoning and without protest at her dissatisfaction that inevitably followed inspection of his purchases. It was just another of the hallmarks of their marriage. A ritual, so to speak.</p><p>Of course, Ida helping out in the shop was really out of the question and always had been. Even if she could make it there, how would she interact with the customers? The store’s success depended on a helpful, confident interaction with strangers. Ida would be nervous, her nerves literally shot by the time they got home. He’d have to wait for his daughters Rosa and Mindl to grow up and help him out in the store. Well, he should say, Mindl and Rosa, since Mindl was the older of the two. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking that a feminine touch at Vakhtman’s Ladies’ Garments, now not years from now, would be beneficial. It was an obsession for him, if one rarely verbalized, or even articulated in his mind, a cloud of absence hovering. If only … then there’d be more customers, more satisfied ones.</p><p>“Will that be all, ma’am?” he asked the young woman, who’d brought several items up to the register. As he’d correctly predicted when she’d first entered, the customer had made some fine purchases—negligees that were filmy in fabric, creamy in color. He knew that both she and the special someone in her life would be pleased, although he didn’t allow himself to think about her wearing it. That would be going too far. Eli prided himself on his professionalism, after all. And his customers did, too.</p><p>“Yes, thank you very much. A friend of mine told me you have a great selection. I’ll have to tell her I completely agree,” she said. Eli thanked her again. A satisfied customer was a return customer; that was one of the foundational maxims of retail.</p><p>After the young woman left, Eli returned to sewing the dress for Rosa. He wasn’t surprised that Arnold and Myrna crept into his thoughts today. They were on his mind, however much he didn’t want them to be. Or, at least, Arnold was. At Arnold’s invitation, Eli recently attended a meeting to discuss the founding of a new synagogue to be called Haverim Ahuvim. There was considerable interest among the attendees, and it looked like the synagogue was going to be established. In fact, “discuss” might have been stretching the agenda of the meeting since Arnold made clear from the outset that he had every intention of establishing the synagogue with himself at the helm. At its heart, a synagogue is a collective enterprise, but Arnold let it be known that not all voices were going to have an equal say. The question was who was going to go along with him. And judging by the approval, the excitement even, it was clear that most, perhaps all of those in attendance, were. There was no dissent expressed, no concerns even raised.</p><p>Except for Eli. He simply couldn’t contain his astonishment. Arnold was going to establish a synagogue without appointing a rabbi! And this was going to be an Orthodox congregation, no less. If congregants had questions, they could ask them of Yehudah Ariel, the principal of Torah and Midot Academy, the nearby day school. But “Rabbi” Ariel did not have the legal authority to rule on halakhic questions since he was not ordained. How could a congregation function without a leader? Who would give sermons? Who would preside over births, berit milot, weddings, funerals, and other life cycle occasions? Arnold had been typically dismissive, saying it would be a “synagogue without a rabbi.” Is that even really a synagogue? Eli wondered. Why was Arnold skirting the rules? No, more to the point, why was Arnold flouting tradition?</p><p>“Why are we building it so close to the Sheloshah Devarim yeshiva? It won’t be able to stand up to it,” Eli asked at the meeting.</p><p>Arnold pounced on Eli’s admittedly somewhat misspoken “able to stand up to it,” repeating it almost sarcastically, saying the new synagogue wouldn’t be “standing up” to it at all, that they were targeting different audiences entirely. Even though Arnold didn’t have a building in mind yet, he insisted that the synagogue had to be located in this neighborhood, not far from the yeshivah. The yeshivah served scholars, and the synagogue would serve ordinary Jews or workers. Arnold had even talked about comrades coming together. Or something along those lines. Eli couldn’t remember the exact words. He should ask Sheldon Shapiro for the minutes.</p><p>Comrades! As if Arnold were invoking the socialist spirit that had swept through the shtetl of their childhood. Yes, the very same spirit that had landed Arnold’s older brother Max in prison and caused their family and the shtetl itself such hardship. Next thing you know he’d be quoting Eduard Bernstein and Rosa Luxemburg. Who was Arnold to be invoking socialism? With his thriving car service, known for its discretion and punctuality, Arnold was about as capitalist as they come. Who was Arnold to speak of equality and brotherhood? What did he know about either of those concepts? Eli knew the theories of Rosa Luxemburg better than Arnold … or Max, for that matter. Or at least, he had known. It’d been years since he’d studied them. Was Arnold going to give his “brothers” equal say in his synagogue. Fat chance! He barely tolerated Eli’s questions at the meeting.</p><p>And then there was the matter of the Sheloshah Devarim yeshivah. This new synagogue may well be aiming for a different audience, but it would inevitably be compared to the yeshivah. Established so near each other—the synagogue would necessarily fall short next to that bastion of selective Talmudic excellence. Who knows? Maybe Arnold wouldn’t be able to find or build a building in this neighborhood? Maybe he’d had have to look further afield? Eli didn’t want to hear those comparisons, didn’t want to be reminded, whether explicitly by others or by his own self-nagging, that with his mastery of the sacred texts and their commentaries in his youth, he should have been a rebi in that yeshiva, instead of selling underwear to women.</p><p>And if the synagogue was established in this neighborhood, how could they, a motley crew of baale-bayit hope to draw members or financial support? Well, the individuals around that table hadn’t been that motley, but not all of them were of substantial means. Surely, Arnold’s funds and membership dues wouldn’t be enough to support the congregation indefinitely?</p><p>Or maybe they would be. Arnold was always offering to help Eli and Ida out if they needed it. He always sent Mindl and Rosa checks for their birthdays. Ida intercepted the checks and gave them to Eli to deposit in their names. For their education. If the checks had been for himself and Ida, he would have certainly have declined them. For the girls, he’d accept Eli’s checks. Not that he was happy about them. But if it had been up to him, he would returned the checks to Arnold unopened, whether for the girls or not.</p><p>In making a such a point of handing the checks to Eli to deposit, Ida was telling him that returning the checks would not be tolerated. He’d have to swallow his pride … or … . Having the girls spend their birthday checks on girlish items—dolls, toys, baubles—was similarly not an option. Ida insisted that they be deposited in the bank in their name for the future. Not even college specifically, just the future. Or rather, as a bulwark against some as yet unknown catastrophe.</p><p>But, of course, that wasn’t it, really. Not at all. Eli knew that Arnold looked down on him, that he found Eli’s owning and selling underwear to women without assistance of an unimpeachable matron of some kind more than a little unseemly. Not that Eli blamed him really since he too found it unseemly … or, at least, unsettling. What has become of you? You, my friend, who outshone me in heder? He could see these thoughts in Arnold’s eyes. He knew Arnold too well, however far apart they might have drifted in recent years.</p><p>And Eli knew the synagogue would be established exactly to Arnold’s specifications. Rabbi-less and in the shadow of a renowned yeshivah and all. Arnold got his way.</p><p>***Maybe Myrna would have a say.</p><hr><p>Rosa was delighted with her new plaid dress.</p><p>“Thank you, Papa! It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed without prompting from Ida, who hovered in the background. Just as Eli predicted, Rosa gave a twirl three times. And then somewhat dizzily, she wobbled to her father to embrace him and kiss him on the cheek. Eli sank happily back into his comfortable chair as Rosa skipped away. Mindl was nowhere to be seen. Was it his imagination or did she always make herself scarce when he came home? No, it couldn’t be. He would have to remember to get Mindl something soon. Ida told him he spoiled Rosa. But Eli couldn’t help himself.</p><p>Eli heard Rosa singing in the next room as Ida prepared dinner. He never told Ida he also named their youngest daughter for Rosa Luxemburg. He always said she was named for his grandmother Rosa. And she was, but not just for Eli’s grandmother. Also for the woman who stood up for the downtrodden, however ambivalent she was about the “Jewish” struggle. Maybe that’s why Rosa was so special. Such a light that girl had.</p><p>He shouldn’t have let Arnold bother him. Arnold liked to be the big shot. That’s what he’d always been. No matter that Eli far outshone him in learning, Arnold was always in charge. When the boys would tease him about being the teacher’s favorite (they didn’t use the word “pet” Over There), Arnold defended him.</p><p>Once, when walking along the river, Eli was surrounded by a gang of peasant youth. They forced him onto to his knees. One of them pulled out his penis and urinated all over him. Eli remembered the feel of that hot stench in his hair and on his clothes. “Now you really are a dirty Jew!” Eli heard the friend of the ringleader shout and his friends laughing and clapping in response.</p><p>All that was bad enough. But worse might have happened. But suddenly Arnold and Kalmen, another youth from the shtetl appeared with stones and sticks (or was it sticks and stones?) and pelted them. The peasant youths fled. Eli hurried home and bathed, relieved after removing his soiled clothes, emblems of his shame. Fortunately, no one was home. He’d figure out a way of washing them without his mother finding out. The shame would be temporary, cleansed away. Or would it? The soapy water that enveloped him that had seemed so soothing only moments before suddenly seemed inadequate. As his hand trailed across the top of the tub’s water, Eli realized he didn’t even catch a glimpse of the peasant youth’s uncircumcised penis. He’d always been curious to see one. But they made Eli keep his eyes and head lowered as the ringleader urinated on him.</p><p>So yes Arnold had rescued him. Well, never again. Now Eli was in charge of his own destiny. Or had Arnold, in fact, rescued him? Perhaps Arnold and Kalmen actually held back and witnessed Eli’s humiliation from the veil of the trees? Why had it taken them so long to rescue Eli? Eli would never know. That was the thing with Arnold. You just never knew. And was Eli really in charge of his own destiny? Was his voice listened to, his opinions heeded? Bitterly, he thought again of Arnold’s blithe dismissal of his concerns regarding the synagogue.</p><p>Supper was nearly ready. Chicken cutlets, he could tell. They were going to be delicious. Ida had worked her magic with the ingredients he’d brought home from the market earlier in the week. Maybe she’d notice his Band-Aid; maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe he could take it off before dinner. Eli headed to the bathroom to wash up and to check. Soon he’d call his daughters down for supper. Once Ida gave the signal, that is.</p><p>Eli hoped Rosa would wear her new plaid dress to the dinner table. He hoped Ida hadn’t told her to take it off. Either way, he would share this meal with his loved ones. For the rest of the evening, Eli wouldn’t allow himself to think about Arnold … or his synagogue. As for tomorrow or the days that followed, he couldn’t say.</p><p>But Eli still had to get through this night. He decided he wouldn’t take a bath. He would be unclean until the morning. He knew that if he were to bathe, he would think about Arnold and that the rescue … and the bath of long ago. No, he would go to bed directly after dinner. Another hope: he would locate a path into the blankness of sleep. And yet another: he would find respite from dreams … and memories … and Arnold.</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[RECKLESS]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was a total and complete accident
that I saw you and that I saw you
walking with him and down that street
And the question came to me
just who in the world is that guy who?
and where are you going and why?
Obviously I need to calm down
There has got to be a good explanation
and I know I’m surely not the only person
in the world to have experienced this
So there is probably one best thing to do
but what can it be and all those others
who ended up doing the right thing here
just what was it th]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/reckless/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523040</guid><category><![CDATA[audio]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:16:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1519566657253-e37fbcf36dfb?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1519566657253-e37fbcf36dfb?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="RECKLESS"/><p>It was a total and complete accident<br>that I saw you and that I saw you<br>walking with him and down that street<br>And the question came to me<br>just who in the world is that guy who?<br>and where are you going and why?</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Obviously I need to calm down<br>There has got to be a good explanation<br>and I know I’m surely not the only person<br>in the world to have experienced this<br>So there is probably one best thing to do<br>but what can it be and all those others<br>who ended up doing the right thing here<br>just what was it that they all did</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I don’t know who in the world he is but<br>he walks in a more assured way than me<br>and the cab that takes you both away<br>is black and white and dirty and ugly<br>and pulls recklessly back into traffic<br>and now I don’t know who you are</br></br></br></br></br></p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="100%" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F662594126&show_artwork=true&secret_token=s-NasId"/></figure>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Larry Nearly Seals His Fate]]></title><description><![CDATA[On a break from his job running electrical for the new Amundsen-Scott Station, Larry travels the 850 miles from his digs at the South Pole to McMurdo Station (77°51’S, 166°40’E), the main U.S.station in Antarctica. It is a coastal station at the southern tip of Ross Island, about 2,415 miles south of Christchurch, New Zealand,
Although McMurdo nightlife can be a bit wild on a Saturday night, in McMurdo Sound, marine wildlife can be seen any day of the week. Within 20 miles of McMurdo Station,]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/larry-nearly-seals-his-fate/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523049</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Peterson Freeman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:15:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Larry-Nearly-Seals-his-fate-Pic2of2.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Larry-Nearly-Seals-his-fate-Pic2of2.jpg" alt="Larry Nearly Seals His Fate"/><p>On a break from his job running electrical for the new Amundsen-Scott Station, Larry travels the 850 miles from his digs at the South Pole to McMurdo Station (77°51’S, 166°40’E), the main U.S.station in Antarctica. It is a coastal station at the southern tip of Ross Island, about 2,415 miles south of Christchurch, New Zealand,</p><p>Although McMurdo nightlife can be a bit wild on a Saturday night, in McMurdo Sound, marine wildlife can be seen any day of the week. Within 20 miles of McMurdo Station, Adelie penguins are the quintessential, tuxedoed avians. The closest rookery to McMurdo Station is at Cape Royds, a little more than twenty miles to the north. It is common to see individual penguins or small groups not quite on track for either open water or the rookery, waddling past the station,.</p><p>Southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) live in sub-Antarctic and Antarctic waters that feature brutally cold conditions but are rich in fish, squid, and other marine foods the seals enjoy. Southern elephant seals breed on land but spend their winters in the frigid Antarctic waters near the Antarctic pack ice. They can dive to over 1500 meters and can stay submerged for up to 2<br>hours.</br></p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/07/Larry-Nearly-Seals-his-fate-Pic1of2.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Larry Nearly Seals His Fate" loading="lazy"/></figure><p>The only time elephant seals get upset is if you approach them walking upright. When these seals threaten each other, they rear upwards to get as much height as they can and so assume that an upright figure is being aggressive and so is a threat. Fights are actually quite rare; the males usually size each other up quite accurately and settle the matter by bellowing and rearing up. Only when two of the largest males are closely matched does a fight result. This consists of them lifting themselves up and throwing all the weight they can muster (and it’s a lot of weight), at the opponent. Such fights can be very bloody.</p><p>Standing upright, Larry is mesmerized by a gargantuan elephant seal not far away lying in all his smelly, two-ton, sharp-toothed. blubber-blob glory. Larry grabs the 14’ long, 6,000 pound bull male by the tail. Roaring with hellaciously bad breath and seething with anger, the seal swiftly flips around and baring his sharp yellow teeth goes for Larry’s arm. Luckily, Larry’s reflexes are a split second faster than the seal’s or for the rest of his life he might have become known as the one-armed electrician.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Invention]]></title><description><![CDATA[Mostly we’re a happy country.
It’s in the constitution. We have the right.
Your mother told you that
when you wanted to cry. She said,
“I’ll give you something to cry about,”
So, apparently we smile by fiat.
We invented football for it’s aaahs and oohs
and jolly whoops and bone crushing
and skull fractures and permanent brain injuries
which oddly may also amuse us
We probably invented pigskin so we
could laugh in the stands, so we
could get a grin out of our unwept tears.
Then, we invented moon]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/invention/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523053</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[audio]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:14:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1475171272919-d65b555848d7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1475171272919-d65b555848d7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Invention"/><p>Mostly we’re a happy country.<br>It’s in the constitution. We have the right. <br>Your mother told you that<br>when you wanted to cry. She said,<br>“I’ll give you something to cry about,”<br>So, apparently we smile by fiat.<br>We invented football for it’s aaahs and oohs <br>and jolly whoops and bone crushing<br>and skull fractures and permanent brain injuries</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>which oddly may also amuse us<br>We probably invented pigskin so we<br>could laugh in the stands, so we<br>could get a grin out of our unwept tears.<br>Then, we invented moon walking<br>and walking on the moon and Rogaine</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>and Groucho at either end<br>of the big chuckle<br>that was the last 100 years.<br>And googly eyes. We invented those.<br>And Jack Black. Also earlier,<br>the roller-coaster for shits and giggles,<br>the Bearded Lady, Siamese twins<br>and M. Knight Shyamalan<br>for an underwater scream.<br>Invent and invent for awe, to make<br>ourselves guffaw, then we concocted<br>a new kind of government,<br>a grief project, just o prove how hard<br>we would work to get past mourning,<br>to get to a simple American smile.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>a version published in <em><strong><strong>Unlikely Stories</strong></strong></em></p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="100%" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F663144542&show_artwork=true&secret_token=s-6xoua"/></figure>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 5: Summer 2019]]></title><description><![CDATA[In 2020, the WCDH will celebrating its 20th anniversary! Since opening its doors in 2000, the WCDH has spent twenty years providing a creative sanctuary for authors of all genres. The Colony has had, and continues to have, a lasting impact in the arts and literary communities. We have hosted more than 1400 writers from 48 states and 11 countries. Our goal is to raise $300,000 by the end of 2021 so we can expand outreach, add staff, improve our facilities, and continue to provide our online platf]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-5/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523057</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:14:16 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In 2020, the WCDH will celebrating its 20th anniversary! Since opening its doors in 2000, the WCDH has spent twenty years providing a creative sanctuary for authors of all genres. The Colony has had, and continues to have, a lasting impact in the arts and literary communities. We have hosted more than 1400 writers from 48 states and 11 countries. Our goal is to raise $300,000 by the end of 2021 so we can expand outreach, add staff, improve our facilities, and continue to provide our online platform, eMerge, for our residents and supporters to have their work published. Please help us grow so we can continue this legacy!</p><p><em><strong>eMerge</strong></em> continues to grow its audience and expand its outreach, without being filled with pop-up advertising ad nauseum. We endeavor to provide a literary magazine built on content and provide greater exposure to both emerging and established authors. The theme for this edition of eMerge is all about <em>Discovery</em>. Please enjoy the varied perspectives our authors bring to this concept. And please keep in mind, that eMerge can only be published with the generous support of our readers and supporters.</p><p>With both Federal and State Governments cutting arts and literary programs, it will be up to individuals who care deeply about the importance of these programs and how they enhance and impact our common humanity, to ensure that they remain properly funded.</p><p>So we leave you with some words from Benjamin Franklin who wrote the following in Poor Richard’s Almanac:</p><p>“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,<br>For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,<br>For the want of a horse the rider was lost,<br>For the want of a rider the battle was lost,<br>For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,<br>And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Every dollar matters! Please, help us acquire the ‘nails’ that will keep the Writers” Colony at Dairy Hollow flourishing as a sanctuary for writers and writing. You may donate here: <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/contribution-options?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">https://www.writerscolony.org/contribution-options</a></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Spotting Animals]]></title><description><![CDATA[My father drives slowly, headlights off. One hand on the car’s
wheel, one working the silver spotlight soaking the road’s edges
with roving circles of white light.
I, in the back seat, window open, lean into the black night.
Weeds scratch the door, unseen things rustle, twitter, whistle at stars.
The spotlight rakes the poles of white birch trees
in bark-peeling light, plunges back into wooded shadows,
a strobe flickering. “Watch for sudden color, a mirror-flash
of animal eye: raccoon orange, ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/spotting-animals/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523035</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:13:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/antler.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/antler.jpg" alt="Spotting Animals"/><p>My father drives slowly, headlights off. One hand on the car’s<br>wheel, one working the silver spotlight soaking the road’s edges<br>with roving circles of white light.</br></br></p><p>I, in the back seat, window open, lean into the black night.<br>Weeds scratch the door, unseen things rustle, twitter, whistle at stars.<br>The spotlight rakes the poles of white birch trees</br></br></p><p>in bark-peeling light, plunges back into wooded shadows,<br>a strobe flickering. “Watch for sudden color, a mirror-flash<br>of animal eye: raccoon orange, fox red, or deer green.”</br></br></p><p>The car slides to a stop. I catch my breath as he holds an animal<br>in the beam of light, emerald eyes mesmerized by a man-made eye. <br>The buck stands alone. Particles of light dance in its fur,</br></br></p><p>glisten from antlers bright as a holiday card. In this moment,<br>my father is a shaman of the spotlight, taking the pulse<br>of a deer, loosing his hunter instinct to adoration.</br></br></p><p>Without the distance of a scope, the eyes are too like his own.<br>He didn’t know light would be an intersection of philosophies,<br>or that deer would come, their heads surrounded by halos.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Oldest Tree]]></title><description><![CDATA[I researched “Oldest Tree.”
After a few distractions and a lot of dead ends, I found a tree listed that seemed within range of my actually visiting it. There were other, older trees somewhere, and this one was supposed to be over a thousand years old, maybe older. But it was in the Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas, somewhere southwest of the town of Jasper, a few hours away from my home.
I picked up my day pack and went to find it.
In Jasper, I talked with a gas station clerk, a waitress and fina]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-oldest-tree/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523041</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dan Morris]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:12:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1538935732373-f7a495fea3f6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1538935732373-f7a495fea3f6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Oldest Tree"/><p>I researched “Oldest Tree.”</p><p>After a few distractions and a lot of dead ends, I found a tree listed that seemed within range of my actually visiting it. There were other, older trees somewhere, and this one was supposed to be over a thousand years old, maybe older. But it was in the Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas, somewhere southwest of the town of Jasper, a few hours away from my home.</p><p>I picked up my day pack and went to find it.</p><p>In Jasper, I talked with a gas station clerk, a waitress and finally an older man in a combination country pawn shop and thrift store.</p><p>He said, “Go down Highway 7, cross the metal bridge at Dry Creek, take a right on the first gravel road, go about 2 miles, I guess, the road’ll fork, go left. Go ’til the road ducks down and crosses the creek at a low water bridge. There’s a wide spot on the other side of the creek. Park there. You’ll have to walk upstream about almost an hour, there’s a path. About half way, maybe 20 or so minutes of walking, there’s this big split boulder where a smaller creek comes in from the left. The boulders look like they got split apart ten million years ago, and the little stream runs right between them. Go up that stream another 20, maybe 30 minutes, and you’ll see it right beside the creek. There will be some small waterfalls.”</p><p>While he talked, I took notes. The notes looked like this: 7, brg dry, R dirt, 2mls, L Y, low brg pk, up, 1/2 L, rock, 20min.</p><p>I followed my notes and worked my way up the creek. I found the split rock, turned and kept walking. After a while, I came to a long rock shelf on<br>the right, six feet wide, a flat stone table about forty feet long ending at a waterfall and the tree.</br></p><p>There it was, a gnarly, swirling hulk of a tree trunk, with spindly branches and massive roots. I stood and stared, weirdly reluctant to get closer right away.</p><p>The falling creek curled around its roots which curled into cracks and fissures in the limestone steps of the geological formation known as Dragon Falls. It was a huge barrel shaped trunk with several large, stubby branches that supported gangs of sucker branches and twigs. The bark was scaley knobs and growths that looked like burls and places where branches had been cut and regrowth sealed the wounds. Any larger branches had been broken or chopped off, perhaps by lightning strikes, or crude axing. It gripped the end of the rock slab table with its roots, embracing boulders around the spring and seemingly reaching into the rock themselves.</p><p>My impression was the tree had been beaten and pummeled and abused, but it survived by being rooted in the mountain spring.</p><p>Its form could, if you squinted your eyes, be a reclining dragon, the longest exposed root the perfect tail, reaching up along the shelf of rock back toward me. It leaned away from the low bluff, stretching craggy wings, or arms and legs upward, reaching for the sunlight dappling through the overhead canopy of deep forest. Its pale green leaves rustled and trembled in the cool breezes that flowed along the spring-fed creek.</p><p>The stone shelf was dry, elevated a few feet above the flow, and I noticed a small ring of stones forming a fire place near where I stood.</p><p>I sat at that stone circle, laid my pack aside and started a small fire. I sat there for three days and nights. I kept the small fire going most of the time. My dreams were restless and I saw the dragon.</p><p>I also saw the image of a dead man impaled on one of the dragon’s broken branches, a spike or horn on its bloody forehead. It was late one night, misty, rain threatening, distant lightning flares. The limp, form of the hanging man faded into my shallow dreams that night.</p><p>I learned that dragons, as a race, are old, old souls. They became trees when they saw doom in their future. They actually were embarrassed about their firey breath, and their quick temper, and their greed for treasure. Of course, they were lonely creatures, unloved, seemingly at odds with nature. They made a momentous decision to transform. It wasn’t easy. They saw how much humans loved trees. They became what humans love most about the Earth.</p><p>I’ve heard of people who talk to trees. Now I understand why that seems to make some kind of deep universal sense. In dragon mythology, dragons often talk to certain humans when they aren’t wreaking havoc. I felt a sense of that conversation, that communication at Dragon Falls. However, I can’t recommend it.</p><p>I don’t sleep well anymore. On my walks, I reach out and touch large trees as I pass them. For my race is now facing a momentous decision of our own.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Refrain]]></title><description><![CDATA[Long piano player fingers
and large pencil eraser nipples
Perfect parts on an aging body
The rest of my breasts too small
to satisfy society’s C-cup criterion
and men’s double-D standard
They say size and shape don’t matter
Yet spend millions a year
on big tits and tight butts
And I bought the measuring tape
if not the magazines
Kept my B-for-embarrassed shapes overlooked
and loosely swathed behind the lie of modesty
Until a breast biopsy issued
a mutilation memorandum
The severed milk du]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/refrain/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523045</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ellaraine Lockie]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:11:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1494698852314-652666555934?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1494698852314-652666555934?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Refrain"/><p>Long piano player fingers <br>and large pencil eraser nipples <br>Perfect parts on an aging body</br></br></p><p>The rest of my breasts too small<br>to satisfy society’s C-cup criterion<br>and men’s double-D standard</br></br></p><p>They say size and shape don’t matter<br>Yet spend millions a year<br>on big tits and tight butts</br></br></p><p>And I bought the measuring tape<br>if not the magazines<br>Kept my B-for-embarrassed shapes overlooked</br></br></p><p>and loosely swathed behind the lie of modesty<br>Until a breast biopsy issued<br>a mutilation memorandum</br></br></p><p>The severed milk ducts scripting<br>atypical cell analysis<br>across paper-thin samples of flesh</br></br></p><p>that authored guilt for bygone disregard<br>For which I compensate<br>with comfort, cuddles, confessions</br></br></p><p>Christen the recipients like precious pets<br>now named Boo-Boo and Bambette<br>I take them public</br></br></p><p>Proud in tight lycra tops<br>of their identical twin-ness<br>Before they turn fraternal</br></br></p><p>The harbinger lump I’ll perhaps find<br>When long piano player fingers<br>perform their monthly preludes</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bahar Zaferi]]></title><description><![CDATA[Part I
I
On May 5th, 2012 I was at my friend Nate’s place in Tulsa, Oklahoma (near 41st and Harvard). We drank and smoked a bit the night before so I didn’t get up until 10:30 or 11. I had planned on doing this a full year and there were training walks since February and I brought sparse supplies – plus $300 in my account from selling back University textbooks (to last me a month and a half of high-calorie days, right?).
With my 40-pound backpack containing a pup tent, clothes, toiletries, tw]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/bahar-zaferi/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852304a</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:10:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1519936334804-3c37a5c87e37?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h4 id="part-i">Part I</h4><h5 id="i">I</h5><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1519936334804-3c37a5c87e37?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Bahar Zaferi"/><p>On May 5th, 2012 I was at my friend Nate’s place in Tulsa, Oklahoma (near 41st and Harvard). We drank and smoked a bit the night before so I didn’t get up until 10:30 or 11. I had planned on doing this a full year and there were training walks since February and I brought sparse supplies – plus $300 in my account from selling back University textbooks (to last me a month and a half of high-calorie days, right?).</p><p>With my 40-pound backpack containing a pup tent, clothes, toiletries, two notebooks, and a fanny pack that held four liter-sized BPA water canteens, I walked past the Promenade Mall until I hit I-44; then walked interstate off ramps until reaching the Hard Rock Casino in the late afternoon. I had a meal there and proceeded to get back to walking.</p><p>Maybe fifty feet onto the on-ramp, a driver pulls up to me with a disassembled rifle in the shotgun seat and offers to give me a ride. He said that while walking along the interstate as well as hitchhiking are illegal, he’d drive me into Claremore and I could re-group from there.</p><p>He dropped me off in Claremore’s outskirts and I then hoofed it by the aftermath of a potentially fatal car crash, of all things. When I came into town there was an unspecified late Spring festival with many locals out in the streets. I went into a bookstore and ran into cyclists who recommended I walk (or even pedal) along Route 66. One of them, Doyle, walked me to his house and offered to let me sleep in a tent bedroom on his back porch.</p><p>I got a call from my sister begging me not to do this. But I couldn’t be dissuaded; I wasn’t mentally well and thought I’d be dead (or better off dead) by year’s end, so I had to get in some intense life experiences while I still had the chance, I reasoned. I spent the night in that tent and didn’t sleep a wink if I recall.</p><p>I think I left around 5am, after he made me breakfast, and set out on Route 66 heading northeast.</p><h5 id="ii">II</h5><p>On May 6th, I went by foot from Claremore through Sequoyah and Chelsea up until the outskirts of the latter town. I came to the Hilltop Bar and conversed with the gentlemen there. One of them knew how to say “I love you” in 28 languages, one was registered Republican but passionately Democrat in rural Oklahoma, and one had kids my age and was fostering a 14yo Brazilian exchange student. The more they got to talking, the more worried they were about me. I finally convinced them to let me resume my travels by agreeing I wouldn’t do any hitchhiking and travel strictly by foot. One of their friends, Tim, was barbecuing in the back patio of the bar and offered to let me sleep in his camper down the road.</p><p>I sat out on that patio cradling a kinda-sorta Tom Collins (my repetitive, arbitrary buy as a 21.16-year-old) to gaze out at not much of anything. Tim’s friend Rick the Trucker from Locust Grove ripped out four or so pages of state maps from his legal-paper sized American Atlas and I quarter-folded them into my back pocket, hardly noticing or acknowledging his gesture.</p><p>On May 7th Tim’s relative (I think) and his girlfriend picked me up and took me to a Wal-Mart Supercenter to buy snacks and supplies. Since this didn’t happen until mid-afternoon, they agreed to drop me off in Vinita so I could cover more distance. On the drive there he talked about his struggles with an addiction generally associated with white working-class youth, and I kept glancing up at his girlfriend in her Daisy Dukes (for shame!). She said what I was doing was exciting and that they wished they could join me.</p><p>In Vinita I set out in earnest along Route 66 to the next town. The wheat fields in the sunset toward Afton were spellbinding. A green SUV driving the opposite direction slowed up, honked, and waved. The driver was a pretty raven-haired young woman wearing sunglasses, and within my “infinite capacity for delusion” I convinced myself it was the individual with whom I was so besotted and with whom I hoped to meet up in a major city along the way.</p><p>I didn’t get into Afton until past sunset. I went into a restaurant, a man named Bill said he saw me walking and bought my meal (a burger), then gave me 40 dollars for the motel on the outskirts of town. The generosity of Oklahomans had me in a fantastic mood and I slept quite well.</p><h5 id="iii">III</h5><p>On May 8th I had set out ambling from Afton, OK in a northeasterly direction. I covered quite a lot of distance that day - went through Miami and visited the Northeastern Oklahoma A&M college campus: where my parents first met in adolescence (a slow burn story I don’t know much about until an engagement a decade later) - and on North until I was painfully exhausted with no nearby town. A Quapaw Nation Marshall saw me and picked me up to drop me off at a campsite outside the town of Quapaw. In our brief exchange he told me about backpacking Europe in his youth-- not able to recall as much as he wished he could (a trek half a recovery/relapse/recovery-riddled life ago), and able to relay even less in that span. I flashed him my red and white graph paper binders littered with tight scrawling and told him I was writing Urban-American-Midwest-grounded Science Fiction. He told me he wished he’d written or started the Great American Travel Novel that score and some odd years back; so told me to chase after that specter instead. I smiled, perhaps more dazed and on edge by the individual and the idiosyncratic than I was some flighty future toward hobbling deep, universal truth–a swath of future I was neurotically certain I lacked anyway.</p><p>That was my first night to ghost camp on the trip, and the weather cooled into the 50s overnight. Since I didn’t have a jacket and only a thin blue sheet, it was a very challenging night to stay warm. I don’t think I slept much that night either.</p><p>On May 9th I walked through Peoria, Oklahoma, went to a convenience store called Barney’s Last Stop, and, after some odd winding roads, wound up in Missouri. A lady saw me heading on foot into Joplin’s outskirts and drove me into that area. Not sure where to stay, she suggested All Soul’s Harbor which was - get this - a homeless shelter.</p><p>So I did. First time. Took a shower, someone stole the money out of my wallet when I wasn’t looking.</p><p>I tried to look for post tornado clean-up work in Joplin, but it was all slim pickings. Joplin was one of the five towns I was writing about in those novels of adolescence, so I decided to stay an extra day. One of the shelter ladies was a Portuguese speaker, which was my earliest interest in the language.</p><p>As I was leaving on the 11th, the shelter gave me one of the mountain bikes they lend to shelter residents to go to jobs. Honestly I doubt I deserved their kindness, but they found my story compelling. This started my first cycling outside of childhood, and I certainly had my work cut out for me.</p><h5 id="iv">IV</h5><p>On May 11th I departed Joplin, MO on a white and black Genesis Shimano mountain bike given to me by acquaintances there. I went through Carthage, MO but got a bit lost on the roads of the Ozarks, as this was a time when I only owned a flip phone so I did not have Google Maps, instead eyeballing where to go based on a few maps I noticed butt-sweaty in my pocket (that I’d forgotten the trucker gave me in Chelsea, OK). I pedaled all over looking for signs of a town between Carthage and Springfield. I eventually came across Stotts City, MO whose only open establishment was a tavern with two regular drunks. The barkeep gave me a ham and cheese sandwich and a septuagenarian named Kenneth allowed me to stay the night and urged me not to bike through Springfield because of gang trouble.</p><p>We sipped well water out on his front porch, that smiling self-confessed “Ozarkian bumpkin,” where he turned the chat to briefly adumbrating his agony: his son was murdered In Springfield. I didn’t know what to say, so I told him I was St. Louis-bound (and beyond), which he concluded wasn’t any better. His way in the world struck an elegiac chord in me, as well as his concern; yet for the life of me it couldn’t translate into concern for my own well-being or my own life.</p><p>So…I wouldn’t heed his advice, citing how winded these short rides made me in the first few days, but compromised I would stay in a motel no matter the cost.</p><p>As I set out on the 12th back toward the main secondary highway, that Stotts City duumvirate of drunkards pulled alongside and offered to drive me to Springfield so I could cover more ground. The driver was drinking gin and the guy in shotgun was drinking whiskey, I think. Obviously, this bothered me, but they were very insistent, so I acquiesced to just until we reached the highway. They put my bike and backpack in the trunk and bungee-corded it closed, driving slowly. They wound down mile stretches of tight two-lane right-angle roads and all too quickly their yattering turned disturbing: talking about how sexy a horse we drove by was, telling me I had beautiful lips, and name-dropping the movie Deliverance to a complete stranger. I was intensely uncomfortable, but all I could tell them was I didn’t care because I knew I’d be dead by the end of the year, anyway. I gave them an exact date. Befuddled, they got into disarmament and let me out of the car about a mile before the highway. I was so disoriented that I rode that highway in the wrong direction quite a few miles before course correcting. In Springfield I paid for a cheap motel on the northeast outskirts of town, quick to be in a room with a lock. I believe I called my friend Nate that day with some recapping.</p><p>On May 13th I departed and headed toward Lebanon, MO. I biked to Buffalo, ate lunch at a combo Taco Bell/KFC and on the ride shortly therafter had my first flat. With no equipment to fix it, frustrated I tossed the bike in a ditch and kept walking. Probably a mile down the road a man in a van named Archie saw me and picked me up, circled back for my bike, and we headed to a Walmart so I could buy a spare tire, tube, and Fix-a-Flat. Since I didn’t want to lose any miles he agreed to drop me off at roughly the same spot he picked me up.</p><p>On I pedaled until the sun began to set. I was in a place called Long Lane, MO where the only establishment was a church which was closed despite what its small painted hours of operation sign said. Having no place to eat or drink (though still plenty of tap water in my canteens), my flip phone dead, and with night falling, I decided to ghost camp once more, in an open field behind the church.</p><p>I got up late at night to micturate and tried ignoring my hunger. The sky was clearer than I’d yet seen it and I don’t think I’ll ever see so many stars in my life again living in smog-heavy cities. In this modest hexagram’s worth of years later, there’s a thought I wish I had had (but didn’t, as ignorant as I was on poetics at the time) on the ol’ Astrophel and Stella trope, or the Yeats as translator lines: “And pity, how love fled… and hid his face amid a crowd of stars.”<br>On the nature of the dynamic between Star and Stargazer: to think of the sheer number of stars and a nonetheless impressive number of gazers (some hundred billion humans who have ever lived), and all those vectors of gaze criss-crossed in a dizzying web, a mess of yarn plopped down on a rock wailing its way through space.</br></p><p>I was clearly (in my maleness and hopeless romanticism and obsessiveness) a gazer, but was I someone’s star as well? And what did it matter on this derring-do odyssey, that day by day forged its purpose to be coming up with something to say worth her time, worth winching her out from under her depression (a condition I surmised I’d never truly understand because of how mine always cow-hitched itself to heartbreak rather than bursting to the fore of its own accord); and forged its purpose to be…of course…to finally see her again.</p><h4 id="part-ii">Part II</h4><h5 id="v">V</h5><p>Contemplating time’s passage from one May 19th’s night then dawn to another again, that contemptible clockwork, tends to kick me in the face. The onset, of course, was in 2009: my high school graduation ceremony followed by an all-night class-wide celebration at an Incredible Pizza, which would be the last time I’d see a lot of friends and acquaintances in the real world. Including one in particular for whom I tried to confess seemingly ephemeral feelings-- though couldn’t muster it. And so she walked off from that seat adjacent to mine and out of my life.</p><p>But that’s kid stuff, yeah? So let’s leap forward exactly three years.</p><p>With absence it hadn’t gone away - if anything blistering deeper. And with the give-and-go of a couple of years of social media trepidation I finally reached out to her again, mentioning I was going to walk from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was intrigued, and when I told her I would pass through the same city of her college said she’d like to meet up with me. She opened up about collegiate struggles with depression, a recent parental divorce, and a breakup. Floored, I thought maybe telling her how I felt could do something to cheer her up.</p><p>And of course it didn’t. Of course someone not in her life doting on her was creepy and concerning; she suggested cutting ties. And I did. But god, the obsession was unbearable. I wouldn’t sleep for days at a time, and this went on for almost two months. Until I finally decided to go through with that pipe dream walkabout…</p><p>…which I started May 5th of 2012. Much of this has already been mentioned a bit ago: walking for 5 days and 85 miles to Joplin, Missouri; being given a bicycle in a homeless shelter; riding across the state, passing through the towns of Lebanon, Camdenton, and Eldon on the 15th; getting onto the Katy Trail on the 16th-- where in Mokane on my first night of camping had sotted SUV drivers doing donuts on the coarse gravel screaming the n-word at me, who I managed to scare off in a stint of adaptive unconsciousness or sheer dumb luck; camping in Hermann on the 17th; and on the 18th getting returning to the trail and camping in Marthasville where a man named Jerry doing his own bikeabout from San Antonio to New York caught up with me.</p><p>On the 19th Jerry and I did about 50 miles worth of cycling, from Marthasville on through Dutzow (where we did wine tasting at lunch), Defiance, and finally St. Louis’s outskirts. I had come to see I’d very much slapped this all together yet chose to reach out to the woman of my troubling for suggestions on where I could spend the night in the city-- since I had no way of affording a hotel room. Nothing. My friend Nate (in Tulsa running travel logistics and my social media at the time) had exhausted all his contacts, so I just kinda had to figure it out myself.<br>In West St. Louis Jerry and I split ways because he’d heard bad things about East St. Louis (which is in fact a separate city on the other side of the river in Illinois, not a geographic feature of downtown). I pedaled WSTL streets until it got dark, and around 9:30 p.m. finally decided to spring for a cab to downtown to see what might be there for me. The driver suggested I look for The Huckleberry Hostel in the Soulard District. Freshly 21 but looking 15, I came to a bar to ask for some direction(s). I hid my bike in an alley and stayed about an hour. I’m sure my b.o., disheveledness, and phenotypic pubescence was quite off-putting to any women there, regardless of how bizarrely compelling my story was.</br></p><p>Around midnight I left that scene, grabbed the Shimano bike, and ambled all over downtown trying to find that hostel. There was even one point around 2 a.m. where I swore I was right next to it (and in fact was), but the people I asked assistance from insisted it wasn’t it and that it wasn’t open (though the hostel’s director was waiting on me). So I kept ambling. Had a cup of coffee; it was too cool out for not having a jacket. With my bicycle wedged behind me at 4 a.m., I huddled on a bench next to a catholic church across the street from a St. Louis Bread Co. waiting for the sun to come up. I finally saw a response in my messenger from the gal saying she didn’t know a place I could stay.</p><p>At 5 a man walking down the street saw me wearing my OSU cap and handed me 10 or so dollars, assuming I was homeless (at this point, was I? It’s hard to say).<br>As the sun came up around 6 a.m. I could safely say I was at my young life’s rock bottom. I had walked 85 miles, and, with no prior training pedaled 362 miles for what fundamental reason? To spend a little time with someone who I still couldn’t properly see wanted nothing to do with me? But I was there. And I was alone. And that was all there’d be to it. So I walked into that St. Louis Bread on May 20th, more hollowed out and unsure of myself than I’d ever been before. And when I walked into that restaurant I encountered two endurance cyclists, of all people. And they had some interesting things to say to me.</br></p><h5 id="vi">VI</h5><p>And maybe they’d’ve if they could’ve said those twenty-one days within my twenty-first year toward one footstep into a country and a province and a Windsor with knotting in the stomach would have for its summation days in St. Louis with a bisexual paraplegic social worker making passes and a vinegar jug labelled “piss” froth onto my dingy black jeans and dingier TARDIS tee and one of many unstunned ashkenazic bonnie blues pegging me a travel virgin or days of on-the-fly couchsurfing after six cycling hours with Greenville IL regional weed dealers and Lil Wayne’s **hop up on this dick and do a full split** again and again beyond 5AM whereon one’d inquire where they put the good huffing ether or siphoning me for by pot-pusher standards parental pocket-change those I and they othered yet self-same strands of white hoosier utter trash blasting **do it for the realest ni**as in the game right now** who saw in my squirming a tangle of inward demand and yearning to survive or to die with her alongside or antipodally far-flung for safekeeping and loathing what I could’ve or will’ve raked her through in the name of her or rather the name of my goddamned bloated spiritual vanity and a deep exhaustion of all this Jerry-Rigged Nietzschean Eternal Return Shit closer to a night’s end of a sleep-stolen moment that couldn’t ever come before **and she will**</p><p>and cycling penniless but for handouts pedaling from one Indianan city’s homeless shelter to another like the hard-and-long-earned and sought-out Naptown crashing on linoleum and ghost camping in Anderson’s Mounds State Park and getting comped drinks and meals in Pennville IN’s Briar Patch Bar by Richard and the aforementioned Teutonic belles of the balls steady-stream and days of jacketless June-1st freeze and police voucher motel stays in Fort Wayne and a different Defiance and the bed-bug-riddled Toledo shelter bunkmate a neurotic Ojibwe male model whose four dogs really his children were sent to another strand of shelter and ultimately put down and camping behind a bush in Monroe MI with frigid rain and come morning the ragged bicycle finally stolen and angry waltzing toward Detroit til a Turkish Muslim kid’s Flat Rock gas station shift lunch break picked me up for shawarmas and Sunni pamphlets and a bit about Ankara in the spring his personal Troy the bahar zaferi or whatever and a hostel and a superintendent who’d let me and these two Danes smoke sub-floorboard grown weed til I finally popped my weed cherry watching Netflix HIMYM Season 2 and cleaning up my prior night’s bathroom vomit those forevers within forever and Hedelberg and Greektown and 10th-rate flip-phone Facebook Felo-De-Se Philosophizing that June 10th with Customs officers jesting about journalist q-and-a’s because people deep entera-deep down truly only want your story if it can be spun for a buck or a canhuck looney or two but that dyad of cyclists in St. Louis Bread who must’ve needed to spell out something important or something both so much more and so much less to be said or worth saying well, they</p><h5 id="vii">VII</h5><p>didn’t really. Walked through Windsor and Tecumseh. Black squirrels. Anne and Cory M let me sleep in the garage by the Dodge Charger. Gave me a 100 and a butter and ham sandwich. Walked to Merlin and talked about the quasi Trans-Canada hiking trail. Walked to Ridgetown. Camped in Clifford’s backyard. Spread peanut butter onto saltines with a mechanical pencil and drank stale bpa water. Walked to Dutton and John Kenneth took my high-res picture by his store. Kept walking to Wallacetown. Shopped for food a bit. Walked to St Thomas and camped in a graveyard. Paul gave me maps and a new backpack. Walked through Aylmer and bought a bread loaf and two apples from Jordan the Mennonite. Walked to Cultus and crashed at Ryan’s place and brushed his horse and watched the Niagara tightrope walker live. Walked to Simcoe and wrote my sister a birthday card. Hiked the Waterford heritage trail into Brantford. Camped under a train track bridge. Train boomed me awake at 4. Walked to Burlington. Camped on the outskirts of the royal garden. Met a tourist agent interested in getting my story on the news. I didn’t care and she was cute. Walked to Oakville. Sent the high school gal some crap message about having to find her own happiness like I might just have. Met a Missisaugan gangster. He showed me his gun wound. Took the subway into Scarborough Toronto. Met my couchsurfer Gavin. We went out to eat with his Ultimate Frisbee team. I slept on an air mattress in his basement for a week.</p><p>And more shit. That I, even these seven mangled-about years later, still can’t seem to sort out whether it all needs to be shoveled up or buried, or celebrated or shamed, or verified or disproven with deference to my schizoaffectiveness, or after failing whatever its aim was, whether any of it mattered or can matter or really needs to.</p><p>But at least it’s out.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Eva and the Snake]]></title><description><![CDATA[Wound around a branch of Knowledge,
Eden’s first Ivory Tower—
his Professor to her Co-ed
(a word that God would never use)—
dappled light on his greying temples
(she thought older snakes distinguished),
Daddy / Lover, he seduced her
with his apple-polished voice,
James Earl Jones’s timbre, vowels.
Adam’s attentions had begun
to seem, you know, routine to her—
Your hair, a waterfall of silk.
Your eyes, bright planets in the sky.
Your lips, two birds of paradise.
Your breasts, fauns playing in a]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/eva-and-the-snake/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852304f</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheryl Loeffler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:09:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525682691400-309fa6755eb5?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525682691400-309fa6755eb5?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Eva and the Snake"/><p>Wound around a branch of Knowledge,<br>Eden’s first Ivory Tower—<br>his Professor to her Co-ed<br>(a word that God would never use)—<br>dappled light on his greying temples<br>(she thought older snakes distinguished),<br>Daddy / Lover, he seduced her<br>with his apple-polished voice,<br>James Earl Jones’s timbre, vowels.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Adam’s attentions had begun<br>to seem, you know, routine to her—</br></p><p><em>Your hair, a waterfall of silk.</em><br><em>Your eyes, bright planets in the sky.</em><br><em>Your lips, two birds of paradise.</em><br><em>Your breasts, fauns playing in a field.</em><br><em>Your skin, a violet’s velvet leaf.</em><br><em>The valley that runs between the hills—</em><br><em>Quoniam tu solus Sanctus!</em>*<br><em>My Newfoundland! My loved Because!</em></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>She loved him, too. But he’d been saying<br>soppy things like that for days.<br>And the Serpent admired her for her intellect.</br></br></p><p><em>*For you are the only Holy One</em>, from the <em>Gloria</em>; Chaucer’s Wife of Bath<strong> </strong>uses <em>quoniam</em> (meaning <em>for</em>, <em>because</em>) as a euphemism for <em>pudendum</em>.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Blueberry Jane]]></title><description><![CDATA[An early spring morn, yet not quite awake,
I heard a young choir so pure, yet opaque.
A drift before sentient, a dissonant state,
Unconscious, yet conscious, a halfway debate.
They sang of a girl, an exotic strange name.
The title was clear, t’was Blueberry Jane.
Now who in this world would give such a name?
And label a child, this Blueberry Jane?
I awakened alert, the ballad dispersed,
No lovely young choir, no song well-rehearsed.
This place I was in, what state was my brain?
Where choirs si]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/untitled-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852304b</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:08:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1459984229830-6e16536c2e94?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1459984229830-6e16536c2e94?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Blueberry Jane"/><p>An early spring morn, yet not quite awake,<br>I heard a young choir so pure, yet opaque.<br>A drift before sentient, a dissonant state,<br>Unconscious, yet conscious, a halfway debate.</br></br></br></p><p>They sang of a girl, an exotic strange name.<br>The title was clear, t’was Blueberry Jane.<br>Now who in this world would give such a name?<br>And label a child, this Blueberry Jane?</br></br></br></p><p>I awakened alert, the ballad dispersed,<br>No lovely young choir, no song well-rehearsed.<br>This place I was in, what state was my brain?<br>Where choirs sing songs like Blueberry Jane?</br></br></br></p><p>A superconscious place, a long sounding name.<br>A life force universal, a cosmic mind game.<br>Its source is the place where ideas inspire,<br>And life force and energy are there to enquire.</br></br></br></p><p>So, now before dawn I remember each day,<br>The song by the choir and the beautiful name.<br>For I dare not forget how I felt on that day,<br>When I heard the sweet song and my Blueberry Jane.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Christmas Eve Earthquake]]></title><description><![CDATA[In 1974, the United States Government posts job openings for the building of a new research station at the geographic South Pole. Larry applies for and is offered a job as an electrician toward this endeavor - the building of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The folks at the National Science Foundation put Larry through an expensive and intensive screening process. The tests for physical and mental fitness are much like those given to astronauts. The best way to avoid emergencies, is to re]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/christmas-eve-earthquake/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523048</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Peterson Freeman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:07:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/ChristmasEveEarthquake.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/ChristmasEveEarthquake.jpg" alt="Christmas Eve Earthquake"/><p>In 1974, the United States Government posts job openings for the building of a new research station at the geographic South Pole. Larry applies for and is offered a job as an electrician toward this endeavor - the building of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The folks at the National Science Foundation put Larry through an expensive and intensive screening process. The tests for physical and mental fitness are much like those given to astronauts. The best way to avoid emergencies, is to reduce risk. The average temperature is -56 Fahrenheit, and that, combined with the world’s driest air and an altitude of almost 10,000 feet, which feels more like 14,000 feet because of the low air pressure and arid polar atmosphere, makes it a struggle to even climb a flight of stairs. The air causes instant pain to any exposed skin. It’s not even wise to smile-your gums and teeth will ache. Frostbite can set in rapidly.</p><p>25 year-old Larry is flown into Antarctica in a LC-130 military jet. The NSF uses this specific type of plane also called the Hercules, to fly to the South Pole because there’s no other plane on Earth that can do what it does - transport huge amounts of cargo to the most desolate of polar reaches. The coldest and driest place on Earth, the miles-thick ice sheet at the South Pole is an extreme location that’s incredibly hard on the human body. Even British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who raced Norwegian Roald Amundsen to the Pole in 1911 and 1912 and later died not far from it, described the South Pole as an “awful place.”</p><p>There’s no native life in this vast, snowy desert nearly a thousand miles from the coast. Humans are the only wildlife. It is Christmas Eve and the workers are celebrating in the old station built in 1958 during Operation Deep Freeze. It is 20’ below ground. The depth occurred naturally due to the paltry ¾“ of snow that falls each year. Since the snow doesn’t melt, it accumulates, burying the station a little bit more every year. Larry and some of his fellow workers in the trades are bellied up to the bar imbibing in various distilled spirits with congenial glee.</p><p>Far from where the humans work, sleep, and eat, is a 10’ square by 9’ tall orange box that opens at the top and is buried in a scuttle hole in the snow. It holds three seismographs that measure and record details of earthquakes such as force and duration.</p><p>In the middle of the night while his comrades snore away, Larry finds he cannot sleep. He decides to put on his outdoor gear and take the D9 Caterpillar for a spin. With 4’ wide tracks and an open cockpit, the D9 is a substantial ride. Larry drives far away from the human occupied buildings and takes several spins around the isolated orange box that holds the seismographs.</p><p>At 6:00 AM the next morning, there is appreciable excitement and commotion at the mess hall. Scientists Julius, Jonathan, and Emory have checked the seismographs and found significant readings.</p><p>“The seismographs measure a magnitude S7 likely somewhere in the Mediterranean,” announces Julius, the most serious of the scientists.</p><p>“Our next move is to go to the ham shack and notify the Greeks, then the United States, and finally all the European countries so they can triangulate.the distance between the beginning of the first P wave and the first S wave” advises Emory, the English scientist.</p><p>“I’ll head over there right now and alert as many countries as I can,” Jonathan says. “Wish me luck.”</p><p>“This is big, really big,” says Julius, visibly exhilarated over their findings.</p><p>“Yes, it’s about time we had a bit of excitement around here,” says Emory as enthusiastically as an Englishman is permitted to be. “My counterparts in the UK will be duly stirred.”</p><p>Woh, oh, thinks Larry overhearing the scientists’ conversation.</p><p>Jonathan returns from the ham shack. “We’re in luck. I was able to connect to the Greeks and most of Europe. The NSF guys in D.C. are sending a crew down to study the findings.”</p><p>Larry listens to the three scientists for nearly an hour before confessing his sin.</p><p>“I think I may have created the S7 on the seismographs,” Larry announces. “In the middle of the night last night, I took the D9 Caterpillar out, drove over by the seismograph box and took several spins around. I think I may have caused the earthquake readings.”</p><p>“You what?” shouts Julius, visibly angry.</p><p>“I think I caused the earthquake readings,” Larry repeats.</p><p>“Oh for Chrissake,” says Jonathan, laughing. It’s alright, son, it was Christmas Eve in this God forsaken desert of ice.”</p><p>“Well this will be a jolly good tale for me to share with my workmates when I return to my job in the U.K.” chuckles Emory.</p><p>“I don’t think this is one bit funny,” says Julius. “Now we have to get on the ham and explain ourselves to everyone in the world that we’re wrong. I, for one, am not amused.”</p><p>“Ah, lighten up, Julius; it’s Christmas,” says Emory. “Tell them the equipment gave us a faulty reading; it will be fine. “Well done, young man” says Emory turning to Larry and patting him on the back. “This is one for the funny papers.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Garry Nichols Art]]></title><description><![CDATA[One feels like a charlatan writing of Garry Nichols’ extraordinary paintings. How to follow him? He suits up and dives to the depths. He sails the oceans like an albatross above them. The work is viewed from an original all-encompassing Artist’s eye. Framed from out of his delving mind; these fugitive mappings of experience by this lone Tasmanian, dowsing, desolate, angel.
Shored up in his Greenpoint, Brooklyn studio thirty-some years now. The large grand- scale paintings usually have a circula]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/gary-nichols-art/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852302d</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Adrian Frost]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:06:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Adrian-3.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Adrian-3.jpg" alt="Garry Nichols Art"/><p>One feels like a charlatan writing of Garry Nichols’ extraordinary paintings. How to follow him? He suits up and dives to the depths. He sails the oceans like an albatross above them. The work is viewed from an original all-encompassing Artist’s eye. Framed from out of his delving mind; these fugitive mappings of experience by this lone Tasmanian, dowsing, desolate, angel.</p><p>Shored up in his Greenpoint, Brooklyn studio thirty-some years now. The large grand- scale paintings usually have a circular motif, a world spinning on its gyrating axis to contain the characters, plant and land forms that inhabit Nichols’ tenderly paint-daubed exploration of haunting, spellbinding vision. Threading out of the past, replete with the present, pointing to future.</p><p>Everything adds up but it doesn’t.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/07/GaryNicholsArt.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Garry Nichols Art" loading="lazy"/></figure><p>When you view a Nichols’ painting, you enter the realm of aboriginal genocide. You have the cruel, callous, civilized culture of deportation and the geography of Van Diemen's Land itself. It’s on that land you can still hear the first people calling out, the ancient aboriginal culture that settled there around 80,000 years ago, before being cut off from the rest of the continent by massive plate shifts. Renamed Tasmania in 1856. One hundred years later, the place of Nichols’ birth.</p><p>His ancestor arrived as a prisoner in this far-flung island in 1826; a 14-year-old London girl jailed for stealing clothes and under a sentence of death, has her sentence changed to deportation by the judge.</p><p>He is always calling this history up. How could he not, a born painter, a long time sophisticated habitué of the New York art scene? But he’s the possessor of a soul that pumps the blood, the memory, the imagination that haunts the paintings, is always back tracking, checking in, down under. The characters in the painting, men or women, aren't recognizably American or European. The landscape is a place only the artist has inhabited. The images are universal.</p><p>Everything adds up but it doesn’t.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/07/Adrian-2.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Garry Nichols Art" loading="lazy"/></figure><p>Surreal has now become an overused and faded word. Perhaps the word is liminal. His paintings are cubist narrative day/night, laced with industrial plumbing, shipped with fools. Shimmering in backgrounds of gold-patterned leaves, a film that could have been shot by Rousseau.</p><p>There are clues, ships arriving, ships leaving. They are mostly steamers, more like Titanic's time than now. Faces ghosted off convict-carved bridges, heads festooned with surging cocks and lush delicately bearded cunts.</p><p>Where do you enter these profound studies of our humanity, our Divine planet?</p><p>Don't be fooled by the normalcy of his gentle, still-Aussie-tinted accent and friendly greeting. And be prepared to be led astray when you enter Nichols’ Greenpoint, Brooklyn studio. The paintings are epics, and like all true epics they suffer maelstroms.</p><p>His works have certain commonalities: a pattern, a weft, a whiplashed weave; they blink on and off, a palimpsest of constant change. Like sitting in an old-time launderette, the paintings cycling in glass-fronted washers; you peer at them, spinning your mind. The images although seemingly set in the landscape of childhood - youth breach, then reach maturity in one blink before our eyes. They glow, they fade, turn and tussle. Odysseus-like on their journey toward realization.</p><p>Yet there is no solution graphically, more a constant quest, the joy of an unfinished adventure. Like Alice in “ I wonder where the fuck I am Land,” he rabbits you down the hole of his vision. There is a method to this seeming madness.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/07/Frost2-1.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Garry Nichols Art" loading="lazy"/></figure><p>He crafts his paintings as though viewed through a periscope, Framing the work in such a way, he presses you up against his soul’s porthole. You see the ship, the painting. Then the wave drops and you don’t.</p><p>And then you do.</p><p>It's a cunning painting strategy. He's honed it throughout his career. Every painting is now both a chapter heading and the completed chapter telling its tale. The colors amazing, realistic and not, all at once. These paintings, these vessels, travel the ocean of his mind. They sail not with certainty, not without possibility of shipwreck, not with a show of prowess for mock heroic sake.</p><p>They sail out under cover of a thousand secret nights, with a patina of darkness joined with the dawning light. Such subtly of tone; a shape, a shiver, a fall, a dive. He’s a painter on his watch, a dowser listening to creativity’s call. Spinning in his cups, cups of past, of present, of future, too, melded, abandoning all aesthetic achievement of lessons learned. Diving, falling, twisting in the subconscious, looking for the new in the old accretions, the revelatory.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/07/Frost4.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Garry Nichols Art" loading="lazy"/></figure><p>Mr. Nichols. Your paintings outstrip this writing. They are based in their soul, their inquiry. Before writing you mark a history drawn out of your blood, seeped in the place of your birth. Long though you’ve trod the lanes of dear old Manhattan, written in the DNA of your painting hand are your ancient, native memories combined with that which you inhabit.</p><p>In the studio here in Greenpoint, when the door closes and the brushes come out, you tune back into the epic only you can account. This is the space, this liminal drift, this magical domain of mystery and memory. A kind of kaleidoscopic sucking-in and drawing down to the psychic depths. When a visitor enters, they are cast into the midst<br>of an Abundance, an Exasperation, the Untouchable, a whirling glimpse of the Unmentionable.</br></p><p>And although we're in Brooklyn, once land of the Dodgers, early home of Henry Miller, Walt Whitman editing the Brooklyn Eagle and a mass of modern artist’s studios, board one of Garry’s paintings, slip your culture’s shackles, open that Pandora’s box. The ticket’s destination changes as you travel.</p><p>Number 99 Commercial Street, Greenpoint Studio, Brooklyn, New York. Take your life belt with you. Your condoms and your pills for the morning after.</p><p>There's always a ship, waiting to sail out of there. On the Flying Dutchman they’re looking for mariners too. Hold on me hearties, there’s a Garry Nichols’ trip a-coming to you.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Driving While Under the Influence (of lies)]]></title><description><![CDATA[She told me she had
tried to write fifteen
poems based on the
theme Love is just a Liar
But after number eleven
she drove her car off
the road and through
a fence of barbed-wire]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/driving-while-under-the-influence-of-lies/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852303c</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[audio]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:05:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1470162015499-2b9772941cde?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1470162015499-2b9772941cde?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Driving While Under the Influence (of lies)"/><p>She told me she had<br>tried to write fifteen<br>poems based on the<br>theme Love is just a Liar</br></br></br></p><p>But after number eleven<br>she drove her car off<br>the road and through<br>a fence of barbed-wire</br></br></br></p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="100%" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F662666573&show_artwork=true&secret_token=s-4BZHA"/></figure>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Waiting for Midnight]]></title><description><![CDATA[My grandson says Ouma, you’re just like Cinderella
as I feed carrots and kale to five rabbits in the backyard
Seeds to the squirrels and twenty-some species of birds
Walnuts and dry cat food for the crows
I believe he expects me to entice them all
into my art studio to design a gown for the evening
We don’t talk anymore about the mouse my cat caught
when he learned life isn’t always a fairy tale
He knows by now I don’t believe in cages
and that there should be only one zoo in every country
What]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/waiting-for-midnight/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523046</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ellaraine Lockie]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:04:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Glass-shoe.jpeg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/Glass-shoe.jpeg" alt="Waiting for Midnight"/><p>My grandson says Ouma, you’re just like Cinderella<br>as I feed carrots and kale to five rabbits in the backyard<br>Seeds to the squirrels and twenty-some species of birds<br>Walnuts and dry cat food for the crows<br>I believe he expects me to entice them all<br>into my art studio to design a gown for the evening</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>We don’t talk anymore about the mouse my cat caught<br>when he learned life isn’t always a fairy tale<br>He knows by now I don’t believe in cages<br>and that there should be only one zoo in every country<br>What he doesn’t know is how insignificant<br>that glass slipper is</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>How searching for it can rust the years from their hinges<br>Open doors into rooms that breathe Marlboro<br>smoke, whiskey and musk oil<br>Ghost of the male deer donor hanging from a rafter<br>Men with oiled skin that lusters like a yellow canary diamond<br>who smell the scent of longing and hunt it down</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Catch and release until they’re bored with the wounds<br>and slam the door in your face<br>Yet you open another before scabs form<br>Until finally you’re bled dry and forced to heal<br>You learn to meditate in your backyard<br>To watch a banana blossom unfold</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>I tell none of this to my grandson<br>He’ll have to discover for himself<br>the difference between authentic and synthetic<br>How the latter is only snake oil<br>That a fence around a place isn’t always a cage<br>but protection from the other side<br>And that even a castle has a wall or moat</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Out of the Ashes]]></title><description><![CDATA[Chapter 16: Diagnosis F31.73
“Sallie, you have bipolar disorder,” *Dr. Lane stated.
Bi-po-lar dis-or-der, bi-po-lar dis-or-der stomped across my mind. I bit my lip. I measured the syllables: three in each word. Rigidity seized my body. My pupils were pinned down. My spine was a steel rod. Someone could slam it with a sledgehammer, and I wouldn’t crack. Everything went numb. But I felt my other self. I saw her. Though Dr. Lane could not see her, I could. This had happened before: “Trauma,” t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/out-of-the-ashes-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852304d</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sallie Crotty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:03:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/outOfAshes2.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2 id="chapter-16-diagnosis-f31-73">Chapter 16: Diagnosis F31.73</h2><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/outOfAshes2.jpg" alt="Out of the Ashes"/><p/><p>“Sallie, you have bipolar disorder,” *Dr. Lane stated.</p><p><em>Bi-po-lar dis-or-der, bi-po-lar dis-or-der</em> stomped across my mind. I bit my lip. I measured the syllables: three in each word. Rigidity seized my body. My pupils were pinned down. My spine was a steel rod. Someone could slam it with a sledgehammer, and I wouldn’t crack. Everything went numb. But I felt my other self. I saw her. Though Dr. Lane could not see her, I could. This had happened before: “Trauma,” the nurse had said back at the Dallas hospital. “She’s dissociating.”</p><p>Someone had just assaulted me with a staple gun: <em>Rat-a-tat-tat…Rat-a-tat-tat…Rat-a-tat-tat</em>. <em>Stop hurting me!</em> sliced through me, and my face burned. I folded over, grabbed my shins, clawed my fingernails into them, and jerked my knees up. The heels of my brown flats dug into the sofa cushion. I needed to protect my face. <em>Cover it, Sallie, cover it. Goddamn it, cover it! Was my brain falling apart? Was my life falling apart?</em> I whipped my arms across the top of my skull and bore down. I heard my back pop. I stared into my abdomen, an expanding and contracting cavern of growling nausea. Of defeat. I had lost.</p><p>“Sallie, Sallie, can you hear me?” She had wheeled her chair closer to me. She wasn’t touching me, but she was leaning into my space. <em>Trying to connect with me?</em></p><p><em>Pinch yourself, Sallie, grip yourself</em>, I thought. Echoes of the social worker at the hospital soothing me with those “grounding words” returned. However, I was a frozen statue. I could not cry. My tongue was sandpaper reaching back to my collapsed vocal chords.</p><p><em>What the fuck are you telling me? </em>I tried to scream<em>.</em> But I couldn’t. So I slapped my legs down, feet on the floor, and then I was pulling my hair. Saliva seeped from my mouth as I gnawed at tips of my jagged hair. <em>When was the last time it had been cut?</em> Sweat drizzled down my back, and I stroked my lower back. I watched her, chest rising and dropping, slow measures of her breaths. She had moved back, closer to her desk, and I focused on her face. Her eyes had widened, gentle depths of sapphire experience. She sat still. Her arms were folded in her lap. There was enough space to cradle a baby had someone passed one off to her. She had delivered this news before.</p><p>“Will I die from this disease?” I asked. I stared out the small window behind her. The grey afternoon starkly contrasted the fluorescent office lights. My eyes scanned above her desk—framed diplomas and another print. She waited, and I continued to watch her breathing patterns. I wanted to count her inhales and exhales, but I couldn’t. <em>One, two, then four, no three, give it up, Sallie, give it up,</em> I thought. She looked at my file in her lap and shook her head. Then I fired off more questions: “Will I get this sick again? Will my children inherit this disease?” She reassured me I would probably never get as sick again.</p><p>“I think you’re brave, Sallie. You told me your story of what happened on March 30. You came here.” I nodded. I thought of Mark and John and all the other people back home who had helped get me here. My right shoe had slipped off, and I leaned over to slide it over my foot. My shoes had grown a bit looser. <em>Maybe it was the weight I had lost in the last month?</em></p><p>“I need to know if my children will get this.” I grabbed a Kleenex on the side table and dabbed at my eyes. My nose was running, and I sniffled. My sight was blurred as my contact lens clouded up. I wanted to peel them off my eyes, but I knew I would lose almost complete focus on her if I did.</p><p>“Sallie, we don’t know for sure. You’re a great mom, and I know you’ll watch your kids. However, it does have a genetic link. Based on what you’ve told us about your dad, he may have had it. It often coexists with addiction.”</p><p>“It does?” I asked.</p><p>“Yes,” she said. “You’ve told us your father was an alcoholic. The patient anesthetizes his feelings with alcohol, drugs, other addictive substances and behaviors.” I thought about my father. He always arrived home from work at 6:00 p.m. sharp. Then he would retreat to my parents’ bedroom upstairs to smoke a few Winstons, drink a couple of Coors, or maybe even mix a hard drink, usually bourbon and Coke, in our breakfast room to bring upstairs. Sometimes the hard liquor was reserved for the weekend, but occasionally he seemed desperate to escape the pressures of running a bank and raising four children.</p><p>During my middle school years, he also contended with my mother beginning to blaze her path toward becoming one of the first Episcopal female priests in Texas. Every now and then, she was absent from our family life. He was left to manage it all. Daddy couldn’t express his feelings well. Usually, we knew how he felt based on the number of drinks he downed and the words he might slur because of them.</p><p>“Shit, I’m not ready to come down for dinner!” he would shout at my mother from the top of the stairs. Or, “Baby, I love you, and I’m proud of you for working so hard at your school work. I know that place isn’t easy,” he would say to me. His blood-shot eyes disturbed me. The scarlet lines scrawled across the whites of his eyes seemed to have a life of their own. I wondered if narratives from that day or his past were carved in them. I frequently averted my eyes if looking at my father when he was tipsy or completely plastered. His skin also emitted the putridness of cigarette smoke and alcohol gone sour. Often, I wondered if my father would decay right before my eyes. I loathed him in this altered state.</p><p>Dr. Lane must have known I was ruminating on part of my past. <em>How could she not?</em> She had just told me I had bipolar disorder. <em>Wouldn’t I wonder how I might have gotten it? </em>She didn’t rush me through my efforts to process the news. Instead, she said something that startled me, “You know, Sallie, many doctors have bipolar.” I wasn’t sure why this news disarmed me, but it did. I couldn’t look her in the eye; instead, I wiped my eyes and tried to control my spinning thoughts.</p><p><em>Sallie, put on your laser look</em>, I thought. <em>Stare at her and return to the conversation</em>. I rubbed my eyes gently; the tears had lubricated my dry contact lens, and I could see her better. I zeroed in on the lower part of her face. Connecting to her eyes seemed too intimate, too vulnerable at this moment. Her mouth was only slightly open, a soft roundness that had the appearance of a child preparing to blow bubbles. But then, I took a risk and stared at her eyes. They had widened, enough to reflect a reassuring look, and this gentleness slowed my mind’s whirling. “Really?” I asked, in complete disbelief. I was surprised the rigors of practicing medicine could permit such chaos to spin through one’s life.</p><p>“Yes, Sallie. It’s okay. You’re getting treated for this disease in multiple ways. You will feel better. And, you will be functioning at a much higher level.” For the first time in her office, I smiled. “Functioning at a much higher level” propelled me into better self-control and a touch of peace. I did not know if she herself suffered from the disease, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was how she had calmed me, how she had risked part of herself. I believed she wanted me anchored in strength and hope. And I believed she wanted to educate me: mental illness does not have to carry the stigma so many assign to it.</p><p>“Is there anything else today, Dr. Lane?” I asked. I had inched to the edge of the sofa, stretched one leg out to step up, and leaned over. I felt empty-handed, like maybe I should have had a small notebook to take notes. I didn’t quite know what to do with my hands. I repeatedly curled my fingers into fists. My knuckles had a bleached, raw appearance. My veins protruded like pale blue haphazard flowing rivers. I wrung out my hands, like a woman who’s been washing dishes and hasn’t yet grabbed the dish towel. Because I felt awkward clutching nothing, I decided to cross my hands in my lap.</p><p>“No, Sallie. We’re done for today. I appreciate your honesty. I’ll be seeing you again at the end of the week,” she answered. I thanked her, walked to her door, opened it, and crossed into the quiet, still hallway. After closing the door, I exhaled and began to wander back to my bedroom. The fluorescent lights over me seemed extra intense. I massaged my eyes again and felt myself wobble a bit. The air seemed thick, as though I were moving through an alternate atmosphere. <em>Was I off-center?</em> I wondered. I held onto the wall’s wooden rails until I reached the common room, only a few yards from Dr. Lane’s office. One patient was reading the newspaper; another was near a phone booth seemingly waiting on a call.</p><p>I noticed how someone had scattered puzzle pieces off a table onto the floor. They were a 1,000 piece tangled mess of blues, oranges, fragments of mountains, and parts of a village nestled in their valley. I walked around them, as though dodging shards of glass. <em>Goddamn it!</em> I thought. I had an idea who the person was, and I knew the others would be just as enraged. We had been working on it for a long time as we shared various parts of our life stories with each other. The person whom I believed had flung it across the table had an obsession with things looking just right, every angle arranged to perfection.</p><p>My roommate wasn’t in the room. She might have been at an appointment, in class, or in the kitchen getting a snack. I was so relieved. I slipped each shoe off and reclined across my twin bed. I cherished the bedspread. Soft and thick, in a shade of pine green, it contrasted the more institutional-like thin, white one at the hospital. I rolled on my right side and fumbled through my side table drawer for the portable CD player I had brought to Menninger. Mark had written or called every day, and when he had time, he would send me a small care package. A couple of days earlier, he had mailed a CD he had burned for me. “Calling You” by Blue October was on it. I played it incessantly, and the words would occasionally wrap themselves around me when I felt sadness or homesickness creeping in.</p><p>I replayed the song a few times. I didn’t know if he would call today. It was Wednesday which meant he would be especially busy driving our children to their after-school activities. Friends and family were helping Mark, but I knew he cherished driving them to and from school each day. Since he was balancing all our family life, he looked forward to the conversations they could have in the car, ones uninterrupted by phone calls and email. He continued to move through our nightly routine of putting them each to bed. He had not let up in the nine days I had been here, and I worried about him. When we did speak, his voice often sounded strained, even as he told me he loved and missed me. “Calling You” was a perfect song for bridging the distance between us. Blue October’s vocalist had a robust voice. It carried the strength that our own always couldn’t. I remembered when he had asked, “Did you get the CD?” I had smiled and whispered, “Yes, I love you. Thank you.”</p><p>Since I had entered Menninger, teachers in Dallas had organized a schedule of dinners to be delivered. I surmised his greatest challenge was helping our children understand why I was away from them. A Dallas doctor had told me to explain to them, “Mommy is sick. My body is fine, but my mind is not.” I had never thought of a mind being sick, except when I read newspaper headlines that announced, “The perpetrator’s mind was sick. He was crazy. That’s why he stabbed the victim.”</p><p>I did tell them. But because of their young ages, ten and seven, I couldn’t really comprehend if they understood. Our daughter had become clingy. When we went somewhere together, she latched onto my waist or legs and insisted I stay with her, even as she wandered to the ice cream freezer at the grocery store to choose her favorite flavor. Our son had unusual crying spells, frequently at bedtime, and he became obsessed with wanting a dog. No matter how much I comforted each of them, I felt they sensed their mother had abandoned them. Once our son had proclaimed, “Mommy, you won’t let me get a dog because I am a bad boy!” I had wrapped him in a tight hug and folded my face into his neck, crying. When I let him go, I saw where my tears had dampened the back of his pajama top.</p><p>My absence from my children devastated me the most. Mark had to fill that absence for both of us. I felt grateful for the love their teachers and my family and friends were offering them. I had finally given Mark permission to shed the secrecy of my illness. Keeping up a front was bringing us all down. People responded to our crisis, and help arrived. Although I struggled with failing my family, I no longer could witness their deterioration.</p><p>In my Menninger room that afternoon, I sat up, numb, on the side of my bed and stared out the one window in the room. I had the sensation of disembodiment from myself, so I decided to speak Dr. Lane’s words: “You have bipolar disorder, Sallie.” They reverberated through my mind. <em>Bipolar disorder…bipolar disorder.</em> Again, I sobbed. My chest heaved, tighter with each repetition, as I gasped in my new reality.</p><hr><p><em>*</em>Name of clinician has been changed for privacy.</p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Her Babies (8-25-51)]]></title><description><![CDATA[She miscarried
under the lights
over Lubbock
and she never
tried again
She said those
were all her
babies now Those
lights that flew
over Lubbock the
night she miscarried]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/her-babies-8-25-51/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852303d</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[audio]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:02:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1415025148099-17fe74102b28?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1415025148099-17fe74102b28?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Her Babies (8-25-51)"/><p>She miscarried<br>under the lights<br>over Lubbock<br>and she never<br>tried again<br>She said those<br>were all her<br>babies now Those<br>lights that flew<br>over Lubbock the<br>night she miscarried</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="100%" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F662607119&show_artwork=true&secret_token=s-nv2pp"/></figure>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Feather Stone]]></title><description><![CDATA[feather stone
lay in a flint rock garden
an undiscovered find
picked up and placed
just like so many others that day
in my pockets
piled high on the kitchen table
once again
examined for silver and gold
my only find that day
among flint stone lime
a blue feather stone
I blinked just once
to find my blue bird’s eye
sitting on its feather stone]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-feather-stone/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523047</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:01:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/IMG_0185.JPG" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/IMG_0185.JPG" alt="A Feather Stone"/><p>feather stone<br>lay in a flint rock garden<br>an undiscovered find</br></br></p><p>picked up and placed<br>just like so many others that day<br>in my pockets</br></br></p><p>piled high on the kitchen table<br>once again<br>examined for silver and gold</br></br></p><p>my only find that day<br>among flint stone lime<br>a blue feather stone</br></br></p><p>I blinked just once<br>to find my blue bird’s eye<br>sitting on its feather stone</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Posthumously, To Keith Haring]]></title><description><![CDATA[I almost stepped on the outline of a dog,
drawn with yellow paint the width of a small brush,
on the concrete slab gracing the entrance to
the 6th Street subway.
Why a dog, you might ask? Companionship, maybe,
unconditional love, perhaps, or man’s best friend.
When your friends are dying, dogs matter
more than ever. But not just dogs.
The outline of a genderless human, red paint,
arms raised in a V above the figure’s head
exclaiming freedom from context and detail and, simply,
innards, painted a]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/posthumously-to-keith-haring-by-carra-leah-hood/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852302c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carra Leah Hood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:00:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/1600px-Times_Square_NYC_subway_011.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/07/1600px-Times_Square_NYC_subway_011.jpg" alt="Posthumously, To Keith Haring"/><p>I almost stepped on the outline of a dog,<br>drawn with yellow paint the width of a small brush,<br>on the concrete slab gracing the entrance to<br>the 6th Street subway.<br>Why a dog, you might ask? Companionship, maybe,<br>unconditional love, perhaps, or man’s best friend.<br>When your friends are dying, dogs matter<br>more than ever. But not just dogs.<br>The outline of a genderless human, red paint,<br>arms raised in a V above the figure’s head<br>exclaiming freedom from context and detail and, simply,<br>innards, painted at eye level right on<br>the mosaic tile wall at the 42nd Street station.<br>You might want to, but you couldn’t avoid it.<br>An outlined figure was everywhere, underfoot, in front,<br>up ahead, behind, and to the side.<br>Every morning, I saw a new dog or human, outlined<br>in a different primary color, red green yellow, or black.<br>I dreaded seeing figures outlined black, nothing<br>inside, nothing outside, only a thick black border<br>and so like the drawings in a child’s coloring book.<br>I brought chalk with me one morning to color inside<br>the lines, but never did. To deface<br>the defaced seemed an abomination.<br>No one knew he was sick, then, the early 80s.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Poems and Petals]]></title><description><![CDATA[I placed several of the petals
between the pages of
Favorite Love Poems of All Time
To get the pressing affect
I stacked on it Rosen’s
Scientific Explorations: The
World Through a Microscope
One-thousand and eighty pages
Then for more weight I added
Michaelson’s Worlds of Our
Greatest Composers
Eight-hundred and seventy pages
Weight enough I would say
Now I wait seven days
then release the science
and the music to get to
what’s left – the
poems and the petals]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/poems-and-petals/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ff8</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:48:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529521251356-ca145f9cd4d0?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1529521251356-ca145f9cd4d0?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Poems and Petals"/><p>I placed several of the petals<br>between the pages of<br>Favorite Love Poems of All Time</br></br></p><p>To get the pressing affect<br>I stacked on it Rosen’s<br>Scientific Explorations: The<br>World Through a Microscope<br>One-thousand and eighty pages</br></br></br></br></p><p>Then for more weight I added<br>Michaelson’s Worlds of Our<br>Greatest Composers<br>Eight-hundred and seventy pages<br>Weight enough I would say</br></br></br></br></p><p>Now I wait seven days<br>then release the science<br>and the music to get to<br>what’s left – the<br>poems and the petals</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Gull Chaos]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/gull-chaos/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852301d</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Pappenfus]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:48:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/Gull_chaos-1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/Gull_chaos-1.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Gull Chaos" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/Gull_chaos-1.jpg" alt="Gull Chaos"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/Gull_chaos-1.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[In Praise of Men in Uniforms]]></title><description><![CDATA[Thing I and Thing II were coming for a visit, which required preparations: meds relocated, furniture turned into blockades, glass tabletop corners cushioned, and an alarm set on balcony doors so a ding, ding, ding signals when orders are ignored not to pet Coco (a squirrel who begs for food). And, carseats must be installed.
This last task seemed simple enough, but I watched my son-in-law perform this function one day and concluded that for me it would be a physical, mental, and mechanical chal]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/in-praise-of-men-in-uniforms/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523011</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nikki Hanna]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:47:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/firetruck-1789560_1280.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/firetruck-1789560_1280.jpg" alt="In Praise of Men in Uniforms"/><p>Thing I and Thing II were coming for a visit, which required preparations: meds relocated, furniture turned into blockades, glass tabletop corners cushioned, and an alarm set on balcony doors so a ding, ding, ding signals when orders are ignored not to pet Coco (a squirrel who begs for food). And, carseats must be installed.</p><p>This last task seemed simple enough, but I watched my son-in-law perform this function one day and concluded that for me it would be a physical, mental, and mechanical challenge equivalent to overhauling a motor. But, as Grandma GoGo, a woman determined to assure the safety of precious, pug-nosed, pudgy-legged little criminals, I embraced my I am woman watch me roar mentality and prepared for the task. This meant eating all the bacon I wanted and mustering the courage and determination to, by god, install carseats.</p><p>I dug them out of the tornado shelter stuffed so full that if I had to get in there, something would have to come out. No sentence enhancers were used in the process in spite of a level of frustration equal to parallel parking.</p><p>Intimidating belts and hooks dangled from the seats, suggesting the prospect of extreme mechanical details. Instruction manuals did nothing to mitigate the situation. It soon became clear no amount of bacon would equip GoGo for the challenge of installing carseats. So off I went to Fire Station 4.</p><p>Under the impression from a news report that firemen would check out carseat installations as a civic duty, I pulled up in front of Station 4. Men in uniforms—dark navy t-shirts with gold emblems and matching pants—crawled like ants over a red firetruck, polishing and pampering. Bruce Springsteen blasted from some source, and the energy of the young, fit men was palpable. As I approached, several of them looked at me curiously. They must have wondered what this old lady was up to. A young hunk asked, “Can we help you?”</p><p>I put on my best and well-practiced begging and pleading routine. “I’m old, please help me. My grandchildren are arriving at the airport today and I have a dilemma. I’m picking them up, and I can’t get these damn car seats installed. I’ve been told you fellows check out car seat installations. Clearly I have failed. Can you help me?”</p><p>“I’m sorry, ma’am. We only do that on certain days and at another station.”</p><p>I looked pathetic. Desperate. Downtrodden. “Oh my, what shall I do? They’re arriving in a few hours.”</p><p>An attractive young man dropped from the top of the firetruck and approached, “I’ve got kids. I’m a carseat aficionado. Let’s take a look.”</p><p>In a matter of seconds, four gorgeous, uniformed man-butts protruded from the car doors of my car as they wrestled carseats into secure, proper positions and secured them so tightly they would not budge a millimeter under any circumstances. “That should do it, ma’am.”</p><p>“Indeed.”</p><p>I wanted to hug all of them, or perhaps ravage them, but I exercised extreme self-discipline, thanked them profusely, and went on my way. As I pulled out of the driveway, the vision in the rear view mirror of Tulsa’s finest mounting the firetruck to resume their duties grabbed my attention at which time I concluded I had been blessed with a near-sex experience extraordinaire.</p><p>After Thing I and Thing II left a week later, I realized the car seats were so solidly installed there was no way I could de-install them. Oh darn. Off I went to Fire Station 4.</p><hr><p>This experience was so profound that I decided to write a poem about it:</p><p>A Man In Uniform</p><p>Oh, hi.</p><hr><p>From Near Sex Experiences––A woman in crescendo, aging with bravado by Nikki Hanna<br>available on Amazon and at www.nikkihanna.com</br></p></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hardwood]]></title><description><![CDATA[Trying to sneak past Mama’s room the floor creaks,
first time since those boards went down a hundred years ago
hand-planed from ash, eight solid inches wide. Something
went awry this year. Frost shifted foundations; rime so thick
windows furred, iron ground so adamant when they dug
Joe Mooney’s grave icy earth broke the backhoe’s teeth.
His coffin’s in the cowshed waiting for a thaw.
Joe’s bloodhound, Peggy howled for a week
till Mike Sweetwater couldn’t take it anymore,
turned his twelve-gaug]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/hardwood/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ff1</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Christine Irving]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:47:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1546727483-398533902b75?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1546727483-398533902b75?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Hardwood"/><p>Trying to sneak past Mama’s room the floor creaks,<br>first time since those boards went down a hundred years ago<br>hand-planed from ash, eight solid inches wide. Something<br>went awry this year. Frost shifted foundations; rime so thick<br>windows furred, iron ground so adamant when they dug<br>Joe Mooney’s grave icy earth broke the backhoe’s teeth.<br>His coffin’s in the cowshed waiting for a thaw.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Joe’s bloodhound, Peggy howled for a week<br>till Mike Sweetwater couldn’t take it anymore,<br>turned his twelve-gauge on her. I howled.</br></br></p><p>Peggy saved my life once, pulling, pulling<br>on the sleeve of my red Christmas sweater<br>when quicksand caught me playing hooky<br>down in Mare Hollow where the creek makes an S<br>and water spreads shallow, brown and clear<br>across the sand detritus of a thousand flash floods.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>They put her in the barn with Joe,<br>laid along his body like a lover,<br>rhinestone collar sparkling<br>beside his hoarfrost beard.</br></br></br></p><p>Mama’s cat ears hear the floorboards squeak. There’s no<br>denying double-socks, three wool scarves and ear muffs.<br>“It’s some damn boyfriend again, ain’t it?” she asks<br>and I lie, “Yes, Mama.” Poor Mama, she knows exactly<br>how much I want out that door.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Joe saved me from the creek that day. Heard Peggy<br>barking, dragged me out, wrapped me in old camouflage to dry.<br>The stick-fire burned bright. We drank hot coffee<br>brewed in an old tin can. I pulled my bare knees close, watched him<br>spread my jeans and old red sweater on sticks beside the fire pit,<br>upwind to keep the smell of smoke from giving me away.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Joe knew how to keep a secret. Knew secrets hold you hostage. <br>He wanted no part of bondage, real or imagined.<br>Maybe that’s why he told me, to balance the scale.<br>Or maybe he felt me floundering still, quicksand sucking<br>and threw the story like a lifeline.</br></br></br></br></p><p><em>It was a gray day like today, colder than a witch’s tit,</em><br><em>teeth in it sharp enough to snap your dick off.</em><br>He talked like that, didn’t care who heard him.<br>Mama forbade me from a toddler ever to go near that man.</br></br></br></p><p><em>The war was winding down to solitary firefights.</em><br><em>We overran a villa—pillars, porches, grape vines, booby traps.</em></br></p><p>He’d gone to take a dump he said and there she was,<br>lying across the compost heap, icy diamonds at her neck.<br>He didn’t think, just fumbled with the clasp, hands clumsy,<br>incapable, even in that moment, of tearing it away.</br></br></br></p><p><em>Her eyes were blue, like yours, still open,</em><br><em>no time to close em or even whisper thanks.</em><br><em>My nest egg,</em> he said, nodding to Peggy.<br>Her twinkling collar caught the firelight.</br></br></br></p><p>Mama’s eyes swell shut with crying, her arm’s<br>about to fall off from beating me so hard. There she goes,<br>slippers dragging on the stair, now she’s turning the corner.<br>I slide across the hardwood floor, inching toward the door.</br></br></br></p><p><em>Close your eyes, Mama. You can sleep now.</em><br><em>Sleep of the dead – like Joe, like Peggy</em><br><em>but not like me Mama, not like me.</em><br><em>I’m going for that collar.</em></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Three Fables]]></title><description><![CDATA[33
Teacher Goose told Piglet: “Please,
write on the board your 33’s!”
Piglet went, but stood stock still.
“Ready then? Write what you will.”
Piglet stood there feeling his worst,
“I just don’t know which 3 goes first!”
The Plane
In a plane in the clouds so high,
some read; some sleep –at least they try.
A pup is playing with a ball;
it hits a piglet, pink and small.
So the pig says, “It’s a long ride.
Stretch your legs and play outside!”
Parachute
This little Piggy went to the store
t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/three-fables/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852300a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ferit Lamaj]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:46:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541689221361-ad95003448dc?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2 id="33">33</h2><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541689221361-ad95003448dc?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Three Fables"/><p>Teacher Goose told Piglet: “Please,<br>write on the board your 33’s!”</br></p><p>Piglet went, but stood stock still.<br>“Ready then? Write what you will.”</br></p><p>Piglet stood there feeling his worst,<br>“I just don’t know which 3 goes first!”</br></p><hr><h2 id="the-plane">The Plane</h2><p>In a plane in the clouds so high,<br>some read; some sleep –at least they try.</br></p><p>A pup is playing with a ball;<br>it hits a piglet, pink and small.</br></p><p>So the pig says, “It’s a long ride.<br>Stretch your legs and play outside!”</br></p><hr><h2 id="parachute">Parachute</h2><p>This little Piggy went to the store<br>to buy a parachute and nothing more.</br></p><p>The Stork clerk said, full of pride,<br>“This will give you a wonderful ride.<br>Like all our goods, it’s guaranteed.<br>We stand behind our product, indeed!</br></br></br></p><p>If it doesn’t work as it is tasked,<br>we will exchange it, no questions asked.”</br></p></hr></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Prometheus]]></title><description><![CDATA[Do you think you
invented rage
the need to Facebook.
to blog,
to tweet
to keep up?
Every day
chained to a fire,
every night
a new cyber liver
to grow.
Previously published by Right Hand Pointing.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/prometheus-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ffb</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:46:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/Prometheus.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/Prometheus.jpg" alt="Prometheus"/><p>Do you think you<br>invented rage<br>the need to Facebook.<br>to blog,<br>to tweet<br>to keep up?<br>Every day<br>chained to a fire,<br>every night<br>a new cyber liver<br>to grow.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><em>Previously published by Right Hand Pointing.</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Family Dollar Reverie]]></title><description><![CDATA[was walking down 3rd street after
another 13 hr. Med. Center shift to pick
up an energy drink so I’d finally wake
early enough to do a twentyish mile run
in prep for an overnight fifty-mile race,
and looking out at this july mid-sized middle
American city in all its beauty and in all its
horrors and watching many of its people
(perhaps even myself) flourish.
“Oh, Emily…Come back.”
then, the sudden twist in thought stepping up
the curb to that battered Family Dollar walkway,
the languor in seei]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-family-dollar-reverie/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ffc</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:45:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/640px-Family_Dollar-_Alachua.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/640px-Family_Dollar-_Alachua.jpg" alt="The Family Dollar Reverie"/><p>was walking down 3rd street after<br>another 13 hr. Med. Center shift to pick<br>up an energy drink so I’d finally wake<br>early enough to do a twentyish mile run<br>in prep for an overnight fifty-mile race,<br>and looking out at this july mid-sized middle<br>American city in all its beauty and in all its<br>horrors and watching many of its people<br>(perhaps even myself) flourish.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>“Oh, Emily…Come back.”</p><p>then, the sudden twist in thought stepping up<br>the curb to that battered Family Dollar walkway,<br>the languor in seeing there’s only so many ways<br>silence<br>can speak back to you and I’m certain<br>I’ve exhausted all of them. And yet:</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>“Just…Come back into my life.”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Baseball Story]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Mom, why didn’t you marry Uncle Wayne?” I asked after one of my daddy’s especially nasty temper explosions.
“Because he only takes a bath once a week,” she answered.
That’s a dumb reason, I thought. I loved my Uncle Wayne as much as anyone could love another person. His mean wife divorced him and would never let him see his own three children. So when there was a special event at his work or he just missed his kids, Uncle Wayne would call our house because there were six kids in our family]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-baseball-story/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ff2</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Julie Peterson Freeman]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:45:01 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516731415730-0c607149933a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516731415730-0c607149933a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="A Baseball Story"/><p>“Mom, why didn’t you marry Uncle Wayne?” I asked after one of my daddy’s especially nasty temper explosions.</p><p>“Because he only takes a bath once a week,” she answered.</p><p>That’s a dumb reason, I thought. I loved my Uncle Wayne as much as anyone could love another person. His mean wife divorced him and would never let him see his own three children. So when there was a special event at his work or he just missed his kids, Uncle Wayne would call our house because there were six kids in our family. One day he called to see if one of us wanted to go with him to his company picnic.</p><p>“Does anyone want to go with Uncle Wayne…,” shouted my mom holding our heavy black telephone.</p><p>“I do, I do,” I volunteered, jumping up and running to the entryway. I didn’t care where we were going; I just wanted to be with Uncle Wayne. My Uncle Wayne laughed uproariously at the slightest funny thing. You never had to worry he’d get mad and you always knew the day would be filled with joy. Together, Uncle Wayne and I were ageless.</p><p>Uncle Wayne lived in the Tanglewood section of Minneapolis in an adorable little white house on a curved street called Rustic Lodge. You always knew when you were getting close to Uncle Wayne’s house because he blasted the Twins’ games on his T.V. so loud you could hear it in Milwaukee. He did the same thing when he watched his polka dancing shows. My Uncle Wayne was known to tear up the floor on polka night at Mayslacks in NE Minneapolis.</p><p>I was at his house when he was being interviewed about his time in the Navy while stationed in the Pacific during WWII. The interviewer said there weren’t a lot of WWII veterans left anymore. Uncle Wayne told the interviewer about when his ship was docked in a Chinese port and a local man came up to the ship holding up his infant daughter to the soldiers. He wanted to trade her for a pack of cigarettes.</p><p>That Christmas I visited my Uncle Wayne like I did every year. We were watching an old rerun of the Andy Williams Christmas Special. Andy, wearing his signature white crew neck sweater and white stretchy pants sang “O Holy Night” standing on an old bridge surrounded by trees that glimmered with blue icicles. Outside Uncle Wayne’s window, the Minneapolis snow began to fall just as the street lights came on. I felt eight again - my Uncle Wayne a young man. It was the last time I saw him.</p><p>Uncle Wayne’s son called to ask if I’d speak at his father’s funeral.</p><p>“Are you out of your damn mind, Greg?!” I answered.</p><p>“He loved you more than he loved me,” said my cousin.</p><p>“Well, duh, Greg,” I responded. (My cousin Greg is a bit self involved.)</p><p>“Come on, cuz’. You’re the only one who can do it.”</p><p>“Okay,” I responded. “I’ll do it for Uncle Wayne.”</p><p>At St. Peder’s Lutheran Church on 46th and E. 42nd, I walked up the aisle past the pews that were completely full, up the stairs to the pulpit and stood in front of the microphone looking out over the nave and wondering how I’d got there.</p><p>“My Uncle Wayne loved the Twins so we’re going around the bases today,” I began. I talked of his beginnings and big innings growing up in small town Minnesota and Wisconsin. Safe on second, I spoke of Uncle Wayne’s service in the Pacific during WWII and his marriage upon returning as well as the birth of his three children, two of whom were sitting in the front row. His youngest died of an aneurysm in his twenties. I told the many people who came to the funeral about when Uncle Wayne called our house to borrow a child and how I never cared where we were going, I just wanted to be with him. I told them about his voracious polka dancing at Mayslacks and his uproarious laugh.</p><p>As we rounded third, I spoke of the last time I saw my Uncle Wayne - how we watched the Andy Williams Christmas Special at the same ear splitting volume he watched the Twins’ baseball games. And then I began to cry. I gained my composure and said, “You know, I was going to sing “Moon River” in remembrance of that last night we were together, but…” I began to cry again.</p><p>One young man from a middle pew began to sing, “Moon River, wider than a mile,” and a few more joined in, “I’m crossing you in style some day.” Soon the entire congregation was singing, “Oh dream maker, you heart breaker.” I joined in, “Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way.” Then I was singing alone, “ Two drifters off to see the world; there’s such a lot of world to see. We’re after the same rainbow’s end,” but I couldn’t finish. I simply said, “Uncle Wayne was my Huckleberry friend. But he’s gone home.”</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/JulieFreemanPhotoBaseballArticle-2.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="A Baseball Story" loading="lazy"/></figure>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Safe Word]]></title><description><![CDATA[Every couple needs a safe word
only to be used to say Stop!
Because things have become too intense
or too painful potential or otherwise
Our safe word agreed upon
by us both was Love!
I suppose she was tough or
strong or able to take it all
Because in all of our times together
she never once said the word Love!]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-safe-word/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ff4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:44:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1530098403657-0d93d64d087d?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1530098403657-0d93d64d087d?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Safe Word"/><p>Every couple needs a safe word<br>only to be used to say Stop!<br>Because things have become too intense<br>or too painful potential or otherwise</br></br></br></p><p>Our safe word agreed upon<br>by us both was Love!<br>I suppose she was tough or<br>strong or able to take it all</br></br></br></p><p>Because in all of our times together<br>she never once said the word Love!</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Petals from a Little Rose]]></title><description><![CDATA[An old busy corner, a rainy dim night.
The two standing by a broken street light.
Would you buy one? She held a red rose.
A mom and her child, a cute little pose.
A tiny thin urchin, a rose in her hair.
She stared straight at me, brown eyes with a flair.
I purchased a rose and drove on my way.
I could not resist for I remembered the day.
I married my Rose, a rose every day.
A rose for her pillow, then one for her grave.
I drove back to see that funny sad stare.
To catch some red petals she pla]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/petals-from-a-little-rose/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523001</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:43:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518785168061-9a07f85c87bd?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518785168061-9a07f85c87bd?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Petals from a Little Rose"/><p>An old busy corner, a rainy dim night.<br>The two standing by a broken street light.<br>Would you buy one? She held a red rose.<br>A mom and her child, a cute little pose.<br>A tiny thin urchin, a rose in her hair.<br>She stared straight at me, brown eyes with a flair.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p><br>I purchased a rose and drove on my way.<br>I could not resist for I remembered the day.<br>I married my Rose, a rose every day.<br>A rose for her pillow, then one for her grave.<br>I drove back to see that funny sad stare.<br>To catch some red petals she placed in her hair.<br>I looked in the night and drove on and on.<br>A drizzly street bare, my ragamuffin gone.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lips I Would Kiss]]></title><description><![CDATA[When I go for a slow walk
up and down Geary Avenue
I screen all the women like
an amateur casting director.
Most are too tall and thin
or too short and sadly obese.
Nearly all faces are not pretty,
a downward cast to their mouths.
Unfortunately, most bodies I see
are aesthetically well below par.
I rarely see a face as delicate
as Claire Bloom or Liv Ulmann
with lips I would want to kiss.
Humphrey Bogart might wait
a long time before I found him
another perfect Lauren Bacall.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lips-i-would-kiss/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523006</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Milton Ehrlich]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:43:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1472358267633-af8d33a107ab?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1472358267633-af8d33a107ab?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Lips I Would Kiss"/><p>When I go for a slow walk<br>up and down Geary Avenue<br>I screen all the women like<br>an amateur casting director.<br>Most are too tall and thin<br>or too short and sadly obese.<br>Nearly all faces are not pretty,<br>a downward cast to their mouths.<br>Unfortunately, most bodies I see<br>are aesthetically well below par.<br>I rarely see a face as delicate<br>as Claire Bloom or Liv Ulmann<br>with lips I would want to kiss.<br>Humphrey Bogart might wait<br>a long time before I found him<br>another perfect Lauren Bacall.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Master of His Realm]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/cock-succor/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523022</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jay Vrecenak]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:42:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/JVrecenak1-IMG_0013.JPG" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/JVrecenak1-IMG_0013.JPG" class="kg-image" alt="Master of His Realm" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/JVrecenak1-IMG_0013.JPG" alt="Master of His Realm"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/JVrecenak1-IMG_0013.JPG?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a> </p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Allison's Poetics]]></title><description><![CDATA[(A Slant Terza Rima Acrostic)
Ah, that poem of your mother
(Living on in elegy) which
Leapt the page, unsure whether
It’d snare me with highs of such
Sensimillan breathlessness
Or its poet’s airy touch
Not doled out to curse or bless
Loss and madness, starry, wound
Our arcs launched on idols’ duress:
Richard Brautigan’s wry mind
Rotted (though not dulled one iota)
An unknown month; bad winds did
In Dante. And I, in Vita
Nuova boyhood, knew no
Epicist worth your time. But a
Heavenly voyager]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/allisons-poetics/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ffd</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:41:24 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1539278311020-fe8d86254350?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1539278311020-fe8d86254350?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Allison's Poetics"/><p>(A Slant Terza Rima Acrostic)</p><p><strong>A</strong>h, that poem of your mother <br>(<strong>L</strong>iving on in elegy) which<br><strong>L</strong>eapt the page, unsure whether</br></br></p><p><strong>I</strong>t’d snare me with highs of such<br><strong>S</strong>ensimillan breathlessness<br><strong>O</strong>r its poet’s airy touch</br></br></p><p><strong>N</strong>ot doled out to curse or bless<br><strong>L</strong>oss and madness, starry, wound<br><strong>O</strong>ur arcs launched on idols’ duress:</br></br></p><p><strong>R</strong>ichard Brautigan’s wry mind<br><strong>R</strong>otted (though not dulled one iota)<br><strong>A</strong>n unknown month; bad winds did</br></br></p><p><strong>I</strong>n Dante. And I, in Vita<br><strong>N</strong>uova boyhood, knew no<br><strong>E</strong>picist worth your time. But a</br></br></p><p><strong>H</strong>eavenly voyager like you,<br><strong>A</strong>t it without a Virgil<br><strong>R</strong>unning you amok, could go</br></br></p><p><strong>P</strong>laces with pause and sound still<br><strong>E</strong>lysian to even The Greats,<br><strong>R</strong>ebuking our recondite hells.</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Four Haikus]]></title><description><![CDATA[105
Adventure he yells
Lets take the boat to the lake
Two coats and a hat
250
Wasps swoop
Vacuum sucks
Short life
273
Go away Kanye
No one cares what you think
Just make ugly shoes
286
Now we’re celebrating
Confederate traitors
Something isn’t right]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/four-haikus/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852300f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacqueline Woven]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:40:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501058720281-d3fdc241e59c?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501058720281-d3fdc241e59c?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Four Haikus"/><p>105</p><p>Adventure he yells<br>Lets take the boat to the lake<br>Two coats and a hat</br></br></p><p>250</p><p>Wasps swoop<br>Vacuum sucks<br>Short life</br></br></p><p>273</p><p>Go away Kanye<br>No one cares what you think<br>Just make ugly shoes</br></br></p><p>286</p><p>Now we’re celebrating<br>Confederate traitors<br>Something isn’t right</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Salinger is Dead]]></title><description><![CDATA[(and the manned space program is ailing)
1965 high-school English class
We’ve all read Holden
and Mockingbird and
Lord of the Flies
Men were in space
and we were racing
to the moon
But in the 2010 world
Salinger dies at 91
having not published
anything since 1965 and the
Constellation program planned
to replace the Space Shuttle
is cancelled
All our dreams
all our dreams
all our youthful dreams
once defined now destined
to come to fruition, never]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/salinger-is-dead/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ff7</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:40:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507405423760-32445c333b52?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507405423760-32445c333b52?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Salinger is Dead"/><p>(and the manned space program is ailing)</p><p>1965 high-school English class<br>We’ve all read Holden<br>and Mockingbird and<br>Lord of the Flies<br>Men were in space<br>and we were racing<br>to the moon</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But in the 2010 world<br>Salinger dies at 91<br>having not published<br>anything since 1965 and the<br>Constellation program planned<br>to replace the Space Shuttle<br>is cancelled</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>All our dreams<br>all our dreams<br>all our youthful dreams<br>once defined now destined<br>to come to fruition, never</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Twenty-Fifth Hour]]></title><description><![CDATA[The great clock in the foyer struck eight. “Time for bed,” Dad said.
Freddie didn’t like getting ready for bed. He always felt he was being excluded, that he was missing out on something exciting. His parents’ saying, “We love you and want you to get enough sleep so you can play and learn and run around,” just didn’t seem enough. Still, being a good boy and living in such a loving family, he gave in and did as he was told each night.
Once he was ready, with his jammies on and teeth brushed, he’]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-twenty-fifth-hour/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523002</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kenneth Weene]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:36:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1447015237013-0e80b2786ddc?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1447015237013-0e80b2786ddc?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Twenty-Fifth Hour"/><p>The great clock in the foyer struck eight. “Time for bed,” Dad said.<br>Freddie didn’t like getting ready for bed. He always felt he was being excluded, that he was missing out on something exciting. His parents’ saying, “We love you and want you to get enough sleep so you can play and learn and run around,” just didn’t seem enough. Still, being a good boy and living in such a loving family, he gave in and did as he was told each night.</br></p><p>Once he was ready, with his jammies on and teeth brushed, he’d call down to his parents, and one of them would come upstairs to listen to his prayers, give him his vitamins, and tuck him in. Many nights they’d tell him a story. The one he liked the best was when Mom told him how they had found him.</p><p>Freddie knew he was adopted. His first parents—that was how Mom and Dad talked about them—had been killed in the forest. It must have been somebody terrible who killed them. They had been shot through the heart and their heads cut off. “It was terribly bloody,” Mom would tell him. Freddie would shudder with feelings he couldn’t understand and reach out for her reassuring hand.</p><p>“Somehow, luckily, so very happily for your father and me they didn’t hurt you. When the police were searching the area for clues, there you were—not even crying, lying wrapped in your blanket and looking like an angel, just like a cherub. Everybody just loved you—the sweetest little thing—especially us. Daddy and I couldn’t have children and we wanted…and there you were. I just wanted to take you home right then.”<br>She would stop long enough to give him a kiss and then continue, “Because nobody knew your parents—they must have been traveling through the forest, perhaps to visit your grandparents and to show you off—there was nobody who claimed you, nobody to say this is our little nephew or grandchild or even cousin. So, the sheriff asked if there was any family who wanted such a beautiful little boy.”</br></p><p>“Did anyone want me?” Freddie would ask already knowing the answer.</p><p>“Of course, everyone wanted you. You were so, so sweet; so beautiful. It was like you were made of magic. Everybody wanted you, but your father and I were the lucky ones. There was a drawing. Every family put their name into a large hat. Then the minister picked one name. It was ours! Wasn’t that a piece of luck?!” Then she would smile and reach over and tickle his belly and give him a big goodnight kiss.</p><p>Freddie didn’t like it after his kiss and after the lights were turned out. What he really didn’t like were the bars. Before his mother or father left the room, they would close metal bars over his window and then, as they were actually leaving the room, they would close another set, even heavier, across the doorway.</p><p>“Just in case,” they explained.</p><p>“In case?” he asked in his squeaky child’s voice.</p><p>“In case those bad men come looking for you. We wouldn’t want them to hurt our little boy.”</p><p>Still???</p><p>As Freddie got older, the bedtime ritual changed. He was too old to have them listen to his prayers, too old to have them tell him a story, and even too old to kiss goodnight. He insisted they call him Fred and asked serious questions they could not answer about those first parents, the ones he had never really known.</p><p>Even though his Mom and Dad were loving and liberal, they did still insist on a strict bedtime: When the clock struck half-past ten. And, they still insisted on that nightly vitamin pill, and on those bars. As any young adolescent would, he hated all three. <em>Tonight, I’m not going to stay in my room.</em></p><p>Fred had laid his plan. He made a dummy and slipped it under his bed so he could quickly put it into his place.</p><p>“Boy, I’m tired,” he announced half an hour before his required bedtime. He stretched and yawned. “It must be from that workout in gym.” He had told them the story over dinner, complaining about the teacher who had made them do so many exercises. It hadn’t been true. During gym, they played an easygoing game of softball.</p><p>“Of course, dear,” his mother said. “You’re sure you’re not sick or anything.”</p><p>“Nope, just tired. I wish Mr. Loftus would take it easier on us.”</p><p>Fred’s father clucked in that fatherly way that said, “You can take it; you’re a man” without using words.</p><p>“Goodnight, Dad.”</p><p>“Night.”</p><p>“Night, Mom.”</p><p>“Goodnight, Dear. Don’t forget your vitamins.”</p><p>“I won’t,” he assured her.</p><p>Fred had no intention of taking that pill. Somehow, he didn’t quite believe it was a vitamin. In health class Mrs. Jones told them to take vitamins in the morning “because they might jazz you up a bit.” <em>I wonder what they really are.</em></p><p>Fred had become a normal teenager; he didn’t completely trust his parents. Arranging the dummy in his bed so it would look like he was well under the covers – so far that his parents would not be able to see his head or face without disturbing him, Fred tiptoed out of the bedroom and hid in the attic crawlspace where they stored seldom used things like suitcases and Christmas decorations.</p><p>He heard his parents come upstairs. He heard them whisper as they looked in on what they thought was their son. He heard the thunk of the bars being drawn across his window and the clank of the other set that guarded his door. They went into their own bedroom; he could hear them getting ready for bed. <em>Do they take vitamins, too?</em></p><p>He could hear his Dad gargling. The sound of the liquid bubbling in his father’s throat strangely amused Fred. Lights were out. The only sound was that grand mahogany clock that stood in the foyer. It struck eleven. Quietly, Fred dropped from the crawl space and onto the hallway floor.<br>It seemed strange to be roaming the darkened house. He enjoyed the sense of secrecy and the feeling that he was cloaked in darkness.</br></p><p>Time crept forward. He could hear the great pendulum’s tick-tick-tock. The half hour chimed. It was twelve. Twelve bongs resonated through the night. Then silence—more silent than had ever been. Not even the tick-tock-tick of the pendulum.</p><p>Strange, the clock’s stopped.</p><p>So it had. He checked the other clocks in the house. They, too, had stopped. Even the clock on the stove had stopped. It was still illuminated, the electricity was on, but the minutes didn’t change. It was as if time itself had stopped.</p><p>Something compelled him to look into his parents’ bedroom. It appeared that they were sleeping, but the rhythm of their breathing had ceased. Their clocks, too, had stilled.</p><p>As quietly as a shadow, Fred glided to the bedside. He bent as if to kiss his mother.</p><p><em>I do love you.</em></p><p>His heart recoiled at the moment’s impulse, at the sudden awareness of his need. There had been a change in his body, in his physical being. He couldn’t resist. Instead of a filial kiss, he sank his fangs into her neck and drank.</p><p>The clock struck. It again rang midnight. An hour had passed and yet had not. He burped with a delicious satisfaction as he looked at the exsanguinated bodies of his parents.</p><p><em>They must have known.</em> Fred laughed as he realized who he truly was.</p><p>By the next night, Fred was many miles away and waiting hungrily for the hour when he could assuage that new, growing need. He knew they would come after him. Now, he understood why they had hunted his birth parents. Yes, they would hunt him, too.</p><p><em>They’ll kill me, but that’s better than being caged.</em></p><p>He could hear the thunk and clang in his mind. It filled him with dread.</p><p><em>Soon time will stop; that will be my hour. The twenty-fifth hour of the day. The hour my fangs appear.</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Autumn Seabed]]></title><description><![CDATA[When in the boyhood of twenty I foresaw a seven-
week saunter to and beyond an apotheotic St. Louisan
as masterwork of byplay in both enthralling
that callipygian figment into fifth base and how
to pace-and-think the peace-of-mind salvation of all
future metaphysicians - or mankind - or one collegial sadsack,
I now look back upon it all as the proper sanity-martyrdom
and Hinckleyan desolation it was and always will have been.
But no more.
You win. I love you, and you solely. I'm more than wil]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-autumn-seabed/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fff</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:35:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/AutumSea.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/AutumSea.jpg" alt="The Autumn Seabed"/><p>When in the boyhood of twenty I foresaw a seven-<br>week saunter to and beyond an apotheotic St. Louisan<br>as masterwork of byplay in both enthralling<br>that callipygian figment into fifth base and how<br>to pace-and-think the peace-of-mind salvation of all<br>future metaphysicians - or mankind - or one collegial sadsack,<br>I now look back upon it all as the proper sanity-martyrdom<br>and Hinckleyan desolation it was and always will have been.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>But no more.</p><p>You win. I love you, and you solely. I'm more than willing<br>to give the ten-year spectral gal of our unity a life's remainder<br>worth of silence and at last for my own sake rather than hers,</br></br></p><p>For sake of withering gaps in crests upon an isthmus,<br>this quay-smirry autumn sea slipping<br>quenching sibilance some single day behind<br>and nearer to our sky's cindering firmament of loving --<br>loving without need of glorifying the flaws and the flawless,<br>without need of seduction's narratory merit,<br>without need of checkered or at once sated desires,<br>without need of medieval cavalier deeds.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The simple, sure love<br>which anchors to the<br>gulf of heavens and<br>pillars from waves unto<br>the autumn seabed.</br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[LA]]></title><description><![CDATA[Slowly streaming towards LA
Encapsulated in a steel corpuscle
Breathing conditioned air
Outside, thousands of tires
Hum a tune with no meaning
In an artery of whatever LA is
Creeping through brown air and disorder
Pushed along by unfulfilled dreams
To a place where belief in the impossible
Lends hope to the improbable.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/la/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523016</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:35:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1477823986828-5aff156284aa?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1477823986828-5aff156284aa?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="LA"/><p>Slowly streaming towards LA<br>Encapsulated in a steel corpuscle<br>Breathing conditioned air<br>Outside, thousands of tires<br>Hum a tune with no meaning<br>In an artery of whatever LA is<br>Creeping through brown air and disorder<br>Pushed along by unfulfilled dreams<br>To a place where belief in the impossible<br>Lends hope to the improbable.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Miracle of God]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/humm/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852301b</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Pappenfus]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:32:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/A-Miracle-of-God.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/A-Miracle-of-God.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="A Miracle of God" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/A-Miracle-of-God.jpg" alt="A Miracle of God"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/A-Miracle-of-God.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Cold Sky]]></title><description><![CDATA[When I heard them high and faint
I looked up
As the first twenty emerged
From a wispy pocket of cloud.
We had been walking below the cold sky,
A lumpy blanket of watercolor clouds,
That hung over the valley
In layered shades of gray.
Walking for some time,
Reciting to myself Mary Oliver’s poem,
“Wild Geese”.
It had worked before,
Summoning the travelers
To reveal themselves.
The twenty became a hundred, then two hundred.
The numbers grew as they slipped out
Of the sheets of clouds,
Calling a]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-cold-sky/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852301f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:32:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542626832-c9534168a436?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542626832-c9534168a436?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Cold Sky"/><p>When I heard them high and faint<br>I looked up<br>As the first twenty emerged<br>From a wispy pocket of cloud.</br></br></br></p><p>We had been walking below the cold sky,<br>A lumpy blanket of watercolor clouds,<br>That hung over the valley<br>In layered shades of gray.</br></br></br></p><p>Walking for some time,<br>Reciting to myself Mary Oliver’s poem,<br>“Wild Geese”.</br></br></p><p>It had worked before,<br>Summoning the travelers<br>To reveal themselves.<br>The twenty became a hundred, then two hundred.</br></br></br></p><p>The numbers grew as they slipped out<br>Of the sheets of clouds,<br>Calling and shifting from one formation<br>To another, some straggling into long lines.</br></br></br></p><p>I ran across the field to keep them in sight<br>As they circled south looking for water.<br>They would soon be lost to me<br>Behind the hill.</br></br></br></p><p>The black dog was thrilled<br>With this unexpected new game.<br>I was laughing, her ears were flapping<br>As we ran.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Birds' Day]]></title><description><![CDATA[Under my small red umbrella,
Slapped with sea spray
And a stinging rain,
I have wandered
Into their morning.
The birds don't want me.
Misty days are theirs to gather.
Dig in seaweed, watch the wind.
I have broken rules.
So go softly over the sand.
Around their swelling flocks.
Gently over their fork prints.
I have come to see
What the storm embeds:
Half a wooden boat hatch,
Plastic bottles, a tennis ball,
To search the sands again
For an amethyst lost in Hawaii.
Tomorrow the sun will be out.
Jo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/birds-day/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523027</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:31:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514830902516-48e20ae0ced9?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514830902516-48e20ae0ced9?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Birds' Day"/><p>Under my small red umbrella,<br>Slapped with sea spray<br>And a stinging rain,<br>I have wandered<br>Into their morning.<br>The birds don't want me.<br>Misty days are theirs to gather.<br>Dig in seaweed, watch the wind.<br>I have broken rules.<br>So go softly over the sand.<br>Around their swelling flocks.<br>Gently over their fork prints.<br>I have come to see<br>What the storm embeds:<br>Half a wooden boat hatch,<br>Plastic bottles, a tennis ball,<br>To search the sands again<br>For an amethyst lost in Hawaii.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Tomorrow the sun will be out.<br>Joggers will pound the shells down,<br>Babies will walk with their mothers,<br>But no need to search tomorrow.<br>Magic only comes when birds<br>Walk backward into the rain.</br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Waiting for the Parade]]></title><description><![CDATA[Maw has her good pearls on so she’s happy — for now — kicking back in her folding chair, glass of Gallo perched high, carried like a royal scepter. She’s the queen of this Mardi Gras parade and no mistaken. No young hands or feet better get in the way of her doubloons.
There’s a break between parades and the neutral ground buzzes with children tossing a caught Frisbee, launching plastic footballs and parents serving up Popeye’s chicken, biscuits and gravy, red beans and rice. A father listens t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/waiting-for-the-parade/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ff0</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chere Dastugue Coen]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:19:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/Chere-Coen---for-article-3.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/Chere-Coen---for-article-3.jpg" alt="Waiting for the Parade"/><p>Maw has her good pearls on so she’s happy — for now — kicking back in her folding chair, glass of Gallo perched high, carried like a royal scepter. She’s the queen of this Mardi Gras parade and no mistaken. No young hands or feet better get in the way of her doubloons.</p><p>There’s a break between parades and the neutral ground buzzes with children tossing a caught Frisbee, launching plastic footballs and parents serving up Popeye’s chicken, biscuits and gravy, red beans and rice. A father listens to LSU beat Florida on his transition radio and soon, like mules smelling the barn, other men come trotting over.</p><p>Suddenly, blasts from a utility truck can be heard in the distance. Our blood races. We stop our fun and gaze down St. Charles Avenue, hoping for a sign. Parents pull kids together, lecturing them on the dangers of getting too close, college students finish off their beers and all eyes turn uptown.</p><p>The utility trucks pass first and we cover our ears from the noise. “Why do they have to be so loud?” Maw Maw says, as she does every year, which makes us laugh and roll our eyes.</p><p>Next come the police cars looking official and throwing one bead per block, so we promptly ignore them, then the pot-bellied Shriners stuffed into tiny cars throwing candy all of us grab but none of us want to eat. Maw Maw downs her wine when she spies the royalty float. She stands, poised for action. Everyone gives her space because no matter how satisfied she is with her pearls, gleaned from last year’s Iris parade, she will fight to catch much more.</p><p>“Y’all don’t get under my feet,” she warns us. She points to the young kids to her right, two confident boys primed for action. “That goes for you all too.” The boys stare back in a combination of defiance and respect.</p><p>I smell the earthy richness of the towering live oak trees and a distant barbecue, catch a whiff of my street neighbor’s beer as he saunters by and belches. Everyone’s yelling now as the float draws near. Not far behind a marching band performs a pop song. I vaguely catch the float’s name, am even less interested in the parade’s theme. All my attention focuses on catching my bounty.</p><p>Maw Maw, I notice as I glance to the side, is already in possession of a long strand of pearls.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tucking In (Claudia/Aisha)]]></title><description><![CDATA[Tucking in the
sweet sweet toddler
she almost stretches
to reach above but
her body seems to
change its mind
Bedtime story read but there
are stories we never read
at night or even believe
For some girls less than
a decade older living
thousands of miles away
the dream is of escape or
just maybe a swap-deal
How can we open
presents or go trick
or treating or back
to school shopping
when we know they are
still kidnapping
girls in Africa]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/tucking-in-claudia-aisha/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ff5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:18:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/maxresdefault.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/maxresdefault.jpg" alt="Tucking In (Claudia/Aisha)"/><p>Tucking in the<br>sweet sweet toddler<br>she almost stretches<br>to reach above but<br>her body seems to<br>change its mind</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Bedtime story read but there<br>are stories we never read<br>at night or even believe</br></br></p><p>For some girls less than<br>a decade older living<br>thousands of miles away<br>the dream is of escape or<br>just maybe a swap-deal</br></br></br></br></p><p>How can we open<br>presents or go trick<br>or treating or back<br>to school shopping</br></br></br></p><p>when we know they are<br>still kidnapping<br>girls in Africa</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Feeling a Little Hoarse]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/feeling-a-little-hoarse/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523023</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jay Vrecenak]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:17:58 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/FeelingALittleHoarse.JPG" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/FeelingALittleHoarse.JPG" class="kg-image" alt="Feeling a Little Hoarse" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/FeelingALittleHoarse.JPG" alt="Feeling a Little Hoarse"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/FeelingALittleHoarse.JPG?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a> </p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Bring You a Beet]]></title><description><![CDATA[It is the planet’s heart
dipped in roses. The first
bite will be hard, your mouth
ruby with effort, but sweet
with secrets like creases
in lips or folded gowns.
Let its juice drip
into your palm.
The color is fierce,
bold as you want to be.
As you expect to live.
Eat it all.
Lick your fingers
if you like.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-bring-you-a-beet/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523029</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:15:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506807803488-8eafc15316c7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506807803488-8eafc15316c7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="I Bring You a Beet"/><p>It is the planet’s heart<br>dipped in roses. The first<br>bite will be hard, your mouth<br>ruby with effort, but sweet<br>with secrets like creases<br>in lips or folded gowns.<br>Let its juice drip<br>into your palm.<br>The color is fierce,<br>bold as you want to be.<br>As you expect to live.<br>Eat it all.<br>Lick your fingers<br>if you like.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[For A., Who Asked for a Flippant Metapoem]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ask for less - for instance, verse
Used in psych wards wadded air-
Tight with gauche meter and (worse)
Uppercase semaphores…or
Maybe ask more of me, my
Noisy neighbor in this craft,
Knowing my best sounds were theft -
Endless grifted syllabi.
Insights, be they yours or mine,
Seem too fresh to trust, divine
Subjects too far down our roads,
Steep as they are. But it bodes
Less daunting, my friend, that when
A line comes to you it's quick,
Unduly so. One would think
God itself lit up your pen
H]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/for-a-who-asked-for-a-flippant-metapoem/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ffe</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurence Foshee]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:15:18 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1455390582262-044cdead277a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1455390582262-044cdead277a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="For A., Who Asked for a Flippant Metapoem"/><p><strong>A</strong>sk for less - for instance, verse<br><strong>U</strong>sed in psych wards wadded air-<br><strong>T</strong>ight with gauche meter and (worse)<br><strong>U</strong>ppercase semaphores…or</br></br></br></p><p><strong>M</strong>aybe ask more of me, my<br><strong>N</strong>oisy neighbor in this craft,<br><strong>K</strong>nowing my best sounds were theft -<br><strong>E</strong>ndless grifted syllabi.</br></br></br></p><p><strong>I</strong>nsights, be they yours or mine,<br><strong>S</strong>eem too fresh to trust, divine<br><strong>S</strong>ubjects too far down our roads,<br><strong>S</strong>teep as they are. But it bodes</br></br></br></p><p><strong>L</strong>ess daunting, my friend, that when<br><strong>A</strong> line comes to you it's quick,<br><strong>U</strong>nduly so. One would think<br><strong>G</strong>od itself lit up your pen</br></br></br></p><p><strong>H</strong>ere between classes or on<br><strong>T</strong>hat westbound train vacation<br><strong>E</strong>agerly reading lovesick<br><strong>R</strong>hythms you've proven will stick.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Boys]]></title><description><![CDATA[BOYS 1
Poor Kids
When Adam and Eve Malady (made in God's
image, perhaps, but with a cosmic irony)
played bauble-in-a-hole on a mattress
without sheets, they begat four new Maladies.
An inauspicious beginning—that mattress, that name.
Honest to God, their name was Malady
(I didn't get the joke until years afterward).
Four new Maladies, each one perfectly
misspelled—Garnat, Topaze, Diamont, Jayde.
Diamont, a boy. Skinny, reeking, mean
Maladies, in the same unwashed clothes every day,
faces, arm]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/boys/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523005</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheryl Loeffler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:14:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1468109320504-a5e48f17cfb7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1468109320504-a5e48f17cfb7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Boys"/><p><strong>BOYS 1</strong></p><p><em>Poor Kids</em></p><p>When Adam and Eve Malady (made in God's<br>image, perhaps, but with a cosmic irony)<br>played bauble-in-a-hole on a mattress<br>without sheets, they begat four new Maladies.<br>An inauspicious beginning—that mattress, that name.<br>Honest to God, their name was Malady<br>(I didn't get the joke until years afterward).</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Four new Maladies, each one perfectly<br>misspelled—Garnat, Topaze, Diamont, Jayde.<br>Diamont, a boy. Skinny, reeking, mean<br>Maladies, in the same unwashed clothes every day,<br>faces, arms, and legs, the skin we could see,<br>grey and streaked with dirt. Garnat leaking<br>tears every time she got an F.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>We didn't like them because they reeked. In spite<br>of God and Sunday School, we didn't have to<br>like them. They were poor. The day our teacher<br>gave her lunch to Diamont—his eyes fierce,<br>shoulders and back defending his day's first food—<br>she took him home. <em>She'll take down his pants and give<br>him a bath! Ha, ha, ha! We doubted he'd ever come clean.</br></em></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>BOYS 2</strong></p><p><em>Saving Face</em></p><p>What every boy wanted then—to be<br>a cowboy or a fireman. Unlikely Larry<br>Leonard became a fireman, more precisely,<br>a paramedic, a word we didn’t know.<br><em>Retard! we taunted, And your sister, too,</em></br></br></br></br></p><p>a female Larry, who could have been his twin.<br>They were easy prey—fragile, ugly<br>kids, baby birds just hatched, blue,<br>translucent, sharp-nosed, thin-lipped, their eyes darting,<br>frightened. What Larry knew was Waiting. He wore</br></br></br></br></p><p>his father’s belt to keep his trousers up,<br>a foot of belt, flapping at his waist.<br>Jimmy Armigero, who came to his two-facedness<br>early—his bright red hair, his freckled, green-<br>eyed charm, the grin that could disarm any</br></br></br></br></p><p>ruler-wielding teacher—the boy who was<br>too small to do his bullying himself,<br>made tormenting Larry Leonard his masterpiece.<br>A union leader even then, he organized<br>a spit brigade, the boys at the back of the bus,</br></br></br></br></p><p>to open the windows and stick out their heads twice<br>a day and rain down spit on Larry. We all<br>grew up. The day of the accident at the plant,<br>the day a rogue crane defaced James Armigero,<br>what Larry knew was How To Stop the Bleeding.</br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>BOYS 3</strong></p><p><em>Prank</em></p><p>And we walk towards it,<br>flames two stories high.</br></p><p>Watchers<br>already sitting</br></p><p>on walls across the street,<br>eggshells</br></p><p>forgetful of<br>their own fragility.</br></p><p>Fire trucks<br>screaming,</br></p><p><em>All the King’s horses<br>and all the King’s men!</br></em></p><p>We watch the watchers,<br>important with</br></p><p>cameras and danger—<br>boys stealing away</br></p><p>as fast as suspicion,<br>their faces ashen.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Serpent Strike]]></title><description><![CDATA[My gloved hand grasps the prickly weeds
Anchored in the garden's rocky Ozark dirt.
Emerging feathered carrot sprouts overrun
with branching stalks of leaves filtering sunlight into shadows
Through shapes of darkness, shifting, moving forms.
At the moment's reach into an angle
Held open by rough hewn timbers
Kneeling down, crouching closer to this cavity,
I pluck another errant stem.
At the center is a sudden strange sting left in grip
Conspired by the beaded slit eyes through the pale rust cop]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/serpent-strike/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523008</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Perenchio]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:14:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1475851624515-90a9a335785d?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1475851624515-90a9a335785d?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Serpent Strike"/><p>My gloved hand grasps the prickly weeds<br>Anchored in the garden's rocky Ozark dirt.<br>Emerging feathered carrot sprouts overrun<br>with branching stalks of leaves filtering sunlight into shadows<br>Through shapes of darkness, shifting, moving forms.</br></br></br></br></p><p>At the moment's reach into an angle<br>Held open by rough hewn timbers<br>Kneeling down, crouching closer to this cavity,<br>I pluck another errant stem.</br></br></br></p><p>At the center is a sudden strange sting left in grip<br>Conspired by the beaded slit eyes through the pale rust copper hit,<br>Flat and wide and still, but for the flickering tongue,<br>Quickly sprung like a dart flick into flesh<br>To pin a burning spike Into a waxen candle tapered at the end,<br>turning darker while it melts.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>The thought of light to move it forward<br>Shotgun blast cracked to echo at the end.</br></p><p>And then spring free in flight through tunnels to heal the pain.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[That Summer of Last Youth]]></title><description><![CDATA[Your brother accidentally drowned
while everyone else was looking away
and then your father took that dive
into the lonely grain elevator and
a few days later you had to go
off to work where you always
came back smelling of mustard and
grease and unanswered questions
Then we took our final drive together
only you had failed to inform me
there would never be another]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/that-summer-of-last-youth/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ff6</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:13:36 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1498898733745-c8c6df58e4ba?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1498898733745-c8c6df58e4ba?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="That Summer of Last Youth"/><p>Your brother accidentally drowned<br>while everyone else was looking away</br></p><p>and then your father took that dive<br>into the lonely grain elevator and</br></p><p>a few days later you had to go<br>off to work where you always</br></p><p>came back smelling of mustard and<br>grease and unanswered questions</br></p><p>Then we took our final drive together<br>only you had failed to inform me</br></p><p>there would never be another</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Country Roads]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/country-roads/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523021</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jay Vrecenak]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:12:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/CountryRoads.JPG" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/CountryRoads.JPG" class="kg-image" alt="Country Roads" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/CountryRoads.JPG" alt="Country Roads"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/CountryRoads.JPG?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a> </p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Red Sky at Dawn]]></title><description><![CDATA[Several things occurred suddenly and simultaneously as the elderly lady quickly regained consciousness. Firstly, she was immediately aware the plane was descending much too steeply and swiftly and early to be arriving at their destination. Secondly, once her mind accepted this fact her bladder decided to release its contents in the sudden terror that gripped her. She had heard of the fight or flight syndrome but never having experienced it prior was taken by surprise when it happened to her. ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/red-sky-at-dawn/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523004</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cheryl King]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:10:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502368591151-2fce9a948c62?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502368591151-2fce9a948c62?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Red Sky at Dawn"/><p>Several things occurred suddenly and simultaneously as the elderly lady quickly regained consciousness. Firstly, she was immediately aware the plane was descending much too steeply and swiftly and early to be arriving at their destination. Secondly, once her mind accepted this fact her bladder decided to release its contents in the sudden terror that gripped her. She had heard of the fight or flight syndrome but never having experienced it prior was taken by surprise when it happened to her. Were it not for the seatbelt holding her securely in the seat surely, she would have borne wings and out-flown the very plane itself! Almost immediately after her bladder released, the third and truly shocking thing was her immediate sense of shame. This was discarded almost as quickly as it occurred to her. Because, truly, who would ever know?</p><p>Perhaps, she reasoned to herself, they were not crashing after all. Oddly there seemed to be no sound whatsoever in the cabin of the plane. Yet her eyes did not fail her. She could clearly see the other passengers and by the expressions on their faces something must be awry. A quick glance at the pale face of the young woman in the seat next to hers was confirmation. She saw her own terror peering back at her from the deep brown depths. To think, she thought, mine are the last eyes to look into hers and hers into mine.</p><p>The sunlight filling the cabin seemed to be oddly out of place as well. A person just didn’t expect to see sunshine…and such bright sunshine…in their final moments. And why was her life not flashing before her eyes? Wasn’t that what was supposed to be happening? Instead, she was filled with a sense of loss for what she would miss. Would tomorrow’s sunrise be tenderly yellow and golden with touches of pink in a robin’s egg blue sky? Or would it be filled with massive thunderheads that would release their bellyful of rain somewhere in the vast distances in the east? She recalled a phrase her grandmother had been fond of saying.</p><p>"Red sky at night, sailors' delight.<br>Red sky at morning, sailors take warning"</br></p><p>Strange to think of her grandmother now. It had been fifty years since she passed. More than half a lifetime ago. Yet the vision of her was as clear in her mind’s eye as if it had been only yesterday.</p><p>Her heart suddenly hurt. Not the hurt of physical pain but of emotional pain…of monumental, irredeemable loss. To never see another sunrise or sunset. To never hear her son’s voice or the dulcet tones of her granddaughter. Ah, now there was a precious and cherished memory to focus on. Her granddaughter was now a young woman, no longer a child, and what a beautiful woman she was developing into. She sang so beautifully, and it was almost an established fact that she would be hugely successful. It was so unfair that she would miss what was surely her crowning achievement.</p><p>This thought was running simultaneously with the oddly separate version of herself that was standing by and coldly, analytically, evaluating what was occurring to and around her. The vast discomfort of her now wet clothing. The ironic thought, Thank God we aren’t landing in water. I surely could not use the seat cushion as a floatation device now! And how could she laugh at a time like this? And yet, a brief chuckle was indeed startled out of her by the immensely funny thought. I must be in shock, that coldly separate analyst thought.</p><p>This allowed her to focus once again on her aching heart and she recalled a show she had once seen about the mysteries of a broken heart and heartache. Doctors had discovered and it was now an accepted fact that in times of intense sorrow the heart truly did become elongated in the chest cavity and as a result it “ached”. Prolonged conditions had even led to death. Perhaps I can die before we reach the site of the accident, the lady thought to herself, surprising herself with another little chuckle.</p><p>She again glanced at the young woman next to her who was now looking at her oddly. And no wonder, she thought. Who laughs while the plane they are riding on is crashing? The smile she gave the young woman was no doubt incongruous but at this moment who cared? The young woman’s eyes opened even wider…and really, who would have thought it possible? Her body language spoke with even greater clarity as she leaned as far from the older woman as space and seating restrictions would allow.</p><p>The older woman turned her eyes away so she could look once again at the visions in her head. No, her life was not flashing before her, but many people were. She had always eschewed much human companionship. Of course, there was her husband and her mind settled gladly on the image of him. Ah, it was their wedding day. He had looked so handsome in his dark suit with the gaily patterned tie. The image of the tie made her fingers itch to reach out and run them lightly under his collar and back under the light fall of his hair that he allowed to grow just over the collar of his shirt yet trimmed neatly enough to not reach beyond to the edge of the folded over collar. That hair in her memory was almost honey in color…not the white it became later.</p><p>She had always hoped to be the one to go first but fate had not been so kind. If there was anything about the current situation that she found pleasure in it was the possibility that perhaps, if what they were raised to believe were true, she may indeed be reunited with him at last. The last eleven years without him had been the longest of her life. He had been such a good man…patient and kind, slow to anger and quick to laugh, with an unlimited capacity for love. He had been her perfect foil. How fast the years they were together had flown! Thirty-six years passing in the mere wink of an eye or, so it had seemed.</p><p>Perhaps as was only fitting the image of her husband was suddenly superseded by an image of her father. So finally, we get to the heart of it all, was her unbidden thought. The one unresolved aspect that had haunted her adult life arose before her and the pain in her heart increased even more. Unbidden and unknown the tears were streaming from her eyes, corneas yellowed from age and clouded with the beginnings of cataracts. The tears made her vision crystal clear. Her father was the young man he had been when she left home. And his image was as unreachable now as it had been in real life.</p><p>There was no warmth in the eyes that were a mirror of her own. No smile touched the perfectly molded mouth. Had she loved him so greatly all these years? Had all this love been stuffed hidden down inside without her knowledge? How could it be possible? How could this pain suddenly be so tremendously great and overwhelming? Of all the things she knew she would miss…her granddaughters assured success, the beautiful sunrises and sunsets, the blinding sparkle of the sun on a newly formed icicle as the first morning light catches it hanging from the eaves of the house on Christmas morning…none of it compared to the tremendous loss she still felt for her father.</p><p>It surprised her now at her advanced age of eighty to discover that the young child she had been still was. Less than thirty years ago she had helped to lay her father to rest. Not that he laid anywhere. His wishes had been to leave no trace…no written homages, no lengthy sermons from some pulpit that he would not have graced while living, no marker for future generations to know that he had ever existed. Suddenly, as the plane hurtled to the hard ground below, she understood and regretted what he had taken from them…as he had always taken…and the fact that she had been a willing participant. She felt a surprising surge of bitterness and anger. All these years…and the years before that…she had been seeking him yet never finding. And she finally understood that even in his death he had managed to deny the only thing she had ever desired…the chance to tell him the innermost workings of her heart and to receive his blessing and love. There was no gravesite to visit or bring flowers. He would have shunned them while living and succeeded in even repudiating them once dead. And now, as it were, she would follow firmly in the path he had laid before her. She felt keenly the rejection she had felt when she was a young child. No, the man she had sought then and the man he became that she never knew, succeeded in eluding her. She had been a willing assistant in the scattering of his ashes. She had done her share with her sister by her side.</p><p>Her analytical double sneered at her. <em>Typical that you should waste your last thoughts on him. You can rest assured his last thoughts were not of you.</em></p><p>But was that strictly true?</p><p>They had been surprised, her sister and herself, to discover hidden among his personal items small mementoes of their own childhood. What had he been thinking when he kept them? And there was no question that it was him that had done the keeping…and not their mother. Several of the items were hidden where even their mother had not known nor expected to find them. Her sister’s cherished mirror that they had long since forgotten but upon finding was as naturally accepted and immediately recognizable as a family portrait. Some of their childhood toys, abandoned in their individual mad flights from the nest.</p><p>Neither her sister nor herself had left home on especially gracious or friendly terms. In fact, it was fair to say, both had dashed away as if the devil were chasing and they were in fear of their lives…which they in fact were. But years allowed the memories to fade…never vanish entirely, sometimes popping up vividly when least expected – or desired…but the frequency lessening with time.</p><p>She had reached a point where she held imaginary conversations with both of her parents. She would tell them about her home, her life, their great-grandchild and the generations in between during her drive to town. In her late forties the thought occurred one day that perhaps they were no more. The time elapsed so great, almost insurmountable, that who was there to even know she existed that would know how to contact her should anything happen? And then it had happened. The phone had rung as she was drifting into sleep one night.</p><p>They had flown to their mother’s side immediately. The reunion as natural as though the decades intervening had not passed but in one single night. She had cried, yes. She understood later that those tears were more for the loss of the years never to be recovered with the woman she recognized in her heart as her mother. No amount of late night talks would ever allow them to fully grasp the nuances of the years apart. For that she mourned. Deeply and painfully and she could not bridge that chasm, did not know where to start. The fact that she loved deeply and intensely was never doubted but her conversations did not come easily. She had never been a phone talker, it felt awkward and unnatural to talk to a device and not to a person. For her, body language and expression were as much a part of the conversation as were the words and tone of voice.</p><p>But she never truly mourned her father. Or so she had thought and staunchly claimed. She recalled a conversation with her closest friend shortly after he passed and she had told her friend she had not cried for him, did not miss him – how could you miss something you didn’t have anyway? Her friend had reassured her, telling her many people did not actually mourn until much later – that one day it would hit her.</p><p>“No.” She had slowly but firmly shaken her head. “No. I will never mourn him.” And she had been true to her word. Or had she been? Now, looking back, she saw and recalled the times of indelible sadness that had consumed her. No apparent cause, just extremely sorrowful.</p><p>Her father had been a stubborn man and she resembled him in many regards. Now she finally understood that she had been grieving him all her life. Not just at the scattering of his ashes but instead to the very day she had walked away. That had been the day he had truly died for her. It had taken almost four decades for the physical fact to occur, but she had been grieving the loss of her father for almost sixty-five years and been in a state of denial the entire time. And simple recognition of this basic fact filled her with sudden joy.</p><p>Her greatest concern had always been whether he had in fact loved her, felt any pride in her. Her many successes had been her path to self-appreciation. With time and success her sense of self-worth had grown and she came to love the person she was. She had strong beliefs and she did not compromise. The very qualities she had admired most in her father. And she understood that if she could love herself, he would have as well. If she could admire the woman she had grown into, if she had found peace and serenity in the world she had established, by the fact of their very similarity he could not have helped but feel as she did.</p><p>In this last moment as the end rushed to meet her this simple fact filled her suddenly with a comforting warmth. She relaxed into her seat, a smile softly settling on her mouth. She felt peace beyond anything she had ever felt in her life before this, her final moment. <em>Yes, she thought, I am prepared to meet my Father.</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Horse Without a Rider]]></title><description><![CDATA[My Uncle Bebe galloped out of Berlad between bullets and flames,
chased by dogs and Cossack whips.
In blood-swollen eyes he flew over the moon of the rugged Carpathian Mountains.
Gypsy music played In soulless mountains, he once called home.
He survived on stolen apples, raw sturgeon and cold mamaliga Unselfishness no longer existed.
When a Chamois mountain antelope spooked his horse,
he was flung to the ground and lay in perfect stillness.
Only his eyes moved.
A loser in the game of fate, ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-horse-without-a-rider/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523007</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Milton Ehrlich]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:10:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495527762107-0b752a0bd05c?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1495527762107-0b752a0bd05c?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="A Horse Without a Rider"/><p>My Uncle Bebe galloped out of Berlad between bullets and flames,<br>chased by dogs and Cossack whips.</br></p><p>In blood-swollen eyes he flew over the moon of the rugged Carpathian Mountains.<br>Gypsy music played In soulless mountains, he once called home.</br></p><p>He survived on stolen apples, raw sturgeon and cold mamaliga Unselfishness no longer existed.</p><p>When a Chamois mountain antelope spooked his horse,<br>he was flung to the ground and lay in perfect stillness.</br></p><p>Only his eyes moved.</p><p>A loser in the game of fate, he couldn’t win with a low score.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mock Wedding]]></title><description><![CDATA[Corporal Jamie Sorenson, fast asleep in his childhood bedroom, finds himself leaping to his feet, and for a half second he’s back in Kurdistan reaching for his weapon. The noise that woke him, an erratic clunk, clunk, clunk, is barely audible above the unending prairie wind.
No dawn yet but the July heat is already moving into the small room under the eaves. Outside the crow tribe is in full voice, loudly celebrating another day of drought.
He pulls on his jeans, boots and tee and careful not ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mock-wedding/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852300b</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joan Baril]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:09:03 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527814750124-cd0a64d22bb9?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1527814750124-cd0a64d22bb9?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Mock Wedding"/><p>Corporal Jamie Sorenson, fast asleep in his childhood bedroom, finds himself leaping to his feet, and for a half second he’s back in Kurdistan reaching for his weapon. The noise that woke him, an erratic clunk, clunk, clunk, is barely audible above the unending prairie wind.</p><p>No dawn yet but the July heat is already moving into the small room under the eaves. Outside the crow tribe is in full voice, loudly celebrating another day of drought.</p><p>He pulls on his jeans, boots and tee and careful not to wake his dad sleeping in the next bedroom, heads down to the back door. Under the yard light, the dust flows on the wind, a dark unending wave. Inside the stable, his horse, Cody, the last animal remaining on the farm, is kicking at the sides of its stall.</p><p>As he soothes the frightened creature, talks to it and calms it, he sees the problem. A dead rat, probably killed by Cody’s hoofs. He takes the shovel and lifts it out. It’s the skinniest rat he’s ever seen. Even in Iraq, the rats are bigger but then, it sometimes rains in Iraq. It hasn’t rained in this corner of Saskatchewan for three years.</p><p>He walks the horse outside into the light to make sure it wasn’t hurt in its frenzy. He smooths the wet flanks, checks the hoofs, rubs the velvet nose. Cody always hated rats. This isn’t the first he’s killed.</p><p>Jamie decides to saddle up and take a dawn ride around the farm. As he moves the animal through the dust, he does not look down at the thousands of rows of wheat plants, all small, stunted and dying. At the flat-line edge of the world, the sun appears slowly, wrapped in gold. Not one cloud accompanies it.</p><p>At the same time as Jamie is easing Cody along the familiar roads of the Sorenson farm, near-by, in the town of Whistle Creek, sixteen-year-old Dot Hexwan stands waiting as her granny unlocks the front door of her coffee house. Dot is carefully holding a pile of flat boxes containing scones, tarts and muffins for the morning coffee crowd.</p><p>Behind them, the perpetual wind tears along King Edward Street, lifting dust, paper cups and assorted garbage along with dry leaves from the dying trees.</p><p>“They say,” her granny says pushing open the heavy door, “if the wind ever stops in Saskatchewan, the people will fall over.”</p><p>It’s an old joke. Neither of them laugh.</p><p>The street lights disappear. Now the only light comes from across the road at the Keefer apartment above the Keefer Drug Store. The family’s having an early breakfast, Dot figures, to get the work underway before the heat. The business is closed and they’re packing up everything to move to Regina next week. Laura Keefer, the school librarian, is leaving with her parents and so the school library is closed until there’s enough money to hire a replacement.</p><p>As they prepare the coffee house for another money-losing day, her granny says, “Are you sure you want to be here, Dot? Is this worth missing school for?”</p><p>“I want to learn how to do it right,” Dot says. “Maybe when I grow up, I’ll need to know. You learned from your mother. But the meaning has changed from the olden times. On the net, I found lots of mock wedding parties. The University of Saskatchewan has them but they’re just concerts with rock bands. In the Dakotas, they have mock wedding anniversaries. Everyone dresses up in silly clothes and makes fun of the anniversary couple. It’s really a roast with all kinds of crazy toasts and stuff like that. Just an excuse for a big booze up, if you ask me. Nothing to do with the weather.”</p><p>“Just remnants of the old culture, squibs that mean nothing,” her granny says, pushing several tables together to make one long table in the middle of the room. “Sort of like Hallowe’en now, all about skeletons and zombies. And Christmas without a mention of the solstice. In a lot of places, the real thing is forgotten but not in the small towns around here. Our memories are long, back to the Great Depression and farther. We don’t talk about it often and never with strangers, mind you, but we old ladies remember very well, at least my generation does. And there always was a lot of booze involved, or so my mother said.”</p><p>“Speaking of old ladies,” Dot says, “here comes your gang.” She holds the door for the two sisters-in law, Sybil and Ardeth Capaluk, who are lugging large dusty cardboard boxes.</p><p>“Put them there.” Granny points to the long table. “We’ll unpack everything, see what survived since 1936 and what needs mending. Set everything out. Then we’ll wait. I’m hoping the Sorenson boy will show up early. He’s my pick. And the Keefer girl, Laura, who’s moving away next week. She’s such a pretty, tiny thing. She’ll be perfect.”</p><p>Dot notices that the corners of the boxes are crumpled with age. The three women set to work, removing blue tissue-paper bundles and spreading out the contents: a white satin skirt, a large blouse with lace cuffs, a long veil with a headdress of artificial poppies still bright red after half a century in the Capaluk attic.</p><p>“Your mom packed this stuff real good,” says her granny, lifting out a large pair of white high-heeled shoes with red cloth poppies pinned on them. And here’s your top hat, Dot. The tail coat has some moth damage but I can darn it up okay.”</p><p>Two hours later, the coffee is perking, the sign on the door says OPEN and Dot spies the Sorenson jeep pulling to the curb. The old farmer and his son, Jamie, get out. The first customers. Inside the three old women wait.</p><p>Jamie sees the clothes at once and understands immediately. “Oh no,” he says. “Not me. Forget it. No way.” He backs toward the door but his father gives him a push forward into the room.</p><p>“Why not?” says Ardeth Capaluk. “What else you doing till your leave is up and you go back to Iran or where ever?”</p><p>“It’s a crazy superstition,” Jamie says.</p><p>“Some say that,” Ardeth replies in the deep firm voice that once made her the feared principal of Willow Creek High School. “Maybe it is. Maybe we’re all just crazy old bats. It’ll give you a grand send-off party anyway. We’ve booked the Legion Saturday night. Dot’s in and we’re asking pretty Laura Keefer. It’ll be her send-off party too.”</p><p>Several regular customers push through the door. They realize at once what’s happening. “About time,” someone says. A loud excited buzz of conversation fills the room as Dot circles the outer tables with the coffee pot and her granny sells scones and muffins at the cash. In the middle of the floor, Jamie and Ardeth Capaluk stand eye to eye, engaged in an intense whispered conversation.</p><p>“Give it up, Jamie,” old Ada Desrosier yells. “It’s a done deal.”</p><p>Jamie glares around and shoves his way out the door. His dad shrugs, sits down, turns over his coffee cup and nods at Dot. Dot thinks she has never seen the coffee shop so peppy. The word has spread. More and more people push in and some circle the centre table to stare at the ancient wrinkled clothes.</p><p>The three women dress Jamie in the back room of the Legion. A couple of his friends are with him, beers in hand, trying not to laugh. He stands there is his tee and shorts as the women circle around.</p><p>“God, this blouse stinks,” he says. “What did you gals do?”</p><p>“We tried our best,” Ardeth Capaluk says. “The material’s too fragile to put in the dryer and we couldn’t hang anything outside in the dust. So we sprayed the clothes with some stuff called Febreze.” She stands on a stool to reach up with the lipstick.</p><p>“God almighty,” Jamie says.</p><p>When the piano sounds “Here Come the Bride,” Jamie teeters down the aisle on his dad’s arm carrying his bouquet of thistles. His veil trails behind him. The red ring of cloth poppies on his head slips over one eye as he moves toward the altar where Dot, in top hat, tails and a clerical collar waits, holding the Old Farmers’ Almanac for a Bible. Tiny, lovely Laura Keefer is there dressed as the groom in a too-big suit of her brother’s. She laughs out loud when she sees him and he feels the ridiculousness of acting out some ancient belief, <strong>the stupid idea that this silly game will end the drought, send down the rain.</strong></p><p>He hears the people in the chairs laughing and cheering and the lewd comments of his buddies. He knows every person in this room and for the first time during his leave, he feels right at home. After all, this is his town. He grew up here and so did his parents and grandparents and so did Laura and the crazy old ladies at the coffee shop and all the sad stone-broke people in the audience who have endured so much heartbreak for three years.</p><p>They are standing now and clapping. “Bravo Jamie boy!” “Throw us a kiss, honey bunch!” He knows the bride is the star of the show. The groom and the minister are merely props. He is not sure how the cross-dressing stuff relates to the old beliefs, the half man, half woman idea that is supposed to change all their destinies. Try as he might he can’t feel any power in this ancient ceremony which arrived with the first settlers from eastern Europe, beliefs so old, that even then, no one knew when they started. But for this one evening, he knows that many of these people believe he, in his ridiculous female get-up, is the lodestar which carries the ancient magic, the ability to bring the rain.</p><p>If, he thinks, I am now a woman, I’ll dammed well be one. Let the old gods, if they exist, help me out, both now and when I get back to Kurdistan. For the first time he smiles. He attempts a curtsy on his tippy heels, sets one hand on a hip as he minces, preens, blows kisses and yells back at the hecklers, gives them the finger, does a little dance, gets tangled in the long veil, gets untangled by his father and finally, grabs Laura around the waist and does a few jive steps, one sock breast falling down to his waist as he swings her around.</p><p>The audience erupts in cheers.</p><p>“Dearly Beloved,” says Dot. She can’t help laughing. The noise in the room covers up her words. “Do you Bride, and you Groom, promise to work together in the good years and bad?”</p><p>Laura reaches out and grabs his hand. Even in her floppy suit, with no lipstick and her hair under a baseball cap, she looks terrific. “Do you accept the tornados, the dust storms, the winter snows and summer heat, the other worlds of plants and animals, and this prairie, more space than place, more sky than land?”</p><p>The audience quiets. Jamie and Laura look at each other. “We sure do,” they chorus.</p><p>“Okay,” says Dot. “By the powers invested in me by all the saints and sinners of Willow Creek and beyond, you two are hitched.”</p><p>Even past the cheers, he hears the sliding panel door of the bar open, the chairs being pushed back, the sounds of the local dance band setting up on the stage. He and Laura hold hands as they accept the many congratulations. He then swings the veil around his waist, shoves one end down the elastic band of his skirt and kicks off the high heels. He’s ready to lead out Laura in the first dance.</p><p>The party finally breaks up about three. He danced with everybody, even the old gals, the town witches as he thinks of them now, the ones who got him into this thing. He dances with Ms. Lawrence, his high school history teacher who tells him about the Alchemical Wedding, the union of opposites to create something new. He dances with some of the guys, slapping their hands away from his one remaining boob. Mostly he dances with Laura. They promise to see each other tomorrow night, keep in touch by email after they both move away. His dad, a one-drink drinker, left hours ago in the jeep. Laura leaves with her brother to walk the half block to the family apartment. He would have loved to kiss her good-bye but, no chance. Too many people around. In the back room, he changes back to jeans and tee and scrubs off the lipstick and black eye stuff. He stays on for a final drink with his old buddies, most of them staggeringly drunk, and waits for one of the designated drivers to take him home.</p><p>No one in the unit will believe this, he thinks as the car bumps along the back roads to the farm. He’ll be leaving next week, a short course on small arms at Base Shilo and then, probably, back with the Kurds.</p><p>The designated driver, Tom Fasina, who owns the school bus business, holds the car door wide so he can get himself out. “Good work, Jamie. You did great,” he says.</p><p>Jamie stands a little unsteadily on the lawn. God what a party. The front door light gives enough illumination to see something fall to the ground. It’s one of the red cloth poppies from that ridiculous veil thing. It must have got stuck in his hair. He picks it up, a good souvenir. The cloth is frayed at the edges and the petals are covered with dark spots. As he stares at it, another dark spot appears.</p><p>Rain.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Unknown Pastor in Bentonville, 2016]]></title><description><![CDATA[He spoke from another table, loud enough so all
Could hear, of years in churches, especially
The Eighties when thousands died of AIDS and
He refused response because “they brought it on
Themselves, didn’t they?” Meanwhile his food
Grew cold, restaurant silent, as if skies might
Right then part and take him off to his reward.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/unknown-pastor-in-bentonville-2016/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852300c</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Fontana]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:04:47 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525610553991-2bede1a236e2?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525610553991-2bede1a236e2?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Unknown Pastor in Bentonville, 2016"/><p>He spoke from another table, loud enough so all<br>Could hear, of years in churches, especially<br>The Eighties when thousands died of AIDS and<br>He refused response because “they brought it on<br>Themselves, didn’t they?” Meanwhile his food<br>Grew cold, restaurant silent, as if skies might<br>Right then part and take him off to his reward.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Gun Control]]></title><description><![CDATA[300 million guns
Which one will he choose?
Semi or full automatic
Regardless, you lose.
Will gun control save you
From his disease?
With a handful of dollars
He can buy what he needs.
What is the answer?
We are unarmed you say
Will we ever be safe?
Or die in his rage.
The Second Amendment
Comes at a cost
It will not change
Until many are lost.
Our right to bear arms
Is an unprincipled freedom
Guns are killing
More than Mr. Lincoln.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/gun-control/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523017</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:04:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518219870542-9cc78377f953?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518219870542-9cc78377f953?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Gun Control"/><p>300 million guns<br>Which one will he choose?<br>Semi or full automatic<br>Regardless, you lose.</br></br></br></p><p>Will gun control save you<br>From his disease?<br>With a handful of dollars<br>He can buy what he needs.</br></br></br></p><p>What is the answer?<br>We are unarmed you say<br>Will we ever be safe?<br>Or die in his rage.</br></br></br></p><p>The Second Amendment<br>Comes at a cost<br>It will not change<br>Until many are lost.</br></br></br></p><p>Our right to bear arms<br>Is an unprincipled freedom<br>Guns are killing<br>More than Mr. Lincoln.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Luck of the Child]]></title><description><![CDATA[Last night, my son set a leprechaun trap,
a cardboard box held up on one side
by a drumstick, the knobby wooden torso
of the stick ready to pull the box over a small
magical creature full of gold. My son says,
if we catch him, we get to make three wishes.
He sets a small red double decker bus under
the box to play with, no cookies or food
because of the dog, adds a plush toy
to rest on, maybe to lure him in.
Before my son falls asleep, he tiptoes in to see
if the trap has been sprung, then to m]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-luck-of-the-child/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523015</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Liza Wolff-Francis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:03:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/leprechaun-3828614_1920-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/leprechaun-3828614_1920-.jpg" alt="The Luck of the Child"/><p>Last night, my son set a leprechaun trap,<br>a cardboard box held up on one side<br>by a drumstick, the knobby wooden torso<br>of the stick ready to pull the box over a small<br>magical creature full of gold. My son says,<br>if we catch him, we get to make three wishes.<br>He sets a small red double decker bus under<br>the box to play with, no cookies or food<br>because of the dog, adds a plush toy<br>to rest on, maybe to lure him in.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Before my son falls asleep, he tiptoes in to see<br>if the trap has been sprung, then to me, to say<br>he was checking, then back to his room, until<br>morning when he will check again or listen for<br>the scratch of a trapped leprechaun.</br></br></br></br></p><p>I want to learn from my son how to set<br>traps for my wishes. I want for the world to be<br>kind to his innocence, for my imagination<br>to remember to bloom.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mastermind of Manhattan]]></title><description><![CDATA[Back in 2013….
It was early March and New Yorkers were slogging through the snowy streets of Manhattan after concluding another day of work. A cold Nor’easter had deposited six inches of snow two days ago that had now turned to slush. As Joey DePew walked in the shadow of the new Freedom Tower he entered the front door of his favorite corner bodega and read the headlines of the New York Post: Bloomberg Loses The Soda Battle, Not The War.
“Hi Joey,” said the Russian owner.
“Hi Viktor. Give me ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mastermind-of-manhattan/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523003</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:02:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513552703192-a48c62df4150?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513552703192-a48c62df4150?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Mastermind of Manhattan"/><p>Back in 2013….</p><p>It was early March and New Yorkers were slogging through the snowy streets of Manhattan after concluding another day of work. A cold Nor’easter had deposited six inches of snow two days ago that had now turned to slush. As Joey DePew walked in the shadow of the new Freedom Tower he entered the front door of his favorite corner bodega and read the headlines of the New York Post: <em>Bloomberg Loses The Soda Battle, Not The War.</em></p><p>“Hi Joey,” said the Russian owner.</p><p>“Hi Viktor. Give me the ham and cheese and a Big Gulp; that is, if the mayor doesn’t mind with his stupid war on big sodas,” said Joey.</p><p>“Let me join you my boy,” said Victor. “Let us toast your mayor, his honor fine, and when we’re through, your mayor too, can stick it where the sun don’t shine.”</p><p>“I love it Viktor. You are now a spot-on truly jaded American,” said Joey. “Here, keep the change.”</p><p>“Spasiba, Joey. Thank you.”</p><p>As he pushed through the Times Square crowd Joey spied a cab.</p><p>“Taxi.”</p><p>“Taxi.” He heard another voice nearby. <br> <br>As he reached the curb another hand touched the car door.</br></br></p><p>“This is my cab,” said the man.<br> <br>“No, I got here first,” said Joey.</br></br></p><p>“You were too slow,” said the man.</p><p>“That’s not what your wife said last night,” said Joey.</p><p>“Ha, ha. Tell you what,” said the man. “Let’s share.”</p><p>“Okay, after you,” said Joey.</p><p>“Trump Hotel,” said the man to the driver.</p><p>“Uh, Wellington Hotel,” said Joey.</p><p>“Are you really going to the Wellington?” asked the man.</p><p>“Uh, well sure,” replied Joey. “At least nearby.”</p><p>“Declan. Declan Carter,” said the man. He held out his hand. Declan was short, balding, puffy cheeked, a longshoreman in a blue suit.<br> <br>“Joey. Joey DePew. Glad to meet you.”</br></br></p><p>“Depewwwww, huh?”</p><p>Joey didn’t like the way he dragged out his name.</p><p>“So what do you do for a living Depewwww?”</p><p>“At the moment, nothing,” said Joey. “I just graduated from Harvard Business School. Seems business graduates are a dime a dozen here. I haven’t found a job yet. What do you do, work in one of the investment firms?”</p><p>“Are you kidding?” said Declan. “I wouldn’t work in one of those money factories for all the tea in China. I’m in real estate. That’s my niche. I came up the hard way, boy―on the streets. I buy low and sell high. Money never sleeps, kid. Remember that, money never sleeps.”</p><p>Declan looked at Joey’s sandwich and Big Gulp. “It looks like you’re ready for a really big night.”</p><p>“Uh, yeah. I decided against beef wellington,” said Joey.</p><p>“Hey, here’s the Trump,” said Declan. “Tell you what kid, here’s my card. Give me a call sometime.”</p><p>Joey looked at his card―Declan Carter, Real Estate Investments-568.3656. Short and to the point, he thought.</p><p>“Are we still going to the Wellington, signore?” asked the cabbie.</p><p>“Yeah, I just live around the corner from the Wellington,” said Joey. “Sei italiano?”</p><p>“Si signore. I come from Italy.” <br> _______________________<br>The next morning as Joey walked down Fifth Avenue he marveled at the throng of businessmen hustling before him. A late bloomer he had come a long way from being the shortest kid in school. One prankster’s joke rang hollow in his ear: <em>Hey, Joey. You oughta sue the city for making your face so close to the street. Ha, ha.</em><br> <br>Joey wasn’t short anymore and as he walked along he was caught up in the sensation of confidence every fresh faced New Yorker feels while bumping into all the successful Wall Street twenty-to-thirty-year olds in their thousand dollar suits and their finely polished black shoes. <br>Five hours later he returned to his apartment and reached for his phone.</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>“Hello, Declan? This is Joey, Joey Depew. We met in the taxi yesterday. Yeah, hey, I got a job as a stock broker today and I need to pick your brain. How about dinner tonight? Jean Georges in the Trump? Okay I’ll meet you at seven.”<br> ___________________________ <br> “You are a pig and a narcissist!” Joey overheard the lady as she marched away from Declan sitting at the corner table.</br></br></p><p>“Who was that?” asked Joey.<br> <br>“Oh, the lady thought we had something going,” said Declan. “Not likely. I’m too busy for the ladies right now. Maybe it’s low T. Sit down. Now…what was I doing before I was so rudely interrupted? Oh yeah, what do you want beer…scotch…wine?”<br> <br>“Gimme a beer,” said Joey. “You’re divorced?”</br></br></br></br></p><p>“Bring me a Manhattan,” Declan told the waiter. “Yeah, we split last year. We have three kids. But, I rarely see them.”</p><p>Joey imagined Declan’s kids, three tiny versions of this little man running around looking like three Russian nesting dolls―the kind Viktor displayed in his bodega shop window.</p><p>“When you lose your kids,” said Declan, “you lose part of your existence. You’ve heard the expression a shell of a man? You’re lookin’ at him, kid. Loneliness is a bitter dish long past spoiled.”</p><p>“Well, you need cheering up,” said Joey. “Let’s drink to my new job.”</p><p>“Great. Let’s celebrate. Bring on the booze,” said Declan.</p><p>After dinner Declan said, “Come with me Joey to the parking garage. I want to show you something.”</p><p>Declan clicked the car trunk open. Inside were boxes of cash―twenties, fifties, hundred dollar bills.</p><p>“Holy crap, there must be thousands of dollars there!” said Joey.</p><p>“Yeah, don’t get any ideas, boy. I’m armed,” said Declan. “I just wanted to show you what you can do in this town.”</p><p>“Why do you keep it in cash? Why don’t you put it in a bank?” asked Joey.</p><p>“To keep it away from the IRS and my ex, of course,” said Declan. “I’m no fool.”</p><p>“I’ve never seen so much money at one time,” said Joey.</p><p>“Get in. I’ll drive you home,” said Declan.</p><p>“No thanks. I’ll…I’ll catch a cab,” said Joey.</p><p>As Joey walked outside to hail a taxi he remembered his favorite line by W.C. Fields―<em>A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.</em> Declan fit the bill.<br> ___________________________</br></p><p>Her name was Shibani―bright, petite, born of Indian immigrants. She worked as a cold caller in Joey’s stock brokerage firm. They had been seeing each other for two weeks. Their favorite after work meeting place was Starbucks at 100 Wall Street. It was Friday, after work.<br> <br>“I met this guy not long after I came to New York. We met in a cab. He’s fascinating. I don’t know whether to be buddies with him or run. He’s kinda scary,” said Joey.<br> <br>“He sounds like a gangster, Joey. Maybe you should stay away from him.”<br> <br>Joey looked out the window. “You know, I want to be like him. But then again, it does sorta bother my conscience.”<br> <br>“That’s cognitive dissonance,” said Shibani.<br> <br>“What is?” asked Joey.<br> <br>“Wanting to be a corrupt and not wanting to be a corrupt both at the same time,” said Shibani.<br> <br>“I know. But, man, is he loaded,” said Joey. “He’s an autodidact with a ruthless slant and I want to know what he knows.” <br> <br>“I don’t know, Joey. Look, you learned critical thinking at Harvard. Use it, and be careful.”<br> ___________________________<br> <br>A week later Joey received a phone call.<br> <br>“Hey, boy. Wanta have lunch?” It was Declan.<br> <br>“Okay. Let’s just go to McDonald’s, the one on Times Square. I can run back to work from there,” said Joey.<br> <br>McDonald’s was busy, but the pair found a table on the second floor landing.<br> <br>“Guess how much money I made today, sport?” asked Declan.<br> <br>“I don’t have a clue,” said Joey.<br> <br>“Here’s what happened,” said Declan. “When I came to town I had about three hundred thousand dollars worth of Walmart stock that my dad had given me. I used most of it for collateral in buying a warehouse on the lower east side. The stock went up yesterday. So I talked the bank into letting me take it out and sell some of it off. I told them I would put back the remainder for the original loan collateral.”<br> <br>“So, what happened?” asked Joey.<br> <br>“I kept it. I kept it all,” said Declan.<br> <br>“Are you crazy?” said Joey. “Dude, they’ll put you in jail.”<br> <br>“I don’t think so,” said Declan. “The suits won’t miss it for a while. The word is audacity, Joey. You have to have audacity. Have you not heard the old adage the less accessible a man is, the more he impacts other people?”<br> <br>“Oh, you have a knack for impact alright,” said Joey.<br> <br>“I know. Sometimes, I can go too far…I suppose. Like, for instance, I’ve got this buddy who I’ve traded properties with for years and we’ve screwed each other over and over, but mostly for chump change. But, last week he got to me. He took me for $100,000 on a hotel trade.” <br> <br>“So what happened?” asked Joey.<br> <br>“We had lunch at Aperitivo’s in Midtown East. Sittin’ in a far corner was a hired gun. If I had scratched my head our long time relationship would have been terminated with extreme prejudice,” said Declan.<br> <br>“You mean kill him? Are you serious?” said Joey.<br> <br>“I never got the itch,” said Declan. “I just never got the itch. So...I guess you win some, you lose some. He’ll get his one of these days. What was that old Japanese proverb―if you sit by the river long enough, you will see the bodies of your enemies float by?”<br> <br>“You mean karma?” asked Joey. <br> <br>“Yeah, karma.”<br> <br>“Declan, you’re a damn threat. Why are you telling me all of this?” <br> <br>“I’ve been thinking about cuttin’ you in man. But, trust comes along with it. Can I trust you Joey?” <br> <br>Declan’s question sounded menacing and Joey didn’t miss the fact that he could return home and confront his tormentors with his new found success.<br> <br>“I don’t know Declan. I’ve never been involved in any kind of tricky stuff. I need to think about it,” said Joey. <br> <br>“Whatever, man,” said Declan. “I gotta go. I have to finish up some work so I can pay back the bank.”<br> _______________________________<br> <br>The next Monday morning started out sunny bright, but windy. March was coming in like the proverbial lion. After three hours of stock telemarketing Joey decided to take a break and walk outside. As he walked by Maria’s Mont Blanc on 48th Street he heard a familiar voice. <br> <br>“Hey, Depewwww. Wait up. What are you doing? Aren’t you working?” asked Declan. <br> <br>“I took a lunch break,” said Joey.<br> <br>“Let’s go in to Maria’s. I’ll buy your lunch.”<br> <br>For some reason Joey had the feeling Declan was stalking him. The waitress was cleaning a table and placing silverware and napkins as they sat down. Declan had chosen one of the few smaller tables at the front of the old conservative restaurant with its brick interior walls, stars painted on the ceiling and uncommonly plain beige floor tiles.<br> <br>“I’ll have the Linguine and Manila Clams with the white wine and garlic,” said Declan.<br> <br>“I guess I’ll have the same,” said Joey.<br> <br>“Want to hear about my two big deals?” asked Declan.<br> <br>“Sure,” said Joey.<br> <br>“Well,” said Declan. “I wrote to a bankruptcy court this morning and claimed that a businessman who went bankrupt recently owed me six hundred and fifty thousand dollars and when they pay off his debts I want to collect.”<br> <br>“Will that really happen?” asked Joey.<br> <br>“Likely not,” said Declan. “But if it does work I should get a large part of the six-fifty large.”<br> <br>“Man, you’re living on the edge,” said Joey. “Are you crazy? I’ve heard some of these Wall Street wheeler dealers are bipolar. You fit the type.” <br> <br>“Here’s the other deal,” said Declan. “You know that money I kept from the bank? Well, I bought a vacant lot with it in a very prime commercial area and I need you to help me with the, uh, client.”<br> <br>“Listen Declan. If I screw up in any way the Securities and Exchange Commission can put me away for good. Do you realize that?”<br> <br>“I understand.”<br> <br>“So…what do I have to do?” asked Joey.<br> <br>“Well, I paid eight hundred thousand for the lot. I have a buyer who will pay a million-one for it. That’s a tidy three hundred thousand profit. But he won’t pay without a million-one appraisal. It’s already been appraised for the eight hundred thousand, so I need you to find an appraiser who will value it at a million-one. The client will use that same appraisal to get a bank loan. If you have to double the appraiser’s fee, so be it. It’ll be worth it.”<br> <br>“Man, I don’t know,” said Joey. “That sounds really creepy. I’ve been talking to my girlfriend and she’s starting to scare me off. But, man, you would be a great character in a movie or a book, though.”<br> <br>“Really?” said Declan. “Wow. Listen, Joey. About ninety-percent of the wise guys in this town are always trying to grab the action compared to the rest of the fools. You have to grab the ring, kid. Grab it. I tell you what…if you decide to do it, I’ll give you five thousand bucks <br>for about an hour’s work. Think it over, man.”<br> <br> _____________________________________<br> <br>That night in her apartment Shibani was glaring at Joey over a glass of wine. <br> <br>“Okay, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about Declan,” said Joey. “But, you’ll never guess what he offered me today―five grand just for finding an appraiser who will value a vacant lot for a million-one.” <br> <br>“Is it legal?” asked Shibani.<br> <br>“I’m sure it isn’t,” said Joey.<br> <br>“Don’t you remember what I said about cognitive dissonance, thinking two contradictory things at the same time?” asked Shibani. “More people go to jail with that little angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. Think about it Joey. Please don’t get into trouble.” <br> _________________________<br> <br>It was 8 a.m. the next day, a Tuesday morning. The wind blew around Manhattan’s buildings like it was Chicago. As Joey arrived at work he had no more sat down at his desk when his phone rang.<br> <br>“Hey, Depewww. It’s Declan. What have you decided?”<br> <br>“Oh, hi Declan. I appreciate your offer. But, I think I’ll pass.”</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>“Okay, Joey. You’re a bit of a wuss I think. But, good luck in your career anyway and remember what Frank Sinatra said―<em>if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.</em>”<br> <br> ______________________________<br> <br>The following Thursday afternoon Joey met Shabini at Starbuck’s. Turning on his laptop he clicked on WCBS’s news website and was stunned to see in bold type:<br> <br> <strong>Manhattan Businessman Indicted In Real Estate Scam</strong> <br> <br>Fifty-seven-year old Declan Carter of New York City has been charged in a 17-count indictment by a federal grand jury on Feb. 28, 2013. Carter is charged with four counts of bank fraud, 10 counts of money laundering, two counts of wire fraud and one count of bankruptcy <br>fraud. He could face up to thirty years in prison.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>Joey slowly turned his laptop toward Shibani. After reading it she said, “It was Dorothy Parker who said…<em>If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the people he gave it to.</em>”</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Close]]></title><description><![CDATA[We were as close
as any two could be
I thought that was clear
for everyone to see
We were as close
as any two could be
I would have let her
take a bullet for me]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/close/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ff9</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:02:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1544550471-f460ef599d8e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1544550471-f460ef599d8e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Close"/><p>We were as close<br>as any two could be<br>I thought that was clear<br>for everyone to see</br></br></br></p><p>We were as close<br>as any two could be<br>I would have let her<br>take a bullet for me</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dove, Virgin, and Peace - St. James Church]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dove/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852301e</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Pappenfus]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:01:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/Dove-Virgin--and-Peace.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/Dove-Virgin--and-Peace.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Dove, Virgin, and Peace - St. James Church" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/Dove-Virgin--and-Peace.jpg" alt="Dove, Virgin, and Peace - St. James Church"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/Dove-Virgin--and-Peace.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a> </p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Street Preacher in Rogers, 2016]]></title><description><![CDATA[Bible in hand, voice cracked, Gary preaches to
Cars with windows rolled up, assuming God
With him, God demands this of him, God hears
His words, even through a sky like glass.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/street-preacher-in-rogers-2016/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852300e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Fontana]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:00:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523182085784-450161e69568?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523182085784-450161e69568?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Street Preacher in Rogers, 2016"/><p>Bible in hand, voice cracked, Gary preaches to<br>Cars with windows rolled up, assuming God<br>With him, God demands this of him, God hears<br>His words, even through a sky like glass.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Another Day]]></title><description><![CDATA[You saw me
through another
day
I poured water
through your eyes
they
glistened
In the smog
of my mind
you gazed
hope
Sleep
did not lure you
eyes open
you hung on searching
for my blue stare
Eyes of yours
found mine
You saw me
through another
day
And
I
give
thanks]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/another-day/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852301a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sallie Crotty]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:00:13 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501621667575-af81f1f0bacc?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501621667575-af81f1f0bacc?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Another Day"/><p>You saw me<br>through another<br>day</br></br></p><p>I poured water<br>through your eyes<br>they<br>glistened</br></br></br></p><p>In the smog<br>of my mind<br>you gazed<br>hope</br></br></br></p><p>Sleep<br>did not lure you<br>eyes open<br>you hung on searching<br>for my blue stare</br></br></br></br></p><p>Eyes of yours<br>found mine</br></p><p>You saw me<br>through another<br>day</br></br></p><p>And<br>I<br>give<br>thanks</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Heart to Heart]]></title><description><![CDATA[My mother’s death came as no surprise during the bleak early morning hours of January 5th, 2005. Having reached eighty-five years and tiring of her persistent struggle with congestive heart failure, malignant hypertension and depression, she slipped quietly away with only me and her sister by her side. What did come as a surprise was the Purple Heart I found nestled peacefully in her cedar chest when I was going through her things the following week. Mama had taken a mystery to her grave that wo]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/heart-to-heart/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523019</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sandra Ostrander]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:57:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517938833378-3c78e6c8ddf2?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517938833378-3c78e6c8ddf2?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Heart to Heart"/><p>My mother’s death came as no surprise during the bleak early morning hours of January 5th, 2005. Having reached eighty-five years and tiring of her persistent struggle with congestive heart failure, malignant hypertension and depression, she slipped quietly away with only me and her sister by her side. What did come as a surprise was the Purple Heart I found nestled peacefully in her cedar chest when I was going through her things the following week. Mama had taken a mystery to her grave that would take me months to unravel.</p><p>Her death left me the only remaining family member of my childhood home. As the “orphan”, cleaning out my mother’s house fell squarely in my reluctant lap. I’d had my fill of cleaning out houses when my brother died. A reclusive OCD hoarder who had never married, his house was full, literally, and I’d had to deal with that. It took a year and a half. This wouldn’t be nearly as time-consuming, but I still didn’t relish the idea.</p><p>Rifling through family heirlooms had been a favorite childhood pastime when I was stuck indoors on rainy days, back in the day. You know, back when children had to actually entertain themselves in the absence of cell phones, cable TV and computers. I was sure I’d seen and heard every last little detail of the mementos that composed our family history. I had left no chest closed, no drawer unopened, and I remembered the stories as if it were yesterday.</p><p>The cedar chest had always been the best place to pillage. I would start there. My eyes clouded as they fell on old familiar things... studio photographs of me and my brother, our graduation pictures, Daddy’s Firestone service pins, a fraternity lavalier from an old boyfriend, my grandmother’s crochet work and one of her quilts, Mama’s silk scarf... stuff like you’d find in most anyone’s cherished possessions. But on closer inspection, a small blue box broke the familiarity. What was in it, and how could it have escaped my eagle eye so many years ago?</p><p>I opened it quickly, expecting the contents to jar my memory. I got a jolt alright. Resting inside was a small gold medal adorned with purple and white ribbon, an image of George Washington in the middle, three stars, two stripes, and a leafy branch bearing three leaves on either side. Though I’d never actually seen one, I knew I was holding an honest to God Purple Heart, the gold cast of the metal amazingly untarnished by the ravages time and distance.</p><p>An adrenaline rush swept over me. Daddy was a WWII veteran. Was it his? Why had no one mentioned this? I quickly flipped it over and discovered it didn’t belong to Daddy at all. Inscribed on the back was a name I’d never heard... Homer J. Blair. Who the hell was Homer J. Blair? I had no idea, but one thing was clear. I had to find out. This was a priceless artifact and it wasn’t mine to keep or ignore. I was now on a mission; find the rightful owner and return that Purple Heart.</p><p>Picking up the phone, I called my mother’s sister, Irma. Like me, she had never heard of Homer J. Blair, but said she would make some calls. I reached out to a few cousins on Daddy’s side of the family to no avail. Thank God for the Internet. The best course of action seemed to be looking up all the Homer Blairs across the country on whitepages.com and giving them a call. Needless to say, I knew Homer J. Blair was probably dead, but perhaps his widow wasn’t. There could have also been a son. Who knew? I was determined to find out.</p><p>There were nineteen of them listed. I repeated my story over and over and over with no luck. I was nearing the bottom of the list and losing hope when I reached Barbara Blair, a widow living in Williamsburg, Virginia. She said I should call her mother-in-law, Mary Jane Blair in Memphis. I did so immediately.</p><p>When I told Mary Jane who I was and what I had in my possession, she called out to her husband, “Oh, my God, Herschel... some lady in Arkansas has Homer’s Purple Heart!” I could hear him shout back, “What’s it doing in Arkansas?” Good question. Then they both started to cry.</p><p>I explained to Mary Jane that I lived in Eureka Springs, AR, but that I’d found the Purple Heart among my mother’s things when she died recently, in Memphis. I also shared the path that had led me to her. Then she told me all about her brother-in-law, Staff Sergeant Homer J. Blair. Homer had been killed by enemy fire on November 14, 1944 while ushering his men to the safety of a fox hole on a battlefield in France during the latter days of WWII. He was the only one who didn’t make it. His younger brother, Herschel, her husband, had been searching for the Purple Heart for years.</p><p>It had originally been presented to Homer’s widow, Daisy, who later remarried and subsequently passed away without making provisions to pass the Purple Heart on to its rightful heir, Herschel. Mary Jane and Herschel had contacted Daisy’s husband to see if he knew anything about it. He thought it might be in the attic, but he was old, sick, and unable to negotiate the attic stairs to look for it. When he died, they had given up all hope of ever seeing it.</p><p>Herschel and Mary Jane’s only child, Homer, named after his war hero uncle, had recently lost his fight with cancer, leaving behind his widow Barbara with whom I had first spoken. Had Homer not been named for his uncle, I wouldn’t have found Barbara, and the Purple Heart would have never found its way home. Home was only a few short miles from my mother’s house, where it had been waiting patiently for God knows how many years. I packaged it carefully, almost reverently, and sent it registered mail to an address on Clarendon Road in Memphis. The Purple Heart was finally going home.</p><p>But that’s not the end of this story. I couldn’t let it stop there. Even though I’d done what I set out to do, there was still that baffling question... what was a Purple Heart belonging to a stranger doing in my mother’s cedar chest? I wouldn’t let it rest. I started by questioning Mary Jane again, this time in depth. I didn’t know where else to go. Had she ever heard of either of my parents? She hadn’t. She asked Herschel if he knew them. He didn’t.</p><p>Since Homer and my father both fought in WWII, I assumed Daddy had been the one to bring the Purple Heart into our home. Perhaps they had been Army buddies, but that seemed unlikely since Daddy fought in Germany while Homer was fighting in France. Where had Homer lived in Memphis? Wellington Street. My parents lived on McMillan six blocks away. Neighborhood friends! Perhaps, but unlikely, and it still didn’t explain how Daddy wound up with a medal that had been given to Daisy Blair when Homer was killed. It also didn’t explain why Daddy would’ve kept it. He wasn’t the type to keep something that belonged to someone else, even if that someone were dead. I knew I was barking up the wrong tree.</p><p>Mary Jane and I spent a lot of time on the phone over the next month trying to put the pieces together, basically just going in circles. One day when we were going over time frames, she read something from an official letter that had been sent at the time of Homer’s death. It referred to his widow as Daisy B. Blair. A bell went off. Daisy B! That was it... the missing piece!</p><p>Several years after Daddy died in 1971, my mother started keeping company with a very old friend who was on his last legs, a widower named Sonny Beasley. They had known each other since my parents first moved to Memphis in the late ‘30s. He spoke incessantly of his dead wife, Daisy B, always using the B in her name when he referred to her. She'd been a war widow when he married her. From all the things he told my mother, I was pretty sure the B stood for Bitch, so it stuck with me. They lived on Wellington.</p><p>Everything fell into place. I had never seen the medal when I was a kid because it wasn’t there. Daddy was long dead before it ever came into our possession. I can only guess that Mama found it when she was cleaning out Sonny’s house after he died. The mystery could now be put to bed.</p><p>When I called Mama’s sister, Irma, to give her the good news, she was finally able to make sense of something Mama had mumbled shortly before she slipped into the coma that preceded her death; something Irma had passed off as just the ramblings of one who has gone beyond the boundaries of rational thought associated with the living; something about how she should have done something with that Purple Heart.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[All The Stuff]]></title><description><![CDATA[You can have that for fifteen cents
an old Dennis the Menace doll
And that for fifty cents
a chemistry set
And thirty cents
the board game Clue
Just take these
the baseball cards
And a nickel each for all of
these Classics Illustrated comics
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
At the end of the block
her husband stops each car
buying all the stuff back
Our boy was just eighteen you know
(mumble) Dong Tam (mumble)
very brave (mumble)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
That evening he’ll replace all of it
The next morning s]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/all-the-stuff/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ff3</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:56:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501421018470-faf26f6b1bef?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501421018470-faf26f6b1bef?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="All The Stuff"/><p>You can have that for fifteen cents<br>an old Dennis the Menace doll<br>And that for fifty cents<br>a chemistry set<br>And thirty cents<br>the board game Clue<br>Just take these<br>the baseball cards<br>And a nickel each for all of<br>these Classics Illustrated comics</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</p><p>At the end of the block<br>her husband stops each car<br>buying all the stuff back<br>Our boy was just eighteen you know<br>(mumble) Dong Tam (mumble)<br>very brave (mumble)</br></br></br></br></br></p><p>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</p><p>That evening he’ll replace all of it<br>The next morning she’ll put it<br>back out on the tables and<br>stick the sign back in the ground</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels]]></title><description><![CDATA[Snakes don’t always bite,
they run away from you.
American flags are in tatters,
drooping in autumnal winds.
Birds have stopped singing,
and huddle in oil-soaked wings.
Automobiles crash into each other
like Coney Island bumper cars.
Skeletons dance on my lawn
singing, For he’s a jolly good fellow.
Jesus may be a victim of mistaken identity.
Fallopian tubes clog with unopened eggs,
Lesbians wait at a sperm bank.
Nothing is worth more than this day.
Loving intimacy can’t be beat
before you get a ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dont-take-any-wooden-nickels/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523009</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Milton Ehrlich]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:55:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517448988499-4cdc5bbde64c?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517448988499-4cdc5bbde64c?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels"/><p>Snakes don’t always bite,<br>they run away from you.<br>American flags are in tatters,<br>drooping in autumnal winds.<br>Birds have stopped singing,<br>and huddle in oil-soaked wings.<br>Automobiles crash into each other<br>like Coney Island bumper cars.<br>Skeletons dance on my lawn<br>singing, For he’s a jolly good fellow.<br>Jesus may be a victim of mistaken identity.<br>Fallopian tubes clog with unopened eggs,<br>Lesbians wait at a sperm bank.<br>Nothing is worth more than this day.<br>Loving intimacy can’t be beat<br>before you get a slam dunk taste of the void.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Shades of the Past]]></title><description><![CDATA[Old bones and ashes buried below tilted crosses and broken head stones. The smell of wet pine and decay lingered in the air after an early morning autumn rain.
I stood outside a rusted old iron gate leading into an abandoned grave yard. The once beautiful scroll work was covered in moss and tangled vines. I gave the gate a slight nudge and while it squeaked and groaned its displeasure, the idea that unseen spirits were inviting me in crossed my mind.
An isolated path beckoned and my shoes sli]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/shades-of-the-past/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523012</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathy Attwood]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:55:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542043373762-600f7ac00534?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542043373762-600f7ac00534?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Shades of the Past"/><p>Old bones and ashes buried below tilted crosses and broken head stones. The smell of wet pine and decay lingered in the air after an early morning autumn rain.</p><p>I stood outside a rusted old iron gate leading into an abandoned grave yard. The once beautiful scroll work was covered in moss and tangled vines. I gave the gate a slight nudge and while it squeaked and groaned its displeasure, the idea that unseen spirits were inviting me in crossed my mind.</p><p>An isolated path beckoned and my shoes slid across a slick trail of dead leaves and pine needles. Wayward branches scraped against my arm while the shadowy trail led me further into the morbid silence. Among the twisted and gnarled trees bordering the pathway, tops of tombstones poked through over grown grass and brush. Forgotten remembrances of candles, crystals and old toys scattered across graves reminded me that cemeteries were not for the dead, but for the living, the ones left behind.</p><p>At one time there must surely have been a steady stream of family and friends tending to graves and visiting loved ones, but for now this small piece of land contained a world of bleak emptiness.</p><p>I lifted my face to the drab November sky and closed my eyes as a fine mist covered my skin. Memories swept over me and I began to remember the house where my family once lived. I pictured it in my mind's eye, a log cabin nestled in the woods blanketed in a thick layer of glistening snow. Warm light glowed through the windows and the smell of wood smoke hovered in the air. If only I could go inside and warm my hands by the fire as I had done so many times before.</p><p>My parents were good people and throughout their lives together they dreamed of living out in the country in the middle of the woods away from the traffic and city noises. They wanted to pump their own water and raise vegetables. My mother had even mentioned raising goats. At first it was only a day dream, unattainable and foolish even but then Bob entered the picture.</p><p>My father and Bob were strangers until they both showed up at a local bar one afternoon. After a few beers and a game of darts they became fast friends. They talked well into the night discovering they had much in common, especially the desire to live out in the woods. Bob was an architect by trade but had given up the high paying corporate funded job and left for small town living to become a carpenter. He brilliantly sketched out a design for a cabin with a broken crayon on a paper table cloth stained with pizza sauce.</p><p>Two months later my father and Bob were cutting down trees and clearing a small plot of land. They dug a deep hole and poured the foundation. In three weeks they had the walls up and were measuring for windows and doors. Once the roof was attached we moved all our belongings from the city to the woods and settled in to become country dwellers.</p><p>The first thing we did was plant vegetables and flowers. We could smell the earth and feel the peach of nature. On walks through the woods we located edible plants and collected medicinal herbs. We built fires to warm ourselves underneath the night sky and looked beyond the brightness of the shooting stars. It was true that we were living off the land. The cabin was ours to live simply and enjoy the changing seasons.</p><p>In the months to come Bob frequently spent the weekends at the cabin. The sofa near the fireplace became his bed and he often times stayed up late into the wee hours of the morning staring into the glowing embers of the fire.</p><p>Sometimes Bob would call me and my brother to his side and say, <em>hey did I ever tell you the story about -?</em> Bob knew plenty of ghost stories and we delighted in each and every one. Mom didn’t think filling our heads with such nonsense before bedtime was a good idea but she never said anything to Bob, she let it ride and just hoped we wouldn’t wake up screaming in the middle of the night scared out of our wits.</p><p>On one particular night Bob told us a story about ghosts hiding in the woods behind our house. He called them the spirits in the woods. He said these spirits would free themselves from the trees and wander around looking into windows of houses where there was light and warmth.</p><p>Bob explained to us that if we ever broke a branch off a tree by accident or on purpose, we should ask permission of the wood spirits because if we didn’t they would haunt us for the rest of our days.</p><p>It was funny that Bob mentioned the wood spirits peering into windows because I always felt like something or someone was watching me – but it wasn’t just from the outside, it was from everywhere inside the house. My dad and Bob cut down a lot of trees from the woods. Maybe there was one tree they forgot to ask permission.</p><p>Sometimes during the night while I tried to fall asleep a feeling would come over me that I wasn’t alone in the room. I was too afraid to turn on the lights though – so I would just lie there with my eyes wide open staring up at the ceiling hoping that whatever it was would just leave me alone.</p><p>Finally after growing weary of the unknown presence, I shot my middle finger into the air and shouted out loud, “Buzz off!” Maybe that’s what the spirit was waiting for – an attitude – because after that I was never afraid.</p><p>We lived in that cabin for five years. The first thing my father did in the early mornings was put on his red ball cap and take Frisco out for a walk in the woods. Frisco was our big black lab who magically appeared out in our yard on a cold, frosty morning waiting patiently for someone to notice him.</p><p>When my dad finally saw him it was love at first sight. They bonded immediately and from then on no matter the weather - rain, snow, sun or wind the two companions would walk in the woods for hours upon hours.</p><p>We never knew where Frisco came from or where he went at night but he never seemed to age, his coat was healthy and shiny and he never tired of romping and playing in the woods.</p><p>Dad loved having the forest as his backyard. He was a birder. He thought about them, searched for them and studied them. He knew every bird song, every feather that dropped from the trees and every myth or legend about winged creatures.</p><p>One night while driving home after work a large bird flew into his windshield and was killed instantly. My father came through the front door of our house cradling a dead owl in his arms. We all stood around staring down at the enormous creature which lay on our kitchen floor. The scientist in my father began pointing out all the parts of the owl that might be of interest. It seemed cold and heartless but later that night after we went to bed – my father dug a deep hole out by the tallest and most beautiful pine tree he could find and laid the owl to rest.</p><p>I read in a book once that owls were guides to the spirit world and were known by Native Americans to bring messages of change and transition.<br>We were happy and settling into our new environment when Dad became infatuated with Bob’s new motorcycle. Nothing would do but he had to have one of his own. He reasoned that it would take up less space than a car - it would be cheaper to operate, it was fast and yes, he looked cool on the motorcycle. Mom had reservations and tried to persuade him against it but he was stubborn like an old mule. He traded in his car and bought his first motorcycle. I guess I favor my dad, because whenever I get an idea in my head it takes moving mountains to get me to change my mind.</br></p><p>On the night my dad and Bob took the motorcycle out for the first time, he wrote a letter to each of us. He told us how much he loved us and that we had made his life complete. We never knew why he wrote those letters unless he had a premonition of his mortality.</p><p>I turned and walked out of the cemetery. Thoughts of that night were still tender in my heart and I did not wish to be sad any longer, but something made me turn around for one last look. I had long since shed tears for my father but there was a knot in my stomach as if someone called out my name. Maybe certain people for whatever reason were not meant to stay on this earth for very long.</p><p>After my father's passing we remained in that house for only a few months and then we all decided the memories were just too painful.</p><p>Bob wanted the cabin. He was the right person to leave it with and he also asked if he could have Frisco. Sadly to say, Frisco’s destiny was not in our hands, that dog had a mind of his own, he belonged to the woods.</p><p>On a snowy winter’s morning we drove as far away from the cabin as our car would carry us. I had dreaded that last moment of farewell but strangely it wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined. Our departure meant we were leaving behind all the tears and moving toward renewing our lives.</p><p>Bob called a few months later. He said he was happy. He didn’t seem to mind the isolation nor did he crave human interaction any longer.</p><p>He also said that Frisco was now coming inside the cabin and sleeping by the fire for a few hours before disappearing into the night again. He had no idea where Frisco went but he had no doubts the black lab would show up again the next morning ready for a brisk walk in the woods.</p><p>Bob ended the conversation with a story that was pure Bob. He told us that one morning awakening early he wiped the dew away from the front window with the palm of his hand and gazed out into the yard. As the fog and mist rose from the ground he was able to make out the hazy figure of a man wearing a red ball cap walking through the woods and playing with Frisco.</p><p>Bob believes in ghosts and I guess now I believe in ghosts too.</p><p>Old bones and ashes buried beneath tilted crosses and broken headstones. If it were not for all that it would be like any other piece of land.<br>The remains of all these old souls who have passed before us still wander the earth as if nothing has changed for them. The dead can never hurt you – only the memory can hurt a little until you realize they’re still doing what they want, watching over loved ones, climbing mountains, floating in the universe or just walking a beloved black lab in the woods.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What? No headlights?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/what-no-headlights/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523020</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jay Vrecenak]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:54:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/What-NoHeadlights.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/What-NoHeadlights.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="What? No headlights?" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/What-NoHeadlights.jpg" alt="What? No headlights?"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/What-NoHeadlights.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Creative]]></title><description><![CDATA[process explodes, evoking awe
and rapt attention from those in orbit
drifting, too distant to be felled by the
magnitude of the unfiltered event.
Affected nonetheless.
At its core, continuous consumption,
its mass seething, elements erupting,
eroding even as its output
collides with recipients supervenient,
altered, if not converted.
Some observers, basking
in agreement, or bristling
in confrontation, ponder meanings,
weighing them out in zeptograms,
parsing them to inconsequence.
Sometimes, ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-creative/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523014</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Hicks]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:53:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507413245164-6160d8298b31?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507413245164-6160d8298b31?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Creative"/><p>process explodes, evoking awe<br>and rapt attention from those in orbit<br>drifting, too distant to be felled by the<br>magnitude of the unfiltered event.<br>Affected nonetheless.</br></br></br></br></p><p>At its core, continuous consumption,<br>its mass seething, elements erupting,<br>eroding even as its output<br>collides with recipients supervenient,<br>altered, if not converted.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Some observers, basking<br>in agreement, or bristling<br>in confrontation, ponder meanings,<br>weighing them out in zeptograms,<br>parsing them to inconsequence.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Sometimes, an atom of truth and<br>a tenet of ignorance collide,<br>obliterating a yoke of oppression,<br>energy released into ACTG chains,<br>altering the outcomes,</br></br></br></br></p><p>coming home. Life, but a new form,<br>exposing myths, annihilating ignorance,<br>evolving inexorably toward chaos,<br>exploding again, lighting up the next generation,<br>millions of millennia from now.</br></br></br></br></p><p><em>This poem was first published in Ariel Chart Magazine, July 2018</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mother]]></title><description><![CDATA[It stormed the day you passed away
The rain was as warm as my tears
You gave up life with a sigh
As though it was another disappointment gone by
I shouldn’t have touched you
When you turned cold
I loved you laughing
And warm to hold
I talked with you and Dad today
Neither of you had much to say
Your pillars of stone
Lie flat on the ground
So lazy caretakers
Don’t have to mow around
You were an Arkansas girl
From a family of eleven
Waiting now
For your place in heaven
Resting finally, as]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/mother/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523018</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:52:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1471520201477-47a62a269a87?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1471520201477-47a62a269a87?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Mother"/><p>It stormed the day you passed away<br>The rain was as warm as my tears</br></p><p>You gave up life with a sigh<br>As though it was another disappointment gone by</br></p><p>I shouldn’t have touched you<br>When you turned cold</br></p><p>I loved you laughing<br>And warm to hold</br></p><p>I talked with you and Dad today<br>Neither of you had much to say</br></p><p>Your pillars of stone<br>Lie flat on the ground</br></p><p>So lazy caretakers<br>Don’t have to mow around</br></p><p>You were an Arkansas girl<br>From a family of eleven</br></p><p>Waiting now<br>For your place in heaven</br></p><p>Resting finally, as you never did in life<br>Free at last from a world of strife.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Snow Moon]]></title><description><![CDATA[It’s still a December’s Winter Moon - - -
we so often forget the times we hold most dear.
It should be our time right now ~
whenever I see you, whenever I feel you, whenever I hear you.
It’s all remembered
underneath a December Snow Moon.
Fall is turning into winter underneath this December Moon.
There is full light now in brand new moon beams.
I remember you – all by nightfall underneath a full December’s Winter Moon.
And we, between the shores of fast-moving river currents,
alongside nigh]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/snow-moon/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523025</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanie Roberts]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:52:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1532672542812-56df0f657abe?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1532672542812-56df0f657abe?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Snow Moon"/><p>It’s still a December’s Winter Moon - - -<br>we so often forget the times we hold most dear.</br></p><p>It should be our time right now ~<br>whenever I see you, whenever I feel you, whenever I hear you.</br></p><p>It’s all remembered<br>underneath a December Snow Moon.</br></p><p>Fall is turning into winter underneath this December Moon.<br>There is full light now in brand new moon beams.</br></p><p>I remember you – all by nightfall underneath a full December’s Winter Moon.</p><p>And we, between the shores of fast-moving river currents,<br>alongside night-black hillsides and moving through black shadowed branches.</br></p><p>Waters bathed in moon beams,<br>trees hanging over the waters<br>And me ducking down<br>to miss the next branch<br>as we paddled like we knew where we were going.</br></br></br></br></p><p>Trying to find the right home shore,<br>trying to find our way, down the blackest river.</br></p><p>Then we saw refuge<br>gleaming in the light through the darkest of night.</br></p><p>In that moment,<br>I knew you and you knew me.</br></p><p>We made it through, together,<br>underneath a December Moon.</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Alone... with Fire]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sunrise-caldwell-with-man/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852301c</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Pappenfus]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:51:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/Sunrise-Caldwell-with-man--S--1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/Sunrise-Caldwell-with-man--S-.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Alone... with Fire" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/Sunrise-Caldwell-with-man--S--1.jpg" alt="Alone... with Fire"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/Sunrise-Caldwell-with-man--S-.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Unlikely Marriage]]></title><description><![CDATA[An Acrostic Poem
Unless one looks out to see the other
never shall they meet.
Lost in self,
incapable of receiving,
knowing nothing of their petitioner's longing.
Even with their dance of romance
love goes undetected;
yearning remaining their only companion.
Many hours spent lost in introspection
amid doubts, fueled by rejection.
Reason departs,
relief found only in self-justification.
Imagine though,
attention to another.
Gaining insight by observation,
everyone can come to know love.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/unlikely-marriage/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523013</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Francis Hicks]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:50:49 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516414559093-91c1c3d7359c?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516414559093-91c1c3d7359c?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Unlikely Marriage"/><p><em>An Acrostic Poem</em></p><p><strong>U</strong>nless one looks out to see the other<br><strong>n</strong>ever shall they meet.<br><strong>L</strong>ost in self,<br><strong>i</strong>ncapable of receiving,<br><strong>k</strong>nowing nothing of their petitioner's longing.<br><strong>E</strong>ven with their dance of romance<br><strong>l</strong>ove goes undetected;<br><strong>y</strong>earning remaining their only companion.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p><strong>M</strong>any hours spent lost in introspection<br><strong>a</strong>mid doubts, fueled by rejection.<br><strong>R</strong>eason departs,<br><strong>r</strong>elief found only in self-justification.<br><strong>I</strong>magine though,<br><strong>a</strong>ttention to another.<br><strong>G</strong>aining insight by observation,<br><strong>e</strong>veryone can come to know love.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Diagnosis]]></title><description><![CDATA[(an excerpt from a memoir in progress)
All the previous deaths were un-posted;
word came by ring tone or Post, not post
The first death by email was Linda’s,
the stunned silence of a monitor, your face.
You raced down the hall and leapt,
shrieking to your then-well husband, “Linda is dead!”
You have since committed the crime of alerting,
signaling death’s sentinel by a mouse-click of Send.
When your husband died, you kept him home one more night,
the urgency of a funeral home, a coroner, no]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-diagnosis/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523026</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Deirdre Fagan]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:50:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524498013384-db4f9dc3b47e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524498013384-db4f9dc3b47e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="The Diagnosis"/><p><em>(an excerpt from a memoir in progress)</em></p><p><strong>All the previous deaths were un-posted;</strong><br><strong>word came by ring tone or Post, not post</strong></br></p><p>The first death by email was Linda’s,<br>the stunned silence of a monitor, your face.</br></p><p>You raced down the hall and leapt,<br>shrieking to your then-well husband, “Linda is dead!”</br></p><p>You have since committed the crime of alerting,<br>signaling death’s sentinel by a mouse-click of Send.</br></p><p>When your husband died, you kept him home one more night,<br>the urgency of a funeral home, a coroner, not your own.</br></p><p>You slept on the futon beside the hospital bed in the then bedroom,<br>once dining room, where you had at one time only celebrated.</br></p><p>The next morning he no longer resembled the man you had wed.</p><p>When the gurney took your Love out the door, you sat before the monitor,<br>stunned, and alerted all you knew through the only words you had left.</br></p><hr><p>Bob had a long sleep. It was probably not more than an hour, but it felt like much longer. Time has a way of changing depending on our emotions. Car wrecks occur in slow motion. A meaningful kiss or good sex that lasts minutes feels like thirty minutes, an hour. We are shocked when we look at the clock and we’ve been transported “there and back” and only twenty minutes have passed.</p><p>That day seems both long and short at the same time. Waiting in the hotel room with the kids while Bob was at the hospital. Long. Very long. Driving to the hospital. Long. Very long. Looking for Bob in the hospital. Long. Very long. None of these took anywhere near the same amount of time. The whole day. Short. One day: December 29th. One day and our lives together had been abbreviated as quickly as placing a period at the end of a sentence. There was an end mark now, and we had a pretty good idea of when it was going to be.</p><p>Bob didn’t actually get diagnosed that day in St. Louis. He told me, after the nap, that the doctor’s didn’t issue a diagnosis, and I stared blankly at him, in shock again. My mind began replaying the past few hours of our lives: “If they didn’t diagnose you, then why do you think you have ALS? Why did you tell me you have ALS, if you don’t know whether you have ALS?”</p><p>We had spent the last several hours writhing in mental anguish, exhausting ourselves to the point of passing out in the middle of the afternoon, all four of us, Bob, the kids, and me, in a hotel room, and he wasn’t dying.</p><p>But he was dying. He had told me so.</p><p>“They just talked about me as though I wasn’t in the room.”</p><p>“ALS is the only thing on the table; it’s obvious that’s what I have.”</p><p>“They just don’t have the guts to tell me. They want to do the tests, but the tests aren’t going to show anything. I have ALS, that’s what I have.”</p><p>When Bob had pressed the doctors for alternative diagnoses, they had had none. They just wouldn’t commit to ALS that day because there is no affirmative test. It’s a process of ruling out other possibilities. Bob couldn’t pee on a stick, like I had repeatedly to try to figure out whether I was ovulating so we could get pregnant, or get blood drawn from his arm, as I did to confirm the pregnancy that was such a miracle, or undergo an MRI, as I had just before I was diagnosed with Lyme disease, to know for certain that he had ALS. This seemed absurd to me.</p><p>“They can’t know whether you have it? Ever? They just guess?”</p><p>“If you want to make a lot of fucking money doing nothing, become a neurologist,” Bob remarked, sarcastically.</p><p>“All they do is push and pull at you, shit they did two hundred years ago, then look at what you can already see for yourself, and say, ‘Yup, your arm is twitching, you are weaker,’ and send you home. It’s fucking bullshit. They don’t know fucking anything about this disease.”</p><p>But Bob did know something about it; he knew what he had.</p><p>“I have ALS,” he said, and he said it the way he said all things he was certain of, like how far he would go to protect our children or me, or how he would write anyone off if they didn’t accept us for who we were, including his own family, or how convincing he was when he told me he loved me.</p><p>I asked him how long he had known. He said he was pretty sure the moment he looked at the description of the disease over my shoulder on the computer screen, but today at Barnes-Jewish Hospital had confirmed it. “When would they know? When will they tell you?” I asked. Bob said he was supposed to talk to the doctor again later that week, but Bob said he knew, and I believed him.</p><p>The children were still asleep when the first texts started rolling in:<br>“Did you hear anything?”<br>“What do they think it is?”<br>“Hey, just checking in. Let us know how it went today.”</br></br></br></p><p>I told Bob people were asking. Some of the texts had come in while we were napping. I needed to figure out whether to respond, and what I was going to be telling people.</p><p>Bob told me I should start telling people he had ALS. “That’s what it is. Just tell them that’s what it is.”</p><p>When Bob tells you he has a terminal illness and you can start calling people, you do it. You do it because you believe and trust him more than anyone you’ve ever known, not because he’s always right, but because he never once pretended he was when he wasn’t, and so you know he’s right, and you tell people because you must, because telling gets it out of you, because telling, the adrenaline of launching into 911 mode, the digesting of information for you comes from saying a thing aloud again and again as a sort of chant, and so you will. You will call. You will tell.</p><p>Bob knew how much I would need a support system. He knew nearly everything about what I needed before I did. He predicted my needs throughout his illness and he was right; he helped prepare me by being the one to tell me everything first. Soon, I would become that for him, too. I would be the one who could see from the outside, and could predict what he needed next, like to no longer climb stairs, or a bed rail, or different medication. We propped each other like this – we always had – and now we were going to do it better than ever before and more consistently and constantly.</p><p>Bob told me I should start calling people, but not his family. That could wait until the next day. He would call them himself. He needed some time.</p><p>The hotel room was standard with two double or queen beds, a TV, a chair or two, etc., and so the only place I could make phone calls with privacy from the children was in the bathroom.</p><p>After the kids awoke, ate room service because we couldn’t muster the motivation to even leave the room, and got sucked into the television, I walked into the bathroom, shut the door, turned on the fan, sat on the toilet, and watched myself in the mirror like I was watching someone else’s life in a movie. I wasn’t in my own body.</p><p>I called the few people who had been waiting for the results of the visit to the hospital. The people who had told me to call or who were texting me while everyone was sleeping. I continued to make calls. I don’t recall in what order. I know that some people weren’t home. Everyone was sure “the diagnosis must be wrong,” that “a second opinion was necessary,” that “surely this couldn’t be true.” I told them Bob said it was so and I believed Bob. I cried, sitting on the toilet, staring at myself in the mirror, uttering the words and maintaining some degree of composure and strength by remaining partly numb through it all. The conversations came with shock, disbelief, encouragement that the diagnosis may be false, or that certainly in Bob’s case it would be the longer prognosis, that we could do this, that we were strong.</p><p>Bob was forty-three. The kids were three and nine. I was forty-two.</p><p>I didn’t feel strong. I was tired of being strong. People had been telling me I was strong my entire life.</p><p>I must have eventually left the bathroom and climbed into bed with Bob and gone to sleep myself with the twitching in his arm beside me not only telling me what was, but now becoming an ominous foretelling of what was to come. Exhaustion guided us to sleep and we held each other close, despite that we had never been those kinds of sleepers. We were intertwined in every other way, but given Bob’s size and mine we could never quite get comfortable in each other’s arms in bed. Just as while standing, in order to make our lips meet, without craning my neck, I had to stand on a step, in bed my neck always had to be craned to be on his shoulder, and my arms could barely reach over his 40 inch waist when we were spooning, but on this night we held each other all night and slept deeply the way one does after physically laboring all day.</p><p>When you have children, especially young children, you are required to keep your own emotions and needs at bay more frequently than not. This maintenance is exhausting and necessary in order to care for them and accomplish all of the things life demands. While we did not hold everything in as Bob and I believed in at least a degree of controlled honesty, we certainly couldn’t curl into the balls we wanted to curl into and just stay in that hotel room alone for eternity. We needed to check out, drive home, unpack the car, feed the children and ourselves, and generally go on living despite my wanting and his not wanting to die.</p><p>Moments in your life come in flashes of scenes. The scene in the hospital lobby. In the bathroom of the hotel room. In the hallway when a friend called back and the kids were awake and I burrowed into a corner near an ugly floral decoration and confessed to one of our closest friends that one of her closest friends, my husband, was dying while people rolled suitcases past me toward the elevator. I smelled the wallpaper and stared at the baseboards. Tears ran down my cheeks and started my nose running, too. I, a washer of hands dozens of times a day, wiped my nose on my sleeve. I didn’t care about anything else but that moment, that telling. I shooed the kids back in the room as though they had no idea what was happening when they wanted to comfort me.</p><p>And then there is the vision of leaving the parking lot that morning. The van was loaded, Bob was driving, and I was in the passenger seat. As Bob took the turn out of the lot, he turned toward me, then back out the window. The kids were surely buckled into their seats, but Bob and I were immersed in our own world in the front. The early morning sun was shining through the windshield and onto the dash and into our eyes as he cranked the wheel towards the exit, glanced at me again, and then again looked forward, back at the lot and said, “I want you to love again.” Another blow. Another shock. And dread. And awe.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I want you to love again. I want you to find someone else after I’m gone.”</p><p>“Seriously? I don’t want to talk about this. I’m not ready to talk about this. I don’t want to talk about this,” I said forcefully, as I gripped the armrest on the door with the sudden urge to exit the moving vehicle.</p><p>“I mean it. I want you to go on and love again after me. You deserve love in your life.”</p><p>“I don’t want to talk about this,” I said, becoming angry.</p><p>“Okay,” he said. “But I want you to know that. I just want you to know that.”</p><p>It hadn’t even been 24 hours since we had learned he would be going anywhere and he was already thinking about me and imagining my future. I was still back at the hospital, holding him in the lobby, crying in front of strangers, even though he was breathing right next to me in the minivan as I stroked his bald head and neck on the drive back home from Missouri to our beautiful home in Illinois.</p><p>While the sky was sunny and clear, the roads without snow cover, we drove home in a mental fog. We were exhausted and overwhelmed as we stared ahead at the road knowing what we hadn’t known two days before and only beginning to comprehend the truth of it. I’m sure I was interacting with the kids and offering them snacks and generally trying to act as normally as possible, but I don’t remember their being there. I hardly remember my being there. Our lives and the van itself receded in my mind.</p><p>Bob was barely present in his own body, too, as a ticket received a month later in the mail confirmed. He apparently caught the tail end of a yellow light just outside of Hannibal, Missouri, and was issued a ticket for running a red light. Our van was caught on camera and there we are in the image, two shadowy figures in the front seat of a white minivan hurtling towards a future that now had an abrupt stop. When the picture and ticket were sent to us, it felt like yet another cosmic joke. It was as though we had been frozen on camera if only to preserve the hell we had suddenly found ourselves in. We now had a concrete image of what it was like to be literally driving towards death.</p><p>Accidents often occur in slow motion. Speeding tickets and death warrants occur in slow motion. But it was all so fast.</p><p><em>The poem first appeared in Nine Muses Poetry in 2018.</em></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[One View of New Edo]]></title><description><![CDATA[A night, black-suited young men
sake smiling, jostling like little boys
released from office cubicles, swarm
the streets chirping like pet crickets.
Their camaraderie ignores short-skirted
girls in thigh-high boots, pink-pouty lips,
hair spiked in Kabuki-style angles of attention.
The boys’ fluorescent-pale faces light and fade
like Noh masks in the colors of passing signs.
Their jeweled eyes flicker with miniature screens
from storefront monitors. They play pachinko, sing
karaoke until hoarse, ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/one-view-of-new-edo/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852302a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:49:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1498712938623-d2bee166c195?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1498712938623-d2bee166c195?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="One View of New Edo"/><p>A night, black-suited young men<br>sake smiling, jostling like little boys<br>released from office cubicles, swarm<br>the streets chirping like pet crickets.<br>Their camaraderie ignores short-skirted<br>girls in thigh-high boots, pink-pouty lips,<br>hair spiked in Kabuki-style angles of attention.<br>The boys’ fluorescent-pale faces light and fade<br>like Noh masks in the colors of passing signs.<br>Their jeweled eyes flicker with miniature screens<br>from storefront monitors. They play pachinko, sing<br>karaoke until hoarse, rice wine the moon down.<br>When their white shirts reflect cherry blossom dawn,<br>they swing oiled black briefcases toward home.<br>With ties undone, shoes scuffed, they board<br>trains, dizzy as their quaking, drunken earth.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Subaru Cowboy]]></title><description><![CDATA[(The existential dilemma of buying my first cowboy hat)
On the one hand, buying my first cowboy hat was uncomplicated and painless. Nearly a year ago, I saw one I liked at the Murdoch’s Ranch & Home Supply store in Silverthorne. I tried it on. It fit. I looked in the mirror and thought it looked pretty good, so I took a selfie and texted it to my wife. (Immediate response: “No.”) I decided to buy it anyway, because that’s what husbands do. I put it on the passenger seat of the car for the drive]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/subaru-cowboyt/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fef</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Martin J. Smith]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:41:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/cowboy-hat-1129348_1920.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/cowboy-hat-1129348_1920.jpg" alt="Subaru Cowboy"/><p><em>(The existential dilemma of buying my first cowboy hat)</em></p><p>On the one hand, buying my first cowboy hat was uncomplicated and painless. Nearly a year ago, I saw one I liked at the Murdoch’s Ranch & Home Supply store in Silverthorne. I tried it on. It fit. I looked in the mirror and thought it looked pretty good, so I took a selfie and texted it to my wife. (Immediate response: “No.”) I decided to buy it anyway, because that’s what husbands do. I put it on the passenger seat of the car for the drive home to Granby.</p><p>On the other hand, sometimes a cigar isn’t just a cigar.</p><p>I was born in Alabama, raised in Pennsylvania, and moved west in 1985. I’ve seen a lot of the world before and since then, from North Africa to the Arctic Circle to Soviet Siberia to the Philippines, plus nearly all of the states this side of the Mississippi. But as soon as I made the American West my home, I knew this was where I belonged.</p><p><br>Why, you might ask? It’s complicated—and has little to do with lifestyle, weather, or Western mythology. It has to do with something deeper and more intrinsic: the freedom to be who you really are. A friend once described the West as a place created when a great force picked up the United States by the East Coast and shook it. People who were unattached, unstable, or willing to risk letting go found their ways here. As a result, many of the Westerners I admire are people who navigated unusual paths to success and happiness, even if it meant doing things differently than anyone had done before. Here, we’re all free to pursue dreams and schemes without regard to reality as everyone else has defined it.</br></p><p>To me, that Western ethos is palpable, like a smell or a taste or the phantom tickle of something that brushes against your skin. It’s why I believe the American West persists as a boundless frontier, and why it seems populated by so many outstanding inventors and entrepreneurs and artists and athletes, as well as grifters and con men.</p><p>If you boiled that notion—the West provides the freedom to be yourself—down to a single image, it might look like a cowboy hat. It’s so iconic and makes such a powerful visual statement that simply putting one on opens faux cowboys like me to the risk of ridicule in this open-range Land of Id. There’s real danger in presenting an image that could crumble into dust the moment someone asks, “So, do you actually have a horse?”</p><p>Before I left the Murdoch’s parking lot, I posted the selfie of me wearing the hat on Facebook with the simple caption: “My wife says no.”<br>When I arrived home an hour later, I checked Facebook again. The responses to the photo couldn’t have been more emphatic, or polarizing, had I posted a picture of myself arm in arm with both President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, all naked.</br></p><p>Many joined my wife firmly in the “no” camp. “I support her,” wrote our daughter’s former nanny from Oregon. “Your wife is a smart woman,” wrote a pal since grammar school. Another friend from San Diego declared I was “all hat, no cattle,” while another suggested I get “a timeshare on some cows.” A smart-ass San Francisco journalist suggested, “They can use more help at the Bundy Ranch,” and a sarcastic niece in Denver wrote: “It totally goes with the fanny pack and the Subaru Outback.” The name Roy Moore came up at least once, as did references to the Village People and Robert James Waller’s The Bridges of Madison County. One concerned friend in Southern California cautioned: “Obey the hat or the wife? Choose wisely.”</p><p>Other comments were more encouraging: “Cool cat in a hat.” “You rock that Western look!” “It seems a natural progression. Don’t fight it.” God forgive me, but I gravitated to the positive comments from several women upon whom I’ve had distant, decades long crushes, deluding myself with the idea that their kind words were about me rather than the hat. “HAWT,” opined a writer with whom I’d never actually had a face-to-face conversation. “Definitely, yes,” wrote a 30-years-younger art director with whom I once worked.</p><p>It was difficult to parse the response from a longtime friend in Maryland who simply posted a photo of Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister. In his black cowboy hat, Lemmy looked like a cross between Richard Petty in his prime and a wanted poster for a Texas Klansman. That post prompted a question I hadn’t considered: What if the me my new hat projected turned out to be much different than the one I intended? A distant memory surfaced, Kurt Vonnegut’s cautionary words in the novel Mother Night: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”</p><p>My wife shook her head when I stepped from the Subaru and struck a Marlboro Man pose, her face registering about the same level of contempt as if I’d rolled up drunk with a carload of mistresses. Naturally, I began to second-guess my decision. By then I’d lived in the West for more than three decades—admittedly, most of it in Southern California—but was owning a cowboy hat a threshold I was not yet qualified to cross? What had I done, really, to earn this hat? Did my impulsive indulgence forever mark me as a hopeless poser?</p><p>The doubts sent me into the closet, literally, where I hid the hat on a top shelf. Before I exiled it, though, I peeked at the hat’s label. The “Dakota” model was 100 percent wool and designed by a company in Sulphur Springs, Texas. I found the authenticity of that comforting. But the next line on the tag—“Made in China”—tipped my already-rattled confidence into a nosedive. The accusatory voice in my head was clear: <em>Poser!</em></p><p>I tossed the hat up and out of reach. Weeks passed. It sat untouched until one day my wife went out for a few hours. I decided to take a chance. I pulled the hat down, put it on, and headed out for a walk with the dog.</p><p>Our hike took us along the ranch roads near our house, during which time I felt absurdly conspicuous, as if I’d placed Queen Elizabeth’s tiara on my head for a trip to King Soopers. We eventually passed a neighbor, who stopped his car and rolled down the window to chat. I braced myself, but he offered no comment about my headgear.</p><p>So I prompted him: “I’m trying out a new hat.”</p><p>His expression said, So? What he actually said was, “Looks good.”</p><p>Emboldened, I began wearing the hat on more solo hikes, all without incident. By the time our daughter visited at Christmas, I was confident enough to wear it on a family stroll along the Colorado River headwaters. In time, even my wife stopped rolling her eyes, and eventually I integrated the Dakota into my regular hat rotation. Putting it on no longer triggers an existential dilemma, and thus my cowboy-poser identity crisis entered an odd sort of remission.</p><p>Now I find myself looking forward to this fall’s annual fundraiser for the Grand County Historical Association, where last year I was among the few attendees, male or female, without a cowboy hat. I anticipate it as a coming-out party of sorts, when I’ll wear my hat boldly among friends and neighbors who, for whatever reason, have made the exact same calculation.</p><p>Some are ranchers who really do ride horses for a living. In my mind, they’re the ones who’ve earned the right to wear such a hat, and I’ll gladly step out of their ways as they pass. But I suspect just as many are Subaru Cowboys like me. Call me a poser if you wish. I prefer to think I’ve simply come to embody the Westerner I’ve been all along.</p><p><em>This essay originally appeared in the July 2018 issue of Denver's 5280 magazine.</em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Life as a Mountain]]></title><description><![CDATA[Our essence, our lives, an alpine to scale.
For climb it we must, no option to share.
A tumble through daisies, a forget-me-not trail.
A tot in the meadow, only parents to care.
The trail soon turns upward, a cliff here and there.
The tree line appears, our teen years are here.
Some foothills, a slope, some low relief hills.
We venture on high, the thrills and the chills.
For soon we must know, our life is as ice.
No plateaus to rest, no warmth to entice.
We struggle to climb, we touch the white]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/life-as-a-mountain/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523000</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:34:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1455044372794-d981761b5bc6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1455044372794-d981761b5bc6?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Life as a Mountain"/><p>Our essence, our lives, an alpine to scale.<br>For climb it we must, no option to share.<br>A tumble through daisies, a forget-me-not trail.<br>A tot in the meadow, only parents to care.<br>The trail soon turns upward, a cliff here and there.<br>The tree line appears, our teen years are here.<br>Some foothills, a slope, some low relief hills.<br>We venture on high, the thrills and the chills.<br>For soon we must know, our life is as ice.<br>No plateaus to rest, no warmth to entice.<br>We struggle to climb, we touch the white peak.<br>And look down below, no time more to speak.<br>Our life from afar, a sonorous clear tune.<br>The only one hears, a dim sallow moon.<br>For alone we must die, our solitude bare.<br>The crest we did reach, no one left to care.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Carrying Our Loads]]></title><description><![CDATA[Driving at night, my car a silent capsule pulled along the freeway’s string,
big rigs with great dane snouts crawl up behind me, nudge the air, snort
at bumpers like chained bulls. Cat-eyed lights rake my car’s packed
interior, reveal a single me, uneasy as a paper target at a shooting range.
The drivers in frayed cowboy hats or trim Stetsons, with old-god faces
dulled with the opium of miles, don’t detour from their compass
of purpose. Wanderlust is their only desire. Neither smiling
nor frown]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/carrying-our-loads/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523028</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:33:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541969487406-1f1adf3884ab?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1541969487406-1f1adf3884ab?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="Carrying Our Loads"/><p>Driving at night, my car a silent capsule pulled along the freeway’s string,<br>big rigs with great dane snouts crawl up behind me, nudge the air, snort<br>at bumpers like chained bulls. Cat-eyed lights rake my car’s packed<br>interior, reveal a single me, uneasy as a paper target at a shooting range.</br></br></br></p><p>The drivers in frayed cowboy hats or trim Stetsons, with old-god faces<br>dulled with the opium of miles, don’t detour from their compass<br>of purpose. Wanderlust is their only desire. Neither smiling<br>nor frowning, they grumble truck gears, pull out, wobble</br></br></br></p><p>my small car with their long trailers of secrets outlined in lights<br>like rodeo carnival rides. The drivers are guardians of roundups<br>I can’t see: apples, aliens, oil, calves, chemicals, or radioactive<br>uranium. Level with wheels, I watch the revolution of tires,</br></br></br></p><p>the rubber braille-bumps the roads thin to flung black<br>curls I mistake for fallen animals. Sometimes real ones rise<br>from the grass–hunted deer seeking safety in no-gun zones<br>who grow crazy with the consistency of headlights, leap</br></br></br></p><p>like saints into the promise of chrome. The drivers swerve,<br>but in the country music of night, no one stops for shadows,<br>or deer bounding into grass, though we glance in mirrors<br>that look back at all the shattered songs we leave behind.</br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Love a Rainy Night]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-love-a-rainy-night/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523024</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jay Vrecenak]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:32:28 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/ILoveARainyNight-IMG_0398.JPG" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/ILoveARainyNight-IMG_0398.JPG" class="kg-image" alt="I Love a Rainy Night" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/ILoveARainyNight-IMG_0398.JPG" alt="I Love a Rainy Night"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2019/01/ILoveARainyNight-IMG_0398.JPG?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Father's Day]]></title><description><![CDATA[Do you remember the wooden car you carved
By hand or machine (I didn’t know which) but
We painted blue and ran in races somewhere
(I didn’t know where) and even though we lost
It still felt like victory because I had my dad and
We did something well together even though
We lived miles apart (I didn’t know why)?]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/fathers-day/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852300d</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Fontana]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:31:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/toy-1078181_1920.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/toy-1078181_1920.jpg" alt="Father's Day"/><p>Do you remember the wooden car you carved<br>By hand or machine (I didn’t know which) but<br>We painted blue and ran in races somewhere<br>(I didn’t know where) and even though we lost<br>It still felt like victory because I had my dad and<br>We did something well together even though<br>We lived miles apart (I didn’t know why)?</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Old Man]]></title><description><![CDATA[The old man looked up for a moment
he waved for me to come closer
translucent fingers like discarded shrimp shells
No longer the cocky young seventeen year-old
parachuting into the Philippines
or the quiet man who talked my mother into saying
I do
I leaned down
ear close to cracked lips
as he tried to draw enough breath from somewhere in lungs that had been ravaged
by fifty years of chain smoking unfiltered Luckies
LS/MFT
Lucky Strikes Means Fine Tobacco
Loose Straps Means Floppy Ta-ta’s
Let’]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-old-man/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8523010</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:30:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/The_Ladies-_home_journal_-1948-_-14764576094-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2019/01/The_Ladies-_home_journal_-1948-_-14764576094-.jpg" alt="The Old Man"/><p>The old man looked up for a moment<br>he waved for me to come closer<br>translucent fingers like discarded shrimp shells</br></br></p><p>No longer the cocky young seventeen year-old<br>parachuting into the Philippines<br>or the quiet man who talked my mother into saying<br>I do</br></br></br></p><p>I leaned down<br>ear close to cracked lips<br>as he tried to draw enough breath from somewhere in lungs that had been ravaged<br>by fifty years of chain smoking unfiltered Luckies</br></br></br></p><p>LS/MFT<br>Lucky Strikes Means Fine Tobacco<br>Loose Straps Means Floppy Ta-ta’s<br>Let’s Screw My Finger’s Tired</br></br></br></p><p>The old Man’s words gurgled in his throat<br>then surfaced clearly in a soft whisper<br>‘Matt shot first.’</br></br></p><p>Huge smile<br>at my awkwardness<br>still throwing curves<br>no softballs</br></br></br></p><p>I look deep into those dying eyes and see a reflection<br>dad and son<br>sitting together watching the tube<br>waiting for Marshall Dillon</br></br></br></p><p>The scene opens<br>the thunder of kettle drums<br>Matt stalks out on the street</br></br></p><p>dad and son stand and face each other<br>in their best gunfighter poses</br></p><p>When the music crescendoes<br>four plow handle hands<br>faster than light<br>draw and throw lead</br></br></br></p><p>Father and son<br>always won<br>Matt and the man in black<br>never had a chance</br></br></br></p><p>I smile back<br>lean in close and whisper...</br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 4: Winter 2019]]></title><description><![CDATA[This fourth issue of eMerge Literary Magazine has compelled me to continue looking for that mysterious source that inspires such creativity. This issue is filled with wonder and revelation, love and enmity, mystery and paradox, humor and drama, and many the verisimilitudes of life. The different perspectives our authors and photographers use to bring these truths to light are both creative and inspired. My own personal muses for this issue were Bill McCloud and Wendy Carlisle, who possess the ab]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-4/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b852302b</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:30:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This fourth issue of <em>eMerge Literary Magazine</em> has compelled me to continue looking for that mysterious source that inspires such creativity. This issue is filled with wonder and revelation, love and enmity, mystery and paradox, humor and drama, and many the verisimilitudes of life. The different perspectives our authors and photographers use to bring these truths to light are both creative and inspired. My own personal muses for this issue were Bill McCloud and Wendy Carlisle, who possess the ability to untangle the complicated and challenge our presuppositions. I also want to thank the team that is responsible for the production of <em>eMerge</em>:</p><ul><li>Sandra Templeton, Artistic Editor</li><li>Cat Templeton, Commandant of the Code</li></ul><p>I also want to thank the Board of Directors at the <a href="//writerscolony.org">Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow</a> (WCDH) who have been enthusiastic in their support of this endeavor, with special acknowledgement to Peggy Kjelgaard our new Board President. WCDH continues to be the only wiriting retreat in the U.S. that provides its supporters and alumni a platform to publish their creative works. 2020 will be a magic year for the WCDH, it will be our 20th Anniversary! We hope to have some exciting news for all of you in our Summer 2019 issue of <em>eMerge</em>.</p><p>In the words of one of the world’s writing treasures, “May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art - write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, Somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” - Neil Gaiman</p><p>Until Next Time,<br>I Remain,<br>Just another Zororastafarian Editor on safari looking for the fabled unicorn but only finding an angry rhino…</br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[To a Tree]]></title><description><![CDATA[I frequently will
read out loud
to a tree
But not just any
book and not
just any tree]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/to-a-tree/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522ffa</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2019]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:29:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1458966480358-a0ac42de0a7a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1458966480358-a0ac42de0a7a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ" alt="To a Tree"/><p>I frequently will<br>read out loud<br> to a tree<br> <br>But not just any<br>book and not<br> just any tree</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Figures]]></title><description><![CDATA[When I was a young art student and I walked into my first figure drawing class, I was very uncomfortable. When the unclothed model took her first pose, I was flush and red in the face. It didn’t take long even on that first day, that I got over being uncomfortable and enjoyed the challenge of drawing the human body. I soon realized the benefit of practicing figure drawing. Each model presented a new challenge and my ability to draw improved. During countless sessions, I drew and painted all body]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/figures/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fe0</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:13:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1500283265283-63cc4f18a97b?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=a5542aa83153328888f407ab9354472a" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1500283265283-63cc4f18a97b?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=a5542aa83153328888f407ab9354472a" alt="Figures"/><p>When I was a young art student and I walked into my first figure drawing class, I was very uncomfortable. When the unclothed model took her first pose, I was flush and red in the face. It didn’t take long even on that first day, that I got over being uncomfortable and enjoyed the challenge of drawing the human body. I soon realized the benefit of practicing figure drawing. Each model presented a new challenge and my ability to draw improved. During countless sessions, I drew and painted all body types: female and male, tall, short, thin, heavy, black, white, duos, dancers, construction workers, and even a couple of very pregnant models. I thought each and every one was beautiful in his/her own way. That is until I encountered Breda. She was old.</p>
<p>While living in Saint Louis, I took painting courses at Washington University. In one of my painting classes, our subject matter was the human body. Breda was one of the instructor’s favorite models. The first time she showed up to model, I thought, “Yuk, I don’t want to see this old woman naked.” Breda was seventy-something-years-old. As a twenty-two year old, I thought no way could anyone that old would look good and be worthy of drawing. When Breda removed her robe, she revealed a pot belly, saggy flesh, and veins showing through her thin skin. I thought, “Okay, get over it and draw.”</p>
<p>By the end of that first session, Breda had become my favorite model. Her body revealed great character and I could sense the history of a lifetime of living. What I noticed more than anything is that Breda’s gentle beautiful spirit shone through even though she was not saying anything and sitting perfectly still. Her beauty radiated.</p>
<p>I was particularly drawn to the beauty of her hands. They were somewhat gnarled with knotty joints, veins showing through, and with age spots. I loved her hands. Even though most people think the eyes tell a story, I thought and still think, “The hands tell the story and are a true reflection of a life lived.The older the hands, the more chapters that are revealed.”</p>
<p>For the next two semesters of that class, Breda was our only model. Most of the time she was nude but at times she was would add accent accessories such as a large hat or feather boa. During breaks, Breda and I chatted and soon became good friends. Many times she would bring me homemade goodies. She was an excellent cookie baker.</p>
<p>I appreciate the time I spent with Breda. I learned a great deal. Not only did my drawing and painting skills improve, I learned that age has nothing to do with beauty. Beauty truly does come from the inside.</p>
<p><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Zeek---Figures-1.jpg" alt="Figures" loading="lazy"/></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Time to Choose]]></title><description><![CDATA[Two characters in a hospital room: Jack and an Angel of Death
Jack: Old white man in a bed, with tubes and life-support systems, late at night, quiet, dim lights, no one moving around. Jack wakes up and notices a person sitting in the bedside chair.
Angel of Death: Middle age person, man or woman, dressed for informal anonymity, probably somber, any ethnicity, notices Jack is awake and says:
AD: You have a choice.
J: What?
AD: You can take with you into the next life all you have learn]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/time-to-choose/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fdf</guid><category><![CDATA[Plays]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dan Morris]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:12:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1519494080410-f9aa76cb4283?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=cec26db76d4de07792e806c80d202161" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1519494080410-f9aa76cb4283?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=cec26db76d4de07792e806c80d202161" alt="Time to Choose"/><p>Two characters in a hospital room: Jack and an Angel of Death</p>
<p><strong>Jack:</strong> Old white man in a bed, with tubes and life-support systems, late at night, quiet, dim lights, no one moving around. Jack wakes up and notices a person sitting in the bedside chair.</p>
<p><strong>Angel of Death:</strong> Middle age person, man or woman, dressed for informal anonymity, probably somber, any ethnicity, notices Jack is awake and says:</p>
<p>AD: You have a choice.</p>
<p>J: What?</p>
<p>AD: You can take with you into the next life all you have learned in this one. Or not.</p>
<p>J: Who are you?</p>
<p>AD: An angel of death. I’ve come to make sure you understand a few things about your transition.</p>
<p>J: You’re The Angel of Death?</p>
<p>AD: Not “The angel,” “An” angel. I work for “The Angel of Death.” I’m here to give you a choice. You can take with you into the next life all you have learned in this one. Or not.</p>
<p>J: So there is a next life. And I have a choice?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. We call it a “next life.” It’s more related to recycling.</p>
<p>J: Recycling?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. All your physical self cells get totally recycled of course, matter itself is neither created nor destroyed on earth, you know. Just re-arranged. But your brain-self, your soul, some call it, is portable, sort of. You can take what its learned, or not</p>
<p>J: Seems obviously smarter to take it.</p>
<p>AD: May seem obvious, but wait. Before you sign on the dotted line, so to speak, let me explain a few things.</p>
<p>J: Okay</p>
<p>AD: When a baby is born, it takes ten months or so to say their first words. Think about that.</p>
<p>J: Okay</p>
<p>AD: You have to start all over learning to talk, and that’s just an example.</p>
<p>J: Okay</p>
<p>AD: Newborns have to learn things like rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking and running, from absolute scratch. Everybody has to learn them. No matter if you take it or not, you’d have to learn the basics.</p>
<p>J: So why would I choose to take anything with me?</p>
<p>AD: Good question. At this end of your life you have a perspective not available at the beginning. If you’ve learned truths about human nature and life on Earth, you may take those with you into your next life at an intuitive level.</p>
<p>J: Yeah.</p>
<p>AD: But, if you have unresolved burdens, feelings of guilt or shame, those will also be in your brain, at an intuitive level, and also may rise to the surface at some point.<br>
As you can see, your content, both positive and negative, will go with you. If you choose to take it.</br></p>
<p>J: All or nothing. That’s something to think about.</p>
<p>AD: That’s why many folks choose to start all over clean.</p>
<p>J: I see.</p>
<p>AD: The problem with starting over clean is you won’t have that storehouse of accumulated experiential wisdom that might be useful in your next life.</p>
<p>J: Oh yeah. That could be a problem. I guess.</p>
<p>AD: Darn right it could. Let’s say you feel like you were dealt a bad hand for some reason. Say you’ve always had bad luck. You’ve been sick or unhealthy. You were injured accidentally early in life and have suffered much pain and struggle. You want to start all over clean, and get a better chance next time.</p>
<p>J: Sounds reasonable.</p>
<p>AD: Maybe at first it sounds okay. But, if you’ve handled your trials and tribulations pretty well – overcome your challenges and felt loved – you may want to keep that much gained-ground. What you learned and the strength you built may be helpful in the next round. Or may not be.</p>
<p>J: Maybe not?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. It’s hard to tell what you might need in the next round. It all depends.</p>
<p>J: Depends on what?</p>
<p>AD: Timing, I suppose. When you get your next assignment, it may be in a time that isn’t like this one. ’Hard to say when life will take you back. Or where.</p>
<p>J: I’m not sure I understand.</p>
<p>AD: Well, it is very complex. Frankly, the clean slate is often the choice picked by folks who’ve had a hard time staying out of trouble, who sometimes have regrets, if you know what I mean.</p>
<p>J: Sometimes?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. It’s a tough choice. We call it a mulligan. When those folks come through again, and they haven’t made any progress, still misbehaving and such, we sometimes point out that a clean slate only really helps if you’re remorseful and motivated to do it differently next time.</p>
<p>J: This is kind of off topic, but how many of these conversations have you done?</p>
<p>AD: Today?</p>
<p>J: What? Okay, today.</p>
<p>AD: You’re my fourth. But, I’m a rookie.</p>
<p>J: Rookie?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. This is my first year doing this.</p>
<p>J: Really? What’s your daily average?</p>
<p>AD: Oh, I guess ten or twelve. Daily and nightly combined, I might add. Some folks have a hard time making decisions. I’m trying to get better at explaining things.</p>
<p>J: Oh, I think you’re doing fine.</p>
<p>AD: Thank you. Speaking of which, do you have any more questions or have you made a decision?</p>
<p>J: Uh, no. Let’s see. Let me get this straight. I can choose to take the full content of my brain with me into the next life. Or, just start over from scratch. And even if I choose to take the contents, I may not actually remember everything I’ve learned?</p>
<p>AD: Right. It usually stays in your sub-conscious. Most folks occasionally have intuitive feelings about things, all kinds of things. Those feelings are actually information packets from past lives.</p>
<p>J: Packets?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. I call them packets.</p>
<p>J: Like a CD or a thumb drive?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. But, they don’t have any substance. Memories have no physical weight. Neither do thoughts.</p>
<p>J: Oh, I see what you mean.</p>
<p>AD: Sometimes, fear has a little weight.</p>
<p>J: Oh my. Really? I’m afraid of several things.</p>
<p>AD: Like what?</p>
<p>J: Well, let’s see. Snakes. I have no desire to touch them, even the tame ones, and yuck, I don’t even like seeing a picture of them. Does that count?</p>
<p>AD: Yes, of course. But, it’ll make a difference if you were ever actually bitten by a snake, or if you only have been taught that snakes are dangerous and you believe it.</p>
<p>J: It makes a difference?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. If you’ve been bit, that could cause a trauma.</p>
<p>J: So? What does that mean?</p>
<p>AD: Well, maybe not much. But, sometimes a trauma can be a source for loss of some spirit, or a deep feeling of depression. It’s like scar tissue on your psyche. It may be no trouble at all. The whole system is totally personalized. Every person has their own unique set of experiences to take or leave.</p>
<p>J: That’s good.</p>
<p>AD: Yes. Makes it really important for each person to choose.</p>
<p>J: I can see that.</p>
<p>AD: The other really cool thing is if you have found in this life a satisfying or productive path that you really liked; if you’ve become an expert at something, found soul- satisfaction, that sort of thing, then you may want to hang on to that hard-earned evolution.</p>
<p>J: Evolution?</p>
<p>AD: Things either evolve or devolve, Jack. There’s always motion. It’s life.</p>
<p>J: So. Like Karma? Sort of?</p>
<p>AD: The Karma analogy can be useful, I think.</p>
<p>J: Does it mean that the next life will be easier? Like a reward?</p>
<p>AD: Maybe. But maybe harder. Like a challenge or a lesson.</p>
<p>J: Oh. Not necessarily an advantage.</p>
<p>AD: It depends entirely on how you feel about this life, the one you’re leaving. If rising to challenges in this life was manageable, maybe even fun, then maybe you wouldn’t mind challenges in the next, which may or may not occur.</p>
<p>J: May or may not?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. Never can tell.</p>
<p>J: Hmm. Let’s review. I can take the contents of my brain with me, or not. If I do, it’ll be deep in my sub-conscious where I may or may not be able to access it. And if I can, it may or may not be helpful in the next life.</p>
<p>AD: Yes.</p>
<p>J: That’s a lot of “may or may nots.”</p>
<p>AD: Yes, it is. That’s why I’m here.</p>
<p>J: Are you the only one?</p>
<p>AD: Only one what? Assistant angel of death?</p>
<p>J: Yeah.</p>
<p>AD: Oh no. Folks are dying all over the world all day long. There may be thousands of us, maybe millions.</p>
<p>J: Really? And everyone gets to choose?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. I call it the GCO.</p>
<p>J: G C O?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. Great Cosmic Option.</p>
<p>J: Huh. Never heard of it.</p>
<p>AD: Oh. I just made it up. The real name is Death. Every living thing will die and be recycled. And that knowledge is embedded in all living things. All life is born knowing it will die someday. But, deep inside, all life wants to keep living as long as possible before death. The more life, the better.</p>
<p>J: Makes sense.</p>
<p>AD: Yes, it does. My job is to give folks a chance to choose whether they take their experience with them. Or not. So, what do you think? Ready to make the choice?</p>
<p>J: Hold on a second. I think I want to take it. I think I’ve gained some wisdom. Certainly I’ve developed a few skills, like on the computer and stuff. Are there computers in the next life?</p>
<p>AD: I have no idea. Depends on timing.</p>
<p>J: Timing? Again?</p>
<p>AD: Yes, timing, as I said, when you get recycled. Time seems linear to you, but it may not be. I’m not sure. My training did not include much coverage of the timing issue.</p>
<p>J: Training?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. Angel training. I’ve taken advanced courses.</p>
<p>J: Really?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. But the specifics of time and timing were not thoroughly discussed in any of my course work.</p>
<p>J: You don’t understand time?</p>
<p>AD: Right. I understand some things about it. It doesn’t slow down or speed up. It’s just there. While you’re living, you can’t go backward or forward in it. After death, I don’t know. That part never made much sense to me. My job is just on this side of the transition. Maybe there are Angels of Life on the other side to help you get re-born.</p>
<p>J: Really?</p>
<p>AD: I don’t know. I said “maybe.” If there are, maybe they’ll find you. Like I did.</p>
<p>J: How did you find me?</p>
<p>AD: That’s restricted information. Let’s just say it was a matter of timing.</p>
<p>J: Timing?</p>
<p>AD: Yes. Your time to go is approaching and you have a choice to make. Ready to choose?</p>
<p>J: Wait. Not yet</p>
<p>AD: You have another question?</p>
<p>J: Yea. If I choose to take my contents with me . . . I can’t believe I’m using the word “contents” like this . . . if I take it, will my computer skills give me an advantage? Even though they’re deep in my sub-conscious, as you say?</p>
<p>AD: Again, Jack. You seem to be looking for an advantage. You are trying to “get ahead.” I think that is probably a good sign for your next go-round, but I can’t guarantee your packet will give you an advantage over others, if that’s what you want.</p>
<p>J: So you can’t give me a straight answer on that? Why not? You’re an angel.</p>
<p>AD: Angels are usually designed for one task. We’re not God, you know.</p>
<p>J: Yea, but didn’t God design you and send you to me?</p>
<p>AD: Well, yes and no. And, I don’t actually know the answer to that. All I know is you have a choice to make and I can explain that choice. But, some of your questions have to do with being human, which I’m not. So I can’t answer them.</p>
<p>J: You look like a human.</p>
<p>AD: I know, it’s a trick. Angels are different. I’m sure of that. And my job is just to get your official decision on the big question. Are you close to an answer?</p>
<p>J: Getting closer. Just one more question.</p>
<p>AD: Okay, one more.</p>
<p>J: When I make my choice and give you my answer, is that the moment I die?</p>
<p>AD: Mmmm. I’m not sure. There’s a distinct possibility you may already be dead.</p>
<p>J: What? When did it happen? I didn’t feel a thing. I’m not dead, I’m talking to you.</p>
<p>AD: It does seem that way, doesn’t it? And that was two more questions. And some other stuff. You said “one more question.”</p>
<p>J: And you didn’t answer it.</p>
<p>AD: I know. It’s quite difficult to explain to physical humans the way things work in the rest of reality. It’s like you are in a bubble, Jack, and you are about to pop into the next one. Would you like to take your contents with you? Or not? The decision has to be yours. Need a little more time?</p>
<p>J: Would that be possible? Could I have another day or two?</p>
<p>AD: I don’t know. I could check.</p>
<p>J: Would you please?</p>
<p>AD: Sure.</p>
<p>Angel of Death gets up quietly and leaves stage. Lights go down.<br>
end</br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Aren't His Medals Shiny?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Hello? Oh yes, why don't you come on in? I've been expecting you. It isn't often someone comes to visit and talk about Billy.
Here, please have a seat on the couch. Would you like some coffee or tea? Or maybe a Coke? I have some in glass bottles. Billy always insisted it was better that way. But, I wouldn't know. My taste just isn't what it used to be.
Yes, that’s his picture. He was so handsome in his uniform.
Why did Billy join the Marines? I think it was because his girlfriend broke up ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/arent-his-medals-shiny/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fde</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sledge]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:12:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528751394743-526cf5933226?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=3b19d5ca73241f57f8a1eec983fa3ae3" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528751394743-526cf5933226?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=3b19d5ca73241f57f8a1eec983fa3ae3" alt="Aren't His Medals Shiny?"/><p>Hello? Oh yes, why don't you come on in? I've been expecting you. It isn't often someone comes to visit and talk about Billy.</p>
<p>Here, please have a seat on the couch. Would you like some coffee or tea? Or maybe a Coke? I have some in glass bottles. Billy always insisted it was better that way. But, I wouldn't know. My taste just isn't what it used to be.</p>
<p>Yes, that’s his picture. He was so handsome in his uniform.</p>
<p>Why did Billy join the Marines? I think it was because his girlfriend broke up with him. Boys are so foolish sometimes. I had noticed him moping around the house for a few days, but didn't want to ask him about it. You ask these young people what is bothering them and they grunt and move to another room, especially if it’s a mother who does the asking. Yet, make sure everyone knows how miserable they are.</p>
<p>Well, anyway, after he and Sandra quit going out, Paul told him, "So you lost a girl. Lots of guys lose girls. Think it's the end of the world, they do. Me, I lost two girlfriends before I married your mother, and I'm better for it. If you feel that down in the dumps, why don't you join the Marines or something? That will take your mind off your troubles." He gave me a wink when he said that to Billy.</p>
<p>Then a few day later at supper—I can remember it just like yesterday—in between "Pass the potatoes, Mom,” “Honey, the fried chops are great,” and “I’ve made apple pie for dessert,” Billy said, “By the way, I leave for boot camp in two weeks."</p>
<p>Paul and I knew Billy wasn’t just pulling our leg. We sat there quietly for a few minutes, eating, except everyone was doing a lot of chewing and not much swallowing. Finally, a tear rolled down my cheek and I got up and gave Billy a hug. Paul reached across the table and took hold of my hand and Billy's and said that he was real proud that his boy was going to serve in the best there was.</p>
<p>I don't know how things would have turned out if Paul had not joked about enlisting. Maybe he would have done it on his own. But, Paul never forgot that he had teased Billy about signing up. I believe he carried that thought to his grave. Maybe it even helped put him there. He never told me how he felt about it, but I saw that it ate at him constantly. You don't live with a man for over thirty years without knowing what he is holding deep inside in a place where even he is afraid to look.</p>
<p>When Billy went to boot camp, I wrote him almost every day. I had my routine. At night before bed, I sat at my dresser and penned a letter. Sometimes just a note on a postcard and other times a longer message. And every now and then I received a letter back. And this, too, followed a ritual. Paul would take the mail from the box out front, drop it on the stand beside my chair, and ask casually, "Heard from Billy lately?" I knew full well that he had already checked.</p>
<p>I would go through the pile of letters one by one, deliberately slipping Billy's letter to the bottom. "Oh, here is something from Aunt Tilly. I wonder how her bursitis is doing? And here is our electricity bill. Whew! So expensive. I hate to think what it would be like if we ran the air all the time like some folks do. By the way, did you know that John down at the plant was working on a pump when he got his hand caught in a gear and lost a finger?"</p>
<p>Paul, dear fellow, would be restlessly packing and unpacking his pipe, waiting for me to get to the only envelope he cared about.</p>
<p>And I would dawdle slowly along. Eventually Paul would light his pipe and it would smoke like on an old time locomotive; just like the one that used to run by the pastures when I was a girl. It would chug slowly up the hill, smoke and cinders blowing out of the top with every stroke of the big pistons, wheezing with every revolution of the wheels, till at last it reached the crest and headed down toward town, puffing and huffing faster all the way.</p>
<p>Paul's pipe would almost be on fire by the time I finally couldn't wait any longer myself and lifted Billy's letter up to the light and said, "Well, what's this, a letter from Billy? Honey, do you want to open it?"</p>
<p>"What's that you say, Martha? Something from Billy?" Paul would say from behind a cloud of hazelnut smoke. "No, why don't you go ahead."</p>
<p>I would slowly open the letter, very carefully pulling the flap up so as not to tear the envelope. I'd take the paper out and smooth it first on my bible, this one right here on the stand, and read each word out loud. Then, I might read it again. This time, emphasizing different passages.</p>
<p>When I was finished, I’d put the letter in my memory case with the others. I've got them all right here. There are thirty-five of them. Thirty-five. Twenty while he was in boot camp, ten while waiting for assignment overseas, and five after shipping out. I imagine that there would have been more if he had served his full term.</p>
<p>Paul and I had many nice nights with Billy's letters. I can recite them word-by-word.</p>
<p>These are Billy's medals here: Purple Heart, Distinguished Service Medal, and a few others that I can't remember exactly what for. The VFW bought this cabinet for me to put them in. Billy being such a hero, they felt he deserved something special.</p>
<p>They are quite shiny, aren't they? I hoped you’d notice that. Whenever I took Billy's medals out of the case to polish them, Paul left the room. And after I put them up he eventually drifted back into the den. Look. A light comes on by itself when it gets dark and shines on them. Late at night, when I can't sleep, and that’s often these days, I come in here. I keep the room dark and just sit in this armchair. My mind wanders some then. Down there on the floor was where we used to put Billy on a blanket after supper. He rolled around, reaching out for a ball or rattle. Paul got down on his hands and knees and let him pull his hair, what little hair he had even then. I can remember thinking that I couldn't imagine how someday a grown man would emerge from that little bundle of helplessness lying on the pallet.</p>
<p>When I'm up late like that, thinking back on how it used be, I sometimes hear the two of them, Billy cooing and gurgling and Paul growling in his rough voice. Then, sometimes, I see Billy's face in the medals when the light catches them just right. Of course I know I’m imagining things, but it seems that if I look at them out of the corner of my eyes I almost get a glimpse. They are shiny, don't you think? I work hard to keep them that way.</p>
<p>Billy's old girlfriend called the day after we got word. She had married someone else and wanted to tell us how sorry she was. What could I say? That she was the reason we no longer had Billy? That I found a letter he had written to her but never mailed? The letter with his words saying that if they couldn’t be together he didn't want to live?</p>
<p>Sometimes things just happen the way they do and you never really know why. Paul, lying on the hospital bed a few months after the men in dark uniforms brought us the terrible news, said it to me like this. "You just never know where you stand when the dice are being rolled. Then, all of a sudden, you look down and realize you have lost everything you had and know that for you the game is over."</p>
<p>His last words he told me were, "You like to keep them shiny, don't you? I like it, too."</p>
<p>And now, I don't have much else to do. The neighbors call and check in but they are just being polite. What do they want with an old woman's problems? Maybe they feel that loneliness is contagious. Or maybe I remind them that but for a twitch of fate our roles would be reversed.</p>
<p>But whatever, I don't need a lot of help. I get by.</p>
<p>So, if you will excuse me, I need to get my polishing cloth and shine Billy’s medals.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Went to School Today and I Survived]]></title><description><![CDATA[Aware of your surroundings on the way to school
Walking with friends are they really friends
Slow down to go through the metal detector
Unlock your locker alert to those around you
Entering the classroom fighting over the desk
Only halfway listening to the teacher
Backpack held up in front of you at all times
Not wanting to go to the cafeteria
Or look anyone in the eye
Watching the clock the clock the clock
I went to school today and I survived
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/i-went-to-school-today-and-i-survived/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fdd</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:12:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502790321135-31874fc22684?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=d3cc31a0be91258cc1b4de99a203ad0d" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1502790321135-31874fc22684?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=d3cc31a0be91258cc1b4de99a203ad0d" alt="I Went to School Today and I Survived"/><p>Aware of your surroundings on the way to school<br>
Walking with friends are they really friends<br>
Slow down to go through the metal detector<br>
Unlock your locker alert to those around you<br>
Entering the classroom fighting over the desk<br>
Only halfway listening to the teacher<br>
Backpack held up in front of you at all times<br>
Not wanting to go to the cafeteria<br>
Or look anyone in the eye<br>
Watching the clock the clock the clock<br>
I went to school today and I survived</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pink Laces]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pink-laces/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fea</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:12:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Pink-Laces.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Pink-Laces.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Pink Laces" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Pink-Laces.jpg" alt="Pink Laces"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Pink-Laces.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Advice]]></title><description><![CDATA[By a lake shaped like a cartoon parrot
We practiced the simple art.
You were 17 and I was 19, two years
between us and then I was twenty.
This is the simple math.
It was Florida in the Sixties and
your aunt said, don’t grin honey,
you don’t want to work your skin
like that. She told me, one day
you’ll be dead, but meanwhile put on
some lipstick, wear a cute skirt.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/advice/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fdc</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:11:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Rows_of_lipstick.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Rows_of_lipstick.jpg" alt="Advice"/><p>By a lake shaped like a cartoon parrot <br>
We practiced the simple art.</br></p>
<p>You were 17 and I was 19, two years <br>
between us and then I was twenty.</br></p>
<p>This is the simple math. <br>
It was Florida in the Sixties and</br></p>
<p>your aunt said, <em>don’t grin honey, <br>
you don’t want to work your skin <br>
like that.</br></br></em> She told me, <em>one day <br>
you’ll be dead, but meanwhile put on <br>
some lipstick, wear a cute skirt.</br></br></em></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hung, the Boat Woman of Hue]]></title><description><![CDATA[
I raised the expectation,
You shook your head sadly.
Like fish in water and fowl in the air
It’s not easy to meet…
I saw you off on your way
And felt hundreds of jumbled feelings.
—Nguyen Binh
(1918-1966)
For years I had loved the words “Perfume River.” I imagined sailing down this Vietnam waterway of which I knew nothing. I imagined it smelled gorgeous and the experience would be one of romance and poetry. That’s why on my single day in Hue, the ancient, imperial capital of Vietnam]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/hung-the-boat-woman-of-hue/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fdb</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Maxine Schur]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:11:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/reducedboatwoman.jpeg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><blockquote>
<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/reducedboatwoman.jpeg" alt="Hung, the Boat Woman of Hue"/><p><em>I raised the expectation,<br>
You shook your head sadly.<br>
Like fish in water and fowl in the air<br>
It’s not easy to meet…<br>
I saw you off on your way<br>
And felt hundreds of jumbled feelings.<br>
—Nguyen Binh<br>
(1918-1966)</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>For years I had loved the words “Perfume River.” I imagined sailing down this Vietnam waterway of which I knew nothing. I imagined it smelled gorgeous and the experience would be one of romance and poetry. That’s why on my single day in Hue, the ancient, imperial capital of Vietnam, the first thing I did was to inquire how to take a boat ride on the Perfume River.</p>
<p>Since I had only a day, I needed a short boat ride as I was keen on seeing the famous Imperial City, the 14th century walled palace complex, in the afternoon. “No problem,” said the girl at the hotel desk. She told me she would arrange a taxi pickup for me in the morning to one of the dragon boats that provide voyages on the river. The boats, shaped and painted like dragons are designed for tourists. They stop at the main sites along the riverbank so you can hop on and off and they wait for you. Since I didn’t have much time, she suggested I go directly to the Thien Mu pagoda and get a taste… or rather a whiff of the Perfume River, then return to Hue.</p>
<p>When I got to the dock I found a boat waiting for me and soon realized I was to be the only passenger. “Hallo Lady!” A thin, aged woman working on the boat, called to me. She reached out to hold my arm and steady me as I jumped aboard the wobbly craft. She then bade me sit in a white plastic chair on the deck. Most of the dragon boats looked grand with two great dragon heads at the prow. This boat had only one dragon head. Like the woman, it was small and weathered but I had complete confidence in its safety because the pilot, a silent, middle-aged man looked steady.</p>
<p>With a long wooden pole, the woman, agile as a child, pushed the boat away from the shore. The engine rumbled to a start and off I sailed down the Perfume River.</p>
<p>The river gets its name from the fragrant scent of the blossoms from nearby orchards, that in autumn, float along the water. In autumn, the river must seem poetic but now in winter, the wide slow river was as gray as dust and the only fragrance I smelled was engine fuel.</p>
<p>I sat back and relaxed, watching other dragon boats chug past under the cloudy sky.</p>
<p>As soon as our journey was underway, the boat woman got busy. She unrolled a bamboo mat on the damp floorboards, went back into the small dim room— the only room on the boat—and emerged with a Styrofoam cooler of soft drinks for sale. I bought a can of Coke and the selling continued. The woman, toothless as a toddler, must have made at least eight trips back and forth into the room to present each time a different array of wares: silk pajamas, embroidered cloth bags, fresh water pearl earrings, horn bracelets, agate necklaces, key chains and sets of chopsticks, each charmingly tucked into a silk case. She spoke little English but enough to be tireless in her effort to sell. Each time she brought out something new, I shook my head regretfully to show I was not at all interested, but after a short while, seeing her look so very disheartened, I relented and bought a package of chopsticks. At this sale, she perked up and gave me a bottle of water in gratitude.</p>
<p>I couldn’t see much life from the boat as the riverbank was hidden in thick foliage so I became curious about the woman. I stole glances at her as she moved about. Her own stolen glances at me revealed she was equally curious. Now and then we smiled at each other but made no attempt to converse.</p>
<p>After an hour or so we came to the Thien Mu (Celestial Lady) Pagoda. I jumped off the boat onto the sandbank and walked up the hill path, through the small pine forest to the pagoda. Built in 1601, it is the oldest religious structure in Vietnam and the crown of the Buddhist monastery surrounding it. The pale pink tower of the pagoda rises gracefully seven stories high, each story representing another stage of enlightenment.</p>
<p>The garden of the monastery surrounds the pagoda and you can enter a temple where a bored-looking boy, about ten years old, beats a large gong. The pagoda and the grounds of the monastery exude peace. Yet this most tranquil place was a center for anti-government fervor during the early 60s. The tourists who jostle to take a photo of the 1950s Austin motorcar attest to the monastery’s eerie history of protest. It was here in 1963 that one of the monastery’s monks, Thich Quang Duc, drove the Austin to Saigon where he set himself afire in protest at the Catholic President Diem’s persecution of Buddhists.</p>
<p>Sobered by my visit to the monastery, I returned to the boat and we headed upstream, back to Hue. I was gratified that on the journey back, the boat woman didn’t try to sell me anything. Like all Vietnamese, she was curious about a woman travelling alone and she began to ask me questions. We started to communicate with hand gestures and three-word sentences. I told her I was from America, that I had flown here from Hanoi and the next day I would be going over the Marble Mountains to Hoi An. I told her my name and she told me her name was Hung, which I later learned means pink rose. With a hint of pride, she told me how old she was: sixty-five.</p>
<p>She asked my age and I told her.</p>
<p><em>We were the same age.</em></p>
<p>The knowledge stunned us both into silence… and melancholy. For in that moment our light-hearted reaching toward each other, turned poignant. Though the same age, my life was privileged. I was on vacation, overfed, with a full set of teeth, smiling, carefree, enjoying the freedom that comes with having leisure time and credit cards. She was still doing hard physical labor and struggling to sell trinkets to one passenger and I sensed, struggling with something else.</p>
<p>The speed at which her smile vanished on realizing we were both sixty-five, told me she too had felt the cruel disparity. For the rest of the ride, she no longer smiled.</p>
<p>When we did speak again, I learned she had been married when she was seventeen. She had loved her husband since she was a little girl and after they married, she bore seven children. One was her son, the dragon boat pilot with whom she now lived in the dark boat room. She had never left Hue. Ever.</p>
<p>As she spoke, I did the grim math.</p>
<p>She and I were nineteen years old in January of 1968. While I was in college, acting in plays and preparing for a fun-filled summer in Israel and Greece, she was a young mother in Hell. In January 1968 during the “Tet Offensive,” to take back control of the south, the Viet Cong captured Hue, set up a provisional Communist government and murdered thousands of civilians they thought were South Vietnam sympathizers. Nearly 3000 men, women and children were tortured, executed then thrown into mass graves. Another 2000 went missing. One hundred thousand residents lost their homes and no one in the city could have escaped the tragedy. After three weeks, the city lay in ruins and corpses lay everywhere. This was the infamous “Massacre at Hue.”</p>
<p>“Come,” the woman beckoned and I followed her into the cramped, shadowy room. The room was painted mint green and was sparsely furnished: two more white plastic chairs, a television, a cooler for drinks and some benches on which bedding was piled. In the corner, rose stacks of cardboard boxes filled with her tourist wares. She walked over to a large, framed black and white photograph on the wall, pointed to it then pointed to herself.</p>
<p>“Me,” she said. “Marry.”</p>
<p>I looked up at the photo to see the face of pretty, teenage girl, an innocent bride.</p>
<p>“Beautiful.” I said. She understood this word and nodded.</p>
<p>“And your children?” I asked.</p>
<p>“No more,” she said quietly. “No more here. No more now.” She pointed to her son whose back was facing us as he piloted the boat. “One boy. No more now.”</p>
<p>She didn’t have the words to tell me more; I didn’t have the words to ask her more. And, even if we shared the same language, we would have had no words that could matter.</p>
<p>No more now.</p>
<p>We docked in Hue, she helped me climb out of the boat and I waved goodbye to her. She stood at the prow waving back to me and she stayed waving to me much too long.</p>
<p>As the boat sailed away up the Perfume River, the figure of the woman shrunk smaller and it is that miniature waving image of her that haunts. Not because my last view of her was at such a great distance, but because my full understanding of her—what she lived through and how— was at such a great distance, forever impossible for me to justly breach.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dancing Trees in the Spotlight]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
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He’d paid four bucks for his lousy coffee. Back home, back in the states, there was a place getting started called Starbucks where a cup of black coffee cost you three bucks. It was a shock, three bucks, but it was great coffee and John loved coffee so he paid it. Worse, though, he’d be out ten bucks if he bought coffee for a pal or took a break with a business colleague and she ordered a Mocha Whatever, the one with the frin]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/john-heartbreaks-coffee-is-cold/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fda</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Krotz]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:11:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1441757801704-6a71cffed732?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=a095f77c6d62508063c69f1c2c235f15" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1441757801704-6a71cffed732?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=a095f77c6d62508063c69f1c2c235f15" alt="John Heartbreak's Coffee is Cold"/><p>John drank coffee in a bar in Mogadishu. Filthy stuff. Filthy place.</p>
<p>He’d paid four bucks for his lousy coffee. Back home, back in the states, there was a place getting started called Starbucks where a cup of black coffee cost you three bucks. It was a shock, three bucks, but it was great coffee and John loved coffee so he paid it. Worse, though, he’d be out ten bucks if he bought coffee for a pal or took a break with a business colleague and she ordered a Mocha Whatever, the one with the fringe on top. There wasn’t a Starbucks in Mogadishu, though they’d started locking down corners in nearly every other city in the world. John had even found one overlooking the Dambovita River in sleepy old Bucharest last year.</p>
<p>His plane was seven hours delayed, leaving him a lot of time to drink a lot of coffee. John drank it black, had done so since starting to drink coffee when he was nine or ten years old. All the children in his family drank coffee: hot black, strong black. Households, cafes, truck stops, kin near and far were goddamned for serving weak coffee. Hot, black, strong was the social, moral, and ethical norm by which all new burgeoning prospering relationships and deals and transactions measured up or fell apart. John’s Mogadishu coffee was Nescafe and lukewarm.</p>
<p>It was a puzzle to him that a coffee growing continent like Africa allowed wretched packets of powdered anti-climaxes to be called coffee. Nobody in the joint seemed to care, though. Except for John and a couple of robed Muslims arguing in the corner, everyone else was drinking whiskey straight up or with a splash of bottled water. They wore wasteland camo khaki, boots, shiny bits of things on leather or chains around burnt necks, and belts strung with some sort of gun. Rifles leaned against the bar or lay next to chairs; rifles napped under the tables or sprawled like sleeping girlfriends across laps. John wore a seersucker suit and a rumpled Countess Mara tie patterned after the one that caused the old Countess’s husband to kill himself. John didn’t have a gun, and he hadn’t wrapped his hands around a rifle since 1969 when a cracker Army DI from West Virginia stuffed one into his pale unwilling draftee hands.</p>
<p>John didn’t talk to the khaki wearers; they didn’t talk to him; they didn’t talk to each other: they stared into their drinks and studied the geography of whiskey and water and glass. They were Germans, Aussies, a couple of Yanks, maybe a Serbian, a Polack, a Brit or two, and sour looking French guys working as bodyguards, security guards, mercenaries, or as hired guns for rich guys and government guys—who were always Muslims with money scared of getting killed by Muslims with no money. John was waiting to catch a plane and drinking bad coffee. Muslims and mercenaries could go fuck themselves as far as he was concerned.</p>
<p>With any luck, benevolently granted in seven, no six hours and thirty minutes, he’d fly to Johannesburg, then to Charles de Gaulle, then Dulles, then Bentonville, Arkansas. Then he’d drive to his new home in Withered Plum, Arkansas, called Bumfuck by John’s pals in D.C., or Minneapolis, or New York: uncivil funny guy pals living in real and mostly civil places. John didn’t call it Bumfuck, not then at least, not aware there, sitting in Mogadishu waiting for a plane, drinking bad coffee and wearing a suicide’s tie, that familiarity bred contempt as well as confidence. He just wanted to go home, even if it was Bumfuck, and give up his chair to a khaki gun boy.</p>
<p>John remembered Bogart’s alibi in Casablanca to describe how he landed in Withered Plum, Arkansas: “I was misinformed.”</p>
<p>Like the surrounding Ozark “Mountains” themselves—scrubby little hills clenched tight as fists, knuckles damp with chicken shit filtered water—his days were full of peaks and valleys. In the early Withered Plum years, John was gone so much he didn’t really notice what was around him. He was up in the air, home on weekends, gone Sunday night and, on Monday morning cabbing around Boston or Seattle or Atlanta having conversations with Jews, buying real newspapers from real newsstands, seeing clean necks, seeing pretty women, pretty women the rule and not the excruciatingly rare exception…and not a goddamned pick-up truck in sight.</p>
<p>Mrs. Heartbreak, John’s wife, spent most of her time in the Ozarks while John was working, traveling. She liked it just fine, better than flat cold understated self-effacing stoic Minnesota where John had taken her after they got married. She had grown up among Appalachian Americans—immigrants from Kentucky and West Virginia who went north to Indiana to work in automobile plants—and her parents farmed. She was used to rural America, familiar with AAs, as John called them, and was unfazed by their self-proclaimed genius, was perhaps even admiring of their naked self-assurance and self-aggrandizement, however unfounded. She judged Minnesotans to be infuriating mumblers, eye-contact cowards, and incapable of completing a sentence. Why she’d married Heartbreak was something of a mystery, even to him. True, he was an employed heterosexual, but otherwise was no more than a semi-skilled intellectual in frequent social distress when surrounded by Mrs. Hs’ relatives. John had married her because she was beautiful and close with a dollar—a characteristic they shared and profited by.</p>
<p>Before John retired he’d missed observing, and escaped participating in, the cultural social moral political civic ethical religious economic and intellectual dump that was the place Mrs. Heartbreak rather enjoyed living in. She enjoyed it because it was cheap to live there and the weather was good. Better than Minnesota weather for damn sure. And she had also grown up in a small town and couldn’t understand John’s claustrophobia.</p>
<p>“Wherever you go, there you are,” she told him.</p>
<p>John nodded.</p>
<p>“And Ozark’s people finish their sentences,” she said. “They don’t rely on Finnish telepathy. They say what they mean.”</p>
<p>And they never stop talking, John said—to himself. But only nodded.</p>
<p>They were both speaking the truth. It was true enough that native-born Minnesotans relied on a shared culture and history, and strict adherence to the Scandinavian ethos of hard work, datum-based reality and understatement to effect communication. Most of their sentences fizzled in the middle, stalled, and then got a (the) crank-start commonplace ending... “well, you know” … and the person, group, audience, and their tightly woven flat little world entirely did indeed know.</p>
<p>“Ozark People,” on the flipside of the downhill cultural divide, never paused between sentences. They’d usually start one by roundly damning some absent miscreant for stupidity, avarice, laziness, or all of the 7 Deadlies combined, and then in the place where the period should go would parenthetically murmur “bless his heart,” before launching another character assassin into the ether. Mrs. Heartbreak saw folks engaged in social conversation. John saw shrieking Baptists with knives.</p>
<p>Minnesotan’s shared a universal three-word call and response to every “how are you?” query. “How are you, Lyle?” Elmer would ask. And Lyle, who had just won $250,000 on a scratch off ticket, would respond, “Not too bad.” But if Lyle had just lost his wife in a fatal car wreck that morning, or was scheduled for chemotherapy the following week, he’d say, “Not too good.” Then Elmer and Lyle would nod at each other—they didn’t make eye contact—and go back to work. (They weren’t paid to stand around, you know.)</p>
<p>An Arkansawyer in the same boats would run up and down the town’s streets weeping and screaming. If they’d won the lottery, it was, “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus!” and do somersaults across Highway 62. Or, if things were “not too good,” they’d call a county-wide meeting and ask for $20 love offerings to ignite a worldwide prayer chain. It got to the point where John wouldn’t leave his yard for fear of conversational opportunities.</p>
<p>The thing that really got up his nose, though, was the hyperventilated lime-lighted self-regard in which they held themselves. Some guy who’d inherited a two-pump 66 Station from his old man would walk around town acting like he invented petroleum and was solely responsible for automotive transportation in the US. He was absolutely certain that his conclusions, and only his conclusions, about international finance, world economic performance, the right price for cane sugar, and what went on in your pants, were the right conclusions. There were about a thousand of these guys in Bumfuck, and if you took out the women and the Mexicans and the children they were everybody, everywhere.</p>
<p>John hadn’t noticed his town’s plethora, abundance, surfeit, and the glut of geniuses at first. When he got off the road and got home for the weekend, the first thing he’d do was say hello to Mrs. Heartbreak in the sincerest possible way. Then he’d head into his office and make phone calls scheduling next week’s trip.<br>
That was John’s life, for years and years.</br></p>
<p>But John got old. John slowed down. Instead of working 7 days a week he started working 5 days a week. Then 4, then 3. Out on the road a couple of times a month, then not at all, zero, nada until weekends became an endless, infinite well of twenty-four-seven Ozarky “our way of life” southern heritage bullshit sessions that felt like a night in jail. Instead of drinking bad coffee in Mogadishu, he sat in Mrs. Heartbreak’s Bumfuck bookstore, staring out the bookstore’s windows at VVVIPs climbing in and out of heavily financed pick-up trucks.</p>
<p>“There’s Buster Williams Jr.,” John said to himself, nodding at the window.</p>
<p>“There’s Buster Williams Jr.,” Mrs. Heartbreak said, sneaking up behind him. “Why don’t you go say hello to him? Buy him a cup of coffee?”</p>
<p>John jumped. “My goodness! You startled me.”</p>
<p>“You can’t spend all your time staring out the window, John. Go out and meet some people. Share some stories.”</p>
<p>“I’ve met Buster Williams Jr.,” John replied. “Buster Williams Sr. left him the Buster Williams Sr. Plumbing Company. Thus, and consequently, Buster Williams Jr. believes he is Thomas Crapper reincarnated. That is if Crapper was a Baptist tea-totaling American Independence Partying Wingnut who had never crossed the Arkansas State line except once, to see the Razorbacks play LSU in Shreveport.</p>
<p>“Why would I want to buy Buster Jr. a cup of coffee?”</p>
<p>“God, you’re such a snob,” Mrs. Heartbreak said. She shook her head slowly, as if it had a painful kink needing straightening out. Then she pointed at a pile of old books. “Why don’t you go and shelve some books? Will you—can you—do that?</p>
<p>“I can—and will—do that. But I’m not a snob. I admit to facing some cultural challenges. It’s probably a Scandinavian heritage thing. Everyone here is Scotch-Irish. Scandinavians are suspicious of second-string Protestants in checkered skirts who will do anything for money. I can’t help my upbringing.”</p>
<p>“Plaid, John. Kilts are plaid. They’re not checkered. And what, pray to tell, is a second-string Protestant?”</p>
<p>“I grew up among Catholics and Lutherans, and the odd Episcopalian or Methodist,” John said. “I admit to befuddlement over the seven or eight Baptist groups in town, and of an understandable theology emerging from the All Holy Temple of Righteous No Holds Barred Truth Devine and Reveled Assembly, over there on Main Street. These are, as you may not know, emblematic of denominations springing out of Appalachia. The very places settled and ruled by Americans of Scotch-Irish descent. Violent places. Places where six rich families con every other family into extracting things from the earth in exchange for no money and barrels of Southern Heritage. These places are low on Catholics and Lutherans and seem prone to hippity hoppity religions and free market excesses.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Heartbreak stared. “How did we get from “have coffee with Buster” to the “All Holy Temple”? I can’t for the life of me understand how your brain works, John. You’re drifting, sweetie pie, and it’s really screwing up your retirement. Maybe you should see a doctor? Get your brain plaque checked? I’m starting to worry.”</p>
<p>Brain plaque?</p>
<p>“We’re both getting on, dear,” she said. “I wish you’d enjoy life more.”</p>
<p>John nodded. He smiled. “I’ve never thought of you as “getting on”.”</p>
<p>She smiled back. “To be honest, John, I’m not getting on. But you, you’re beyond on. You’ve always been a bit odd, but now you’re quite frankly getting to be not just odd, but strange.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Heartbreak turned away and walked back to the sales counter. John went back to staring out the window. He remembered sitting in a bar somewhere in Africa. The details were sketchy but involved a cup of coffee. It didn’t taste good, and it had gotten cold.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Trump for Gulag]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/trump-for-gulag/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522feb</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:11:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Trump-for-Gulag.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Trump-for-Gulag.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Trump for Gulag" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Trump-for-Gulag.jpg" alt="Trump for Gulag"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Trump-for-Gulag.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Down There]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sex education didn’t exist in the ‘50s. I’m guessing there may have been a few enlightened parents who told their children about “the birds and the bees” as it was called back then, but I never met any of them or their children. All the kids in my neighborhood were equally ignorant, so we banded together, pooling our scant and misguided knowledge, working diligently to assemble the illusive pieces of the sexual puzzle.
The brave among us asked our mothers, but they weren’t talking. We’d heard ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/down-there/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fd9</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sandra Ostrander]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:10:57 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531415451823-3d7d85d08092?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=f3740c2cb758ad914ee3dc1d4b03c788" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531415451823-3d7d85d08092?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=f3740c2cb758ad914ee3dc1d4b03c788" alt="Down There"/><p>Sex education didn’t exist in the ‘50s. I’m guessing there may have been a few enlightened parents who told their children about “the birds and the bees” as it was called back then, but I never met any of them or their children. All the kids in my neighborhood were equally ignorant, so we banded together, pooling our scant and misguided knowledge, working diligently to assemble the illusive pieces of the sexual puzzle.</p>
<p>The brave among us asked our mothers, but they weren’t talking. We’d heard the F word bandied about like a volleyball on the school playground and knew it had something to do with sex. It was usually accompanied by one of the popular hand gestures making the rounds at the time. There was the middle finger, thrust skyward, that meant “F you” and the less popular display of the index finger combined with the little finger. This combo was known as “mother-F-er”. Nobody knew what that meant, but were all pretty sure it was something none of our mothers would enjoy.</p>
<p>My friend Paula, who lived in another neighborhood and was getting her information from a different think tank, had also heard it at school. After running it past her peer group to no avail, she made the ill-fated decision to ask her mother what it meant. Clearly not the coolest of moves. Her mother grabbed her by the shirt collar, shoved her up against the wall, got right in her face and growled, “There’s no such word,” leaving Paula to wonder why her mother had gotten so upset about a word that didn’t exist.</p>
<p>When the mystery of the F word was finally unraveled, we wished we’d never asked! That couldn’t be right, could it? Who in their right mind would ever willingly do such a thing? I couldn't even imagine doing it at gunpoint. Then it hit me - if that’s where babies came from, my own parents had done it! I told myself that it was only twice - just to have me and my brother. I silently forgave them and tried to move on, but I was off my food for days.</p>
<p>We had to name our own genitalia, as no one had ever heard of a penis or a vagina. Boys had wieners or talleywackers. and most girls referred ominously to their nether regions as “down there”. Then there was the more generic term - thing - which could be used for either male or female parts by those for whom words like wiener, talleywacker, and “down there” didn’t roll easily off the tongue.</p>
<p>When I was 11, my body became a source of constant embarrassment when it betrayed me by growing tiny breasts. I comforted myself in the knowledge that my they were small and could be easily hidden. Then came the first traces of pubic hair which I promptly yanked out. Dear God, no! Anything but that! I flashed back to the first time I saw my mother naked, quite by accident. I had been about 5 at the time. I had yet to recover from that. and now it was happening to me!</p>
<p>One day I went to the bathroom and got the shock of my young life. There, lurking in the crotch of my white cotton panties, was a small, dark red stain. Having used the word “period” only at the end of a sentence, I was lacking a clue here. No one had ever bothered to explain the female reproductive system to me, so I sure as hell didn’t see this coming.</p>
<p>Pretending it never happened seemed to be the logical course of action. I was a tomboy, a tree-climber. Maybe I had just hurt myself “down there”. There was no need to make a big deal out of it... yet. I rinsed out my panties when I got home so Mama wouldn’t see it, but it came back, so I stuffed my panties with toilet paper. I decided not to tell Mama about this turn of events. My parents were great, and I couldn’t bear to hurt them with the horrible news that was so obvious to me. I had cancer and was going to die.</p>
<p>The bleeding stopped after a few days, but I continued stuffing my panties. I had no idea if or when it would start again and I wanted to be prepared. About a month later, as the initial trauma was finally beginning to fade, I woke up one Sunday morning and let out a blood curdling scream. Remember that scene in The Godfather where they cut off the horse’s head and put it in that guy’s bed? You get the picture.</p>
<p>Mama and Daddy both came running. Daddy took one look, turned gray, and quickly left the room, leaving Mama with the dirty work of explaining what was going down to their pubescently ignorant daughter. I struggled to grasp what she was saying and still avoid puking on her shoes. What was that? NORMAL... Really? EVERY MONTH??? For how long? 'Til I'm too old to care! Holy shit, a life sentence with no time off for good behavior? Sweet Jesus, you’ve got to be kidding! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My cancer diagnosis seemed preferable at the moment.</p>
<p>Then she whipped out the medieval paraphernalia that accompanied this feminine “curse”. There was a thick pad that looked like a roll of tube socks and a hideous elastic belt with a v-shaped metal hook that lodged squarely in your ass crack to hold the sock pad in place. Apparently, I was somehow supposed to saddle up and ride this thing for a whole week... every month... for the rest of the foreseeable future. I’d always thought God had made a colossal mistake in rendering me a girl. Now I was absolutely sure of it.</p>
<p>She went on to explain the rules of “menstruation”. Even the name was disgusting. According to Mama, I was allegedly in some sort of weakened state during the days of my “menstrual cycle” and should not wash my hair or bathe as frequently as I normally did. What the hell? If ever there were a time for bathing, this was it! I went over her head to Daddy and prevailed. I sure as hell didn’t need buzzards following me to school.</p>
<p>I finally made peace with my body and its ever-changing terrain around the same time I discovered boys. What a great distraction! I actually began to enjoy being female. Maybe God knew what he was doing after all.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Glory Rays Over the White River]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/glory-rays-over-the-white-river/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fe5</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:10:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Glory-Rays-Over-the-White-River--1--1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Glory-Rays-Over-the-White-River--1-.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Glory Rays Over the White River" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Glory-Rays-Over-the-White-River--1--1.jpg" alt="Glory Rays Over the White River"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Glory-Rays-Over-the-White-River--1--1.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Splash of Pink]]></title><description><![CDATA[Every year she has mailed him
a pair of her underwear
because of how it started
They haven’t actually
seen each other in decades
but she’s always known
where he lived and without
fail, once a year, she has
sent him a pair of her underwear
No one else knows, though once
some postal workers may have
seen a splash of pink, gotten a
glimpse of a splash of pink,
through a hole that had been torn
in a corner of the package, but that,
even that, was many years ago
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-splash-of-pink/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fd8</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:10:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528459584353-5297db1a9c01?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=701ace3bb216a307817a202982cd98f9" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528459584353-5297db1a9c01?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=701ace3bb216a307817a202982cd98f9" alt="A Splash of Pink"/><p>Every year she has mailed him<br>
a pair of her underwear<br>
because of how it started</br></br></p>
<p>They haven’t actually<br>
seen each other in decades<br>
but she’s always known<br>
where he lived and without<br>
fail, once a year, she has<br>
sent him a pair of her underwear</br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>No one else knows, though once<br>
some postal workers may have<br>
seen a splash of pink, gotten a<br>
glimpse of a splash of pink,<br>
through a hole that had been torn<br>
in a corner of the package, but that,<br>
even that, was many years ago</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[My Heart]]></title><description><![CDATA[I used to carry my heart deep in my chest,
Safely stored.
It functioned there without a thought,
With no conscious effort required.
Then one day a doctor told us
That our daughter had a disease
That would require a brutal treatment regimen,
That the disease would be brought under control,
And then it would return.
There would be several such cycles,
And then it would kill her.
He was honest, and brutal, and correct.
It all took three years.
I had hoped for five.
Now my heart is ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/my-heart/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fd7</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:10:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1530737099631-4bef10a98658?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=58dc0976bd20112ab0418ced3a8ec838" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1530737099631-4bef10a98658?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=58dc0976bd20112ab0418ced3a8ec838" alt="My Heart"/><p>I used to carry my heart deep in my chest,<br>
Safely stored.<br>
It functioned there without a thought,<br>
With no conscious effort required.</br></br></br></p>
<p>Then one day a doctor told us<br>
That our daughter had a disease<br>
That would require a brutal treatment regimen,<br>
That the disease would be brought under control,<br>
And then it would return.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>There would be several such cycles,<br>
And then it would kill her.<br>
He was honest, and brutal, and correct.<br>
It all took three years.<br>
I had hoped for five.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Now my heart is very near the surface,<br>
Open and vulnerable.<br>
I dream of her,<br>
I think of her, I miss her,<br>
And tears sting my eyes often.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Her life was one of fun and adventure,<br>
A loving-hearted liberal who offered a helping hand<br>
To people and animals and good causes.<br>
She urged people to keep moving.<br>
She worked for justice.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Suffering is universal. We humans share that.<br>
So, offer a helping hand to people and animals<br>
And good causes. Keep moving.<br>
Work for justice.<br>
Listen. Love one another.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p><em>In Memory of</em> <strong>Sarah Larson McGettrick</strong> <em>1975 - 2017</em></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[That Halcyon Night]]></title><description><![CDATA[The weather cold, an idyllic cove
That halcyon night we met
A lake serene, our love between
Two stars that glowed above
Your misty eyes, so blue, yet low
You knew twas brief
You hid your grief
I count ten years ago
The essence of your presence
Remains with me, my pet
The weather cold, an idyllic cove
That halcyon night we met
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/that-halcyon-night/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fd6</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:09:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1419415046757-77f42bc00146?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=050d4e3111700ffbaf418de421b45d24" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1419415046757-77f42bc00146?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=050d4e3111700ffbaf418de421b45d24" alt="That Halcyon Night"/><p>The weather cold, an idyllic cove<br>
That halcyon night we met<br>
A lake serene, our love between<br>
Two stars that glowed above<br>
Your misty eyes, so blue, yet low<br>
You knew twas brief<br>
You hid your grief<br>
I count ten years ago<br>
The essence of your presence<br>
Remains with me, my pet<br>
The weather cold, an idyllic cove<br>
That halcyon night we met</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dancing Girls These Days!]]></title><description><![CDATA["I'll be back around 5:30 Tuesday. Have the Dancing Girls out by then. Love you. Bye!"
My wife left for the airport to visit friends and relatives over a long weekend. As always, she let me know when to have the Dancing Girls out of the house before her return. She doesn't like running into the Dancing Girls—it is definitely uncomfortable for everyone. Well, actually, it is definitely uncomfortable for my wife and me—the Dancing Girls seem pretty much oblivious to everyone else's feelings. As ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dancing-girls-these-days/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fd5</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Tom Gorsuch]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:09:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504031489005-f460cef71269?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=27c2091138164a575614054b4adad355" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504031489005-f460cef71269?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=27c2091138164a575614054b4adad355" alt="Dancing Girls These Days!"/><p>"I'll be back around 5:30 Tuesday. Have the Dancing Girls out by then. Love you. Bye!"</p>
<p>My wife left for the airport to visit friends and relatives over a long weekend. As always, she let me know when to have the Dancing Girls out of the house before her return. She doesn't like running into the Dancing Girls—it is definitely uncomfortable for everyone. Well, actually, it is definitely uncomfortable for my wife and me—the Dancing Girls seem pretty much oblivious to everyone else's feelings. As one would expect from Dancing Girls.</p>
<p>Dancing Girls are, as most everyone knows, usually youngish 20's, attractive, hedonistic, libidinous, self-absorbed—in a word, floozeriferous. (Floozeriferous: adj.: of, pertaining to, or exemplifying the characteristics of a floozy. Latin: fluzzerius-a-um. Cic: puella fluzzeria erat fluzzerium mulier). I have recently become disenchanted with the quality of the current Dancing Girls. I probably should not be surprised, but, nonetheless, I am disappointed. This feeling is the result of several visits from the Dancing Girls—most recently this weekend, but also April, July, and November of last year. A consistent pattern is emerging. I don't know if this is the result of a degradation in the abilities of the Dancing Girls themselves or, possibly, increasingly stringent expectations on my part. I suspect the latter.</p>
<p>Historically, (and this goes back decades) the five or six Dancing Girls would show up, we would drink a lot of beer, dance to old rock 'n roll, and have wild, kinky, multiple orgasmic sex. Pretty standard stuff. And in the old days, that seemed enough. They were always gone before my wife got home. She would ask about the Dancing Girls and, of course, I would give her a full report.</p>
<p>Lately, I have been re-examining this whole idea of Dancing Girls. Their inability to converse in sequiturs (as opposed to non) has always been a minor annoyance. But they are, after all, not really here for conversation, are they? Nonetheless, I have been getting a vaguely uneasy feeling that the transaction is out of whack, and I am not being fairly treated. I wanted to see what the Dancing Girls get and what I get, and see if it balances out. Here is my analysis:</p>
<p>Dancing Girls get:</p>
<ol>
<li>Free beer</li>
<li>Scintillating conversation (even if they don't follow most of it)</li>
<li>Toe-curlingly good sex (all gratis yours truly!)</li>
</ol>
<p>So what do I get? This:</p>
<ol>
<li>Huge pile of empty Miller Lite cans</li>
<li>House is a mess</li>
<li>Giant wet spot on the sheets</li>
<li>Three or maybe four mediocre orgasms.</li>
</ol>
<p>See? Totally out of balance. So, I came up with a plan to at least put some equity back into the situation. It seems to me that my request was pretty reasonable and fair, and the Dancing Girls even agreed to it.</p>
<p>I asked them to help stack firewood before the usual orgy. In addition to getting some important home maintenance accomplished, I have always found that a good physical workout invariably increases both libido and stamina. The plan was that I would split the wood, and all they had to do was carry it over to the woodpile and stack it. Hardly any effort on their part, truth be told.</p>
<p>Well, after I had been splitting for 3 or 4 minutes, they announced that they were getting really hot (in the thermal sense, not the pheromone sense) and they were going to go into the house to get a cooler of beer to bring back. I kept splitting. About 20 minutes later they had not returned with the cooler of beer, so I went into the house. The TV was blaring in the bedroom and they were hootin' and hollerin'. I walked in—they were sitting on the bed, having already drained a 12-pack (and left some of the empties tipped over on the bed, by the way), eating chocolate covered almonds and watching reruns of Entertainment Today.</p>
<p>That was the last straw. I kicked them out. They complained tearfully that they hadn't even gotten laid yet, but I was unmoved and told them I was finished with them and their lackadaisical ways. If they can't even stack a little firewood before an orgy, who needs 'em. Good riddance, I say!</p>
<p>Dancing Girls these days!</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Testing the Waters]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/testing-the-waters/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fe7</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:09:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Testing-the-Waters-1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Testing-the-Waters-1.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Testing the Waters" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Testing-the-Waters-1.jpg" alt="Testing the Waters"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Testing-the-Waters-1.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Looking for Jenna]]></title><description><![CDATA[I know Lake Superior well: the icy layers near the bottom, the streaks of light and dark blue that cross the surface on a calm day, the flash of white caps, the meditative shushing of the rollers lulling me to sleep at night.
I spent all my summers beside it from childhood on. As soon as spring unlocked the cottage season, I was the first one in the water, faster than my brothers who were still unloading the car and faster than my parents who were busy setting up the cottage for the summer.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/looking-for-jenna/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fd4</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joan Baril]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:08:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507166763745-bfe008fbb831?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=4ffefa2451a629342b87059557fd8170" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507166763745-bfe008fbb831?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=4ffefa2451a629342b87059557fd8170" alt="Looking for Jenna"/><p>I know Lake Superior well: the icy layers near the bottom, the streaks of light and dark blue that cross the surface on a calm day, the flash of white caps, the meditative shushing of the rollers lulling me to sleep at night.</p>
<p>I spent all my summers beside it from childhood on. As soon as spring unlocked the cottage season, I was the first one in the water, faster than my brothers who were still unloading the car and faster than my parents who were busy setting up the cottage for the summer.</p>
<p>But my ten-year-old daughter Jenna is like my husband Donald, a little afraid of the water. She does not stay in long. She gets cold easily so I bring lots of towels to the dock when we go swimming and after, bundle her up well.</p>
<p>Donald seldom swims. He arrives after dinner every Friday. “Are you hungry?” I say. I always have a steak ready or fresh fish. “No, I ate in town.” His hand is in the air, outstretched. His fingers understand the latch on the upper cupboard, the bottle of scotch inside, the glass in the cupboard below.</p>
<p>“Daddy, I can do the crawl now. I can serve at tennis. Daddy, we hunted for mushrooms. We made a place mat of pressed leaves.” She holds it up with her long pale fingers.</p>
<p>He barely looks. “That’s great, dear.” He’s looking out the porch window, his gaze moving along the beach towards the other cottages. If he sees one of his friends, he wanders down, comes back late, bumping into furniture, his breath filling the tiny bedroom. “You’ll wake Jenna,” I say. His mumbles are unintelligible.</p>
<p>The knot in my chest eases when he drives back to town on Sunday afternoon. A new week begins. I make sandwiches for the hikes, peg out the wet towels, sweep out the sand, go down to the beach to swim with Jenna and her girlfriend, Daisy. Sometimes Daisy’s mother joins us and I ask her to watch the girls for a bit while I swim out.</p>
<p>I could swim forever. I could let Lake Superior claim me. I float and turn my head to find the line between water and air, the line where the waves change colours, move from mosaic to shimmer.</p>
<p>“Come down, come down,” the lake calls, just as it did when I was a child. I kick and dive and see the clarity of the underwater world. Perhaps a log or a stick twitches on the sand at the bottom. Sometimes, I try to scoop up a stray pebble, my fingers reaching through colder and colder levels of water. Why can’t my life take on this clarity, this simplicity? The lake holds me close.</p>
<p>But only for an instant.</p>
<p>No, I always say. There is Jenna.</p>
<p>I kick up and start a fast crawl to shore, let the water purl around my cheeks, move past my open, breathing mouth.</p>
<p>“My mother is the best swimmer on the beach,” boasts Jenna to her friend Daisy. “Look, Mummy, my hair floats,” she says and it does, long blond tendrils swaying on the water. She’s so thin. Her lips are blue.</p>
<p>“Time to go in,” I say, reaching up to the dock for a towel. “I’ll make hot chocolate.”</p>
<p>The next Friday, my husband comes with a boat and motor. A little outboard with aluminum seats. He whirrs Jenna and me around the bay. The boat tilts sending up a wave of white but he yells, “Hey, don’t worry. It’s a special boat. Unsinkable. This craft is unsinkable. Not a big motor, only five horse. A tub really. Safe as a tub.” He sees the look on my face. “Try to enjoy it for God’s sake.”</p>
<p>Saturday night he is restless. Jenna and Daisy are at the beach bonfire and community sing-song. They sit in the circle, cross-legged on the sand. Donald and I stand at the back with the other parents. His body, large and familiar beside me, seems as remote as the stars. He is thinking of someone else. Someone I do not know.</p>
<p>The night is hot, with a warm breeze from the lake, making the water move as smoothly as pleated silk. The recreation director divides the children into groups for rounds. Row, row, row your boat, sing the treble voices, a few of the adults joining in. Fire’s burning, fire’s burning. Pour water, pour water.</p>
<p>The marshmallows singe black, or fall in the sand or flare up in flame. The bigger kids run around waving lighted sticks and their parents call after them. Someone hands out sparklers. “Let’s go for a little ride in the boat,” Donald says throwing his spent sparkler on the ground.</p>
<p>“Jenna has to get to bed. It’s close to ten.”</p>
<p>“Do you never want to do anything with me?”</p>
<p>Dumbfounded. I am dumbfounded.</p>
<p>“It’s still light out,” he says. “I want to give my boat a little whirl on such a fine night. That’s all.” His breath smells of scotch. Alien breath.</p>
<p>The aluminum seats are still hot from the sun. I put a towel down for Jenna who is in shorts. I’m wearing a sun dress in his favourite colour, bright red, a useless colour lately.</p>
<p>We whizz toward the gap between the islands, taking us out of the bay.</p>
<p>“No, no!” I cry, but I see he is exhilarated.</p>
<p>“Faster, Daddy,” Jenna squeals.</p>
<p>I hold her close. “Sit down. Stay sitting down.”</p>
<p>He makes the boat tilt and laughs. “Scaredy cat,” he says.</p>
<p>“Am not!” yells Jenna over the noise of the motor but she is holding me tight as he flashes through the gap and into the open water of the lake.</p>
<p>The first wave hits and he pulls the boat around and the second wave, larger, darker, hits us broadside and turns us over as smoothly as if rolled by an invisible hand.</p>
<p>I surface but Jenna is gone. Then I see the overturned boat, and Donald swimming toward Jenna and then reaching for the boat. I grab it on the other side.</p>
<p>“Are you all right?” I cry. “Is Jenna all right? Donald answer me!” The motor has stopped. Maybe it has fallen off. I cling to the gunwale, holding my body as close to the boat as I can.</p>
<p>I see his face on the other side. Like me, he is holding on to the gunwale kicking his legs to stay near the boat which is moving about. With one arm, he holds Jenna close to his body. She is clinging against him half out of the water. Sometimes she flails her arms across the aluminum trying to find something to grab; but the slick underside of the Unsinkable Special, now half below the surface, provides no hand holds.</p>
<p>“Hang on!” he yells to me. “I’ve got Jenna. She’s okay. Someone will come.”</p>
<p>Jenna is whimpering. I can hear her above the water noises. “I am cold, I am cold, I am cold.” The sun slides behind the island as if pulled by a cord. Erratic waves smack the aluminum, send water into my face. Other waves pass by hissing white caps. The boat turns around and around, and we turn with it. The shore has disappeared into black.</p>
<p>I hear my husband say, “keep holding on,” but just then a smooth roil of wave reaches up and grabs me. It turns me upside down and I am full of water, eating water, unable to find my way out of the water. The layers get colder and colder as I spiral down.</p>
<p>An hour later, or perhaps two, I force myself to swim under water, through the gap, into the bay. Lake Superior is pure. Lake Superior is cold but I no longer feel the cold. On and on toward the cottage, once my grandparents’ cottage, once my parents’, then mine, as familiar as my own lost life, and even at night, completely recognizable with every light shining from every window. Headlights wheel down from the road on to the property and park at the stone wall my father and brothers made long ago. Car doors slam, one, two, three. A car with a revolving light is sitting on the lawn beside the flag pole, sending out red pulses that reach to the beach and the dock. My grandfather raised the Union Jack every morning, took it down in the evening. His paintings dot the walls of the main room.</p>
<p>Every spring, when we first arrived, I was determined to be the first child in the water, and now I am all determination as I swim on, rise up beside the dock and walk across the beach, my hair and red sundress dripping ice water as I take the three wooden steps into the house and move across the porch into the big room. The fireplace is blazing, towels and blankets draped on the back of chairs set in front of it. I see Donald. He is lying on the long couch, his head on the arm rest, both eyes closed, tears streaming down his face. Blankets are draped over him.</p>
<p>I force myself to step closer. I stare down at him and see blond hair, just strands, on his arm. I lean forward. My daughter is cradled in her father’s arm. He is holding her close as she sleeps. Her face is tense and twitches a bit but her breathing is long and smooth and alive.</p>
<p>I watch her for another minute, the pale eyelashes on the white cheeks, the long fingers clutching the cloth of his pyjama top. Her lips move and she whimpers, but she sleeps on.</p>
<p>Doctor Rhymer, whose cottage is farther down the beach, sits nearby, his black bag on a chair beside him. His stethoscope is draped around his neck. He is sipping a cup of tea someone has placed on the little wicker table within reach.</p>
<p>In the kitchen, they are whispering. They are whispering in the front porch, on the lawn. I know they are whispering about me.</p>
<p>Tomorrow, at first light, they will look for me. They hope the roaring water of the open lake will wash me up on the rocks. But it will not. They will not find me. I am too deep. I have fallen too far.</p>
<p>They will say I let go of the boat because I got tired, or I got too cold. The newspapers will say hypothermia. They do not know that an enveloping wave took me up so gently I had no time to be surprised. It parted me from the surface and from the air and sent me spinning down into layer upon layer of water, each one colder than the next. I will never be found. After tonight, the lake will never let me go.</p>
<p>As I walk back, I think how someone found Donald, found Jenna. Someone must have heard my husband shouting, took the chance and put their boat into the rough water. Thank you, I whisper to these unknown people.</p>
<p>I pass close to my neighbours who are standing on the lawn and the beach. They are milling about, unable to think of anything else to do but unable to leave either.</p>
<p>I enter the water, lift my arms to greet it.</p>
<p>Home now.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Savy at Parade]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/savy-at-parade/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fe9</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:08:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Savy-at-Parade.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Savy-at-Parade.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Savy at Parade" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Savy-at-Parade.jpg" alt="Savy at Parade"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Savy-at-Parade.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[All Night Bus: Mexico]]></title><description><![CDATA[With a push and shove,
I board the dirty, dented bus.
It lurches forward, jerks
the roof riders clutching
racks and bleating goats.
In a seat for two, three of us squeeze.
Sandwiched in the middle, I press
against the aisle sitter’s body, half
of which balances on a sliver of seat,
the other half suspends over the air
of the aisle, held in place by the push
of another body from across the gap.
Caught in a bridge, the two men
levitate like magicians over the abyss,
conjuring seat]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/all-night-bus-mexico/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fd3</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:08:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504357693841-f826dbb39976?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=bdc7015be964b2012f9e12e01d9646e6" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504357693841-f826dbb39976?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=bdc7015be964b2012f9e12e01d9646e6" alt="All Night Bus: Mexico"/><p>With a push and shove,<br>
I board the dirty, dented bus.<br>
It lurches forward, jerks<br>
the roof riders clutching<br>
racks and bleating goats.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>In a seat for two, three of us squeeze.</p>
<p>Sandwiched in the middle, I press<br>
against the aisle sitter’s body, half<br>
of which balances on a sliver of seat,<br>
the other half suspends over the air<br>
of the aisle, held in place by the push<br>
of another body from across the gap.</br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Caught in a bridge, the two men<br>
levitate like magicians over the abyss,<br>
conjuring seats where none exist.</br></br></p>
<p>Daylight disappears into smudges,<br>
flares briefly in fractured window cracks,<br>
confusing the rooster who crows<br>
beneath a man’s serape. Sometimes<br>
we skid to a stop in the desert’s nowhere,<br>
drop a family into shadows, their goat<br>
leading the way home through<br>
starlight and scorpions.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Shouldn’t I be afraid? Saguaros rise<br>
from the dark, thick arms raised like bandits<br>
who might be real. I am a woman alone,<br>
know no Spanish, riding with strangers<br>
and a driver who is high on peyote,<br>
in a rickety bus leaking carbon monoxide.</br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Yet, what I feel is peace.</p>
<p>I trust the dusty Madonna pasted<br>
to the bus wall, her hand raised<br>
in perpetual blessing. I find comfort<br>
in fussing babies under mothers’ rebozos,<br>
smelling tortillas, the soft breaths<br>
of the aisle sitter whose head<br>
has nodded onto my shoulder.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>I have the luxury of choice.</p>
<p>Yet, I chose this box of souls<br>
rattling over rock-studded roads<br>
on patched tires and rusted<br>
axles. I don’t sleep, but watch<br>
the driver’s rosary swing<br>
from the broken mirror.<br>
I hold my place in this moment<br>
like the aisle sitters hold each other<br>
over the abyss until morning.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Unexploded Ordnance]]></title><description><![CDATA[There are 350,000 tons
of live bombs and mines
still remaining in Vietnam
they are waiting
biding their time
More than 100,000
Vietnamese have been killed
or injured since America left
18,000,000 gallons of
defoliants were sprayed in
20,000 missions in-country
Because of my exposure to
Agent Orange Uncle Sam
pays me $700 a month
and I’m waiting
biding my time
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/unexploded-ordinance/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fd2</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:08:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525423697694-fa11c73f5ad1?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=ba3b9b29aa627b7fb9f9e7d2031517c5" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525423697694-fa11c73f5ad1?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=ba3b9b29aa627b7fb9f9e7d2031517c5" alt="Unexploded Ordnance"/><p>There are 350,000 tons<br>
of live bombs and mines<br>
still remaining in Vietnam</br></br></p>
<p>they are waiting<br>
biding their time</br></p>
<p>More than 100,000<br>
Vietnamese have been killed<br>
or injured since America left</br></br></p>
<p>18,000,000 gallons of<br>
defoliants were sprayed in<br>
20,000 missions in-country</br></br></p>
<p>Because of my exposure to<br>
Agent Orange Uncle Sam<br>
pays me $700 a month</br></br></p>
<p>and I’m waiting<br>
biding my time</br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Excitement Never Ends]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’m retired. I live in a retirement community. Some might think that implies a bland life in a bland setting. Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth.
Just the other day, for instance, I was finishing up my laundry. Normally I wash and dry my permanent press, mostly clothes, then my bedding, sheets and pillowcases and sometimes a mattress pad or blanket, then towels. Sometime I sneak in a towel wash using hot water to kill the cooties, even though my wife objects that this fad]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/untitled/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fd1</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jerry Davis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:08:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1510551310160-589462daf284?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=d0fad57a7370384bd7cfd8efd6412399" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1510551310160-589462daf284?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=d0fad57a7370384bd7cfd8efd6412399" alt="The Excitement Never Ends"/><p>I’m retired. I live in a retirement community. Some might think that implies a bland life in a bland setting. Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth.</p>
<p>Just the other day, for instance, I was finishing up my laundry. Normally I wash and dry my permanent press, mostly clothes, then my bedding, sheets and pillowcases and sometimes a mattress pad or blanket, then towels. Sometime I sneak in a towel wash using hot water to kill the cooties, even though my wife objects that this fades the colors earlier than our usual towel life of twenty years. What’s life without some adventure? You must understand, I usually wash the next category while drying the just-washed category, always working toward maximum efficiency through multi-tasking. Sometimes I break up the routine by doing the bedding before the permanent press, or sneaking the towels in at an unexpected time. Creativity is the hallmark of the retirement years, after all.</p>
<p>Well, the other day I realized, too late, right in the middle of the laundry chore, that I was still wearing a pair of socks. The permanent press wash cycle was almost done. The socks, which might have been acceptable for a second wear some years ago, now require washing to keep the routine intact. I mean, who wants to end up with a pair of unwashed socks after otherwise completing the laundry? The whole process is a sham. I can hear my wife saying, “You mean you did the whole wash and ended up with a pair of stinky socks? And you think you’re efficient? Ha. Ha. Ha.” Or something like that.</p>
<p>Such a crisis requires decisiveness, speed of thought, and fearless creativity. In a flash, I computed the required course of action. I put the pair of socks in with the bedding. That is fraught with danger, I know. The socks may very well end up in the pockets of the fitted sheet, and I might end up with soggy socks and a soggy pocket. If my wife opens the dryer and finds soggy socks and a soggy pocket, I’ll hear about it. Or, she might just walk around chortling for the next seral weeks. I’ll mention laundry, and she’ll chortle. She is an expert chortler, I have no idea where she learned it. She had brothers, I doubt if they ever did laundry. Me, she chortles. Like a deranged chipmunk. Hehehehehe. She chortles. Even if she doesn’t really know about it, she somehow knows when to chortle. Hehehe.</p>
<p>So, the socks are in with the sheets. The washer goes through its cycles. No drama, but no information. No peeking. It runs. The permanent press clothing finishes up, two polo shirts and the jeans are still damp, all else is dry. As expected. As usual. Normal. Dry shirts to the closet, wet stuff hanging to dry. Routine. The washer finishes.</p>
<p>The sheets and the socks come out of the washer individually, no socks buried in the pocket this time. Doesn’t matter from the washer, the dryer is the bear trap. I just toss them in the dryer, no worries, so they don’t start plotting early. Deep down, I know what’s lurking. Nothing to be done. Toss them in, shut the door, turn the dial, and press the button. The gas lights with a small boom. Away we go. Ka-flumpa ka-flumpa ka-flumpa. Back to the computer.</p>
<p>It chirps. Our dryer chirps when it’s done. Some buzz, this one chirps. The company probably had two dozen focus groups listening to chirps and buzzes for months to decide what to use. They picked the chirp for this one. Four chirps when it’s done. Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp. Why four? Why not three or six or five? Whatever. It chirped. I looked at it. It looked at me. I opened the door.</p>
<p>The two socks were resting on the inside lip of the door. By themselves. The bedding was further back, in the dryer drum. They were all dry. What a day! Don’t tell me about excitement.</p>
<p>NOTE: This story originally appeared in the collection <em>She Writes, He’s Wrong</em>, published by UpStageLeft Press in 2015. All rights are reserved by the author.<br>
<em>She Writes, He’s Wrong</em> is available from Amazon, B&N, Books-A-Million, and any bookstore.</br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Life’s Consilience]]></title><description><![CDATA[The span of man is a mysterious consilience.
God made, or a ponded brew.
For are we mortal or a noble prince?
To conflate is to make cryptic sense.
For from the start we live on cue.
The span of man is a mysterious consilience.
Life’s meaning is all quite dense.
A babe was new. Then, soon withdrew.
For are we mortal or a noble prince?
But, some would say, tis just a coincidence.
For those who really know are few.
The span of man is a mysterious consilience.
They are ethereal and not]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/lifes-consilience/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fd0</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:07:56 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1476370648495-3533f64427a2?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=1004b103dfa8e0946c3c5e5af9673c0f" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1476370648495-3533f64427a2?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=1004b103dfa8e0946c3c5e5af9673c0f" alt="Life’s Consilience"/><p>The span of man is a mysterious consilience.<br>
God made, or a ponded brew.<br>
For are we mortal or a noble prince?<br>
To conflate is to make cryptic sense.<br>
For from the start we live on cue.<br>
The span of man is a mysterious consilience.<br>
Life’s meaning is all quite dense.<br>
A babe was new. Then, soon withdrew.<br>
For are we mortal or a noble prince? <br>
But, some would say, tis just a coincidence.<br>
For those who really know are few.<br>
The span of man is a mysterious consilience.<br>
They are ethereal and not of this tense.<br>
To reach such wisdom is hard. Who knew?<br>
For are we mortal or a noble prince?<br>
One day we may know, yet, rather hence,<br>
For all to know cannot be true.<br>
For the span of man is a mysterious consilience.<br>
For are we mortal or a noble prince?</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Bird Flew By]]></title><description><![CDATA[A bird flew by
And it carried my attention away…
Into the endless blue sky.
I gave it willingly.
The fresh green mitten-shaped leaves
Of a sassafras waved from among other trees
And held my attention.
I gave it freely.
The dancing shadows of the dogwood
Traveled through the window and onto the wall.
How perfect they were.
I accepted the gift gladly.
The sorrow of loss can be great.
I seek joy and solace in the abundant gifts
Of friendship and art, music and nature.
I notice the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-bird-flew-by/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fcf</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:07:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518976969788-753caab9d358?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=719fc3dd8938be37416942714b97fe42" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518976969788-753caab9d358?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=719fc3dd8938be37416942714b97fe42" alt="A Bird Flew By"/><p>A bird flew by<br>
And it carried my attention away…<br>
Into the endless blue sky.<br>
I gave it willingly.</br></br></br></p>
<p>The fresh green mitten-shaped leaves<br>
Of a sassafras waved from among other trees<br>
And held my attention.<br>
I gave it freely.</br></br></br></p>
<p>The dancing shadows of the dogwood<br>
Traveled through the window and onto the wall.<br>
How perfect they were.<br>
I accepted the gift gladly.</br></br></br></p>
<p>The sorrow of loss can be great.<br>
I seek joy and solace in the abundant gifts<br>
Of friendship and art, music and nature.<br>
I notice the clicking of the Cricket Frog.</br></br></br></p>
<p>June, 2018</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Are You OK?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Are you OK?
I can’t tell you
how many times
over the years that
family or close friends
have asked me that question
I always thought it was
silly a dumb question
Of course I am
What are you talking about?
Looking back now
all these years later
I’m thinking that when they
were looking into my eyes
they were seeing a future time
A time like now
when the question
makes so much sense
but no one’s asking
(for my dad)
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/are-you-ok/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fce</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:07:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1496262967815-132206202600?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=1269a6801e1ca7cc6ccf165ca3e27bf4" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1496262967815-132206202600?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=1269a6801e1ca7cc6ccf165ca3e27bf4" alt="Are You OK?"/><p>Are you OK?</p>
<p>I can’t tell you<br>
how many times<br>
over the years that<br>
family or close friends<br>
have asked me that question</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>I always thought it was<br>
silly a dumb question<br>
Of course I am<br>
What are you talking about?</br></br></br></p>
<p>Looking back now<br>
all these years later<br>
I’m thinking that when they<br>
were looking into my eyes<br>
they were seeing a future time</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>A time like now<br>
when the question<br>
makes so much sense</br></br></p>
<p>but no one’s asking</p>
<p>(for my dad)</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sweet Revenge]]></title><description><![CDATA[Lisa was no longer crying as she ground the apricot seeds into a soft powder. She took a sip of her Gewurztraminer, loving the sweetness on her tongue. Never again would she drink that dry red wine that Matt always brought. From now on, only white wines, fruity and sweet.
It was Pinot Noir that he poured into two plastic wine glasses, the kind where the stem comes off if you handle it wrong. He took her up to Story Winery, bought the wine in the little tasting shop there without asking her wha]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sweet-revenge/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fcd</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Nan Mahon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:07:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504205758521-892897f3a28e?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=554ec1626e3a145e51b10df01f039715" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504205758521-892897f3a28e?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=554ec1626e3a145e51b10df01f039715" alt="Sweet Revenge"/><p>Lisa was no longer crying as she ground the apricot seeds into a soft powder. She took a sip of her Gewurztraminer, loving the sweetness on her tongue. Never again would she drink that dry red wine that Matt always brought. From now on, only white wines, fruity and sweet.</p>
<p>It was Pinot Noir that he poured into two plastic wine glasses, the kind where the stem comes off if you handle it wrong. He took her up to Story Winery, bought the wine in the little tasting shop there without asking her what kind she wanted. He thought he knew so much about wine, always explaining about the bouquet. They sat at the redwood picnic table overlooking the valley and the vineyards growing row after row of grapes ready for harvest. Then he told her he was not going to see her anymore. Just like that, after four years together.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry Babe, it just wasn’t meant to be,” he said, like he was talking about the weather, telling her that the sun wasn‘t going to shine tomorrow. “I met someone else and I want to be fair and tell you straight up.”</p>
<p>She looked down at the dark ruby wine in the plastic glass. She was holding the glass by the stem just as he told her she must so as not to warm the wine. Then she tipped the glass upside down and poured the contents onto the patchy grass.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Matt said, “what’re you doing? That stuff is fifteen dollars a bottle.”</p>
<p>“Just take me home.” She got up and walked to the car.</p>
<p>He followed, the bottle in his hand, pushing the cork in as he walked. “We can still be friends.”</p>
<p>“Sure,” she said. “We’ll be friends.”</p>
<p>That was Sunday. Things were clearer now on Thursday. She had spent three days lying on her sofa, not answering the phone, not sleeping, crying until her face was puffy, watching the late, late films on Turner Classic Movies. Then she saw the one that gave her an idea. It starred Cary Grant. Seemed two old ladies wanted to get rid of Grant so they picked wild mushrooms, cooked them up in a savory sauce and served them to him as a special dish. He dropped dead before the cheese cake was cut.</p>
<p>Lisa smiled when their plan worked. “Brilliant,” she said to the ladies in the film.</p>
<p>Inspired, she went on the internet and researched poison plants. That's where she found out about apricot seeds. She looked at the fruit bowl on her kitchen counter and saw she already had some of the pretty but oh, so deadly, golden fruit. She peeled off the sweet meat and ate it while she wrapped the seeds in a dishcloth and pounded them with a hammer. She dropped the chips into the coffee bean grinder and crushed them into powder.</p>
<p>She sipped her German wine and started to sing along with the Barbra Streisand CD she was playing. No one could sing a torch song like Barbra.</p>
<p><em>You don't send me flowers, you don't sing me love songs, anymore...</em></p>
<p>Lisa started mixing the brownies, pouring in double chocolate, making the batter rich and sweet. Matt loved her brownies. She drained the last of her white wine and hummed along with Barbra as she mixed the poison dust into the batter.</p>
<p>When the brownies came out of the oven, perfect, thick and dark with chocolate, she cooled and cut them and placed them in a square tin container. Carefully, she tied the tin with a scarlet ribbon. She stepped back and admired her work, pleased that it was so attractive. Then she called a taxi to deliver the package to Matt‘s apartment. With any luck, his new love would be with him when it arrived.</p>
<p>She pictured them listening to Barry Manlow, drinking Merlot, reaching for a brownie. Sometimes revenge is so sweet.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Springtime On Lake Coronado]]></title><description><![CDATA[Mother Nature spreads her wings
over Lake Coronado in the spring.
With dog at my side,
we follow the rocky pine-shaded path.
Squirrels and chipmunks
skitter up trees.
Birds sing lullabies
in newly decorated treetop condos
bursting with pink and white window shades.
Buddy’s ears stand at attention.
His nose wiggles
as he investigates every movement,
every scent along the path.
We round a corner and
step into the sunlight.
Buddy races toward a gaggle of geese
enjoying the s]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/springtime-on-lake-coronado/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fcc</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Lou Moran]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:06:54 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/coronado.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/coronado.jpg" alt="Springtime On Lake Coronado"/><p>Mother Nature spreads her wings <br>
over Lake Coronado in the spring.<br>
With dog at my side,<br>
we follow the rocky pine-shaded path.<br>
Squirrels and chipmunks <br>
skitter up trees.<br>
Birds sing lullabies <br>
in newly decorated treetop condos<br>
bursting with pink and white window shades.<br>
<br>
Buddy’s ears stand at attention. <br>
His nose wiggles<br>
as he investigates every movement,<br>
every scent along the path.<br>
We round a corner and<br>
step into the sunlight.<br>
Buddy races toward a gaggle of geese <br>
enjoying the sun on his shore.<br>
<br>
Long ears flap in the wind <br>
as he chases the intruders.<br>
We sit on a bench, <br>
breathe deep <br>
and gaze at the view <br>
that renews us each spring.<br>
Yellow pollen, <br>
like microscopic snow, <br>
lands gently on the water<br>
and is whipped against the rocks <br>
forming a yellow caution line <br>
around the lake.<br>
<br>
Spiders work overtime <br>
to weave intricate works of art <br>
glimmering in the sunlight.<br>
Boat docks, <br>
hibernating during winter, <br>
come to life,<br>
spitting out boats <br>
that putter through glassy water<br>
sending waves <br>
to play tag with the shore.<br>
<br>
Like energetic children at recess,<br>
the waves slap the rocks <br>
and run away as if to say<br>
chase me, chase me, it’s spring.<br>
<br>
In the shadows of the pines,<br>
fishermen cast hope<br>
and wait for the big one.<br>
Mother Nature spreads her wings <br>
over Lake Coronado in the spring.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pot o' Gold in the Ozarks]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pot-o-gold-in-the-ozarks/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fe1</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:06:44 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Pot-of-Gold-in-the-Ozarks-no-exif-2.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Pot-of-Gold-in-the-Ozarks-no-exif-3.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Pot o' Gold in the Ozarks" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Pot-of-Gold-in-the-Ozarks-no-exif-2.jpg" alt="Pot o' Gold in the Ozarks"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Pot-of-Gold-in-the-Ozarks-no-exif-3.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Down Yonder Hill]]></title><description><![CDATA[Down yonder hill most days she trod.
To see her love beneath the sod.
Grim shadows crept near yonder hill.
He died that night, his eyes went still.
A grave, a stone, some small pink lace.
He says I love your winsome face.
She put the pill beneath her tongue.
And died thereon the stone she stood.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/down-yonder-hill/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fcb</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ray Shermer]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:06:25 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508032858763-eebd30e7d031?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=695d9bef0c977baab93298b20fc9eb8d" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508032858763-eebd30e7d031?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=695d9bef0c977baab93298b20fc9eb8d" alt="Down Yonder Hill"/><p>Down yonder hill most days she trod.<br>
To see her love beneath the sod.<br>
Grim shadows crept near yonder hill.<br>
He died that night, his eyes went still.<br>
A grave, a stone, some small pink lace.<br>
He says I love your winsome face.<br>
She put the pill beneath her tongue.<br>
And died thereon the stone she stood.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Co-Worker]]></title><description><![CDATA[It’s been years ago
but a co-worker came
up to me once and said
You were in my dream
last night and you tied me up
I thought –
What caused that dream
Why did she tell me
What kind of knots did I use?
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/co-worker/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fca</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:06:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514940269061-a79f23a95316?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=2ffd35e3e3c815ceac29b2ec16ebcf92" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514940269061-a79f23a95316?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=2ffd35e3e3c815ceac29b2ec16ebcf92" alt="Co-Worker"/><p>It’s been years ago<br>
but a co-worker came<br>
up to me once and said<br>
You were in my dream<br>
last night and you tied me up</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>I thought –</p>
<p>What caused that dream<br>
Why did she tell me<br>
What kind of knots did I use?</br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Determined Sun]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-determined-sun/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fe6</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:05:51 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/The-Determined-Sun--1--1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/The-Determined-Sun--1--2.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="The Determined Sun" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/The-Determined-Sun--1--1.jpg" alt="The Determined Sun"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/The-Determined-Sun--1--1.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Thinking of My Daughter Who Died]]></title><description><![CDATA[This time when the tears came
I didn’t wipe them away.
I sat with them.
I felt them wet on my face.
Here was something tangible
That was directly connected to you.
Something created in my body,
Salty and wet, just as you were.
June 28, 2018
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/thinking-of-my-daughter-who-died/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fc9</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:05:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1532294351631-a205083f392c?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=404acf2cff71be0884fb471599e21ade" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1532294351631-a205083f392c?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=404acf2cff71be0884fb471599e21ade" alt="Thinking of My Daughter Who Died"/><p>This time when the tears came <br>
I didn’t wipe them away.</br></p>
<p>I sat with them.<br>
I felt them wet on my face.</br></p>
<p>Here was something tangible<br>
That was directly connected to you.</br></p>
<p>Something created in my body, <br>
Salty and wet, just as you were.</br></p>
<p>June 28, 2018</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Belly Dances]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/belly-dances/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fe8</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:05:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Belly-Dances.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Belly-Dances.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Belly Dances" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Belly-Dances.jpg" alt="Belly Dances"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Belly-Dances.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Parrots of Puerto Vallarta]]></title><description><![CDATA[Midnight. We chattering tourists,
tamale-filled and Dos Equis-soaked,
wake the caged birds who make
drowsy attempts to answer,
tuck curved beaks under
iridescent wings, close their eyes,
fall away into a lost sky.
In the morning, I call them macaws, the word
parrot too melodious for their shrieks and squawks,
jarring without a jungle chord beneath them.
I stand in a ring of droppings that paint
the concrete around their hotel cage
and apologize. I explain it is their beauty,
our la]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-parrots-of-puerto-vallarta/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fc8</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:05:08 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505877934797-4b9326e50c1e?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=ccbefa63076d78b0b1442a88a7809d6e" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505877934797-4b9326e50c1e?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=ccbefa63076d78b0b1442a88a7809d6e" alt="The Parrots of Puerto Vallarta"/><p>Midnight. We chattering tourists,<br>
tamale-filled and Dos Equis-soaked,<br>
wake the caged birds who make<br>
drowsy attempts to answer,<br>
tuck curved beaks under<br>
iridescent wings, close their eyes,<br>
fall away into a lost sky.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>In the morning, I call them macaws, the word<br>
parrot too melodious for their shrieks and squawks,<br>
jarring without a jungle chord beneath them.<br>
I stand in a ring of droppings that paint<br>
the concrete around their hotel cage<br>
and apologize. I explain it is their beauty,<br>
our lack of wings, makes us crazy to capture<br>
and contain. Something in green feathers<br>
we crave. Something in the flare of orange<br>
above beaks that bewitches. They cock their<br>
heads, listen eye to eye as if no one<br>
had ever spoken gently to them before.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>At the beach, teenagers parasail over<br>
the Gulf, rise on fiesta-colored umbrellas<br>
to claim the sky. These fledglings feel<br>
the thrust of wind, see the planet’s edge<br>
curve, watch fish jump in the sun’s glare.<br>
They point their cameras at passing gulls,<br>
then on themselves soaring in blue space.<br>
Laughing and screaming, they are winched<br>
back to earth, bodies aflame with flight<br>
that burned away their words, left them<br>
squealing and screeching on the sand.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Who's Watching Over You?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/whos-watching-over-you/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fe2</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:04:57 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/36lKGnURQZObDuh1uC9j_Who-s-Watching-Over-You_.jpeg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/36lKGnURQZObDuh1uC9j_Who-s-Watching-Over-You_-1.jpeg" class="kg-image" alt="Who's Watching Over You?" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/36lKGnURQZObDuh1uC9j_Who-s-Watching-Over-You_.jpeg" alt="Who's Watching Over You?"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/36lKGnURQZObDuh1uC9j_Who-s-Watching-Over-You_.jpeg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Contact]]></title><description><![CDATA[I survived the first war, but the second one got me. Took my arms and legs. I can’t even kill myself. Sure, I get benefits, money and a place to lay my head, if you can call sleeping in The Salvation Army, home. But I get around. Each morning I star in my own freak show, just to the left of Bloomingdales, a torso on a rolling cart with a tin cup. Trust me, it’s not the money. Don’t need shoes that’s for damn sure. My counselor says it’s good for me to get out, socializing and fresh air. New Yor]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/contact/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fc7</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurie Murphy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:03:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512354398714-bec2e938dc05?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=08c2b2b650d0946999a3d5d0de85c4fd" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512354398714-bec2e938dc05?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=08c2b2b650d0946999a3d5d0de85c4fd" alt="Contact"/><p>I survived the first war, but the second one got me. Took my arms and legs. I can’t even kill myself. Sure, I get benefits, money and a place to lay my head, if you can call sleeping in The Salvation Army, home. But I get around. Each morning I star in my own freak show, just to the left of Bloomingdales, a torso on a rolling cart with a tin cup. Trust me, it’s not the money. Don’t need shoes that’s for damn sure. My counselor says it’s good for me to get out, socializing and fresh air. New York City, fresh air, now that’s a laugh. Most people don’t look my way, don’t give a crap. Me neither. I ain’t looking to make friends.</p>
<p>Then a kid moves down the block. Fearless. Bold. Comes right up close, stays for a good hour. Spends every afternoon for a month, standing with me. Uninvited, Unwanted. Looks to be about nine years old. Doesn’t say a word. Then, one day, she brings a blanket, wraps it around my stumps. Next thing you know, a wool hat, stretches it over my head.. Two months go by, still no conversation. Then one day she speaks. Says she’s moving back to Georgia, to her people, that she’ll miss me. Says maybe she’ll see me again, soon. Leans over and gives me a kiss on my cheek, and a rush of burning tears run down my face like hell. Can’t wipe them, neither. A torso with a crying head.</p>
<p>Must be about five years now. Every day I look for her, eyes straight ahead, seeing everything. No sign yet, but she’ll be back. I know she’ll be back. Even in the dead of winter, I beg them to wheel me out here. For the first time since the war, I want to live.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[At A Luxury Resort]]></title><description><![CDATA[In a mini-zoo one night
a caged jaguar screams
a sound unformed by tongue,
amplified by rib bellows,
pressed through iron bars
until it shatters my tourist sleep,
brings me to the animal’s side.
Once jaguars slid silently through
this jungle, spots rippling tall grass
vertical as swords. Their cries echoed
nine times in temples bearing their names,
and priests bent in fear and gratitude
offering sacrificial hearts to holy jaws.
What can I know of a caged god’s needs?
The intrusio]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/at-a-luxury-resort/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fc6</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:03:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513453214162-57fe6bc66037?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=0dc136bef00ee61e0a24e0adae3aa531" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1513453214162-57fe6bc66037?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=0dc136bef00ee61e0a24e0adae3aa531" alt="At A Luxury Resort"/><p>In a mini-zoo one night<br>
a caged jaguar screams<br>
a sound unformed by tongue,<br>
amplified by rib bellows,<br>
pressed through iron bars<br>
until it shatters my tourist sleep,<br>
brings me to the animal’s side.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Once jaguars slid silently through<br>
this jungle, spots rippling tall grass<br>
vertical as swords. Their cries echoed<br>
nine times in temples bearing their names,<br>
and priests bent in fear and gratitude<br>
offering sacrificial hearts to holy jaws.</br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>What can I know of a caged god’s needs?<br>
The intrusion of my eyes breaks his patience,<br>
sends him in circles on Nopalli-sized paws<br>
to scratch scars in gray concrete. He<br>
bellows again from his grassless cell,<br>
sprays, as if at any moment he might<br>
ignite, burn in his own water, and ascend.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>The hotel believes he is a charm<br>
on our vacation bracelets, exotic<br>
to watch as a museum piece, eyes<br>
studded with jade. But alone<br>
at his dark cage, far from hotel lights,<br>
real eyes warn me away. I’m not<br>
the one he’s calling. But tonight,<br>
I’m the one who answers, the one<br>
who remembers to bring a heart.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[July Sunday]]></title><description><![CDATA[It is one-hundred-and-two and we have nothing to do.
The heat pales a blue sky. The drought saps
all that was green.
Birds flock to the feeders and bathe in their bath.
A dozen varieties at various times fly in and fly out
as we lazily count.
One-hundred-and-one and we move to the front as
the porch swing squeaks coming forth and going back—
my head on a pillow, my legs on his lap.
We read poetry for we need something to do.
I read Collins' Shoveling Snow with Buddha. We sip
cool l]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/july-sunday/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fc5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lissa Lord]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:03:32 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1461978669748-37ff3558b346?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=739809a9a6544acea8655201382055cf" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1461978669748-37ff3558b346?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=739809a9a6544acea8655201382055cf" alt="July Sunday"/><p>It is one-hundred-and-two and we have nothing to do.<br>
The heat pales a blue sky. The drought saps<br>
all that was green.</br></br></p>
<p>Birds flock to the feeders and bathe in their bath.<br>
A dozen varieties at various times fly in and fly out<br>
as we lazily count.</br></br></p>
<p>One-hundred-and-one and we move to the front as<br>
the porch swing squeaks coming forth and going back—<br>
my head on a pillow, my legs on his lap.<br>
We read poetry for we need something to do.</br></br></br></p>
<p>I read Collins' Shoveling Snow with Buddha. We sip<br>
cool lime water and the ice melts as he reads Seibles'<br>
<em>The Ballad of Sadie Lababe</em>, "cause Sadie moved like water poured.”</br></br></p>
<p>It is one-hundred degrees—a sultry shift into evening. We<br>
slip inside and having nothing else to do, slice a baguette,<br>
aged Gouda, cucumber, tomato and a sweet Colorado peach.</br></br></p>
<p>We toast chilled cheers of summer wine and stream<br>
<em>Doc Martin</em> for a meandering British tale<br>
about the seaside village of Portwenn that ends<br>
in a cliff hanger promising to be resolved in Part II.</br></br></br></p>
<p>The temperature drops to ninety-nine and we saunter out where<br>
he waters window boxes and I hear him sing, "You can't always<br>
get what you want" as Zoe, the dog, takes me for a walk around<br>
the block slowly, her tongue hanging out, her ears flopping in.</br></br></br></p>
<p>We celebrate ninety-eight on the steps with raspberry sodas and<br>
talk about Monday above the din of cicadas. Together, in humid air,<br>
our hearts are quiet and our bodies full as we go inside nudging<br>
the AC down and head for bed as Zoe follows behind, up the stairs.</br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Chalk Feet]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/chalk-feet/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fed</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:03:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Chalk-Feet.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Chalk-Feet.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Chalk Feet" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Chalk-Feet.jpg" alt="Chalk Feet"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Chalk-Feet.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Worry Coat]]></title><description><![CDATA[You’ve fashioned a coat, worked on it for years
adding burrs, scratchy threads that shoot in all directions--
You spent so much time plying the threads, interlacing them to a thick mass,
felted-in tighter all the time, with each push of the hands.
You crafted it well, blunting those once-graceful edges to roughness.
Oh those jumbled colors, jagged juxtapositions like frayed nerves.
It’s heavy, overloaded with grime and layers of painful moments,
strata of fear.
You wear it, and it weigh]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-worry-coat/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fc4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Beverly Gordon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:02:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1484502249930-e1da807099a5?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=9c10ea24d267cac12b5067f0e946b52e" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1484502249930-e1da807099a5?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=9c10ea24d267cac12b5067f0e946b52e" alt="The Worry Coat"/><p>You’ve fashioned a coat, worked on it for years<br>
adding burrs, scratchy threads that shoot in all directions--<br>
You spent so much time plying the threads, interlacing them to a thick mass,<br>
felted-in tighter all the time, with each push of the hands.<br>
You crafted it well, blunting those once-graceful edges to roughness.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Oh those jumbled colors, jagged juxtapositions like frayed nerves.<br>
It’s heavy, overloaded with grime and layers of painful moments,<br>
strata of fear.<br>
You wear it, and it weighs you down.<br>
Your shoulders ache, your back bends in submission.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Zoom out. Bird’s eye view now, taking it in with clear night vision.<br>
Why, asks the flying one, can’t we just remove this garment, lift it<br>
up and away, throw it to the north wind,<br>
who will carry it off to a stream bed, to decompose.</br></br></br></p>
<p>Why bear it any more, this coat of thorns, obscuring the body below?<br>
Uncovered, your skin is smooth, fresh and pliant, unencumbered.<br>
It’s easy to touch, to run a hand over. No stopping in the brambles.</br></br></p>
<p>Speak now, in bird language, and claim your ground.<br>
You are whole without that coat, ready to move in rhythm,<br>
to pelican glide with ease.<br>
Let the river undo the plies of worry.<br>
Go now, without a costume, and having shed the coat,<br>
feel the guidance of the breeze.</br></br></br></br></br></p>
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Opening Up in Sweet Surrender]]></title><description><![CDATA[all those beings
passing you along in their white wings
blowing gently, to give you breath
and silently singing
praise
and honor
all those beings
standing on the curve of the horizon
brightly colored, smiling deeply
waiting your arrival
with patience and calm
all those beings
lined up
behind you, tethered
asking for
freedom
from the thieves of joy
and the shaming
imploring you
to let them heal, release them now
opening up in sweet surrender
to the beings
walking with you
l]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/opening-up-in-sweet-surrender/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fc3</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Beverly Gordon]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:02:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515362856850-66df805bb388?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=f80815d4ccb51c2646a4006563b66c4c" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515362856850-66df805bb388?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=f80815d4ccb51c2646a4006563b66c4c" alt="Opening Up in Sweet Surrender"/><p>all those beings<br>
passing you along in their white wings<br>
blowing gently, to give you breath<br>
and silently singing<br>
praise<br>
and honor<br>
all those beings<br>
standing on the curve of the horizon<br>
brightly colored, smiling deeply<br>
waiting your arrival<br>
with patience and calm<br>
all those beings<br>
lined up<br>
behind you, tethered<br>
asking for<br>
freedom<br>
from the thieves of joy<br>
and the shaming<br>
imploring you<br>
to let them heal, release them now<br>
opening up in sweet surrender<br>
to the beings<br>
walking with you<br>
leading forward<br>
rising<br>
upward<br>
with the wind</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Charmer]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-charmer/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fe3</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:02:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/The-Charmer--1--square.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/The-Charmer--1--1.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="The Charmer" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/The-Charmer--1--square.jpg" alt="The Charmer"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/The-Charmer.JPG?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Shirley Shelby’s Schnauzer]]></title><description><![CDATA[by Jerry Davis and Mary Lou Moran
CHARACTERS:
SERGEANT THURSDAY: A veteran police officer
SHIRLEY SHELBY: The victim, a housewife and dog lover
TIME: The Present
SCENE: The front door of the Shelby home
THURSDAY: (to audience) This is the city—a whole bunch of people who usually behave badly, but not in a criminal manner. Today, one crossed the line into crime. They called me. My name’s Thursday. Sergeant Thursday. I'm a cop. Captain Sunday came into my office on Tuesday and said, “Thu]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/shirley-shelbys-schnauzer/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fc2</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Plays]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jerry Davis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 17:01:46 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/pet-3074726_960_720.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/pet-3074726_960_720.jpg" alt="Shirley Shelby’s Schnauzer"/><p><em>by <a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/jerry">Jerry Davis</a> and <a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/mary">Mary Lou Moran</a></em></p>
<p>CHARACTERS:<br>
SERGEANT THURSDAY: A veteran police officer<br>
SHIRLEY SHELBY: The victim, a housewife and dog lover</br></br></p>
<p>TIME: The Present</p>
<p>SCENE: The front door of the Shelby home</p>
<p>THURSDAY: (to audience) This is the city—a whole bunch of people who usually behave badly, but not in a criminal manner. Today, one crossed the line into crime. They called me. My name’s Thursday. Sergeant Thursday. I'm a cop. Captain Sunday came into my office on Tuesday and said, “Thursday, we got a call on Monday from a Shirley Shelby to report the suspicion of a robbery on Saturday.” I went directly to the complainant’s home. A woman answered the door.</p>
<p>(Shirley Shelby enters)</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Good afternoon, Ma’am, I’m Sergeant Thursday.</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: You certainly don’t seem to be a sergeant. Are you really a Sergeant?</p>
<p>THURSDAY: I’ll show my shield.</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Sure seems to be satisfactory.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: What’s your name?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: I’m Shirley Shelby, that’s me.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: And do you live here at this location?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Assuredly so. I settled at sixty-six Circus Circle some seventeen years ago.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Yes, Ma’am, I see. And what seems to be the problem after seventeen years at sixty-six Circus Circle on such a sunny day?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Someone swiped my Schnauzer.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Someone swiped your Schnauzer?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Surely. Someone swiped my Schnauzer.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: When did you see your Schnauzer had been swiped?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: I saw my Schnauzer Saturday.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: You haven’t seen your Schnauzer since Saturday?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Since six Saturday.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Uh-huh. What’s your Schnauzer’s name?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Sir Sagramore Snappy Schnauzer.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: I see.</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: That’s his pedigree name. That’s not what we call him.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: What do you call him?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Saggy.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Saggy?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Saggy.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Is he?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Is he what?</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Saggy.</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Somewhat.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Does he like the name Saggy?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Surely.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: So, do you have any sense about who might have swiped Saggy?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: I have suspicions.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: I see.</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: There’s this saleswoman who used to come by and visit him when she lived down the block. She petted him a lot.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: And what’s this saleswoman’s name?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Charlene Shipley.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: And does Charlene Shipley still live here on Circus Circle?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: No, she slipped away six months ago.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Uh-huh. And do you know where she lives now?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: I think she lives over on Chartreuse Street. Seventeen, I think it is.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Charlene Shipley from Seventeen Chartreuse Street.</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Certainly.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Has she been circling this circle suspiciously?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: I’m not certain. I think I saw her automobile in the neighborhood.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: I see. What kind of car does she drive?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: A silver Chevy sedan.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Are you sure Charlene Shipley from seventeen Chartreuse Street has a silver Chevy sedan to drive around Circus Circle?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Certainly.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: What makes you think Charlene Shipley swipes Schnauzers?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: She already has two dogs, I don’t know where she got them.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Are both her dogs Schnauzers?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: No, she has one Shih Tzu and one Shar Pei.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: So you think she wants to add a Schnauzer to her Shih Tzu and Shar Pei?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Sure. She’s sneaky.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: So, did you actually see Charlene Shipley with her Shih Tzu and Shar Pei from seventeen Chartreuse Street circling sixty-six Circus Circle in her silver Chevy sedan?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: I thought so. There might have been a Shetland Sheepdog, too.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Just the facts, Ma’am. Where do you think Charlene Shipley took Saggy Schnauzer in her silver Chevy sedan?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: I think she goes to a summer spa in Silver City in her silver Chevy sedan.</p>
<p>THURSDAY: So, you think Charlene Shipley took Saggy Schnauzer with her Shih Tzu and Shar Pei and maybe a Shetland Sheepdog from seventeen Chartreuse Street to a summer spa in Silver City in her silver Chevy sedan?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: Surely. And you know what?</p>
<p>THURSDAY: What’s that?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: If Charlene Shipley took Saggy Schnauzer with her Shih Tzu and Shar Pei and maybe a Shetland Sheepdog from seventeen Chartreuse Street to a summer spa in Silver City in her silver Chevy sedan. . .</p>
<p>THURSDAY: Yes?</p>
<p>SHIRLEY: I’ll slap her silly!</p>
<p>NOTE: This short play for Readers’ Theater originally appeared in Skits and Plays for Clubs and Organizations, Collection #1, published by UpStageLeft Press.</p>
<p>PERFORMANCE: We ask you to buy a copy of the book in lieu of performance royalties. The book is available from Amazon, B&N, Books-A Million, and any bookstore. Please play fair with the authors. Thanks.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 3: Summer 2018]]></title><description><![CDATA[Letter from the Editor
As we were preparing to take this issue online, I had this flashback to my final year at Austin College in Sherman, TX. Jim Croce was on his way to the school for a concert but his plane crahed on take off at the airport in Natchitoches. And these lyrics from Jim came to me...
But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them...
Life has a way of making it difficult to find the time to pursue our calling...to write. Most of the ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-3-summer-2018/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fee</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 30 Aug 2018 17:25:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/wcdh.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2 id="letter-from-the-editor">Letter from the Editor</h2><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/wcdh.jpg" alt="Issue 3: Summer 2018"/><p>As we were preparing to take this issue online, I had this flashback to my final year at Austin College in Sherman, TX. Jim Croce was on his way to the school for a concert but his plane crahed on take off at the airport in Natchitoches. And these lyrics from Jim came to me...</p><pre><code>But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them...
</code></pre><p>Life has a way of making it difficult to find the time to pursue our calling...to write. Most of the time we get in our own way but life does throw up a myriad of obstacles that keep us from our literary pursuits. Car wrecks, illness, our 'second jobs' to pay the bills, and I am sure you could add to this mundane list. Authors, thank God, are a stubborn bunch and will go without food and the basics of life when the muse strikes, to put a few words to paper (or more likely a keyboard).</p><p>The authors that have contributed to <em>eMerge</em> have found the time to write and to share part of their humanity in words, in art, and in photography that affirms our common humanity. It is with great pleasure that we share their passions and stories with you...our readers.</p><p>Until Next Time,<br>I Remain,<br>Just an old Zororastafarian Editor with one wheel spinning in the sand...</br></br></p><p>Charles</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Christine at Iris at the Basin Park]]></title><description><![CDATA[Download
Full Image]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/christine-at-iris-at-the-basin-park/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fec</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2018]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Megan Kirk]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 30 Aug 2018 17:06:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Christine-at-Iris-at-the-Basin-Park.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Christine-at-Iris-at-the-Basin-Park.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="Christine at Iris at the Basin Park" loading="lazy"/></figure><hr><h6 id="download">Download</h6><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/08/Christine-at-Iris-at-the-Basin-Park.jpg" alt="Christine at Iris at the Basin Park"/><p><a href="https://emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2018/08/Christine-at-Iris-at-the-Basin-Park.jpg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Eating Glass]]></title><description><![CDATA[The first time I saw
a preschool kid
(Do they have schools here?)
smoking a cigarette I
just stood and stared
Mama-sans squatting
to pee along the road
never drew a second glance
But a child casually smoking
was hard for me to unsee
For a month I had a
reoccurring dream of
a smoking toddler a
circus performer eating glass
and a ward filled with
Thalidomide babies
But after about
four weeks the dream
became a memory of
a dream of a memory
‘Eating Glass’ can be found in Bil]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/eating-glass/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fc0</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:14:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/8714040514_805cfb364b_c.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/8714040514_805cfb364b_c.jpg" alt="Eating Glass"/><p>The first time I saw<br>
a preschool kid<br>
(Do they have schools here?)<br>
smoking a cigarette I<br>
just stood and stared</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Mama-sans squatting<br>
to pee along the road<br>
never drew a second glance<br>
But a child casually smoking<br>
was hard for me to unsee</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>For a month I had a<br>
reoccurring dream of<br>
a smoking toddler a<br>
circus performer eating glass<br>
and a ward filled with</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Thalidomide babies<br>
But after about<br>
four weeks the dream<br>
became a memory of<br>
a dream of a memory</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>‘Eating Glass’ can be found in Bill’s poetry book, The Smell of Light, taken from letters he wrote home from Vietnam and can be found <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smell-Light-Bill-McCloud-ebook/dp/B075FCWTNB/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1513459269&sr=1-1&keywords=bill+mccloud&ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">here</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fellow Travelers]]></title><description><![CDATA[The wind rustles through pines, birches, and others unnamed.
An owl’s wings slash the smudges of charcoal.
Suddenly, night is sharpened into onyx.
Somewhere a mouse is surely seized and devoured.
Between wind and pursuit and downfall all you hear is silence.
You walk and walk,
although you can’t remember donning these hiking boots.
You walk as if you were called here. And you were.
You’ve come a long way to this arboreal assembly.
You’ve sought out these hills, these strands of lushnes]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/fellow-travelers/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fbf</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Yermiyahu Ahron Taub]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:14:14 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506896779338-adac0d1d6200?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=79c49c404bce66dab18d1859aa003546" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506896779338-adac0d1d6200?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=79c49c404bce66dab18d1859aa003546" alt="Fellow Travelers"/><p>The wind rustles through pines, birches, and others unnamed.<br>
An owl’s wings slash the smudges of charcoal.<br>
Suddenly, night is sharpened into onyx.<br>
Somewhere a mouse is surely seized and devoured.<br>
Between wind and pursuit and downfall all you hear is silence.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>You walk and walk,<br>
although you can’t remember donning these hiking boots.<br>
You walk as if you were called here. And you were.<br>
You’ve come a long way to this arboreal assembly.<br>
You’ve sought out these hills, these strands of lushness.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>This is where you’ve chosen to sculpt your conclusion.<br>
Not in an institutional bed.<br>
Not in bath tub water rapidly converting to crimson.<br>
Not with pills strategically popped.<br>
Not with a gun effortlessly acquired at the big box store.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Here in this renowned wood, where the air itself glows<br>
as a kaleidoscope of green, darkness will rise.<br>
You sense the spirits of those similarly inclined congregated around you.<br>
You feel their wings drape over your shoulders.<br>
Their cooing and whooshing adds to, rather than breaks, the silence.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Your shoulders slump into their collective presence.<br>
Your body drops into the canopy of their arms.<br>
Here finally you have found shelter.<br>
The ghosts, your comrades, will usher you home.<br>
On the peak of the North Star, the owl will ensure the bravura of your crossing.</br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Bronx Kill]]></title><description><![CDATA[An excerpt from the Novel by Philip Cioffari
Prologue
August, 1998
Four of them, stripped to their shorts, stood on the riverbank, eyes fixed across
Hell Gate at the lights of Queens.
This had been Charlie’s idea. Let’s swim it.
No one protested. Not Johnny or Danny. Not even Mooney, the weakest swimmer
among them. No one dared.
No sweat, Charlie said. Can’t be more than half a mile. Can’t be.
Across the river the lights flared, spur-like, diffused, beyond the roiling
currents.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-bronx-kill/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fbe</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Philip Cioffari]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:14:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/61gqb3mMAbL.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/61gqb3mMAbL.jpg" alt="The Bronx Kill"/><p>An excerpt from the Novel by Philip Cioffari</p>
<p>Prologue</p>
<p>August, 1998</p>
<p>Four of them, stripped to their shorts, stood on the riverbank, eyes fixed across<br>
Hell Gate at the lights of Queens.</br></p>
<p>This had been Charlie’s idea. Let’s swim it.</p>
<p>No one protested. Not Johnny or Danny. Not even Mooney, the weakest swimmer<br>
among them. No one dared.</br></p>
<p>No sweat, Charlie said. Can’t be more than half a mile. Can’t be.</p>
<p>Across the river the lights flared, spur-like, diffused, beyond the roiling<br>
currents.</br></p>
<p>Tonight it’s ours. They had tried before and failed. But that didn’t matter. Not<br>
this night. Not for this, what Charlie called the grandest challenge of their youth, the<br>
ultimate test of their manhood. Let’s do it, he said.</br></br></p>
<p>They’d been drinking and their bodies leaned tentatively toward the water.<br>
Uncertain. Unsteady. Charlie with the broadest shoulders, the biggest build, the others<br>
thin pale shadows of him.</br></br></p>
<p>Above them the rush of cars on the bridge lifted into the night like a primal chant.</p>
<p>Come on.</p>
<p>Come on.</p>
<p>Come on.</p>
<p>Charlie stumbled forward, he was no pansy, feet slipping on wet rocks, arms<br>
swinging in broken circles, propeller-like, powering him into the waist-deep water at the<br>
river’s edge.</br></br></p>
<p>Johnny followed quickly, then Danny, mud sucking at their feet. Only Mooney<br>
hesitated, watching from the shoreline.</br></p>
<p>Come on, Charlie shouted. Prove you got some balls. Prove it.</p>
<p>Mooney shook like he was cold. Thin flat chest, flat belly, thin arms and<br>
legs—bird-like, delicate—his face tinged with a blush of shame but his body white as<br>
bone.</br></br></p>
<p>Come on! Charlie said again, this time Johnny and Danny joining in. Three voices<br>
shouting: come on, come on, come on.</br></p>
<p>Charlie came out of the water, talking under his breath to Mooney, jabbing at his<br>
face, his chest, his arms. Softly at first, almost playful. Then harder, harder. Grabbing<br>
him and lifting him, turning sharply as though he might fling him into the water.</br></br></p>
<p>Mooney slipped free. He hung back on the bank, shoulders hunched in apology.<br>
Then the girl appeared. Out of nowhere, it seemed. Stepping from the shadow of the<br>
bridge. Sun-bleached hair blown back in the breeze, her smile an arc of whiteness in her<br>
deeply tanned face. She had a slow, easy way of walking, an offhand way of saying, I’m<br>
coming, too. No chance they wouldn’t go now. No chance any of them would chicken<br>
out.</br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>They watched her—Mooney less intently than the others: he’d seen her naked<br>
before—as she lifted her halter top, unzipped her shorts. In her bra and panties, she<br>
stood on the bank, unflinching under their scrutiny, before entering the water, striking<br>
out for the far shore.</br></br></br></p>
<p>Charlie leading the way, the three of them surrounded Mooney then, shouting<br>
Timmy Timmy Timmy, pulling at his thin arms, dragging him into the water.</br></p>
<p>Nobody swam in this river. Too dirty. Too dangerous. Too rife with chemicals,<br>
disease. Too subject to strong and unpredictable currents. As rough at times as Hell Gate<br>
to the south. At night the ship traffic couldn’t see you. You were flotsam, debris tossing<br>
in the waves.</br></br></br></p>
<p>But Charlie plunged ahead, swimming hard to overtake the girl, Johnny following<br>
close behind, then Danny, and Mooney dead last.</br></p>
<p>The water’s black grip felt colder than Danny, the youngest of them, expected this<br>
time of year; slick and oily, it yanked him downward. When he fought his way to the<br>
surface, coughing, spitting through gritted teeth, he turned to be sure Mooney was<br>
following—and he was, arms flailing, feet kicking hard, an awkward but determined<br>
pantomime of a swimmer. The others, ahead of Danny, were already nothing more than<br>
dark blurs on the water, marked now and again, brief silver flashes.</br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Danny got his bearings then and swam harder, gaining on the others because he<br>
knew without thinking it this test of their manhood involved not only making it to the<br>
other side but making it there first. It was as much now about her as it was about proving<br>
himself to the guys.</br></br></br></p>
<p>Fifty feet from shore the current began to strengthen. He stopped to rest, treading<br>
water, gulping mouthfuls of air, watching the pinpoint of a ship’s light gliding by on the<br>
river, watching the shoreline glide by too as he drifted southward. Then he was<br>
swimming hard again, fighting the current, trying to make up lost ground.</br></br></br></p>
<p>What happened next happened without warning. A wave from the passing ship<br>
swamped him. When he re-surfaced, spitting the sour-tasting water, eyes tearing,<br>
thinking we’re all going to die out here, he saw Charlie swimming back toward him,<br>
heading for shore.</br></br></br></p>
<p>Too rough, Charlie shouted. We can’t make it.</p>
<p>Then Charlie was past him, head down, doing the flawless overhand stroke he’d<br>
won medals for. Johnny was close behind, swimming in his wake, face tight with strain<br>
as he too headed back.</br></br></p>
<p>I can make it, Danny thought. We’re almost a third of the way and I can make it. I<br>
can. I can. No longer could he see any trace of the girl, Julianne—he was in pursuit of the<br>
idea of her, his fantasy of her—so he began swimming again, riding the ship’s waves<br>
which were less severe now, small rounded hills of water breaking over him.</br></br></br></p>
<p>In a matter of moments, though, he saw Charlie was right. The current swiped<br>
him from all sides, held him captive, dragged him southward toward the bridge. It<br>
took all his effort to break free, to spring from its grip, to point himself toward shore<br>
where they’d left their clothes.</br></br></br></p>
<p>That was when he saw Mooney coming toward him, arms flailing, feet sending<br>
back fantails of spray as he labored into the current.</br></p>
<p>You won’t make it, Danny shouted.</p>
<p>Mooney kept swimming his awkward, blundering stroke. Danny reached out<br>
to stop him, grabbing at his shoulders, his neck, the water rising in furious waves around<br>
them, everything—Mooney’s slick skin, Danny’s clawing hands, the stinging burn in his<br>
eyes, his throat—all of it inseparable from the river’s raging assault; and then Danny<br>
stopped reaching for him, slowly backing away from him as the dark water swirled<br>
between them.</br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Treading water, his heart pounding so hard he gasped for breath, Danny watched<br>
him struggle to stay above water. He kept his head turned toward Danny. He seemed to<br>
be waiting for something. The look in his eyes said that.</br></br></p>
<p>Before he began swimming again, Mooney’s face lifted above the river. He was<br>
grinning, or so it appeared, his mouth twisted in an odd, unexplainable way as he leaned<br>
back into the current.</br></br></p>
<p>The Bronx Kill is available <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bronx-Kill-Philip-Cioffari-ebook/dp/B06Y2J6BR4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516131583&sr=8-1&keywords=the+bronx+kill&ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">here.</a></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Absquatulators]]></title><description><![CDATA[A 10 Minute Play
Charactors:
Emma Claire (f) ……………………… Elderly smart-ass and resident gossip. Worked as a clerk for the county government. Dancing Ho.
Allie Kay (f) ………………………… Sweet elderly lady who has terrible short-term memory. Was a college baton twirler, thinks she’s still got ‘it’. Dancing Fool.
Bonnie Catherine ‘Kate’ Buford (f)… New resident at the Precious Moments Retirement Center. Old South. Pretentious without meaning to be. Possesses the soul of a rebel. Dancing soul.
Chip]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-absquatulators/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fbd</guid><category><![CDATA[Plays]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:13:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/Rocking_chairs_on_cabin_porch_Shenandoah_River_State_Park_-16265410809-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/Rocking_chairs_on_cabin_porch_Shenandoah_River_State_Park_-16265410809-.jpg" alt="The Absquatulators"/><p>A 10 Minute Play</p>
<p>Charactors:</p>
<p>Emma Claire (f) ……………………… Elderly smart-ass and resident gossip. Worked as a clerk for the county government. Dancing Ho.</p>
<p>Allie Kay (f) ………………………… Sweet elderly lady who has terrible short-term memory. Was a college baton twirler, thinks she’s still got ‘it’. Dancing Fool.</p>
<p>Bonnie Catherine ‘Kate’ Buford (f)… New resident at the Precious Moments Retirement Center. Old South. Pretentious without meaning to be. Possesses the soul of a rebel. Dancing soul.</p>
<p>Chip and Dale (2m) ……………… Two elderly gentlemen</p>
<p>Lance (m) ………………………… Don Juan of PMRC</p>
<p>Claudell (m) ……………………… Large man. Semi-suave</p>
<p>Arthur (m) ………………………… Confined to wheel chair. Ex-military. Former Fred Astaire of the PMRC</p>
<p>Gabe (m) ………………………… Male nurse who pushes Arthur’s wheelchair</p>
<p>Setting:</p>
<p>Outside the Precious Moments Retirement Center. Three Rocking chairs about a foot apart onstage as lights come up. Chair at stage right is occupied by Allie Kay, who is rocking slowly and knitting. Bonnie Kate approaches from stage left humming. Allie Kay looks up from her knitting.</p>
<p>Allie Kay: Oh, hello deary… You must be new here, I haven’t seen you around before. I’m Allie Kay.</p>
<p>Bonnie Kate: How very pleased I am to meet you Allie Kay. My name is Bonnie Catherine Buford, but you can call me Bonnie Kate. All my friends back in Charleston do. I just arrived this morning after a God-awful trip and thought it best to nap awhile. Now I’m rested and ready to meet the world!</p>
<p>AK: Well, that’s nice. Why don’t you have a seat Bonnie Sue, the promenade (promenade is pronounced as promenAIDE) is about to start?</p>
<p>BK: (Does double take eye-roll …clears throat) Ahem….The name is Bonnie KATE, dear. Now, pray tell, what is this promenade (pronounced as promeNOD) we are about to witness? (as she takes middle rocker).</p>
<p>AK: (Puts knitting down, picks a hand held fan from knitting bag. Fan says Eichenberry Funeral Home) Well, every Saturday evening here at the Precious Moments Retirement Center we have a dance. Oh and it is such fun! (AK performs a dance move in her rocker). So the gentlemen here parade by all the ladies and we select our dance partners for the evening.</p>
<p>(Emma Claire enters stage left with cane. Stops by Allie Kay and points cane at Bonnie Kate)</p>
<p>EC: Well who on God’s earth is sitting in my rocker?</p>
<p>AK: Oh now, don’t get yourself upset Emma Claire. This is Mary Kate Bueller, she’s a new resident here and we were just getting acquainted. I’m sure she won’t mind moving if you ask her?</p>
<p>BK: (Triple takes AK and blinks several times…clears throat) First of all, my name is Bonnie Kate BUFORD and I would like to say where on earth did you find such a practical cane? I do believe I will have to get one of those for myself, lord have mercy but my arthritis is about to do me in.</p>
<p>EC: Oh, this old thing? (Looks at cane then starts over to rocker by BK) I picked it up at the Wal-Marx last time we went to town. Don’t pay Allie Kay no mind, honey. She can’t remember the last time she went to pee.</p>
<p>AK: Hey-ay! I’m right here, Emma Claire! I may not be able to remember shit but I ain’t deaf!</p>
<p>(BK’s head on swivel as she looks from AK to EC as they talk around her, patting her chest and clearing her throat)</p>
<p>EC: Oh don’t get your matching bra and panties in such a wad, you won’t even remember this conversation ten minutes from now.</p>
<p>AK: Oh look, Bonnie Ruth here come Chip and Dale!</p>
<p>(Chip, dressed in overalls and straw hat, enters with Dale, dressed in white Irish sweater and tweed driving cap. Chip has his hands in his pockets and Dale has his arm looped through Chip’s arm)</p>
<p>Chip & Dale: Evening, Ladies.</p>
<p>Dale: And who is this fabulous creature with the gorgeous fuchsia scarf?</p>
<p>AK: Oh this is Miz Bonnie Ruth…but I think her scarf is more of a salmon color, you know, that kind of pink you see when the sun sets in the evening.</p>
<p>(BK and EC roll eyes toward each other)</p>
<p>EC: (Glares at AK then looks at Chip and Dale) Her name is Bonnie Kate for Chrissakes! You boys ought to know not to listen to Allie Kay, she don’t know whether to scratch her watch or wind her ass half the time.</p>
<p>Dale: Ooooh how you do go on Miz Emma Claire!</p>
<p>AK: (In a huff, fan working overtime) We wasn’t talkin’ about watches Emma Claire, we was talking about Bobbie Jo’s scarf.</p>
<p>BK: You wouldn’t happen to have another fan in your bag would you, Allie Kay?</p>
<p>AK: Why sure, honey (pats BK on arm then starts digging in her knitting bag)</p>
<p>C & D: Well, you ladies have a nice evening…we have to move on.</p>
<p>Chip: And we do hope you will save a dance for us.</p>
<p>EC: We would be delighted. (Chip and Dale exit stage left. EC leans over to AK) Crying shame…can’t neither one of them boys plow a delta anymore but lord how they can dance!</p>
<p>(AK finds fan that reads ‘Col Sanders’ and hands it to BK who immediately starts fanning)</p>
<p>BK: Well, this is a most interesting ritual…most interesting.</p>
<p>EC: You ain’t seen nothing yet, Bonnie Kate…here comes Lance. As smooth an operator as you’ve ever met. I may have to dill his pickle tonight…if you know what I mean? (nudges BK with her elbow)</p>
<p>BK: (with look of utter shock) I assure I have no idea what you mean and furthermore …</p>
<p>Lance: Evening, ladies. And who is this lovely newcomer with the beautiful salmon scarf?</p>
<p>AK: Salmon. Yessir, Salmon. I told you it was salmon Emma Claire.</p>
<p>EC: We’re talking dancin’ here, Allie Kay! Ain’t nobody here gives a shit about a pink scarf!…Begging your pardon Bonnie Kate.</p>
<p>AK: Well, of all the gall…</p>
<p>Lance: Oh, now don’t get you tail feathers ruffled Miz Allie Kay, I’m sure Miz Emma Claire is only joshing. Besides, I wouldn’t want my favorite Baton Twirler to get all upset before the big dance.</p>
<p>AK: (Looks bashfully from behind the fan) Well, I may not be able to do a finger twirl anymore but I can finish with a flourish…</p>
<p>Lance: Awwww, Miss Allie Kay, you can twirl my baton anytime…</p>
<p>EC: Oh gag me with a spoon! You two need a cold shower.</p>
<p>Lance: Well, I’ll be runnin’ along ladies, hope to see you at the dance tonight! (Exits stage left)</p>
<p>AK & BK: Bye, bye!</p>
<p>EC: Keep it in your pants, Lance!</p>
<p>AK: Well, of all the nerve!</p>
<p>EC: Put a sock in it, Allie Kay. It was pretty obvious what you wanted, a little twirl in the hay?</p>
<p>BK: Now, who is this gentleman coming toward us?</p>
<p>EC: Why that ain’t no gentleman, Bonnie Kate. That’s Claudell…he’s just an old horn dog that ain’t never been stump broke. They say he’s part ______ (injun, cajun, a-rab, whatever fits character)</p>
<p>Claudell: Evening Ladies!</p>
<p>EC & AK: Evening, Claudell.</p>
<p>Claudell: And who might this lovely person be, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure?</p>
<p>EC: Well, of course you haven’t met her, you nitwit, she just arrived today. This lady is Miz Bonnie Kate Buford and don’t say nothing about her pink scarf.</p>
<p>Claudell: Charmed, Miz Bonnie. And I might add you are looking especially lovely tonight Miz Emma Claire. My how beautiful your eyes are this evening…I do so hope that you will save a dance for me tonight. You are just grace personified on the dance floor.</p>
<p>EC: (Noticeable change in her demeanor) Why, Claudell! I would be ever so delighted to trip the light fantastic with you. I do believe I will wear my tap shoes this evening.</p>
<p>Claudell: Well then, I will see you later Miz Emma. Ladies (Doffs hat and exits stage left)</p>
<p>EC & BK: Bye, bye.</p>
<p>AK: Tap shoes, Emma Claire? I’ll swan…</p>
<p>EC: That’s right…I’m gonna be tappin’ what your twirlin’. My, my, but do you have another fan, Allie Kay?</p>
<p>(AK digs in bag and comes up with another fan it reads ‘Five and Dime Drama Collective)</p>
<p>BK: Oh my! Here comes one in a wheel chair. Don’t tell me he’s going to the dance?</p>
<p>EC: Oh, Bonnie, honey. That’s Arthur. Stage four cancer. Don’t know if he’s gonna be with us much longer but I will tell you…the man had the moves in his day. The way he could move a woman around the dance floor bordered on the divine. When he put his hand on my hip I felt like the skinny sixteen year-old I was a long time ago and not the double-wide I am today. He was the man, honey.</p>
<p>Arthur: Evening ladies.</p>
<p>EC and AK: Evening Arthur. Evening Gabe.</p>
<p>Gabe: Evening ladies.</p>
<p>Arthur: And who is this lovely creature?</p>
<p>EC: Arthur, let me introduce you to Miz Bonnie Kate Buford a new resident to our little disintegratin’ community.</p>
<p>Arthur: Will you be attending our little soiree this evening, Miz Bonnie?</p>
<p>BK: I’m looking forward to it Mr. Arthur, I do so love to dance. It’s just that I haven’t danced since my late husband passed and I’m afraid I might have grown another left foot.</p>
<p>Arthur: Well then, you must allow me to have the first dance. The only time I’m not in this blasted wheelchair is when Gabe here’s not looking. Maybe the two of us can shake the cobwebs off together.</p>
<p>(While discussion is going on, lights start to dim and AK drops her fan and her head tilts to chest)</p>
<p>BK: Nothing I would like better, Arthur.</p>
<p>Arthur: Why, I do believe Miss Allie Kay has fallen asleep…</p>
<p>EC: You must be joking, Allie Kay never sleeps during the day? (EC rises from her rocking chair and walks over and picks up AK hand) Allie Kay honey, you OK? Allie Kay!</p>
<p>BK: Oh, my…has she passed?</p>
<p>EC: Yes and she never said bye, bye.</p>
<p>(Lights continue to dim as Arthur starts singing, ‘Bye, bye Miss American Pie…’, AK and BK join in on ‘Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry…’, rest of ensemble comes on stage and joins in, ‘Those good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye… Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die….this’ll be the day that I die.’)</p>
<p>Entire ensemble: Bye, bye!</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Matter of Gravity]]></title><description><![CDATA[Thrill-seekers,
joy-riders, and those
who are lost come here
to turn around.
No one arrives on purpose
but the writers with their
laptops and little notebooks,
digging around, intruding
upon the squirrels,
the cardinals, the crows,
and the bullfrogs
of the valley.
Bottom-lands: soil rich
from the run-off of nutrients
down the mountains.
Everything of value slides
like the map on a Yaqui
man’s face.
He’s sure it was here,
as he digs this way and that,
breaking the earth wi]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/a-matter-of-gravity/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fbc</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Belinda Bruner]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:13:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507096657345-17bf3ee8d563?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=29d36f674a96798427ac8b6812f01fdf" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507096657345-17bf3ee8d563?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=29d36f674a96798427ac8b6812f01fdf" alt="A Matter of Gravity"/><p>Thrill-seekers,<br>
joy-riders, and those<br>
who are lost come here<br>
to turn around.</br></br></br></p>
<p>No one arrives on purpose<br>
but the writers with their<br>
laptops and little notebooks,</br></br></p>
<p>digging around, intruding<br>
upon the squirrels,<br>
the cardinals, the crows,<br>
and the bullfrogs<br>
of the valley.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Bottom-lands: soil rich<br>
from the run-off of nutrients<br>
down the mountains.<br>
Everything of value slides<br>
like the map on a Yaqui<br>
man’s face.</br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>He’s sure it was here,<br>
as he digs this way and that,<br>
breaking the earth with<br>
his spade until he can’t<br>
sink any lower, until he<br>
is forced to say, "I must<br>
have missed it. What I wanted<br>
to show you…I thought…<br>
it was right here."<br>
And, according to the book of maps, it was.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>There is no history<br>
of the decline,<br>
the gradual weeping downward, the slow<br>
descent that misplaces<br>
all we once were.</br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why Hasn’t Osama Bin Collar’d (Yet)???]]></title><description><![CDATA[I. The Mission
There was something out of the ordinary in the way my aunt asked about the black duffel bag that I had schlepped all over the western world. Of COURSE I knew it (as in “you know that bag of yours?”); even knew where it WAS. And of COURSE she could use it for any lawful purpose (this point to come back up for discussion sooner than I thought). So I had scarcely finished giving her thumbs up on the black duffel when something told me to call her back to see what she had in mind. I]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/why-hasnt-osama-bin-collard-yet/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fbb</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Garon Stephens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:13:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/Collard-Greens-Bundle.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/Collard-Greens-Bundle.jpg" alt="Why Hasn’t Osama Bin Collar’d (Yet)???"/><p>I. The Mission</p>
<p>There was something out of the ordinary in the way my aunt asked about the black duffel bag that I had schlepped all over the western world. Of COURSE I knew it (as in “you know that bag of yours?”); even knew where it WAS. And of COURSE she could use it for any lawful purpose (this point to come back up for discussion sooner than I thought). So I had scarcely finished giving her thumbs up on the black duffel when something told me to call her back to see what she had in mind. It was then that I learned of the Collards Project.</p>
<p>The Collards Project, at this stage still shrouded in secrecy, involved transporting a substantial payload of (cooked) collard greens to my cousin (her son) in Colorado, in connection with her upcoming visit there for her granddaughter’s (my second cousin’s) graduation from high school. Her son, a genuine product of southern cooking, would consider the world to be spinning in the right direction if he could sit down to a substantial serving of collard greens and associated juices.</p>
<p>“Just what did you have in mind?” I asked my aunt that evening, as we sized up the black duffel for width and depth, attempting to project its safe collard-carrying capacity.</p>
<p>“Well, I was planning on freezing them, then wrapping them real good, so they would keep for the whole trip out there.”</p>
<p>I had seen other things “wrapped real good” in this family context, and I knew it meant something a few notches past mummification, relying on successive layers of tupperware, black garbage bags and duct tape—your basic Good Fellas technology for keeping something fresh over a long trip.</p>
<p>II. Clouds Gathering</p>
<p>The Achilles Heel of this otherwise commendable maternal gesture, however, sprang onto the stage: AIRPORT SECURITY. My aunt and I both had been glued to the TV set that fateful morning of 9-11, and had followed closely as Osama and El Quaeda and some other funny names and places became household words. But she had not had the extraordinary experience of traveling by plane since then as I had. She knew little of the ridiculous lines, the confiscation of toe nail clippers, and the specific body searching of every seventh person in line—no matter who they are—just to make sure nobody thinks that security is trying to zero in on some shifty-looking camel riders with bombs or can openers hidden in their drawers…or who knows where. So to keep everything on a level playing field, so to speak, even the blandest and least threatening persons you can imagine—see where this is heading??—had to be scrutinized with a fine-toothed comb, as well as an X-ray machine and a metal detector.</p>
<p>“Of course you can wrap them up securely,” I acknowledged, having received fresh candy and baked goods by this method myself, half-way around the world.” But those were more laid-back times,” I mused, “that we kissed goodbye on 9-11 Airport security will want to open up these packages and check out each one, so you might as well not get them all bound up with tape. That could be a huge mess.” That term was fortuitous, since the quantity of greens we’re talking about here would normally be termed a MESS anyhow, as in” a mess of collards.”</p>
<p>My aunt’s mental wheels at that time were busy conducting a quick inventory of suitable containers for cooked collard greens, calculations about freezer space and how long they would take to reach an appropriate (frozen) hardness, how they could be wrapped in swaddling garbage bags, and tucked into the duffel bag, and still get to the airport two hours ahead of time (also something she did not fully believe was real. She even thought it was likely her plane would depart on time. (Truly.)</p>
<p>While she contemplated the specific gravity of frozen collards, I was trying to envision how the security guards—hired off the street in the last few weeks and subjected to a crash course on terrorist tools and tactics—would look upon my aunt making her way toward the check-in counter. “Beware of aunts bearing collards” might just as well have been posted along the corridors.</p>
<p>“OK now—listen up!!! Now I know you people are having to absorb a lot of new material in a short time. But just remember—you are our first line of defense against terrorism. And 9-11 oughta tell you that we never know what they will try…or how they will try to get around us. They may try to plant explosive devices in very ordinary looking packages…and even have very innocent-looking people serve as their carriers. So don’t fall for any cockamamie story…even if it’s from your grandmother!! DO YOU HEAR ME???”</p>
<p>III. The Query</p>
<p>I was finally able to press upon my aunt the seriousness of this matter and the need to anticipate this whole security thing. I was concerned about the potential for an altercation in the airport, especially one involving a duffel bag bearing my nametag. Nightmarish visions of that nametag being the only item recovered on the slopes of some rocky mountainside—by search parties deputized by the NTSB—were now part of the grisly 9-11 legacy. “We believe the explosion may have resulted from devices imbedded in packages of frozen collards”, the chilling report intoned, “and we are seeking information regarding the owner of a black duffel bag who may not even have been aboard Flight 984…</p>
<p>I did not share with her this uneasy apocalyptic vision, but she nonetheless sensed that something above and beyond was called for. It was time for some answers, she decided. . Only question was who was going to provide them. Now if only the right people would answer the telephone.</p>
<p>Trained in administrative law, I was aware of the complex procedures followed by federal agencies to address public policy considerations. It would be months before the collards question ever appeared in the Federal Register. Maybe changes would even be required in the Warsaw Convention governing tariffs and baggage and whatnot. But surely, what had been a tortuous process before 9-11, was now likely to resemble a receding (or advancing)glacier in its pace. My awareness encompassed the confusion surrounding the status of security guards—Whose were they? By whom were they employed? Whose policies did they follow?—did not produce any clear reference points for the inquiring (my aunt) citizen whose substantial interests (a term I had learned in law school) were affected by the FAA’s position (or lack thereof) regarding frozen collards on domestic flights.</p>
<p>“I think I’ll just call ‘em up and ask,” she resolved, “Don’t see what harm it could do, and it might help.” I asked her whom she was planning to call…and she said the airport. Well, specifically, airport security. Knowing a few people who worked at the airport or had relatives who did, I had personal and certain knowledge that NO ONE at the Jacksonville International Airport had the authority or capability to give a definitive response to any collards-related questions posed over the telephone by a prospective air traveler. In fact, merely ASKING such a question might result in heightened suspicion.</p>
<p>Further. my years as a lawyer wrangling with agencies and other adversaries had led me long ago to avoid reliance on anything anyone said over the telephone. Most of it was objectionable as hearsay, whatever that was. So you couldn’t rely on it if it was good, and if it was really stupid, you couldn’t hold it against the telephonic source. So why even deal with it? Send them a letter; spell out your concern; get them to send you a letter back, signed by a responsible official, and THEN, and only then, did you have something, maybe.</p>
<p>But the world works differently for different folks. And my aunt’s way of making it work for her was on the telephone. She could call up SEARS, or Bell South, or Dillards, or Visa, and get direct satisfaction, once she got a real person on the other end. If only that worked for the rest of us. But could she do it with the FAA?? No problema, amigos…</p>
<p>Getting through to someone initially was not as easy as she had hoped. “Hello, is this the airport security office? My name is Mildred Smith (not her real name). I will be traveling on one of your flights to attend my granddaughter’s graduation, and I need to talk to somebody about your policy on collards….”</p>
<p>This approach caused more than a little hot-potato tossing on the other end. “Hey, Charlie, there’s a lady on three has a question about collards.” One moment, ma’am…transferring now….” Charles Abercrombie, (not his real name), Wackenhut Security (not the real company), Supervisor. How may I help you, ma’am??”</p>
<p>“I want to know what the airport’s policy is regarding frozen collards…</p>
<p>“Collars? Did you say, ma’am?"</p>
<p>"No, COLLARDS, collard greens, collards that you eat, only these would be frozen. Just like I told the first man. I am taking these to my son in Colorado.”</p>
<p>“Ma’am, we don’t have any specific policy regarding collards, if that’s what you are looking for. Some of us like ‘em; some don’t. It’s just a personal preference.”</p>
<p>“But can I take them ON THE AIRPLANE? That’s what I am trying to find out. I don’t want to get them all bundled up…and have you make me open up every package there in the airport. See what I am saying?”</p>
<p>“Ma’am, I understand your questions, and I would like to help you. But we have to look at every passenger and every bag on a case-by-case basis. If we could approve particular packages in advance, that would kinda defeat the purpose of security, wouldn’t it?”</p>
<p>“Well, if I go to all this trouble…and you tear up every package of collards when I get there, I will not be very happy with you.”</p>
<p>“Ma’am, we have a lot of unhappy people every day. In fact, we have been given a quota of people to make unhappy; that’s just part of our job since 9-11. But if these collards you speak of can pass through our X-ray machine and do not show any signs of metal or potential explosive devices imbedded in them, then you are probably good to go. Unless our new dogs—who are trained to detect substances that might be used in bio-terrorism—sniff something they don’t like, then we would have to take a closer look.”</p>
<p>IV. At the Dinner Table</p>
<p>“Mmmmmmmm…you know how much I love these collards. It was so nice of you to bring them all this way. And you even remembered to leave off the ham. That must not have been easy for you…”</p>
<p>“You are certainly welcome, and I hope you enjoy both packages. Just sorry the other four couldn’t have made it too.”</p>
<p>“How’s that, Grandma? You mean you had six to start with?”</p>
<p>“That’s right, sweetheart. The others had to be sacrificed so that these might be allowed to travel."</p>
<p>“Sacrificed? Tell us about that, grandma."</p>
<p>“Well, child, it was like this. The first package went to the porter, so he would help me get this duffel bag up to the ticket counter and put a tag on it. They are pretty leery about helping with bags anymore, even though that’s their job. But a package of collards kinda helped him to see his way clear, you might say.”</p>
<p>"And the second container went to the ticket agent, so she would know what to put down on the tag. She even tasted them, when I told her the others were just frozen versions of these. I think the rest of that bunch ended up in their little lunchroom back there.”</p>
<p>“And what happened to the others, Grandma?? Tell us!!"</p>
<p>“Well, the third one had to be destroyed. They had this new chamber right there at the gate where they had to detonate suspicious looking packages. They put mine in with an umbrella this Egyptian lady said she was delivering to a camel driver’s son who was in flight school in Colorado Springs learning to fly a crop duster. Blew collard greens all over the airside. Never saw such a sight!!! Wonder nobody got hurt!!"</p>
<p>“Wow, Grandma…Did it really explode? Why didn’t you get arrested? Did they know it was her and not you???”</p>
<p>“Well, sweetheart, it turned out the last guard at the gate was the son of a lady I used to know from church. We used to have great covered dish suppers for everybody, and his momma would usually bring a mess of collards in that very tupperware. Even had her name still on the bottom.”</p>
<p>So soon as he started looking through the rest of my duffel, he saw his momma’s name there and started to cry. “ Miz Mildred, I would love to have something of my momma’s…” I just handed him the whole container, told him I had always intended to return it, put the last two back in, as he waved me on through.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Panic]]></title><description><![CDATA[Can’t breathe
Feels like being buried alive,
knowing this is the end
No more oxygen
No more breaths
Just these four walls
and blackness
But I’m not in a coffin
in the ground
beneath fresh dirt.
I’m at a meeting,
a planning commission meeting.
I nod at a commissioner.
She nods back.
She probably thinks I’m fine,
not screaming on the inside
hoping someone will hear me
and dig me up.
She doesn’t know my brain is a prison,
that I’m on death row.
I’d tell her, but I can’t breathe.]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/panic/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fba</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Samantha Jones]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:13:16 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1480435712328-a8dc543d1d80?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=6f0237427aea5fbc2bf09ffe0bf31600" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1480435712328-a8dc543d1d80?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=6f0237427aea5fbc2bf09ffe0bf31600" alt="Panic"/><p>Can’t breathe<br>
Feels like being buried alive,<br>
knowing this is the end<br>
No more oxygen<br>
No more breaths<br>
Just these four walls<br>
and blackness<br>
But I’m not in a coffin<br>
in the ground<br>
beneath fresh dirt.<br>
I’m at a meeting,<br>
a planning commission meeting.<br>
I nod at a commissioner.<br>
She nods back.<br>
She probably thinks I’m fine,<br>
not screaming on the inside<br>
hoping someone will hear me<br>
and dig me up.<br>
She doesn’t know my brain is a prison,<br>
that I’m on death row.<br>
I’d tell her, but I can’t breathe.<br>
I smile instead.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sarah Lawrence]]></title><description><![CDATA[Getting ready to lift off
from Dong Tam
he made sure the Army nurse
was buckled in
hooked up
He said You doin’ okay?
She said:
I wanted to go to Sarah Lawrence
He said hang on
just hang on
She said:
I wanted to go to Sarah Lawrence
He said I heard
you did all that you could
That no one
could have done more
She said:
I wanted to go to Sarah Lawrence
I should’ve gone to Sarah Lawrence
‘Sarah Lawrence’ can be found in Bill’s poetry book, The Smell of Light, taken from letters ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/sarah-lawrence/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fb9</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:13:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/17493312831_5beceefc2e_b.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/17493312831_5beceefc2e_b.jpg" alt="Sarah Lawrence"/><p>Getting ready to lift off<br>
from Dong Tam<br>
he made sure the Army nurse<br>
was buckled in<br>
hooked up</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>He said You doin’ okay?<br>
She said:<br>
I wanted to go to Sarah Lawrence<br>
He said hang on<br>
just hang on<br>
She said:<br>
I wanted to go to Sarah Lawrence</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>He said I heard<br>
you did all that you could<br>
That no one<br>
could have done more<br>
She said:<br>
I wanted to go to Sarah Lawrence<br>
I should’ve gone to Sarah Lawrence</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>‘Sarah Lawrence’ can be found in Bill’s poetry book, The Smell of Light, taken from letters he wrote home from Vietnam and can be found <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smell-Light-Bill-McCloud-ebook/dp/B075FCWTNB/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1513459269&sr=1-1&keywords=bill+mccloud&ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">here</a>.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Last Laugh]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was the day after the annual company picnic, held every June, that Charlene went to the doctor for her “well visit”—a requirement to maintain her insurance benefits. The timing was considerably inopportune given that the picnic was a veritable festival for the taste buds and was simply not to be missed. Charlene had a particular fondness for the boss’s wife’s spicy fried chicken which practically danced an attention-getting salsa until Charlene piled several pieces on her plate. And Philomena]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-last-laugh/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fb8</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Cara Bianca]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:12:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1426869981800-95ebf51ce900?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=8c193c793abb0a9d6afb0c9b2028c779" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1426869981800-95ebf51ce900?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=8c193c793abb0a9d6afb0c9b2028c779" alt="The Last Laugh"/><p>It was the day after the annual company picnic, held every June, that Charlene went to the doctor for her “well visit”—a requirement to maintain her insurance benefits. The timing was considerably inopportune given that the picnic was a veritable festival for the taste buds and was simply not to be missed. Charlene had a particular fondness for the boss’s wife’s spicy fried chicken which practically danced an attention-getting salsa until Charlene piled several pieces on her plate. And Philomena’s potato salad, so delectably creamy with mayonnaise and egg yolk, crooned to her until she ladled an ample helping next to the chicken. Jordan’s macaroni salad was an event in itself. The recipe was a secret, but any fool could tell it wouldn’t detract from a “full figure” like Charlene’s. To top it all off, of course, there was always Lisa’s strawberry shortcake with honest-to-God whipped cream that practically created a road block if you tried to pass the dessert table without spooning a significant portion onto your plate. So when Dr. Badnuze told Charlene that her cholesterol levels were too high, she was certain the day’s measurement represented only a temporary elevation, brought on by the preceding day’s feast. She tried to rationalize that the company picnic only comes once a year, etc., but the doctor emphatically explained that she was not understanding him. Her cholesterol levels were so high, that they might be the end of her, and he wasn’t talking about five or ten years down the road. Charlene took a couple of silent moments to absorb the shock. She tried again to raise a defense against his prognosis. “But every year after the picnic you tell me…”</p>
<p>Dr. Badnuze interrupted, “And your cholesterol levels have been continually climbing. You are in danger of not seeing the next company picnic.”</p>
<p>This was precisely the graphic picture Charlene needed to propel her to action. Not see the next company picnic? The picnic was to die for! Well, wait. That was precisely the doctor’s point; she was about to die for it. His message hit home. Charlene declared, then and there that she intended to take the proverbial bull by the horns, and throw him clean out of town. No more beef. No more pork. No chicken. No fish. No cheese. Not even a glass of milk or a bowl of ice cream. Gone were the quarter pounders, the hot wings, corn dogs and stuffed crust pizza. And she meant it. She would be at the next company picnic by hook or by crook!</p>
<p>At Sunday dinner with her Mama and Daddy, Charlene had only a salad with oil and vinegar dressing. This confused her overweight Daddy and hurt her fat Mama’s feelings. When Mama held a hot buttered biscuit right under Charlene’s nose, so close Charlene could smell the real butter, and Charlene declined, Mama was sure her daughter was physically ill, or had a deep psychological disorder. Everyone knew full well Charlene had never been able to turn down this delicacy in her life because her Mama was the queen of baked goods in all their light flaky splendor. (Her secret was lard, pure and simple.) But Charlene was a grown woman, so Mama bit her tongue. Daddy grabbed the biscuit before Mama could fully retract her arm. “If she says she don’t want it, she don’t want it!” Charlene didn’t let on that she was on the brink of giving in just before Daddy rudely snatched that bit of heaven from Mama’s hand, jolting Charlene to her senses. In fact, if the devil, himself, had shown up looking like a suntanned George Clooney in a thong offering to take her away to an island in the Pacific, he would’t have been as difficult to turn down as that biscuit! Meanwhile, Mama’s chicken-fried steak had been calling her as surely as if it were Mama herself, insulted by the snub. The gravy and the green beans with bacon were laughing at her, because everybody knew they were irresistible. What, for years, had been a weekly gastronomical delight had become a puritanical punishment for self-righteousness.</p>
<p>A week into her new lifestyle, Charlene returned to the doc, not because she was wasting away, as her mother suspected, and not because her willpower was wilted, as the nay-sayers believed. (When she asked for leave time for the appointment, there were rumors floating around the office that Charlene took the afternoon off to have an affair with a bucket of Colonel Sanders’ finest.) Charlene’s doctor visit actually had nothing to do with food or cholesterol. She made the appointment because she had an unexplained wheeze in her chest. All her good intentions were still intact. The doc said she didn’t have pneumonia, as she had feared, but he gave her some antibiotics to be on the safe side, and then their conversation turned to her new diet borne of his warning and her sheer willpower. The doc commended her highly, and encouraged her to stay on this highway to health. But then he placed a speed bump on the road by mentioning one more villain: salt. Her blood pressure was a bit high, and she ought to consider reducing her salt intake.</p>
<p>So Charlene went home and threw out the cholesterol free pretzels, her briny pickles, her saltine crackers, and even her saltshaker. If you’re going to do a thing, do it right, she told herself. So for good measure, right then and there, Charlene gave up sugar as well. No cookies, cakes, pies, candy, or caramel corn. No popsicles. No soda. Not even a graham cracker. If the goal was to get healthy then by God she’d put all the miscreant victuals into one big philosophical box and bury it—deep deep down into the ground. She rid her cabinets of all temptation.</p>
<p>Charlene ate celery with abandon, sometimes dipping it in fat-free, salt-free, gluten-free, taste-free hummus-like dip, made with “real” garbanzos. She ate carrot sticks, and buckets of salad, with low-calorie dressing—or sometimes no dressing at all. Beans were her primary source of protein, seasoned with peppers and onions and garlic. No meat. No fat. No salt.</p>
<p>“She’s making a lifestyle change” her supportive thin and healthy co-workers would say.</p>
<p>“She’s foolin’ herself,” said everybody else. “It won’t last a week.”</p>
<p>But they were wrong. Yet, the first few weeks on her life-saving diet were almost counter-productive. There were moments when she thought she wouldn’t mind dying for a Big Mac. But she refused to give satisfaction to the “told you so’s.” She would stick to the new regimen come hell or high water. And at the end of the month, she was so pleased with herself she thought she’d celebrate. Just a little. With a couple of very close friends.</p>
<p>Charlene, Lisa, and Philomena went out to a night club. Lisa and Philomena were glad to see their dear friend had returned to her senses, and were anticipating a long sweaty night of drinking and dancing, punctuated by snacks laden with salt and cheese. But Charlene could not be persuaded to have more than one glass of wine. No beer. No margaritas. No Irish Coffee. No pizza. No salty nuts. Not even a fistful of popcorn. Charlene stuck to her guns, and when her wine was finished, she didn’t order another, aware that more than a glass might threaten her willpower. She encouraged her friends to partake as they would usually, but somehow the spirit of the night had been quashed by Charlene’s good intentions. Everyone went home early, Charlene in a state of new-formed confidence; Lisa and Philomena in defeat.</p>
<p>In two months’ time, it became evident from looking at Charlene that her new diet was having unintended side-effects. Nobody could see her cholesterol levels or take a measure of her saltiness, but her shape was subtly changing. Bulges were beginning to flatten. Rolls were giving way to curves. The do-gooders all said, “Lookin’ good, Charlene!” and the disbelievers said nothing at all—to her face. Behind her back they commented that Charlene was getting too big for her britches by getting smaller. Her holier than thou dietary habits were getting on their nerves. (They were gettin’ on Mama’s very last nerve, to be sure. Charlene had all but stopped coming to Sunday dinner, and when she did come, she brought a bowl of green salad as if this was a pot-luck event.)</p>
<p>Charlene continued her health plan for another two months and her clothes began to feel too loose for comfort. She asked her Mama, whose tailoring rivaled her biscuits, to help her take in some skirts and pants. Mama obliged her daughter, but worried all the while. The bigger the seam she sewed, she more acute Mama’s concern that she ought to be dragging Charlene to the hospital. Daddy remained oblivious, in front of the television with a bag of Cheetos. Women were beyond comprehension sometimes.</p>
<p>Six months in, Charlene quit messing around with alterations and tossed the old clothes that were too big. She started over, with a whole new look. More modern. More shapely. More bewildering to her mother who thought perhaps Charlene had been brainwashed by some cult. Charlene had her hair cut; a dramatic short do. And she joined a health club so she could walk the indoor track and swim laps in the evenings after work.</p>
<p>It wasn’t long after this change of style that Stuart, in the cubicle across the aisle from hers asked her out. Stu was a looker. He worked hard at it. Clean diet. Regular workouts. He was the sort of man Charlene had never even noticed before because he was out of her league. But now she had joined a new league, it appeared. She accepted his invitation and before long they were an item—often seen together in the break room eating tabouleh sprinkled with sunflower seeds. Charlene’s supporters said, “Way to go, girl!” Her old friends simply rolled their eyes and left the couple to themselves. Mama was heartened. Maybe Charlene would find a man and settle down despite her apparent disability.</p>
<p>Pleased that Mama was pleased, Charlene brought Stu to Sunday Dinner. Stu carried in the pot of vegetarian chili, but Mama forgave him because, being new to the family, he probably was under the impression that he was supposed to contribute a dish. When Mama brought out a platter of fried catfish and her homemade tartar sauce, Stu said it looked delicious and put a small piece of fish on his plate (to be polite). Charlene stuck to veggie chili and ignored Mama’s pinched expression. She thought she might have heard the catfish saying, “This girl is messed up,” but supposed she was just reading Mama’s mind. The hush puppies and corn relish were snickering, but Daddy didn’t seem to notice and took enough of each to make his plate disappear.</p>
<p>Almost a year to the day after Charlene had taken the first step that would change her shape, her health, and her social status, she again found herself at the annual company picnic—with Stu at her side. Tables were laden with goopy potato salads, meaty noodle casseroles, piles of fried meats, cream pies, shortcake, chocolate chip cookies, and of course, the conciliatory vegetable tray, with a bowl of dip at its center. Charlene and Stu munched on vegetables, forgoing the dip. Charlene had all but forgotten that it was this very event that had motivated her to change her life—the desire to once again attend the company picnic. The foods that had once sung to her in delicious harmony no longer even registered on her dietary radar. She heard nothing. The spicy fried chicken lay there quietly, it’s oily coat glistening a warning. Jordan’s macaroni was silently drowning in its own sauce. Philomena’s potato salad sadly seemed like neither potato nor salad. And Lisa’s shortcake remained discretely on the dessert table, not getting in anybody’s way.</p>
<p>The party was pleasant, although not as raucous as Charlene remembered. Why she had been so hell-bent on attending, she wasn’t sure. But determined to have fun, she thought she’d join the annual volley-ball match—men against women. She’d never played before—always sitting on the sidelines with a plate of food balanced on her fat lap.</p>
<p>While strolling to the women’s huddle to join the game, Charlene chewed on one last carrot stick. She was waving to Stu, who was plotting with the other team, when she tripped over a small branch that had fallen from one of the many shade trees in the park. She reflexively dropped her carrot stick so her hands would be free to break her fall, but despite her ability to use her hands, she found she couldn’t breathe when she hit the ground. And just before she lost consciousness, she thought she heard the fallen carrot laugh at her. A solitary sardonic chuckle.</p>
<p>Everyone swarmed around Charlene. Two co-workers took turns trying the Heimlich Maneuver. At least ten people called 911 for medical assistance, although it would take longer than a breath of air for an ambulance to get to the picnic grounds, and that was all the time Charlene had. The carrot was anchored in her windpipe, and would not yield, no matter what the do-gooders and nay-sayers tried. It was a company picnic to end all company picnics.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Escalation]]></title><description><![CDATA[We went to the bathroom
because I had friends over
and didn’t want to fight
in front of them.
He called me a stupid bitch.
I was used to that.
He blocked me from leaving.
I was used to that.
He pushed me back.
I was used to that.
My legs landed on the edge of the tub.
My head hit the hard, gray tile.
I sat there crying,
legs hanging in the air
like a discarded rag doll.
I wasn’t used to that,
but you never are
the first time.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/escalation/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fb7</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Samantha Jones]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:12:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1467103789230-f91a5ff8048a?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=cb6333ff9a0c9c60e340ba8e79b99e58" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1467103789230-f91a5ff8048a?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=cb6333ff9a0c9c60e340ba8e79b99e58" alt="Escalation"/><p>We went to the bathroom<br>
because I had friends over<br>
and didn’t want to fight<br>
in front of them.<br>
He called me a stupid bitch.<br>
I was used to that.<br>
He blocked me from leaving.<br>
I was used to that.<br>
He pushed me back.<br>
I was used to that.<br>
My legs landed on the edge of the tub.<br>
My head hit the hard, gray tile.<br>
I sat there crying,<br>
legs hanging in the air<br>
like a discarded rag doll.<br>
I wasn’t used to that,<br>
but you never are<br>
the first time.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Horses on the Rio Grande]]></title><description><![CDATA[“Janet,” A whiney voice in the blackness of the tent. “Janet.”
I open my tired eyes. “What now Barbie?”
“I hear the horses. I’m sure they’re out there. And I have to wee wee. I’m afraid to go outside.”
Wee, wee. A grown woman, mid twenties, maybe older, saying wee wee. It’s ridiculous. “So you want me to go with you right?”
“Please, Janet. Pretty please.”
Damn. I unzip my sleeping bag. The desert air is chill. I fumble for the flashlight and aim it at the tent zipper so Barbie can get ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-horses-on-the-rio-grande/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fb6</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joan Baril]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:12:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1480480565647-1c4385c7c0bf?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=2f70bfdac0fa796bc475bf8dbe344a81" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1480480565647-1c4385c7c0bf?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=2f70bfdac0fa796bc475bf8dbe344a81" alt="The Horses on the Rio Grande"/><p>“Janet,” A whiney voice in the blackness of the tent. “Janet.”</p>
<p>I open my tired eyes. “What now Barbie?”</p>
<p>“I hear the horses. I’m sure they’re out there. And I have to wee wee. I’m afraid to go outside.”</p>
<p>Wee, wee. A grown woman, mid twenties, maybe older, saying wee wee. It’s ridiculous. “So you want me to go with you right?”</p>
<p>“Please, Janet. Pretty please.”</p>
<p>Damn. I unzip my sleeping bag. The desert air is chill. I fumble for the flashlight and aim it at the tent zipper so Barbie can get herself into the open air. “Put your shoes on,” I say. “You don’t want to step on a cactus.”</p>
<p>Moonlight touches the tops of the tents, slides across the wide water of the Rio Grande, sketches the line of canoes on the bank, and outlines the dark hills on the Mexican side. From upstream comes the whinny of horses, the wild horses of the Rio Grande. Occasionally, during the past week on the river, we glimpsed small herds of the heavy bellied, piebald animals. They raised their heads to stare at us, their eyes mild with a blank curiosity. Sometimes, they would whinny, stamp and turn, splashing along the shallows and disappearing behind the stands of carrizo cane that line the banks. They never came near our campsites and, our guide, Elizabeth Trenchard, assures us they’re shy of people.</p>
<p>“Why is it so stony?” Barbie’s stumbling, her feet half in and half out of her pink sneakers. “Why didn’t we camp at that place with the nice sand?"</p>
<p>“You can’t camp at the mouth of a side canyon. Rain far up in the hills could send down a flash flood.”</p>
<p>“Ooh, yuck, “Barbie stops. “Look at all the horse droppings.”</p>
<p>I swivel the flashlight. Dry horse turds the size and shape of Frisbees dot the area in front of us.</p>
<p>Old stuff,” I say. “Good fuel.”</p>
<p>Y’all so brave, Janet. I would never pick up those icky things like you do. You make such great fires.”</p>
<p>I almost replied, and you, Miss Southern Belle, do dick all, except change your clothes and put on make-up. Instead I pull her to one side before she walks into a barrel cactus. I’m getting very tired of babysitting Barbara Jean Rawlins. On our first day, Elizabeth suggested her as my canoe partner, the idea being I would brush up her canoe skills and review the rudiments of white water. Elizabeth took on the other newbie, a large and capable looking sixteen-year-old girl. The remaining two canoes are manned by seasoned canoeists, Texan gals, old hands on the river, who’d been on many trips together.</p>
<p>As I wait for Barbie to finish on the other side of a clump of tall carizzo, I wonder if I can put up with her much longer. She’s a fair canoeist who knows the major strokes but whenever the river picks up speed, she seems to fall into a doze, perhaps mesmerized by the roar of the water and the dark colours of the roiling current. The Rio Grande, placid and lazy along much of its length, can turn dangerous, taking on speed as it runs down hill, squeezing into narrow canyons, flinging itself against red cliffs, and, at every turn and twist, sending brown water roaring up the rock walls in dizzying waves.</p>
<p>Yesterday afternoon, going through a narrow canyon, I had to scream at her. “Barbie! Wake up and back paddle, damn it!”</p>
<p>In the stern, I was aiming for a back ferry, a move to keep the canoe at an angle to the current so that the boat would not be slammed into the side of the cliff. In the very fast water, I needed all my strength to set the angle and hold it in place. The bow person is supposed to back paddle like mad to move us across the current but Barbie just sat there, her paddle across her lap.</p>
<p>“Back paddle, you idiot or we’ll both drown,” I screamed over the noise of the water. Barbie’s shoulders gave a little shake and at last she set her paddle in the water. “Put your dam back into it.” We shot out of the canyon with inches to spare.</p>
<p>Elizabeth met us on the bank. Her voice was gentle. “What happened Barbie, Why weren’t you paddling?”</p>
<p>“Janet yelled at me.”</p>
<p>“Before that, honey, you were just sitting there like a little ole’ ornament.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. I was scared.” She sounded like a ten year old.</p>
<p>“We have at least three canyons to go. Janet’s a strong canoeist but she can’t navigate these narrow spots without your help.”</p>
<p>Barbie sniffled. She looked at me. “You swore at me.”</p>
<p>I took a deep breath and stared at this child-woman, leaning on her paddle, staring into space. I tried to remove my anger from my voice. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m a Canadian. We swear,” and, I mentally added, especially before we die.</p>
<p>Safe on the bank, Barbie looked as cool as if she were setting out to the church picnic. On the other hand, my heart was convulsing. She had no idea of the danger she’d put us in.</p>
<p>On a smooth shallow stretch of river, we again practiced back paddling and draw strokes. Again, I explained that when the river runs fast and the canyon turns, the current could slam the canoe straight into a cliff. I drew a picture in the sand of a boat doing a back ferry. “This is how you avoid being flipped into the water because when that happens, the current could hold you against the wall and, if it does, you’ll drown.” She looked bored. Her mind seemed far away. I sensed she did not believe me. This Texas miss had obviously led a princess life. Nothing bad could possibly happen to her.</p>
<p>“Are you still game, Janet?” Elizabeth asked me later in her soft Texan drawl. “Can you carry on with her?” Elizabeth, small, blond, curly-haired, had been guiding for several years. She had written the book about canoeing the Rio Grande. I knew she was worried.</p>
<p>I considered. “I think so. I’ll just keep reminding her when we get near a canyon.”</p>
<p>Now, outside in the first touch of dawn, I smell the sweet desert breeze carrying perfume from unseen flowers. A touch of sun edges the Mexican hills. This is beauty time, when the entire landscape glows colour: apricot, rose, rust, dark banded purple and gold. Once the sun is high, and it moves there quickly, the land sinks back into everyday brown until sunset starts the show again.</p>
<p>Barbie steps out from behind the cane. “Look across the river,” she says, her voice soft.</p>
<p>A man is standing on the Mexican shore.</p>
<p>“A illegal?” I feel a shiver of fear. Would a man who’d already walked through miles of desert be desperate for food or water, desperate enough to rob? Kill? “Could he be dangerous?”</p>
<p>“No, no,” she answers. “He isn’t carrying a pack. He’s here for another reason.”</p>
<p>The man is very still, staring at our tents. We’re partly hidden by the tall cane. He carries a coiled rope over one shoulder. The soft whinny of the horses upstream has him angle his head in their direction.</p>
<p>Barbie steps to the edge of the water. “Hola!” she calls.</p>
<p>I grab her by the arm. “What are you doing?”</p>
<p>The man answers in Spanish and the two shout back and forth.</p>
<p>“He’s coming over to get a few horses, is all,” Barbie says. “I told him that’s all right. We’re no danger to him. Just canoeists.”</p>
<p>A horse and rider appear on the far hill. I slide my feet backward in surprise and fear.</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, Janet. It’s his friend.”</p>
<p>The rider leads a second horse. The man on the shore swings up into its saddle. The two move slowly to the river’s edge, enter the water and quietly head upstream.</p>
<p>“He says this is the best place to cross,” Barbie says.</p>
<p>“Is it stealing, to take the horses?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. Maybe. This is a national park so I’m thinking they’re protected. But you know, they’re poor, a lot of them.”</p>
<p>Elizabeth comes out to join us. “Horse thieves,” she says.</p>
<p>Even in the soft sand and mud by the river, we can hear the thuds of hooves. “Yip! yip! Hi! Hi!” yell the riders as they emerge from the unending cane, swinging their ropes, three riderless horses thundering ahead of them.</p>
<p>One minute, the captured animals are coming towards us, eyes rolling, manes and tails flying, snorting in fear and a few seconds later, they all turn into the river, water snapping under their hooves. On the far bank they become silhouettes in the newly risen sun: five horses, two riders, the dark snaking ropes. They disappear around a fold of hill.</p>
<p>“What will they do with them?”</p>
<p>“Pasture them somewhere. Then kill them and sell the meat,” Elizabeth says.</p>
<p>I ponder this as I eat my chili and tortilla breakfast. Such beautiful animals. The other members of the party seem unsurprised by the story. “I wonder if the park rangers keep a count,” the sixteen year old says. The others shrug.</p>
<p>My thoughts turn to the riddle that is Barbie.</p>
<p>Inside our tent, as we are packing our kit, I say, “That was a smart move, talking to that Mexican. I didn’t know what he was up to and I was pretty nervous.”</p>
<p>“Oh, most Mexicans are nice, actually. I figured out they were after horses. Perfect area, a shallow ford, lots of hoof prints on the far shore, lots of horse droppings around. They’ve been here before, I expect. Our tents must have been a surprise.”</p>
<p>“Thanks,” I say. “I’m sorry I swore at you yesterday. Maybe we’ll have a better run today.”</p>
<p>“Yesterday, I wanted to kill myself, Janet.”</p>
<p>What the hell? “Yesterday, in the canyon?”</p>
<p>She nods.</p>
<p>“And why? And also take me with you. Thanks so much.” My voice rose, half in anger, half in fear.</p>
<p>“No, no. I was thinking of jumping out.”</p>
<p>“Much good that would do. In that current, we’d have gone over and then wrapped against the cliff.” It takes all my willpower to shut up, calm myself and moderate my tone. “Well, I’m glad you changed your mind,” I say carefully.</p>
<p>“My husband died.”</p>
<p>I look at her. She’s married? I thought she was single. All I can say is “When?”</p>
<p>“Three weeks ago. He was twenty-eight. Liver cancer. He died in a week.”</p>
<p>Oh damn. I’m caught off guard. I sit back in surprise and stare at her. “I’m so sorry,” I finally say. “So then, you wanted to die too?”</p>
<p>“Not at first. I thought this trip would heal me. Help me get over it. But it didn’t work. All this sand, eating on the ground, using horse stuff for fuel. My clothes are filthy. I’m filthy. My hair is full of sand. I’m all sand, a sand person, a mud person, just going down a stupid, ugly, polluted river. I should just die too. Get it over quick. He’s gone so why not me too?”</p>
<p>I reached for her hand. “But you didn’t do it.”</p>
<p>“That horrible water, just brute ugly, I couldn’t.” She pauses as I move to sit beside her, put an arm around her shoulders. I’m out of my depth, not knowing the right words but I’m going to try.</p>
<p>“They took the young horses, the most beautiful ones,” she says. “They’ll die too. So I think now, I think, I can’t…”</p>
<p>Her voice turns into sobs. I hug her tighter, drop my cheek on her blond hair. “I’m so sorry,” I say again.</p>
<p>“I can’t add to it,” she says. “Death I mean.” I wait, feeling her sobs ease down. “Don’t tell anyone, please Janet, please. Especially Elizabeth. Promise, please.”</p>
<p>I hesitate for only a second. Do I have a choice? The only way out of here is by canoe. I must have this young woman’s cooperation; my life may depend on it and so I make the promise.</p>
<p>“Tomorrow we get to a big hot spring,” I say. “We’ll bathe, wash our hair. You’ll feel better.”</p>
<p>We take down the tent in silence, add it to the Duluth pack. For the first time, she helps heaving the pack on to her back and heads to the canoe. “We got married three months ago,” she says.</p>
<p>How can I answer? I just say, “Ah, Barbie.” I feel tears on my cheeks.</p>
<p>I walk with her carrying our daypacks. The sun is high enough to turn the world sandy brown again. Dragonflies crisscross the water. The air is flat with an edge of heat. Far off, I can hear the shushing sound of the next canyon.</p>
<p>The others are loading up, almost set to go. I push our canoe out and hold it as Barbie scrambles nimbly over the packs into the bow seat. She tucks her day back into the point of the bow and takes up her paddle, pushing the blade into the sandy bottom to hold the boat steady in the placid water.</p>
<p>Elizabeth gives me the thumbs up. She calls to Barbie. “How y’all doing? Ready for the day?”</p>
<p>“Fine,” Barbie says without turning her head. “I’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>Elizabeth and I exchange looks. We’ll be first in line today and this is comforting even though I know there’s little the others can do if the current overwhelms us. I set my daypack behind the stern seat. Bending forward, hands ahead holding the gunnels, I wade a couple of steps into the shallows before swinging my legs into the canoe.</p>
<p>“Okay, Barbara,” I call to her. “I’m ready.”</p>
<p>We push off into the river.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Best Art Marketing Lesson I Ever Learned]]></title><description><![CDATA[An excerpt from Brush for Hire by Larry Mansker
The first part of the story began while I was still living in the River Quay, but I didn’t understand its significance until I had moved to California. The story starts when I was trying to learn how to make silk screen prints. My subject was a stand of trees near my grandmother’s house that I had been looking at for as long as I could remember. I managed to complete it; not too bad for a first attempt. The print was displayed in a local art gall]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-best-art-marketing-lesson-i-ever-learned/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fb5</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Larry Mansker]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:12:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/unnamed.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/unnamed.jpg" alt="The Best Art Marketing Lesson I Ever Learned"/><p>An excerpt from <strong>Brush for Hire</strong> by Larry Mansker</p>
<p>The first part of the story began while I was still living in the River Quay, but I didn’t understand its significance until I had moved to California. The story starts when I was trying to learn how to make silk screen prints. My subject was a stand of trees near my grandmother’s house that I had been looking at for as long as I could remember. I managed to complete it; not too bad for a first attempt. The print was displayed in a local art gallery owned by a friend of mine.</p>
<p>This was my first experience dealing with art galleries. Up to that time, all my business was in advertising and public relations markets. I was excited when he told me that many of his customers really liked the art, but they couldn’t use it because the colors were wrong. The popular at that time were blue and brown. He suggested that, if I would print the piece in those colors, he could probably sell a lot of them. My answer to such an outrageous idea was, "ABSOLUTELY NOT!"</p>
<p>Mr. Bashor, my college teacher, had drilled into his students’ heads: NEVER LET ANYONE TELL YOU WHAT TO PAINT! Therefore, I should not and would not change the colors. Mr. Bashor would have been proud of me.</p>
<p>Now for the second part, the punch line. I was now living in California. I showed a couple of my new silk-screens to the owner of one of the biggest art print marketers in the world. (How I got there is also a good story, but that’s not the lesson here.) I was pleased when he said he liked my work, but then he added he could not use it. “Look around the gallery,” he said. “When I sell ten prints, nine of them are blue and brown.”</p>
<p>Okay, I finally got it.</p>
<p>The story doesn’t end here. My artist friend, Donna, from Kansas City, was taking an etching class. I suggested that she send samples to the gallery, preferably blue and brown. She did and for several years, until the print market declined, she was one of their top-selling artists. I was motivated to produce my own series of etchings a few years later.</p>
<p>No, the story is not over yet. One of the silk screen samples that I showed to the big print dealer, the one with the wrong colors, depicted a sunset over the Pacific. The colors were purple and pink, and I made only about a half dozen artists’ proofs because I could not find a market for the prints. A couple of years later blue and brown were out. Guess what colors were in? My purple sunset worked very well with the new fashionable colors of mauve and rose. All six of the artists’ proofs sold. Now that’s the end of the best marketing lesson I ever learned.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tim the Cat]]></title><description><![CDATA[I closed the bathroom door and turned on the water in the tub. A claw-foot tub, salvaged when the money-laundering Mafiosi purchased and modernized the 19th century hotel in our little town. They saw no conflict with using historic preservation grant money to gut the original fixtures and put in hot tubs. Being from Kansas City, they were quite up-to-date.
This particular tub went to a good home; a home where it was loved and cherished as a haven. Without turning on a light, I shivered out of ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/tim-the-cat/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fb4</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:12:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/grey_gray_kitten_cat_young_sleepy_sleeping-1341510.jpg-d.jpeg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/grey_gray_kitten_cat_young_sleepy_sleeping-1341510.jpg-d.jpeg" alt="Tim the Cat"/><p>I closed the bathroom door and turned on the water in the tub. A claw-foot tub, salvaged when the money-laundering Mafiosi purchased and modernized the 19th century hotel in our little town. They saw no conflict with using historic preservation grant money to gut the original fixtures and put in hot tubs. Being from Kansas City, they were quite up-to-date.</p>
<p>This particular tub went to a good home; a home where it was loved and cherished as a haven. Without turning on a light, I shivered out of my clothes and stepped into the hot bath. The cold of the gray day was banished as I slid down until only my head was above water. The steam reddened my face and wilted my hair.</p>
<p>Soaking there, I could see the moon rising above the bare trees. Misty clouds blew across the glowing body framed by the darkening sky. The perfect timing of moonlight bathing, planned by my home-building husband, happened on glorious rare occasions.</p>
<p>As the bath cooled, I opened the drain, let out some water, then topped off the tub with more hot, straight from the tap. Soon I was lulled into a stupor. Soon I dozed.</p>
<p>I dreamt that I was working in my kitchen. After a while I became aware that my cat, Tim, was sleeping on the seat of a chair at the long pine table. Tim, the neighborhood-litter version of a Russian Blue, had been dead for many years. I wanted him to wake up, so I started being noisier about my work: A little more banging of dishes and pans.</p>
<p>When he didn’t flinch I came to realize that I was dreaming him there, so went back to work, just enjoying knowing that he was close. I finished emptying the dishwasher and turned to the cutting board to chop onions for soup.</p>
<p>It was then that I began to catch glimpses of something out of the corner of my eye. Something small and quick that I never clearly saw, just flashes. I went on chopping for a bit wondering what it was. I looked over at Tim to see if he was still there. He lay quietly in the same position with his head tucked into his paws and his tail wrapped around him. I then knew what it was that I was glimpsing. Tim was dreaming a mouse.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Living Offline]]></title><description><![CDATA[An Essay
Thanks to broken tech-knowledg-ee, we enjoyed a two week respite from the online world. A violent thunderstorm in late June blew out our internet connection and wi-fi devices, so we were offline for two whole weeks. It was a flustration, since we weren’t able to cue in on the latest headlines of Trumpmania, kitty cat videos, and junk email. But what a relief, to be freed from those latest never-ending reminders of the crazy world in which we live.
To be dependent on our phone compan]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/living-offline/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fb3</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kirk Ashworth]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:11:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1454922069690-ed3f6fcddb2b?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=96d15e6f6312023ae9e871e7ae0a7ac0" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1454922069690-ed3f6fcddb2b?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=96d15e6f6312023ae9e871e7ae0a7ac0" alt="Living Offline"/><p>An Essay</p>
<p>Thanks to broken tech-knowledg-ee, we enjoyed a two week respite from the online world. A violent thunderstorm in late June blew out our internet connection and wi-fi devices, so we were offline for two whole weeks. It was a flustration, since we weren’t able to cue in on the latest headlines of Trumpmania, kitty cat videos, and junk email. But what a relief, to be freed from those latest never-ending reminders of the crazy world in which we live.</p>
<p>To be dependent on our phone company as an internet service provider may mark my wife and I as dinosaurs; we do not own satellite-based smartphones. But we have internet access at home, at work, at friends’s houses and many businesses: why pay more to be online every second of the day? Eventually, Windstream figured out and fixed the problem, and since it was in their system, they did not charge us for a new modem or the three technicians who came on various days to solve it. We are grateful, and yet….</p>
<p>Driving around one day, we heard part of a radio interview with a young man who has authored a history of the iphone. “I wanted to learn about it because it has come to dominate our lives,” he said. “We can’t imagine not responding to a text message within ten seconds!”</p>
<p>Another talk radio show had tech experts discussing how life has changed. One woman said she couldn’t imagine living without amazon.com. The dialog was largely focused on the growing pains of uber—the tech-based alternative to taxi driving in big cities. (Sorry—I can’t imagine folks in the Ozarks calling uber to get to Wal-Mart or one of the forty-seven churches in our little town.)</p>
<p>So for two weeks, we were out of touch with uber, amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Snapchat, Facebook, and all the rest. No tweets, no likes, no shares. We are old enough to remember what life was like before digital technology took over the planet, and so we we revisited that lifestyle: Yesterday’s events are found in today’s newspaper. Catch the weather report on local radio, which can be problematic if you don’t know what time they broadcast it. Of all the stuff online, immediate access to detailed weather is what I missed most—I have learned when to run the water to keep pipes from freezing, to pay attention to possible tornadic activity, whether we should water the gardens today or wait for tomorrow’s deluge.</p>
<p>When the infamous ice storm of 2009 hit, we lost electricity for eight days. I remember how strange, even magical it was, to enjoy absolute silence from the humming of electric appliances and to not see their digital timepieces winking in the dark. We melted yard-long icicles in a pot on the woodstove to have water for washing up, played cards by lantern light, and occasionally turned on a battery-powered radio for news from beyond our road.</p>
<p>Living without internet is not so extreme, yet it does harken back to a simpler lifestyle. For Americans who are always online, getting unwired has a cleansing effect. Especially since the election of President Trump, and without relief since he assumed his office, we have become cynical, suspicious, untrusting, bolstering our views with endless online “proof.” The true believers greet every pronouncement, every Tweet with applause and huzzahs, while the opposition is appalled and depressed once again.</p>
<p>Years ago the term “information superhighway” was introduced, and as a schoolteacher, I believed we might say “knowledge superhighway.” But it isn’t knowledge, it is merely information, some verifiable, some outlandish, some satirical, most of it overdosed because we choose to tune in to the sources we have predetermined to most likely match our perspectives.</p>
<p>Without internet, I have returned to reading books—which some people still employ for leisure, entertainment, insight, or learning. Thoreau stated that he didn’t want to read the news, preferring to read “that which is never old.” He complained that the news might report a cow which had been hit a train—why did he need to read about each new occurrence after he read about the first one? In today’s news, we read about the latest suicide bombers, the most recent plane crash, the devious machinations of our political leaders, the “wardrobe malfunctions” of Kardashians—what benefit to know of the particular instances once we have learned of the initial instance?</p>
<p>Thoreau also wrote “Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind.” What would he make of today’s population, who walk down the street eyes wide shut to everything but the device in their hands, who sit at a restaurant texting and taking selfies while ignoring their table mates? I don’t even know how to update that metaphor—“Things are in our hands, and manipulate mankind?”</p>
<p>I am not opposed to digital technology. I worked as a schoolteacher for twenty-six years, and for over half that time my classrooms were computer labs. At first I had to hold the hands of students (and staff and parents) to guide their hands to use a mouse. Computers—whether desktop, laptop, or handheld devices—are merely tools. Like a gun, like a car, like a chainsaw, they can be used or misused. Yet the potential to take over the user is serious.</p>
<p>My son, who is incredibly smart, hasn’t read a physical book in years—he reads everything online, including books. He works out of his apartment, paid for his online labor. My younger daughter, who is likewise vastly intelligent, writes everything longhand before typing it on her computer screen. She still reads, buys, and borrows books. She has taken graduate courses online, she prints her own poetry chapbooks, she watches movies online and in the theater.</p>
<p>Their lives are fundamentally different than mine and their mom’s, because they have never known a world without modern technology. The son lives in his own virtual world, venturing out to buy groceries, to visit people or to eat out. Our two daughters have rich lives in the world, enhanced, and sometimes frustrated, by their use of computer technology.</p>
<p>This is how it ought to be. Living out of town, we need a car to take care of business. But the car does not rule our lives. Almost everything we use our computers for could be done in old-fashioned ways—internet access is a gift which lets us keep up with current events, check on the weather, do research, conduct business, communicate with people (the science fiction videophone of my childhood exists in Skype and Facetime), and so much more.</p>
<p>We live in the country, without air conditioning, so we spend a lot of time on porches, in the gardens or swimming pool. We close doors and curtains in the heat of the day, but much of the time the outdoors is effectively indoors. Songbirds and cicadas provide background music as I type this; that would not happen if I were locked in a dark room with the only light emanating from digital devices, as is the case with some folks I know. So, yes, aggravation comes when the internet is down. But I recommend everyone turn it off now and then, to remind ourselves that we use the machines—they should not use us.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bees]]></title><description><![CDATA[When Larry’s garden began the work of burgeoning, it had no more memory of last fall’s turned earth than smoke has of fire. It began to push and stretch with the smallest stem and no blossom. The bees worked the catnip in Larry’s garden, their work, the work of plant making, the work of hum, relational, unconditional.
I imagine the harvest in Larry’s garden the way a river might imagine its future canyon.
I imagine the catnip—a huge bush that when it’s flowered, will be pulled for the lions ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/bees/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fb2</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:11:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1481595357459-84468f6eeaac?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=2b239ca79f6024961c56ea8bb4eff90a" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1481595357459-84468f6eeaac?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=2b239ca79f6024961c56ea8bb4eff90a" alt="Bees"/><p>When Larry’s garden began the work of burgeoning, it had no more memory of last fall’s turned earth than smoke has of fire. It began to push and stretch with the smallest stem and no blossom. The bees worked the catnip in Larry’s garden, their work, the work of plant making, the work of hum, relational, unconditional.</p>
<p>I imagine the harvest in Larry’s garden the way a river might imagine its future canyon.</p>
<p>I imagine the catnip—a huge bush that when it’s flowered, will be pulled for the lions at the big cat sanctuary up the road. The interns in their khaki suits stuff pillowcases with Larry’s catnip and the lions and tigers roll it and bite it as we bite the tomatoes and peppers he grows. But, even with the bee’s hard work, there is a ways to go before we get to vegetables.</p>
<p>First Published in <a href="http://www.deadmule.com/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature</a></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Art Preserves What Can’t be Saved]]></title><description><![CDATA[One cow separates herself from the herd,
stretches her neck, too far if you grew
up hugging cows. She stands on a cliff,
which our timid, clumsy animals would
never do, and points her horns toward
incoming ships. This is a fictional cow,
artifice from a painter’s brush, yet the way
she lifts her head, smells the sea air, seems
real, as if she thinks she’s come to the end
of fences, senses a reward of salt.
Once I sailed away on the broad back of a pet cow
brown as this one. We were u]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/art-presrves-what-cant-be-saved/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fb1</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Carolyn Dahl]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:11:07 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1451372116829-ba19e28465fc?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=d4c6cca785839ab042aa482a8a4ba823" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1451372116829-ba19e28465fc?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=d4c6cca785839ab042aa482a8a4ba823" alt="Art Preserves What Can’t be Saved"/><p>One cow separates herself from the herd,<br>
stretches her neck, too far if you grew<br>
up hugging cows. She stands on a cliff,<br>
which our timid, clumsy animals would<br>
never do, and points her horns toward<br>
incoming ships. This is a fictional cow,<br>
artifice from a painter’s brush, yet the way<br>
she lifts her head, smells the sea air, seems<br>
real, as if she thinks she’s come to the end<br>
of fences, senses a reward of salt.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Once I sailed away on the broad back of a pet cow<br>
brown as this one. We were unpartable shadows,<br>
inventing our shapes in the summer creek,<br>
splashing through ripples of tadpoles, pushing<br>
against the current, believing we were going<br>
somewhere, but eventually flowing back home,<br>
happy and wet as the newly-hatched frogs<br>
singing from the tip of her dripping tail.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Under the museum lights, the cow vanishes<br>
in the glare of varnish as if its thinly painted<br>
body needed to escape from the intensity<br>
of eyes. My cow never returned from the dark<br>
barn of profit. How I miss the weight of her<br>
on our land. I thought she would always be there<br>
like a childhood dress I imagine I can still wear.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>I left the calm mythology of farms, never expected<br>
to see her again, safe in a gold frame. Other people<br>
pass by quickly. It’s only a painting of a cow<br>
and clouds, nothing they need to reclaim. I should<br>
move on too. The guard is growing uneasy. He<br>
doesn’t know this is my memory pinned to the wall,<br>
that I am riding the warm back of a sweet cow,<br>
coaxing her down the dangerous cliff to the edge<br>
of the painting where we jump the frame’s fence.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The One Who Dances at the Wind]]></title><description><![CDATA[(for Deana)
Circulatory graveness
is as astute as
punctual movements
soundlessly grating
their way down the
down the hallway
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/one-who-dances-at-the-wind/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fb0</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:10:57 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/uploads/1412259799414a71445bd/f7a44cdc?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=762beb5a7f2e00cad6fab7e3622c0996" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/uploads/1412259799414a71445bd/f7a44cdc?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=762beb5a7f2e00cad6fab7e3622c0996" alt="The One Who Dances at the Wind"/><p>(for Deana)</p>
<p>Circulatory graveness<br>
is as astute as<br>
punctual movements<br>
soundlessly grating<br>
their way down the<br>
down the hallway</br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Golden Mouse of Tourism]]></title><description><![CDATA[Of course I am in favor of tourism, even the vigorous promotion of local sights and features that will draw people from distant places to enrich their lives, and their children’s, by a visit (preferably overnight) to our town or region. In many ways, I am a tourist myself, having returned to the land of my father’s youth only a few months ago, and see new sights (mostly barns and creek beds) almost every day.
But my strongest credential on this subject is that I have grown up, attended (even l]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-golden-mouse-of-tourism/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522faf</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Garon Stephens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:10:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512811409797-5057845931b8?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=5260a4b1266f2ff14722650507c44172" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1512811409797-5057845931b8?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=5260a4b1266f2ff14722650507c44172" alt="The Golden Mouse of Tourism"/><p>Of course I am in favor of tourism, even the vigorous promotion of local sights and features that will draw people from distant places to enrich their lives, and their children’s, by a visit (preferably overnight) to our town or region. In many ways, I am a tourist myself, having returned to the land of my father’s youth only a few months ago, and see new sights (mostly barns and creek beds) almost every day.</p>
<p>But my strongest credential on this subject is that I have grown up, attended (even law) school, worked, traveled and recreated in that great tourist destination known as the State of Florida. As JFK might have said: ICH BIN EIN FLORIDIANER. I even worked for a time in the department that was responsible for tourist promotion, and another stint in a county environmental agency whose job was to make sure the federal government keeps shoveling nice clean sand onto those beaches where it erodes so badly from winter storms and the maintenance dredging of passes and inlets. If beaches will bring them, then beaches we shall have.</p>
<p>Florida leaders and business folks have also figured out the economics of tourism so that it has become a definite we win/ we win, fiscally speaking. State government is funded largely by the proceeds of a sales tax (don’t even mention that dreaded “I” as in “income” word) which includes a significant contribution from—guess who—out-of-state visitors. (Whether the big lottery has done what it promised for public education is material for another column) And since most of Florida is too far away for a day trip from anywhere, virtually every tourist visit has to be a sleepover. And you know what that means—restaurants, motels and taverns galore. And sales tax and bed tax and fuel tax and so forth. You do the math.</p>
<p>The world as we know it is heavily indebted to that primordial curiosity—call it Wanderlust—which characterizes the bright and/or affluent of all lands. That impulse to go see, and to bring back. Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, and Ponce de Leon; Lewis and Clark. Which is why everyone is trying to devise a plan to bring them here, to Arkansas. But will they come, and is there a downside? Let’s look before we leap.</p>
<p>First of all, don’t think for a second that a busload of leaf watchers is interested in the Louisiana Purchase. Or that those spelunking types (look it up) are the answer to Arkansas’ school consolidation woes. In this respect, tourism shares some symptoms of crack cocaine (or meth-something, apparently the Ozark drug of choice): everything is beautiful—no point really doing anything—just keep ‘em coming.</p>
<p>Second, don’t try to take some perfectly good feature of this natural state and make it (at considerable expense) into something else, just because you think somebody will come see it. How deep would a hole have to be to attract a busload over from Tulsa? Put the best spin you can on what you’ve already got.</p>
<p>Third, be prepared for some impact and some expense that you can’t put on the tourist tab. Five people can use a septic tank at a mom and pop restaurant and not create a health hazard, but four busloads will foul the well or kill the fish downstream. Time to build a treatment plant. And if you want them to stay overnight, who will change their sheets, and will they need showers?</p>
<p>Yes, tourism can contribute to the economy and welfare of the state. It will work best, however, if you just spruce up what you have, offer safe and memorable visits, and do not tell lies or rob people blind when they get here. Now what I would do first is make up some slick brochures suggesting that Mickey is a really descendant of the original Ozark Golden mouse, from up near Magic Hollow; and if that won’t do it, nothing will.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[For Melody]]></title><description><![CDATA[The sun beat down on your chest
your arms holding you up
like you were in an easy chair.
Everything was easy with you.
You sat up
grabbed a rock
then another one
and another
and stacked them at the water’s edge.
You did that every time we went
to the river
or the lake
or the trails.
You always left some beauty behind
no matter how impermanent
especially if it was impermanent.
You stood up,
arms on your hips
surveying the lake.
It was too cold to swim
but you took off your sun]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/for-melody/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fae</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Samantha Jones]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:10:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1441743983986-af31827a8d31?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=77711eb9124f01357ed87a8dd6109374" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1441743983986-af31827a8d31?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=77711eb9124f01357ed87a8dd6109374" alt="For Melody"/><p>The sun beat down on your chest<br>
your arms holding you up<br>
like you were in an easy chair.<br>
Everything was easy with you.<br>
You sat up<br>
grabbed a rock<br>
then another one<br>
and another<br>
and stacked them at the water’s edge.<br>
You did that every time we went<br>
to the river<br>
or the lake<br>
or the trails.<br>
You always left some beauty behind<br>
no matter how impermanent<br>
especially if it was impermanent.<br>
You stood up,<br>
arms on your hips<br>
surveying the lake.<br>
It was too cold to swim<br>
but you took off your sundress,<br>
the orange one you always wore,<br>
and dove in.<br>
You resurfaced<br>
pushed your hair back<br>
paddled out<br>
and told us to join you.<br>
We didn’t. I wish I had.<br>
I watched you float on your back<br>
smiling at the sun<br>
your eyes sealed shut.<br>
You were blissful in nature.<br>
You kept thanking me<br>
for inviting you out that day<br>
but I should’ve thanked you<br>
for being my friend<br>
for being my family<br>
for being beautiful<br>
in every way.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hope Springs Eternal]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ganymede
Four years, 208 days, and 13 hours. Earth years, Earth days, and Earth hours. That was the time since the catastrophic fire and explosion at Ganymede Station 1, or GS1. GS1 was the first colony on Ganymede, the largest moon of Jupiter, and by far the most ambitious extraterrestrial effort humans had ever made. Ganymede, with its thin but oxygen-rich atmosphere and subterranean liquid water ocean, was deemed the most likely candidate for a permanent colony. The colonists knew that this]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/hope-springs-eternal/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fad</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Tom Gorsuch]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:10:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505455184862-554165e5f6ba?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=4efa3b9141b42fb140e1cc18c0f22605" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505455184862-554165e5f6ba?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=4efa3b9141b42fb140e1cc18c0f22605" alt="Hope Springs Eternal"/><p><strong>Ganymede</strong></p>
<p>Four years, 208 days, and 13 hours. Earth years, Earth days, and Earth hours. That was the time since the catastrophic fire and explosion at Ganymede Station 1, or GS1. GS1 was the first colony on Ganymede, the largest moon of Jupiter, and by far the most ambitious extraterrestrial effort humans had ever made. Ganymede, with its thin but oxygen-rich atmosphere and subterranean liquid water ocean, was deemed the most likely candidate for a permanent colony. The colonists knew that this was a one-way trip; their ship did not have the capability to return to Earth.</p>
<p>GS1 consisted of a central facility called Main, and 17 remote Cells, each devoted to a particular facet of survival. Most Cells were hydroponic units that grew or synthesized food, but one was a metallurgical unit that refined ore into machinable metals; another created various chemical compounds necessary for maintenance or research; yet another manufactured materials such as the metal-coated fabric of their space suits, necessary whenever they ventured outside onto Ganymede’s surface. Each Cell was independent, having its own fusion reactor as well as complete life-support functions: artificial atmosphere, oxygen supply, water, waste handling, and the like. Each Cell continuously transmitted complete status data to Main.</p>
<p>GS1 was a self-sufficient operation that had successfully sustained the eight person colonizing crew for nearly six Earth years. Their equipment had been designed for durability and reliability because orbital mechanics–those dang, unbending laws of physics–allowed a launch window from Earth to Jupiter only every 10 years and 2 months for an object the size of a supply ship. The most recent launch window was 21 months ago. The colonists had equipment to repair or re-fabricate all of the items that they expected could wear out through normal use. Each colonist had a particular area of expertise, although they were all cross-trained to at least minimal competence in each of the others’ specialties. Juan, Janice, and Brandon had been in Cell 4 tending the hydroponics.</p>
<p>So, when the oxygen saturation sensor failed in Main, falsely indicating a dangerous lack of oxygen, and the emergency oxygen turned on, and the oxygen content quickly reached combustion concentration, and Elliot flipped the monitor switch over the central control panel to read the alarm messages, and the spark ignited the plastic switch housing, and it burned like a flare in the pure oxygen environment, and the entire building turned into a giant Fourth of July aerial shell, sending brilliantly colored flaming debris 1600 feet into the very thin, Ganymedian atmosphere–so, when that happened and the five others were killed–mercifully instantaneously–the remaining three, Juan, Janice, and Brandon, did not lack the technical skills to survive. Nor did they lack the basic necessities. Each remote Cell had its own power source, oxygen system, and basic tools. Survival was, therefore, by design, quite likely, even in the aftermath of the catastrophic failure in Main.</p>
<p>The loss of their five comrades had a deleterious effect on morale. Naturally, as the first to colonize a Jovian moon, they all knew, at least on the rational, intellectual level, that death was a possibility. However, like all of their breed–that is to say, the explorers, the boundary pushers, the six-sigma types who make it all look so easy–they didn’t really think they could die, at least not now, not from an accident. Old age, sure. But not an accident. They could solve anything, persevere, make it work. But, now, five of their fellows were blown to smithereens, completely incinerated before they even hit the ground. The three survivors didn’t have to bury anyone because there was nothing left to bury. Their friends were now nothing but bursts of light traveling eternally through space, just as the primordial background microwave radiation from the first big bang continues to ring throughout the universe. They had become light. And nothing more, forever.</p>
<p>The initial response of the survivors, as one would expect, was numbness, shock. They did what they had to do to survive. They checked all the other remote Cells and found them all operable. With nothing left of Main, there was little forensic analysis possible. Nonetheless, Janice was the first to suggest an oxygen saturation sensor failure. Each of the Cells had a similar sensor, so the first order of business was to inspect each of those and then install a redundant sensor. At least that malfunction would not repeat.</p>
<p>All communications were routed through Main, up to the orbiting transponder satellite, and then to Earth. Every monitored function, at Main and each of the remote Cells, was dutifully reported to the transponder, and then, when the orbital position allowed, relayed back to Earth. Ganymede orbits Jupiter in about seven days, so for three and a half days Jupiter blocks radio communication with Earth. The explosion occurred after Ganymede had been in occlusion for 38 hours, so the telemetry transmission, including the data right up the point of obliteration, would start two days later. Earth would undoubtedly figure out what happened: the oxygen saturation sensor suddenly, in less than a millisecond, dropped to zero, without loss of pressure (in hindsight, clearly a sensor failure); the emergency oxygen supply valves immediately opened full bore to replenish the supposedly low oxygen; two seconds later Elliot pressed the emergency monitor switch; one second after that the pressure, light and heat sensors simultaneously maxed out; transmission stopped. Pretty clear.</p>
<p>The survivors knew that although communication with Earth was now impossible, as there was no equipment in any of the remote Cells to communicate directly with the transponder satellite, nonetheless the final communication from Main to the transponder would have indicated, along with the billions of other bytes of data, the presence of three occupants in Cell 4. At least Earth would know that part of the crew was in Cell 4 when Main exploded and so they could have survived.</p>
<p>The remote Cells are fairly autonomous. They do what they are designed to do with very little attention from the colonists. In fact, without meddling by humans, they just keep doing whatever they are already doing. They vary only in response to a change initiated by a colonist: perhaps to grow a little more spinach, somewhat fewer carrots, a bit more pseudo-beef. The result is that the colonists are, for the most part, mere spectators to their own survival.</p>
<p>So now, 21 months after the scheduled supply ship launch window, four months after the supply ship should have arrived, the three colonists spend each day and each night looking up to the sky, watching, searching for that faint glint of sun reflecting off metal, that blaze of light from the retro-rockets, that huge blossoming parachute canopy grabbing onto the thin Ganymedian atmosphere. Still they watch, even now, because hope springs eternal.</p>
<p><strong>Walmart</strong></p>
<p>John, gray haired, wrinkled, and slightly stooped over, pushed his cart slowly through the aisles of Walmart. He still ached from the firewood splitting and stacking yesterday. At 66 years old he couldn’t split and stack as much or as fast as he used to. It was a good thing he was retired and, truth be told, he really didn’t have to split or stack any wood at all.</p>
<p>He always shopped Monday afternoon, after his lunch-and-checkers meeting at Mud Street Café with some of his fellow Arkansas retirees. He first stopped at the local grocery, mainly for meat and a few specialty items his wife fancied, and then he drove the ten miles to Walmart. He didn’t trust the meat at Walmart, except the deli.</p>
<p>All the deli workers recognized John, even though none knew his name. He always wore the same outfit: blue jeans and a khaki, industrial, short sleeve workshirt. He always had the same order: three quarters of a pound of pastrami, sliced medium; two packages of Sara Lee Honey Ham, 1.25 lbs each, sliced thin; two slabs of the same Sara Lee Honey Ham, each a quarter inch thick, in separate packages. The order never varied, as did neither his outfit nor his gait.</p>
<p>Every Monday John bought flowers for his wife. She liked flowers and so he tried to always keep fresh ones coming. With Walmart, of course nothing is certain, including the quality and selection of flowers, but he made the effort and she appreciated it.</p>
<p>The first time John went through Becca’s checkout line he thought she seemed pretty friendly, but also quick. John asked her to put the pastrami in its own bag so it wouldn’t contaminate the other meats with its overpowering aroma. She commented on the flowers; he said that his wife liked flowers. “How sweet,” she said. He wondered if she were old enough to sell beer; sometimes the young ones had to call for the line supervisor because Arkansas doesn’t allow minors to sell alcohol. Ironic, he thought: as a practical matter, a sixteen year old has easier access to beer than does a seventy year old at the Brighton Senior Home. Of course, since he wasn’t buying beer this week, the issue was strictly academic.</p>
<p>The next week Becca was working a checkout lane again. John unloaded the merchandise onto the belt.</p>
<p>“Hello. How are you today?” she asked as she began scanning.</p>
<p>“Peachy-keen. And how are you?”</p>
<p>“I guess I’m peachy-keen, too.”</p>
<p>Without prompting, she put the pastrami into its own bag. John noticed and commented, surprised that she remembered.</p>
<p>“I always try to remember what my customers want.”</p>
<p>John thought to himself that this was a kid who will go places. Even if only at Walmart.</p>
<p>Becca scanned the other items, getting to the last three on the belt.</p>
<p>“Nice flowers. For your wife?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. She’s had a pretty rough week. Maybe these will cheer her up.”</p>
<p>Apparently she was old enough to sell beer, because she didn’t call for the supervisor. She scanned the four-pack of tall, yellow and black cans (Boddington’s Cream Ale, “The Pride of Manchester”), the flowers, and the bottle of KY.</p>
<p>“Expecting a big night?” she asked, without making eye contact.</p>
<p>“Well, hope springs eternal.”</p>
<p><strong>Brighton</strong></p>
<p>Joanne sat in her room at Brighton Senior Home. Every morning Ellenore helped her get from her bed to the bathroom, and then to her chair. The chair faced out the window, looking toward the woods at the edge of the grounds. Ellenore helped Joanne comb her hair–or more accurately, Ellenore combed Joanne’s hair and Joanne made occasional motions as if she were combing it herself.</p>
<p>Joanne stared out the window, at nothing in particular. It seemed that she didn’t even actually focus on anything specific, maybe not on anything at all. Her eyes didn’t move except to blink. Her days were all spent like this: sitting, staring, not moving. At mealtimes Ellenore or one of the other staff would help Joanne eat. Twice a week Joanne would get a sponge bath. She didn’t seem to like that much; it dried her skin, even with the lotion, and so afterwards she always scratched herself a lot, sometimes to the point of bleeding. The staff were concerned that Joanne’s family would see that as a sign of neglect or abuse, but no one ever said anything.</p>
<p>One reason was that “the family” consisted only of Annie, Joanne’s granddaughter. Annie’s mother, Madeline, Joanne’s daughter, had died three years earlier of ovarian cancer. Four years prior to her cancer diagnosis, Madeline had put Joanne into a senior home in Minneapolis after she could no longer function alone. Joanne’s husband had died years earlier and Joanne’s decline had been gradual, almost imperceptible, until her fall. That seemed to accelerate everything and during her convalescence it became very clear to Madeline and Joanne’s doctor that she would need permanent help. Joanne was becoming obviously confused, but was aware enough to be embarrassed about it. At first she denied, covered up, made excuses–she didn’t hear correctly, she misplaced the appointment card, she thought it was next Tuesday. But Madeline knew, she saw the signs, and was concerned for Joanne’s safety–not just physical, but also financial. Joanne was by nature very generous and empathetic; however, now the telephone scammers had her on their lists and had conned her out of thousands of dollars for dubious charities. Madeline persuaded Joanne to authorize her to handle her finances, and cut off Joanne’s credit cards and confiscated her checkbook, under the guise of needing it to pay bills. This ended the phone scam issue, but the scams were really the least of her problems.</p>
<p>Madeline’s cancer was very aggressive and moved quickly. Annie took a leave of absence from her job in Arkansas and moved to Minneapolis to help care for her mother, Madeline. At first Madeline continued her ritual of visiting Joanne every afternoon, now accompanied by Annie, but very soon that became impossible. The combined toll of the disease and the cure savaged Madeline’s energy and left her bedridden. Annie would appear each afternoon at Joanne’s room, explain that Madeline was sick and not up to visiting that day, and Joanne would feign comprehension and nod knowingly, although, truth be told, she was no longer sure who this “Madeline” person was, and additionally, though the woman named “Annie” looked somehow familiar, the relationship with her was none too clear, either. At least most of the time. And now, even speaking had come to seem a pointless waste of effort.</p>
<p>Annie had been born seven years after her next older sibling, Dan. Annie had four older brothers but no sisters. After Dan, the doctors told Madeline that she could not have any more babies. Madeline and Joanne, both devout Catholics, had prayed fervently for Madeline to have a baby girl, but it hadn’t happened, and now it looked like it never would. So, seven years after Dan, when Madeline was pregnant again, they both considered it a miracle. When Annie was born, Joanne called her “my little angel Annie,” proof of the efficacy of prayer.</p>
<p>Annie continued the daily visits to Joanne during Madeline’s final days in hospice. She tried to explain to Joanne what was happening to her daughter. Annie was never sure how much actually sunk in. The stare rarely betrayed comprehension, but, still, sometimes there was a slight shift of gaze, a movement, however tentative, of the head, that suggested that perhaps Joanne understood. After Madeline died, Annie tried to tell Joanne. Annie thought she saw, maybe, the feeblest turn of the corners of her mouth, the barest hint of a tear.</p>
<p>Annie stayed in Minneapolis for another six weeks while taking care of the final details of her mother’s passing. She arranged for the disposition of Madeline’s belongings, except for the family keepsakes; she secured a spot for Joanne at Brighton Senior Home in Arkansas, closed out Madeline’s accounts; listed the family home with a realtor. And then Annie and Joanne made the long drive to Arkansas, to Joanne’s new home at Brighton.</p>
<p>One afternoon, ten months after Joanne had moved into Brighton, into the “Memory Unit”, Annie stopped by on her way home from work to visit, as she was doing every day. Ellenore was in the hallway and came into the room with Annie. Annie called out her usual greeting to Joanne; Joanne turned her head to face Annie and Ellenore, beaming, and said, in a whisper intended as a shout, “Annie, my little angel Annie!”</p>
<p>One minute later her smile, the sparkle in her eyes, the glow of comprehension and recognition, were gone, replaced by that all-too-familiar vacant stare.</p>
<p>And now, two years after the last words spoken by Joanne, Annie visits each day; calls out the same greeting as she enters the room each day; listens for that eagerly-sought response each day; sees that same unfocused, uncomprehending gaze each day; but she comes anyway, because hope springs eternal.</p>
<p><strong>Orange</strong></p>
<p>John, gray haired, wrinkled, and slightly stooped over, pulled out his chair at the Mud Street Café for the weekly Monday lunch-and-checkers meeting with his fellow Arkansas retirees. The Mud Street Gang were the tie-dyed tee-shirts in the Arkansas camo and khaki laundry load; a microcosm: the one tiny blue island in their state’s sea of red. Stove up but still sharp as tacks, these geezers met each week to eat, recollect, and solve the world’s problems, all while playing checkers.</p>
<p>Bobby Dale, always the calf that gets through the fence and onto the road, was the one who suggested the radical change: checkers was fun, but, frankly, after so many years, it was getting to seem a bit repetitious and predictable. So, Scrabble.</p>
<p>Scrabble it was. In contraposition to their state’s 49th-out-of-50 educational ranking, these retired iconoclasts were all quite verbal and quite educated: two fine arts degrees, a psychologist, a lawyer, a business executive, a school administrator, an actor/author. Scrabble was a natural fit.</p>
<p>Radical change seemed to be everywhere, not just at Mud Street Café. Not radical as in leftist radical (as the Mud Street Gang was perceived by the redneck majority in the rest of the County); radical as in right wing extremist radical. Islamic hard-liners had started the fad in Iran culminating in the 1979 revolution overthrowing the autocracy of the U.S. backed Shah. As the ascendancy of communism waned, the traditionalist, nationalist, xenophobic coalitions became more popular in Europe, South America, and the U.S. The election in the U.S. of the first black president, along with the legal recognition of gay marriage, galvanized the disaffected lower middle class into a potent, if unthinking, theo-political force that ultimately bubbled the Great Orange Prevaricator to the top of the Republican cesspool and sent him smirking and tweeting into the White House.</p>
<p>That was two years ago.</p>
<p>Even with the ignominy of the impeachment proceedings daily be-smudging his image like a miniature Beijing smog cloud, the Orange Prevaricator not only continued his damaging tantrums, but upped the ante. The derangement of the Bush/Cheney administration would have taken decades more to repair, had the repair started by Obama been continued; but no–the Donald made sure to not only antagonize the Middle Eastern nations we had been trying to mend fences with, he also alienated our NATO allies, ceded Ukraine and Eastern Europe to his puppet master Putin, got the U.S. into a proxy war with China over both Taiwan and North Korea, and nearly permanently destroyed the U.S. relationship with several South American countries. All this while cutting taxes, mainly for his billionaire friends, and driving up the national debt and the cost of living through superfluous expenditures and the imposition of tariffs, which increased the costs of most imported goods–which is to say, of most goods used by the deplorable, unwashed masses that elected him. All of this in addition to cantankerously threatening to invade our border neighbors to both the north and the south.</p>
<p>This, then, was the background noise hissing in the aural psyches of the Mud Street Gang as they executed their own radical action agenda: Scrabble.</p>
<p>John, though, was still troubled. Despite the plummeting national opinion poll ratings of The Orange One, in Arkansas he still maintained a commanding popularity lead. Whether due to the aforementioned low educational status of the populace, the church-instilled distrust of anything scientific–and therefore, by extension, anything taught beyond sixth grade–or due to simple anger at the “others” on the coasts who had more jobs, more opportunities, more sophistication, more stuff–whether due to these or other unidentified factors–John knew that after lunch today, after his tribe finished Scrabbling words that few of the county’s poultry farmers or Tyson chicken choppers had ever even heard of; when he went up the hill to the County Courthouse to cast his early vote in the midterm elections, where his state representative, Bobo Ballinger, author of the state’s notorious Religious Freedom Law legalizing discrimination against your fellow citizens if your Christian church says it’s OK, was running unopposed, again–John knew that when he cast his ballot, it would be yet another vote as plaintive, as futile as the squawks of the chickens on the Tyson truck backing into the unloading dock. Nonetheless, he has voted in every election for the past 47 years and will continue not only to vote but to proselytize in every election until he dies, because, despite The Orange One, in the hearts of the decent, hope springs eternal.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[New Bride-to-be In Hiding]]></title><description><![CDATA[For the past 30 years, I have lived across the street from the Old Stone Store on White Street in Eureka Springs. The building is divided into four apartments. I have seen dozens and dozens of renters come and go during that time. Some have kept to themselves, and others have been good neighbors who have become friends. The line from the “Tinker Tailor” Nursey rhyme perhaps best described the diversity of folks who have lived there: “Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief, Doctor, Lawyer, Indian ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/new-bride-to-be-in-hiding/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fac</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:08:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1470259078422-826894b933aa?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=8c62904a04593f86cc69b991e66670b9" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1470259078422-826894b933aa?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=8c62904a04593f86cc69b991e66670b9" alt="New Bride-to-be In Hiding"/><p>For the past 30 years, I have lived across the street from the Old Stone Store on White Street in Eureka Springs. The building is divided into four apartments. I have seen dozens and dozens of renters come and go during that time. Some have kept to themselves, and others have been good neighbors who have become friends. The line from the “Tinker Tailor” Nursey rhyme perhaps best described the diversity of folks who have lived there: “Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief, Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief.”</p>
<p>Several years ago, a man who was renting a small apartment in the building called and asked if I would cut his hair, give him a manicure, and a pedicure. I said yes to the cut, but I told him he needed to do his own nails. He told me that he needed to look his best because he recently had become engaged to a woman whom he had met online. They had not met in person. He wanted to look his best when she arrived the next week from California. I asked him if he had sent a photo of himself to her. He said, “Yes, it was a recent picture of me, and that she liked my looks.” I wondered if he had smiled in the pic and if she knew that he was toothless.</p>
<p>Soon after Jayme the bride-to-be arrived in Arkansas, she walked across the street to my yard sale. The groom-to-be was with her. When introduced, it was immediately evident that Jayme was a man. She was quite large, shaped like a football player, and had hairy arms. She had on a disheveled large red wig that looked like a bad thrift store find. It was painful to hear Jayme try to elevate her voice to a higher register.</p>
<p>Jayme spent many afternoons that summer strolling up and down White Street. She was often accompanied by a neighbor’s teenage daughter who was spending the summer in Eureka Springs. The two were kindred spirits at least when it came to dress: Daisy Duke cut-off shorts and halter tops. Their wardrobe did differ when it came to shoes. The young girl wore sandals while Jayme sensibly wore tennis shoes. I think she may have had trouble finding women’s sandals in a size fifteen.</p>
<p>One evening an ambulance arrived at the neighbor’s apartment. I went across the street while worrying that something could be seriously wrong with one of the tenants. The paramedics were at the engaged couple’s apartment. The EMT workers could not maneuver the gurney into the apartment. They had to aid the afflicted out of the apartment onto the porch. They came out with Jamye and placed her on the gurney. She had on a t-shirt, cut-off short shorts, and one shoe. I noticed that she wasn’t wearing her breasts, and her wig was on sideways. The next morning, I talked with the groom-to-be, and he told me that Jayme was fine. She had suffered a panic attack, and she had stayed overnight in the hospital for observation.</p>
<p>I didn’t see her again. I thought that maybe she was staying inside to fully recover from her “bout.” A few days later I read in the local paper, “James (name withheld,) aka Jayme, a female impersonator, was arrested by the FBI for computer hacking. He was taken into custody while in female attire.” Jayme was extradited to California. Not too long after the arrest, I noticed that the groom-to-be’s scooter was gone. I wondered if he had moved to California to be near Jayme.</p>
<p>When incognito, one should at the least be willing to purchase a good wig.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Just Dessert]]></title><description><![CDATA[In the winter of 1993 I backpacked around Italy. I was in the Peace Corps in Poland at the time, and was only able to afford the trip because I had some money left from a guaranteed student loan. In order to save money on food I would frequent department store cafeterias and dive restaurants catering to the poorest students. If those places proved too pricey, I could squat between the pan handlers and street musicians working a city fountain and scarf down take away pizza, flicking crumbs to the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/just-dessert/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fab</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark Lewandowski]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:08:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1450862479751-84eeaf2fcca4?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=7bcca65bc04d651f369ff3c8d69a1805" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1450862479751-84eeaf2fcca4?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=7bcca65bc04d651f369ff3c8d69a1805" alt="Just Dessert"/><p>In the winter of 1993 I backpacked around Italy. I was in the Peace Corps in Poland at the time, and was only able to afford the trip because I had some money left from a guaranteed student loan. In order to save money on food I would frequent department store cafeterias and dive restaurants catering to the poorest students. If those places proved too pricey, I could squat between the pan handlers and street musicians working a city fountain and scarf down take away pizza, flicking crumbs to the pigeons jostling at our feet. The first time I backpacked across Western Europe in 1990, I carbed up on complimentary breakfasts at youth hostels, and later shoveled in roasted street sausages, or plate-sized schnitzels at fast food joints. For dessert I settled for kiosk candy bars. Didn’t matter. It was all just fuel to power me through an old town’s cobbled lanes and ramparts, from art museum to castle, from Gothic cathedral to opera house. Of the High Arts I’d been a formidable glutton.</p>
<p>My cheap hotel in Rome had a view of the Forum going for it, but it didn’t serve breakfast, so on that first morning in Italy I hit the nearest coffee bar for a cornetto, a type of Italian croissant typically filled with chocolate, jam or egg custard. I took down the chocolate one without even touching my cappuccino. I went through the strawberry jam just as quickly. When I found myself licking my fingertips in order to sponge up the remaining flakes on my plate, I realized I wasn’t yet satiated. Much to the barista’s amusement, I asked for a third, another chocolate, since he was all out of the custard. With the cappuccino I ended up spending more than I should have.</p>
<p>Later that day, while traipsing through the Forum and Colosseum, my mind kept drifting back to the cornetto. I had a very satisfying take away pizza for lunch, doing what the Romans do—folding the whole thing in half for a makeshift calzone and eating as I walked—but the custard cornetto haunted me.</p>
<p>On my way to the Pantheon I happened across a coffee bar on a dark, narrow street. It’s not as if coffee bars are hard to find in Rome, but this one looked old school. It was much smaller than my apartment in Poland, the size of a living room, really. No tourists stood at the counter in there, just scruffy old men slurping the coffee the barista dispensed from a hand-pumped machine.</p>
<p>Well, my dogs are barking, I reasoned. Besides, the place was clearly geared towards locals, like an out of the way donut joint back in the States. How much could a cappuccino and cornetto cost here? I squeezed inside and cased out the pastries. No cornetto. Others things looked tasty, though, and I was already committed, so I pointed to a ball-shaped pastry I later found out was a Bigne di San Giuseppe, another Roman specialty.</p>
<p>As the barista placed the pastry on the counter I said, “Cappuccino.”<br>
He raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms.</br></p>
<p>Maybe he couldn’t make one with the hand-pumped machine? I looked past him. The machine had the foaming nozzle and the steel cups used for the milk stood upended next to it.</p>
<p>“Cappuccino?” I asked.</p>
<p>“No No No,” the barista said, wagging his finger. He then pointed to the clock on the wall. “Espresso.”</p>
<p>The old man next to me nodded. “Si, si,” he said. “Espresso.”</p>
<p>So I ordered espresso, which pleased everyone concerned. I bit into the bigne. I might have moaned when I hit the egg cream inside, because the barista laughed and the old man next to me smiled and raised his demitasse. He kept it raised until I swallowed my first bite, and wiped away powdered sugar, cream, and pastry crumbs to give my own espresso a proper taste. I drank half of it, and even though I immediately wished I had added sugar I gave the old man a thumb’s up, allowing him to finish off the remains of his own espresso.</p>
<p>We had a fine few moments after that, even though no one there spoke English and all the Italian I knew came from The Olive Garden menu and The Godfather movies. I fell in love with Rome in that coffee bar. Somehow I’d have to find a way to budget in midafternoon coffee and pastry breaks in the other cities I visited.</p>
<p>I found out quickly that every city in Italy has its own pastries. (There was no mention of this in my Let’s Go, which made me appreciate why Bill Bryson refers to this staple of the backpacker to Europe as Let’s Go Get Another Guidebook.) Venice has its Gubana di Cividale, a type of rolled bread, its chocolate or fruit and nut filling spiked with grappa. Verona is the ancestral home of Tiramisu, which might explain why Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet there, since it’s a wonderful dessert for lovers to share, all gooey and messy and drenched with enough espresso to keep you up for hours. Siena has Ricciarelli, a marzipan based specialty flavored with orange peel and candied lemon. In Pisa, you can find Torta co’ “bischeri,” which looks like a tart made with pie dough, with a filling of chocolate and pine nuts. Lucca features Buccellato, a sweet bun brimming with raisins and aniseed.</p>
<p>Of these I partook. Every day. Sometimes even for Second Breakfast. On top of the pastries I sampled any number of chocolates and cookies, including the Tuscan Brutti ma Buoni, or “Ugly but Good,” a little tidbit of multiple varieties.</p>
<p>That was just before dinner. After that, there was gelato. My second night in Rome I wandered into the Piazza di Spagna. Across the piazza from the Spanish Steps a gelateria scooped away, seemingly to every other person I saw. Some people tongued balls nestled inside waffle cones big enough to hold two pints of Ben and Jerry’s, others daintily dipped into gelato filled paper bowls with those little plastic spoons that are shaped like shovels. Young couples ate gelato, and bands of teenagers ate gelato, and single grandmothers ate gelato, and whole extended families ate gelato. One little girl even sat square in the middle of everything, right on the paving stones, and shared her cone with a terrier.</p>
<p>When in Rome, I thought, as I joined the throng.</p>
<p>. . .</p>
<p>I spent a good chunk of my third day in Florence at the Uffizi Gallery. On this off-season day, the museum was relatively empty. I had an extraordinary amount of time alone in the Botticelli rooms, and still felt drunk with pleasure after studying The Birth of Venus and Primavera so closely, without interruption or distraction. After, I went back to the hotel to plan out the rest of my vacation–just four more days. I had already changed my plans, giving up Bologna for the less expensive Naples, which would be my last stop. The train would take me there the next day, giving me more than enough time to see Michelangelo’s David. Would the Accademia Gallery be as empty as the Uffizi? I hoped so. I had saved David, this icing on the cake of the Italian Renaissance, for last. I also needed to sample the pastry I’d been seeing in every bakery window in the city: the Schiaccita alla Florentine, a sponge cake topped with powdered sugar, and in cocoa the “Giglio,” a lily, the ubiquitous symbol of Florence.</p>
<p>David and the schiaccita. What a way to spend my last day in this magnificent city.</p>
<p>Before I went out to find a cheap dinner and my evening gelato, I sat on my lumpy hotel bed and counted the lira left in my neck pouch.</p>
<p>Not good. Not good at all.</p>
<p>After settling up with my Florence hotel, and considering my three days in Naples–hotel, and the museums, and Pompeii, let alone the pastries I didn’t yet know about, but soon would, like the “Lobster Tail,” a crispy, many layered pastry bursting with ricotta and flavored with cinnamon and lemon zest, or the Struffoli, a mound of marble-sized fried dough balls served slathered in honey, chopped nuts, and orange peel…well, something had to give.</p>
<p>I flipped to Florence in my Let’s Go. The entrance fee for the Accademia was twice that of the Uffizi. I’d read that already, but now considering my dwindling reserves, a feeling of outrage seeped into me. Twice as much! And there’s really nothing else to see there but David. What the hell!</p>
<p>The Accademia. A tourist trap. A scam to gouge people like me. Is it really that much better than the Uffizi? The Uffizi had Donatello’s David, the diminutive, graceful David, the subtle David. Was Michelangelo’s that much more impressive? The overbearing, over the top David? The bombastic David?</p>
<p>I again flipped through my remaining bills. Unless I wanted to sleep in the Naples train station, I simply could not see Michalangelo’s David and enjoy the Shiacittia alla Florentine, that simple little sponge cake. No, I couldn’t do both.</p>
<p>I went for the sponge cake.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Still Preparing]]></title><description><![CDATA[(Written in 2012)
Lights dim
Audience calms
The pianist steps onto the stage
with vibrant confidence
She gracefully softens the applause
As she takes her seat
Her hands brush across her lap
Smoothing out the wrinkles in her gown
She takes a deep breath
and closes her eyes
Releasing her fingers to the ivories
She summons all to her harmonic sanctuary
The moment melts into the melody
She becomes one with the keyboard
From the balcony
I listen
Wondering how she found
nirv]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/still-preparing/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522faa</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:08:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1480457330430-f47a04086de9?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=e089e52ee4c2a05128e3aff0e1595a4d" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1480457330430-f47a04086de9?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=e089e52ee4c2a05128e3aff0e1595a4d" alt="Still Preparing"/><p>(Written in 2012)</p>
<p>Lights dim<br>
Audience calms</br></p>
<p>The pianist steps onto the stage<br>
with vibrant confidence</br></p>
<p>She gracefully softens the applause<br>
As she takes her seat</br></p>
<p>Her hands brush across her lap<br>
Smoothing out the wrinkles in her gown</br></p>
<p>She takes a deep breath<br>
and closes her eyes</br></p>
<p>Releasing her fingers to the ivories<br>
She summons all to her harmonic sanctuary</br></p>
<p>The moment melts into the melody<br>
She becomes one with the keyboard</br></p>
<p>From the balcony<br>
I listen</br></p>
<p>Wondering how she found<br>
nirvana so young</br></p>
<p>My own life<br>
a continuous crescendo of rehearsals</br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Awakening]]></title><description><![CDATA[The dream began like all dreams – shrouded in magic and mystery.
My black haired sister and I walk hand in hand as we head for the dark woods. The deep silence of the forest quickly descends and we are swallowed by the vast network of trees. Entering a large open glade lit by the pearlescent glow of the full moon, we lie down on a moss covered stone and fall asleep, entering the dreamscape as one. In the dream we stand in a large meadow in the middle of a forest. The full moon casts her alabas]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-awakening/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fa9</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathy Martone]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:08:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1430508222134-6bfb0ab1e8ae?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=f6c92daeb1e65e6dc83dfc1cfbb93064" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1430508222134-6bfb0ab1e8ae?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=f6c92daeb1e65e6dc83dfc1cfbb93064" alt="The Awakening"/><p>The dream began like all dreams – shrouded in magic and mystery.</p>
<p><em>My black haired sister and I walk hand in hand as we head for the dark woods. The deep silence of the forest quickly descends and we are swallowed by the vast network of trees. Entering a large open glade lit by the pearlescent glow of the full moon, we lie down on a moss covered stone and fall asleep, entering the dreamscape as one. In the dream we stand in a large meadow in the middle of a forest. The full moon casts her alabaster net strewn with stars across the firmament, her luminous halo transforming the scene into a mythical landscape of unparalleled beauty. Soon we are confronted by a massive wild boar with ivory tusks who charges at us and carries off my beloved sister. Overtaken with fear, I awaken from the dream to find that my sister is gone</em>.</p>
<p>I rouse myself from the dream, confused and disoriented. Who is this dark sister of mine and what happened to her? Her tortured cries as the beast carried her away linger in my head. Glancing at the clock on the table beside my bed, I see that it is only five minutes past midnight, the witching hour. Dare I return to the land of sleep? Can I save this mysterious sibling of the murky moon? And how does one go about such heroic efforts with wild beings who inhabit the shadow realms?</p>
<p>My heart beats a staccato rhythm against my chest wall as I contemplate this scenario. Fearful of facing the moon beast again, I decide to get out of bed and read for a bit. I pad my way into the pitch black confines of my kitchen looking for a glass of wine to calm my nerves. Not wanting to blast myself back into full consciousness with overhead incandescent light, I grope my way along the granite counters until I find the bottle of red wine where I left it earlier. Somehow just holding onto the dark vessel gives me a small measure of comfort, as I slowly begin to orient myself back into non-dreaming reality.</p>
<p>I hold the cool glass of ruby liquid close to my heart as I tiptoe out of the kitchen and into my living room, where I search the bookshelves for something to occupy my thoughts. The fact that I stand here bathed in moonlight – that same crown of light that highlighted the inexplicable kidnapping I just witnessed – does not escape me. Blindly I let my fingers play along the spines of the books before choosing a thin volume of unknown title.</p>
<p>Both hands now fully occupied, I take a seat on my red velvet Victorian couch and sigh deeply. Setting the wine glass and book on the coffee table, I lean back against the plush red and purple pillows and gaze up at the ceiling while trying to whisk away the cobwebs of dream memory in favor of some concrete facts – like I’m here, now, safe, now, in my home, now, no wild-eyed monsters here.</p>
<p>Some moments later, feeling a little less anxious, I take a long sip of the Italian wine savoring its warm slow journey down the pipe of my esophagus and into my solar plexus. Exhaling fully, I let my eyes wander over to the chosen volume still lying on the table. I lean forward to position the glass of wine next to the book as my consciousness wavers between realism and mysticism. Placing my right hand on the green cover, I close my eyes and bring the text onto my lap. The trepidation of facing yet some new additional horror makes me nervous about opening the novel. But I am fully awake, I remind myself, fully awake and safe at home.</p>
<p>Determined to conquer the demons who occupy my mind, I grasp the hardbound copy with both hands and open my eyes to read the title. <strong>Werewolves of London</strong> screams silently back at me, my eyes wide with fear and shock. Quickly I drop the bewitched volume back onto the table and gulp down the remaining wine as I careen violently between nightmare and sleep, magical beings and concrete facts, bewitchery and reality.</p>
<p>Leaving the book and the now empty glass of wine on the antique wooden table, I race back into the bedroom and dive under the bedclothes seeking safety and comfort. How much time passes, I do not know. But I eventually find myself dreaming once again.</p>
<p><em>I am asleep on the moss covered stone in the moonlit garden. The sound of some savage creature barreling through the underbrush awakens me. Holding my breath and casting my eyes about for a place to hide, I spot the white tusked wild pig with beady, red-rimmed black eyes. He stands at least 6 feet tall and his breath fogs the air about him with the smell of rotting flesh. Motionless, he remains standing at the edge of the forest, simply staring at me.</em></p>
<p><em>The entire jungle goes silent as the censorship of death and rebirth takes charge. No more chattering cicadas, no more rustling branches, no more hooting owls. Just the stillness of graveyards and timeless journeys into space. Spinning out of control as my thoughts try to grasp the scene unfolding before me, I am stunned to see my dark haired sister seated upon the back of the beast, smiling at me. She wears a mask of exquisite beauty, black and red sequined feathers glittering in the moonlight as they frame her own ebony eyes. The scene fades as I lose consciousness.</em></p>
<p><em>Later I awaken to find a bag made of animal skin and filled with masks. As I spill the contents onto my green carpeted bed of stone, a group of women gather in a circle, dancing before me, their black and red feathered veils shimmering in the pale light of the moon.</em></p>
<p>I awaken in my bed, the morning sun peeking around the window frames and brightening up my room. Lying on top of my bedspread sits a black and red feathered mask dotted with sequins and crystals.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Hundred Miles To Nowhere: An Unlikely Love Story]]></title><description><![CDATA[Two excerpts from the novel:
Prologue
Sometimes, surrounded by the endless Minnesota sky, I believe I have come home. Other times, I am sure moving from New York City to rural Minnesota was a mistake.
It is morning, and I walk the half-mile down my gravel driveway, humming a melody that may one day grow up to be a song. Pastures unfold in every direction, separated by copses of aspen and pine, oak and maple. Like most autumn mornings while burgundy leaves linger on the oaks, I take Meadow ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/hundred-miles-to-nowhere-an-unlikely-love-story/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fa8</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Elisa Korenne]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:07:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/photo-1494380436044-bae026289762-2.jpeg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/photo-1494380436044-bae026289762-2.jpeg" alt="A Hundred Miles To Nowhere: An Unlikely Love Story"/><p>Two excerpts from the novel:</p>
<p><strong>Prologue</strong></p>
<p>Sometimes, surrounded by the endless Minnesota sky, I believe I have come home. Other times, I am sure moving from New York City to rural Minnesota was a mistake.</p>
<p>It is morning, and I walk the half-mile down my gravel driveway, humming a melody that may one day grow up to be a song. Pastures unfold in every direction, separated by copses of aspen and pine, oak and maple. Like most autumn mornings while burgundy leaves linger on the oaks, I take Meadow for a walk. Really, the yellow lab is my excuse to walk myself. Every morning when I start my walk, I hope that, this time, motion will help me outpace my melancholy.</p>
<p>A breeze pulls the warmth from my body, stealing the last skin-sense of Chris next to me in bed. He was the reason I moved here, the beacon that drew me away from the concrete sea of city.</p>
<p>I am no longer sure he is enough to keep me here.</p>
<p>Regrets have escaped their trap again, and I am glad I am alone while they stalk me. Away from Chris, I stop pretending everything is okay.</p>
<p>I unravel a tangle of earphones and select a recent “This American Life” podcast, placing one earphone in my ear and letting the other dangle free. In my right ear, behind Ira Glass’s nasal drawl, I hear the background noise of New York City traffic. In my left ear, the chuckle-call of Sandhill Cranes. I cannot tune out one ear in favor of the other, just as I can no longer be only one version of myself.</p>
<p>I stand at the intersection of two lives.</p>
<p>In my old life in New York City, I woke to a world alive with activity. Trucks grumbled at idle underneath my window, and the air was thick with diesel and the scent of cumin from the Mexican restaurant across the street. The only sky was a thin slice at the top of my window.</p>
<p>In Minnesota, the sky has its own topography. Over a monotony of flat landscape, the sky is filled with crags and altitude, mountains and valleys, color and elevation. Today’s sky is an expanse of soft gray blankets. A pink sun shines through a small opening to the east, a crack of morning light beneath cosmic bed sheets. The air is thick with the promise of rain, and I inhale earth, pine, and sweetgrass, hoping the scents might cultivate the barren terrain inside me.</p>
<p>In New York City, I walked a purposeful vector to the subway, along the way accommodating crowds of pedestrians in a practiced dance. Over the course of four blocks I passed eight restaurants, four boutiques, a laundromat, a Dominican bodega, a gourmet grocery, and a Korean deli.</p>
<p>Meadow and I have walked the equivalent of four Brooklyn blocks and passed nobody. We are not even halfway down my driveway. The driveway bends 60 degrees toward the road, and I can no longer see my house, just fields lined by clumps of thorny mountain ash.</p>
<p>To the north, a rotting wood-plank deer stand is poised like a macabre Tinker Toy on stilts. The empty rectangle of its window stares at me, an unlidded eye where hunters rest their rifles and sight their prey. I am the deer before the hunter shoots. I long to run, but I don’t know which would be worse: standing as still as I can, hoping to blend into my surroundings, or bolting back to where I came from.</p>
<p><strong>Satellite Dish Snow Bowl</strong></p>
<p><em>Bring me winter<br>
Freeze the ice on the lake<br>
Give me quiet<br>
And a place to hibernate</br></br></br></em><br>
– “Winter Song” by Elisa Korenne</br></p>
<p>Among endless fields sprinkled sugar-white, the house at Oak Hol- low was a candy-cane confection of white columns and red walls. The dove-colored sky had shattered into bits and floated down to cover the earth in blankets of tiny, cruel diamonds. Sky fragments glittered on the roof between the twin pearls of tundra and sky. The oaks were many-armed gods, black calligraphy on a white page. In the black-and-white beauty, cold was the slicing jab of a broken bottle, its sharp edges keen for one who had not known cold before. It met me, and stole my breath.</p>
<p>“Have you been here through a winter?” was the second thing all Minnesotans asked upon meeting me, after “Ooh, yah, New York City to New York Mills, eh? Didn’t want to change the address too much then, didja?” When I answered I hadn’t yet lived through a Minnesota winter, the locals shook their heads and turned away.</p>
<p>“Don’t worry about it.” Chris pulled me close. “Winter’s not that bad here.”</p>
<p>Despite the focus that a quiet January had given to my songwriting, it was now February, and the sheer willful doggedness of winter was “that bad.” There were at least a couple of months more left of cease- less, white cold, and I couldn’t be a real Minnesotan until I had lived through winter in its entirety and chosen to stay anyway.</p>
<p>The cold of negative twenty degrees Fahrenheit burned like molten glass. Exposed skin seared as if blistered. Eyes pricked and ached. Nostrils tightened and stretched. Lungs stung. Hardened mucous pulled nose hairs and blocked airflow. I struggled to inhale frigid air. I breathed glass.</p>
<p>My new life in Minnesota was outlined in cold, circumscribed by cold, defined by cold, and determined by cold. Cold was my rubicon, my crossroads, my final test. If I could make it through the Minnesota winter, I’d be able to live here. Permanently.</p>
<p>The Internet went down during a snowstorm before a brilliantly sunny stretch of weather with skies clear as glass and turquoise as tropical seas, blue-bright as only cold could make it. The outside temperatures were ten to twenty degrees below zero. The wind blew in gusts. The two feet of snow on the ground had hardened into rockscape. My boots left jeweled caves in the sparkling sediment, foot-sized sinkholes with igloo-solid walls.</p>
<p>The Internet satellite dish was a bowl of snow.</p>
<p>On the first day of my life without Internet, I drove twenty miles and back through a snowstorm to a meeting that had been canceled over email. On the second day, I called friends to remind myself they still existed. Despite Chris’s absence on Friendster, and later Facebook, I learned that some in the rural Minnesota community were online. The Internet was now the arbiter of my social life, allowing me to contact the world I had left behind in New York City and keeping me current with my new friends in rural Minnesota, many of whom had disappeared behind snow-covered driveways. I was getting antsy.</p>
<p>A week into our Internet fast, we were invited to dinner at Chris’s parents’ house. We arrived early. Chris’s mother Betty was still cooking, and Chris joined his father in the garage to tinker with a boat engine.</p>
<p>“Do you mind if I use your computer?” I asked Betty.</p>
<p>“Not at all,” she cooed, waving her left hand so the modest dia- mond she wore glittered in the lamplight. I left the kitchen for the com- puter desk in the front hall. “Dinner will be ready in an hour,” Betty said from the other room.</p>
<p>When dinner was called, I was only halfway through my inbox. “One more minute!” I yelled, trying to speed up my typing and making a hash of spelling. I closed out of the Internet and walked to the dining room.</p>
<p>Everyone was already sitting at the table. Even Chris’s eleven- year-old niece and fourteen-year-old nephew had been peeled from their video games and were sitting politely, napkins on laps. Chris glared at me from across the table.</p>
<p>“Oh, um, sorry. I haven’t had Internet in a week.”</p>
<p>Chris’s father Ken asked, “Has the world ended while you were offline?”</p>
<p>I blushed. I wanted to explain about driving through the snowstorm because of the missing email, but the family shuffled in their chairs, impatient to eat.</p>
<p>We bowed our heads for grace and passed bowls of food around. I took small portions and scarfed down too-large bites while the others talked about Minnesota sports. I was finished first, but when I pushed my chair back, Chris glared at me. I scooted my chair back under the table. When everyone rose, I put my dishes in the sink and darted to the computer desk through the kitchen, but Chris beat me through the living room. I wheedled like a kid. “I wasn’t finished!”</p>
<p>“Too bad.”<br>
“Honey!”<br>
“You were already on it for an hour. I want a turn.”<br>
In that moment it was clear as diamonds that I needed to get on-<br>
line, and that someone needed to remove the snow from the satellite dish. In my mind, that someone was Chris.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>After breakfast the next morning, Chris built a fire in the family room and lay on the black leather couch he had purchased off the back of a truck. It suited the oak-paneled den much better than it had the lace-curtained living room of his gray cottage. I put my hands on my hips and stood over him. The heat of the fire made a warm pool on my back.</p>
<p>“Will you please fix the Internet?”</p>
<p>“Nope.” He sipped green tea out of a pottery mug. “I’m not going out there.” He pulled the faux-fur blanket farther up his chest. “It’s way too cold out.”</p>
<p>The fire snickered behind me. I swallowed a small scream of frus- tration and tempered my voice. “Come on, please?”</p>
<p>Chris nestled into the couch cushions. “I don’t need the Internet that much. I’d rather wait for the snow to melt than go out in that cold.” Snow wouldn’t melt till spring, which I understood might not arrive till May. I set my jaw and dug my toes into carpet. A log snapped and settled. I could look at this as an opportunity, my chance to redeem my poor performance with the broken furnace.</p>
<p>Chris put down his mug and fiddled with his cell phone. I assessed<br>
the situation. The satellite dish was attached to the roof above the garage twenty feet up from the ground. There was snow. The wind was blowing.</br></p>
<p>I needed a ladder and a lot of warm clothes.</p>
<p>I brushed snow off the ladder and lifted my heavy boot to the first rung. I transferred my weight slowly, testing the hold.</p>
<p>Boot met ladder. Sole met step. My foot held. I inhaled. Cold outlined my lungs in pain. My face set with determination. As the pain of guitar strings had dug calluses into my fingers, the pain of the cold would callous me to Minnesota’s winter. I lifted my other foot to the second rung and climbed. The third rung. The fourth. I looked out on the white world of Oak Hollow from a new vantage point. Emptiness. Clean white under turquoise. Glorious.</p>
<p>I reached the top of the ladder and stretched my body up. My mit- tens made jazz hands well short of the snow-filled satellite dish.</p>
<p>I needed more height.</p>
<p>I was resourceful. I was desperate. I could figure this out. I went back inside, wriggled my feet out of my boots and shed my outermost layers. In the laundry room I collected more supplies: a telescoping cobweb duster, a broom, a broom handle, and duct tape. Chris was singing one of my songs to himself in the kitchen.</p>
<p>After duct-taping duster, broom, and broom handle together, a twenty-foot pole reached through the doors of three rooms, flexing and dancing in my hand. I wriggled my new tool in victory.</p>
<p>“How’s it going?” Chris asked through the wall cut-out from the kitchen to the family room.</p>
<p>“Check out my homemade snow-removal tool.” “Nice!” he said.<br>
“Wanna come see?”<br>
“No thanks.” A spoon clattered in the sink.</br></br></p>
<p>I suppressed the name I wanted to call him and threaded the ex- tended pole through the door to the garage, muscles tightening against the cold. I pulled against the tool’s weight to balance it upward, and watched the far end draw bouncing circles in the air over the tops of our cars. I teased the whole contraption out of the house and closed myself out with the cold.</p>
<p>The javelin quivered into stillness. I climbed. Then I was up the ladder in my puffy yellow coat, perched in slippery boots on a windy subzero day.</p>
<p>I was a long way from my Brooklyn apartment.</p>
<p>I took a steadying breath. From the top, the end of the duster barely reached the satellite dish. I stood on tiptoe, my right arm extended as far as it could go. One clump of snow fell into the space between coat collar and bare skin. Blood pumped cold through my neck.</p>
<p>I stretched farther. My boot slipped. I clutched the rails of the ladder and stabilized. I could do this. I twirled my spear upward in an arc. Broom met bowl. Grenades of snow dropped in explosions of sky dust. I inhaled diamonds.</p>
<p>My arms ached. My abdomen shook. My fingers were numb. The satellite dish was half empty. I hoped it was enough.</p>
<p>I carefully aimed the end of the pole to the ground in a curve that arced from white driveway to white roof. The oak tree regarded me, naked, brown, and grizzled, and I felt a new connection to it. I could be out here in the cold, too.</p>
<p>I pranced into the house, pride lifting my step despite the heavy snow boots. I smelled the warm, honeyed scent of Chris’s homemade caramel sauce.</p>
<p>“How’d it go?” Chris’s voice rose over the sound of clattering pots in the kitchen.</p>
<p>“It worked, I think. Hey, could you come outside and check that I’ve removed enough snow?”</p>
<p>I reached to unlace a boot. Chris’s footsteps scrambled up the stairs. “What are you doing?” I yelled.</p>
<p>“Checking the Internet to see if it works.” Chris’s voice came through the section of ceiling under my office.</p>
<p>I pulled at my boot, laces constricting sock at my ankle, pulling it off. I hopped on my half-socked foot, melted snow sliding off me to the floor, until my other boot released with a pop, and I ran, dripping and half barefoot, up the stairs.</p>
<p>In my warm, candle-scented studio, Chris sat at my French writing desk, my computer loading Gopher basketball scores.</p>
<p>“All right!” I yelled and tried to shove Chris out of my chair. He pushed me right back.</p>
<p>“I’m not done yet,” he said, grinning wickedly at me.</p>
<p>Read more in Hundred Miles to Nowhere: An Unlikely Love Story. Available at bookstores, online, and at live events with Elisa Korenne. Learn more at www.elisakorenne.com.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Proclamations]]></title><description><![CDATA[Grumbling under his breath, the heavily muscled man in the tailored dark suit with red silk tie begins his long walk across the hot cement as it bakes in the noonday sun. “Wouldn’t you know,” he fumes. “Wouldn’t you know, he wants to see me immediately, AGAIN! For what? Every day its the same thing.” Paul, I need you. Paul, you need to get over here now. Paul, I have to talk to you. “I’m getting sick and tired of these constant demands!”
As he stops to take a breath, Paul runs his right hand t]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-proclamations/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fa7</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathy Martone]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:06:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507512003023-e986f0611020?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=348eb0d2c0199a3348bc98240af33ac7" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1507512003023-e986f0611020?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=348eb0d2c0199a3348bc98240af33ac7" alt="The Proclamations"/><p>Grumbling under his breath, the heavily muscled man in the tailored dark suit with red silk tie begins his long walk across the hot cement as it bakes in the noonday sun. “Wouldn’t you know,” he fumes. “Wouldn’t you know, he wants to see me immediately, AGAIN! For what? Every day its the same thing.” <em>Paul, I need you. Paul, you need to get over here now. Paul, I have to talk to you.</em> “I’m getting sick and tired of these constant demands!”</p>
<p>As he stops to take a breath, Paul runs his right hand through his long slicked back dark hair and with his left hand in his pants pocket, leans over and spits into the dark green bushes that surround the building in front of him. Straightening his back, he takes his left hand and reaches for his white linen handkerchief neatly folded and tucked into his right suit pocket. He rubs it across his damp forehead and then his lips, and sighs deeply. “Guess I better get this over with,” he growls, “so I can get back to work.”</p>
<p>The building in front of him thrusts its black marble facade skyward in one forceful surge of power and influence, its apex disappearing into the ever present dark clouds that gather in a symbolic statement of depravity and money. Paul hesitates before placing his left foot, expensively shod in shiny Italian black leather, on the first step. Slowly he begins the long journey upward.</p>
<p>Fifteen minutes later and barely breaking a sweat, he stands at the massive gold trimmed revolving door and leans against one of the marmoreal pillars that frame the entrance. After he catches his breath, he takes a moment to glance at his reflection in the shiny glass surface, impressed with the muscular physique afforded him from long hours of sweat-inducing workouts at the office gym. <em>So important to project the right image</em>, he thinks. To which, he stretches his mouth into a ghastly thin lipped grin, mocked by the stiff muscles in his face and neck.</p>
<p>Straightening his tie, he marches up to the door and rotates himself inside where he introduces himself to the concierge, a tall black-skinned man with a sour expression permanently plastered to his acne-scarred face. Paul scowls as the attendant asks him to repeat his name, while silently cursing him under his breath. <em>I bloody well see you every fucking day of my life! What an idiot.</em></p>
<p>“It’s Paul. Paul Bryan. Remember? We’ve been through this before.”</p>
<p>“Company policy,” the negro replies, his eyes glued to a clipboard on the table before him. “You can go up now.”</p>
<p>An exasperated look on his face, Paul walks deliberately over to the bank of elevators and pushes the express button for the penthouse suite on the 69th floor. As the doors whisper open he hurries inside, eager to finish this distasteful meeting with his distasteful new boss. As he rockets to the top of the marble obelisk, he closes his eyes and breathes deeply. <em>Keep your cool, old boy</em>, he reminds himself.</p>
<p>A scant 2 minutes later, the elevator doors part quietly and Paul exits the mahogany lined interior relishing the feel of the lush thick carpet underneath his feet. The entire suite is opulently furnished in black and gold, French Provincial style, and the walls are dotted with original paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, and van Gogh. Large Waterford crystal vases are filled with colorful fresh flowers and centered on antique wooden tables scattered throughout the spacious room. Paul strolls across the floor to admire the spectacular view from the gilt embossed floor-to-ceiling windows on two walls of the suite.</p>
<p>“Ah Hmm!” the loud voice behind Paul startles him. “Glad to see you’re enjoying my view,” Foswald Tramp bellows. Standing 6’3” tall with thinning hair and enormous girth, his lower pouty lip pasting a permanent frown onto his round red face, Mr. Tramp makes an impressive appearance even in a large space such as this. Paul immediately stiffens his spine as he anticipates a dressing down by his superior.</p>
<p>“Hey Paul. Relax. Have a drink. Let’s enjoy ourselves, shall we?” Tramp walks over to the mini bar and pours them both a shot of Bourbon – in Waterford crystal of course.</p>
<p>Paul sits across from his boss, very uncomfortable in the gold chair, his legs crossed and swirling the bronze colored liquid in his glass. <em>Cut the crap – can we just get down to business,</em> he thinks silently.</p>
<p>“So, Mr. Bryan. I bet you’re wondering why I asked you here, no?” Foswald asks.</p>
<p>Paul simply tilts his glass forward, raises it in the direction of Foswald and downs the liquid in one fluid gulp. “Yup! You could say that,” he finishes.</p>
<p>“Well Paul, to get to the point, I’ve formulated a set of proclamations I want you to deliver to our people. And if you handle this well, ah, shall we say, there’s something big in it for you. Whaddya think of that, my friend?”</p>
<p>Feeling the heat of the liquor as it spreads pleasantly throughout his torso, Paul leans back in his chair and looks at Tramp quizzically. “So what exactly do you mean, <em>there’s something big in this for me?</em>” he demands.</p>
<p>“Oh we’ll get to that later,” Tramp responds waving his left hand dismissively while scooping up a folder in his right hand from the table in front of them. Standing up to finish his drink, he declares, “Take this to the people first and then we’ll discuss your, ah, recompense in short order.” As Paul reaches his hand out to take the material, Tramp grabs his arm and jerks him close, looking him straight in the eye. “We’ll do great things together, Paul – you and I. I have more money than the devil and don’t forget I won this job fair and square by a vast majority of votes and the people, they love me, really they adore me. No one has done more for this company, really. Just don’t cross me or I’ll chew you up and spit you out. Understand?” Paul nods his head mutely. “Meet me out front in two hours.” Foswald hands him the folder and leaves the room.</p>
<p>Paul stares at the sheaf of paper in his hands not knowing what to think. <em>What a jerk! Who does he think he’s talking to? But then again best not to ask too many questions. Not yet, anyway.</em></p>
<p>At the appointed time, several thousand white males dressed in identical black suits and looking like so many pelicans stacked front to back in an unending sea of black and white, gather in the plaza before the marble phallus. All eyes focus on the figure of Paul Bryan standing on the steps above them. “Fellow disciples,” Paul cries out. “Hear me out. Quiet everybody! Eyes on the sky.” After some foot shuffling and murmuring, everyone is silent.</p>
<p>Holding a piece of paper in front of him, Paul clears his throat and continues: “Our newly elected leader has asked us to gather here in his name. Hear his words!” The crowd cheers and stomps their feet, calling out in unison: “Heil, Mr. T! Heil, Mr. T! We love you, Mr. T!”</p>
<p>Once things are quiet again, Paul takes a moment to peek upward and notices the large bulk of Tramp’s frame just outside the revolving doors at the top of the stairs. Raising his hand in a casual salute, he turns back around and begins to read:</p>
<p>“We are gathered here today to celebrate the mandate given us by the Shadow Party, the major donor in behalf of Mr. Tramp. Our mission? To make the world dark again! This is what we have been waiting for – to finally put right all that has been wrong, to reclaim the darkness that is truly ours!”</p>
<p>“War and hate, racism and sexism, lies and hypocrisies – these will be our tools for complete and utter domination.”</p>
<p>“I think we all understand that greed is the major force behind all success. Mark my words, avarice and gluttony will fuel our enterprise.”</p>
<p>“Go forth and steal from the poor and the hungry, the ill of health, for they do not deserve prosperity.”</p>
<p>(Here, Paul cannot help himself as he grins broadly. <em>Now, this is more like it, he thinks. Perhaps I misjudged ole Foswald after all.</em>)</p>
<p>“We shall promote the superiority of men over women and force women into submission.”</p>
<p>“We shall not stop until the skies darken and the underworld rises, until we control everything. I promise you, it will be fun! Really, no one has had more fun.”</p>
<p>“And finally, we will destroy, intimidate, and bully anyone who gets in our way.”</p>
<p>As the crowd erupts into raucous applause and cheers of pure delight, tossing their coats and ties into the air, Paul takes a moment to digest his boss’s words. <em>So, license to go after whatever we want, any way we want. Just kiss the fat guy’s ass? That’s it? That’s all we have to do? Sweet!</em></p>
<p>A booming male voice speaks from the black clouds surrounding the peak of the dark stone skyscraper: “Behold. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. From this day forth he shall be known as Lucifer and shall possess all the powers implicit in this name.”</p>
<p>Filled with pride, Paul turns to see Foswald Tramp heading back inside the building, tufts of orange fur peeking out between two well oiled, ebony curved horns atop his skull while his long forked tail, shiny scaly and black, snakes out behind him. The smell of sulphur is strong in the air.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bouquet]]></title><description><![CDATA[The fragrance she left behind
lasted as long as it took
for the South Tower to collapse
no more
no less
as long
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/bouquet/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fa6</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:05:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505685415496-786094afec49?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=f7063e2c8eae56a4c8d9f71bd9cd16f3" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1505685415496-786094afec49?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=f7063e2c8eae56a4c8d9f71bd9cd16f3" alt="Bouquet"/><p>The fragrance she left behind<br>
lasted as long as it took<br>
for the South Tower to collapse</br></br></p>
<p>no more<br>
no less</br></p>
<p>as long</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Studio]]></title><description><![CDATA[(A love story written in 1983)
The studio,
just a gleam in our eyes
when plans slipped
out of our hands, scattered
sending us frolicking.
We staked out intentions
changing blueprints as lust dissolved,
and windows opened
to our souls.
Foundation – poured.
For months,
the sound of your voice, my muse.
Our creation unfolded
like magic barely
tolerated by reality.
The dungeon door, my idea,
embraced our mystery.
The loft, your idea,
lifted us high
on each other.
The touch ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-studio/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fa5</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Peggy Kjelgaard]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:04:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1459801670730-4e97c79bf3ea?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=213942225340f3ff542cba4286226de0" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1459801670730-4e97c79bf3ea?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=213942225340f3ff542cba4286226de0" alt="The Studio"/><p>(A love story written in 1983)</p>
<p>The studio,<br>
just a gleam in our eyes<br>
when plans slipped<br>
out of our hands, scattered<br>
sending us frolicking.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>We staked out intentions<br>
changing blueprints as lust dissolved,<br>
and windows opened<br>
to our souls.<br>
Foundation – poured.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>For months,<br>
the sound of your voice, my muse.<br>
Our creation unfolded<br>
like magic barely<br>
tolerated by reality.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>The dungeon door, my idea,<br>
embraced our mystery.<br>
The loft, your idea,<br>
lifted us high<br>
on each other.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>The touch of your hand pulled<br>
me up the studio ramp,<br>
bridging our hearts,<br>
calming the doubt, like a pinch,<br>
“Am I really here?”</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>We celebrated with wine.<br>
You held me too long, yearning.<br>
I suggested more insulation<br>
too late.<br>
You vanished.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Walls with no paint.<br>
Ceilings with no lights.<br>
I stand in the studio<br>
in darkness<br>
and in vain.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>The early morning light<br>
sifts through the arched window.<br>
I lay my hand to my chest, summoning<br>
our hearts to touch,<br>
our creation to cherish.</br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Moved]]></title><description><![CDATA[I am moved
by the way
that she pushes her glasses
back onto her face
We are birthed
and evolve
and turn
constantly
toward the light
And I’m moved
by the way
that she pushes her glasses
back onto her face
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/moved/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fa4</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill McCloud]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:03:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486670082170-b54a98edda89?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=5e1d7429a1bad90417c93bcca0c98694" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486670082170-b54a98edda89?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=5e1d7429a1bad90417c93bcca0c98694" alt="Moved"/><p>I am moved<br>
by the way<br>
that she pushes her glasses<br>
back onto her face</br></br></br></p>
<p>We are birthed<br>
and evolve<br>
and turn<br>
constantly<br>
toward the light</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>And I’m moved<br>
by the way<br>
that she pushes her glasses<br>
back onto her face</br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Buddy]]></title><description><![CDATA[By the time Buddy was four years old, it was obvious that people stared at him, strangers, in grocery stores, at the mall, in the park, all wondering if they should alert me that my son was “special”. I knew long before that, but I thought if I didn’t dwell on it, didn’t speak it out loud, that somehow, I would look again, and he would be acting like the other little boys, playing in the sandbox or grabbing cookie boxes from the grocery shelves, tearing them open and stealing one when I wasn’t l]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/buddy/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fa3</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurie Murphy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:03:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1469755785741-720ca0c526a6?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=be670774765030ad0006c17a054fbd6e" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1469755785741-720ca0c526a6?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ%3D%3D&s=be670774765030ad0006c17a054fbd6e" alt="Buddy"/><p>By the time Buddy was four years old, it was obvious that people stared at him, strangers, in grocery stores, at the mall, in the park, all wondering if they should alert me that my son was “special”. I knew long before that, but I thought if I didn’t dwell on it, didn’t speak it out loud, that somehow, I would look again, and he would be acting like the other little boys, playing in the sandbox or grabbing cookie boxes from the grocery shelves, tearing them open and stealing one when I wasn’t looking. I thought he would cry, or at least whine, about not having cookies or a toy, or about anything, really. I prayed for him to whine. But the reality was, he never said anything at all. He seemed unable to comprehend that if he could just mimic the kids his age, just pick up the ball and throw it, just stuff his face with French fries, I would be able to breathe. No matter how angry I became, and I’m ashamed to say, there were times I was enraged, he wouldn’t do it. I screamed at him, shook his shoulders, threatened him, sobbed out loud, and once, I even slapped his face, but nothing I did changed anything. I don’t remember the exact day I made the decision to shut him out, to let him see how it feels to love someone and not be loved back.</p>
<p>His pediatrician said not to worry, that he would outgrow it, that he was just shy, and sensitive, but he was wrong. I knew it then, and I know it now. This man who spent four years in medical school, who took an oath to help people, couldn’t help us at all. This isn’t a touch of the flu, or growing pains, this is so much worse than that. This is an affliction that will accompany him for the rest of his life, and I couldn’t stand it. I know that sounds selfish, but the pain of seeing my little boy stared at and laughed at, was palpable. His psychiatrist used the formal word for what Buddy has, a word that begins with an A, a word that I have erased from my vocabulary, a word that will define his entire future. There is no medicine to fix him, to mend what’s broken. I see the other mothers complaining about how much time they spend taking their children to activities and I’m seething with envy. They are making an investment in their children’s futures, making them well-rounded and talented. They wonder what their offspring will be when they grow up. I don’t have that worry. Buddy will never be anything.</p>
<p>He has never laughed out loud, the kind of belly laugh that is contagious, that provokes everyone in the room to laugh along, without knowing why. He has never cried authentic tears, the kind that come from a place of absolute sorrow and desperation. He has never even hinted at excitement, not even on Christmas morning, with Santa’s presents under the tree, spilling into the living room, and down the hallway. Not when he learned how to ride a bike, or play a video game. Not even when he picked out a puppy of his very own. His face displayed nothing, emotionless, without expression. I prayed for a miracle, and yesterday one arrived. For as long as I live I will thank God for yesterday.</p>
<p>Buddy came home filled with excitement about a secret that he was afraid to tell me. But he did. He said he was standing in the cafeteria line at school, waiting to buy a pizza, when he was pushed into the popular girl, and that push, according to the girl’s boyfriend, got her pregnant. Buddy said he was sorry. He didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t even know how it happened, but somehow, he believed, she was going to have his baby. His face looked beautiful, filled with hope and happiness. For the first time in sixteen years he actually cared about something. He was going to call her Violet. He cleaned his room, and pulled out a dresser drawer, lined it with a soft blanket, and put it on the floor next to his bed. “This is where Violet will sleep, mom,” he said. “I promise I’ll take good care of her. Can she stay, mom? Can she?”</p>
<p>I know what you’re thinking. That I should have told him the truth. That he didn’t make a baby. That he couldn’t make a baby without having sex, but I couldn’t bring myself to ruin this one perfect moment, one that he had been waiting for, one that I desperately needed, to validate that Buddy actually existed, that he was in there somewhere, deep inside his blank stare and rounded shoulders, that he was able to feel and hope and wish. In that one moment, Buddy lived. After we cleaned his room for the baby, we both climbed up the attic stairs, hand in hand. His hand was larger than mine, but it still felt small, and trusting. We opened the trunk filled with his baby clothes, and together we picked out a blanket sleeper, a yellow sweater, and his blue teddy bear. “Will she like this, mom?” he asked. “Yes,” I said, “She will love it.”</p>
<p>We sat huddled together for a long time. I wound up his music box, filling the attic with soft lullaby’s. When I put my arm around him, for the first time since he was born, he didn’t flinch, and instead, finding the soft spot in my shoulder, he rested his head. I hummed with the music, and he tapped his fingers in an awkward rhythm. Slowly his eyes closed, and he fell asleep. If I never have another day like this as long as I live, I will be thankful for this one magical day I spent with my baby boy.</p>
<p>Tomorrow will be time enough to squash his dreams.</p>
<p>But not tonight.<br>
Definitely not tonight.</br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Moana Despeara]]></title><description><![CDATA[DAY 1
Her name was Moana. Moana Despeara. Outta nowhere she showed up and ruined my life. Just knocked at my door polly please as if she knew me.
“Gimme a minute,” I said. “Be right there!” Looked in the mirror first; made sure my hair looked okay.
Opened the door slowly. Peered out into the blindin’ sunlight. “Can I help ya, young lady?” Why I coulda been starin’ at a mirror, dat girl lookin’ so much like my own self, scat bit younger though. 'Bout my height and weight, shoulder length cu]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/moana-despeara/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fa2</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Kathy Martone]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:02:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501621667575-af81f1f0bacc?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&s=22c3a72af28a10fd2239be008578f8e2" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501621667575-af81f1f0bacc?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&s=22c3a72af28a10fd2239be008578f8e2" alt="Moana Despeara"/><p>DAY 1</p>
<p>Her name was Moana. Moana Despeara. Outta nowhere she showed up and ruined my life. Just knocked at my door polly please as if she knew me.</p>
<p>“Gimme a minute,” I said. “Be right there!” Looked in the mirror first; made sure my hair looked okay.</p>
<p>Opened the door slowly. Peered out into the blindin’ sunlight. “Can I help ya, young lady?” Why I coulda been starin’ at a mirror, dat girl lookin’ so much like my own self, scat bit younger though. 'Bout my height and weight, shoulder length curly hair – I be danged, with the same type barrette too – only her hair was bright yellow and mine mousy brown.</p>
<p>Lookin’ like a stray cat, her head down and eyes at half mast, she peeked up at me through straggly hair and asked, “Kin I come in?”</p>
<p>“S-s-sure,” I said surprisin’ myself. “Have a seat in the livin’ room.” Shuffled as fast as I could to folla her. Didn’t want her to think I was a pushover or nothin’. Eased my achin’ bones down onto the chair and stared at her with eyes full o’ questions.</p>
<p>“Uh-h-h, um, well, uh, I don’t rightly know how to say this,” she stumbled. “But I’m in need of a place to stay.” She stared right at me with her big green eyes, just like mine.</p>
<p>Met those big eyes straight on, didn’t want her to know how nervous I were. Why would a stranger knock on my door and ask fer a bed? Very odd. “Well okay,” I heard my voice speak out loud. “But you’ll have to pay; I ain’t got no handouts for no down and out youngster lookin’ fer a place to land. And I’ll need some information, if ya please.”</p>
<p>Sittin’ there watchin’ her fill out my list, I felt no jitters a’tall, a bit surprisin’ with me just axin’ this lost and fersaken’ girl into my home. Money’ll come in handy though, I thought to myself. Seemed polite enough; fingernails were clean; clothes a bit wrinkled but otherwise tidy; hair could’ve used some work.</p>
<p>“Thank you ma’am,” she said as she cleared her throat. “Can’t tell ya how much I ‘preciate this. Life’s been a bit of a struggle fer me, ya know? Havin’ a room of my own should make all the diff’rence.” Raisin’ herself up offa my chair, she yawned and stretched her back. “May I?” she asked, her eyes fillin’ with tears.</p>
<p>“Oh yes, of course. Of course. Lemme show you.” Stood up as quickly as I could and showed her the way into the extra bedroom. “All yours,” I continued as I slipped her check, quiet-like, into my brassiere. “Bathroom’s on your left. Help yourself to the closet and dresser drawers.”</p>
<p>“No need,” she replied. “I don’t come with nothin.”</p>
<p>“Only one other thing. Don’t never touch that chest in the corner, ya hear?”</p>
<p>“Sure 'nuff,” she mumbled.</p>
<p>Not waitin’ round to hear more, I made my way back into the livin’ room and grabbed her application. Heard her door shut behind me. Big sigh of relief. No time to waste on other people’s problems. Or so I thought.</p>
<p>DAY 6</p>
<p>Ever’ night since she arrived, its the same thing what happens over and over like some old movie replayin’ itself on the wheel o’ one of them old fancy movie projectors. Moan groan weep. Moan groan weep. Bedsprings creakin’ like a buncha tree frogs. All to the up and down of my own simmerin’ pot of unrest. Don’t that woman never sleep?</p>
<p>Right round 5:00AM ever’ mornin’ things go quiet. Real quiet. Like graveyard quiet. Don’t never see her durin’ the day. But then I never see her a’tall. Gotta wonder where she goes, what she’s doin’, who she’s talkin’ to. Always locks her door, though. Not that I’d snoop; I’m ever mindful o’ my rights n’ wrongs.</p>
<p>DAY 15</p>
<p>Middle o’ the frickin’ night. Sittin’ here starin’ at that dang door. Can’t get no rest no more. That suzy cutesy what paid for my bed ain’t got no worries ‘bout who she bothers. Got so many black circles ‘neath my eyes, why you’d think I was some kinda monster from one o’ them ghost tales my dear old marm used to read to me. The kind that scared my little ticker so bad, couldna’ sleep back then neither.</p>
<p>DAY16</p>
<p>Tossin’ and turnin’ in my bed, sleep still playin’ hard to get. Don’t know how many more nights like this I kin handle. Guess there ain’t no way to ‘scape these demons what haunt my private spaces. But where do these downheartenin’ feelin’s come from? Just makes no dang sense! Used to be, I was so chatty happy. Ever’one always said so. Where did all those bubblin’ up with joy experiences go to? This just ain’t like me a’tall. Just cry, cry, cry. All the durn time. Stupid stupid tears wettin’ my pillow night after godawful night.</p>
<p>DAY 18</p>
<p>When did it become so dang hard just to get outta bed? Coffee sounds good; legs movin’, left right left right left right. Kitchen light on, eyes half shut, coffeepot on. Amazin’ how the aroma of gurglin’ caffeine can be so calmin’. One o’ the few body pleasin’ happenin’s done left to me, surely. Mebbe this missy who shares my house done brought down a curse on me. Wonder when was the last time I had some fun? Just seems as so I don’t have none no more. Just always feelin’ low and fraught with worry.</p>
<p>Ah, what’s this? Moana’s key? Wonder what that sassy frassy’s up to? Come to think on it, she ain’t paid her rent this week. Why surely she wouldna’ checked out without so much as a bye and bye, without collectin’ her deposit. Guess I’ll think on that later; coffee won’t stay hot forever.</p>
<p>DAY 19</p>
<p>Surely feels good to get some rest fer a change. Ain’t heard one peep from that girl fer two days now. Guess she’s surely gone after all. Should I or shouldn’t I? Why, this house b’longs to me. I have ever’ right to open that door! Makes me a might nervous though – what if she be lyin’ inside deader ‘n dead? Oh, best leave things be! Standin’ here with both my eyeballs glued to her door ain’t doin’ me no good no way.</p>
<p>DAY 20</p>
<p>Ain’t lately heard nothin’ more from that room. Why’s my hand shakin’ so? Such foolishness ain’t suitable for one such as me. You’d think I stole m’self into this here house or somethin’. Deep breath. Ever so slow – why, glory be, the door’s open!</p>
<p>Raise m’sef up on my toe tips and ease inside, quieter’n a mouse. Room’s dark, curtains drawn against the risin’ sun. Flip the light. Eyes wide open in surprise. Why those be my clothes on that there bed! Whip my gaze cross the room. Chest wide open with my belongin’s scattered ever’where! What the blazin’ devil, I begin to curse.</p>
<p>Grabbin’ the lavender underlies and matchin’ brassiere from the tangled bedclothes, I march into the bathroom and flip that light switch. Lookin’ at my reflection in the mirror, all the color drains from that face peerin’ back at me. That face! It’s Moana Despeara. Moana Despeara who’s been inhabitin’ my house, my clothes, my soul.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 2: Winter 2018]]></title><description><![CDATA[Our first issue of eMerge Literary Magazine was well received and garnered many kudos from around the country: our Winter issue promises to be just as stellar. It has been a delight for me to read and edit this issue’s poignant submissions. Of course, like all enterprises, it takes a dedicated team to pull off a formidable project like eMerge. I want to take this opportunity to thank my team:
* Sandra Templeton, our artistic editor
* Cat Templeton, Commandant of the Code
* Woody Barlow, the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-2-winter-2018/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fc1</guid><category><![CDATA[Winter 2018]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 28 Jan 2018 21:53:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/wcdh.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2018/01/wcdh.jpg" alt="Issue 2: Winter 2018"/><p>Our first issue of <em>eMerge Literary Magazine</em> was well received and garnered many kudos from around the country: our Winter issue promises to be just as stellar. It has been a delight for me to read and edit this issue’s poignant submissions. Of course, like all enterprises, it takes a dedicated team to pull off a formidable project like <em>eMerge</em>. I want to take this opportunity to thank my team:</p>
<ul>
<li>Sandra Templeton, our artistic editor</li>
<li>Cat Templeton, Commandant of the Code</li>
<li>Woody Barlow, the Writers’ Colony very own Tarzan in Chaps</li>
</ul>
<p>Without their patience, assistance and guidance, this endeavor would have never become a reality. Our guiding principles, from inception, have been to provide a platform for both established and emerging writers and artists to publish and promote their literary and graphic works.</p>
<p>We received a lot of feedback on how we might improve our online magazine after our first issue went live and have endeavored to make improvements to <em>eMerge</em>. Not only are we interested in what you have to say, but our authors and artists would also like to hear from you.</p>
<p>We encourage you, dear reader, to visit Eureka Springs, Arkansas and stay at the <a href="http://www.writerscolony.org/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow</a>, where you can enjoy an environment that stimulates the creative processes. Whether you are writing the great American novel, your mother’s favorite recipe book (we have a <a href="https://www.writerscolony.org/515-spring-st-1?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Culinary Suite</a> available for this type of project), or composing the next music score for an award-winning movie, the Writers’ Colony is the perfect retreat…anytime of year!</p>
<p>Until next time,<br>
I remain,<br>
Just another Zororastafarian editor wondering why his imaginary friends quit talking to him</br></br></p>
<p>Charles</p>
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[About the South]]></title><description><![CDATA[Polka dots go there to be reborn under a dry sky
that relishes its deep knowledge of jay
and a carcass on the verge associates with vultures
under a storm of Kudzu vines, as barn cats writhe
and posture according to their calendar.
Polka dots go where corn knows the tribulation
of becoming hominy, where scattered tinfoil draws
a murder and its crows and mamma fries
the Sunday chicken, peppered, dipped in egg and flour,
as she sidesteps rumors of coon stew
served with pone, the scr]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/about-the-south/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f96</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:28:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1426869981800-95ebf51ce900?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&s=8e5fd663f5475e09b885c94e5a02a675" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1426869981800-95ebf51ce900?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&s=8e5fd663f5475e09b885c94e5a02a675" alt="About the South"/><p>Polka dots go there to be reborn under a dry sky<br>
that relishes its deep knowledge of jay</br></p>
<p>and a carcass on the verge associates with vultures<br>
under a storm of Kudzu vines, as barn cats writhe</br></p>
<p>and posture according to their calendar.<br>
Polka dots go where corn knows the tribulation</br></p>
<p>of becoming hominy, where scattered tinfoil draws<br>
a murder and its crows and mamma fries</br></p>
<p>the Sunday chicken, peppered, dipped in egg and flour,<br>
as she sidesteps rumors of coon stew</br></p>
<p>served with pone, the scraps fed to more than one<br>
kind of hound. Polka dots go where an honorific</br></p>
<p>loves its Christian name and history settles<br>
on all of us like cotton dust on a picked field.</br></p>
<p>From <em>Belle Rêve</em></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Little Boy Bluet]]></title><description><![CDATA[
Little Boy Bluet
Come sound the alarm
That spring is here
And winters gone
Artist statement
This series of photographs are my attempt to breathe symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.
Download
Full Image
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/little-boy-bluet/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f9c</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Rankine]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:28:31 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/little-boy-bluet---2-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><div class="centered">
<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/little-boy-bluet---2-.jpg" alt="Little Boy Bluet"/><p>Little Boy Bluet<br>
Come sound the alarm<br>
That spring is here<br>
And winters gone</br></br></br></p>
</div>
<hr>
<h6 id="artiststatement">Artist statement</h6>
<p>This series of photographs are my attempt to breathe symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.</p>
<h6 id="download">Download</h6>
<p><a href="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/5-Little-Boy-Bluet-.jpeg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pierced]]></title><description><![CDATA[April 1972: I was back home at my parent’s house for Spring break from the Memphis College of Art when I noticed the strange looking gold hoops lying on the sink in the bathroom. They were perfectly round, about the size of a nickel, with an opening that had a gold ball on one end and a very sharp point on the other end of the loop. Next to the hoops was an instruction pamphlet that read: place the earrings on the lobe, leave in place and the earrings will self-pierce in a matter of weeks. I the]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/pierced/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f7d</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeek Taylor]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:28:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/AP-Zeek-Taylor-2--1-.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/AP-Zeek-Taylor-2--1-.jpg" alt="Pierced"/><p>April 1972: I was back home at my parent’s house for Spring break from the Memphis College of Art when I noticed the strange looking gold hoops lying on the sink in the bathroom. They were perfectly round, about the size of a nickel, with an opening that had a gold ball on one end and a very sharp point on the other end of the loop. Next to the hoops was an instruction pamphlet that read: place the earrings on the lobe, leave in place and the earrings will self-pierce in a matter of weeks. I then realized that they belonged to my mother who was going to use the devices to finally get something that she had wanted for a long time, pierced ears.</p>
<p>I laid the hoops back down on the sink and walked to the kitchen, poured myself a cup of coffee, and laced it with a shot of my Daddy’s Old Crow. My parents were away for the day visiting my Aunt Vurlene and since I had the whole house to myself, I thought it was safe to have a little morning cocktail. I figured that my Daddy wouldn’t miss one shot of whiskey from the bottle that he kept hidden under the sink.</p>
<p>He had bottles hidden here and there, in his sock drawer, in the shed out back, under the seat of his old truck, and several other places. He hid the bottles thinking my mother wouldn't know just how much that he drank. She knew. If I was careful to get a little bit of whiskey from different bottles, he would never know that I was borrowing from his stash.</p>
<p>As I sat there drinking that mixture of coffee and Old Crow, I was thinking about how happy I was to be enrolled in art school, a world so vastly different from the little Delta town in Eastern Arkansas where I had grown up, and where I picked cotton each Fall. Even though I felt at home in that little town of 650, I never felt more comfortable than I did when I was with my fellow art students, a bohemian bunch who seemed to have a view of the world so unlike the Delta folks that I grew up with. I had found my tribe.</p>
<p>There were even a couple of guys at school, sophisticated boys from up North, who had pierced ears. I admired their roguish fashion statement but I did wonder if when they were off campus, were they ever harassed and called sissy boys, or worse. That was long before it was socially acceptable for a man to wear an earring.</p>
<p>As I sat there at the kitchen table, with my fingers I traced the outline of the flowers on the plastic table cloth and I wondered how I would look with a pierced ear. Would I be brave enough, like those boys from up North, to wear an earring in public?</p>
<p>I went to my Daddy's sock drawer, found another bottle, and added a little more Old Crow to my coffee before returning to the bathroom. I placed one of the sharp-pointed earrings on my left lobe and lightly pressed. Ouch! Even in the dimly lit bathroom illuminated with a single light bulb hanging about half- way down from the 13 foot ceiling, I could see that my ear lobe was turning red. However, as I peered into the medicine cabinet mirror, I thought I looked dashing and somewhat debonair, a forward thinker, not restricted by the norms of society. I was so cool.</p>
<p>My ear was really smarting but still I saw no blood. “Oh what the Hell, it couldn’t hurt much more than it does right now.” I reached up with my right hand and pushed the pointed end of the earring on through my lobe and out the other side. I cussed and fell to my knees in pain. Back on my feet and again peering into the mirror, I said out loud, “Well, I did it and I’m glad as hell.” I was thinking, “Wowee, I can’t wait to get back to school to show off the shiny gold hoop to my friends.” There was just one problem: in a few hours, my parents would return home. My ear lobe had swelled to twice its’ normal size. I needed more whiskey.</p>
<p>Seventeen years earlier I had made the uncanny decision to be an artist. That year I won the grand prize in the first grade art contest with a crayon portrait of my mother. I drew her hair in fabulous circles with a crayon called mahogany, and in the picture, I gave her almost perfectly round checks with a carnation pink crayon. As the winner, I had my choice of either a big ol’ peppermint stick or a Chick-O- Stick, a peanut butter, toasted coconut coated concoction of a stick. I chose the Chick-O-Stick and devoured my prize during the next recess. After winning that contest, there was never any doubt in my mind that I wanted to become an artist.</p>
<p>My parents were always accepting of whatever I did, not always understanding, but accepting, and that included my desire to have a career as an artist. They at times ask me "Now how do you make money doing that?”</p>
<p>Besides my career choice, they accepted without question or criticism, other things that I'd done that first year while in art school that seemed way off base to them, like letting my hair grow down past my shoulders, wearing raggedy bell bottoms, wearing strange sandals imported from India, and refusing to eat meat. Neither did they understand my practice of Transcendental Meditation. After all, they were Methodists.</p>
<p>While I was sitting at the kitchen table on that day during my Spring Break, I kept thinking that I might have gone a little too far this time with the ear piercing. To have a son wearing an earring just might be too much for them.</p>
<p>I spent a very long afternoon, drinking even more spiked coffee, being careful to not take too much whiskey from any one bottle. I figured that the whiskey would calm my nerves while the coffee would keep me somewhat sober. Every so often, I ventured into the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror, admiring my new look while at the same time regretting my action. I would douse my earlobe with rubbing alcohol, cuss some more at the stinging caused by the alcohol, but mostly, I was just waiting and waiting and waiting. Time seemed to crawl and I got more anxious. My ear continued to throb.</p>
<p>It was going on four o’clock when I heard their car drive up. There was no mistaken the smooth purr from the V8 motor of my mother’s Chrysler station wagon. My parents were home. As they got out of the car, I peeked at them through the gingham curtains hanging above the kitchen sink. They looked happy enough. That seemed like a good sign.</p>
<p>With my courage bolstered by the Old Crow, I bravely awaited my fate as they came into the house. However, when the doorknob turned, I didn’t feel so brave. I made small talk, asked about their visit, while keeping my head turned at just the right angle so there would be no glint of gold. While my mother was sitting her purse on the table, she saw it. She tilted her head slightly to the side, and gave it a little shake like people do when they see something not quite right. She straightened her head up and then to my surprise, all she said was, “How come you only pierced one ear?”</p>
<p>My father didn’t say a word. His silence continued for the next few days. On the last day of my Spring break, my father and I were sitting in some lawn chairs out in the back yard under a mimosa tree. Even though it was not yet that hot, I could feel the sweat running down my spine from the nape of my neck all the way to my waistband, dampening my bell bottoms. I looked over at my father who looked as cool as a cucumber in a very dressy straw yellow hat with a green hatband. When not in the house he always had on a hat. He was also wearing an orange flowered Hawaiian shirt. My father was a very large man and he seemed even larger when wearing those wildly colored shirts, but then, that was the only thing I can remember him ever doing that was outside of what I considered his safe zone. That day, he looked bigger than ever.</p>
<p>I sat there on that green metal chair, getting hotter and more nervous by the minute. I was heading back to Memphis that afternoon and I could not leave without knowing what my father was thinking and feeling. Was he disappointed in me? Ashamed of me?</p>
<p>He shifted a little in his chair, took a bottle from his back pocket, and took a swig. I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Daddy, did you notice that I pierced my ear?” He looked me straight in the eye. “Yes, I saw the earring. It's your damn ear. You can do with it whatever you want to do.” He continued, “There is a big world out there that I don't understand. You do. You need to do and should do whatever it takes to make you happy.”</p>
<p>I knew then that everything was going to be alright.</p>
<p>Even after all these years, I'm glad that I pierced my ear. And yes, I still feel cool.</p>
<hr>
<p>Photograph from The Artist Series by <a href="http://johnrankineart.com/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">John Rankine</a></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Silent Night]]></title><description><![CDATA[Silently you fall
And kill without a sound
The old, the poor
The sick and unsound
You kill the exposed
Who can’t pay their bills
They die in their beds
In the Arkansas hills
In houses and shacks
Long ago new
They search for warmth
And food for a few
You gave the blessed
A beautiful morning
And touched a heart or two
But for those who shake
Under threadbare blankets
You’re ugly as sin
And they rue the day
They ever laid eyes
On you.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/silent-night/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f7f</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:28:09 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/aral-tasher-324864.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/aral-tasher-324864.jpg" alt="Silent Night"/><p>Silently you fall<br>
And kill without a sound<br>
The old, the poor<br>
The sick and unsound<br>
You kill the exposed<br>
Who can’t pay their bills<br>
They die in their beds<br>
In the Arkansas hills<br>
In houses and shacks<br>
Long ago new<br>
They search for warmth<br>
And food for a few<br>
You gave the blessed<br>
A beautiful morning<br>
And touched a heart or two<br>
But for those who shake<br>
Under threadbare blankets<br>
You’re ugly as sin<br>
And they rue the day<br>
They ever laid eyes<br>
On you.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[On the Road with Emily]]></title><description><![CDATA[It’s not that her vision was too small
but her experience too limited, too sad
She wanted for fresh horizons
so I decided to take Miss Emily
on a road trip. She sits shotgun--
insists upon it—while I drive.
We let Google Maps navigate
so we can focus on weightier matters
like the transcendence of the soul,
the ephemerality of experience, and
whether pan pizza is superior to thin crust.
We see the sights. I realize
that I’m thirsty, but she only tastes
a liquor never brewed. We ke]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/on-the-road-with-emily/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f85</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[William Bernhardt]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:27:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/clem-onojeghuo-136261.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/clem-onojeghuo-136261.jpg" alt="On the Road with Emily"/><p>It’s not that her vision was too small<br>
but her experience too limited, too sad<br>
She wanted for fresh horizons<br>
so I decided to take Miss Emily</br></br></br></p>
<p>on a road trip. She sits shotgun--<br>
insists upon it—while I drive.<br>
We let Google Maps navigate<br>
so we can focus on weightier matters</br></br></br></p>
<p>like the transcendence of the soul,<br>
the ephemerality of experience, and<br>
whether pan pizza is superior to thin crust.<br>
We see the sights. I realize</br></br></br></p>
<p>that I’m thirsty, but she only tastes<br>
a liquor never brewed. We keep the Sabbath<br>
staying in the car, and we both freak<br>
when we hear a fly buzz. I’m not</br></br></br></p>
<p>stopping, I inform her, not for Death,<br>
not for immortality, and not for<br>
clean restrooms, 17 mi. ahead.<br>
We finally make it</br></br></br></p>
<p>to the beach, though she tells me<br>
she was hoping for Disneyland.<br>
She dips her toes into the Pacific—<br>
and the eyes of the Wren</br></br></br></p>
<p>are electrified. She sheds the white<br>
and dons capris. She joins<br>
the women’s volleyball team, and wins.<br>
She sunbathes topless.</br></br></br></p>
<p>As we leave the beach long past dusk<br>
she takes my hand and tells me,<br>
Now she knows what it means to be a Belle<br>
but why would she ever write poetry?</br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Arkansas Haikus]]></title><description><![CDATA[Technology grief
Feelings of incompetence
Fight- feelings at least.
Trumpets hark of doom
Black swan with orange toupee
Divides the water.
Prairie fires are low,
Fake news is the oxygen.
The truth disappears in flames.
Prioritize. Pray.
Find oxygen in water.
Drown fear, have your say.
Regulation woes.
Deregulation chaos.
Where do I fit in?
Sure of their leanings,
Lemmings are marching this year.
The cliff is a myth.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/arkansas-haikus/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f90</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sharon Spurlin]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:27:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/marat-gilyadzinov-65163.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/marat-gilyadzinov-65163.jpg" alt="Arkansas Haikus"/><p>Technology grief<br>
Feelings of incompetence<br>
Fight- feelings at least.</br></br></p>
<p>Trumpets hark of doom<br>
Black swan with orange toupee<br>
Divides the water.</br></br></p>
<p>Prairie fires are low,<br>
Fake news is the oxygen.<br>
The truth disappears in flames.</br></br></p>
<p>Prioritize. Pray.<br>
Find oxygen in water.<br>
Drown fear, have your say.</br></br></p>
<p>Regulation woes.<br>
Deregulation chaos.<br>
Where do I fit in?</br></br></p>
<p>Sure of their leanings,<br>
Lemmings are marching this year.<br>
The cliff is a myth.</br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Anniversary Gift]]></title><description><![CDATA[On a steep trail in the National Forest,
Deep in a remote area of Crawford County, Arkansas,
I pushed off hard to make it up over
The tangle of large rocks on that stretch.
So focused was I on my feet that I failed to see the branch
above.
The crack of my head on the branch knocked me back,
Back into a slow motion timeless fall
Where I seemed to drift.
While my body tried to find its balance
My mind raced ahead, enumerating my options,
Hoping for a miracle on a hillside
strewn with]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-anniversary-gift/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f89</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lynn Packham Larson]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:27:35 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/scott-webb-16955.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/scott-webb-16955.jpg" alt="The Anniversary Gift"/><p>On a steep trail in the National Forest,<br>
Deep in a remote area of Crawford County, Arkansas,<br>
I pushed off hard to make it up over<br>
The tangle of large rocks on that stretch.</br></br></br></p>
<p>So focused was I on my feet that I failed to see the branch<br>
above.<br>
The crack of my head on the branch knocked me back,<br>
Back into a slow motion timeless fall<br>
Where I seemed to drift.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>While my body tried to find its balance<br>
My mind raced ahead, enumerating my options,<br>
Hoping for a miracle on a hillside<br>
strewn with loose rock.</br></br></br></p>
<p>It was soon clear that the hope of<br>
Regaining my balance was overcome by<br>
The reality of tumbling backward<br>
Head first down that slope.</br></br></br></p>
<p>Then, it was over.<br>
I was still upright, more or less.<br>
He had reached out and caught me.<br>
With his hands under my arms, he put me back on my feet.</br></br></br></p>
<p>I rubbed the knot on my head,<br>
While we talked and blamed<br>
My ridiculous huge sunglasses for<br>
Obscuring my view of the branch.</br></br></br></p>
<p>As we walked on I couldn’t stop thinking,<br>
He caught me.<br>
How many times, in how many ways, over how many years<br>
Has he caught me?</br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Shock and Aphonia]]></title><description><![CDATA[Reaper grim. Him again.
Scratched her mind, 78 rpm.
Dead wax, matrix grooved.
Silent spin. Slowly moved.
She knew Ben was speaking,
but she couldn’t hear.
Was he rubbing her back?
She felt nothing, no tear.
She saw his eyes searching hers for the tell. All she could do was turn off her cell.
Then...
"Finn is dead."
she thought she said
her brain fraught,
fought thought
“I’ll never again see, my forever Plan B.”
head spinning right round like a record
baby, does sho]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/shock-and-aphonia-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f81</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jocelyn Morelli]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:27:26 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/kai-oberhauser-56954.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/kai-oberhauser-56954.jpg" alt="Shock and Aphonia"/><p>Reaper grim. Him again.<br>
Scratched her mind, 78 rpm.<br>
Dead wax, matrix grooved.<br>
Silent spin. Slowly moved.</br></br></br></p>
<p>She knew Ben was speaking,<br>
but she couldn’t hear.<br>
Was he rubbing her back?<br>
She felt nothing, no tear.<br>
She saw his eyes searching hers for the tell. All she could do was turn off her cell.<br>
Then...</br></br></br></br></br></p>
<pre><code> "Finn is dead."
</code></pre>
<p>she thought she said<br>
her brain fraught,<br>
fought thought</br></br></p>
<pre><code> “I’ll never again see, my forever Plan B.”
</code></pre>
<p>head spinning right round like a record<br>
baby, does shock well<br>
can't you tell?<br>
in fear<br>
sans beer<br>
mind clear<br>
loaded shot<br>
sharp shocked<br>
full on cocked<br>
automatic glocked<br>
tic<br>
tic<br>
tic<br>
tocked<br>
body revolt alarm clock</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<pre><code> "A bathroom in sight, on the right.
</code></pre>
<p>she took flight<br>
steady paced<br>
she graced<br>
the hall<br>
braced the wall<br>
up to<br>
a door marked "W."</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<pre><code> "Don't fall In the stall.
Don't mess in the dress.
You're the mess in the dress.
Confess...
You
loved him
more.
He
loved you
less.”
</code></pre>
<p>Over her head the dress she took<br>
then shook, then hooked on the hook<br>
to maintain its look.<br>
It hung. Hanging.</br></br></br></p>
<p>Tights pulled down to the ground<br>
she sat with a moan<br>
shat in the throne<br>
Then peed</br></br></br></p>
<pre><code> “What a waste.”
</code></pre>
<p>Still holding her phone.</p>
<p>Her bowels gave loose<br>
tightened the noose<br>
'round her gut.</br></br></p>
<pre><code> "Finn was a nut. That door is shut."
</code></pre>
<p>Puking up Finn<br>
In a stainless steel bin<br>
'top of sanitary napkins<br>
solid with sin<br>
Each shed<br>
Bore shades of red<br>
born of women who only bleed<br>
and bleed<br>
And bled for a<br>
Hymn<br>
Or a him</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<pre><code> "Fuck Finn."
</code></pre>
<p>She wiped her ass clean<br>
with the best ply in town.<br>
She stood up in heels<br>
tights still ankle down.</br></br></br></p>
<p>Tore off the silver “Finnship” bracelet<br>
They’d worn matching for years.<br>
Facing the toilet,<br>
no thoughts,<br>
no tears.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Tossed the thing<br>
Into the pristine white bowl<br>
Watching it<br>
sink<br>
sink<br>
sink<br>
in a blink<br>
An ingredient of contaminated soup<br>
spiced by her shock;<br>
soiled triple ply<br>
shit brown shit<br>
bright yellow pee</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>a vile smile<br>
pea green with bile<br>
swept cross her face</br></br></p>
<pre><code> “I’m done with him. I want out of this place.”
</code></pre>
<p>There it was simmering...<br>
Her pastiche.</br></p>
<p>An ode to a "waste" of time/life/not want/ not admitting,<br>
even her nerves knew not,<br>
knot in her subconscious stomach<br>
oblivious to the silver sacrifice of heart broken promise,<br>
once held sacred to<br>
two.</br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>One silver bracelet offered in earnest by a dead guy.<br>
Placed in a manila personal property envelope adorned with the logo of upscale morgue.</br></p>
<p>The other of two,<br>
to one of the many fancy high rise hotel's porcelain thrones.<br>
She pushed the brushed nickel handle down Saying goodbye with a<br>
Royal Flush.</br></br></br></p>
<p>Flushed she looked staring at herself in the bathroom mirror after cleaning up, pulling up, gathering up. Now touching up makeup.</p>
<pre><code> "Make up? I gotta make up with Finn. Someday. Not this one. Fuck him."
</code></pre>
<p>She thought. Her forehead taut. From a Botox shot. Set in. Perfectly masking her pain.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Snow White]]></title><description><![CDATA[
A deep sleep
Frozen dreams await the thaw
The tender caress of spring
Brushing, oh so gently against her cheek
Artist statement
This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.
Download
Full Image
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/snow-white/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f9e</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Rankine]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:27:17 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Snow-white--1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><div class="centered">
<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Snow-white--1.jpg" alt="Snow White"/><p>A deep sleep<br>
Frozen dreams await the thaw<br>
The tender caress of spring<br>
Brushing, oh so gently against her cheek</br></br></br></p>
</div>
<hr>
<h6 id="artiststatement">Artist statement</h6>
<p>This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.</p>
<h6 id="download">Download</h6>
<p><a href="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/7-Snow-White-.jpeg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Beaver Lake in Winter]]></title><description><![CDATA[I touched Beaver Lake today
She was cold
Her heart barely beating
Alive though
Her banks retreating
No one rode on her skin today
Or swam in her arms
Or came out to play
She bled through the dam
Though she had little to give
For lights, for air
For others to live
She sparkles in the sunrise
Of each new day
Waiting for summer’s warmth
A heartbeat away.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/beaver-lake-in-winter/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f7e</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:27:04 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Cloudy_Beaver_Lake_at_Lost_Bridge_Marina.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Cloudy_Beaver_Lake_at_Lost_Bridge_Marina.jpg" alt="Beaver Lake in Winter"/><p>I touched Beaver Lake today<br>
She was cold<br>
Her heart barely beating<br>
Alive though<br>
Her banks retreating<br>
No one rode on her skin today<br>
Or swam in her arms<br>
Or came out to play<br>
She bled through the dam<br>
Though she had little to give<br>
For lights, for air<br>
For others to live<br>
She sparkles in the sunrise<br>
Of each new day<br>
Waiting for summer’s warmth<br>
A heartbeat away.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ice Cream in Heaven]]></title><description><![CDATA[I was living in a third floor apartment in a large house on a tree-lined street in Thunder Bay. An elderly couple and their unmarried son, Walter, rattled around the other two floors. They were the last three family members still living in a house once inhabited by a family of twelve children and an assortment of dogs and cats. All of them, including the dogs and cats, were my friends when I was growing up next door.
Darleen, a daughter of the family, who lived in Arizona, came to visit her br]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/ice-cream-in-heaven/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f83</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Joan Baril]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:26:55 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/evan-kirby-71617.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/evan-kirby-71617.jpg" alt="Ice Cream in Heaven"/><p>I was living in a third floor apartment in a large house on a tree-lined street in Thunder Bay. An elderly couple and their unmarried son, Walter, rattled around the other two floors. They were the last three family members still living in a house once inhabited by a family of twelve children and an assortment of dogs and cats. All of them, including the dogs and cats, were my friends when I was growing up next door.</p>
<p>Darleen, a daughter of the family, who lived in Arizona, came to visit her brother and parents one summer bringing with her two young granddaughters about nine years of age. Their names were Jeanette and Gloria. They were chubby sprites, blue eyed and full of life but bored because their grandmother, Darleen, had no car or no money to take them anywhere and neither did the old folks or their Uncle Walter. I learned the children spent their days in the huge living room with its faded drapes and shabby furniture, colouring on scraps of paper or watching TV.</p>
<p>“I’m going swimming at the indoor pool on Saturday,” I said, “and if they have bathing suits they can come with me.”</p>
<p>In the car, the girls sat in the back conversing together in whispers. “Do you think Satan can come as far north as Thunder Bay?” Gloria whispered to Jeanette.</p>
<p>“Satan can fly anywhere,” Jeanette said. “He’s invidious.”</p>
<p>The misused word made me smile but Gloria’s reply was a shock.</p>
<p>“Sometimes he tricks us,” Gloria said. “That’s why our parents whip us. To defeat Satan.”</p>
<p>“Everyone gets whipped sometime,” answered Jeanette, “but not too often we hope, don’t we?” And to my surprise, they giggled.</p>
<p>The bathing suits were ill fitting and Gloria’s, made of stretchy blue wool, had a few small holes here and there, as if nibbled by moths. It turned out neither of the girls could swim but they paddled in the small pool and leaned back into the hot tub, obviously pleased. Afterwards, we stopped for ice cream cones.</p>
<p>When I brought them home, I said, “Come upstairs and visit me sometime.”</p>
<p>Their faces lit up. “Maybe after church tomorrow, ok?” Jeanette said.</p>
<p>The next day, I heard them whispering on the landing outside my door and I opened it to find them turning away down the stairs.</p>
<p>“No, no. Don’t go,” I called. “You’re welcome to pay a visit.”</p>
<p>I planned to take them for a walk but it was raining so hard that I suggested they might like to look at my costume books. At that time, I was teaching Women’s History and had a selection of hard covers about costumes of the past, as well as some old-fashioned cutout books and colouring books. Their eyes lit up when they saw my stand-up box of one hundred pencil crayons plus my electric pencil sharpener on the wall. After much whispered debate, they chose a colouring book called Great Women in History and, picking facing pages, Jeanette tackled Cleopatra while Gloria took on Queen Elizabeth the First.</p>
<p>Later I brought out milk and cookies. This was the first of many visits. I also took them to Boulevard Lake for more swimming and a hike to Trowbridge Falls, which was not a success. The girls were dressed as usual in full-skirted dresses with unsuitable shoes; they did not seem to own slacks or runners and complained about walking the short distance.</p>
<p>Their favourite occupations by far were coloring in the costume-coloring book, sharpening and resharpening the pencil crayons—some of them were soon reduced to nubs—and asking me questions. Did I think Heaven was the most beautiful place in the world? Was Jesus more important than God? Was there ice cream in heaven?”</p>
<p>“I’m sure of it,” I said and, taking the hint, suggested we get in the car and try ice cream here on earth.</p>
<p>I always answered simply, with a yes or no, or more often: “I’m not really sure,” hoping to turn the subject away from religion, but it seemed to be their only topic of interest. Often, when I did the dishes or worked on schoolwork in the living room, I could easily tune into their soft voices as they discussed theological and metaphysical questions, which were paramount to them. Was there really such a thing as hell? Did little babies go there? How do you know when someone is dead? Does smoking always kill you? If you have one drink, are you an alcoholic?</p>
<p>One day after work, burdened as usual with books and a brief case of schoolwork, I came in the back door to the small vestibule ready to climb the two runs of stairs to my apartment. But it was immediately obvious some sort of commotion was occurring in the main house. I could hear both the children weeping loudly as everyone, Darleen, Walter, and the two ancient great-grandparents, berated them angrily. The only words I could make out came from Walter who said, “That is just plain silly.”</p>
<p>“You’ll just have to go back right now,” I heard Darleen say. The door from the main house opened, and the two girls, both crying, ran out. They stopped when they saw me and, together, in one motion, bowed their heads as they sidled around me towards the outer door. Darleen was behind them saying, “And don’t drop the money this time.”</p>
<p>She turned to me. “I sent them to the store to get milk but they ran back without buying it and dropped a quarter somewhere on the street. They’ll never find it now.”</p>
<p>“We saw this awful man in the trees outside the store,” sobbed Gloria.</p>
<p>“He was horrible and we got scared, so we ran home,” Jeanette whimpered.</p>
<p>“Oh my,” I said. “How scary for you.”</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t bother about all that nonsense,” Darleen said to me. Turning to the children, she waved her arms, “Get going. Get,” and the two little girls fled outside.</p>
<p>“But Darleen,” I said, “a child’s instinct, their intuition, told them something was amiss. You don’t know what—”</p>
<p>“Ah, phooey to that,” said Darleen, opening the door to the main part of the house. “Those spoiled brats never do what they’re told.”</p>
<p>I was amazed that such a fuss had been made over the loss of a quarter, and angry that the girls’ perceptions were given no credence by anyone. When they next came upstairs to visit, I tried to proceed carefully. “I’m sure you did right by leaving. It’s always best to run away from something scary.”</p>
<p>“Wow,” said Gloria. “He was really, really scary.”</p>
<p>“Did he say anything?” I paused. “Or do anything?”</p>
<p>“No, he was just horrible,” Jeanette said.</p>
<p>“What was so horrible about him?” I asked.</p>
<p>“Everything. Really, really horrible,” Gloria said, and the two bent over their colouring. As usual, they were working on opposite pages, one on Catherine the Great and the other on Clara Barton.</p>
<p>A knock brought Darleen in to call them down to supper. They showed her the box of pencil crayons and the pages they were working on.</p>
<p>This turned out to be a mistake.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I made ready to take them swimming as usual. But they did not come up the stairs so I went down. Gloria answered my knock, opening the door to the kitchen. Jeanette was standing by the table but none of the adults were in the room.</p>
<p>“We can’t come with you any more,” said Gloria. “Or visit you any more. Our grandmother does not like that book about women. She says it’s not a good book. But anyway, we’re going back to Arizona soon.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” I said, completely dumbfounded and shocked. It took my brain a minute to take the situation in. I had become very fond of these children. My own two daughters were grown up and married and these two reminded me of my little girls of long ago. I realized I was suddenly, stunningly, heartbroken. Two wonderful friends were being taken from me. And all for the silliest reason: a colouring book entitled Great Women of History.</p>
<p>I opened my mouth to say something but could think of nothing to say in front of two pairs of calm, blue eyes.</p>
<p>“We didn’t know it was a bad book,” Jeanette said. She shrugged as if to say, what can you do?</p>
<p>“So, good-bye,” said Gloria, and she closed the door.</p>
<hr>
<p>I caught not one glimpse of the girls until a few days later when, looking out the front window, I saw them with Darleen on the sidewalk, each with a battered suitcase in hand. Their Uncle Walter helped them into the cab and they waved as they pulled away. I could not see the old couple, their great-grandparents, but I thought they might be standing at the front window.</p>
<p>I waved too but, of course, no one waved back.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Subtext]]></title><description><![CDATA[In this distance-learning class
I have sixteen students
from seven separate schools
and of those eager, energetic souls
four are named Caitlyn (Kaitlyn/Kaitlin/Katelyn).
Statistically speaking, this means
25% of the class is named Caitlyn.
And each of them spells it differently.
I am reduced to calling on
Kaitlin from Guthrie, or
Caitlyn in Choctaw. But in
my mind I’m hearing
Kaitlyn, the Amazon Warrior
Caitlyn, Assassin of the Cult of the Red Scimitars
Kaitlyn Who Must Be Obeyed,]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/subtext/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f86</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[William Bernhardt]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:26:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/jj-thompson-142854.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/jj-thompson-142854.jpg" alt="Subtext"/><p>In this distance-learning class<br>
I have sixteen students<br>
from seven separate schools<br>
and of those eager, energetic souls<br>
four are named Caitlyn (Kaitlyn/Kaitlin/Katelyn).<br>
Statistically speaking, this means<br>
25% of the class is named Caitlyn.<br>
And each of them spells it differently.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>I am reduced to calling on<br>
Kaitlin from Guthrie, or<br>
Caitlyn in Choctaw. But in<br>
my mind I’m hearing<br>
Kaitlyn, the Amazon Warrior<br>
Caitlyn, Assassin of the Cult of the Red Scimitars<br>
Kaitlyn Who Must Be Obeyed, and<br>
Katelyn, Princess of the Land That Time Forgot</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>They will never know<br>
how I keep them distinct<br>
or how I amuse myself<br>
as I discuss the evils of passive voice<br>
but that is because they are unaware<br>
that I am not merely their English teacher<br>
but in reality<br>
Sir William, Professor of the Seven Secret Signs<br>
Last Practitioner of Shimbitzu—the<br>
deadliest of the martial arts—and<br>
Hallowed Knight of the Sacred Scratches.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Aerie]]></title><description><![CDATA[Matthew Youngblood carefully removed binoculars from his daypack. He trained them on the top of a finger of rock that stood, separated 30 or 40 feet from the southwest rim of the ridge that he was lying on, stomach down. The finger of rock was a column of sandstone, maybe 50 feet high, tapering upward and flat on top, piled with sticks.
The hike to this remote site had been prompted by his observation of a magnificent bald eagle hen that he’d been watching for several weeks. The burgeoning eag]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-aerie/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f8b</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dan Morris]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:26:22 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/ran-berkovich-59513.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/ran-berkovich-59513.jpg" alt="The Aerie"/><p>Matthew Youngblood carefully removed binoculars from his daypack. He trained them on the top of a finger of rock that stood, separated 30 or 40 feet from the southwest rim of the ridge that he was lying on, stomach down. The finger of rock was a column of sandstone, maybe 50 feet high, tapering upward and flat on top, piled with sticks.</p>
<p>The hike to this remote site had been prompted by his observation of a magnificent bald eagle hen that he’d been watching for several weeks. The burgeoning eagle population occupying high nesting sites near human settlements was becoming more common. General interest in the come-back of eagles drew readers. Matt had received recognition from the Colorado Audubon Society for his photography in local publications. He was the go-to photographer by bird watchers and ornithologists alike. Their appreciation of his eye and his dedication to his specialty made him particularly interested in this particular specimen.</p>
<p>As a kid, he had begun collecting bird nests in his backyard and neighborhood. After taking up photography in college, he had transferred his collection from real stick-and-mud nests to digital images and his collection had grown into the hundreds. The nests were incredibly diverse and varied in size, ranging from tiny hanging baskets of vireos to the treetop heronries of the great blue heron, where dozens of birds nest collectively.</p>
<p>He also had several aeries in his collection, this one belonging to the largest eagle he had tracked yet. This nest promised to yield a load of useful information, as it sat atop a pillar that appeared to be more than twelve feet in diameter. The top of the pillar seemed accessible by climbing the 50-feet of nearly vertical sandstone using the rubble and cracked rock between it and the ridge on which Matt was lying.</p>
<p>He had made himself familiar with the eagle’s habits over the past few months and had noted that the huge predator usually left her nest as the eastern sky flooded with full morning sunlight, providing the first thermals of the day. With her young still in the nest, she generally was back in her aerie by noon carrying an unlucky small animal, a snake or a fish from the river nearby. Under Matt’s observation, the Queen of the Eastern Slope had recently enjoyed her daily meal at or near the site of the kill. Her chicks were grown and gone. Now she could cruise around and return to her aerie an hour or so later, preen and groom herself during the afternoon, and sleepily watch her kingdom from her majestic rock perch.</p>
<p>At this point in his observation, the eagle had been away from her nest just about a half hour. He made his final visual check to ensure there were no more fledglings still in the nest. The code of conduct proscribed by the Society discouraged any close contact with immature birds.</p>
<p>Matt double-checked the distant speck circling in the sky far to the south that was almost out of visual range. He stowed his binoculars in his pack and began picking his way carefully down to the base of the vertical crag looking for a stairway up the spire to the target of his photographic inquiry. The crag offered little resistance. Footholds and handholds appeared every few yards, and he ascended the spire patiently, noting possible complications for the climb back down.</p>
<p>His pulse quickened as his head cleared the rim of the stone aerie. Gripping the edge of the rock platform that was littered with with sticks, brush, feathers and bones, he noted the presence among the litter of clean white skulls of many sizes and species. This would be an excellent record of the bird’s feeding habits, he thought, and he immediately felt confident his photographs from this site would be some of the best he’d collected so far.</p>
<p>He pulled himself completely onto the sandstone tabletop, unshouldered his pack, and pulled his camera out efficiently, having repeated the maneuver hundreds of times. He concentrated intently on the camera’s small screen and clicked off a dozen shots of the nest as a whole. Then he carefully stepped forward into the litter and began to document more closely the eagle’s prey, knowing that it was the sort of detailed information that would fascinate the more serious ornithologists in the local chapter.</p>
<p>He stopped dead as he focused on a clean skull centered in his viewfinder. He moved the camera away and knelt over the skull to examine it closely with his naked eyes. It looked human, though small, only slightly larger than a grapefruit. He picked up a stick and carefully prodded the skull face upward. It was unmistakably the skull of a small child, with only two tiny teeth barely emerging from the upper jawbone. He snapped several pictures of the skull and stepped carefully around further into the litter and sticks. He concentrated on positioning himself according to the direction of the sunlight to continue photographing the aerie, but the impact of recording human remains sent a chilling sense of horror up the back of his neck, raising hairs as it went.</p>
<p>He focused on another pile of bones and felt the return of the chill as he found another skull. He stood up, took a deep breath, and struggled to clear his mind. The macabre scene at his feet was disabling his ability to think clearly. He looked in the sky to the south. He couldn't immediately see the eagle. He picked up his water bottle, bent forward and poured water on his head and face. He set the bottle down on the rock near his pack and picked up his camera again.</p>
<p>In the next few minutes, Matt documented the remains of six or seven human infants or small children scattered in the debris across the stone slab, which he now began to consider as something of a sacrificial alter. At one point he glanced over the edge of the table top on the side opposite the crag ladder and noted that the drop from that point was more than a hundred feet, and at the bottom a scattering of more bones glinted in the sunlight. He thought he could probably reach this other cache of bones as he descended if he could find a route down around the base of the spire. But, in case he was unable to find a way to the lower depository of carnage, he held his camera out over the shelf’s edge and snapped a few shots.</p>
<p>At the third click of the shutter, the sound of air moving rapidly through feathers filled his ears like a clap of thunder, and then, in the next moment, he felt the bruising impact of a 40-pound bird hitting the back of his neck at nearly 60 miles an hour. The impact instantly knocked him into the empty space over the bone pit far below. With the shock of the blow, he barely registered the pain that must have resulted from the talons tearing the flesh around his neck and face. And his revulsion at the horror of finding infant human remains was replaced by the more unspeakable horror of instantly knowing his own bones would be picked clean by the feathered ruler of the sandstone aerie.</p>
<p>. . . . . . end . . . . .</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Blossom]]></title><description><![CDATA[Blossom
“…old in a blossoming earth” Robert Creeley
In the south of my childhood, time passed
like a plate of ham. Grandma made lard biscuits,
cooked rashers of bacon, fried lamb chops,
presided over the hugging and sassing
and eating and telling and pulling of sticker burrs.
I looked to her for solace and solutions. She delivered
axioms and injunctions and was indifferent to the one,
strong chin hair that grew and when pulled, grew again,
unkillable as a cockroach. How and why
d]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/blossom/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f94</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:26:06 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/andrew-ridley-185915.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/andrew-ridley-185915.jpg" alt="Blossom"/><p>Blossom<br>
“…old in a blossoming earth” Robert Creeley</br></p>
<p>In the south of my childhood, time passed<br>
like a plate of ham. Grandma made lard biscuits,</br></p>
<p>cooked rashers of bacon, fried lamb chops,<br>
presided over the hugging and sassing</br></p>
<p>and eating and telling and pulling of sticker burrs.<br>
I looked to her for solace and solutions. She delivered</br></p>
<p>axioms and injunctions and was indifferent to the one,<br>
strong chin hair that grew and when pulled, grew again,</br></p>
<p>unkillable as a cockroach. How and why<br>
do a woman’s eyebrows grow both thin and wild?</br></p>
<p>In the south of my childhood, we knew our place<br>
and kept it until, like grandma our strength of hand</br></p>
<p>declined to loss of grip as silverware tumbled<br>
from our fingers like petals from a blossoming limb.</br></p>
<p>From <em>Rat’s Ass Review</em></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Talon]]></title><description><![CDATA[
Buried deep
Beneath the towering oak
She claws her way back north.
Desperate and in need of air
She loses a nail along the way.
Artist statement
This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.
Download
Full Image
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/talon/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f9f</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Rankine]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:25:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Talon-.jpeg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><div class="centered">
<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Talon-.jpeg" alt="Talon"/><p>Buried deep<br>
Beneath the towering oak<br>
She claws her way back north.<br>
Desperate and in need of air<br>
She loses a nail along the way.</br></br></br></br></p>
</div>
<hr>
<h6 id="artiststatement">Artist statement</h6>
<p>This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.</p>
<h6 id="download">Download</h6>
<p><a href="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/8-Talon-.jpeg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[On Dyslexia]]></title><description><![CDATA[Chapter One of an "in process" memoir
I can’t read more than two pages without a break. Yet, the form of word has always held my attention. My earliest memory of reading is seeing nothing but letters. I walked through a city of capital Bs and stepped over lower case gs watching Ss swirl overhead and js chase the quirky qs. I held an open book on my lap and fell into the dance of letters on the page. Letters that moved when touched by adjacent characters—tall and small, 30-point and 12, Times N]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/on-dyslexia/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f91</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lissa Lord]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:25:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/wordsoverkansas.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h4 id="chapteroneofaninprocessmemoir">Chapter One of an "in process" memoir</h4>
<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/wordsoverkansas.jpg" alt="On Dyslexia"/><p>I can’t read more than two pages without a break. Yet, the form of word has always held my attention. My earliest memory of reading is seeing nothing but letters. I walked through a city of capital <strong>B</strong>s and stepped over lower case <strong>g</strong>s watching <strong>S</strong>s swirl overhead and <strong>j</strong>s chase the quirky <strong>q</strong>s. I held an open book on my lap and fell into the dance of letters on the page. Letters that moved when touched by adjacent characters—tall and small, 30-point and 12, Times New Roman and Arial.</p>
<p>Dancing with letters was the good about reading. The bad stood as Miss Jones, my second grade teacher. She was as crabby as she was beautiful—tall and slender with short, perky hair the color of a black crayon. I sensed she didn’t like me or any of the children in her class. To my eyes, she saw me as <em>BAD</em>. After reading <em>Fun With Dick and Jane</em> (oh, how I loved Dick and Jane) she insisted, “Letters stick together to form words, Lissa.” Oh, my gosh, she knew my letters played on the page! She knew I was not <em>good</em>.</p>
<p>I sensed deep down that there was a blockage of some kind between my brain and words printed on the page. I remember the personal disappointment that I couldn’t get it—reading wasn’t coming along for me as it was for my classmates. I can touch the edge of that sadness and remember the ache as I sat with it not knowing what else to do.</p>
<p>Tenderly, I remember the Yellow Bird reading group. In a dream, I see us sitting on a low riser—the first row of audience participation reserved for “special readers.” I watch the parade of the alphabet’s 26 letters march by as they change into limitless combinations displayed within pigments of color.</p>
<p>You know those plastic magnetic letters that children play with on refrigerator doors? Letters felt like that to me—like I could stick them on my forehead and move them into various spaces of play right there above my eyes. They were pieces of energy, each one a bit different from the next. Letters were objects of endless possibility.</p>
<p>I suppose creative vision arises in as many ways as people differ and that each one of us is born with challenges and gifts. Like slow-rising dough, the gift within dyslexia waited patiently for me to discover more to a grouping of letters than the inharmonious sounding-out of words.</p>
<h5 id="squaredanceoftheyellowbirds">Square Dance of the Yellow Birds</h5>
<p>I was assigned to the Yellow Bird reading group—not the Red Bird or the rather brusque Blue Jay group where smart kids sat moving their lips as they read out loud. I’d watch the “page turners” from my desk of boredom as their pages turned at the same time!</p>
<p>My Yellow Bird associates were boys who squirmed and wiggled and were told to “sit still” every three minutes. I, the Yellow Bird in a skirt my mother had pressed before school, sat oh so still and sometimes yearned to be just Red—not wanting to push my luck to Blue. With legs folded underneath, I sat in a circle with the boys on the cold brown linoleum floor in room 2-A. I sat there thinking about those interesting shapes upon the page—those letters within the words.</p>
<p>Dyslexia has always been the edge of my life—it bounds everything else. Learning to read felt much like being on roller skates in a rink of fast moving others, while a slow moving me struggled just to keep legs and wits together. If words offered nothing more than the struggle to read, my world would be gray. Introduction to reading was an exhausting battle in which winning came hard. Conversely, inside each troubling word, creativity winked. On top of the struggle was dance. Art was waiting for me because fearful Friday spelling bees and flash card contests did not inspire. The chaotic and confused years of having a brain that refused to be driven to the expected, drove me to the surprise of creative awakening and delight in self.</p>
<p>Reading was not my reality—the real was a poetic listening to text within artistic vision. I didn’t know to call it poetry when text sounded lyrical and had the look of my mother’s sheet music lying on the piano. Poetry is not straightforward. The schoolgirl me and the adult me meet in a reflection of personal experience with word. Then, as now, I select and write words that fit my voice. Poetry slides in while sidestepping expected style and verse.</p>
<p><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Chapter1-Dyslexia-Lissa.jpg" alt="On Dyslexia" loading="lazy"/></p>
<h5 id="survivalskills">Survival skills</h5>
<p>Standardized tests were my nemesis. I never did well filling in tiny ovals with the worn lead of a No.2 pencil. I’m remembering how I slipped out of taking the ACT for college admission.</p>
<p>During both my junior and senior years of high school, I registered to take the ACT, a college requirement. I worried my way past the test dates (and the make-up test dates) for both years. As painful as the avoidance was, it was preferable to taking the exam. I dreaded the math word problems and having to read and re-read the confusing situational conundrums. The reading comprehension segment might as well have been written in Swahili. How could I answer such detailed questions about “the above paragraph” without re-reading sentence by sentence to find the answer to match the question?</p>
<p>On June 8, 1966, the horrific Topeka Tornado came roaring through the city, cutting a swath from southwest to northeast. The midpoint of destruction was Washburn University, the last municipal university in the United States and the school from which I received admission—contingent upon receipt of my ACT scores.</p>
<p>The fall semester at Washburn was tenaciously on schedule with most offices and classrooms located in double-wide trailers. These square metal trailers were painted white, placed along university sidewalks and became our temporary campus.<br>
What did I do about my missing ACT test results? I spoke with my academic advisor and suggested that it was possible, wasn’t it, that my test scores had become part of the rubble where classroom and office buildings once stood? It was possible that my scores had been in the now obliterated file cabinets shredded amongst tree limbs and broken glass or, could my scores have traveled downtown on the wind to become enmeshed in the soggy mess of Kansas Avenue?</br></p>
<p>Either my feeble excuses for having no test results were so lame that he felt sorry for me or he considered the possibility of my test scores getting caught within the tornadic funnel or whatever, he signed my schedule which allowed me to attend classes.</p>
<p>More than dishonesty, this ACT caper has to do with adaptation — firsthand experience of what happens when a student is forever hammered for not being “average.” I still believe that the probability of someone like me getting into college in 1966 was close to zero. I slipped through the door simply because electronic records were not accessible at that time.</p>
<h5 id="miraclesaretherulenottheexception">Miracles are the rule, not the exception</h5>
<p>As an adult, I loved libraries but for the non-fiction section in the Ann Arbor Public Library. It was frightful. Seriously, I avoided going to this second floor collection because I considered myself too dumb to deal with the sophisticated arrangement of books on the shelves and I didn’t know how put a question to the librarians. They were busy researching solid questions from well-educated folk who felt at home sitting at the oak tables surrounded by volumes marked with Dewey's decimals.</p>
<p>I applied for and got a new job at the neighborhood branch library where I shelved books hoping to learn exactly how the nonfiction books were arranged thus dispelling the anxiety about my ability to navigate through isles of thought provoking books. Two years later, my love for all things word joined with the experience of working in a library and pointed me in the direction of librarianship. I applied for the Library Science program at the University of Michigan. After a six week wait during which I came to firmly believe that miracles did not happen to people like me, there was a letter in the mail from the University. Rather than wait until I was sitting down, I tore into the envelop and . . . I was accepted into library school!</p>
<p>In graduate school I experienced a transformative process in reading and writing through the keyboard and monitor—computers were just beginning to enter classrooms around the country. The computer offered me a way out of the dyslexic world of slow-moving thought. Reading on the computer energized me. The letters stood out and the words were readable—my eyes remained alert rather than drifting into dopiness. I had found “my tool” and a connection to the reading world. A miracle.</p>
<h5 id="thevarietiesofreadingexperience">The Varieties of Reading Experience</h5>
<p>The beginning is word. Within my worldview, this truth is rather odd unless word means more than text. Formulas and symbols that represent words and concepts were deeply satisfying to me. The large periodic table that hung on the front wall in the high school chemistry lab also hangs somewhere in my head. Chemistry, logic and statistics made sense to me.</p>
<p>I exist within a phrase of literacy that is about fitting the pieces of reading and writing into a scheme that makes sense to me. Somewhat like online magnetic poetry where words are moved around the screen to make poems. One day the words came together: <strong>I Write Art</strong>.</p>
<h5 id="dyslexiaandtheexperienceofcreativity">Dyslexia and the experience of creativity</h5>
<p>I was taught to read one word after another in a linear style. Dyslexia hampers reading speed and comprehension because once the wandering mind arrives at the end of a sentence, the starting point has been forgotten.</p>
<p>Artistically, I tried writing in layers as a form of writing with visual depth. <em>WordLayers</em> is a mode of expression as linear lines of text are written over previously written lines of text. The eye travels vertically and reading becomes sensation rather than literate. Vertical text places attention on the freedom of creative word. The emphasis moves to depth and writing becomes private. This method frees the mind and thought becomes loose and boundaries defining what should and should not be said begin to dissolve.</p>
<p><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/dyslexia2.jpg" alt="On Dyslexia" loading="lazy"/></p>
<p>The image above consists of seven days of writing one topic per day. Each day’s entry is written on top of the day before. Writing becomes personal and private and reading turns toward what you want it to be. Word can become art with no explanation.</p>
<p>I discovered that this form of self communication worked nicely when writing down decisions or problems. Word over word and line over line not only makes for an artful work but also is healing and fulfilling at the same time. Color adds spice and dance to the whole and fits within the mood of the written thoughts.</p>
<h5 id="htmlandwordlayers">HTML and WordLayers</h5>
<p>I remember the boss who presented me with a new language. “Here is the latest download on HTML to get you started.” With this no turning-back push, he led a small army of library workers into the brave new world of the Internet. The process of integrating computer code with existing textual language took days of staring into the monitor way past HTML for Dummies. After three days, I took my first conscious breath. “Be with it, you don’t have to understand why it works, just know that. . .it works.” I relaxed into the task and built a reference database suitable for graphical browsing. Below is a sample of HTML code from the original WordLayers.com.</p>
<pre><code class="language-html"><table border="0" width="579" > <bgcolor=”#FFFFFF”> <tbody> <tr> <td> <p> <align="center"> <font size="7" face="Lucida Calligraphy"><b>
<a href="thumbnails.htm"> WordLayers</a></b> </font> </td> </tr> <center> <tr> <td> <align=”center”> <a href="thumbnails.htm"> <img border="0" src="Images/cats-eye-sm5.jpg"></a></td> </tr> <td width="284""> <font size="5" face="Lucida handwriting"> Journaling<br> Words into<br> Art</font></td></tr></center></table>
</code></pre>
<p>Look familiar? Inside my head, yes. It is writing that must be read in gulps. To my eyes, HTML is WordLayers. Reading is the process of understanding the code of inside out.</p>
<p>WordLayers is a reflection of the way I learned to read on the computer: vertically and into the whole of text. Reading from a computer monitor is like swallowing words by the screen-full.</p>
<h5 id="wordsfeellikearttome">Words feel like art to me</h5>
<p>A couple of summers ago, my husband and I were returning to Kansas City from Estes Park, Colorado. Most of the drive home was spent in and out of thunderstorms between which we were privy to prairie colors under wet sun. I took several photos and captured a scene that looks almost as good as it felt on that late August afternoon just outside Colby, Kansas. I had written a bit in my journal—something about words raining down onto golden fields of cut wheat. Days later, I wrote on top of the printed landscape "some people see words differently" and on top of this, words from a poem rained down on the image which, eventually, became the art print that now hangs on our living room wall. Certainly, dyslexia appears as disorder to discerning outside eyes. However, many artists see this different-ness as creativity from the inside out.</p>
<p><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/wordsoverkansas.png" alt="On Dyslexia" loading="lazy"/></p>
<h5 id="inconclusion">In Conclusion</h5>
<p>Dyslexia makes life difficult. It affects the ability to read and to hear spoken word properly. It hampers communication within yourself and with other individuals. WordLayers developed within me several years ago when I began to make art with words. Writing word on word is a vertical dive into the artistic interpretation of word itself. At times the entire scope of word disappears and the reading of art remains.</p>
<p><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/person.png" alt="On Dyslexia" loading="lazy"/></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Mall Teaser's Flamingo]]></title><description><![CDATA[I heard the downstairs door slam. I didn’t look up. It was so long since a client pounded on my door I had to put Mitzi on part-time. If you took a look at Mitzi, you’d understand why that was a last resort. I didn’t even look up when I heard the high heels on the stairs. The sounds echo off the plaster walls and wood floorboards. When the heels stopped outside the outer office door, I looked. There was a shape through the frosted glass. The shape knocked.
She sat well in the straight wooden c]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-mall-teasers-flamingo/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f8f</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jerry Davis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:25:43 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/joe-wroten-847.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/joe-wroten-847.jpg" alt="The Mall Teaser's Flamingo"/><p>I heard the downstairs door slam. I didn’t look up. It was so long since a client pounded on my door I had to put Mitzi on part-time. If you took a look at Mitzi, you’d understand why that was a last resort. I didn’t even look up when I heard the high heels on the stairs. The sounds echo off the plaster walls and wood floorboards. When the heels stopped outside the outer office door, I looked. There was a shape through the frosted glass. The shape knocked.</p>
<p>She sat well in the straight wooden chair at the side of the desk. I moved the chair over to the side when miniskirts came in. I never moved it back. She wasn’t a mini, but she had enough legs to make up for it. She appeared to have enough other parts to complete the picture. Nice seductive voice, as well.</p>
<p>“You’re Dick Deuce.”</p>
<p>It was a statement, so I didn’t answer.</p>
<p>“I’ve heard about you.”</p>
<p>Another statement.</p>
<p>“I want you to help me find a flamingo.”</p>
<p>I didn’t think my reputation had suffered that much. My mother wanted me to be a concert violinist. Now I’m Johnny Weissmuller chasing jungle animals. Flamingos. The damned things probably bite.</p>
<p>“It’s not a real flamingo, of course. It’s a diamond. One of the rarest in the world. A real collector’s item. A flamingo carved into a single pink diamond by a reclusive Chinese jeweler in Dumas, Arkansas."</p>
<p>I swallowed my Juicy Fruit and took a bottle of Captain Stumpy and two not very clean glasses from my bottom left-hand desk drawer. She nodded and I poured. She drank with only a slight twitch of her nostrils. My nostrils twitched, too.</p>
<p>“And who told you I could find this critter for you?” I asked innocently. I couldn’t imagine anybody recommending me for anything worth more than a dollar twenty-five at this stage of my career.</p>
<p>“A mutual friend. That’s all I can tell you. Will you find it for me?” She recrossed her legs. The skirt slid up toward paradise. I would have found Shangri-La for her.</p>
<p>“What’s in it for me?” Just thought I’d ask. Enough to get Mitzi back every day would be outstanding. Even keeping her on half-time would be better than bankruptcy.</p>
<p>“I’ll pay your regular fee, plus a bonus when you find the Flamingo. A very nice bonus. There will be extra cash, too.”</p>
<p>Fifty a day plus expenses ain’t a fortune, but not starvation either. After a while, enough to get Mitzi back on a regular schedule, even if I never found this mythical diamond bird. I checked out the empty chair behind the desk in the outer office. It looked a lot better with Mitzi sitting in it. With or without the typewriter.</p>
<p>“So who do you think has this Flamingo you want? Anybody I might know?”</p>
<p>“I think the Skinny Guy has it. You know who I mean.”</p>
<p>She seemed sincere. The skirt helped. Mostly the thighs. I nodded. I had no idea who she meant. “And do you actually have some kind of a claim to this Flamingo?”</p>
<p>She paused. She looked back at the busted blinds over the window that had Dick Deuce, Private Detective on the outside. She paused some more. Then she said, “Sure.”</p>
<p>Under the circumstances, good enough. Especially with the thighs. I said, “My advance will be for ten days at fifty. Five hundred. In advance.” I repeat myself sometimes. Especially about money.</p>
<p>She said the sweetest thing. “Sure,” she said.</p>
<p>“Where can I get in touch with you?”</p>
<p>“I’ll find you,” she said, as she counted out five C-notes. A very attractive personality trait, I always think. C-notes are so positive.</p>
<p>“Just in case I need it, what’s your name?”</p>
<p>She paused again. She looked at me. She looked at the old typewriter in the outer office. She paused. “Sally Smith.”</p>
<p>Good enough again. I watched her walk all the way out the door, a near religious experience for any man with an active hormone. I grabbed my hat and coat off the rack, tightened my tie and slipped out my office window, down the fire escape and into the bushes to watch her leave. She came out the front door and glided into a black Gull-Wing Mercedes driven by a slim guy. The Skinny Guy? Maybe.</p>
<p>I jumped into my bright red MG TC, took the top down, and followed surreptitiously. They led me out of downtown to the well-manicured Tittlemaus Estates subdivision and what looked like a manor house. The Mercedes screeched into the horseshoe drive and slid to a stop at the front door.</p>
<p>I pulled the MG to a halt outside the front gate and observed through my B&L 20X binocs that lived in the glove box. She slithered onto the porch and into the front door. The Mercedes screamed out the other side of the horseshoe and accelerated back toward the city. I headed back to town for the night, just in time for a couple drinks at Paddy’s on Pothole Drive.</p>
<p>Early next morning I dialed up Lieutenant Funkle at Police Headquarters to find out who lived in the mansion. Funkle still thinks he owes me a favor for putting him onto the Rat House mob during the pilfered doll caper. I also asked him to check out the license number of the Mercedes, there couldn’t be very many of them around at that asking price. The address turned up Smedley Tarkington, a well-known shady character rumored to be involved in lots of interesting things. Plenty of dough to support the digs in Tittlemaus Estates, none of it legit. The Mercedes license was issued to a Sally Smith of the same address. Sometimes clients still surprise me.</p>
<p>I left the MG outside the gate and called on Tarkington promptly at 11:00 a.m. There were two plaster pink flamingos in the yard I didn’t notice the night before. A butler opened the door, looked at me like I was a piece of tarnished silver that needed polish, and sat me in the leather-lined library while he went off to fetch the master. I pulled a couple of the hand-tooled books off the shelf. None of the pages had been cut. My man was a book collector, not a book reader.</p>
<p>Tarkington strolled through the hall door wearing a no doubt expensive smoking jacket, peered at my card through his reading glasses and said, “Mr. Deuce, I believe? You say you are a detective? What can I do for you?”</p>
<p>“I heard you’re looking for some investigative services, thought I’d drop by.”</p>
<p>Tarkington surveyed his empire of leather. “You heard wrong. I don’t hire people who wander in through my front door.”</p>
<p>“I hear you hire lots of people of all sorts.”</p>
<p>“I’ll let Jeeves show you the way out. Good day.” He sniffed as he departed through a side door that led who knows where.</p>
<p>Jeeves? Really? And he actually sniffed. What a pompous ass. There was too much money here to burn bridges with a snappy retort. I left the library quickly and quietly. I took a quick left out the hall door and made it up the stairs in record time, before “Jeeves” could appear out of nowhere and get everybody wondering what I was up to.</p>
<p>The first and third rooms after the stairs looked unused. The second door was a bedroom. I slipped inside and nearly drowned in the perfume and chiffon. I waded through the carpet to the dresser. I braced myself and did a quick survey. Whoever slept there was definitely female who wore expensive size sixes and used thirteen different brands of perfume. There were two pictures of Sally Smith on the dresser in expensive frames. Nobody else in the pictures. She apparently had a close relationship with herself. I found a jewelry box in the third drawer of the chest. No pink diamonds or flamingos, but a lot of other stones of a variety of sizes and colors.</p>
<p>The fourth room was a man’s bedroom, pretty spartan under the circumstances. No pictures, one ring, lots of suits in the closet. A hint of aftershave. A couple of nice-sized stones on stickpins and a lot of gold in the box I found under the shoes in the closet.</p>
<p>I slipped out the door, down the stairs, out through a side door and down the drive to the MG. I wasn’t sure what I learned, but I felt a little better.</p>
<p>I went back to town and had a talk with Lieutenant Funkle about skinny people, then headed for Pothole Drive. I had a lead on the bird. Funkle knew a cop who knew a guy. Four drinks later at Paddy’s, I felt a lot better.</p>
<p>The next morning I found Patrolman Beagle, an up-and-coming young officer, who pointed me to Stinky Slavin, a low-grade snitch who hung out at the Axent Hotel on Fink Street. Yeah, Fink Street. You can’t make this stuff up. I went down to 324 Fink and up to Room 432. I tapped on the door with no result, so I grabbed a meal cart down the hall and balanced on it while I took a quick glance through the transom. Either Stinky was sleeping late in the middle of the floor or I wasn’t going to get much information out of him. The blood seeping from under his body voted in favor of the latter.</p>
<p>Lieutenant Funkle was rather curious about why I used one of his patrolmen to find a murder and didn’t tell him what I was up to. After a not very pleasant six hours with Funkle and a couple of plain clothes dicks I made it back to Pothole and Paddy’s, no richer for the day. Six drinks, one for each hour of Funkle.</p>
<p>I knew I had to follow up my only remaining lead, it was a last resort. I had to travel to Dumas, Arkansas, and find an old Chinese jeweler. It wasn’t going to be easy. It took four maps to find the place, and one more to figure out what road went there. I gassed up the MG and took off. I pulled up outside the Ding Dong Daddy Mall at 3:30 the next afternoon.</p>
<p>I cased the place. Su’s Jewelry store sat neatly at the south end. The other five stores in the strip looked abandoned. The roof at the north end of the strip had collapsed. I stepped into the store and set off a small bell attached to a spring. An elderly Chinese man looked up from the watch repair bench.</p>
<p>“You ain’t from ’round here, air ya?”</p>
<p>A statement. There weren’t any cobwebs visible in the store, but it looked like it ought to have some.</p>
<p>“Whut kin Ah do fer you, stranger?”</p>
<p>“I’m looking for a Flamingo. A pink one.”</p>
<p>“Man, you’re plumb on the wrong continent. And Ah think they’re all of ’em pink. I read somewhere it kinda depends on what they eat, though.”</p>
<p>I have to admit he was well read. Rural, but well read. “This one is a diamond, or carved into a diamond.”</p>
<p>“Oh, you mean lak a jool. Whyn’t you say so?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, that’s why I came to a jewelry store.”</p>
<p>”Hey, man, no offense. We jest don’t see a lot of furriners around these parts.”</p>
<p>“I’m not a furr—never mind. You ever see anything like that?”<br>
His eyes shifted. Or perhaps the hanging light just moved a bit.</br></p>
<p>“Mebbe. Who wants to know?” He stood up and headed for the back of the store.</p>
<p>“I’ve got money, what do you care who wants to know?” I pulled the roll of C-notes out of my pocket.</p>
<p>“Jest interested in who’d refer you all the way down here fer a pink flamingo.”</p>
<p>“OK, what’s the difference? It was a lady calls herself ‘Sally Smith.’”</p>
<p>“Damn! How is old Sally, anyhow? Haven’t seen her since she was jest a kid.”</p>
<p>“She’s grown. Nicely.”</p>
<p>“I think I’ve got one of those Flamingos left, haven’t looked at it in years.”</p>
<p>“There’s more than one?”</p>
<p>“Shore, I made up a bunch of ’em about twenty years ago. Told all the kids they was di-monds.”</p>
<p>“You mean they’re not real diamonds? Why did you tell them they were?”</p>
<p>“Shucks, I was jest teasin’. ‘Sides, Sally was real friendly tryin’ to talk me into givin’ her one.” He looked me over. “I’ll sell you one for six bucks.”</p>
<p>So I found a man named Su.</p>
<p>I got my bonus, too.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rebirth]]></title><description><![CDATA[Fall is a beautiful time of year
Lazy, golden sunlight presides over little wind
Until a cold breeze signals change
A reminder
The brilliant colors of fall
Are as transient as life
And will die to be buried underfoot
Then reborn
With the fresh breath of spring.
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rebirt/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f80</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Woody Barlow]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:25:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/chris-lawton-154388.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/chris-lawton-154388.jpg" alt="Rebirth"/><p>Fall is a beautiful time of year<br>
Lazy, golden sunlight presides over little wind<br>
Until a cold breeze signals change</br></br></p>
<p>A reminder<br>
The brilliant colors of fall<br>
Are as transient as life</br></br></p>
<p>And will die to be buried underfoot<br>
Then reborn<br>
With the fresh breath of spring.</br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Twyla]]></title><description><![CDATA[The baseball cap doesn’t hide enough
pulled down low, brim almost touching
your chin, bulging backpack brandished
like a shield. I can barely see you.
The classroom isn’t large enough
for you to sit as far back as you would like
Shrinking
What secrets are concealed
by a monochrome wardrobe, always black.
Is that faraway look turned outward
or inward? Do you gaze into the future
or the past? And what of this moment?
Now.
Use this. If
the cap does not consume you and
the backpack d]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/twyla/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f87</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[William Bernhardt]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:25:05 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/andrew-neel-266219.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/andrew-neel-266219.jpg" alt="Twyla"/><p>The baseball cap doesn’t hide enough<br>
pulled down low, brim almost touching<br>
your chin, bulging backpack brandished<br>
like a shield. I can barely see you.<br>
The classroom isn’t large enough<br>
for you to sit as far back as you would like<br>
Shrinking<br>
What secrets are concealed<br>
by a monochrome wardrobe, always black.<br>
Is that faraway look turned outward<br>
or inward? Do you gaze into the future<br>
or the past? And what of this moment?<br>
Now.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Use this. If<br>
the cap does not consume you and<br>
the backpack does not give you osteosclerosis<br>
your strength could be towering.<br>
We are who we wish to be.</br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Respite]]></title><description><![CDATA[
A brief respite from a prolonged flight
His battered wings make land
Seeking nourishment and clarity
Before the long journey home
Artist statement
This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.
Download
Full Image
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/respite/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f9d</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Rankine]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:24:52 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/respite--1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><div class="centered">
<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/respite--1.jpg" alt="Respite"/><p>A brief respite from a prolonged flight<br>
His battered wings make land<br>
Seeking nourishment and clarity<br>
Before the long journey home</br></br></br></p>
</div>
<hr>
<h6 id="artiststatement">Artist statement</h6>
<p>This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.</p>
<h6 id="download">Download</h6>
<p><a href="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/6-respite-.jpeg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rumor]]></title><description><![CDATA[To write about Arkansas summer you have to have the animal memory of swelter, of low water, of dry sumps, of deer come close to the cow pond and cattle down to the licklog, of NO BURN signs everywhere. You have to remember 2012, the second hottest year on record or 1956, which by word of mouth was the first. But this summer I’m writing about was the worst summer since Satan fell or so we thought. The cities simmered to a boil in their lovely tarmac, bubbling down to heat stroke. Everywhere, they]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/rumor/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f97</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:24:36 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/brooklyn-morgan-390.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/brooklyn-morgan-390.jpg" alt="Rumor"/><p>To write about Arkansas summer you have to have the animal memory of swelter, of low water, of dry sumps, of deer come close to the cow pond and cattle down to the licklog, of NO BURN signs everywhere. You have to remember 2012, the second hottest year on record or 1956, which by word of mouth was the first. But this summer I’m writing about was the worst summer since Satan fell or so we thought. The cities simmered to a boil in their lovely tarmac, bubbling down to heat stroke. Everywhere, they preached Armageddon like always and used 110 degrees for proof.</p>
<p>With no air condition, it was too hot to make love, even with fans at the head and foot of the bed making a middle turbulence. We couldn’t move after noon or sleep before midnight. How many hours can a person spend at Harts pushing a wire cart through the cans and bottles: 15 minutes to choose a sponge, ½ hour for a soft drink that only stays chilled straight out of the cooler box? Winter was a rumor that summer, each scarp overheated. We searched for anything cold and hid what we found.</p>
<p>It may be that we were brown and swam it. It may be when we could, we stepped down from the cliff into the icy river water imagining ourselves Cherokee just passing through or Quapaw or settlers who learned long ago to make some peace with the heat. Let’s just say the weather sweated us and we got no relief from those jumped-up preachers.</p>
<p>("down to the licklog" relates to an old rancher’s trick. The second-to-last thing before cattle were slaughtered, a ranch hand took them first to a salt lick and then to water to increase their butchered weight.)</p>
<p>From Chap Book, Platypus Press, UK, 2016</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Salon]]></title><description><![CDATA[I shall start a salon
and invite those who feel
No one needs a resume
no one needs to kneel
Each night we’ll have music
for singing stirs the soul
Poems heal the human heart
and mend the tatters whole
We will not banish sorrow
no, it’s a welcome guest
We could not stop it anyhow—
the soul will meet the test
I hope you’ll come and visit
a salon must have friends
Together we will find the strength
that binds us to our ends
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/salon/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f88</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[William Bernhardt]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:24:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/matheus-ferrero-181905.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/matheus-ferrero-181905.jpg" alt="Salon"/><p>I shall start a salon<br>
and invite those who feel<br>
No one needs a resume<br>
no one needs to kneel</br></br></br></p>
<p>Each night we’ll have music<br>
for singing stirs the soul<br>
Poems heal the human heart<br>
and mend the tatters whole</br></br></br></p>
<p>We will not banish sorrow<br>
no, it’s a welcome guest<br>
We could not stop it anyhow—<br>
the soul will meet the test</br></br></br></p>
<p>I hope you’ll come and visit<br>
a salon must have friends<br>
Together we will find the strength<br>
that binds us to our ends</br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tinker Toy Troubles]]></title><description><![CDATA[TINKER TOY TROUBLES
by Jerry Davis
CHARACTERS:
SERGEANT THURSDAY: A veteran police officer (gender may be changed)
TESSIE TUCKER: A housewife, mother of Timmie Tucker
TIME:
The Present
SCENE:
The front door of the Tucker home.
SGT. THURSDAY: (To Audience) This is the city — a whole bunch of people who usually behave badly, but not in a criminal manner. Today, one crossed the line into crime. They called me. My name’s Thursday. Sergeant Thursday. I'm a cop. Captain Sunday came into m]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/tinker-toy-troubles/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f8e</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><category><![CDATA[Plays]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jerry Davis]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:24:19 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Tinker-Toys-1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Tinker-Toys-1.jpg" alt="Tinker Toy Troubles"/><p>TINKER TOY TROUBLES<br>
by Jerry Davis</br></p>
<p>CHARACTERS:<br>
SERGEANT THURSDAY: A veteran police officer (gender may be changed)<br>
TESSIE TUCKER: A housewife, mother of Timmie Tucker</br></br></p>
<p>TIME:<br>
The Present</br></p>
<p>SCENE:<br>
The front door of the Tucker home.</br></p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: (To Audience) This is the city — a whole bunch of people who usually behave badly, but not in a criminal manner. Today, one crossed the line into crime. They called me. My name’s Thursday. Sergeant Thursday. I'm a cop. Captain Sunday came into my office on Wednesday and said, “Thursday, we got a call on Tuesday reporting the suspicion of a robbery on Monday.” I went directly to the complainant’s home. A woman answered the door.</p>
<p>(To Tessie) Good evening, Ma'am, I'm Sergeant Thursday. What's your name?</p>
<p>TESSIE: I'm Tessie Tucker. That's my name. Yes, it is.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: You're Tessie Tucker. You’re the one who called the police?</p>
<p>TESSIE: Yes, sir. Yes, I did. Yes, sir.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Do you live here at this location?</p>
<p>TESSIE: Yes, sir, I live here at ten twenty Timberwood Trail. Been here for twenty years. Yes, I have.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Yes, Ma’am. And what seems to be the problem at ten twenty Timberwood Trail after twenty years?</p>
<p>TESSIE: My son's Tinker Toys were taken.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Someone took your son's Tinker Toys. What's your son's name?</p>
<p>TESSIE: Timmie.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Timmie Tucker.</p>
<p>TESSIE: He has a nickname.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Timmie has a nickname?</p>
<p>TESSIE: Yes, sir, he's not very big, you see.</p>
<p>SGT: THURSDAY: Yes, Ma'am. I see. What's his nickname?</p>
<p>TESSIE: Tiny.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Tiny Timmie Tucker.</p>
<p>TESSIE: True. That’s his nickname. Tiny — that’s it.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Okay. You have any idea who might have taken Tiny Timmy Tucker's Tinker Toys?</p>
<p>TESSIE: I'm not positive. There was a little girl over here the other day that played with them. She seemed to like them a lot.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Uh-huh. What's the little girl's name?</p>
<p>TESSIE: Tillie Tupperman.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: I see. And where does Tillie Tupperman live?</p>
<p>TESSIE: Over on Tolliver Trace.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: That figures.</p>
<p>TESSIE: In a tent.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Ri-ight. So you, Tessie Tucker of twenty years at ten twenty Timberwood Trail, think little Tillie Tupperman from the tent on Tolliver Trace took Tiny Timmie Tucker's Tinker Toys.</p>
<p>TESSIE: Not only that, I think she had been to a dance class.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: What makes you think so?</p>
<p>TESSIE: She was wearing a tutu. I think it was turquoise. Yes, I do.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Now. Did you actually see Tillie Tupperman in a turquoise tutu take off with Tiny Timmie Tucker's Tinker Toys?</p>
<p>TESSIE: No, but I saw a suspicious vehicle in the neighborhood.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Can you describe it?</p>
<p>TESSIE: Sure. It was a taupe ten ton truck.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: A taupe ten ton truck. Was it carrying any kind of cargo?</p>
<p>TESSIE: It was toting tulips.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: What kind of tulips?</p>
<p>TESSIE: They were tricolored.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: So you, Tessie Tucker of twenty years at ten twenty Timberwood Trail, think little Tillie Tupperman in a turquoise tutu from the tent on Tolliver Trace took Tiny Timmie Tucker's Tinker Toys in a taupe ten ton truck toting tricolored tulips?</p>
<p>TESSIE: I'm not sure. She might have left in a taxi.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Just the facts, Ma'am. Where do you think Tillie Tupperman might have taken Tiny Timmie Tucker's Tinker Toys?</p>
<p>TESSIE: I think she has relatives in Tennessee. Yes, I do. I really do.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Whereabouts in Tennessee?</p>
<p>TESSIE: The town of Tullahoma. The one in Tennessee, you know.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: That figures. Now, let me get this straight. You, Tessie Tucker of twenty years at ten twenty Timberwood Trail, think little Tillie Tupperman in a turquoise tutu, from the tent over on Tolliver Trace, took Tiny Timmie Tucker's Tinker Toys to the town of Tullahoma, Tennessee, in a taxi or in a taupe ten ton truck toting tricolored tulips?</p>
<p>TESSIE: True. That’s true. There's one more thing, though.</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: What's that?</p>
<p>TESSIE: If I catch Tillie Tupperman in her turquoise tutu from her tent on Tolliver Trace who took Tiny Timmie Tucker’s tinker toys from ten twenty Timberwood Trail to the town of Tullahoma, Tennessee in a taxi or a taupe ten ton truck toting tricolor tulips...</p>
<p>SGT. THURSDAY: Yes?</p>
<p>TESSIE: I'll paddle her posterior!</p>
<p>NOTE: This short play for Readers’ Theater originally appeared in Skits and Plays for Clubs and Organizations, Collection #1, published by UpStageLeft Press</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Detour]]></title><description><![CDATA[The stones are curling, against all probability, against gravity struggling for supremacy.
You know this, that stones are malleable, stuffed in or under or wrapped around
toes
Impediments or monuments, talismans by which to recall pain,
recall spells they claimed to cast
rituals they buried deep.
The stones change shape at will, not something you control although your
fingers
itch to do so, to control a small pebble, control the mountain, control the avalanche.
But long ago stones came ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/detour/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f8a</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sherri C. Perry]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:23:59 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/greg-willson-94072.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/greg-willson-94072.jpg" alt="Detour"/><p>The stones are curling, against all probability, against gravity struggling for supremacy.<br>
You know this, that stones are malleable, stuffed in or under or wrapped around<br>
toes<br>
Impediments or monuments, talismans by which to recall pain,<br>
recall spells they claimed to cast<br>
rituals they buried deep.<br>
The stones change shape at will, not something you control although your<br>
fingers<br>
itch to do so, to control a small pebble, control the mountain, control the avalanche.<br>
But long ago stones came and tamed<br>
a stretch of flat land that grew pipe dreams and bloody railroad tracks<br>
Stones that walked and sat and changed their<br>
faces<br>
fled their traces Until only their eyes showed. Finale:<br>
before they walked away stones left you a stony path. A simple hit on the constellations,<br>
a star that refused to point any way but true north. Your<br>
mind<br>
knows that stones curl, the better to listen in, the better to tear apart,<br>
the better to<br>
Flow.</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Muse]]></title><description><![CDATA[
Birthed creek-side in sand and stone
Stoic in the winter sun
A rock atop the gravel bed
Unable to keep or weigh her down
Artist statement
This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.
Download
Full Image
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-muse/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f98</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Rankine]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:23:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/the-muse--.jpeg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><div class="centered">
<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/the-muse--.jpeg" alt="The Muse"/><p>Birthed creek-side in sand and stone<br>
Stoic in the winter sun<br>
A rock atop the gravel bed<br>
Unable to keep or weigh her down</br></br></br></p>
</div>
<hr>
<h6 id="artiststatement">Artist statement</h6>
<p>This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.</p>
<h6 id="download">Download</h6>
<p><a href="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/1-The-Muse-.jpeg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Tree]]></title><description><![CDATA[Walter Hemlock was a quiet man. He lived alone in a house on 25 acres of mostly wooded land on the Pennsylvania side of the Mason-Dixon Line.
His wife died several years earlier, and he managed his grieving process pretty well. The few close friends they had took the time to fuss over him for a week or two, inviting him over for meals, calling him when they were going to the grocery store, inquiring if he needed anything and generally being attentive.
After a while, because he seemed to be h]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-tree/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f8c</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dan Morris]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:23:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/melinda-pack-236375.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/melinda-pack-236375.jpg" alt="The Tree"/><p>Walter Hemlock was a quiet man. He lived alone in a house on 25 acres of mostly wooded land on the Pennsylvania side of the Mason-Dixon Line.</p>
<p>His wife died several years earlier, and he managed his grieving process pretty well. The few close friends they had took the time to fuss over him for a week or two, inviting him over for meals, calling him when they were going to the grocery store, inquiring if he needed anything and generally being attentive.</p>
<p>After a while, because he seemed to be handling it well enough, they settled back into their old routines only seeing him occasionally.</p>
<p>Walter spent more and more of his time out in the woods behind his house. Two of his 25 acres were cleared, and a neighbor with livestock grew corn on most of the cleared land. The rest of the property was left wild, full of birds and small animals and a deer or two.</p>
<p>Walter had been a cabinet maker, working in a window factory. He’d been retired for almost eight years, and he had a wood shop in the shed behind his house. He usually spent his days building small projects such as an end table, book shelves, a trunk, footstools and sometimes toys, most of which were sold at a shop in nearby Willow Grove.</p>
<p>Each year since his wife had died, he’d spent increasingly more time walking in the woods rather than working in his shop, until recently, when he sometimes spent the whole day wandering in the woods, noticing small clumps of moss, unusual wildflowers and especially the wide variety of trees and shrubs.</p>
<p>He liked to stand quietly and let the birds begin their chatter again as the stillness of the woods rose around him like a fine mist. He liked feeling that the small animals were tending to their business even though he was there, so he learned to move silently and slowly in the woods. He thought of himself as part of the woods, a regular you might say, compatible with nature’s creation in this little corner of the universe.</p>
<p>There was a large tree on his lot, one of the biggest, and it had been damaged by storm winds at some point in the past. Its top had been blown out and the branches had grown back to form a kind of crown. It was very tall and straight, and its shape made it stand out from the others.</p>
<p>One day in the late Fall, when the forest floor was soft and fresh with fallen leaves, and early mornings became frosty, Walter noticed a small crevice in the bottom of the tall tree, between two roots at ground level. He knelt down to peer inside, and it looked as if a small forest creature had used it for a den. He carefully reached inside and scooped out a handful of the dry debris so he could look at it. In the duff were remnants of acorns and hickory nuts, leaves and twigs, and lots of soft, rotted wood. He scraped out more and then bent his elbow to reach up into the tree to see if it was hollow. It was.</p>
<p>This discovery excited him, and he got busy scraping out more of the debris and the pile on the outside grew to the point where he had to spread it from side to side to make room for more. He leaned his head down close to the ground, trying to see if it really was hollow all the way up inside. He leaned in further and turned his shoulder to the ground and slipped his head carefully into the opening. As he looked upward inside the tree, squinting his eyes to protect them from falling crumbles of dry rotten wood, he turned onto his back and pushed himself into the opening like a mechanic under a car. The tree was hollow clear to the top.</p>
<p>Walter’s eyes focused on the top of the trunk, looking up the long, dark shaft of the huge hollow tube, and he felt suddenly that he was looking through a tunnel, horizontal instead of vertical, and he no longer felt his back against the soft earth beneath him. His gravitational plane had shifted, as quickly as that. One moment he was lying on his back looking up a tree, and the next he was floating at the end of a long tunnel. This loss of orientation, instead of being frightening, fascinated him and he stayed for nearly an hour looking up this giant, rough-sided tube, at the wisps of clouds fleeting past and the occasional dart of a bird flying by.</p>
<p>Walter was so pleased with his discovery that he returned to the tree immediately after breakfast the next day. He spent almost all day there, only taking a break to go back to the house for a bite of lunch and to go to the bathroom. He soon learned that for a two-hour period when the sun was at its highest, the effect of the tunnel wasn’t as pleasant. But, for the rest of the day he could experience the captivating display of sky, especially days with lots of clouds.</p>
<p>At sundown, he sometimes would stay in the tree until well after dark. He discovered that the stars seemed much brighter looking up through the tree, much to his delight. The view after dark was similar spatially as during the day. Again, he felt he was looking down a tunnel, and the stars made it seem as if he were standing at the edge of the Earth, looking out into space. The floating feeling he’d experienced during the day was even more pronounced at night.</p>
<p>As Autumn progressed, Walter spent more and more time in the woods with his head in the tree. He would go to bed studying star charts in an astronomy magazine, trying to figure out the constellations that he could see at the zenith passing over his tube. At sunset, Cygnus the swan was passing the zenith. In the morning, he sometimes finished breakfast well before dawn and rushed out to the tree, anxious to see what space the tree would be passing through on the new day’s journey. Just before sunrise one morning, he identified the two stars which designate the rear paw of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. As days and weeks passed, he became knowledgeable of the rotation of the constellations, especially those that traversed the zenith of the sky. Those that stayed near the horizon couldn’t appear at the end of his tunnel, of course, but he learned their names in passing as his awareness of the constellations increased with his studies, and he glimpsed them occasionally when he wasn’t under the tree.</p>
<p>One crisp, early winter’s day, as he lay on his back, bundled in his winter overcoat, gazing up the tree, a squirrel, working on its winter storage in a hollow branch high in the tree, dropped a hickory nut that hit Walter in the forehead. He saw it coming, actually, but was so fascinated with it tumbling down the long passage of the hollow trunk that he barely flinched. He reached his hand up into the tree beside his head and picked up the nut. The outside shell had dried and split open and he could snap it off with his thumbnail. He put the dried nut between his teeth and was able to crack it open. He chewed some of the nutmeat and spit out a crumb of shell.</p>
<p>Later that afternoon, a wind came up and blew leaves across the woods, piling some of them at the base of the tree over his body, legs and feet. The leaves formed a blanket and even though he was dressed warmly, he could tell the layer of leaves really did insulate him from the chilly breeze. He drifted off to sleep. It was time for his afternoon nap anyway.</p>
<p>He slept peacefully. When he awakened, it was raining, not hard, but with big widely separated droplets. As he watched the dark cloud over the end of the tunnel, raindrops would come hurtling down the tree and he found that he could open his mouth and catch some of them. The leaf blanket that covered his legs became more solid with the moisture and held in the warmth of his body. What a peaceful place, he thought, as he drifted off to sleep again.</p>
<p>Fourteen years later, on a blustery Fall day, two boys wandering in the woods came across the bones of what they thought was a headless man lying at the base of a tree. It turned out the man’s skull was inside the tree. Most of his clothes had rotted, and only the action of a gust of wind blowing leaves on the forest floor had exposed his shin bone.</p>
<p>. . . . . . end . . . . .</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dear Dennis]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Dennis,
Rain today on the West Bank at 1:14 when your letter came
with O’Hara’s praise song for Lady Day that always puts me
in mind of saxophones and sweat and one night stands and Ellington
and how the two Miss Billies—Holliday and Strayhorn—
both were born in Nineteen-Fifteen, year of “Birth of a Nation,”
year of Typhoid Mary, year the House put women’s suffrage down,
year of the Klan once more in Georgia. Passed too soon
sweet Billy and Billie, passed before we had enough stra]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/dear-dennis/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f93</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:23:29 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/jens-thekkeveettil-2538.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/jens-thekkeveettil-2538.jpg" alt="Dear Dennis"/><p>Dear Dennis,</p>
<p>Rain today on the West Bank at 1:14 when your letter came<br>
with O’Hara’s praise song for Lady Day that always puts me<br>
in mind of saxophones and sweat and one night stands and Ellington<br>
and how the two Miss Billies—Holliday and Strayhorn—</br></br></br></p>
<p>both were born in Nineteen-Fifteen, year of “Birth of a Nation,”<br>
year of Typhoid Mary, year the House put women’s suffrage down,<br>
year of the Klan once more in Georgia. Passed too soon<br>
sweet Billy and Billie, passed before we had enough strange fruit<br>
or A train, before we scratched our jazzy itch enough.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p>Awake again, in this mosquito-bit bayou with its beignets and gumbo,<br>
your letter reminds me of New York music, how hungry<br>
I am for bagels and Strega, how grateful for city-wet streets</br></br></p>
<p>and perfect pitch in downtown bars. Today’s rain taps a backbeat<br>
on the peeling trellis, sings they’re gone, and I can<br>
almost hear the Lady’s “rainy day again” over a stray piano line.</br></br></p>
<p>Winner of Highland Park Poetry Challenge</p>
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Lake]]></title><description><![CDATA[I lost my job at the dollar store. They were just overstaffed, the manager said, adjusting his name tag as he spoke. They’d hire me back at the holidays.
It was August, so I told myself as I walked outside into the blinding sun that it was fine because I’d have more time to spend at the river. But that was a lie; I was nervous like I’d never been before. I counted the money I had taped behind my dresser in my head while I walked the highway from town back toward the trailer. I didn’t want to g]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-lake/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f92</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Patricia Evans Jordan]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:23:15 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/filip-bunkens-145329.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/filip-bunkens-145329.jpg" alt="The Lake"/><p>I lost my job at the dollar store. They were just overstaffed, the manager said, adjusting his name tag as he spoke. They’d hire me back at the holidays.</p>
<p>It was August, so I told myself as I walked outside into the blinding sun that it was fine because I’d have more time to spend at the river. But that was a lie; I was nervous like I’d never been before. I counted the money I had taped behind my dresser in my head while I walked the highway from town back toward the trailer. I didn’t want to go back home, but there was nowhere else to go. All my friends were heading to college after graduation. They’d all talked about was how ready they were to leave, and I smiled and nodded, like I was going somewhere too.</p>
<p>Mom met some guy last Sunday at the VFW and brought him home. I knew someone was there before I’d even gotten out of bed. The air was still, but occupied, and I found them passed out on the couch, the front door to the trailer left swung open behind them. A lit cigarette had fallen from his fingers at some point and was burning a slow hole through the crotch of his jeans. The falling embers dissolved the denim into a smoldering black ring, and I was aware that I’d continue to watch even if his entire body caught fire. It didn’t. Mom opened her eyes at some point and asked me to hand her a beer.</p>
<p>“This is Carl,” she said, nodding in his direction. “He’s gonna to be staying with us for awhile.” I didn’t look at her, just walked out, listening to the door slam shut and pop back open behind me, coming to rest against the peeling paint on the side of the trailer.</p>
<p>Now it was three days later and he was still on the couch when I got home from the dollar store. He looked me up and down, then back at the TV as I passed. Everything smelled different since he’d been here, it was like all the walls and the carpet finally let go of everything they were holding back; like they’d just given up. The smell tumbled in and crowded the air, like sweat and forgotten ash. The kitchen was covered in crumpled, stained Taco Bell bags and I swept them into the trash before I went to my room and slammed the door.</p>
<p>He was in my room later that night when I got back from the shower, standing at my dresser holding a picture of me and Mom at high school graduation in May. It was one of the only times I can remember she showed up when she was supposed to, and one of my friends took the picture just as she started checking her watch. She always said she felt like people were looking at her. She did have a desperate look, like she was always searching for the nearest door. I didn’t know if I’d actually wanted her to come, but I’d bought a frame at work anyway and set it on my dresser.</p>
<p>“What do you want?” I said, pausing at the door, pulling my towel tighter around me. He didn’t answer, just set the picture down. I edged past him, feeling crowded, like he’d somehow filled up all the space in the room. I sat on the beanbag under the aluminum window and shoved it open with the heel of my hand. The trailer sat close to the highway, and there was always the constant noise of traffic, but even that was silent now, waiting for him to move.</p>
<p>His gaze wandered down to my shoulders and across my thighs. “You’re old enough to look after yourself, aint ya?” He backed up, touching a few more things on his way out, and left the door wide open.</p>
<p>I left before dawn with the money and some clothes in a backpack, walking out of town along the line in the center of the road. I figured Mom either wouldn’t notice or she’d be glad I was gone. I’d walk until I found something better. It didn’t take long.</p>
<p>I slept in a church doorway the next town over that night. There was a tall collection box for a clothing drive on the steps, and I turned it on its side in the corner of the doorway and slept behind it. The stone was cold, but I had my backpack for a pillow and I slept about as well as I ever did. The city paper the next morning had a few rooms for rent and I took the first one I saw. It was in a run down motel that rented by the month, but it was clean enough, and I didn’t have to share space with anyone. I found a job waiting tables, but it was only part-time. I thought I’d be able to find another job, but the high school kids were still out for the summer and no one was hiring. I had enough money with me to rent the room for a couple of months, but now it was the third month and rent was due. Six days ago, actually.</p>
<p>I raked my hair into a ponytail and walked to the landlord’s apartment with the notice he’d pushed under my door the night before. I crumpled it into a ball in my fist, the edges pushed sharp under my fingernails as I rang the doorbell. Gene answered the door in a robe in a stained Texaco tank top. It was bullshit, but I told him I’d have the rent by the weekend. He didn’t say anything, just lit a cigarette and stared at me. I looked for another job the rest of that week and sold my phone Friday morning to a guy for $35. I still had it in my hand when Gene knocked. I let him in and pushed the cash toward him. He counted it and put it down on the counter.<br>
“That’s not going to do it.” He looked at everything but my eyes. Still counting. “You’re going to have to work that off.”<br>
I didn’t say anything. I had nothing to say. But that’s the moment I understood why people kill themselves.</br></br></p>
<p>The next evening he picked me up outside my door, brushing beer cans and a sweat stained visor off the seat so I could get in. At every red light we stopped at on the way through town I considered just opening the door and running, but it was pointless. If I did, I wouldn’t have anywhere to go back to. It was pretty simple; I could either wake up in the morning with a roof over my head, or not. I chose the roof.<br>
He drove me to a trailer at the edge of the county, unlocked the door and lumbered in. The walls were covered in splintered paneling, and all the appliances had been ripped out. The light switch lit a bare bulb hanging from the low ceiling. The place smelled of mold and trapped air. He jerked his head toward a room at the end of the narrow hall and went back outside.</br></p>
<p>There was a mattress in the room, no box springs or bedding, nothing to make me believe anyone ever lived here. I went to the bathroom to splash water on my face but the faucet wasn’t connected and fell over onto the counter. The toilet was a small pool of dark yellow urine. I told myself whatever happened would be contained within these walls, that no one else would ever know, that I could leave it behind when I left, but then I stopped. I didn’t have the energy to pretend to believe myself.</p>
<p>I waited on the edge of the mattress. He’d been outside long enough for three cars to pull up and park. I heard laughing as they gathered in the narrow front room, and then the aluminum door shut tight behind them. I closed my eyes as they walked toward the bedroom door and listened hard to the cicadas under the window. I made myself blank, empty, didn’t look at them, just bit through my lip until the blood filled my mouth with iron. I didn’t open my eyes until it was over.</p>
<p>The next month I steeled myself and picked a spot on the wall to stare at. I figured my eyes were my own at least, and it would keep me from feeling sick. It didn’t. I felt like I was suffocating; the air in the room was heavy, perfectly still. The second guy was drenched in sweat, with nicotine stained fingers and a First Baptist Promise Keepers shirt over his head. He sank down over me, his breath sour and hot on my neck. I tried to lay there, just pretend I was somewhere else, but I knew I was going to be sick. I pushed him off as he fumbled with his belt and ran down the hall to the kitchen sink. His cursing was louder than my vomit, but after I stopped heaving I let the water run over my head until I couldn’t hear him anymore.</p>
<p>I found the door handle and shoved it open to the dirty metal steps outside. It was morning. It felt foreign, the sun had risen somehow since I’d been there. I pulled on the shorts and tank top I’d grabbed on the way out of the room and listened to the voices from the back of the trailer. At least they hadn’t come outside; maybe they’d let me sit here for awhile.</p>
<p>A red truck with scarred chrome fenders drove up and parked near the other cars as I dragged my arm again across my mouth. I let my hair fall cold against my face like a ripped curtain, feeling suddenly sick again. Another one. The truck door slammed and I heard gravel scrape under boots, until whoever it was stopped in front of me. I just wanted him to leave.<br>
“I’m here to put a deadbolt on the outside of this door. Do you know where I can find Gene?” I dug my toes into the Astroturf and he waited for me to say something. I didn’t. There were some things I didn’t have to do. He stood there for a few seconds, and I moved to the edge of the steps so there was a path to the door. But he took a step back and paused.<br>
“Are you ok?”</br></br></p>
<p>This made me look up. I’d assumed it was a man, but something in the voice made me wonder, and she listened after she asked a question like a woman would. She set her toolbox down and squatted down in front of me. I suddenly, maddeningly, felt like crying. My eyes burned with tears that didn’t fall.<br>
“Do you have a cigarette?” I said. I didn’t give a shit who she was. I just wanted to cauterize memory with fire.</br></p>
<p>She dug into her jacket for the pack and lit a Marlboro Red with a zippo before she flipped it gracefully over her fingers to hand to me. The lettering on her truck door said MJ’s Lock & Key. She seemed to know it wasn’t going to do her any good to ask a bunch of questions, but I saw her looking up at the trailer windows and around at the other cars. She had lines around her eyes that made her look kind, but she wasn’t smiling.</p>
<p>The Promise Keeper opened the door behind me and then closed it. I didn’t turn around; I knew it was time to go back in.<br>
“Need a ride?” she said as she stood, sliding the cigarettes back into her shirt pocket and holding out her hand. She was tan, muscular, but definitely a woman. She held it there even when I shook my head. “Yeah, you do,” she said, soft as steel. “Let’s go.”</br></p>
<p>She drove us to the other side of town before she asked me where I needed to go. I waited a minute before I said I didn’t care and she just looked back towards the road. We were two towns over and almost to Missouri before I lowered my window and followed the wind with my palm. It pushed over my hand and through my mind for miles, cool and smooth, hollowing out corners and space. She was taking the back roads, letting me have the silence.</p>
<p>The horizon twisted layers of violet and orange fire evening as we turned into The Red Apple Diner parking lot outside Rockford, Illinois. MJ had asked me several times as she drove if I was hungry or needed anything, and I shook my head, even though I was starving, until she stopped asking. What I really needed was to never stop; to never get out of the truck.<br>
We parked at a diner eventually and headed toward the entrance. She opened the door for me and I stepped into a small dining room with booths pressed against the windows and tucked into corners at the end of a long formica bar lined with stools. MJ chose a booth and I slid in, hungrier than I had ever been in my life, but also aware I didn't have any money.</br></p>
<p>“It’s about time you came back to town, MJ” The waitress arranged forks and knives across the paper placemats in front of us. “Where you headed?”</p>
<p>MJ shrugged, glancing at me. “Don’t really know yet.”<br>
The waitress took her order then looked in my direction, waiting for me to order, but I suddenly couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. They waited, watching. I wished I’d noticed where the bathroom was. Finally she glanced at MJ and said she’d bring me the special. She turned to leave then but hesitated.</br></p>
<p>“It’s OK,” she said to me, and her nails, polished the color of snow, tapped the table. “You don’t have to talk.”<br>
Yeah I do, I thought. I always have to do something.<br>
I was tired. That deep, sinking, overwhelming kind of tired that makes you sick to your stomach. I couldn’t remember the last time I slept without waking up a dozen times. Nothing made it safe enough to go to sleep. There was never enough money, or food, reasons you won’t lose your job, or locks on the doors. Diners are different, though. Something about walking through those glass doors made my muscles start to unfold onto my bones; easing enough room to draw a deep breath. They’re all the same; torn vinyl booths and scuffed counters, all quietly safe. Nothing bad ever happens in a diner.</br></br></p>
<p>The waitress returned to the table with MJ’s food, and the Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes special for me.<br>
“If you don’t like Salisbury steak then you ought to,” she said, sliding it in front of me with a half smile. She and MJ talked for a while and I breathed it in, feeling the warmth fill my lungs and settle into my chest. I was eating in silence, wishing I’d ordered the whole menu, when I heard myself speak.</br></p>
<p>“Do you think there are things…” I said suddenly, glancing at the waitress, feeling the words fall out of my mouth in a rush, “…That if you do them, just make you worth nothing?“<br>
She paused before she spoke, but didn’t look towards MJ or flinch at the question, as if customers asked these things every day.</br></p>
<p>“Well honey, I think we just all do what we need to do to survive,” she said, holding my eyes. “There ain’t no shame in that. You gotta do what gets you to something better.”<br>
Later, she gave MJ a quick hug at the register. I walked ahead to the door but heard her whisper “You take care of that one.” I didn’t hear what MJ said back.</br></p>
<p>The second day we stopped at The Silver Spoon in Illinois Falls. Red naugahyde and scuffed chrome was everywhere, the air heavy with the scent of fried potatoes and kitchen steam. I ordered a patty melt and coke and traced the silver flecks in the peeling tabletop with my thumbnail. The waitress, a fading redhead with a sharp laugh, brought our food and asked if we needed anything else.</p>
<p>“Do you ever feel safe?”</p>
<p>This time I didn’t even try to stop the words. Her eyes were soft, and thoughtful. “You have to make your own safe,” she said, then leaned forward and paused, dropping her voice to a whisper. “And for Christ’s sake, if someone steals it, take it back and hide it better.” She covered my hand with hers, just for a second, before she walked back toward the counter. At closing time, she slid into the booth beside MJ and they talked while I ate three slices of peach pie and a glass of milk.</p>
<p>We drove for three days. I never asked where we were going, I didn’t really care. I started to sleep some, my mind reluctantly unclenching, the edges worn smooth by the wind. I talked only at the diners; just to the waitresses at first, then slowly, to MJ. She didn’t really talk back; listened, mostly. I never asked how she seemed to know every waitress at every diner, or why she’d dropped everything to drive out of town with me.</p>
<p>We pulled into a driveway at dusk on the forth day, after winding forever from Boise up a mountain to McCall, Idaho. A river ran beside the road most of the way; it was loud, crashing over boulders and rushing toward the road before banking back into the trees. The air was crisp, with sharp cedar edges. We finally emerged at the top to the view of a lake that shimmered dark and silent. The sun was setting over it as we turned from the mountain road onto gravel and then to a small lake house at the end of the drive, its boards silvered and settled by time, the tin roof heavy with pine straw from trees that surrounded it.</p>
<p>“Whose house is this?” I unloaded a couple of bags of groceries MJ had picked up in Boise and set them on the porch. It looked familiar, but not, at the same time, like something in a dream.</p>
<p>“It’s my father’s cabin,” she said, searching for the key above the door.</p>
<p>It dropped from the doorframe onto the wide planks of the porch. It was a small old fashioned skeleton key, hand engraved, made of what looked like a mix of antique bronze and copper. I picked it up and handed it to her. She turned it slowly over in her hand, like she’d found something she’d lost.</p>
<p>“He built it when I was a kid, and left it to me last year when he died. I haven’t been here since.”</p>
<p>I slept that night and into the next morning, and woke to see that key on my nightstand. I slipped it on the chain I wore around my neck. The smell of ham and cast iron drifted into the room. MJ was cracking eggs over the edge of the skillet as I reached the door, and I felt her decision not to look up. I followed a path that wound down to the water to a dock grey and weathered as an outstretched wing. Mist hung like translucent velvet over the water, and I sat at the end of the dock, my knees tucked under my chin.</p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Recession, Earth Day 2013]]></title><description><![CDATA[
Sad day
This Earth Day
Downcast eyes
Descending
Seeking solace beneath the rubble
Artist statement
This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.
Download
Full Image
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/recession-earth-day-2013/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f9b</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Rankine]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:23:02 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/earthday--1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><div class="centered">
<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/earthday--1.jpg" alt="Recession, Earth Day 2013"/><p>Sad day<br>
This Earth Day<br>
Downcast eyes<br>
Descending<br>
Seeking solace beneath the rubble</br></br></br></br></p>
</div>
<hr>
<h6 id="artiststatement">Artist statement</h6>
<p>This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.</p>
<h6 id="download">Download</h6>
<p><a href="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/4-Recession-earth-Day-.jpeg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Undress]]></title><description><![CDATA[There’s no way to turn off the days’ lengthening, no
way to stop the gnats gathering like dust against
the backdoor or the late moths stacked around the porch
light’s slanted shine. This is the season that loses
night, an outgrown black sleeve showing off a pallid
wrist. It arrives stinking of new weeds and frog spawn.
You can't resist the bob and blow of its standard
weathers, the breeze and shower that decorate its
branches with dogwood blossom, its sodden soil with
tulip and]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/undress/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f95</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendy Taylor Carlisle]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:22:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/mari-helin-tuominen-39669.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/mari-helin-tuominen-39669.jpg" alt="Undress"/><p>There’s no way to turn off the days’ lengthening, no<br>
way to stop the gnats gathering like dust against</br></p>
<div class="right">
<p>the backdoor or the late moths stacked around the porch<br>
light’s slanted shine. This is the season that loses</br></p>
</div>
<p>night, an outgrown black sleeve showing off a pallid<br>
wrist. It arrives stinking of new weeds and frog spawn.</br></p>
<div class="right">
<p>You can't resist the bob and blow of its standard<br>
weathers, the breeze and shower that decorate its</br></p>
</div>
<p>branches with dogwood blossom, its sodden soil with<br>
tulip and daffodil. Unpredictable</br></p>
<div class="right">
<p>as trout, spring days won’t lie flat. They glisten and slide,<br>
rise up, slap their tails on a planked dock and flip back,</br></p>
</div>
<p>slow to quit the pond’s thaw and sloppy ease.<br>
Take in a lungful of the season. Undress for months.</br></p>
<p><em>From <strong>Fieralingue</strong></em></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hatched]]></title><description><![CDATA[
Hatched into this world
A strange place to call home
Arriving right on time
Bewildered by it all.
Artist statement
This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.
Download
Full Image
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/hatched/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f9a</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Rankine]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:22:23 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Hatched.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><div class="centered">
<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Hatched.jpg" alt="Hatched"/><p>Hatched into this world<br>
A strange place to call home<br>
Arriving right on time<br>
Bewildered by it all.</br></br></br></p>
</div>
<hr>
<h6 id="artiststatement">Artist statement</h6>
<p>This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.</p>
<h6 id="download">Download</h6>
<p><a href="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/3-Hatched-.jpeg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Founding Fathers Greatest Fear was 'Mobocracy']]></title><description><![CDATA["The body of people … do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their
own good sense must despise." --Alexander Hamilton.
The election of Donald Trump as President should be seen as part of a larger phenomenon: a war on the Enlightenment. The U.S. Constitution is often cited as an elegant repository of Enlightenment thinking.
In the l]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-founding-fathers-greatest-fear-was-mobocracy/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f82</guid><category><![CDATA[Prose]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Tim Hackler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:21:11 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/FF23966663103_e69d9c2d29_b.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/FF23966663103_e69d9c2d29_b.jpg" alt="The Founding Fathers Greatest Fear was 'Mobocracy'"/><p>"The body of people … do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their<br>
own good sense must despise." --Alexander Hamilton.</br></p>
<p>The election of Donald Trump as President should be seen as part of a larger phenomenon: a war on the Enlightenment. The U.S. Constitution is often cited as an elegant repository of Enlightenment thinking.</p>
<p>In the late 1780s Americans were inventing the modern world’s first democracy amidst a chorus of international scorn. Yes, the Americans had defeated the British (with the help of the French), but their idea of creating a democracy was too absurd for words. It was a foregone conclusion in Europe that this ridiculous experiment by the Americans would end in disaster. Without the firm hand of a monarch, or at least a government run by aristocrats, "the people" were sure to make a hash of things. It was inevitable, they believed, that a tyrant would soon be running things in America—either a tyrant who seized power during the anarchy that was sure to come, or just as likely a tyrant elected by the people themselves.</p>
<p>Back in America, some of the Founding Fathers were not a whole lot more optimistic. During debates at the New York State Ratifying Convention in 1788, a delegate argued that, were it only possible, pure democracy (that is, direct democracy in which every enfranchised citizen votes on every issue) would be the most perfect government of all.</p>
<p>DO AMERICANS HAVE 'DISCERNMENT AND STABILITY'?</p>
<p>Alexander Hamilton could hardly believe his ears! He immediately sought recognition and said, no doubt with some heat: "The body of people … do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise."</p>
<p>Talk about a back-handed compliment! "Our people are so smart," he seemed to be saying, that "they would be terribly offended if anyone suggested they had ‘the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government.’"</p>
<p>This was not meant to be a slur on the electorate, but a recognition of the fact that the only kind of democracy with a chance at success was one in which the people freely determined who would represent them in the government, and then left it up to those representatives to make wise and informed choices for them.</p>
<p>But could the people be counted on to elect the wisest among them? Lurking behind all the debates in Philadelphia was the core question, as framed by Hamilton: "[Do] the body of people … possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government?"</p>
<p>Ultimately, the founders groped their way to a compromise. "Let’s have enough faith in the people," they reasoned, "to let them directly elect their representatives to the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives. But let’s draw the line there by creating an upper house of Congress, the Senate, whose members will serve six year terms rather than two, and who will be elected by each state’s legislature rather than directly by the people." Pennsylvania’s Gouverneur Morris wanted to go further by choosing senators for life. Why did the Founders feel so strongly about insulating senators from direct popular vote? As one convention delegate put it, the Senate’s most important role would be "to correct the prejudices, check the intemperate passions, and regulate the fluctuations of [the] popular assembly."</p>
<p>Reflecting the fluctuations and intemperate passions of the people, then, would be the job of the House of Representatives. Not foreseeing cable TV and public opinion polls, the Founders could not have known how wildly successful the House of Representatives would be in its assigned role.</p>
<p>It comes as a surprise to many, but the Constitution did, in fact, prescribe that senators be elected by state legislatures rather than by popular vote. This was only changed in 1913 with adoption of the 17th amendment.</p>
<p>(The institution of the Electoral College, which so dumbfounds the entire world, is also an echo of the Founders’ concerns over popular democracy. The president was to be elected by an Electoral College whose members would be chosen by each state legislature—not by a popular vote. Technically speaking, it is still the Electoral College that elects the president, but the College’s vote today is merely a ratification of the popular vote.)</p>
<p>TO US, AN ELITIST SOUND</p>
<p>The new government that Americans were creating during the 1780s seemed radically democratic to the rest of the world; yet to our own ears the debates sound distinctly elitist. Is it just possible they may have known some things we have forgotten?</p>
<p>The Founding Fathers were among the most intelligent and widely read men in the world. (It would be many decades before women would be given the chance to get an education and join the public debate.) And what they focused on most were the histories of Greece and Rome, histories they read in the original Greek and Latin, from books in their own libraries.</p>
<p>What they found in these histories gave them great pause. It seemed to be a kind of law of history that governments began as monarchies or dictatorships, which in some cases evolved into democracies. The problem was that democracies would ultimately devolve into mob rule, which brought back—what else?—kings and dictators to restore order. The Founders saw their job as threading the needle between liberty and order.</p>
<p>"The history of ancient and modern republics has taught [us]… that popular assemblies are frequently misguided by ignorance, by sudden impulses and [by] the intrigues of ambitious men," said Hamilton. And it wasn’t just Hamilton who was worried about "too much" democracy. His fears, to one degree or another, were shared by all the delegates in Philadelphia.</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson was in Paris as minister to France while the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia. When he received a draft of the Constitution, he thought the delegates in Philadelphia had gone a little too far in isolating the Senate from direct popular control. He didn’t quarrel with the idea of senators being selected by state legislatures rather than by popular vote, but he thought a six year term might be too long. Over the years, though, as he experienced the rough and tumble of politics and government, he came to see the wisdom in six-year terms to create a "wise and steady body."</p>
<p>Washington once compared the House and Senate to a tea cup and saucer. The House was the cup, holding the hot tea; the Senate was the saucer into which the tea would be poured. But the tea would not be consumed until it had spent enough time in the saucer to cool off.</p>
<p>Running through the debates in the Constitutional Convention, was the concern, expressed over and over, that the greatest danger the new nation faced was "mobocracy." "I see with fear and trembling," said Gouverneur Morris, "that [we may be] under the worst of all possible dominions … the dominion of a riotous mob." This is why he wanted not only senators but the president to be elected for life—to insulate them from the shifting moods of a populace driven by demagogues.</p>
<p>After the Convention completed its business, a citizen asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government the delegates had devised for the people. “A republic,” he replied, “if you can keep it.”</p>
<p>COULD AMERICANS DO IT?</p>
<p>Ezra Sampson was a moderate Federalist who lived in Concord, Mass. He thought it was still an open question, a decade and a half after the Constitution was adopted, whether Americans would prove themselves up to the task of self-government. Writing in 1805 he said the biggest challenge would be—as it had been throughout history—for the masses to resist the siren calls of demagogues. History has shown time and again, he said, that "the people may, with their own hands, rive out wisdom and virtue from almost every place of influence and authority, and replace them with folly and wickedness."</p>
<p>In words that anticipate Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg 60 years later, Sampson said:</p>
<p>"The great and all-important experiment is now [underway], whether the people of our nation be wiser than have been the people of other nations and of former ages. God grant that the experiment may prove successful…."</p>
<p>But it wouldn’t be easy. Americans needed no encouragement to acknowledge that kings can do wrong. But, Sampson warned, "The same wholesome truth should be inculcated on the people, when they are the fountain of power."</p>
<p>But who’s going to be brave enough to tell the people they are being led by demagogues? The people, after all, “are the fountain of power" and, as Sampson suggests, are about as likely to respond well to criticism as the kings they replaced. Meantime, the demagogues will "flatter" the people and will "[forever be] proclaiming their patriotism."</p>
<p>Sampson paraphrased Joseph Priestly, who saw a kind of Catch-22 inherent in democracies: "In general, the truly honest Statesman is sure to be abused, and generally ruined by the arts of the dishonest, who scruple not to fight with such weapons as the upright man cannot use himself …."</p>
<p>And don’t even think that mankind will ever get wise to this, said Sampson. Human nature never changes, and when demagogues sound their trumpet and appeal to man’s ignorance and selfishness, well, the multitudes will be hooked every time:</p>
<p>"Men, like fishes -- provided the hook is concealed -- greedily swallow the bait: and, as fishes … are still caught with the same ease as formerly. So the heedless children of men profit but little from the history and experience of former generations; insomuch that the same arts of deception, which have succeeded in one age, may be practiced in the age ensuing, with equal success."</p>
<p>Perhaps, said Sampson, America’s democracy will succeed, if Jefferson’s predictions about the virtue and education of the common man come true. "But, on the other hand," he said, "if the sources of public information should be corrupted; if newspapers should become the vehicles of falsehood and slander …;—if the education of children and youth should be neglected;—if there should be a general depravation of morals;…—if patriotism itself should become a bye-word, by reason of the conduct of its hypocritical professors …: If this should be the state of things … it would but too seriously indicate approaching ruin.”</p>
<p>ENTER JEFFERSON</p>
<p>Wasn’t there anyone sanguine about the wisdom of the masses? When people think of champions of the common man, Thomas Jefferson is usually the first name that comes to mind.</p>
<p>"I have no fear," he said in 1787, "but that the result of our experiment will be, that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master." This was so fundamental in Jefferson’s worldview that he added this remarkable sentence: "Could the contrary of this be proved, I should conclude either that there is no God, or that he is a malevolent being." That’s pretty high stakes—and a moving affirmation of his belief that mankind not only has the right to govern itself, but the ability.</p>
<p>And yet ….</p>
<p>There were qualifications attached to this optimism, and Jefferson over time became less optimistic about man’s capabilities for self-government. Toward the end of his life, he had to acknowledge that "The qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. They are the result of habit and long training."</p>
<p>Jefferson came to believe it would be an uphill climb—even in America—for a people to develop the "habits and long training" necessary for democracy to succeed. In the meantime—while Americans were the people in all the world best prepared for democracy—success would not be guaranteed unless a few basic conditions were met:</p>
<p>First, the people must not succumb to what we would today call materialism. Luxuries corrupt the soul and degrade the body politic. This viewpoint was held by virtually every literate American.</p>
<p>Second, Americans must maintain their Virtue; they can’t collapse into endless factions looking only to their own welfare—they have to think in terms of the common good—including sacrifice for the welfare of future generations. (No one took this for granted. Maybe he was just having a bad day, but one of the great proponents of the Enlightenment in America, Benjamin Rush, wrote John Adams in 1789, that "a hundred years hence, absolute monarchy will probably be rendered necessary in our country by the corruption of the people.")</p>
<p>Most of all, the electorate has to be educated and informed. "The people will err sometimes," but "when things get too far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights—if they are well-informed."</p>
<p>Jefferson never saw anything so important to the success of the American experiment as education.</p>
<ul>
<li>"Education is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."</li>
<li>"I have two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength [and the first is] that of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom."</li>
<li>"If the condition of man is to be progressively ameliorated, … education is to be the chief instrument in effecting it…."</li>
</ul>
<p>And finally, in what is one of the most beautiful evocations of his enlightened and hopeful outlook, he said :</p>
<ul>
<li>"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day."</li>
</ul>
<p>WANTED: AN ENLIGHTENED COUNTRY</p>
<p>Jefferson thought there were four bedrock necessities if America’s experiment with democracy was to succeed:</p>
<p>(1) An educated, informed electorate.</p>
<p>(2) A virtuous electorate, uncorrupted by luxuries and materialism.</p>
<p>(3) An electorate willing to sacrifice for the common good, and unwilling to pass its problems on to the next generation.</p>
<p>(4) An electorate discerning enough to resist demagogues. In short, an enlightened country that would be "admired and respected by every people on earth."</p>
<p>If you think that’s an accurate description of America today, then the Founders’ concerns were ill-founded. If you don’t think that’s an accurate description of America today, then perhaps it’s time, for a change, to seriously contemplate what the Founders had to say about human nature and the frailty of democracies.</p>
<p>It is said that when Henry Kissinger asked the premier of China what he thought of the French Revolution, the premier’s reply was: "I don’t know. It’s too soon to say." The same might be said of the American Revolution.</p>
<pre><code> -end-
</code></pre>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Shroud Mary]]></title><description><![CDATA[
Shroud in fine silk and diamonds
Her broken halo
Sprouting crystal horns
Clears a new path
For a new vision
Artist statement
This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.
Download
Full Image
]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/shroud-mary/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f99</guid><category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[John Rankine]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:20:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Shroud-Mary----1.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><div class="centered">
<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/Shroud-Mary----1.jpg" alt="Shroud Mary"/><p>Shroud in fine silk and diamonds<br>
Her broken halo<br>
Sprouting crystal horns<br>
Clears a new path<br>
For a new vision</br></br></br></br></p>
</div>
<hr>
<h6 id="artiststatement">Artist statement</h6>
<p>This series of photographs are my attempt to breath symbolic life into the inanimate. It’s my hope the short prose, written after the photographs were taken, enhance and help further the narrative for the viewer.</p>
<h6 id="download">Download</h6>
<p><a href="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/2-shroud-mary-.jpeg?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Full Image</a></p>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Submission Guidelines]]></title><description><![CDATA[Writers and artists work in the loneliest of all professions, inside our heads. Those daring enough to create and reveal something of their inner natures, are to be lauded. The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow salutes your courage and thanks you for your submissions.
Submission Guidelines
DEADLINE for submissions for Issue 9 of eMerge is December 15, 2020.
All Submission Formatting
Text
* Microsoft Word documents (doc/docx)
* 12pt Times New Roman
Photography
* Landscape orientati]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/submission-guidelines/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fa0</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 09 Aug 2017 21:58:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501504905252-473c47e087f8?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=442d2b4cc69ced2c186ae8a81a14325f" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1501504905252-473c47e087f8?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=442d2b4cc69ced2c186ae8a81a14325f" alt="Submission Guidelines"/><p>Writers and artists work in the loneliest of all professions, inside our heads. Those daring enough to create and reveal something of their inner natures, are to be lauded. The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow salutes your courage and thanks you for your submissions.</p>
<h5 id="submissionguidelines">Submission Guidelines</h5>
<p><strong>DEADLINE for submissions for Issue 9 of eMerge is December 15, 2020.</strong></p>
<h5 id="allsubmissionformatting">All Submission Formatting</h5>
<h6 id="text">Text</h6>
<ul>
<li>Microsoft Word documents (doc/docx)</li>
<li>12pt Times New Roman</li>
</ul>
<h6 id="photography">Photography</h6>
<ul>
<li>Landscape orientation</li>
<li>Minimum 1200px width</li>
<li>JPEG format (ideally with limited compression)</li>
</ul>
<h6 id="biography">Biography</h6>
<ul>
<li>Required for all submissions</li>
<li>Up to 600 characters (not words)</li>
<li>300x300 photo of the author (required)</li>
<li>Link to the author's website, Facebook and/or Amazon author page (optional)</li>
</ul>
<h5 id="categoryspecificformatting">Category-Specific Formatting</h5>
<h6 id="prose">Prose</h6>
<ul>
<li>2500 words (10 double-spaced pages)</li>
</ul>
<h6 id="poetry">Poetry</h6>
<ul>
<li>Max 5 poems</li>
<li>Max 25 lines (3 pages)</li>
<li>Left-aligned, standard format</li>
</ul>
<h6 id="recipes">Recipes</h6>
<ul>
<li>Max 5 pages</li>
<li>Will be made/tried before publishing</li>
</ul>
<h6 id="photography">Photography</h6>
<ul>
<li>Maximum 5 photos</li>
<li>Ideally include cameo narratives (max 150 words)</li>
</ul>
<h5 id="howtosubmit">How to Submit</h5>
<p>All submissions should be sent to <a href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=Submission">[email protected]</a> with the word Submission in the subject area.</p>
<hr>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Issue 1: Summer 2017]]></title><description><![CDATA[Letter from the Editor
I have served on the board of the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) since 2014 and currently serve as Acquisitions Editor for our online magazine, eMerge. I retired to Eureka Springs in 2007 from Texas, where I spent thirty years as a teacher, coach and school administrator. Since ‘retiring’ to Eureka I was fortunate to become involved in a writing group that meets at WCDH on a weekly basis. From this group sprang the creation of the Five and Dime Drama Collective, ]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/issue-1-summer-2017/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522fa1</guid><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Charles Templeton]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 09 Aug 2017 21:00:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2017/08/wcdh.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h4 id="letter-from-the-editor">Letter from the Editor</h4>
<img src="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/content/images/2017/08/wcdh.jpg" alt="Issue 1: Summer 2017"/><p>I have served on the board of the <a href="http://writerscolony.org/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH)</a> since 2014 and currently serve as Acquisitions Editor for our online magazine, eMerge. I retired to Eureka Springs in 2007 from Texas, where I spent thirty years as a teacher, coach and school administrator. Since ‘retiring’ to Eureka I was fortunate to become involved in a writing group that meets at WCDH on a weekly basis. From this group sprang the creation of the Five and Dime Drama Collective, an organization that writes and produces 10 minute plays in Eureka by novice playwrights, providing them an opportunity to see their works come to life on stage. From this idea another transpired, to establish a platform for both emerging and established writers and artists to publish and promote their literary and graphic works.</p>
<p>It is the sincere wish of <a href="http://writerscolony.org/?ref=staging.emerge-magazine.com">WCDH</a> that you enjoy our very first publication of our online magazine, eMerge. As you read and view these works, try to keep in mind that solitary moment when inspiration strikes the writer and is followed by the immensely complicated process of translating thoughts to words and then putting them on paper. J.K. Rowling tells the story this way: She was on a train coming home to London from a weekend looking at flats in Manchester in 1990, when she suddenly got the idea for a novel. "I was looking out of the window at some cows, I believe and I just thought: 'Boy doesn't know he's a wizard - goes off to wizard school,'" she said in an interview with Stephen Fry. "I have no idea where it came from. I think the idea was floating along the train and looking for someone, and my mind was vacant enough, so it decided to zoom in there.” And the rest, as they say, is history.</p>
<p>Until next time,<br>
I remain,<br>
Just another Zororastafarian editor looking for the next JK Rowling to emerge</br></br></p>
<p>Charles</p>
<h4 id="acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</h4>
<h6 id="contributors-to-this-issue">Contributors to this Issue</h6>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/john">John Rankine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/wendy">Wendy Taylor Carlisle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/william">William Bernhardt</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/woody">Woody Barlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/dan">Dan Morris</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/jerry">Jerry Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/jocelyn-morelli">Jocelyn Morelli</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/zeek">Zeek Taylor</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/tim">Tim Hacker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/joan">Joan Baril</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/sheryl">Sheryl Leoffler</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/lynn">Lynn Larson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/sherri">Sherri C. Perry</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/lissa">Lissa Lord</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/sharon">Sharon Spurling</a></li>
<li><a href="https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/author/patricia">Patricia Evans Jordan</a></li>
</ul>
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Verge of Jordan]]></title><description><![CDATA[I.
Limping Towards Infinity
Before the sun and old age dawned,
I crashed, half asleep, into the dark-
obscured, jutting corner of a wall
and broke, or nearly broke, a toe.
The wall a jolt, though accidental,
into senescence, almost as sure
as the hormone blasts that startled breasts
and adolescence into excitement.
The brain knows finitude. The heart does not.
24,000 sunrises. How many
more? The wall a reminder of other
hard stops on the limping way to infinity.
II.
In Baghd]]></description><link>https://staging.emerge-magazine.com/the-verge-of-jordan/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__6771ae92fb1c2705b8522f84</guid><category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category><category><![CDATA[Summer 2017]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sheryl Loeffler]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 09 Aug 2017 16:37:34 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/nasa-90395.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h5 id="i">I.</h5>
<h4 id="limpingtowardsinfinity">Limping Towards Infinity</h4>
<img src="https://res-1.cloudinary.com/emerge-magazine/image/upload/q_auto/v1/blog-images/2017/08/nasa-90395.jpg" alt="The Verge of Jordan"/><p>Before the sun and old age dawned,<br>
I crashed, half asleep, into the dark-<br>
obscured, jutting corner of a wall<br>
and broke, or nearly broke, a toe.</br></br></br></p>
<p>The wall a jolt, though accidental,<br>
into senescence, almost as sure<br>
as the hormone blasts that startled breasts<br>
and adolescence into excitement.</br></br></br></p>
<p>The brain knows finitude. The heart does not.<br>
24,000 sunrises. How many<br>
more? The wall a reminder of other<br>
hard stops on the limping way to infinity.</br></br></br></p>
<h5 id="ii">II.</h5>
<h4 id="inbaghdad">In Baghdad</h4>
<h6 id="afterwsomersetmaugham">After W. Somerset Maugham</h6>
<p>Plump Death, on his day off,<br>
wanders the Souk, straightens his bow tie,<br>
stops in shock when he sees the Servant,<br>
who shrieks in fright and flees through the maze<br>
of market alleys to disappearance.</br></br></br></br></p>
<p><em>Master, Master! I’ve just seen Death.<br>
Let me ride to Samarra, out of sight.</br></em></p>
<p>The Master, annoyed, finds Death at coffee,<br>
one white-linened leg crossed neatly over<br>
the other. <em>Sorry,</em> says Death. <em>I didn’t<br>
mean to stare at him, scare him<br>
half</br></br></em>—he laughs—<em>to death.</em> He straightens<br>
his tie again, takes a sip<br>
of coffee. <em>I was simply surprised<br>
to see him here, because</br></em>—he opens<br>
his appointment book—<em>I’m scheduled<br>
to meet him this evening. In Samarra.</br></em></br></br></br></br></br></p>
<h5 id="iii">III.</h5>
<h4 id="theadvantagesofdyingyoung">The Advantages of Dying Young</h4>
<div class="even-odd">
<div>If the God worm has already bitten</div>
<div>into your meat and bone, </div>
<div>if you’ve already met the abstraction</div>
<div>that will spirit you off, think </div>
<div>of the advantages of discontinuing, </div>
<div>of leaving the party early.</div></div>
<div class="even-odd">
<div>Those who remain standing </div>
<div>with their wine glasses paused</div>
<div>to their lips as you wave good-bye </div>
<div>and shut the door behind you</div>
<div>won’t die, nor will you, even when you do. </div>
<div>You’ll just have left the room. </div>
</div>
<div class="even-odd">
<div>Not yours the mortifications of mindlessness, </div>
<div>the body’s bitter betrayals.</div>
<div>Not yours the long decrescendo into soundlessness.</div>
<div>No more tears for what is broken in this world. </div>
<div>Out of the party, into the holy night. </div>
</div>
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