Table of Contents


Views and Mechanics
Publisher's Note
Memories of the Body Broken
Review of Ambition Is Not a Dirty Word
Review of The Blood of Flowers
Review of The Girl Who Stopped Swimming
Review of The Poet Laureate of People Who Hate Poetry
Creative Nonfiction
My Boo Radley
By Rebecca Ward
A Walk in the Park
By Madonna Dries Christensen
Poetry
Hearts and Diamonds
By Andrena Zawinski
It Was Then I Kissed Her
By Andrena Zawinski
In
By Andrena Zawinski
Death of Word
By Tony Brown
Fiction
Being Caught Up With My Ego
By David Landrum
A Voice In My Head Screamed
By J. A. Tyler
About the Contributors

© 2008, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission.

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Literacy Director - Kenneth Weiss, Ed.D
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Advisory Board
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Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD
Samuel Hazo
Christopher Leland
Edwin Yoder
Joseph Bathanti
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Publisher - Elizabeth Ross
Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch
Senior Editor - Patti Kurtz
Editor - Elizabeth Murray
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The Death of Word
By Tony Brown


enough with trauma, enough with injustice,
enough of ecstasy and horny tales.
enough with the empty skins of these things --
limp words, deflated balloons, dead air.

don't tell me about racism
if you can't make me squirm
under the boot on your neck.

don't speak of sex unless
I can learn from you how dry friction vanishes
into liquid and steam.

don't even bother with the breakup talk
unless I understand what your lover looked like
the last time she walked away from you and
until I can smell the rug you laid upon
while you cried.

I'm eager for the death of Word these days,
hoping I get to watch it kick and strangle on itself.
if you want me to step up and put it on my shoulders
and keep it from hanging, you'll have to make it disappear
into the things you claim to understand
simply because you know how to pronounce them.