CRASHING ALONE by Caroline N. Simpson

Lightning struck like severed veins
and threw him crashing alone.

He lay on a funeral mound
of pictures, forgotten board games.

Men murmured in the oak floor,
women through pipes around the room.

Voices widened cracks into gaps.

A breeze blew through; the plaster sank
exhausted, crushing his ghost house.

Source:

Harding, Paul. Tinkers. New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2010. Print.

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Caroline N. Simpson is an English teacher, currently teaching English as a Second Language at a community college in Seattle, WA. She has taught English literature at international high schools in Turkey and Spain, and loves outdoor adventure, traveling, and learning about other cultures. Her poetry has been published in the Barcelona-based literary magazine, Barcelona Ink, and U.S. magazines, Third Wednesday, Ascent Aspirations, Children Churches & Daddies, and Bear Creek Haiku. In April 2013, she participated in the Found Poetry Review’s National Poetry Month Initiative, Pulitzer Remix, in which she was one of 85 poets responsible for publishing one found poem a day for the month of April from a Pulitzer-prize winning work of fiction: http://www.pulitzerremix.com/ Most recently, in August 2013, a collection of her poetry won Honorable Mention in Hot Street’s Emerging Writers Contest.

THE RED MOUTH by Winston Plowes

The ever-widening ugly
corner of his red mouth.

The stormy double life that travelled
a great many miles in his sleep.

The piano, mechanically frail
heard through twenty years of fog.

The old family secret blotted out inside
never to go home again.

The first passionate tingling would
begin where child-hood had left off

All the above words (including the title) were found in the 1923 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, One of Ours by Willa Cather, Knopf, 1922. Book 4, Chapter 7, pp 303-306.

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Lauryn Hill said “We can't plan life, all we can do is be available for it.” If Winston Plowes were to unpack his suitcase it would contain, a wise old cat, his beautiful daughter, his bicycle, too many bottles of wine, a floating home, banana sandwiches, packets of noodles and so many spiral bound notebooks crammed with words rescued from their past lives, which he now gives back to you. He is ready… www.winstonplowes.co.uk

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This illustration by Julie Rose Clark was inspired by the above poem. 

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Julie Rose Clark is an artist and poet working in varying mediums from coloured pencil to oil paint, glitter to found objects, crayon to collage. She enjoys life drawing, spontaneous painting, big canvasses, dancing, and throwing paint around! She loves a surprise and is always expecting miracles.