Creative Writing

by Erin Smith

 A doe runs across

The road, in front of a bus

Her young fawn follows

by Rachel Cope

My parents lived on an old homestead out on Carmel Valley Road for about seventeen years through the 1970’s and the 1980’s. Many scary experiences – creaking noises, inexplicably displaced objects, and general spooks – occurred out on that homestead throughout those seventeen years but none as nerve-racking as the wildfire that my father refers to as the “asshole fire” that was started by their “city slicker” neighbors. The wildfire got so close to their house that they were forced to evacuate immediately. Once the firemen arrived at the property, they noticed that an old lady was hosing down the house, using water from a nearby water tank in attempts prevent the fire from overtaking the house. Multiple times the firemen on the scene told the old woman to leave immediately so that she wouldn’t be harmed by smoke inhalation or be burned by the fast moving flames. But the obstinate woman would not relent from her task of hosing down the house. Frustrated, the firemen eventually gave up their efforts to move the woman away from the house and continued on with the task of putting out the blaze.

A week later, my mother went to turn on the press pump, which would fill up the water holding tank, and she discovered that the pump was disconnected. Not aware of the old woman and her protective actions, my mother quickly contacted the forestry department to see if the firemen had tapped into their water source during the emergency. The department proceeded to ask the firemen that were credited for putting out the flames if they knew anything about the disconnected pump, and they said no;  however, they did ask if the old lady that was hosing down the house when they arrived at the ranch was doing okay. That curious question led my mother to investigate further, and eventually she discovered that there were no water marks on the property windows or anywhere else where the firemen said that the woman was hosing down the house. My mother, already suspicious about ghostly occurrences around the property, and remembering the history of its original homestead (which was owned by the prominent Tash family) that burned down over a hundred years before the new house was built, concluded that the mysterious firefighter that helped to put out the “asshole” blaze must have been a ghost! To this day, my parents and the firemen on the scene still believe that the ghost of Eliza Tash was protecting the house at 43515 Carmel Valley Road on that day to prevent the same demise that claimed the once cherished Tash family home.

And yes this is a true story.

by Naiya Biddle

 Hello little birdie
How was your day?
Mine was most excellent
If I should say

What now little birdie?
You seem a little sad
What is the matter?
Missing something you once had?

Don’t cry little birdie
It’s going to be okay
What’s done has been done
And so comes another day

Don’t worry little birdie
It won’t hurt you
Although it is tempting
Just to rid myself of you too

Who now little birdie?
Oh, your dear friend
Where is he you ask?
It doesn’t really matter in the end

But you want to know little birdie?
That’s fine with me
He’s in the attic
He that use to be

What have I done little birdie?
You already know
Have you not heard the screams?
Have you not watched my show?

Am I ill little birdie?
Not as far as I’m aware
He thought I was
For I did give him quite the scare

What is wrong with my hands little birdie?
They are stained you say?
And so they are
I think I like them this way

Are you scared little birdie?
Are you aware the end is near?
Don’t you want to see your friend again?
Come now, I am here

Goodbye little birdie.

by Golnoush Pak

The world around me is quiet

Like there is nothing
Not even a single soul…but me
Sitting on this old chair
My mind surprisingly empty of thoughts
As I stare at nowhere…
Toward emptiness perhaps
I can’t even feel myself breathing
My heart doesn’t beat
I feel just like this old chair that I’m sitting on
With an old soul
Showing few signs of being alive
It’s not bad … It’s peaceful
It is the peacefulness of the chair I feel
Footsteps coming towards me
A fresh, happy soul sits upon my lap
A smile forms on my dry lips unconsciously
She is young and very energetic
She puts her hand on my arm
“Sir, are you alright?”
Her voice is sweet
Minutes rock slowly
Until I am no longer chair
I hover above my creaking frame
I see the girl
Sitting in its lap
She will likely walk away
But I don’t want her to
Desire is still within me
Her living spirit brings me joy
Makes me believe there is hope
Even in this place beyond hope
Where I see my body from above
And I see hers
Leaving me
In stillness

by Rachel Cope

How hard could it be to grow a strawberry?
The vast fields in Watsonville grow thousands of them,
but this gardener, broken in spirits, wants just one.
A single strawberry without any dents or discoloration,
no mold or mildew filling the center;
no puncture holes from hungry bugs;
no more infestations of pesky green aphids,
And no more broken stems.

All she’s asking for is one plump, red strawberry-
something to boost her broken ego-
something to show her that everything she touches does not always die-
something to reassure this tired gardener that she is not a failure-
just one strawberry.

by Meriel Glysson

I yearn for the bliss of serenity
As my whole life flashes before my eyes
And death’s sweet call tears me from reality

Obscure thoughts warp my mentality
Dizzy and spinning in knots and ties
I yearn for the bliss of serenity

The hostile mind commits brutality
Filling the world with hate and lies
While death’s sweet call tears us from reality

Life is an unending spiral of abnormality
Trying to grasp a light to arise
Yearning for the bliss of serenity

With the mindset of mortality
We collect our memories so no one dies
When death’s sweet call tears us from reality

To obtain the purist state of equanimity
One must obliterate the thoughts we deemed unwise
I yearn for the bliss of serenity
As death’s sweet call tears me from reality.

by Shyla Atchison

Again, it’s hard to stand.
I need your crutch.
Dionysus, take my hand.

I want to reach your holy land.
Bless me with your touch.
Again, it’s hard to stand.

Dionysus, let me disband.
It’s all too much.
Dionysus take my hand.

Without you my will is weak, and
You’re the only thing I can clutch.
Again, it’s hard to stand.

Dionysus, you turn bad to grand.
If it isn’t asking too much,
Dionysus, take my hand.

You always understand
The only help I need is your touch.
Again, it’s hard to stand.
Dionysus, take my hand.

by Lawrence Haggquist

The social experimenter cogitates
over lurking variables
that threaten to slip like shadows
past the fortress of his experimental design.

Outside the walls of his intellect,
rain soaks sidewalks
where students,
having escaped random selection,
scurry along brick walkways,
past the ivy beards
of buildings,
to their classes.

Below,
in the cool basements of Psychology,
teams of rats huddle in cages,
like prisoners at Auschwitz,
awaiting their assigned torture
by electric shock, or brain lesioning,
or perhaps starvation.
Sad to say,
but maybe they have it better than Zimbardo’s human prisoners,
who cower in cells
on cold cement floors –
dehumanized, naked, and shackled to one man’s wild hypothesis –
or Seligman’s puppy,
shivering alone in his corner cage,
having lost his will to even move.
It’s no wonder
that Harlow’s chimp
doesn’t think his wire
mother loves him.

Still,
the experimenter cogitates over hidden variables,
the ones that sneak up
from beyond consciousness
and attack
the black mystery of ink blots,
stifling all the troubled screams
that reach out
from inner-darkness –
from beneath layers
of hidden pain.

Today,
the scientist cannot even be certain
that puddles of rain
will not,
in some unknowable way,
smear the contours
of sadness.

Week four of the CSU Summer Arts Festival is July 22-27.

Read more…»

by Lawrence Haggquist

by Rudolph Tenenbaum

An event in Santa Fe.
The grand opening of a cafe.

The sign of a goose is above.
The manager looks like a bum.

No food. No drink.
They invite us…to think!

We are anxious to make a call.
We are anxious to shop at the mall.

Our printer requires new ink.
But we think we might try to think.

We arrive in a thoughtful mood.
No drink. No food.

Not even a tiny fig.
But our thoughts our big.

We reflect on life and on death,
On the sky’s infinite depth,

And on humans’ eternal strife,
And, of course, on the meaning of life.

We are anxious to make a call.
We are anxious to shop at the mall.

Our printer requires new ink.
But we think we had better think.

To us even building a fence
Will make little sense

Without knowing why
We live and die.

We decide to ignore the fuss.
Of the time remaining to us

We are trying to make good use
While time’s cooking our goose.

by Lawrence Haggquist

A translator for the deaf,
intense, yet self-effacing,
gesticulates from an orb of light
off stage left.
Her swift fingers pantomime a voice
emanating from center stage.

That young voice,
sharp, commanding,
and quickened by emotion,
delivers the war poem, ‘Dover Beach.’

“Listen,” it urges,
“you hear the grating roar of pebbles…”

– Silence ensues,
as thoughts vanish into meditation.

California echoes through the voice in subtle cadences.
It lives by another beach on a rocky coast,
whose rocks, not yet pebbles, stubbornly resist eons of erosion
by the pounding sea,
retaining the proud integrity of ‘rocks.’

But “Listen” on evenings when the tide tugs strong enough
to push them from cups of sodden sand,
and you will hear the rocks tumble over each other,
like words colliding in a fathomless sea of silence –
clicking and sliding, clattering and shifting,
beneath the groans of hungry sea lions
yelping for attention out in the tranquil bay.

And as your mind roams from that granite shore toward the edge of meaning,
you know the pebbles recited from the stage mean more than Dover Beach,
more than war and the fading poignancy of love.

Among the audience,
listening and absorbing, I cannot help reflect
the owner of that spotlight voice –
tall, slender, and utterly convincing in his solipsistic rapture –
has never heard, and never will,
the “melancholy, long withdrawing roar”
of which the poem speaks;
nor have I, separated as we are by genes and generations.

But I have heard rocks rumbling beneath the sway of tides
and have felt a loneliness both instinctive and eternal in the sound.
And I have looked out across the solitary ocean in twilight,
over its cold, endless, moon-dappled indifference,
longing for something more intimate than Nature.

Tonight I listen to a poem recited for those who hear as I do.
Yet I also enter the world of the deaf,
as each stanza is deciphered into gesture before my eyes
for those beyond the reach of sound,
while from the quiet universe expanding at stage left
The “turbid ebb and flow of misery”
roars just the same;
or, maybe not the same

THE POETRY SLOW DOWN
KRXA 540AM
Dr. Barbara Mossberg
Produced by Hal Ginsberg
June 16, 2013
c Barbara Mossberg 2013
IN A WORLD OF CHAOS, HOW AND WHY POETRY MATTERS FOR RESILIENCE: THE PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS OF BOUNCE, OR HOW TIGGER GOT HIS POUNCE BACK
I asked you with your ears to ask again Yes and you did and “here” we are! Hear hear! It’s Bloomsday AND Father’s Day, both biggies for poetry, we’re slowing down for our Poetry Slow Down, KRXA 540AM, Produced by Hal Ginsberg, and Sara Hughes. As it turns out, the connection between father’s day and Bloomsday is rather extraordinary. Bloomsday is the day Read more…»

by Sabrina Riffle

Age makes no difference it is always the wage.
A cage, my sisters and I are stuck in from dawn to the end of the work day.
What do we make of this? Is equality not what we stand for?
Why can they not pass the act to decrease poverty with fair pay?
Why can we not fathom this unexplained inequality that has happened to generation after
Generation, day after day?
Chain us for four more decades and he will still be the CEO of everything, of anything.
We will stay in that cage, not paid
Same education yet unfair wage.
Close that gender wage gap, I will nap no more
He will not keep us in those sleeping chains,
Open up this Supreme door and listen to what I say,
We will stay, unless you pay us fair wage.

by Edward Jarvis

They have cordoned off this
cove a mile west of the pupping
grounds. No other in recorded
history has come here to give birth.
The harbor seal and her
newborn stir with the swelling
dawn-light, the tiny mizzle
seeking a teat as they lie a
linear fathom from the waterline.
A gathering of humans witnessing
on the low cliff above the popular
community beach surrender
the long claimed territory for what,
in situ, has been reclaimed for
these few days, the suck and slurp
of first communion a duet
with the swish of tide on sacred sand.

by Rudolph Tenenbaum

The banners we decided not to carry.
The women we decided not to marry.

The roads we decided not to travel.
The codes we neglected to unravel.

The lives unlived, the feelings disregarded
The law defines as property discarded.

A life, a wife, a dream, a precious stone,
Just anyone may claim them as his own.

And look! As everyone picks up the pieces
The value of the property increases.

And we acquire quite a different vision
Of what we once rejected with derision.

We notice the women’s grace and manners,
And those banners, those proud banners,

And those tiresome, but quite enticing roads,
And those intricate, but quite intriguing codes.

The finders jubilate displaying every item.
It would be wrong to hate ‘em and to spite ‘em.

We spot the wheat left out by the reapers
And curse the law proclaiming “finders keepers.”

by Disha Singh

He’s an honest man
With his honest words.

A reformed man
A devout man
A truthful man
(So they say)
A man masks
The man with all the cards
In his hand the secrets
Power and Control
The center of the universe
The heavens can’t compete
He’s the dealer
The jack
The gambler
To him a game
The Black and The White
Jaded words
The glitz and glam
Shattering lights
Breaking and falling
The sinner, the corrupt, the
damned, the depraved-

Ah, but no,
He’s an honest man
With his honest words.

by Lyla Mahmoud

Stars flicker regretfully,
bound by the ink blanket of infinity,
as they gaze through liquid windows,
hoping to catch of glimpse of the quivering globe.

The man in the moon observes.
Perched upon God’s gaping smile,
his eyes spilling milk into the cauldron of creation.

Lips of silver dust,
nose of  broken stone.
His ears obey the pull of silence,
echoing through heavy water.

Watch the man,
and the stars aching with remorse,
wonders ever present at their softly glowing fingertips.

In the Earth, in the Sun,
all the ancient bodies weave in this empty universe,
but cannot learn to create paradise;
their powers veiled by the dark shadows,
of God’s swollen womb.

The plots are sold out and there is a waiting list for pieces of 7,500 square feet of garden space. Families, students, children, Service Learners, veteran gardeners and those just looking to enjoy a gorgeous day with nature came out to celebrate Earth Day in Pacific Grove’s Community Garden. There were displays and educational programs, crafts and a pot luck, a blessing by Khenpo Karten Rinpoche and poetry with Pacific Grove’s Poet-In-residence, Dr. Barbara Mossberg, plus our Poetry Out Loud champion Arwa Awan, and spontaneous music from Susie Joyce.

by Josh Massey

Our ancestry has put us in a loop
Although we may heal, we use the same crutch
Something keeps sending us to jump through hoops
Man’s experience has grown out of touch
Developing new methods to old goals
Man has kept himself in an endless rut
Activities repeat for newborn souls
Multi-floored mansions mimic clay built huts
Cycling backwards, blinded by the ego
Closed minds deafen us to sounds of progress
A species shackled, throughout time we go
Forever in grade school without recess

Ignorance holds us back like cancer
Some talking monkeys searching for answers

by Maya Mueller

My existence, like the puzzle of a maze—
Not because of the intricacy, you understand,
Or even the frustration.
But more because
So many paths are walled, cut off, selective
The realms of my Earth contained within the ignorance
Of parallel, ink black lines
I could always shock the audience,
Drawing hoards of swallowed gasps
As the insolent graphite scratched beyond
The firmly printed boundaries.
But that—to the synchronized sigh of relief from onlookers and policeman alike—would
Meddle my reality.
And that would be too exhilarating
For my delicate, pretty red heart.

by Disha Singh

The golden figurines
silver cups
glinting crystals
A veneer over the truth.

Quaking palms
clenched jaws
clouded vision
This is what I hide.

With eyes reverted to the past
hands clasped in motion of prayer
whispers of memories
Pry into my worst nightmares.

Resticted chest
shallow breaths
constricted throat
Stifled sobs devour my shouts of pain.

Blinking the moisture away
little grey soldiers build the walls
donning the false pretense of life
Fixing a smile on my cold face.

Am I happy?

by Golnoush Pak

.
Night . .
Stars . .
Darkness . .
Again . .

A cloudy day
My room
Full of anguish
Sadness
An old friend
My soul
Disheveled
Heart
Don’t even say a word
My Mind
Like a madman . .
Waiting
Every second
Silence
A part of my life . .
Hope
Every breath i take
Loneliness . .
Old friend
The road
Vague
Future
Vague
Present
. . . . . . .
And yesterday
Memories . .
A pen and a paper
Old friends . .

A stomachache

A headache
My hands
Freezing . .
My legs
Shivering from tiredness
My eyes
Burning . .
My lips . .
Inanimate
A soul full of memories . .
And suddenly
Eyes become wet
Soul’s disheveled even more . .
My cheek wet
I am . .
A madman . . .
You
. . . . .

by Disha Singh

The desire of the world swirls around us
in blowing, gusting winds.
The desire of the world mills around us
until all of the lights dim.

We may die today,
we may die tomorrow.
I don’t know what to say
except I’ve seen the world’s sorrow.

There is not much left to see
since everything around us is engulfed with fire.
This is what happens when we let our yearnings be
the destruction of everything begins with desire.

The desire of the world blows around us until the end of time.

Competitors may choose from a list of poems chosen by the National committee. They must learn about the poet and the poem before using their work.

Champion Arwa Awan chose two poems by living, American poets for her recitation, as did runner-up Malia Graciani. Read more…»

For the second year in a row, Arwa Awan has taken County honors in Poetry Out Loud for her stirring recitations of first, “Becoming a Redwood” by Dana Gioia and secondly “The Legend” by Garrett Hongo. Read more…»

by Savannah Mitchem

You can reinvent yourself, she says, that’s what I always say. She likes the fresh start, but she could never be anything less than herself. Me and Mom. We go where dad goes, where the wind blows, where God knows.
I started out as a California zygote riding trolleys and my mom buying us fish for a treat. I’ve been a rolling stone since I rolled out of her, a nomad of the hunter-gatherer type. I can’t see life for me that’s stationary. Home is where the love is, and it’s really everywhere. Family is always a drive and a half away, and friends surface wherever we go.
He says Freedom is a close relative to Summer, and Moving has a little sister Joy. He says if you don’t put your name in, you won’t know. He says we will be fine and love it there. I say okay, I believe you.
The little one doesn’t say much actually. Not much at all. He sits in the back and goes quietly. Well, it’s bittersweet, we both say together. It hasn’t hit us, really.
Dad takes leave, we pack up and head out in the unknown and nothing has ever been completed except our hearts. Pictures are leaned against the walls, never hung, collecting dust. I don’t like pictures anyway, I like memories. Anything we can put off till the next house we do, except they painted my room pistachio green. We put off me leaving, but I will have to leave the next house for good. On my own, to college.
So I will come full circle to California. California, around the world, and then back again. And end my career as a kid table, back seat inhibitor. I will buy my own fish and eat it with my own mouth, and I will get tilapia, not salmon. I don’t like salmon. I’ll drive off and look back often.

by Robin Olson

I am from gossip.
From a place where bad reputations emerge from hidden enemies.
Where pain, struggle, and tears amuse those who cause them.
And compassion is overrated.
I am from bathroom whispers.
A place where friends can backstab and lie.
No consequences for the predator.
Only a lifetime of suffering for his victims.
Where has all the love gone?
Where is the importance of community and respect?
The smiles exchanged between strangers in the hall?
Vanished as we gaze into handheld gadgets more important than human contact.
Slipped through the supposed“maturity”we all gained after junior high.
Conquered by computer screens and iPhones.
With the click of a button, our love has dissolved.
Spitting on the once-cherished bonds we possessed.
We have all surrendered to the trends of our time.
Leaving the ones we used to love behind.

by Emily Stewart

Chang slid his outstretched hand in the cold stream. The paper lantern floated gently out of his fingers and began to drift away, a glowing cloud in the reflected sky. Chang straightened up, brushing his hands off on his pants. I entangled my hands in his, hoping to distract his bleak expression.
“And that is to honor my father, and my father’s father, and all the fathers before him.” He finally spoke, gazing at the nothing but the flickering yellow lights enfolded with soft purple petals. “Each of whom died in war. It does not matter which war. All wars have become the same to me. They have all blended together in a useless clump of pain and anger, the shouts of the soldiers, the screams of the dying.”
I watched as the light slowly drowned itself farther down in the river, dragged down by the changing tides.
“And every day,” Chang whispered with scorn, his muscles tightening under his arm. “On this festival, I am reminded of all the people killed in the name of convoluted justice.” His chest heaving, Chang’s voice cracked. “Their ancestors must walk alone, with no one to honor them by sending cheap flower lanterns down a river. I suppose that must be all you look forward to, if you are dead. But at least you have the lesser of two evils.”
Chang’s mouth set in a grim line. I followed his line of sight and watched with him as the figure Ling Ma appeared in the doorway, which illuminated her figure with light. Clutching the last of the handcrafted paper lanterns, she struggled desperately to reach the water’s edge. She knelt, and extended her shaking arms; but she held that lantern tight in her wizened hands. The first tear came, and then another; and she wept, holding her family, long dead and gone, close. She could not let them go down the river.
“I would rather die than live a life of loneliness, watching every single one of my family be killed.” Chang said, closing his eyes to the pain of his grandmother and sharply turning. The movement caused me to stumble, and I caught his shoulder for support. He shrugged off my hands, his eyes fixated on the churning river’s depths, and spoke again.
“I do not expect to live. I know I will die in war, as did my father, and my father’s father. It does not matter which war. Only a matter of time…”
I rested my head on his shoulder, but he was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to notice me.
“And for whom.”

by Naiya Biddle

I saw a shooting star today
Soaring across the dark sky
I pondered at the curious sight
Deciding what to wish for
Closing
my
eyes
I made a wish
Just one simple little wish
And then
open my eyes again
To see the star had flown out of sight
I hope my wish comes true tonight
And I hope you enjoy it too
My shooting star should meet you soon
My little wish
to you