Cake Man
Couldn’t get enough, cake that is. Turned into one. Frosting for hair, chocolate for nails, double fudge layers in between chinny chin chin. Belly big, laugh one more. Piece that is. No such thing as left over under. Cake. Could hide but the nose nose. No such thing as saving for Aunt Bertha or any other ant or person who might enjoy some. Sugar. Disposal. Not enough hugs just cake. One more. Please. Only.
LOST BUT FOUND LOVE
Tears rolled down Jane’s cheeks as she stared at the framed picture on her bed stand. It was ten in the morning and she was still in bed. She’d been awake for an hour, but she wasn’t ready to face the day. She’s been living like this since the news of the boat mishap which supposedly claimed Steve’s life was published in the Washington Post one week ago. She’d wake up every morning and just stare at the picture she and Steve had taken on the afternoon they visited the mall together for the first time. That was the last time they spent together before the boat mishap. As she stared at the picture, she continued to sob, letting the tears from her eyes trickle down her cheeks and soak up her pillow. So many memories flooded her mind as she stared at the picture: the afternoon she’d received the news about the mishap on the Potomac River, the search team that was launched, and the success the search team had in recovering the other bodies involved, which she didn’t really see as success because Steve’s was not among the bodies rescued. She thought about Sam, John and Philip and the way their unconscious bodies had looked when they were rescued from the river. She was eighteen years old and remembering the summer she and Steve had fallen in love; the summer she had a heart attack and how Steve had been by her side the entire time. Even though they’d only been seeing each other for a year, she felt as though Steve was the reason she was able to face the many challenges of her life. He was the reason she’d found strength to press on with her life after she lost her dad and her doctor told her she didn’t have much time to live because of her heart condition. Every moment she spent with Steve made her feel that she could live longer than her doctor had predicted. Now that he was gone, she wondered whether she would be able to face life anymore. The strength to live was no longer in her and with the passage of each day she felt weaker and weaker. She continued to stare at the picture until she was interrupted by a knock on the door. Her mom poked her head in.
“Breakfast is ready. I made you your favorite: pancakes with gravy.” Jane didn’t respond. She sat up on the bed and continued to stare at the picture. “Sweetie, are you crying again?” When Jane didn’t answer, her mom crossed the room, sat beside her and gently clasped her hand. “Sweetie, you can’t continue to live like this; no amount of tears is going to bring Steve back to life.”
Opera San Jose’s Madama Butterfly in Review
Holly Alexis Sisson, MA (consciousness studies)
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) was one of the finest Italian composers. During my pursuits to research, the forever academic, Opera and particularly this composition and the San Jose Opera, I was surprised to discover that with an ocean and a continent apart there was a direct connection between Milan and San Jose, California during Puccini’s time. David Belasco, born in San Francisco, produced the play from which Puccini derived the opera. Belasco wrote, directed, produced, and acted in a number of plays just a few blocks from California Theatre in San Jose.
I was already mesmerized by the daydream fantasies I had of wringing my heart out at intermission and wearing those funny little flip opera-glasses, but this connection made it all the more enticing.
One of my mentors and teacher of indigenous knowledge and shamanic practices once said “the modern Western culture leaves no place in the music industry for the depth of emotions that help us process the story of being human except the Opera.” Being my first opera show I was very excited to witness and participate in that depth of emotion.
Pointilliste by Alain Vaissiere
the ice is cracking
under our blistered feet
great debacle
water under the bridge
the flow of days
between us
a wave for you
away from me
lost in the emerald sea
Originally published in Winamop, 2013.
(with Alain Vaissiere’s kind permission)
Review, Blue Skies Poetry, Turk’s Head Review, Diogen Magazine, Literary Juice, Hothouse Magazine, The Bangalore Review, Creative Thresholds, Poems Underwater, Storyacious and Japanorama, among others.
Bound through Blood is available for purchase here: http://www.amazon.com/Bound-Through-Blood-Alexis-Kennedy/dp/0615942202/
Amazon description: When Devin lost his true love to the 18th century witch trials, he thought he’d lost his only chance at ever having love and a mortal life again forever. But then the vampire tastes his true love’s blood in another—her tenth generation great-granddaughter. Now, suddenly, that life is possible again, but only if he can convince Salena Saunders of their destiny. Fighting against the forces who want to protect her and the men who want to have her— including his own long-lost vampire brother, Gabriel— Devin struggles to get close enough to prove his love and intentions to Salena while protecting her from Gabriel and her own superstitions. Salena Saunders works as a tour guide in a New Orleans historical home—unraveling the past for tourists—when her own past begins to haunt her and mythical stories actually come to life right before her eyes. For the first time ever, she seeks guidance from fortunetellers and voodoo priestesses for answers—ones that both promise to shock her and guide her to true love and her destiny. Beyond the realm of mythical creatures and superstitions, as well as her very own cultural surroundings, Salena must come to terms with being Bound Through Blood.
Excerpt: Devin kept pace with the women; he’d been watching and following Salena all day. It had taken some time to locate her, but he’d finally found her scent when he flew, as a black hawk, over the French Quarter. She had been walking out of a voodoo shop, with a look of deep concern on her beautiful face, when he caught her scent. It was her unmistakable alluring fragrance of honeysuckle and lavender.
The PROFIT Percent
Everyone is out to make money. More money. And more money. And if
you’ve put in some money already, then you’re out to make a profit,
plain and simple.
Still, one often, if not frequently, makes profit but still doesn’t
quite hit jackpot– or put another way, doesn’t feel as comfortable as
his seemingly lesser competitor seemingly making lesser profit.
So that one is eventually made to ask, What matters most in an
enterprise? Is there more to a stable, sustainable franchise than
profit? How can one truly maximise profit?
To answer the questions and to have a feeling of self-accomplishment,
one often suggests numbers: the number of workers employed, of brands
marketed, of products and services offered. Yet, as experience
(eventually) shows, to keep a business running one needs profit more
than numbers– and a certain type of profit at that.
It is (forgivable) conventional wisdom to say that one’s profits
increase with the numbers, but is this really true? And more
significantly, Is the increase in profit commensurate with (or worthy
of) the increase in numbers– with the consequent more salaries and
higher cost of maintenance?
To answer these curiosities, I share the following scenarios with you.
