Elizabeth Hughes’ Book Periscope

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A Fool and His Honey by Charlaine Harris

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This is a book I checked out from my local library. Charlaine Harris is the author of the Sookie Stackhouse series which became a series on cable TV. This series is the Aurora Teagarten series. Aurora Teagarten comes across many dead bodies throughout each of the series and then goes about solving the crimes. It is well written and really keeps the reader engrossed throughout the whole book. It is very hard to put down the book once you start reading. She has your attention from the very first page. I recommend this to anyone who loves Charlaine Harris books and others. This is a series in which you don’t need to read the first in order to know what is going on. You can pick up any book in the series and get interested right away. Definitely worth the read!

 

Shot Through Velvet : A Crime of Fashion Mystery by Ellen Byerrum
In this “Crime of Fashion Mystery”, Lacey Smithsonian is touring the Dominion Velvet factory in Black Martin, Virginia with her boyfriend Vic Donovan, a security specialist/private investigator. As they are touring the plant, they come upon a body tied to a spool of blue velvet immersed in a vat of blue dye. The victim is a very much despised person in upper management at Dominion. What ensues is a hilarious and adventurous story that will keep you turning pages until the end. This is another brilliant murder mystery by Ellen Byerrum.  A must read for mystery lovers. I personally loved this book.
Death on Heels by Ellen Byerrum
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Death on Heels is another book in the A Crime of Fashion series. In this installment, Lacey Smithsonian, the fashion reporter for the Eye Street Observer in Washington DC, goes to Sagebrush Colorado to interview Cole Tucker her ex-fiancee, who has been arrested for the murder of three women. She doesn’t believe that he is the murderer, until during her interview in the jail, he throws Lacey over his shoulder and makes a break for it.
He takes off and explains to her that certain people are vey interested in all of his land for the minerals under the land. Now Lacey has to decide whether her ex fiancée is a murderer or just a jerk, and if she is going to help him get to the bottom of it and try to prove his innocence. This is another page turning adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the end. I definitely recommend Death on Heels for the mystery lovers out there.
Please request these books from your local neighborhood bookstore!

Poetry from Gordon Hull

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The Boggling Facts

As my mind is boggled,

Boggled I will be,

Begging to stop the boggling of what I see,

Boggling is what they do,

Boggling me and you,

Boggling what do I mean?

Boggling you have seen,

Boggling they think we believe,

Once the boggling has stopped then life will be true,

So why are we boggled or baffled if we believe what they say,

Boggling is the governments way,

Boggle us here,

Boggle us there,

Boggle us everywhere,

So let’s stop the boggling,

Or as what our government likes to say,

Alternative fact by the way…

 

Poetry from Ryan Quinn Flanagan

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Gratuity Rex

 

He told his driver to take him to the airport

and since he was the driver

he drove to the airport

and he thought about tipping the driver

the conversation was friendly

enough

 

but something about the driver irked him

some people just don’t get on

 

so he decided to be polite

but firm

 

unloading his own bags

from the trunk

 

and since the airplane would not be invented

for another half century

he had to sit in the airport terminal

for quite a while

 

before his

flight.

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Poetry from Joan Beebe

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Universal Human Sorrow
There are times when life seems to overwhelm us
We become trapped in a world of our own and
Imperfect we are not,  but
 We still strive for peace and harmony in our home
Sadly it seems all efforts are wasted.
Our hearts cry out for love and understanding.
Time seems to stand still in this place of longing
Nothing seems to change and we become
A prisoner of a broken heart
Untitled
The day is ending but the lowering sun
Has not given up its radiant glow across the sky.
Watching this beautiful panorama before me,
I see a streak of silver as the sun reflects its
Light upon a plane causing an almost
Magical luminous effect.
I am entranced by the sight above me
And as I continue to watch that plane,
I feel and sense the awesome power of nature
Because, in unexpected ways, we are able
To witness such a blending of nature and man.

Poetry from Allison Grayhurst

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 Love is not a shell
  
I tell you I am waiting for a new friend
to share these beautiful riches, to feel
safe with and to feel whole.
I tell you I am waiting for new and
permanent members of our clan – for all of us
here, striving for rich connection and finding
that most people will only go so far, most people
blend in without steam and then move on, on to where
the demands of intimacy are minimal and accountability
means making, defending, excuses.
I tell you I am happy for those who walk with me, and
my arms are open. Food is on the table.
 
 
By the edge,
  
the fire drifted from the sands
and all my tribe bit the bolt
hard. For life was hard,
and our ceremonies of perseverance,
of letting go, and of holding on
were all we had.
Shadows and senselessness walked
across our movie screen.
I put it all in our backyard –
the carcasses of mourned dead animals,
the memories of betrayal and grief, people
that never tried and those
that tried but just not hard enough.
I put them there and buried them close to the fence,
behind the evergreens, near where the sandbox used to be.
I told everyone tales of ‘true blue’
and the phone would ring
and then it would stop
and everyone of us held hands. We prayed.
We knew this was just a time of scarcity and soon
it would be a time of plenty:
We knew the joy of loving one another.
 

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Poetry from Mahbub

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If You Don’t —-

How do I move foreword

If you don’t tell me

Show me how to start

How do I do something better

If you don’t light on

How do I step right or left

If you sound less

How do I brood over

If you don’t hang me in blessed

How do I snap the glory of nature

If you don’t  accompany me

How do I laugh from heart

If you don’t open your eyes to me

Soft and see the blush

How do I think the world

If you don’t hug

All the things will run away behind

If you don’t respond

All the things are in dust

If you don’t come to me with the face of love.

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Poetry from Sudeep Adhikari

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Ethics of Space Exploration

So I finally learned the ethics and politics

of space exploration.

 

Try to find life at the far corners

of unforgiving solitude. Shoot the kids

in Yemen and Afghanistan.

 

Go bonkers about the discovery of habitable

planets. Bomb the shit out of Aleppo

to make it  look like poor people’s Mars.

 

Hope the aliens from space are nice

and friendly. Kill the brothers from another country

if they drink beer in your bar.

 

So the space moralists told me,

“Nobody owns the moon”.

 

Damn fucking right!

I told them nobody owns Earth either.

 

Sudeep Adhikari is a structural engineer/Lecturer  from Kathmandu, Nepal.   His recent publications were with   Red Fez , Kyoto  , Your One Phone Call, Jawline Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Yellow Mama, Fauna Quarterly, Beatnik Cowboys, After The Pause, Poetry Pacific, Silver Birch Press and  Vox Poetica.