Featured Works: Week of Apr. 23 (April Pirates)
April drags on in the Northeastern United States, as tax season bludgeons us as numb as the persistent cold, damp weather. With that in mind, this week’s contributors focus on twin themes of piracy and spring. “Gentlemen’s Piracy” by Lake McCullough delves into the depths of a modern-day scavenger’s thinking. “A Country for Old Men” by Aaron Sokoloff takes us on a journey through Florida real-estate ventures. “Vagrants” by David Filer depicts the slow, soggy, gray days of spring, punctuated by geese honking. “A Man Who Is Not April” by John Grey reflects...
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Contrary though light is evidence, bountiful. and spring arousal shivers bough and flesh alike… my human season contradicts the budding, haste of grass. panoply of birds… the gathering separates me, the welcome countermands… for newness is a party to the grave, what’s found here is lost elsewhere… such stratagems of earth and air… the future begins, so the past won’t have...
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Two big geese can scare up the dead. — August Kleinzahler, “Canada Geese in New Jersey” Mid-March. The long, wet winter hasn’t moved on yet. They’re still out there in the slough, dark-bound, ...
Read MoreA Country for Old Men
Part One 1 Every great wealth creation in America has sprouted from the opening of a new frontier. Those who were the first to understand that virgin territory was beckoning just beyond the familiar borders, and who had the ability to act on that understanding, have always been rewarded to a degree that could never occur in an established economy. Sometimes this frontier has been geographic, as in the westward expansion. Sometimes it has been a technological frontier, as in the development of the Internet. In Florida, the frontier was old age. There was a time before people retired. Instead,...
Read MoreGentlemen’s Piracy
Cayo Hueso, Ponce de Leon’s isle of bones, dosed under the feet of thousands of March tourists. They called it Key West, not knowing any better, and thought it was the capital of the easy life. Five o’clock somewhere and all that Jimmy Buffet nonsense. Life had not been easy for the Calusa Indians, who left their dead to bleach in the sun on the tide line. It hadn’t been easy for Ponce de Leon, who took a poisoned arrow in the thigh on his way past and died in Cuba a few days later. It hadn’t been easy for the Americans in the 1830s, tryig to carve a living out...
Read MoreFeatured Works: Week of Feb. 25 (February)
As this month draws to a close, we present three poems, all set in February. “Lavender” by Michael H. Brownstein views Valentine’s Day from the perspective of Cupid. “February Day, Boston” by Anthony Botti provides a snapshot of a container garden in winter. “Feburary Day, Boston (II)” by Anthony Botti springboards from a winter garden to fond memories of a...
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