Blue clouds gaze the wrapped sun
frozen kisses in my blood
travelling a thousand miles
to meet up with you.

There is none else walking
down this path where memories
wake up and dance
inside my armored heart.

I peeled off each kisses embrace
out of my parched lips.
I shook off the tree,
where your scent had blossomed.

Every step down this scarcely trodden path saw...
Each peel fall with helpless, damsel-like grace.
Brown leaves shone amber touched by fingers of the sun
Invasion of warmth through my greyed bony carapace.

Gentle tremors reverberate within with subtle anguish.
Sweet scented portal that took me back,
To the illusion of time where we once were...
In drunken stupor...laying under a star strewn canvas of black.

Senses that spoke of a great fantastical tale.
You are still here... In this cloying void with no one around...
Only that scent...your scent tugging on my core
Invisible tendrils berthing my feet back on ground.

Alone and wanting don't want to be anymore.
I want to feast my lungs on your skin once more.
I want to vibrate under your touch again,
In anguished anticipation and sweet pain.

I hurl your name to the echoing wind,
Blowing ferociously over the closed passage.
Only to find that I'm but elongating
the distance between our fading wishful stars.

Fading far only to find that I'm lost yet again,
Still harvesting a basket full of ripened hope.
Traversing planes with warped, slanted doorways,
Frantically seeking purchase on knobs with fevered gropes.

Heavy layered breaths inhaled too shallow...
Tracing missteps to decipher what it all meant.
When all is moot...weary, weathered and futile,
Forever I'll be bathing in the familiarity of your soothing, nectarous scent...


Dajena M
**ryn

Passes not by a day, that many an e-mail
unsolicited for would not stray--
from only Christ knows where--into
my SPAM folder. Some do sail
there to have a prurient stay,
bringing along many a memento
in an argosy of raunchy piquant pictures.

Some convey commerce, insurance or banking
messages; some the cargo of relationship
carry; while another an ad of ******
bears, still another talks about dealership.

Yet stood out Twain. Two diverse
SPAM e-mails have been berthing,
with goatish gaits and sharkish smirks,
in that folder unrelenting and unswerving.

One SPAM e-mail reads: "Why wait--have
an affair with a cheating wife today."

Sweetest SPAM!

Gorging myself on this fetish
fare free of charge. Kittenish
jades, serve me thy dainties of
dalliance enough!

To rock and roll, rolling in the hay,
making merry heaves, does ever crave
this rebellious flesh--yet, this randy
SPAM e-mail's offer offsets much the mind:

"A cheating wife" desiring to find--
for reasons amourous--a dandy,
a sort of cad.

Wondering muse: "A cheating wife"?
What a magic life!

Another SPAM e-mail says its own thus: "View
my pics. Lonely married women--
view **** pics." Indeed and true,
they grip with a serious sudden
poke the soul, like pangs the heart,
those three momentous, wrecking,
wretched words: "lonely married women."

Though content spicy and Libidinous;
yet maddening.
Secret meals seemingly are delicious,
but have a fiery taste.

Where--on Earth, in Mars, or in Hell
are they? Here, in this world they dwell.

Thought marriage is a blessed haven--
a heaven of unfeigned love and lasting bliss.

How could one be married and yet
be alone in life--lonely, who has
crossed over singlehood's borders,
nor is she a widow for bereavement?

A husband did his queen abandon
for a fresh-fangled pawn,
flying away with that new
dove--frittering his fortune away,
as she chirps love in lust songs anew
into his donkey's ears; flattery
displayed, a groovy
guise--

playing ducks and drakes with his riches

until his substance ship sank, like Titanic,
colliding with an iceberg of folly
in the deep of adultery:

making a muck of his wealth.

The flirtatious dollybird no sooner
flitted, then flew abroad at last,
leaving him to drown in the murky
waters of his wreck.

Returned the prodigal man to his hearth
in a sad pickle, with one shirt, one
jean,
and a pair of snickers, to the ever
gracious ***** of his loving Missis--
like a sinner contrite to Jesus.

Whilst a sudden grass widow, his wife
did not covet the companionship,
comforts and copulation
of another flagship--

but was committed to her
vows
to that fun-tossed lugger--
despite the billowy waves,

praying he'd come to his harbour.

The women howbeit in my SPAM folder--
those "cheating wives and lonely married
women", are like Lady Portiphar
pining and yearning for Joseph.

Unread.
Unreplied.

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

GILDED CAGE

Unlike the pampered, well heeled clients of my "faith", I didn't enter the Fort Harrison Hotel via the opulent main entrance. I made my appearance through the back. The garage entrance was less than hospitable. And, I noticed, there seemed to be people *living in the cold, drafty motor housing! When I asked about this strange berthing, Noah was much less than forthcoming. "RPF", he mumbled. Well. What's an RPF when it's at home? Then I saw a few of the denizens of said "RPF". I knew very little about it. Only that it was punishment. For people were "out-ethics". WOW. The RPF "sleeping quarters" had bunks three high, and was protected only marginally from the winds that swept through that garage.

There was an RPF person who was coming through the breezeway as I entered. He stepped aside very deferentialy, and said, "Excuse me, Sirs!" to Noah and I. WOW. I'd never had THAT kind of treatment in my life! I guess I was someone important! This bubble was burst immediately. I met the I/C of the FRU.

She was not in a good mood, as I recall. But, then, who ever really was in this Organization? She DID TRY to be nice. Greeted me clammily, and put on a spurious smile. She recognized I needed sleep, at least. Upon walking through the building, the rooms got more and more posh. I was to get to my berthing through the hotel lobby, apparently. It was grand! But in a sort of an outdated way. I really don't remember much else. Except for the conditions in my sleeping quarters. Only marginally better than the RPF! bunks three high! Junk everywhere (some of the new recruits had yet to figure out that they should cull their possessions to a minimum). Guess who was designated the top bunk? You got it. And moi was not a happy camper! As I climbed the rickety ladder to the top bunk I remember thinking, "How much lower can a person go?"

*I WAS, EVENTUALLY, TO FIND OUT.

Friction into reality; I should say into fiction into life.  Small beads form on the upper lip,  Shoes strings become untied, a bottle is cracked as the ship leaves it’s slip.  Fret and cascade escape a troubled brow.  A boat builder an architect leans smirks and shifts toward the end of the pier.  The wake presses a ripple across the bay’s cloudy shiloutte.  Mooring lines tighten righting an unballasted keel.  Its crew makes up chalks and moors with figure eights and half hitches.  Take up slack and pull with the boatswains command.
Captain, Executive officer, and first mate critique fit for crew and evolution.  

Pea coats smocked, boots weather sealed with wax, glove, slacks, hat, and pants.  Stores are stacked and awaiting brow and chain gang.  Rations and stores for 4 weeks.  The harbor’s main berthing finds vacancy at the vessels underway taking.  Bow to stern aspect three hundred feet washed and clean.  She has a 9 foot draft with another 22 feet to the first rail.  

The lines in the boat shore for a nimble light sailing ship.  A clipper maybe,  I’ll wait to report further direction possibly assuming more command.  A cigarette falls from my first *******.  A jostle to my left crafts seagulls posturing a stolen meal.  Sulfur stings my nostril igniting the first of two puffs.  The captian rolls his eyes my direction gives the once over finding his intrest in the rest of the evolution.

A few pier hands set eyes on the clipper, smoking.

Mice run along the wooden edge of the pier away from some of the salted pork and grain.  Two other mice lose courage at my sight line.  XO and first mate shift and turn retrieving my concern.  The brow is being landed at the stern of the ship.  

No decals and no name yet.  At some point Ill find or ask to be apart of the ships crew.  Deck hand, cook, messenger, helmsman, assistant to first mate all compatible with ability.  The first mate chuckles and mentions a figurative by stander knowing that an employment opportunity starts with a  conversation.  

Crew’s first leiutenant for the most part looks squared away and a bit untouchable, salty.  Pants tucked into calf high boots, a beard, pea coat and a lost stare.  Hesitating a bit he grins and settles back to appropriate conversation.

My bag and jacket drop accompany to the stores.  Maybe a slow patient walk aft, there has to be a name for her.  At the stern a marching movement to my right and I can follow the rear of the boat and in peripheral the command group.

The Lion’s Winter in large old English print below a iron clad window pane bounces with the tide to the left and right in a roll.  I can see the ship, now calming into a quiet slop off of the pier and its mooring lines. The rudder is a massive distorted key shaped piece of poplar with copper piano hinges all the way to the back of the keel.  A small blue crab lengthens a breast stroke across the top of the water.  

The three follow the appropriate custom before crossing the brow and the first louie barks a few times.  Two of the ship’s crew begin inventory on stores while a bit of nervousness creeps over the contents of my only possessions.  Wetting my lips I can taste the salt on my face.

One of the crew yells,
“Louie, move him off.  He stump’n around the grub.”
He barks again,
“Turn two.  Got more an him eny’d, a Rat!”

I took that as on opportunity to introduction.  Mr. Louie straightened pursed heels and drained thought from my façade.  His eyes narrowed, he felt the calm of my urgency.  He knew I needed, obliged then walked to conversation.  “Cryme's, you look’n for someone.”

“Humm, a shipmate.”
I could see the it was not the conversation he was expecting.  He leveled, “Pretty tight around here. What do you have in the bag?”

“Mostly books.”  

“You cant cross the atlantic reading books.”

Sharply understood in sponse to kurt, “Is that an opportunity or an intrest accompany to nothing.”

“You can naught cross the Atlantic.”


Tim says leave the world.  I laugh and he says no righting, laughter.

by Kevin F. Smith, Casey Kizior, JM Romig, Danielle Romig, Rick O’Donnell

How did we let this happen?
A new era begins
For the worse
I will not be silent

We thought for sure the end was near-
I held you close, our hearts racing in sync
the alarms screamed in our ears
that we were on extinction’s brink
and then our phones all bleeped and screeched

All of a sudden, the ground is on fire
It started so harmless, so small, so contained
Now flames eat everything, from the center out
The fire crumples leaves into smoke, cracks twigs, dissolves whole trees into ash
Spreading, expanding, destroying
When will it stop?
When it is all consumed.
Is this a dream?
Please let it be a dream.

The deck falls out from under my feet at an angle of 15 degrees by the bow
My shipmate asleep in berthing remain undisturbed
The light from the stairway casts my shadow
My stomach knows the hydraulics to the planes of the submarine have failed.
The planesman has 3 seconds to switch to manual
Before the sub will slip to the bottom
My heart counts the second for me
The deck rises to a zero bubble
An even plane
I climb the stairs
It’s my watch to drive the boat

False Alarm- we unclench our teeth
And took a breath – and weep
For we knew not what else to do

Created at the Jigsaw Workshop at Cleveland Concoction 3/2/2019