Sway
by John Kenney

Want to make the stories in Amarillo Bay easier to read on the screen?

Just a gentle easy sway; there is always a breeze, and the trick is to catch it and glide, as a seagull would. The elements are musical; they harmonize all the time. All you've been is only what you've made. What you'll leave behind you is only what you'll find.

Letter 1: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Uphersin
by Jude Roy
Dear Dwayne "Dit Dit" Dudley:

I'm home, and already I miss our friendly chats. The navy sent me to a psychiatrist but he gave up on me. I sent him notes. When he started sending notes back to me, he pronounced me incorrigible and gave up. Actually those were not his words. He used a form of psycho-speak. I would not speak to him. I speak to no one. There is no one to speak to, indeed if I can speak at all. I fear my vocal chords may be frozen. I hear that may happen in cases of prolonged disuse. I only see the family at breakfast; Father spends his days and usually his nights at the office; Mother speaks only in orders or in rhetorical questions and expects no actions, only reactions; Albert is in his own time warp; Mary Junior has her own problems.

Creative Nonfiction

On David Scott Milton
by James P. White
Tracing the early career of David Scott Milton brings us to an artist's decision to live and work in Los Angeles rather than New York. Milton went to New York after high school graduation, at a time when every writer gravitated there for the individual freedom and creative opportunity it promised. His career developed rapidly and by 1969 he had a novel accepted by Dell, several plays produced (one of which was to eventually be on Broadway), and was writing a feature film. Shortly after this, he decided to move to Los Angeles where he became a part of an expanding film scene. A close look at his career presents an interesting close up of an artist's opportunities and decisions in the 1950's and 60's.

Poetry

Windy Laundry
by Hunter Ingalls
Legs and pockets and socks and arms
wave hooray! at towers of grain
three miles east. The wind's alarms
extend yesterday's celebrations of rain,
moist feasts in the dark for thirsty farms
and dustbinned brains.

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World
by Rob Johnson
The most beautiful woman in the world
Does not cause wars (as did Helen)
She stops them, an atom bomb blast of beauty

Working Territories
by Robert Lietz
You look in the mirror and find this pick-up
riding hard, and, off to the left,
in elderwood, a lone owl welcoming
the grey light over him,
satisfied to sit, to pass on this careless glint,
this scrap of inflecting stuff,
risking in cold-dried stalks the coldest
of cold comforts.

Summer Sky
by Carol Coffee Reposa
Clouds sprawl across late afternoon
Like a harem,
Nudes billowing
In strawberry cream
And languishing toward dusk

Donny Does E-mail
by John Rothfork
okay you clattering collection of Calliope junk
boot-up / whoops / wrong file
     (dos or unix?)

okay you Calliope Junior High kids
everyone have their signed permission slip?
it's like a password before we can
start to amble & scroll

A Calendar Year
by A. Susannah Fairfield
The white, moth-chewed blanket
crawling alive over the boothills
is that snow? A rebirthed calendar,
ten years from now; and ago,
the dates will sprawl or rot
under the leaves of a dusty summer.

This Mohorovicic Continuity
by David Hunter Sutherland
So much taste, touch
Sound to consume in our Comings - goings, a sense
Of new grass, rustling
Colors, bitter edges, the deluge
Of everything hard, soft,
Brittle and cracking

Villanelle for the Wind
by Sonny Williams
There's something in the way the wind blows here
From the sea, over the bay and to this dock,
That calls to mind someone that I held dear.