The Great Lakes Review

There is a breakwater on Lake Huron not too far from us that protects the harbor and marina. I walked out on it as far as I dared, then wrote about what and who I saw. The Great Lakes Review accepted my essay for publication and this morning it went live!

Lake Huron is beautiful and inviting, regardless of the season.

The narrative map series they are running is an awesome project, and I wanted to share. They're looking for more literary sketches to fill in their map.

Good luck with what you're writing and painting and doing this week!

A Thousand Lashes

As reported today in Poets and Writers, PEN is holding weekly vigils outside the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in London in support of Raif Badawi, an activist and blogger who was convicted last May for insulting Islam. Badawi was sentenced to ten years in prison and one thousand lashes, the whipping was begun last Friday. He will receive 50 lashes each Friday following morning prayers for 20 weeks. (They say their prayers first.) The extended punishment is intended to instill fear in the population and cause severe long-term damage to Badawi, probably death.

Really. A thousand lashes?

Another shot over the bow warning writers everywhere to not insult Islam. Never insult Islam or write anything that can in the slightest way be construed as criticism if you value your head and your back. Don't insult Islam if you value your freedom and the writing life. Don't insult Islam or....

delete delete delete 

My Three Friends

It takes a lot to know

what’s right

to let others in

when solitude fits this shoe.

It takes a lot

when night looms

endless

as a stopped clock

not to be afraid.

When the quiet overtakes

me, myself and I,

it takes a lot to face the facts

to know what’s right

to ask for help,

to pave the way and be brave

to be in your bedtime prayers.

I don’t want to be brave

I don’t want to be there.

Linked to the poetry garden and the Tuesday Platform. I've never been good at reading on stage, knees get wobbly and the podium shakes. It's easier here.

One More Flash For The G-Man

It's been a while
without his smile.

Fridays have never been the same
though it's been a while

without the G-Man in my
blogroll. It's been a while.

I never got to boast a Yahtzee
never had that cup-a-Joe.

His graciousness I sorely miss
though it's been a while.

It's been a while
without his smile.


When Galen Hayes retired from active blogging, he passed the Flash 55 mantle to the Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. This prompt was a final tribute to him. He died suddenly last month. They will be offering the meme on the first weekend of every month in his memory. Thank you, poets of the garden, for giving me a forum to say goodbye.

Burning out the Black

The boy trudges along the road
with a load of sticks on his back.
Cook fires burn the black out of the tropic night
and viewed from the top of a hill by a cross
(erected after the massacre
  inspired by the School of the Americas)
they dot the landscape like lights over L.A.
but the air smells like burning shit.

Down an alley in the city
through a fence he once glimpsed
a rope slung around a tree and tied post to post
from which clothes were hung to dry
and wood did not burn.

Further up the street were gated communities
and guards with guns in all the banks
and a pool behind an iron fence.
Drawn to the water, he peered through the filigree
at the diving board and a waiter with a towel
until they shooed him away.

Clothes drape rocks around the cook fire
and hang off every available surface.
He dumps his load beside the fire
and stirs the coals with a stick.


This post is based on the prompt at Magpie Tales and dedicated to the people of El Salvador and Guatemala.