10/2009

From the Lutin Muse June 2009edition Written by Ken Carman I grew up Under emotionally sculpted skies Passionate Crystal clear northern breezes Blowing raggedy cotton ball clouds Over bright blue lakes Deep, dense, dark green forests And a deep, wide river Unless Lifes clouds hung heavy Or high A different kind of sculpted sky All in All A time when passionate dreams dared to fly Solo How close passion and I were back when I would let passion devour me Well Every now and then But it always spat me back up Freshly challenged Oh When did this slimy, slippery Emotionless mist Start to insist On dampening this passionate heart? When did the weeks The months Each year Start to dull even fear Into textureless Tasteless Cream of Wheat days? When did I let Like a once beloved pet Passion be buried on cemetery hill And how did my dreams get To curl into the corners of only yesterday? A process that seemed slower than tortoise As hope went all Rigor mortis Before its time Occasionally Through too many moonless nights Through the steady Quick Drip Drip Drip Of each year I hear The ghost of passion still Howling up…

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Written by R.S. Janes I knew something was wrong as soon as I got on the almost-empty train. As it hurtled through the blinking lights of Chicago late at night, I sat down on the seat nearest the doors. This was many years ago when the old CTA trains had an embossed metal divider on each side of the doors. The divider came halfway up from the floor, anchored to a vertical pole and a horizontal pole, both chrome-plated. What it meant was, you couldn’t see below the head and shoulders of someone sitting across from you on the other side of the doors. Such was the case here I could see the couple across from me, but not a thing below the shoulders. The woman was middle-aged, with a solid heft from carrying kids and talking on the phone at the same time; she was wearing a plain pale yellow dress and some kind of silly hat that resembled an abstract bird with one large feather coming out of its back. The man was about the same age, skinny and smaller, with a pork-pie hat pushed back away from his thinning hairline; he weaved around with the motions of…

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Written by Ken Carman “Into the cornfield.” And that’s the last thing we heard for a long, long time… except crows, and the wind, and the rain dripping down on the house where the little boy-God lived. He had ordered us here, so here we stayed; no longer quite human… we could not die. We stayed only because he had the power to keep us here. But human boy-Gods don’t live forever. All that time, waiting in anger and fear. Many of us have gone mad, and some just so viciously angry the result is the same. We have dwelt upon every word said without good intent, every action and in-action, all the weak hearts who give into such bullies… The boy-God may have put us here out of malice yet, though he never imagined it possible. through the use of his powers he couldn’t help but plant a seed in us that grew. Now that he has gone the seed has sprouted a hundred fold. Each of us with power unintentionally given to us by the boy-God. Together we are more powerful than he was… have more anger than even he had. And we have not forgotten every injustice.…

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From the July 2009 Lutin Muse issue Written by Sennebec I wasnt sure whether the message on my answering machine was more unexpected or unwelcome. Marcus Dinsmore was a name from my high school days and certainly not someone with a good reason to get in touch with me. The voice sounded more mature, but familiar, bringing back memories of spring, 1989 when we were about to graduate from high school. I beat out Marcus by asking Shannon Merck to the graduation prom, completely unaware that they had been dating. He had gone ballistic, threatening me in senior English and later spray painting all the windows on my beloved 57 Chevy. He missed getting expelled by a hair and wasnt allowed to graduate with the rest of us. Oddly enough, Shannon and I discovered we had nothing in common and never went out again. That was almost 20 years ago. I had gone to college, then graduate school and was a slightly balding software engineer in Emeryville, California, far removed from Simonton, Maine. Heck, I hadnt even been back to visit in ten years. Curiosity won and I listened to the message again. Hi James, bet you never expected to…

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Written by Jenn Weinshenker Carving a pumpkin Putting a candle inside the thing Setting it on an inverted pot To flicker amber From the window sill And masquerading with friends Can be tons of fun But Halloween And all of the rest of it You can keep it Take it Violence Sold in dark theaters Screaming Blood and guts Things that go bump in the night Monsters hiding under a bed Psychos lurking outside a shower curtain Spiders coming up a drain Wrong numbers Malevolent clowns Killer dolls And sudden bang-pops from deceptive balloons Just give me the creeps Im not interested in Scary as hell traditions Incestuously commingled with religious holidays That introduce to impressionable children They are Satan’s pawns In order to insure the self-perpetuation Of obsolete spooky institutions I have no time for the repetition of this myth Promoted with chocolate My light is out __________________________________________ Copyright 2003 Jenn Weinshenker All Rights Reserved.

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From the August 2009 Lutin Muse issue Written by Joyce Lovelace The birds are busy this morning. Wrens and sparrows fill the feeder’s tray. The cardinal has been relegated to the ground below. The nuthatch vies for room, while the woodpecker Clings to the suet cake. Tweets, twirps and chirps from all directions. Mother dove sits on the feeder roof keeping watch on Two young ones on the ground. Sunlight filtered through pine boughs Illuminates the seedlings sprung up from dropped seeds. Morning makes them so happy. They sing for the new day A warm sun and a place to fill their tummies. They sing when the rain slows. Robins delight in new mown lawns and freshly dug earth. Hummingbirds buzz amongst each newly blossomed plant, Squabbing like children on a playground. One minute pecking at each other the next sitting side by side. And over the meadow the hawk flies. _________________________________ Copyright 2009 Joyce Lovelace all rights reserved

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Written by Joyce Lovelace Bright sun shines green grass White goats play push me Yellow butter flies ______________________________________ 2009 Joyce Lovelace all rights reserved Fir0002/Flagstaffotos License

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From the April 2009 edition of Lutin Muse Written by Ye Olde Scribe There was a lot of shaking And a mighty roar The whore houses closed their shutters Cats and mice paced house floors Heavenly light and the song of angels From the celestial portal did pour Then God spoke and said… “Oops, sorry… wrong door” ____________________________ Copyright 2009 Ye Olde Scribe all rights reserved

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From the April 09 edition of Lutin Muse Written by R.S. Janes There’s evil loose in the world Not the Biblical, Old Testament evil, Rubbing its hands together – Satan need not be bothered. This is the work-a-day, average evil, the kind that thinks: “The only way I can get mine, Is to take what’s yours.” And the world itself Is its mother and father. The evil of power Under the banner of deceit The expression of power In its true state: “Make others do that Which they hate.” The only way the powerful Can prove to themselves They have real power. But it’s not even enough Just to make the peasantry Cringe and cower. The kernel at the core Is that others must die To prove power to itself The never-ending fable Yet the suffocating need, The bottomless belly always needs filling By the main course On misery’s table The two greatest, most harmful Addictions in the world: Power and greed The two things which most disable. Yet rarely are those who seek power Questioned at length ‘why?’ (Perhaps because they control The interrogation; It’s impossible to be unbiased When the beam is in your own eye.) And greed…

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From the August 2009 Lutin Muse issue Written by R.S. Janes The pearl-gray luxury car circled the block a few times. The girls on the street had already concluded it wasn’t a cop, as the driver had refused a couple of invitations if it had been a cop, he wouldn’t have been so choosy, any quick bust would have been fine. But who was this guy? Middle-aged, thinning hair on top with a little gray on the sides, and a pair of brown square-frame glasses, just circling the block looking at the girls. One girl whispered to another that perhaps he was some weirdo street radars went up: keep an eye on the pearl-gray luxury car. The block was actually several blocks, and the girls hid in the doorways when the police cruisers occasionally plowed by. It was a game: the cops knew very well that this was hooker turf after eleven at night and they could pull them all in, but why bother with the paperwork, unless some citizen complained? They’d all be out here the next night anyway. As long as the cops didn’t catch them actively soliciting, or any sexual acts conducted in public, they usually left…

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