{"id":3186,"date":"2019-04-04T15:04:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T19:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=3186"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T22:14:08","slug":"summer-2019","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=3186","title":{"rendered":"

Summer 2019 Issue<\/p><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n


\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>\"\"<\/a>
\n(Cover Art Baked Bikini<\/i> by Wendy L. Schmidt)<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRoy J. Adams<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE OPHTHALMOLOGIST PEERS
\n 
\ninto my eyes
\nher ears tantalize<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPamela Ahlen<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDESIGNER VAGINA
\n 
\nThe BOTOX\u00ae look is a comely delusion\u2014
\nlips puffed aspartame-sweet like a blow-fish
\nengorged with bonhomie.
\n 
\nBut down in the crack, a puffy muff may portend bad news.
\nTherefore, I highly suggest, even urge labial reconstruction,
\nwhat the eminent Dr. Ta-Da refers to as vulval beautification.
\n 
\nI trust this helps with your painfully expensive decision
\nto snip and clip. You will never forgive yourself for not
\nwelcoming mutilation in the name of Prettiest Pussy in Town.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Bagato<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWATCHING THAT FIRE
\n 
\nThe temperature dropped
\nwhile we ate in the diner,
\nso we step out into a raw wind.
\n\u201cGive me your coat,\u201d Billie says,
\npatting her naked arms.
\nI peel off my Levi\u2019s jacket,
\ndraping it over her shoulders.
\nShe pushes a finger through the hole
\nin the flannel lining so it comes
\nout the faded denim
\nbelow the right patch pocket.
\n\u201cAt least it\u2019s warm,\u201d she says,
\nsnuggling in as the wind pushes
\nicy air through my t-shirt.
\nFrom the bus shelter, we watch the sun
\nsend dying rays over the horizon
\ninto a sea of pink froth.
\n\u201cThose clouds are pretty,\u201d
\nshe says, \u201cbut where is that bus?\u201d
\nSeeing the goose pimples on my arms,
\nshe stands and spreads the jacket
\nover my back, sitting on my lap
\nand pulling the edges close in front.
\nI put my arms around her waist,
\nbreathing the scent of her hair
\nat day\u2019s end. Fishing a lighter
\nfrom a denim pocket,
\nshe lets the flame stand high,
\nand we watch that fire
\nwhile waiting for our ride.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nF.J. Bergmann<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTOURIST’S GUIDE TO THE WRONG KIND OF BAR
\n 
\nDon\u2019t ask for anything without alcohol
\nand don\u2019t say \u201cplease\u201d when you order a draft beer.
\nDon\u2019t tell the bartender to keep the change from your twenty.
\nDon\u2019t ask the sorry blonde what happened to her Rorschach eye.
\nDon\u2019t tell her how bad you feel about your lover leaving you.
\nDon\u2019t ask if anyone wants to shoot pool with you.
\nDon\u2019t tell them the name of the place you usually go.
\n 
\nDon\u2019t act nervous when the men at the end of the bar
\nhuddle and talk in low voices and keep looking your way.
\nYour hair is the wrong gender and your brain is the wrong color.
\nYou won\u2019t know when it\u2019s time to leave
\nbut you\u2019ll know when you should have left a long time ago.
\nDon\u2019t walk too fast. Try to look taller, and more bulky,
\nand more relaxed. Hope you remember
\nwhere you parked. Hope there\u2019s light.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlan Bern<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCAPPUCCIO
\n 
\nwalking by early cafe\u2019s heat
\nmorning cold
\nFather Francis with
\nsomething bulging
\nthe visitor orders a cappuccio
\nmolto caldo<\/i>
\nthe workman looks down
\naway
\nthen finishes
\nhis caff\u00e8 corretto<\/i>
\nhalf-hands
\na sign for another
\nbefore the long day
\nVenere<\/i> rising<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Beveridge<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIN THE INTERESTS OF FULL DISCLOSURE
\n 
\nI sleep with you on this bed of nails
\nand never fail to be amazed
\nwhen you refer to me as hammer.
\nI find it pleases me to call you songbird.
\nIt is the way we lay together
\nas natural as tulips.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTeresa McLamb Blackmon<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCROSSING THE POND DAM
\n 
\nwhen dark has beat her home,
\nfour geese hover over goslings,
\nwarm them like blankets
\nthey might become,
\nthree donkeys, in prayer-like ritual,
\nbend to the ground for grain,
\ntoo busy to bray
\nor lift long ears,
\ntwo pups awaken
\nand blend their bark
\nwith familiar gravel
\nunder wheels coming or going.
\n 
\none man inside has no idea
\nthe distance from where she has been
\nto where she is heading now,
\nbeneath grazing stars
\nwith water watching.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHenry Bladon<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDOG-ENDS
\n 
\nAt first I thought
\nyou simply didn\u2019t
\nnotice
\nthat I bend down
\nin the street
\nand pick up
\ndiscarded
\ndog-ends
\n 
\nBut eventually
\nyou asked me
\nwhy it is
\nI have such
\na disgusting habit
\n 
\nIt may be found
\nin the combination
\nof paper and ash
\n 
\nit may be due
\nto economic necessity
\n 
\nbut it\u2019s not
\nany of that
\n 
\nSo now I can tell you
\nwhy;
\nit\u2019s because
\nI like the taste
\nof other people\u2019s saliva<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMark Blickley<\/strong>
\n 
\nTRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWilliam C. Blome<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTO THE MEMORY OF GLORIA GRAHAME
\n 
\nIf I had pulled your indigo belt out of those jaguar-pattern
\nloops, gifted you the belt as your slacks fell to your ankles,
\nand you in turn wound the belt around my neck, pulling it tight,
\nand notching the mother just short of where I\u2019d be coughing
\nup wild cherry lozenges and spilling the beans about infidelity,
\nthat approach would have actually mirrored what the studio
\ndoctor ordered you to do to inflate your ass, swell those tits,
\nand bless your career with midnight nipples the size of a goblin\u2019s
\nthumb, but thank god you slid out of your pants easy-like; you
\nstooped down and handed me one of your rhinestone mules;
\nand we went back and forth whacking the M.D. senseless.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKat Bodrie <\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBURNING
\n 
\nI wonder if anyone would call
\nto say my father\u2019s dying \u2014 not
\nthe one I love; the other one.
\nIf so, would I go to the hospital
\nto feel the ancient, inescapable mantle,
\nthe fireplace tucked into a corner
\nof the room and flaming, or sagging,
\ntiles cracking off, the whole house
\naflame, doused with the blood
\nof our matrons and patrons \u2014
\nall the toenail clippings and Christmas
\npresents, Chinese paintings I took
\nfrom the wall, yellowed with nicotine, cast
\ninto a pile? As it is, I remember
\nthe weight of it, worse than the inner
\nsanctum of the back of the chapel, the room
\nwhere minister and ministrings robed
\nthemselves in cloth and waist-ropes,
\na little musty but never overbearing,
\nnever as heavy as the look my grandmother
\ngave me, palming the bedrail, her gummy
\nlips smacking together unconsciously.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJacob Butlett<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHINKING ABOUT GAY SEX ON A SUNDAY NIGHT
\n 
\nI recline in my leather chair,
\nthinking of men, thinking of bed,
\nnow empty, now cold, just down
\n 
\nthe hall in the apartment where
\nI picture them under fleece blankets.
\n 
\nTheir feet pet my feet,
\ntheir hands dance with my hands,
\ntheir tongues kiss my tongue.
\n 
\nTheir sweet moans pluck my ears
\nas though I were a cello between
\n 
\ntheir sprawled legs.
\nThey enter me.
\nIn my imagination they enter me,
\n 
\nthough I\u2019m alone. Feeling
\nlonely.
\n 
\nOn nights like tonight
\nI question my pinprick place
\nin the world,
\n 
\nwhich is, thankfully, full of people,
\nchoirs of birds,
\n 
\nsometimes alone but always together,
\nsinging not just for ourselves
\nbut for life itself.
\n 
\nI pick up a book from my side table,
\na book of poems by a man
\n 
\nI\u2019ve never heard of.
\nI open it and sing the verse
\non the page,
\n 
\npretending the poet\u2019s present
\nand prepared to pleasure me with his music.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Taylor Carlisle<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDOG
\n 
\nThe dog smells perfect\u2014just dog enough, not too dog. The dog, then a puppy, was a gift from a local cop and he\u2019s mostly Rottweiler the dog not the cop, but it could be true of the cop although he was smart enough to marry a beautiful woman with money and a brain in her head and wound up buying and selling a motel, quitting the cop shop and moving to Wyoming. So, not a dog.
\n 
\nBut before that. The cop found the dog, flea-bit and starving, on the roadside in Little Rock and passed him on. None of us knew anything about the dog. At forty pounds, I thought he was mostly grown but Larry said, \u201che\u2019ll be a big one.\u201d Now he weighs one hundred and sleeps on our bed.
\n 
\nThe dog whimpers and pushes his huge head against my shoulder but I\u2019m not going to pop corn for us to share or take him for his breakfast or dinner. I\u2019m going to sit here and silently applaud his one trick, which is to roll onto his back and show his eyeteeth. He\u2019s a good dog but it\u2019s not much of a trick.
\n 
\n 
\nTESTIFY
\n 
\nIt\u2019s ok to say it in your own words,
\nas if they were words you owned, words
\n 
\nno one had said before. But I\u2019ll testify
\nthere\u2019s not much modern in meanness,
\n 
\nbreasts slapped or twisted, vagina
\nentered with whatever\u2019s to hand
\n 
\nand then the general narrative of harm,
\nscream, fist, belt, yardstick, broom,
\n 
\nthe stories much the same when no one hears
\nor listens. You ache to begin another chapter
\n 
\non the other side of what happened
\neven though you may choose to remain
\n 
\nsilent in the courtroom, you so sad and tick bit,
\nhim all dressed up.
\n 
\n <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHY IDAHO
\n 
\nBoise on-ramp. Honda Civic, yellow.
\nOut the shotgun window the head of a dog
\ngolden pointed ears
\nbrown wet nose sniffs toward me, snorts.
\nShe orders the dog to the back seat
\nsays I can ride as far as Pocatello
\nsince Goldie signals okay.
\nAs we roll past potato fields she says
\n 
\n\u201cGoldie killed a man when I lived in New Jersey.
\nHis name was Louis.
\nI didn\u2019t train Goldie to kill.
\nGot her from a shelter.
\nThe man Louis broke into my room
\nwhere I was sleeping. He told me
\nnot to say a word or he\u2019d slash my throat.
\nGoldie from a crouch leaped over the bed.
\nRipped his throat. So fast!
\nBlood on the blanket. Pools.
\nYou know how blood smells? Sour.
\nLike bad Italian food. Like fake Parmesan.
\nIt was clear to anybody
\nLouis did not have good intentions
\nbut they said I had to put Goldie down.
\nThat\u2019s why I live in Idaho.
\nDon\u2019t worry, she\u2019s friendly
\nif you are. Here \u2014 give her a biscuit.
\nPlace it on the palm.
\nDon\u2019t hold it in your fingers or she might\u2014
\nLook! She likes you.
\nShe\u2019s licking your hand.\u201d
\n 
\nMELINDA IN THE BOLDEST MOVE
\n 
\nof her shy life sits on the cinder block wall
\nof the loading dock in sunshine
\nfor her lunch break. Legs dangle,
\ntoes twitch in sandals, nostrils narrow
\nto the stink as diesel trucks back up beeping.
\n 
\nNearby sits Marco so indifferent,
\nboots beating gently against the wall
\nas he opens his lunch bag and extracts a sandwich
\ndripping lettuce with a sauce of deep brown
\nwhile red-crowned woodpeckers swoop
\namong branches of the struggling oak trees
\ndropping acorns onto concrete gathered by squirrels,
\ngray ratty bodies with bottle-brush tails,
\nacorns clenched in their paws, curling their forearms
\nlike Stephen Curry setting for a three-pointer
\nin winking sunlight moving Melinda to wonder out loud
\nWhy are squirrels always shaking their tails?<\/i>
\n 
\nMarco studies a moment as busy gray sausages
\nscramble up and down ridges of shaggy bark
\nin spirals, in zigzags,
\nhandsome Marco who seems always alone,
\nand he says They look like furry penises.<\/i>
\n 
\nMelinda and Marco gape at each other,
\nin shock.
\nIt\u2019s the moment of all animals,
\nfight-or-flight.
\n 
\nMelinda laughs.
\nMarco buries his face in hands in mock horror,
\nand he shakes with laughter.
\nIt could have gone worse.
\nInstead, it gets better.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKen Cumberlidge<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n2:21AM
\n 
\nI phone your sister
\n 
\nbreaking, in one go,
\nthe news
\nher night’s sleep
\nand her heart.
\n 
\nHands bring
\ntea that I’ll forget to drink,
\n 
\nthe door shuts
\n 
\nand I slip out of my shoes,
\nsnug myself in\u2003\u2003\u2003tight
\nbehind you
\n 
\nshift and wriggle ’til
\nat last
\nwe make our proper shape
\n 
\nand
\n 
\npractised
\nin the way you
\nlike to have me
\nstroke
\nyour hair,
\n 
\nset
\nmy hands
\nto their familiar work,
\n 
\nwhisper-singing all the while
\nthat silly, secret, teasing song
\nwe made up in our first days
\nas new lovers
\n 
\nin course of which I come to sense
\n\u2013 to recognise \u2013
\nthe customary, comfortable
\nrise and fall and rise of you:
\n 
\nthe phantom
\nof your breathing
\n 
\n\u2013 a physical hallucination
\ncrafted out of habit by
\nsome neural network
\nfathomed deep beyond
\nthe reach of intellect,
\ntoo old and too set
\nin its ways
\nto comprehend that
\nbreath’s no longer there.
\n 
\nIt’s getting on
\nfor half three when a
\nnewly on-shift nurse
\nfinds
\nand awakens me.
\n 
\nI thank her
\n\u2013 though I’m not sure why \u2013
\n 
\nun-cling myself
\nfrom that which
\nwas
\nand is no longer you
\n 
\nand,
\nwithout looking back,
\nhead off for home.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDonna Dallas<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLOOK CLOSELY
\n 
\nAlan looks and sounds like he has a genetic disorder and that\u2019s a terrible observation that I do not express out loud only think it as I sit smirking while he stands ogling I\u2019m useless broke devoid of feelings dense and uncouth I try to curl over to get a look at my parts inspect them in case I get lucky but there\u2019s not a fool in sight if I can stop judging every worm of a man perhaps I could open my razor legs and permit a victim a glass of red wine some nuts at the bar thank you for the invite but I\u2019d rather sit home wet crooning over Alan<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHolly Day<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDOUBT
\n 
\nMy father used to point down that long stretch of Kansas road
\ntell me the state was so flat and the road was so straight
\nyou could point a laser down the middle of that road from where we stood
\nand it would stay right on the dotted lane divider all the way to Nebraska.
\n 
\nYears later, I realized he must have been wrong about that
\nwhen my boyfriend fell asleep at the wheel driving back from Topeka
\nhad the wheel locked straight and tight while he napped
\ncruise control holding the car at a steady fifty mph
\nright up until it didn\u2019t.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nClive Donovan<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMY LOST GLOVE
\n 
\nToday I saw my three-day-gone stray glove which sought for
\nundiscovered on the ground I found impaled on the tip of a
\nspear in a wrought-iron gate whose opening required
\nan intricate dexterity a trick of naked fingers.
\nThis explained the ornamental aspect of the entrance
\nto the cemetery draped in single gloves and mittens
\nwhich with serendipity so blended in well
\nwith the choice of floral offerings
\n\u2013 tributes to that boy-racer who last April
\nmuffed his steering mounting the kerb to die
\nironically crashed into what was to be
\nthe entrance to his destined plot
\nof final resting anyway i.e. the gate post
\n\u2013 thus accounting for the bent sticky latch
\nand poignant rows of hand warmers.
\nThese singletons un-paired un-stealable really
\nI left to wait for their true matches though
\none particular soft-lined leather number with two
\npatches I rather liked. I trust she visits more than once
\na year or on that fleur-de-lys it shall decay
\nmate-less empty firmly spiked.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan J. Erickson<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIN CONFIDENCE
\na Golden Shovel poem<\/i>
\n 
\n\u201cFuck\u201d is now a poetic clich\u00e9 to avoid, I
\nopined in a recent workshop. I do
\nwant to add that at least three, if not
\nfour, of the group\u2019s poems let us know
\nthe author was fearless and sexy\u2014which
\nmeant the \u201cf\u201d word was dolloped on like srirachi to
\nsee if the reader would gasp and admit they prefer
\nketchup. Instead I wanted to be offered the
\nconcupiscent curds of Stevens, taste the beauty
\nof those savage sounds and hear the whistle of
\nhis blackbird. The white teeth of inflections
\ncan dazzle. Does fuck do that for the poem? Or
\nare you fucking-up the poem? I ask the
\nquestions because force-fed clich\u00e9s, beauty
\nbecomes as larded with fat as foie gras. All of
\nwhat I say is confidential, even the innuendos.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKarin L. Frank<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE EAGLE HAS FLOWN
\n 
\nBreaking boundaries,
\nthe radio blares
\ntrajectories of escape.
\n 
\nAt the familial table,
\nfather and daughter
\nbreak the backs of crabs.
\n 
\nCrammed into rumpled pockets
\nmother\u2019s fists exert planetary forces
\nas she stalks behind their backs.
\n 
\nA tinny voice
\ndeclares triumphant distance,
\n\u201cTouchdown, Tranquility Base.\u201d
\n 
\nTwo-thirds of a family hoists
\nearthbound glasses of bitter ale
\nin mutual salute.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFrederick Foote<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPOST SALAD DAYS
\n 
\nI wish I could run
\nI wish I could
\nleap tall fences
\nin a single bound
\n 
\nI wish I could climb the ladder
\nto the roof, clean the gutters
\n 
\nor set the points, change the oil,
\nadjust the carburetor
\n 
\nI’m glad I navigate
\nwithout a cane most days.
\nI don’t need a wheelchair just yet
\n 
\nI still drive on the freeway and
\non familiar roads at night
\n 
\nI remember your face
\nand my phone number
\n 
\nMy children are familiar but,
\nmy grandchildren are generic
\n 
\nA saving grace is at the rate I move
\nI won\u2019t ever have to buy new shoes
\n 
\n 
\nHEY WHITE GIRL
\n 
\nHey, white girl, what you doing in my school?
\ndon’t, twitch your hips, lick your lips at me
\nyou think you’re special because you one of four or five
\ndon’t blush, act shy, try to rush by
\n 
\nStay your frail, pale ass right where you are
\nyou in my country now and you ain’t the queen of shit
\nyou ain’t in no soap opera or on the movie screen
\n 
\nyou ain’t the woman in the commercial or the sexy siren
\n 
\nI ain’t King Kong or Bigger Thomas or Willie Horton
\n 
\nYour baby blue tears don’t move me at all, fuck your pleas
\nyou the mother of the madness that consumes us all
\nyour maternal breast the fountains of racist unrest
\n 
\nyou just as innocent as Stalin, Hitler, and Mao
\n 
\nThat’s why we grinding in the hallway
\nfucking under the stairwell
\nswapping spit in the parking lot
\ncopping a feel under the wheel
\ntalking under our clothes
\non the phone at midnight<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJames Fowler<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nALONG THE CONNECTICUT RIVER
\n 
\nI hike the high bank
\nof a take-its-time river.
\nMeadow birds sing
\ntheir happy-to-be-alive songs.
\n 
\nA dead tree hangs out over the water.
\nLast year\u2019s leaves dangle and expose
\nthis year\u2019s nest, where baby birds
\nweave and nod, wait for food.
\n 
\nA background hum grows into a buzz
\nlike a swarm of angry bees closing to attack
\nand a drone swoops over me.
\nOnce above the river it spins, hovers.
\n 
\nIt and I stare through a world gone silent.
\nThe babies scrunch down in their nest,
\nstill exposed to the blue, blue sky.
\n 
\nMy mind dredges up a Navy memory.
\nAway the Emergency Response Team!
\nPrepare to repel boarders!<\/i> I stand
\non the ship\u2019s fantail, M14 shouldered.
\n 
\nI shove the thought back down,
\nturn for home, my hike interrupted.
\nOut over the river, the drone parallels me.
\nIn my attempt to ignore it, I shiver.
\n 
\nMy military days are far behind me
\nbut sometimes I wish, aah,
\nI just wish.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMeg Freer <\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSMALL STORY OF A CALM SPACE
\n 
\nI envision them in Victorian costume,
\nshe in a silk gown and dainty shoes,
\nhe in waistcoat and top-boots.
\nWith poise and a certain diffidence,
\nshe plays the complicated novella
\nof their lives on the grand piano
\nas he listens beside her, the scene
\nfar from the outside world,
\nunspoiled as black coffee
\non a moonless night.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDan Galef<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nA GAELIC GROTESQUE
\n 
\nThere once was a bloke from Dun Laoghaire
\nwhose life had grown waoghaire and draoghaire,
\nbut a Dub girl named Caoimhe,
\nwith a talented baoimhe,
\nsucceeded in making him chaoghaire.
\n 
\nThen one day that daoimhe named Caoimhe
\ncaught wind he was planning to laoimhe,
\nand run back to Dun Laoghaire
\nwith a man he called \u201cdaoghaire,\u201d
\nso she severed their bond\u2014with a claoimhe.
\n 
\n 
\nWITH APOLOGIES TO LEIGH HUNT<\/a>
\n 
\nSay I\u2019m beery,
\nsay I\u2019m bad,
\nsay the Bull of Life has bucked me,
\nsay I\u2019m far too bold, but add:\u2014
\nJenny fuck\u2019d me.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Grey<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHAT WAS AT STAKE
\n 
\nI was a mess, sixteen, skinny,
\npimples on my cheeks and chin, lousy at sports,
\nhopeless at schoolwork, awkward around girls.
\n 
\nIt was either write miserable poetry
\nor wander into the forest after dark
\nand chance meeting up with one
\nof the castle denizens.
\n 
\nOne bite in the right place
\nand I could have joined the undead,
\nbut I stayed in my room
\nscribbling my wretchedness on paper.
\n 
\nInstead of roaming at night,
\npreying on the unsuspecting,
\nI stalked the pathetic creature I was,
\nwith dour metaphor, raw feeling,
\nmade my agony manifest.
\n 
\nI could have been
\nboth feared and desired,
\ngliding up walls,
\nslipping through windows
\nseducing young virgins
\nwith hypnotic red glare.
\n 
\nInstead, I’d just nervously
\nhand them the poem,
\nwhisper “read this”
\nand make my quick getaway.
\n 
\nYes, as a vampire,
\nI could have been killed
\nwith a stake through the heart
\nBut, as a pitiful poet,
\nI had to live with one.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJames Hannon<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nKILIFI ALL DAY
\n 
\nScarlet bright bougainvillea
\ndrop down from terraces
\nwhere ravens swoop up.
\n 
\nKenyan women delighted
\nby their bodies swing and
\nsway as they cross the street.
\n 
\nSwahili music sings joy
\nfrom the swaps and shops.
\nWhy is everyone smiling?
\n 
\nSwindlers white and black
\nswore to promote and protect,
\nthen picked their pockets
\n 
\nbut could reach no further.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLois Marie Harrod<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHY THE MESSIAH DOESN\u2019T COME
\n 
\nHe doesn\u2019t have gas money
\n 
\nHe\u2019s busy with graduate work
\n 
\nHe\u2019s doesn\u2019t want Mom to think
\nhe misses her eggplant and lemon lasagna
\n 
\nHe\u2019s surfing at Noosa
\n 
\nHe’s trekking Limpopo Province
\nseeking the brown false shieldback cricket
\n 
\nLater he\u2019s busy with kids
\n 
\nor paving his driveway with a rolling pin
\n 
\nor busy discovering that he is
\na woman in a man\u2019s body
\n 
\nor a man in a woman\u2019s body
\npassing for a man
\n 
\nor maybe he\u2019s tri-sexual
\nlike Aunt Lily with her ambiguous callas
\n 
\nor one of those IVF eggs
\nwith DNA from three progenitors
\n 
\nor he put the visitation on his calendar
\nand then there was that tornado
\n 
\nthat hurricane
\n 
\nthat tsunami that wiped out most of Bangladesh
\n 
\nthat damn toilet that drowned his cell phone
\n 
\nAnd, anyway, isn\u2019t it the Father
\nwho is supposed to visit the Son\u2014
\n 
\nnot the other way around?
\n 
\n 
\nTHE WRONG-WAY BAT
\n 
\nThe wrong-way bat
\nheads north for winter,
\n 
\nleaves his hot orange dream in Tampa
\nand flies to Tennessee
\n 
\nwhere he finds sleep
\nin chiller caves.
\n 
\nThis morning
\nI migrate
\n 
\nto the bottom
\nof the bed
\n 
\nwhere the sheets
\nare cool.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichelle Hartman<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAUTUMN OR FALLING
\n 
\nA bird too fat
\nto emigrate
\nsends a note of shrill sweetness
\nand Nature laughs
\nsunshine.
\nI\u2019ve been down this road before
\nand the potholes
\nlook like all the others.
\nBut he\u2019s a man
\nwith eyes the color
\nof wet streets at night.
\nAnd this just became
\na pay later kind of day<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRyn Holmes<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nP\/INK
\n 
\nteased
\ninto blush,
\nfirst flush to cherry
\n 
\nred heartbeat,
\nglistening ruffle
\nfresh as wet paint,
\n 
\narises
\nwell-sprung
\nas mighty fine bloom
\n 
\nwhiskered and velvety,
\nsweet-slippery
\njackpot
\n 
\nset to purring
\nas it waits
\nanother rub.
\n<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBec Kashuba<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMAGDALENE
\n 
\nLeave two Bibles by the bed
\non your way out —
\na Hail Mary fail-safe just in case
\nthe first one doesn\u2019t work.
\n 
\nFall to your knees
\nand plead with God
\nto come down to Earth early
\njust to strangle the sin out of me.
\n 
\nI\u2019ll be waiting by the
\nlight of \u201cno vacancy\u201d
\non the street corner of
\nself-destruction and salvation,
\n 
\nSelling myself,
\nbut only short.
\n 
\n 
\nBRAVADO
\n 
\nYour cameo-brooch gaze and colorless,
\nclenched jaw remind me
\nthat I\u2019m not the type of person
\nyou\u2019d like to share afternoon tea with.
\n 
\nI\u2019m out of place in your
\nBrocade parlor, among the fine China
\nand grandfather clock, whose pendulum swings
\nto stay away from me.
\n 
\nYour steady shoulders
\nand board-stiffened spine make me
\npainfully aware of my curves
\nand twist
\nme into what you might prefer.
\nYour porcelain facade cracks
\nAnd smile lines form.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJulia Caroline Knowlton<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHEN WE MAKE LOVE
\n 
\nWhen we make love, just what kind of love
\nare we making; the kind where you wear black
\n 
\nand I wear white, and we float near blue flowers
\nin a sky, in a painting? Or the kind where we walk
\n 
\ndown a city street in tweed coats, crunching autumn
\nleaves under our feet, then go our separate ways?
\n 
\nI do not know where I go when your force washes through me.
\nI know that all emotion is mere water, falling in more water.
\n 
\nWho can say what hidden stones might be moved.
\nWho can say what part of the wet ground might stay.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMiriam N. Kotzin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFORCED PERSPECTIVE
\n 
\nWhere is the woman in the violet blouse?
\nOnly a moment ago she stood on the lawn,
\n 
\ngazing towards the scarlet Adirondack chairs
\narranged around the fire pit. She is not leaning
\n 
\nagainst the porch railing, her face tilting up
\nin the Indian summer sun. She is not poised
\n 
\non the stairway, her face vacant as though
\nshe has forgotten. She is not perched
\n 
\non a mossy rock, her shadow canting
\nacross the lawn. Nor is she standing
\n 
\nwith me on the balcony as I spy on my
\nhusband below, working at his easel.
\n 
\nAs you see, I am not in the picture.
\nThat violet blouse would have been (really)
\nsomething in one of those scarlet chairs.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMare Leonard<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSISSY’S HOME!
\n 
\nshe kicks off her oxfords
\nturns on the HiFi
\nrockrockrock around the clock<\/i>
\n 
\nwe sway our hips
\nshe swings around
\nrock, rock, rock, ’till broad daylight<\/i>
\nwe dip and fly
\n 
\nHenry invites her to a 3D movie
\ni pout cry nag stamp
\nlike a wild horse
\nmom says Yes<\/i>
\n 
\nSissy and Henry
\ntake big splashy steps
\nhold the umbrella close
\nto share
\n 
\ni hop over puddles
\npull my yellow slicker tight
\nthey don’t look back
\nhurry up MaryClare<\/i>
\n 
\nHenry enlists in the Marines
\na photo arrives
\nhe’s crouched
\nnext to a skull
\n 
\ni steal the photo tear out
\nthe skull to save
\n 
\nbury Henry
\nin a stack of holy cards
\nunder St. Clare<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Levin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDIDEROT
\n(1713\u20131784)
\n 
\nNo man has received from nature the right to command others. Liberty is a gift from heaven, and each individual has the right to enjoy it. . . Any other authority comes from either the violence of an individual who has seized it, or the consent of those who have submitted to it by a contract between them and the individual on whom they have bestowed [conditional] authority.
\nEncyclop\u00e9die Raisonn\u00e9 <\/i>Volume I (1751)
\n 
\nHe knew \u2013 running cracked hands
\nthrough lice-crimped hair amid the trickling
\nstench of sole confinement
\nin the dungeons of the Fortress
\nof Vincennes \u2013 more nuance
\nwas required: that reason must glide
\nby indirection, worming its way
\npast brutal guardians of faith
\nto lodge its lantern
\nin each individual mind.
\n 
\nHe sensed \u2013 proud disbeliever,
\nfoe of colonies, sworn enemy
\nto toxic slave trades \u2013
\nthat glib satirizing plays
\nwere not enough: a comprehensive
\nsummary of human thought
\nmust push beyond plush theater stalls
\nto where the soul of free invention lies
\nto liquefy those damp stone walls.
\n 
\nHe wrote \u2013 as canny editor;
\nby other names \u2013 dodging
\npolice raids by dense logic trains
\nthat buried in their coded texts
\non Switzerland or tradesmen\u2019s feats
\nanalyses demolishing
\nhereditary right. Maintained
\nall rule without consent
\nis mere idolatry.
\n 
\nProduced three dozen volumes
\nplus a constitution for
\nGreat Catherine: first line
\n\u2018We the People here proclaim.\u2019
\nBut left his most important works
\nfor publication after death
\nsecure that censors could not jail
\nideas breaking out of books.
\nBequeathed their coruscating light
\nto \u2018future spirits\u2019 \u2013 us.
\n 
\nFew pens have made
\nencyclopedias works of art
\nor turned their numbered entries
\ninto manifestos that moved hearts:
\nsubverted iron tradition and sparked
\nrisings for which thousands died.
\nHis legacy comes due each day —
\nto question gilt pronouncements
\nand engraved beliefs.
\nOr trust them; and subside.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLisa L\u00f3pez Smith<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI AM NOT
\n 
\nI’m riding the bus through Guanajuato state,
\nsitting next to a guy whose bus ticket says
\nhis name is Alejandro Guerrero<\/i>, and I bet
\nthat’s a name he made up to sound as cool
\nas he looks with that slicked back hair and
\nnonstop texting with all-the-friends,
\nbecause I usually adjust my name
\non bus tickets too, so I’m not “Elisa”
\nexcept on buses or at the shops, although
\nI like it better than my real name. I’m not
\nAmerican either, unless you define it as a
\nperson from the continental Americas\u2014which
\nI would, so I am. And I’m not a pirate or
\nwild sweet peas or a musician\u2014
\nbut if I could be something I’m not,
\nI’d be a musician. Though really, poetry
\nis good practice for busking to passersby
\nwho don’t stop. I’m not a keeper of the time.
\nI just watch it drift by in days, and rocket through
\nthe years. I’m not clouds or mesquite<\/i> or brand
\nnew Michelin tires on an old car, but I am
\non a journey. I’m not wool socks or the scent
\nof fresh-ground coffee, but I am the very definition
\nof Home to my children. I might just be someone
\nwho dreams across Guanajuato, thinking of being
\nsomeone I\u2019m not\u2014maybe a cloud, or wild sweet peas,
\nor a pirate.
\n 
\n 
\nEL DIABLO (THE DEVIL)
\n 
\nThe Devil lives just down the road.
\nHe drives a rambling old Pontiac\u2014sky blue DIY paint job
\nwith an F-150 emblem glued on the back.
\nThe Devil came over last Thursday but
\nhe couldn\u2019t stay\u2014 \u2018cause his cows got out.
\nHe built us a metal screen door to keep out the flies, and
\nI ask Luis how much we owe The Devil,
\nand we laugh\u2014he only takes cash, thank goodness.
\n 
\nThe Devil\u2019s face is sunburnt brown, creased, fierce\u2014
\nboth at work and speeding down the highway in that Pontiac,
\nwith that soldering flame-throwing tool and the
\ndecrepit ladder that he always goes around forgetting.
\nWe asked Jos\u00e9 where The Devil got that nickname,
\nand Jos\u00e9 said that his stepdad said,
\n\u2018cause he was so ugly.<\/i>
\n 
\nThe Devil replies with silence, keeping his humour hidden and rusty,
\nlike holy bits of scrap metal scattered across his junkyard, while
\ngently tending the garden along his fence like a temple,
\nhis prayers for mercy coming out in curses.
\nWe saw the Pontiac in town and
\nThe Devil offered us a ride home,
\nhis car overflowing with the six<\/i> grandkids he\u2019s raising.
\nWe thank him anyhow and he gives us some mangoes from his tree
\nand a parting blessing.
\n 
\nI can\u2019t help but wonder that if the Devil\u2019s namesake
\nhere on earth is any indication,
\nmaybe the flames of hell could be used for soldering shelter
\nfor people in need, and baking bread for the hungry.
\nPerhaps Hell is actually just Heaven\u2019s hearth.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBob MacKenzie<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nRED DOOR
\n 
\nherbal scent of new soup
\nsteam under the red door
\nafter Henrietta disappeared
\n 
\nsmell of death in the air
\nBluetail turned and walked
\naway along the green path
\n 
\nhens followed along leaving
\nsad memories of Henrietta
\nbehind the blood red door<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJack Mackey<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nUNDERCHARGED
\n 
\nUnder the burning glare of
\nfluorescent lights
\nof the ice cream shop
\non a steamy summer vacation night
\nI cheated the man
\nout of a dollar or so,
\nwordlessly accepting the change
\nin my palm,
\nwhen, our eyes meeting, you saw
\nthe look on my face.
\n 
\nYou looked up at me,
\nsaying nothing,
\nstudying something.
\n 
\nWhat did you learn when,
\nas soon as you got outside,
\nyour scoop hit
\nthe pavement with a plop,
\nyour eyes spurted tears
\nwith instant disappointment,
\nand we went back inside
\nto the same man
\nwho gave you
\nanother one
\nfor free?<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJ. C. Mari<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAT THE GERMAN PLACE
\n 
\nshe drove in
\nlate friday
\nafternoon from
\none county over.
\n 
\nparking was
\na few blocks
\naway from the place
\nand she didn’t remember
\nthe area too well
\nso i met her halfway,
\non foot.
\n 
\na train-station hug
\nand a few half-kisses later
\nshe’s drinking beer
\nand i’m guzzling scotch
\nat the German place.
\n 
\nthere’s the
\ncongratulatory
\nphrases i shower her with
\nbecause of her
\ndoctorate and
\n 
\ni give her an
\nautographed
\ncopy of my book.
\n 
\ni scribble a quote in latin
\nfrom someone dead
\n2000 years ago
\nin lieu of a dedication.
\n 
\nkinda shitty but
\nthen again,
\nit’s been a long time
\nand i don’t
\nknow what to write to her
\nplus
\n 
\nthe quote’s
\na one-fits-all type
\nif only because
\nthings are always
\nat some level of
\nfucked-up
\nall the time
\neverywhere.
\n 
\nshe wants to know
\nwhat it says
\nand i engage
\n 
\n“you’ve got a
\ndoctorate now,
\nfigure it out”.
\n 
\nshe amicably calls me
\nan asshole and
\npinches my arm.
\n 
\ni guzzle the whiskey fast and
\nsay, laughing:
\n 
\n“both your
\nkarma and mine
\nmust be pretty bad
\nto be here together
\non a friday night,
\nafter more than 20 years,
\nhaving drinks.”
\n 
\nshe cackles and
\nbeer comes out of her nose.
\n 
\nwe both know it’s true.
\n 
\nhappy endings
\nonly happen in massage parlors
\nand you have to pay for them.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTim Mayo<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE LEGACY OF ELMS
\n 
\nWhat I remember from childhood
\nwas not so much their stateliness\u2013\u2013their
\nhallelujahs of upward limbs poising
\nin procession up the long avenues\u2013\u2013
\n 
\nbut the day they came down: how the tall
\nplumb ranks they formed suddenly diminished
\ninto jumbles of sticks and stumps, and the for-
\ngranted shade they gave left forever,
\n 
\nso even the cloudiness of that day
\nhad the blinding effect of making
\nthe world too bright to really see.
\n 
\nDecades after, I found one last tree, alone,
\nin a field, its limbs lifting the air back up
\nas if loss had no weight, no substance at all.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nE.V. McLaughlin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGINGERBREAD
\n 
\nI have no taste for it.
\n 
\nI wish I had a sweet tooth.
\nThe smell of gingerbread,
\nof boiling sugar for the windows –
\nWe all have vices.
\nMine is that I like to show,
\nnot tell.
\n 
\nMy oven can fit an adult easily,
\nnever mind a child!<\/i>
\n 
\nAnd then I heard the door slam
\nand smelled skin bubbling
\ninto crackling.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJason Morphew<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGENE WATSON
\n 
\nOften sitting at the bar
\nat El Compadre on Sunset Blvd
\neyebanging air before me
\nI imagine I am Gene Watson
\non the cover of his album
\nShould I Come Home (Or
\nShould I Go Crazy)?<\/i>
\nI try not to write poems
\nabout country music
\nbecause the poetry demographic
\nand my children\u2019s need for food
\n(perversely related)
\nyet here we are here I am
\ngoing crazy having just taught
\nthe Metamorphoses<\/i> then
\nPinocchio<\/i> stabbing in
\nbetween with a corkscrew
\nmy left hand which my father
\nforced me to throw from
\nas a right-handed child
\nbecause he wanted me to be
\nSandy Koufax and he couldn\u2019t
\nsee he was an anti-Semite.
\nI still can\u2019t throw from my right hand
\nand am raising Jews
\nwith my father\u2019s last name.
\nMobile home is mobile
\nvengeance I\u2019m almost
\nalways there.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Muth<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nA STRAIGHT BACHELOR\u2019S LAST RESORT
\n 
\nLying in a dentist\u2019s chair
\na middle-aged hygienist grunts
\nas she scrapes the tartar from my teeth,
\nfeet curl from sensitive gums.
\n 
\nShe tells me her husband
\nno longer finds her attractive.
\nWith the taste of blood in my mouth
\nI emit a pitying hum.
\n 
\nLooking deeply into my eyes
\nshe says she knows how to use
\nevery centimeter of the human tongue
\nand is willing to show me if I want.
\n 
\nHer breast pushes up against my shoulder.
\nI could tell her I am not interested
\nbut rejection might turn
\nher dental pick into a dagger.
\nI could tell her I am dating someone
\nbut it doesn\u2019t seem like she would care.
\n 
\nGently pushing her hand away
\nI tell her I am gay
\nthat Bill and I are very happy together.
\nThere might even be
\na church in Vermont
\nwith our names on it.
\n 
\nHer face crinkles in disappointment
\nresembles a Renaissance fresco.
\nShe mumbles her congratulations
\ntosses a little tube of toothpaste on my lap
\nand tells me to floss more often.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDarrell Petska<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCONVERSATION IN ABSENTIA
\n 
\nMy dear but incurious grandchildren,
\nI’ll have you know your great-grandpa Joseph,
\nin a howling whiskey rage,
\nshot your great-grandma Anne, then himself,
\nwhile I stood near. I had just turned 5.
\n 
\nPosterity had no appetite for recounting
\nthose shorted lives, their bitter ending,
\nbut lineage alone survives our graves.
\n 
\nI fled that god-forsaken farm,
\nsheltering with neighbors who put me to work
\ntending their chickens.
\n 
\nBrown Leghorns.
\nWhich you saw me raise from chicks,
\ncoddling the pullets, butchering the roosters\u2014
\n 
\nDid you not notice
\nhow I coolly wrung their necks,
\nsevered their heads with an ax,
\ndunked their corpses into a steaming vat
\nto separate feather from flesh
\n 
\nthen rendered the carcasses into pieces
\nI fed you with sauerkraut and dumplings,
\nthat butchery knotting muscle to your bone?
\n 
\nTimes were hard in 1906.
\nThough such acts deserve no understanding,
\ndeath insists on transparency: you must stomach
\nthe whole plate that’s been served you.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nS.J. Relandi<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nA BALLET LOVE STORY
\n 
\nDown in the seats of the school\u2019s auditorium, he surveyed her leap across the stage with bountiful grace and wished he could be the one to catch her. As it stood some no-name freshman with thick arms was charged with saving her. But he wanted to do it. He wanted to feel her silk dress and skin against his calloused flesh. After the show he followed her to the cars, cold nipping at his standing hairs, threw her against her car door and kissed her. She stomped on his foot and kneed his groin. \u201cWhat the fuck!\u201d she shrieked and sped away. He was left under the moon, its own arms wrapping around him. He glanced right and left, found himself alone and masturbated to the remaining taste of her on his lips.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCinthia Ritchie<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLEAVE ME ALONE, JOHN MARVEN
\n 
\nTwenty years later, he finds me.
\n\u201cWow, you are successful,\u201d he writes.
\nI don\u2019t tell him about the moons between
\nmy teeth, the fog I bleed each month,
\nthe wind that laughs my hair.
\n 
\nAt night I hold my ovaries
\nbeneath my tongue, savoring the roundness,
\nthe salt. Each one tastes
\nof the child we could have had.
\n 
\nMornings I walk the beach
\nwith the dog, our invisible child eating
\nsand around my feet.
\n\u201cFeed,\u201d I whisper, touching
\nher lips, her breath warm and stinking
\nof the sea.
\n 
\nI wrap my breasts with fireweed, with
\npoison baneberry, I sink my teeth inside
\nwolf blood, I lick my invisible child
\nclean, so clean. We run on water,
\nsteal loaves and fishes. On Sunday
\nI burn pages from my grandmother\u2019s Bible,
\nthe Virgin Mary singing my dreams, her dark
\nhair, her unshaven legs.
\n 
\nMy invisible child catches jelly fish
\nwith her hands, drapes seaweed across her belly.
\nNights the tide escapes
\nthe beach, we steal raven eggs,
\nhold them in our palms,
\nholy gifts. We lick the fragile shells,
\nmilk our tongues, our teeth gentle and fierce.
\n 
\nWe never speak\u2014what would we say?
\nWe are cursed with memory,
\nblessed with lies. We bleed, but only on Tuesdays.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nR.D. Ronstad<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNEW LIFE
\n 
\nArt is everything at once.<\/i>
\n–Donald Judd
\n 
\nHe saw most clearly
\non dark nights in winter,
\nfrom a yellow-lit room
\nthrough a window wall facing traffic:
\nheadlights oncoming, taillights offgoing
\nskittering windows, rousing shadows,
\namid the frigid bliss of neon,
\nabove the pavement glistening,
\nbeneath the snowflakes swirling
\nunder the connate arcs of streetlamps
\nendlessly at attention,
\nand endlessly at ease.
\n 
\nDifferent hours, different days, different seasons
\nhe sat by that window waiting.
\nOn these nights he waited still,
\nnot wanting to prove unfaithful,
\nas he felt the nighthawks had,
\nabandoning windows with
\ntheir creator looking on.
\n 
\nOn his last night, five minutes before
\nthey found him slumped in a corner booth,
\nhis right index finger still wrapped around
\nthe rounded handle of his coffee cup,
\na small shadow danced across his table.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWendy L. Schmidt<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPATH TO THE MOON
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\n <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPenelope Schott<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFOR EXAMPLE
\n 
\nIf for example I were to say lupine
\nand you didn\u2019t know lupine
\n 
\nand then I said blue
\nyou wouldn\u2019t know which blue
\n 
\nand if I said deep blue almost purple,
\nyou still wouldn\u2019t see it
\n 
\nwhich is why I want to grab your hand
\nand drag you up Dufur hill
\n 
\nwhere if you kneel between rabbit brush
\nand the miscellaneous grasses
\n 
\nand peer through the blooming lupine
\nyou can open your arms to embrace
\n 
\nthe long ridge of the horizon
\nand the whole little village down below
\n 
\nuntil the words furtive<\/i> and false-hearted<\/i>
\ndrop out of your vocabulary
\n 
\nin this most absolutely perfect week
\nof a year of perfect weeks
\n 
\nhere on the top of Dufur hill
\nwhere Linda and Sandy have left a bowl
\n 
\nand a plastic gallon jug full of water
\nin case someone\u2019s dog might get thirsty
\n 
\n 
\nDUFUR PARK ON THE SATURDAY BEFORE EASTER SUNDAY
\n 
\nBundled toddlers, close to the ground
\nover a lawn of scattered pastel eggs,
\neach tiny kid clutching a fancy bucket \u2014
\n 
\nPick them up<\/i>, urges a bent grandfather,
\nLike this<\/i>, say the mothers, leaning down.
\nThe round toddlers squat in place, stuck
\n 
\nand confused, their chubby legs wide apart.
\nPale sunlight tries to illuminate gray skies \u2014
\nnobody here in the park is ready to rise.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKaren Schubert<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWALKERS
\n 
\nWhat they
\nsaid to think, I thought not but instead made
\nmy mind into a birdcage with wings<\/i>
\n~Melissa Studdard
\n 
\nPennee\u2019s mom comes each morning to send my brother and me to school, opens the door and cries, Fly away like a bird in a gilded cage!<\/i> We cross French Lea and someone\u2019s backyard, up the long sidewalk to a door by the playground. One day it\u2019s muddy and thick footprints follow us.
\n 
\nThe p.a. says Walkers dismissed!<\/i> but my coat sticks in my locker. I pull so hard, buttons are missing. Mom sends a letter, the principal tells me, Write down who you think took them.<\/i> I don\u2019t know. He presses. Weeks later, I find the buttons wedged in the hinge. I whisper to the boy, I didn\u2019t believe you did it,<\/i> but he pushes past me.
\n 
\nAnother morning as I\u2019m leaving, I say, If a bird is in a gilded cage, how can it fly?<\/i> She never says it again, even though I want her to.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nClaire Scott<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI\u2019M JUST SAYING
\n 
\nI was asked to write the preface for Suicide Notes from Fifty Successful Suicides<\/i>. I have never been asked to write a preface. I have never been asked to write anything. For anyone. Ever. So why me? Then I got it. No one else would touch it. Suicide is contagious. Getting too close makes you think of tall buildings, sharp knives, the tiny pink pills nestled in orange vials. Or maybe hoses in the garage, the rusty gun in the attic, a thick rope tied in a tight noose. (Check out YouTube\u2019s Knot of the Week<\/i>.) Right now I am thinking of the gas oven, greasy rags under doors. Or making toast in the bathtub. Or the tempting can of Drano tucked under the sink. Right now I am thinking of my Ex who is suing for back child support. Only five years, give me a fuckin\u2019 break. The landlord threatening eviction. The shocking pink slip from my boss who said I am a lousy losel. I looked up \u201closel\u201d in my Webster\u2019s. Slammed the dictionary on his hoary head. A soothing relief as time\u2019s fuse shortens. As the fifth act draws to a close. But first I must write a note. Send it off to be included. No need to write a preface. I\u2019m just saying.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMary Sesso<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHAT WE DIDN\u2019T KNOW
\n 
\nOn the day we knew
\nhow depressed she was,
\n 
\nshe sat on the floor crying,
\nholding her Yorkie,
\n 
\nher musk perfume gripped
\nthe air so tight
\n 
\nit smothered the room.
\nHer outburst of smiles
\n 
\nwould put a brake on tears
\nevery so often,
\n 
\na sign we took she would survive
\nand not need watching eyes.
\n 
\nWhat we didn\u2019t see
\nwas the suitcase
\n 
\nfull of empty vodka bottles hiding
\nunder a bed or holes in the ceiling
\n 
\nfrom two practice shots
\nmade by the rusty revolver
\n 
\nstashed under a pillow,
\nbiding its time until
\n 
\nwe kissed her goodbye
\nand went out the door.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMir-Yashar Seyedbagheri<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nREJECTION SUBMISSION
\n 
\nthis piece,
\nis
\nnot for us,
\nwe received
\nmany, many, many fine submissions
\ntruly many fine pieces. Insert statistics here.
\nthis year.
\nthis does not reflect on the quality
\nbugger off,
\nof your work,
\nyou asshole
\nor reflect our
\ninnate disgusts. metaphors molested,
\nanother moon related poem.
\nwe wish you the best with this piece,
\nno we don\u2019t
\nelsewhere.
\n 
\nwe want sex submissions. experimentation,
\nmutilated corpses and endless fucks,
\nfor it is free, a bulwark against
\n 
\nTHE MAN
\n 
\nif you do not experiment,
\nyou are a lickspittle, a toady of the
\nold order,
\nso be exiled, \u2003 \u2003 \u2003 \u2003 moon,
\nand \u2003 \u2003 \u2003 \u2003 love,
\nand flowers and\u2003 \u2003 \u2003 mothers in
\nlavender nightgowns
\nfor these are not cynical,
\n 
\nmay your submission be relegated,
\nbest of luck with this,
\nto the dustbin of rejection history<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJacquelyn Shah<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDIMINISHED THING: A CENTO SONNETIZED
\n 
\nMaking a famine where abundance lies,
\nalone and pensive, I delight to stray;
\nI am the dog that dies.
\nThe lone and level sands stretch far away,
\n 
\nfilled with creatures filled with dread;
\nwe feel the obscurity of an order, a whole.
\nRemember these three things: ball, sorrow, red.
\nIt\u2019s strength for darkness. Burrowing like the mole,
\n 
\nmuch have I travelled through the reams of gold
\ninto my final six where all will be revised,
\nsome borrowed sonnets in my pocket, old.
\nBreathless with adoration, I cunningly devised
\na little netherworld under the broad suns,
\nthis moment\u2019s monument, under-said & over-sung.
\n 
\n 
\nFirst eight lines, in order of appearance, from:<\/i> William Shakespeare, Charlotte Smith, James Merrill, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adrienne Rich, Wallace Stevens, Rafael Campo, John Keats
\n 
\nTitle and final six lines revised from:<\/i> Robert Frost, John Keats, Billy Collins, John Berryman, William Wordsworth, John Donne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edna St. Vincent Millay<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPaul Smith<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE FAIRER SEX
\n 
\nOlder women tend to crochet
\nOlder men tend to get crotchety<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nElizabethanne Spiotta<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nD AND SMOKED FISH
\n 
\nhe brings smoked fish
\nwedges of cheese that melt-
\noh, the heat from
\nour bodies.
\njugs of kombucha
\npickled sardines.
\nhe is proud of himself
\nhe is courting me
\nhe is, maybe\u2026 nervous?
\ni circle the kitchen table
\nwe circle the kitchen table.
\ntear the bread
\npush the cheese into the opportunities
\nof the baguette
\nnudge the head off the kippered trout
\nshall we go upstairs, he asks
\nletting me pretend to arrive at
\na different conclusion, a different response
\nas if there was any answer other
\nthan a breathy, bursting \u2018yes.\u2019<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTom Sterner<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nONE-LEGGED GUITAR PLAYER
\n 
\nHe puts his pants on
\nsame as everyone else
\none leg at a time
\ntwice as hard
\nonly half as much
\nsince he stepped on a land mine
\nAin\u2019t a helluva lot to do
\nwith a one-legged soldier
\nlearned to play the guitar
\nwhile hallucinating
\non morphine convalescing
\nNeighbors hear him playing
\nthrough the closed doors and windows
\nof his one room kitchenette
\nThey leave him alone
\nsince he got his hands around the throat
\nof an old bald-headed hippie
\nwith straggly wisps of hair
\non the back of his head
\nbraided into a strip of rawhide
\nDude, play Stairway to Heaven he said
\nHis hands are strong
\nHe uses them like everyone else
\nand doesn\u2019t take requests<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Thornton<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMERMAID
\n 
\nAt the lake I loved to swim and I was
\ngood at it. At home in the water like
\n 
\na fish. I wished I were a mermaid and loved
\nthe feel of my hair in the water, imagined
\n 
\nthe scales of my tail, muscular and smooth. I dove
\nbeneath the green shadow of the dock,
\n 
\nto the ladder that lead up to the planes of the sun.
\nI squirmed and wriggled through the opening
\n 
\nunder the water between the rungs. It was
\neasy. At the bottom of the ladder was
\n 
\na smaller space, a half rung where the ladder
\nended, sunk into the bottom of the lake. I eyed
\n 
\nit often. But I knew if I entered it I would get
\nstuck and not come up again. I thought about it,
\n 
\nand even now I think about that cool
\nconvenient exit. How seductive and why?
\n 
\nWhy would I even imagine it, having survived the
\nsimilar exits of too many friends? Why does it still
\n 
\nbeckon me? I must fight for my mermaid self,
\nfearless and muscular, sluicing through the shadows,
\n 
\nsplashing just to make noise, calling to the gulls
\nwho call back to me, translating their calls
\n 
\ninto my own tales, surfacing in the moonlight,
\nresting on a flat rock, combing my seaweed hair.
\n 
\n 
\nNOW AND ALWAYS
\n 
\nSo it\u2019s the birthday of the fianc\u00e9 of my daughter
\nand on social media his mother posted
\nphotos of him as a child and of him and
\nmy daughter and the photos of the young
\nlovers brought tears to my eyes, the
\nrelaxed closeness, the unfeigned happiness,
\nthe beauty of their skin.
\nI was happy for them but
\nI was also jealous and sad for myself
\nthinking of sadness and tragedy
\nand friends lost to death\u2019s dark night
\nand I could really think myself
\ninto a funk as I was counting off
\nmy worry beads of mistreatment
\nand heartbreak but then I thought
\nI might as well go to dance class.
\nThere were only two of us there and afterwards
\nwe told each other stories. Sherry\u2019s husband
\nwanted them to give away their dog
\nbecause he thinks they are too old and ill
\nto manage a big young dog. Linda is
\nworking two jobs until the insurance for the
\nsecond job kicks in but that\u2019s not till
\nJanuary. I told how I had gone to the
\nattorney to update my will because I have
\nto be responsible about my daughter and
\nalso that odd thing where I was bending over checking
\nthe air in the tire at the service station and had
\nto jump out of the way of an SUV which
\nnearly crushed me up Niskayuna way.
\nSo on the whole we are all just
\nlucky to be alive. On the way home I
\nstopped at the little natural foods restaurant
\nwhere I can count on finding Mary Pat
\nmy friend of thirty-six years and then at the
\nBelmar where I ran into the birthday boy and
\nmy daughter and they both hugged me and
\nwe talked and they smiled and as I walked
\nout to my car in the cool night air I realized
\nonce again how strange and lucky and
\nterrible it all is, all at the same time, now and
\nalways<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichelle Tinklepaugh<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGIRL 1983
\n 
\nshe is wearing a red dress with little yellow flowers embroidered on the collar \/he has her foot in one hand\/a pair of white tights in the other\/they look at each other\/he looks away\/when he touches her\/it is too rough\/the girl looks at a cobweb in the corner of the bathroom ceiling\/he pulls the tights up to her thighs \/his hands rest\/ where the tights haven\u2019t touched yet\/are goose bumps \/he slides his hands to her knees\/then to her waist\/ lifts her up off the dryer\/sets her down\/she yanks and pulls at the tights\/ until they reach beyond her belly button\/at the bus stop\/he holds her hand in his\/tells her that later when she gets off the bus \/he will be waiting\/the girl looks down at her ankles\/where the tights are beginning to pool and wrinkle like loose skin\/she imagines his hands peeling her\/ like a banana\/like a scab
\n 
\n 
\nTHE MAN WITH THE BROKEN NOSE
\n 
\nhe is your father\/ but not your father by blood\/ he tells you stories about your father\/ none of them are good\/ he will lie to you about many things\/ he doesn\u2019t lie about this\/he told you how his nose got so crooked\/you can\u2019t remember if it was his father who did it\/or those boys in Florida that called him a faggot\/or was that the story about his chipped tooth?\/he tells you stories\/ the girl he lost his virginity to in a tent when he was 12\/how he wears his hair long because his father used to shave it\/how when he was a kid\/he used to stuff fire crackers up cats assholes\/ you are a kid \/you love animals\/ you laugh because you have to\/ when he tells stories he is kind\/ even if they are stories about mean things\/ your mother doesn\u2019t listen to his stories \/ she is too sad to talk\/ too sad to look at you\/ he looks at you\/ you are looking away\/ look at me\/ listen to me\/ where are you going?\/ and your name\/ he says it like an order\/ like you are a dog\/ he uses the word obey\/ when you don\u2019t know what a word means\/ he makes you sit on his lap\/ read the meaning to him from the dictionary\/ he wants you to know everything he knows\/you know to listen\/you know to keep him talking\/ in the silence\/ there is only his breathing\/ then his weight\/ so heavy\/you know this story\/ the one where the little girl has a nightmare\/and never wakes up
\n 
\n 
\nAFTER MY DIVORCE
\n 
\nI was on a date with some guy
\nI met online
\nhe fingered me outside a bar
\nI remember thinking
\nthank god I am drunk
\nI remember thinking
\nthis hurts but at least I feel something
\nI remember thinking
\nI should stop wearing skirts
\nI was wearing underwear
\nbut it didn\u2019t matter
\nhis fingers were calloused
\nand he jammed two in me
\nas if he were trying to find something
\nI took him home
\nhe dry-fucked me
\nwithout a condom
\nhe said nothing
\nI said, \u201cow\u201d
\nI went to the bathroom to vomit
\nI heard him leave
\nI passed out with vomit in my hair
\n 
\nafter my divorce
\nI went on a date with a 55yr old
\nhe looked younger online
\nif I squinted he looked much younger
\nhe had blond hair
\nand wore cowboy boots to make himself appear taller
\nhe invited me back to his place
\nI went
\nI was killing time
\nI laughed at the artwork in his hallway
\noil paintings of sad clowns and portraits of lone cowboy boots
\nhe told me his grandma had painted them
\nI wasn\u2019t sure if he was serious
\nso I fell silent
\nhe gave me a valium and a cheap beer
\nafter an awkward bath where he repeatedly
\nasked if I liked what he was doing
\nas I stared slightly above his head
\nthe valium kicked in
\nso we went to his bedroom
\nand he tried to fuck me from behind
\nwith a brittle lamb skin condom
\nthat I was sure was from the seventies
\nperplexed that I wasn\u2019t getting wet
\nhe sucked on his fingers and jammed them
\ninto me
\nthis went on for a long time
\nI pretended to come
\nhe cleaned his cum off my back
\nwith an American flag bandanna
\n 
\nafter my divorce
\nI only ate meals
\non the days my daughter was home
\nnot because I was starving myself
\nbut because time ceased to exist
\nwhen I was not taking care of her
\nwhen she was away
\nI watched tv and cried
\nate crackers for dinner and drank wine
\non the nights I did not have dates
\nwhich was often
\nI obsessively cleaned the house
\nuntil I had nothing left to clean
\nI would drink, smoke cigarettes
\nand read my old journals
\nhighlighting the parts in them
\nwhere my ex-husband abused me
\n 
\nafter my divorce
\nI became a regular at a shitty bar
\nI would stay until closing time
\nlike all the other lonely drunks
\nthen go home to an empty house
\nread my tarot cards until dawn
\nhoping to see a future
\nthat wasn\u2019t this<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPeggy Turnbull<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIN THE BACK OF A TRUCK HEADING WEST
\n 
\nMy lover has chosen another
\nand I should feel humiliated,
\n 
\nbut the sky flirts with me,
\nmakes rose-breasted clouds
\n 
\ncast blue shadows onto the desert basin,
\ntransforms it into the enormous lake
\n 
\nof my homeland,
\nwhile a caressing wind
\n 
\nlifts the long strands of my hair
\nwith expert hands.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nEd Wade<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCARTOON VIOLENCE
\n 
\nWhen I stubbed my toe
\non the highchair leg,
\nI was happy
\nthat what came out
\nwas not a curse,
\nbut a stream of nonsensical
\npunctuation marks.
\nAnd when I slammed
\nmy thumb in the jamb
\nof her dollhouse,
\nmy daughter only saw
\nmy head inflate
\ninto a big red balloon
\nwith steam whistling
\nout of each ear.
\nShe laughed
\nat my bulging eyes
\nand forehead veins,
\nclapping wildly
\nfor an encore.
\nSo when I saw
\nthe older girl
\npush my daughter,
\nI scanned the park
\nfor her father.
\nThe fat fuck
\nwith the ice cream cone?
\nThe yuppie
\nwith the blue jogging shorts?
\nI walked over
\nready to beat him
\nuntil my baby laughed
\nand clapped at the birdies
\ncircling his head,
\nuntil his eyes turned
\nto X’s, and his tongue
\nhung out from one side
\nof his mouth, so
\nmy daughter could point
\nand laugh at the little angel
\nfloating up from his chest.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nErin Wilson<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMY BELOVED FEEDS ME DIRT
\n 
\nToday my beloved teaches me the word geophagy
\nand suddenly I see myself, now and always.
\n 
\nI remember, from now,
\nfrom inside this articulation,
\nhow once I asked my first husband to strip down
\nand run through the forest naked.
\nI photographed him,
\nhoping to plunge him visually
\ninto a philosophy of being
\nwhich I understood in my body
\nbeneath language.
\n 
\nInstead, all I got was a handful of shots,
\nwhich, after years of hiding beneath my underpants,
\nI became nervous with and shredded.
\nI had hoped he would be revealed a man of the woods,
\nyou know, a vibrating clod of enunciated flesh,
\nbut when I looked at the photos
\nhe just seemed a skinny Sasquatch
\nout of place in a mall.
\n 
\nSome years later we divorced.
\n 
\nMy beloved raises his hands full of dirt and says,
\n“Know yourself and everything there is.
\n 
\n 
\nJACKDAW CHYAK-CHYAK
\n 
\nI wanted to be alive
\nlike a human being
\nfrom out of history,
\na man with a coat alert on a chaise,
\nor a woman stayed by a bodice,
\nand so I stuck myself with corvid feathers.
\nI wanted to pound to pound to pound on heaven
\nand so I fucked some books
\nagainst a wall
\nand stuck my fingers
\ninside myself (kaaaarr).
\nI wanted to sing sweetly
\nlike an angel
\nor a mom
\nand so I chirred quietly
\nto my little ones (giaaaa)
\nthrough the soft waft
\nof steam that rose
\nfrom a well-cooked pot roast.
\nI wanted to believe
\nmy skin would stay.
\nI wanted to hear God say
\n(in lines, not tongues or heavenly gestures)
\nwords that would remain.
\nI wanted hell to vanish.
\nTo not exist. As it doesn’t.
\nExcept here. Except sometimes.
\n 
\n 
\nARTICULATING
\n 
\nJust vowels and consonants
\nJust bloody vowels and lousy consonants
\n 
\nIf I were telling the truth, I would open my mouth and scream
\n 
\nIf I were telling the whole truth, I would open my mouth and —
\n 
\nJust cunts and socks
\nJust bloody cunts and lousy socks \u2013
\n 
\n 
\nTHREE TEENS SLEEP IN A TENT
\n 
\n…the waste of the seed of the self
\nStains in the shaggy hide, and they know it not.<\/i>
\n~ William Everson
\n 
\nAt first I think of stray mittens,
\nthe two red wagons staggered
\nthrough the long backyard,
\ncast-offs on the journey
\ntoward the mouth of the tent,
\nthe wood charred and plinked
\nupon itself, a child’s
\nabandoned game of pick-up sticks,
\nbut with the spring rain ripe
\nand the grass burning green,
\nI’m awoken sober as to clatter
\nto the world’s eternal awakening.
\nThe idea of their bodies glows,
\nancient dark flames fanned
\nbetween rind and dense electric flesh,
\ninnards of the rouge vif d’etampes,
\nthe yard looking less like childhood
\nand more like a gaping seduction,
\nwagons, singed wood,
\nhalf burned sticks that pierced,
\nthen taunted and flaunted
\ntheir marshmallow’s skins,
\nsocks and gutted slick packages,
\nall their taking off-s, dismantlings,
\nwhile they sleep inside, those wild
\nyoung buffalo, those purring heaps
\nof husky wilderness,
\ninside the tent,
\ninside themselves,
\ninside inside inside,
\nten times the size their shells!
\nThey have no understanding,
\nthose terrible living beasts,
\naroused through ambrosial selves,
\ndrunkened by world and each;
\ncan’t tell their hooves
\nfrom hands or feet;
\ndon’t care.
\n 
\n 
\nArtists’ Bios
\n 
\nRoy J. Adams<\/a><\/strong> is a semi-retired Canadian-American professor whose poetry has appeared in literary magazines, including Rat\u2019s Ass Review, in Canada, the U.S.A., Australia, the United Kingdom and Singapore. His chapbook, Bebop From Beau\u2019s Caboose was published in 2018 by the Ontario Poetry Society and his first full book of poetry from a trade press has just been published by Silver Bow Publishing in British Columbia. It is available at http:\/\/silverbowpublishing.com and from Amazon.
\n 
\nPamela Ahlen<\/a> <\/strong> is program coordinator for Bookstock Literary Festival held each summer in Woodstock, Vermont. She organizes literary events for Osher (Lifelong Education at Dartmouth) and compiled and edited Osher\u2019s Anthology of Poets and Writers: Celebrating Twenty-Five Years at Dartmouth. Pam received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is the author of the chapbook Gather Every Little Thing (Finishing Line Press).
\n 
\nA multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato<\/a><\/strong> produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. His poetry has appeared in many journals, including Slipstream, Rusty Truck, Chiron Review, Stepaway, The Five-Two, Outlaw Poetry, Empty Mirror, Otoliths, and Ramingo’s Porch. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry) and Computing Angels (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http:\/\/jeffbagato.wordpress.com.
\n 
\nF. J. Bergmann<\/a><\/strong> edits poetry for Mobius: The Journal of Social Change (mobiusmagazine.com), and imagines tragedies on or near exoplanets. Work appears irregularly in Abyss & Apex, Analog, Asimov’s SF, and elsewhere in the alphabet. A Catalogue of the Further Suns won the 2017 Gold Line Press poetry chapbook contest and the 2018 SFPA Elgin Chapbook Award.
\n 
\nAlan Bern<\/a><\/strong> is a retired children\u2019s librarian with books from Fithian Press: No no the saddest (2004) and Waterwalking in Berkeley (2007); greater distance (2015) was published by his broadsides press, Lines & Faces, www.linesandfaces.com. Alan won the Littoral Press Poetry Prize in 2015 and was a semi-finalist in the 2016 Center for the Book Arts Poetry Chapbook Competition. Alan performs with dancer Lucinda Weaver as PACES and with musicians from Composing Together, http:\/\/composingtogether.org\/
\n 
\nNovember 2018 marked Robert Beveridge<\/a><\/strong>‘s thirtieth anniversary as a publishing poet. When not writing, he makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) in Akron, OH. Recent\/upcoming appearances in Medium Chill, San Pedro River Review, and South Broadway Ghost Society, among others.
\n 
\nTeresa McLamb Blackmon<\/a><\/strong> is a retired high school English teacher. She received an MA in English from NCSU and an MLS from NCCU. Teresa lives on a farm in eastern North Carolina. She has had poems published in Toasted Cheese, Absinthe, The News & Observer, Poet Lore, Cellar 101 Anthology, Nochua Review, and various local newspapers and community publications. She loves spending time reading, writing, crafting, and enjoying her donkeys, goats, horse, and two adorable pups.
\n 
\nHenry Bladon<\/a><\/strong> is a writer of short fiction and poetry based in Somerset in the UK. He has degrees in psychology and mental health policy and a PhD in literature and creative writing. His work can be seen in Potato Soup Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Mercurial Stories, Forth Magazine, Tuck Magazine and Spillwords Press, among other places. Henry also runs writing support groups for people with mental health issues.
\n 
\nMark Blickley<\/a><\/strong> is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN American Center. He is the author of Sacred Misfits (Red Hen Press), Weathered Reports: Trump Surrogate Quotes from the Underground (Moira Books) and the forthcoming text based art book, Dream Streams (Clare Songbirds Publishing). His video, Widow’s Peek: The Kiss of Death, was selected to the 2018 International Experimental Film Festival in Bilbao, Spain. He is a 2018 Audie Award Finalist for his contribution to the original audio book, Nevertheless We Persisted.
\n 
\nWilliam C. Blome<\/a><\/strong> writes poetry and short fiction. He lives wedged between Baltimore and Washington, DC, and he is a master\u2019s degree graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. His work has previously seen the light of day in such fine little mags as Poetry London, PRISM International, In Between Hangovers, Fiction Southeast, Roanoke Review, and The California Quarterly.
\n 
\nKat Bodrie<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s prose and poetry have appeared in Waymark: Voices of the Valley, West Texas Literary Review, and other online and print publications. She writes for local magazines and teaches English in North Carolina. Learn more at katbodrie.com.
\n 
\nJacob Butlett<\/a><\/strong> (he\/him) holds an Associates in General Studies and a bachelor’s in Creative Writing. In 2017 he won the Bauerly-Roseliep Scholarship for literary excellence, and in 2018 he received a Pushcart Prize nomination for his poetry. Some of his work has been published in The MacGuffin, Panoply, Cacti Fur, Gone Lawn, Word Fountain, Ghost City Review, Lunch Ticket, Fterota Logia, Into the Void, and plain china.
\n 
\nWendy Taylor Carlisle<\/a><\/strong> lives barefoot in the Arkansas Ozarks. She is the author of three books, and five chapbooks, her most recent book, The Mercy of Traffic, came out this month. For more information, check her website at www.wendytaylorcarlisle.com.
\n 
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/a><\/strong> has built or repaired hundreds of houses as carpenter\/contractor in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest book is Foggy Dog: Poems of the Pacific Coast. joecottonwood.com
\n 
\nKen Cumberlidge<\/a><\/strong>: 6ft 2″ \/ 194lbs. An older example of the breed, but keen to learn new tricks. Good around the house. Can be left unsupervised in mixed company with minimal risk. Recent evidence can be found variously online (Algebra of Owls \/ Allegro \/ Ink Sweat & Tears \/ Message In A Bottle \/ The Open Mouse \/ Picaroon \/ Pulsar \/ Rat’s Ass Review \/ Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis \/ Strange Poetry \/ Snakeskin \/ etc.) and on his Soundcloud page:
\nhttps:\/\/www.soundcloud.com\/ken_cumberlidge_poetry
\n 
\nDonna Dallas<\/a><\/strong> studied Creative Writing and Philosophy at NYU\u2019s Gallatin School and was lucky enough to study under William Packard, founder and editor of the New York Quarterly. She is recently found or forthcoming in 34th Parallel, Sick Lit Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Beautiful Losers, Chiron Review and Bewildering Stories, among many other publications.
\n 
\nHolly Day<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poetry has recently appeared in The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle. Her newest poetry collections are A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press), In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski\u2019s Porch Publishing), I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.), and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy (Alien Buddha Press).
\n 
\nClive Donovan<\/a><\/strong> devotes himself full-time to poetry and has published in a wide variety of magazines including The Journal, Agenda, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prole, Stand and The Transnational. He lives in the creative atmosphere of Totnes in Devon, U.K. often walking along the River Dart for inspiration. He has yet to make a first collection.
\n 
\n“In Confidence,” using lines from Wallace Stevens “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”, is Susan J. Erickson<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s first Golden Shovel poem. Her collection of poems, in women\u2019s voices, Lauren Bacall Shares a Limousine, won the Brick Road Poetry Prize. Susan lives in Bellingham, Washington, where she helped establish the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Walk and Contest. Her poems appear in Rattle, Crab Creek Review, Verse Daily, Sliver of Stone, The Fourth River and Terrain.
\n 
\nKarin L. Frank<\/a><\/strong> is an award-winning author from the Kansas City area. Her poems and prose have been published in both literary journals and genre magazines in the U.S. and abroad.
\n 
\nSince 2014 Frederick Foote<\/a><\/strong> has published over two-hundred-fifty stories and poems including literary, science fiction, fables, and horror genres. Frederick has published two short story collections, For the Sake of Soul, (2015) and, Crossroads Encounters, (2016). Frederick hosts the Prose and Poetry Meet Up group and is a member of the INK writers workshop and is currently preparing a short story collection manuscript.
\n 
\nRetired Navy, James Fowler<\/a><\/strong> lives in Charlestown, NH, and has over two-hundred fifty poems and over fifty short stories or flash fiction published in various journals and anthologies. He edited the poetry anthology Heartbeat of New England (Tiger Moon Publication, 2000) as his final practicum for his Master\u2019s in Environmental Science. Finishing Line Press published a chapbook of his Japanese forms, Connections to This World, in March, 2012. His book, Falling Ashes, was volume VII in Hobblebush Press\u2019s Granite State Poets series. In 2015 he retired after thirteen years of privately teaching poetry. He spends his time on various town committees, most of it for the Conservation Commission and the Library Trustees.
\n 
\nMeg Freer<\/a><\/strong> grew up in Montana and lives in Ontario. Her poems have won awards and have been accepted for publication in chapbook anthologies and journals such as NatureWriting, COG, Young Ravens Literary Review, Eastern Iowa Review and Literary Nest. In 2017 she won a writing fellowship and attended the Summer Literary Seminars in Tbilisi. She enjoys being active outdoors year-round, taking photos, and running, and wishes she had more time for writing poetry.
\n 
\nDan Galef<\/a><\/strong> has been an actor, a teacher, a printer’s devil, a dictionary definition, and probably some other things he’s forgotten. Besides poetry (in New York Magazine, The J Journal: New Writing on Justice, and The Christian Century), he also writes short stories and plays—including The Bottomless Pit in the Back Room of Nick’s Speakeasy, now up at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre MainLine in Montreal.
\n 
\nJohn Grey<\/a><\/strong> is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Midwest Quarterly, Poetry East and Columbia Review with work upcoming in South Florida Poetry Journal, Hawaii Review and Roanoke Review.
\n 
\nJames Hannon<\/a><\/strong> is a psychotherapist in Massachusetts where he accompanies adults and adolescents recovering from addictions, disappointments and illusions. His poems have appeared in Cold Mountain Review, Soundings East, Zetetic and other journals, and in Gathered: Contemporary Quaker Poets.
\n 
\nLois Marie Harrod<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s 16th and most recent collection Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks. She is continually published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3. Visit her online work at www.loismarieharrod.org
\n 
\nMichelle <\/strong>Hartman<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s forthcoming book, Wanton Disarray, along with her other 3 books, it is available on Amazon. Hartman\u2019s work can be found online, in multiple journals here, and various countries overseas. She is the former editor of Red River Review.
\n 
\nAward-winning poet and photographer Ryn Holmes<\/a><\/strong> originated from the bottom and top of California before residing along the Gulf Coast of Florida. She is a partner in K & K Writing Services, a co-editor of Panoply ezine, and has written and photographic works in several journals.
\n 
\nBec Kashuba<\/a><\/strong>, despite majoring in Writing and Publishing, isn’t all about poetry and creative nonfiction. Remember Silly Bandz, those animal-shaped rubber bracelets? Bec almost got detention for dealing them under the radar after his elementary school banned them. When he’s not hawking rubber bands, Bec spends his time at his Pittsburgh home drinking black coffee and writing things that concern his mom. He thinks Margaritaville should be classified as a unique form of torture.
\n 
\nJulia Caroline Knowlton<\/a><\/strong> holds a BA degree in English\/French from Duke, MA & PhD degrees in French Literature from UNC-Chapel Hill, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. A Professor of French at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, she is the author of a scholarly book, a memoir, and a poetry chapbook. Her accomplishments include an Academy of American Poets College Prize, a Pushcart Prize nomination, and a fellowship from Antioch . She is currently focused on polishing and publishing her first full-length book of poems. Her author www site is: http:\/\/juliacarolineknowlton.agnesscott.org\/
\n 
\nMiriam Kotzin<\/a><\/strong> teaches creative writing and literature at Drexel University. Her collection of short fiction, Country Music (Spuyten Duyvil Press 2017), joins a novel, The Real Deal (Brick House Press 2012), and a collection of flash fiction, Just Desserts (Star Cloud Press 2010). She is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently, Debris Field (David Robert Books 2017). She is a contributing editor of Boulevard.
\n 
\nMare Leonard<\/a><\/strong> lives in an old school house overlooking The Rondout Creek. Away from her own personal blackboard, she teaches through The Institute for Writing and Thinking and the MAT program at Bard College. Finishing Line Press just released her new chapbook and The Pickled Body recently nominated a poem for a Pushcart.
\n 
\nMichael H. Levin<\/a><\/strong> is a lawyer, solar energy developer and writer based in Washington DC. His work has appeared in two chapbooks and dozens of periodicals or anthologies and has received numerous poetry and feature journalism awards. His collection Watered Colors (Poetica) was named a Best Poetry Book for May 2014 by the Washington Independent Review of Books. WIRoB named his recent collection, Man Overboard (Finishing Line Press), a Best Poetry Book for December 2018. His third collection, Falcons, is in process. He and his wife Nora Jean Levin wrote and co-produced Two Pianos: Playing for Life, a historically-themed event with live classical music about young women pianists performing under and after the Third Reich that premiered in Philadelphia June 2018 and is on its way to Leipzig Germany plus other venues. See www.michaellevinpoetry.com
\n 
\nLisa L\u00f3pez Smith<\/a><\/strong> lives and writes from her home in central Mexico. When she’s not wrangling kids or goats or rescue dogs, you can probably find her riding her bike. Recent and forthcoming publications include Coal Hill Review, Lacuna Magazine, Mothers Always Write, Masque & Spectacle, Rise Up, and the Esthetic Apostle.
\n 
\nBob MacKenzie<\/a><\/strong>‘s been published across North America and worldwide in journals including Dalhousie Review, Windsor Review, and Literary Review of Canada. He’s published eight books of poetry and been featured in numerous anthologies. Bob performs his poetry solo and with musicians. With the group Poem de Terre, he’s performed his poetry live with original music and released six albums. Bob’s latest book is “somewhere still in wind the tree is bending” (Silver Bow Publishing, 2018).
\n 
\nJack Mackey<\/a><\/strong> lives in Southern Delaware and Washington, D.C. He was recently chosen by the Delaware Division of the Arts to participate in the bi-annual Writers\u2019 Retreat. His poems have appeared in publications from Darkhouse Books, the Rehoboth Beach Writers\u2019 Guild, and The Compassionate Friends.
\n 
\nJ.C. Mari<\/a><\/strong> resides in Florida. He is the author of the poetry collection ‘the sun sets like faces fade right before you pass out.’
\n 
\nTim Mayo<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s second volume of poems, Thesaurus of Separation (Phoenicia Publishing, Montr\u00e9al, 2016) was a finalist for the 2017 Montaigne Medal and the 2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award. His poems and\/or reviews have appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Avatar Review, Barrows Street, Narrative Magazine, Poetry International, Poet Lore, Salamander, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Web Del Sol Review of Books. He lives in southern Vermont where he works in a Mental Hospital.
\n 
\nE.V. McLaughlin<\/a><\/strong>‘s writing appeared in Awkward Mermaid, Bangor Literary Journal, Panning for Poems, and Rat’s Ass Review. Her poems were longlisted for Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2016 and shortlisted for the Fresher Writing Prize 2017. E.V. loves coffee, books, and city lights and lives in Co. Down, Northern Ireland with her husband and son.
\n 
\nJason Morphew<\/a><\/strong> started life in a mobile home in Pike County, Arkansas; he holds a PhD in English Renaissance Literature from UCLA. TheWashington Post calls Morphew\u2019s full-length collection dead boy a \u201cstriking debut … presented with an edginess and sharp intelligence that make the poems pop.” He\u2019s shared stages with Claudia Rankine, Afaa Michael Weaver, and Joe Wenderoth. As a singer-songwriter Morphew has released albums on the labels Brassland, Ba Da Bing, Max, and Unread. He lives in Laurel Canyon and teaches at local colleges and universities.
\n 
\nJohn Muth<\/a><\/strong> was born and raised in central New Jersey. For the last eighteen years, he has been an academic advisor, working for Rutgers University. Some of his poems have appeared in San Pedro River Review, Verse-Virtual, and US 1 Worksheets. His latest book, Odysseus in Absaroka (Aldrich Press), was published this year and can be found on Amazon.com.
\n 
\nDarrell Petska<\/a><\/strong>‘s poetry has appeared in Verse-Virtual, Chiron Review, Star 82 Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Rat’s Ass Review and widely elsewhere (see conservancies.wordpress.com). Darrell has tallied 30+ years as university editor, 40 years as a dad (six years as grandpa), and a half century as a husband. He’s a Wisconsinite.
\n 
\nS.J. Relandi<\/a><\/strong> is a budding self-publish author. She is pushing into the published world to bring her works to a larger audience. She dabbles in poetry and experimental flash fiction, but deals mostly with long and short fiction.
\n 
\nCinthia Ritchie<\/a><\/strong> is an Alaska writer, ultra-runner and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Find her work at New York Times Magazine, Evening Street Review, Sport Literate, Rattle, Best American Sports Writing, Mary, Into the Void, Clementine Unbound, Deaf Poets Society, Forgotten Women anthology, Nasty Women anthology, Gyroscope Review, Bosque Literary Journal, The Hunger Journal and others.
\n 
\nR.D. Ronstad<\/a><\/strong> is retired and lives in Phoenix, Az. He writes humor pieces as well as poetry. His work has appeared or will appear on the literary humor sites “The Big Jewel” and “Defenestration” and the poetry site “Bindweed Magazine.”
\n 
\nWendy L. Schmidt<\/strong> is a native of Wisconsin. Her art appears here<\/a> and here<\/a>. She has been writing short stories and poetry for the last ten years. The Four C’s; cat, chocolate, coffee, and computer are her chosen writing tools. Pieces have been published in Daily Flash 2012, Haunted Object, No Rest for the Wicked, Verse Wisconsin, Chicago Literati, City Lake Poets and a number of fiction and poetry anthologies.
\n 
\nPenelope Scambly Schott<\/a><\/strong> is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Recent books are HOUSE OF THE CARDAMOM SEED and NOVEMBER QUILT.
\n 
\nKaren Schubert<\/a><\/strong> is the author of five poetry chapbooks, most recently Dear Youngstown (NightBallet Press, 2019) Black Sand Beach (Kattywompus Press) and I Left My Wings on a Chair (Kent State Press), selected by Kathleen Flenniken for a Wick Poetry Center Chapbook Prize. Her poems and creative nonfiction have been published in Best American Poetry Online, Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Lake Effect Poetry and Winning Writers, and performed at the Cleveland Humanities Festival. Her awards include residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Headlands Center for the Arts. She is Director of Lit at Youngstown in northeast Ohio, and blogs at http:\/\/karenschubert.blogspot.com\/.
\n 
\nClaire Scott<\/a><\/strong> is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn\u2019t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters\u2019 Journey in Photography and Poetry.
\n 
\nMary Sesso<\/a><\/strong> is a retired nurse who volunteers at the National Children\u2019s Center where she sits on the Human Rights Committee. Her Poems have appeared in a number of journals and her chapbook, The Open Window, was published a year ago by Finishing Line Press.
\n 
\nMir-Yashar Seyedbagheri<\/a><\/strong>
\nis a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. He is the recipient of two Honorable Mentions from Glimmer Train and has had work nominated for The Best Small Fictions. His work is forthcoming or has appeared in journals such as Train Lit Mag, Bended Genres Journal, Sinkhole Mag, and Gravel Magazine. He lives in Fort Collins, CO.
\n 
\nJacquelyn Shah<\/a><\/strong> (M.A., M.F.A., Ph.D.\u2013English literature, creative writing) has received grants from the Houston Arts Alliance and her work has appeared in journals such as Cranky, The Texas Review, Anon (Britain), and Rhino. She has published a poetry chapbook, small fry (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and a full-length poetry book, What to Do with Red (LitFestPress, 2018), and is a recent winner of Literal Latt\u00e9\u2019s Food Verse contest.
\n 
\nPaul Smith<\/a><\/strong> writes poetry & fiction. He lives in Skokie, Illinois with his wife Flavia. Sometimes he performs poetry at an open mic in Chicago. He believes that brevity is the soul of something he read about once, and whatever that something is or was, it should be cut in half immediately.
\n 
\nElizabethanne Spiotta<\/a><\/strong> is a poet mother widow chaplain who often wonders if she will ever get her head out of the clouds. She is living the good life in the country on the water.
\n 
\nSixty-eight years old, of Cherokee\/German extraction, Tom (WordWulf) Sterner<\/a><\/strong> is a writer, vocalist and multi\/media artist. A native of Colorado, he lives in Westminster, Colorado. He writes and performs music with his sons, Tommy and Zedidiah. His music, poetry, stories, artwork, and photography have been published in magazines and on the internet, including Howling Dog Press\/Omega, Skyline Literary Review, New American Dream, The Storyteller, Carpe Articulum Literary Review and Flashquake. http:\/\/wordwulf.com http:\/\/wordwulf.org wordwulf@gmail.com
\n 
\nFor her sins, Susan Thornton<\/a><\/strong> teaches French at a high school in Endicott New York. Her work has appeared in Rats Ass Review, SoFloPoJo, Best American Mystery Stores 2016 and Dark Fire Fiction. Her memoir, On Broken Glass: Loving and Losing John Gardner, was published in 2000 by Carroll and Graf, NY.
\n 
\nMichelle Tinklepaugh<\/a><\/strong> (aka Watters<\/strong>)’s poems have been published in various literary magazines. Her most recent publication in Misfit Magazine is a pushcart nominee and she has a poem forthcoming in The Inflectionist Review. Michelle lives in South Burlington, Vermont with her husband Jeremy and her daughter Annabelle.
\n 
\nPeggy Turnbull<\/a><\/strong> is a poet and librarian who lives on the border between ecotourism and the industrial midwest. Her poems have recently appeared in New Verse News, Ristau, MOON Magazine, and the Origami Poems Project.
\n 
\nEd Wade<\/a><\/strong> expatriated from the US in 2012 and has since lived in the quaint chaos of Hanoi, Vietnam. There, he writes and lectures for the Professional Communication department at RMIT University. Ed’s latest poems can be found in Rattle online, The Comstock Review, Sport Literate, & The HitchLit Review. He is currently seeking a publisher for a poetry chapbook entitled The Mise en Abyme Jokebook.
\n 
\nErin Wilson<\/a><\/strong>‘s poems have appeared in, or are forthcoming in, The American Journal of Poetry, The Adirondack Review, San Pedro River Review, Minola Review, The Hunger, SWWIM, Dying Dahlia Review, Juked and Kestrel. She lives and writes in a small town in northern Ontario, Canada.
\n 
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Edited by Roderick Bates<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

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RAT’S ASS REVIEW SPRING-SUMMER ISSUE 2019 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<\/p>\n<\/h4>\n

 
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    (Cover Art Baked Bikini by Wendy L. Schmidt)     Roy J. Adams     THE OPHTHALMOLOGIST PEERS   into my eyes her ears tantalize     Pamela Ahlen     DESIGNER VAGINA   The BOTOX\u00ae look is a comely delusion\u2014 lips puffed aspartame-sweet like a blow-fish engorged with bonhomie.   But down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3205,"parent":0,"menu_order":20,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3186","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nSummer 2019 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=3186\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Summer 2019 Issue -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"    (Cover Art Baked Bikini by Wendy L. Schmidt)     Roy J. 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