It wasn’t until a government agent called me that I realized I was somebody else. Not an impostor exactly, but something like that. Since birth, I had been Jane Coffin Bradley, a moniker I bore through jibes at my lugubrious middle name and easy jabs like Jane the Pain. If I parried with Jane the Brain, it fell flat, and living in Indiana, it was useless to claim kin with the historic Coffins of Nantucket. (Nantucket was more famous as the launch of a naughty schoolyard limerick.) Once, when I was seven or so, I … Continue reading The Name Game by Jane Bradley→
Roman Sirotin, a native of Saint Petersburg, Russia is a multi-media artist drawn to beauty in many realms. A dancer, painter and photographer now living in Columbus, Ohio, Roman moved to America over a decade ago. In 2010, he began a creative collaboration with Columbus artist and dancer Jennifer Gordon. Together, they dance, paint and photograph dramatic images, many of abandoned buildings and stark spaces in the U.S. and abroad. “Abandoned places appeal to me due to the beauty of its decay and the atmosphere it gives off. They allow for moments of transcendence … Continue reading Roman Sirotin: Abandoned Beauty…→
The other day I walked out to my mailbox. There was an official letter from the City of Los Angeles parking violations bureau. Hmmm. I know what this is about. My daughter has not paid a past due traffic ticket. I’m irritated. I told her about this ticket two months ago. In my head I begin to compose my text to her: Why didn’t you pay this ticket? It’s now gone up over a hundred and fifty dollars. How can you neglect to take care of this? It’s not responsible. What’s with the self-inflicted financial … Continue reading Revising the Text→
BEYOND THE PULPIT The Dreaming I am a retired minister. That is what the umbrella title for the occasional pieces that may appear in this space refers to. It is fair warning that what I write about may have something to do with religion, though what that something will be remains to be seen and may not be immediately recognizable or easily definable. For example, this week’s subject matter: My wife and I recently spent a Saturday morning at the Kluge Ruhe Museum. Kluge Ruhe is a small treasure located in the Pantops area of … Continue reading The Dreaming by Jim Bundy→
Artist Richard Crozier’s works are subjects of change…change of seasons, change of light, change of landscape and skyline. Over the past four decades, he has produced more than 3000 “portraits” of the Charlottesville area in transition. In 2011, Crozier retired as professor of studio art from UVa’s McIntire Department of Art, where since 1974, he’d taught beginning drawing and advanced painting and became known for his encouraging and engaging style. He continues to paint daily, producing up to five scenes a week. “The thing that interests me a lot are landscapes that are in … Continue reading Subject to Change: Paintings by Richard Crozier→
Sometimes a trip starts out innocently. You may not even know you’ve departed. (1963) On summer vacation, a boy and his family travel to the college town on the northern coast. He’s an adolescent, incarcerated for the past year by pimples and prairie, his father having moved them from suburbia to prison – a prison without walls, more accurately with the invisible walls of an ethnic enclave, and him with his driver’s license still several years away. All of this has made the vast flat plain fairly terrifying. The day after they arrive in New … Continue reading Tourist by Jim Krosschell→
No longer just “cumen in” summer is with us, all reds and greens and gold (did I leave out anything?) Oh yeah, and the latest issue of Streetlight. Soon to appear in these very pages. As it were. We’re all tourists in this world and right now, right in this spot, it’s a good place to be. We hope to prolong our visit. Oh yeah, and the pond is back. Apparently they weren’t eradicating it, when the fences went up and the earth movers came in, they were just digging it out. We were pretty … Continue reading Summer Has Come In→
Del was in the kitchen, opening the bottle of wine his second wife Catherine had given him earlier in the day. The cork kept splitting, the sign of a true amateur, he thought, except that he was an amateur in few areas of his life these days, unless you counted the endless pursuit of happiness—or rather, the achievement of that happiness—as one such minefield. But perhaps this time happiness was just around the corner, in the literal and figurative form of Juliana. “What are you doing?” Juliana’s voice drifted in around the corner of the … Continue reading Home Schooling by Sydney Blair→
Back from Wales To headline news of health care, guns, and Syria, the coastal path slipped away, sea breeze ceased, only traffic noise, but I remember— Ahead of me behind me dominion over roads runs the hard brown path that scores cliffs, heather, gorse, and thrift, that joins villages and masters fog. Walkers I pass have small drugged smiles, sheep mill and dine in ordinary splendor. How perfect the Kestrel kiting, brown triangle pinned to sky, backlit feathers steady, spread, balanced with wind, only the head shifts in his search of prey, then unpinned … Continue reading Back from Wales by Marti Snell→
Home Schooling “What are you doing?” Juliana’s voice drifted in around the corner of the living room, coming to rest finally in his willing ear. He had left her on the green chintz couch with the cat, reading Ovid. “Opening some wine.” The cork split a final time and Del pushed it down into the bottle with a jab. He poured two glasses, fishing out bits of cork that floated … Continue reading Coming Soon! Previews of Summer Issue→
Streetlight Magazine is the non-profit home for unpublished fiction, poetry, essays, and art that inspires. Submit your work today!
