Earth Speaks
The day the earthquake struck
We danced with the moving earth,
Unaware that a short distance away
Lives were lost,
Buildings crumbled,
Cars crushed,
Roads buckled,
And the earth tore herself open.
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from J.D. DeHart
Sucrose
Published at Poet Community
Sickly sweet
the swirl of today’s news
sitting on my empty
stomach. Syrupy
on my lips and on
the roof of my mouth.
An ideal that when tasted
does not blend so well,
overstaying its welcome.
Sucked through a straw,
then spat back out,
better left roadside alone.
Poetry from Stella Pfahler
God’s Square Mile
I imagined you struck by lightning, paralyzed and hanging in the air or above my bedside
isaiah 58:11 reading beneath you
I wanted to write you into verse psalm after psalm say it back to me echo like Presider: Congregation:
there is nothing like touch in electricity your hands
in water beneath a tall black sky
brushstrokes simmering beneath skin draw me a riverside, blanketed in peaks considering the largeness on each side
and the smallness in the middle
you sheared the plastic off a car door handle with closecut careful nails and murmured “cows” at every intersection whenever they appeared
Creative nonfiction from Doug Hawley
I Won’t Take Manhattan
Not that Manhattan, the Big Apple, Bright Lights Big City, this is the little apple, dim lights, little city in Kansas.
I ended up there after my third year of a math Ph.D. program at the University of Oregon in Eugene. I didn’t care for Eugene, and I was a poor Ph.D. candidate. When not studying, I spent my time drinking, consuming a controlled substance, getting fat and hanging out with other unmarried male graduate students. It was an unpleasant life of my own making.
My thesis advisor decided to take a job at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. I didn’t think that anyone else in the department would take me as a student, so I decided to go with him despite the Kansas horror stories. Oregon has mountains, trees, lakes and canyons, but Kansas not so much. Another four of his students also followed him.
Cristina Deptula interviews Italian and American filmmaker, actor and screenwriter Federico Wardal
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- Marlene Dietrich and Wardal
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- Maestro Carlo Lizzani & Count Federico Wardal, best cinema & best theatre together
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- Verdi Masked Ball Royal Opera
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- Fellini and Wardal
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- Count Wardal and his favorite mask
Federico Wardal is an Italian playwright, screenplay writer and director and acting instructor. He speaks widely on topics related to human rights and his artistic craft and currently lives in San Francisco.
Cristina:
First off, please introduce yourself! We’ve got an audience from around the world, and not everyone may be familiar with the world of live theater or independent films.
Wardal:
It is not easy to introduce myself as Wardal, as I consider Wardal a “faceted character” due to the influences of the Nobel Prize-winner Pirandello, Einstein and my mentor Federico Fellini.
To be more clear, I could consider [my persona] Wardal an invented imaginary author, arising out of the ideas of the ancient authors from Greece, Pirandello, and his friend Einstein. I love Einstein’s theory of relativity and think Fellini was inspired by Pirandello and Einstein when he created his film “8 1/2.”
From the first time I appeared on the stage as Wardal at the age of 14 years old, my aspect was (and is) an artifact, built up, never natural or simple, and sensational and amazing.
Novel excerpt from Carol Smallwood
Excerpt from In Hubble’s Shadow by Carol Smallwood.
*****
Midwestern Spring
Spring is the season that brings Midwesterners the most anticipation: the brown to green, the burst of delicate pink and white blossoms on fruit trees, the low dare devil swooping of nesting birds while driving—a welcoming confirmation that we made it through. Even dandelions delight our eyes, scattered replicas of the Sun. The first grass mowing. A celebration as new leaves cover bare limbs to make changing patterns of shade. We open the car windows driving past lilacs.
Citation: Smallwood, Carol, In Hubble’s Shadow (Brunswick, Maine: Shanti Arts Publishing, 2017). Used with permission of the publisher; www.shantiarts.com
Poetry from Vijay Nair
GAY HAMLET
Hi’story is a fiction false Wolf clothing in Sheep’s Run against the clock Closet in truth that coffin Wonder longer not nine that trumpet Everywhere all tricks of trade An old dog not to be taught A new Shakespeare chance upon Has greatness that Hamlet thrust upon Water no hold, a waterloo Hearing you not that whistle blow? Wicked flee not if Man pursuits it in soul Bacon a foster soul Blessed in disguise Shakespeare Some six fold six plays All sonnets a legacy Art lies in concealing art, irony What Ovid foreseen An answer, no Shakespeare is enigma Hamlet in heavenly procrastination Claudius not upon him avenge Annoyed that man delighted not him Truth untold a broken heart hubris His honest a hideous mirror debris Word play in he a Pete Sampras What a piece of work a man! Philosophy, brother double a mankind Dubbed verses of Denmark Prince Defenceless was he a pseudo Christ Ethos his passivism embodied inaction Pagan he an Achilles no Don Quixote Out of joint time was his revenge With wings as not with swift as meditation Daggers at her Cost a terrible dapper Malleable Mom she frailty not With rotten son adultery not His mother fixation a failed Psycho fancy