A Tidings of Magpies

Morning at the Window by T.S. Eliot They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, And along the trampled edges of the street I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids Sprouting despondently at area gates. The brown waves of fog toss up to me Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts An aimless smile that hovers in the air And vanishes along the level of the roofs. This weekend I've been home with some strain of flu/virus/plague that's been romping around CinCity lately. I believe HoneyHaired brought it home from school, but it's certainly been in the hospital with co-workers taking off sick days like a row of Dominoes tumbling down the assignment sheet. I've been using the time to update my CV and pull together the application for graduate school. The sticky hold-out seems to be my transcripts, which are ancient and probably stuck in a moldy, duct-taped box in the basement of McMillan H...

by Ted Kooser In the alley behind the florist's shop, a huge white garbage truck was parked and idling. In a cloud of exhaust, two men in coveralls and stocking caps, their noses dripping, were picking through the florist's dumpster and each had selected a fistful of roses. As I walked past, they gave me a furtive, conspiratorial nod, perhaps sensing that I, too (though in my business suit and tie) am a devotee of garbage – an aficionado of the wilted, the shopworn, and the free— and that I had for days been searching beneath the heaps of worn-out, faded words to find this brief bouquet for you. please note: photo by piedmont fossil

by Joan I. Siegel There ought to be a word for the way you know how to get some place but don't remember the names of streets the number of turns and blinking yellow lights so that if someone asked you really couldn't say except you know the road starts out straight and when it's sunny the branches blink across the windshield making you want to rub your eyes then the road turns sharply uphill past a red barn where a black dog jumps out to race you for a quarter mile and finally recedes in the mirror like a disappointment and you remember the road dips downhill into the shadows of the morning where you hear Bach's unaccompanied 'cello and understand what a good fit the 'cello makes in the hollow of the body where grief begins and for an indeterminate time the road winds vaguely past houses people road signs while time hums in your ear and you remember the dream you left behind that morning which had nothing to do with where you are going please note: art by...

by Greg Delanty I'm back again scrutinizing the Milky Way of your ultrasound, scanning the dark matter, the nothingness, that now the heads say is chockablock with quarks & squarks, gravitons & gravitini, photons & photinos. Our sprout, who art there inside the spacecraft of your ma, the time capsule of this printout, hurling & whirling towards us, it's all daft on this earth. Our alien who art in the heavens, our Martian, our little green man, we're anxious to make contact, to ask questions about the heavendom you hail from, to discuss the whole shebang of the beginning & end, the pre–big bang untime before you forget the why and lie of thy first place. And, our friend, to say Welcome, that we mean no harm, we'd die for you even, that we pray you're not here to subdue us, that we...

please note: photo by Cassandra Nelson for Mercy Corps

For those who don't know me well, I confess I enjoy blaming as many things as I can on changes in the barometric pressure. It's not quite as romantic and thrilling-scary as voodoo, but it's what we've got a lot of in CinCity. So, grumpy moods, fatigue, the fact that someone buys up all the bottles of our favorite locally made salad dressings, no good movies at my favorite movie theater?? All related to the effects of barometric pressure. The past two weeks have been full of weather drama and snow storm systems, Alberta Clippers, running about the country willy-nilly. Surprisingly, we've had few trauma related head injuries admitted to Neurodramaville, but quite a few Intracerebral Hemorrhages--head bleeds. They are many times the result of high blood pressure. Often cocaine related. The patients we've been receiving, though, are older and have older, fragile, worn-out blood vessels in their head that simply give out and break open. We seem to see more of these ...

by Edward Field People who eat in coffee shops are not worried about nutrition. They order the toasted cheese sandwiches blithely, followed by chocolate egg creams and plaster of paris wedges of lemon meringue pie. They don't have parental, dental, or medical figures hovering full of warnings, or whip out dental floss immediately. They can live in furnished rooms and whenever they want go out and eat glazed donuts along with innumerable coffees, dousing their cigarettes in sloppy saucers.

by Barbara Crooker of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's, struggling for balance, juggling time. The mantle clock that was my grandfather's has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still, the chimes don't ring. One day I look out the window, green summer, the next, the leaves have already fallen, and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown, our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn again how to love, between morning's quick coffee and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises, mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between; his tail, a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there, Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches, sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh of rope and the net of stars, s...

My friends, Robin Lacy and DeZydeco, performed at CinCity's celebration of Mardi Gras this past Sunday at the historical and always festive Findlay Market. Couldn't be there. Working with the bad brains that day. But, here is a sampling of their music and a little Dr. John thrown in for those of us surrounded by marzipan layers of snow and who may need a bit more New Orleans in our day. Let the good times roll, baby...

by Dawn Potter It was darker then, in the nights when the cars Came sliding around the traffic circle, when the headlights Speckled with rain traveled the bedroom walls and vanished; when the typewriter, the squeaking chair, the slow voice of the radio stirred the night air like a fan. Of course, the ones we loved were beautiful— slim, dark-haired, intent on their books. The rain came swishing against the lamp-lit windows. The cat purred in his chair. A clock sang, and we lay nearly asleep, almost dreaming, almost alone, nearly gone—the days fly so; and the nights, like sleep, disappear without memory.

Being in Love by Chungmi Kim Awakened from a dream, I curl up and turn. The roses on the dresser smile and your words bloom. The red roses for Valentine's Day. Like in a film thoughts of you unfold moment by moment. I vaguely hear the sound of your spoon scooping cereal the water stream in the shower the buzzing noise of your electric razor like a singing of cicada. Your footsteps in and out of the bedroom. Your lips touching my cheek lightly. And the sound of the door shutting. In your light I fall asleep again under the warm quilt happily like a child. Upon waking on the kitchen counter I find a half grapefruit carefully cut and sectioned. Such a loving touch is a milestone For my newly found happiness. please note: photo by Natalie Clayton

by Philip Appleman They could pump frenzy into air ducts and rage into reservoirs, dynamite dams and drown cities, cry fire in theaters as the victims are burning, but I will find my way through blackened streets and kneel down at your side. They could jump the median, head-on, and obliterate the future, fit .45's to the hands of kids and skate them off to school, flip live butts into tinderbox forests and hellfire half the heavens, but in the rubble of smoking cottages I will hold you in my arms. They could send kidnappers to kindergartens and pedophiles to playgrounds, wrap themselves in Old Glory and gut the Bill of Rights, pound the door with holy screed and put an end to reason, but I will cut through their curtains of cunning and find you somewhere in the moonlight. Whatever they do with their anthrax or chainsaws, however they strip-search or brainwash or blackmail, they cannot prevent me from s...

by Ted Kooser Carefully placed upon the future, it tips from the breeze and skims away, frail thing of words, this valentine, so far to sail. And if you find it caught in the reeds, its message blurred, the thought that you are holding it a moment is enough for me. please note: photo from http://inmyfathersshadow.blogspot.com/

...another low-census day off from work,and another day to walk up to the local movie theater. This time, I believe to see Invictus. I am all about making these days off educational for Miss HoneyHaired. Too Much Snow by Louis Jenkins Unlike the Eskimos we only have one word for snow but we have a lot of modifiers for that word. There is too much snow, which, unlike rain, does not immediately run off. It falls and stays for months. Someone wished for this snow. Someone got a deal, five cents on the dollar, and spent the entire family fortune. It's the simple solution, it covers everything. We are never satisfied with the arrangement of the snow so we spend hours moving the snow from one place to another. Too much snow. I box it up and send it to family and friends. I send a big box to my cousin in California. I send a small box to my mother. She writes "Don't send so much. I'm all alone now. I'll never be able to use so much." To you I send a single snowflake...

by Kate Barnes At eighteen, in Paris, I just woke up out of a dream just before dawn, and stepped through the long window from my cold room with its red silk walls. Shivering a little in my dressing gown, I leaned on the balustrade and, look, overnight a light snow had fallen; no car had driven over it yet, it lay in the street as white, as innocent, as snow on the open fields. Then something approached with a calm rhythm of hoof-beats made softer by the snow, the sound of a quiet heart. It was a heaped-up wood cart pulled by a gray horse who walked along slowly, head down, while the driver sat at the back of one shaft and hunched over to light his cigarette. From above, I saw clearly the lit match in the old man's cupped hands, its glow on his long jaw, the small well of flame between his living palms like the flare of the soul in his body. He went on down the street, and the sky went on growing lighter, and I saw how he left his dark tracks behin...

by Susan Coolidge Every morning is a fresh beginning, Listen my soul to the glad refrain. And, spite of old sorrows And older sinning, Troubles forecasted And possible pain, Take heart with the day and begin again.

Put on the Under Armour and layered up for a walk to the neighborhood movie house to see Crazy Heart . Having been a long time fan of music, Jeff Bridges, and alcoholics, I loved the movie. Told the HoneyHaired Grrrl to view it with an anthropological/sociological eye and an example of men not to date. Perfect gem of a movie though and Bad Blake very hard to resist. Successfully passed my ACLS yesterday, so for any ResusciAnnies out there with complaints of dizziness, palpitations and a heart rate of 212, I'm here and ready for you. On second thought, maybe not. In my test, scenerio # 7, the patient does not survive so perhaps you should switch your symptoms over to scenerio #3. If you play your cards right, they at least make it to an admission to the Cardiac ICU. Was hoping today to work on my CV/resume and letter of intent to tie up all the loose ends for an application packet to grad school--Public Health--but there'll still be some time this evening. Right now, going to ...

by George Bilgere Because I'm getting pretty gray at the temples, which negatively impacts my earning potential and does not necessarily attract vibrant young women with their perfumed bosoms to dally with me on the green hillside, I go out and buy some Grecian Hair Formula. And after the whole process, which involves rubber gloves, a tiny chemistry set, and perfect timing, I look great. I look very fresh and virile, full of earning potential. But when I take my fifteen-year-old beagle out for his evening walk, the contrast is unfortunate. Next to me he doesn't look all that great, with his graying snout, his sort of faded, worn-out-dog look. It makes me feel old, walking around with a dog like that. It's not something a potential employer, much less a vibrant young woman with a perfumed bosom would necessarily go for. So I go out and get some more Grecian Hair Formula— Light Brown, my beagle's original color. And after all the rigmarole he looks terrific. I mean, he...

by John Stone In the chest in the heart was a vessel was the pulse was the art was the love was the clot small and slow and the scar that could not know the rest of you was very nearly perfect. please note: art by Wesley Corn