Man only has but two nights: the night he was born, and the night he died. When he was born, Joy and mirth pervaded the room, And cacophony of laughter erupted like fireworks in the night. Like a tiny vine, he clung to his mother, drawing sustenance from her precious sap, Like a fledgling bird clinging to its mother’s wings. With his squeals and gurgles, he shared his babble Like a child blooming in its mother’s love. Half a dozen of age; everyday objects of the home became a kingdom of marvels, a realm of infinite delights, as his imagination turned pots into castles and spoons into swords. In the hot kitchen, his mind scented the air with the sweet fragrance of his hunger but he cared not for the heat or the sweat; only for the succulent flavors to come. Every morning, a new day beckons, a playground of delight, in the eyes of a child Running across the beach, gathering up the grains of sand– like precious pearls– As the moon casts its light upon the sea. The day he died, Deluge of sorrow choked the room, & the air was dense with wails. So many, like clouds of houseflies. The mighty man, heavy with weight of accomplishments, Threatened to hump the bier that transported him into his abode of delight. When he was lowered into the Earth (beneath the world of men), A new home hewn in the belly of the earth, His bones rotted like detritus. What is death? A beautiful ending or loss? There is but one conclusion: That he was born to die, to live as he pleases and return to the dust that made him.
Chukwuemeka Victoria Chiamaka is a psychology graduate from the University of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Anambra State, Nigeria. She is passionate about writing and this has made her lay her tent in the world of modern literature. Email: chukwuemekavictoria23@gmail.com
French Fry Etiquette
She left me sitting alone in McDonalds
Didn't take a bite of her Big Mac
Or touch a single one of her French Fries
She grabbed her Coke then walked away
And never even looked back
I thought about eating the fries
Although I had lost my appetite
It wasn't because I was hurt by the drama
She spreads ketchup on top of all of them
Instead of dipping each fry
I'm sure you know
the type
When it comes to eating French fries
Her method doesn't follow proper etiquette
Even though it bothered me I never said a word
Because she gets pissed off so quickly
And becomes
belligerent
I didn't understand what just happened
It left me totally confused
Why did she Super Size her order
If she wasn't going to eat the food
We had a date to go for dinner
I couldn't figure out why she got upset
I told her she looked gorgeous
But maybe a little overdressed
She looked surprised when we arrived
And said McDonalds you've got to be kidding
How insensitive of me to take her to McDonalds for dinner
Knowing her favorite hamburger joint is Burger King
JSB
Judge Santiago Burdon
Stray Dogs and Deuces Wild, Not Real Poetry, Quicksand Highway, Fingers in the Fan, Tequilas Bad Advice, Lords of the Afterglow, Overdose of Destiny
On July 5 of 2033 Antarctic bases McMurdo, Davis, Casey and others reported earthquakes of 6 magnitude on the Richter scale. South Africa and Tierra Del Fuego in South America had minor tsunamis shortly after the earthquakes. Helicopters flew to the suspected center of the disturbance near the South Pole. What they saw was deeply disturbing. An area of hundreds of thousands of square kilometers had subsided anywhere from a few to a hundred meters deep. What appeared to be naked humans were slowly digging out of the steaming slush. As the observers goggled at the scene, something like a red guided missile flew out of the depression so fast it was just a blur. There was no safe landing place, so the helicopters which were short of fuel flew back to their bases. When the film they had taken was released, the world observed a second odd event.
Only seconds after the “missile” had left Antarctica, a red giant with goat horns wearing a loin cloth and nothing else took over the United Nations. It had no problem taking over the podium during an active meeting of member nations. He spoke in English but was translated for the member countries as is usual at the UN.
“Hi there. You might know me as Satan, but I prefer Lucifer. Hey, have you heard that Rolling Stones number ‘Sympathy For The Devil’? Love it. Lucifer is from the Hebrew and means light bearing. I know I’ve got a bad reputation, but I serve a valuable purpose, like a garbage collector. That may be a bad analogy, but OK. For sure, you wouldn’t want to mingle with my guests in the afterlife”
The giant covered its chest with his hands as five gunshots were heard, then collapsed. Everyone turned to see a security officer with a smoking gun. The stunned crowd watched Lucifer as it lay motionless. A minute and half later the body made strange noises which turned into laughter. Lucifer got up and looked at his assailant. “You got spunk kid. I like your style. Would you like to do a podcast together?”
After a silent and motionless sixty-four seconds, the gunman said “Ah. Sure.”
Lucifer seemed pleased and continued “I got a little off track. You may want to know what happened in Antarctica. The roof of Hell collapsed and put out our heating system. I suspect that the inmates are not happy with hell freezing over, but at least it’s a change. As you may know, it’s a good thing for all the guys whose girlfriends said they wouldn’t have sex with them until hell froze over.”
Lucifer laughed loud and long. The audience was stunned into silence by the unexpected frivolity of Satan.
“I could go on and on, but maybe you want to ask questions.”
“You from Bulgaria, what’s on your mind?”
“Do you mean hell is a real place where bad people go when they die?”
“That’s right. Oops.”
Lucifer’s loin cloth fell off.
The audience gasped, laughed, cheered, and made many rude and crude remarks.
Lucifer pulled up his loin cloth and said “Oh, grow up. If you think that was weird, be glad you didn’t see the flip side. Anyway, haven’t you ever seen two dicks together before? How about the president and vice president?”
While the audience was cheering and booing, the Bulgarian delegate grabbed his chance before anyone could pose another question and asked “Follow up. Why locate Hell in Antarctica?”
“OK, that was a dumb idea. Fire and ice don’t mix very well. It was the idea of my colleague. It thinks it’s some superstar, but it’s not the boss of me. I shouldn’t have accepted Kolak’s idea of where to locate hell. As we had to expand due to our population explosion, we kept weakening the structure. Boom! Roof falls down, puts out our heating, everything freezes.”
An unidentified person yelled “Kolak?”
“Yeah, that’s its name. For some reason it’s known on earth by a multitude of different names.”
“You, shorty from Albania.”
“What are the demographics of Hell?”
“Just like earth’s criminals, mostly male. All of your major religions have contributed a lot of souls. Masters of war of course, and any soldier or civilian that enjoyed killing and destruction. Pretty high percentage of politicians. No surprise. Common criminals, not so much.”
Lucifer pulled out something from somewhere on its back that looked like a cell phone and looked at it. “I see we have 2,678,534,968 souls currently and that the number goes up about twelve hundred a minute. Because of space limitations, we cycle inmates between actively tortured and time outs as small cubes.”
A woman from Canada yelled out “This might not be a question for you, but do you know if there is intelligent life on other planets?”
“Other planets, yes.”
“You from Sweden.”
“How do you handle all of the inmates?”
“You must be a bureaucrat back home. I have thousands of trustees to make life unpleasant for the inmates. They are chosen from the worst people – mass murderers. They hate everyone and are hated in return. They whip, burn, slice and dice their fellow prisoners who are in constant revolt inflicting damage on the trustees. Win – win.”
“What’s your question Canada guy?”
“Do you ever do that Faust thing about collecting souls?”
“I have dabbled, but only for amusement. Thing is, it’s easy to cheat a cheater, so that part is fun. There’s this business guy recently who was an easy mark. I delivered for him, but he will regret it. Some well-known actors. The involuntarily celibate.”
“The guy with the bad moustache from Sri Lanka.”
“Lucifer, what are you plans for Hell now?”
“I’m not in a hurry to decide. If the earth people want some zombies to wander their streets, I could lend a few billion, but that seems unlikely. More likely I’ve got my eye on some real estate on Pluto where we could relocate. The guys in Antarctica can have snowball fights while they freeze until I decide.”
“I see you have more questions, but I’ve got a hot date with a demon from Mars, so I’m getting out of here. Don’t pet or feed those guys in Hell while I’m gone.”
+
Watching the Wind
Our fallen Rain
Towards eternity
Sky Teacher
Needless to Say
Love Seals my Lips
with a Gentle touch
As if it is True
As if New
Fresh Belief
Watching the Wind
Relief from Pain
Towards eternity
I reach out
to catch the Rain
Touch the Gift
Towards eternity
Dawn Steepens
The Climb
My knees are drawn
Beyond my feet
A stillness
moves
Touching the Wind
Toward continuity
And I have experience,
a pleasure indeed.
by John Edward Culp
upon this Tuesday
of November 21,
2023
Into each traveler’s travels, a little rain must fall
we have two sets of grandchildren… one set in Duluth, Minnesota, three hours north of where we live in Maplewood and one set in Riverside, Ca… while the kids are little, we have tried to spend Halloween with one set one year and the other set the next year… Halloween is a big deal to little kids in the USA…
so, this year was our year to go to Riverside, Ca for the holiday… we flew to LAX on October 21, 2023 and took the Metrolink out to Riverside… we had a wonderful visit with our daughter and our three amazing grandchildren… carved pumpkins and watched soccer practices and games… and generally enjoyed the warm southern California sun… on the day after Halloween, November 1, (all saints day on the Christian calendar), our daughter dropped us off on her way to work at the Rialto Metrolink station and we caught the train for Union Station… then, the flyaway bus from Union Station to LAX… the trip usually takes about two hours depending on traffic… sort of weird that southern California does not have a more efficient mass transit system, but, they do love their cars…
anyway, it was a bright sunny day and we had a beautiful view from the train of Mount Baldy, the mountain that borders the Los Angeles basin to the north… it is an interesting view from the junk strewn rail yards with their elaborate gang graffiti, across the suburban sprawl that begins to crawl up the edge of the mountain, then to the magnificent bulk of the mountain itself, looming in the distance, with its vast ridges edged against the incredible cerulean southern California sky…
we had a flight booked on ITA, successor airline to Alitalia, that left at 4:30 pm… it was a direct flight over the USA to hit the Canadian border over North Dakota then just south of Hudson Bay… across the Atlantic over the southern tip of Greenland, then over England and Europe to FCO, Rome, Italy’s airport… we arrived at about noon and as we were going through customs, Mary’s passport had a problem and we got separated… I had her phone in my bag… I could not contact her and since I was through customs, there was no way I could go back to the secured area to look for her… I asked information people and officials that I could find and there was simply nothing to do but wait and hope she came out the exit that I was waiting at… which she eventually did… but I spent a tense hour waiting… it turned out she had to go through a very long line to talk to a real live customs person and there never was any real problem with the passport… but it was a crazy, helpless feeling…
there is a train station at the Rome airport, so we took the train to Rome Termini, the central train station in Rome… we had decided to avoid the hustle of Rome and so I had found a small hotel in the city of Ladispoli, which is considered to be part of Rome but is actually out in the country about twenty minutes from the Rome Termini… the Italian trains are very fast and dependable… so, we flew through the countryside of farms and fields with eventual views of the Mediterranean sea… and got off on the platform of Ladispoli…
Ladispoli is a city of some 44,000 people… it is an older resort on the shore of the Mediterranean… I had found a lovely back to the fifties hotel with a balcony that looked out across the street over the black sand beach to the crashing surf… it was very windy while we were there, so the waves were large and spectacular… the temps in the day time got up to the upper 60s/lower 70s… which we found comfortable to walk around with a light jacket… we did have some light rain while we were there… the town had a busy shopping district with upscale clothing stores… the Italians seem to be very fashion conscious and I assume that these stores did a good business catering to the stylish needs of the locals… there were trattorias and restaurants on every corner and numerous pizza stalls… hole in the wall places selling slices of freshly made Italian pizza… we found the food in all of the venues to be delicious… so, we fell asleep to the whistling of the wind and the roar of the surf across the street from our hotel… the next day, Friday, we caught the train back to Rome… to do some sightseeing… I had never actually seen a Michelangelo statue that is in a church in Rome… it is a statue of Christ the Redeemer in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva… so, we made our way from the Termini via subway to the Pantheon stop… we walked around the outside of the Pantheon admiring this wonderful ancient building, one of the very few buildings from Roman Times standing more or less intact… due to the all saints day holiday, this was a holiday weekend in Rome and so the streets were very crowded with tourists from all over the world, but mostly, it seemed from the USA…
we found the church of the Minerva and it was cool and lovely inside with soaring, barrel vaulted naves and spectacular stained glass glowing in blue and other rainbows of colors, impossibly high in the gloom of the vault… there just to the left of the high altar was the Michelangelo statue… just standing there with a rope to keep the spectators a few feet away… this is supposedly a work that Michelangelo was unhappy with and had others work on… but it was easy to see the master’s hand in the beautifully carved torso and the intricate musculature of the legs… it was overpowering to be in the presence of a work of such genius… most places in the world would build a special museum to house this work from the hand of Michelangelo, but it Rome, it just stands there by the alter… you can deposit a euro in a box which causes a light to shine down from the ceiling and illuminate the statue… we spent an hour looking at this wonderful work and feeling blessed to be in the presence of such true genius…
when we left the church, it was raining… so we walked to a bus stop to catch a bus back to the Termini… I had my credit cards and id in a pouch under my clothes to keep safe from the ever-present Rome pickpockets… but I had 35 euros in my pocket to use for incidentals… when the bus came, it was very crowded, but because of the rain, we boarded it anyway and were accosted by one of the pickpockets who got the 35 euros out of my pocket before we managed to get off the bus… it was a stupid mistake to get on such a crowded bus, but, I was really glad that I had secured my cards and my id… 35 euros is about 35 dollars, so it was a small loss and kind of annoying, but c’est la vie… the bus and train fares were so low as to be almost free, so it was a very inexpensive day, even including the theft…
the next day, we had planned on an outing to a small town north of Rome, but when the ticket agent at the train station told us that it would take two and a half hours each way by train to get there, we decided to go to another small town just a few minutes away from Ladispoli by train… this town Santa Marinella was very quiet… we walked around the town and looked down at the boats in the marina… we then decided to have a nice lunch at a nice restaurant… we found a lovely place with amazing home made pasta where two large meals, including chianti, cost less than $40…
the next day, Sunday, we spent walking around Ladispoli and ended up with a seafood dinner at one of the many seafood restaurants… the spaghetti with clams was delicious… then, on Monday, we hauled our suitcases six blocks to the train station and caught the train for Civitavecchia… as we walked through the town, we noticed that what looked like a small carnival was set up in the park near our hotel…
in Civitavecchia, we boarded a cruise ship for a 16 day cruise to Tampa, Fl… the next morning, at about 3 am, I awoke violently ill with what seemed like a norovirus… I was sick for one day and missed the first port which was Toulon, France… I then did not feel terrific, but was good enough to go to shore at the next port which was Palma de Majorca… we had a nice walk around the city and ended up at a coffee shop near the cathedral… it was lovely and warm… and Mary much enjoyed her coffee… we stopped in at a church we walked by and enjoyed the beautiful stained glass and then spent some time sitting quietly in the garden in front of the cathedral… we then stopped at two ports in Spain, Malaga and Cartegena, both of which we have visited before and both of which are lovely cities to walk around in… we hired a horse and carriage for a ride around Cartegena and visited the central market in Malaga which had lots of olives, seafood and cheese… picture the fish, large and small on thick beds of ice, vegetable stalls with fresh oranges, berries, tomatoes, etc… the aisles crowded with shoppers picking up the ingredients of dinner… lots of smiles and talk in the quick native Spanish of the venders and the customers…
the next port was Gibraltar… we had been scheduled to stop at Azores, but bad weather in the north Atlantic dictated a more southerly crossing, so we stopped in Gibraltar… we hired a tour and rode a mini van up to the top of the rock with stops along the way to enjoy the spectacular views of Spain and of Africa, across the strait… there are troops of monkeys, Barbary Macaques, who live in the woods up the side of the rock and seem to enjoy bugging the tourists, trying to steal their Starbucks coffee and snacks… one jumped up and grabbed a lollipop out of the mouth of one of the tourists… the tour guides were on very good terms with the monkeys, visiting them every day, and carried sliced apples for the monkeys… across the strait, we could see the shadowy bulk of the Atlas mountains of Morocco… looking the other way, you could see the harbor and beyond the city, the green hills of southern Spain…
well, we said goodbye to the monkeys and embarked on a nine day sea voyage to Tampa, Florida… the sea was kind of rough for the whole voyage… we have done this trip or similar trips across the Atlantic many times and always had calm seas, more or less… when the boat rocks, I take a medication to prevent seasickness… this stuff works like magic, but leaves me kind of stoned and drowsy… but not seasick… unfortunately, a couple days out, I became ill again, this time with respiratory symptoms and fever… I was worried that it was Covid, even though, I have had six inoculations for Covid and have actually had Covid three times, most recently, in June… the Covid tests proved negative and I was diagnosed with acute bronchitis… the doctor gave me a strong antibiotic that had some very strong digestive side effects, so, while I felt better, I was still uncomfortable for a couple days… aside from that the sea voyage was lovely…
every morning, I would walk my usual 40 minutes, round and round the top deck… this walking/jogging track was kind of bouncing around with the motion of the ship and as we were usually heading into a head wind, very windy… but the air was amazingly fresh and watching the sun come up over the deep blue of the ocean horizon and light the clouds on fire was spectacular… it was warm enough that we could eat breakfast on the open deck in the back of the ship where the bulk of the ship blocked the wind and the morning sun became warmer and warmer as we approach the Bahamas… I breakfasted on the lovely fresh rolls with butter and jam and a piece of English bacon, maybe varied a few times with the full English breakfast of eggs, baked beans, mushrooms and grilled tomato with bangers and English bacon… breakfast has always been my favorite meal of the day… and looking out at the vast blue circle of the ocean, we felt very privileged to have this experience of crossing the ocean… out in the ocean, it is very rare to see any wildlife… you will occasionally see a frigate bird soaring just above the waves and occasionally, flying fish jumping away from the bow wave of the ship… but that is about it… when you get closer to land, you begin seeing sea gulls and other birds and if you are very lucky, you may see a dolphin or two… we did not see any dolphins or whales on this trip…
after all those days at sea, we were pretty excited to get off at the port of Nassau in the Bahamas which was our first stop in 9 days… we wandered around the straw market in Nassau, I bought a hat that said Nassau on the front… and we bought a few trinkets… mostly, it was lovely to sit in the shade and look out over the port where no less that six cruise ships were tied up along with an assortment of cargo ships and pleasure boats… in the distance, we could see the pink spires and towers of the fancy Atlantis resort… it was not as hot as it usually is in Nassau and so was a very pleasant sunny day…
then we got back on the ship for one more day at sea going around the Florida Keys to Tampa… it was fun to be close to land again and to see the lights of Key West in the distance…
we disembarked in Tampa the day before Thanksgiving and got an afternoon direct flight back to Minnesota… we were tired and glad to be home… our daughter in California sent us a news article she had seen to the effect that a real male lion had been released from his cage by animal rights activists… apparently, this was at a circus in Ladispoli, which was the small carnival we had seen and walked past… so, not long after we left Ladispoli, a Lion was loose, wandering around the streets looking quite lost and forlorn… he was later captured, the article said, and returned to his cage… which was a bittersweet ending to a very odd story… I mean, the Lion was not harmed, but then he was returned to his life in a cage, which must have been awful for him…
it had been an interesting trip with some negative times, getting robbed, getting sick, being separated at customs in Rome, some wind and rain on land and then rough seas… but overall, it was a fascinating trip and the highs more than made up for the lows… and it is good to remember that travel always involves some risk… even the fairly sheltered type of travel that we do can have its difficult and uncomfortable moments…. still from the monkeys of Gibraltar to the spectacular sunrises of the central Atlantic, I am glad we went… now, we are home in Minnesota where the temperature had not been above freezing for a week and we have had some light snow… we have, I think a new appreciation of our beautiful and tranquil home and of the many privileges we are blessed to enjoy at home in Minnesota…
