Views and Mechanics Publisher's Note Editor's Note Review of The Pittsburgh That Stays Within You Review of If Instead of Apes We Had Come from Grapes Review of Anson County Review of Dissolution of Ghosts Crossword (Solution Posted in July. Printable version in pdf format of journal.) Mar/Apr Crossword Solution Creative Nonfiction 1998 By Samuel Hazo Booing the Pope By Matthew D. Taylor Sgt. Robert Starbuck, USMC: Elegy and Essay By John Guthrie Shrink Wrap, Diet Cokes and a Kazoo By Sara J. Ford Poetry And the Time Is By Samuel Hazo In His Winter By Wanda D. Campbell Lester By Thomas Reynolds Generation Gap By Valerie Lauria Stanske Two Poets By Gary C. Wilkens Mongolia, 1930 By Gary C. Wilkens Fiction A Death in the Family By John Speeking Letters By Suzanne Abbot Among the Briars By Pat Tompkins Filling in the Angles By Jessica DelBalzo Miss Mary By Beth L. Block Cover Art Photography by Seth Brown 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 - PA State Rep. Jess Stairs 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. |
Lester By Thomas Reynolds Drive by and you might miss it, a tract of ragged bluegrass, with two faded wheel ruts leading to a decrepit truck. Smoke lags from rusted barrels, stench of rubber and wire. An leaking battery floods the grass, blade by blade. The home of Lester Straily opens out of red clay dirt, an oak door with frozen hinge and ten steps leading to darkness. Or is it the sun that makes it seem so, overpowering lantern light that illuminates the gray cot, newspaper stack, concrete walls. Lester's sour on the government, "almost as big as the dang fool sky!" Bought his house to tear it down and bury it beneath a reservoir. "They ripped me like a tornado, tossed me like a fencepost, drove me into the dirt, but they can't doze down a cellar." Lester's face is flaked and calloused, like a dried-out river bed. His eyes the color of antifreeze drained from an abandoned truck. Two fingers grip a lit stogie, skin so scarred and blackened they seem like burnt branch ends smoldering on the edges of fire. Lester walks like he's underwater, as if he moved fast he'd float away. Slow and careful as a mud turtle, pushing himself across the earth. |