Cover Art “The Last Caress” by Bill Wolak
Catherine Arra
COUNTDOWNS & ACCIDENTAL VIDEO CLIPS
co-written with Alex Stolis
Waiting on a rocket
to launch over a Florida moon, seconds
tick down, for Santa, first day of school,
a summer that comes too late.
A first and last anything.
Last radiation, first scan,
the last time your arms circled
me; how long before again?
Calendar X’d out, yearning
tides swell, bellies hunger.
Your voice, a half continent away
melts me into memory, that first kiss;
how we tried to photo capture
another, made a video clip instead.
Lips pillow into sensation, noses a puzzled fit.
How we tumbled.
Shalmi Barman
TEMPERING
These are the choices. Tumbled anyhow
into a burning lake quite rudderless
with company that’s (plainly speaking) mixed,
you must make do. See how the bay leaf lies
resigned and limp as the papery skin
of chillies blackens bitterly. Regard
the stick of cinnamon that, half submerged,
becomes a raft for cumin castaways.
And further on, do pause to contemplate
the cardamom retreating into pods,
hunkering down in fibrous fortresses
secure from frantic garlic’s sizzling throes.
Inhale. This savory end will be (they say)
a new birth. All this for a greater good
we will not live to see. Or so I’m told.
Or so I must believe to stay the course
lest, cracking like the yellow mustard seed,
we leap into the void. Strike some god’s face.
Carole Bernstein
SONNET
When my uncle started touching me he illustrated
that life was shit and evil would triumph,
and, behold, the dingy boxers of a bald-pated,
aging egomaniac, with the penis bump—
though I live to be ninety—I’ll never un-see.
And I’m already sixty. (Did it ever emerge, or not?)
He dismantled the fragile curtain, kindly
exposed the creeping darkness and rot
behind leaf-raking, stubbly kisses, graduation gowns,
and carrying high on shoulders. There was the rattle
of the knob to my room. The garage door grinding down
to announce him home. Hah: home. I still straddle
two worlds, clutch for that curtain, something to hold
to not feel quite so naked or so cold.
F.S. Blake
THE MAGIC OF GOODBYES
Our goodbyes keep getting harder
each one building upon the last
tears stacked on soaked shoulders
and new words conjured daily for sadness,
longing and love.
Strange dictionaries
printed at each parting to serve as brutal
reference for hearts rendered molten
and bodies ripped from each other as we mourn
the magicians’ bird stuffed back into his hat.
Rose Mary Boehm
CHANNELING CESAR VALLEJO
I may well die in Lima, on a grey day,
in what they call invierno. On a dry day.
It doesn’t rain in Lima.
I will not regret it, but I will mourn.
I’ll mourn those I’ll leave behind
because they loved me. And for that reason
they’ll miss me. And they will be sad,
and I will be in a dimension of spirit and beauty.
That is, should I realize that I died.
I wonder what they will say about me:
that she was mean, that she was good,
that she was kind, that she was weird,
that she was talented and that she was dumb.
And I won’t care at all because I can’t hear them,
and I won’t care—because.
But perhaps they will be charitable,
and some may even have known me.
And they will burn me at eighteen hundred F—
that is about a thousand C.
And I’ll weigh about five to eight pounds.
And my loved one will mix my ashes
with the soft, pregnant earth of the jungle
where I’ll soon become a sumaumeira perhaps.
That’s where he’ll sit and write his poems.
In my shade.
Isabelle Bohl
THE AUGURY OF STORKS
In early September,
I tell you geese have begun flying south.
You return, I’ve recently spotted
seven white storks gathering on rooftops,
so I forget all about my harbinger honkers.
I am five again, sitting beside you,
gazing at an illustration of a picturesque town—
half-timbered houses under steep, tiled roofs
where lanky birds perch,
red-billed and knobby-kneed,
donning coquettish courier kepis—
It’s June, and beaming red-cheeked folks
are expecting them
to infuse life in homes, deliver pink
or blue baby bundles
swaddled and slung from benevolent beaks.
And you, heavy with my brother.
Yet today is fall.
When your voice cracks again,
It’s a bad omen, their going
I know you’re no longer forecasting
colder months moving in.
I CLEAN MY GLASSES AS WE ARGUE
THE END OF OUR MARRIAGE
With a folded wet wipe,
I reach both sides at once,
in careful, circular motions,
lift grime near the rim of the frame–
such hard-to-reach places–
then tend to the well-worn acetate.
Smudges rub off with ease,
but abrasions remain.
What more can be said, then?
I crumple the wipe now dry and sharp,
lest I cause further damage to lenses.
Laura Buxbaum
TATTOO
(after Lyn Hejinian)
An anxious wind mutters through leaves,
around the house, through the
screen door
Listen! What is that bird? Check the Cornell
app every time. You’d think I’d remember
a cardinal
(Every moment is already gone)
Plunge into the ocean! Cold luminescence
on living skin! Joy!
I clean old emails. Campaign Deadline, Give
Today/Best Bras, 10% Off/Happy
belated birthday/Ways To Save!/three
from my dead sister asking me to look over
a cover letter for a job she really really wants
Dream of the dead. Maybe they can reach you.
My dad hugged me tight last night. He was
warm & real
A boy sails into the wind, considers the years. They
stretch ahead, but less each year as time
contracts. Boy, I say: Do not shun adventure!
Ride fear like a dragon!
Darling, speak to me of our life to come. I’ve tasted
your salty essence. We’ve shared our voices note
on note. Your smiling face. Your working body
What is the algorithm that will answer these questions:
Who? When? What the fuck for?
Where are those hens hiding their eggs? Searching,
I knelt on a bee working the clover. My
swollen leg is a remembrance. I’m sorry
These summer days were so long, once
First tomatoes. A forest of weeds rampant! Then
the peaches!
She sings in my dreams, but less than she did
When will I get that tattoo?
She is waiting.
Sarah Carleton
MELTING ICE CAPS
Never thought I’d mourn the passing of ice
—the force that fells trees in early-winter storms,
the deep chill that freezes waves midcurl,
crust on the windshield blocking my view,
slick asphalt that spins cars on a January morning,
solid puddle top I tap with my boot
just to hear it break like peanut brittle.
Oh, ice—showing us we can be both hard and soft,
pond hockey and side stroke, babbler and silent one
—here I am, radiating affection toward you,
complicated friend, who dissolve, my warm
embrace only hastening your demise.
Joe Cottonwood
JUST A QUICK NOTE TO SAY
loons are calling
sounds like Corinna
Coh-
reen-
ah…
as my heart calls for you.
Silent moon is splitting calm water
with yellow beam oh how I wish
I were parting your hair.
Eleven mergansers survived the summer
(used to be eighteen), swam a cautious circle
around the big boulder and then one by one
flapped onto the flat top where they preen
watchful for the bald eagle
and are you safe
are the windows locked?
Something splashed I think a mink.
I miss you and your minky parts.
MY GIRLFRIEND’S DOG
My girlfriend has a terrier
who cleans her after we make love.
The dog waits at bedside,
knows the moment
and leaps.
My girlfriend closes her eyes, smiles,
swears it is not a sexual feeling
but a cleansing. She says
”If you were to wash my feet,
it would be the same.”
I trust my girlfriend. She loves me.
She loves that dog.
In the bathtub
not with warm tongue but
with loofah sponge and scented soap
I wash her feet.
It is not the same.
Tony Dawson
TO HELL IN A HANDCART
The Devil turned up to set out his stall
showing his handcarts, each with its pall.
They’ve all been designed under Lucifer’s spell,
since many among us will ride one to Hell.
Ms. Meloni’s cart looks exceptionally cute:
the handles are raised in a Fascist salute.
Marine Le Pen’s will pull to the right
because of the swastikas just out of sight.
Another, gold-plated for the US of A,
comes with square wheels, but what can one say?
The Devil decided to saddle them with Trump,
ensuring the nation will be reduced to a rump.
“Sandstorm” photo by Andrew Delaney
John Delaney
SANDSTORM
In the early evening,
it came across the desert
like a genie rising from a teapot.
I went inside the ger
and sat on the bed to write
about our camel rides,
feeling the wind pick up,
the ceiling flaps flicker.
Then a patter, like rain,
started to fall, and I thought
of the herd of sheep I saw
out on the nearby flat,
how wonderful it’d be,
refreshing and nurturing.
But then the lights went out;
the genie tried to lift the sides,
now pummeling the flaps.
A roaring rent the heavens.
I was thinking of a downpour,
lasting twenty minutes.
The lights came back on
in the after calm and quiet.
Finishing my notes, I went to bed
and got some decent sleep.
Outside, in the morning,
sand covered everything;
some roofs were caved in,
furniture dispersed and broken.
And then I thought of the sheep.
Robin Dellabough
WE CROUCH LIKE DUMB MIRACLES AT THE EDGE WAITING FOR FLIGHT
The pond is frozen over with ice stars. When I look them up on my new iPhone 16, fleece pajamas for the grandkids pop up instead. It’s nearly Christmas, stick season. Small dark birds I can’t identify forage near the stone wall and the footprints in crusty snow left when I searched for an arrow my grandson had shot into a tree. Forced-air heat makes a racket. I have to wear earplugs at night, plus it dries my lips and legs. I want a fresh pouf, the old orange one is leaking little plastic beads. Oh no, my phone says fleece is made of plastic, maybe flannel is better. But I already bought fleece loungewear in a color called Cake Batter. It keeps me warm and guilty. Adam next door has piled dead wood twelve feet high. I wonder how he’ll keep the whole forest from becoming the bonfire. That would be deadly and spectacular. When I google fire safety, “It’s like a pina colada” comes up, so while true snow falls, I remember lying in the bottom of Nate’s boat, he is on top of me, or wait, was that Mark? I know rum was involved. Today I drink dealcoholized wine, which costs as much as the real stuff. Maybe I’ll learn to think of water as reward. In the novel I’m reading, terrorists try to poison a city’s drinking supply. I try to imagine air insecurity, which would mean nothing (ness). Keep breathing. Decide not to worry as if worrying is a choice.
Clive Donovan
CAFE TANGO
In the hot crush of steamy cantina,
the meticulous pleated fan of the bandoneon
unfolds with its prolonged pull before plunging
back with a series of teasing tremulant stutters
that probably has a technical term for it
which I can’t discover in my thesaurus.
I thought it was maybe piccata
but I find this is a kind of snack italiano
like pressed chicken, sliced and sautéed.
The moist tangoistas, glued breast to breast,
walk and sway, revolving, until, at last, the box player
squeezes out the final particles of oxygen.
The couples stop, spines erect, in that thrilling game of pause…
then a groan and glorious suck of opening bellows…
And a trapped fly drops to the floor, released.
It staggers away, off-stage, in a weave of zig-zags,
mostly unnoticed in the sultry heat…
as skilful fingers pummel buttons swifter than feet…
SPRING INTIMATIONS
If you enjoy frightening others, you will be reborn as a centipede
Zabs-Dkar Tshogs-Drug-Ran-Grol
What was it first ventured forth from its lair?
An earwig, perhaps, from a pine cone,
disdaining the nearby bug hotel
built by children—reeking of human chemical.
And in the rustle of dry leaves there, above mulch
of forest floor where pale sunlight aims its beams,
the last of the frost smoke dissipating,
he’s fast turned to breakfast by a swifter centipede,
which, notwithstanding 400 million years
of evolutionary experience, succumbs to
a beetle that is next mashed in the jaws of a lizard,
who, despite the sacrificial offering of tail
to thrash and distract a distant relative arriving
—an early, very focussed, peckish thrush—
discovers the same doom as its predecessors.
This stuffed bird labours upward to a tree branch, fortified
and the tree notices vibrations of happy pure notes
and responds with its heart sap, trembling,
and starts to put forth fat lovely buds of leaves
and thus does the lively greening of Spring begin.
WHEN I SEE HER
The bottles of perfume on her shelf:
Slut Juice, Liquid Lies, Bad Girl.
She smears vaginal ichor behind ears
just before she goes off clubbing
at the Black Magnolia
on the cheap nights for students,
tantalizing guys and gals alike
while she makes up her mind.
All the wolves in the room leer.
She wears very little with dainty straps.
On the dance floor she moves and floats
like a lava lamp.
When I see her, a soft sob,
descending from heaven,
lodges in my throat.
Thomas Erickson
THE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE
Sometimes it’s the big things
that get my clients in trouble:
the fingerprint on the gun,
the surveillance video of the hand-to-hand,
the semen on the bedspread.
Sometimes it’s the small things:
a strand of hair on a sweater,
an undeleted Facebook post,
a teardrop tattoo.
I like when the judge tells the jury
If you can reconcile the evidence upon any
reasonable hypothesis other than guilt
then you should find the Defendant not guilty
because it always makes me feel
like we, you and I (not me and some
anxious client), have a chance.
Sure, my fingerprints are everywhere,
not hearing you is part of my DNA,
and that tear in your eye falls too often.
But in the morning, I’ll wake up
and take the dog for a walk, get
ready for work, bring you your coffee,
and kiss you good-bye. You’ll smile
at me and we’ll start the day.
THE VIRTUE OF FORGETTING
I heard someone say “Eureka” on TV or somewhere
the other day. It reminded me of my client Eureka.
She was beat up a lot by her boyfriend who was selling crack
out of her first floor flat over on the east side.
One day, boyfriend noticed a guy working on a telephone pole
across the street. Boyfriend thought the telephone guy was an undercover cop.
The next day, boyfriend told Eureka to go outside and call him
when the guy came down from the pole. She called
and boyfriend walked over to the truck
and shot the guy from the phone company in the head.
Eureka, who was 18, got 20 years which I thought was way too long,
I was upset about it for a while.
That was at least 30 years and hundreds of clients ago.
It’s not the fact that I forgot about Eureka that surprises me so much.
It’s remembering the feeling I had back then about what happened to her.
Regret.
Vern Fein
UNSUNG HANGING:
ELIZAVETA VORONYANSKAYA
In Communist Russia, the great Solzhenitsyn
who scratched THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO,
on toilet paper in freezing Siberia,
was released and fled to the U.S.
where his iconic condemnation
was published and exposed
the Soviet tyranny to all
until Glasnost freed him
to speak the truth in freedom.
But back in Russia, an unsung woman
Elizaveta V., the unsung, hanged one
had transcribed every word of horror,
but wanted to stay in her homeland,
I surmise, chose to live with family.
Did not flee when he did, but swung—
she had typed every one of his words
and helped the others preserve the work.
What devil conjured a rope
strung around the neck
of an condemned human,
feet kicking, body twisting,
execution for a crime.
Did she know she had changed history
when the KGB strung her up
from her stairwell and
broke her neck?
Harrison Fisher
THE DEATH OF JACK BENNY
We are rarely moved
by the deaths of famous people—
there are so many of them—but I learned today
that Astrud Gilberto died last week.
If the girl from Ipanema,
a gauzy garment tied about her hips,
has never sashayed across
the beaches of your mind
to the flat ring
of Astrud’s hollow, ethereal voice,
you have no soul.
I was in college in the early Seventies
and my girlfriend was going to a different school,
but we were together
the day we learned Jack Benny had died.
She said that his passing
made the world feel less safe,
a feeling I instantly shared.
Now it’s some fifty years later, and
I look around and see
fully entrenched
the unsafe world
that came through the door
Jack Benny’s death kicked down
so long ago.
Meg Freer
EVENING, WHEN THE DOGS HOWL
Some poor sod howls in the emergency room hallway
filled with other chaps on gurneys, and he can’t help
but yell for help in all the clatter and chaos,
and the dogs in the doctors’ heads howl
because there are no beds to put all these people,
and another poor soul howls as she arrives,
only to have her body expire while she waits,
and a frail elderly woman howls in pain
and dismay at the noise and bright lights
until a nurse finally squeezes both her
and the poor sod from the hallway into a closet
converted into a room meant for one,
and she listens to the man howl and calls
to the staff, He must be 100 years old
and he’s very sick. Give him a bed first,
and the animal shelter dogs howl for their humans
who won’t be coming back, and the ambulance sirens
howl as they bring more suffering—those living
on the streets and in tents—into the ER hallways,
and the nurses and doctors howl in despair
and wonder how their hospital became like this.
Gerald Friedman
PATIO WINDOW
I wanted a better look
at my reflection,
but walking toward it I shaded the glass
and saw you.
THE WARRIOR’S HEART
The warrior’s heart
rejoices when the hand shoots,
or it feels pain,
but not enough to stop it.
The warrior’s heart
is filled with fear
every speck, every second,
but not enough to stop it.
The warrior’s heart
is under the fourth and fifth ribs,
just left of the midline.
A bullet, a knife, a shard of armor
stops it.
DRIVING ON THE TAOS HIGHWAY
On my left under the clouds’ border
the moon startles me,
blurred behind spring snow:
the ghost of last month’s moon,
an unread omen (the most common kind),
the bride leaving the fatherly mountains.
I look back at the road; I look down
at my car’s filthy floor
in the gray light.
John Grey
THE RETURN
I recall the first time
back from San Francisco
six airline hours
squeezed between two behemoths
nothing but a small bag
of pretzels to eat
in the company of a book of beat poetry
(a gift from a friend)
so excruciatingly bad
I watched an even worse movie instead
and then the crowd at the airport
fiercely slapping my slipped disc
the “when are you going to settle down
and get married like your brother Brian?”
signs over the doorway
welcoming me back
by some pet name
I’d long forgotten
me just wanting to curl up
and bathe in no particular order
but having to suffer through
a room full of decaying football pennants
the dreaded photo album
a plate of childhood’s favorite food
the latest war stories
from my father’s victory garden
etc etc etc
okay Thomas Wolfe
you can say I told you so…
plane schedules to the west coast
unfolding in my brain
and my parents threatening ten
on the gushometer –
oh they slayed the fatted calf all right
and there’s me…
a vegetarian.
Gary Grossman
ADOLESCENCE
Imagine this,
I’m fourteen, home from a weekend trip,
smiling at the lemony rays of an LA
December afternoon, then turn the key
in the worn brass plated doorknob.
Imagine this,
my nostrils are punched by fists
of shit and vomit, and I wonder how
some cat or coon entered the apartment
and died.
Imagine this,
Mom’s lying in the mess, uncapped
amber pill bottles lined up like soldiers
in a firing squad on her nightstand.
Imagine this,
it’s not the first time.
Colleen S. Harris
GRANDMOTHER TO THE NEW BRIDE
Beware becoming ripe for
marriage, men are ever thieves
of beauty and water hangs like
god-gifted crystal from your
nipples in the rain. Shroud your
brilliance with a veil to keep from
blinding him as you glide on
new shoes down the carpeted
aisle, to dim your own memory
of your skin like a sheet over
the luminescence of youth, of
your body an unbruised peach
brimming with life. Asking time
to stop is like begging mercy of
the moon. Tie your man to you
with gold, with love and lies and
healthy sons. Stand by your man,
but be certain to sharpen your heels.
TWO APPLES TOO HEAVY
My tears come too free
to be holy, my hem too frayed
to carry leaden cures.
You lavish your love
at the feet of stone saints,
pleading your case
on rosary knees
in a wooden house
that smells of wine
and shame. I will not
stay as a favor to a God
I barely believe in
while you drown in guilt,
half a sin shy of hell
and two apples too heavy
for heaven.
David M. Harris reviews poet Annette Sisson’s new work: Winter Sharp With Apples
It has been, for a while, a commonplace that poetry collections should have themes, as though respectable poets devote themselves to one issue at a time, and nothing else. And there are plenty of quite good poets who do just that, writing fifty or a hundred poems in a row, all exploring a single question or story.
But this is a recent development, and simply does not apply to poets who, like Annette Sisson, have some themes to which they return, but by which they are not obsessed. Sisson’s latest book, Winter Sharp With Apples (from Terrapin Books), turns often to images and ideas about nature and our place in it, but it also shows us a wide-ranging mind at work.
One of the important factors that holds the collection together is Sisson’s radical honesty. Her frank voice and open relationship with her readers hold our attention and allow us – even urge us – to step beyond the most easily accessible level of her poetry and dig for more, knowing that the digging will be profitable.
Of course, honesty has been, for the last century or so, one of the factors we expect from poetry with ambition to be more than self-expression. Self-expression is fine for beginning poets, but it is only a beginning; good poets tie what they have learned about themselves to what we can learn from them about ourselves. Honesty includes the self-knowledge that your relationship with your mother is of no interest to us unless it illuminates our relationships with our mothers.
And that is where Sisson shines. A poem such as “Clutch,” for example, looks at her relationship with her mother without complaining (empathy, after all, is part of radical honesty) and finally acknowledging that holding on is a necessary prequel to letting go. Both parents of adult children and the children themselves can feel the truth of this. Sisson consistently draws us into experiences from her life and expands them to encompass the lives of her readers as well.
Nearly all the poems in Winter Sharp With Apples do come from her own experiences. Sisson invites us into her life, in part as an example of what can be done with memory, observation, and imaginative consideration. Observation and imagination lead us to vivid and meaningful imagery, with lines like “We lug our stunted childhoods//like rusted spikes” (from “Muscle Memory’) or “trophies – coins//to feed the machine of his parents’ need” (from “Galloping in Darkness”) that provide worlds of context in a few words. We see, or we remember by analogy, much of how these families work, and we can share in the author’s finding ways out of those dilemmas.
Perhaps Sisson’s life has not been extraordinary, the making of a hit film. She has seen some things that most of us have not, but that is not in itself exceptional. Sherlock Holmes says to Dr. Watson (in “A Scandal in Bohemia”) “You see but you do not observe.” Sisson observes. She pays attention and, like Holmes, extracts meaning where others might not notice it. Add to that her considerable gift for conveying that meaning, and we have a book that is itself a considerable gift for her readers.
Editor’s Note: It is fitting that this, Rat’s Ass Review’s first review should have been written by RAR’s creator and original editor, David M. Harris. I like to think that something of David’s attitudes has remained here through the years. Still, it is pleasant to have him here in more concrete form. Additionally, it feels right that the poet whose work is being reviewed, Annette Sisson, has had work published here (Spring-Summer 2022).
Erin Hay
AMITY
Christmas lonely, but
for the company of a Hermit Thrush,
bathing at dusk; her haughty prerogative,
busy pizzazz, she’s been soaking wet
right here, before.
I keep that bird bath clean
A seasonal variety, typically shy,
or famous or beloved, or related,
she returns.
Circle-eyed, long looking,
thin, agile legs, she bounces out
a morse-coded “Hello”
pumps her speckled breast,
intent to bathe, despite my spying.
Water-soaked flits, like whispers,
wings are the only things it could be.
I listen through the tawny light,
squinting towards the muddied
color of her.
Contented by the innocence
of our shared delight,
I’ve decided we like each other.
Robin Helweg-Larsen
IF ASTROLOGY WERE REAL
If astrology were real, you’d expect
it would be an unremarkable aspect
of daily life for someone to select–
to fall in love, fully connect–
with two people with the same birthday;
for victims of mass events (tornados, cities wrecked)
to share a sun-sign or unlucky day;
for astrology to be so useful that respect
for horoscopes would drive a business power play,
and with no reason to suspect
insider information when bets proved correct;
and that some other nonsense disarray
would have to be invented to display
for children, lovers, dreamers, to collect–
for old folks suffering neglect–
for young ones on the make, unchecked–
for trash TV and media to infect–
and for the rest of us to naturally reject.
THE QUEEN
In March the Queen came, flirting on her throne;
April, I loved her gladly,
And in May I’ll love her madly,
And in June I may act badly
For July I’ll love her sadly,
Cause when August comes, I know that she’ll be gone.
F. D. Jackson
SEVER
I don’t remember how we met.
Maybe Aunt Olivia introduced us
in that big house with the white balcony,
when I was ten and you were twenty.
Maybe I sat in your biology class
as a teenager, listening to you,
bored with teaching,
tap out a Conga beat with your pencil:
dada dada da da!
Maybe a bluebird shit you
somewhere in my backyard,
and you grew into a sapling
that I took a liking to,
watering your trunk on my way to
feed the horses.
Not knowing the type of tree you were–
Invasive–slowly choking my flora,
crowding out native black-eyed susans,
coreopsis, and red buds.
But I grow quiet now.
No longer bend a branch
to admire your heart-shaped leaves or
collect your cream-colored popcorn seeds
to feed the red-wing blackbirds.
And my silence feels good in my hands,
like an ax splintering roots.
SALVATION
The preacher invites us to walk
to the front of the congregation
to confess our sins.
I stand, grip the back of the pew.
I don’t want to shake his clammy hand,
smell the stale coffee on his breath
as he bends to speak with me.
I slip past ushers holding collection plates;
steal cookies from the dining hall;
eat them leaning against a headstone.
I exhale. Sun and cold spring breeze
dry the sweat underneath my dress.
The dead whisper–they are lazy and content,
no more need for preachers and salvation–
tell me to hold my sins close.
Trace them with my fingers
like the scars on my knees;
enjoy the raised bumpy feel of them.
Press them against the roof of my mouth
like caramel candy; savor the salty taste.
Let them help navigate a life still in shadow.
Michael Kfoury
BOTTLED SHIP
“Just don’t think too hard, it’s a lullaby like Spanish wine swaying between the ice cubes,” I crooned, finding my voice sheltered between the shower tiles, sailing on a new world voyage across the thin ribbons of bass string gold weaved across their polished surface- never to run aground, navigating by the bright-as-north E chord to reach the empire sun where the demo comes to a close and there’ll be enough silence to keep the ship of confidence afloat for another hollow bodied voyage.
Bebe Tomlin Lefkoff
I BELIEVE IN BIGFOOT
I believe in Bigfoot and in little green men
and I step carefully ’round mushrooms where fairies have been.
I am sure Nessie’s hiding in that deep Scottish lake
and that I’m watched by the angels, each step that I take.
I avoid umbrellas, black cats, and all ladders.
I never touch mirrors because they might shatter.
But my dear brother just told me a disgusting new fact—
gum stays seven years in your intestinal tract!
If I had known, I’d never have blown my first bubble.
I’d have used breath mints, if I’d known gum was such trouble.
I start to add up all the gum I’ve gulped down
but another ill thought brings on a new frown.
If the gum stay for seven, what happens at eight?
Will it come back up when I’m on my first date?
Maybe I’ll be dancing with a daring Don Juan
and all of a sudden have to rush to the John.
Will the gum come back in one pink gooey lump?
Will it all come at once when I take a d—
…uhm
–when I excuse myself?
Maybe the rubbery will all sink to my feet
and I’ll bounce like a kangaroo when I walk down the street.
Maybe the sticky will migrate to my hands
and I’ll climb up walls like Spider-Man can.
Maybe a doctor should do an inspect of me.
He could perform the world’s first gum-ectomy.
I pulled out my tablet and typed in my quest,
swiped past the ads and skimmed all the rest.
According to Google, gum’s gone in mere days.
That was good news, and I shed my malaise.
But I turned on my brother, sweet vengeance in mind;
something to scare him (but not too unkind).
I smiled at the brother who had set me to panic.
“That band that you like? Mom says they’re satanic!
And did you know that you’re not really my brother?
We bought you from some poor sad unwed gypsy mother!
And when you go night-night and sleep in your bed
spiders crawl in your ears and nest in your head?”
He looked quite alarmed and was beginning to tear
“Don’t worry ‘bout it, bro. They’ll only stay for a year!”
LULLABY OF ASHES
Zylata could not rest; her senses were wired.
So much to be done before she retired.
Laundry and dishes, and rooms to be dusted.
Demand attention but her thoughts, interrupted.
Her senses were scattered; her emotions askew.
She needed to rest, but there was too much to do.
She could rest later when her burdens were met,
and her heartbeat could slow to a manageable set.
She cast about, anxious, for the tasks to complete
and took up a straw broom, a mindless retreat.
Shush, shush, shush. Her broom gently sighed.
Cold wind cleared clouds to show darkening skies
and expose the harsh searchlight of the bold frozen moon,
and the drifts of white snow, gathered in corners and dunes.
But she did not need light; knew the room without eyes.
A timeline of childhood, a bookshelf implied.
A chest full of toys abandoned too soon.
To the left a glass doll case, well chosen, hand hewn.
Fine cherry and glass; a hobby acquired
when her dedulya, or grandpa, had been forced to retire.
He needed a hobby. He said he was bored.
But she knew he had made it for the one he adored.
A slip of white lace caught the edge of her sight–
a porcelain doll dressed in satins and white.
With her apron she wiped ashes from her porcelain face
and turned to return it to its particular place.
But the doll case was gone and the wall incomplete.
She stared from the edge of the ragged concrete.
Dnipro lay below her, like the Styx before Hell
from inside the shark’s bite of just one Russian shell.
Smoke billowed up, in great obscene pyres,
lit by false dawn of the not distant fires.
In the distance bombs thudded, then screamed overhead.
She turned and crept gently to her child’s lonely bed.
Lifting the girl’s hand, pale as white icy earth,
she counted her fingers, just as she had done at her birth.
She slipped the sweet doll ‘neath the quilt of deep red,
and stared at her child tucked in the small bed.
She studies her daughter’s gentle pale face,
and thanked God in Heavens for the gift of His grace.
Calming at last, she sang a soft tune
and prayed for the daylight she hoped would come soon.
Rockabye baby, my sweet darling girl.
I’ll tuck in you tight and brush back your curl.
I’ll sit by your side ‘till the bright sun comes up,
and you dance in the daisies and sweet buttercups.
In the flickering light of an incoming flare,
her eyes brushed with love over the disheveled blonde hair.
Softly she touched the cold lifeless face,
and laid down beside her in death’s cold embrace.
Fay L. Loomis
INEXHAUSTIBLE GIFTS
wolf bites butt
pry jaws open
swallow
whole
drink bitter cup
regurgitate darkness
holy light
reveals
Tamara Madison
THE SILVER ARGIOPE SPIDER
ENGAGES IN SEXUAL CANNIBALISM
After sex, she thrusts the male off her
which results in death
more than two-thirds of the time.
Thus, she will never have
to pick up his socks from the floor
fight him over the remote
or watch him sleep in his easy chair.
She won’t have to try to remember
how he got there, how she got there,
how they. She’ll never have to care
for him in his old age, never
lift him out of bed or help him up
from the floor. She will never
have to see him drool,
bathe him, or feed him.
She will never hurt her back
caring for him, never have to find
a place for him to live out his days,
never have to visit him there,
never have to miss him
like a limb
when he’s gone.
LOVE LETTER OF A SILVER ARGIOPE
My darling, I have battled my rivals
and prevailed, pitched them legless
from your web. Now I have you
to myself. I admire the silvery corridors
you have spun, the way the dew
catches the light and glows. But you,
my giantess, are the most splendid
of all. I have seen how you abuse
your lovers, swaddling them in silk
and then reducing them to liquid
that you suck into your beautiful mouth.
My bravery has impressed you.
You allow me to enter you for my one
moment of ecstasy. As you wrap me
in silvery tulle, you cannot know
that I have won, for I have left my spent
member inside you, forever. Yes,
my beauty, I shall be the only father
your children will ever have. Yours
forever, your last, most ardent lover.
Brian McAllister
FLORIDA PICKING CREW
1.
The day begins at the ladder barn in the yellow light of a mosquito bulb.
We pair off, one hand at the tops one at the bottoms, and with a steady rhythm
stack the ladders one-by-one on the ladder wagon.
When we get to the grove the box crew has already set out the boxes, six or so to a tree.
Pick from the top of the ladder and work your way down. That way
The bag gets heavier as you get closer to the ground. You don’t want
to be at the top of the ladder holding the weight of a full bag.
It’s piece-work, so you can take a break whenever you want, but remember
the day won’t wait on you.
2.
The day ends like it began, back at the ladder barn. We pair off, one hand at the tops
one at the bottoms, and stack the ladders back in the barn.
The pay truck will come after the ladders are stowed, fifty-five cents a box.
If you can find a crew with good contracts, a crew that starts with early grapefruit,
and stays on through valencias, there’s work from early fall through June.
Summers are hard. Tomatoes are already in. No one’s cutting cane. The shrimp don’t run,
so no one needs a deck hand.
In August you can go to Georgia for peaches, but be back In Florida in time for grapefruit.
Crews form early.
The season won’t wait on you.
Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
IT’S JUST BANANAS
Peeled bananas appear by a road in Beeston,
Derbyshire on the 2nd of each month. No one knows why.
If you’re the top banana, watch your back!
The number two is eyeing up your spot,
Supporting you, but hoping soon you’ll lack
Job tenure. They are apt to slyly plot
Unseating you with messages in code:
Suppose the date implies it’s number two
That’s dumping peeled bananas by the road?
Beestonians look vainly for a clue
About the purpose of bananas as
Nocturnal drops, yet what if they convey
A message that the top banana has
No skin, that you’re exposed? … Your choice: to weigh
An instant resignation’s merits—or,
Stay cool: it’s just bananas, just ignore!
John C. Morrison
OUR FATHERS WERE KILLERS
Killers with jungle knives or grenades,
bayonets, killers on silver oceans
with barrels of depth charge. Kill
or be killed and they weren’t the ones
bagged, buried under tidy crosses, little
flags, bones softening to chalk. The doctor
who stitched my lip, cop who’d tease then twist
wrist behind the back, even the priest
who placed host upon tongue and whispered
Corpus Christi flew a bomber before
vows. Our uncles with the genius
to jerry-rig any given engine,
any machine that should have died
long before. Wary we hid at the edge
of the trouble light. They never called us
closer. The war they kept in secret
we saw in movies late at night,
black and white, the soldier asleep in
muddy trench or in rubble, beside the cold
lick of flame, woke to watch friends
die. Not one father coached kindness or taught
loss. Not my father of the uneasy kiss.
James B. Nicola
THE TITLE OF A TALE
So men created gods in their image.
Were goddesses, then, of real women born,
or did frustrated men, back in an age
men might have cared when women’s wombs were torn,
concoct them out of wishful thinking? Who
was wiser than Athena, though? Not Zeus,
her fornicating Father—that’s if you
believe those myths, where deities were loose
of morals, guilty of what we must call
rape—statutory rape—today, since They
had power of life-or-death over all
mortals with whom they lay, who could not say
No to a lust divine, not even when
the tale was titled Annunciation.
PAIR OF KINGS
All Clark Gable had to do
was sit where Hattie sat
the night she won her Oscar®. He
might not’ve thought of that:
but how the angels would have chimed
and cheered the noble cause
of basic decency, and broken
out in wild applause.
Benny Goodman would not sleep
where his Brothers could not stay.
He paved the American way before
it was the American Way.
For the color of music’s the color of God:
the color of his quartet!
So I hold no truck with movie stars,
but I play the clarinet.
Al Ortolani
CAMDEN COUNTY RAIN
My grandfather was born during a slow rain in the Ozarks.
I never knew him. I can only imagine
the crows on the hillside, the acorns dropping
in the leaves. He died of pneumonia in West Port
in an attic bedroom with my mother and my grandmother
near enough to hear his last breath. He was out of reach to me,
unless you count my uncles, who said that they could see him
when I turned my head. As a boy, I thought this made me special,
like somehow, I kept him alive in my mannerisms
as if he were speaking through me to the family he’d left behind.
Often when I needed advice, a grandfather would have helped,
someone to say something wise, something beyond the years
I was living. I listened especially to the slow rain in November
after baseball season and when it was too cold for fishing.
I had seen his picture in black and white, in one he’s smiling
in his baseball uniform, the other he’s behind a string of fish.
So, I knew this little bit about him. As to what his brothers had seen,
I keep turning my head in crazy angles in the mirror.
ky perraun
LOST DAYS
Days lost to deep dreams, sleep stealing hours
and motivation. Sedated, I am kind and thoughtful.
You don’t want to see that other side of me, believing
ill of all and frightened into aggression. No, the shots
and pills smooth my edges like river stones, the ones
we were given in the healing circle, where I prayed
and placed tobacco at the base of a tree. Another modality.
Another complement to the arsenal of chemistry
unleashed on my disease. Am I a warrior or survivor?
Or a fairy tale character, awaiting your kiss? I smudge
and sing softly, so as not to wake myself.
Emalisa Rose
BETWEEN THE SNACK AND THE SODA MACHINES
“They’re for bad girls,” she said.
“Those with vaginas stretched out
by the penis, no longer virgins
like you are.” I still hear her voice
with her old country accent as
I put in my panties those maxi-pad
blocks, the fear of a tampon instilled
by her. Today at the Port, between
the snack and the soda machines for
a buck twenty-nine, those tampons
the gal with the multi-striped hair
bought, then entered the toilet stall
as I cringed at the thought of her
shoving those hard cardboard sticks
into her twat, while hearing the voice
of my Great Aunt Paulina.
William James Rosser
SAPPHIRES AND EMERALDS
She poses Ireland.
Cheap flights and hotel-stays, short
forays past The Pale’s border
for ten days in quaint Waterford and
Wexford county towns:
Dublin Pubs.
Winter’s first snowflake-
flurries are falling, swelling
big words: bards’ words sung, fired
Eire-side for her fiftieth name day
on Liffey’s banks come
Saint Patrick’s.
I’ll hasten to learn
stanzas of Finian verse.
Read Banville, Beckett, Heaney.
Slip in a page or three of poppy
and prolific Maeve
Binchey’s verbs.
I’ll need stone cut, sized,
sapphire set: Mozambique sky-
blue to glint off her green eyes
from glare over the clover ’top the
cracked Cliffs of Moher,
County Clare – I declare!
What a green pipedream,
To think she, me, on the shores
of the Irish Sea, across
the straights from Cardigan Bay,
shooting neat shots of
Galway Pipe,
my dove not paying
for all as she’s done before
without malice, lording, or
sliding me some bill due for my life.
Just to walk one time
Wicklow’s moors.
I’ve walked McCann’s high-
wire long enough while the great
world span on through the famines
of my own making and her near force-
feeding me leek broth,
potatoes,
and the chicken stock
I could swallow on cold days
when I saw the tunnel’s light
growing fast as Angie’s stacked ashes –
I’d mine sapphires while
Emeralds herald her.
Ed Ruzicka
CELLOPHANE
For Russ and Carolyn Levy
Over seared tuna salad, trout meuniere etc
we gleefully beheld the TV image
of Kamala’s stage-glow as she braced
Tim Walz’s wrist, held that aloft.
They told us that David is done
with his third round of chemo.
I let them know how quick my cousin went
after he got brushed by an F-series pick up.
Flown down into gravel, sowthistle, crushed
soda cans, burdock, cellophane, chickweed
and was gone before EMS even
rolled him onto the stretcher.
Together with wine, in the face
of everything, we laughed and laughed
the way no one in Gaza laughs anymore.
We were so God damn tired
of holding our breaths
for eight years and ready to take
any scrap of hope we could get.
Claire Scott
A SECRET CHORD
After Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen
How did you do it, David
play that secret chord
I can’t find the right combination
of notes or numbers
prayers or chants or passwords
maybe god is a bit deaf
or deep in dementia
or maybe he turned away long ago
when I stopped believing
in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy,
along with that silly rabbit
but by mistake I threw
god into the mix
Leaving a spirit wound
that hasn’t healed
I need your help, David
I am working my way through
the declensions of grief
after a rough diagnosis
stuck on anger like br’er rabbit
stuck to the tar baby
trying to move toward bargaining
light years from acceptance
yet I am hopelessly hopeful
that one day I will please the Lord
and he will still my unquiet mind
David, play that chord again
this time for me
Karlo Sevilla
NEXT CUP OF COFFEE
You hurried, but not without indulging
in a half-cup of black coffee.
You would have finished it but you must have heard me
stirring awake.
You hurried, the door left ajar.
I thought it was just one of those brief outbursts
of abandonment (a few laden with reasons
I barely understood).
You always returned before midnight.
When I had more luck, before dusk.
But this last time, your cup that I washed
remained prone on the rack overnight.
Now it’s been a year.
(Or two? Or three?)
No. I won’t feign ignorance or forgetfulness:
It’s been two years, one month, four days and counting.
Just come back. The door remains ajar.
And no need to say “sorry.” You know that word’s
a stranger to me, and I’ve been awkward
at self-introductions ever since my self
disappeared into you.
Just pick up your long-forsaken cup on the rack.
Let me brew you another round of coffee.
Julie Standig
I DIDN’T TAKE ANY
DIAZEPAM THIS TIME
I did when he ran the first time,
but it didn’t help one bit.
Ken went to sleep early
I stayed up late
I only had two pills
(for a medical procedure)
and they didn’t work—
not when I took one alone—
not one when I washed
the other down with Drambuie.
Of course, I never considered
a second run could occur.
Totally missed the concept
of turning those so-called tourists
from the Capitol insurrection
into saints and heroes.
As for the Hendricks
I consumed through election night—
you know it didn’t help,
didn’t make me consider
it won’t be so bad.
Musk and Ramaswamy will lead
the new Department
of Government Efficiency.
Bobby will take the fluoride
out of the water—
so along with all the new books
that will be banned
our kids’ teeth will rot,
and polio may return to find them.
As for me in my senior years,
I have no worries about Dr Oz
or my Medicare—he promised
to cure diabetes,
regulate my blood sugar,
in two weeks time.
Yes, no need for diazapam,
it doesn’t help.
And I’ll feel even better
when I finish that bottle
of Gentleman Jack.
YOU CAN PICK THEM OUT AS
THEY PASS YOU ON THE STREET
The Poets—that’s who.
There’s a certain look.
Always a long funky scarf,
necks wrapped at least once.
The pants are straight-legged,
jeans, cords, linen in summer.
I like to focus on shoes,
(a genetic problem of mine)
wing-tipped—maybe,
good leather—definitely,
ankle boots and sandals.
Poets like their comfort.
It’s the arbitrary-on-purpose look,
perhaps tousled hair,
makeup natural-on-purpose
or sometimes bold,
like Berry Noir.
Composure is far from readable,
and often masks
what they don’t want you to see.
Read their poems for that.
Buy their books for God’s sake.
Years ago, my husband,
the structural engineer,
belonged to the Poets Club.
at Lehigh University.
I thought it was to impress me.
Not exactly.
Piss
On
Everything
Tomorrow’s
Saturday.
Apparently, that works too.
John Sweet
ONE FOR ALL THE FUTURE SUICIDES
tells her you are never
holier than when you are down
on all fours
kisses her breasts and then
asks her to sing and
then measures the distance between
his clenched fist and the
endless sky
closes his eyes
dreams like a drowning man
discovering fire
Dan Thompson
WHEN I HEARD THE LEARNÈD POET
When I heard the learnèd poet saying
nothing of any consequence,
I decided to give him a second chance
and stay for the question-and-answer.
But he dodged all of the meaningful questions
with evasive maneuvers honed to perfection
of a kind acquired solely
through the most intense study
of the lives of successful toads.
When I heard the award-winning poet,
at the last I was left with one question:
Prudence, Cowardice, or Incompetence?
That was a lifetime ago.
After years in the Ivies
I can safely report that
the answer was:
All Three.
Susan Thornton
FOR MARTHA, JANUARY 16, 2025
The reached for
canister suddenly
unknown. This
counter–Why
here? The dog’s
ears on alert,
his distant whine.
Did I close the . . .
A breath as knees
fail, floor
rises. Rush
of light as heart
stops and
away.
Richard Weaver
ROCK RAT HAS ROLLED OUT
in the bigger cities, those with unsustainable populations and a deaf-by-decibels wish. Loudest is the new black hole of sound. Not Disaster Area, planet destroying loud, or Kiss, Manowar, Gallows, Leftfield, Motorhead, Deep Purple, The Who, Led Zeppelin eardrum denting loud. All Guinness record holders and gate-crashing worthy. Rock Rat’s loud ranges from 200 Hz to 90 kHz. It’s call kilohertz after-all. Ultrasound. Only dolphins and bats hear better. Very young humans can hang near 20 kHz. But not always. To keep teenagers from gathering in public squares, the French once played sounds only young ears could hear, which created headcheese and dissing, or headaches and dizziness. Dogs and cats were none too happy either. But French rats, the ones who boarded ships from Norway to see and conquer the world, are amused by local buzz, and have risen from the sewers in search of croissants and baguettes. They may be modern survivors, ancient descendants of those who presence meant Black Plague. Now, they stroll the parks like tourists, wearing headphones, or earbuds. The more daring go wireless. None give a fig about the EU underground traps. Most have a better tan than a certain orange-bronzed inflatable President ex-President now President-elect.
Sharon Whitehill
SCORCH MARKS LIKE SCARS
All my life, I’ve left damage behind,
scorch marks I hide but can never erase.
No way to disguise the burn in the carpet
out on my lanai, its synthetic fibers
blackened by candles I meditate with
but placed on a pie tin too thin for such heat,
or the charred cement floor inside the garage,
where, avoiding the cold, I set fire to trash.
No less blemished, the children I scorched
with flare-ups of smoldering anger:
foisting on them the burning ancestral brand
that had scarred generations before us
and remains as stigmata today—
when all we can do is fight fire with fire.
UPON THE LOSS OF HER BODY PARTS
After Robert Herrick, “Upon the Loss of His Mistress”
I have lost, and lately, these
parts that once performed with ease:
the keenness of my listening gear
through damage to my middle ear;
my clarity of vision, browned
by retinas no longer sound;
the mobility of knees and hips;
the pigment of my hair and lips
blooming now upon my skin
in patches of rough melanin.
Two organ systems I don’t miss,
which in their day provided bliss
for many an eager swain and beau:
those nuisance bits above, below.
Elana Wolff
FISHING WITH DB
Down we went with a one-two-three
to the riverbank
and sat. Hooks & lines, our poles,
a bucket of bait.
DB didn’t have much to say, but his fingers
were pretty nimble & he hooked the worms
for us both. I felt his breath, the nearness.
Maybe it was the worms,
the muddy riverbank—
something stank. We sat there at the water’s edge,
holding our poles between our knees,
waiting in the breeze
for a fish. Pert as punctuation.
I looked at him out of the side of my eye,
his forelock swung & caught the sun.
The hair on his arm was blond, on his shin
and thigh a powdery-white.
I saw my darker leg-hair then
and wanted madly to hide it,
crossed my legs and leaned on my knees,
which made it hard to hold the pole.
Dragonflies were skimming the river, shimmering
pink, a bluish-green. So beautiful, I wrote in a poem,
I forgot my leg-hair and DB’s, the stink.
In that rendition, he and I felt a simultaneous tug.
We caught a fish together and the bone of our strangeness
broke. Returning to that version, I had to revise:
We didn’t catch a fish together, and never met up again.
That moment of awakening to differences, and hair,
is hyped, like adolescence, to im/perfection.
Robin Wright
HANDS DOWN
Darkness tripped by a toggle
only a shaking hand can flip,
fingers splayed, each wanting
to run away to a fork, a spoon,
a cookie jar, anything but lowering
the light to the floor and watching
it creep through the crack beneath
the door, taking with it all that shines,
sun, moon, copper pennies.
Susan J. Wurtzburg
THE GOLDEN HOUR
Dry sherry, golden-hued sip,
time’s bonds slip. Sweetness,
my grandmother’s tipple,
smooth as the setting sun
beyond the balcony
where we would sit.
Tawny colored, cask aged,
crystal caged. Oaked tail
swishes tongue, sentences
sparked by my mother’s mum,
a centenarian—her final flight
toasted by me in golden light.
Artists’ Bios:
Catherine Arra lives in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York, where she teaches part-time, and facilitates local writing groups. She is the author of four full-length poetry collections and four chapbooks. Recent work appears in San Pedro River Review, Thimble Literary Magazine, Origami Poems Project, Stone Circle Review, Unleashed Lit., The Ekphrastic Review and Eclectica Magazine. Find her at www.catherinearra.com.
Shalmi Barman, originally from Calcutta, India, is at present a PhD candidate in English at the University of Virginia where she is writing a dissertation on class and labor in Victorian fiction. Her poetry has been, or will be, featured in Snakeskin, The Crank, and Blue Unicorn.
Carole Bernstein is the author of the poetry collections Buried Alive: A To-Do List and Familiar (both Hanging Loose Press) and And Stepped Away from the Circle (Sow’s Ear Press). Her poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, Antioch Review, Apiary, Chelsea, Paterson Literary Review, Poetry, Rat’s Ass Review, Yale Review, and elsewhere. Work is forthcoming in the Hanging Loose 60th Anniversary anthology and in Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (Penn State University Press).
F.S. Blake is a Bronze Star decorated U.S. Army Veteran and Pushcart Prize nominated poet. He is a published photographer, traveler, advanced SCUBA diver, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and proud husband and father. He has poems published or forthcoming in O-Dark-Thirty, As you Were: The Military Review, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, and Line of Advance. His first chapbook, Terminal Leave, is available from Finishing Line Press. His poetry career began during his sister’s wedding.
Rose Mary Boehm, a German-born UK national, lives and works in Lima, Peru. She is the author of two novels and eight poetry collections; her work has been widely published in US poetry journals.www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/
Isabelle Bohl is a retired teacher who began publishing her poetry in the past year. So far, her poems have appeared–or are forthcoming–in Quartet, The Rye Whiskey Review, Glassworks, and anthologies. Her poem “Some Night, When Thoughts of Tomorrow Narrow, I Choose to Dream of Her” was nominated for the 2024 Pushcart Prize by the editors of Quartet. She lives in the northern Adirondak mountains in New York.
Laura Buxbaum is a re-emerging poet at 66, living in Maine. In addition to her day job at a nonprofit, Laura writes poetry and fiction and juggles a few too many other pursuits. She raises goats, makes cheese, cultivates a much-too-large garden, and runs, hikes, skis, sings, and plays the cello. Her poem “Accidental Poetry” can be seen in the September 2024 edition of Thimble Literary Magazine.
Sarah Carleton writes poetry, edits fiction, plays the banjo, and knits obsessively in Tampa, Florida. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Nimrod, Valparaiso, Rattle, ONE ART, and As It Ought to Be. Sarah’s poems have received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and she is a finalist for the 2023 John Ridland Poetry Prize. Her first collection, Notes from the Girl Cave, was published in 2020 by Kelsay Books.
Joe Cottonwood has repaired hundreds of houses to support his writing habit in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest books of poetry are Foggy Dog and Random Saints. He appreciates wagging tails and dog-eared pages. His website is joecottonwood.com.
Tony Dawson is an Ancient Brit who’s been living in Seville since 1989. He took up writing during the pandemic and has published three small collections of poetry: Afterthoughts ISBN 9788119 228348, reviewed: london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson Musings ISBN 97819115 819666, reviewed: london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson2 and Reflections in a Dirty Mirror ISBN 9781915819949 reviewed: london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson3 as well as a selection of flash fiction, Curiouser and Curiouser ISBN 9788119 654932.
John Delaney’s publications include Waypoints (2017), a collection of place poems, Twenty Questions (2019), a chapbook, Delicate Arch (2022), poems and photographs of national parks and monuments, and Galápagos (2023), a collaborative chapbook of his son Andrew’s photographs and his poems. Nile, a chapbook of poems and photographs about Egypt, appeared in May 2024. He lives in Port Townsend, WA.
Robin Dellabough is a poet and editor with a master’s degree from UC Berkeley School of Journalism. Her debut collection, Double Helix (2022), includes a Pushcart Prize-nominated poem. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gyroscope, Yellow Arrow, Stoneboat, Halfway Down the Stairs, Mom Egg Review, Blue Unicorn, Negative Capability, and other publications and anthologies. A founding partner at Lark Productions: A Book Company, she recently retired as Projects Director, Publishers Marketplace/Publishers Lunch.
Clive Donovan has three poetry collections, The Taste of Glass [Cinnamon Press 2021], Wound Up With Love [Lapwing 2022] and Movement of People [Dempsey&Windle 2024] and is published in a wide variety of magazines including Acumen, Agenda, Crannog, Popshot, Prole, Rats Ass Review and Stand. He lives in Totnes, Devon, UK. He was a Pushcart and Forward Prize nominee for 2022’s best individual poems.
Thomas J. Erickson is an attorney in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he is a member of the Hartford Avenue Poets. His fifth book of poems “Cutting the Dusk in Half” (Bent Paddle Press, 2022) was awarded second place in the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets 2022 Chapbook Contest.
A recent octogenarian, Vern Fein has published over 300 poems and short prose pieces in over 100 different sites. A few are: Gyroscope Review, Young Raven’s Review, Bindweed, *82 Review, River & South Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, and Rat’s Ass Review. His second poetry book—REFLECTION ON DOTS—was released late last year.
Harrison Fisher has published twelve collections of poems since 1977, four of them book-length: Blank Like Me, Curtains for You, UHFO, and, most recently, Poematics of the Hyperbloody Real. In 2025, he has new poems coming in All Existing, Amsterdam Review, The Basilisk Tree, Chewers and Masticadores, the engine(idling, The Kleksograph, and Misfitmagazine.
Meg Freer grew up in Missoula, Montana, studied in Minnesota and New Jersey, and now lives in Ontario. Her photos, prose and poems have won awards and have been published in journals such as Ruminate, Eastern Iowa Review, Phoebe, and Rat’s Ass Review. She has co-authored a poetry chapbook, Serve the Sorrowing World with Joy (Woodpecker Lane Press, 2020) as well as two other chapbooks. She enjoys being active outdoors year-round.
Gerald Friedman grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and now teaches math and physics in northern New Mexico. His poems have appeared in various journals, recently Cattails, As It Ought To Be, and Door is a Jar, and his translations from Antonio Machado have appeared in Rhino, Ezra, Dialogist, and Poet Lore. You can read more of his work at https://jerryfriedman.wixsite.com/my-site-2
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, City Brink and Tenth Muse. Latest books, “Subject Matters”,” Between Two Fires” and “Covert” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Hawaii Pacific Review, Amazing Stories and Cantos.
Gary Grossman enjoys fishing, gardening, and running. His work appears in 60+ literary reviews and has been nominated for Best Small Fictions, Pushcart, and Best of the Net. Gary’s poetry books Lyrical Years (2023, Kelsay Press), and What I Meant to Say Was… (2023, Impspired Press) and his 2023 graphic memoir My Life in Fish… all are available from Amazon.
Colleen S. Harris earned her MFA in Writing from Spalding University. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her poetry collections include The Light Becomes Us (Main Street Rag, forthcoming), Babylon Songs (First Bite Press, forthcoming), These Terrible Sacraments (Bellowing Ark, 2010; Doubleback, 2019), The Kentucky Vein (Punkin House, 2011), God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems (Bellowing Ark, 2009), and chapbooks That Reckless Sound and Some Assembly Required (Pork Belly Press, 2014).
Before his current exile in Tennessee, New Yorker David M. Harris‘s first career was in book publishing, as an editor, agent, and copyeditor. He also worked for a while in film production before getting his MFA and starting a career teaching college English. His poetry has appeared in various journals. His first collection of poetry, The Review Mirror, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2013. He is also the author of Democracy and Other Problems, an essay collection; Bill, the Galactic Hero: the Final Incoherent Adventure (a novel with Harry Harrison); numerous magazine articles; several published short stories; and two produced screenplays.
Erin Hay is a poet living in Santa Cruz, California. She has been previously published in the Rat’s Ass Review.
Anglo-Danish by birth but Bahamian by upbringing, Robin Helweg-Larsen has lived and worked in the Bahamas (bank clerk), Denmark (factories and janitorial), Canada (prison guard, bookstore owner), Australia (restaurant work), USA (25 years of developing and teaching business simulations around the world). Now working on his poetry at formalverse.com
F.D. Jackson lives in the southeastern U.S., along with her husband and sundry furry family members. When she is not reading or writing, she can be found wandering the Gulf Coast with a cold drink in her hand. F.D.’s works have appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, Third Wednesday, Rat’s Ass Review, FERAL and others.
Michael Kfoury is a graduate of Suffolk University whose poems have appeared in Ink In Thirds, Blue Lake Review, and October Hill. An old soul, Michael loves classic rock, classic literature, and classic films. Often, his attention is divided between being engrossed with the night’s Humphrey Bogart screening and revising his writing. Finally, as a New Deal Nerd, Michael chronically studies the socio-economic and environmental reforms of 1930s America.
Bebe Tomlin Lefkoff lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee with her husband, son, and a mini-Aussie named Blue. Her books are available on Amazon under the pen name Kandeis Lynne. She is also available at bebelefkoff.bsky.social.
Fay L. Loomis leads a quiet life in the woods in Kerhonkson, New York. Member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers and the Rat’s Ass Review Workshop, her poetry and prose appear in numerous publications, including five poetry anthologies. Sunlit Wildness (Origami Poems Project, 2024) is her first chapbook. Fay is a nominee for the 2024 Pushcart Prize.
Tamara Madison is the author of the chapbooks “The Belly Remembers” (Pearl Editions) and “Along the Fault Line” (Picture Show Press), and three full-length volumes of poetry, “Wild Domestic”, “Moraine” (Pearl Editions) and “Morpheus Dips His Oar” (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions). Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, Your Daily Poem, the Writer’s Almanac, Sheila-Na-Gig, Worcester Review and many other publications. She is a swimmer and a dog lover. More about Tamara can be found at tamaramadisonpoetry.com.
Brian McAllister is a retired professor of English literature. His work has previously appeared in The Rat’s Ass Review, as well as Ancient Paths, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and others. He lives and writes in rural Georgia.
Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has now returned to live in his native England. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, MONO., the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly.
John C. Morrison’s most recent book, Monkey Island, was published by redbat books. His first book, Heaven of the Moment, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Poetry. He has received the C. Hamilton Bailey Fellowship from Literary Arts and his work has appeared in numerous journals, including the Beloit Poetry Journal, Cimarron Review, Poetry Northwest, and Rhino. He leads poetry discussion groups for Soapstone, teaches as an Associate Fellow for the Attic Institute, and is a guest editor for the Comstock Review.
James B. Nicola’s latest of eight full-length poetry collections are Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, Turns & Twists, and Natural Tendencies. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice magazine award. A Yale graduate and returning contributor, he has received a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, Storyteller’s People’s Choice magazine award, one Best of Net, one Rhysling, and eleven Pushcart nominations—for which he feels both stunned and grateful.
Al Ortolani is a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize and has been featured in Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry, and George Bilgere’s Poetry Town. In 2024 he was the recipient of the Bill Hickok Humor Award from I-70 Review. Currently, he’s a contributing poetry editor to the Chiron Review.
ky perraun (she/her/they) is a disabled (schizophrenia, hearing impaired), poet living on Treaty 6 Territory. She is the author of Miraculous Sickness (At Bay Press, 2021), finalist for the Stephan G. Stephansson Poetry and High Plains First Book Awards. Their work has most recently been accepted by Prairie Journal Online, and Pleiades.
When not writing poetry, Emalisa Rose enjoys crafting and drawing. She volunteers in animal rescue tending to cat colonies in the neighborhood. She walks with a birding group on weekends. Her works has appeared in Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Rat’s Ass Review, The Rye Whiskey Review and other wonderful places. Her latest collection is “Ten random wrens,” published by Maverick Duck Press.
William James Rosser is a poet and wine sommelier from Texas. He studied journalism and literature at university, has lived and traveled throughout North America and Europe, and spent over two decades working in the wine and spirits industry. Though guided by Formalists, Rosser aligns more closely with New Criticism and lyric verse. His poetic influences include Robert Penn Warren, Archibald MacLeish, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Hass and Sidney Lanier. He writes from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Ed Ruzicka has published three full-length books of poetry, most recently, “Squalls” (Kelsey Press, 2024). Ed’s poems have appeared in the Atlanta Review, the Chicago Literary Review, Rattle, Canary and have received Pushcart nominations. Ed, who is also the president of the Poetry Society of Louisiana, lives with his wife, Renee, in Baton Rouge, LA.
Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.
Karlo Sevilla is the author of seven poetry books, and one of the most recent is the chapbook “Recumbent” (8Letters Bookstore and Publishing, 2023). Shortlisted for the 2021 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, his poems appear in Philippines Graphic, Philippines Free Press, Rat’s Ass Review, Porch Litmag, TPT Magazine, and elsewhere. He is a 2024 International Fellow of the International Human Rights Art Movement (IHRAM) for his political poetry.
Julie Standig writes her poems while taking trains, walking on tow paths and over a large cup of coffee mid-morning. She rarely snags a poem on first draft and is definitely her worst critic. But she has learned the art of revision (after twenty years) and no longer hesitates to kill her darlings. Few things satisfy more that gutting an old poem to create something better. (And a good bourbon)
John Sweet sends greetings from the rural wastelands of upstate NY. He is a firm believer in writing as catharsis, and in compassionate nihilism. His published collections include NO ONE STARVES IN A NATION OF CORPSES (2020 Analog Submission Press) and THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY THIS IS GOING TO END (Cyberwit, 2023).
Dan Thompson (PhD) is a U.S. Army veteran and former editor and professor whose work has been published in scholarly as well as literary journals (including, most recently, the autumn issues of Canary and Rat’s Ass Review). In an earlier life, he worked as a music producer for educational videos.
Poems by Susan Thornton are prompted by her daily life, drawn from reading, enriched by imagination. She is grateful to live and work in Binghamton New York where she has been employed as an academic editor, a technical writer, and a high school French instructor. Words, always words, and often in another language.
Until recently, Richard Weaver has been the writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub in Baltimore. He has flipped coastlines. Some of his other pubs Include: OffCourse, Misfit Mag, Granfalloon, Burningword LJ, Slippery Elm, Loch Raven review, Spank the carp, and Magnolia Review. He’s the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and wrote the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars (2005). He was one of the founders of the Black Warrior Review and its Poetry Editor for the first four years. He’s pleased the BWR is now 50 years old. Recently, his 220th prose poem was accepted.
A former English professor at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, Sharon Whitehill has retired to Port Charlotte, Florida. Here she’s not only published poems in various literary magazines, but also a full collection and four chapbooks. Her last chapbook, THIS SAD AND TENDER TIME has just appeared (Kelsay Books, December 2023); PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER is forthcoming from Fernwood Press in 2025.
Cover Artist Bill Wolak is a poet, collage artist, and photographer who has just published his eighteenth book of poetry entitled All the Wind’s Unfinished Kisses with Ekstasis Editions. His collages and photographs have appeared recently in the 2024 Dirty Show in Detroit, the 2024 Rochester Erotic Arts Festival, the 2020 International Festival of Erotic Arts (Chile), the 2020 Seattle Erotic Art Festival, the 2018 Montreal Erotic Art Festival, and Naked in New Hope 2018. He was a featured artist in the book Best of Erotic Art (London, 2022).
Elana Wolff lives and works in Ontario, Canada. Her writing is widely published in Canada and internationally—recently in The Antigonish Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry 2024, Juniper, Prairie Fire, Pinhole Poetry, among others. Her cross-genre Kafka-quest work, Faithfully Seeking Franz (Guernica Editions 2023), is the recipient of the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the category of Jewish Thought and Culture.
Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Subliminal Surgery, One Art, Loch Raven Review, Panoply, Rat’s Ass Review, The Beatnik Cowboy, Spank the Carp, The New Verse News, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.
Susan J. Wurtzburg has won or placed in several poetry competitions. She was a Community Poet in a 2023 semester-long Poetry Workshop, Westminster College, Salt Lake City. Wurtzburg is a Commissioned Artist in Sidewalk Poetry: Senses of Salt Lake City, 2024, and an Associate Poetry Editor at Poets Reading the News. Her book, Ravenous Words, with Lisa Lucas will appear in spring, 2025. Webpage: susanwurtzburg.com.