A poem

We are so beautiful today,

the day after grace.

Acting with the assurance of love makes every

hour bright enough.

But I can remember a minute more than an hour and your smile

more than yesterday.

So I’ll picture your face instead of tomorrow’s

paralyzed questions.

And maybe, just maybe, the film reels of these lives

will once again run together.

- Casey Splinter

Scenes at the Otago Peninsula, NZ

A Monologue about the Underground

This monologue was originally created by me, but for a play written by an ensemble of 10 people in the playwriting class at IES London- Theatre Studies. All of us are students currently studying in London, riding the Underground everyday. Our assignment was to write a monologue that tells of a person's relationship with "The Tube," another name for the Underground.

Gary: I don't know if I can go back.

I have been going through the motions for, for the past 23 year. You know, in France, they don't even have drivers; it's all computerized. But here, here for forty hours each week I'm just a machine. I wait for the signal and go. Then, at a mark, I stop and I wait, and then I go. And every couple of minutes I press another button.

Most days I'd just dream. I'd think about what you'd make for dinner that night or who the boys would grow up to be. For the whole eight hours I'd just imagine them or I'd think about that holiday in Sicily. (beat) The other drivers did the same thing. You have to think about something more, or something better to get through the day.

I used to pay more attention. When I first started I'd notice everything: all the kids holding their moms' hands, the suits, the girls with too much luggage, the people who seemed alone, the ones calmly waiting - or the ones not waiting anymore.

There were always people not minding that yellow line. They'd be maneuvering around each other and that was the quickest way or the platform was just too crowded, but I never thought-

She didn't look like she was going to-

I didn't see her. For Christ's sake, I didn't see her! It doesn't matter if I couldn't've stopped in time or if it was on purpose or a fucking accident. One moments I was thinking about Michael's football game and then-

Do you know what it looked like? Felt like? God!
Fuck. Don't you get it?

I'm sorry.

- Sara Gosses

Gifts of Summer

I climbed the branches of an emerald tree
Because birthday candles must be made
And tied a ribbon round the thickest branch
And curled the edges with my spade
And when the jewels began to fall
And amethyst frost filled my chest
I dropped my body to the earth
And laid my head to rest.

When I had slept one thousand years
And stretched into your night
I woke to hear my name out loud
My emerald tree became a kite
The ribbon tied was still in place
The edge still held it's curl
It looped itself around my wrist
And we ran - kite and girl.

Though I am old my feet are light
Ten toes kiss jaded grass
and skim the sheen of beetles shells
as girl and kite fly past.
I walk the paths where we held hands
By diamond moon each night
And look for you by ruby sun
To deliver birthday kite.

- Trena Thomas

www.jacksonpollock.org

try it...!



- Gabe Courey

This is what it looked like to be part of a sea of faces during one of the most exciting times in America's history.







- Andy Palkowski

never all the answers

I'm bundled up
the snow falls
and I can't keep my mind from wandering
back to India, back to Nepal
Ladakh is where it wants to go

My mind is a field of music
golden and pure
wind carries the tune
to the sound of birds chirping

and I'm in heaven
I'm in the next world
no longer here in my body
and its blissful...its heavenly...it's good

the songs are writing themselves in my head
and I don't know when they will come out
in the form of music
powerful and uplifting

just like I don't know what's mystic
and I don't know where I will go
in my dream-land tonight
I never know, do I?

We never have all the answers...
it's painful
it's beautiful
...we just keep going

- Grace Denny