What was once exclusively for Lopez writers has been expanded to all of San Juan County. SHARK REEF, the online literary publication of the Lopez Writers Guild, has opened submissions up to writers from all the San Juan Islands. The e-zine was launched in 2001 as a way to provide an audience for Lopez Island writers and good writing for audiences everywhere.
Continue reading...Issue Eleven – September 2007
Conversation with a Dead Person
By Elsie McFarland
Every so often my ex-husband comes over,
still boyish in his advancing years.
I catch him up on our grown children,
the grandkid’s music lessons, soccer games,
Cedar Chest
By Linda Brainerd
The cedar chest smelled musty and forbidding.
It held props for her part, she who passed off-stage
leaving bits and pieces
of that act: a yellowed collar, sachets,
Line Dancing
By Jan Loudin
A red shirt bridges the prejudice
of dark jeans and white sheets
strung on a line between
back porch and crooked hickory pole.
Shelter
By Laurie Junkins
We come together these dark mornings,
you at your work, I at mine,
scanning papers, making notes,
the rustle of pages, clicks of the keyboard,
The Hunt
By Laurie Junkins
The boy picks through windblown woods,
footsteps quiet on moss and damp needles, eyes
scanning the forest floor for green maple or oak.
His grandfather’s Laguiole jackknife
Love Letter to My Sons
By Laurie Junkins
I watch at the front window
as you move in unison between the trees
then down the long, curved driveway
to where flooding from our neighbor’s pond
Evening Dance
By Susan Hendrick
Tonight, at the magic hour,
I’ll be joining the hummingbirds
Taking my shower in the misty spray of the watering hose
Dancing bare breasted up the rainbows of sparkling water beads
Tranderpost and the Tiger
By Ken Jenks
Tranderpost was a trader of animals, only one among a whole tribe of traders whose flags went all adroop the day that Tranderpost let the tiger go. He shouldn’t have done it, Lord knows, opened that cage and set the killer free. He risked his own neck doing it, thrusting that the tiger would disappear into the bush
Continue reading...The Dogs of Dharamsala: On the Trail of the Dalai Lama
By Janet Thomas
It’s quiet in town when I set out for Saint John’s in the Wilderness, which is about a mile down the treacherous road to Lower Dharamsala. But because I’m walking this time, and not hurtling along in impending vehicular catastrophe, I finally get to pay attention to the scenery. It’s a serene, gently treed hillside.
Continue reading...Memoirs of a Stupid Woman
By Agnes Vadas
I had an aunt who was a violin teacher and, according to family legend, when I was two or three, I’d watch her teaching and then pick up two pieces of wood and “play.” When I was five, she gave me my first lessons, and quickly became excited about my talent.
Continue reading...
Together Again
By George Karnikis
The crowd has gone.
He smiles from the picture.
Every now and then a sympathy card.
Slower pace, life at a crossroad.
Terrorism
By Ingrid Karnikis
Plotting strategies in strident tones
the robins begin to attack.
“The head, the head”, they shrill
and swoop to circle the cherry tree;
Tankas
By Tom Odegard
Some old faces contain
young folk who eagerly look forward
others are old thru and thru
clinging to yesterdays
A Door to Two Places
By Tom Odegard
Today, I intended to build a wall,
install a door,
this poem got in the way.
A poem about hallways, passages,
Raining on West Sound
By Glen Stephens
Masts at the marina totter with each gust
drunken sticks staggering nowhere
finches have fled the feeder
hide deep in the dark trees
by the path to the water