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 For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/submission.html. Questions about promotions, subscribers' services, and advertising should be sent to publisher@riverwalkjournal.org. River Walk Journal, Inc. is a non-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. For information about volunteer opportunities and internships, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/volunteer.html. |
Blackouts By Steve Rydman POWERLESS: Michigan caught in nation's worst outage August 15, 2003, Detroit Free Press "The nation's worst-ever blackout, which spread across parts of seven states and Canada on Thursday…left 50 million people powerless" I smoke pot more now, but no one notices, not even tonight as a third of the country does what they don't normally do: play board games by candlight, talk to neighbors and share spoilable foods. Without artificial light, the almost full moon shines a circular beam through a clearing in trees; their leaves like hands rustle with applause in the wind. Between gusts, there's an uneasy silence, one we know will be drowned out by the buzz of electrical wires. For now, we stay high, listening to the orchestra of bugs and watching a few stalled cars wait like dreams discarded. I take a long hit from our joint, suck in its escape, multiplied by this dark world, where there's no work tomorrow, no way to talk to my mother and listen to her list of medications, no way to hear my friends yak at their screaming babies and unsympathetic husbands. Even my lover's face could disappear in this eclipse that stretches for miles and miles. I am lost in it. I love it. I finally understand what my father looked for night after drunken night: the ease that comes with a powerlessness that never ends, spreading across states and other countries, a blackness you can't drive out of... I take it in and hold it, burning in my lungs. |