Sunday, June 10, 2012

New Sun Rising Launch

Its been over a year since the disasters hit Japan.

While the world may have shifted their focus to other areas, the suffering of the people devastated by the events the 2011 tsunami caused continues.

Over 60 contributors have donated their works to New Sun Rising - Stories for Japan, in order to heighten the awareness of the plight of the Japanese people.

This anthology is not about the disaster, but celebrates the beauty of the Japanese culture, environment and people. Its about hope, passion and commitment.

The same contributors have generously given other works to showcase the variety and talent held within the anthology.

 New Sun Rising is currently available on Kindle through Amazon. Its also available to borrow through thier library system for the next three months.  Every cent will be directed to the Japanese Red Cross to assist those who still require help.

Please pop over to Amazon and 'like' it, post it to facebook and tweet about it, even if  you aren't going to purchase it.

 Cover Art reproduced here with permission by Daniel Werneck.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

And Acupuncture Is Not Voodoo

By silent lotus


published with permission and loaded as per contributors instructions.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Spring Fever


by Marianne Betterly

As spring flashes its magenta blooms,
a petal storm floating
over daffodils and tulips,
covering them in a sea of pink,
I want to scream.

Finches cluster and chirp
in nearby redwoods
swoop like pterodactyls;
insects buzz in the living room,
fly around my head.
I feel itchy,
perhaps from lying in the grass,
hope it isn’t ticks.

The sun is brighter, hotter --
each day more light
is crowding out
the cozy blackness of night.
I’m sleepy,
don’t want to get up.

On the street glimpses of navels,
naked toes and shoulders
make me shiver, sneeze
in the wall to wall sea of smiles
love is floating like hay fever,
I don’t want to catch it

but would rather go back to bed,
cover my head and wake up
when the cold San Francisco summer
drains the pastels of spring
down storm gutters

until all that is left
is gray mist rising,
spreading across the city,
pushing thoughts of spring
off the Golden Gate bridge
with the bass bellow
of a foghorn.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

rabbits run


by Marianne Betterly

They multiply in the shadows
hop on every  stitch of lawn
until soft fur and balls of white
cover shaven grass,
turning plots of green to
rivers of gray.

A rabbit rave repeats each night
in a jumble of silent leaps,
a frenzied ballet of cottontails
jumping to beats
only they can hear

until the moon rises and
the coyotes who watch
the lapidarian dance
join in,
changing the music to
tango abrazo
close embrace

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Launch of anthology so close we can feel it.

The launch of the kindle version of New Sun Rising is so close, we can nearly feel it.

I hope you have your champagne bottles ready and glasses steady.

Watch this space for announcements and links to Amazon where it will be available for download.  Printed versions will be our next focus, with the launch around the end of September.

Thanks again for all your patience and on going support.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Silver Lining Flower

by Ida Černe 

Ida's story "Silver Lining" is included within the Anthology. She shares the photo that provided the inspiration as its an origami flower made out of a silver lining.



Cat - Brushpainting




Brush painting by Annie Evett

Monday, June 4, 2012

But the work of a moment


by D.R.D. BRUTON

Elizabetta wanted Jonathan to write something. Like it was a trick he could do, like there might be a coin in his pocket that he could make disappear and reappear again. She gave him a brief. She wanted something quick. The work of a moment. Nothing more than that. And not too many words.

So Jonathan sat at his desk, pen poised, not quite touching the paper, not yet. And he waited. Held his breath. Expecting something to happen. Like maybe it could be a trick and something appear suddenly at the end of his pen and spilling onto the page.

There was a woman. Her name was Elise. Jonathan did not know where that had come from, for there was no one he knew by that name. She was not young, this Elise. Nor was she yet so on in years that people thought her old. She was a writer, too. She was sitting at her desk, a carved oakwood writing desk, sitting just as he was, only she was writing. The words fell easily onto the page in front of her. She was remembering something. A moment from her own life. But whereas moments in the real world are fleeting and fast, in the writing of them Elise lingered over the details, stretching the time of a moment across several minutes of work.

She was not aware of where she was, not in the moment of writing, not aware that the light was thinner and the air more chill. The fine hairs on her bare arms stood on end. The curtains at her window lifted a little in the draft. And dropped paper on the floor – the discarded early drafts of the moment she was recording – shifted a little. Elise was bent over her work, not quite seeing everything clear. The sound of her pen was a scratch-scratch against the paper and the words she wrote did not quite sit on the feint blue lines of the page. She breathed in at the start of every line, held her breath and exhaled only when she reached the end, each exhalation something like a sigh of pleasure. She did not stop to read over what she had written. It was a moment of inspiration and she was not sure where it was going, had to let it run to its end.

A miscreant curl of hair slipped free of a plain silver clasp, fell in a twist across one cheek. Elise brushed it back behind one ear, a delicate movement of her index finger, something practised and unconscious and so simple. She bit her bottom lip and the small furrow of her brow deepened a little. She adjusted her position in the chair, the sound of her dress shushing to quiet the sound of the wood complaining.

Then suddenly, when Jonathan least expected it, Elise laid down her pen and it was done. Jonathan laid down his pen, too.

He did not think it was quite what was wanted. There was no story and maybe that was what Elizabetta hoped for, a story. 'The work of a moment,' he would tell her. 'Something quick and not too many words.' That was the brief. What was Elise writing, what was she remembering, that is what Elizabetta would ask. Jonathan would shrug. ‘Elise is not real,’ he would tell her. ‘That is the trick. I made her appear and then disappear. The rest is a mystery even to me.’

Friday, June 1, 2012

We Widows


by Marianne Betterly

we widows
walk the world
hidden in the crowd
some wear white,
others black

golden band on finger
turned like a prayer wheel
spinning memories of his voice;
a ghost hand presses fingers
like a flower under glass,
mementos sealed in Snow White’s tomb

Indian widows burn
their gold and red saris
sometimes they leap in,
swimming in flames,
red vermillion gone
from the world drained of color

all that remains:
my wedding vows,
a musky sport coat,
a box of yellowed papers,
cards hidden in sock drawer
I will always love you
wedding kimono folded like a paper doll,
white album stuffed with faded smiles,
a dried red rose

we widows
walk the world
hidden in the crowd
some wear black,
others white,
alone

(formerly published in The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal)