Search results for Water

August 4, 2022

“I’ll Have Water Overnice,” by Kaeli Dinh

I’ll have water overnice Freedom was getting to sleep over at our uncle’s. Fridays consisted of squirting ketchup into our waters and Saturdays with blankets over our eyes from the late-night horror films. We were three spoiled children that slept with sugar running through our veins and nightmares we didn’t tell our mother. Then the pencil marks on the wall got higher and our hands started to grab more. But uncle was still squirting ketchup into his water. Freedom was forgetting to answer his calls and taking cash out of the birthday cards he made. Keeping us healthy costs more than his insulin shots. But his hand kept feeding until he lost his sight. He was fooled humbling himself a Giving Tree. We took his only good apples and now his eyes. When he wanted…

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August 22, 2019

“Water,” A Fiction by Rob Swigart

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

“Water? What do I think about water? I’ll tell you what I think about water.” Lyman was angry. The silence went on. “Well?” Alford prompted. “What do you think about water?” He tried to keep his question flat, so as not to acknowledge Lyman’s fit of pique. “I try not to,” Lyman said, at last, deflated. He put his head back and closed his eyes. Alford did not see how this was possible. Lyman sat in it. Or rather, he lay in it. Was lying. He was lying too. Alford knew that as well. Lyman did not try not to think about water. To try to not think about water would have meant humming meaningless jingles or reciting nursery rhymes or doing advanced algebra in his head or most likely doing nothing but think about not thinking about water, which Lyman, for one, was unprepared…

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July 4, 2024

Pablo, by Ronan Hart

Posted by Malik White in Featured Posts, Writing

*Featured image courtesy of Ben Hershey on Unsplash* Everyone handles grief differently, and Ronan manages to capture this excellently in this short story. Enjoy, and happy Independence Day for those of you who celebrate! He’s sitting at the top of the steps leading down from the decking to the lawn, facing away from us. His head is bowed, showing the bald spot on his crown, ever-expanding, immutable, and I ask mum if he should be putting sun cream on it if he’s going to be sitting out there for so long. She pauses in her plate drying, gripping it so tight that I’m worried she might shatter it, before sighing and setting it on the workbench with a disregard that would have earned my seven-year-old self a stern reprimand. She closes her eyes for a…

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June 24, 2024

“La Hacienda de Las Chismosas” by Rachel Gonzalez

Posted by Malik White in Featured Posts, Member Writing & Art, Writing

*Featured image courtesy of Katsiaryna Endruszkiewicz on Unsplash* This week we are proud to present another piece by our Writer-in-Residence, Rachel Gonzalez. Rachel has put a lot of work into creating this story, and it has resulted in a truly beautiful piece of writing. They come to La Hacienda to ease their bodies and their minds. It’s a resplendent house of generations that will always stand. The burdened, the troubled, the mischievous, all come for the caring touch from the hands of the hacienda. With more importance and reverence than any state building or diplomat’s home, it is the beating heart of this town. A home to all, if even for a moment. Halls of brightly-tiled walls and dimly-lit ways for privacy and peace. Cobblestone paths meander and lead into the heart of the hacienda….

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June 20, 2024

4 Poems by Glen Armstrong

Posted by Malik White in Featured Posts, Writing

*Featured image courtesy of Pexels on Pixabay* Glen Armstrong has a unique voice and style that leads to some magical lines in his poetry. Check out his four poems down below. Antonyms for “Blue Grass” Has the violin been over-repaired? It doesn’t sound hillbilly enough. And what about my singing voice? There are worse ways to earn a dollar. I holler at my sweetheart the way I holler at an animal that it’s time to eat. Rich folk leave the Met pretending their feet do not exist, pretending that a God they don’t believe in has chosen them with a magnet tied to a string tied to a bamboo fishing pole. We invite them to pull up a chair, but they are statues broken from their bases. We offer them bread, but their bellies are…

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June 14, 2024

6 Poems by Marissa LaPorte

Posted by Malik White in Featured Posts, Writing

*Featured image courtesy of Ian Deng on Unsplash* We have a nice collection of poems this week by Marissa LaPorte. Marissa evokes a lot of emotion in her writing, which we were immediately drawn to. Let’s give her a warm welcome to the community! Smoke and Nostalgia on the Underground City Train The city smog was suffocating Air purifiers blasting noise like static on the underground train Those purifiers didn’t have a chance against the thick city air It swarmed in like hordes of black flies every time the train stopped and dared to open its doors to the harsh conditions of outside Silly us for thinking we would be safe underground Sillier that people still believe it is a long-term fix I stifle the urge to laugh in the face of the absurdity Maybe…

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June 4, 2024

“All’s Fair in Love and War” by Brandon Breen

Posted by Malik White in Featured Posts, Member Writing & Art, Writing

*Featured image courtesy of Jack Ward on Unsplash* This piece by Brandon Breen takes us on an emotional journey that also gives us some insight into Italian history. This is truly a special piece and we hope Brandon shares with us again in the future. Padua, Italy, 1968 Everything was about to change in Gabriella’s own country. Not everyone had the foresight to see that the revolutionary spirit brewing inside the students would soon be turned out onto the failures of Italy itself. There were so many injustices going on in Italy and the entire world and it was ironic that it was an occurrence on a worldwide scale that reflected the lens back towards Italy. Others were convinced that fascism was dead and gone and ignored the fermenting of familiar ideology. What most people…

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May 6, 2024

4 Poems by Joe Farina

Posted by Malik White in Writing

*Image courtesy of Amber Kipp on Unsplash* National Poetry Month may be over, but we still have plenty of great poetry to share. Let’s give a warm welcome to Joe Farina as he joins FC’s family with his collection of somber poems. street dreams does a street have a memory, beneath its many coats does it remember every soul, who walked upon it does it long for a return, to cobblestones and carriages or quicken to the thunder of street cars on silver tracks drugged by combustion engines does it remember being fashioned by the din of picks and shovels wielded by strange speaking labourers until it gleamed, new, in overcoats of smooth concrete and asphalt marked with cryptic symbols does this street have my dreams leaking out its cracks does it smile, as i,…

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May 2, 2024

Michael Larrain’s “The Life of a Private Eye”

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

“You’ve made it,” says the narrator of the Firesign Theater’s “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him.” “You’ve made it. Welcome to Side Six.” This is Part 6, the last noirvelette about Michael’s nameless private eye. Thanks to all of you who have commented, so enthusiastically, about this series. It makes Michael and your Baristas so happy to know you’ve enjoyed it. And this last one you are sure to enjoy as well, as it takes place in the Hollywood film business. Its resonant irony will have you grinning and you will appreciate the identity mashups. So without a commercial break or a single coming attraction, we pull the curtain back and roll ’em with “The Pontiff & the Wiener-Monger.” The Life of A Private Eye A Noirvelette in Verse By Michael Larrain Part…

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April 24, 2024

Michael Larrain’s “The Life of a Private Eye”

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

No, you’re not seeing double. This is Part 5 of the poet’s extraordinary narrative poem about his fictional private eye. Each is told by our one and only gumshoe, each a separate adventure in the streets of Los Angeles, and in each a dame. Of course. If he can figure her out, he can solve the crime. Let’s see how he does in this episode. One more to go next week. The Life of A Private Eye A Noirvelette in Verse By Michael Larrain Part 5: Quadruple Indemnity Original illustrations by Katherine Willmore My doctors had been advising me to get more exercise, so I learned how to put myself into a trance and slipped a couple of useful ideas into my post-hypnotic suggestion-box. The first was to take nightly sleepwalking perambulations. The second tricked…

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