Amazing!
The Austin Chronicle awards a
Critics Choice "Best of Austin" back pat to Street Lit:
Best Life Changer, 2016!

Thank you so much!


Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.
In the lull between dinner and second dinner, I offer up a thank you to all you folks who've helped Street Lit this past year, and since we began back in 2013. The books keep coming, and keep getting read. (That pipeline always needs filling!)Cash donations ebb and flow with the season, and have continued to sustain the Street Lit Authors Club. I've been able to keep the coffee hot, and pens and paper on hand. We've had donations come through our Amazon wish list, and it's always gratifying to walk into the Saturday workshop with a copy of "Bird by Bird" or "This Word Now" for a writer who needs it.

A special thanks to all the folks who've come to visit the workshop or helped out behind the scenes, and at the ARCH. Knowing you have our back and wish us well is part of what keeps us going. With the world around us in such turmoil, the words are a source of strength we can consistently rely on. Thank you ALL for helping with that.

If you can give, please do! 
(If not, please share this w/your friends!)
Contribute cash on GoFundMe
Visit our Amazon Gift List

I saw a cute little movie on Facebook this week, about 10 things to be happy about. The first was a roof over your head. On the list were things like clean sheets, warm socks, and people around you who care. I was saddened by an animation that was meant to remind the viewer to be grateful--7 out of 10 of the "requirements" were things so many do not have. So yes, be grateful, be happy, and don't forget to be kind.

Happy holidays!
Barry & the Street Lit Authors

​Cherry Blossom Breakfast
by Marcilas Jackson
 
“You know, dear, there are times that you say things that absolutely defy logic.”

His wife replied, “Sweetheart, I am so very sorry that you men simply cannot come to terms with the fact that we women are so much more clever than you.”

He said, under his breath, “Bitch.”

Hi wife raised her hand. “Dear? Did you say ‘bitch?’ Listen dickhead -- the only reason that you and your fellow three-legged, knucklehead buddies cannot be a bitch, as you say, is because not one of you is man enough. Now please be a good boy, finish your breakfast and go to work.”

“Speaking for myself, I know that I am more than man enough. We have three children to prove it.”

“Oui?” she said. “Sweetheart, I don’t know whether to be proud of you, or to be disappointed. All this time I thought you were having another affair, you were actually taking French lessons. I’m so proud of you. Say something sexy to me in French.”

“You know; she does have such a cute butt…”

“I give up,” he said. “I knew I would never win an argument that I didn’t know I started.”

“Yeah, you do that. Now it’s time for you to go save the world, and make me proud like a good boy.”

“Oh, by the way -- be home by eleven. There is a surprise I have for you. And I don’t want to mess up my new Reeboks.”

“Reeboks? I didn’t know you had sneakers. And what does my coming home at eleven have to do with messing up a pair of sneakers?”

“Dear, it’s like this. This surprise is very important to me, and if you come through that door any time after eleven I’m going to put one of them so far up that tight ass of yours that I promise you, you will shit a rubber tree. And you know how much I detest horticulture. Now will you go to work? I have things to finish.”

[Kiss Kiss Hugs Hugs Bye Bye…]

​Bill got up from the table and headed out to his waiting car. His driver opened the door and greeted him, “Good morning, Mr. President.”

...back to the top ​

A political head-scratcher and call to the polls from Thomas Woodward, Director - Public Policy - SI of the Global Human Commodities Exchange, and Street Lit author:

John F. Kennedy, the 35th U.S. President of the Democratic party. Kennedy sought to inspire all Americans to be more active in their citizenship. Kennedy was the youngest man ever elected to the presidency, succeeding the man who, at the time, was the oldest. He symbolized—as he well realized—a new generation and its coming-of-age. Near the end of 1963, in the wake of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Had a Dream" speech, Kennedy finally sent a civil rights bill to Congress. One of the last acts of his presidency and his life, Kennedy's bill eventually passed as the landmark Civil Rights Act in 1964. He also proposed a voting-rights bill and federal programs to provide healthcare to the elderly and the poor.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th U.S. President of the Republican party. President Reagan helped redefine the purpose of government and pressured the Soviet Union to end the Cold War. He solidified the conservative agenda for decades after his presidency. In 1981, Reagan once gain made history by appointing Judge Sandra Day O'Connor as the first woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. Although he never lost his admiration for FDR, Reagan became an ardent conservative and switched his registration to Republican in 1962. In 1987, the Americans and Soviets signed a historic agreement to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles. That same year, Reagan spoke at Germany's Berlin Wall, a symbol of communism, and famously challenged Gorbachev to tear it down.

Headhunters
by
Leonardo da Vinci E
 
                         Headhunters--live for to see you dead
Watching in glee as you tap-dance on life’s thin edge, lingering, but never to actually live
And you have no thoughts of any enemies standing by disguised as friends
                         Who won’t let you in to breathe or out to leave
And each heave of your chest to draw a breath, must come to protest every loss of love along the way
One by one like rows of dominoes fallen each other after the other--down
                         Has drowned each lover that had made an offer or that stood secretly found
On wings that fly them away in this gusty gale you made, where even your sadness has grown rusty
Headhunters, with slews of lewd voodoo dolls they intend to use--to stick pins in to master your moods
And each doll has a name: beer, cigarette, speed, meth, cocaine--all the same
                         And I the poet, the snitch, can channel what’s in their heads
And I know they live to see you dying until you are dead in a pathetic fit
                         --with a piss on it!
To see you flung into a minister’s hissy fit of a hell on earth--and to smell!
                         And all the poets will tell--that the headhunters stood by snickering
At circles broke out around your eyes, at an addict’s hastily placed goodbyes
At that shallow glare in your jaundiced eyes, choked up with a puke in which your tongue lies--
To lie a Lie--that this is the last time to slip (when you actually skipped) down that hellish hole
                         Dark, dank, and deep
In search of a high with naughty cries for freedom and liberty to let you in so you can claw your way out again
                         And headhunters standing by snickering
But on some days like today you’ll say, “hope has sprung up like the dawn”
                         But I know it’s your enemy, from where you’re from
                         And soon to be a slain friend
                              --with blood on it
                         Strangled by your wickedest grasp
                              To lay with a gasp dying
                         And so dawn becomes--a sunset
                              Hope--lying with a raspy sigh
                         Like a sickened murmur upon the wind and sky
                              Its burial nigh
                         But for the final twist
                         One more breath to take
                              And your insanity at stake
                         To be mistaken for something sane
                         To have hope as a neighbor or a friend
To pit it against this ghetto existence--in vain
                         Sure not to let you in--to actually live cuffed to drugs’ golden chains
So why not stop it here and now?
                              Or you’ll strangle hope
                              Dying until hope is dead
                         Headhunter’s sneering and snickering by its death bed
                         While you stand in the spotlight, actually a flashlight--ugly, bloodied and red
                         With all out hopes for you--dead
                         And the poets will tell--snitches all--
                         That the headhunters stood by snickering at your final curtain call.

Great news breaking: Jackie Dana continues to amaze. Indie Authors T-shirts are on sale now, w/proceeds donated to Street Lit! 

Jackie officially rocks--you should order t-shirts for all your friends and family, then hop over to www.jackiedana.com and check out her novel, "By Moonrise," and her latest short story release, "Solid as a Rock." Great stuff from a great human. 

Order here: http://jackiedana.com/t-shirt-orders/

T. Woodward, a Street Lit Authors Club mainstay,  lands the front page of The Challenger, Austin's official street newspaper. Visit the Challenger online here: www.challengernewspaper.org. Keep an eye out for distributors and make a donation in return for your own copy.  They work hard for a great paper -- show your appreciation!

A year ago this week, June 26, 2015, the Street Lit Authors Club met for the first time. The SLACers came together with only a minimal plan, advice from every expert I could pester, and a coffee pot borrowed from the ARCH’s break room. I had no idea what I was doing—still can’t claim that I do—but I was convinced that if I did no good, I could certainly do no harm. I didn’t expect anyone to show up, or if they did, for them to care about anything more than the snack table. But lo and behold, people did show up, and they brought with them an appetite for words, language, and a community of encouragement in the midst of hardship. They’ve been showing up ever since, and I’m consistently awestruck to find that I leave the room more nourished than emptied. I am so fortunate to have met everyone who has ever pulled up a chair at the Street Lit table, and what a happy surprise it is to start something with an attitude of “I want to help,” only to find that the effort is not effort at all, and that the help I meant to give flows back even stronger to me. I am so grateful.

I remember the hours after the first meeting more clearly than the meeting itself. I was panicked and nervous that day—as shaky and anxious as when taking the stage at a reading (Oh, the horror!)—but afterward, when I’d made it back home and my jitters had settled, when I got past the “What have I gone and done now” moments and found myself wondering instead what we might do at the next workshop, the rightness of it all hit me. Something awesome had happened in the simple coming together of minds, and it, as though *it* already had a communal life, had been kind enough to include me. So, thank you, all you Street Lit authors, for allowing me to sit at the same table. It’s a privilege I hope to earn and live up to as we keep rolling on. Ya’ll rock!

In a conversation with a book donor recently, I called Street Lit a “one man show.” That’s really kind of stupid of me to say. Sure, I may be the one accountable should we run out of coffee, or if the bookshelf at the ARCH is bare, but when it comes down to it, I can’t even keep track of all the help I’ve had. So many folks have been so generous with their time, their donations of books and funds, their moral support and their experience. The list has gotten out of hand… I’m sure I’ve forgotten folks who deserve a giant hug or a Street Lit fist bump, and I apologize if I missed you, but here’s a quick shot at a thank you note, in slightly sloppy alphabetical order:
 
Before anyone else, thank, thank, thank you to all the amazing Street Lit Authors!
ACC’s Arts & Humanities Dept.
ACC’s Creative Writing Dept.
Annyston Pennington
Austin Peterson
Bekah Anne Preissinger
Beth Sullivan
BookPeople
The Challenger Street Newspaper
Charlotte Gullick
CityLab
Claire Anderson-Ramos
Daily Texan
Daklavyn Markrot (that’s Ian Marcotte’s secret identity, btw.)
Dawn Hollingsworth
Deb Olin Unferth
Eillie Anzilotti
Elizabeth Cullingford
Elizabeth McCracken
Emily Varnell
Everyone (100s of you!) who have helped out on our Crowdrise fundraiser.
Free Minds
Front Steps (especially all the staff who help out every Saturday!)
Gretchen Harries Graham
Half Price Books
Hannah Ford
Heather Thomas
Jackie Dana (BrainstormATX!)
Jennifer Tilton
Jenny Howell
Jené Gutierrez
Joan Gruska Kobayashi
Joanna Drake
Joe O’Connell
John Herndon
Katie Stacy
Katie Walsh
Kay Klotz
Kelly Luce
LaVonne Roberts & Alessandra
Laurie Buchholz
The Liberator
Literary Hub
Mary Frances Rincon
Michael Taeckens
Michele Filgate
Mira Belik
Moses (For our 2 commandments: “Be Cool. Don’t be an Asshole.”)
Natalie Freeberg
Natalie Sharpe
Nick du Mortier
Nick Flynn
Peierls Foundation 
Poets & Writers
Polly Monear
Rachel Zein
Rio Review
Roberto Roldan
Savers
Terry Foundation (and all the Terry Scholars!)
The Alleywriters gang
Tony Cartlidge & KD, too!
UT’s English Dept.
Vivé Griffith
W. Joe Hoppe

Street Lit haiku day -- 
spontaneous outpourings.
​Even failing's fun

        I can't say quite why,
        but haiku became the thing
        We killed it, sometimes...

So, we all ganged up on syllable counts and the fingers flew
and gentle arguments were argued over things like:
"Is it baff-ul-ing? Or baff-ling?"
"It is what we want it to be. We decide!"
"This has an extra syllable, but I like it. I want to keep it."
"Close enough," we said, "until something better comes to mind."
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know!"
"Maybe these are like /puzzles for the mind to solve / Rorschach tests with words?"
"Ready, set, syllablize!" 

We all wrote:

     A borrowed black hat
     may emphasize the background --
     Bad guys wear leather.

and...

     The wall psychotic --
     Wailing pierced the holy land.
     "Out there ... Can you help?"

and then...

        Leonardo, he
        declared the day a contest
        of off-the-cuff verse

Yep, Leonardo Da Vinci E. threw down a five spot for prize money, set himself as the sole judge, and the competition began.

               Concentration ruled.
               Scribbling happened. Head scratching.
               Erasures and sighs...

Niko's entry:

     I write this poem
     Where hopeless men try to sleep,
     Maybe even dream.

Charlie's entry:

     We don't need no education
     I think I'm losing my mind, Roger.
     The Judge is the job.

(Charlie makes his own damn rules!)

Thom's poem:

     Her eyes fixed on him
     Her world collapsed inside her
     His regret ice cold

Josh went cosmic, and where'd that extra syllable come from?:

     The cosmic phallus
     eloquently baffling
     supreme-minded beings

Me, too, on the cosmic page:

     The cosmic exists
     in the thoughts of the human
     shared among us all.

We all counted out...

                  Fives sevens and fives
                  until the word dust settled
                  And the winner is...........

Jenny! with this fine work:

      Living the brushstrokes
      Enhancing the gift of time
      Love breathes into light.

It didn't end there, though. Josh, never one to leave well enough alone, went full mashup on us. After a smoke break / he sputtered, coughed, and revealed / an untitled gem:

A borrowed black hat
May emphasize the background
Bad guys wear leather,
But I don’t know when
Or if, or how, or where to
That I should also,
It seems perhaps not
It always seems like henchmen
Trying to climb up
The wall psychotic --
Wailing pierces the holy land
Out there can you help?
Even a henchman may one day need his god
To climb the pink wall
I wish I were cool
But bad guys don’t listen
To pop-punk music.

Huge thanks to Literary Hub and Michele Filgate for such a kind and supportive piece! Click here to read Michele's story in its entirety. She was wonderful to work with -- it's great to have such talent on our team.

A HUNDRED FEET
by Tim "Dezi" Reid

What a difference
A hundred feet can make
Underneath I-35
On the river that’s a lake
On the bridge the countless cars
Driving north or southbound
Just 100 feet below them
Tranquility can be found
On the bridge, cars hurry
To get to where they’re going
100 feet below them
Canoes and kayaks slowly rowing
The peacefulness and nature's view
Take your breath away
Town Lake in Austin, Texas
On a mid-November day

Rag Men
by Anonymous

Alena safety-pinned a label on the man’s lapel, and read it to her bear, Gerald: “This man refuses to open his eyes.” She skipped the bear across the attic floorboards and danced him to the wool scarf that served as the man’s neck. “Gerald the Bear says ‘Grr!’, Mister! You better wake up or I’m gonna fold you back in the box.” 

The box was one of a baker’s dozen, stacked and soft with age and dust, leaning beside the table where Alena’s mother once kept her quilting materials. “Men” the box was named, printed in black marker dimmed to blue. Alena’s men were assembled from scraps, lined on their backs like an array of playing cards, their hats, caps, and yarn hair close against the angle where the roof line sloped into the floor. If they wanted to sit up, they would bump their heads, and Alena often warned them not to move as she adjusted their clothes, and their make-believe attitudes.

Gerald turned to her from the stubborn, closed-lidded man; threads hung from the teddy bear's cross-stitched mouth like droplets of blood.

“Good bear,” she said, and held Gerald to each face in turn to show them what vicious behavior he was capable of.

The man at the left consisted of work clothes—Dickies overalls, White Mule gloves, and for his head she’d scooped and patterned a round button face made of buttons itself, grimacing with a row of silver snaps and other glinting bits of toothy remnants. He had no hair—her dad had been bald—and his eyes were made of spools, bugging out in anger. She ignored him, no matter how much Gerald growled. Dad was best left alone.

Next she’d smoothed out a pair of torn Levi’s and  a shirt that changed with her mood. Yesterday it had been a muscle shirt, today was dressier, a blue t-shirt with stained armpits, covered with a vest from a suit she couldn’t find. His head was empty except for his eyes she’d built of heaps of glitter, and his hair was long and straight, combed from brown yarn. He was a rock and roll rebel boy, her high school sweetheart someday. She called him Rascal, and he was the only one that Gerald approved of.

Gross John lay next to Rascal. A boring brown suit and hat, folded in half from brim to toe, as though he’d rolled over and gone to sleep. Gross John was her husband, who never came home from work, and it didn't matter anyway, because next to him lay her secret boyfriend, Raul. He didn’t have any clothes at all, just a pair of underwear she’d wickedly stuffed with socks, and eyes that winked and dazzled her: deep blue Pente orbs, stolen from the game downstairs. 

And now, the difficult one. The one who refused, flat refused, to open his eyes!

“Maybe he’s asleep,” she whispered to Gerald. 

In his bear voice he replied that maybe she hadn’t met him yet, and his eyes would open then.

The attic door slammed open against the bottom of the stairwell, and Alena almost bumped her head scooping up the men, bundling Gerald into the box with them, crying, “Who’s there?” before the trespasser could set foot on the stairs. “Stay there, stay there! I’m coming down in a minute!”

“It’s way past dinner time,” a boy’s voice complained. “We’re starving.”

“Just one more little minute, honey. Let me tidy up.”

“Please, Mom. The baby’s hungry; I can’t make him shut up, and Dad’s not home yet.”

Gerald rustled in the box and muttered at the mention of Alena’s husband. She stroked the box marked “Men” and shushed the bear to silence.

“I’m coming,” she said, and stood to compose herself, whispering “Goodnight, darlings” to the empty spaces her men of rags had filled.

When the Church Bell Rings
by Derek Kalaaukahi

            It was a warm December day turned cold because I found myself on the losing end of a sparring match with a dangerous foe…myself. Sad stories about life’s ups and downs are best saved for a Hallmark movie, so let’s just say that I was looking for a lighthouse to help me find my way through the storm which had become my life. Fate and destiny can be the biggest bitches in the world, but guiding lights they would become on that day, a day in which I would find sanctuary, as well as a savior.
            Drifting in a barrio section of the city which was once Park Avenue some fifty years ago, I came across a row of broken down business warehouses. These warehouse looked palatial in the memory of a hundred year old city resident, but they looked like slums in my eyes on that day. One of those little warehouses stood out like a tombstone in a cemetery full of wooden crosses. Engraved on the tombstone read “Boxing Gym.” It would seem as if the little house of dreams could see the despair in my eyes as it actually called for me to go inside. It was like Mama calling for me the first time I fell off my bike.
            The smell of the place almost turned me away; it reeked so bad that you could almost see the air itself. The musty smell of sweat and blood tested those strong enough to take a few more steps into the light. A quick leap of faith showed a litany of saints such as Ali, Frazier and Sugar Ray forever immortalized on boxing posters that covered the shrine walls. Tyson and Duran glared from the entrance as they dared the weak to take just a few more steps to glory.
            High noon was the time as I walked inside the place feeling like Doc Holliday. If you had eyes from the heart, you could almost see all the ghosts of the combatants that had come before, still throwing punches. Jump ropes hung from the walls like sleeping snakes that only woke up for the champions at heart. Heavy bags pieced together with gray duct tape hung from the ceiling like Christmas ornaments. The ring where the gladiators fought their demons laid in the middle of the gym on a raised platform. Those with courage needed only three steps to find their way out of hell, but the timid saw those same steps as a stairway to heaven. It’s inside the ring where you sometimes stand alone with your arms raised. Sometimes though you find yourself kneeling before an adversary like a sinner seeking redemption from a saint. A boxing gym, as I would soon learn, is a church for those with no religion but self-preservation. I felt at ease, I felt at home.
          “How you doin’?”
          I was startled by strong yet soothing sound of a man’s voice coming from behind me as if God were speaking to Moses. I turned around expecting a burning bush, but black Jesus stood before me instead. I was face to face with a tall stout black man with arms and legs that would make a tree green with envy. Gray woolen hair and a lumbering walk hinted that at this man’s six decades on Earth.
            “I’m Don.”
            Rank air turned rose scented, and the boxers inside the posters came to life as Don introduced himself. Don was a former boxer who trained the incorrigible of society, like myself. I felt comfortable telling this stranger about my plight, looking for something to believe in, something to shoot for…a purpose in life. Don had gone through his own rollercoasters in life, and he gave a sermon about how boxing had saved his soul…by giving him purpose as well. He preached that boxing is discipline mixed with pain and sweat, a template that I would take with me the rest of my life.
            “Make this place your home,” said the minister.
            Don would become my coach and mentor, but more importantly he would become my friend who taught me many things inside and outside the ring which would help me become someone better than the loser who first walked in that gym. Don harped that boxing is not about sport, it’s about finding courage to step through the ropes and face the challenges of life.
            Five years have passed since I crossed that threshold of hooks and uppercuts. I’ve held no title belt, but a champion I’ve become. I am now the greatest, the greatest me that I can be. My church is there for those seeking salvation from the past. My church welcomes sinners and saints alike, and sacrifice pays the tithe.

​We Are the Atheists (Murderers of All the Gods)
by Leonardo da Vinci E.

I am a truth sayer and a God-slayer 
And it is my honor never to have willingly—slain a man
But for to take his hand—in peace
But no gods have lived after there was I
To see them standing there alone, before my sword
Owned for its truth to fall upon them
And you know in your heart the reason
Apollo, Zeus, Isis, Odin
And many more are all slain
And why to worship them now—is considered a shame
As truth has one by one called them by name—to justice
And now there is left only one eternal flame
          Left to extinguish—I am stalking
And he shakes mightily to hide himself
Lest my eyes fall upon even his shadow
Where I yet upon his trail
Will not fail but to slay his frail and false morality
His invisible and thus immoral heart
And what will ye serve then—Oh humanity?
When that moment comes and you realize you
Were really all alone under the sun
With only physics and yourselves
And being freed from heaven or hell—unprepared!
But we the humanist have prepared a place
For thee—Oh humanity
To dry your eyes after all the lies have been defined
And what to do now is to serve the good
For the purpose of destroying chaos—my love
To serve the fairness for the sake of an orderly peace
To do justice for to establish a reason for love
To worship courtesy as the prerequisite for human contact—my love
With concepts we’ll call ethics
Because morality mixed with mysticism, hatreds, and superstitions
          will be dead
And all their imaginary Gods
Slain by humanist atheists

Christmas Presence
by Niko Joost

Oh, hi, Orion, 
Way up in the sky on
A crisp, clear Christmastide night!

Your stars all twinkle
Like diamonds were sprinkled
On black velvet, reflecting the light.

In your belt I can see
Stars numbering three
Arranged like those pyramids at Giza

Were they built by Egyptians
With glyphic predilections?
Who knows, but they predated Caesar

Their ratios' designs
Run along cosmic lines
And feature the star Betelgeuse.

Geometrically astute,
Astronomically, to boot!
Their builders were far from obtuse

So when I espy
You up in the sky
My mind races to places far off.

Where scientists' debates
With Jules Verne and his mates
Are refereed by The Great Asimov.

Every December
I always remember
To look for you when the sun sets;

I know you're returning
Because your friendship, I'm learning
Won't ever be the subject of bets.
​
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! (And to all a Good Night!)

An unfulfilled quest
by Marcilas Jackson

​I really don’t remember the name of the story. I know it was about some guy named Macomber. There were others involved, too. I really don’t remember their names. 

I think there was 
a wife, 
a guide, 
and a tiger.

My instructor, Professor Griffith, asked me to write a paper on the three unfulfilled quests in the story. To this day I cannot remember the goals of the people in the story: Macomber, his wife, and the guide. 

I can only remember there were in fact 
four quests in the story.

The tiger that was killed was on a quest of its own.
It never made it to the top of the hill. 
It could have had cubs. 
I don’t know. 
Now it was no more. 
It was forgotten. 

An unfulfilled quest.