Sandra Rose Hughes

WHISPY WHITE CLOUDS AND MEANDERING MISTS (A SONNET) The wispy white clouds on the wild white mountains Hide faces of wandering, pondering poets. Meandering mists in the marvelous valleys Are revealing those lingering singers in boats. Long, long ago before the division Songsters and writers lived harmoniously. The poets would write words of lyrical lightness, And singers would song them melodiously. Now there is muteness in the marvelous valleys, The poets still ponder but have no one to sing. And the singers stare up at those wild white mountains, With tunes in their hearts but no words to make ring. When pride has asunder torn can any join together? Or will the singers stay in boats and poets in the heather?

So there I was, stranded in the middle of the canyon with no cell-phone reception, and a car whose engine was ablaze. I ran to the trunk, where I got the trusty fire extinguisher, and managed to put out the blaze (thank you, husband.) White fire extinguisher powder covered the engine and foul-smelling smoke filled the air. I called the operator at the emergency call box and called Triple A. They said they would be there, but that it would take an hour or more to get to me. By now it was 11:30 PM, and the turn-out was very, very dark. I locked myself in the car and sat there, stunned and alone. Did I mention that it was very dark? I began feeling frightened, and I started to pray. "Jesus, please let the tow-truck come soon. Please don't let any mass-murderers come out of the bushes to kill me. Please don't let the car explode. Please keep me safe. Please keep me safe." After an indeteriminable amount of time, a car pulled over and stopped next to mine. The driver, a sa...

This is my third blog about the life and demise of my old college car, the 1993 Dodge Shadow. The first was titled, "My Humiliating Car," and the other was, "Tire Rims and Poor Decisions." One evening around 11PM, I was driving home from Bakersfield (an hour-long drive through a windy canyon), and I noticed that my oil light began blinking intermittently on my way home. The oil light went off pretty frequently in the Dodge Shadow, as it had had an oil leak for at least three years straight at this time. Every few months, we'd pour a few more jugs of oil into the car, and a few months later, the oil light would begin blinking again. So when it started blinking, I didn't really get concerned. As I entered the mouth of The Canyon, however, the blink changed. It was no longer a blink, but rather a steady, red light. Then, the temperature of the car started climbing. The little temperature gauge kept slipping from the calming blue area to the frightening red ar...

I wrote this a while ago...when I was tired of writing, and decided to write the stupidest thing I could imagine. I think it turned out kind of funny. Alfonso placed one hand on the girl’s creamy face, feeling the softness of her skin. He kept the other on the curve of her back. He knew she might not let him touch her ever again after he gave her his news. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Anna,” he faltered, unable to meet her clear blue gaze, “but I’m the father of that child.” “Alfonso! No!” exclaimed Anna, pulling herself from his grasp in horror, but unable to move too far away from his tempting warmth. “There’s more,” Alfonso continued. “I also slept with your sister.” “But…” Anna vainly tried to understand what he was telling her. As disbelief flooded her heart, it was becoming easier and easier to move away from his suddenly not-so desirable body. “And…I ran over your cat with my car.” “Mrs. Snuggles?! But that cat helped raise me before I found my biological mother!...

My copy of Midnight Screaming arrived in my happy little hands this weekend. As you can see from the pictures, my poem was the first in the book. I can set the magazine on the bookcase next to my other poetry book with my work in it, "Concise Delight." Kara Ferguson, the editor, even sent me a nice little personalized note- very classy. Thank you, Kara. I need to stop blogging and get to work writing some new poetry now.

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/images/pglossary/geyser.php Last year, for National Poetry Month, my local library held a poetry competition. I submitted a poem that I thought was pretty original. You can read the poem and some of my thoughts about the competition here . Well, there were a lot of submissions that year, and my poem didn't warrant even an honorable mention...I would have settled for a little scrawl from one of the judges saying they liked it. So I wasn't thrilled with that, and I felt like, "If I can't even win a community poetry competition...what makes me think I have any business submitting my stuff to actual literary professional magazines?" This year, when national poetry month rolled around, I was ambivalent about entering the contest again. In fact, I told my husband, "No way am I doing that again!" However, as time went by, hope began to creep back into my heart, and I realized, it's a new year. I'm already a better writer than ...

I found the picture for this blog at the Edvard Munch website . He was this amazing expressionist painter, and this is one of my all-time favorite paintings. I think it expresses so many things. Teachers almost always shudder when they tell you about their first year. It's usually overwhelming, depressing, frustrating, and downright frightening. It does get better by year two or sometimes even three, but in the middle of year one...it's all we can do not to run away screaming. I wrote a lot of poetry that first year teaching, but I can't claim that it's any good. It's angry, and it's what I like to think of as "emotional vomit." You know, where you write whatever feeling or thought flows through your head without any pre-planning or editing. You just vomit up your feelings onto the page. I actually really like teaching now that I'm finishing my fourth year...but that first year... If it hadn't been for the gigantic amount of student loans I had...

I need to submit some more poetry. I like to try to keep four or five poems out in the world being considered. I only have a few submissions being considered right now. Of those, some have been pending responses for more than six months, which means I will probably never hear from the editors. It is difficult to keep faith in my own writing ability. I am looking through Duotrope's listings, trying to find a magazine that seems to accept the type of work that I write. But...it seems like that poetry that I see being accepted by the magazines is edgy, or politically or sexually charged...and mine is just not. I like to write about happy things, or simple things. It seems like some poets write because they have a chip on their shoulders, or some old anger that they are trying to get across. I just want to express my emotions, and I am afraid that they are boring or even trite. I don't have issues with my father or mother or authority figures. I'm not full of rage at the world...

If you read my previous post about Channeling Dave Barry , you know a little bit about the demise of my high school car. This post is about the very beginning, when I first got the car. I would like to submit it somewhere, but I'm honestly not sure where. By the way, the April Edition of Midnight Screaming is going to press soon! My poem, "The Green Man" will be featured in the magazine, and a short biography about me will be posted on the Midnight Screaming Website . Tire Rims and Poor Decisions In one of the world’s worst decisions since the (insert your least favorite election year here) election, my father gave me, a 17-year old child, a car after I graduated from high school. To be fair, he didn’t have much choice. He and my mother had promised all of their children that if any of us earned straight A’s consistently all through high school, they would buy us a car. Not a new car or a big car, of course, but a good, solid, drivable college car. We three children are...

As a child, I read fantasy voraciously. Whenever I thought about being a writer at that time, I always assumed I would write fantasy. But now that I am adult, facing a white page...that's just not what I seem to want to write. It all turns out silly, like a pathetic rehashing of The Hobbit . Anyway, I do like writing autobiographical things...and this is based on something that happened to me a few years ago. The Jacket An older woman came by our pew before church service started today. She was someone I had seen around the church and had exchanged smiles and pleasantries with, but had never actually talked to, and I had no idea who she was. She sat next to me, but as she sat down, she was really looking at Anthony while she said, “This will only take a moment. I wanted to talk to you.” We smiled at her, and I moved my purse and jacket out of way. She was short and slender, with steely, waved hair, a black dress, and a beautiful set of pearls. I thought she looked elegan...

For my husband's birthday two years ago, I wrote him a small collection of poetry. We had been married for three years at that time. It's not exactly Sonnets of the Portugese , but it told him what I wanted him to know. Here is one of the poems. WHEREVER YOU GO Wherever you go, there will I be. The riches of the world, Capitol Cities, wondrous architecture, universities, All these esteemed things once called me. But none of them sing to me, not like your voice does. But none of them pull on me, not like your voice does. But none of them summon me, not like your voice does. All the capitol cities can fall to ruin, All the universities, they can all burn, architectural wonders, they can collapse. For, I would barely hear their dying cries, for Wherever you go, there will I be.