 Rain on the River, by George Bellows (USA) 1908 Rain On The River Rains falling on the Hudson River zone And deluging the pathways in a park, Inhibiting the progress of a lone New Yorker splashing through the semi-dark Of daylight under leaden clouds, emit No sound—in physics terms—from forceful strokes That Bellows used to paint the grime and grit He juxtaposed with grass and trees, to coax Enchantment out of gloom ... But don't you hear Rails clanking, plumes of hissing steam, the spray In hurried footsteps, and a neigh? The mere Veracity of physics can't gainsay Eyes predisposed to hear as well as see: Rain On The River captures sounds for me! Mike Mesterton-Gibbons Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, MONO., the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly. ** Ledge The path splits like a river stitching the lampposts together below a fractal stack of boulders, chunky rubs of color off the brush and the shoulder below that threatens to smear towards fall like a spaghetti strap that tumbles down the precipice and reminds me that most days your bowlegs take retreating steps far beyond my sympathies or sightlines. Still, I think of you as mine rich as the emerald grass, some assurance smogging fog to the sea like a train’s cushion of salt along the city cliff to a metropolitan maze that mocks our mis-remembered love cage with its multiples of ribs twigging out like the world’s first dawn etching their way through morning, through dock posts and floating debris to some other side where, just passing from this view, I might imagine you. Sarah Wyman Sarah Wyman lives in the Hudson Valley where she writes and teaches about literature and the visual arts. She co-facilitates the Sustainability Learning Community and teaches poetry workshops at Shawangunk Prison. Her poetry books are Sighted Stones (FLP 2018) and Fried Goldfinch (Codhill 2021). ** Double Vision: Looking at George Bellows' Rain on the River George Bellows is much better known posing punch-drunk palookas, pounding each other's guts, and keeping their smashed-nose faces pointed to the bloody canvas. But here is something that feels like a left hook, its visual violence aligned in a sharp assemblage of slanted lines, paralleling the distant, blurred embankment, with the mud-coloured flat river under the toxic chemical clouds. Along its length are some warehouses with a short and empty pier sticking out.. Nearby is a cartman, scavenging coal. And in the central artery is a train, pulling its filled container cars along. Rain-soaked, glistening paths, shaped like a wavering divining-rod, are where one itinerant figure is strolling alone. So we see this little drama as it unfolds, below a platform of fractured stone slabs, painted with thick daubs of gray and brown. They are as rough as those spent boxers he drew in broad strokes of dark and light, smudged on paper from a charcoal stick that congealed the smoke from cheap cigars that filled the cheering mouths of boxing fans. But here a single freight train lumbers along, with plumes like a punch in my double vision. Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes is a poet who has been writing for the last fifty years. His poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals, including Ekphrastic Challenges. He lives now amidst Amish farmland in central Ohio. ** Love and Trains I took my first train ride when I was in college. My first air flight, too. But train trips became my staple, whether to New York City for the museums or to Washington to visit my oldest friend at school. I loved the noises, the shuddering car speeding on tracks, the tucking away of bags in a compartment above my head. I knew every view and vista from the Yankee Clipper, knew when the spectacular sparkle of Long Island Sound would appear, and when we would sit, steaming and hissing in New Haven as Amtrak switched the power source and the lights went dark. More than the lights of a city or the dark cave of a station, I loved the dirty, tired backyards of the cities and towns the train swept through. I saw their sad parts and sometimes the ok parts. I loved the angles of intersection in a small town, when the train was raised high above a main street, running past the corners of old brick buildings with what appeared to be inches to spare. Leaning against the glass, tired of my book, I loved looking at the sections that ran along water the most. We were perilously close to the river or ocean, so close we could tip in if the train jumped the track. Were we? Was I catastrophizer? I had many hours to contemplate scenarios on many trips, and my thoughts often drifted towards emergency exits and how to pop the windows open, if necessary. The backyards of houses and the centres of small towns, with their carved gazebos in tiny parks, were my delight. Why run a train so close to where I imagined a Fourth of July concert would happen? Why did people have so many sheds at the end of the backyard? Why did people dump decades of trash by the side of the tracks? Conversely, what compelled people to garden down to the very edge of the cinders and rails, flush again the flimsy fence where their daffodils or daylilies blossomed and brightened view? I have considered these things for decades, riding on the train. Today, I await my ride at a stop on the west-bound commuter rail. No real station at this stop. Just an overhang, barely a shelter, but with the added convenience of an LED sign declaring the time of arrival. The noise from the highway on the other side of the fence is persistent and thrumming. I look down the long straightaway of track and watch the train draw near. Without the cement platform that surrounds trains in a station, I marvel at how tall it is, an imposing engine of transportation. I hoist myself up steps steeper than those I remember, up and into the car on the left, uncrowded at this early hour on a Saturday morning. I shuffle in, gracelessly, and thump myself down by the window, my bags at my feet. And smile a little smile. I am headed to a college town an hour from where I live to visit the man I am in a relationship with, a post-divorce romance for the both of us, a second chapter we arrived at through circuitous routes and painful endings of love and sadness and rupture. Around me, late night college revelers are headed back to their schools, very large coffees in hand and tattered backpacks on the floor. Singletons are intent on their phones, a few riders slumped, asleep already. It is 10:20 a.m. We start, and I rest my forehead against the glass. The Washington Street Whole Foods slips by, Abbotts and its freezers of ice cream and gallons of fudge sauce. The 1507 gains cruising speed and I am passing the industrial sections of tidy suburban towns who have the space and inclination to hide their parks and recs department by the tracks, to allow children’s gyms and Dunkin Donuts to set up near the train crossings. I cannot read, not when I can relearn the geography of towns I know well. I am smiling now because I feel no different from the 19-year-old heading to New York City, huddled in a trendy long coat that was not warm, on a 6:32 a.m. commuter rail in February with no heat and no dining car from which to purchase a hot drink. It is thrilling and it is freedom and it is new and different, and I feel that now as much as I ever did. Barbara Selmo Barbara Selmo earned an MFA from The John Hopkins Writing Seminars. She has been a member of writers’ groups over the last 10 years. In 2021, she joined a Grief Writing group with Diane Zinna and went on to participate in three month-long, daily writing circles Zinna led. Barbara has worked with Rita Zoey Chin, Dorian Fox, and Zinna, all of whom have been extraordinary. Recent publications include “The Gravity of Love” (Dorothy Parker’s Ashes) and “Lunchables” (The Sun.) A craft piece is forthcoming in Letting Grief Speak: Writing Portals for Life after Loss (Diane Zinna, Columbia University Press, 2024). ** Boxing Clever A player courted, basket, base, though chose that ball, art students league, this radical of ashcan school waxed lyrical from left of field. What drove to brush ’fore graduate, reject sport scout, leave commerce part, withdraw athletics, focal point of painting as his primal call? It was the urban working class of city grime in real rough, from boxing ring of gruff appeal, atrocities of gruesome scenes. Dissenter - Wesley middle name - he stood for lines, unpopular; supporting war against the Hun, defending those against the same. How dare he paint what had not seen? His quick response to critics’ form - ‘for had no ticket’ - sportsman talk - Da Vinci absent, upper room. For illustrator, books, the norm to craft response from written word; so seasoned ethics, politics, he framed stark, dark, reality. If river, rain and misty steam were all ingrained, washed over work, then harsher life must be revealed in lithograph or oily truth. From elementary blackboard chalks ’twas class controlled his pupillage; iconoclast up till sad end, until life ruptured far too young. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** Swimming Prohibited Due to Poor Water Quality. When I take my glasses off, everything looms in soft focus, like distant cliffs shrouded in the mist-grey of what everyone who looks at them is thinking at the time. Once a thought is born, like each bloom of smoke from a steam train’s funnel, where does it go? When I look closely at life, the snaking paths and flat green pastures of it glitter in my eye. It’s easy not to see the bent and breaking backs of men and the overburdened cart horse; the trees stripped of leaves and blackened by fire long extinguished by hard rain. A river’s clean water turns from blue to the yellow-green of bile draining from the hepatic ducts of our homes and factories. Birds have flown away and a flower wouldn’t dare to raise its face. The jetty crumbles and the fish float belly up. Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman Linda lives and writes poetry in Lake Tabourie, NSW, Australia in traditional Yuin country, and enjoys seeing her poetic work published in various literary spaces. ** Progress Slingshot Riverside Park paths glide through high grass as Vanderbilt’s New York Central debouches Hudson River view. The park itself, not so innocent. In the name of conservation, eminent domain claimed country homes of Old New York. A pedestrian bears the strain, braves the stain of progress, an umbrella useless against the gilded drumbeat of time. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, Tiferet, Rust + Moth, and other literary journals. She lives and teaches in New Jersey. Visit her website at www.barbarakrasner.com. ** Hudson Overlook This Hudson overlook, Exposed and frigid, Might discourage another, But not me. Compulsion burns. Glazed schist, Impastoed brine-- I will snatch this place out of time And pin its soul to canvas. Art with muscle. Give me hulking and lurching-- Punchable smog, Gouts of gunmetal soot. Down below, a few desperate souls Collect gleanings of coal-- Concentrated, impacted grime As if sublimed from smut of air My stiff brush grasps the cold mood-- Dapping across canvas Leaving negative spaces of white-- Perfect weird twin of hoar on paths below My fingers crack and bleed now, But a bit of blood cuts the umber nicely And beefs up coastal verge Under beaten copper trees. In time it grows dark, and I pack up. Not that my painting is finished. My work is never finished. It is a held breath —until it hurts. Anna Gallagher Anna Gallagher earned a bachelors degree in English and a masters degree in liberal arts from University of Delaware. She has enjoyed reading poetry all her life. After retirement she has tried some new challenges, including poetry writing! ** leaving behind I looked back for the last time on the best of times standing naked bare and vulnerable like trees in Autumn. Marc Brimble Marc lives in Spain and apart from drinking tea and hanging around near the sea, he teaches English. ** Painting the Future The Hudson is cloaked in smoky yellow, its surface awash in smog and steam as if the rocks, trees and urban sprawl are squeezing life from the city’s tide that I have loved since I was a child. So I paint, my easel perched on a ledge as I scrape my rage across the canvas. I conjure a future of oily pollution and hang it in Paris on a gallery wall. What do you see? Art or a warning? Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar, ukulele and mandolin. Her poems have appeared in various webzines, magazines, andchapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlets A Spark in the Darkness and Beyond the School Gate have been published by Hedgehog Press. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet or on her website kateyoungpoet.co.uk ** Rain on the River To cut the world to pieces – sort the past to the left the future to the right leave the bare boulders to the present, the winding path, its empty benches, the soaked green, those trees harsh with branch and twig and the steam billowing from yesteryears’ locomotive all will leave our sight forever – as now will turn into then. Barbara Ponomareff Barbara Ponomareff is a retired child psychotherapist, writer and occasional painter and translator. Her poetry, memoirs and short stories have appeared in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies. She has published two novellas: A Minor Genre and In the Mind’s Eye and is very much drawn to ekphrastic writing. Barbara lives in southern Ontario within walking distance to Lake Ontario. ** How to Capture Dreich on Canvas Rain falls. Rain always falls here. The hungry river is nourished, fattened by the constant fall. The emerald field of the park is sodden and saturated, its path gleaming like a silver tributary as lone walkers bob along, umbrellas dragging like sails. The droplets enliven a train's steamy plume, a dragon hissing its progress through spindles of winter trees bending in the breeze. The same gust spritzes my face with drizzle, glazes it like the gleaming granite boulders I stand behind. The grey river is not quite in flood, girded by the heavy iron of the railway track and the sparse trees enduring this dreich downpour. I know the rain is needed, that it is part of life. The water cascading from the sky to the land, into the river, is a cycle, ancient, inescapable. The river was here before the park, before the city now crowding along its banks. It carries not just today's waters but all the rains, the storms, the mists and mizzles from the lands it has already crossed, carries on towards the sea, to the ocean. I, too, add to this ensemble as salt teardrops slide down my face. Like the rain clouds I have no choice but to let the drops flow, let them mingle with the rain, flow out to the sea. Emily Tee Emily Tee is a writer from the UK Midlands. Having been born and raised in Northern Ireland she's seen a lot of rain during her lifetime. She's had some pieces published in The Ekphrastic Review Challenges previously, and elsewhere online and in print. ** The Way Forward The necklace of railcars whisper in metallic clicks before belching out clouds of white smoke. Thick cotton mists silhouette grey the glitter of distant buildings. The river, at the touch of the pale sky, wakes alive in golden tints of a fading summer. Bituminous realities litter the ochre banks, while men with cracked lips, worn hands, stoop to scavenge for an answer to their tired drizzle of prayers. Tall trees with bare branches, gleaming barks sentinel the rain-slicked change of winds. Through the endless carpet of emerald green, a silver road meanders, all the way up to the rocks of glistening hope. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her recent works have been published in Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Star 82 Review, Panoply Zine, Visual Verse, Quill & Parchment, Shotglass journal, Sparks of Calliope, Tiger Moth Review, The Sunlight Press, and Ink, Sweat & Tears. Her microchaps A Single Moment and Purple have been published by Origami Poems Project. Her work has been nominated for the 2023 Best Spiritual Literature. ** Thoughts On Rain on the River, by George Bellows This is American rain on an American River, not European Renaissance rain grand old deluge falling on sunshine Cathedrals, but dirty American rain on a muddy brown yellow river gray snow sludge train tops flowing through the heartland, this is America stripping off its shortpants and declaring this is us this US with ashcan underbelly and smoke clogged skies and by God pride of mud green brushstroke landscape and working folk small like beasts along the shore, beauty in the common experience thankful for our uniqueness until the epoch noble vision strips burned out forests of green and souls drown in squalid rivers and artists like Bellows spin in their graves. Daniel W. Brown Daniel W. Brown began writing poetry as a senior. At age 72 he published his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. world. Daniel has been published in various journals and anthologies, and he has hosted a youtube channel Poetry From Shooks Pond. He was also included in MId-Hudson's Arts Poets Respond To Art in 2022-23 and writes each day about music, art and whatever else captures his imagination. ** Perspective
"...thousands of feet above the Brenner Highway, we began to slide down the air quietly as a snowflake... the plane in a long slip like a scimitar curve, the ground rising up to meet us, the trees growing larger, focusing automatically, as in a microscope..." "Italian Days,"* Charles Wright Where did the rain stop and the river begin? In English, it is said that landscape means both the land itself and a painting of the land, that "scape" means "scope," the way an artist balances in an ethereal world, high above the scene below recreating (or embellishing) mountains and waters with an inner eye as the composition moves forward, the river parallel to a train, like a belt girding the painted earth, its trees and verdant grass (greener in the rain) and the rocky ledges of Riverside Park. As a natural setting is altered by art, Bellows moves beyond his earlier work -- "River-Front On A Hot Day" -- a canvas where tenement children strip away their clothing for a swim in the Hudson, waters that become static in "Rain On The River" as if a primal microcosm on canvas attests to New York, the way it appeared when Henry Hudson's ship, the Half Moon, discovered a body of water in the New World its boundary-territory explored by indigenous people, the Mohawks. Otherwise untouched, and ripe for the future, Riverside became a path for the Hudson Railroad (originally the Hudson-Mohawk line) its 20th century destiny to pass the Park's Cherry Walk, to carry cargo past trees, the Sakura, their petals like pink snow -- a gift from Japan -- where art can look down, from the right to the left (one could say east to west) the way the morning sun rises, although it's a grey day today, in Riverside Park. The dock below the railroad seems to disappear in fog that envelops the other side of the river, a thick veil over mountain-like shapes so Bellows' canvas resembles, in its perspective, Hokusai's "Great Wave" a wood block print where Mt. Fuji, bedded between the cresting waves is so far back in the picture, it looks like a mountain in miniature its size like the cap of an otherworldly being -- a gnome, perhaps -- who can guard any treasure buried underground...and at the end of Bellows' dock where my perspective changes, as it always does, to love while white steam bellows from the train engine -- transport to where my heart has been. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp has been honored many times by the Ekphrastic Challenge. Her book, When Dreams Were Poems, explores the relationship of words to art and nature. *She could locate only an auditory copy of Charles Wright's "Italian Days" -- what is a poem without a page? The name of the Hudson Railroad, owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, was changed to The Hudson River and New York Railway. ** Just a Job After ten years as a freight brakeman in Atlanta, I got laid off last week. Nothing personal, they told me. In Washington, even Hoover said things were bad. In August, Jane and I got married and moved into a one-room basement apartment. In October came Rose, our baby girl. Now, two months later, I lost my job. “I’ll look up North,” I said, as Jane sat on the edge of our bed. I’d heard that trainmen were needed there. “I’ll send money home.” “Promise me you’ll stop drinking, too.” Rose suckled on Jane’s breast. “It’s me or the bottle, like I’ve told you. Now we have a baby.” “I promise.” It was easy for me to say. I’d told her that lots before. When I arrived in New England, the yardmaster hired me on the spot. The rail workers that milled around his office grumbled. They likely wanted a friend to get the job, not me with my Southern accent. Afterward, I walked up a hill in a park and stood on some rocks. In the December rain, I looked at where I’d be working. The paper mill next to the river was big, but the nearby rail yard looked small. On the midnight shift, the engineer, conductor, and another brakeman joshed among themselves, but they didn’t speak much with me. They needed to see what kind of brakeman I was, I guessed. The conductor and I huddled at the top of the lead track that led downhill into the yard. With his lantern, he examined his switch list that gave information on the cars. “Whoa…lookee here. Three hopper cars. Coal. Haven’t seen it in years.” Sleet pelted our faces, and he cleared his throat. “Ride these into Track Three. It’s empty. After fifteen car lengths, tie ‘em down with a hand brake.” He put his gloves on. “Careful now. Another crew’s working on the other end of Three. It holds only ninety-two cars.” He returned to the engine. As the three cars started to coast, the rails groaned under their weight. On the rear car’s icy raised platform, I gripped the brake wheel. These three squat New York Central cars were heavy. Rain that day had saturated every chunk of coal in the open cars. Slushy flakes cut my visibility to a few car lengths. As I entered Three, snow-capped logs on flatcars on Tracks Two and Four whirred by. We were rolling at fast clip. That was okay. I’d done this lots before. But not in winter. At night. In a strange yard. Adrenaline flickered in my gut. In a minute or so, I’d be done and would walk back to the engine. I’d chug some calming whiskey from the pint bottle in my pant pocket. It’d be my first drink since leaving Atlanta. After ten car lengths into Three, I started to spin the brake wheel. I wasn’t used to wearing a heavy winter coat and such thick gloves. The brake shoes clamped on the wheel. It slid, as smoke and sparks spewed and screeched. If I got off and abandoned the cars, they’d only go faster. They’d kill men at the other end of Three. I’d get fired, or worse. But I’d promised Jane that I’d send money. I sprinted on icy ballast rock, over crossties, through sparks and steel-on-steel smoke, with only a few feet of clearance to the boxcars on Two. I was now at least forty car lengths into Three. These monsters wouldn’t stop. On the second car, I spun the brake wheel. Same thing! The sparks, smoke, and screech only doubled. We were going even faster. I raced to my final hope, the third and lead car. Wire from a car on Two snagged my sleeve. I stumbled but regained my footing. I climbed to the car’s ice-crusted handbrake and spun it into a blur. I was at least eighty cars deep into Three. In seconds, I’d crash. The cars slowed to a stop. The screech and sparks had halted, but acrid fumes began to blanket the ground, as the wheels pulsated with heat. I staggered into breathable air and sat on a rail on Two. I’d be able to send money home, after all. “Who’s there?” A lantern poked through the sleeting night. I had no breath left. “We’re…workin’ on…” I filled my lungs. “…the other end of the yard.” “Yeah, we’re on this end.” The brakeman pointed with his lantern beam. “We heard a helluva racket. Cars’ brakes must have frozen up. Then nothing.” A few car lengths from the coal hoppers stood black tank cars. “They’re…heavier than they look.” Gradually, I caught my breath. “That wet coal…almost got away from me.” Shaken, I walked back to the engine. “We need to go back into Three and drag the coal cars back to this end of the yard,” I said. “I was worried you couldn’t stop them.” The conductor shined his lantern on the switch list. “Says here they weigh a lot.” He looked up. “More than cars with lumber we usually see for the mill.” He glanced again at the list. “I didn’t check their weight, till after you’d started riding them into Three.” When the engine stopped near the coal cars, the conductor and I got off and stepped into the lingering smoke. He looked around, bent over to touch a rail, but recoiled. “Still hot.” He shook his head “Sorry. I had no idea. How…how did you stop ’em?” “Been doin’ this for ten years.” “Make the coupling and let’s get out of here.” The conductor got back on the engine. While hidden from the others, I climbed up a car ladder, reached into my back pocket, and tossed the unopened bottle onto the coal. “What was that?” The conductor flicked on the cab light when I returned to the engine. “Sounded like somethin’ broke.” Not broken, kept. “When’s payday? I need to send money home.” Bill Wilburn After college, Bill Wilburn worked as a news reporter for four years. He left as an Associated Press Writer to begin law school and a career as a lawyer. Bill has written scores of professional articles for law reviews and journals. He also freelanced op-ed pieces for The Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Times Herald, the Baltimore Sun, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Bill has written novels, short stories, and comic pieces. He is working on a memoir. Bill speaks fluent German, and lives with his wife in Chevy Chase, Maryland. ** Hudson River, 1903 Under a fog-shrouded landscape, I sit here on that granite ledge above Riverside Park where we spent endless hours in conversation. In tight embraces we witnessed bellowing puffs of dark gray smoke obscure a locomotive’s journey on the New York Central route, a journey I had hoped you would never take. Today, a bank of rain swollen clouds vies for my attention while a restless wind adds music to the day, reminds me of sad melodies we often heard. From this solitary post near two mature white birch, my mind recaptures moments we shared years ago. Jim Brosnan A Pushcart nominee, Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Long Distance Driving (2024) and Nameless Roads (2019) copies are available [email protected]. His poems have appeared in the Aurorean (US), Crossways Literary Magazine (Ireland), Eunoia Review (Singapore), Nine Muses (Wales), Scarlet Leaf Review (Canada), Strand (India), The Madrigal (Ireland), The Wild Word (Germany), and Voices of the Poppies (United Kingdom). He is a full professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. ** Muddy Trails Alone is the sound of rain, spatter melting away- and the stories not left behind. The purpose is here and the purpose is now in swathe by the mossy cliffs- a crow caws at start of the day, definite as death. Where no one walks, the ground orchids span- as yet breathing, hopeful as yet. Journey through stone walls guiding the roadway into western ghats, the truth of muddy trails. Tunnel ahead 500 metres. Alone are the dreams and tales of belief- the placard reads ‘Mr. Alok’ at Pune airport, now as forty-eight years ago. A cloud burst striking weary waters in a youthful escapade. Abha Das Sarma Author's Note: My brother Alok, who passed away nine months ago, had gifted me my first flight ticket, for Poona (now renamed as Pune). An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** Life As It Is From a craggy ridge slabs of slate grim and dark bare black branches stand guard a freight train trails clouds of steam a jetty leads into ghostly waters Horse pulling cart of coal scavanged from the littered foreshore boats lost in mist on the far shore loom wharves and warehouses rain dripping over man, beast,and machinery Gritty, urban scene Muted colours - greys, browns and black stark realism yet a sense of hard lived lives a picture of life as it's lived Sarah Das Gupta Sarah Das Gupta is a writer from Cambridge who really enjoys this artist's ability to combine gritty realism with a sense of beauty in ordinary, working lives. ** The Spot I have been hiding in this hillside spot since I was seven years old. I discovered it when a group of neighbourhood boys rallied together a round of hide and seek. While they searched, I scrutinized the large men working on the trains. They were powerful and strong, covered in soot and sweat. Those boys never found me and ended up leaving me there as they dispersed at sunset for their homes, and I got my butt whooped for getting home so late and covered in dirt. But I didn’t care. All I cared about was that spot and the trains. I saved that spot just for me. I went every day after school just to watch the trains and their workers. When I got older, I would smoke cigarettes and watch as my puffs mingled with the train’s, making us one. I ended up on those tracks working 12-hour days for the last 21 years. When I would think of it down on the tracks, I would squint up at the spot wondering if there was a small kid who had replaced me there. With a family and house and work, I haven’t found respite at the spot since…well I don’t even know. It’s one of those things that happened in your life one last time, and the occasion seemed so ordinary that it was sure to happen again, but it never does. Like the last time I picked up my son before he got too tall and too independent to need carried around. I have been here every day this week, in my work clothes and carrying a paper bag with a ham sandwich, watching the younger guys still working. I follow their movements, my hand twitches. Tomorrow will be the day I tell my wife. It must be tomorrow, because the day after she’ll be expecting the paycheck to take to the bank. I flick the butt of the cigarette over the edge and light another. Samantha Gorman Samantha Gorman, a lifelong lover of books, lives in Western Pennsylvania. After taking several creative writing classes, she found her voice and had begun the adventure of becoming a writer. She writes poetry, short fiction, and is working on her first novel.
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