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The Kite

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by Stewart Alter

The boy wanted that badge
that could be pinned in the sky,
with its towering view
of the neighborhood he knew,
even of him there on the hill.
But as he ran back and forth
panting and pulling
and yanking on that string
he could not get his kite to fly.

Struggling to rise, it scooped
and jolted and stalled
and bounced back and forth
between invisible walls,
and just when it seemed
it was about to board
an upward current of air,
it overturned, a flailing
upside down
diving diamond.

The day was clear, the wind solid,
he had picked a high hill
in the park overlooking the harbor.
He had done everything right.
His mother had even let him tear
an old shirt to make a tail for the kite.
But why wasn’t it working
for him. There would be
no barely visible string,
connecting him up high
to that floating emblem,
balanced in the breeze.
Mom said try another day.
He didn’t think he would.
Ever.

 

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been contributing poems to Voices since 2021.

The Fox

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by Stewart Alter

It’s not the motionless
museum beauty of the deer,
steadied to be studied,
but the stunning streak of the fox
stirring the landscape
that uproots me from routine.

I am always too late.
She appears unpredictably,
pauses to deliberate,
then flashes across the field
before I can fix that vixen in view.

So I now spend every day
waiting on the deck at dusk,
undistracted by the sunset
no matter how wondrous it is,
or by the sequenced stillness
of the deer, no matter how magnetic.

With early seating and the script in hand
surely now I’ll be ready for rhapsody,
to see beyond the perceptibly poised,
to view the movement
that informs formation,
to see her rush from the brush.

 

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been contributing poems to Voices since 2021.

GPS

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by Stewart Alter

He wanted to start his life over,
this time using GPS.
No more dead end
jobs, or wrong way turns
into one-way relationships,
or long roundabout highways
to get to the same crowded
rest area experiences as everyone else.

There would be personalized routes,
jig-sawed but goal-directed,
filled with wonder and surprises,
whether on country roads
or in less traveled towns,
always accurate and on track,
and alerting him to life’s opportunities
just ahead at the next junction,
steering him always
to turn the right way.
He would just need to yield
his will and be guided by
faith in that satellite voice.
There would be just one directional
decision to make–
What did he want his life to be?–
None others delaying
or troubling him along the way.

But if, because of stubborn
old bad habits,
or willful defiance,
he veered off course
and found himself lost,
afraid or even anxious,
that voice from the heavens
would be quick to forgive,
and ready to restore him
to the proper path,
repeating,
“recalculating. . . recalculating.”

 

Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been contributing poems to Voices since 2021.

I Was at Calvary

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by Mireya Perez-Bustillo

On this hill Golgotha
where it happened
They call it Church of the Holy Sepulchre
a sacred site closely guarded
The moment came to be at the very spot
even to touch it in a hole for my arm
But there were two lines side by side
I was asked to choose
which was the true spot
The eastern Orthodox one or
the Western Christian one
The split so clear
even on Golgotha

 

Mireya Perez-Bustillo’s poetry and prose in English and Spanish appears in Caribbean Review, The Mom Egg, The Poetry Table Book: Anthology 2000-20024 among others. Her Latina coming-of-age novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press), is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

Encircling Tritons

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by Mireya Perez-Bustillo

That dragon appeared too friendly
jutting its rounded tummy
beckoning her to drink
that hot afternoon past the crescent colonnade
of St. Peter’s seeking the soothness of gelato
walking past the Columbus Hotel with its crosses
of Malta
She had to touch his belly smiling at his spouted invitation.
that morning across the Tiber she had seen
the green-tinged Neptune step out to shake his trident at her tired of grappling with sea monsters
Beyond in that refreshing Borghese Garden
she faced reclining Paolina, Bonaparte’s sister
with the milky skin softened at baths by black retainers who carried her
to her carrara couch forever waiting
to be touched so inviting her jealous
husband kept the creator Canova from her
Here these marbled rooms favor rapes
in the center Dafne’s softness hardening
to crunchy bark escaping Apollo’s scorching
there an anguished Proserpine pulling
her smooth-well-fed thigh from the pinches
deep of that grasping savage
Beyond descending la scalinata della
Trinitá dei Monti to that half-sunk boat
Barcaccia Roman brides step water seeping
to spill in them flowing eggs
Nearby faintly clad Naidi entwine their bare asses
water spouting them in their phallic embrace
of lizard, seahorse, swan and water snake
In that equestrian oval of Navonna
Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Plate, the
Quatri Fiumi sprinkle tourists and street artists
releasing satyrs to leap about them
causing a poet to embrace a posing mime
a dancing clown to spin a musing stranger
while in that tiered Colosseum
a red-plumed centurion leaves his golden shield
to tango with a rapt visitor
the cracked forum below
crowning Capitoline Hill
a giant foot and fist anoint the heavens
the hushed crush of lovers joining
the wanton waters flowing

 

Mireya Perez-Bustillo’s poetry and prose in English and Spanish appears in Caribbean Review, The Mom Egg, The Poetry Table Book: Anthology 2000-20024 among others. Her Latina coming-of-age novel, Back to El Dorado (Floricanto Press), is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon sites.

Shelter Helter-Skelter

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by Judith Meyerowitz

Yellow and black fallout sign in basement-gimme shelter
We squeeze our bodies under the desk seat.
We laugh tensely as we fit our tushies and feet- helter-skelter.

 

The Civil Defense film “Duck and Cover”
features “Bert the Turtle”,
who has a built-in shelter.

We are not supposed to face the windows.
The glass could shatter.
They did not tell us we will melt- helt•er-skelter

 

Will I be safe from the BOMB?
The President and his friends
have an underground shelter.

 

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, I read Hiroshima
Their skin comes off their hands like gloves
Helter-Skelter

Gunfire! Students in place,
“And naught of earth shall harm me.”
For in the arms of God, I shelter
Helter-skelter.

 

Judith has had the pleasure of her prose and poetry works appearing in Voices over several years. “She’s in my Head” was developed in the LP 2 poetry sg and “Helter Skelter” at the 92nd St. Y and was read at a New York Public Library event.

 

 

 

She is in My Head

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by Judith Meyerowitz

We inhabited the same space.
Her blood flowed in me.
Her genes
Her thoughts

I lay attached to her by wires,
her emotional currents coursing through me.
I emerged formed- I sat, I crawled, I walked.
Invisible wires did not let me go far.
I was her creature, her experiment.
I looked in the mirror and
on my face saw her image,
The Creator

Helpless, I waited to awake to more developed human characteristics,
to have an independent self
My contact with the outside was limited.
I was afraid
as if the wires were still attached.

Through the wires I could also feel her pain, helplessness.
How do you express anger at fragility
You write- humorous poisonous pen letters when very young, thoughtful insightful words when older.

Frankenstein’s monster seemed human
despite the bolts in his neck and
stitches in his head,
a gentle monster who liked flowers.
Were we meant to feel for him
or were we he?

So many human experiments seem to go wrong.
The Creator no stronger, wiser than the monster

 

Judith has had the pleasure of her prose and poetry works appearing in Voices over several years. “She’s in my Head” was developed in the LP 2 poetry sg and “Helter Skelter” at the 92nd St. Y and was read at a New York Public Library event.

 

Loss

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by Jennifer Roberts

I could not know when I ordered asparagus
On that first night when I saw you coming shyly around the corner,
Remembering you had said you loved them,
Forgetting for the moment that I hated them,
That it would be the beginning of many compromises.

Many joyous years and loving accommodations later
I walk through the supermarket, dislocated,
And drawn to the asparagus as by a magnet.
Instinctively I extend my arm to grab some,
Forgetting for the moment that my asparagus lover,
My gentlemanly Parisian husband,
Is no longer alive to eat them,
Will never taste the tender spears again.

I quiver, bite my lip and feel myself disintegrating
Right there in the middle of Aisle 6,
Once such a site of joy and eager anticipation
Of his delighted eyes.
Should I honor him by taking home some asparagus?
Should I try to learn to love them?
But I learned to love him, and now my heart is broken.

 

A wisecracking grandmother and a native New Yorker who has taught in both Texas and Massachusetts, Jennifer Roberts is currently Distinguished Professor of Classics and History at the City University of New York and the author of several books on Greece.

 

 

Four Haiku

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by Stephen Reichstein

The crocus flower,
Golden head buried in sand
Welcomes the sun’s warmth.

The old apple tree,
Feels spring’s warm welcome kisses
And responds with flowers.

Spring sees barren earth
Sends warm winds and large raindrops
Wakes those wanting life.

Educated man
His eyes buried in a book
Blind to miracles.

 

Gardening has been a passion of Steve from an early age. In one of his former positions he oversaw NYC’s GreenThumb program that turned empty lots into gardens. He is a graduate of Hunter College and Penn.

 

Letter from the Publisher 2025

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Welcome to the 2025 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 eight poets and sixteen prose writers. Some of this writing has been generated in LP2 study groups and activities. Some is creative work that our members have done on our own.

Eight writers are appearing in Voices for the first time.  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