Beroroha Éléphants Nageurs by Alarie Tennille The camera man shoots up at the feet of elephants swimming by. On their faces joy and surprise that the burden of gravity has been lifted. Their trunks curl upward snorkeling air and waving hallelujah like a gospel choir. The program is in French, but no translation is needed. Nor could any language… Read more »
http://koolkoncepts.com/service-area/ Frost and Fire (especially the latter) by Jack Kline My ancient Ford tractor lies dead in the pasture. I need it to finish the pasture mowing and for some light grading around our new garage. It won’t start. I’ve coaxed and cussed and fiddled and it won’t start. In keeping with Mr. Murphy’s Law, it sits far from shade and… Read more »
Metaphysics and the Extension Service by John Peterson You let the bluegills have their way, said Mrs. Becker, the county extension agent, you give them everything bluegills want, and you’ll have a lot of bluegills. Oh, you’ll have a lot of bluegills. There won’t be any size to them. You won’t have fun catching them. No, she said, to… Read more »
(Excerpt from a nonfiction manuscript in progress.) “She wanted to go into the corn,” I would write decades later, forgetting the night my sister and I had done just that. We had walked into the July corn tall as an elephant’s eye – with apologies to Oscar Hammerstein – fireflies electrifying the green gloom, and parted rustling cornrows until we… Read more »
One of the great things about being a small press is you get to know the writers you work with. As we approach our 10th year Whispering Prairie Press has seen many of our past board members, editors, and contributors move on to great things. Larry and Suella Walsh have supported Kansas City Voices from the very beginning. We wanted… Read more »
“Goodbye, Walker” by Peg Nichols Today my left shoulder began to complain about all the work it has to do. I never expected shirking from another body part. I thought we were all in the struggle together. Is this a telegraph message from left arm to right knee? Quit depending on me To push your walker around. ––Despite her… Read more »
“In the Light” by Judith Bader Jones Alone at a table before music calls crowds, she grazes news from Switzerland, translates foreign phrases into partial sense like the rocky way she fumbles through the idea of being loved by a Venetian whose eyes emit light when silence stills his soul. He likes her Kent filter tips and the swish in… Read more »
On sleepless nights as swallows circle barns and oval raindrops rattle tin roofs, I enumerate old lovers — men I hoped would love more than the turn of my youthful curves, men who sleep now in beds far from alfalfa, levee roads and the girl who rode a horse until she tamed the fury in his step, pulled the reins… Read more »
I sit on the patio balance thoughts on the moment. Life bears down, counts out my days, but I will come again, like a gardenia’s scent, travel in the air or blossom — on the fence a moon flower — one light in the night. Moon Flowers on the Fence, Finishing Line Press ––Judith Bader Jones, poet, lives in Fairway,… Read more »
I saw the last of them: Men of little flesh, they faded like pages and at last became paper, and one or two, painted in oils, were hung among their books. They taught the use of The Readers Guide to Periodical Literature, taught The Canterbury Tales from thirty-year-old notes, sent us to study manuscripts on microfiche, and took sabbaticals,… Read more »