A Cowboy in Spring

(Love in a Pick-up Truck)

by Beverly Koepplin

Come on, cowboy, come on down from that line cabin,

ride your trusty old Ford steed into town,

pick up a new Stetson, soft fawn suede, at the mercantile,

and grab a shirt off the rack, pearl buttons shining in the sun.

Dust off your jeans and polish your boots to newness,

saunter over to the saloon and breathe in your freedom,

free from winter snows, cold days and colder nights,

bawling cows, stiff joints, and solitary hours without end.

Grab yourself a stool and order that first draft of beer,

swirl it in around in your mouth, swallow the nectar.

Ah, for a couple of bucks, paradise is found at the beat-up bar,

and the future suddenly looks like spring and summer and love.

Come on, cowboy, I am waiting down at the end of the bar,

waiting for you to thaw out, waiting for you to find your feet,

waiting for you to unwind from off that stool and walk my way,

waiting for a glance that catches me and holds me tight.

Come on, cowboy, I want to try on your new hat,

dance a two-step with you as Elvis croons from inside the jukebox,

wink up at you to say “Hi, cowboy.  It’s been a while.”,

feel the stiffness in your shirt, smell beer and leather and the springtime.

Come on, cowboy, swing me around and dance me out the door.

One last twirl, then a quick murmur to “wait right there, darling”,

you go to get your pick up and drive it right up on the sidewalk,

and you say “Come on in, sweetheart.  It’s a good day for love in a pick up.”

                                                          ***

Ego

by Lucille Hamilton

Think how big their egos must be

that their name is known even

in villages that grow cotton or rice

for a living, or that depend

on the diminishing fish that are

hauled from the swelling sea.

Never before in our known earth's history

has there been such power among so few.

Is it the power of the head, the thinking power,

or is it the understanding compassion of the heart?

Who has both,

that can lead us wisely through the extremes

of our extreme creations

that involve us all

in decisions that mean life

or death - for us all

in our shared lives' experience

here on this beautiful, giving earth?

                       ***

Contemplation of Unlabeled Wine

                   by Joan R Brady

I have always known it to be thought of as...

potentially...dangerous...and possibly exotic...

A one of a kind created by an artist’s hand...

crimson...dark in its bottle...

Tinted green glass...some thought given when chosen...

cork fitted tightly in place...level with slim opening...

waiting to be popped...and pored into a glass...

But when sipped...there could be rancid taste...or...perhaps...

a head-reeling sweetness clouding your senses...

And if offered by a known vintner...promising...”fresh filled ...from my private keg...

”you must either decline...and...probably...

Offend...or taste in front of eyes that assume you will consume all of it...and smile with delight...past mouth and stomach processing...

And if your pronouncement is contradicted...if that does 

happen...smile and shrug and say... “well I don’t know too much about this kind of thing...but I do know its taste is memorable.”

                                   ***

A Splash of Blood - John Field

The crime scene of this Raymond Chandler thriller

Is an avenue in Beverly Hills lined with palm trees,

Pink-stucco villas, mansions and cobblestone courtyards.

It's midnight on a warm summer evening in 1949.

Suspect number one is Gino,

A big-assed, pig-eyed, sleazy-hearted gambler

On the skids who needs a lot of dough, fast.

Gino and his lo and behold drop-dead gorgeous wife

Lorraine are sipping martinis in their living room

With Jake and Bernice, a mismatched odd couple

Who live next door. Jake never had a music lesson

When he was a kid, never kicked a soccer ball.

He spent his youth practicing his hands

Against furry little animals he fondled

And then killed. He's suspect number two.

Suspect number three is whoever's hiding behind the curtain.

Bernice's face is as plain as a plastic table cloth,

Her heart as closed as the innermost ring

Of a redwood tree,

Her smile as tight as a hundred year old

Morning Glory seed

And her eyes as empty as two knot holes in a fence.

Why did Jake marry her?

Because she's got the money.

Bernice never lets on that she knows

Jake is in love with Lorraine and why not

Who wouldn't be is the way she reasons it out

Pragmatically because Lorraine is blonder,

Younger, sexier and slimmer than she is.

Buried alive by Lorraine’s perfume,

Jake lights Bernice’s cigarette,

Sizes Gino up and decides 

To put his lights out forever.

Gino, meanwhile, has similar plans:

After he bumps Jake off  

He’ll divorce Lorraine, marry Bernice 

And live with the hag

Until she pays off his gambling debts.

Bernice, as usual, sees through Gino’s plot;

All week she’s been coming apart 

With victim-sickness, weeping incessantly 

Each time she thinks about

Lorraine’s fantastic curves. 

"The things lust drives me to do,” she tells herself,  

As with a sigh she lies down on a couch

And blows obscene smoke rings in the air,

Her face lost beneath heavy layers of skin

As she hums an old Irish folk tune so mournfully 

Lorraine’s standard poodle Buster whines with pity, 

Wishing Bernice would disappear, afraid she’ll stay.

Suddenly the lights go out like electric tablets dissolving

In a glass of inky darkness----shots ring out, 

Two bodies fall.

Moments later Lorraine’s butler James

Switches the lights back on again,

Calmly pushes the curtain aside

Behind which he’s been concealing himself

And wipes a splash of blood off Lorraine’s 

Beautiful Persian rug.

Then drags Gino and Jake out of the living room 

And deposits their bodies in the hall.

“Will that be all, ma’am?” he asks politely.

Lorraine, gift-wrapped like a present 

In a scarlet and gold Ralph Lauren gown,

Waves James away and with gentle urgency

 Embraces Bernice who nervously fingers 

The gat she’s concealing

In a fold of her frumpy dress. 

“I didn’t have a plan,” she tells Lorraine,

“It was just something that happened.”

 “Hush, my love,” Lorraine coos

As she leads Bernice in a fancy little dance step 

Across the floor in the general direction 

Of her bedroom.

***

 SERENDIPITY

by Nancy Martin

Laurie was over the moon. Her gorgeous and charming boyfriend Jared, had invited her to his very important work-related party. He must - she reasoned - be getting serious, to have asked her to be his date to such a prestigious event. Jared planned to introduce her to all of his co-workers and others involved with his industry. The party would be black-tie, held in the grand ballroom of the ritziest hotel in town. His suggestion to take her shopping for an evening dress was too good to be true. She could barely believe her good luck.

When they had a mutual day off, the couple drove to the city for a romantic lunch. Pleasantly satiated with oysters, cold sauvignon blanc and warm sunshine on the deck by the bay, they set off to find the perfect dress. In a mellow mood, Jared told Laurie not to look at price tags. “The sky’s the limit today.”

Taking their time, they meandered in and out of small fashion boutiques and large department stores, looking for the exact right thing. Stepping out of the dressing room in an exclusive designer shop, she modeled a clingy pale blue sheath dress for Jared. The shade of blue, emphasized her large sapphire eyes. They both knew that this was it. Laurie was thrilled when Jared told her how sexy she looked in the slim, blue dress - “My friends will be totally knocked out.” Then he took her home, asking her to put on the dress again, only to see how quickly he could remove it.

On the morning of the long-anticipated event, Laurie visited a luxurious beauty spa – courtesy of Jared – and got the works.  She emerged, feeling great and knowing that she looked her best. That night, Jared arrived right on time to pick her up. Raving about how great she looked, they went on to the hotel. In the car, he told her stories of boyhood escapades with his best friend Matt. She would, he felt sure, really like Matt’s girlfriend, Nora.

       The ballroom was every bit as elegant as Laurie had imagined. Tuxedoed waiters passed delectable hors d’oeuvres and tall crystal flutes of bubbling champagne. When Jared elbowed her and nodded in the direction of the door, they both gasped as Matt and Nora made their entrance. Spotting them, Laurie was horrified and tears filled her eyes. Nora was wearing a dress identical to her own, the ultimate social embarrassment. As the couple approached, the girls silently took a hard look at each other. Then Nora – throwing her arms around Laurie – began laughing hysterically as she said, “What a co-ink-e-dink, I need a drink! Linking arms, they confidently strode toward the bar in their brightly colored spike heels, leaving the boyfriends, standing speechless and wide-eyed in amazement. 

                                                          ***

FINAL FLIGHT DELAYED

by Beverly Koepplin

For eight days she laid in the hospital bed.

Eight days of her life went missing in that stillness.

If she moved, she does not remember.

If she shed tears or laughed, she does not remember.

Her watchers said sometimes her eyelids flickered,

And one of her thin hands 

moved restlessly across her body.

Otherwise, like a cocoon, she laid there 

waiting for life to come,

Not even knowing she was waiting, just being.

On the ninth day, she woke up, facing the window

where a tree bloomed against a beautiful blue sky

and the light was so bright it hurt her reborn eyes,

but her room was strangely dim 

and the air smelled stale.

She turned her head to find she was not alone.

A flock of angels crowded around the foot of her bed.

She thought “this is the end, my time has come”,

and she gazed at their hands 

outstretched to beckon her  on.

Half rising, she looked closer at the host of angels.

Their halos were crumpled tin foil 

their wings made of thunder clouds.

She stopped moving in her bed 

and pointed her finger back at them.

“Leave.  Hell already has enough people.  

I  am not going today.”

On the tenth day, my friend told me this story

and, with a quirky smile that lit up her wan face

and spoke to the sense of humor 

she had had all of her life,
added  that she guessed
her final flight had been delayed

                                  ***

Herewith There was Frost Last Night

by Lucille Hamilton

There was frost last night;

my fingers knew it even before

I left my warm house

to go get the groceries.

At that early hour,

it was a benediction of white

as if the heavens wanted to remind you 

of the outline of earth's beauty.

                                                    ***

The Phantom - John Field

     “I saw your add in the paper. This phantom you’re selling. Is he still available?”

     “Yes he is,” I said. “You want him, you got him.”

     “I live just north of the west side school.  I’ll meet you there in a few minutes. Bring the guy. I’ll check him out, maybe make you an offer.”

      “That ain’t the way it works. You want him, yes or no.”

      “I’ll be in the playground by the swings. What do you call your phantom?”

       “His name is Albert,” I said.

      “Is he docile?”

      “What do you want, a poodle/” I said, trying to hide the disgust in my voice as I hung up the phone, for the first time having misgivings about selling Albert.

      

My bicycle, a rusty old Schwinn caked in mud and draped in cobwebs, groaned as I wheeled it off the back porch, hopped on and headed up Mound Street. Surprisingly, traffic was exceedingly heavy. It had been months since I’d last seen a car on this street, but now I had to wait ten minutes to make a left turn while a steady stream of trucks, motorcycles and horseback riders paraded by. 

     

While we were waiting for the traffic to clear Albert started complaining about the way I was treating him. 

      “How come you’re doing this to me?” he whined.

     “Because I’m tired of all the trouble you’ve caused me.”

     “Such as?” 

     “The shoplifting spree you authorized me to go on at the PX when I was at Fort Ord. My God, if the army had caught me they would have court-martialed me.”

     “But they didn’t catch you,” Albert shot back, warming to his role as provocateur. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy the thrill of swiping all of that stuff, especially the sport jacket.”

     

I had to admit he had a point, but he was a bad influence and I was determined to get rid of him. “And what about Phyllis?” I said. ‘I’m so ashamed of the way I treated her, the lies you told me to tell her.”

     “Stop complaining, You got what you wanted.”
   

When we arrived at the playground I spotted Albert’s future owner nervously pacing back and forth by the swings. He was an old man----overweight, bald, slovenly. I got off my bike and walked towards him.

     “Where’s Albert?” he asked.

     “Where do you think?” I said. “He’s invisible. There’s no way in hell I can show him to you. That’s not the way phantoms operate. Where you gonna keep him?”

    “In my garage.”

    “I’ll need to take a look before I sign him over to you. The place better be warm. Albert likes it warm.”

    “How much you want for him?”

This question bothered me because I hadn’t put a price on Albert. Ten dollars? A thousand dollars? I had no idea what he was worth, so I said nothing as we left the playground and walked towards the slob’s house. Now I was beginning to have serious misgivings about selling my soul’s identical twin. Sure, I needed the money, however much the guy would pay for him, but in a strange sort of way Albert and I had become friends over the years, even though he kept getting me in trouble. How could this guy take my place in his affection? True, we weren’t buddies or anything like that, but Albert and I understood each other. The time of the nightmarish battles we’d fought had long passed and now most of the time a sense of peaceful toleration between us prevailed. 

However, as we entered the garage once again I heard Albert cry out, “You can’t do this to me!” 

     

He’s right, I told myself as a crashing weight of guilt fell on me, as if from heaven. I can’t sell him to this freak.

         

Usually I forget my dreams when I wake up, but this one stuck in my thoughts for days begging me to decipher it. A week later I recalled a poem Wordsworth wrote about a phantom’s frightening, dreamlike specter:

                                     “She was a phantom of delight

                                     When first she glean’d upon my sight,

                                     A lovely apparition sent

                                     To be a moment’s ornament,

                                     A dancing shape, an image gay,

                                     To haunt, to startle, and waylay.”    

        

Wordworth’s poem reminded me how elusive, mysterious and seductive phantoms are, how they hover in our imagination like the fading memory of a perfect kiss or a religious vision or a crime we’ve committed, forever inching their way towards the vanishing point of our recollection but never quite arriving there.

       

Perhaps that’s why my unconscious mind invented Albert. Because I needed a scapegoat to blame for every weird feeling or thought or desire I’d ever passionately felt. Why else would he make evil seem so attractive and attainable, and his betrayal so damned? 

     

The most frightening movie I watched when I was a boy was “The Phantom of the Opera,” a film that introduced me to a very scary idea--that a villain, in this case a disfigured composer played by Claude Rains, could simultaneously create sympathy and horror in my heart. Perhaps that’s why Albert sleeps in my unconscious mind each day and then wakes up and roams around in my dreams at night, his persona calling attention to my fantasies, anxieties and desires so skillfully that I tried to sell him to a stranger.

                                    ***

Ode to the Bumble Bee - Robyn Makaruk

Hurry humble bumblebee to harvest your fill 

From the flowers outside my window

Carry nectar back to your Queen

Reward for this hard work will be 

The survival of your species

That you are the slower sort 

Doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing

You go about your business   

Humming a cool, mellow bass.

For every one of your foraging trips 

You deliver seventy-five percent 

Of your body weight in precious cargo

That’s what I call marvelous!

You are a gentle one.

I know, for I’ve offered my hand to 

Many of your kin, fallen into a back yard pool

Gratitude shown by dry wings flying back

To the important work you do.

Now, heed this warning.

Just today your species has been removed 

From the Endangered List by the

New powers in government

Future protections may not be there for you

All I can offer is encouragement 

To never stop or change 

What you do so perfectly.

Spread the word my darling.
               ***

Normandy - Joan R Brady

Normandy, France: July 2009...

A battlefield...D-Day...World War II...

it was part of my tour’s itinerary.

I didn’t choose it. I never would have chosen it. 

I don’t choose war...

but it was part of the tour...and I had paid for it...

so I went.

It was our last stop before our northern destination  Two...three...

maybe four o’clock in the afternoon... 

row after row of tombstones...

filling acres of field...ending in a jagged line 

facing the Ocean. 

Toward its western edge...stood a single marble monument filled with ashes of the unknown...the unidentifiable. 

Am sure somebody knew 

who they were when they signed up...

or when they were told 

they had to go for all those reasons.

Walking among/between the graves...

careful not to step on any. 

So many men’s names. 

Don’t know if there’s a woman there. 

Most died the first day they arrived...June 6, 1944. 

I was in  nursery school then...

San Francisco...there were air-raids...

we all wore identification tags. Down the hill  

from where we lived...you could see the docks. 

I remember the gray ships there...one behind the other...two, three, four rows of them...waiting in fog...smelled like this place.

This place... so quiet...always...after death it is so quiet. Back then, 

what did it look like? 

I imagine black and white newsreel film clips. 

(Theaters always ran them before the main feature.) 

What must the sounds have been? 

History tells us...World War II was a necessary war. 

We were attacked. 

Fascism had to be stopped. 

Hitler had to be stopped. 

Sometimes we must fight back. 

Sometimes we must stand up to what is happening to us...otherwise we are dead 

anyway. French, Irish, Chippewa...all these parts of me know this...but I also know... 

always...in the end...there is only death...and silence. 

That part is forever the same.

All those tombstones...all l those lost lives...I wonder what this world 

would have been if they had lived? Would you exist? Would I exist? 

Perhaps...we would have all become someone else...

toss the dice. 

What would this history we are living now have been if they had lived? 

So many questions...so many unending...accumulating...questions.                           -

                                                                        ***

The Ticking Clock - Russ Bedord

George was driving five  teenagers down a a country road on a cold, snowy, night. I was on the left side of the back seat and couldn't see because the windows were fogged—probably because the bodily heat from five condensed on the cold windows.

Apparently George couldn't see, either. He lost control and the car spun 'round and 'round on the icy road. It finally stopped spinning and slowly edged forward. Visibility was probably still bad because the front end of the car began to drop, and soon pointed downward, sinking into a pond beside the road.

As we sank, I shouted: “In the front—when we are underwater, open the window or door and swim to the surface! There is a pocket of air back here. We can last longer.”

We sank, and they probably escaped that way. Rich, on my right, panicked. I told him to take a breath and hold it, grabbed him by his collar and belt, forced him underwater, over the front seat and out the front window.

I filled my lungs from the pocket of air and followed, then swam for what might be the surface. The water was so cold, it compressed my chest, creating a strong desire to breathe, but I dared not. Finally, after a few seconds, air! But the bank was so step, there was no way to climb out.

Fortunately, George was there, hanging on to the broken post of the barbed wire fence that had been pulled into the water by the car. Though the fence was broken, up above it was still anchored. The only way up was to climb that barbed wire. George went up first. Bloody hands were a fair trade for survival. I followed.

We sat on the edge of the road, wet clothes freezing. I was not saying anything, but numbly thinking death by drowning was escaped only to face death from freezing. I imagine George was feeling the same.

We spied a building alongside the pond and sought its shelter. It was a hay barn. Pulling hay down around ourselves to stop from freezing, it absorbed the cold water and slowed the heat leaking from our bodies.

I don't know if I had drowsed, or how much time had passed. I became aware of sounds, voices, and lights flashing through the cracks of the board walls of the barn.

I exited the barn door. I saw he flashing lights of a police car and an officer flashing a light down into the water.

“There seem to be no survivors,” he said.

“We survived,” I said.

George and I were quickly retrieved from the barn, stripped, and wrapped in warmth. On the way to the hospital, we finally talked.

“Why only us?” George asked.

“Why hadn't the clock stopped ticking for us? I don't know,” I said. “Maybe because we weren't afraid to die.”

                                        *** 

The Population Bomb - John Field

Belief in tomorrow

Demands all of our fidelity

Because the future lacks experience,

No year is twice the same

Or has occurred before,

Yet already our great-great 

Grandchildren

Have begun to plague our thoughts.

How will they survive when crowds,

Like cages, enclose them?

Or take sweeping turns

On earth’s dance floor

As we did when we were young?

Best to let the air out of the moon

And watch its old scarred face 

Whiz off, shrivel in the absence

Of its vanished light

And sink into the tides

On Moonlight Bay.

Then turn as one often does

In situations like this

To other thoughts, 

Such as what the sky

And all of its impurities 

Would look like

Had it not been polluted

By a right-wing conspiracy.

When was the last time

We thought about that?

Well, what is there to do?

Sign petitions? Why?

One voice in a billion

Has the same impact

As a drop of rain 

Falling on the ocean.

But imagine 

What would happen 

If a billion drops

Fell on our president’s

Coiffured hairdo.

                ***