FUSION Magazine

Kicked By The Wind

by Jan Rosenfeld

 

The years fall from you all at once

I know that now. we spent a season

 

watching the cat shed, after all

and she licks her paws the way I wish

I could sing: full of confidence,

 

 

a luckless success.

And so:

I’ve written about

what it’s like to be denied

but I don’t really know what it’s like.

I’ve walked into traffic,

not thinking

and found myself

in the wake of death

she pulled me by the arm

away from the light

and threw me into some

lurid highway park-and-ride

and that’s the closest I’ve ever gotten.

 

Jan Rosenfeld is currently a student at Berklee.

 

 

 

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In the Music

by Suzanne Hanser

 

As a child, I thrived on my family’s songs and piano music.  But I did not know then all that music could do for me.  Through it, I played out my desires, pain and turmoil.  Through it, I invented melodies to validate my dreams of a healthy future.  After abdominal surgery, my dissonant piano compositions screamed so I didn’t have to.  After the deaths of my parents, the dirges I wrote spoke a grief as no words could.  And after I birthed a stillborn baby, only music could comfort me. Read more »

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Middleman

by John Lippincott

 

Have you ever been cut off by a careless biker while you were strolling peacefully down the sidewalk?  That biker is usually me late for class. However, yesterday morning I was a careful and calm biker who slowly pedaled his way towards you coming from the opposite direction. I observed every detail of your stature when we crossed paths. As if I were a scientist looking through a microscope, jotting down experimental data. Creepy? Yes, absolutely. Read more »

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Excerpt from Tiger Lilly

by Chris Parlon

EVELYN goes back into the kitchen. TIMOTHY checks his watch.

TIMOTHY:

Three-thirty, you bastards. (sighs ) Fun, fun, fun.

EDMUND enters from the front door, wearing a long, expensive-looking coat and a woolen hat. TIMOTHY turns, sees him, and starts laughing. EDMUND smiles and briefly glances around the restaurant with a “God, why am I here?” look on his face. He takes off his hat, hangs his coat on the rack, and walks over to TIMOTHY’s table. Read more »

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Groups With Guitars

by Didi Stewart

 

Clive Duffy cleared away the empty glasses and mopped the bar. It was almost closing time. Soon he’d be popping down to Lime Street and meeting the lads for a pint or two. They’d have a game of darts, a few laughs. Then it’d be home to Milly for the usual kippers-on-toast, slippers-before-the-telly Sunday night. Read more »

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The Universe’s Lullaby from Liberal Arts Symposium 2008

by Mark Simos

Go to sleep, my little tabby cat

I love to watch you on my kitchen mat

Sleep, your head between your outstretched paws

Dreaming of those mice

Between your little jaws

Dream of mousies if they’re what you crave

And we shall plant a little mouse’s grave

Cat and mouse, just God by another name

So sleep, my little tabby—sleep and dream

Sleep and dream

Read more »

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The Sycamore Tree from Liberal Arts Symposium 2008

by Keppie Coutts

Brown grass and monkey bars

Boys with marbles and trading cards

Melting tar on a hot day, and there was only one tree

In the schoolyard, that was the place to be

Shade of that tree in the hot southern sun

Was small, only room for some

That’s where the white kids sat

The baking brick wall was all the black kids had

Read more »

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Spying

by Ben Backus

 

Little rule of

Thumb

Flailing and failing

Magnetic Depolarization

Because she

Was right

About

Us.

In my chest

Lies silent protest

Through glinting green

Eyes that

Seared their way onto Read more »

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