“Hey, so—I don’t want you to get mad,” he started.

Tillie watched, high in her balcony box, as two sides of the red curtain chastely kissed at center stage. Wisps of blonde started to untangle themselves from the French braid her mother had woven her a few hours before. Her heart pounded, fresh off the cliffhanger that ended act one. She wondered where the lead actress went; what magnificent, bright dressing room she retreated to, filled with roses and peonies and Perrier. I could do that. I could sing those songs and act that part and everyone would watch me and wonder where I went and wait and wait and wait for me to come back. She swung her legs at the marvel.

            “You’ve got this one long hair,” he muttered, eyes slanted away, fixed on the stately older couple leaving their booth.

            I bet she’s dating two guys and I bet they’re both in the cast and they hate each other’s guts but she laughs all sparkly, like diamonds falling out of God’s hand and they don’t care; they just love her and want to kiss her. And she knows it. Oh, she knows it but she can’t quite decide who kisses best. “My braid is loose,” she said, reaching for her program. Her head jerked forward, suddenly.

            “It’s on your chin,” he said, and she realized he was tugging it now, and again, like a puppet. He released his grip and Tillie felt at her jawline, slowly, looking at him. “I just wanted you to be aware so you could take care of it…before anyone else sees, ok?” He stopped, trying to read her. “I’m gonna go get a drink. You want anything?” She didn’t respond. “Don’t be mad, now,” he chastised, eyes on the exit. The mouth of his chair flapped shut as he climbed up the stairs.

            Tillie glanced toward the empty stage. She could see the bright orange tape of spike marks now in the light. She took the program, carefully unfolding it on her skirt. She forced her eyes to turn an achingly slow arc around the entire theater, then cupped her chin with both hands and read every line of the actress’ biography. She read it twice, three times. She memorized it. She put her name in instead. She stared at the stage and spoke it aloud, letting her fingertips touch at her skin, reaching, smoothing, until the tape lines blurred and the tech crew disappeared and only, only the red velvet remained.

Christy Jones is a Minnesotan poet, singer, actress, and playwright. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University, and also holds degrees in Vocal Performance and Philosophy. She has an unabashed love for musical theater, linguistics, Columbo, and the superiority of Duck, Duck, Gray Duck to Duck, Duck, Goose.

    
It was September of my junior year in college, a week after Jimi died from an accidental overdose and a week before Janis would ride out on a midnight rail.  It was just two years since MLK and RFK had been killed.  Nixon still wanted us to go and kill Vietnamese men, women, and children to keep the world safe for capitalism.  There didn’t seem to be much risk in risk-taking.

     I felt so experienced at twenty years of age and twenty trips that I agreed to drop acid with this guy, Deck, who I knew had a car and high-quality stuff.  He was very rich — the Georgetown student body was incredibly wealthy. I didn’t fully get that ‘til senior year when I had a girlfriend from Palm Beach.  Deck was even more self-centered than most of us and he was attracted to experiments – he once anonymously (but not hard to guess) deposited 10K (68K in 2022 dollars) in another student’s bank account.  Ha-ha!

     There were three other Georgetown guys with us on this trip–two fairly nerdy guys I had never met and another junior I met freshman year when he was introducing himself as Gale Sayers, the superstar running back for the Bears. His real name was Daniel McCormack.  As a freshman Dan had struggled some with Erik Erikson’s fifth stage of psychosocial development: identity vs. role confusion.

     We wanted to be tripping on the beach at dawn but we left a bit late — around 4:30 after some nighttime booze and weed.  It was two and a half hours to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.  On a nicely hidden dune we dropped the acid and smoked some PCP.  Yes, a bit much.  We lifted off around 7:30. We found a good spot on the beach to drop our stuff and I started wandering by myself.

     At some point I found myself hip-deep in the ocean where the sunlight was shining across the water, right at me.  I was there for who knows how long but I slowly realized that I am the son of God, not just me, but all of us are the sons and daughters of God just as Jesus was except that Jesus really got it!!  So, the trinity is really the creator, all of us, and the Holy Spirit! 

     I was very grateful for this revelation and inspired even more than before to follow Jesus–not to worship- but to follow or accompany.

     As I began to return to temporal consciousness I turned from the ocean, now my Jordan river.  I asked a thirtyish woman sitting in a beach chair what time it was.  I had dilated pupils, crazy long hair and was wearing boxers but she was cool.  She told me 9:30, which seemed impossibly early.  I had been here only two hours?

     I walked slowly back to our base.  Dan approached me and asked, “do we all have to drown now?”  Ah, I thought, the psychedelic meltdown. This is going to be a challenge. Good thing I just learned that I am a child of God and a channel of love.  I reassured him that no, we didn’t have to drown, we didn’t even need to wade in the water.

     I asked Dan why he would think we had to drown.  He told me that when he was six he was at the beach with his family and his four year old brother drowned.  So, was it now his turn? 

     Whooof! I silently and quickly asked for help from the Holy Spirit, the communion of saints, St. Patrick, and Jiminy Cricket because I knew that Deck wouldn’t care and the other two didn’t know Dan and were too befuddled.

     I told Deck we had to leave.  We walked over the dunes toward the parking lot where I saw a melting mass of multi-colored metal.  Melting metal was somehow not as pleasant as the gently breathing turf I had enjoyed on previous trips. I couldn’t believe how high I still was—and I made a mental note to avoid the acid/angel dust combo in the future, maybe avoid any of that.  I felt at the limit of my ability to maintain myself, never mind take care of Dan.

     Sunday traffic. Lots of it.  Four hours to return to D.C. I was in the middle of the back seat with Dan, reassuring him repeatedly that he was safe, we were all safe in the car and that we would get back to our homes.  I wondered how the fuck Deck was able to drive.  It hit me later.  He probably hadn’t taken that much of the drugs—it was another experiment where he could observe us.  Or he had been tripping so regularly that he had high tolerance and couldn’t get off that much.  Or he was the devil. 

     We finally got back to DC., nearly back to ground level.  Dan was still struggling with survival guilt and the cosmic blues.  I brought him into his house. Fortunately, two of his housemates were there.  One went upstairs with Dan and I filled in the other guy. It seemed like a safe handoff.

     Dan didn’t finish the semester.  He had to take a medical leave and went home to South Bend where he later graduated from Notre Dame.

     I went back to my dorm room exhausted but warmed by the glow of my oceanic experience. It didn’t take me long to develop reservations about an LSD/PCP facilitated revelation. I knew I would need to explore spiritual reality more seriously and step away from combustive drug mixtures.  

     It took me twenty years to get to an AA meeting, sobriety, and a relationship with my higher power.  More has been revealed, but the Rehoboth experience has always stayed with me.

    
James Hannon writes about his experience fifty years ago on a Delaware Beach.

I think in haiku
Not that I’m intending to
Just how my thoughts form

A poem descending
Fully formed and intact
For all to read

Without a pen near
My mind is my haiku scribe
Till one is found

Poetry
In motion
In my mind

I linger with grief
Constant companion, of late
We’re well acquainted

Grief is a rip tide
A tenacious undertow
Then the tide goes out

I miss being one
Half of a couple in love
With being in love

I miss having a
Live-in partner for Scrabble
Or heart-to-heart talks

I miss being part
Of a family under
One roof not two

Christmas memories
Unpacked with each ornament
Hung upon the tree

I have no stocking
To hang by the fireplace
Nor a fireplace

I cannot bear to
Watch one more Hallmark movie
About Christmas joy

More than fifty years
Since this idyllic-summer-
wind-swept day

Time is suspended
I can feel the sandy beach
And hear the seagulls

I have your hands with
Their twisted pointer-fingers
I see you in them

Your taste on my lips
Salty yet sweet with memory
Tears of mourning

I have lost you a
Thousand times over again
Yet you return

Love is favorite jeans
Time worn, mended in places
Easy second skin

Falling asleep to
The sound of company from
The other room

Lavender scented
Bar of soap by the bedside
Gentle nighttime waft

There aren’t enough bells
From here to eternity
To toll for your life

As you lay purring
Loudly, fervently to me
I feel your love-song

Jennifer Gurney lives in Colorado where she teaches, paints, writes and hikes. She is a newly published poet. Her first sixteen poems have just been published in late 2022 / early 2023, at age 59. During the pandemic she joined the online poetry community of The Daily Haiku. Poetry has been a lifeline.

The cacophonous alarm clock’s jangling
Announces the commencement of another day
A laborious struggle to toil, to earn, to remunerate
The never-ending bills that seem to perpetually stay

The frenzied morning rush, a hectic pace
As we hasten to get to our station
In the rat race, the interminable chase
For success, for recognition, for a more palatable taste

The quotidian grind, a tedious chore
But we persevere, pushing through the door
For a sense of purpose, a raison d’être
For the dreams that keep us alive, and never let us forget

But sometimes, the struggle takes its toll
Leaving us fatigued, burnt out, and isolated
Yet we continue on, through the highs and lows
For the hope of a better tomorrow, and a chance to evolve

So let us persevere, and find the fortitude
To keep on working, through any duration
For in the end, it’s worth the struggle
To live our lives with purpose, with meaning, with fortitude.

Charles Ho Wang Mak is a PhD Candidate and a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Glasgow. He lives in Glasgow, Scotland, where he starts to admire poetry.

All I can do right now
is feel the softness
of the unfolding sheet,
and breathe the freshness
of its herbal scent.

All I can do is to watch
the plants in the sink
come back to life
as they are drenched with water
from the mineral-rich earth.

All I can do is listen
to the frogs and crickets,
and watch the fireflies
glow yellow, green and orange
around my head.

All I can do is admire
the gracefully twisting bamboo
in the kimono vase,
and know that beauty
surrounds me at all times.

All I can do is pick up
fallen limbs in my yard,
and be grateful
that I can lift them
and carry them to the pile.

All I want to do,
all I wish I had done,
all I fear not ever doing,
imprison me behind
a wall of despair,

and so all I can do is wonder
at the dragonfly on my fence
as it spreads iridescent wings
and, with thousands of lenses,
observes my fear.

Diane Elayne Dees lives in Covington, Louisiana, just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. Though known as a poet, she has also written her share of fiction and creative nonfiction. Diane also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world.

Let go of sand
and it becomes
so many different things—
grit, floating diamonds,
a damp mass, dust,
a bed of comfort.
A poem is like sand—
let it go.

Diane Elayne Dees lives in Covington, Louisiana, just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. Though known as a poet, she has also written her share of fiction and creative nonfiction. Diane also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world.