The Dark of the Night -Robyn Makaruk

Here they are

Phantoms of the night

Seeping into me like a wet fog

Before I make it to that

Blissful, dreamless state

Here they are,

Those phantoms of the night 

Messing with my mind,

Parrying and thrusting swords into 

Benign daytime issues, churning them into

Rancid butter.

Here they are,

Those phantoms of the night

They’re making inner conflicts rise up in the bile tract

To surge into full-blown reflux of self absorption,

Causing distrust of my inner vision.

They are still here, dammit,

Those phantoms of the night, 

Ratcheting up the rancor, 

Causing a heart rate to climb, teeth to grind

And bedclothes to twist into a hangman’s  

Noose around my neck.

Then, by a miracle,

Those phantoms of the night

Do not win the fight.

I float into that interstitial space

That closes the door on the battleground

And opens to a pastoral scene.

They are no longer here, 

Those phantoms of the night

I can leave this bed of thorns and return 

To that Ocean of Livingness

Where once again

I’ll be in tune with the Universe

                                                             ***

Who's Talking ? -Dave Lewis

I got a job with the TRIUMPH THEATER under unusual circumstances last November. I was walking past the theater a few days after the elections and I noticed that the "Eye" (I) and the "Aitch" (H) in the first word had been removed by some miscreant so it became the TR UMP  THEATER. I stopped my trek and went in to advise the manager about this mysterious Scrabble. When he followed me out to view the changes it was a Eureka moment for him. "No wonder there has been a drop in audience and all kinds of vandalism!" I restored the sign for him and it was a relief for the manager as things returned to normal.

I was responsible for several dozen chores.  Carrying the luggage of visiting showmen was one. I was carrying a big "steamer" trunk with a decal on the side that spelled out in three inch high white letters, “The Maestro and Mickey”.  I guessed it wasn’t clothes I was carrying for some guy, it was props for the show .  I had seen the posters in the lobby for several weeks that on February 9th, The Maestro and Mickey were playing in the theater. 

The posters  advised about the "greatest ventriloquist in the world" and his puppet, with names the same as on the case I carried.  The trunk owner, a tall guy in a black tux and stove-pipe hat, I assumed was the ventriloquist and I assumed that the "steamer" trunk included the puppet. It was a good thing I didn’t have any bets placed on that and shift from my normal, lucrative habit of betting on horses!

When I put down the the trunk I noticed that the trunk had a grill over one end. I guessed that there were going to be a magician's pigeons or rabbits in the trunk; I hoped it wasn’t a snake. A week ago a scary snake had escaped from some act and it  required a lot of cleaning up after the scared patrons. 

The February 9th show, after a brief start-up act, was announced as the  Maestro and Mickey Show. I had carried a pair of stools on-stage  but they were empty for  five minutes as the audience started to wonder what was the delay. Finally the house lights dimmed and the Maestro came out carrying the puppet everyone figured was Mickey. Mickey had a carry-handle on his back and the Maestro carried him like a piece of luggage to one of the stools and put Mickey on it. Mickey perched there with his head hanging down while the Maestro sat on the other stool about five feet away.

The Maestro greeted the audience in a sort of weird baritone voice and he waved his hand toward Mickey who then sat up straight and started opening and closing his mouth ... but  no sound came out. When everyone looked back to the Maestro he was behind a cloud of cigar smoke from an immense Cuban Corona he was puffing.  Everyone laughed because it was obvious that Maestro couldn’t talk for Mickey and actively smoke that cigar.

Mickey was finally heard: “Don’t laugh at that damn fool!  His cigars smell like ....I’ll say "a wet dog", so I don’t offend any ladies.  It is my hardest job trying to teach him to have some manners, he just doesn’t learn.  He is a damn good ventriloquist though.”

The audience was dumbfounded because while Mickey ranted on about the Maestro’s bad habits the Maestro had his mouth full of  the cigar and then a whiskey flask. At first there was a uniform crooning of “How the devil..” from the audience and then a series of loud discussions as different groups raised their voices about how the Maestro’s mouth was either full of cigar or his lips were clamped shut.

“Be quiet" yelled Mickey!  The Maestro didn’t seem to be drawing a breath or paying much attention while Mickey’s eyes seemed to sparkle in anger so they looked like the glass marbles everyone assumed they were.  His face didn’t turn red in anger, it looked like the solid, white-painted plaster everyone assumed it to be.  Although his mouth moved up and down his lips remained rigid  and no one could see a tongue of any kind. While Mickey ranted on about how rude the Maestro was, the Maestro was busy blowing rings of cigar smoke across the stage. The audience could see how perfectly shaped the rings were as they drifted into the beams of the spot lights.

Mickey had little lights in his bow tie that everyone in the audience figured were changing in brightness to mimic the amplitude and tone of his voice.  It was easy to imagine that Mickey was some kind of robot. 

Mickey shut-up for a while and the Maestro started to whistle Beethoven’s Fifth but the music was still going when Mickey started up again. The whistling and the ranting were both going for a while and then Maestro stopped and ground out his cigar and lit another.

Mickey’s discussion had turned political and he started to discuss a particular politician.  Some people in the audience had voted for that politician and although they regretted having done so, they wouldn’t admit they were sorry. It was a bitter pill for them to find they were starting to agree with criticisms of some damn robot that seemed to have a mind of its own.  A couple dozen folks who had voted against that particular politician cried and another vomited because that damn robot was talking sense while they reflected that millions of citizens had voted for the rascal politician.

Mickey and the Maestro finally began to start telling jokes and eventually the laughter became infectious and the political brain-worms rested for the night.

The end of the act caused total silence and the audience realized how easy it was to be fooled.  Mickey jumped down from his stool, tore open his shirt to reveal a hairy chested small man who went over to the Maestro and threw a switch that caused the tall figure to fold into a pile on the floor. Mickey called for a dolly and the Maestro was loaded on and taken off stage while Mickey took a few bows.

I was the one that trundled the dolly away and probably the only one besides Mickey who saw that the Maestro was a very limber human. Later, when Mickey and I wheeled the big steamer trunk,with a grill at one end and the “The Maestro and Mickey” decal on its side, out to a taxi, no one guessed there was a man folded up inside the trunk.

                                                        ***

The Way We Are Now - Lucille Hamilton

Stars,

when I look up,

I realize, 

are still the same ones of my childhood,

dragging along their stories

of human morality

while rotating endlessly overhead.

One summer in New York City,

I stood jammed in the heat of a sweltering,

rush- hour stalled subway train,

while astronauts, 

risking their lives in their special, expensive suits,

were engaged in making humans' first-known landing

on the moon.  I was so glad when that first person did

his little jig dance - a fitting expression 

for such an amazing accomplishment of faith.

When I finally got home to our house on the cliffs,

I went out in the cooling dark

to salute and honor those persons who had made

this hard-to-grasp,

unfathomable change

in all our beliefs, our stories, our existence;

the stars

now being much nearer than ever before.

In the eyes of the Creator,

this shift is about time, among so many things,

and it 

is so very beautiful;

a glove of challenge tossed down 

to all of us

human beings,

seeking out other places we may

someday want or need to

inhabit,

if we continue on the way of living 

as we do now.

                     ***

Late Awakening: A Dream - John Field

Each time you approach a mirror                            Come out, come out, the war 

With President Trump is over 

And the coast is clear.

Blessed with doubt, his climate change deniers, 

Mercenary army of lawyers, girlfriends

And tax accountants fled to the hills,

Every last one of them,

Except for a few cuckoo congressmen 

Who flapped their wings

As they flung themselves out of tall buildings

And landed berserk on the ground.

“Dead? They told you I was dead?”

A republican senator said, 

Stalling for time,

Trying to steal his soul back

Before they hauled it away. 

You don’t believe me? 

Just visit our cemetery and ask around. 

Look up at the wild gray yonder— imagine it

blue again, back from the brink of extinction 

like God----and please! Let the world turn green

And marvelous again. No more caprices

With nature’s thermostat. 

Imagine sick trees healing themselves,

Their shade deeper and cooler than ever,

Clouds filling their lungs 

With conventional weather,

Glaciers taller than the North Pole

And healthy whales beating the sea to foam. 

Such things and others 

Will happen if we make them so

Because anything else is unthinkable.

                                                         ***

In the Dark Hours of the Night- Beverly Koepplin

In the very darkest hours of the night, 

the stars shine the brightest – 

they are our beacon lights 

so we can find our way to morning.

In the dark hours of the night, 

the bridge between dusk and dawn folds up,

and we are left stranded in the cold and relentless night 

with no way out.

In the dark hours of the night, 

the mountain lion prowls in the canyons.

Only the smartest of her prey 

look for her tawny, glowing eyes in the blackness.

In the dark hours of the night, 

life is precarious for those without safe haven.

Shrieks heard in the night echo 

between the hard-lived hours until first light

In the dark hours of the night, 

small benign creatures becomes monsters

who rise up and nibble on our faces 

and ceaselessly howl in our ears.

In the dark hours of the night, 

we seek sweet comfort in our beds

only to find none, 

and we wander the rooms of our home in a futile search.

In the dark hours of the night, 

the wishes of our day go astray

and nightmares bully their way in, 

uninvited and unwanted.

In the dark hours of the night, 

we often lose our minds

to the demons of those dark dreams 

who carves holes in our hope.

In the dark hours of the night, 

our repentant prayers go unanswered,

and the sins of our daylight hours 

visit us again to feast on our regrets.

In the dark hours of the night, 

where there should be peace

there are instead warriors armed in anger 

who battle over our sleeping souls.

In the hours of the night, 

we should respect the masters of the dark,

for we may believe the morning light 

will mark the end of our travails.

But when the long hours of night slowly give way to day, 

pray for avenging angels

for the devils of the dark do not die; 

they only hide and wait for another night.

                         ***

The Devil- Joan R Brady

Saturn...sixth planet from the sun...

place of boundaries...I am your child

I thrive on visibility...sensation...

nothing else exists

each year I deck myself in fashion’s newest shape

my credit card has no expiration date

I am glitter...I am neon...I am the torch

illuminating the burning of witches

possession...assassination...terrorism...anarchy

limitation...inertia...circumstance

mine is the light that destroys all other light

last seen...I was dancing in a gold

tuxedo...in the halls of the mad

unrecognized...I destroy you

embrace me...I possess you

I am the fascination with the downward pull

the voice inside that says...”you are never enough”

mephisto...shaman...messiah...archangel

the name doesn’t matter

I am all deities...who exact obedience.

                          ***

The Telephone Call - John Field

Just before noon the telephone rings.

“Grandpa, do you know who this is?” a young man asks.

      

For a moment I don’t recognize the voice, so I go through a process of elimination. It definitely isn’t Nate, a sophomore at Texas A and M.  And it isn’t Ethan, I’d recognize his voice immediately, so it must be Theo, the youngest of my daughter Catherine’s three sons, a freshman at Casa Grande High School in Petaluma.

     

“Theo?” 

     

“Yes, it’s me, Grandpa,” Theo replies, his voice trembling, “and I’m in big trouble.”

     

This news really hits me.

     

“Okay, tell me all about it.”

     

“I’m in Florida----in jail.”

     

Now I’m really worried.

     

“What happened? What did you do?”

     

“It’s kind of a long story, but I didn’t do anything bad.” 

     

He sounds like he’s crying, and my heart goes out to him.

     

“I came down here for a jobs conference. Grandpa. Do you know what an Uber car is?”

     

“Sure, I say,” waiting for him to get to the point.

     

“Well, after the conference was over I called Uber and asked a driver to take me to the Orlando airport, but on the way there we got pulled over by the police. I thought it was because the driver was speeding, but they searched the car and found narcotics in the trunk next to my suitcase.”

      

This is coming at me so fast I stop wondering why Theo’s parents allowed their fifteen year old son to go by himself all the way to Orlando for a jobs conference. The whole idea sounded improbable. Preposterous, even. Then I remembered when I was a 17 year old freshman at the University of Iowa 65 years ago attending a careers conference at the student union. About 30 businesses set up tables and we went around asking about job opportunities at companies like IBM and Johnson & Johnson and listened to their representatives give us a sales pitch. Even the army, navy and marines had recruiting booths. Well, sure, I suppose Cathy and Marty  showed Theo how much they trusted him by saying yes when he asked if he could go there. After all, didn’t my other daughter’s sons ages 9 and 11 fly by themselves to Atlanta recently to see their grandparents?

     

“Okay, Theo, what happened next? Did the drugs belong to you?”

     

“No no, grandpa. The driver told the cops they were mine, and I told them they belonged to the driver, so they took both of us to the police station, tested me and I was clean. Then a detective told me that if I agreed to testify against the driver in court they’d let me out on bail, but I’d have to come back to Florida in 3 to 6 weeks when his case came up.”

     

Now Theo was finally coming to the point, the real reason he called me.

     

“So how much is bail?”

     

“$15,000, but it’s totally refundable after I testify.”

     

“Of course I want to help you,” I tell him, “but first I’m going to call your folks and let them know what’s going on. Don’t worry, I’ll stand up for you because I believe you’re innocent.”

     

"No no no no!” Theo pleads, his voice trembling badly now. “Don’t call them. When I get home I’ll tell them everything, but it’s got to be face to face. Otherwise they might think I was smuggling the narcotics and lying to the cops, but I know I can convince them I wasn’t if you’ll let me handle this the honorable way.” 

     

“Theo, you need a lawyer.”

     

“I’ve got one. He wants to talk to you.”

     

“Mr. Field?”

     

“Yes.”

     

“My name is Ryan Williams. I’m Theo’s lawyer from legal aide. I believe he’s innocent, but he’s really shook up and needs to get out of jail, go home and tell his parents what happened so he can clear his name.” 

     

“Theo said his bail is set at $15,000.”

     

“That’s correct,” Williams says. His voice is very steady, professional, like he’s handled many cases like this one in the past----just another scape a kid’s gotten himself into, and it’s his job to clear everything up with the police.

    

“So how should I send the money?”

     

“Send it to a bail bondsman named Terry Parker and he’ll have Theo out of jail and on his way home this afternoon. What you need to do is deposit $15,000 in cash at Bank of America. Don’t wire the money. Cash will get through immediately.” 

     

“My bank is Wells Fargo.”

     

“That doesn’t matter,” Williams says. “Do you have a pen and paper?”

     

I tell him I do.

     

“Take the cash to any Bank of America branch and deposit it in account number 483 047991236. You got that?”

     

“I do.”

     

“The routing number is 026009593. By the way, it’s 3 o’clock out here and the banks close at 5. Can you get the money to Parker in the next couple of hours?”

     

“I can. But tell Theo to call his folks right now. They’ll believe him.”

     

“He only gets one phone call,” Williams informs me.

     

“Let me talk to Theo again. Then I’ll go to my bank.”

     

“Hello grandpa. Thank you so much.” 

     

I can feel Theo’s relief in the tone of his voice. As soon as he hangs up I call his father and ask if I can speak to Theo. If he’s in Florida I’ll keep my promise and send the money.

     

“Theo’s in class right now,” his dad says, “but I’ll tell him to call you when he gets home.”

     

I’m tremendously relieved, but still have questions about whether or not Theo was somehow involved in this scam, so as I explain to Marty what happened and ask him if he has any idea how the scammers got my phone number and seemed to know so much about Theo and me.

     

“They probably hacked Theo’s Facebook website,” Marty says, and suggests that I change my Facebook password and take out Identity Theft.

      

An hour later Theo’s so-called legal aide lawyer phones and asks me why I haven’t sent the money.

     

“Because Theo is in Petaluma, California, I tell him.”

     

Then I call the sheriff’s department and report what happened, but am told that because no crime was actually committed there was nothing they could do about it and suggested that  I contact the Federal Trade Commission and give them the details of the scam. 

     

Tomorrow Theo is coming over to our house-----and I can’t wait to see him.  

***

Quincunx-Russ Bedord

We left before it got dark. Sut, my Egyptian guide, suggested hat we leave early, then camp in the desert, near the tomb of Osiris. After the workers set up camp, I had dinner, and we talked late, I couldn't sleep. If Osiris is in the tomb, as Sut claimed, then he wasn't resurrected and didn't rise to heaven, as legend said, but got to Heaven like the rest of us (that hope to get there).

My anticipation kept me awake all night. I finally sat outside in a chair to watch the morning sun rise. Dune shadows, at first, were long and mysterious, then shortened as the sun rose I thought of the phrase “.... the lonely sands stretched far across the desert.” How far? The Sahara stretched across the African continent.

 

It is cold before the rising sun's heat penetrates. By 9 AM, one looks for ways to get out of the heat. But it's a short ride to the entrance of the tomb. Virtually invisible, it is an opening in the desert floor, filled by sand. The workers had to shovel long and hard before a stone archway was visible, then shoveled more until it was open. Then I could leave my shaded chair and enter the tomb.

Ancient Egyptians must have been really short! I am not tall, but at 5' 9”, had to bend over in the tomb entry hall Thank God the tomb room itself had what looked like a seven foot ceiling. Not high, but at least I didn't have to bend over.

The 15' by 15' room was lined with stone. Even vermin like rats and mice avoided this forsaken landscape. There were no droppings. Only the dust of centuries was on the floor and on the lone sarcophagus sitting in the middle of the room. That was significant all by itself. Atop the lid of the sarcophagus was the sculpture of a cat. In the same reclining position as the famed sphinx, it was finished to much more detail, even though it was only the size of the sarcophagus lid. You could practically count the hairs.

I breathed quicker thinking that Osiris might be entombed here, and gazed around the room for artifacts worth collecting, hoping to find something that identified the occupant. Sut was by my side, saying nothing. There were no artifacts. Had he raped them before showing a westerner the tomb?

Never mind. I admired the cat sculpture and noticed a plaque across its chest that was marked with hieroglyphic symbols. I made out the code for Osiris. This was It! This was Osiris' tomb!.I inspected the likeness of the cat. It's ear tips to the tips of the bushy whiskers on each side of it face formed a perfect square. The cat's black nose in the middle of this square made a quincunx.  

I couldn't resist, and reached out to touch that perfect nose. That was a mistake. Perhaps it was a chemical I had on my hand. Perhaps it was the decay of centuries, but the sculpture started crumbling. First the nose where I had touched it, then backward until the entire sculpture was  a mound of sand and dust that spilled off the sarcophagus and onto the floor.

Opening the sarcophagus disclosed a mummy with no distinguishing identification. I found Osiris' tomb but had no proof. I was so excited I forgot to take a picture. Now I might never be famous.

      

                                          ***