Table of Contents

Gay and Lesbian Theme


Views and Mechanics
Publisher's Note
Editor's Note
Review of This Is Not For You
Review of Potato Queen
Crossword
(Solution Posted in March. Printable version in pdf format of journal.)
Creative Nonfiction
Tunis, Forever
By John Champagne
Bisexuality 101
By Evelyn McFarland
Poetry
Blackouts
By Steve Rydman
Self Loathing
By Steve Rydman
A Boy Reads YM
By Steve Rydman
I Finally Found Me
By Lucretia Randle
Acorn Boy Above the Conclave
By James Penha
Fiction
As If In Time Of War (1985)
By Christopher T. Leland
General Works
Creative Nonfiction
Stone Musings #5
By Mike Munsil
Ascent Into Being
By Holly Mitchell
Fiction
Come Winter
By Sandra M. McDow
The End of Stories
By Sonia Vora
Coal Blood
By Tom Bennitt
About the Contributors

© 2006, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission.

River Walk Journal, Inc.
Board of Directors

Chairman - Elizabeth Ross
Vice Chairman - Joseph Koch
Secretary/Treasurer - Geri Stock-Ross
Editorial Director - Patti Kurtz, DA
Literacy Director - Bill Mausteller
Policy Director - vacant
Advisory Board
Chairman - Patti Kurtz, DA
Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD
Samuel Hazo
Christopher Leland
Edwin Yoder
Joseph Bathanti
Journal Staff
Publisher - Elizabeth Ross
Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch
Sen. Fiction Editor - Patti Kurtz
Sen. Poetry Editor - Neeldhara Misra
Sen. Creative Nonfiction Editor - Brenda Coxe
Contributing Editor - Robert Dittman
Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross

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Acorn Boy Above The Conclave
By James Penha

What from thee I long for and learn to know deep within me Can scarcely be understood by the minds of men.
--Michelangelo


One of the twenty ignudi Michelangelo painted in the
Sistine Chapel, the site of the conclave to elect the Pope.

How many of these dainty red birds below
would love to taste these fruits I show
above their eyes beneath my limbs?
Oh, they preach loud against loins
save those with grace a missionary joins,
but I hear whispers of more degenerate whims
than those my master brushed against me in his bed
with painted lips as he reconceived his boy instead
to honor an oaklike Pope where little acorns grow.
Michelangelo hid his love by making me great!
Lesser men buy scarlet robes and market hate
to persuade eyes never this heavenly way to go.