Submission Sixty-Six

"The Hand that Speaks Images" ~ Anonymous

Submission Sixty-Five

Saw a lovely lady at a bus stop with this backpack and requested to take a photo.
She agreed and thus,submitted it to my project.



HAVE HOPE

Smile Dolls!

Take a moment to listen to your favorite song many times and dance!

Submission Sixty-Four

Call Me A Leaf

Every fall I take notice of the leaves. They become so vibrant just before they take the flight on the blustering wind express. Eventually they become settled in and wither or whirl away.

I look at life just as I look at a leaf. Look closely at their veins. They have so many paths and patterns, like our many journeys they connect to others. But all the lines eventually come to an end. In the end there is splendid color in the preparation to “fall”. I believe our spirits do the same.

Recently I’ve noticed the imprint of fallen leaves on the cement paths of downtown. Shadows, so beautiful, where they were alone or were connected, then whirled away by a blower or breeze. Even after the leaf was gone the shadow remained.

Spring comes again for another chance at life, just like our journey if you believe in such things.

Enjoy this beautiful time, be peaceful in your winter slumber and look forward to awakening in the spring, anew!

~Submitted and Written By: Josie Leahy-Brooks

Submission Sixty-Three

He sees me still

Circumstances keep us apart
Me in the hospital
Greeting new faces every twelve hours
for six days
Him home sick unable to come.

Fate would have it
day thirteen comes while I am away
He isn't there to see me
on the Most Dreaded Day.

I leave this place
a woman changed, different though the same

Anticipating his arrival
I forget myself
I shop for dinner amongst strangers
that won't know the difference
nor care.

Driving home though
my breath begins to catch in my throat
panic and fear strangling me
What if this changes everything?
What happens if he looks at me
and can't see ME any more?

Dried tears on my lashes
I turn to greet him at the door
His hair is gone too and he sees me still
and he holds me tight
while we cry together.

Cindy Scillo
December 5, 2009
Day 15 after my first round of chemo

Submission Sixty-Two

Photo By: Josh Hagan

Mightier II - early 2009

The written word,
As in the pen,
Is mightier than the sword.
It is sharp, concise, and to the point.
It is blunt and harsh.
Words can wound even the toughest,
Can pierce the heart.
All of which a sword is capable.
Malicious and cruel.
But words are mightier.
They can heal the stabbed heart,
Amend.
Words can patch up the evil wrought.
And in that sense,
Let the pen
Be mightier than the sword.

Submission, Poem, & Modeling By: Briauna M. Graeber

This model often writes poems and then has photographers focus on her poem to be the theme of the photo shoot. Some of the photos that have come from this are just amazing. It creates a visual to go with words. They walk hand and hand to create something beautiful and truly unique.

Submission Sixty-One

I was born ugly. The soot and dew of a wash away city like Seattle-

stained my forhead.

Years would come and go



in and out, the doors revolving like a bandsaw alphabet

it was hard to hold on,



i did not speak the same language as the others,

my mouth was broke as porcelain



i spoke deft kitchen table philosophy



the kind spoken with father after he's got a few glasses in

I asked questions-

questions about

oceans, phylums, genus's,

about movies, about

sunken eyes, do they disinigrate like shipwrecks?



we spoke in incomplete's,

in predicates, I stuttered

I rapture dyslexic

Homonym prophetic selective

etiquette, where stars dad come from?

where did the teachers lose me?



clearly my kitchen talk

philosophy was like looking at the alphabet barely

eaten and wasted, bloodied and

meat still at the bones



so they force fed me more

I entered rooms with no doors



with big clumsy computers yelling robotic english lessons at me

the teachers stood behind,

the world stood behind me,

with gun and stop watch

as i typed the sentences

"Marie walks to the park, with her dog

Marie wlaks to teh prk--her dog with

////////////////////////

Marie ash walked, her dog with park

Marie

Marie has

Marie dgo park and walked

Marie

park

--and what they didn't know

was that when i went home

to schizophrenic times tables

that spoke backwards and with a hiss

and i read their books

practiced their equations

Dug a grave with the syllables

-I spoke pretty for a society of ghosts

I held that pen in my mouth like Hamlet held Yorick

Am I Am I am I am I am I am I am I?

i spoke like a gun contemplating its bullets birth

the ears bless(ed) and will be, I told my father we are

what we are what we are

I said I am I am

i told everyone who would listen

I am! I not them? REad, yes, write, math arithmetic

But no one ever asked me

the right questions

I made sure to ask my father

all of them

why

why this earth? my mouht?

this school? this empty notebook? what happens to the words when in the air?

are they lost before crash landing on another's ear?

Do i talk funny because my words are in fightdogs fightdogs

fightdogs I mean I mean I mean

why is the air heavy?

consuming?

Do words die?

Do words die?

Then where do they live?

.

~Andrew Pine