SCF Venice — A Literary and Arts Magazine
by Kelley Egan
The snow is slowly melting
and I feel my soul drifting away.
My eyes are growing tired
and I realize I am not here to stay.
The trees are growing taller
as my body is growing older.
Soon my skin will crack
and my blood will turn colder.
The moon seems closer
as my days on Earth are numbered.
The rain falls so much harder
like my tears that roll like thunder.
When will
it be?
The last
breath I take?
by Emily Yandell
The moon and sun meet for the first time.
Day and night no longer fight to shine.
The sun tells the moon to hold on tight, as
The sun takes the moon on a marvelous flight.
Day and night fade into one and love is the only light that is shone.
Even star crossed lovers could not beat this love,
This is the kind of love only meant for up above.
The moon so small and frail kisses the sun.
This is proof that the eclipse is almost done.
With a last look they say good bye,
And go back to their places in the sky.
by Anna Maldzhiev
This blank page –
no longer blank
I call upon my muse for help
I gather my strengths and thoughts
to transform this page into anything else
turn it into a portal
a secret door to something greater
to a world of chaos and beauty
of graceful lines and sputtering clouds
of filth
sensible and nonsensical
into the deepest recesses of the shallowest grave
where red velvety rose pedals create shelter for the worms
and a cover for the pain.
Biography
I like to write.
by Kelley Egan
No misery was quite the same,
no pill on earth
could have eased my pain.
No school could teach you
what i’ve learned
my father will beat you with no concern.
No Religion,
that is correct.
No discussion of resurrect.
No diseased cities
on your face.
Cancer of society-erased.
Destruction is just a game,
and all these vices,
they’re all the same.
Don’t let them lead you
down to shame.
All they preach, it’s all insane.
Like livin’ in luxury,
No that’s just crap.
Live with some peace, don’t fall in that trap.
The higher you get
the harder they fall.
Can’t save themselves, if they crawled.
Say Goodbye to all
your silly beasts.
The monsters from within-deceased.
by Catherine Smith
A father to two beautiful girls
Who thought more of their dad than anything in the world.
The love they gave you was just not enough,
But how can you blame them for your own stuff?
It wasn’t your girls that made you run.
It was the lost love of their mother that handed you the gun.
Some might say she’s a fool for not stopping you,
But how can you blame her for the things you do?
Going to the park was such a smart choice.
At two o’clock in the morning no one would hear the noise.
But you had it all planned; you told her before.
Then you blamed her for letting you walk out the door.
Yes, killing someone makes you so much bigger than the rest.
At least no one but you will have to deal with your nest.
Your life was jut way too hard,
But was she the one to blame for all of the scars?
It was almost as if your life was a game.
You played until you finally reached your fame.
Did you reach the level you wanted in life;
Or is she to blame for not wanting to be your wife?
Leaving now was such a great plan,
No more worries about her leaving you for another man.
What a smart thing indeed to shatter your own window.
How can you blame her for not wanting to be a widow?
by Chelsey Lucas
Solemn, she looked down upon her America and cried,
What have you become?
Her faded jean overalls scratch on the crumbling steps
of her three story multiple family
home
crammed and destitute,
poor, like her father who,
with hands cracked, worn, and covered in dirt, worked several shifts at many jobs,
there just wasn’t enough for them.
There was never enough.
America, what have you become?
Your children’s children are starving in the streets
And your brave policemen are afraid of the fags in NYC
And your businessman are bankrupting You, America,
What have you become?
With your poor getting poorer
streets getting darker
cities getting smaller
heart beating softer
Little girl crying at gunshots in the ghetto
but her daddy’s at work,
he can’t protect her. America, no one can
protect her.
America, what have you become?
by Justin Oberg
We sleepwalk
Eyes closed
Ears shut
Minds off.
The hate we awake with is
Not our own.
We are flung
From the
Dream
Bliss state
And projected into the
Paranoid hivemind
Our reality is lost behind
Glass curtains
Of plasma
And projectors
And the imagination
Has been replaced
With “reality”
Everyone is out to get us
And we don’t even
Know who “us”
Is.
And even the clear mind picture
Is not real enough
Not colorful and not fast
Enough
Enough
And we the poets write
Uninterpretable critiques
Instead of saying “go back
To sleep.”
O Strong Oak,
Mighty Oak,
I invoke to you
a future.
Though slender and spindly,
Your twisted trunk strengthens,
The taut fibrous sinews
Of a god-made steel.
O Strong Oak,
Mighty Oak,
I invoke to you
A home.
by Woody McCree
Run Rabbit Run,
Disappearing off the grid,
No inner compass at hand-
Just endless seas
Of scrub and sand
And windswept pine.
Run Rabbit Run,
Deeper and deeper-
Indecipherable trails-
Never to return.
Regress to the age
of conifers and ferns,
the green desert calling
all civilized to repent,
dissolve, and forever disappear.
by Woody McCree
{Pre-heat}
Let’s start with the rib-stickers of waist-wideners that ward off the cold lean of a belly’s grumble: back-fat and fat back, with ham hocks, and bacon grease and lard-lined pans—“to season” stews and pots full of vegetables: white acre and black-eyed peas, lima and green beans make tongues live easy and jaws clap in ovation of fill theS empty gut.
Let’s continue with leftover Thanksgiving’s turkey carcass boiled-all-day-down till its spare skeletal frame elbows the pot’s brim, and swats at and ducks from the wooden spoon. Just a spoonful of carnage helps the ingredients meld down, in the most traditional way: gumbo, gravy, étouffée, chili, barbeque, roux.
{Preparation of Main Course}
Vegetarians, like vultures, scavenge too for Earth’s tendrils: umbilical fruits, parsnips, organic algae. Southern Vegetarians’ hands handle oyster knives, cut-up okra and tomatoes, yellow squash and Spanish onions with a teat of brown sugar. Pillagers they are. Harvesters in-season.
Vegetarians shuck then fry yellow and white corn kernels, strewn with salt and black-pepper seasonings in a pan to plate right next to Jiffy cornbread baked in 9-inch cast iron skillets, coated in vegetable oil. Season-side-up, double-dipped in buttermilk, deep-fried okra drowns paper towels lined in a tinfoil cake pan.
{Dessert}
Southerners jar jelly, fill lard-laden piecrusts, hand-patted with flour, and then folded with fruit—been-out-all-week fruit ripens on countertops, like bananas, apples, and pineapples. Banana puddings, peach & blueberry cobblers, meld down with sticks of butter. Cake heaven on holidays, passport us to German Chocolate, and Italian Cream; just a slice of cream cheese pound cake, coconut or red velvet, tradition the most Southern way.
by Yolanda J. Franklin