All posts in Writing

January 22, 2020

“That Finals Hour,” Poetry by John Grey

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

THAT FINALS HOURIt’s not complacency. It’s stupefaction.The final is in an hour. And I’m notsucking this pen like a popsicle.Behind my lips, I’m in a chewing frenzy.Yes, I’m sipping coffee. And peelingand orange. But the activity requiredis like a drug. My frayed nerves deserveno less. Some friends stroll by.Trades looks tell all. Once eyesadopt a principle of honesty,self-confidence falls flat on its own face.In a room to the building on my right,it’s not a simple mathematics test thatawaits but the labors of Hercules.A growling Nemean lion of an algebrapuzzle. A geometrical hydra. Astamping, snorting, trigonometryCretan Bull. Compared to me,the ancient strongman had it easy.He could stop at twelve. Ah, if onlythe test were on mythology. Allthose contradictory characteristics.Gods and heroes. The supernatural.The bloody. The inspiring. Themiraculous. Best of all, one plus oneonly had to equal…

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January 15, 2020

“Hue,” Colorful Flash Fiction by Kasondra Perez

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

Southern California is the same hue as your eyes. Brown rutted brush where the goats will chew out the fire breaks so maybe we won’t burn up like your rage on a Saturday night after maple colored scotch.  I remember white blankets of soft ice covered the town where I went to school. Everything was touch and go, where winds would pick up like a whip and snap you forward on the walk from your dormitory, coming up again on the return like a violent slap to the face of pitch cold, kind of like last night with your words, never actually, but reaching into my grey matter and thumbing at the tabs of files until pulling out one labeled Insecurities. You took that folder and studied it like admissions counselors studied my manuscripts. Scrutinized and memorized. …

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January 13, 2020

“True Home and A Bottle of Champagne” by Samuel Ekanem

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

As the only human figure in the void corridor, Inem Ikang paused and wondered at her shadow, cast on the corridor walls – the corridor her only possible passage, its walls made of plywood. She had never imagined this: someone casting shadows in the absence of light. And so she started to dance, her body moving slowly, side to side, until the shadows made clearer semblances of her and she was sure they were not spirits. By the time her heart started to bang inside of her, she stopped dancing and craned her neck around the corridor, searching for light. But then she realised that there’s usually no light when there’s darkness. She moved closer to the wall and caressed the shadows with both hands. The feelings awed her – the wall feeling doughy like half-baked bread. She caressed and caressed, and…

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January 6, 2020

“Low-Hanging Fireworks,” Poetry by Richard-Yves Sitoski

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

Low-Hanging FireworksMother never woke up tangled in starsbut stayed on Earth, which father droppedand watched as it rolled beneath the couch.Her music was straight as a prairie road,his was bent like an elbow to the gut.He prefered the company of dogs,she of me when I felt like one.He proved that there are no happy alcoholicsand that love is conditional,she that mushrooms can push through asphaltand that cancer comes without a screenplay.The cookies she baked were chocolate chipbut I always wound up with raisin.He taught me to fish, but each oneI caught swallowed the hook.He tried to be anonymousbut the rest of the world ignored him.Some nights he came home after not coming home.Some days her migraines were low-hanging fireworks.I wrote this poem because memoryis no insurance against decay.I wrote this poem because it ain’t gossip…

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January 3, 2020

“Suzy, the New Girl” by Roopa Raveendran-Menon

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

Suzy, the new girl, and I became best friends fairly quickly. It took us around five days to be inseparable but I swear that I could have been her best pal the day she walked into the classroom. I even remember the time—It was ten minutes to the first recess gong. Chubby Chandini had already stuffed half of the contents of her tiffin box into her mouth. I knew she had bought potato pancake—bits of yellow potato laced the little fuzz above her thin lips. I had buried my head in my textbook to swallow the loud chortle that had threatened to sneak out. That was when Suzy had walked in. It was hard to believe that she was wearing our dull blue and white checked uniform because she wore it so well, with the flair and grace of a diva. I…

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December 27, 2019

Chapter III of Dan Coleman’s “Professor of Death”

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

Editor’s Note: We’ve been honored to publish Dan Coleman’s “Professor of Death” short story which, due to its length, has appeared in three parts this month: Part I, Part II, and herewith, the final chapter of the author’s triptych. Please read them in order for full appreciation. ** Robert dressed in dark clothes and arrived at the banker’s estate in the East Hamptons just after 2:00 a.m., Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. The site was secluded off a main road and down a winding lane. He surveyed the area with night vision field glasses. Except for a subtle breeze and ruffling leaves, all was calm, the sky moonless, overcast, therefore pitch black. Very good conditions. He exited the car near the gate and blew the dog whistle several times. No dogs on the estate at least….

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December 25, 2019

“Professor of Death,” by Dan Coleman Chapter II

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

In his other profession, Robert Fountain was an assassin. A highly skilled and experienced, highly paid and very well-connected killer of important people mostly of political persuasion, but occasionally a high-class criminal or two. At least he thought he was. Lately, he was beginning to wonder if it were still true. This career began long before his academic one when he dropped out of college after a year to join the Army in the heat of the Vietnam War. He was sent to officer candidate school and trained as a Special Forces commando, eventually serving three tours in Vietnam. On his first tour, he was promoted to captain two months before his twenty-first birthday, making him, at the time, the youngest captain in the U.S. Army. He was a major when he got out,…

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December 23, 2019

“Professor of Death,” A Short Story by Dan Coleman

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

Editor’s Note: This short story will take you through a few unexpected turns with each chapter. You may begin to think you are being treated to a horror/fiction story and then maybe it’s really about a romance. Or is it? In any case, we hope you enjoy each chapter. We present these three intriguing chapters of the short story “Professor of Death” – beginning tonight and continuing throughout the week. ** Things were getting a little too scary to suit Robert Fountain. He could feel the times changing around him, sense the movement of sinister winds, like the rolling in of a tidal wave, and he didn’t want to be standing on the beach when it got there. He was a man with two professions, one public, in which he was a respected authority of some…

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December 21, 2019

“American Child” – A Poem by M. Sullivan

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

I’ve walked along the maps of my home around the bends of the Housatonic River and up Mount Greylock hanging over Jamaica Plain I’ve run my fingers over the shores of Nantucket and felt the Mystic and run my gaze over Watatic the high Wachusett and felt the rumble of the Mattapan line and wandered the streets of Swampscott and of Chappaquiddick I remember the first bus I took to school named the Cummaquid Chief and how I thought as I shook afraid that the bus would be driven by a head- dressed brown- skinned face- painted man with leather moccasins and fierce gaze the names meant nothing to me no near mountain no great cove nothing that lay in the midst of waters nor far off among the waves there was no place I…

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December 19, 2019

“Satiety,” and Other Poems by Brian Rihlmann

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

SATIETYthere used to be a much longer delay between hope and disappointment now, I pluck the fruit and it withers in my hand I know it’s bitter before my tongue does soon I’ll leave the fruit and nourish myself on emptiness I’ll chew the blue of the sky I’ll taste the black of the night and be filled ** REBORN and when the pain finally goes as inexplicably as it came we grab its arm to drag it back through the door like a spurned lover saying “please stay… I didn’t mean it” we believe if we let it go then it has no more meaning than a passing cloud a brief summer storm a dead leaf blowing down the street in the wake of a truck it must mean something more than that we think— we think so and thus it is reborn to scream at us through all our days and nights ** QUIT WEARING OTHER…

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