Gary LeBel: Curve

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Today in the North Georgia mountains the sun’s straight up, school’s out—boarded-up shops and broken soda machines, filling stations with no tanks or recent calendars: all wait their turn to disappear under the great sleepy eyelids of kudzu and cicadas.

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Two young boys are following railroad tracks between mountains, one of them short, the other taller by a foot. It’s all there on four legs, their youth and friendship, the boundless summer stretching out ahead of them somewhere down the tracks as the tall one leans over the shorter who tilts his head to cock an ear.

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‘Whither do they go,’

...............vanishing side-by-side,

...........................train rails

...............and the bend

...........................of a river?

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by Gary LeBel

Cumming, Georgia

first published in Abacus (2008)

Sharon Auberle: Summer Passing

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The sky is filled with terns tonight, their red bills arrowing down into the water. Fishing boats wend their way home to the harbor, while on the dock a small boy runs, heedless of dark and danger. His father scoops him up at the edge. Old men sit alone. Two women wrap shawls about their white shoulders. For a moment, there is silence, all pausing to watch an impossibly pink moon rise up out of the lake. Lights are coming on, one by one, in the deserted streets. Even the corner tavern is quiet, and the wind, thinking of turning northward, stills itself for awhile.
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from somewhere
on the other side of the world,
autumn approaches

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by Sharon Auberle
Sister Bay, Wisconsin

Patricia Prime: The Hand Press

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My fiancé kept a hand printing press in his bedroom. He was a printer by trade and bought the press to make extra money. Two nights a week were spent printing invitations, business cards and letterheads.

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The moveable metal type was kept in small boxes, each letter taken out individually and arranged into lines to form text, headings, captions. After the type was set and tightened, it was tapped into place. The paper was fed into the machine and rollers spread the ink under the pressure of the press. Several proofs had to be "run off" to ensure even coverage, clean print and correct order of type, which was positioned in a "mirror image"—something a skilled compositor could do in minutes.

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winter evening

the smell of chemicals

drifts from the window

the cat is stirred

from her sleep on the tiles

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My task was to clean and "break" the type after the job was completed. Each letter had to be cleaned and placed back in the correct tray which was a lengthy and tedious process.

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My future mother-in-law kept a wary eye on us. She'd interrupt every half-hour or so, with tea, a plate of biscuits, or a stern warning it was time for me to go. All this subterfuge to mask her worry over what—disguised by the clunk of heavy machinery—might be taking place in the bedroom.

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up and down the stairs

weathered floorboards

thud beneath the press

as she retrieves

cups and plates

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After washing with industrial soap it was time to leave the room smelling of chemicals and ink. Cards laid out on the drying stacks. We walked home hand-in-hand.

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low in the sky

a crescent moon

bright and shiny

like the letter 'C'

in the compositor's tray

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by Patricia Prime
Auckland, New Zealand
first published in Modern English Tanka V3, N1 (Autumn 2008)

Gary LeBel: Moso

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It’s suddenly evening as you slip out of the bright afternoon and into the bamboo’s dark, luxuriant corridors. With so little light reaching in, you sense the leaves drink deeply of every available ray of sunlight to grow such densely interwoven canopies above. The shaded paths between the clusters of Moso are softly cushioned with years upon years of cast-off leaves, and so your footsteps hardly make a sound.

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Introduced originally from China, and then via San Francisco in 1893, their provenance adds an unexpected dimension to what at first was merely a name on an exit sign: “Bamboo Farm and Coastal Gardens”, a large hidden tract maintained by the University of Georgia on the outskirts of Savannah.

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The little bamboo forest enclaves, each autonomous, are strung together over the acreage like a chain of islands. Wandering among them, you move from one country to another rather than merely between species. Part-time resident of the nation of Black Bamboo, an egret lends an exquisitely-wrought tension to the moment as it darts stealthily in slow motion along the grassy shore, its bleary reflection keeping abreast on the mill weed below.

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a quiet pond . . .

minnows swimming

through my eyes

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by Gary LeBel

Cumming, Georgia

Giselle Maya: Summer Breeze

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at noon

it rises out of thin air

and glides

from afar

into the garden

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through the valley wind sifts pollen

from the vessels of daylilies

and ruffles the cat’s tigered fur

white roses sigh near yellow evening primroses

corn leaves tremble and grow by leaps and bounds

zucchini blossoms of orange-yellow

cradle within green

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where

does the glaucous

summer breeze

come from

where will it go

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beans with white and violet blossoms tousled by wind’s fingertips

bow again and again how do they spin tiny beans out of blossoms

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the tall borage with prickly leaves etches blue stars

the rose called ‘Joseph’s Coat’ is painted in shades

from lemon to wine-red

the feathers of nightingales are brushed

they lift their voices

in the high willow

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in a hammock

the gardener closes her eyes

soothed

after sifting dark earth

to nourish growing plants

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blue-green silk

noon wind

ripples water

content

to be alive

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by Giselle Maya

Saint Martin de Castillon, France

Francis Masat: Everyone’s Going West

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“Go West, young man!”

—John B. Soule, Horace Greeley, Thomas Fuller and possibly others, ca. 1851.

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The Midwest: My high school sweet-heart moves to California; other friends move to Colorado and Oregon. My high school drops band, the football team now is eight-man, and the track team is co-ed. The movie theater, two schools, and the variety and drug stores close. The library—my Mecca—struggles to stay open. A local rumor is that we are experiencing progress.

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empty street—

the rolling cadence

of a beer can

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So now, where do I go to see theater and opera, to visit history, to live art, or to use gateways to old world cultures? I realize that I must leave too. With everyone going West, I head East.

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Dad’s workshop—

cobwebs fill the arches

of a child’s castle

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by Francis Masat

Key West, Florida

Benita Kape: Shoe Shopping

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Winter school holidays—my two great-grandsons are in town to stay with their Daddy. I take them, as I do every year, to the movies. And then we go shopping—a few clothes and always a pair of brand new shoes.

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early spring

following a plow barefoot

planting potatoes

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Times were hard. A large garden plot near the house supported the family. But in order to stretch the budget just that bit further my father grew seasonal crops. If we were big enough to bend and pick up a potato, we were big enough to put it in a sack. Some years we planted onions on the shortest day of the year. On the longest day, we helped our father and siblings harvest them. Another time the crop my father planted would be peas. He would provide much of these harvests to the grocers in the two local townships. But on occasion, he dealt these vegetables to his neighbours for items of use for his family.

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carried to bed—

new second-hand, toe-worn

shoes and tears

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by Benita Kape

Gisborne, New Zealand

Catherine Mair & Patricia Prime: Chinese Checkers

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On my arrival the remnants of a party: balloons on the veranda, a piece of chocolate cake in the pantry, birthday cards on the dresser and toys spread over the floor. The children play with cars on the carpet, making roads and roundabouts with coloured clothes pegs. Later I offer to baby-sit the children while my friend and her daughter visit great-grandma. They decide to take the oldest boy with them.

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wide-eyed she welcomes her visitors

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The youngest two occupy themselves with the road works, but when they become bored I play "Hangman" with them using simple three- and four-letter words. Next they want to play "Chinese Checkers," which lasts until they realize they are going to be beaten. As we play hide-and-seek in the bedroom, a Selwyn's friend spies us through the window. When the resthome visitors return it's time for dinner.

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in the bath

four arms, four legs,

a monster

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Next morning the family packs up leaving the house empty and quiet. Thistledown floats across the rain-drenched sun deck.

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folding the washing

we find a pair

of boy's socks

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by Catherine Mair and Patricia Prime
Katikati, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand
and Auckland, New Zealand

Tish Davis: The Family Vitaceae

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Clusters of grapes are stenciled on a periwinkle watering can in my aunt’s kitchen. Two rusted hand pruners and the old rosewood harvesting shears, tips in the tin, point down.

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“Do you remember your grandmother’s vineyard?”

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I remember the weekends . . . . Father took a cotton rag and wiped grease off of the old, red tractor while my uncles gathered tools and loaded everyone onto the trailer. Grandmother, always a few rows ahead of us, trimmed and composted in calico dress and barn boots. My aunts said she brought secrets with her—cuttings from the old country.

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Grapes, at harvest time, were packed in wooden crates, loaded onto flatbeds with wooden rails. We cousins played a game of chase alongside the procession. Berries jiggled in boxes. I stopped and pulled the beggar-ticks out of my socks.

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frozen on the vine

the grapes

my father grew

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by Tish Davis

Dublin, Ohio

first published in Presence #38, May 2009

Tad Wojnicki: Boutique Row

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Cannery Row is shop-crazy. I skip the trinketry, chocolatery, and gadgetry, and then hop past the batikry, crotchetry, and towelry. A far cry from John Steinbeck. I schlep on. Now, Steinbeck arrives: Steinbeck Golf, Steinbeck Cooking College, and Steinbeck Fold and Fluff. Of course, also a Steinbeck Speakeasy—Steinbeck here, Steinbeck there, Steinbeck everywhere.

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I schlep down Cannery Row.

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I don't see a single cannery, much less a row, or hear the famous, ear-splitting whistle calling the fish cutters, staggering out of their tortilla flats. Years ago, by this time of day, all boats would have been in. The stinko gulch would be swarming with minimum-pay workers, Dead fish would make it alive. But today, the fish is gone. Fished out. With the fish, that life is gone, too—no warehouses, no whorehouses, no flophouses. No “reduction” plants around either, baking fish heads, tails, and guts into a fertilizer. When they cleaned the tanks, "the stench was so horrible it would wake one up in the night," Joe Bragdon, who lived here as a young man, told me. Today, no whistles, no stench, no canners --and no fish to can, either. Cannery Row is now a Boutique Row. Sale signs go up left and right. Staffs drag schlock to the sidewalk to trip the walker.

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antiques shop

in snakeskin shoes

a shiny penny

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I gulp my gall and join the fun. Fog helps, cottoning rough stuff, fuzzing strife, padding junk. Even the roars and vrooms get muffled, stifled, smothered. Soles smooth sidewalks to sumptuous breakfasts of coffee with bacon, waffles with shrimp, and croissants with chorizo, all treyf stuff.

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I step into a joint that doesn't reek treyf. It's the Steinbeck Speakeasy. They serve dinner for breakfast. I don’t want anything to eat. No chow, just spirits. I plop down at the bar and get a shot of kosher vodka straight. The barfly next to me is a Kentucky businessman dispossessed by his wife.

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beach bar

fog engulfs

each stool

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"Headlights on!" a man at the door yells, tilting his head toward the parking lot. "Who drives a Porsche?" he adds, looking around. No guest is getting up. No one drinking at the bar drives a Porsche.

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"Our dishwasher," the bartender yells back.

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The barfly leans over.

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"Don't you miss the good old days?” he asks.

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“What ‘good old days’? Days of low pay? Days of indignity? Days of filth, stink, and discomfort? Were those days ‘good days,’ you think?” "I'm not so sure they were," I recall Joe Bragdon, thinking back.

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weedy wave

the pelican picks

the splash

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I quit the Steinbeck Speakeasy and join a wedding party at the Lover's Point. Gooseflesh dads and teeth-chattering moms join too, praying the fog would lift. A stretch limo pulls over. The bride gets out, breast-feeding a baby. Suddenly, so honest. So Steinbeck. So Cannery Row.

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pebbles rattle

crushed under driftwood

beach wedding

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by Tad Wojnicki

US/Taiwan

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[Previously published as: "Boutique Row: Idiosyncratic Reflections of a Steinbeck Aficionado," in: 2008 NCUE Third Annual Conference on Language Teaching, Literature, Linguistics, Translation, and Interpretation. Chang Hua, Taiwan, 2008.]