Creative Writing Commons^™

On Nantucket Sound, Lucy Kaufman

Manuscripts

Do you recall the morning on Nantucket Sound
when white wind whipped our sails against the August sun,
when we stood tanned and laughing, loving the sea, and bound
for any port or none?

Do you recall that out from the tiny towns which lay
along the coast, came salty strangers seeking cod,
tanned and laughing as we, plundering the bay
with net and fishing rod?

Do you recall that when the west waxed pink again
homeward we turned the tiller, and as we came around
with sails set full for shore, lights flashed from a world forgotten
on Nantucket …

The Blue Pincushion, Jeanne Gass

Manuscripts

With a flourish of the shiny old shears, Dora snipped the last coupon from the latest copy of the Ladies Home Journal. She pushed the magazine aside and made a neat little pile of the slips of paper. She breathed a sigh of pure, undiluted bliss. Her soft white hands fluttered over the papers, almost tenderly. Her lips formed the numbers silently as she counted the coupons with all the eagerness of a miser.

A Very Short Story, Or The Amazing Case Of Mr. Ex, Lucy Kaufman

Manuscripts

For the most part it was a lazy day. The drowsiness of afternoon was thick as honey over Central Park. Warm sunlight splashed the world like white wine, and the sky was an uninterrupted blue, except for powdery whiffs of clouds which were. urged along by the wind. Men, having finished their noon meals, stretched out on benches and slept or endeavored to. Women strolled down the paths, miraculously unmindful of gossip. Only a group of children frisking among the trees and their frantic attendants who pursued them were untouched by the midday lethargy.

Dry Leaves, Mary M. Schortemeier

Manuscripts

In stealth
Stalking its prey
Winter is creeping
Groping its way.

Today
Summer is reigning.
Only the dry leaves
Show it is waning.

Too soon
Comes one final leap
For winter - for summer
Only to weep.

Today
My heart is young.
Dry leaves for me?
From mortals I'm sprung.

These Things She Loved, Janet Jarrett

Manuscripts

Nancy McIntire lay quite still in the great four-poster bed. Her tiny shrivelled frame was huddled beneath the covers and her eyes had lost their old sparkle. She knew that what everybody said was true, that she would never again leave her bed. For Nancy McIntire was nearly ninety.

There was a narrow band of sunlight streaming through a crack in the shade. Dumbly she watched the particles of dust caught in its rays. Bits of matter suddenly snatched up in their idle drifting by a slim golden shaft, turned into a thousand shimmering little worlds, and then dropped back …

The Barrier Between, Richard Moores

Manuscripts

It was one o'clock in the afternoon, and the crowd in the restaurant was thining. A dark-haired woman played on an elevated organ, and the waitresses walked wearily between the empty tables, collecting dishes and silverware. Big electric fans moved back and forth with sluggish precision, and stirred the rising cigarette smoke. The restaurant was slowly, almost imperceptibly, becoming enveloped in an atmosphere of lanquorous silence that would last until dinner-time.

Two young men sat facing each other across a linen-topped table, and a woman looked at them through the twisted iron grill-work that separated the two tables. The woman, …

Flamingos, Lucy Kaufman

Manuscripts

Far through the jungle, bird cries mark night's end.
Eastwardly the sky is streaked with pink,
and near the water's edge black orchids bend
beneath webbed-feet, as white flamingos drink.

Deep among the spindling silent stalks
which border banks surrounding the lagoon
wet reeds stir, and a tall flamingo walks
infringing on the sleep of afternoon.

Flamingos showing silver in the night
fly far above the jungle toward the west,
and following a star's transluscent light
at length reach home, and white flamingos rest.

Buttonville--Population 2,005, Patricia Sylvester

Manuscripts

The calendar in Grandpa's general store, filling station and grocery reads 1939. His store is the first you see when you come into Buttonville, a town right in the center of the United States about a mile from Sugar Crossing and running along side of Catfish Creek. You can't. miss it for, as you enter, there's a sign saying "Buttonville - Population 2,005 (They crossed out the two and changed it to five when Mrs. Blanchy had the town's triplets, Minnie, Winnie and Sam, Jr.). As you leave, there's a sign reading "Come again when you can stay longer - …

Volume 9, Issue 4: Full Issue

Manuscripts

Full issue of the May 1942 issue of Manuscripts. Includes work by:Helen Elizabeth Hughes, Jack DeVine, Esther Benjamin, Joe Berry, J. Robert Dietz, Glenn H. Fisher, Myron Scarbrough, Patricia Sylvester, Mary Wiley, Richard Moores, Rachel Whelan, Richard Outcalt, Margaret Byram, Janet Gregory, Joseph A. Trent, Ione COlligan, Jeane Siskel, Jean M. Chalifour, Jim Mitchell, Betty Frances Thome, Bob Harris, Alfonse Tapia, Virgina Hurt, Jean Ebeling, Ardath Weigler, and Mary Ellen Shirley.

Excerpts

Manuscripts

Excerpts from additional submissions by authors: Melvin Kuebler, Richard Jowitt, Mary Elizabeth Black, Quentin West, Edward F. Wright, Margie Ann Hukriede, Margaret Dawson, Don R. Cutsinger, and Suzanne Van Talge.

Motherhood, Mary E. Shirley

Manuscripts

As she lay in the midst of dirt and squalor she seemed in utter oblivion. To her the cobwebby walls, the cockroaches, the plush chair with springs uncovered, and the filthy blanket were unimportant, because for once in her life, the young colored girl had captured the spotlight. She was the center of interest in that room; of secondary interest was the baby - her baby - in the next room.

Winter, Ardath Weigler

Manuscripts

Faint, uncertain fluorescence of day struggling to penetrate the murk of man-made atmosphere - pushing through the exhalation of factory and furnace, making silhouette background for life. An occasional, broken shuffle of steps along the gritty alleyways as a solitary devotee gropes his path to the six o'clock mass. Lining the street - drab frame houses point a picket finger of mediocrity. Unrelieved monotony of mansard roofs jagging against the dun-colored sky, holding the saturated weight above.

About Defeat, Jean Ebeling

Manuscripts

There they lay, slung back in a corner, discarded from any future use, and looking as if every ounce of strength and good will had been wrung from their very soles. Only a few months before, that old pair of shoes could have held up its laces and thrown back its tongue, unshamefully encountering any other pair of shoes-even those of the higher priced class.

Libya, Virginia Hurt

Manuscripts

As far as one could see stretched the shimmering sands of the Sahara. The fury of the day seemed to beat upon the earth and the burning glare of the desert set weaving heat-waves into motion above the shifting hillocks, which the scorching wind swept into being and inevitably demolished with its swaying motion.

A Penny For Your Thoughts, Alfonse Tapia

Manuscripts

"A Penny for your thoughts."
What could I answer, when, in reality, I had been thinking of absolutely nothing. I was just looking at nature; nature who has always done something to me. I cannot put my finger on it, but I can feel it vaguely with a certain weakness that causes a disengagement from the powers of description. As mysterious as night itself; like the flame glowing in the fireplace, or the tobacco smoke, lazily drifting along to nowhere. It is in that way that I watch the always vanishing 'something' that is forever there in nature.

Munitions Worker, Bob Harris

Manuscripts

a little lesson in love and virtue
a discourse between god and saint peter
pertaining to the soul of a munitions maker.

Appreciation, Betty F. Thome

Manuscripts

My father is sitting at the breakfast
table, his left hand raises by degrees a cup
of coffee to his lips, his right hand firmly
grips the most important part of his morning
meal-the newspaper. Suddenly, the
left hand goes sharply down, making the
china cup click as it hits the saucer, the
sports' page is enlightening this morning.
"By God, Galento's going to try it
again! Tonight at 8: 30!" My father issues
this announcement as fervently as a revival
preacher heralds the end of the World.
"Who is Galento?" says my mother
very innocently from her side of …

This Thing Called Love, Jim Mitchell

Manuscripts

"What is this thing called Io-o-ove?" wails the radio crooner in his agonized search for the "sweet mystery of life." All over the country, dowagers and damsels alike sigh and shed a tear of pity; and "the poor fellow" is voted to a high place among the ranking stars of radio. As his popularity increases, his paycheck grows about in proportion to the square of his "public," and life becomes a song for the crooner with the "catch" in his voice. What is the first thing our poor love-starved hero does upon landing a spot on a coast-to- coast network? …

Struggles In Slang, Jean M. Chalifour

Manuscripts

"Slang!! Our children do not use
slang," emphatically pronounced the Head
English Mistress in the G. S. C. School for
Girls, somewhere in England. Now, in
spite of an extremely exaggerated Oxford
accent which usually practically defied the
American Exchange Teacher's powers of
translation, the meaning of this statement
was crystal clear and raised a healthy
resentment in the American's heart. Had
not the A. E. T. heard much slang at the
"digs" among the "diggers" who were well
educated, teachers and bank "clarks?"
When the A. E. T. suggested this to the
H. E. M., she was informed that …

That Is Why, Jeane Siskel

Manuscripts

They were as high as high. Below them, was not that full, rounded form of yellow light the moon-the moon anchored in distant music? Were not the sudden twinklings seen in the distance the stars? Were not those shifting shadows clouds?

Just Past Six, Ione Colligan

Manuscripts

You long to be a big boy, Jerry? Want to be like Uncle John, and shoulder guns instead of sticks and know what's wrong with all the world and how the troubles should be fixed? I see. You don't like being just past six. You want to stride with head thrown back and shoulders square. You'd wear big boots and roar and swear.

Two Poems, Margaret Byram

Manuscripts

On Discovering a Book of Shelley's Poems

A portion of the feeling that once hallowed Keats
when he kenned the vast unknown
And stood, a Watcher, rapt, alone,
Came to me, a vision, swift, unbearable
In beauty scarcely born.

The joy of fusing with a master's soul,
The searching bliss of first discovery
Swept my mind, and left me tense and free,
A spirit treading the fresh-dewed grass
In early morn.

Sun On The Steeple, Richard Moores

Manuscripts

The man rolled over in bed and woke up. He opened his eyes slowly and carefully and immediately closed them. Bright yellow sunlight came through the second story window and struck the bright yellow ugliness of the wall paper. The man put his hand in front of his eyes and blinked a few times, then he took his hand away and looked at the clock on the table beside the bed. It was 10:15 and the post man always came by at 9. The man decided to take it easy. He shook the last cigarette out of the pack on …

Credo, Mary Wiley

Manuscripts

In our sad days it is a woman's part
To keep alive the things that ease the soul,
All music and delight. It is her role
To pour out lovely songs to fill the heart
With tenderness again, and hopeful start
The hymnal in the church; amid the whole
Of dark, confusing time out of control
To sing, and let not loveliness depart.

Unfaltering faith is difficult to keep
When futile tears fall on the changeless earth
And still are dried by the recurrent sun.
Mankind may perish if its women weep
Too much, too long. We will allow no …

Professor Blank, Patricia Sylvester

Manuscripts

He walked into the room, hung his umbrella on the thermometer (on sunny days he used the umbrella as a walking stick) and turned methodically to the speaking stand. Then it came-laughter! laughter! The professor filed through his mind to determine if he "cracked" any of his jokes at the last meeting of the class. No, the last meeting was Thursday, second Thursday of the month. He always pulled his jokes on Tuesdays. Maybe it was the blackboard. Someone had written something on the blackboard, - something funny, maybe even about him. He turned to look at the board, but …

Spikey Evans, Myron Scarbrough

Manuscripts

In the afternoons, before most of The Sun's staff had come to work, the windows of the sports room were tightly shut and the radiator sizzled merrily. The room was hot to a point well beyond mere discomfort, and the copy boy with the two o'clock mail or the occasional match-maker with his notice of a boxing tournament never tarried long in its unwholesome atmosphere.

While the torrid room and its stagnant air drove copy boy and match-maker from its tropic-Iike confines in short order, it never got the best of Spikey Evans. Spikey was human, and he knew when …

My Hero, Glenn H. Fisher

Manuscripts

I wouldn't read this if I were you. Before you get any farther than this you should know that although I started to write a short story I never got it finished. I almost did though. It would have been a poor story any way - it's just the idea that I didn't finish what I started that irks me.

The Curse Of Sabina, Robert Dietz

Manuscripts

"Good evening, lad"
It was a strange voice. Loren stopped his work and turned. An old woman peered at him over the fence. She frightened him; he dropped his hoe. He wanted to run.
She spoke again. It was in slow, drawn syllables, "Have you seen Marna?"
Loren had never heard of Marna. And he had no idea who the stranger might be. She was old, her back was bent, her dirty gray hair hung long and loosely over her cheeks. In the setting sun it was difficult to see her face, but the features appeared sharp and hideous. She …

The Silversmith, Joe Berry

Manuscripts

The child was born unto a silversmith,
born son and grandson both of silversmiths
in the small room behind the dusty shop.

The old man stopped his pounding on his bench,
his son turned down the fiercely blasting fire
when the child was born. But when he breathed, cried
and howled, they worked again, as they had done
all morning - and as they had done
for years before, the old man and his son:
silver sculptors, bracelet makers, fashioners
of all small articles from gleaming blocks.
Now they were glad; not for two hundred years
had the house lacked …

Living With The Angels, Jack Devine

Manuscripts

Pretty Joe Rainbow was not as pretty as his name implied. He had yellow teeth which were always visible because they lay over his lower lip. Whenever he opened his mouth to smile, which was often, one could see that the teeth were more like dog teeth than those of a man. They were pointed and spaced apart. On the tip of his tongue was a wart, and Pretty Joe liked to try to fit the wart in the spaces between his teeth. The left side of his face was swollen to about twice the size of a man's fist; …