paintings by Susan Seddon Boulet, ATCs by Kerry.

Quotes, top to bottom, say:

Dream without limitation - claim your freedom (greeting card)

There is no old age. There is, as there always was, just you. (Carol Matthew)

Don’t compromise yourself - you’re all you’ve got. (Janis Joplin)

Cactus Flower

Changing Colors

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Here are two of Genece’s digital paintings that I framed in stained glass.   Kerry

This quiltie measures 5″ x 5″ and is my own design hand-painted on silk which I then hand quilted. My interpretation of the theme Fantasy for a swap on a textiles group. This is the third quiltie I have done so far and am fast becoming addicted to this small textile art form.

Jill

http://meanderingmuse.wordpress.com

by anita marie moscoso

Inspired By The Soul Food Cafe Writing Prompt

The Deserted Farm House

Photograph(s) copyright Shaun O’Boyle

Back along on Deception Road is a little farmhouse that no one lives in.

After the house was built and then put up for sale the orchard out back died, the little vegetable garden died and all of the pumpkins and squashes and tomatoes rotted right on their vines.

Even the flowers in the window boxes shriveled up and turned to dust within a day or so after they were set out and all the little farmhouse could do was slam its doors open and shut and make the clock in its kitchen strike twelve over and over again.

The man who built the farmhouse, Travis Janosik, use to stand out at the road and wonder what the hell was going on in there, why was it that nothing could live near that place without giving up the ghost.

There was nothing about Travis that would make you say, ‘you know that killer house? The one on Deception Road? It was built by Travis Janosik” and the person you would be talking to wouldn’t reply, “ Well of course it was a strange house. Look who built it.”

No, the house turned bad all by itself and this bothered no one more then Travis. What bothered him most of all  happened when the house was two years old.

That’s when someone actually bought it and moved in.

The ‘someones’ who bought the farmhouse were the Korbar Family.

Travis use to drive out to Deception Road and park across the way from the Farmhouse and watch it. He’d see Darius Korbar working the vegetable garden or see him sitting on the porch with one of the many children he and Mrs. Korbar had and they acted like any other family living in those hills.

Unless of course you really watched them the way Travis did.

At first he had no interest in the Korbar family. His interest was in that house and what it was up to now. It didn’t have to settle for killing plants and the odd field animal that got to close to its walls. Now it had the Korbar children who scuttled around the property in their ill-fitting clothes.

At least that’s how it looked but then Travis realized it wasn’t the clothes that didn’t fit right, it was the bodies inside the clothes that weren’t right.

The children’s heads were to large for their small bodies and their hands and feet didn’t seem to be the same size and when they talked Travis felt the hair rising up on his arms and the back of his neck and that’s when he’d cut his daily vigil off.

Once Travis saw Mrs. Korbar come down the front steps with a tall glass in her hand and make her way to the garden to where Mr Korbar was working. She handed him the glass and he kissed her cheek and then she made her way back up the steps and Travis watched her but didn’t notice that as she climbed the steps her head was tilted slightly backwards and her back was straight as a pole and she never bent her knees.

It was like she was gliding up the steps and not walking up them at all.
Towards the end of the summer the gardens were dead and rotten and Mr Korbar was out there working it like it as if it were alive and thriving. The ground was water logged and moldy with green slime. The vegtables were rotting and decayed and you could actually smell it when the wind shifted.

On top of the fact that Travis was watching a man harvest from a garden full of rotten vegetables he was also sure that some of that smell was coming from Mr Korbar too.

Travis promised himself after that visit he wouldn’t go near the Farmhouse on Deception Road. Something was wrong with it, something was wrong with the people living inside of it and Travis was certain if he didn’t stop going over there something would be wrong with him too.

Of course, it was too late because that something had already happened to Travis and he found himself standing at the end of the drive leading right up to the Farmhouse the next day.

He was in plain view and Mrs. Korbar must have seen him from one of her windows because he wasn’t there for long before she came down the steps and met him with a basket of rotting carrots and maggot filled tomatoes on her arm.

“ We never got the chance to thank you for building this wonderful house Mr Janosik. Its perfect and we love it so.”

Travis was looking into the basket of dead and decaying vegetables and he said, “ How could you love it so? Nothing can live inside of that thing…”

And Mrs. Korbar said, “ Well, Mr Janosik nothing does…”

Photograph(s) copyright Shaun O’Boyle

(The painting is a print by Susan Seddon Boulet)

Happy Mother’s Day, all you dear SFC ladies!

This is one of a series of pictures taken while riding from our apartmant building to the Christ the King Church and back home again.

My dad and I were on our way to the church to visit my mom and her parents and my dad’s parents. We intended to buy a bag of cotton candy (my mom loved cotton candy) and say a little prayer. But the parking lot was full as a mass was going on right then, so we just circled the parking lot and said our prayer right next to a cotton candy stand. Heh. (We didn’t get any though.)

You can see the rest of the pictures here. (However, the site doesn’t accept comments from outsiders so if you wish to comment, leave your comments here instead.)

A web of weird is cast –

Three sisters weave the wick:

Clothos, who spins the thread of human life,

Lachesis, who determines the length,

And Atropos, who cuts the thread of the quick.

Twisting raw fibers,

They form a cocoon,

Over and under, around and through:

They proclaim my fate and raise an alarm:

A mortal soul is born!

Mine is a cloth torn from the loom

As the spirits whirl and dance,

Chortling with glee.

Random misery is my lot –

I cannot escape the gods’ own curse.

I dwell in a cloud of blackness,

My innocence plucked from my youth.

Cancer of sorrow sprouts like a fungus

In the dank undergrowth of my mind.

Tangled, ensnared, choked by the ropes,

I claw at the garrote and pray,

“Great Norns, transform me!

Let me become uroboros,

Declaring, like the Scots queen,

‘In my end is my beginning.’”

Kerry Vincent © 1992

* * * * * * *

      Only a name.  Only a name and a piece of cloth.  Only a name and a piece of cloth to remember someone who lived and loved, someone who died of HIV-AIDS.

            This is the second time I will view a Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt exhibit.  I take a deep breath and begin the slow walk around the huge gymnasium.  Bright panels of leather and lame’, denim and sequins, hand-blocked letters remind me that persons with AIDS are more than Center for Disease Control statistics:  each one has a name and a personality and someone who will miss them.

            I recognize Ryan White’s name, but the panel that strikes me most displays simple yellow letters on black felt.  It says, “My name is Duane.  I was born in 1964.  I was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987.  By the time you read this, I will be dead.”

            A square of canvas and markers are provided so viewers can sign a quilt panel.  I see the name of someone I knew, Helena Henry Hatch, a fellow volunteer.  I went to her funeral.  Always dedicated to education and prevention, Helena requested that condoms be distributed for free after her funeral service. 

I write, “You teach me to honor the present.”

          Someone else has written, “Love is never wrong,” and “Love is not in vain.”

            My friend Jerry says hello and shows me the panel he sewed for his buddy Larry.  I give Jerry a hug and tell him I love him.  Jerry is caring, creative, talented, intelligent, he knew Janis Joplin during the original Summer of Love, and he is HIV +.  I don’t want to lose Jerry, too.  Ever the caregiver, he hands me a tissue.

            I tell Jerry, “You will always be more than just a number, just a name on a piece of cloth,”

            He kisses my forehead and thanks me for coming to honor his friends.

* * * * * * * *

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

I wrote this piece about 15 years ago.  Jerry died in 1999.  I made his panel for the Names memorial quilt.

Kerry

By Kerry Vincent © 2008

            Josh really didn’t want to waste an afternoon driving out to the country, but Amy begged him to, and he really liked Amy. 

            “We don’t have to stay very long, Josh, just enough to set up Aunt Lou’s new computer.  You can set up a workstation in your sleep,” Amy reminded him.

            “OK.  As long as she doesn’t make us stay for dinner or something like that.  You know how lonely old ladies are – they just want to talk you to death,” Josh grumbled.

            “In and out, I promise,” Amy said.

            They turned down the gravel road that led to Aunt Lou’s log cabin.  Athena, a yellow lab, ran out to greet them, barking like crazy.  Isis, a calico cat sleeping on the porch, barely looked up at the visitors.  The young people got out and walked up to the porch, dodging homemade wind chimes and ducking under low-hanging baskets of pansies. 

Amy knocked on the front door, which was painted turquoise and coral.  “Aunt Lou loves the desert look,” Amy explained.

            “I can tell,” Josh said, looking at a bleached cow skull nailed above the mailbox.  “This is kind of creepy.”

            “Oh, Josh, she’s just a harmless little old lady.  She probably just got a computer so she can see pictures of the grandkids or shop QVC online.  Just get the machine set up, and we can get back in time to watch American Idol.”   

            Aunt Lou welcomed them.  “Hello, Amy, and this must be your young man, Josh…Come in, come in…Can I get you some tea?  Juice?  Coca-Cola?”

            “Just water is fine, Aunt Lou,” Amy said.

            “Alright.  The computer’s in there, on the dining room table.  Take a look,” said Aunt Lou, and trotted off to the kitchen.  She came back with three glasses of ice water and a plate of gingersnaps.

            Josh was impressed with the hardware, the deluxe laser printer, although he thought so much memory would be a waste for Aunt Lou – she didn’t even play video games.  She had a nice set up.  He clicked on the Control Panel, made some adjustments, tested the Internet connection, plugged in some wires, and in less than 15 minutes, he announced, “You’re good to go.  Want me to bookmark some Favorites for you or anything?”

            “Oh, no, dear, I think I can figure that out myself.  As long as I can get to my email and the Internet, I can take it from there.  I want to get in touch with some of my retired teacher friends.  They can walk me through if I get stuck.”

            “Sweet,” Josh said. 

            “I suppose you young people have better things to do than sit with an old gal like me,” Aunt Lou said.  “Run along now.  I’ll be fine.”

            “I worry about you getting bored out here,” said Amy. 

“I’m fine – and now I can write my friends emails – thanks to you!  Don’t worry about me.  My life may not seem exciting to you, but I’m happy,” Aunt Lou said.

“Well, then, if you’re OK, I guess we’ll take off.  Good-bye, now….”  Amy and Josh went to the car and drove off. 

            “Do you think Aunt Lou gets lonely, living out there in the sticks all by herself?” Josh asked.

            “I dunno – she never complains,” Amy said.  “She’s got her hobbies, her painting and crocheting, and now she can email her old school cronies if she gets too bored.  I guess when you get old, you slow down, and don’t need much excitement anymore.”

Back at the cabin, Aunt Lou had the Internet fired up, ready to surf.  She laughed out loud and said, “Look out, Lemuria, here I come!”

Trembling at my threshold,

I dare to discover what lies behind the door,

The tightly-shut, but unlocked door.

Opening it, I see

My psyche in shambles.

I sigh and say,

“Where do I begin?”

The floor is littered with

The dust of illusions,

Shattered shards of time,

Remnants of lost dreams,

Tufts of hair pulled out in battles,

The wood stained with tears and blood.

“I must clean up this mess, but how?”

I search shy corners

For a soul-sweeping broom,

Finding only a small whisk broom.

I use it to form a tiny dust pile,

Creating a bit of order out of chaos,

Already perspiring, though my work has just begun.

Soon I feel weak, worn, and weary,

Unable to fathom how I will dump

All the dirt I have gathered so far.

“I don’t need all the answers at once!”

I remind myself.

My job, for now, for today,

Is merely to sweep,

Evenly, carefully,

One short stroke at a time.

One small square at a time.

Eventually I make a clean sweep,

The floor looks great!

I smile, straighten my sore back,

Put my hand on my hip proudly, and boast,

“Look at what I accomplished!”

I step and glide and perform on my polished floor,

Then sit, and rest, a sip some tea, satisfied at last.

Until, naturally,

More dust and dirt appear.

I get my broom and begin again,

Sweeping, sweeping,

An ancient ritual against

An eternal enemy.

By Kerry Vincent

© 1993