A publication of the Lifelong Peer Learning Program of the CUNY Graduate Center
VoicesAdmin Charles Troob, Publisher
Lorne Taichman, Associate Publisher
Prose Editors: Andy Shapiro and Susan Smahl
Prose Readers:
Jill Eldredge Gabriele
Arlyne LeSchack
Carmen Mason
Ira Rubin
Poetry Editors:
Bill Aarnes and Carmen Mason
Poetry Judges:
Mark Fischweicher
Irene Sax
Welcome to the 2024 edition of Voices Online, the literary magazine of the Lifelong Peer Learning Program. Earlier editions—going back to 2013—can be found on this web site.
We are happy to present the work of seven poets and sixteen prose writers. Some of this writing has been generated in LP2 study groups and activities. Some of it is the creative work that our members have done on our own. We hope that in future issues even more of our talented members will be represented.
Much thanks to the editors and readers who have helped to make this possible—and, of course, to our contributors!
Charles Troob
Publisher
Lorne Taichman
Associate Publisher
by Sara Petitt
The store was dim and dusty
Cloaking the men in back
Quietly talking.
The child was bored and restless.
Looking up at the
Elevated train.
Resentment filled her heart and mind.
Why share her Father
This Sunday afternoon
In this haberdashery store
Filled with drab bras and socks.
Then the thought came to her.
She emptied all the sock bins out.
Slipped size labels off
Put them back by color.
The scolding she got was worth it.
That was the last time
Her Father took her there.
Sara Petitt has a BFA from Bennington College where she majored in Fine Arts and minored in Literature. Although she has always worked professionally in art as a teacher and designer her second passion is writing.
by Mireya Perez Bustillo
Inch, Ireland
Eye extended
pale green edges of sea and hill
where a giant’s fingers formed
grassy mounds
whoosh of water
a bee slices air
moos, baas, a dog’s tail wags
breeze rustles rushes, fuschia,
my hair
a white truck rounds the bend
to Playa Blanca palms, palenqueras
fried fish
the bay of Cartagena to the left
where English pirates lurked
never reaching
casa, familia
Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP/LP2 Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press, 2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.
by Mireya Perez Bustillo
…………For María Moreno Pérez and
…………Antonio Pérez Rincón
He arced his tongue to reach the fly
the only part he could move burrowed
in the camouflage of sand in the bed of the arroyo
soiling his tended grey softness embedding nettles.
In the hacienda Holanda by the river Tunjuelo
doña María ordered the baskets to be packed for market.
Pedro, the mayordomo, was sent to saddle the donkey.
In the bed by the creek he rolled in the scrub and played dead.
On the bridge by the river, don Antonio, impatiently
paced on his stallion, Cerezo.
Doña María in her riding skirt
held back her nervous mare, la Geisha
even the children were sent to search.
Running after the overseer, Pedrito, Carlitos,
Martita, Conchita, Pilarica and baby Tina
trampled lettuces and cabbages and played
“rabbit” biting off carrot heads. .
In the confusion baby Tina climbed
In the laundry basket falling asleep among
the camphored sheets and was not missed
‘til doña María said they’d have to take
the wagon and where was that bendito
animal and it was always the same story
every Thursday day of market.
Hearing the thump of the wheels
the donkey stretched shaking twigs
calling to him the great mastiff, Orlando,
who was in charge of misleading the search.
Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP/LP2 Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press, 2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.
by Mireya Perez Bustillo
To: Paloma
It stood there guarding
…..that corner so close
…..to its boardwalk home
But the darkness kept me away
Maybe I peeked in once
But the dark waters
…..Pushed me out
I heard beauties swam there
But the waters made the darkness
…..fill me
But today when la familia said
they were going there
and the little one feeling
…..my fear
Said she’d hold my hand
I knew I would enter the waters
Mireya Perez-Bustillo writes poetry and fiction in Spanish and English. Her poetry appears in MOM’s EGG; Caribbean Review; Americas Review; Dinner with the Muse, IRP/LP2 Voices, among others. Her novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press, 2020), a Latina coming-of-age story, is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.
by Mary Padilla
How odd that
everything is
mostly nothing,
if you look closely.
We are accustomed
to the big picture,
the broad brush stroke,
the macro level.
But when you see
below the surface,
it’s mostly nothing,
just empty space.
Music is all about
spaces between notes.
Art is all about
spaces around things.
Everything is seen
by contrast with nothing,
which is mostly all
that there actually is.
It’s the via negativa
that defines a thing
solely in terms of
just what it is not.
The occasional somethings
deform overall nothing,
affecting other somethings,
but only at a distance.
Paradoxically, we find that
to transcend somethingness,
we must first be willing
to embrace the nothingness.
Only then can we know
what it is to be something
other than something
to be reckoned with.
There is no reckoning
with evanescence,
and yet we can be
aware of its presence.
It is something
that exists
on the cusp
of non-existence.
Similarly, meaning is
what you encounter
when you are not trying
to discover what it is.
Mary Padilla: I write to see what will come out.
by Mary Padilla
For meaning to travel
it has to start somewhere
and then go to someplace
set up to receive it.
These need to be tuned in
to the same wavelength,
and there must be a medium
that they have in common –
a sharing of context
to transmit a concept
that makes at least some sense
to both of the parties.
Of couse this is all true
of sound and of light,
but it applies just as well
to ideas and to feelings.
They too need a sender,
and also a receiver,
but communication
is still not guaranteed.
While these two elements
are both important,
they do not suffice
to create the connection.
There needs to be overlap
between expectations
so that the message
can be understood.
Otherwise
it’s just
a clash
of codes.
Mary Padilla: I write to see what will come out.
by Mary Padilla
We think we know what’s up, what’s out
what’s reflected, refracted,
what is, what’s not.
The surface bounces back the light
the same way it came in.
From here, seen there,
the medium’s a mirror.
From another angle though,
things would look quite bent,
broken, and greatly changed.
The shadow, when it’s long.
speaks to the sun,
and not the tree –
what its angle is just then
in relation to the Earth.
It functioned as our first sun dial,
telling us what time it was –
short or long, right or left,
morning, noon, or afternoon –
but never what was time itself.
What we see is what we get,
but it depends on how we look.
We need to keep this fact in mind
when, seeing just the shadows,
we have to decipher what is real.
Mary Padilla: I write to see what will come out.
by Carmen Mason
I. AMERICA: On TV
On David Susskind is a fat man in
a Kermit the Frog mask.
He is a hitman named Joey.
He is selling his new book.
He pivots back and forth
on the leather chair,
itchy, swirling his girth
while svelte David remains stiff
and asks slow, delicate questions.
Joey’s hands are big;
they karate the air as he
laments the death of
abortion and the organization.
He boasts of broads who beg to love him
once they learn his trade.
Junior High haughty
he’s 10 Qs wealthy
and recently acquitted.
“When you get old you get smart,
you don’t get stupid. I killed until
I didn’t anymore. I sleep
like a baby.”
Embarrassed, David
cuts to a commercial.
II: AMERICA: Katz’s on a Cold Sunday Morning
Sour, over-taxed waiters – their faces lined
with their own private histories – give out
tickets at the door to be punched and paid for later.
Ahead, long glass counters reflect salami, franks
stuffed derma, steaming sour kraut while
Miller’s High Life waits to join
soapy glasses that’ll kill the beer head.
More regulars come in walking slow to
balance their tea on rickety trays as
The New York Times slides from their armpits
and powder-faced women in long furs
and wide -wale slacks glide and slide
under chrome tables, pulling
glistening pelts close to their legs
as they sit.
Old weary signs along the walls still chantimg
“Send a salami to your boy in the Army”
and “Waiter Service Only” as more enter
while the waiter’s exclaiming “If they don’t have it ready
I’ll make it myself ! ” while the men slowly sitting,
their knockwurst thighs open in great V’s,
their socks moaning having been stuffed
into tight penny loafers.
Sunday revelers all
with mouths moving
ringed pinkies lifting
cloth napkins unfolding
while the black boy
and his three sisters
wait to be served.
III. AMERICA: Michael Jackson
Ignited by more than Pepsi
and lithe, fluorescent Diana
you cut out the thickness
of your nose and lips
mainline hormones
making baby-smooth again your face
choir-high your voice
and bejeweled in ebony
you kiss your blackness
your manness, your Michaelness goodbye
Donning glove and shield
you enter the arena
of eunuchs
to dance and prance
and split the air
with the purest denials
to Billie Jean, harem queen
and to all you would have you be something you are
never were
might have been.
Carmen Mason: “I have been writing poems and stories all my life, won a few prizes here and there, but most of my pieces have demanded to spill out in the middle of the night or while walking or driving! I have often pulled over just to scribble something I will get back to once I am home again! And if VOICES welcomes me I am very pleased!”