In the Valley of the Bones The hand of HASHEM was upon me; it took me out by the spirit of HASHEM and set me down in the midst of the valley—and it was filled with bones…He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones! Say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of HASHEM!’ Thus said the Lord HASHEM/ELOHIM to these bones: Behold, I will bring a spirit into you, and you will come to life. I will put sinew upon you, and I will coat you with skin; then I will put a … Continue reading Butter, Bread, Beethoven: I Remember My Father by Cora Schenberg→
Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. We are not handed a guide at birth entitled Fail-proof Steps to Living This Life. As such, I’ve lived most of my life through a lot of trial and error—heavy on the error side. I’ve also learned that sometimes I just have to take the next right step and try not to run the entire marathon at once. I’m getting ok with that practice. There is a source that I go to often for life advice. Poet Mary Oliver never fails to enlighten me or ease my weariness. She … Continue reading Taking the Right Step by Cheryl Traylor→
Impostor I am in the dirt and the dirt is in me I am the flow of me recently From the valley insignia clay came I From the mountain foot crust came I Am I the son of two righteous souls? Am I not the path my feet were put on? A path of mirrors, of arrows lined Who told me to set foot here? Who formed my face just so? I feel my heart say this and that I see my tracks run about and I do not know mine from mine I … Continue reading Impostor by Caleb Coy→
2017 was an amazing year for Streetlight Magazine owing to the excellent content submitted by writers and poets from all over the world. Our editors chose six nominees for The Pushcart Prize (best of small presses) for excellent writing in non-fiction, poetry, and short fiction. We would like to publicly acknowledge these six authors for their incredible talent and wish them future success. Thank-you for allowing Streetlight Magazine to publish your work! Essay/Memoir nominees: Alex Joyner for Spirit Duplicator Anne Carle Carson for Sliding Poetry nominees: Linda Nemec Foster for Blue Brian Koester for Where … Continue reading 2017 Pushcart Nominations→
A white pigeon sat in the gutter, waiting. Her wings were folded up like sails of a ship at anchor, her head bobbing in a sea of cobblestones. Slobodanka stopped, crouched down and peered into the bird’s brown almost red eyes. They blinked at each other. She reached out her hand slowly towards the bird, expecting it to fly away, but it didn’t move. The pigeon was like silk, smooth and shiny, her body firm and substantial under the girl’s fingers, weighted with warmth. She set her books down, looked up and down the street, … Continue reading Pigeon Girl by Sara Alaica→
(Unless otherwise noted, all paintings are watercolor/mixed media on hand-felted wool and rice paper.) I am kind of an image junkie, especially images of the subconscious or dream state. I became interested in art as a teenager and the Surrealists were who I found first. I began my actual art career working in fibers. In undergraduate school at Virginia Commonwealth University, I was a weaver and felt-maker and worked with many materials and textures. I taught all of these processes as well as papermaking and became enamored with paper, the simple beauty and … Continue reading The Art of Linda Laino→
Still Life In the painting Ram’s Head with Hollyhock there is a melding of bones and sky and desert, no beginning or end, just the eye sockets of a skull transfixed on the faraway and in the foreground, red hills and cedar. I imagine O’Keefe walking in the desert at night, catching a glint at her feet—a shell, a stone— and stooping to gather it up, discovering the bleached bones of a skull, vast and empty and beautiful, like her desert. She must have rotated it in her hands that night under the moon … Continue reading Still Life and Equinox, 2 Poems by Jo Kennedy→
Mopsy, our beloved cat of mixed origins and numerous partners, had just had another litter of kittens—this time only four. She had amazed us the previous two times with six, all beautiful and now in good homes. We gave our new little ones the easily identifiable names of Brownie, Whitey, Stripey, and Junior—Junior looking very much like his mother, grey-mixed. They were beautiful kittens and we loved all of them; however, no one loved them as much as my brother BB. He gave them additional names other than the obvious ones—Mudface, Snowflake, Superman, and Hercules. … Continue reading Four Kitten Alarm Fire by James Carbaugh→
Last week was a mess! Well, at least that’s what I’ve been told. In my purpose-coaching practice, I had four clients in a row who used the word “mess” to describe their life these days. One client said, “because I’m at a job that requires me to be professional all the time, I have to constantly appear as if things are together but underneath it all, I am a fucking mess.” Another client spoke about how his artistic perfectionism doesn’t allow for anything to get messy and yet he went on to describe his myriad … Continue reading The Purpose of Mess: Food for Your Life by Day Schildkret→
Smoke When it’s almost too dark to see, my uncle sits out on the back porch, rolling a cigarette, holding it up to his mouth for the lick. He’s trying to remember a boy from the next farm lowered beneath the sod in a slow rain fallen more than fifty years ago. Striking the sunset of a match, his worn face flares up an instant. The green wicker chair creaks when he settles back, head at rest against the siding, white smoke clouded around him, coffin lining. Taking another drag, he picks tobacco from … Continue reading Smoke by Ronald Stottlemyer→
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