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Dave Hardin Nov 2016
Edgewood Elementary Spring Review

Richard Bryant played The Boy with me
in the role of The Father
inspired casting in the months following

The March On Washington
For Jobs And Freedom  
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing

I recall Mr. Conti’s stage direction:
remain silent for one full minute before speaking.
Richard at my feet, flour in my hair.

Richard who lived
north of the plastics factory
in the colored trace cast

as an inquisitive child
to my detached adult
asked questions like

Why is the sky blue?
Which came first
the chicken or the egg?

My character puffed
on a prop pipe, hid behind
The Detroit Free Press, replied

I don’t know son again and again
conveying laconic vacuity
through clenched teeth.

I recall laughter when Richard
telegraphed my punchline
Son, how are you going to learn anything if you don’t …

Perhaps Mr. Conti
would have revised the script
had he any inkling of the uprising

that would consume the city
in three short years or written
new dialogue fifty-five years later:

A grave father explaining
survival to his wide eyed son
in an enlightened age.
Ella Aug 2019
account total: $1912.92

i already work a 9 to 5
to pay my rent and cigarette cravings
that pops kernels in my chest
and burns my knees
but that pain
was a needle's *****
compared to not having you
by my side

of course
love was more than pocket change
so i bought you a plane ticket (-six hundred dollars)
and the fastest booked train ticket (-ten dollars)
to see you

on our date
we had sushi (-twenty five dollars) and drank merlot (-twelve dollars)
our intoxication engulfed the best of us
and we made love in the back of my chevy until the morning hit

our souls intertwined
to be one being
after work
i used to buy you flowers (-eight dollars)
tied with ribbons
that matched your favorite yellow sweater

some nights
our stove light would burn away and need repair (-three hundred and twenty dollars)
so we would bus down edgewood road (-four dollars and forty-two cents)
to get ourselves takeout at seven pm (-fifteen dollars)
then sit on a bench in the mall while we licked ice cream off our fingers (-six dollars and fifty cents)
i would reach into my coat
and light a cigarette from the pack (-nine dollars)
for us to share

we used to sit and talk about life
the drugs we tried
the theories of aliens that roamed the galaxies
our passion and sadness
rolled into one blunt of conversation
that we used to occasionally share in highschool

if life gave me lemons
i would buy you an orchard to pass-through
i would buy you your favorite shampoo (-fourteen dollars)
and watch the suds crawl down your back while i brushed my teeth
every tuesday morning

we would make breakfast from last night's grocery shopping (-one hundred thirty-two dollars)
and listen to the sounds of the city
that shouted outside our 2 bedroom apartment
that only i pay for
and it caused us to stay awake and scream until we numbed the burning in our lungs with the sounds of *******
trying to find the music in all this anger
for i couldn't feed you the foods you wished to dine upon
or fetch the duvet you hoped to be sprawled whoreishly upon our fading mattress that smushed our boxspring

but sometimes
the *** wouldn't help
and you would come home with wads of one-dollar bills
crumpled up in your pockets
and it makes me wonder if my love no longer sells for you
sometimes
our anger spills in copious drops of alcohol (-37 dollars)
and crashes into shards of fine (-300 dollar) china my mother bought to brighten the rooms
sometimes
i find myself waking up to an empty bedside
with you curled up on my couch with hair knotted on your head
and (-10 dollar) mascara staining your face like coffee flowing from the lips of my ***

because i don't have enough money to give to soothe your soul
for loving you is a fortune
that turned dollars into pocket change to drop on the streets

and the bank came in with a statement that fined you the money you owed my account
so you packed your (-400 dollar) suitcases and fled with the glass of my heart still pricked within your palms
and the receipts of cash licking my doorstep clean

because loving you is expensive

account total: $10
Static jade , silver portals masking sinuous , tarry leviathans
The wealth of Heaven released o'er twinkling avenues , the audacity of crows that gather in Spring rain
A lonely , bold Iris , the smatter of color along the edgewood , chatter of grounded Bluebirds , crescendo of April cloudburst ,
assurance of evening rainbows at the 'Lamp of God's veritable direction
Copyright April 19 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Lauren Salvo Dec 2017
By: Lauren Salvo

In 1961,
They were barely
old enough to drive,
but Robby’s Grandpa
had just given him
a ‘49 Chevy for his
17th birthday.
Robby was thrilled
to take his friends wherever
they wanted to go.

Less than a block away from
their high school,
Franklin Central,
was a railroad track.
Trains would come and go
early in the morning
and late at night,
waking the families that lived close.
And sometimes, the trains would pass
in the afternoons distracting students from
their studies,
and keeping people from getting home
a little bit faster after school and work days
were over.

One Wednesday afternoon
on the way home from school,
Billy crammed four of his friends
into that little red Chevy
and they headed
home for supper.
They sang and laughed
as they listened to Patsy Cline
and Chubby Checker on the radio,
As the chorus of “Crazy” played,
a train barreled down the tracks.

The train’s horn sounded,
and the tracks rattled.
Robby stopped and looked both ways,
but it was too late.
The train’s impact tore
the clothes off of each one of them;
stripped of their lives too soon.
They never had the chance to move past
that railroad and follow their dreams.
Fifty-six years later, five crosses,
one for each of those kids headed home
in the red ‘49 Chevy,
still stand tall along the railroad at the
crossing of Franklin Road
and Edgewood Avenue.

— The End —