The Girl Who Was Like Ruby Tuesday
Belinda Palmer and Clinton Pierce met at a pot party in 1969. Clinton did not like being at such a party, mainly because he feared getting busted. A drug bust would mean the end of his future plans. He resolved not to smoke but also knew he risked his clean reputation merely by being there. He walked out in the back yard, away from the smoke, the crowding, and the noise. A quiet sky spread above him, a fingernail of moon and the first stars shining in the pale blue over a scrim of trees. The sight of a girl sitting on a bench startled him. He smiled at her. She returned his smile. He...
Read MoreTsunami
Am I to desire you, lover, who teaches non-attachment? I am tsunami; with violence and duration My petitions, as in wave shoaling, heighten to break in fists And sea spray upon your coastline. Am I to desire you, lover, who speaks of immaterial love? Alone, to embrace these long, lilac dusk shadows? When your mouth is tropical water, a sleepy harbor Of honeysuckle skin and halcyon limbs. Am I to desire you, lover, who spins parables of reason? You persuade me that need is only the howling infant, With softness you cradle my angry wet face With patience you crouch at the perimeter of this...
Read MoreDunkirk Dilemma
Who would have thought such a disaster could happen! And that I would be caught up in the midst of it? I was in Dover, working fast to patch up wounded soldiers coming off the boats from Dunkirk. Hundreds of thousands of troops surrounded and trapped on a beach in France, the Luftwaffe strafing them with bullets, and all we could do was get everyone who had a boat to go off and rescue them. Had we gone back to medieval times? My meager nurse’s training from the last war was not enough. Three young men dead on my hands already; one of them leaving me with a most nerve-racking final request....
Read MoreWild Violet Featured Works: Week of Sep 23 (Love, Part 1)
In honor of my wedding anniversary, which is next weekend, this is the first in a two-part series on love. The ethereal science fiction piece “The Courtship of Battlecruiser Dancing Light” by Jon Kilgannon is set in the midst of a space battle and will give you goosebumps. The detail-packed poem “He told Me It Would Happen” by Alison Hicks contemplates the inevitable journey towards love. The art-inspired poem “Gesso” by Holly Hendin explores the May-December relationship between an artist and his...
Read MoreGesso
He said he always uses gesso first So the paint on top won’t crack And here I am dizzy in the tunnel Lights dividing like swimmer’s lane lines And I take to the diver’s block and put my hands to the edge and I I want to call him And tell him that I’m afraid of it all disappearing And I don’t even know what “it” is But maybe it would clump in my brush Like the oil that wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place And on the edge of my desk, a red party cup full of paint thinner And he’s so thin and worn that when we hug I can feel his paintbrush ribs against my breasts And...
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