Volume 17 Issue 19 – Section 1

A Dusty Memory

Winnie Lugerson was on her way home from the Christian Women’s Circle luncheon when her car began to shimmy and make a loud flapping sound. A flat tire.

Habits

I am a silent person / brief by nature / imparting things / unaccustomed to clamor

Red Scarf

The small pictures / the moments / of a red scarf / on the woman hanging / up a white sheet a museum tableau

Winter

Winter is an aging red-haired neighbor / who tosses rock salt out an upstairs window / across her porch roof

Braille Reader

You caress my poem / between finger and thumb; / I hear the scrape of skin / as your fingertips slide / from ocular shadow into light.

A Weed by Any Other Name

He is her proverbial bad penny, / bad seed, bad dog.

Leaving Waupun

The geese are returning too early / from the south. I want to tell them / their optimism is unfounded.

Swings

“Hang up the swing of love today!” ~ Kabir / What kind of swing / would that be, / Kabir?

Last Wall Standing

we took pictures / as the old factory building / was demolished

Tamaracks

It’s the afternoon of the harvest ball; / the tall girls are donning their golden gowns, / twirling this way and that

Old Love

In lust, we called it love during summer nights / when young, wild heartbeats mimicked feelings true.

Angel Fire

the mystery of cornstalks / murmuring among themselves / a brown-skinned man / in orange serape / walking between them

A Simple Harmony Brings Me to My Knees

Just two voices keyed close for eternity / and our children running brave and free / across sunset grass.

Presque Vu

Mid-spring morning, yet with Wisconsin’s winter lethargy its still 42 degrees, overcast. I wake begrudgingly at 6:00 for Zero Hour class: Advanced Placement Government.

Untitled

We pull out of the driveway of my grandparents’ house as I unwrap a Kit-Kat nearly melted from waiting so long for the goodbyes. No opening our candy until we pulled out of the driveway.

Naked As They Come

I don’t like to be naked. It’s not that I’m ashamed of my body. In fact, I think I look better naked than in clothes. But my tendency toward prudishness might rival Queen Victoria.

Painter, Painter

Zero, the stray cat living on the porch, witnessed all of our arguments the third summer we lived in the old house by the gravel pit. Not one neighbor could be seen from our rented home so you could paint unbothered.

The Roller Rink

She trotted down the railroad ties, adjusting her stride so she could skip one and land on the next. The rails slithered ahead of her in the bright moonlight, a pair of silver snakes. Her younger cousin Louie, who she pressed into going along with her or she would not have been allowed to go at all, wheezed and snuffled behind her whining at her to slow down.

2011 Judges

Ron Kuka, Faculty Associate and Creative Writing Program Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, judged the fiction category for this year’s Hal Grutzmacher’s Writers’ Expose.

2011 Prizes

The Peninsula Pulse would like to thank the generous businesses and individuals that donated prizes to this year's Hal Grutzmacher’s Writers’ Exposé and Photography Jubilee.

A Dangerous Business

Cliché would have us believe that writers, poets, and photographers rest on public park benches with a cup of coffee while recording musings or snapping photos of the horizon.

Honoring Harold (Hal) Grutzmacher

Writing about the Chicago Cubs and studying the Romantic poets: Harold (Hal) Grutzmacher’s literary passions. The diverse personality of the man, the reader, the writer, the poet, the columnist, the critic, the editor, the teacher, and the bookstore owner this issue honors is reflected in the varied creative works throughout the following pages.