{"id":1799,"date":"2016-04-08T19:57:09","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T23:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1799"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T22:12:08","slug":"spring-summer-2016-issue","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1799","title":{"rendered":"<strong><p style=\"color: #000000\">Spring-Summer 2016 Issue<\/p><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script><br \/>\n  (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){<br \/>\n  (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),<br \/>\n  m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)<br \/>\n  })(window,document,'script','https:\/\/www.google-analytics.com\/analytics.js','ga');<\/p>\n<p>  ga('create', 'UA-60884670-1', 'auto');<br \/>\n  ga('send', 'pageview');<\/p>\n<p><\/script><br \/>\n&nbsp;<a id=\"Barbeito\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Barbeito-Brian-Cover-Art-Smaller.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1797\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Barbeito-Brian-Cover-Art-Smaller.jpg\" alt=\"Barbeito, Brian Cover Art Smaller\" width=\"1182\" height=\"2079\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1797\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Barbeito-Brian-Cover-Art-Smaller.jpg 1182w, https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Barbeito-Brian-Cover-Art-Smaller-171x300.jpg 171w, https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Barbeito-Brian-Cover-Art-Smaller-768x1351.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Barbeito-Brian-Cover-Art-Smaller-582x1024.jpg 582w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1182px) 100vw, 1182px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><strong>TIME<\/strong> photograph by Brian Michael Barbeito.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nBrian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian writer and photographer. Recent work appears at <i>Fiction International, The Tishman Review<\/i>, and <i>Cv2 The Canadian Journal of Poetry and Critical Writing<\/i>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<a id=\"Allen\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Kelli Allen<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHUNTING, LIKE AN AWL THOUGH LEATHER<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nFirst, the body is bent. And we<br \/>\nbarely speak into the maw<br \/>\nof the potbellied stove<br \/>\nas we feed logs tighter<br \/>\ninto such fullness.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSomeone I knew once<br \/>\nhummed each movement<br \/>\nfrom that song you love<br \/>\nand now, while you arch<br \/>\nyour back into stretch, bones<br \/>\na whimper through this too cool night,<br \/>\nI want nothing more<br \/>\nthan to slither soft behind<br \/>\nand collect your wrists<br \/>\nwith my tongue while you tell me<br \/>\nwhat it is to crave a proper scratch<br \/>\nbehind hairy ears. We might meet<br \/>\nagain, later<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nin leanings against that old church,<br \/>\nits bell weighted by your stories, not mine,<br \/>\nand I will tell you, then, ash still<br \/>\nunder my boot, why I asked you<br \/>\nto come inside.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nKelli Allen\u2019s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee and has won awards for her poetry, prose, and scholarly work. She served as Managing Editor of <i>Natural Bridge<\/i>, is the current Poetry Editor for <i>The Lindenwold Review<\/i>, and holds an MFA  from the University of Missouri St. Louis. She is the director of the River Styx Hungry Young Poets Series and founded the Graduate Writers Reading Series for UMSL. She is currently a Professor of Humanities and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University and teaches for The Pierre Laclede Honors College at UMSL. Her full-length poetry collection, <i>Otherwise, Soft White Ash<\/i>, arrived from John Gosslee Books in 2012 and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kelli-allen.com\" target=\"_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/www.kelli-allen.com\/<\/a> For more of Kelli\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Allen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<a id=\"Ausiello\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Anthony Ausiello<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDINNER WITH ANOTHER COUPLE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe wife sighs,<br \/>\n<i>Endoscopy<br \/>\nand colonoscopy,<\/i><br \/>\nflicks her finger up and down<br \/>\nin case we knew not the way<br \/>\nto either end.<br \/>\nShe nods for the waiter<br \/>\nto top off her Pinot<br \/>\nfrom the treasured bottle<br \/>\nthe husband proudly unveiled<br \/>\nwith his tale<br \/>\nof a business trip<br \/>\nto Prague,<br \/>\nthrilling,<br \/>\nas the wife\u2019s<br \/>\nGI woes.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI raise my glass<br \/>\nand say,<br \/>\n<i>Remember when<br \/>\ndouble penetration<br \/>\nmeant a fun night\u2026<\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe wife\u2019s upper lip<br \/>\ncurls like Elvis,\u2019<br \/>\nthe husband slides<br \/>\nhis finger<br \/>\nunder his Rolex<br \/>\nto scratch a phantom itch,<br \/>\nhis smile,<br \/>\nlike when you can\u2019t remember<br \/>\nsomeone\u2019s name.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnthony Ausiello is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing-Fiction at Fairleigh Dickinson University and is a reader for the <i>The Literary Review<\/i>. His first published story will appear in the Spring edition of <i>The East Bay Review<\/i>.  He received a BA in English from The Pennsylvania State University and was a winner of the Katey Lehman Fiction Award. Between PSU and FDU, he successfully navigated through corporate America for almost two decades before departing to search for the Promised Land. He lives happily in Westfield, NJ with his wife, Talia, and children, Anya and Eli. For more of Anthony\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Ausiello\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<a id=\"Bancroft\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Colin Bancroft<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSITTING ON THE ROCKS BY PENVEEN LIGHTHOUSE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe chimneys of the mines stalk the horizon.<br \/>\nDrizzle grey in this light, opaque in the last<br \/>\nof the day. Seagulls barred against the wind,<br \/>\ncarrier bags caught in an updraft.<br \/>\nThe sea rips rough against the rocks,<br \/>\nslapping high white waves that look<br \/>\nlike beads pulled from a chain, scattered.<br \/>\nFar out, almost out of sight, a boat appears,<br \/>\nvanishes \u2013 light sodden in the tin vast gloom.<br \/>\nIt scatters its beacon through the mist,<br \/>\nlooking for a coupling from the cliffs<br \/>\nwhere the great gleam of the lighthouse<br \/>\nbeckons back, as if pulling it in.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nColin Bancroft works as an English Lecturer at a College in the North-East and is currently studying for a PhD on the poetry of Robert Frost. He has had over twenty-five poems published with various online and printed journals. His website showcases his work at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.colinbancroft.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.colinbancroft.co.uk<\/a> For more of Colin\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Bancroft\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<a id=\"Barksdale\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Jessica Barksdale<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMIDDLE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSkin, brain, organs, those that remain,<br \/>\nthat reproductive flap long ago heaped into medical waste.<br \/>\nTeeth, eyes, stomach, that last foul,<br \/>\ncaustic beast always prickly.<br \/>\nNervous as a child,<br \/>\npangy cramps gripping with sharp claws<br \/>\nas the school bus blasted by,<br \/>\nshe straining on the only toilet,<br \/>\nher sister pounding on the door.<br \/>\nWho needed Monday morning spelling tests, teasing, socks slipping<br \/>\nas she ran on the playground, hair wet from morning fog?<br \/>\nHer underwear, of course, baggy.<br \/>\nShoes tight at big toes, hair a crooked, kitchen-chair cut,<br \/>\ndress hems gaping mouths where she caught them on her bike seat,<br \/>\nriding illegally in the afternoons before changing into play clothes.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAll of that a half century ago,<br \/>\nwhere time lives, in her fingers, on the screen,<br \/>\nall the hours in the wrong classrooms, dust in linoleum corners,<br \/>\nteachers with clacking high-heeled shoes,<br \/>\nthe afternoons hot and long and smelly, ripe<br \/>\nwith the slow girl in the back row who peed in widening yellow puddles.<br \/>\nThe smack of bombardment balls against ribs,<br \/>\nthe cold of rainy day asphalt rasping her knees.<br \/>\nBut she could chase and skip and swing for hours,<br \/>\na whirl on the bars, round and round and round.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWhat once zipped and hummed inside her is dying,<br \/>\nbut what didn\u2019t work is finally kicking in.<br \/>\nLike not caring about shoes or hems or hair, walking<br \/>\ninto the store a wild, just awakened wreck but smiling at the cashier anyway.<br \/>\nYou don\u2019t like her?<br \/>\nGo fuck yourself, and she means it.<br \/>\nDo, though, kindly pass the flaxseed, hemp hearts,<br \/>\ncranberry supplement, probiotic,<br \/>\nground-up cow cartilage because her limber<br \/>\nlow-down is gone, joints aching,<br \/>\nbone-on-bone, a gasping step one and step two.<br \/>\nAchilles, ah! Knees, oh!<br \/>\nHand her the stronger reading glasses.<br \/>\nThe vaginal hormone suppositories. The melatonin.<br \/>\nMaybe an ear horn. (What did you say?)<br \/>\nA diaper, a pot brownie, a window with a view.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJessica Barksdale\u2019s fourteenth novel, <i>The Burning Hour<\/i>, is forthcoming from Urban Farmhouse Press in March 2016. A Pushcart Prize and Best-of-the-Net nominee, her short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming in <i>Compose, Salt Hill Journal, The Coachella Review, Carve Magazine, Mason\u2019s Road<\/i>, and <i>So to Speak<\/i>. She is a Professor of English at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California and teaches online novel writing for UCLA Extension. She holds an MA in English Literature from San Francisco State University and an MFA from the Rainier Writers Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.<a id=\"Baskin\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Amy Baskin<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI, OF THE GRAIN<br \/>\n<i>-Song of Demeter, a dom<\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\noffer me the first loaf of bread<br \/>\nI will give you back fertile lands<br \/>\nand let your babies nurse from me<br \/>\nburn away their mortal essence<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ndo not cut down my holy groves<br \/>\noffer me the first loaf of bread<br \/>\nI will lay often upon you<br \/>\nanoint your kin with ambrosia<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ndo not divulge my Mysteries<br \/>\nyou seek to conquer little deaths<br \/>\noffer me the first loaf of bread<br \/>\nor I will let your seed wither<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nat Eleusis in Attica<br \/>\nAnthele south of Thessaly<br \/>\nthey pray to me, Corn Mother and<br \/>\noffer me the first loaf of bread<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAmy Baskin writes poetry, stories, picture books and non-fiction. Her work is currently also featured in <i>NonBinary Review, Sein Und Werden, The Gorge Journal, Random Poem Tree<\/i>, and <i>Mothers Always Write<\/i> and is forthcoming in McGraw-Hill Big Books. She&#8217;s had the pleasure of working on the revision process with Oregon&#8217;s former poet laureate Pauline Petersen, and participating in a sonnet critique group with Allison Joseph. For more of Amy\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Baskin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<a id=\"Bennett2\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Jon Bennett<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMY FRIENDS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI knew his brother<br \/>\nand his brother wasn\u2019t a junkie<br \/>\nhe had a PhD in physics<br \/>\nbut the schizophrenia<br \/>\ntook everything and when<br \/>\nhe realized he<br \/>\nwouldn\u2019t get better<br \/>\nhe injected a calculated<br \/>\ndose of heroin<br \/>\nhis first and last.<br \/>\nNow here\u2019s his brother<br \/>\nwho stinks<br \/>\nis delusional and paranoid<br \/>\nbut plays the beat up<br \/>\ngroup home guitar<br \/>\nas easily as<br \/>\na bird uses its wings.<br \/>\nI\u2019ve seen crazy geniuses rot,<br \/>\nburied as they lived.<br \/>\nThe truth of the thing<br \/>\nis talent doesn\u2019t mean much<br \/>\nit\u2019s all about<br \/>\nthe company<br \/>\nyou keep.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nANOMALOUS BAGS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n\u201cWhy\u2019s it so cheap?\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cIt\u2019s like carburetor cleaner.\u201d<br \/>\nAt $20 a bag<br \/>\nthe stuff is reasonable<br \/>\nbut 3 days later<br \/>\nI still have chest pains.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s a strange pain<br \/>\nlike an early map<br \/>\nof North America.<br \/>\nI have no idea<br \/>\nwhere the pain will lead<br \/>\nbut it may be<br \/>\noff the edge<br \/>\nof the world.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJon Bennett\u2019s work has most recently appeared in <i>GTK Creative Review, Dead Snakes<\/i> and <i>Your One Phone Call<\/i>.<a id=\"Boon\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Carl Boon<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nANOTHER WAR STORY<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe walks through arcs of tracer-fire<br \/>\ncarrying a balloon. She wants to go home,<br \/>\nperhaps to make soup,<br \/>\nto watch her baby sleeping<br \/>\nin the crib her grandfather made.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe has small desires, small feet<br \/>\nthat carry her through the capital.<br \/>\nThe night is close to her,<br \/>\nas close as the lights at Be&#8217;er Tuviya.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThey all grow dark tonight.<br \/>\nShe wanders through the kitchen,<br \/>\nknowing there might not be<br \/>\na kitchen tomorrow. The news is bad, the night<br \/>\nis long, the bread grows stale in its box.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nCarl Boon lives and works in Izmir, Turkey. His poems appear in dozens of magazines, most recently <i>Neat, Jet Fuel Review, Blast Furnace<\/i>, and the <i>Kentucky Review<\/i>.<a id=\"Buck\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Stuart Buck<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n6\/8\/45<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthe stuff gathering<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ninexorably on our<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nshelves is just bits<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nof you and me<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nand the cats<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nStuart Buck is a poet and writer living in North Wales with his wife and two children. His poetry and prose have been widely published in journals such as <i>The Stare&#8217;s Nest, Cultured Vultures, Deadsnakes, The Bitchin&#8217; Kitsch, Erbacce Journal, The Haiku Journal, The Tanka Journal, The Seventh Quarry, Walking is Still Honest, Yellow Chair Review, The Sunflower Collective<\/i> and <i>Under the Fable<\/i>. He has been a featured poet in both <i>FIVE<\/i> magazine and <i>poetrykit<\/i>. When he is not writing or reading, he enjoys juggling, cooking and ambient music. For more of Stuart\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Buck\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<a id=\"Buehner\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Jamie Lynn Buehner<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nGROSS BRIE: GROWING PAINS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>So you like the ocean and the mountains. You\u2019re not just talking about going there for a while; you\u2019re talking about going and only coming home when someone dies. Maybe I\u2019m jealous. I never left and I wanted to.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI don\u2019t know if I want to go or not. There are so many things I want to say.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJust fucking say them<\/i>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI\u2019m getting fat. I bought gross blue cheese. I already drank the smoothie I bought for tomorrow morning. I should have just gone to Subway. Gross brie. Why did she say that about dying.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJamie Lynn Buehner is the author of <i>Dessert Poems<\/i> (Binge Press, 2012) and <i>Catalpa<\/i> (Red Bird Chapbooks, forthcoming 2016). Her recent work appears in <i>pioneertown, Sleet, The Midwest Quarterly<\/i>, and the <i>Wisconsin Review<\/i>. She lives in Germany. <a id=\"Byrne\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Stephen Byrne<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIN AN INSTANT YOU OPEN YOUR EYES AND SNOW FALLS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>hurry<\/i> she says with her hand in yours tangled<br \/>\ntogether like the roots of old trees<br \/>\n<i>come hurry<\/i> she repeats and you both<br \/>\nskip through the snow the crunch<br \/>\nbeneath feet beneath her tiny feet<br \/>\nseems to sing through the darkness<br \/>\nfrom tree to tree rustling leaves breaking branches<br \/>\nas if the forest suddenly appears to breathe<br \/>\nand the snow begins to tread barefoot<br \/>\nupon our lips to last but an instant<br \/>\nto transform from flake to teardrops<br \/>\nthat you can\u2019t understand<br \/>\nare tearing down your cheek<br \/>\n<i>come hurry my love<\/i> you hear<br \/>\nin the distance through the trees rustling leaves<br \/>\nbreaking branches of absence upon<br \/>\nthe blanket of snow and her hand<br \/>\nno longer in yours and her voice<br \/>\nbut a murmur and a crunch of feet<br \/>\nfading as shadow beneath<br \/>\nmoonlight and you wake peeling<br \/>\noff sheets with a pillow crushed<br \/>\ninto your chest and the thump<br \/>\nand the thump of your heart<br \/>\ndisturbs the silence of the room<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSHE SPEAKS CELLO<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>To see you naked is to recall the Earth.<\/i><br \/>\nFederico Garcia Lorca<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThere are ways we can speak each other<br \/>\nthat keep our secrets and silences<br \/>\nclose to our chests.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI like to lend you my eyes,<br \/>\nthe greenish parts<br \/>\nand place them on your lap<br \/>\nor on the upper curve of your lip<br \/>\nand let you watch them,<br \/>\nhunched like wings,<br \/>\nopen up before you<br \/>\nin a burst of syllables,<br \/>\ntelling you all you need to know<br \/>\nabout the unquestionable truth.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou say my eyes know<br \/>\nthe shape of your breasts,<br \/>\nevery line on your hands-<br \/>\nthe blemishes on your skin<br \/>\nyou hide from the world.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou say my eyes<br \/>\nare the wavering light<br \/>\nin a darkened room,<br \/>\nwatching you fall to sleep,<br \/>\nasking you to dream.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI say you speak cello.<br \/>\nNot long and drawn<br \/>\nnor deep or unmoving<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nbut like a tremble of little cellist feet<br \/>\nthat scurry all over my body,<br \/>\nmaneuvering here and there-<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nan orchestra of sonatas<br \/>\nbursting<br \/>\nfrom the cave of your mouth,<br \/>\ninsistent in your words,<br \/>\nbreathless,<br \/>\ndemanding,<br \/>\nand each note of your perfect hymn<br \/>\nis met by the green of my eyes<br \/>\nwatching you draw me in<br \/>\nas we speak together in secrets and silences.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nStephen Byrne is a chef and writer in Galway. His work has been published in <i>Skylight 47, Ropes 2015, The Original Van Gogh\u2019s Ear Anthology, The Blue Hour, The Galway Review, Boyne Berries, R\u00e6dLeafPoetry-India, The Poetry Bus<\/i> and many others. His work has also been translated into Russian for the Nasha Gazeta newspaper, Dublin edition. He writes at his site <a href=\"http:\/\/therantingbeast.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Ranting Beast<\/a>. For more of Stephen\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Byrne2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<a id=\"Carter\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Jared Carter<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHEALER<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe had come to the road\u2019s end<br \/>\nand the start of a lane of hickory,<br \/>\nand stood as instructed, beside<br \/>\nthe mailbox, waiting for a sign.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe letter had said that a lantern<br \/>\nwould be lit. She pulled a shawl<br \/>\nabout her shoulders. It was cold.<br \/>\nStars were still out, but no moon.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nFinally a sliver of light appeared,<br \/>\ndistant and dim. Someone headed<br \/>\nfor the barn, the lantern swinging,<br \/>\nand a voice calling to the animals.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAfter a time he came down the lane,<br \/>\na redbone hound at his heels,<br \/>\nand motioned for her to join them.<br \/>\nHe held the lantern so she could see.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nStill early morning, everything dark<br \/>\nexcept for the circle of shifting light,<br \/>\nand the trees quiet around them,<br \/>\nthe dog padding along in the dust.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe led her into a room in the house,<br \/>\nseated her in a straight-backed chair,<br \/>\nthen took a candle, focused its light<br \/>\nwith a lens, and peered into her eyes.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThere were patterns enfolded<br \/>\nwithin her irises, that gave hints<br \/>\nof what might be troubling her,<br \/>\nthat she had described in her letter.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThen he spoke for the first time,<br \/>\nnaming three plants that grew wild,<br \/>\nto be found along the roadsides,<br \/>\nthat she must ingest in certain ways.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLamps were no longer needed.<br \/>\nA brightness had entered the room.<br \/>\nHis voice was as clear as the light<br \/>\ncoming through the windows.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAt the last, he reached to enclose<br \/>\nboth of her hands, holding them<br \/>\nfor a moment, with his eyes closed,<br \/>\nin a way she would always remember.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThen she was back by the mailbox<br \/>\nat the road\u2019s edge, the sky overhead<br \/>\nfilled with clouds, and the cornfields<br \/>\nwaving their bright green leaves.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJared Carter\u2019s most recent book is <i>Darkened Rooms of Summer: New and Selected Poems<\/i>, published by the University of Nebraska Press. It is the first volume in the Ted Kooser Contemporary Poetry Series. Carter lives in Indiana.<a id=\"Citro\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Joseph Citro<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA POEM<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA poem shouldn&#8217;t<br \/>\nbe too long.<br \/>\nYou feel loquacious?<br \/>\nWrite a song.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJoseph Citro is a Vermont author and occasional consulting editor at Rat&#8217;s Ass Review.  He once collaborated in a poetry collection titled <i>The Love Poems of Joe and Rick<\/i>,  for which he wrote all of the offensive ones.  <a id=\"Coolen\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Michael Coolen<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOH HOW THE DEAD GUY ON THE STICK LOVES YOU<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nit took the guy on the stick six hours to die<br \/>\nbecause he loved loved loved you suffered<br \/>\nsuffered for your sins suffered more than anybody ever suffered<br \/>\nway back to when the universe was created six thousand years ago<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nsuffered compared to what<br \/>\nfifty women beheaded in a church by Catholics<br \/>\nthe infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers<br \/>\nlike sticking hot needles called pricks into the anuses and vaginas<br \/>\nof naked and shaved women to determine where Satan<br \/>\nhad entered their bodies<br \/>\nmurdering a million women over three centuries<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ndid the guy on a stick suffer worse than having red hot<br \/>\ncharcoal shoved down his throat<br \/>\nhung upside down in a tree<br \/>\ncock sliced off and shoved in his mouth<br \/>\nvultures starting to eat him alive<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ndid he suffer more than being forced to dig a mass grave for his family\u2019s<br \/>\nbodies rotting in the sun in a nearby field<br \/>\nhis oldest son bursting open from gasses<br \/>\ndropping the putrid remains piece by piece into grave<br \/>\naching for the moment his own body could join his family<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthe dead guy on the stick got taken down by family and friends<br \/>\nwho cleaned his body and oiled it and buried it\u2014<br \/>\nsoon legions of level-of-suffering spin doctors spouted industrial strength bullshit,<br \/>\nwhining about how much the stick guy suffered,<br \/>\nfollowed by centuries-long heavily armed marketing strategies demanding<br \/>\nlove and acceptance of their specific brand of delusional salvation&#8230;or else<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthere are no shops where you can buy statues of savaged women<br \/>\nlying on the ground surrounded by the men who raped and gutted them<br \/>\nno necklaces for sale of a man hung upside down in a tree with a cock hanging out of his mouth vultures already eating him<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nbut there are countless places to buy a sacred necklace celebrating the<br \/>\nsuffering and love love love of the dead guy on a stick<br \/>\nsold in sacred bookstores next to sacred cash registers<br \/>\nfor a small fee you can have the necklace blessed by a sacred pedophile<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMichael Coolen is a pianist, composer, actor, performance artist, and writer living in Oregon.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe has been published in <i>Ethnomusicology, Western Folklore, Oregon Humanities, 50wordstories Online, The Gold Man Review, Best Travel Stories, The Fable Online, Kalnya Language Press, Twisted Vine, Clementine Poetry Journal, Creative Writing Institute, Rats Ass Review, Solarwyrm Press, Synesthesia Magazine, Broken Plate Poetry Magazine, WalkWriteUp, StoryClub Magazine<\/i>, et al.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe is a published composer, whose works have been performed widely, including at Carnegie Hall, New England Conservatory of Music, Museum of Modern Art, and the Christie Gallery. For more of Michael\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Coolen\">here<\/a>. <a id=\"Coomer\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>A.S. Coomer<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMOMMA HAD A SWEET TOOTH<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMomma set the barn on fire<br \/>\nlate one October night.<br \/>\nDaddy and I were sleeping<br \/>\nbut woke to the false dawn,<br \/>\nto grandma in the backroom<br \/>\nscreaming<br \/>\nthat it was the Judgment Cometh.<br \/>\nWe ran out into the frost<br \/>\nbarefooted and without our jackets.<br \/>\nShe sat there, Momma did,<br \/>\nindian-style, legs crossed,<br \/>\nflames leaping in their tribal warfare behind her,<br \/>\nhumming that old sweet tooth song.<br \/>\nSteam rose off her scalp like a halo<br \/>\nand she told Daddy there\u2019d come snow<br \/>\nin the next few hours and it did.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA.S. Coomer is a writer. He likes cats, tacos, books &amp; comics. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in issues of <i>Red Fez, Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Literary Orphans Journal, The Quill, Blotterature, GFT Press, Flash Fiction Magazine, Oxford Magazine, Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review, Heater, The Broadkill Review, The Merida Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Thirteen Myna Birds, 101 Words, Intrinsick Magazine and Serving House Journal<\/i>, to name a few.  You can find him at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ascoomer.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.ascoomer.wordpress.com<\/a>. He also runs a \u201crecord label\u201d for poetry that can be found here:<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lostlonggoneforgottenrecords.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.lostlonggoneforgottenrecords.wordpress.com<\/a>.<a id=\"Denault\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Jacques Denault<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLIVES OF TREES<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIf trees could speak they\u2019d say, <i>burn me,<br \/>\ncut me down until the sap feeds my roots. <\/i><br \/>\nThey would beg to be chopped, processed,<br \/>\nand would march to the lumber mills if their trunks would let them.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIf trees could speak they\u2019d say, <i>clothe me, tie me up<br \/>\nin LEDs that shine like stars<\/i>. They would hum to themselves<br \/>\nin the dark of night, or talk with the owls,<br \/>\nwho would listen, ask, <i>who?<br \/>\nMe, bend my branches so they snap. <\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWhen a storm comes they would cry to the clouds,<br \/>\n<i>drown me<\/i>, they\u2019d say. <i>Flood my roots,<br \/>\nuntil the earth turns to mud. Then keep raining. <\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIf trees could speak, they\u2019d say, <i>kill me.<br \/>\nKill me and give me new life. <\/i><br \/>\nThey would want to be held, gently carved into baseball bats or grandfather clocks.<br \/>\nEach swing hitting a ball, or ticking a second, the sound of a cheering stadium, or the slow song of an old man playing the harmonica, while his wife makes a scarf, using two wooden knitting needles, for her granddaughter, still waiting to be born.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>What do you want to be when you grow up? <\/i> They\u2019d ask each other<br \/>\nonce the people were safe in their homes,<br \/>\nthe last few lights flickering out in the windows.<br \/>\n<i>A bible, <\/i> one would say. <i>Lumber for shingles<\/i>, says another.<br \/>\nThe third tree would think, wishing he could shrug his branches like shoulders, <i>a rocking chair, <\/i> he\u2019d say, <i>so I could move and be moved. <\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJacques Denault is an undergrad student at Merrimack College. He works for the Merrimack Review, and has previously been published at <i>RedFez Magazine<\/i>, as well as <i>Beorh Weekly<\/i>.<a id=\"Fancher\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Alexis Rhone Fancher<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nFAMILY TREE (A SISTER POEM)<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMy younger sister<br \/>\nclimbs my limbs, steals my clothes,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nsleeps at the foot of my bed,<br \/>\ncalls it worship.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe wants the gold locket between<br \/>\nmy breasts. She wants my breasts.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe wants my life.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s been crowded since the day she arrived.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe slut who is my younger sister<br \/>\nshinnies up my tree, clambers my branches,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nstraddles my limbs.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe inserts herself into my conversations,<br \/>\nseduces my best friend,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\neats my dessert.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThis Mata Hari likes to watch<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n(his tongue down my throat<br \/>\nhand up my skirt in the bedroom)<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nspills to our parents my every sin,<br \/>\ncalls it reverence.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd my first love?<br \/>\nShe covets him, too.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOne day she\u2019ll chop me down<br \/>\nto reach him.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAlexis Rhone Fancher is the author of <i>How I Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen and other heart stab poems<\/i>, (Sybaritic Press, 2014), and <i>State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies<\/i>, (KYSO Flash Press, 2015). Find her poems in <i>Rattle, The MacGuffin, Slipstream, Fjords, H_NGM_N, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles, Chiron Review, Quaint Magazine, Hobart, Menacing Hedge<\/i>, and elsewhere. She\u2019s infamous for her Lit Crawl LA performances at Romantix, a NoHo sex shop. Since 2013 she\u2019s been nominated for seven Pushcart Prizes and four Best of The Net awards. In her other life, Alexis is poetry editor of <i>Cultural Weekly<\/i>,where she also publishes a monthly photo essay, <i>The Poet\u2019s Eye<\/i>. Find her at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alexisrhonefancher.com\" target=\"_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">alexisrhonefancher.com\/<\/a> For more of Alexis\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Fancher\">here<\/a>. <a id=\"Fruchey\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Deborah Fruchey<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLOOK ME IN THE FACE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNo one remembers<br \/>\nthat I was lovely once.<br \/>\nEven Poseidon came cajoling,<br \/>\ncaught me in Athena\u2019s temple:<br \/>\n<i>Pretty Medusa, lips like coral, skin like moonlight<br \/>\nGive in to my glory, open for me<br \/>\nRight here, right now, on the altar<br \/>\nNo one will ever know<\/i><br \/>\nMy scruples gave way for a moment<br \/>\nto rapture with a god.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt was over. Athena was livid.<br \/>\nShe tore away my womanhood<br \/>\ncursed me to clangorous wings, brass claws<br \/>\nglaring eyes, popping tongue, vipers for hair<br \/>\n&#8211; a Gorgon, yes, but not an immortal one &#8211;<br \/>\nstill a target for boastful young men seeking trophies.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOf course I turned them into stone!<br \/>\nThe one grace left to me, my wilderness garden<br \/>\nof heroic Grecian statuary.<br \/>\nPerseus was the last. Athena equipped him<br \/>\n&#8211; how that woman could hold a grudge!<br \/>\nHe cut off my head without ever<br \/>\nlooking me in the eye.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nFrom my flayed corpse rose Pegasus,<br \/>\nlast beautiful gasp of a moment<br \/>\nthat had cost me everything.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDeborah Fruchey writes novels once in a while and poetry more often. Her first poetry collection, <i>Armadillo<\/i>, appeared in 2014 from Cyborg Press. Recent publications: <i>Tule Review, California Quarterly<\/i>, and <i>Song of the San Joaquin<\/i>. For a good free sample of her poetry, read \u201cDragonfly\u201d on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wattpad.com\/story\/19062615-dragonfly\" target=\"_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wattpad<\/a>. <a id=\"Garcia\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Richard Garcia<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHE FIRST OF THE DIANES<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI loved you like you loved yourself.<br \/>\nMore maybe. As Max Von Mayerling said,<br \/>\nIt &#8216;s time for your close-up. But it may never<br \/>\nbe time for your close-up. Remember<br \/>\nthe photo booth where  we took our picture,<br \/>\nour eyes wide with fright, then staring<br \/>\ncross-eyed with our tongues out,<br \/>\nthen kissing  and kissing again. Diane<br \/>\nBartalotti, first of the Dianes, Huntress<br \/>\nof the Icy Steppes of Frozen Tundra,<br \/>\nI forgive you for chewing the ruffles<br \/>\noff my pirate shirt. I forgive your long<br \/>\nblonde hair of an Italian movie goddess.<br \/>\nIs it time for your close-up yet?<br \/>\nYour famous breasts have no nipples<br \/>\nyou have no navel, there is no<br \/>\nvaccination scar on your arm, and<br \/>\nno one has ever seen you sleeping.<br \/>\nBut I am not afraid. Even if it is true<br \/>\nyou married an incarcerated Hell&#8217;s Angel<br \/>\nand became wealthy from real estate.<br \/>\nHere you can insert your own simile<br \/>\nfor the body of the beloved. That<br \/>\nwould be you. You, descending the long<br \/>\nstaircase, the velvet ropes, the flashbulbs,<br \/>\nthe yellow police tape, the reporters shouting,<br \/>\nIs it true? Is it really true? Get back,<br \/>\nback up, back up, give her room to breathe.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHE SECOND OF THE DIANES<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI love you more than I did when I was alive.<br \/>\nMore than if you were dead and I were alive.<br \/>\nAs if the veiled moon cried over the ocean.<br \/>\nAs Caesar said, Render down the fat<br \/>\nto the rendered and give bone to bone,<br \/>\nor something like that or maybe it was<br \/>\nabout a salad-wilting event in Tijuana.<br \/>\nThey\u2019re here! They\u2019re really here.<br \/>\nI do not think Caesar invented a salad<br \/>\nbut I know only an evil god could create<br \/>\nthe curve of your waist as you lay<br \/>\nby the fire reading my horoscope.<br \/>\nPluto is in renegade avoid conversion.<br \/>\nGathering dust on this shelf I long for a grave.<br \/>\nSparky is sniffing through the backyard<br \/>\nin search of my bones. O, snap out of it.<br \/>\nGet a grip, a gaffer or a best boy.<br \/>\nDiane Bartalotti, the stroke of doom<br \/>\nwas invented in honor of your deadly smile,<br \/>\nwhich even the planet Jupiter envies.<br \/>\nDown girl, down Sparky, now roll over.<br \/>\nI remember the red slash of your voice<br \/>\nas you startled me out of my sleep.<br \/>\nThey\u2019re here, they\u2019re here!<br \/>\nWho, I wondered, as headlights flashed<br \/>\nacross the bedroom wall as if our bed<br \/>\nhad been pulled over by the Highway Patrol.<br \/>\nI&#8217;m not afraid of a cascade of alien castanets,<br \/>\nbut your tongue stroking my ear<br \/>\nmakes me think of Vincent Van Goth<br \/>\nor the arms stolen from the Venus de Milo.<br \/>\nI am no longer who I am and the cockroaches<br \/>\nof my house have forgotten my name.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nRichard Garcia&#8217;s recent books <i>The Other Odyssey<\/i>, from Dream Horse Press, and <i>The Chair<\/i>, from BOA, were both published in 2015. His forthcoming book, <i>Porridge<\/i>, will be published by Press 53 in March of 2016. His poems have appeared in many journals, including <i>The Georgia Review<\/i> and <i>Spillway<\/i>, and in anthologies such as <i>The Pushcart Prize<\/i> and <i>Best American Poetry<\/i>. He lives in Charleston, S.C. and is on the staff of the Antioch Low Residency MFA in Los Angeles. For more of Richard\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Garcia\">here<\/a>. <a id=\"Geis\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>D.G. Geis<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nFROM WHENCE COMETH MY HELP?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI live in the highlands of central Texas<br \/>\namid hills knotted with cedar<br \/>\nand limestone as hard and sure<br \/>\nas the Church of Christ on a Sunday morning<br \/>\nor the blood of Jesus smeared<br \/>\non a cactus spine.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOnce this dead ground was a seabed<br \/>\nlittered with the shells of a trillion<br \/>\nshucked oysters, but after a hundred<br \/>\nmillion years the ocean decided<br \/>\nto lift her skirt and bend over.<br \/>\nAnd the walls of the restroom shook.<br \/>\nAnd the evening and the morning<br \/>\nwere the eighth day.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLater, God made Bud Light and orange<br \/>\njumpsuits for the inmates to wear when<br \/>\nthey picked up the empties on county<br \/>\nwork crews, because even after the Flood<br \/>\nthere is still a lot of debris.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd then God made honky-tonks<br \/>\n(and bail-bondsmen) for all the survivors:<br \/>\nthe Longhorn, the Chicken Coop<br \/>\nand the 11<sup>th<\/sup> Street Cowboy Bar,<br \/>\nall places for his restless children to kick back.<br \/>\nAnd God made DWI lawyers with easy payment plans<br \/>\nand more importantly, judges who drink.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe made sure his children would<br \/>\nbe fruitful; He made country boys<br \/>\nhung like post-hole diggers and country girls<br \/>\nwith ovaries so ripe they literally jumped out<br \/>\nof their clothes. And High Schools where they<br \/>\nstill prayed. And babies. And baby-Daddies<br \/>\nfrom the High Schools where they still prayed.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI live in the highlands of central Texas<br \/>\namid hills knotted with cedar<br \/>\nand limestone as hard and sure<br \/>\nas the Church of Christ on a Sunday morning<br \/>\nor the image of Jesus laughing<br \/>\nfrom a screen door or the back<br \/>\nof a flour tortilla.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTO THE GIRL I HUGGED ON WEST AVENUE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDarling, you were no looker<br \/>\nand too sincere to bother<br \/>\nstraightening your wrinkles.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWe met for Persian, remember?<br \/>\nCasual date, separate cars&#8212;<br \/>\nthe cockeyed optimism of<br \/>\ntwo loners gone Dutch.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMy dear, you made loneliness ache with delight.<br \/>\nYour profile picture was a good likeness,<br \/>\nand the other photo had a nice sting;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthe one of you leaning against the couch<br \/>\nin jeans and starched shirt, dachshund at your feet.<br \/>\nThe spinster as dandy. A dowager <i>en suite<\/i>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI\u2019ll give it to you. That took balls.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYour plans were simple,<br \/>\nand I admit, within moments, you\u2019d smiled your way<br \/>\nto a tipping point, but not quite far enough<br \/>\nto move my hand to touch your fingers<br \/>\ngrazing on the tablecloth behind a sugar caddy.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou were open to so many things:<br \/>\nzombie movies, vindaloo, cuddling,<br \/>\nthat for a moment I almost<br \/>\nstroked your hand, making music<br \/>\nof those un-played keys.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSadly tuned, you were my near Miss,<br \/>\nwho in the parking garage<br \/>\nI hugged so tightly at good-bye,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nan unprized consolation<br \/>\ncrushed between my arms<br \/>\ntrying so gamely not to cry,<br \/>\ngoing home now, straightaway,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nto feed your dachshund.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nD.G. Geis lives in Houston, Texas. He has an undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Houston and a graduate degree in philosophy from California State University. His poetry has appeared in <i>491 Magazine, Lost Coast, Blue Bonnet Review, The Broadkill Review, A Quiet Courage, SoftBlow International Poetry Journal, Blinders, Burningword Literary Journal, Poetry Scotland (Open Mouse), Crosswinds, Scarlet Leaf,  Sweet Tree, Atrocity Exhibition, Driftwood Press, Tamsen<\/i> and <i>Crack the Spine<\/i>. He will be featured in a forthcoming <i>Tupelo Press<\/i> chapbook anthologizing  9 New Poets and is winner of <i>Blue Bonnet Review&#8217;s<\/i> Fall 2015 Poetry Contest. For more of D.G.\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Geis\">here<\/a>. <a id=\"Healy\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Iseult Healy<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nCOMPLAINT FROM A PAIN IN THE ASS WHO HATES APPLES<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nStuck in the beauty of woman<br \/>\nforever pinned to a milk and musk body,<br \/>\ndesired, chased, fingered, fondled<br \/>\nand forced into shared space<br \/>\nfor the sake of mankind.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNot even her name on the species.<br \/>\nA mere second, a runner up,<br \/>\na lackey, sex slave, starveling,<br \/>\nchangeling, ageing, ageless sex.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWhat a cock-up not to have a third.<br \/>\nSomeone to pass the buck to.<br \/>\nA neuter.  Then man and woman<br \/>\ncould be friends and fuck the neuter.<br \/>\nbut would that be a neutered fuck<br \/>\nand therefore impossible?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOh well, back to the drawing board.<br \/>\nNo bloody apple trees this time.<br \/>\nMight take Sunday off again, though.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIseult lives in magnificent Sligo on the west coast of Ireland &#8211; the land of Yeats.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHer formal training came through the Royal Irish Academy in the dramatic arts.  She has furthered her training through several workshops in The Irish Writers Centre and Patrick Kavanagh Centre and continues her studies with Galway poet Kevin Higgins of Over the Edge. She has also been a contributor for many years to The Synge Summer School, Wicklow.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nPublished in Boyne Berries 1916, and Fredericksburg Literary &amp; Arts Review, USA. She was also shortlisted for the 2015 Galway Hospital Arts Trust Poetry Competition.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIseult is also a member of the Ox Mountain Poets and A New Ulster group. For more of Iseult\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Healy\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.iseultwriter.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">iseultwriter.com<\/a>   Twitter: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IseultH\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@IseultH<\/a><a id=\"Helweg-Larsen\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Robin Helweg-Larsen<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBANTERING<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBantering needs many, not one voice:<br \/>\nyou need \u2018response\u2019 as well as \u2018call\u2019.<br \/>\nOr else it\u2019s only masturbantering \u2013<br \/>\nwith no real intercourse at all.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAT 15 AND 65<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAt 15, she\u2019d a lovely face, though with untidy hair.<br \/>\nWhat a disgrace, in one so fair:<br \/>\nat 65, she\u2019s lovely hair, but an untidy face\u2026<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nRobin Helweg-Larsen is a British-born, Caribbean-raised, formerly Danish immigrant to Canada who has been living in Chapel Hill, NC since 1991. His poetry has mostly been published in the UK &#8211; <i>Ambit, Snakeskin<\/i> and <i>Candelabrum<\/i> &#8211; but also in <i>14 by 14, The Lyric, Unsplendid, Visions International, The Hypertexts<\/i>, the <i>Phoenix Rising<\/i> sonnet anthology, etc. In his other life he is a business owner. For more of Robin\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Helweg-Larsen2\">here<\/a>. <a id=\"Hidalgo\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>TS Hidalgo<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nCOME TO US<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThy Kingdom:<br \/>\nwinter comes<br \/>\nand leaves behind<br \/>\nbackpackers,<br \/>\nplutocrats,<br \/>\na trip to Cassiopeia,<br \/>\nall kinds of pyramids<br \/>\n(the world as it was explained<br \/>\nto the Pharaohs)<br \/>\n&#8230; today mere trick, trompe l&#8217;oeil, litmus\u2026 ,<br \/>\numpteenth unemployment rates,<br \/>\nand a possibly,<br \/>\nor impossibly, perhaps,<br \/>\nsuitable<br \/>\nlevel of neurotransmitters:<br \/>\ncome to us<br \/>\nThy Kingdom;<br \/>\ncome to us<br \/>\nThy Kingdom:<br \/>\nSpaniards finally become vegans<br \/>\n(The Potato Eaters),<br \/>\nsome pairs of Adidas Jesus Christ<br \/>\n(our latest sneakers)<br \/>\nand an invisible credit<br \/>\nat zero cost;<br \/>\na leading growth in Europe,<br \/>\nand the cut of fear:<br \/>\ncome to us<br \/>\nThy Kingdom:<br \/>\nhealings go well, but\u2026<br \/>\nhow many of your internal organs<br \/>\ncan you live without?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTS Hidalgo (43) holds a BBA (Universidad Aut\u00f3noma de Madrid), an MBA (IE Business School), a Master in Creative Writing (Hotel Kafka) and a Certificate in Management and the Arts (New York University). His works have been published in, among others, <i>Otoliths, By&amp;By, Poems-For-All, Clementine, The Unrorean, Alien Mouth. Haggard&amp;Halloo, Transcendent Zero<\/i> and <i>Crack the Spine<\/i>, and he has won prizes from Criaturas feroces (Editorial Destino), AIDA Books and Pandora Magazine in short story or finalist at Festival E\u00f1e in novel. He has developed his career in finance and stock-market.<br \/>\n<a id=\"Hogan\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong> Michael Paul Hogan<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHE UNDEAD<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>And if the dead should die? And if the dead<br \/>\nShould die, no more than that? &#8211; Why, Master,<br \/>\nThere\u2019s not a man alive on this plantation<br \/>\nWho has not known the inside of a grave\u2026<\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI shall wear a white suit<br \/>\nas befits a tropical location.<br \/>\nBaggy white pants and a linen jacket<br \/>\nfor a string of Oriental ports<br \/>\nwhere oil and water mix.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOr a pair of brown leather boots<br \/>\nlaced to the knee of canvas britches,<br \/>\nand a belt made of rattlesnake rattles<br \/>\nwith a caramel holster<br \/>\nand a gun like an octopus hook.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI shall brush my black hair<br \/>\ntill it shines like a ballroom slipper,<br \/>\nand stroll on the deck with the daughter<br \/>\nof a Chesapeake millionaire<br \/>\nwho\u2019s really a gangster.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAll through the night,<br \/>\nwhile the dance band plays Gershwin and Porter,<br \/>\nI shall lean on the starboard rail<br \/>\nwhere a shoreline of dense green coral<br \/>\nsmokes on a moonlit tide.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd later on disembark<br \/>\ndown a gangway all snakes and ladders,<br \/>\nall angles and pebbles and hammocks,<br \/>\nthrough an archway of elephant trophies<br \/>\nand severed heads on poles.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n*<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI shall lie awake<br \/>\nunder the blades of a ceiling fan,<br \/>\nmy skin stretched thin as the skin of a drum,<br \/>\nblinking my eyes, gekko-quick,<br \/>\nto divert the sweat down each cheek.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOr load a revolver<br \/>\nwith teeth from a zombie\u2019s skull,<br \/>\nand smear my face with burnt cork<br \/>\nto hide in the shadows the curtains make<br \/>\nthat ripple like fish in a kraal.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIn the houngan\u2019s house<br \/>\nI shall slip through a cowrie-shell doorscreen,<br \/>\nthrough a room made of whalebone and whaleskin,<br \/>\nof birdshit and batshit and greasepaint,<br \/>\nof bamboo and crinoline.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOr run through an aisle of sugar<br \/>\ngreen and yellow and sharp<br \/>\nas the floor of a leopard trap,<br \/>\nwith footsteps always behind me<br \/>\nand the smell of a freshly dug grave.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n*<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI shall lie in a tent in Africa<br \/>\nwhere the earth is the color of dried blood,<br \/>\nand a doll greased with my sweat<br \/>\nglisters in the firelight<br \/>\nwith a nail where its heart should be.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>Facilis descensus Averno\u2026<\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThis morning I remembered my name<br \/>\nbut not where the blood on the walls came from<br \/>\nor where I hid the last bottle of whiskey<br \/>\nor whether I drank it.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt all comes back.<br \/>\nSooner or later it all comes back.<br \/>\nBy which time it has lost all meaning<br \/>\nand is merely the triumph of remembering,<br \/>\nand not much of a triumph at that.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLast night I dreamed of a girl<br \/>\nin a silver swimsuit, my wife\u2026<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThis morning I find<br \/>\nbroken glass in the washstand,<br \/>\nmy face looking back from the mirror<br \/>\nwith warpaint across each cheekbone and down my forehead<br \/>\nand the bottleneck still stuck through my hand.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMichael Paul Hogan is a poet and journalist whose work has appeared extensively in the USA, UK, India and China. His poetry has appeared in over thirty literary journals and in five collections, the most recent of which, <i>Chinese Bolero<\/i>, was published as a collaboration with the Chinese painter Li Bin. He is currently working on a collection of Surrealist short stories.<a id=\"Jones\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Kelly Jones<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nGOOD LUCK<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA bird almost shat on me this morning. I watched it as I walked, convinced the bird resting on a wire would be the seventh to get me. The last time I heard his voice: a voicemail, asking me to ride with him to DC for the protest against the Iraq War. By the time I said yes, it was too late. He was already up there. I went anyway, looked for him in the crowd and yelled with strangers at buildings and streets that weren\u2019t listening. I encounter dead birds a lot. Two years later, in Seattle, at another protest, there was a dead bird on the sidewalk with a cigarette near its beak. I took its picture and posted it in an online album entitled, \u201cDead Birds Don\u2019t Fly.\u201d Hummingbirds are attracted to the color blue; they scavenge for it in nature, clutch it in their beaks to weave into nests. People tell me it is good luck to have a bird shit on you. In the last email he sent me he wrote <i>9 fucking days to not die and I get to come home \ud83d\ude42 and I\u2019m getting out when we get back, so Yea for ME!!!<\/i> I recently watched a documentary about resistance fighters in Iraq. A scene at sunset with a mosque in the background: so many birds flying around it. Bodies have been found with pulpy eyes because hummingbirds have pecked the irises out. I found a dead bird on my porch once, put it in a jar and kept it in my apartment until it began to smell. Walking home from that protest in Seattle, someone asked me what we were fighting for and I said <i>Freedom!<\/i> I wish I hadn\u2019t deleted those messages or his cousin\u2019s text saying he had died. Wish I hadn\u2019t thrown a beer bottle at the American Apparel window. In the documentary there were American soldiers running around and explosions in the distance. My beer bottle shattered but the window remained perfect.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nKelly divides their time between Durham, NC and New Orleans, LA. Currently they make a living by working at a literacy center and ghost-writing for the internet. Some of their favorite things are glitter, manatees, and Wild Turkey.<a id=\"Kingston\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Maureen Kingston<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nGRAVE-MARKING<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe giant kneels,<br \/>\nbounces<br \/>\nhis rubber ball,<br \/>\ntosses<br \/>\nfull-metal jacks.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nXs &amp; O<br \/>\ntic-tac-toe<br \/>\nthrough time,<br \/>\nland as hedgehogs<br \/>\non Omaha Beach,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nblackhole<br \/>\nto Bethlehem,<br \/>\nto Gethsemane,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nbecome rock stars<br \/>\nof Advent<br \/>\n&amp; the empty tomb.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThen the giant<br \/>\nslides prone<br \/>\n&amp; the ball abstracts,<br \/>\nmagnifies<br \/>\nthe sun\u2019s glare,<br \/>\nwithers X<br \/>\nto a \u201ct,\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nto a plus sign<br \/>\nin a rifle scope,<br \/>\n1963.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMaureen Kingston\u2019s poems and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in <i>B O D Y, Gargoyle, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, Misfitmagazine.net, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Red Paint Hill, Stoneboat<\/i> and <i>Terrain.org<\/i>. A few of her poems and prose pieces have also been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart awards. For more of Maureen\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Kingston\">here<\/a>. <a id=\"Klein\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Norm Klein<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOPEN SEASON<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShots echo up from the river.<br \/>\nMore deer than ever, I\u2019ve heard,<br \/>\nmore hunters hunting them,<br \/>\nmore killed on the highway.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLast year there were thirteen<br \/>\nwild turkeys in Roger\u2019s field<br \/>\nfeeding on anything crawling.<br \/>\nThis year there\u2019s only one.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBeen a rough spring for me and<br \/>\nthe turkeys, my bad knee worse,<br \/>\na woodchuck eating my peas.<br \/>\nAll my mail wants money,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nand there\u2019s that red-tailed hawk<br \/>\neyeing my last chipmunk as my<br \/>\ngoldfinches hide in the maple<br \/>\nclosest to the house and feeder.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNorm Klein&#8217;s poems have appeared in <i>Epoch, The Antioch Review,<\/i> and <i>The Beloit Poetry Journal<\/i>. For more of Norm\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Klein\">here<\/a>. <a id=\"Kolp\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Laurie Kolp<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMANHATTAN<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWhat may never be<br \/>\nmore than just prismatic flash<br \/>\nof streetlights haloed through your eyes<br \/>\ndrawn to moistened lips, we kiss.<br \/>\nUp the fire escape, our arms<br \/>\nlike wind-heft willows<br \/>\nweighing us down,<br \/>\nhearts hardened<br \/>\nto this possibility<br \/>\nmuch too long.<br \/>\nFrom afar, a bone-<br \/>\nrattling train<br \/>\nwhistles its warning<br \/>\nas we climb through my window<br \/>\nchance unseen.<br \/>\nMakeup-clumped eyelashes<br \/>\ntickle my neck in lace of limbs<br \/>\nthat thrash as I claw shadows,<br \/>\nclench fists so tight my red finger-<br \/>\nnails mark slits on your palms.<br \/>\nThe end rushes, and I know.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLaurie Kolp, author of <i>Upon the Blue Couch <\/i> (Winter Goose Publishing) and <i>Hello, It&#8217;s Your Mother<\/i>  (Finishing Line Press), serves as president of Texas Gulf Coast Writers and treasurer of the local chapter of the Poetry Society of Texas. Laurie\u2019s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in <i>Gargoyle, After the Pause, Crack the Spine, Scissors &amp; Spackle, Pirene\u2019s Fountain<\/i>, and more. She lives in Southeast Texas with her husband, three children, and two dogs.<a id=\"Litt\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Jennifer Litt<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHE OPAL RING DECLARES HER LOVE TO THE MAN IN THE MOON<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI\u2019m a little lax in my setting,<br \/>\na bit soft on you.<br \/>\nNow what should I do?<br \/>\nMoon, you\u2019re an old soul,<br \/>\nand I come from an antique shop,<br \/>\nmy golden filigree intact.<br \/>\nWhen you shine your light on me,<br \/>\nI\u2019m a star, a prism, a tear, a dance.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s all your fault I\u2019m filled with these<br \/>\nnotions of romance, so don\u2019t reflect<br \/>\non my flaws\u2014Moon, wax.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJennifer Litt is the sole proprietor of Jennifer Litt Writing Services <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jenniferlitt.com\" target=\"_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.jenniferlitt.com\/<\/a>  and an adjunct writing professor at SUNY Brockport. Jennifer\u2019s work has appeared in several anthologies, journals and magazines, including <i>Jet Fuel Review<\/i>, LUMINA, <i>Mixed Fruit, Naugatuck River Review<\/i> and <i>nycBigCityLit<\/i>. She is the author of the forthcoming chapbook, <i>Maximum Speed Through Zero<\/i> (Blue Lyra Press). She lives in Rochester, New York,<a id=\"Li\u00f9saidh\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Li\u00f9saidh<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHE LAMBTON WORM<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJohn Lambton, fishing on a Sunday morn,<br \/>\nThe Earl\u2019s own son eschewing Sabbath prayers,<br \/>\nSat by the River Weir, just after dawn,<br \/>\nAnd whistled, doffing promise, rank, and care.<br \/>\nYet, by and by there came a beggar man,<br \/>\nHis blind-man\u2019s stick a-tapping on the ground<br \/>\nCried he; &#8220;Milord, please spare some Sunday alms,<br \/>\nAt Chapel you should be, but are not found!&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;O what care I for Mass? I hunt and fish!&#8221;<br \/>\nThe youth responded, while he cast his line.<br \/>\n&#8220;Milord, be warned, no good will come of this:<br \/>\nYou\u2019ll only catch when Chapel bells do chime!&#8221;<br \/>\n\u2019Twas so \u2014 John reeled an eel\u2013but then he sought<br \/>\nTo hurl it down the well, that fish he\u2019d caught.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDiscarded down a well the fish he\u2019d caught\u2013<br \/>\nBeneath the noonday sun, a heavy load\u2013<br \/>\n\u201dTis such a worthless worm,\u2019 young Lambton thought,<br \/>\n\u2018I might as well have fish\u2019d and caught a toad!\u2019<br \/>\nYet by that little well there lay a cave,<br \/>\nA crone within as dark as inky skies,<br \/>\nA raven on her wrist (with baleful glare)<br \/>\nRegarding him with bloody, beady eyes.<br \/>\nSaid she; &#8220;Who hath defil\u2019d the Lady\u2019s well?<br \/>\nThis day is dark, Sir, marked upon thy soul!<br \/>\nSubmit to me, for neither book nor bell<br \/>\nWill save thee on that wretched way thou\u2019lt go.<br \/>\nOne day thou\u2019t come and hunt me with thy horn\u2013<br \/>\nNow get thee to the Hall where thou wert born!&#8221;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nReturning to the Hall where he was born,<br \/>\nRode Johnny Lambton, troubled in his heart.<br \/>\nThe witch\u2019s ire, the blinded beggar\u2019s scorn,<br \/>\nHis elders had some stern words to impart!<br \/>\nThat prophet scolded by the riverbank<br \/>\nThat seer menaced from from her grotto grim \u2014<br \/>\nJohn was, like all men born with Lambton rank<br \/>\nAn untamed youth, eschewing prayer for sin!<br \/>\nHe was as all those fiery Northern men,<br \/>\nWho dwell beneath the shadow of the Wall,<br \/>\nThey hunt, fish, and disport, but have no ken<br \/>\nOf lofty aims, high purpose in their Halls.<br \/>\nThus, by the crossroads Lambton\u2019s heir was caught<br \/>\nBy preaching priests, and by the news they brought.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTo hear the clerics preach, the news they brought,<br \/>\nHe joined the throng of young men by the way,<br \/>\nA missive from the Papal Father taught,<br \/>\nThe Holy Land lay under Moorish sway!<br \/>\n\u2018Come take the cross and join the merry throng,<br \/>\nAdventure, absolution for thy crimes,<br \/>\nAnd when we rise to chant our choral song,<br \/>\nSwear to the Lord, and march to foreign climes!\u2019<br \/>\nFor with the clerics stood a score of knights,<br \/>\nNobility and honour etched their brows,<br \/>\nAnd on their halberds bore in scarlet bright,<br \/>\nWith crimson stripes, inscription of their vows.<br \/>\nTo bear that rosy form to fair Levant,<br \/>\nHe took the Cross that day, turned by their cant.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJohn took the Cross that day, turned by their cant,<br \/>\nO how that old Earl Robert tore his beard!<br \/>\nTo see his eldest gone to the Levant;<br \/>\nRanked with those knights so sacred, and so feared.<br \/>\nFor in those desert climes by Zion\u2019s gate<br \/>\nSir John now learned God\u2019s work in bloody sand<br \/>\nAs thousands \u2014 slain in some unholy fate \u2014<br \/>\nSpent lifeblood, spilled to wrest a sacred land.<br \/>\nHis troop of knights were righteous for the Lord<br \/>\nEschewing sin, they fought their holy wars,<br \/>\nThey slaughtered all that fell beneath their swords<br \/>\nThey cared for neither glory, wounds, nor scars.<br \/>\nSir John forgot the strange Worm down the well<br \/>\nBy doing God\u2019s own work, in desert hells.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSir John forgot the Worm, in desert hells,<br \/>\nThe callow lad, a man now, blooded cold,<br \/>\nGod\u2019s purpose giving way to vices fell,<br \/>\nFor Mammon ruled his heart with Arab gold.<br \/>\nThen maids of Araby, their kohl-lined eyes,<br \/>\nbeneath their damask veils, their gaze enticed,<br \/>\nHe held in twain crusading truths and lies,<br \/>\nWhere Virtue was identical to Vice.<br \/>\nAfar, the Well, defiled by his hand<br \/>\nSo sullied by the curse, split open wide.<br \/>\nOut slid the Worm to Lambton\u2019s sundered lands<br \/>\nIts havoc wreaked, on Ebon\u2019s dark-moon night.<br \/>\nEarl Robert, fearing witches did enchant:<br \/>\nSent troubled tidings, to the bless\u2019d Levant.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTill troubled tidings came to bless\u2019d Levant,<br \/>\nSir John remained in ignorance and bliss<br \/>\nHe gathered golden loot as was his wont,<br \/>\nHe stalked the streets of Zion for a kiss.<br \/>\nNo comely maiden \u2013Christian, Moor, or Jew\u2013<br \/>\nWas safe when Johnny Lambton was abroad!<br \/>\nThat war turns men to monsters, it is true:<br \/>\nFor rape, rapine, and slaughter were his words.<br \/>\nThis holy soldier harboured hate in heart.<br \/>\nOne night, a maid of Israel he spied,<br \/>\nHe followed her; she cursed him in the dark.<br \/>\n&#8220;Thy fate is that of Jephthah\u2019s, Sir,&#8221; she cried.<br \/>\nBut John forgot the curse of Israel:<br \/>\nHis sire\u2019s word had reached him of the Well.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&#8220;A worm has split the sides of Witch\u2019s Well!<br \/>\nWith giant maw and pulsing, fiery eyes<br \/>\nEach night he slithers from the place he dwells<br \/>\nTo worry all of Lambton\u2019s countryside!<br \/>\nWhen he has had his beastly belly filled,<br \/>\nHis rattling roar is heard with crunching bones,<br \/>\nThis serpent slips away, to Penshaw Hill<br \/>\nTo wrap his tail ten times about the stones!<br \/>\nNo cow is safe, nor are the lambs or sheep<br \/>\nThe bairns abed are swallowed whole and live,<br \/>\nDeliver us, my son, our people weep,<br \/>\nHow will we reap the harvest, or survive?<br \/>\nI pen these words with sorrow\u2019d shaking hands:<br \/>\nSir John, return thee now, to native lands.&#8221;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSir John returned, to find his native lands<br \/>\nAlone. There sat Earl Robert in his hall;<br \/>\nNo abled bodied men at his command.<br \/>\n\u201cWe fear the Crone \u2014 who lived on Witch\u2019s Lawe \u2014<br \/>\nHath called this dreadful dragon from the deep.<br \/>\nSir Knight! See thou, our stalwart men are gone,<br \/>\nO witness, how our weary women weep<br \/>\nThe harvest rots: deliver us, my son!<br \/>\nJohn cried, \u201cMy lord, give me the tracking hounds,<br \/>\nGive me fresh horse, your silver hunting horn,<br \/>\nI\u2019ll hunt the Witch where she hath gone to ground,<br \/>\nShe shall reveal the way to slay her Worm!<br \/>\nNo more shall that foul dragon feed and feast<br \/>\nOr lands be ravaged by that awful beast!\u2019<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSo ravaged hard by that most awful beast<br \/>\nWere all the Lambton counties, widely kenned,<br \/>\nThe Lords of Castle Alnwick were beseeched<br \/>\nTo lend him goodly gear, and mustered men.<br \/>\n(For once the dragon ate all by the Weir<br \/>\nHe\u2019d turn his fateful stare and monstrous maw<br \/>\nOn other lands. Thus, all the North, in fear,<br \/>\nDesired to bring the Witch before the law).<br \/>\nSir John, that craven knight knew only this<br \/>\nThe crone\u2013belov\u2019d of Goddess Hecate\u2013<br \/>\nRemained the only soul that knew that his<br \/>\nHand was the hand, that brought calamity.<br \/>\nJohn cried; &#8220;We ride to hounds, this merry band<br \/>\nAnd see those monsters cleaved by righteous hands!&#8221;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe monster caught and cleaved by righteous hands:<br \/>\nTheir stated aim. John blew the silver horn<br \/>\nHe whipped them in, and issued his commands<br \/>\nTo bring the Lambton hunting hounds to form.<br \/>\n&#8220;No need to hunt, my Lord, for I am come!&#8221;<br \/>\nThe crone cried, as she stood upon the Lawe;<br \/>\n&#8220;Crows gather on the branch by setting sun\u2013<br \/>\nIt is for thee, my lord, that Ravens caw!<br \/>\nTh\u2019art come to find a way to slay the Worm<br \/>\nSo heed me now, stick blades to armour bright \u2014<br \/>\nHe\u2019ll coil, squeeze, be cut up, and then re-form<br \/>\nUnless it\u2019s in the river that you fight.<br \/>\nHis mortal parts shall spread from West to East<br \/>\nNo longer shall he bite the bairns and feast!&#8221;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&#8220;No longer shall he bite the bairns and feast?&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Aye. Then, milord, you\u2019ll have to pay the price:<br \/>\nUpon the kill, return and slay who greets<br \/>\nThee first. To Lady Crow; a sacrifice!&#8221;<br \/>\nThen Lambton drew his steel \u2014 the crone to rend \u2014<br \/>\n&#8220;Thou hag! I should have slain thee at that time!&#8221;<br \/>\nAnd as the black knight\u2019s broadsword did descend<br \/>\nShe cursed the Lambtons: generations nine.<br \/>\nSir John now did just as the Witch had said,<br \/>\nHe fought the beast, it coiled around his form,<br \/>\nThe Weir ran scarlet as the dragon bled,<br \/>\nThe victor met his joyful sire at home.<br \/>\nQuoth he; \u201cOur hero keeps the bairns from harm!<br \/>\nO raise a glass to bold and brave Sir John!\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&#8220;Aye, let us raise a glass to bold Sir John!<br \/>\nHe killed the Crone, no more we\u2019ll live in fear!<br \/>\nJohn freed the county from that dreadful worm!<br \/>\nWe\u2019ll bless his name on both sides of the Weir!&#8221;<br \/>\nFolk raised their cups to toast brave Lambton\u2019s heir:<br \/>\nThey should have lit the candles for his soul,<br \/>\nFor as the knight went riding, everywhere<br \/>\nHis strange and awful shadow had to go!<br \/>\nThe maid and crone, their curdled curse came true \u2014<br \/>\nNow, everywhere young Lambton\u2019s shade was found,<br \/>\nIn place of man, a shadow dragon grew:<br \/>\nThe likeness of the Worm was cast to ground.<br \/>\nThey crossed themselves, the Evil Eye to turn<br \/>\nThough he had cleaved in twain, the Lambton Worm.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe cleaved in twain the famous Lambton Worm<br \/>\nYet \u2019tis not clear the monster died that day<br \/>\nFor in its place there reived one Black Lord John:<br \/>\nThe witch\u2019s curse came true in many ways.<br \/>\nHe stole the cattle, took the maidens fair,<br \/>\n(Earl Robert dead upon some bloody field;<br \/>\nHis sons were food for ravens in the air,<br \/>\nNine generations cursed to fall or yield.)<br \/>\nHis taxes high, the people cringed in fear,<br \/>\nThe dragon ruled his heart and soul and mind.<br \/>\nSoon all the folks on both sides of the Weir<br \/>\nPrayed fervently Our Lady would unwind<br \/>\nThe skein of Time and halt that fateful wrong:<br \/>\nWorm Lambton, fishing on that Sunday morn!<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJohn Lambton, fishing on a Sunday morn<br \/>\nDiscarded down a well the fish he\u2019d caught \u2014<br \/>\nReturned he to the Hall where he was born<br \/>\nTo hear the clerics preach, the news they brought.<br \/>\nHe took the Cross that day, turned by their cant,<br \/>\nSir John forgot the worm, in battle\u2019s Hell,<br \/>\nTill troubled tidings came to the Levant,<br \/>\nA Worm had split the sides of Witch\u2019s Well.<br \/>\nSir John returned, to find his native lands<br \/>\nSo ravaged hard by that most awful beast\u2014<br \/>\nThe monster caught and cleaved by righteous hands,<br \/>\nNo longer shall he bite the bairns and feast!<br \/>\nAye, let us raise a glass to bold Sir John,<br \/>\nHe cleaved in twain the famous Lambton Worm!<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLi\u00f9saidh is a poet, author and literary critic from the impoverished west of Scotland. She writes from a crack-ridden council estate and her words are always strange. Her formal poetry and short fiction has been published or is forthcoming online and in print, most recently in <i>Poets &amp; War, Unlost Journal<\/i>, and <i>Thank You For Swallowing<\/i>. As LJ McDowall she writes speculative fiction and is poetry editor at <i>The Quarterday Review<\/i> and <i>Trigger Warnings<\/i>. Find out more about her work at her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ljmcdowallwrites\" target=\"\u201d_blank\u201d\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook page<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ljmcdowall.com\" target=\"\u201d_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ljmcdowall.com<\/a>.<a id=\"McBrearty\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Jenean McBrearty<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHE CELLO IN HOLST\u2019S <i>THE PLANETS<\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHow beautiful the bow brought<br \/>\nacross the strings pulled tight across the bridge,<br \/>\ndrawing out voluptuous vibrations,<br \/>\nmature but menacing tones,<br \/>\nlike a forty-something courtesan<br \/>\nwho knows how to please a man,<br \/>\nassuredly,<br \/>\nwith no need of coquettish pretense or garish force;<br \/>\njust so, with practiced seductive subtlety<br \/>\nthe strings sing their music.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nStrumming, picking, plucking, fingers<br \/>\nas children running, jumping, cart-wheeling,<br \/>\nprincely precise<br \/>\non guitars, banjos, and harps<br \/>\nget our admiration.<br \/>\nBut the cellist\u2019s right arm<br \/>\nrespectfully caresses the<br \/>\nspruce and maple of the wooded breast,<br \/>\nas the poplar and willow buttocks<br \/>\nsink between his legs,<br \/>\nhis left hand probes and plays<br \/>\nwith her cello hair,<br \/>\nand we close our eyes and sigh.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJenean McBrearty is a graduate of San Diego State University. Her fiction, poetry, and photographs have been published in over a hundred print and on-line venues. Her novel <i>Retrolands<\/i> is serialized by Jukepop; her detective novel, <i>The 9th Circle<\/i>, was published by Barbarian Books. Her other books\u2014<i>Tales of the German Mind, Helmut Wolf, Deathly Short Stories, Wanted Ones: Published Stories of 2012<\/i>, and <i>Raphael Redcloak Guardian of the Arts<\/i>\u2014are available at Lulu.com.<a id=\"Moran\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Sarah Frances Moran<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nEL DIABOLITO (\u201cthe little devil\u201d)<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>P\u00f3rtate bien cuatito, si no te lleva el coloradito.<\/i><br \/>\nBehave yourself buddy, or the little red one will take you away.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe devil swims the<br \/>\nBrazos.<br \/>\nMy grandmother met<br \/>\nhim there<br \/>\nwhen she was five<br \/>\nyears old.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>Momma told me not to<br \/>\ngo swim<\/i><br \/>\nshe said.  <i>Of course<br \/>\nwhen I didn\u2019t<br \/>\nlisten he\u2019d show.  Of<br \/>\ncourse he would.<\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe devil dances with<br \/>\ninsubordinate<br \/>\nchildren.  Climbs their<br \/>\nlimbs to rest<br \/>\ninside the cave of their<br \/>\ntiny ears.<br \/>\nWhispers the world\u2019s<br \/>\nsweet woes<br \/>\nlike a lullaby. Plays the<br \/>\nharmonica and asks<br \/>\nthem to dance, dance<br \/>\nlike no one is watching<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>Mija, he\u2019s waiting<br \/>\nthere for you, in that<br \/>\nbook.  Waiting inside<br \/>\nthe things you enjoy.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nResting between the<br \/>\nletters of those words<br \/>\nyou write incessantly.<br \/>\nWhy don\u2019t you read the<br \/>\nBible like you write<br \/>\nthose words?<\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLike the hummingbird<br \/>\nsputters.  Like the<br \/>\nmoon shines.  Like my<br \/>\ndaddy on a day he isn\u2019t<br \/>\ndrinking.  Like rivers<br \/>\nbegging for a child to<br \/>\ntempt.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLike,<br \/>\nThe water is warm so<br \/>\nplease come in.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nPlease come in and<br \/>\njoin me.  In the bake of<br \/>\nthe sunshine. Take my<br \/>\nlittle red hand little<br \/>\ngirl.  I\u2019m here for you.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSarah Frances Moran is a writer, editor, animal lover, videogamer, queer Latina. She thinks Chihuahuas should rule the world and prefers their company to people 90% of the time. Her chapbook Evergreen will be released this summer from Weasel Press. She is Editor\/Founder of Yellow Chair Review. You may reach her at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sarahfrancesmoran.com\" target=\"\u201d_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.sarahfrancesmoran.com<\/a>. <a id=\"Pope\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Bethany W. Pope<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nINSIDE THE WORD BAZAAR<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe marketplace swarms with tents, shouted words:<br \/>\n\u2018Half Off!\u2019, \u2018Buy!\u2019, \u2018Discounted Treasures!\u2019 Signs written<br \/>\nExpertly; calligraphic come-ons coloured in blood.<br \/>\nWhere should you begin? There are surfeits of bony,<br \/>\nOrdinary-looking women selling their last<br \/>\nRegency tea-sets; so polite they mistake richly<br \/>\nLacquered Georgian pisspots for gravy-boats. Rich,<br \/>\nDebauched gentlemen (so proper-seeming) fondle wordy,<br \/>\nRococo, pornographic postcards. The last<br \/>\nExplorer (consigned to the edges) writes<br \/>\nWry letters to his fictional Germania with a bone-<br \/>\nAugmented pen while the buyers (afraid of blood)<br \/>\nRelegate themselves to the safe, well-lit centre. \u2018Blood<br \/>\nDespoils everything\u2019, they say. \u2018Choose cheese-cloth over rich,<br \/>\nStained silks. Never risk looking silly, or breaking a bone.<br \/>\nThere\u2019s plenty to buy that\u2019s mass-produced.\u2019 Workshopped words,<br \/>\nHanging signs, order everything. Prices are written,<br \/>\nExchange rates are fixed. Foreign coins won\u2019t last;<br \/>\nFrancs, dollars, yen are outdated, unwanted. At last,<br \/>\nArtificial light peters out. You reach the rough edges. Blood<br \/>\nCreeps into the channels between the patched tents. Writing,<br \/>\nIn odd, esoteric characters marks the doorway. Rich,<br \/>\nLingering perfumes fragrance the air. A white sign with black words<br \/>\nExplains: \u2018Here is the Fortune Teller\u2019. Blonde, fine-boned,<br \/>\nEtched over in runes, she tells the Tarot with crow-bones<br \/>\nAnd mouse-skins. She sells you a doll\u2019s head with one last,<br \/>\nSmall, fortune hidden in the mouth; \u2018There\u2019s power in words,<br \/>\nYou know, but more in fashion.\u2019 Her bloodless<br \/>\nFace smiles, slightly sad; sorry she\u2019ll never be rich.<br \/>\nAcross the market, near the exit into something else, a hand-written<br \/>\nSign is pinned to a rough burlap flap, \u2018Watch her write<br \/>\nHer name in her own intestines and carve her bones<br \/>\nInto treasure-boxes.\u2019 It might be a freak show. The stench is rich,<br \/>\nOverpowering. You are afraid of this last<br \/>\nNecrotic stall; a little excited. You could stand to taste some blood;<br \/>\nWelcome it even, after all that time among clean, centralized words.<br \/>\nInside the tent, she slices her belly and writes rich, maddened words that<br \/>\nNonetheless last. Her maddening blood<br \/>\nSings into you. The sound echoes in your bones.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nCARNIVAL<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nStanding there, stripped skeletal, I shivered with cold<br \/>\nin the early spring-light filtering through the windows.<br \/>\nThough still a child, I felt incredibly old;<br \/>\nhands folded across my chest-bones, my groin, like Eve after God<br \/>\ncaught her in the garden with berry-stained lips. I froze,<br \/>\nstanding there \u2014 stripped. Skeletal, I shivered with cold<br \/>\nwhile my housemother led the other girls around<br \/>\nme in a circle, chanting my sins. They\u2019d taken my clothes.<br \/>\nThough still a child, I felt incredibly old.<br \/>\nThey called me \u2018dogface\u2019, \u2018fishbreath\u2019, \u2018lesbian whore\u2019. Bold<br \/>\ngirls, all of them, grabbing the wound they punished me for. On show,<br \/>\nstanding there (stripped skeletal) I shivered with cold,<br \/>\nwaiting, blank-faced, for them to get bored,<br \/>\nsick of explaining that rape wasn&#8217;t something I chose.<br \/>\nThough still a child, I felt incredibly old,<br \/>\nas though their hands, their eyes, their spit (cold<br \/>\non my cheeks) had mummified me from my hair to my toes.<br \/>\nI stood there, stripped skeletal, shivering with cold;<br \/>\nthough still a child I felt incredibly old.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBethany W. Pope is an award-winning writer. She received her PhD from Aberystwyth University\u2019s Creative Writing program, and her MA from the University of Wales Trinity St David. She has published several collections of poetry: <i>A Radiance<\/i> (Cultured Llama, 2012) <i>Crown of Thorns<\/i>, (Oneiros Books, 2013), <i>The Gospel of Flies<\/i> (Writing Knights Press 2014), and <i>Undisturbed Circles<\/i> (Lapwing, 2014). Her collection <i>The Rag and Boneyard<\/i>, shall be published soon by Indigo Dreams and her chapbook <i>Among The White Roots<\/i> shall be released by Three Drops Press next autumn. Her first novel, <i>Masque<\/i>, shall be published by Seren in 2016.<a id=\"Ricard\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Gabriel Ricard<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDINNER PARTY FOLK<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt\u2019s too big of a damn big city<br \/>\nfor a dust bowl to even appear. Let alone<br \/>\nstick around for three months and turn the streets<br \/>\ninto some kind of apocalyptic western where the riots<br \/>\nare surprisingly quiet in tone.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSix p.m.,<br \/>\nalthough God knows how anyone<br \/>\ncould tell by looking outside.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHer car has been parked out front since four.<br \/>\nThe class clown on the radio has been drinking<br \/>\nheavily since noon, and playing Warren Zevon<br \/>\nsince two-thirty. Since it\u2019s Tuesday, this isn\u2019t anything<br \/>\nshocking. She overworks her poor speakers and mumbles<br \/>\nthe lines that still haven\u2019t gotten old.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThat\u2019s most of them. She sings along when appropriate,<br \/>\nand opens the glove box to let the beautiful pocket watches<br \/>\nspill out onto the floor.<br \/>\nThere\u2019s twenty all in all. Each one may be the very best<br \/>\nof whichever sincere boy gave it to her,<br \/>\nwhen things got hopeless, and certain promises needed to be made.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nFor ages now, she\u2019s been meaning to get rid of them.<br \/>\nSell the nicer models, or just hand them all over<br \/>\nto some madman from off the streets, who relates<br \/>\nto that rabbit from that book just a little too strongly.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBut it\u2019s nice to reach out and clutter history. It\u2019s like an army of hands and shovels,<br \/>\narguing for composure and dignity at a burnt-down trailer park.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nEveryone holds onto more than they should. Everyone would rather collect<br \/>\nbulky artifacts than deeply personal scraps of paper<br \/>\nwith messy writing all over the place.<br \/>\nThat\u2019s where career drinkers come from. All they do is gulp, weep<br \/>\nand learn to read what may as well be Vulcan.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nRight now, she\u2019s just killing time.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIn fifteen minutes, she\u2019s going to drink a surprisingly large belt<br \/>\nof bourbon for a person her size. Then she\u2019s going to wait for the last song<br \/>\nto finish. Then she\u2019s going to brave the visiting winds of Mars or Arizona to go<br \/>\ninside the last place in town that triples as a bar, a Laundromat, and a comedy club.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe comedy club will be dangerously packed. The punk rock kid<br \/>\nin the wheelchair will be halfway into his set. The bar will be<br \/>\nchoked with ambition, courage, and persuasion.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe Laundromat will be empty, except for the guy<br \/>\nshe stabs in the stomach at this time every single day<br \/>\nof the nine-day week.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt\u2019s a boring silent movie. Dullsville, North Dakota, baby doll.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe looks up, she moves forward.<br \/>\nHe grins, she moves forward.<br \/>\nHe winks, she gets the knife in just right.<br \/>\nHe drops, she takes the money as he crumbles.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe first time was just a favor<br \/>\nto a friend and veteran of the unusual.  The fact<br \/>\nthat it became habit turned out to be<br \/>\nas natural as shallow breathing.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt\u2019s a ridiculous routine,<br \/>\nbut the money is a straight line<br \/>\nfrom the equally ridiculous to the sublime.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nPlus, she imagines that one day<br \/>\nthey\u2019ll speak beforehand,<br \/>\nand that will have all the makings<br \/>\nof one of those enlightening conversations<br \/>\nshe\u2019s been dreaming about.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe might be a man of faith.<br \/>\nThere\u2019s something going on in those eyes of his.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nGabriel Ricard writes, edits, and occasionally acts. He is a contributor to <i>Drunk Monkeys<\/i>, an Editor with <i>Kleft Jaw<\/i>, and a contributor to <i>Cultured Vultures<\/i>. His first book <i>Clouds of Hungry Dogs<\/i> is available through Kleft Jaw Press and Amazon.com. He lives here and there.<a id=\"Roby\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Cynthia A. Roby<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nREMEMBERING LEE HARVEY<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLunch at my cousin\u2019s house was always at noon.<br \/>\nAt our house it was half past one.<br \/>\nThat\u2019s how I recall the time of day.<br \/>\nLee Harvey was my cousin. It didn\u2019t have the<br \/>\n\u201cOswald\u201d part tacked on at the end, though. That\u2019s how I<br \/>\nremember the name. Zenith had introduced a color TV,<br \/>\na \u201cRoundie\u201d it was called. Folk talked about it for a long while.<br \/>\nThat\u2019s how I can mark the year: 1963. The day was Friday.<br \/>\nLee Harvey\u2019s birthday had been the Friday before.<br \/>\nWhat I don\u2019t recall is why we were home from school that day.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe living room at my cousin\u2019s was crowded. On hearing<br \/>\nthe news over the radio, colored folk from all over Kosciusko<br \/>\npiled in through the front door wrapped in sweaters and scarves.<br \/>\nSouthern folk were particular about chilled air and<br \/>\nthe weather that day, they said, was \u201cout of kilter.\u201d<br \/>\nSome folk left their homes wearing pajamas, ostentatious muumuus,<br \/>\nfat pink hair rollers, dirty house slippers, and head rags.<br \/>\nAll to witness a nervous Walter Cronkite unfold the unexpected and horrible story.<br \/>\nIt was November 22, 1963, and JFK had been shot dead.<br \/>\nThe man represented a powerful social change for black folk everywhere,<br \/>\nso everybody wanted to see the news\u2014in color.<br \/>\nI wanted to know about this \u201cDallas\u201d place.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>Lawd have mercy, what\u2019s Miss Jackie gonna do? <\/i> a woman\u2019s voice in the crowd said.<br \/>\n<i>It\u2019s a conspiracy! LBJ is behind this mess<\/i>, a man\u2019s voice said.<br \/>\nI nodded in agreement although I had no idea what <i>conspiracy<\/i> meant.<br \/>\n<i>Damn Lee Harvey, <\/i> another voice said on hearing that the<br \/>\nex-marine had also shot Governor Connelly.<br \/>\n<i>Don\u2019t somebody\u2019s boy in here gots that name? <\/i><br \/>\nI spied through the crowd of grown folk\u2019s legs and saw my cousin,<br \/>\nwho placed his half-eaten grape jelly sandwich on the cocktail table<br \/>\nand snuck out the back screen door.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe burning tips of Camels, 555s, and Everests filled<br \/>\nthe room with a thick, choking white smoke that made Miss Jackie\u2019s<br \/>\nface on the round picture tube shift into a blur. Women folk<br \/>\ncommenced to crying. Some \u201ccouldn\u2019t take it no more\u201d and<br \/>\nreturned to their own living rooms and radios. Some men opened<br \/>\ncrumpled brown paper bags that likened to the backs of old folk\u2019s hands,<br \/>\ntwisted loose metal tops, took large sips, blinked hard, and<br \/>\nlet out an exhale that ushered disagreeable gurgling sound.<br \/>\nIt was as if they were swallowing mouthfuls of fire.<br \/>\nI disappeared out back with my cousin, who sat on the stoop in tears.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>That white man on TV, all them folk in there\u2014they\u2019s lying<\/i>, he said.<br \/>\n<i>I ain\u2019t kilt no peoples<\/i>. I sat down next to Lee Harvey on the chilled cement<br \/>\nand look up at the sky. We were both covered with chill bumps<br \/>\nas a small plane passed over\u2014its shadow winking at the backyard.<br \/>\n<i>You see that? <\/i> I said, squinting at the plane\u2019s underbelly. <i>We gonna<br \/>\nget on that plane and fly to that Dallas place and set folk straight<\/i>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI don\u2019t recall whether my voice sounded matter-of-factly. But I do remember<br \/>\nlooking over at Lee Harvey and watching his jelly-stained face smile and nod.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHE ROAD TO METHODIST<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe voice on the other end of the phone<br \/>\nwas that of a white woman. <i>Hello<\/i>, she said. <i>Does<br \/>\nRichmond Roby live there? <\/i> I looked at the clock,<br \/>\n10:37 the hands read. I blinked hard. In the daylight,<br \/>\nnice white girls called to sell magazines, fancy cookware,<br \/>\nand <i>World Book Encyclopedias<\/i>. They didn\u2019t call<br \/>\nblack folk\u2019s houses after dark unless the police had arrested<br \/>\none of our kin or we needed to collect one of our dead.<br \/>\nIt was 1968 and we weren\u2019t being buried in the same cemeteries.<br \/>\n<i>Hello, are you there? <\/i> the white woman said.<br \/>\n<i>Yes ma\u2019am<\/i>. My heart took on the pace of serious worry.<br \/>\nI wanted to turn the clock back until it was light outside again.<br \/>\n<i>There\u2019s been an accident. Someone from his family<br \/>\nneeds to come to Methodist Hospital now. Do you know<br \/>\nwhere that is? <\/i> My throat was suddenly tissue-paper dry.<br \/>\n<i>Yes, and okay. I\u2019ll get his momma and somebody will be there directly<\/i>.<br \/>\nThe white lady exhaled coolly, as if I\u2019d said exactly<br \/>\nwhat she\u2019d wanted to hear. <i>Hurry<\/i>, she said.<br \/>\nThe line went dead.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe wind stung our faces like a hive of<br \/>\nbees somebody messed with<br \/>\nas we walked the mile to the only hospital<br \/>\non the west side of Gary that treated<br \/>\nblack folk. Auntie Ida and I hooked arms and<br \/>\nsqueezed fingers to brace ourselves<br \/>\nagainst the vexatious wind. <i>You think he\u2019s gonna live, Auntie? <\/i><br \/>\nAuntie Ida stopped, let loose of our grip,<br \/>\nthen pulled the collar of her thin blue jacket up and<br \/>\naround her neck. She blew a smoky white breath that matched her hair<br \/>\ninto the November wind and spoke in no particular direction:<br \/>\n<i>I\u2019m tired child. I hopes ta-nite that whatever done happened, he goes on to Glory<\/i>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTears never made it down my cheeks. The wind saw to that.<br \/>\nI tucked my hands beneath my armpits<br \/>\nand trailed her footsteps for the remaining blocks to Methodist.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nCynthia A. Roby currently lives in New York City, where she works in publishing and is an adjunct professor of academic writing. Her works of fiction and poetry have appeared in journals and chapbooks including <i>The Manatee, Amoskeag, Voices of Brooklyn<\/i>, and <i>Writers from the Web<\/i>. She earned her MFA from Lindenwold University, specializing in fiction. Follow her on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cynthiaRoby\" target=\"\u201d_blank\u201d\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@CynthiaRoby<\/a>.<a id=\"Ryan\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Eugene Ryan<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nPHOTO<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLying on the bank with my sister<br \/>\nwe counted shooting stars<br \/>\nThe ones we both saw we shared between us \u2013<br \/>\nthe simple justice of plenty<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI look at my apartment now<br \/>\njumbled like bad wiring<br \/>\nand stare unknowing<br \/>\nat pictures of myself<br \/>\nsmiling, in a windblown place<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nEugene Ryan makes his debut in Rat\u2019s Ass Review. He did pretty well once at a poetry live mike, but got slow clapped off stage when, flush with success, he followed up with an off colour joke. From South London, Eugene currently lives in central Japan with his wife and two children. After decades of mood dependant forays into writing, he was encouraged to give it a proper go by <a href=\"http:\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Sullivan2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sue Sullivan<\/a>, from the Toyohashi writer\u2019s group. He loves kids, dogs and the ocean. He has been struggling to give up supporting Arsenal FC since 2010.<a id=\"Scott\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Claire Scott<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBUSINESS CARDS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe hands out her pain<br \/>\nlike business cards<br \/>\nstockings rolled to her ankles<br \/>\ngrey slip drooping<br \/>\nbelow a torn blue dress<br \/>\nclotted hair, picked-at skin<br \/>\nred scabs dotting her arms<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\none for you and one for you and one for you<br \/>\n<i>my father beat me with fists<br \/>\nleft bruises that never healed<\/i><br \/>\nI squirm embarrassed, stand on one foot<br \/>\nlook casual, hum a bit<br \/>\nla la la<br \/>\neye the corner as though<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nexpecting a friend or searching<br \/>\nfor my missing Schnauzer<br \/>\nshe stops anyone, anyone at all<br \/>\n<i>my mother locked me in<br \/>\na closet, I slept on her shoes<\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ngrabs the sleeve of a passing<br \/>\nstranger who looks repelled<br \/>\nshe holds his sleeve tight<br \/>\nin her stubborn fist<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nher stories stream on<br \/>\n<i>when I was ten my uncle<br \/>\nput quarters in my pocket<br \/>\n\u201cdon\u2019t tell\u201d <\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI don\u2019t believe her at all<br \/>\nwho could believe all that rubbish<br \/>\nof closets, fists and quarters<br \/>\nwho could do that to a child<br \/>\nand yet and yet<br \/>\nlook at her<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nmy mother<br \/>\npassing out cards<br \/>\nstained and streaked in<br \/>\nthe sweat of desperation<br \/>\nla la la<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nClaire Scott is an award winning poet who has been nominated twice for the  Pushcart Prize. She was also a semi-finalist for the Pangaea Prize and the Atlantis Award. Claire was the grand prize winner of The Maine Review\u2019s 2015 White Pine Writing Contest. Her first book of poetry, <i>Waiting to be Called<\/i>, was published in 2015. She is the co-author of <i>Unfolding in Light: A Sisters\u2019 Journey in Photography and Poetry<\/i>.<a id=\"Shacklee\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Ed Shacklee<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHE RAVENOUS DREAM<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI starved the dream, till it was light<br \/>\nenough for me to carry,<br \/>\nand though its ribs were sticking out<br \/>\nit wasn\u2019t horrid, very.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI stuffed it in a pocket, snug<br \/>\nif smothered in my wallet.<br \/>\nWingless now, an eyeless grub,<br \/>\nI don\u2019t know what to call it<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nnow that it\u2019s small enough to scream,<br \/>\na nightmare growing from a dream.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nEd Shacklee is a public defender who represents young people in the District of Columbia. His poems have appeared in <i>Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Crann\u00f3g, Light<\/i>, and <i>Rattle<\/i>, among other places. He is working on a bestiary. <a id=\"Shea\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Cathryn Shea<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSTILL LIFE WITH FATHER IN RECLINER<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe scent of bacon is always there,<br \/>\nthe long night\u2019s breakfast<br \/>\nwith scrambled memories.<br \/>\nEvery family gathering<br \/>\nlingers on the couch and rug and walls.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThis is December, his birthday,<br \/>\nand boxes of cherry cordials melt<br \/>\nnext to him. From one of his daughters,<br \/>\nor from all his five daughters, he always<br \/>\ngot cherry cordials. Our mother<br \/>\nhas been dead of breast cancer ten years.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHere are the whiskey decanters:<br \/>\nDucks Unlimited mallard in cattails,<br \/>\nwild turkey clawing a raccoon. Here<br \/>\nare beer steins with hunters pointing<br \/>\nshotguns at geese. All with photographs<br \/>\nfrom schools and weddings. A portrait<br \/>\nof his five girls taken when my son was four<br \/>\nand I was expecting my daughter.<br \/>\nMy sister Nancy in her nurse hat.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOn his left hand he wears the sterling<br \/>\nring with a large Ellensburg Blue agate.<br \/>\nHe got it when he visited his brother<br \/>\nJohn for the last time before he died<br \/>\nof mesothelioma. My dad\u2019s right hand<br \/>\nis deformed with bent fingers and scarring<br \/>\nwhere he was bitten by a brown recluse.<br \/>\nNobody could believe a brown recluse<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ncould hitch a ride to California,<br \/>\nand when least expected jump out<br \/>\nfrom a mattress and bite.<br \/>\nNancy rushed him to emergency<br \/>\nand he ended up in ICU, almost<br \/>\ndead from the infection.<br \/>\nHe would never know Nancy died<br \/>\nat the same age as our mother.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nCathryn Shea has earned a living from writing most of her adult life. Her chapbook, <i>Snap Bean<\/i> is by CC.Marimbo (2014). Find her recent poetry in <i>After the Pause, Gargoyle, Permafrost, Rust + Moth<\/i>, and elsewhere. Cathryn served as editor for <i>Marin Poetry Center Anthology<\/i>. See <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cathrynshea.com\" target=\"\u201d_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cathrynshea.com <\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cathy_shea\" target=\"\u201d_blank\u201d\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@cathy_shea<\/a> on Twitter.<a id=\"Sizemore\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Jay Sizemore<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHINK OF AN ECLIPSE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe sun is a white star our atmosphere makes yellow.<br \/>\nSo many children using the wrong crayon.<br \/>\nSo many refrigerators decorated with lies,<br \/>\nand magnets from Utah,<br \/>\nabove that straight horizon line,<br \/>\neverything a smiley face.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou\u2019re gonna need a better poet.<br \/>\nI\u2019m gonna need another Corona.<br \/>\nThis is not the time to get spiritual<br \/>\nabout potential blindness.<br \/>\nThink of an eclipse<br \/>\nas a bullet being loaded<br \/>\ninto a chamber of light.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMore prayers get muttered in the dark.<br \/>\nBut every darkness is temporary<br \/>\nexcept the last one,<br \/>\nin which no prayer can exist.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIf the sun wore sunglasses,<br \/>\nthe sunglasses would melt.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s easy to squint yourself into a headache,<br \/>\nor a kaleidoscope of retinal scars.<br \/>\nTo me, the sky is the ocean,<br \/>\nas to a fish, the ocean is the sky.<br \/>\nThe sun is the aquarium bulb,<br \/>\na stranger set on a timer.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThink of an eclipse<br \/>\nas Death putting his eye<br \/>\nup to the microscope.<br \/>\nYou may wonder about the skeletal moon,<br \/>\nor why car exhaust smells good<br \/>\nin the cold, but these are just tricks<br \/>\nshadows play on the mind.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJay Sizemore hates when you call writing a hobby. His work has appeared here or there, mostly there. Currently, he lives in Nashville, TN, though he often wonders if he really exists, or is just changing forms. <a id=\"Skorochid\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Alex Skorochid<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMEMORY AIDS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe never smiled in photos<br \/>\nbut gave that stern soviet stare with his hard lines<br \/>\nthat he\u2019d learned while caught between the pincer<br \/>\nattack of mirrored fanatics in the old country<br \/>\nor in the asbestos mines and factories of the new<br \/>\nor behind the wheel of any number of semis.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThere was one photo though<br \/>\nthat he didn\u2019t know was being taken:<br \/>\nhe\u2019s got my cousin on one knee and a beer on the other<br \/>\nand he\u2019s smiling wide and the lines are gone<br \/>\nand there\u2019s only smooth, soft skin<br \/>\nand that\u2019s the one I like to remember.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBecause I don\u2019t have any real memories of him<br \/>\nexcept for maybe one, but I\u2019ve told it so many times<br \/>\nthat I don\u2019t remember the memory anymore, only the story<br \/>\nand I\u2019m worried if I write it down I won\u2019t<br \/>\nremember the story anymore, only the poem<br \/>\nbut here it is:<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt\u2019s snowing on the mountain and it\u2019s deep<br \/>\nenough that I have to be carried into the house<br \/>\nand I\u2019m very young and my grandfather takes me on his lap<br \/>\nand tickles me until I can\u2019t breathe and I start to panic<br \/>\nand gasp and he stops, but I don\u2019t want him to<br \/>\nand I wish he never had.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHE SAPLING<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe first year it flowered<br \/>\nit did so so violently it looked<br \/>\nmore like after a snowstorm<br \/>\n\u2014boughs sagging low<br \/>\nunder soft-white weight\u2014<br \/>\nthan it did a sapling fresh in bloom.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe weather that year was fine<br \/>\nand the fruit grew quickly<br \/>\nand the sapling\u2019s boughs sagged further<br \/>\nuntil, after a night of heavy rain,<br \/>\nit split itself clean in half.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIn an effort to save the sapling<br \/>\nwe gathered the fruit, which was delicious<br \/>\nif a little under ripe,<br \/>\nand bound the tree with wire.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd the sapling survived the winter.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd the next year it flowered again<br \/>\nso wildly it threatened to burst the wire,<br \/>\nbut seeing this, we bound it tighter.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd the sapling survived again.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSome years have passed now<br \/>\nand the sapling\u2019s bark\u2019s begun<br \/>\nto engulf the wire that once held it together,<br \/>\nbulging out around it more and more.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd soon the sapling will be a tree<br \/>\nwith a heart of Goddamn steel.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAlex Skorochid\u2019s work has previously been featured in <i>(parenthetical), In\/Words Magazine, Joypuke II, Eastlit<\/i>, and <i>The Steel Chisel<\/i>. He currently lives in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada where, when he can steal back enough time and energy from his day job, he writes poems and short stories.<a id=\"Stenzel\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Annie Stenzel <\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDIALOGUE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLet&#8217;s talk about my search for the round-<br \/>\ntrip ticket; about predictability<br \/>\nand its juicy allure. You know<br \/>\nI want a guarantee:  a sample moment<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nfrom a month or two away. I want<br \/>\nto see how you look with a few miles<br \/>\non our involvement. What will we have<br \/>\nwhen the heady rush of forward-<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ntumble falters, when the river<br \/>\ninto which we hurled ourselves,<br \/>\neyes closed, breath held, opens out into<br \/>\na delta and we find ourselves, the real<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nones, spilled up onto the shore to take<br \/>\nthe places of those two strangers we<br \/>\nmade up, let loose, and have been<br \/>\nwatching, secretly, from a distance.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA BRIEF NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SUB-CONTINENT<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHow long can it be that you fascinate me the way<br \/>\nmongoose eyes cobra? What happens when what is savage<br \/>\nwithin everyone finds its egress from one of us\u2014or both:<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nfrom your hooded eyes; from my narrowing lips.<br \/>\nDoes a cobra need venom? Can a mongoose kill<br \/>\nusing pure fury? That which is secreted when born<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nenemies meet has a scent, or a texture known somehow<br \/>\nto each. Here, it is confusing. Am I mistaking this acrid taste,<br \/>\nfresh from my fingers, for fear?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nCould it be that your instinct, strong from its long<br \/>\nreign, is the real traitor?  About cobra and mongoose:<br \/>\nwhen they fight to the death, don\u2019t they sometimes both win?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnnie Stenzel\u2019s poems have most recently appeared in the print journals <i>Kestrel, Ambit, Catamaran Literary Reader<\/i>, and <i>Quiddity<\/i>, and in the online journals <i>Lunch Ticket<\/i> and <i>Unsplendid<\/i>. Her work has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and once for a Best of the Net. She has the apparently obligatory academic credentials: B.A. in English Literature and M.F.A. in Creative Writing, both from Mills College. Stenzel is also a letterpress printer, never happier than when her hands are covered in ink. She pays the bills by working at a mid-sized law firm in San Francisco.<a id=\"Trautman\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Kerry Trautman<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMIDDLE-SCHOOL LOVE LESSONS FROM A NUN<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSister Colleen held a heart-shaped cookie,<br \/>\nsaid each boy- or girlfriend we had ever\u2014<br \/>\nand we understood she meant giving our<br \/>\nbodies to in sin, each person we let<br \/>\ntouch our skin that should belong to God\u2014each<br \/>\none would take a nibble from our heart. And<br \/>\nshe broke a piece of cookie, fed it to<br \/>\nMichael in the corner, one for Jenny<br \/>\nwith the shiny hair. Each love, she said, will<br \/>\nbite from who we are. The cookie dwindled<br \/>\nas she fed a chunk to Justin\u2014grinning<br \/>\nasking for some more. We giggled.  Sister<br \/>\nsmirked that it was gone and shoved the last piece<br \/>\nin Maria\u2019s mouth\u2014wide-eyed and guilty.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nKerry Trautman lives in smalltown Ohio. She is a founding member of Toledo, Ohio\u2019s Almeda St. Poets, and is often seen at local poetry readings and events such as Artomatic 419, 100 Thousand Poets for Change, and the Columbus Arts Festival. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in various print and online journals, including <em>Midwestern Gothic, Alimentum, The Coe Review, Think Journal<\/em>, and <em>Third Wednesday<\/em>; as well as in anthologies such as, <em>Mourning Sickness<\/em> (Omniarts, 2008), and <em>Journey to Crone<\/em> (Chuffed Buff Books, 2013).  Her chapbook, <em>Things That Come in Boxes<\/em>, was published by King Craft Press in 2012. Her second poetry chapbook, <em>To Have Hoped<\/em>, is available at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.finishinglinepress.com\" target=\"_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/www.finishinglinepress.com\/<\/a>.<a id=\"Weaver\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Anna Weaver<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLOTS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>I am an old tart and you came late and I have<br \/>\nloyalties scattered over the landscape like lots<br \/>\nI bought and pay taxes on still&#8230;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n\u201cthe inquisition\u201d by Marge Piercy<\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI haven\u2019t lost sight of them yet\u2014<br \/>\nkept one eye all this time<br \/>\nto what lay beyond the road<br \/>\nbehind me, beyond my rising dust.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI look back not to see what became<br \/>\nof them, but how it was I got away.<br \/>\nI didn\u2019t mean always to be leaving,<br \/>\nbut mine is a love that bears<br \/>\nthe sweet fruit only after a fire.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNow, here I am, a safe distance,<br \/>\nthe promise of an afterlife<br \/>\nwith a new man, a good one,<br \/>\nmaybe the last in this whole city\u2014<br \/>\nif I can turn suddenly different.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI can almost hear a choir<br \/>\nwarming their voices, the deep<br \/>\nbreath of herald trumpets ready<br \/>\nto announce my arrival<br \/>\nif only I keep moving forward.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBut even though they no longer need me,<br \/>\nI can\u2019t help myself, can\u2019t fight the wish<br \/>\nto say one more goodbye, to place<br \/>\na final kiss on each of their salty necks.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe gritty feeling climbs my legs<br \/>\nand arms, arches my back, fixes<br \/>\nmy shoulders to face them. <i>Don\u2019t forget<br \/>\nme,<\/i> I say. My tongue is the last<br \/>\nto turn. It tastes just like I remember.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nRaised in Oklahoma, Anna Weaver lives in North Carolina with her two daughters. Her poems have appeared in <i>Literary Bohemian, Connotation Press, O-Dark-Thirty<\/i>, and other journals, as well as a couple anthologies, public art projects, and coffee bags (no, really). A self-described open mic tourist, she has performed in 13 states and the District of Columbia\u2014at art galleries, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, and a museum. She tracks this and more at <a href=\"http:\/\/annaweaver-poet.com\/\">annaweaver-poet.com<\/a>. <a id=\"Werkmeister\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Steven Werkmeister<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWOMAN AT THE WELL<br \/>\n<i>The woman said, \u201cWhat! You, a Jew, ask for a drink from a Samaritan woman?\u201d<\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ncall it apartheid<br \/>\ncall it jim crow<br \/>\ncall it our troubles<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nbut don\u2019t think<br \/>\nthings change<br \/>\nfor a drink<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ncall it ghetto<br \/>\ncall it reservation<br \/>\ncall it internment camps<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ncall it your duty<br \/>\ncall it blood purity<br \/>\ncall it immemorial custom<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nbut don\u2019t think<br \/>\nhabits change<br \/>\nfor a drink<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nstill the fences<br \/>\nstill the walls<br \/>\nstill the ceilings<br \/>\nstill the checkpoints<br \/>\nstill police dogs<br \/>\nstill the bullets<br \/>\nstill antique blame<br \/>\nstill your barbed wire<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nstill your-papers-please<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nsay it\u2019s necessity<br \/>\nsay it\u2019s a shame<br \/>\nsay it\u2019s what science has proven<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ndress it as heritage<br \/>\nclaim we prefer it<br \/>\npass it on whole to your children<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nsome men\u2019s hearts<br \/>\nhave a thirst for hate<br \/>\nno water can parch<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nsamaritan jew mick blackie<br \/>\nwop jerrie jap paki<br \/>\nspic chink redneck commie<br \/>\ngook polack camel jockey<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nbitch slut and cunt<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ncall it nature<br \/>\ncall it law<br \/>\ncall it social darwinism<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nbut don\u2019t think<br \/>\nyou can make a change<br \/>\nwith a drink<br \/>\nwhen they hang you on their cross<br \/>\ndon\u2019t be hurt if they throw shit<br \/>\nyou may have been messiah<br \/>\nbut you really didn\u2019t know shit<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSteve Werkmeister lives with his family in Olathe, Kansas, and is an Associate Professor of English at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. He has recently published poetry in Silver Birch Press\u2019s <i>All About My Name<\/i> series, <i>The Lake Journal, Blue Monday Review<\/i>, and <i>Stoneboat<\/i>, and fiction in <i>Pankhearst Raw<\/i> and <i>Limestone<\/i>. His blog is at <a href=\"https:\/\/stevesofgrass.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">stevesofgrass.wordpress.com\/<\/a><a id=\"Williams\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Katherine Williams<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBLACK, OH HOW I WANT YOU BLACK<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>Negro, que te quiero negro<\/i>,<br \/>\nblack and silky as the lingerie<br \/>\nbiting my flesh under jeans and leather<br \/>\nas I wait for a taxi on this menacing corner\u2014<br \/>\nblack as this tattered suitcase,<br \/>\nthis street with the lights shot out.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLunatic on the sidewalk wringing his hands out\u2014<br \/>\n<i>Negro, que te quiero negro<\/i>.<br \/>\nBroken promises bust out of my suitcase;<br \/>\nour lies stick to my skin like nylon lingerie<br \/>\nin August. Painted myself into a corner<br \/>\nagain, and all I can think of is you in that leather.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWhat an erotic sound, a man undoing his leather<br \/>\nbelt, that buckle hitting the floor turns me inside out.<br \/>\nI\u2019ve been waiting forever for a taxi on this corner\u2014<br \/>\n<i>Negro, que te quiero negro<\/i>.<br \/>\nTwenty bucks, twenty minutes&#8217; worth of lingerie,<br \/>\ntwenty thousand vagrant miles rattle in my suitcase.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI want to live out of this suitcase,<br \/>\nno address but a carryall of worn-out leather&#8230;.<br \/>\nAfter I&#8217;ve been with you I keep the lingerie<br \/>\nunwashed, breathe with you on my face till I pass out.<br \/>\n<i>Negro, que te quiero negro<\/i>.<br \/>\nThree times now that driver\u2019s passed this corner,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nlooking to score. Paco was the dealer on my corner<br \/>\nin Paris&#8230;my room could have fit in this suitcase\u2014.<br \/>\n<i>Negro, que te quiero negro<\/i>.<br \/>\nIn Paris everything is silk or leather<br \/>\nand when they wash their things out<br \/>\nthey hang them over the sill, the laciest lingerie<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nfluttering like leaves along cobblestones. Lingerie<br \/>\nto make a man forget his own name, see on every corner<br \/>\nwomen in nothing but lingerie under their clothes. Out<br \/>\nhere we shut our honeymoons in suitcases<br \/>\nand resentments tan our vows into leather.<br \/>\n<i>Negro, que te quiero negro<\/i>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;If a cab comes for me, out on this corner with my suitcase<br \/>\nof ruined leather, I\u2019m off for Paris\u2014but if not,<br \/>\nthen back to you with a mouthful of black lingerie.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nKatherine Williams has published four chapbooks, and read at venues from the Los Angeles Poetry Festival to the College of Charleston&#8217;s Halsey Gallery. A Pushcart nominee, board member of The Poetry Society of South Carolina, and one of Richard Garcia\u2019s Long Table Poets, Katherine Williams\u2019s poems appear in <i>Spillway, Projector, Diagram, Blue Arc West: An Anthology of California Poets, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol. 1: South Carolina<\/i>, and elsewhere. She is a career biomedical research technician, and lives on James Island, SC, with poet Richard Garcia and their dog Max.<a id=\"Wotherspoon\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Holly Wotherspoon<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHORSE CAMP<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA big-ass horse threw my daughter once.<br \/>\nshe wasn\u2019t all that into horses just curious<br \/>\nabout the hoopla her friends were making so<br \/>\nwhen sally and sarah and emily and lauren and ruth<br \/>\nwho was chinese american all decided to go to horse camp<br \/>\nwell, we drove our turn to the faux corral in the suburbs sat<br \/>\non our soggy hay bales in the \u201cshow ring\u201d watched them put a tiny<br \/>\ngrain of rice on that monster \u201cRio\u201d or \u201cRodeo\u201d or \u201cJack the Ripper.\u201d<br \/>\nI do not exaggerate although I am in fact prone to that particular vice<br \/>\nwhen I say that the one they put our daughter on was the King Kong<br \/>\nof show horses, freakishly large and menacing which is proved<br \/>\nby the fact that they gauge their height not in feet, or even hooves<br \/>\nbut monster hands, and they raise atop the beast this strange little child who for fun<br \/>\nmakes up math tests and dictionary entries but who feels sure that she will one day<br \/>\nget what the hoopla is about. The last thing we see as her turn came to be hoisted up<br \/>\nis her determined curious face, and there it happened. It turns out that the horse<br \/>\ndidn\u2019t actually throw her, though. But it could have. And my point<br \/>\nis well made -at least to me- that all the hoopla about random companion animals<br \/>\nand politics and office gossip and healthful living and environmental<br \/>\ndegradation and STD\u2019s and another recession not to mention running<br \/>\nout of bourbon before the weekend starts and just being curious about all that<br \/>\nhoopla can get you thrown not to mention trampled to death.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nICE BOUND<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTogether in the ice<br \/>\nmelt water river low-slung, olive-green<br \/>\n(the chair not the river)<br \/>\ndesign, upholstered.<br \/>\nThe river is milky, heavy, and reeks<br \/>\nof raw rock.<br \/>\nThrough the rime, I see<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthe river, overpouring<br \/>\nolive and cream nubby woven fabric<br \/>\noff a cliff lip. That chair<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nkeeps intruding<br \/>\nin my ice-scape. Perhaps because<br \/>\nI can&#8217;t stop picturing it torn<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nto pieces, springs and stuffing<br \/>\nsplayed on my garage floor,<br \/>\nbut that still doesn&#8217;t explain<br \/>\nflooding my psyche with icy<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nupholstery chunks, its<br \/>\nfrost-fractures and splinterings<br \/>\nre-upholstered completely over<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nby a succession of disillusioned owners.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a hard truth that some things can&#8217;t be salvaged<br \/>\neven after a good<br \/>\nthaw, even after a swooshing<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\naway of years and years<br \/>\ndown from the Highlands.<br \/>\nThose tatty upholstery layers<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\njust go on building up<br \/>\nuntil one day you find<br \/>\nyourself under the ice, under a million years,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nsuspended seated in a milky chair,<br \/>\nwhooshing down the ice floe<br \/>\nmelt and flow, tear and sand,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nhammer and ride and swallow,<br \/>\nswallow a whole Pleistocene era<br \/>\nof melt water stuffing down<br \/>\nand in one long, last gulp<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthe chair follows.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHolly Wotherspoon is a writer of poetry and, previously, articles and training materials for the legal profession.   Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in <i>Pioneertown Literary Journal, River Poets Journal, Blue Bonnet Review, Unbroken, Mulberry Fork Review<\/i>, and <i>The Greenwich Village Literary Review<\/i>.  She is a member and upcoming featured poet at River Town Poets and is a third generation Californian by way of three decades in the Pacific Northwest.<a id=\"Wright\"><\/a><a id=\"Wright\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">Back to Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Sherri Wright<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHESE HANDS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nare stubby they could never<br \/>\nplay piano or swing a partner with style<br \/>\nthey are gnarled can\u2019t make a fist or wear<br \/>\nfancy rings these hands are strong  they<br \/>\nyanked dandelions   plucked chickens<br \/>\nwhen there were just a kid   hoisted<br \/>\na Duluth pack  paddled up-stream<br \/>\nheld onto a job and a marriage<br \/>\nat the same time   these hands<br \/>\nare pliable cradled a baby in one<br \/>\na protest banner in the other<br \/>\nthese hands are free<br \/>\nof  men who said they couldn\u2019t<br \/>\nplay soccer run for the Senate or climb<br \/>\nthe ladder unless they slept<br \/>\nwith the boss or stayed single<br \/>\nuntil they were too old to have kids.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSherri Wright lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware after a career in education for at risk youth at universities and the Federal government. With the Rehoboth Beach Writer\u2019s Guild she discovered her love for poetry. Running, practicing yoga, working out, and volunteering at a center for the homeless all figure into her poems. Her work has been published in the <i>Hill Rag, Letters from Camp Rehoboth, Inspired by the Poet, Aspiring to Inspire, Words of Fire and Ice, The White Space, Clementine, Panoply<\/i>, and <i>Creative Nonfiction<\/i>. Sherri&#8217;s poem \u201cPrivate Dancer,\u201d featured in the Love &amp; Ensuing Madness collection, received an Honorable Mention in the Louisville Literary Arts Poetry Competition, 2016.<a id=\"poets\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe Poets<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nKelli <a href=\"#Allen\">Allen<\/a><br \/>\nAnthony <a href=\"#Ausiello\">Ausiello<\/a><br \/>\nColin <a href=\"#Bancroft\">Bancroft<\/a><br \/>\nBrian Michael <a href=\"#Barbeito\">Barbeito<\/a> (Cover Art)<br \/>\nJessica <a href=\"#Barksdale\">Barksdale<\/a><br \/>\nAmy <a href=\"#Baskin\">Baskin<\/a><br \/>\nJon <a href=\"#Bennett2\">Bennett<\/a><br \/>\nCarl <a href=\"#Boon\">Boon<\/a><br \/>\nStuart <a href=\"#Buck\">Buck<\/a><br \/>\nJamie Lynn <a href=\"#Buehner\">Buehner<\/a><br \/>\nStephen <a href=\"#Byrne\">Byrne<\/a><br \/>\nJared <a href=\"#Carter\">Carter<\/a><br \/>\nJoseph <a href=\"#Citro\">Citro<\/a><br \/>\nMichael <a href=\"#Coolen\">Coolen<\/a><br \/>\nA.S. <a href=\"#Coomer\">Coomer<\/a><br \/>\nJacques <a href=\"#Denault\">Denault<\/a><br \/>\nAlexis Rhone <a href=\"#Fancher\">Fancher<\/a><br \/>\nDeborah <a href=\"#Fruchey\">Fruchey<\/a><br \/>\nRichard <a href=\"#Garcia\">Garcia<\/a><br \/>\nD.G. <a href=\"#Geis\">Geis<\/a><br \/>\nIseult <a href=\"#Healy\">Healy<\/a><br \/>\nRobin <a href=\"#Helweg-Larsen\">Helweg-Larsen<\/a><br \/>\nTS <a href=\"#Hidalgo\">Hidalgo<\/a><br \/>\nMichael Paul <a href=\"#Hogan\">Hogan<\/a><br \/>\nKelly <a href=\"#Jones\">Jones<\/a><br \/>\nMaureen <a href=\"#Kingston\">Kingston<\/a><br \/>\nNorm <a href=\"#Klein\">Klein<\/a><br \/>\nLaurie <a href=\"#Kolp\">Kolp<\/a><br \/>\nJennifer <a href=\"#Litt\">Litt<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"#Li\u00f9saidh\">Li\u00f9saidh<\/a><br \/>\nJenean <a href=\"#McBrearty\">McBrearty<\/a><br \/>\nSarah Frances <a href=\"#Moran\">Moran<\/a><br \/>\nBethany W. <a href=\"#Pope\">Pope<\/a><br \/>\nGabriel <a href=\"#Ricard\">Ricard<\/a><br \/>\nCynthia A. <a href=\"#Roby\">Roby<\/a><br \/>\nEugene <a href=\"#Ryan\">Ryan<\/a><br \/>\nClaire <a href=\"#Scott\">Scott<\/a><br \/>\nEd <a href=\"#Shacklee\">Shacklee<\/a><br \/>\nCathryn <a href=\"#Shea\">Shea<\/a><br \/>\nJay <a href=\"#Sizemore\">Sizemore<\/a><br \/>\nAlex <a href=\"#Skorochid\">Skorochid<\/a><br \/>\nAnnie <a href=\"#Stenzel\">Stenzel<\/a><br \/>\nKerry <a href=\"#Trautman\">Trautman<\/a><br \/>\nAnna <a href=\"#Weaver\">Weaver<\/a><br \/>\nSteven <a href=\"#Werkmeister\">Werkmeister<\/a><br \/>\nKatherine <a href=\"#Williams\">Williams<\/a><br \/>\nHolly <a href=\"#Wotherspoon\">Wotherspoon<\/a><br \/>\nSherri <a href=\"#Wright\">Wright<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1799\/html\/\">Go to Top of Page<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\">Edited by Roderick Bates<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\">RAT&#8217;S ASS REVIEW VOLUME FOUR, ISSUE 1 SPRING-SUMMER 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<\/p>\n<\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; TIME photograph by Brian Michael Barbeito. &nbsp; Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian writer and photographer. Recent work appears at Fiction International, The Tishman Review, and Cv2 The Canadian Journal of Poetry and Critical Writing. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; List of Poets &nbsp; &nbsp; Kelli Allen &nbsp; &nbsp; HUNTING, LIKE [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":29,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1799","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Spring-Summer 2016 Issue -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1799\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spring-Summer 2016 Issue -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; TIME photograph by Brian Michael Barbeito. &nbsp; Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian writer and photographer. Recent work appears at Fiction International, The Tishman Review, and Cv2 The Canadian Journal of Poetry and Critical Writing. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; List of Poets &nbsp; &nbsp; Kelli Allen &nbsp; &nbsp; HUNTING, LIKE [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1799\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/82218108785\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-04T22:12:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Barbeito-Brian-Cover-Art-Smaller.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1182\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2079\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"82 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=1799\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=1799\",\"name\":\"Spring-Summer 2016 Issue -\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=1799#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=1799#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/02\\\/Barbeito-Brian-Cover-Art-Smaller.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-08T23:57:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-04T22:12:08+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=1799#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=1799\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=1799#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/02\\\/Barbeito-Brian-Cover-Art-Smaller.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/02\\\/Barbeito-Brian-Cover-Art-Smaller.jpg\",\"width\":1182,\"height\":2079},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=1799#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Spring-Summer 2016 Issue\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/\",\"name\":\"Rat's Ass Review\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Rat's Ass Review\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/02\\\/Rat-No-Hat-Smaller.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/02\\\/Rat-No-Hat-Smaller.jpg\",\"width\":2460,\"height\":1968,\"caption\":\"Rat's Ass Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/groups\\\/82218108785\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Spring-Summer 2016 Issue -","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1799","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Spring-Summer 2016 Issue -","og_description":"&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; TIME photograph by Brian Michael Barbeito. &nbsp; Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian writer and photographer. 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