Iris Literary Journal: Volume II: Issue 1

By Iris Literary Journal

Contributions to this collection creatively address the theme of passion.

Featuring:

• Language: English
• Publisher: Iris Literary Journal
• Release date: Mar 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781954573970

Book preview

Iris Literary Journal

IRIS LITERARY JOURNAL

VOLUME II, ISSUE 1

Assure Press

Iris Literary Journal

Volume II, Issue 1

Cover Art by Emily Rankin

Editor-in-Chief: Darius Frasure

Assistant Fiction Editor: Aerial Hobson

Assistant Drama Editor: Camika Spencer

Assistant Creative Nonfiction Editor: Delonte Harrod

Iris Literary Journal is published serially in print and ebooks.

Each journal includes poetry, short fiction, creative nonfiction, drama, visual art, and/or photography. Some of the work may not be entirely in English.

For more information, visit the website of Iris Literary Journal:

www.assurepress.org/iris

Publisher’s logo

An imprint of Assure Press Publishing & Consulting, LLC

www.assurepress.org

Publisher’s Note: Assure Press books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please visit the website.

ISBN-13: 978-1-954573-98-7

eISBN-13: 978-1-954573-97-0

CONTENTS

Iris Literary Journal

Poems

Already?

Wendy Blaxland

Australian spring

Wendy Blaxland

Spring sun salute

Wendy Blaxland

Unacceptable

Cindy Buchanan

What We Miss When We Cease to Be

Cindy Buchanan

Empty House, It’s

Josh Crummer

Song for a Nurse

Josh Crummer

Falsework

Alice B Fogel

BOOTS AND BRAS

Lori Levy

PEACH

Lori Levy

WHEN THE DOORBELL RINGS

Lori Levy

Root Questions

Jayne Marek

GRASS

Amy-Sarah Marshal

MEMORY

Amy-Sarah Marshall

PREDICTION

Amy-Sarah Marshall

A life is not realized alone

Annette Sisso

Creative Nonfiction

The Good One

Alan Bern

Follow Me

Linda Caradine

A Summer Like that One

Jesse Curran

Kickball Vodka

Kris Martinez

Between Us

Katherine K. Wilson

Visual Art

Fallen Angels

Roger Camp

Study in Red Yellow and Green

Roger Camp

Water Music

Roger Camp

Irresistible

Martha Nance

Come Hither

Martha Nance

Yellow Is the Color of Spring

Martha Nance

Gutter

Emily Rankin

Spring Rain

Emily Rankin

Fiction

Enigma

Elayne Clift

A LONG-AWAITED MOMENT

Walter Weinschenk

Drama

Mr. Crispy

Jonathan Kravetz

Shawna

A Dark Comedy in One Act

Pam Munter

Contributors

Iris Literary Journal Summer Logo Volume II, Issue 1

passion

POEMS

Already?

- Wendy Blaxland

A white magnolia tree suddenly flowers in a shy bridal veil of buds;

The wattle is tossing gold balls in the air;

Feel the warm earth stirring again.

Australian spring

-Wendy Blaxland

The hard blue sky stretches its bony arms

and yawns awake in a gust of hot wind.

The bush blazes with fragile yellow and white flowers.

Australian spring.

Spring sun salute

-Wendy Blaxland

The sun seduced my eyes skyward

          in the stretched salute that

                    welcomed a spring morning.

Haloed by my upturned arms

          a rainbow lorikeet glowed on that bare branch there,

                    re-balanced itself with a little sway

                              like a child on a spring-driven

                                        animal toy in the park.

As I watched, the harlequin bird morphed into two,

          and he unfolded himself carefully to

                    step back from his loving perch on her

                              to the security of the branch.

Both straightened their feathers,

          stepped a claw apart

                    in that sidewise lorikeet way

                              and sat there together, rainbow feathers blending.

I salute the moment.

Spring

Unacceptable

- Cindy Buchanan

What made her feel she didn’t

belong, made her howl for approval,

blinded her to love?

When she scarred her skin,

razored it with pain,

did it numb her ache?

Does she regret

the ring she stole, the lies

she told, the times she ran away?

The time she tried to forget to breathe?

Is she still hooked on smack,

on crystal too? Do they ease

her cravings?

And does she still mourn her unborn,

whisper lullabies in empty rooms

when she thinks no one can hear?

How do you cry a prayer?

Does she ever feel she can

walk into an embrace and be felt,

seen, heard, known as sacred?

Without belonging, souls become weightless.

Without belonging, souls fade, dissipate

like an exhalation on a frosty winter morning.

What We Miss When We Cease to Be

-Cindy Buchanan

I almost missed the shadow play

performed by a toddler in the park.

She’d been leaning against her father’s knee

while I sat shrouded in what ifs and if onlys.

Some delight must have encouraged her

for she started forward, hesitant, then bolder.

I woke, enchanted by each step, hop, stomp

performed to music I could not hear.

But when she reached the park’s high wall,

her steps slowed. I held my breath: the blank

façade tinted by an autumn sun, loomed.

Her shadow on the wall waited.

With one hand she reached to touch the darkness,

saw how it flowed according to her will, and then,

oh then, she began to dance for she understood

she could command the dark to fill with life.

Empty House, It’s

- Josh Crummer

hardest mid-afternoon;

minivans and pickup trucks

cutting upstream on my street

as my nose thickens the glass –

any second now you’ll pull in

                              I just know it.

It’s shower knob whine

echoing off these aged tiles

once versed in hot and cold,

my bashful smile as I shivered

like a starving butler

until you turned around

and gently pulled me to the water.

In the kitchen,

over sizzle,

under whooshing vents

float your mealtime chant

I say taco, you say taco –

Tacotacotacotaco

as I cook for two, eat for one

and store leftovers in a Cool Whip bowl.

This empty house the sole witness

when I opened your last letter,

wailing and heaving blood

until I awoke on the floor,

the blackened stream outside

housing stillwater

again, and again.

Song for a Nurse

- Josh Crummer

Those sterile escape rooms uptown

keep hitting your voicemail.

Behind an N95,

a saccharine smile,

a Grande Yukon Blend

(powerhouse of the cell)