Dreams projected on a ceiling from a restless mind. A vision of a better tomorrow plays from the imagination onto the stucco. With pleading hope for happiness to join the rising sun, the reality of sadness can be temporarily cast aside. Muscles relax and the burden lessens with the promise. Eyes close and colors dance a firefly ballet on the back of eyelids. Fantasies and nightmares disturb the slumber but recede with the buzz of an alarm clock. Golden rays of butterscotch pour through the glass and warm the face. I rise, we all rise… with hope in our hearts.

From Guest Contributor Jordan Altman

Opulence surrounds me – magically tinted daguerreotype of warped idyll ­– mahogany and cast iron impressing their hubris upon the carpet, much as the armies to the south are scorching their indelible brand of gunpowder and blood upon the land.

You’d think our neighbors would have had their fill of war by now; or at least be spilling blood and stale sweat over nobler offenses than that of one hungry porker and careless farmer.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid