Name: Roderick E. Stevens
Title: Elephant In a Safeway Bag
Genre: Crime thriller / Dramedy
Synopsis:
“Elephant in a Safeway Bag” follows the adventures of River, a feisty young man with Down syndrome determined to get to the Grand Canyon in spite of his scatterbrained brother, a tenacious lawman, an escaped convict, a runaway bride and Elvis Presley.
About the Author
Manuel Lasso, a Peruvian novelist, short story writer and playwright, studied Literature at the City College of New York, where he became a winner of the Floral Games in the narrative category. His work has been published in magazines and newspapers from Europe and America and has readers in five continents. Visit his blog
http://manuellasso.blogspot.com
or follow him on Twitter @Manuel_Lasso.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/16000068-london-s-falling
This is London if everything went awry and plunged into chaos as opposing, colliding forces explode to release a sleeping darkness.
‘Michael is made an irresistible offer by an expansive man named Constantine Czerback. A gangster from Bulgaria, Con is seeking legitimacy and influence in his new, safer base in London. He seeks respect and finds a tool for this through his cultivation of the flamboyant and haughty Mayor of London.
Michael is well pleased at first but soon finds himself in a raging sea of illegality, of fake passports, illegal immigrants and much, much more… all the while he rationalizes these actions and events as somehow humanitarian.’
How would society, and human interactions, be different if we were each allowed one free killing of another? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, the narrator works as one of two designers at an athletic shoe factory. Ally, the other designer and a missed love interest, takes him to lunch to inform him their departments are being merged and she will be the head of the department. In effect, she will be his boss. After they leave the restaurant, the narrator decides to finally use his “one free kill” and shoots and kills Ally, not for love, he says, but for work.
You fell a long wayz
what more can i say
i can’t replace the love
it was never there
your tears get you no where
you think it isn’t fair
my feelings are gone
we will never be
why wouldn’t you see
walk away from the pain
try to stay sane
thinking of the times we had
woundering what went wrong
hearing our song
falling to your knees, begging please
just on more chance
i will change my life
hearing the wordz (It’s over)
Grabbing the knife, Slicing your wrist
trying not to miss, tears fill your eyes
saying your last goodbyes, praying to god
forgive me for all my syns
i just want to rise, now that your bleeding
looking at the sky, wanting to just fly
red water flows faster, out of your wrist
you start to fade away, just wish you had your last kiss
or just of missed your wrist
you realize you made a bad choice
Hearing that dark voice.
My scars are called disfiguring
and would be if
I were mere figure,
But I am phantom, angel and light!
My scars symbolize how I took flight
When death chased me
And failed to erase me.
And ten years later, a second scar that is
So close to the other
Celebrates that I am now called mother.
One scar meant life for a baby,
And the other meant life for me.
My scars–gnarled tree branches grown into the length of my belly,
And I am tree.
–Marcia McNair
The suicides
The abuse
The lies
The staying
The going
The school on hold
The tubes tide
The no other men
Bc of our family curse
Bc i thought i culd handle it
Bc i thought i was protectin u
Bc i thought i was filterin it from u
Bc i thought i was helpin you
Bc i thought you would b ok
Bc i thought you wuld survive
Bc i thought u wuld not catch it
Bc I LOVE SO MUCH
Bc I can
Bc you deserved better
Bc i wuld take the fall
Bc i culd live if u not suffer
Bc i culd if just knowing:
1 more day safe
1 more day free
1 more day drug free
1 more day alcohol free
1 more day a child of God Not disturbed
1 more day w the family
1 more day loved by others
1 more day becoming YOU
Bc you did not ask for that
Bc you did not ask for this
Bc i choose you You did not choose me
Bc i wil till
The day I die
Keep being what I be
By: Jacqueline Antinone
In the wind drift sweet memories
Tender fragments of you
To the honey-colored moon
They travel
A Radiant, bewitched moon.
Arduously seeping out of our radiant heart
A longing heart.
Yet inside
We, enveloped by a glorious light
Our souls unite
In one passionate embrace
Until infinity.
By Ileana D Vasquez
©2023IDV. All Rights Reserved
The beauty in her eyes
Challenged only by her heart
An adventuresome spirit
Floating above countless sorrow
Searing through eons of misconception
Glowing like golden rays of love
That betray evil in her midst
The shadows of darkness
Only to smile in the depths of despair
When all is lost
Never to enlist defeat
When hopelessness arrives
In full regalia resplendent
Her smile alone moves mounts of stone
While armies in faithful repose shout her name
To the high eloquent spirits of times gone by
Beg to ride on her wings of wishes
Infused with poetry and wine
As the sun rises to the birds of song
Little fossils.
Little lives.
Little me they all despise.
Little focus.
Little gin?
To… the end, where we begin.
Battered memories.
Barefaced bruises.
Thought invading as it chooses.
Clenching tension.
Shale for jaw.
Shards imploding.
Bone-strewn shore.
Tired evolving.
Fight not flight.
Burgess rejects haunt my night.
Under cover in the rain.
Drown the tears.
Drink the pain.
Still escaping
forces tidal,
The unfittest
of survivals.
Crave extinction.
End the era.
On this cliff face,
“now” draws nearer.
Undercurrents
sank emotion.
Punctuation,
Semi- colon;
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