Academy of the Heart and Mind

By Ginette Pestana and James Aitchison The image was created by my wife GINETTE PESTANA.  We are a husband-and-wife photographer-writer team, GINETTE PESTANA and JAMES AITCHISON, touring the world and experiencing all kinds of memories and images. Am I a photo or am I a painting? A piece of digital mischief or just a quirky canvas?

By Craig Kirchner Originally Published in Chiron Review, Summer ‘24 Sparrows gathered on the veranda, we eavesdropped on nearby lovers, hand fed one another tapas, swigged lewd licks on Czech beer. Under the table you hiked your skirt, opened your thighs around my knee, animated codes with delicate hands,laughed about our first time. Surrounded by leg, birds, crumbs,and curious voyeurs wanting…

By David Lavenda It’s a choice—or is it?I’m simultaneously the windshield and fly, already speeding toward it.White, oblong solid.100mg, stamped—miniature epitaph—designed to stop the hammeringbetween my ribsthat nails me to sheets—pillows, blankets.Taste of bitter promise,the throat constricts around what mustbe swallowed.I cave to gravity—the mattress learning my shape,iron on my tongue—the…

By Angela Lam If I wrote for late night TV, I might have submitted this script for The Daily Show:  Jon Stewart flourishes his blue pen across the blue page. When the intro music stops, he says, “Forget politics! Let’s discuss family matters.” When the audience laughs, Jon points to the overhead video of Rose Hernandez Turpin sitting across from her mother, Angela Lam, during a get-together…

By L.S. Engler First appeared in Bowlful of Bunnies, June 2012 Possum, Rabbit, and Prairie Dog had all gone to the river to do the washing, and I had followed to watch them. The sun was bright in the cornflower sky, and hot, so after they had dunked the clothes in the gentle rushing stream, after they had scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, they laid them out on the big flat rocks that had been…

By Brandon Sharp I’m not saying that there’s a convenient time for someone to die, but.  This takes the cakes baked from Brooklyn to Barstow.  I’m on schedule to the nanosecond this morning when my sister calls me and tells me Auntie died.  Just like that she tells me, no warning.  —Auntie Alma is no longer with us, she says.  —Your family needs you.  I know you’ll do the right thing,…

By F.S. Blake Swollen riverbankscarry branches to new groundI drift but don’t sink.Next year could be worse,another autumn of pain,but hopefully peace.No more ornaments,after this year’s Christmas daysthey stay packed away.Bathed in dreamy light,I am alone on a beach,joined by my new dreams.weekend after next maybe we go ice skating till then we can text F.S. Blake is a Bronze Star decorated…

By Ben Macnair A salt water wash.A deeper blue.A thousand different pieces.The original liquid it contained,only drops in an ocean,battered by time, and the crueltyof nature that lives by her own morality.The rubbish from ships,or too many romantics lookingfor answers in a message that nobody will read.A love letter, consigned to memory,all of the little thingsthat were never really meant to…

By Cithara Patra “I saw Grandma in my dream last night. Oh, she was there in the morning.” My son Joey fluffs his pillow before resting his head on it. He pulls the dull white hospital sheets over his body. My heart aches to see my little boy preparing for his surgery tomorrow, but he’s holding it together. It’s a small procedure to remove his adenoids and he won’t be here for long. Still, my…

By Aiping Zhang My daughter Dory had been begging for a dog for years, but my husband and I never thought it was a good idea. We were too busy finding our footing in this new country.  He studied for almost a year to become a licensed real estate agent in Toronto. He then found that many of the Chinese people we knew here held real estate agent licences, yet had closed only a few deals over the…

By Joanne Johnson You were always quick with a jokeAlways with impeccable timingAs you teased about what would come nextForetelling the next line with a smirkWhen you entered the room you announcedHaving a story that would produce A raucous and resounding laughterTo even the unhappiest soulsIt was your signature that proceeded youEveryone anticipating jocular entertainment In a much too serious…

By Janet Belding Everyone gets born the same way, the name in the Bible.  Well if I was written in there it was lost in the fire. We had no water to put it out and there was wind, no rain.  I woke up one day and I was a man with no memories. I don’t even remember the name of my father’s wife, after my mother, sometimes I sense her outline.   I woke up one day as you see me now. I come from God,…

By Oliver Kleyer Before dawn,I don’t have a name.It normally reappears with the sunrise,preferably on the railroad bridge,overlooking the town where I work,but fortunately, not live,sometimes starting the O,sometimes with the i.Before dawn, you could call me anything,there is a 50/50 chance I might answer.Before dawn, I sometimes think my nameis Adam & there is no one thereto prove me…

By Jessica Ursell in the remotest region of Kyrgyzstana makeshift cribtenderly placedunder a treeits darkly silveredboughslow and ladenwith bountyvast fields of crimson poppiesin the distanceas far as the eye can seeand closerthose velvety softblushing globesof creamy rougedrupesPrunus persicatemptinga tiny totpink chubby armsoutstretchedopen mouthedtwin pearlsframed by rosebud lipsindustriously…

By Lynn White First published in Visual Verse, January 2022 It is not commonly known that Gulliver had a wifebut she accompanied him on all his journeysand Lilliput was her favourite place.Swift never wrote about her.Perhaps he found her just to daring,even though she was careful to be on her best behaviourand hide her painted nailsin public places.When alone she didn’t care.She wiggled them…

By Detlef Wieck The walk back to the rectory seemed to go in slow motion. His shoes were little protection to his fee. The holes in the soles admitted enough water that it squished between his toes as he walked. The evening had been a bitter one with the loss of one of the wealthiest members of his congregation, not that he ever dropped enough in the offering plate.  Parson John had arrived as…

By Will Eaton The alpine moss held fast with white- and green- and teal-colored gnarled fists to the flanks of ancient glacial boulders as the snow beat all around them and as the wind howled and vexed the rocks to shake and stir and moan in the frigid night air.  In the midst of this storm, two men sat on their haunches at the base of one of the boulders and held tightly to one another, their…