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Breath & Shadow

April 2008 - Vol. 5, Issue 2

"A Quartet of Poems"

Patricia Wellingham-Jones

I pull my body out of bed,

shuffle down the hall,

squint at the furnace buttons,

hope I press 'on'.

Heading back for those last minutes

of body flat on mattress...

"All There Is"

Gail Livesay

I sit in a world of beauty.

The trees wave their arms in good cheer.

The flowers bow their colorful heads. The grasses

whisper in rapture...

"All We Have To Go On"

Leah Meredith

Making sense of your wants is playing charades without the rules, making socks without the pattern, packing clothes without a box. Do you want dinner, a toy, a bath? It's CIA–grade guesswork. Your needs—love, food, motion, sleep—appear simple, but your silence lends them complexity. I hope you speak up soon. Life's existential desires—peace, war, freedom—are bigger than the poor words I can provide for you.

"My Travelin' Roots"

Roy A. Barnes

Sometime during my sixth year on this planet, my father, Marvin Barnes, asked me if I would like to travel with him in his semi–truck during some of his long haul trips around the country. I was very excited about doing so, and ultimately would log thousands of miles in states east and south of Wyoming when school was not in session.

 

My dad hauled freight for a company called Western Nebraska Express. He owned a used, high– maintenance International Harvester that had a flat–nosed, light blue cab.

"Spangles"

David Bolt

A Man was unconscious on his kitchen floor when a boy walked in expecting the usual mixture of song, humor and breakfast.

     

"Dad?"

 

An upset stool was lying next to the man, but his black Labrador looked on without concern.      

 

"Oh my God, no, Dad."     

 

As the boy rushed over to the telephone, the man's red cheek was pressed hard against the cold black and white tiles. It was only a matter of seconds, but he resisted laughter for as long as he could and then leaped high into the air.

"The Short Bus: A Book Review"

Erika Jahneke

I both loved and hated this book. I loved it for its fast–reading, wacky, almost outlaw tone, and for the exciting and vital cast of characters Jonathan Mooney met while driving an iconic "short bus" across America. My favorite was Kent, performance artist, and author of the book Portrait of Your Momma as a Young Man who has turned his ADHD into Steven Wright–meets–Andy– Kaufman comedy riffs.

 

The thing I hated wasn't any stylistic imperfection, although, in the wake of Mooney's dyslexia, I'd be interested in learning about his writing process, but the painful memories it brought me of the struggles of being a short–bus rider myself throughout the 1980s.

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