Summer Pure Slush Vol. 12

By Pure Slush

70 writers revel in the joys and the pitfalls of summer, heat and stick sweat ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pure Slush Books
• Release date: Aug 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781925536140

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Summer Pure Slush Vol. 12

A Pure Slush E-book

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Summer Pure Slush Vol. 12

Copyright

*

First published August 2016

Stories and poems copyright © Pure Slush and individual authors

Edited by Matt Potter

All rights reserved by the authors and publisher. Except for brief

excerpts used for review or scholarly purposes, no part of this book

may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without express

written consent of the publisher or the authors.

Pure Slush Books

4 Warburton Street

Magill  SA  5072

Australia

Email:  [e-mail]

Website:  http://pureslush.webs.com

Visit the Pure Slush Store:  http://pureslush.webs.com/store.htm

Original cover painting Until the Sidewinders Come Around copyright © W. Jack Savage

ISBN: 978-1-925536-14-0

Also available as a paperback

ISBN: 978-1-925536-13-3

A note on differences in punctuation and spelling

Pure Slush proudly features (both online and in print) writers from all over the English-speaking world. Some speak and write English as their first language, while for others, it’s their second or third or even fourth language. Naturally, across all versions of English, there are differences in punctuation and spelling, and even in meaning. These differences are reflected in the work Pure Slush publishes, and it accounts for any differences in punctuation, spelling and meaning found within these pages.

Dedication

*

for

anyone

who ever longed for winter to YES!!

finally be over

Contents

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Snowflakes in the Middle of Summer  /  Poor Louisiana

Heat  /  Penn Stewart

Drinking Dream  /  Laurie Kolp

Loving It Hot and Sweaty  /  Abha Iyengar

Summer /  Stephen V. Ramey

Meadow Girl  /  Beate Sigriddaughter

Remembering  /  Jessica Clements

Promising  /  Matt Potter

Spring Planting /  Judy Williams

Bondi  /  Martin Jon Porter

Beach House Musing  /  Lisa Stice

Falling Pieces of Skylab  /  Michael Koenig

Aptitude  /  Linda Ferguson

Man on a Wire  /  Paul B. Cohen

Bare Feet /  Cynthia Hoffman

Memories of an Unknown Summer  /  Kristina England

Summer Love  /  Guilie Castillo Oriard

Letter to N: This Summer  /  Edward Reilly

Day Nine of a Road Trip …  /  Alicja Zapalska

Pool Shark  /  Steve Carter

Running  /  Jenny Lapekas

Diving Through the Golden Arches  /  S. L. Kerns

Changing Seasons  /  Brad Garber

Last Summer  /  Alex Reece Abbott

Middle Earth Café: Nakusp, B.C.  /  Kersten Christianson

The End of Everything  /  Edward O’Dwyer

Fruits of Summer  /  Iris N. Schwartz

Infernal Cravings  /  J. J. Steinfeld

In the summerblaze of a smooth night  /  R. Bremner

1967  /  Len Kuntz

Walking a Goat  /  MK Punky

Summer Stock  /  Jan Chronister

Gun Wounds Again?  /  Michael Coolen

There’s a Croc in Your Backyard  /  Walter Giersbach

Brothers at the Wadena Indoor Pool … /  Samuel Cole

i reef  /  Thomas Fucaloro

Monopoly, My Brother and Money  /  Martha Rand

Summer  /  Paul Beckman

His Final Words  /  Tom Fegan

Like Broken Shells  /  Katie Rendon Kahn

In the still of the deep south night  /  Bruce Colbert

Rot  /  Michael Koenig

Avocado Sandwiches on a July Afternoon  /  Joanne Jagoda

Scrape  /  Jon Dietrick

Approaching 40  /  Chris Gillies

Coves  /  Piet Nieuwland

I’m pretty hot  /  Erica Gerald Mason

Nines and Nineties  /  Glenn A. Bruce

Jack Daniels  /  Sara Petersen

Indian Summer  /  Martin Christmas

Summerfall  /  Tim Philippart

In the Beginning … /  David S. Atkinson

Riding the Earth’s Rotation /  Janet Malotky

Red-Eye Flight  /  Lana Bella

Highway Sketch  /  Susan Tally

Lying on the Deck  /  A. J. Huffman

Summer morning, Sandy Bay  /  Mercedes Webb-Pullman

Summer Highland Falls  /  Michael Webb

One Season Down Under  /  Alex Robertson

Morose Code  /  Devin Taylor

Mr. Lonely Hearts  /  Gay Degani

The Point  /  Cynthia Leslie-Bole

Finally Understanding Entropy in Summer  /  Ben Pitts

Summer Karma  /  Mark Hudson

The Last Day of Summer  /  Kate Hall

Rain Shower  /  Allan J. Wills

A Khan Is Crowned in Atlantic City  /  Embe Charpentier

Heartless Summer  /  Ruby Ewens

1st snapshot of the day  /  Ruth Sabath Rosenthal

Summer’s End  /  Sally Reno

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Authors

Snowflakes In the Middle Of Summer

by Poor Louisiana

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I’ve felt the coldest rain fall in the scorching heat

But I’ve been waiting all my life

For snowflakes to fall in the middle of summer

Fireflies shall dance for the first time without the night’s approval

It is wise to believe in the impossible

Heat

by Penn Stewart

*

I showed up early, before the end of your shift, and saw you in the parking lot. You pushed your hair behind an ear. He said something funny and you laughed hard, your hand to your mouth, and stumble-stepped into a blush. He said something else, and you shook your head no.

But I’ve seen that yes before.

The smell of smoke hung in the summer air and the streetlights glowed with a halo of orange and gray. A fire truck screamed by on the road and you turned at the sound. Your eyes fell on me in my car. You stiffened and excused yourself. A tear of sweat wandered down my cheek and hung at the edge of my jaw.   

Before you walked across the parking lot, before you opened the car door, before you got in, leaned over, and gave me a kiss on the cheek, and before we rode home in silence, I knew.

There was no breeze to cool the heat; the things that had bound us together loosened like frayed laces and slipped away.

Drinking Dream

by Laurie Kolp

*

I approach crowded pool bar

to order orange juice, lower visor

over bloodshot eyes.

*

An invisible man

with farmer’s tan

and beer belly

nudges my elbow.

*

"How ’bout a screw-

driver, my treat."

*

Like all the other times,

I’d promised myself

not to drink before noon.

Vodka on tongue. One.

*

Make it a double.

Loving It Hot and Sweaty

by Abha Iyengar

*

The Indian summer is always hot. This year it touches 50 degrees Celsius in a town in Rajasthan, and in Delhi, it’s 42 degrees today and promises to become 44 degrees in a couple of days. Delhi was always hot in summer, famous for its hot dry wind, the loo. But now Delhi does not have a dry heat, the weather is humid too, so one sweats and sweats as one stands, the clothes sticking to the body. You may ask why I am making you feel hot under the collar on a similarly hot day where you live? Or you may want to be here with me in Delhi’s heat, if an icy blizzard is raging outside your door.

Nonetheless, you are reading, so of course the Indian summer interests you. I write about the Delhi summer because perhaps I do not appreciate its worth, living as I have been in my city for a very long time. But if you are Russian, like a friend I have, you may have a totally different approach. Her name is Elena, and she is married to an Indian. She is lovely looking, but that is just something I am throwing your way to keep you interested. She goes shopping in Delhi for vegetables, very much like an Indian housewife. However, unlike the Indian housewife, Elena will go shopping in the midday heat of a summer afternoon for the above-mentioned vegetables. And sometimes for clothes, and sometimes just like that.

I met her one afternoon walking in Connaught Place. After the talk of maids, the price of food, how husbands, kids and the dogs, if