Dec. 15~ A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS SPOTLIGHT

Welcome back to SHINE, where today we're shining the spotlight on not one...not two...but three different writers!!! I hope you enjoy these Christmas-related pieces from Josh Gonzalez, Doug Stoiber, and Richard McClellan (and thank you, Josh, Doug, and Richard for sharing your words!).

PLUS...this week, SHINE has a few more Spotlights for you ahead of a planned holiday hiatus, so stay tuned, and be sure to come back in January for a full line-up of new Book Reviews and more amazing poetry from our contributors around the globe!

JOSH GONZALEZ
​The Snow Queen

Once upon a winter twilight I sit once more in the void spaces. Where time runs together like colors bleeding down a canvas, all blending into different shades until they shade to grey: yet, not black, not white, but a blankness. A nothingness that’s as still as virgin snow in December morning-night; each snowflake silently drifts ever downward from the steel bright sky: a midnight afternoon where all life has stopped.

A glittering wonderland romanticized from frosted windows, heaters, and four-wheel drive. An isolation so alluring we are blind to the bite, to the thorns amidst the roses, to the smiles hiding the pain, to the cries now silent. For like an iceberg that split we now drift apart, detached from empathy; we are detached from all emotion like the grass frozen and buried beneath those rolling white hills.

I see myself in a mirror that reflects the past. The reflection ripples like a drop in a lake: a distortion through their eyes, and a cancer taking root from a child’s need—all alone in that forest wilderness. Not in those European forests of fairyland, but in the dense evergreens of the pacific west. Yet, in the frosting of the world that once was, in the shimmering of the mirror like Ozma in the throne room, and in the shattering like the devil’s mirror as it grinned near heaven—all emotions and memories scatter. They like tiny pieces of glass float across the child’s inner world like pollen. They twinkle like wind chimes, like how we believe the glittering of the snow should sound. And in the lulling I fall into a daydream: into the stillness.

For like Kay the glass freezes in my eye and in my heart. And like the Snow Queen my inner world kisses my cheek till all is forgotten; my features all sparkling blue with ice. There is no malice here but a warm embrace like a bear skin cloak; the sinking into a snow drift. A protective envelopment from the cold winter world outside. A heart frozen yet safe.

For in those dreams all these fears can be romanticized too, so I can drift in the true fairyland and the reconstructed lands for the nursery. Frozen in that past reflection. Preserved forever in a cryosleep. And that me that wanders in that wonderland can be Gerta too. Adventuring in search of who I once was, wandering across lands unknown.

Hoping for spring to come again. Where the ice shall melt to tears on my cheeks.

DOUG STOIBER
Whither Tinsel?

When I was a lad and still believed that Santa Claus came down our flue,
I’d wake at dawn on Christmas Day and take the stairs two at a time
Fling wide the door to the living room and marvel at a dream come true
Our Christmas tree, bedecked in silver, a vision brilliant and sublime

No Fourth of July rockets match the flashing shimmering sparks
Thrown off by tinsel’s mirrored strands, each pine branch clad with silver streamers
Throughout the room, reflected sparkles rift the air like flaming darts
Surpassing brilliance even of the brightest of the Christmas dreamer’s

What has become of tinsel now? Its ubiquity far in my past
Consigned to memory, not in style for trimming trees at Christmas
Not found weeks later, curbside on forsaken husk (it couldn’t last)
Not flailing at our wintered eyes for one last smile as we get back to business

The bane of brooms and vacuums, tinsel fought them to a maddening draw;
Fingers scooping up the rogue remains could wad a veritable ball of lead
We, tasked with “redding up” the Christmas-littered living room, revealed our labor’s flaw
When certain siblings flung these dense projectiles at another’s head

Ah, Tinsel! You were always so; that swish of energy and light
Despite our parents’ reprimands, we jollied in the fun of chucking handfuls at the spruce
Indeed, the pre- and post-Yule flinging of your strands brought pre- and post - delight
Ah, well. You made my Christmas dazzle ere you fell into disuse

JOSH GONZALEZ
​Oh, Little One

Oh, little one
Where have you been?
Leveed across the great divide.
I grasp now that I wish you were near
For inevitable do you hide,
Peeking from the corner of a tear.
Now, I am close, yet still so far from you.
You shocked us all when you appeared.
We can laugh about it now, their mouths agape,
Their presence, blue and white: a teenage family.

Yet, you bravely came forth.
You made your presence known.
A gripping in my lower back: a diaphragmatic sob.
The tears—not mine, but ours.
Tears that write stories;
Water calligraphy drawn down our cheeks.
Tears that transcend time and space.
Tears that time travel, each drop a window,
Each drop a mirror. For you come from before,
Preserved as that boy I long to be again
When I knew myself.
Oh, little one how much you carry all alone.

Oh, little one I’m here now.
We are here now.
It’s ok, you can cry now. We can cry now.
You place your burden in a jar: all our grief.
For in that time long gone, the first time we froze,
We lost one we loved so much.
Oh, how he shined like a star.
Out in the dusty sagebrush fields of the west.
Driving along in his work cleaning van,
And we’d stay the night,
Lounging on a well worn leather couch.
A pitch black night outside the window.
For when it’s dark it’s dark in the desert.
The coyotes yip yip would herald a story,
And his wide animated eyes would scare us too.
But oh, how fun the spine chilling tale would be:
An invisible line woven tight in loving thread.

Oh, little one how precious that loving thread.
A love as loyal as a band of outlaws.
A Kraft single for each sorrow.
The crinkle of plastic announcing his return.
A slice of block cheese for each worry.
For like a film reel my memories replay:
Siamese, little shop, and yellow bricks.
All buried in a box.
Silenced for more important adult pain.
An isolation on the small couch in the kitchen.
Our shocked wide eyes dry in obedience.
A stone statue drifting through the funeral home.
This outlaw was left alone in the emptiness.

Oh, little one how long you held on to that star.
Each point bent and worn, held close in tiny
Arms. Now, you cradle the jar,
Like the animal friends all an audience
Under the bunk bed, scooby doo sheets hugs,
And a white black rat: all friends in a daisy field.
Now, vacant like that wooden porch,
The side shed, and the empty golf balls.

Oh, little one you shoulder an adult burden,
Not one star, but a constellation.
A whole universe captured in your arms.
Handled with care, each one precious.
A head tilted on a pillow—tilted and tried.
A pain made for many, yet held by a child.
We all realized, oh, little one.
When you climbed onto that couch,
Hands and feet first,
Where all that hidden sorrow lies.
That sorrow that’s just on the edge.
That the one who fell can’t feel.
Are you with him too, oh, little one?
Only two years apart.
All the time lost.
All the time spent with a broken heart.
We all knew and we all felt.

Oh, how compassion can flow.
How abundant the waters of love,
When true and fragrant with humility.
Love crumbles the high walls and washes away
Riches. Love rinses eyes of glass shards,
Until all are seen as is: beauty in what is,
As it is, when it is, and how it was.
So, that we can be loved unconditionally.

For oh, how lucky we are,
In how the world was created.
For those fall evening drives,
In your embrace, oh Jesus.
Holding me up, my arm across your shoulder,
Our faces sore with joyous laughter.
Love! An ever babbling fountain of cool water.
That was all it was ever meant to be.
You and I a relationship.
The flowing breeze between the leaves.
The purpling of the clouds.
And like a mirrored reflection our inner family
A relationship too. A well of love so deep,
That even I a ten-year-old child with a jar of stars,
Will never be alone.

For I, a ten-year-old child with a jar of stars,
Can find a place in that room in my mind.
On that couch where I hugged myself.
The I that kept us going when we fell.
You all see me now.
The three or four, all blue and white.
The kind father who loves us so.
And now I see so clearly why you love us, Jesus.
And I can lay back safe and let these tears,
Write the stories untold.
For freeze was not a cold winter night,
But a house, warm with a fire.
Surrounded by my family
Within their embrace. ​

RICHARD McCLELLAN
​The Old Country Church

The church bell tolls
Down by the river,
Where the water's awfully cold,
And that river keeps rolling along.

The congregation mourns
A deacon that passed the other day.
It was raining on this world
With rolling black clouds that look like grey clay.

A gravel road greets the church's entrance
Where wheels bring the people on Sunday,
To sing along to the gospel,
How Great Thou Art.

Precious memories follow the congregation
As the choir harmonizes.
Singing, I hear rolling thunder, and
My Savior God, to Thee.

BIOGRAPHIES

Josh Gonzalez is a gay Christian writer. He is an emerging writer, who has been writing and emerging for twenty years now. A series of unfortunate health issues and crippling childhood trauma created unforeseen obstacles, however, simultaneously giving him a wealth of material to write about. He has an Associates Degree in English from Truckee Meadows Community College, and a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from University of Nevada Reno. His short fiction piece “Summertime” has appeared in the online journal of Two Sisters Writing & Publishing. He is currently working on a collection of queer fairytales, his memoir “All My Life”, and a poetry book on dealing with the freeze fear response and his trauma healing journey through IFS (internal family systems). His work is inspired by classic fairytales, myths, and legends. You can also find him researching CPTSD, complex trauma, and homophobic trauma in the hopes of better understanding himself and others. In his free time, he can be found collecting more books than he can store. Plus, when the time comes all the books that couldn’t fit on his shelf can be constructed for his coffin.

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Doug Stoiber is a poet and short story writer, and a member of Mossy Creek Writers in East Tennessee. Fifteen of his short stories and twenty-nine of his poems have been published in magazines, journals and anthologies.

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Richard McClellan served in the U.S. Army, and has travelled the world including Japan, Korea, Portugal, Italy, Canada, and most of the lower 48 United States and Alaska. His favorite place that he has visited is the Azores Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Richard’s hobbies include poetry, genealogy, motorcycling, crocheting, and knitting. Prior to an injury sustained in 2007, he enjoyed playing billiards, 8-ball, and 9-ball competitively. His educational background includes a Bachelor's Degree in Electronics from (Southwest) Missouri State University, and an Associates Degree in Electromechanical Technology from North Arkansas Community College. He has been writing poetry since 2011.

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