The Smoking Poet—Summer 2011 Issue Online Now!

Art work by Brent Spink

THE SMOKING POET

An online literary magazine

http://www.thesmokingpoet.com/

“Words that turn the page to flame.”

And the years zip and zoom by, melting in the swelter of summer before the next season arrives. Just this past April 28, we—the fans, the readers, the writers, the staff of The Smoking Poet—gathered in our home town of Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, to celebrate our fifth year of publication. We gathered at The Wine Loft, and the place was packed, every seat taken, and listeners lining the walls. A dozen writers read their work, and many more approached the open mic later in the evening. What a glorious evening it was!

Now what? Onward and upward! Another issue presented to you here, brilliant with the art work of Brent Spink, rich with the fiction, nonfiction and poetry of our fine writers. Feature writers include Sherry Ackerman, talking to TSP about The Good Life: How to Create a Sustainable and Fulfilling Lifestyle, and Daiva Markelis, sharing thoughts on her memoir of growing up Lithuanian in the United States, in White Field, Black Sheep.

Yet nothing stays the same, no, not even TSP. As we enter our sixth year, we take a moment to reflect on our past many pages. Our literary field of plenty will surely only grow more lush. We so enjoy the work so many of you send us, from all corners of the world, and we will keep printing here the very best. We plan to expand also on book reviews, music reviews, and social commentary such as A Good Cause. We will be making more room for what we do best—providing a stage for fine literature—and closing down the Cigar Lounge after this issue. Our nod of gratitude to Mick Parsons, Cigar Lounge editor, for overseeing many smoky issues of TSP.

Selfishly, we are also combining the coming fall issue with winter. As much as I, TSP’s editor-in-chief, love this magazine, it has required a great many hours to maintain and publish as a quarterly. In result, my own creative writing has had to smolder on the back burner. We will temporarily go to biannual publication with the next issue—but expand the pages of these issues. Look for more: more fiction, more nonfiction, more poetry, more art.

Keep up with our news on Facebook and on Twitter. We will keep you updated on deadlines, new themes, the occasional contest, and more fresh ideas for more years of a smokin’ literary magazine. We are here because you are.



With a good word,

Zinta Aistars

TSP Founder and Editor-in-Chief

The Smoking Poet



The Smoking Poet Summer 2011 - Issue No. 19
Contributors
 
 
Sherry Ackerman

Marion Boyer

Tobi Cogswell

Elisha Webster Emerson

Hedy Habra

Amie Heasley

William Henderson

Casey Holman

Maureen Kingston

Georgia Knapp

Cara Lorello

Ricki Mandeville

Daiva Markelis

Amy Newday

Ronald Nitke

Luca Penne

Ralph Pennel

Scot Siegel

Alan Stedall

Rick Steigelman

Bronwyn Trathen

Evan White

Laura Elizabeth Woollett

Editors: Zinta Aistars, Ficton and Nonfiction; Joannie Kervran Stangeland, Poetry; and Andris Sīlis, Music

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Taking Time to Smell the Petunias

by Zinta Aistars


"An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day."
~ Henry David Thoreau

Something stirs, some faint noise somewhere in the night, and I am awake. Awake. Nothing to be done about it. I attempt to sink back into that warm, velvet sleep, but it will not have me.

My mind begins to swirl behind closed eyes, and as the clock ticks toward dawn, I give it up ... I get up. Still deep dusk. Such stillness. Only my old chow pup gathers himself up from his sleep to follow me downstairs as I head for the coffee pot, set it brewing.

I may regret this later in the day, I think, but at this moment when the world is so still and renewed, I feel the peace of this new day. It's not yet 5 a.m., but I slip into sweats and attach the harness to the dog, and we head out early for our morning walk.

Hardly a light anywhere. Dark windows in all the neighbor houses. An occasional rabbit hops across our path, white cotton tail bouncing. Nowhere, no one, only a thousand birds singing in morning greeting. Listen to all of them ...

And by the time we return to the house, a pale, veiled light has spread across the sky. My white petunias open shy faces. New blossoms, green buds, and I have the gift of time to sit on the front step and do nothing, for a while more, than to admire them ... and to watch that pale light spread, thin the night and bloom the day, its face opening ever brighter, ever brighter.

A Monday awaits. Soon: the long drive north, traffic, flashing lights, that endless highway, key in my office door and the hum of a computer booting up. Work awaits. Meetings. Deadlines. Errands and chores.

But for now, I sit on the front stoop and sip coffee, its steam swirling, my dog at my knee, and watch the flowers open, the grass grow, the morning doves sway on the wire, a red wheelbarrow collect a soft dust of possibility.

A New Pot to P In

by Zinta Aistars

You know how it is, you cheaters, you who step out looking for another someone better and prettier and younger ... eventually you come to your senses and return home. You know where you've got it best.

That's what I did. I left my old house to go seeking a new house, and for a while I was seduced by all those pretty facades ... to the point of making an offer, a tempting proposition, leading to negotiation, a flirtation of numbers back and forth until we stood toe to toe, threshold to threshold, about to cross to closing ...

... but I did not cross that threshold. My money stayed in my pocket. I withdrew my offer and knew where I had it best.

That old house. My house, the same one I'd been living in for the past 16 years or so.

Oh well, okay, it's no palace (but it is my little castle) and it's not even the house where I plan to stay ever and forever. But it's a pretty kewl little place. Especially after I'd renovated much of it. I had given the old house my imprint, the colors and general lines of my personality. Over time, we had grown to reflect aspects of each other, as two partners do who have spent many years side by side.

And now I felt a little guilty. I owed my old house an apology for stepping out. A gift.

How about a new bathroom? I offered. House smiled.

My son was up for the challenge. After all, if our plans continued on this route, the house would someday-not-so-distant be his, and I would be moving to ... somewhere else. If my house hunt was on hold, the 110-mile daily commute that drove me to it is not. I still have that problem to solve. And lo and behold if other living opportunities are not opening up ... but that is another blog.

My penance, then. A new bathroom. We would remodel one of the two in the house. My son and I planned the logistics. Tape measure, diagrams, ideas, plans. The floor would come up. The vanity would come out. A new window would be inserted. The mirrored medicine chest would be plucked from the wall. And the walls would see fresh paint.

We shopped until we nearly dropped, tying the new vanity to the roof of the car. Tools, grout, spacers, saws, safety goggles, bags and boxes from store to car to home in offerings of peace and old love renewed.

The racket has begun. Saws sawing, drills drilling, hammers hammering. My garage has turned into my son's workshop, my car has been relegated outside to the driveway, as he works on materials, sawing boards and tiles, and prepares for the bathroom renovation. Three layers of flooring come up, surprise beneath surprise, each layer uglier than the one before, until we reach a gold-speckled laminate. Eek.

We ponder who has lived here decades ago, what stories were theirs, what these walls and floors have witnessed. How many bare bodies have dripped and primped in this bathroom over the past decades? I close my eyes and shiver a little. Behind the old vanity, now in the driveway awaiting a garage sale, are patches of wall from other lives, layers of wild color, yellow, pink, gray with maroon splotches. Hints of the personalities of previous residents.

Day by day the transformation continues. My old house accepts the change and gives up her layers of what has been for what will be.

Will I be forgiven for my stalled house hunting venture? May it be so. I appreciate my old house more than ever. I feel the comfort the moment I walk in. All is in its place, and every place suits me - or soon will.

Only the toilet still sits on the back deck, beneath the trees, birds chirping cheerily overhead.