You're coming out of your shell
You've got a beautiful view


David FeBland, Downtime

Between Seasons
-- by Rob Schlegel

Walking the neighborhood streets I glanced
Into a lit window, behind which a man was standing
Staring into the white of the living-room wall

And the privacy within my head was suddenly
Less private as he turned his face and locked
My eyes in his, which startled me, so I began

To hum a minor tune, as if joining too late
An orchestra's final song and just then he invited
Me in, removed my clothes before covering

My body with red paint and pressing me
Against the wall he said Once you are gone
This will be the proof you became something

More than who you are, but outside, the flowers
Grew bleak in the garden's dim bloom and
The minor tune I had started was still going on.


November, 1967
-- by Joyce Sutphen

Dr. Zhivago was playing at the Paramount
Theater in St. Cloud. That afternoon,
we went into Russia,

and when we came out, the snow
was falling—the same snow
that fell in Moscow.

The sky had turned black velvet.
We'd been through the Revolution
and the frozen winters.

In the Chevy, we waited for the heater
to melt ice on the windshield,
clapping our hands to keep warm.

On the highway, these two things:
a song from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
and that semi-truck careening by.

Now I travel through the dark without you
and sometimes I turn up the radio, hopeful
the way you were, no matter what.


One Day
-- Jack Hirschman

I'm gonna give up writing and just paint
I'm gonna give up painting and just sing
I'm gonna give up singing and just sit
I'm gonna give up sitting and just breathe
I'm gonna give up breathing and just die
I'm gonna give up dying and just love
I'm gonna give up loving and just write.