Yellow softballs – the grapefruit – hang
Among brown branches and dusty green leaves.

Bitter they are,
From the night’s heat.

Then, some cool,
And when picked, halved
And scraped,
The night’s chill
Teases teeth, shocks.

Empty shells,
Cool to the touch,
A source ….

Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky, early December 2011

The women come out, and cross their arms across their chests.
Red housecoats, blue robes ….

The men come out, too, slouch to the side.
Jeans, t-shirts,
All stay back: sidewalks, porches, car sides ….

Blue lights revolve atop blue black white cars.

Yellow lights alternate atop green white vans.

Blue-suited men, brown-suited men,

Walk quickly, and then circle, a dance,

The circle narrowing:

The center – a man in a truck,

A man in a car:

Immigration?

Drugs?

Warrant?

Theft?

A combination?

He won’t dance.

The blue men and brown men speak in their circle,

Deciding who will walk, not dance, with him ….

Attached to him, fastened, connected ….

And the women drop their arms and go inside.

And the men, already inside ….

The TVs ,,, never off, never ….

Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky mid-February 2012

Sara is one of my favorite people.
She is probably the favorite person of everyone who has ever known her, being one of those people from whom sparks of life pop off like a Fourth of July sparkler. She has what the social pages might call “an infectious enthusiasm.” She also has a laugh that seems to originate from somewhere down near her toes, the kind of laugh that will save her from the grief of the social pages.

She was not in such good spirits the other day, however, when she asked if we could meet for coffee.

Sara looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. She looked like the essence of sadness, and this worried me. I asked after her husband (fine) and the children (good). And then I asked after her folks, who live in southern Tamaulipas, the Mexican state that borders Brownsville.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she sobbed. “My mom is dying,” she told me, “She is dying, and I don’t know what to do.”

I cursed, quietly, as I was all too familiar with this situation. Once again, a family tragedy had been made exponentially worse as it banged up against the lame-hearted, small-mindedness of our nation’s immigration politics.

Sara was in the midst of applying for residency in the United States, and she could not leave the area. If she crossed into Mexico, she would not be allowed back into the country. If she went to say farewell to her mom, she would, effectively, be saying farewell to her children, leaving them orphans, and to her husband, making of him, for all practical purposes, a widow.

Sara’s mom was dying and Sara couldn’t go give her a final blessing, Sara could not be with her mother to offer consolation during her last hours, Sara could not be with her mom as she died.

“My father,” Sara continued, “My father wants me to come and to be with him. He doesn’t understand why I can’t come, and he is furious with me. I don’t want him upset with me, not while my mom is dying. And my mom; I just don’t know what she must think of me.”

We spoke for a while more. We finished up our coffees. Sara looked a little bit better, though still so very sad. I told her that I would pray for her, not really knowing what that meant to her.

After Sara left me, I realized that she and I had actually been celebrating her mother’s last rites. The stories, the tears, the awful feeling of impotence in the face of death, and the sharing of that—that is what happens during last rites.

It was not enough by half, but it is what Sara could manage in this day and age, this woman who once upon a time, came to a strange land and founded her own family, leaving behind, once and forever, another family, which was her own as well.

Between these families, both deeply loved, flows a river. The river carries upon its back a boundary, which establishes the limits of a nation, and which is, as well, a barrier, upon which lies many a broken heart.

The banalities, the social graces,
The, “Oh, so nice to see you.”
Perfume and after-shave circle dresses and suits,
Down to the polished brown and black heels and shoes ….

Concert intermission, and I leave to take a piss under a distant palm.
Lights and moon yellow the black Resaca waters…
Helicopters edge the river, arcing, circling, dropping, rising,
Watching, a presence ….

Concert hall lights flicker,
I return, another glance at the clacking helicopters,
And the two violinists, one cellist, one violist
Glance at each other, tune high, tune low, and start ….

An art opening, with black and white city photos,
Splotchy colors of the border paintings,
A folk dance, art of deep Mexico – silver jewelry -
And red orange embroidered shirts
Hellos, air kisses, cheek kisses, deft hugs,
Perfume, after-shave ….

Time to go, and on humid block, litter-dotted street,
Two men, drunk and dirty, down beer,
Piling the cans aside their rotted stoop,
And a house away, a tattooed arm, needle-marked extends,
Cigarette in long fingers, red nails ….

Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky, late February 2012

“We’re having trouble taming this one, but luckily, we don’t really want to,” announced Jonathan Meiburg via a press release regarding Shearwater’s seventh full-length, Animal Joy. The LP notes also pointedly state that “No strings or glockenspiels were touched during the making of this album.” Harp was, however, so you’d be correct in guessing that Animal Joy isn’t quite the musical departure fleeting imaginations might have expected. The pace of the album by the principle trio of Austinites – singer/composer/guitarist Meiburg, with bassist Kimberly Burke and percussion dynamo Thor Harris – is robust, with guitars crackling feedback and the frontman’s voice strong and sure. Read More>>

LULU.com

VAO Publishing is accepting submissions for its upcoming title Border Noir: Hard-Boiled Fiction from the Southwest, edited by Álvaro Rodríguez, co-author of the recent film Machete. The anthology will be available in May 2012 in trade paperback and eBook form.

If you are interested in being part of this exciting project, you should submit your work through our submission form. Submission deadline is March 1, 2012.

Content Guidelines:
The simplest definition of noir is fiction that focuses on mostly amoral characters, that typically involves crime or misdeeds, and that evinces a bleak or fatalistic view of the universe. However, noir doesn’t have to be overly depressing or serious; in fact, black humor is often a secondary characteristic. And though noir usually features stripped-down, utilitarian prose, it doesn’t have to; a complex, dense and subtle style can also be used to create stories in this genre. Read More>>

I go by to deliver,  Glory Of Their Times,
To my at-least-eighty-years-of-baseball friend.

“He’s in bed, not well,” his worried – though she is clear, strong -
Wife says.

She goes to check on him, and tells him I’m there.

“But he wants to see you. Don’t go. Wait,” she says.

And he comes out, tall, coughing, wan.

“I have a book for you,” I say.

“I have your Joe DiMaggio book back for you, what a cad,” he says.

“You’ll like the guys in this book better,” I say.

“Smokey Joe Wood, Honus Wagner, Hank Greenberg, Fred Snodgrass. Twenty or so others. No modern players.”

He knows them all, and takes the book.

He hands me the DiMaggio.

She says, “Sorry, no cookies in the cookie jar.”

He says, “Yes, she’s right. I go out and buy them. Now, I can’t. Sorry.”

She tells me to go to the jar.

I do, lift the porcelian lid, look in – some white crumbs at the bottom.

“That’s ok, next time.”

He has turned to his room, book in hand.

She tells me to visit again, soon.

I tell her to tell him to get better.

“Come back soon,” she says.

“I will,” I promise.

I leave.

I can see him reading the Greenberg section, falling asleep, after recalling that he saw Greenberg hit a pennant-winning grand slam for the Tigers against the old Browns in St. Louis.

1945 it was ….

Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky, mid-January 2012