morning glory

by samantha monday sternwall

little flower outside my window shaking in the breeze i heard a story about you tell me if you please all these years i thought you were the same every day but now i am told different this is what they say that every night you die and in the morning are replaced by another little flower with the same smiling face every night i go to sleep and i every night i dream and in the morning i wake up having floated down night’s stream am i the same or different every morn? have there been 10,000 mes since i was born? o little flower let us face the day are we, or they, or anything real? who are we to say?

the traveler

a weary traveler walks down a lonely road to a deserted garden. where are you going, o traveler, and why are you so weary? i am weary because i have traveled a long way, and because i am lonely. why are you lonely, o traveler? i see a light in the distance. perhaps it an inn or a pub, you could retreat to its cozy warmth and rub elbows with your fellow creatures, consume a warm or cold beverage as your fancy suits you, perhaps share your thoughts on politics or art or philosophy or religion. such things are not for me, i walk alone. alone, always alone. night is falling, o traveler, are you not afraid of losing your way? i have already lost my way, a long time ago. the moon is rising, o traveler, perhaps it will light your way. i have no way - no way except to doom. look at this deserted garden, traveler, does it remind you of happier days? no, not of happier days, but of all i ever loved. and what might that have been? the flowers. ah, the flowers, always the flowers. yes, the flowers that bloomed, the flowers that never bloomed, the flowers that were cut and placed in vases, that were displayed in lit windows, the flowers that blew away, that blew away in the dust, even as i…. ah, poor traveler, i will delay you no longer. the flowers that blew away, that blew away in the dust, even as i….

the stranger

by manfred corrington sternwall

i was born to rule the earth but nobody noticed it at first and treated me as just another anonymous little earthly brother my early years were filled with woe i had no place much to go it should come as no surprise my brain was streamed with endless lies how i waited for the day when i could stand up and say i have had enough - hereafter you shall be pupils - i shall be master the years went by- i was assigned my place in society’s waiting line i expected as i grew older for the world to tap me on the shoulder and say, you should not be here there is some mistake, i fear you are not number 21,876,943,501 you are the child of the sun the years disappear in the breeze but somehow nobody sees will they never learn? must again and again i return?

thomas and samantha

thomas and samantha lived for many years in the house left to them by their parents, attended by a painfully small number of servants. they were both creatures of routine. every morning samantha would come down to breakfast before thomas, and when thomas finally arrived, she would say to him, “good morning, thomas. if you have nothing to say, please do not say anything.” and thomas would nod, pick up his coffee cup and his copy of the times, and say nothing. then one day, shortly after a war had ended, samantha made her usual statement, and themes responded, “yes, i have something to say.” “oh? and what is it that you have to say, thomas?” “that you would look nicer if you smiled.” “really? well, thank you so much for that astute observation.” and they both resumed their breakfast. thomas never again broke his silence at the table. after a number of years samantha died of pneumonia during a bitter winter, and thomas followed her in the spring, of a heart attack which he had never attempted to forestall through healthy living. they were both buried in the garden they had loved so well, though thomas had perhaps loved it a bit more than samantha.

ask for mr black and tell him you are feeling blue

johnny had a number he kept it in his head he decided to play it every day until he was rich or dead danny stood on the corner and took down johnny’s number with a philosophy of life danny was not encumbered johnny had a number and danny took it down eddie wore a hat of straw and was a man about town florence wore a girdle to keep her tummy flat edna sat in the window and did not approve of that harry drive a taxicab in order to pay the rent joe remembered doris and wondered where she went sometimes i sit in the darkness and ponder what to think but my pencil has no lead and my printer has no ink