{"id":3397,"date":"2020-04-08T21:38:36","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T01:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=3397"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T22:14:08","slug":"summer-2020-issue","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=3397","title":{"rendered":"Summer 2020 Issue<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n<\/a>
\n 
\n

\"\"<\/a>
photo: Shitty Advice<\/i> by Alexis Rhone Fancher<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGlen Armstrong<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBOILED WATER AND KETCHUP
\n 
\nOn the stairs,
\nI eat cabbage soup,
\n 
\nbut the \u201cstairs\u201d
\nand the \u201ccabbage\u201d
\n 
\nare there just to make
\nmy life sound
\n 
\nbetter,
\nmore there for you
\n 
\nlike matching chairs
\nor money.
\n 
\nIn the stars,
\nI have no faith.
\n 
\nYou find significance
\nin the day
\n 
\nof my birth.
\nI eat butter and sugar,
\n 
\nstale cake and crow.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Ayres<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWAILING
\n 
\nFrom the garage apartment, my
\ndaughter texts: Was that you?<\/i>
\n 
\nI answer: No. I thought it
\nwas you<\/i>. Attempted suicides,
\n 
\nrunning away, psych wards\u2014
\nwe\u2019re primed for tragedy, my
\n 
\nheart races easily, she\u2019s coded
\nfor anxiety. More than one night
\n 
\nwe hear wailing. I text:
\nMaybe it\u2019s La Llorona. Maybe<\/i>
\n 
\nit\u2019s a coyote. Bring in the cat<\/i>.
\nThe coyote runs down the alley
\n 
\nhowling like a woman who\u2019s killed
\nher children, like a woman scorned,
\n 
\nher wails like La Llorona\u2019s, like
\nFanny and Alexander\u2019s mother
\n 
\nkeening the night her husband
\ndied while her children watched
\n 
\nher pace and wail, spying wide-eyed
\nand frightened, like the feral kittens
\n 
\nwe find on the lawn, dismembered.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Bagato<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nKEEPING IT FOREVER
\n 
\nBillie misses her bus,
\nso we walk toward her office.
\nA few blocks down
\nshe takes my hand;
\nthe traffic beside us fades away
\nwith its horns, its engines,
\nits smoke, its heat.
\n\u201cWait a minute,\u201d Billie says,
\nstopping in mid-stride.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s something in my shoe.\u201d
\nShe leans on me to crook
\nher left leg and pull her pump
\noff by its heel. A rock
\nthe size and shape of a dried bean
\nfalls out on the concrete.
\nI pick up the smooth stone, put it
\nin the palm of her hand.
\nLooking into her eyes, I laugh,
\n\u201cThe princess and the pebble.\u201d
\nBillie puts her arm in mine
\nand pulls me to the corner caf\u00e9.
\n\u201cJust for that, you can buy
\nyour princess a coffee.\u201d
\nSitting outside, she pushes the stone
\naround the table as she sips
\nfrom her paper cup.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s our baby,\u201d she says at last,
\n\u201cand I\u2019m keeping it forever.\u201d
\n 
\n 
\nHOLDING ON TIGHT
\n 
\nOn Saturday Billie gets up
\nhalf an hour after I do;
\nshe finds me at the stove
\nheating a cast iron skillet.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s cookin\u2019 good lookin\u2019?\u201d
\nshe says, wearing my boxer shorts
\nwith the blue and green stripes
\nand my red-checked flannel shirt,
\nthreadbare, loose and soft.
\n\u201cWelcome to brunch,\u201d I say,
\n\u201cfried baloney and a slice
\nof cheese on toast.\u201d
\nShe yawns, rubbing her eyes;
\n\u201cThere better be coffee.\u201d
\nI point to the machine dripping
\nhot water on the grounds,
\nsteaming out the charred warmth
\nof musky earth, the smell
\nof primal life, fresh and strong.
\nFrom the cupboard, Billie takes
\ntwo mugs, adding sugar
\nand a bit of milk to each.
\nThe baloney sizzles up
\nin glossy mounds;
\nI flip the slices
\nto brown their other sides.
\nShe stands behind me,
\nresting her head on my back
\nand holding on tight.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Baker<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTUESDAYS IN NEW JERSEY
\n 
\nHalloween, and I watch my son, intrepid Superman,
\ntrip over his cape, walking around Union City with his class
\nof four-year-olds. They hang tightly to a long white rope.
\nI am a fearful man as it is lately, no hero, afraid
\nof black cats and masked men, over-worried
\nabout cars suddenly careening out of control,
\nof Kryptonite falling from the black heavens.
\nThis park, a patchy place of green and cement,
\nprovides cold comfort: it is deserted.
\n 
\nI need a cigar. Across the street
\nfrom Martin\u2019s school, a funeral home. Today,
\npeople will bury Jose Hernandez, aged twelve,
\nailments, desires, and ending unknown to me. His mother
\nwears brown, carried aloft by a throng of family
\nand do-gooders. Our eyes meet, and she is ashamed
\nof her grief. I want to help carry the casket
\nto the hearse, but it is small, grey, shiny
\nin the unusual searing sun and heat.
\nThe casket is not five feet long. This cigar
\ntastes like burning black tires after
\nskidding over a vast sandy stretch.
\n 
\nInside for lunch I help serve pizzas
\nand Oreos. My son will probably turn out gay\u2014
\nhe likes show tunes and wipes the crumbs
\noff the dirty mouths
\nof other boys. This is all fine with me.
\nI am in a state of shock anyways, no longer
\nbound by laws of narration or newspapers. In the corner,
\na timid Dominican breastfeeds her four-month son.
\nThey are more beautiful than Abraham\u2019s wrists.
\nI stare, unafraid to show my concern. Her brown breast
\nappears full. I fall to my knees and reach
\nfor that woman\u2019s daughter,
\nmy son\u2019s classmate, and clasp her
\nto my heaving chest, whispering into her frightened ear,
\nthere is enough today, for once, to go around.
\n 
\n 
\nIN AKRON, OHIO WHERE TRAGEDIES HAPPEN TWICE A DAY
\n 
\nShe said all there is is tuna salad
\nand I said nothing after fucking tastes good
\nand this damned door doesn\u2019t close correctly
\ninto the battered oak of this falling frame
\non Kling Street in Akron. I go outside
\nunprepared for the first snow, a twitchy rain
\nthat sucks up the light before moving east
\nwith head speed to other nervous onlookers,
\nErie, Buffalo, Boston, and then disappearing
\ninto the cracked-in-half Atlantic. My sock prints
\nare soon covered over.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlan Bern<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSITTING ALONE PERFECT
\n 
\nwhy do
\nthey not talk
\nabout me?
\n 
\nsitting alone perfect
\nheart out ripped look red
\nfirst feet met made kicked
\ndown take spent fist fit
\n 
\nmid
\nnight
\non way
\nsitting alone perfect
\nin my
\npassing
\nin the Hall
\nSpirits
\n 
\nwith all I know
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Beveridge<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nALTARBOY
\n 
\nShe made
\nimages flash
\nin my head
\n 
\nthe girl
\nfrom eighth grade
\nwho whispered
\nin my ear
\npromised me
\na home run
\n 
\njust lay back
\nshe said
\nand let me do
\nall the work
\n 
\nI’d heard that before
\nit sounded like what
\nthe parish priest said
\nbefore he drowned me
\n 
\nand when she
\ntouched me
\nlike he did
\nI struck out
\n 
\n 
\nINCIDENT ON OLD MILL RD.
\n 
\nIan stumbles
\nto the door,
\nknocks.
\n1:30AM.
\nJamie answers
\n  what the fuck
\n  are you doing here
\nthen notices
\nhe’s seeing Ian through
\na haze of blood
\n  car broke down man
\nJamie pulls him in
\n  you drunk
\n  yeah
\n  what the fuck
\n  you driving for you dumb
\n  shit you coulda killed
\n  someone
\nIan shakes his head
\nblood droplets stain
\nthe throwrug
\nand whispers
\n  holy shit
\n  what, what’s wrong
\n  the chick
\n  in my car, man, I think
\n  she’s dead
\nso they go out to the car
\nshe’s dead all right
\nface sunk in
\nto the dashboard
\nlike an angel
\nfalling from heaven
\ninto a marshmallow
\nJamie stares at her
\n  I don’t recognize
\n  her hair man
\n  who is she
\n  I dunno
\n  I just picked her up
\n  in a bar somewhere
\nJamie gets an idea, says
\n  come on
\n  we got work to do
\nand by morning
\nthe car is a pile
\nof scrap
\nand the girl
\nhas disappeared
\ninto the Allegheny
\nseven and a half miles
\nfrom Jamie’s house
\nand they are at Jamie’s house
\nthey drink beer
\nand Jamie bandages Ian’s wounds
\nand no one
\nwill ever
\nfind out
\nthe girl’s parents
\nwill file
\na missing persons claim
\nbut tell no one they believe
\nshe eloped to Tijuana
\nwith the high priest
\nof a drug cult
\nJamie and Ian
\ngo out and get
\nanother ’72 Torino
\njust like Ian’s old one
\nsplit a sixpack
\non the way home
\n 
\n 
\nRIVER, NOVEMBER 5, 1992
\n 
\nCurled up
\non your sofa, you sip
\npeppermint tea
\nwait for the kiss
\nI hope you’ll allow me.
\n 
\nYou’re almost small enough
\nto curl up in my lap
\nmy arms around you
\nwith one hand on a thigh
\nwhile the other strokes your arm.
\n 
\nYou rub your cheek
\nagainst the flannel of my shirt
\na playful nip on my arm
\nand a wicked smile.
\n 
\nQuick, my lips
\non the back of your neck
\nand we stretched out, clutched
\none another, chests together, legs
\nentwined. Nuzzled,
\n 
\nlaughed, gasped,
\nwondered how both of us
\nwere lucky enough
\nto get here
\nas we kiss, deep
\nforget there’s a world
\nbeyond the door
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHenry Bladon<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSEISMIC INTIMACY
\n 
\nMonica lives in a deserted tower block,
\nin her kitchen there\u2019s a clock with no hands
\nand although she cares about climate change
\nshe thinks that deductive reasoning is moribund.
\n 
\nI find this to be an abhorrent position.
\nWe have always been honest with each other
\nso I suggested she deduce the reason
\nI cannot continue to see her.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMark Blickley<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGRAVITY GRATEFUL
\n 
\nLooking down from high places don\u2019t bother me at all but when I have to look up at things like buildings it makes me nervous cause it feels like some kind of force like a magnet or something is going to pull me up and lift me off the ground which is a lot worse than falling \u2018cause if you\u2019re falling down you know you\u2019re falling and that\u2019s that but if you get pulled off the ground and lifted into the air you\u2019re not falling but you could fall at any moment and there\u2019s no end because if you fall you have to land but if you\u2019re lifted up it could go on forever and I hate that.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBeau Blue<\/strong>
\n 
\nALICIA STONEHART    (video)<\/a>
\n 
\nShe wanted a little room for thinking,
\nanother for sleeping with strangers
\nshe’d meet in out-of-the-way bars.
\nA space for counting the slights
\nshe endured during her time at work
\ndelivering proposals to bored boardroom
\ncolleagues waiting to escape to ski slopes.
\nShe needed a room for stitching desire
\ninto slinky black dresses, another
\nfor dinner meals taken alone in dim light.
\nA cage for her anger, a den for self-pity,
\nand a large cavern to hold the echoes of her dreams.
\n 
\n 
\nANCIENT APPAREL     (video)<\/a>
\n 
\nshe sold antique clothes
\nfor exorbitant amounts
\nbut not often
\nin a neighborhood side street
\nstore front that she got for
\na really great rate
\ncause Andy owns the building
\nand he’s not much of a negotiator
\nwhen he’s naked
\nwhich he was and she just
\nhappened to have her
\nbankers glasses on.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE TROUBLE WITH SWANS     (video)<\/a>
\n 
\nSwans are mean ..
\nmeaner than geese
\nand mallards and mangy dogs,
\ncats or little girls chasing
\nbutterflies with a net ..
\nJust plain mean
\nand stubborn and sometimes
\ndumber than posts
\nand when they’re noisy
\nrun away quickly ’cause
\nthey bite and spit when they’re yelling ..
\nLike men ..
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBrett Bourbon<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI MISS HER
\n 
\nThe possible and the actual spin a toy propeller.
\nMy life\u2019s a model airplane, every day a flight
\nof fable. Thus, we flew the globe together.
\nNow, she\u2019s . . . I don’t know . . .
\na rubber ball.
\nShe\u2019ll bounce like balls
\ndo, I think, but back
\nshe shoots stole
\nby an elastic string I can\u2019t see.
\nThe paddle, what\u2019s the paddle
\nin this battle of wrack and whack?
\nIt\u2019s her fear and it\u2019s me
\nin the wrong game.
\nThe ball\u2019s her trap.
\nShe\u2019s inside,
\nensphered.
\nA rubber snap,
\nand back she goes
\nAnd I miss her.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarcus Chinn<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE INHERITANCE
\n 
\n\u201cThe younger one said to his father,
\n\u2018Father, give me my share of the estate.\u2019
\nSo he divided his property between them.\u201d
\nemsp;emsp;–Luke 15:12<\/i>
\n 
\nI met a PEZ dispenser collection
\ncomplete with fungal-eyed Donald Duck
\nSanta Claus of black mold
\nand a brown sticky stained JFK
\nbut never met my grandfather\u2019s brother
\nnever knew the man who owned the house
\nwith the power permanently shut off
\nI knew his boxes of tools
\nand lawn mower parts
\nphotos shoved in suitcases
\nspilling war memorabilia hula dolls
\nhis blankets and towels
\nhis drawer of stained underwear
\nI knew his jar full of doorknobs
\na box full of dog collars
\nwith tags still attached
\nshopping bags of congealed
\nbananas in the closet
\nnext to his rifles and shotguns
\nI knew the woods of his backyard
\nDouglas Firs and Spruce
\nBig Leaf Maples and Alders
\nshooting through Stinging Nettles
\nand Salmon Berry bushes
\nthe lumpy rooted ground
\nand layers of pine needles
\nturned into dirt
\nwe took box after crate
\nand crate after box
\nof burnable and unburnable shit
\nand threw it on a burn pile
\nwhich teetered and twisted
\nwith each new addition
\nlike a beaten MechaGodzilla
\nwe dismantled his double-wide labyrinth
\nthe twelve of us grandkids
\nonly illuminated by chinks of light
\ncracked in the panes of plastic
\ngangly shadelings
\ngreen skinned and yellow smiled
\nour hoodies and jeans reeked of smoke
\nwe found reel after reel
\nof porno films
\nand read the little preview booklets
\nholding our breaths
\nmemorizing each pretzel
\nof orange-ish flesh and shadow
\nand name tamed each little fetish
\nwe found magazines
\nunder his bed that dissolved
\ninto mucus in our rubber gloves
\nwe found license plates
\nfrom all the states
\nperched in an a-frame
\non coffee tins full of matchbooks
\nfrom cities we\u2019d only heard about
\nsome monsters love a maze
\nlove to loiter lost
\nin stacks of old telephone books
\nor reams of graph paper
\nsoaked through with coffee
\nsome monsters burn
\nat the center
\nlike sparklers duct taped and spitting
\nwe found a bookshelf
\nfull but not with the same bulging
\nas the kitchen cabinets
\nnot with the same melancholy
\nof the partially dismantled
\nmotorcycle engine
\nleft on the guest bed
\nthere\u2019s a comfort
\nin seeing shelves
\nstuffed with books
\nlike watching one\u2019s parents
\nkiss open-mouthed
\nso in spite of the damp
\nboxes bound with electrical tape
\nand the smell of rotten pot-pies
\nunder the watchful eyes
\nof John Wayne Dean Martin and velvet Jesus
\nthere was a melted butter part of me
\nthat wanted a moment to thumb the covers
\nto grab a hardback
\nand glance at the synopsis
\npretend to read it
\ntrace the spine
\nmurmur in the secret
\nunderstanding of the over-read
\nthe books lit up blue
\nflames licked the ink from covers
\nand cradled burlap-bound bindings
\nin trembling arms of gold and green
\nmy grandfather shoved the guns
\nand a few Charlie Pride records
\ninto his truck bed and bounced away
\nI never knew why
\nthey never spoke
\nsince my grandfather\u2019d
\ncome back from the war
\nI\u2019d heard it might\u2019ve been
\nmy grandmother
\nor their mother\u2019s death
\nor not paying a mortgage
\nwith the money being sent home
\nbut my grandfather enlisted at seventeen
\nand what kind of asshole
\nexpects a fifteen year old
\nto pay a mortgage
\nand holds it against them
\neven as they go into hospice
\nprobably the same kind of asshole
\nwho\u2019d leave twelve teenagers
\nin charge of an epic burn pile
\nwith two gallons of gas
\nand only one fire extinguisher
\nI can\u2019t remember who decided
\nthat the warrant to just burn everything
\nincluded parts of the house
\nlike the wooden panels from the walls
\nand the garbage disposal
\nbut I was the one who decided
\nto put the fridge through
\nthe living room window
\nand it was me who threw in the fire alarms
\nwhen they started screaming
\nas the smoke started billowing in
\nwe ripped out the bathroom vanity
\nand the kitchen cabinets
\nwe tore out the carpet
\nand yanked up the floorboards
\ntill we found a dead cat in the joists
\nhead cradled in its stiff arms
\nwe all stopped and watched
\nmy sister gently wrapped it
\nin a Seahawks blanket
\nand set it on fire
\nwe left the floor alone after that
\nand started tossing in shingles from the roof
\nwe went out into the woods
\nand snagged snakes and slugs
\nfrom under fallen logs
\ncovered in lichen
\nfrom the insides of ferns
\nthick with spore
\nand whirled them in
\nwhere they popped and hissed
\nthen we threw in the ferns
\npulling them out by the roots
\nand they sang for us
\nwe were disappointed
\nwhen we threw in a whole
\nunopened fireworks box
\nnothing happened
\nbut a ripped open bag of flour
\ncaught our clothes on fire
\nin an unexpected whoosh of light
\nwe made torches of dripping plastic
\nand shoved them into anthills
\nand into the siding
\nstill on the house
\nnecessitating extinguisher
\nnecessitating a potassium bicarbonate
\ngame of freeze tag
\nwe went up the road
\ndug up the mailbox
\nand heaved it in
\nwith the cement still attached
\nthat day\u2019s coupons spilled out
\nlike corneas of ash
\nwe threw in our boombox as it warbled
\na punk cover of Favorite Things
\nfrom Sound of Music
\nskinny bare-chested
\nwe breathed in the smoke
\nand screamed new screams
\nfor the dead things inside us
\nwe spoke in tongues
\nall the languages of the world
\nthe language of the angels
\nascendant and fallen
\nwho gathered in our name
\nas we convulsed on the ground
\nfilled with the holy spirit
\nwe skanked till we puked
\nand slid around in the holy mud
\nof our own blessed vomit
\nwe puked out all-you-can-eat pizza chunks
\nenough to open a Dominoes
\nwe puked out Ritalin and Vicodin
\ncreating a yellow brick road
\nand skipped down it arm in arm
\nwe puked black tumors the size of our fists
\nlike a genetic splicing
\nof cockroach and rutabaga
\nthat pulled themselves around
\non stubbed appendages through our sick
\nwe puked the waters of the Puget Sound
\nbitter as drowning
\nand filled the smoke with ghosts
\nthe memory corpulent crustaceans
\nthe memory of seaweed locked in ice
\nthe memory of saponified women in the dark
\nfor God was with us
\nour lips burned and cracked with fire
\nwe lifted our charred talons skyward
\nwet with gasoline and garbage
\nand God was fire
\nand we were God\u2019s ovens
\nwe roamed the earth
\ninviting people in
\nand grilling them clean
\nclean enough to eat
\n 
\n 
\nA CALL TO MUMMERY
\n 
\n\u201cLet your enemy see seven\u201d
\n  – The Seventh, Attila J\u00f3zsef<\/i>
\n 
\nIf you wish to be warm,
\nbetter start seven fires.
\nOne, with folded laundry and books,
\none, with sawdust packed motivational posters,
\none, with ballets in a booth,
\none, with the money from a till,
\none, with bras in a mall,
\none, with Molotov cocktails,
\nbut all their flames won\u2019t be enough:
\nyou yourself must be the seventh.
\n 
\nIf you don\u2019t wish to be alone,
\nbetter win seven friends.
\nOne, who fights like a copperhead,
\none, who karaokes like a boss,
\none, who cusses every time he speaks,
\none, who loans out Grand Theft Auto VI,
\none, who plays the body like a rainstick,
\none, who whispers all through the night.
\nTwo are loyal and four are fierce;
\nyou yourself must be the seventh.
\n 
\nIf you wish to trespass into joy,
\ncollude with seven criminals.
\nOne, who always gambles on red,
\none, who shakes a rattle-bag,
\none, who lies through a wooden nose,
\none, who sniffs glue and then sticks around taking apart toasters,
\none, who makes a big breakfast and sleeps all day,
\none, who shortcuts through San Pedro Sula for smokes,
\neach of these will lift the fence,
\nbut you yourself must be the seventh.
\n 
\nIf you want what the body wants,
\nswallow seven fruits whole.
\nOne, with the texture of crocodile skin,
\none, sweet as sin and stewed in knowing,
\none, bright with the light of an eclipse,
\none, dusted with stolen Funyuns,
\none, empty as an unsucked straw,
\none, filled with visions of oyster shell heaven.
\nTake half orally, the others as suppositories,
\nand you yourself must be the seventh.
\n 
\nIf you need another drink like a racer needs a roll-cage
\nbetter binge on seven juices.
\nOne, of fresh squeezed fossils left by Satan,
\none, of fermented juniper and myrrh,
\none, of colostrum sweetened with after birth,
\none, of seven kinds of apple,
\none, of a white bronco fleeing down the highway,
\none, of formaldehyde-mix pumped through a parent,
\nThree may blind you, all will hold you, none will wreck you,
\nyou yourself must be the seventh.
\n 
\nWhen all your brain walls fall apart like frozen peas
\nAnd all the cannibal corpses stumble in,
\nbetter pray at seven temples.
\nOne, that serves the ace of spades,
\none, that preaches reverse cowgirl incarnation,
\none, with a potluck after Sunday service,
\none, a redhead with a confident tap dance,
\none, an ancient ruin covered in graffiti,
\none, a seesaw train of candles lit and melting.
\nWhen everything\u2019s been gnawed away
\nand all the whisper words get said,
\nthere will be one last psalm for sing songing,
\none last gasp for gripe groping,
\nso you yourself must open up and be the seventh.
\n 
\nIf you wish to see the face of God,
\nbetter wear seven masks.
\nOne, of a cat full of bees and honeycomb,
\none, of a starling without holes,
\none, of River Phoenix grown old,
\none, of a chess match almost won,
\none, of a cockroach throwing a stone,
\none, of a televangelist just out of prison,
\nall of these together will not dim the light:
\nyou yourself must be the seventh.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nChris Cocca<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWIDOWING
\nAfter Wendell Berry<\/i>
\n 
\nMy old friend,
\nrecently widowed,
\ntexts about going for wings,
\n 
\nbut not at a bar,
\nwhich is where he met Lauren,
\nand I say, okay, then where?
\n 
\nA fire hall, maybe,
\nthough we are not men who hunt or fish,
\nor know how to harvest and sow.
\n 
\nWe know how to drink,
\nand punish our bodies with excess,
\na penitent impulse for one thing or another,
\nand don\u2019t believe, really, in fraternal orders.
\n 
\nBut he says the Veterans Post
\nwhere he had his first kiss
\nand we had our first smoke
\nand I laugh,
\nbecause we are not men who fight
\nor go to war
\nbut I agree
\nin the spirit of friendship
\nand remembering how good the cold air
\nfelt on my cheeks after dances,
\nand the shared thought
\nof the moon
\non wide streets
\nand the sound of our voices
\nfor dead-quiet blocks.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDon Colburn<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE CASE FOR INTELLIGENT SPACE ALIENS
\n 
\nFancy begins to sound real
\nwhen earthlings come up with words
\nlike ultra-cool red dwarf
\n 
\nfor a common star and name it Trappist -1
\nafter a robot telescope in the Chilean desert
\nand when Trappist-1 is pinpointed
\n 
\na mere 40 light years away, right there
\nin the Aquarius constellation
\nwith seven Earth-sized exoplanets.
\n 
\nOnly 4,150 degrees Fahrenheit
\non the surface, half as hot as the Sun,
\nso the exoplanets might be cool enough
\n 
\nfor rocks and water or better yet
\npond scum for intelligent aliens
\nto get their slow evolutionary start.
\n 
\nA few billion years from now,
\nsays the learned astronomer,
\nwhen the Sun has burned out,
\n 
\nour solar system done for,
\nthe ultra-cool red Trappist-1
\nwill be a thriving infant
\n 
\nwith gas to go another 10 trillion.
\nIf you\u2019re a betting man, he says,
\nyou could argue there is time.
\n 
\n 
\nUNREMARKABLE
\n 
\nLike when the sun comes up again,
\nvague in fog, a fuzzy far-off ball
\nslowly burning up, mid-size
\namong the Milky Way\u2019s 100 billion stars.
\n 
\nExcept it\u2019s ours and who am I
\nto call it unremarkable \u2014 big belittling word
\nwith a backwards knack for reminding you
\nwhat isn\u2019t there or might have been
\n 
\nremarked on? My father\u2019s testicles
\nwere unremarkable, on the last page
\nof the autopsy. (Dear Coroner:
\nYou don\u2019t owe your life to them.)
\n 
\nThe Las Vegas gambler on the 32nd floor
\nwho opened fire on country music fans
\nwas unremarkable, the sheriff said.
\nIn the history of days, today
\n 
\nis unremarkable, yet somewhere
\nlightning goes to ground. A wayward look
\nacross the table changes everything.
\nIn a room without windows the jury deadlocks.
\n 
\nLuck after all these years is time
\nto sip another mug of coffee, room for cream,
\nand call a new day unremarkable,
\nmeaning praise.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTrevor Conway<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFASHION
\nfor Hannah & Jack<\/i>
\n 
\nImagine a smiley onion \u2013
\nthat\u2019s her,
\ncocooned in so many layers
\nshe must wish she was born with fur.
\nIn fact, she has a furry cap
\nthat\u2019s always welded tight,
\nbecoming a puppy version of herself
\neven her friends don\u2019t recognise.
\n 
\n\u201cI could do with a few more tops,\u201d she says,
\nthough her wardrobe groans with the weight
\nof a great, messy torso
\nfilled with fabric entrails.
\nForeplay is afterplay
\n(it takes hours to unrobe),
\nand her smile is widest in what she calls
\n\u201cbangery\u201d clothes.
\n 
\nShe even wraps up
\non a first date
\n(but not so much on the second),
\nand she\u2019s keen to speculate on temperature,
\nher voice a thermometer
\nrising higher with heat.
\nHer back is always the coldest part,
\nas though a stream runs there.
\n 
\nAll year, to her, is an Arctic season,
\nso you\u2019ll find her roasting her feet in the oven,
\nand cold weather drags on her cheeks
\nlike cliffs about to avalanche.
\n 
\nBe careful where you lay your clothes \u2013
\nshe\u2019ll snatch them like a fabric-Fagin
\ntill burdened with so many threads
\nshe\u2019ll struggle to move even a toe.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJack Cooper<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nYOUTH
\nLike yesterday, if I could only remember it<\/i>
\n 
\nA wheat field articulate with summer light and breeze;
\nanother of poppies, skirts lifted over their heads \u2014
\npart flirtation of the wind, part cancan, part innocence;
\ngrass down which to roll as far as I like;
\na boat, though empty, still swerves beyond my ken;
\nher silhouette framed by the town, nocturne, sand,
\nthe startled look of her surrendered love;
\ncaravansary of music with all my friends;
\nlife without restraint, the content and precinct
\nof a dream in which the world was kind\u2014
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMickey J. Corrigan<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNOSTALGIA IS NOT
\n 
\nas good as it once was
\nwhen streets were narrow
\ncars like works of art
\nbig, busty, fat hipped
\nstatuesque visions of our lust
\nfor rides so deluxe
\nwe didn’t care
\nthey guzzled gas
\nas we eased down quiet roads.
\n 
\nas it once was
\nwhen skies were bluer
\nthe air ice-water fresh
\nour lunches in metal boxes
\na sandwich wrapped in cloth
\na thermos of sweet milk
\nand home-baked cookies
\nthe sun splashing us
\nwith uncancerous warmth.
\n 
\nas when we had everything
\non our sagging sofas
\nthe TV selling us
\nwork hard
\nbuy stuff, settle down
\nand be like the rest
\nof your kindly neighbors.
\n 
\nas it once was
\nwhen masculinity reigned,
\na man took
\nwhat he wanted
\nno apologies, no tears
\nmen were men and women
\nhome cooking, cleaning
\nand babies warm in our arms.
\n 
\nas once upon a past time
\nwe were happy
\nnot knowing
\nhow wrong we were
\nabout everything
\nabout the future
\nabout how it’s supposed to be
\nand how miserable we will feel.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nYOU PUT YOURSELF IN THEIR CARE AND THEN
\n 
\nTeenage surgeon introduces himself,
\nassures me, unasked, not to worry
\nonly one chance in 3000 this procedure
\nwill puncture the wall
\nof my colon.
\n 
\nNurse, adult in the room,
\nrolls her eyes and taps my inner arm
\nto divert me exclaiming
\nThose are great veins \u2014
\nyou must work out a lot. <\/i>
\n 
\nI don\u2019t,
\njust work as a carpenter,
\nbut thanks.
\n 
\nInserts needle, glances to make sure
\nwe\u2019re alone, whispers Relax.
\nI bet you know some good carpenters
\nwho are assholes, too. <\/i>
\n 
\nNow count backwards from ten\u2026<\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nTHOSE DREADFUL OLD HIPPIES
\n 
\nNear midnight
\ntwo dripping
\nnaked neighbor women
\npuddles at their feet
\nknock at my kitchen door
\nflesh yellow under the bug-light
\nto invite me to
\na hot tub.
\n 
\nWrinkly like me, saggy,
\nbaggy, oh so giggly
\nthey spark me
\none more time
\nto fall in love
\nwith humankind.
\n 
\nThey are beautiful.
\nYou are beautiful.
\nThis life we live is beautiful.
\nWhy can’t we always be naked?
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nNathan Dennis<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCALL ME MARTY
\n 
\nShe says I look like a young Scorsese.
\nIs it my nose? Busted where his goes bulbous.
\nIs it my hair? I parted my hair today.
\nIs it the glasses? They\u2019re heavy.
\nThey sit on the bump on my busted nose.
\nThey nestle there and leave an angry purple expletive.
\nIt\u2019s the swear word I wear, right?
\nThat\u2019s my goddamned Scorsese scar?
\n 
\nMartin Scorsese is handsome right?
\nSay I\u2019m handsome.
\n 
\nIt must be the eyes.
\nHow they look, hidden under the brow and brows.
\nTell me I look how Scorsese looks.
\nLooks at 12 point Courier font,
\nLooks at his fingers
\nSmashing out pathos in moveable type.
\nHow he looks for absolution
\nThrough a heterodox lens.
\nTell me I look heterodox like him.
\nTell me I\u2019m prodigal, honey.
\nTell me I have guilt.
\nTell me I\u2019m an angry, broken motherfucker.
\n 
\nPlease, call me Italian.
\nLet me be Sicilian for a night.
\nLook at my penitent eyes.
\nLet me build you a cathedral, sweetheart.
\nA cathedral of light and vice.
\nI\u2019ll frame you at the altar, baby.
\nLet me peer at you through the confession booth of a camera
\nIn black and white sin and forgiveness.
\n 
\nLet me go 15 rounds with you.
\nLet\u2019s dance under the sheets
\nIn an unmarried, unsanctioned, repentant
\nOne night fuck stand with you, my Magdalene,
\nIn a 35 mm Bronx apartment
\nWhile Ave Maria sings through your orgasm
\nAnd you call me Marty.
\nCall me Marty.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPhoenix DeSimone<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTO LIE WITH FIREFLIES
\nAND MAKE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
\nfor Papa. <\/i>
\n 
\nIt was one of those cool, summer
\nnights in the backyard
\nlooking up at the stars. The dog
\nwas chasing fireflies through the night sky,
\nand you, grandpa, were answering
\nevery question I asked about life, love and
\nwhy sometimes people cry.
\nI can\u2019t recall every word
\nyou said, but I recall the words you
\nmay have said best:
\n 
\n\u201cDon\u2019t worry so much about the whys. Just
\nlove every single moment of life. Especially
\nGrandma\u2019s apple pies. \u2018Cause you live a little and
\nthen it happens: one day you just \u2013\u201d
\n 
\nThe dog caught
\na firefly out of the night sky.
\nWe rolled in the grass
\nand laughed. Laughed the way
\nthat all children are supposed to laugh.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMerrill Oliver Douglas<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSONG
\n 
\nI need to go out and kneel in the dirt
\nand get my jeans soggy,
\nwedge my hand under a tough weed
\nand smile when the taproot
\nslips from its straight, damp passage.<\/p>\n

I love the way worms twist.
\nI\u2019m sick of human jargon.
\n 
\nLife would make so much more sense
\nif I could work out why those paired crows
\nglaring from the roof ridge
\nkeep kvetching with such vigor.
\n 
\nPlease, teach me all the crow swear words.
\n 
\nI want to get down on my knees every morning
\nand wrestle with plain, wet facts I can smell.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nStephanie Yue Duhem <\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNEIGHBOR’S BOY
\n 
\nWhen the earth is humming heat
\nand melting rust to dust,
\nand children lounge in silence
\non peeling paint porches,
\n 
\nI feel the calluses on my feet,
\nthighs kissing stubbornly
\npale slip of a lawn chair, not a real looker\u2014
\n 
\nthe neighbor\u2019s boy plays just two yards away.
\n 
\nToday\u2019s color scheme: complementary,
\nhis brilliant red face among the hedges,
\nan apple bobbing in a sea of deepest green.
\n 
\nJust pucker up and pick it up, I say
\n(my proposal to peeling paint).
\n 
\nI rub the callus on my finger
\nwhere the pencil so likes to hug,
\nthe closest yet to intimacy I\u2019ve come;
\nonly,
\nour pink flesh is meshed
\nwhen I chew the eraser that\u2019s easy.
\n 
\nThe lawn chair whines plastically.
\nEyes clamped, I hum a carol,
\n 
\nbanishing heat,
\nblurring red and green\u2014
\n 
\nonly,
\nthat\u2019s the neighbor\u2019s boy I recall,
\nand he\u2019s two yards away.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE GRIFFIN
\n 
\ncarved from oblivion i mean obsidian,
\nthe black griffin guards my neighbor\u2019s house.
\n 
\ni am afraid of it, a little bit.
\n 
\nnot afraid that it will bark
\nor bite,
\n 
\nbut afraid that it might
\nblink or
\nmaybe
\n 
\nshift a smidgeon in the light.
\n 
\nmaking it known beyond a doubt that
\nwhile i was looking at it,
\n 
\nit was looking at me.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMilton P. Ehrlich<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAT THE END OF HIS EIGHTH DECADE
\n 
\nWhat does he want to do with the rest of his life?
\nSince he outlived his peers by eight standard deviations,
\nhe\u2019s inclined to reach for the brass ring of infinite life.
\nHe rouses the sleepy Weimaraner between his legs
\nfor a last round of carnal pleasure before returning
\nto the sea\u2014singing a favorite chant from his army platoon:
\nEvery night before retreat, Sgt McGillicutty beats his meat,
\nsound off\u2014one two, three four. <\/i>
\nHe writes more poems, eats heaping portions of succulent seafood,
\nhoards a vast collection of amaryllis bulbs\u2014
\nto watch them burst into a meadow of lovers kissing the sunshine,
\nand returns to the sea, swimming in a school of fish with best friends
\nalongside a smiling mermaid who used to be his loving wife.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFrederick Foote<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSIGNS OF THE TIMES
\n 
\nHe was born under a bad sign
\nShe was born with a losing hand
\n 
\nThey were born in
\ntreacherous times
\nto a declining race
\nin a disintegrating place
\n 
\nBirth awarded her a cleft palate
\nand a heroin addiction
\n 
\nShe collected STDs
\nand casual acts of cruelty
\n 
\nHe was issued a club foot and cross eyes
\nwas fluent in the language of random violence
\nand cursed with a direct line to God
\n 
\nHe said, you got three lips, most people only got two
\n 
\nShe said, you paired up with a twisted foot
\nto match your opposite eyes and delusional mind
\n 
\nGod told him it was a good point
\nfor some random violence
\n 
\nHe told God, another day another time
\nGod say, you better<\/i> do it my way
\n 
\nShe said, if you talkin’ to yourself
\nyou got a conversation with a fool
\n 
\nHe said, I\u2019m talking to God
\n 
\nShe said, a conversation
\nbetween two fools
\n 
\nHe said, amen to that
\n 
\nGod said, she ugly
\nand you repulsive
\nboth a disgrace
\nto my face
\n 
\nHe said, there ain\u2019t no shame
\nin looking like The Master
\n 
\nShe said, I\u2019m passing out
\nthe disease of the day
\nif you want to go down my way
\n 
\nHe said, going down to get down but
\nwe need to do the deed in Bethlehem
\n 
\nShe said, I do like the smell and
\nsmoke of a steel town
\n 
\nTheir progeny
\nwas born
\none handed
\nin that
\nghost town
\nin a manger
\nunder a
\ndecrepit
\nabandoned
\nMAGA
\nbillboard
\n 
\n 
\nRESCUE
\n 
\nShe had artwork fingernails on 9 fingers
\nin blinding colors and dazzling designs
\nher left natural thumbnail
\nwas coated in clear nail polish.
\n 
\nHer teeth were a bone white,
\nsmall and monotonous multitude.
\n 
\nDirty brown eyes as hard
\nas Oak knotholes
\nguarded a dagger of a nose
\ntopped by a cap of rowdy brown curls
\nstreaked with gray and gold
\nmatching her gray jacket
\nand glowing gold dress that accented
\nher small but attentive breasts she
\nstretched her long neck, parted her slivers of lips.
\n 
\nAsked me to dance, grabbed my hand,
\npulled me onto the dance floor.
\n 
\nWhispered, \u201cYou are densely black and palpably lonely.\u201d
\nI growled, \u201cWhat does one thing have to do with the other?\u201d
\nShe ignored my question. \u201cI can rescue you. \u201c
\n\u201cHow? How can you rescue me?\u201d
\n\u201cWorship your blackness. Lick you shiny clean from head to toe.\u201d
\n\u201cI’m not dirty.\u201d
\n\u201cNot dirt. Despair, self-loathing, spite. Lick you born again clean.\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019re fuckin crazy. Why\u2019re you saying this?\u201d
\n\u201cBecause you need it existentially.\u201d
\n\u201cNow, you\u2019re my savior? \u201c
\n\u201cWhen you take communion between my pale thighs and leave your lies there.\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019re sick. A very sick, confused, fucked up bitch.\u201d
\nShe sighed, flicked her tongue in my ear, ground her hips against mine.
\nShe pulled away, pushed me back, \u201cYou can stay here and die a bit every day or come with me and be free \u2013 or at least a little freer.\u201d
\n 
\nShe walked out. She never looked back.
\n 
\nA few minutes later I ran out looking for her.
\nIn vain.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGerald Friedman<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSWEARING
\n 
\nWhen he said, \u201cI\u2019ll always love you, I promise,\u201d
\nall the parts of his mind fell in,
\noutfitted for one mission\u2014
\nan understandable illusion,
\nthat an instant\u2019s unanimity means
\nthey won\u2019t be goldbricking and scuffling tomorrow.
\n 
\nWhen she said, \u201cBullshit!\u201d
\npart of her mind fired a gun\u2014
\nblanks, but she could smell powder
\nas a whole poem smells of one word.
\nHer partisans of Believe him! Own him! Worship him! <\/i>
\ntrembled in caves, suspecting thunder.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDaniel Galef<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE TORRENTS OF SAINT LAWRENCE
\n     -or-
\n  THE WEE HOURS
\n 
\nI stood on the street at midnight,
\nAs the clocks were striking the hour,
\nAnd I was filling the gutter,
\nFor the last beer I had was sour. <\/i>
\n\u2014from \u201cThe Medico\u2019s Lament\u201d (anonymous), 1899
\n 
\nWhen the smallest hours adorn the clocks,
\n  men get a strange urge (whence
\ntoo many whiskeys on the rocks)
\n  to spend a couple pence,
\nand stumble off a couple blocks
\n  to piss against a fence.
\n (Chorus: \u201cTo piss against a fence!\u201d)<\/i>
\n 
\nShould at this odd time the Muse
\n  strike the swelled mosquito,
\nhe has in hand the tool to use,
\n  and, in no state to veto,
\nour poet may proceed to ooze
\n  a ureic graffito.
\n (Chor.: \u201cA ureic,” &c) <\/i>
\n 
\nIn this position (and who would
\n  in conscience want to be in it),
\nit isn\u2019t clearly understood
\n  the value that they see in it,
\nbut sympathetic (not to say good)
\n  that they should choose to wee in it.
\n (Chor.: &c.) <\/i>
\n 
\nOne notices these walking by,
\n  down on some puke-specked street:
\nin summer they may water li-
\n  -lacs and hydrangeas sweet,
\nand in the winter kindly try
\n  and help to melt the sleet.
\n (Chor.: &c.) <\/i>
\n 
\nIf you pass, a moment spend
\n  and wonder who I am:
\nWho was this pissed and pissing friend,
\n  a hymnist or a ham,
\nthe sprinkled-pants-legged sage who penned
\n  this cryptic epigram?
\n (Chor.: &c.) <\/i>
\n 
\nYe\u2019d understand if ye can ken
\n  it\u2019s just biology,
\nthe product of a phallic pen
\n  and good mixology,
\nwhich you could crack with crack foren-
\n  -sics and graphology.
\n (Chor.: \u201cYou\u2019re-in your-ology!\u201d) <\/i>
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMac Gay<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGREEN TUNE
\n 
\nBiology’s all up front
\nwith its acorns and offspring
\nslanted toward the next spring.
\nBut I lean to the past
\ntoward all those I loved
\nnow under the grass.
\nI try to stay in this instant
\nwhere things at least float
\ntill they sink. Should I drop
\nthe sweet sad eaches
\nand live in the species
\nlike Keats’ nightingales
\nthat continue their song
\nfrom bird to bird to bird?
\nMusic is forever if nature
\nreplaces the singers.
\nThe world seems a garden
\non top of a grave.
\nBut the green tune plays on.
\n 
\n 
\nAT WOODLAWN
\n 
\nWhat a crowd turns up here,
\nsupine beneath this jungle of turf,
\nshining from these clean stones.
\nStill, I\u2019m feeling somehow they see
\nthe same blinding blue as me
\nwhere heaven once was. All this reputed
\nrepose should comfort, I suppose,
\nbut looking down I\u2019m stopped dead
\nby dirt. Yet I\u2019ll bet when they turn
\nand sneak a peek down death\u2019s abyss
\nit\u2019s like when I survey the top of this pine,
\nthen refocus higher to circling crows,
\nand again further up to the silver jet.
\nFor surely there\u2019s subverted sky in death,
\ninverted, with deeper niches for profounder
\nrank; And the hooks of the dead, too,
\nspectrumed from shallow to deep, wishing
\nthat something, as promised, would bite.
\nSurely that\u2019s what all this silent, still
\nwaiting\u2019s about. Some type of fishing.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKathy Gee<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPIERCING
\n 
\nMy dog, mine, for I can\u2019t blame
\nthe world for this affliction,
\nbarks like a Great White Shark
\nwould bite.
\n 
\nThere\u2019s a swooping start,
\nteeth raised in readiness. Then,
\nagonizing in its accuracy,
\nneedle sharp and unexpected,
\nshark and dog rip silence,
\nslicing time until my ears
\nare screaming trails of blood.
\n 
\nA punch between the eyes
\nis said to stop a Great White Shark.
\nIt wouldn\u2019t stop my bloody dog.
\n 
\n 
\nTALKING TO MYSELF ON DARTMOOR \u2014 A drabble
\n 
\nThe closest I can get is parking in this layby, window open, suitcase packed, a bacon sandwich in my lap. I\u2019ve driven far and fast to find my younger self and here she is. \u2018Come, sit beside me\u2019. She would come here craving distance, trek past Dartmoor ponies, cross the peat where footprints leave no trace.
\n 
\nOur friends have died. New neighbours sing at funerals and she and I are strangers after thirty years apart. We\u2019re not the same. She has to stay, and I must go. I turn my car towards the north and leave her, welly-deep in bog.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJulia Gerhardt<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHE IS NOT MY BOY (A Haibun)
\n 
\nBoys draped in soiled bed sheet togas slipping from their chests; girls on leather couches, white fabric riding up their thighs, giggling & gazing at their gods. The room is an exhale, an eternal pause of whiskey covered questions and wine stained mispronunciations. I\u2019m dancing so close with a boy whom I do not know. He whispers beside my cheek, \u201cDamn girl, I love you.\u201d I laugh when I do not feel like laughing & pull my face away when I want to be close to something. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I do this loosely, lackadaisically, lovingly. I rub my thumbs at the base. \u201cNo, you don\u2019t.\u201d I know who loves me.<\/p>\n

We are so far a\u2014
\npart, yet I know his eyes blink
\nsleeping in blue light.<\/div>\n

 
\n 
\nI ASSUME
\nfor Collin<\/i>
\n 
\nI assume there was a wind,
\na kind of gust that pushed him back
\naway from the edge.
\n 
\nIt was a gesture of protection
\nDon\u2019t do this, man, we need you here, <\/i>
\nhe stumbled.
\n 
\nInstead, he took it as a move, an advancement,
\na breeze that taunted and teased,
\nhe had to prove it wrong.
\n 
\nI assume there was a wind,
\na kind that would dry, angry eyes
\nto the point of tears.
\n 
\nIt was to tell him he could cry,
\nYou can sob, man, we\u2019ll cry too, <\/i>
\nhe wiped them away.
\n 
\nHe blinked and stepped closer,
\none foot over the opaque ledge,
\nthe other pointed on the ground.
\n 
\nI assume there was a wind because something had to be with him,
\nfor there was no person and no God,
\nor anything in between the two.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMatt Graham<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIF YOU DON\u2019T LIKE THIS POEM, GO TO HELL
\n 
\nIf you don\u2019t like this poem, go to hell,
\nand while you\u2019re there say, \u201cHi,\u201d to me. (I died,
\nand so I write another villanelle,
\n 
\nmy penance for the many ways I fell:
\nI cheated, lusted, coveted and lied.)
\nIf you don\u2019t like this poem, go to hell.
\n 
\nI\u2019m lying. It\u2019s the one thing I do well–
\n(Lay poetry and lying dead aside.)
\n–and so<\/i>! I write another villanelle
\n 
\nbecause I am in limbo for a spell,
\nsurrounded by you critics who deride.
\nIf you don\u2019t like this poem, go to hell.
\n 
\nTen poems in, I beg God and Divelle
\nto let me leave, but both bid me, \u201cAbide.\u201d
\nand so I write another<\/i> villanelle.
\n 
\n\u201cThe readers are the jury; hell\u2019s the jail,
\nso then the poet will,\u201d The Satan cried,
\n\u201cIf you don\u2019t like this poem, go to hell!\u201d
\nAnd so?
\n 
\n 
\nDRIVING TO YOUR HOUSE
\n 
\nI\u2019m driving over to your house to break
\nthings off as kindly and directly as
\nI can. I\u2019ll say, \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a mistake
\nfor us to get so serious so fast.
\nWhen people meet and feel such chemistry,
\nit only fits to see if it\u2019s a fit.\u201d
\nAnd fit we do, so now the mystery
\nof my relationships is why I quit
\nromantically believing history\u2019s
\naccounts of everlasting love (the shit
\nconsumed through countless movies, books and songs).
\nI\u2019m wrong. Perhaps if we just kiss more we
\nwill find the pilot light, add gas to it,
\nand burn. The light on your front porch is on.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE AMAZING FLYING MACHINES OF CHINESE FARMERS
\n[Inspired by the BBC article of the same name] <\/i>
\n 
\nThe birds inspire and antagonize,
\nlifting off casually and soaring wherever they please–
\nover fields, over landlocked destitution–then
\nhovering along the ridges of Jianglang Mountain.
\n 
\nEach Spring, Yuan Xiangqiu sows wheat.
\nThrough each Summer, Yuan Xiangqiu grows wheat.
\nEvery Fall, Yuan Xiangqiu harvests wheat.
\nEvery Winter, Yuan Xiangqiu builds an airplane,
\nand crashes it,
\nsurviving and selling the plane as scrap metal
\nbefore he sows wheat again.
\n 
\nCao Zhengshu flies only in his dreams,
\nhovering along the ridges of Jianglang Mountain.
\nOn a bed in his shed, the weary watchman sleeps
\nbeside his aircraft, so no one steals her to sell her
\nfor scrap metal.
\n 
\nDoes she slip out of the shed each night
\nto steal a few moments in sky? Does she
\nquietly succeed when no one is looking?
\nDoes she hover along the ridges of Jianglang Mountain then
\ntiptoe back into the shed before her father
\nwakes up and tries one more time
\nto get her to fly for him?
\n 
\nSome dreamers will never fly.
\nSome dreamers will never fly again.
\nAnd some dreamers will never wake.
\nSome dreamers will fly over fields and sheds.
\nSome dreamers will stop,
\n 
\nhover along the ridges of Jianglang Mountain,
\nthen turn
\nand return home
\nto Earth
\nto work the earth again.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nShannon Frost Greenstein<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nRADICAL ACCEPTANCE, IN THE LINEHANIAN SENSE\u2026
\nOR, HOW MY DBT GROUP IS GOING
\n 
\nWhat is radical acceptance? Radical means all the way, complete and total; it\u2019s when you stop fighting reality. \u2013 Dr. Marsha Linehan<\/i>
\n 
\nRadical acceptance is the alleles in my brain, conspiring to catalyze chaos
\nthat makes me cut my flesh and fuck too many men.
\n 
\nRadical acceptance is the family member who molested me, planting the sinuous vine that grows within and throughout my self itself, poisoning me from my very foundation.
\n 
\nRadical acceptance is the only way out of Hell. \u2013 Dr. Marsha Linehan<\/i>
\n 
\nRadical acceptance is my scars, the result of decades of self-hatred and scissors, serrated blades, knives of varying scales and painful memories of varying intensity.
\n 
\nRejecting reality does not change reality. \u2013 Dr. Marsha Linehan<\/i>
\n 
\nRadical acceptance is the history of bad decisions which define my existence, always inferior, always a silver medal, always a consolation prize and never actually a being of value.
\n 
\nPain can\u2019t be avoided; it is nature\u2019s way of signaling that something is wrong. \u2013 Dr. Marsha Linehan<\/i>
\n 
\nRadical acceptance feels wrong. Radical acceptance is fucking work. Radical acceptance is nails on a chalkboard and a cat pet the wrong way and the flat note in an otherwise perfect octave. Radical acceptance is bullshit, in the moment, when all you want to do is self-destruct, when you are erupting with feelings that always simmer right below the surface with no reprieve, when you cannot stand the chorus of voices in your amygdala informing you of your worthlessness; radical acceptance is accepting all of that, while you radically accept the rest.
\n 
\nThe path out of hell is through misery. By refusing to accept the misery that is part of climbing out of hell, you fall back into hell. \u2013 Dr. Marsha Linehan<\/i>
\n 
\nRadical acceptance is not apathy, or giving up, or lying down; radical acceptance requires more strength than enduring the shit that put you in a position where radical acceptance was necessary in the first place; radical acceptance is going to fucking hurt.
\n 
\nPractice accepting with the whole self; allow disappointment, sadness, or grief to arise within you. \u2013 Dr. Marsha Linehan<\/i>
\n 
\nRadical acceptance requires accepting reality to change reality, and I\u2019m terrified my reality cannot change; I\u2019m terrified this is who I am, damaged, doomed, broken from the start.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Grey<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPREDICTABLE
\n 
\nIt’s the honk that grabs my attention.
\nI know that v formation of geese
\nis crossing the sky but still I look up.
\nMaybe I’m thinking this is the time,
\nthat the birds just scatter, that they
\ndon’t follow the leader but the one
\nfarthest behind.
\nThe sound and the vision… I’ve been
\nlinking them so long that it’s about time
\none of them took leave of the other…
\nhonk for the abstract, for the individual,
\nfor the sheer joy of the unexpected.
\nBut no it’s the same old honk, same old
\ncock of my head, same old arrangement,
\nas the geese flying south for winter.
\nNow winter, that’s different, sometimes it
\nsnows, sometimes it’s twenty below,
\nand sometimes, there’s Gale, head on
\nmy shoulder, arm around my waist,
\npressing the love and warm into me.
\nBut Winter doesn’t honk.
\nSo, those times, I do.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE KILLER KISS
\n 
\nFrom a part in the dark shore grasses,
\nthe giant lizard’s red-tipped tongue vacillated.
\nA cloud of fleas or my blood-splattered arm \u2013
\nits hunger pendulum-swung.
\n 
\nOn a bed sweating beneath frayed mosquito net,
\na fever blazed in cheek and eye.
\nThose helicopter insects buzzed above
\nmy swampy flesh, my kettle-whistle breath.
\n 
\nProne on the ground, I trembled to my nerves’ report
\nof big cat in the tree above, teeth like white scabbards,
\nmuscles taut and paws set to the exact moment of striking.
\nI struggled to drag my poisoned leg to safety.
\n 
\nLost in darkening old world forest, I was battered
\nfrom tree to tree, choked by branches, hacked down by roots.
\nI could hear the creak of coffins opening,
\nthe howl from the cusp of wolf and man.
\n 
\nI am always powerless. I am forever under threat.
\nIn exotic landscapes, my life cowers, shudders.
\nMonsters loom. Beasts stalk. Creatures gravitate.
\nYou lean over to kiss me. My lips cannot move, you devil.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nEvan Gurney<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE HOE
\n 
\nI can see him as a young man lift the tool
\nfrom its shop hook, hold up the shaft to eye
\nits true, and measure the length while sliding
\nhis hands along the walnut grain, giving
\nthe riveted iron a brief twist to check its virtue.
\nMeticulous. He didn\u2019t plan to buy another.
\n 
\nAs if there were more at stake than his wife\u2019s bed
\nof nasturtiums. As if he might swing the tapered
\nshank with his athlete\u2019s grace and unearth
\nfrom a century of loam the dignity that was lost
\nto men like him, back from the war and selling
\nlife insurance in pressed slacks and wingtips.
\n 
\nWhat he needed when things needed doing.
\nStriking thistle and spreading mulch,
\nhe wore the wood smooth in his rough hands,
\nbuffed it to a sleek finish with linseed and sweat.
\nFifty years later I grip the hoe in my hands.
\nEven now there\u2019s no warp to it, no rust, no cracks
\n 
\nin its grooves, the square edge still sharp
\nenough to bite a shin if you aren\u2019t mindful.
\nI slice the roots beneath a patch of clover.
\nHe is too sick now to weed the garden,
\nso he is watching from his rocking chair,
\nback straight, eyes fixed on the blade\u2019s horizon,
\n 
\nstill keen, still true, still looking for work.
\n 
\n 
\nHAIL MARY
\n 
\nThe old patriarch on the phone,
\nhis slurred screech a switch to the ear:
\ndid you see the bastard, did you
\nsee him catch it, can you believe
\nit, holy shit I can\u2019t believe it!
\n 
\nHis team had won, it seems,
\nand miraculously so,
\nbut I swear that he is sobbing.
\n 
\nIn my mind\u2019s eye I see him
\non his knees in the living room,
\nbathed in afternoon autumnal light,
\narms outstretched, clutching
\nthe phone in one hand and remote
\nin the other, overcome with desire
\nto tell the good news, to speak
\nof how his prayer was answered.
\n 
\nSuddenly I understand my inheritance
\nis a leather ball that has dropped
\nout of the infinite blue sky
\ninto the arms of a skinny grandson
\nwho has tracked its spinning descent,
\nwaiting in the shadows, not sure
\nwhy he is running and what he is
\nfather to, but who catches it anyway,
\ncatches it in his hands and nestles it
\nin his arms like a baby, catches and holds
\nthe little bastard like it\u2019s his own.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMureall Hebert<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nJUST ANOTHER SATURDAY: A SESTINA IN PROSE
\n 
\nMom and Dad are fighting again and Lila presses her hands over the openings on her face because if the words dirt-bag<\/i>, bitch<\/i>, and fuck you<\/i> can\u2019t get in, they don\u2019t exist. When her parents argue, the world ceases to exist for them. Henry, three years old, has soiled his pants again. Lila washes him, thinking, what the fuck am I doing here, kissing his chubby hands, being mother-sister-father? Mom\u2019s crying falls against her like dirt on a coffin. Lila turns at the sound of a hand striking a face. She bolts to the door, Henry in her arms. Let\u2019s face facts<\/i>, she tells her neighbor, I exist as a speck of dirt trapped beneath my parents\u2019 shoes. Will you watch Henry again? Just for a little while?<\/i> She hands over her brother and creeps away, feeling like a fuck-up. She can\u2019t bring him along, but she can\u2019t leave him home, fuck no. Todd picks her up in his Camaro. Lila can\u2019t face telling him what\u2019s happened. He hands her a rose and she wonders how such a perfect thing can exist in this imperfect world. They sneak into the country club again, scrambling under the fence to hide in a screen of trees, dirt smearing their jeans. He kisses her and it\u2019s like the dirt circling the pine\u2019s roots has fallen away, suspending her over a chasm. Let\u2019s fuck<\/i>, Todd moans. First, tell me again<\/i>, she pleads. He cradles her face and whispers, I can\u2019t exist without you<\/i>. She closes her eyes, feeling his hands fumble at her pants. She wants to trust him, but loving hands, once they\u2019re closed, become fists. Cold seeps through the dirt, blazing chills along her back and she has to believe she\u2019s meant to exist as more than a variable in someone else\u2019s equation. Please, for fuck\u2019s sake, let there be more to life than this. Todd\u2019s face looms close. One day she\u2019ll get out, Lila promises herself again. Home again. The house stands still. Mom\u2019s sitting at the table, hands clasped, face bruised. She doesn\u2019t talk; words are dirt-cheap. Fuck-load of shame. No way to exist.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Helweg-Larsen<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nVIKING SLAVE
\n 
\nWhy did they make me swallow this mead muck?
\nMy lord, alive, would barely let me drink.
\nThey wouldn\u2019t treat his wife this way, I think.
\nNow all I am is something they can fuck.
\nThey say this way they\u2019re sharing in their lord,
\nBehaving as he did with me, his slave.
\nAnd now they launch his boat upon the wave,
\nThe dragon boat with him and me aboard.
\nJust me, his horse, his sword\u2026 the boat\u2019s been fired;
\nAn honour, just for me, not for his wife;
\nSo with him I will end this stage of life
\nAnd go with him to Asgard\u2026 I\u2019m so tired,
\nCouldn\u2019t move even if I wasn\u2019t tied.
\nThey told his wife he loved her too. They lied.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMandy Henderly<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nVERNIX
\nFor Lucy<\/i>
\n 
\nThe pajamas I was wearing
\nthe night you were born
\nare folded and put away-
\nlilac with a scallop edge
\naround the breasts.
\nThat night, bent over
\nthe bed breathing, deep
\nbreathing.
\nWake up, honey, call
\nthe babysitter. It\u2019s
\ntime to go. <\/i>
\n 
\nThe night your brother
\nwas born I was wearing
\na dress-
\nknee length with a wrap
\naround the waist.
\nThat night, standing against
\na wall swaying, hips
\nswaying.
\nHoney, come back home. It\u2019s
\ntime to go.<\/i>
\n 
\nBoth times, I discarded
\nwhat I was wearing,
\nballed up on the hospital floor.
\nBoth times, I wept
\nwhen my baby was safely
\nplaced on my chest.
\nBoth times, my baby
\ncovered in vernix,
\nI refused to let
\nyou be bathed.
\nWhy would I rush your
\nnewness away?
\nLet it soak in<\/i>,
\n 
\nLet it soak in<\/i>.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE KEEPER OF SLEEP
\n 
\nI am the keeper of sleep-
\nthe right combination of lavender
\nand vetiver to help her drift off
\nand the boring story he likes
\nto listen to before closing
\nhis eyes.
\n 
\nI know that we should start her
\nbath at 6:30 as opposed to 6:20.
\nI am familiar with the soft glow
\nof a nightlight and hum of white noise.
\nI\u2019m acquainted with pajamas and
\nbedtime kisses and sleepy sighs.
\n 
\nI was once the keeper
\nof Whitman and Ginsburg,
\nof Olds and Bishop,
\nof Alexie and Keats.
\nBut now, I hold the keys
\nto bedtimes and schedules
\nand Christmas lists.
\nI am the keeper of snacks
\nand birthday cards
\nand due library books.
\nI remember to order more toilet paper
\nand paper towels
\nand when the dog will need more food.
\nI am the keeper of packing his backpack
\nand drying his pajamas
\nand laying out her favorite sweatshirt.
\nAnd- ah, yes-
\nI am the keeper of sleep.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFredric Hildebrand<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWAL-MART PARKING LOT, 2 A.M.
\n 
\nDecongestants, lozenges,
\nnumbing spray. Street lights,
\nblack pavement.
\n 
\nThree motorcycles, twenty-
\nsomething rider dudes.
\n 
\nA dented Honda Civic, door
\nopen, dim yellow light.
\n 
\nYoung mother faces defiant
\nyoung man. Baby in her arms,
\nno pajamas. She\u2019s pleading,
\ncrying.
\n 
\nCycles roar, tires squeal.
\nCar door slams.
\n 
\nMy drive home, full moon
\na white beacon on the water.
\nTwo geese swimming side by side.
\n 
\n 
\nNORTH COUNTRY NOTES
\n 
\nEyeing the heavy clouds,
\nI said to the guide, I could
\nhave picked a better day
\nto fish. He replied,
\nmaybe so.
\n 
\nWhat\u2019s our weather look
\nlike, I ask. It might rain,
\nhe says, then again it
\nmight not.
\n 
\nWhat about our luck today?
\nCould be good, he tells me,
\ncould be bad.
\n 
\nI am home. Among my people,
\nWhat happens, happens.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGreg Hill<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMARCH TO HARTFORD
\n 
\ncold last night
\nthe storm
\nRoute 9 covered in broken glass
\nmonsters
\na mile a minute
\npeeling
\ntheir white skins
\nlike icy flapjacks
\nor like concerns
\nfor the other beasts
\nprowling and shuffling
\nto work coffees
\nin cup holders
\nsweet and cold
\naren\u2019t we all
\nbetter than our neighbors
\nwhere we live
\n 
\n 
\nPORCELAIN SONNET
\n 
\nI\u2019m sitting on a toilet, with a pen,
\nAnd trying to force out some clever wit.
\nBut this is not so easy, because when
\nI try and force it, out comes muddy shit.
\nAnd so I scratch my head, and scratch my rear,
\nAnd like the Rodin sculpture, I wonder
\nWhat poem I might write, that, would you hear,
\nWould not piss you off, nor put you under.
\nThen, like the water swirling in the john,
\nWords spin inside my head \u2018round some motif.
\nSentences form. As I continue on,
\nA poem comes to life\u2014oh sweet relief!
\nNow standing proudly, I begin to blush,
\nTo have writ something I\u2019d not rather flush!
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMary Beth Hines<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLITTLE BLACK DRESS
\n 
\nMrs. X in her little black dress, martini in hand,
\nsmokes a cigarette, eyes Mr. Y, smoothing back
\nhis hair, loosening his collar, rising from a chair.
\n 
\nShe sidles by, stumbles into him, ashes on his jacket,
\nvodka down her chin. Mrs. X gasps, a hand against
\nhis chest, red, lacquered nails shown off to good effect.
\n 
\nMr. Y, being a gentlemanly guy, murmurs
\nit\u2019s no problem<\/i>, and draws her outside where they slow-dance
\nlike they did in days gone by when Mrs. X
\nwas Mrs. Y, Coltrane flowed, and the moon hung high.
\n 
\n 
\nPARTY AT COLLINGWOOD
\n 
\nDelicious Aloysius crashed our party last night.
\nHe slipped in and clipped a beer and Maggie swore and roared
\nwhen she realized he\u2019d entered but brought nothing in to share
\nexcept for his good looks and charm\u2014enough for most of us\u2014
\n 
\nbut Maggie, as a feminist, demanded a lot more.
\nSo shirtless Alex bounded up and danced the table tops
\nwhile Maggie in her hot pink dress woo-hooed and sang along
\ntill Barney grabbed her by the waist and sailed around the room.
\n 
\nAnd Maggie\u2019s red hair flew and spun and sparked the party\u2019s fire\u2014
\nalthough this morning nothing\u2019s left but pools of lost desire,
\nand Aloysius asleep, sprawled bare-assed across the floor,
\nnext to Maggie, next to Barney, snoring like a wild boar.
\n 
\n 
\nWATER RUNNING FROM THE HOSE
\n 
\nHe watches her from a window,
\nsmokes his cigarette,
\nsees her fumble with the nozzle,
\nspray the garden, soak the grass.
\n 
\nStealing outside through the back,
\nhe glides across the lawn,
\nputs his hands around her waist,
\npicks her up and spins her.
\n 
\nShe yelps. He laughs. She throws her hat.
\nHe kisses her neck. She kisses back.
\nThey fall to the ground. She rolls away,
\nleaps to her feet, hits the spray.
\n 
\nCardinals, doves\u2014their garden\u2019s swarming,
\nhe lays back, picks her a rose.
\nSeven-thirty in the morning\u2014
\nwater\u2019s running from the hose.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nColin James<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTO A FRIEND WHO CAN’T STAND WITHOUT ASSISTANCE
\n 
\nShe is willing she says.
\nI can place your arms
\nover her shoulders,
\nunlatch your demon dick.
\nYou seem ready.
\nI am whispering to her.
\nWe both love you,
\nbut he loves you more.
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nChris Jansen<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAFTER YOU DIE
\n 
\nscience says your brain
\nlives on for a period of time,
\nsay fifty years.
\nWomen die, and their bodies
\ngo on doing kitchen remodels
\nand Pure Passion Parties.
\n 
\nMen die standing up,
\ngolf club in one hand,
\nbeer in the other.
\n 
\nAnd you, America,
\nare you dead,
\nor is this you asleep
\nand dreaming?
\n 
\nThey say the hearing is last to go,
\nso If you’re listening, America,
\nI still believe in you,
\nlike the memory of my high
\nschool girlfriend;
\nI wanted to be worthy of her too,
\nfrom the amber waves
\nof grain-blond hair
\nto her star-spangled cunt.
\n 
\nThe light at the end of the barrel!
\nThe circling angels!
\n 
\nAmerica,
\nif you can hear me,
\nwake up
\nopen your eyes
\nsay something,
\nlive.
\n 
\n 
\nAND THEN I UNDERSTAND TAXIDERMY
\n 
\nDown in the den,
\nabove the pool table
\nwith its ripped felt
\nand missing balls
\nand the easy chair
\nand Miller High Life sign,
\nnext to the pin up girl \u2013
\nI suddenly get why you would
\nwant to see a wild thing
\nand remember
\nwhat it looked like
\nwhen it was alive.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Lee Johnson<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDANCE OF TEARS, CHIEF NOBODY
\n 
\nI\u2019m old Indian chief story
\nplastered on white scattered sheets,
\nCaucasian paper blowing in yesterday\u2019s winds.
\n 
\nI feel white man\u2019s presence
\nin my blindness-
\ncross over my ego my borders
\nurinates over my pride, my boundaries-
\nI cooperated with him until
\ndeath, my blindness.
\n 
\nI\u2019m Blackfoot proud, mountain Chief.
\n 
\nI roam southern Alberta,
\ntoenails stretch to Montana,
\nborn on Old Man River\u2212
\nprairie horse\u2019s leftover
\nbuffalo meat in my dreams.
\nEighty-seven I lived in a cardboard shack.
\nMy native dress lost, autistic babbling.
\nI pile up worthless treaties, paper burn white man.
\n 
\nNow 94, I prepare myself an ancient pilgrimage,
\nback to papoose, landscapes turned over.
\n 
\nI walk through this death baby steps,
\nno rush, no fire, nor wind, hair tangled\u2212
\nearth possessions strapped to my back rawhide\u2212
\nsun going down, moon going up,
\nwitch hour moonlight.
\n 
\nI\u2019m old man slow dying, Chief nobody.
\n 
\nAn empty bottle of fire-water whiskey
\nlies on homespun rug,
\ncut excess from life,
\npartially smoked homemade cigar-
\nbarely burning,
\nthat dance of tears.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSarah Mackey Kirby<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nALMOND IN THE COUCH
\n 
\nI found an almond in the couch.
\nSnug between the cushions
\nwhere we laughed sticky July evening.
\nWas it yours?
\n 
\nYou ate them two at a time.
\nYour slow-move mouth.
\nIn-charge red glasses
\nsliding down your nose
\nas you looked toward
\nthe container.
\n 
\nOur conversation.
\nGrown sisters reverting
\nto girl whispers,
\nsnap-drip music
\nbackground low.
\n 
\nAn almond.
\nOne almond
\nkeeping you from ashes.
\nSqueezed into salted fabric.
\nWith me all this time.
\n 
\n 
\nNEW ORLEANS
\n 
\nIn deep nighttime NewAhLeuns
\nbehind a rain-dripping window,
\na second first time.
\nSomewhere conflating the smells
\nof bourbon and wisteria.
\nTalking trombone in April\u2019s chicory wind.
\nWhere gasps for breath under unmovable weight,
\nsoul-wrought sobs in lonesome tone,
\nand unanswered prayers for stronger knees
\nat last floated to irrelevancy.
\nWith you, they fell a natural, quiet fall.
\nThe irony.
\n 
\nFor such a place of drunken streets
\nand smoke-filled corners near Jackson Square.
\nSteeped in sin without the sorry.
\nTo release and renew.
\nNo haunted mirrors reflecting worthless ugly
\nor folded hands yielding empty.
\n 
\nWhere different tears could form.
\nThese, salty-sweet and welcome,
\ndropped from my closing eyes
\nas your patient fingertips pressed.
\nCaressed never-clotted wounds
\nthat yearned to heal.
\nGarnering trust.
\nAnd squeezed pillow.
\nA respite found in every feel.
\n 
\nWhere startled sighs and caring clutch
\ntook hold.
\nIn arms that guided, loved, and held.
\nNot stole.
\nMetered out in beat-drawn breath
\nthat hadn\u2019t exhaled for far too long.
\nIn cadence I could finally own.
\nThe texture of safety
\nand quelled hate of an encased-me
\nwho stayed out of reach.
\n 
\nA reprieve from years of off-key cries
\nunharmonized, never-answered whys.
\nForgiven by your confident tongue
\nthat steered through my self-conscious shyw
\nand moved with understanding.
\nWhere wrapped soft cotton
\nhid sheets of self-blame.
\nAnd shame. And dearth of self-worth.
\nConfirmed with each touch,
\nthis man wasn\u2019t the same.
\n 
\nThe alleviation of fears
\namid lips against forehead.
\nA reassuring it\u2019s okay<\/i>.
\nAnd skin-swept overcame.
\nFar from forever-broken Sundays
\nand the need to double-check doors.
\nTurned from cruel betrayal of Holy Grace.
\nStained the stars. Guitar-strummed,
\nhummed out fretted sane.
\nLogic breaking free from languished pain.
\nUntangling anguished mind
\nthrough rhythmic, midnight jazz
\nand every tear-traced vein.
\nAs you tenderly filled the space inside me.
\nAnd I pieced together melody
\na note at a time.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGrove Koger<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE DOOR
\n 
\nThe door never shut tight,
\nwas warped,
\nor the jamb was crooked.
\nOr the foundation was settling.
\nWho knows?
\n 
\nWe called in our landlord,
\nbut when he couldn\u2019t fix it
\nwe said,
\nNever mind.
\n 
\nWe were young and impatient.
\n 
\nBut did that door
\nlet in everything that
\nfollowed?
\n 
\n 
\nLIT CRIT
\n 
\nDon\u2019t call me, Ishmael;
\nI\u2019ll call you.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBoris Kokotov<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIF ONLY SHE WERE…
\n 
\nI shouldn’t make love
\nto an assistant professor of English!
\nNeither pills nor condoms
\nprevented her from conceiving a poem,
\nnot to mention that nothing
\nprotected me from subsequent reading.
\n 
\nCrammed into the raving stanzas
\nher urges and exquisite sensations
\nwere promptly published
\nin a small-circulation periodical
\nrun by postgraduate students
\nof some arts-and-literature college.
\n 
\nI’m amazed at her eloquence,
\nher capacity to express feelings
\nwhich, I suspect, she didn’t really have.
\nDamn it! If only she were
\nas shameless and unbridled in bed
\nas in print! Then… Oh, then
\n 
\nI would make love to her again —
\nthis time without contraceptives —
\nfathering as many poems as she wants.
\nI would recite them at every opportunity,
\nrejoicing in the smallest details,
\nbragging about the whole affair.
\n 
\n 
\nWHEN MY POEMS LEARN
\n 
\n The death of the poet
\nwas kept from his poems. <\/i>
\nW.H. Auden
\n 
\nWhen my poems learn
\ntheir author is dead
\nsome of them will mourn,
\nsome of them will fret.
\n 
\nSome of them will dance,
\nsome of them will laugh:
\nleft along at once!
\nNo more cuts — enough!
\n 
\nYet the rest of the band
\nwon’t give a shit,
\nbadly written and
\ngrossly proud of it.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAjay Kumar<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFIRST, THE BOY SINGS, & THEN THE GIRL SINGS
\n 
\nIn a world of discovered breasts
\n& the hierarchy of rising prices-
\nsilk, bourneville, temptation-
\nboys with chocolates in their pockets,
\n 
\nor something cute, or something
\nin the mood for hair gel-
\nskinny jeans, torn jeans, patched
\njeans, gaping sleeves, no belts,
\n 
\npencil bottoms, fitting ribs like
\nsecond skin. I had milk-teeth hair,
\npants that could hold two for a boy
\nbarely one, tucked in shirt, twitching
\n 
\nlips, nose, eyes of a plant left alone
\nin the same soil for some time.
\n 
\nLooking for the people who look
\nlike movies, you were a pilgrim
\nsearching for the gods of lipstick.
\nFamiliar with following, I followed,
\n 
\nused to waiting, I waited. My lips
\npurse wherever your eyes must
\nhave fallen, I can see all that you saw
\nbut still not see what you saw in it.
\n 
\nWhatever they are made of, where
\nare they now when I feel like singing.
\n 
\n 
\nERASMUS DARWIN, ON THE NIGHT
\nHE REFUSED KING GEORGE III, & ME, AGED 14
\n 
\nhad nothing in common but a no on the lips, a denial.
\nIt must have been a usual night, after the Lichfield sun set-
\n 
\nErasmus, smelling his Georgian herb garden,
\nwould have said- No- to himself, & Botanic Muse
\nwould have carried it to the king.
\nI said no to things like toothbrush & soap.
\nWhy does not Dr. Darwin come to London<\/i>, he asked,
\nHe shall be my physician if he comes<\/i>, repeating in his usual manner.
\n 
\nI had no interest in the sex life of plants
\nbecause that made me cry pimp! at every passing bee.
\nHe introduced stamen<\/i> & pistil<\/i> to the English language.
\nWith increasing stamens the pistil turned
\nfrom chaste<\/i> & blooming<\/i> to seductive<\/i> & needing protection<\/i>.
\n 
\nThe Darwin family evolved in the myth of concentric circles,
\nhis son, Robert, said on not getting out of his house-
\nevery road out of Shrewsbury is associated in my mind
\nwith some painful event<\/i>. His grandson Charles
\nplayed two games of backgammon with Emma between
\n8 & 8:30 every night, ate hawks, bitterns and armadillos
\nthat tasted like ducks but gagged on a meal of brown owl,
\nthat tasted like indescribable<\/i>.
\n 
\nMaybe someone would ask me too with a knock
\nat my door & I would tell them why<\/i>. & how
\nI wouldn\u2019t slut-shame pistils in my vignettes,
\nsee them as a tower of their own.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLinda Lerner<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nON BEING TOLD SOMEONE IS UNDER THE WEATHER
\n 
\nbut not how far down, I head straight to that
\ndown under country where it\u2019s over 100 degrees
\nfires raging, to when the temperature here
\nwas in the single digits, you lay beneath
\npiles of blankets beneath the bone-cold of rejection
\nto my wondering which weather you meant,
\nthat stormy kind after he confessed
\nabout her, tried to change the weather
\nsaying she doesn\u2019t mean anything to him
\nand making it worse, thick foggy weather
\nyou couldn\u2019t see past, or is it the
\npolitically correct weather you\u2019ve been
\ncrawling out from, and keep getting caught
\ntrying to choose your own survival-weather
\n 
\nso, tell me, how far down into what weather
\nmust I go, to find you
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Levin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI AM A BULLET
\n 
\nno missile wings as straight
\nor with such fierce velocity,
\nhumming in tune with siblings
\nfrom our chambered hive:
\nsteel bees, swarming blued space
\nuntil we meet what dares dispute
\nour flight and bounce, transformed
\n 
\ntumbling through livers
\nat compressive speed
\nshredding veins unseen
\nunless we carve an exit wound.
\nBut don\u2019t blame me —
\nunchained resentment, black-clad,
\nis my baptistry.
\n 
\n 
\nJOINTS
\n 
\nIn socket and ball Vesalius
\nsaw a grand design — from
\nintricate flexed knees
\ninferred a Jeweler
\nfretworking worlds.
\n 
\nPound viewed sarcastically such
\nmemes: beneath seen forms
\nperceived blind anguish
\nmultiplying — clocks
\nboned by Dali.
\n 
\nMarvell prescribed orgasmic cures
\nin tangled limbs foresaw
\nan antidote: erotic speed
\naccelerating
\ninfinitely.
\n 
\nPost-moderns have been heard
\nto state that aimlessness
\nhas displaced fate
\nand purgatory\u2019s now
\na treatment course
\n 
\nyet there\u2019s a vestige
\nfrom anatomy class
\nbeyond the scope
\nof orthopedics
\n 
\nto correct:
\njoining is all, is all.
\nOnly connect.
\n 
\n 
\nWHAT THE WISE MEN BROUGHT
\n 
\nForetellings are double-faced,
\nmixing chance and cause
\nfact with belief.
\nSuppose they sought Herod —
\nthe star beckons ambiguously,
\nthey\u2019re aliens, unused to
\nlocal customs, lacking immigrant
\naid, court interpreters. Perhaps
\nthey just stopped for a roadside
\n 
\nemergency, unaware
\nof the death decree: heralds
\nstreamed from the palace
\nblaring the message in brass
\nand plumed helmets; the cloaked
\ngravid flight towards an ill-sited birth.
\n 
\nPerhaps that\u2019s the meaning:
\northodox gift-wrap is tinsel.
\nWhat\u2019s holy is kindness;
\nthe task then and now
\nto show up.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nNancy Smiler Levinson<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDEAR BILLY COLLINS
\n 
\nYou wondered how I would feel
\nupon finding out that you
\nwrote your poem instead of me.
\nYou woke up early,
\nsat in the kitchen with a pen
\nmusing on rain-soaked windows,
\nivy wallpaper\u2003\u2003goldfish circling in its bowl<\/i>.
\n 
\nI woke up perhaps later than your hour
\nno water drops sliding down my window pane,
\nSouthern California seeing little rainfall.
\nI sipped a mug of coffee, read the New York Times,
\nwielding a pencil for the crossword puzzle
\nearly-week grid only, I confess, the latter week\u2019s
\nword challenges too puzzling for me.
\n 
\nThen your eye drifted to shakers
\nof salt and pepper standing side by side . . .
\nwondering if they\u2019d become friends
\nafter all these years or if they were still strangers
\nto one another like you and I<\/i>,
\npoet and reader\/also poet at the starting line.
\n 
\nForget the raindrops and the fish.
\nBut the salt and pepper shakers!
\nFriends or still strangers?
\nOh, how I might possess
\nsuch observation of the ordinary,
\nimagination shaken\u2003\u2003such inventive verse!
\n 
\nGreener than the ivy on your wallpaper,
\nenvy quivers in me like the ash tree leaves
\nin the breeze outside my window\u2003 \u2003a timid
\nkindergartener sitting at a tiny table
\nwith a fistful of magic markers
\nstymied at blending any semblance of magic.
\n 
\nYet\u2003 \u2003knowing that you alone are you
\nwhile I can only be me, I am inspired
\nreading your work, and I befriend you
\nand your pen creating in your cozy kitchen.
\n 
\n 
\nTHIS JUST KILLS ME
\n 
\nReading how researchers
\nhave discovered that
\nall<\/i> human brain activity
\ndoes not cease at once
\nthe moment a body is
\npronounced dead
\n 
\nwhen your heart stops pumping blood
\nthe EEG flat-lines
\nyour brain stem reflex arrests
\nbut all your cerebral cortex cells
\ndo not instantly go dark
\n 
\nyou may briefly know
\nthat you have died
\nyou might even hear a voice
\n\u201cOkay that\u2019s it.\u201d
\n 
\nSay you are lying on an operating table
\nand you didn\u2019t make it\u2003 \u2003 \u20032:19 p.m.
\nprecise time noted for the certificate
\n 
\na cluster of your thinking<\/i> cells
\nhave not yet collapsed
\nten seconds, maybe twenty
\nyou know that you have died.
\n 
\nYou might startle: am I really dead
\nor think damn I\u2019ll miss my meeting
\nor my flight to Hong Kong
\n 
\nSo\u2003 \u2003 \u2003what might flicker
\nacross my dimming brain
\nperhaps hey I get it<\/i>\u2003 \u2003but I can\u2019t
\nshout it out or whisper it or weep
\nor perhaps I\u2019ll recall a line
\nof Mary Oliver poetry
\nor Ecclesiastes a time to be born
\nand a time to die
\nor perhaps
\nno words
\na visualization
\nEve
\nme as Eve
\nrising
\nin
\nmy
\nlush
\nperfumed
\ngarden
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJames Lineberger<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nANNUNCIATION WITHOUT A BULLET IN IT
\n 
\nAhh Jorie!
\nEver since the death of my son
\nI keep thinking back to your gnarly convoluted dirge
\nwhere an unknown shooter has fatally wounded the family dog
\nand in the tortured telling of it
\nyou strive to somehow link the lingering death of a beloved pet
\nwith the horrors of Auschwitz
\n 
\nOh Jorie!
\nare you saying you couldn’t
\npull the trigger
\nnever be the shooter or the chooser
\n      not Mengele not me? <\/i>
\n 
\nWhat if you happened
\nto back over two
\ndarling little kittens
\nat the same time one under
\neach of the rear wheels of your van
\nthe left one
\n    squashed dead at once the other
\nflopping around in frozen time
\nchasing it like that floundering chicken when Grammaw wrung
\nits head off
\nand you’re trying to say you’re sorry
\n      oh goddamn forgive me please please
\ncursing the way
\nyou used to pray crying out
\nbe still you little shit hold still I\u2019ll
\n      kill you!<\/i>
\nAnd that’s history too
\nisn’t it? No?
\n 
\nOkay what about the ninety-seven freight-laden cars
\n      on the Northern
\n         and Southern train
\nthat hurled
\nmy son\u2019s 4Runner eight-tenths of a mile
\ndown the tracks before
\nit could get itself stopped?
\n   I keep asking myself
\nwas it a suicide
\nand what part did I play in it
\n    Who was at the throttle Jorie?
\n    me?
\n      you?
\nBut it’s all the same
\n       right?
\nDogs and gerbils and dying children and things
\nthat go bump on the windshield
\n        feathers and bones
\nand party favors
\nscattered by the roadside
\nlike grains
\nof rice like the left-overs from so-and-so’s picnic
\n 
\nCome on Jorie don’t say any more just
\n 
\n                zip it<\/i>
\n 
\nAnd your next good old doggie that gets shot
\ntomorrow or the next
\n    do the digging yourself
\ndon\u2019t hide him in a sack either
\njust toss him in naked and shovel the dirt in his face
\nand when you hear
\nhis ghostly dogtags clinking from room to room don\u2019t come
\ncrying to me take
\nyour arms from around
\nme stop it Jorie Stop!
\nWe’ve each got our own death camp to face
\n      alone
\nno little girls murdered in somebody else’s book
\n            or dying babies wrapped
\nin scraps of paper old men shuffling
\nto get tattooed
\ngutted
\nburied alive doing it for you Jorie
\nall for you
\nthis clack of imaginary marionettes set loose with limbs flailing
\nin an awkward final solution
\nas you inch forward
\non your belly
\nto snuffle the scratchy sacred photos
\n 
\ndigging
\ndigging like a half-mad
\n       ravenous dog<\/i>
\ntill you\u2019ve broken
\nthrough to
\nthe yellow powdered
\n       bones
\nof all the grief you can get your hands on crying choose
\nme me do me
\ntake my picture cheese
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDonna Macomber<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBONE YARD
\n 
\nfor transparency
\nand those that let you
\nsee all the way through them
\nbruised front to shattered back
\nfor those coming undone
\nand those falling apart
\nhands un-holding
\nlips through which exit plans are hatched
\nfor the shell bleached by unmerciful light, dangerous heat
\nand the leaf frozen in death. revelation of skeletal, spiny bones.
\nFor the loss of flesh, the shock of disease. It’s spiral up
\nthen rocketing down. For the sight of the blind. Music of
\ndeafening silence. Swish of those tall swamp weeds.
\nfor those stacked in mass graves
\ntheir names unknown
\nfor those in solitary confinement
\nor quarantined on a ship with no welcoming port
\nfor those in chemo lounges
\nwide, decided grins and hopes reconfigured
\nhow many ways can we kiss the earth?
\nfor worms without headlamps and the hated snake
\nthose born not beautiful
\nthose born desirable and at risk
\nprayer for the bones of me slogging through sunlight
\nheavy for reasons unseen, unknowable
\nswitching off the news-feed-squawking end times
\nlight rays through naked trees
\nskyline pink, skyline blue
\ndays stretching like something unfurling after
\nan unnatural coiling.
\nby your grace
\nby your grace
\nmay we veer off disaster’s path
\ninto homecoming
\ninto welcome
\ninto a million distinctive harmonies
\nour bones a jungle, a sacred tangling
\nof error and redemption
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTamara Madison<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCATCHING CHILDREN
\n 
\nMy mother sketched in quick lines overlapping.
\nGradually, the subject emerged, like a Polaroid
\nexposed to light. Most often she drew people,
\nsometimes children, though they moved so fast \u2013
\nlike fireflies, they had to be caught. Here\u2019s
\nmy daughter when her hair was fair in curls
\naround her face, on a dinner napkin with the word
\n\u201ccaught\u201d and the date. Children not her own,
\neven grandchildren, were a mystery to Mother,
\nbut she could draw them, stilled like insects
\non flypaper, like butterflies pinned to a board
\nwhere they would be forever quiet and obey.
\n 
\n 
\nBLACK CADILLAC
\n 
\nMy mother taught me not
\nto hate (but never date
\na Negro; if you had children,
\nwhere would they fit in?).
\nMy brother had to work
\non the farm; he
\nwas raised by our father.
\n 
\nI ride to school in the cab
\nof Dad\u2019s pickup, sitting
\nbetween them, books
\nand lunch box at my knee.
\n 
\nAt a stop light we land
\nnext to a Cadillac with a black
\nman behind the wheel.
\nHow did that Negro
\nget himself a Cadillac<\/i>? they snicker.
\n 
\nHere is the bruise
\nmy memory has carried
\nfor five decades:
\n 
\nMy brother rolling down
\nthe window to spit
\non the shiny black hood;
\nour father chuckling.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJ. C. Mari<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCHARLES BUKOWSKI AND THE SNAKES OF ZIMBABWE
\n 
\ni was watching a
\nnature show when she knocked.
\n 
\na mongoose got killed by a viper and
\nan African otter managed to escape
\na reticulated python, a
\nreal big son of a bitch.
\n 
\ni felt sorry for the
\nmongoose and
\nglad for the otter,
\nalthough i understand that
\npythons too have to eat.
\n 
\nslams the door open
\nand struts in
\nwearing her cut-offs and
\nwhat used to be
\nmy favorite Smiths shirt.
\n 
\n“what’s up” very loud and artificial
\nmeant to let me know
\nhow happy and full of energy she is.
\n 
\nto show that i should be too
\nshe tries
\nto shake me by the shoulders
\nthe way you would a puppet,
\na child, or someone
\nyou don’t sleep with anymore.
\n 
\nshe came to
\npick up a few books, cd’s and
\nsmall statuettes of budhhas and
\nhindu deities she left behind.
\n 
\nher new lover’s outside
\nwaiting,
\nengine still on,
\nmusic blasting.
\n 
\nhe lifts weights and
\ndrivers a car, i guess
\nthat’s two advantages
\nhe has over me,
\ngood for him and
\na good switch for her too,
\nno more beer-belly and lyft.
\n 
\napparently he
\nlistens to reggaeton music:
\nnot sure that trumps
\nmy Rachmaninov
\nor even my Smiths.
\n 
\nshe dances around
\nwhile she picks up the last few things
\nand throws them
\ninto a large tote bag, then
\nwrapping up her mini-maelstrom of flash and sound
\ntells me, as she nears the door,
\n 
\n“maybe now you can do
\nlike your idol did, Bukowski, and
\nwrite poems about the women that leave,
\nhey!! maybe you’ll be famous too”
\n 
\ni’ve know her long enough
\nto tell myself the
\ncomment’s not meant
\nin a mean-spirited way.
\n 
\n“i have no idols” my retort, and
\n 
\nshrugging her shoulders she
\nthrows a kiss in duck-face
\nas she walks out the door
\nand into the waiting sunshine, new love and
\nblasting reggaeton.
\n 
\ntwo furry things with large snouts
\nrun like hell a
\nlioness behind them through the bush.
\n 
\ni haven’t written a poem for her yet.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeremy Nathan Marks<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTRICKSTER
\nThe wild dogs of North America are all held in ill repute
\n  -Peter Matthiessen<\/i>
\n 
\nCoyote is on the border between the state park and ranch:
\nshe is pinned to the fence.
\nI am new to the West;
\nseeing her like this causes me distress.
\n 
\nTowheaded grasses of the high plains are blown by drones,
\nmarking my movements.
\nThe sky is now wide as a surveyor\u2019s eye,
\nneither eagle nor aerie occludes it.
\n 
\nDespite her death,
\nI still expect Coyote to lead
\non
\nto Canada
\nthat land just beyond the bump stock line
\nits glacial peaks crossing cloud breaks
\nbefore cantering down into the tundra.
\n 
\nOf course, the far north is now a gas field
\nfor permafrost\u2019s grasp has loosened.
\nCoyote would sniff the many holes
\nwinch her nose
\nand ask,
\ndid you do that<\/i>?
\n 
\nThe answer is, yes.
\n 
\nI wish she would rise,
\ndrawing breath away from pipelines,
\nstrychnine, and traps
\nthen she could drag
\nthe grass sea out of its corral
\nand scold the sun to stop sucking out snow\u2019s
\nvery breath
\nuntil the soil has no water.
\n 
\nWith Trickster there are corms,
\nhidden dens where her pups yelp at their own shit
\nas it teaches them how to fish for many lifetimes.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCarolyn Martin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nVARIETY IS \u2026 AND 21 OTHER PROVERBS
\n 
\nVariety is the spice, cleanliness is next.
\n 
\nHeaven helps those who don\u2019t bite the hand that feeds them.
\n 
\nPeople who live in glass houses should hope for the best.
\n 
\nThere\u2019s no place like home for a free lunch.
\n 
\nNecessity makes the heart grow fonder.
\n 
\nA watched pot never spoils the broth.
\n 
\nOne man\u2019s trash is in the eye of the beholder.
\n 
\nIf you can\u2019t beat \u2019em, practice harder.
\n 
\nHonesty is the best policy until it isn\u2019t.
\n 
\nYou made your bed, now scratch my back.
\n 
\nIf you want something done right, lead a horse to water.
\n 
\nDon\u2019t cry, don\u2019t count: milk and chickens are here today,
\ngone tomorrow
\n 
\nFamiliarity breeds the best things in life.
\n 
\nThe pen is mightier than a squeaky wheel.
\n 
\nAn apple a day is worth a pound of cure.
\n 
\nWhen in Rome, keep your friends close.
\n 
\nYou have to kiss a lot of toads to starve a fever.
\n 
\nLoose lips make mountains out of molehills.
\n 
\nThere are two sides to every story: cross the bridge.
\n 
\nWhen the going gets tough, make love.
\n 
\nThere are two theories about arguing with a woman: try putting the cat back
\nin the bag or\u2013\u2013the greater part of valor\u2013\u2013 get out of the kitchen.
\n 
\nWhen all is said and done, what comes around goes.
\n 
\n 
\nFOR EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE.<\/i>
\n\u2013 Teilhard de Chardin, \u201cOmega Point\u201d
\n 
\nSunday morning and I\u2019m about to murder
\nthe crows congregated high up our Douglas firs.
\nThey\u2019re heckling sparrows pecking the suet cake
\ndangling from my maple tree and can\u2019t conceive
\nthese breakfasters will not rise anywhere
\nuntil they\u2019re satisfied.
\n 
\nI\u2019m tempted to defy gravity and surf
\nthe wind waving through the evergreens.
\nFrom high above those nasty wings,
\nI\u2019d warn them that my eye is on those sparrows
\nand other earth-bounded things.
\n 
\nWith due respect, some must convene,
\nconsort, converge before they rise:
\nyeast and dough, soil and bulbs, flocks of geese,
\na weary soul like Virginia Woolf\u2019s,
\nslipping into a river\u2019s flow and waking \u2013
\nto her surprise \u2013 on an unsuspecting star.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTim Mayo<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFISHER\u2019S BARN
\n 
\nOut of a hay dust of memory I see the big tar-brown
\nthree story barn rise up again behind my old house
\nthe iron and wooden sledges stacked to one side
\none on top of the other those that must have carried
\nthe maple sap down from the hill past the pasture
\nto the old sugarhouse gone so long ago only a trace
\nof rotting wood outlines the ground
\n 
\nand in the barn\u2019s dim light I conjure up the wooden
\nmilk and sap buckets I saw on the earthen and cement floor
\nof the milking parlor buckets broken down into iron rings
\nand jumbles of slats curving up as if to say the world
\nis a set of hoops we must all jump through or stop dead
\nin a clatter of things we can never again piece together
\n 
\nWhen old man Fisher put up his milk buckets
\nfor the last time he turned away from the stainless steel
\nartifacts of a world he could not afford and his wife took in
\nwashing and walked the miles it took to other people\u2019s houses
\nto make ends meet cleaning the dust beneath their beds
\nmopping and polishing floors while her husband sat
\nun-budging and silent after the Ag-agents left
\nin their clean pressed pants having closed him down
\nfor milking in wooden buckets
\n 
\nHe sold the cows at auction watching their mute names
\nlow out of existence I used to think I heard them
\nrattling in their stanchions when winter whipped
\nthrough the open windows and the history of mud and dirt
\nsap and milk suddenly whistled out its cold song
\nand I imagined the corn fermenting in the silo
\nreeking like the old farmer himself too old by then
\nto seed a new family his stubbornness starting to crumble
\nwith the beams of this fallen down barn I no longer own
\nwhere houses now pasture like cows on the hill behind it
\nand Fisher is dead
\n 
\n 
\nAN INCIDENTAL LIST OF LOSS
\n 
\nAnd Time will have his fancy
\nTomorrow or today<\/i>. \u2013W.H. Auden
\n 
\nThe squall at birth, though its echo
\ncontinues throughout your whole life
\nbecoming birdsong, the bear huffing
\nat the backside of the blackberry patch,
\nthe shuffle of deer in autumn hardwoods,
\nwishing themselves to the deep thicket
\nthey may never reach, the sudden gasp
\nof lovers in the dark, the mother you finally
\nmet at the last minute, the watch she gave you,
\nstopped at a moment you weren\u2019t looking,
\nthe present even now in the past, the hiccup
\nof time lurching out of the place you will forget,
\ndark hands jerking across a clock\u2019s white face\u2013\u2013
\nthe watch!\u2013\u2013the watch!\u2013\u2013in which drawer did you . . . ?
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJanet McCann<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCAPGRAS SYNDROME
\n 
\nThe man beside her is not her husband.
\nI see them standing, he is dark, his features
\nSlightly blurred, she is in sunlight, laughing.
\n 
\nHe is told to enter into her reality,
\nPretend not to be her husband, pretend
\nHe\u2019ll be right back. Maybe go in one door
\n 
\nAnd out another, having changed his shirt.
\nThis works sometimes. She knows him by voice.
\nSometimes I think that I am not myself,
\n 
\nThese hands aren\u2019t mine, the wrinkled, spotted hands
\nWith ridged nails, my face is not my face.
\nNo one here is anyone I\u2019ve met.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCaitlin McCarthy<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nODE TO THE INSULTS I\u2019VE INTERNALIZED
\n 
\ni have a pig nose and a dead dad.
\nchipmunk cheeks, too small breasts,
\na shelf of an ass that could hold a cup
\nbut isn\u2019t worth grabbing onto.
\nall peaches and cream and lard,
\nfuckable because of the daddy issues
\nbut not, thanks to the big tummy
\nthat\u2019s streaked with stretch marks.
\ni talk too much, laugh like an asthmatic
\nhyena, cry about everything apart
\nfrom what matters, like the people
\nthat tumble like dominos around me
\nor the way i seem to make everyone
\nfeel just a little bit worse about themselves
\nwithout saying so much as a word.
\n 
\n 
\nNURTURE VERSUS NATURE
\n 
\nmy mom has two moms:
\none who is her mom and one who isn\u2019t.
\n 
\ni didn\u2019t understand this
\nuntil just last year, when i mistakenly
\naddressed the one who isn\u2019t as her mother.
\n 
\nall hell broke loose from her tongue.
\n 
\nthey share blood, share the same cheeks,
\nbut that\u2019s all. it ends there.
\n 
\nher real mom, the one who took
\nher in and didn\u2019t let a coin looped
\non string like a necklace embed
\nitself into the tender skin of her chest,
\nshe\u2019s gone. she\u2019s not here anymore.
\n 
\nthe other woman, the one who gave
\nmy mom up and went on to have two
\nother children with two other men
\nbut only kept the boy, that\u2019s not her mom.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMark J. Mitchell<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n100 YEAR HOOPTETOODLE
\nTo honor Lawrence Ferlinghetti<\/i>
\n 
\nHow does it feel to wear
\none hundred circles around the sun?
\nFrom after the war
\nthat didn\u2019t end war
\nto our right now wars
\nthat never end?
\nThrough your good war
\nand all our bad wars?
\nWere they slow?
\nWere they quick?
\nSpinning around the sun,
\npassing from big bad bop
\nto beat box;
\nfrom your Left Bank
\nto no one\u2019s West Bank.
\nAnd all the books
\nyou birthed and all the poets
\nyou raised\u2014all of them\u2014
\nand your multiplied lovers.
\nWere your circles quick?
\nWere they slow?
\nAnd this city you sang\u2014
\nand no one ever sang it better\u2014
\nBathing in the light
\nthat circles around you
\nas you\u2014one hundred times\u2014
\ncircle the sun.
\n 
\n 
\nCAF\u00c9 SCENE
\n 
\nA naked table lit by coffee cups\u2014
\nLipstick kissed, half-empty. Lovers left
\na half-hour ago. She\u2019ll need to pick up
\nthat naked spoon, licked by coffee. Cups
\ncan wait, she thinks, seeing bodies erupt
\nin another room, wishing them joy and depth,
\na night table littered with empty cups,
\njust kissed lipstick. Sweeps the tip lovers left.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSabyasachi Nag<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE DAILY FIX
\n 
\nThere was no one at the bar but me.
\nOne more shot, I said.
\nThe barman looked me over,
\nI am out of that stuff.
\nGo home, he said.
\nHe was alone and old.
\nHe was deaf and without an eye.
\nHe was lame and without a hand.
\nJust one more, I begged.
\nNo more tonight, I am closed, he said.
\nThere\u2019s something wrong with the fix
\nI said, somehow, I don\u2019t feel it yet.
\nI have stronger stuff back in the cellar.
\nCome back tomorrow, he said.
\nMy hands shook, as I tried
\nwriting a generous cheque. I staggered
\nand made one false step
\nand another, trying to lift my body,
\nwalk my legs straight with poise, dignity.
\nLet me help you, he said.
\nOut on the porch, I tripped and fell
\non my face, by the concrete planter
\nwith blood red geraniums;
\noh! they were beautiful;
\nblack ants swarmed crumbs of sugar.
\nBehind, I could hear shutters drawing down;
\nI could see the lights shut out;
\nI could sense the shadow of the barman
\nslowly disappear into the murky night.
\nJust one more shot, I shouted after him.
\nCome tomorrow, he shouted back,
\nwithout turning.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJames B. Nicola<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPOSTURE
\n 
\nTwo points define
\na line
\nbut also any man:
\nthe point at which he cannot stop himself
\nand the point at which he can
\nnot help but stop:
\nthe latent criminal and the inner cop.
\n 
\nI\u2019ve left these alter-egos on the shelf
\ndeporting in the midst of moving men
\nand women like a noble citizen.
\nBut the points, like instant seeds, I carry within,
\nthe axis of a seeming rectitude.
\n 
\nThe one I silence when I could be rude
\nand let the other laugh and imagine
\nthe magnitude of an impending sin.
\n 
\nIn other words, when I\u2019m about to holler,
\nthese two points stretch me, some, and I stand taller.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Nisbet<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTADPOLES
\n 
\nMe and Jimmy. Out. Looking for tadpoles.
\nIt was spring into summer, bursting time.
\nThe woods we were trekking through turned in
\nto a tiny clearing and an office block.
\n 
\nWe were gazing in, from depths of foliage,
\nto a secretaries\u2019 room. They were girls
\nof .. seventeen? .. eighteen? .. womanhood?
\nWe were just humble boy thirteens.
\n 
\nWe named them the Peacock and Miss Muffet.
\nPretty Peacock, the vividly-dressed,
\nthe prominently-breasted Peacock,
\nwhile Muffet was the quiet one.
\n 
\nWe went back and back, and gazed in joy.
\nThe Peacock would bend to a photo-copier
\nand the white vision would quiver. Miss Muffet
\nwould cross the room with files and tea.
\n 
\nOur banter though we saved for Muffet.
\nWe chaffed and loved her femaleness.
\nThe dipping of Miss Peacock\u2019s breasts
\ndrew almost silence, tiny gasps of awe.
\n 
\n 
\nCHANTICLEER
\n 
\nHe was known in the local rugby club
\nas \u201cShagger\u201d. The history mistress
\nat the grammar school, who gloried
\nin Sixth Form boys, described once
\nhis \u201chandsome arrogance\u201d.
\n 
\nOn his English degree at London\u2019s King\u2019s
\nhe was given the name of \u201cChanticleer\u201d,
\nChaucer\u2019s strutting cockerel hero.
\nHe was a ladies\u2019 man for sure, debater,
\ncock of some half a dozen walks.
\n 
\nUntil there arrived the dowdy fresher
\nAgnes, not just petite but small,
\ndocile, freckled, doting on him maybe,
\nmaybe, but what was very sure,
\nloved witless by the doting Chanticleer.
\n 
\nI met them once in the animal park,
\nyears later, walking up to the viewing point
\nto see the pride of lions. And Chanticleer
\nsent back to the car by clucking Agnes
\nto fetch the paper hankies.
\n 
\nAnd then, when Agnes was so deeply ill
\nand there were problems with her treatment,
\nChanticleer took on the whole establishment,
\nwas fierce, was resolute, crowed anger
\nin his hen\u2019s defence, and got her through.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nEdward O’Dwyer<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nALL THAT\u2019S CHANGED
\n 
\nI\u2019ve been meaning to get around to telling my wife
\nthat I don\u2019t quite believe in love anymore.
\nFor ten, maybe fifteen or so years now,
\nI\u2019ve been meaning to get around to it,
\n 
\nbut something else always seems to come up,
\nor the moment just isn\u2019t quite right,
\nor, for instance, a waiter comes over
\nto refill our wine and, by the time he is gone again,
\nI\u2019ve forgotten what my point was going to be.
\n 
\nIt\u2019s astonishing how full of interruptions life is.
\nIt isn\u2019t that I\u2019m keeping this information from her,
\nthough it could, on the surface, look like reluctance,
\n 
\nbut I just don\u2019t suppose I\u2019ll be allowed
\nto simply blurt it out and expect we\u2019ll both shrug
\nand agree to talk about something more interesting.
\n 
\nShe\u2019ll no doubt want to know what has changed
\nor, more likely, just what it is she has done wrong,
\nthough the answer, truly, is that she has only
\never done everything right, has been
\nthe perfect wife insofar as a spouse may be perfect.
\n 
\nAll that\u2019s changed, really, is I\u2019ve stopped
\nbelieving in love, but I have the impression
\nshe\u2019s going to feel as though that changes a lot.
\n 
\n 
\nINTERMEDIATE LIFE DRAWING
\n 
\nOne of the fundamental things about an intermediate
\n\u2018Life Drawing\u2019 class is its neither here nor there-ness.
\nIt\u2019s drawing class purgatory. Someone equivalent to God
\nhas decided, in all their wisdom, you are not ready
\nfor the advanced class, and has fashioned this new,
\nin-between place especially for your kind.
\n 
\nIn my own case, I\u2019m sure this has to do
\nwith proportion. I\u2019ll often draw a head too large,
\nor arms too long, or two shoulders that can\u2019t agree,
\n 
\nfine in themselves, but anatomic mismatches
\nwhen put together. If, in the advanced class, you
\ndid this, it would be intended, attributed
\nto some artistic statement, style.
\n 
\nThe man standing in the centre of the room
\nhas just removed all of his clothing
\nin front of seventeen strangers
\nno differently, I have to imagine, than he would
\nin the privacy of his own home.
\n 
\nWill he think about that at all as he stands there
\nwith little else to do than look out the window
\nand wonder? That this is the intermediate class,
\nthat we are deemed not ready for Heaven
\nbecause we still struggle with things such as proportion.
\n 
\nIf I was in the advanced class, not purgatory,
\nI\u2019d get his penis just right or, at least, just as intended.
\nHere, it could go either way. Does he care?
\nThe money shot, Americans call this.
\n 
\nI\u2019ll get to it later, when I\u2019m ready to look directly
\nat it. In the advanced class, naturally,
\nI\u2019d never be embarrassed about such things
\nas a penis dangling shamelessly there,
\nthe Heavenly light catching it just so.
\n 
\n 
\nLUST
\n 
\nHe replaces the empty wine glass
\nwith a fresh and generous pour.
\nShe neither utters nor gestures gratitude,
\nbut that\u2019s okay, she\u2019s exactly the type
\nthat he prefers to be a bitch.
\nShe has finished making a nail appointment
\non her mobile phone and she looks
\nboth very pleased with herself
\nand very angry at the world.
\nMaybe she can\u2019t make up her mind.
\nA simple thank you would be diminishing.
\nDialogue would reduce it, taint his lust,
\nby tarnishing the dark secret of it.
\nHe returns to his place inside the counter,
\nwhere the room is a cinema screen,
\nand she is the star, and it is his prerogative
\nto want her in unspeakable ways.
\nIt is better never to have her, of course.
\nIn the true spirit of lust, it is better
\nto only imagine those lurid scenes.
\nToo much perfectly good lust is spoiled
\nby having. He polishes glasses, watches,
\nthinks of how lust, at its best,
\nshould always be a continuation of want,
\nthe rapture of her kiss
\ninflating to unrealistic proportions,
\nthe nirvanas of her body ever unreachable,
\nbehind clothes, behind various doors,
\nbehind distance. He watches and thinks
\nhow lust should breed despondency,
\nsend a man to actions
\nthat are debasing, untypical of him,
\nbeyond undignified, and the opposite
\nof sweet. He takes the empty glass
\nhe has taken from her table,
\nholds it up to the afternoon light,
\nand licks the rim of it,
\nwhere she has smudged her lipstick.
\nThough quite aware this isn\u2019t normal,
\nhe feels alive, truly alive in the moment.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nG. M. Palmer<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDOING BLOW WITH NATASHA LYONNE
\n 
\nSo I was doing blow with Natasha Lyonne
\nI mean not that I really was doing blow
\nwith Natasha Lyonne but I really want
\nto have a story that starts like that so
\nI was doing blow with Natasha Lyonne
\nand we were talking about the Sack Lunch Bunch
\nand But I\u2019m a Cheerleader and about
\nthe state of American poetry relevant
\nto the other arts in America and she says
\nMichael the whole thing is who gives a fuck
\nabout poetry because we\u2019ve got Netflix
\nand cocaine and so all the sad and happy
\nand embarrassing things that you could do
\nin a poem you can just do in your bedroom
\nor maybe in a bathroom stall at the KGB
\nwhich of course you can\u2019t do if you\u2019re
\ndisabled when it comes to mobility but well
\nit\u2019s New York City what the fuck are you
\ngoing to do right? And so anyway why
\nwould you keep writing poetry when there\u2019s
\nall these movies and all this fucking coke
\nand I said well Natasha because in
\na movie no one would believe this happened
\nand she whipped up her head and looked
\nat me and said well there you motherfucking go.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHeather Pease<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE THRILL
\n 
\nSometimes you are
\na bong rip to oblivion
\nimagined clothes wildly
\npulled to the side in
\na locked bathroom stall.
\n 
\nSometimes you are
\na stranger, other times –
\nnot exactly.
\nYou press me against
\na full-length window in
\na tall building, or bend
\nme over the couch
\nin my office.
\n 
\nSometimes you are
\na woman; everything
\nsoft to touch, all moan
\nand panting. I imagine eyes, attentive
\nto every curve – mouth, fingers, and wide
\nspread hands gripping
\nmy neck.
\n 
\nSometimes you
\njust want to watch;
\ntell me
\nprecisely where to put
\nmy fingers; give me
\npermission, – if I
\nask \u2013 nicely.
\n 
\nSometimes I
\nwant it rough and put
\nup a fight.
\nYou are the edge
\nof a violence I beg for
\na red imprint right
\nacross my cheek.
\n 
\nOccasionally I show you
\na thing or two
\nbecome seductress, all flirt and tease
\nyour eyes peeking
\nfrom between my legs.
\nCall me queen.
\nThere are walls we
\nfuck against, there is rarely
\na bed
\nyou are never
\na mistake
\nyou are always the thrill
\nof getting caught.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSimon Perchik<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTWO UNTITLED POEMS
\n 
\nHiding on this tiny rock
\nits light is falling arm over arm
\nbrought down as hammer blows
\n 
\nand mountains clinging to the sun
\nthe way mourners will gather
\nand aim for your forehead
\n 
\n\u2013 it\u2019s not right for you dead
\nto lower your eyes once they\u2019re empty
\n\u2013 they have so much darkness
\n 
\nare still looking for tears
\nand all around you the Earth
\nsplitting open a single afternoon
\n 
\nup close \u2013 you are touching seawater
\nwithout anything left inside
\nto take the salt from your mouth.
\n 
\n 
\n*
\n*
\n 
\n 
\nYou stir this can before it opens
\nas the promise a frog makes
\nwhen asking for a kiss: the paint
\n 
\nwarmer and warmer will become
\nan afternoon with room for mountains
\nand breezes close to your shoulder
\n 
\nthough that\u2019s not how magic works
\n\u2013 there\u2019s the wave, the hand to hand
\nspreading out between the silence
\n 
\nand your fingers dressed with gloves
\nas if it was a burden and the brush
\nraising your arm the way this wall
\n 
\nneeds a color that will dry by itself
\nleave a trace: a shadow not yet lovesick
\nno longer its blanket and cure.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nStuart Pickford<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHAUNT
\n 
\nSometimes they\u2019re hunched, watching me
\nas I jog along Brackenthwaite Lane
\nearly in the morning, head in the trees.
\n 
\nMisty dawns, I imagine them fed up\u2014
\nthe blind sky\u2019s fallen in. Like a bundle
\nof clothes tossed in the air, they make off.
\n 
\nLater, one\u2019s near the model plane club.
\nLocked onto a dead shrew, it turns
\nthe world on the axis of its stare. The wind
\n 
\nstirs the direction and another appears
\nfrom nowhere as I slog up a hill, not yet
\ncarrion. It angles its red tail and is gone.
\n 
\nToday, they\u2019re in my mind as I descend
\na field. I drop my arms to my sides
\nand the breeze feels my hands for wings.
\n 
\n 
\nPLACES I SEE ALBERT FIGG
\n(i.m. 1920-2017)
\n 
\nYears ago on the ward. My new hip
\nis A-OK<\/i>, smiles Albert. In capitals,
\nhe writes on a napkin HILL112.COM,
\nhis very own website he learned to do
\nabout the battle for Caen. He grips
\n 
\nmy arm. Eyes snag the distance:
\nadvancing through a wheat field, his pal
\nhit by a flare, his cry still filling
\nthe silence between shells and years;
\nthe captain\u2019s arm raising his pistol.
\n 
\nToday, on the hill that\u2019s barely a rise,
\nAlbert in a wheelchair. His photo faces
\nno Churchill tank brewing up<\/i> its crew,
\nno hidden machine gun nests,
\njust corn giving shape to the wind.
\n 
\nEvery day on his website. Albert
\nshakes hands with another old man
\nfrom Munich who can still taste
\nthe gritty air. The sea\u2019s black with ships.
\nInvasion. No one coming to help.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFred Pollack<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHARLEQUIN AMONG CLOWNS
\n 
\nEach afternoon, bar mitzvahs, birthday parties,
\nthe occasional interesting<\/i> wedding. Two or three
\nkids always cry: what is this
\nugly capering balloonman, face
\nmore stylized than a doll\u2019s, and will he eat me
\nfeet or head first? The risk
\nof lawsuits, which the company
\nsupposedly bears, lends an edge; but hipper parents
\nsay, \u201cThat man is life<\/i>, son:
\nuncontrolled, ambiguous, deadly, and fun!\u201d
\n(Hipper kids can\u2019t be bothered
\nto raise their eyes from their phones.) When the last
\ngig ends, they pile into minis
\nand smart cars, debouch on plazas
\nand parks, steal bras and kisses,
\nreturn them undamaged, form pyramids of awe
\nand longing at the feet of the powerful
\n(they can tell by the shoes), turn
\nsomersaults that sweep
\nthe failed and the sad into nearby bodies of water.
\nAt times they talk between honks. The voices are scary.
\n 
\nHe finds himself among them
\nbut can never remember how: did he come
\nfrom a choice soir\u00e9e, where the wit
\n(not only his) transcended good and evil
\nand the riches of this world? And where only
\na pose, his famous contrapposto,
\nwas needed to be noticed?
\nHad he swung, distracted, from poles,
\ntumbled from monkeybars to land here?
\nThe clowns pretend neither to see nor despise him.
\nBut his pattern is wrong: motley versus
\ntheir whites, a merely partial<\/i> mask,
\nslippers and, worst of all \u2013 worse than the nose \u2013
\nhis heart, with which he communes, which inspires
\narias. Those aren\u2019t funny.
\nHe tries to fit in, defaces
\nstop signs, destroys
\nsurviving public amenities; but his heart
\nisn\u2019t in it, you see, he never put on the nose.
\nAnd they bare, within red oval grins or pouts,
\ncruel teeth, and laugh, and inflate and belabor him
\nharshly with balloons.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKen Poyner<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPERSISTENCE
\n 
\nSonny always said
\nhe was born for suicide.
\n 
\nProbably something not as messy as a gun
\nnor as painful as the noose.
\nPills, perhaps, but he would have needed
\nto study doses, combinations, pre-death effects.
\nFalling left too much time
\nto think about the landing.
\nCarbon monoxide would take planning,
\nprobably leave someone
\nwith the remainder of an auto installment loan
\npayment. Cutting would require
\nprecision. Perhaps a mix
\nof methods, a little of this,
\na little of that, together
\nnot so much to make a cleaning
\nlady\u2019s nightmare, but enough
\nto get the job done. So,
\n 
\nthat is what Sonny, as
\nhe said he would,
\ndid, and here we memorialize
\nhis passing of ill-health
\nand old age.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSuzanne Rancourt<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTACTILE
\n 
\nI roll onto my right side
\nand you spoon up against my back
\nyour cock locked and loaded
\nan eased pelvic tilt back and forward
\na round eased into the chamber, you say
\nas your paw hands tilt my hips to your stomach
\nI give you my arched back,
\nmy pussy clamps – releases,
\na new spring
\njust right for a firing pin such as yours, you say.
\n 
\nI receive you in ways you never thought possible.
\nA natural fit, you say, a keeper.
\n 
\nBut that\u2019s not how you finished your life
\na misfire
\na disassembling
\na \u201cpack it up I\u2019m heading out\u201d
\nif only death
\nwas permanent.
\n 
\nI take extra time with the gun oil
\nfondle the sexual freedom
\nthe ecstasy of a clean firing pin.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBill Ratner<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTRY MY LUCK
\n 
\nWhen I climb steps I count down
\nlike at a rocket launch
\nincreasing my odds of survival.
\n 
\nWhen I was eight I was afraid of being kidnapped.
\nAt thirteen I was angry as fate mistook me
\nfor an orphan Bozo Bop Bag.
\n 
\nAn all-knowing coven watched me
\nthrough the wall with smirks of bemusement
\nand grudging respect for the fact that I\u2019ve even made it this far.
\n 
\nTo mourn those who are gone
\nand to taste revenge
\nI watch Fast & Furious<\/i> and I cry.
\n 
\nI look for hidden meanings in incidental moments
\nI open a door and conjure up a man across the lake
\nenormous nostrils, jut jaw, taking aim at me.
\n 
\nIf I stop and breathe and take in the view
\nit\u2019s only a gun glued shut with rust and time.
\nIt\u2019s like that between me and the world.
\n 
\nTrucks won\u2019t heel over and plunge into rivers
\ntrains won\u2019t dragon up into the sky
\nbabies won\u2019t tumble into the gap beyond the platform.
\n 
\nI am perfectly intact
\nlike my front gate latch
\nwhich simply needs tightening.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPatrick T. Reardon<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHEN
\n 
\nWhen I sit and when I stand.
\nWhen clots of fog cover the restless river.
\nWhen tick tocks.
\nWhen I die and when I am.
\n 
\n   (When inert bullet left and
\n   channeled his brain and spilled
\n   onto rain-snow concrete and grass,
\n   gray tissue and blood
\n   and his empty body.)
\n 
\nWhen Johnny comes
\nmarching, when Irish
\neyes, when the swallows
\nand when a man loves.
\n 
\nWhen ignorant armies.
\n 
\nWhen lake and river merge.
\nWhen sky and water merge.
\nWhen flesh scabs.
\nWhen hot flesh unites.
\nWhen flesh rots dry.
\n 
\n    (When his strobe anger lightninged a
\n   whirlwind upon me, his fellow prisoner
\n   in chains reaching back to the crib.)
\n 
\nWhen the red, red robin and
\nwhen doves. When the ship and
\nwhen I was a boy.
\n 
\nWhen I swallowed my unsung song.
\n 
\nWhen Jesus wept.
\nWhen Judas kissed.
\nWhen Peter heard.
\n 
\n    (When he stuttered, when he learned
\n   poison lessons he couldn\u2019t vomit, when
\n   his leg was broken, but not his leg.)
\n 
\nWhen I, when we were, when the
\nsaints, when the moon hits your
\neye, when you wish, when you\u2019re
\nsmiling, when you went away, when
\nyou went away.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBelinda Rimmer<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDAMP
\n <\/p>\n

She hid in the airing cupboard and touched herself there<\/i> before she knew what there<\/i> meant, down to the fluffy towels and linen table cloths it felt good, and all the scary people in other places not yet missing her, and the buzz of the boiler, and the clean mountain of washing, of towels and tablecloths, where she could touch herself there<\/i> before she knew what there<\/i> meant, nothing but the buzz and groan and crackle crackle of a far off radio, and the shelf beneath her shuddering with surprise when she let out an “O” and an “O” and all the scary people too far away to know.<\/div>\n

 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHeather Lee Rogers<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSTRAWBERRY PANCAKES
\n 
\nPlump ripe strawberry time
\nbought a big dollar box from
\nthe all-night-fruit-guy
\nset up by the 7 train
\ncuz I ached for someone
\nto make pancakes for.
\nSweet treasure carried
\njuice-stained palms carried
\nover that dark patch
\nof raw summer sidewalk
\nI always mistrusted
\ntorn up by tree roots
\ndeep-buried shadows
\nso carefully carried
\nfeeling along my dark way
\nlike reaching through
\nthe wicked dawn across
\nthe bedsheet to
\nan empty space.
\n 
\n 
\nOUT THE BUS WINDOW
\n 
\nAs clouds roll
\nshe recalls their names
\na playlist
\nshe can only pause
\nbut can\u2019t turn off
\nher boots
\ntell better stories
\nthan they whispered
\nin the drunk embrace
\nof darkness
\nin her bed, her home,
\nher careful body
\ncaught between
\nher bliss
\nand her discomfort
\nher pinned arm
\nher patched jacket
\nthat timid stranger
\nin her passport photo
\nin her bag across the room\u2026
\nTheir snores were music
\nsweet and softly playing
\nbehind her when
\nshe left
\nand shut the door.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Ruffin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBLUE SKY
\n 
\nThe next time you hear
\nthe Dickey Betts-penned
\nAllman Brothers Band
\nsong \u201cBlue Sky,\u201d
\n 
\nand it transports you
\nto that peaceful place
\nof blue skies, rivers,
\nsunny days, bluebirds,
\nand love-induced highs,
\n 
\nyou might reflect on the fact
\nthat Robins Air Force Base,
\nin cooperation with the
\nMacon\/Bibb County government
\nand Mercer University
\n(full disclosure: my alma mater)
\nnow operates a software lab
\nin the building that housed
\nCapricorn Records, which
\nreleased the Eat a Peach<\/i> album
\nthat includes the song,
\n 
\nand on the fact that
\nthe album title comes from
\nsomething Duane Allman, who
\ndied while it was being made,
\nsaid when Ellen Mandel, who
\nwas interviewing him in 1971
\nfor Good Times<\/i> magazine,
\nasked him how he was
\nhelping the revolution:
\n 
\n\u201cEvery time I\u2019m in Georgia,
\nI eat a peach for peace,\u201d
\n 
\nyou might hope and pray
\nthat the Air Force\u2019s software
\nhelps keep the peace,
\n 
\nand, while you\u2019re praying,
\nyou might also give thanks
\nthat, at least in
\ndowntown Macon, Georgia,
\nirony is alive and well.
\n 
\n 
\nTALKING POLITICS IN THE AGE OF TRUMP
\n 
\nIt\u2019s like watching
\nGilligan\u2019s Island
\nwith a friend.
\n 
\nI say, \u201cMary Ann
\nsure is cute.\u201d
\n 
\nHe says, \u201cNah,
\nnot really.\u201d
\n 
\nI mean, where can
\nwe go from there?
\n 
\n 
\nSECOND KINGS 20:12-19
\n 
\nWhen a delegation from Babylon
\nvisited King Hezekiah of Judah,
\nhe showed them everything
\nhe and his nation possessed.
\n 
\nWhen the prophet Isaiah found
\nout about it, he told the king that
\nthe time would come when the
\nBabylonians would take it all away.
\n 
\nOh and by the way, the prophet said,
\nthey\u2019ll take your children away too.
\n 
\nHezekiah said that sounded good to him,
\nwhich sounds almost as ridiculous as his
\nreasoning, which was, \u201cWhy not, if there
\nwill be peace and security all my days?\u201d
\n 
\nThus ends the reading
\nabout climate change.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nEd Ruzicka<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLOST
\n 
\nYou sounded the fool when we left the room
\nwhere your husband mumbled, sweated on sheets
\nwith eyes that were evaporating by the hour
\nand you told me how good the Lord is to every
\nlittle sparrow. You intoned it as if psalms
\nwere some balm one rubs into wounds.
\n 
\nWas leukemia his celestial gift?
\nIs paralysis a heaven-hurled bolt
\nthrough the spinal cord that helps
\nus how, Sarah, helps us how?
\nFor months his death was a shadow.
\nWe ate and slept in shadow.
\nWe walked through layers of shadow.
\n 
\nEveryone felt that he had suffered enough.
\nWe were a strained degree of grateful
\nwhen death untied the knot of his heart.
\nNow you are a broken thing.
\nThe whatzamagigit of your soul gave out
\nand the hardware store no longer carries that part.
\nYou wander and wander through your mirror
\ntrying on this bleak dress, that solemn shawl.
\n 
\nMy brother has left you alone to drive
\nto the lawyers office, sign successions.
\nMy brother has left you in the bank vault
\nof his absence where you can sigh and sigh
\nin deafening silence, lock and key security.
\n 
\nI knew I was losing my brother.
\nI did not know you would not allow us
\na proper gathering to begin to measure
\nwhat we may never be able to measure.
\nWe do not even know what sort of vessel
\nor cardboard box holds our brother\u2019s ashes.
\nI did not know I would lose you, sister-in-law
\nwho many years ago brought grace
\nin through our kitchen door.
\n 
\nIf we ask, you do occasionally offer the family
\nyour wounds, slip tiny razors off the end of your tongue.
\nYou do give us one window onto how squalid
\ngrief can get and the cracked ice of your gaze.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nClaire Scott<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSTEERING BY DEAD STARS
\n 
\nStoically stitched
\nwith staples, steel wire, bent paper clips,
\neven scraps of left over wool
\nno leaking love that leads to last straw loss
\nno chance of reruns that ruin years
\nspent on couches with shades drawn
\nempty syringes & pulsing migraines
\nso sorry we are letting you go<\/i>
\nsays Trader Joe\u2019s or Whole Foods or Frankie\u2019s Pub
\nscrounging half-eaten burgers & bits of apple pie
\nin dumpsters behind MacDonald\u2019s
\nbut now no more, stitched up tip-to-toe tight
\ndriving Uber & Lyft, clean clothes, starched collar
\nno OkCupid or trolling late night women
\nno attention paid to winks from back seat passengers
\nsafe in a hermetically sealed world
\nunder the glow of long gone stars
\nthe future frozen in the past
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMir-Yashar Seyedbaghari<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMISTY
\n 
\nErroll Garner piano notes tinkle like a long-lost cigarette wisp, walking up and down distant streets. Dusk falls, lavender beautiful and heartbreaking. Butter-colored lamps mix with the music, your heart empty. Women walk up and down the street, date nights, voices laughing, tinkling, words unknown spilling. Music rises again, trying to drown them out. Look at me, helpless kittens scurrying up a tree. Chords swishing like the tide. Cigarettes rise again, wisps. Misty, in love, girlfriends who never were appear before you. Cat-eye glasses, behemoth, beautiful, nerdy lips that talk about the Romanovs as if the Romanovs were an aphrodisiac, turning you both on, even if they got slaughtered and they were all inbreds. She wears lavender in a perfect dream. If only. Another girl, the musical notes rising: Another nerd. Daughter of a dysfunctional family. Lovable, troubled, wearing broodiness like a heavy parka. You are both troubled, fucked up souls. Bad dad in your case. And in hers too. Alone, wandering through the wonderlands.
\n 
\nYou imagine making love, dissecting her troubles like a corpse, turned on by it, ashamed, milking. And yet another girl, another girl in cat-eye glasses. The girls rise to your mind, dream women, the real ones walking up and down the street, hand in hand, the music wafting through your head. That\u2019s why I\u2019m following, you say silently. Looking for ghost girls, the real girls as taken as Liam Neeson. So misty, so much in love with the ghost girls who never existed. The real girls keep walking, hand in hand, boys with them smiling, goofy, awkward, grins. Baseball caps turned backwards, the girls smile, seeing things you cannot see in these beings. Eyes are misty too, though you can pretend to laugh, a silhouette in the deepening night, the lavender turning velvet, turning black, the real girls darting around you. Just misty.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJ. D. Smith<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDIRECTIONS
\n 
\nTake a right at the white barn
\nthat\u2019s been falling down for years,
\nthen a left at the red barn in good shape
\nwith an ad painted on it for a kind of chew
\nthey stopped making twenty years ago.
\nKeep going until you get to the gray house
\nwith a wraparound porch and, most days,
\nan old man sitting outside with his grown son
\nwho\u2019s in a wheelchair and stares off into space.
\nThen take a right at the intersection on a hilltop
\nunder the flashing yellow light they strung up
\nafter two crashes one Labor Day weekend.
\nBear left onto the gravel road, it\u2019s a shortcut,
\nright after the small cemetery with a big headstone
\nfor two sisters killed in one of those wrecks.
\nAnother two miles and you\u2019ll be back on a paved road.
\nGo straight for another half mile
\nuntil you see the sandstone courthouse
\nthat got finished in 1886.
\nYou can\u2019t miss it, and you wouldn\u2019t want to.
\nIt looks like a fortress, but for law,
\nmade with something in mind
\nbesides sticking to a budget.
\nA quarter mile more and you can
\npark just about anywhere, no meters.
\nThis isn\u2019t to say you\u2019ll get
\nto the market very fast,
\nbut you\u2019ll get to see these things.
\nYou\u2019ll hear more.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPaul Smith<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCRESCENT
\n 
\nThe crescent wrench is a great tool
\nit\u2019s adjustable
\nso you can make it fit
\nany size hex nut, your carburetor
\nsmall diameter threaded pipes
\nby just tweaking the knurl
\nit\u2019s better by far than
\nchannel locks
\nor your Craftsman 30 piece
\nsocket set with the 3\/8\u201d drive
\nwhy aren\u2019t we adjustable
\nlike the crescent wrench?
\nWouldn\u2019t it be cool,
\nthe symbol for the mysterious Mideast
\nsymbolizing us?
\ninstead
\nwe are fussy and touchy
\ngetting bent out of shape if someone
\ncalls us names like dipsticks
\nor mollycoddles
\nor clodhoppers
\nwho really cares?
\nsticks and stones, right?
\nLet\u2019s adjust
\nlet\u2019s be multifaceted
\nthe crescent wrench
\nhas a big heavy end
\nand a good grip
\nso you can clobber someone
\nover the head
\nif you don\u2019t like him
\nhis brain will hemorrhage
\nhe\u2019ll bleed a lot
\nand probably die
\nlike they do in Turkey
\n 
\n 
\nYOU CAN TELL
\n 
\nYou can tell a lot about someone
\nfrom where they buy their pizza
\nif they get it from Little Caesar\u2019s
\nor Domino\u2019s
\ninstead of a local joint
\ndon’t listen to any of their tips on
\nthe market, or thoroughbreds,
\nor where to meet girls
\nunless you like loneliness and poverty
\n 
\nYou can tell a lot about someone
\nordering a drink with their pizza from Rosangela\u2019s
\nif they order a rum and coke
\nthat\u2019s OK, I guess
\nbut if they order a
\nMyers\u2019 Rum and diet Coke
\nin a tall glass with very little ice
\nyou know you\u2019re talking to a thrifty alcoholic
\nand a smart one
\nwhy waste your money on ice
\nwhen more Coke is available
\nthereby stretching out a
\nbender to last all day?
\nOh, and if they tell you it\u2019s best
\nto start drinking after giving blood
\nbecause down a pint of hemoglobin
\nthat hooch really
\npacks a wallop
\nsuddenly you realize this lush
\nreally knows his business
\n 
\nYou can tell a lot about someone
\nby how they met their flame
\nif they call her
\ntheir paramour
\nand met her Within a Budding Grove
\nyou may be dealing with Proust or Henry James
\nor some other nice old lady
\nget hip to the Jove
\nor if none of that is available
\nthe jive
\nyou meet each other face to face
\nthere is a doorway called
\nthe first encounter
\nyou go through the door once
\nthere is no second chance
\nthe gumption thing is on you
\nin the laundromat
\nthe supermarket
\nat a party
\nsimply chat her up
\nwithout stuttering
\nshe gets that
\nso if the person you\u2019re talking to
\nsays he met his girl at Hugh Wells\u2019 birthday party
\nat the Hotel Centr\u00e1l
\nwhen Reuben overcharged them
\nfor all five bottles of Flor De Ca\u00f1a
\nand everyone overtipped Cloti
\nbringing the bottles
\nbecause things kind of got out of hand
\nthey had such a swell time
\nand it turned out her name was not Maria
\nbut Flavia
\nbecause she wanted to see what kind of guy
\nhe really was
\nand he proposed at the Hotel Paris
\nin La Ceiba
\nand she said
\n\u2018you want to do what?\u2019
\nso he did
\nand lived to regret it
\nbut she did help him raise
\none fine son
\nthen listen to him closely
\nhe will not mislead you
\nbuy him a Myers and Coke
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlec Solomita<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nUPSTAIRS
\n 
\nO, strange, plangent, morning echoes
\ntumbling softly, sifting down from
\nabove fool me never school me to
\nthe turnover like a crazed apple
\nwhen Sue gets back from school
\ninto pounding, running, skipping, jumping
\npounding, pounding, pounding, pounding \u2014
\npounding on my ceiling\u2019s floor. They scare me,
\nthe upstairs crowd, and when the boy\u2019s feet
\npummel my ceiling, I can only write
\n\u201cThe Highwayman,\u201d not a bad poem,
\nbut, one, not mine, and two, just one poem.
\nYes, I complained several times a few
\nyears ago and the truly brilliant, slightly
\nautistic genius mom, expert on portals,
\nkindness-subtracted except for her boy
\nnamed Sue, said, said, said, \u201cBoys will
\nbe boys.\u201d And that was that. I\u2019m afraid
\nof people, especially the ones upstairs
\nas they guard the portals of the world,
\nfederal agents in and out to check on
\ntheir progress. But pounding in my
\npoet\u2019s head is not a federal crime
\nand I want him (Sue) to do time for it
\nI want him to stub a toe so badly
\nhe can\u2019t gallop for a week. That\u2019s
\nall I need, a little relief. I tell my
\nshrink I\u2019m not the crazy fucking
\nstuttering crow, it\u2019s the wild aviary
\nabove that dysfunctions like a crowd
\nof peckish cockatiels living large.
\nHe wears superhero type clothing,
\nand is tall as a fucking tree; she\u2019s
\nan imp with thighs like redwoods.
\nI never hear them make love.
\n 
\n 
\nSHRINKS
\n 
\nOne had a set of eyebrows that would\u2019ve made Zeus proud.
\nHard to attend as they shifted when he spoke.
\n 
\nOne actually shrunk, he must\u2019ve lost 50 pounds in the time
\nwe worked together.
\n 
\nEthan made me look at a line of lights going back and forth
\nwhen he wasn\u2019t showing me pictures of his kids on his phone.
\n 
\nOne was so sad I had to sometimes extend the session to make her feel
\nbetter. She had the serenity prayer on her wall but I don\u2019t think it
\ngave her much peace.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJaime Speed<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTO CATCH A RAINBOW
\n 
\nI wouldn\u2019t know force or throttle
\nuntil I ended up a scared ladybug
\nlegs up and startled
\nthree year old girl scraped off the bottom of the boat
\na barnacle in oversized life vest.
\n 
\nDo you remember lugging me along
\nto the little town
\nto buy the boat
\nwhere you negotiated with the man over beers
\nand I sat with his blonde daughter
\nher short hair uneven and dirty with wind
\nand we cracked sunflower seeds on the little deck
\naiming to spit the split shells between the splintered deck slats
\nrejoicing in the growing graveyard of hulls below
\nand she kissed my hand, said we\u2019d be like boat sisters
\nwaved for hours when we drove away
\nher family\u2019s boat swishing behind my dad\u2019s car
\nwaving back its long goodbye.
\n 
\nYou still guard me a little at night
\nfrom your drinking and in the sunnier day
\nwe skulk the watery inlets between islands of scorched trees
\nyou guide a safe distance between our boats
\nleaving enough water between boats is an art
\nas much as leaving enough slack in the line
\nrounding into the peaceful cove we\u2019d never find again
\nwe kill our motors and cast
\nour lines far away like our dreams
\nbefore we call them back to us with little bobs and jerks
\nwhen all at once my line breaks the mirror
\nfinish of the lake\u2019s surface and in some deep place we can\u2019t see
\nit snags, for a moment I think I\u2019ll have to sever the line
\nwaste time rejigging while my hands tremble on the hook
\nbut the line is heavier than a snag
\nheavier than the other boat\u2019s eyes on me
\nthe intuition of hands starts me
\npulling the line in with aching heaves
\nmy hands strain and redden for the line\u2019s urgency
\npulling turns to pirouetting in this dance this tango only we know
\nas I pull his spinning body close enough to feel his fighting
\nsplashes hit my eager face and I lean in for the embrace
\nlaughing hysterically at the tears on my feet
\nand raising my dripping trophy above my head
\na rainbow flying through the air for the first time
\nand you shouting through your smile the next boat over:
\nBiggest catch of the weekend! <\/i>
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPhilip St. Clair<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE SPOILS OF PAIN
\n 
\nA mobile home park in the middle of Nebraska: a small group of demons
\n  has arrived for a practicum
\nmeant to sharpen their skills, to add a little something to their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s.
\n  They observe the empty landscape, featureless
\nto the horizon; they see how a gathering storm can fill the entire sky.
\n  They disguise themselves as crows,
\nfly in low circles over trailers on cinderblocks, see plastic toys, broken shoes,
\n  cars that are less than reliable.
\nThey disguise themselves as ants, lurk in narrow kitchens, take careful notes
\n  on cheating spouses and troubled kids,
\nfind out who\u2019s the loudmouth lush, the oxycontin freak, the big fat bully.
\n  Soon they have a plan and decide to act:
\nlate Sunday night they position themselves, and at two minutes past twelve
\n  they begin. First some background music:
\na safety pin pops open to prick a sleeping baby, who wakes up screaming;
\n  a half-wild one-eyed tomcat
\nruns up to a coonhound on a chain and slashes his nose. \u201cShut that dog up!\u201d
\n  someone cries out. \u201cFuck you!\u201d
\nthe owner of the howling dog shouts back. Then an act of provocation:
\n  a drunk with a ball bat staggers out
\nand smashes in the windshield of the rusty Bonneville parked next door.
\n  Next a bit of gunfire \u2013 someone with a thirty-eight
\nand someone with a twelve-gauge think that thieves are breaking in.
\n  More cursing, more shattered glass —
\na terrified old woman in a bathtub begins a drawn-out, high-pitched wail.
\n  Soon cruisers arrive: lights, sirens,
\nvoices rasping through yellow bullhorns. The demons slink off \u2013 laughing,
\n  although it is forbidden, at what they\u2019ve done.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Angelo Stephens<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nKAZAKHSTAN
\n 
\nThe apple in the palm of my hand is
\nnothing like the apples in my crazy
\n 
\nhead, going back to the bitter tastes of
\nchildhood, the apple vinegar of pain
\n 
\nand the rotten apples of old angers
\ngoing back to the root of every-
\n 
\nthing, the abuse in Brooklyn, in the house
\nand outside the house on the street, apples
\n 
\nin a paper bag, bought from a horse-drawn
\ncart, these vivid memories are as if
\n 
\nnothing compared to the apples of rage,
\nthe apples of never-again, of no
\n 
\nforgiveness, apples of merciless tears,
\nthe torn curtain flapping out the window.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nChris Stewart<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nKASSIOPI
\n 
\nMy mother drinks ouzo in the kitchen
\nwhile my father arranges electric fans.
\nThey talk about the rescue dog, Fluffy.
\nThey need to schedule injections.
\n 
\nIt’s 36 degrees and nap time for the island.
\nWe refuse to snooze.
\nWhen Mam goes to the toilet
\nDad says, “Don\u2019t ever get married.”
\n 
\nAir conditioning is ten euros a day.
\nWe undercut the competition tenfold.
\nElectric Fan – keeps you just as cool,
\nfor a euro a day. The hoteliers hate us.
\n 
\nThat evening I wander up the hill out back,
\npast the cinder blocks and wire frames
\nand watch the lightning storm. I think of Zeus
\nand his family commitments.
\n 
\nI know the constellation Cassiopeia
\nis up there somewhere,
\nnamesake of this village Kassiopi.
\nCouldn’t tell you where.
\n 
\nThirty years ago Corfiots were the poorest in Europe.
\nOn a trip to the old leper colony
\nI learn the poor were entitled to a loaf of bread
\nand a tablespoon of olive oil a day.
\n 
\nHow things change.
\nLast time I visited my parents
\nDad told me I really ought to stop fucking around
\nAnd start looking for a wife.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDavid J. Thompson<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nP.S. FUCK YOU, SNOW WHITE
\n 
\nI never knew him, but they all said
\nmy grandfather was tough as nails,
\na tiny little man everybody called Lefty.
\nHe grew up hard in the Kentucky coal fields,
\nthought he had it made when he was hired
\nto work the diamond mines out in Hollywood
\nas Snow White\u2019s eighth dwarf. Trouble is,
\ngrampa tried to unionize the other seven dwarfs
\nfor better pay, safer conditions, health insurance,
\nyou know, all that stuff. So, that bitch
\nSnow White went right away to the big boss
\nWalt Disney and had him fired immediately.
\nNow on the blacklist, he tried to join up
\nwith the Lincoln Brigade to fight in Spain,
\nbut they didn\u2019t have a rifle or a uniform
\nsmall enough for him. During World War II
\nhe toured our great country with Woody Guthrie
\ntrying to sell War Bonds, anything he could do
\nto help beat the fascists. In 1948, he campaigned
\nfor Henry Wallace, had the hell beat out of him
\nby some thugs at a rally down In Alabama
\nwhile Paul Robeson sang The Internationale<\/i>.
\nGrampa Lefty caught the attention of HUAC
\nwhen he served as one of John Garfield\u2019s pallbearers,
\nand the next thing he knew he was called to testify
\nalong with Elia Kazan in front of Joe McCarthy.
\nGrampa named Dopey and Doc as fellow travelers
\nbecause they were already long dead from black lung,
\nbut they sent him up to Leavenworth anyway.
\nOne winter night the guards found him swinging
\nby the neck from the top bunk. I guess they forgot
\nhow little space he needed to hang himself.
\nThe warden sent my dad a package of his stuff \u2013
\nhis droopy hat, his little felt jacket, the smallest
\nworkboots you\u2019ve ever seen. His suicide note was
\nto the point \u2013 Whistle while you work, my ass.
\np.s .Fuck you, Snow White. Fuck you very much.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Thornton<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLA BEFANA
\n 
\nLa Befana: The Italian
\nhousewife who hosted the Magi.
\nOn the morning after their rest at her home,
\nthey asked her: Don\u2019t you want to come with us?
\nWe have an extra camel you could ride.
\nOh, no, she demurred. I have my cooking and
\nmy baking, my sweeping and my sewing, my
\npots are dirty. (They weren\u2019t–they shone
\non the wall next to the spotless stove.)
\n 
\n                 Why
\ncould she not leave? Because they were
\nmen, three of them, older, wiser, magicians
\neven? Because she worried what people would
\nsay? Because she loved her little house and
\nthe mortgage was almost paid?
\n 
\n                 Whatever.
\nShe said no. And then regretted it. So
\nbitterly that she left the cooking and the baking,
\nthe sweeping and the sewing, the shiny
\ncopper pots. She followed the Magi but
\ncould never find them.
\n 
\n              She rides her broom
\nthrough the dark skies of January 5
\nand on the morning of January 6 good
\nchildren find toys and candy and bad children
\nfind coal and ashes. Candy–the promise of
\nthe sweetness of the Child–the missed
\nencounter with mystery and myth. Ashes–the
\ncold loneliness of her days and nights.
\n 
\n                 For who
\namong us has not turned away from a great
\nadventure, the dream of a lifetime, the chance
\nto make history, to see the child who will become
\nthe man who makes all things new, because
\nwe have the mortgage to pay, the shiny pots
\nto repolish, the letter that has to go to the bank
\nright now or else . . . or else what?
\n 
\n                 Better to
\nleap, to fly toward the unknown, to take the
\ninvitation of the three strange men who follow the Star.
\nBetter that than to fly night after night, year after
\nyear through cold and dark trying to find what
\nis lost forever, the chance to love, the chance to
\nlive, the chance to feed your heart.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMeg Tuite<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI DON\u2019T LIKE THIS GAME
\n 
\nLet silence charade this derelict house. First Communion sits in front of me for three days. Sores on Mom\u2019s arms won\u2019t zip up. Shake her clammy leg and she pets me. Go get some cake, hija. I sleep, eat, kneel in the white dress. Our last room quaked with fire spires. No candles, I say to the cake. How many anos, bonita? asks the man on a couch. His shoes straight black, shiny, offer a hand. Don\u2019t touch that cake. I need to get to church. You have a car, Mister? White van slides shut. It matches my dress.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPeggy Turnbull<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDURING THE PANDEMIC, I TEACH MY HUSBAND YOGA
\n 
\nWe unroll our mats onto the wobbly nap
\nof the living room rug, spacing ourselves
\nin-between the musical keyboard
\nand the picture window.
\nI begin to describe the feel of Mountain.
\n 
\nPlant your feet on the earth.
\nYour arms dangling like willow branches at your side,
\nyour head floating above
\nlike a lily pad in a pond,
\nthe kind you see under the foot bridge
\nat Vilas Zoo<\/i>.
\n 
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t have to talk,\u201d he says.
\nAn invisible door slides between us.
\n 
\nI grab a sledge hammer, punch the plaster through.
\nI need to for myself<\/i>.
\n 
\nTwo sun salutations. Warriors I and II.
\nTriangle. Plank.
\nThe sun streams in.
\nSweat. Breathe.
\nInner peace grows within me.
\nI wander in a glen, shoot random arrows into the air
\ndressed in green like Robin Hood, seek the cool places
\namong boulders, supple as a panther.
\nThen lose my flow. Right hand to left foot. No.
\nKnee. Left knee<\/i>.
\n 
\nMy parents are in lockdown at assisted living.
\nWhen we would visit, Dad fondled a walking cane,
\ngazed ahead as if we were not there.
\nSometimes he mentioned the landscape
\nof his childhood: Mt. Sentinel. Sealey Lake. Missoula.
\nA gang of boys roamed with him on paths
\nthey explored like prospectors, cooking hamburgers
\nover a fire made from scavenged wood.
\nWhy ever would he leave there
\nto return to a lift chair
\nand the blaring television?
\nMom says yesterday he stayed in bed all day.
\n 
\nAfter bridge pose, I hear a fake snore
\nfrom the other side of the room.
\nTime for corpse.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s why you\u2019re the best teacher,\u201d
\nhe says, as we lie, imagining our deaths
\nand those of everyone we know.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichele Waering<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPITCH
\n 
\nif it was just a game of pitch at the kitchen table
\nthe front porch with a transistor radio
\nthe jack of spades pitching up
\nlike a family member a known profile
\na sigh of ahhh the left power
\nnoted acknowledged then
\nface down and in the pile
\npretty queens kings with gravitas
\nhandsome jacks if it was just cards
\ncracker jack and music from winsome summers\u2014
\n 
\nbut what if it\u2019s a house with golden windows
\nshouting across a boardwalk
\ncrystal glasses spinning plates
\nsticky with handle-mad laughter
\nclicking balls trained to jump
\nfickle dice knowing face cards\u2014
\n 
\nwho folded? who threw the cards down?
\nshrugged left the table left the dishes undone
\nsent patrons spilling out onto bare boards
\ngrab a beer
\ngrab a bite
\ngrab the handle on some guy\u2019s barrel organ
\nrun it off the end of the pier
\nlaugh at its last song at its owner
\nscrew his pitch his hand-rolled days
\ngone now face down on a pile of discards\u2014
\n 
\nbut what if he prays like some outraged old jack
\na face of bereft winters from some old front porch:
\nLet the house with golden windows fall into the sea\u2014
\nLet God have the point for the last trick\u2014
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDaniel Warzecha<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHUSH\u2026
\n 
\n \u201cWhen thy little heart doth wake,
\nThen the dreadful night shall break.\u201d
\n– Cradle Song<\/i>
\n 
\nSleep now, child.
\nThe morning will come,
\nand when it does,
\nI pray it does not take you with it.
\n 
\nSleep well, child.
\nThe moon has arisen,
\nand of all the stars in the deep night sky,
\nyou are by far the brightest.
\n 
\nSleep now, child,
\nfor your mother has you in her arms,
\nand she loves you,
\nand that is a beautiful thing.
\n 
\nSleep well.
\nChild, you are given
\nto the sun and all the stars.
\nChild, you are all the rain
\nand the deep blue sky,
\nand these are precious things.
\n 
\nChild, sleep now.
\nFor your mother loves you well.
\nYou have given her all her wrinkles,
\nand all the gray hairs on her head.
\nBut child, you are the light behind her eyes
\nand the color in her smile.
\nAnd these are beautiful things.
\n 
\nSleep well tonight, child.
\nFor the world is cruel,
\nand will take the laugh from your lungs,
\nand the warmth from your heart.
\nIt will take you from your mother’s arms
\nand take the light from her eyes.
\n 
\nBut sleep now, child,
\nfor you are in your mother’s arms.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRussel Winick<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWORLD’S LARGEST COFFEE SHOP
\n 
\nWorld\u2019s largest coffee shop
\nthe atmosphere is groovin\u2019.
\nIts smells are incomparable
\njust wish the line was movin\u2019.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCharles Wyatt<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMOFF AT THE CIRCUS
\n 
\nToday Moff is a lion covered with flies.
\nTonight he will be the moon in a suit of moths:
\nstone fly, red fly, moor fly, tawny fly.
\nTassel tail, wormy mane, breath of dog.
\nNot all of Moff is leonine and Moff is moth:
\nGypsy moth, sphinx, imperial, angelic moth.
\n 
\nO day all covered in Moff, bright day.
\nO moth all covered in night,
\nin looper, in hornworm, Polyphemus.
\nBetween night and day nothing but dog breath.
\nBetween crow and moth mere dust.
\nMoff rolls over on his back,
\n 
\ncrushing caterpillars and worms,
\nmaiming the many sorts of flies.
\nMoff howls, Moff roars, sings arias of sand.
\nBear flies no longer sing praise of bear.
\nThe flag fly falls limp.
\nMoff catches falling stones, juggles them.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKathrine Yets<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWISDOM REMOVED
\n 
\nI’m suspicious of my wisdom teeth growing in.
\nDrought my mouth with cigarettes
\nand chocolates and stress.
\nI’ve been trying to do it right.
\nThis fuck-show they call adulting.
\nI don’t know where I went wrong.
\n 
\nJust call the dentist.
\nGet the X-rays
\nand throw away the green glass ashtray
\nthat you forget to empty
\nso it overflows with filters
\nand catches small fires
\nthat smell like the bar on Locust Street
\nafter one in the morning
\nthe nights you don’t go home.
\n 
\nI feel them sometimes.
\nOne grows up;
\nthe other sideways
\nand digs into the molar.
\nNot as painful as the sound
\nof my teeth grinding at night
\nor my jaw cracking.
\n 
\nI’m going to get dry sockets.
\nI suck cigarettes.
\nI suck my cheeks when distressed.
\nI suck dicks when I feel lonely.
\nI suck on straws for iced vanilla lattes.
\nI suck at adulting.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to the Poets’ Bios<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLouis Zieja<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNEVADA
\n 
\nConservative and concealed all day,
\non a clear night the sky strips
\nand spreads her cosmos wide
\nopen, unashamed and exposed
\nfor all to see.
\n 
\nGawking below, we are the ones caught
\nfeeling cheap and vulnerable,
\nblushing from the sudden revelation
\nthat we are obscenely overdressed.
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nA Little About The Poets<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGlen Armstrong<\/a><\/strong> holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters<\/i> and has a current book of prose poems: Invisible Histories<\/i>. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit<\/i>, and Cream City Review<\/i>.
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Ayres<\/a><\/strong> is a poet, lawyer, and translator. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing with a Concentration in Translation from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and a PhD in Literature from Texas Christian University. Her work has appeared in Sycamore Review, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Fort Worth and teaches at Texas A&M University School of Law.
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Bagato<\/a><\/strong> produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry) and Computing Angels (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at jeffbagato.wordpress.com<\/a>.
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Baker<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 prof, dad, ex-buckeye
\n 
\n 
\nRetired children’s librarian Alan Bern<\/a><\/strong>‘s poetry books: No no the saddest<\/i> and Waterwalking in Berkeley<\/i>, Fithian Press; greater distance and other poems<\/i>, Lines & Faces, his broadside press with artist Robert Woods, linesandfaces.com<\/a>. Alan has won awards for his poetry, stories, and photos and is widely published online and in print. Alan performs with dancer\/choreographer Lucinda Weaver as PACES: dance & poetry fit to the space<\/i> and with musicians from Composing Together, composingtogether.org<\/a>.
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Beveridge<\/a><\/strong> (he\/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com)<\/a> and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent\/upcoming appearances in Collective Unrest, Cough Syrup, and Blood & Bourbon, among others.
\n 
\n 
\nHenry Bladon<\/a><\/strong> is based in Somerset in the UK. He is a writer of short fiction and poetry with a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Birmingham. He is the author of several poetry collections as well as previously appearing in RAR, his work can be seen in Poetica Review, Pure Slush, Truth Serum Press, Lunate, and O:JA&L, among other places.
\n 
\n 
\nMark Blickley<\/a><\/strong> is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN American Center. He is the author of ‘Sacred Misfits’<\/i> (Red Hen Press), ‘Weathered Reports: Trump Surrogate Quotes from the Underground’<\/i> (Moira Books) and the 2019 text-based art book ‘Dream Streams’<\/i> (Clare Songbirds Publishing House). His video, Speaking in Bootongue<\/i>, will represent the United States in the year-long international world tour of ‘Time Is Love: Universal Feelings: Myths & Conjunctions<\/i>,\u201d organized by African curator, Kisito Assangni.
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\nBeau Blue<\/strong><\/a> is a narcissist and a psychopath. Thank God he’s invisible.
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\nBrett Bourbon<\/a><\/strong> has published essays on philosophy, literature, and art, as well as Finding a Replacement for the Soul<\/i> (Harvard UP, 2004). He has recently published a story entitled \u201cThe Sacred Boundary of Those Who are Close\u201d in Fiction Pool<\/i>. He was the featured poet in Reunion<\/i>, and has also published poetry in Art News<\/i> and Artsy<\/i>. His poetry has been used in the work of the Pakistani sculptor Simeen Farhat.
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\nMarcus Chinn<\/a><\/strong> lives near Phoenix, Arizona, and is the primary caregiver to his children. He graduated from the Fresno State Creative Writing program, where he was a Phil Levine Scholar and intern for the Normal School. His work has appeared in the Cortland Review and Pochuco Children Hurl Stones.
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\nChris Cocca<\/a><\/strong>‘s fiction, essays, and poetry have been published at venues including Hobart, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, Pindeldyboz, elimae, Geez, and The Huffington Post. He is a past recipient of the Creager Prize for Creative Writing at Ursinus College and completed his MFA in Creative Writing at The New School.
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\nDon Colburn<\/a><\/strong> came late to poetry in the midst of a journalism career. He worked for many years as a reporter for The Washington Post<\/i> and The Oregonian<\/i> and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing. His poems have appeared widely and won many awards. He has published five poetry collections, including four chapbooks; all five gained publication by winning or placing in national competitions. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
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\nTrevor Conway<\/a><\/strong> writes mainly poems, stories and songs. He also cuts his own hair, though maybe with less success. His first collection of poems, Evidence of Freewheeling<\/i>, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2015, while his second, Breeding Monsters<\/i>, was self-published via Amazon in 2018. Website: trevorconway.weebly.com<\/a>
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\nJack Cooper<\/a><\/strong> is the creator of These Are Aphorithms<\/i> (aphorithms.blogspot.com)<\/a>, author of Ten<\/i> (Poets Wear Prada, 2012), Ten \u2026 More<\/i> (Poets Wear Prada, 2016), and translator of Wax Women<\/i>, with French texts of the original poems by Jean-Pierre Lemesle (International Art Office: Paris, 1985). His work has appeared widely, in print and online. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he is editor and co-publisher of Poets Wear Prada, a small press based in Hoboken, New Jersey. He lives in Paris.
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\nOriginally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan<\/a><\/strong> writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Project XX<\/i>, a satirical novel about a school shooting, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. Newest release is What I Did for Love<\/i>, a spoof of Lolita<\/i> (Bloodhound Books, 2019). Kelsay Books is publishing the poetry chapbook the disappearing self<\/i> in 2020.
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\nJoe Cottonwood<\/a><\/strong> has built or repaired hundreds of houses to support his writing habit in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest book is Foggy Dog<\/i>. joecottonwood.com<\/a>.
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\nNathan Dennis<\/a><\/strong> is a Manhattan-based playwright and poet of Floridian extraction. He holds a BFA from Tisch, NYU. He has been published in Punchdrunk Press, The Cabinet of Heed, Neologism Review, Crepe & Penn, and The Magnolia Review. His most recent play, Circle of Shit<\/i>, was produced at Dixon Place in March, 2019.
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\nPhoenix DeSimone<\/a><\/strong> is an emerging writer of prose and poetry, mechanic, and college student. His work has been published in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, and is forthcoming in Avalon Literary Review.
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\nMerrill Oliver Douglas<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poems have appeared in Baltimore Review, Barrow Street, Tar River Poetry, Stone Canoe, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Cimarron Review<\/i> and the Comstock Review<\/i> among others. Finishing Line Press will publish her chapbook, Parking Meters into Mermaids<\/i>, in 2020. She lives near Binghamton, New York, where she runs a freelance writing business.
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\nStephanie Yue Duhem<\/a><\/strong> is a 1.5 generation Chinese-American poet and educator. Her work appears or is forthcoming in PANK, Glass, Lunch Ticket, Radar<\/i>, and Red Wheelbarrow<\/i>, which named her a winner of its 2018 contest, judged by Naomi Shihab Nye. She is also the author of a picture book titled Robby and the Ice Cream Truck<\/i>. She can be found onTwitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a> at @academoiselle or at sydpoetry.com<\/a>.
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\nMilton P. Ehrlich<\/a><\/strong> Ph.D. is an 88-year-old psychologist and a veteran of the Korean War. He has published poems in The Antigonish Review, London Grip, Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant Literary Magazine, Wisconsin Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times.
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\nCover Artist Alexis Rhone Fancher<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s photographs have been published worldwide, including the covers of Witness, The Mas Tequila Review, KYSO Flash Anthology, Vol.3, Blink Ink, Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review, Heyday, Diaphanous 2.0<\/i>, and Pithead Chapel<\/i>, as well as a spread in River Styx<\/i>. Upcoming: The covers of The Pedestal Magazine<\/i> and Plume<\/i>. alexisrhonefancher.com<\/a>
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\nFrederick K. Foote<\/a><\/strong>, Jr. was born in Sacramento, California, and educated in Vienna, Virginia, and northern California. Since 2014 Frederick has published over three-hundred stories, poems, and essays, 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).
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\nGerald Friedman<\/a><\/strong> grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland. He now teaches physics at Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico. He has published poems in J\u00e9mez Thunder, Pegasus, Potpourri, Recursive Angel, Rhino, Santa Fe Literary Review<\/i> (republished in Telepoem NMHU), and Tower<\/i>.
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\nDaniel Galef<\/a><\/strong> has been an actor, a teacher, a printer\u2019s devil, a dictionary definition, and probably some other things he\u2019s 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\u2014including The Bottomless Pit in the Back Room of Nick\u2019s Speakeasy, now up at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre MainLine in Montreal.
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\nMac Gay<\/a><\/strong>‘s most recent collections are Farm Alarm, runner up for the Robert Phillips Poetry Prize, from Texas Review Press and Ghost Hunt, out this coming July from Eyewear Publishing. His poems have been featured in many mags including Atlanta Review, Main Street Rag, and Snake Nation Review. He teaches at Perimeter College of Georgia State University.
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\nKathy Gee<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s career was in heritage. Her poetry collection Book of Bones<\/a> was published by V. Press in 2016 and she wrote the spoken word elements for Suite for the Fallen Soldier<\/a>. Her small collection of duologues \u2013 Checkout<\/i>, set in a corner shop \u2013 was published in March 2019. vpresspoetry.blogspot.com\/p\/bookshop.html<\/a>
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\nJulia Gerhardt<\/a><\/strong> is a writer living in Baltimore. She was nominated for the Best Microfiction Anthology 2020 and Best Small Fictions Anthology 2020. Her work is forthcoming in the Eastern Iowa Review, fresh.ink, Moonpark Review, Okay Donkey, Club Plum, and Feminist Space Camp. She is currently working on her first novel. You can find her at juliagerhardtwriter.wordpress.com<\/a>.
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\nMatt Graham<\/a><\/strong> lives in Houston, Texas where he teaches creative writing to high school seniors and fronts Swimwear Department, a conceptual dance-punk band. The Bayou Review<\/i> published two of Matt’s poems “The Punishing Place” and “Preemptive Shame” in its Fall 2017 issue.
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\nShannon Frost Greenstein<\/a><\/strong> resides in Philadelphia with her children, soulmate, and cats. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, a Contributing Editor for Barren Magazine<\/i>, and a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy. Her work has appeared in McSweeney\u2019s Internet Tendency, Crab Fat Magazine, Bone & Ink Lit Zine, Spelk Fiction<\/i>, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @mrsgreenstein<\/a> or her website: shannonfrostgreenstein.wordpress.com<\/a>. She comes up when you Google her.
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\nJohn Grey<\/a><\/strong> is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Transcend, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in Blueline, Hawaii Pacific Review and Clade Song.
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\nEvan Gurney<\/a><\/strong> is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His poems have recently appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Saint Katherine Review, Still: The Journal, and elsewhere.
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\nMureall Hebert<\/a><\/strong> holds an MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. Her work can be found in Hobart, PANK, YARN, decomP, Bartleby Snopes, Yellow Chair Review<\/i> and elsewhere. She\u2019s earned a Pushcart Prize nomination and an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train<\/i>\u2019s Very Short Fiction Contest. She lives near Seattle with her husband, three children, and two dogs.
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\nRobin Helweg-Larsen<\/a><\/strong> is British-born but Bahamian-raised. His poetry has mostly been published in the UK (Snakeskin, Ambit, etc), but also in the US (RAR, Love & Ensuing Madness, Better Than Starbucks, The Hypertexts, The Road Not Taken, Star*Line, The Lyric, etc) and other countries. He is Series Editor of Sampson Low\u2019s Potcake Chapbooks, blogs at formalverse.com, and lives in his hometown of Governor\u2019s Harbour on Eleuthera.
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\nMandy Henderly<\/a><\/strong> is a poet, writer, and mother and lives in Western North Carolina with her family. Before having children, she worked as a teacher in Chicago, IL and Western North Carolina. As a poet and writer, she honed her craft both at Bluffton University and the University of Dayton. She is a contributing writer for the website Hendersonville Best, and her work has appeared in Literary Mama, Motherly<\/i>, and A Little Something<\/i>.
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\nFredric Hildebrand<\/a><\/strong> is a retired physician living in Neenah, WI. His recent poetry has appeared in Right-Hand Pointing<\/i>and The Raven Review<\/i>. His first chapbook, “A Glint of Light,” will be published later this year by Finishing Line Press. When not writing or reading, he plays acoustic folk guitar and explores the Northwoods with his wife and two Labrador retrievers.
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\nGreg Hill<\/a><\/strong> is a writer, voiceover talent, adjunct professor and math tutor in West Hartford, Connecticut, and has an MFA from Vermont of College of Fine Arts. His poems have appeared in Atlas and Alice, Queen Mob\u2019s Teahouse, Cheap Pop and elsewhere. In the evening he composes little songs for his daughters who are too young to realize how poorly their father plays piano.
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\nMary Beth Hines<\/a><\/strong> lives and writes from her home in Massachusetts. Her work has been, or will soon be, published in journals such as Crab Orchard Review, Eclectica, Galway Review, Lighten Up On Line, Nixes Mate Review, and River Heron Review, among others.
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\nColin James<\/a><\/strong> has a book of poems, Resisting Probability, from Sagging Meniscus Press. He lives in Massachusetts.
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\nChris Jansen<\/a><\/strong> is a recovering heroin addict. He lives in Athens, Georgia where he coaches boxing and cares for a disinterested guinea pig named Poozybear.
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\nMichael Lee Johnson<\/a><\/strong> lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, DuPage County, Illinois. Mr. Johnson published in more than 1072 new publications, his poems have appeared in 38 countries, he edits, publishes 10 poetry sites. Michael Lee Johnson, has been nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards poetry 2015\/1 Best of the Net 2016\/2 Best of the Net 2017, 2 Best of the Net 2018.
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\nSarah Mackey Kirby<\/a><\/strong> holds a Master of Arts in Teaching and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Her poetry, writing, and photography have been published in Punk Noir, Dream Noir, and US News & World Report. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her husband.
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\nGrove Koger<\/a><\/strong> is the author of When the Going Was Good: A Guide to the 99 Best Narratives of Travel, Exploration, and Adventure<\/i> (Scarecrow Press, 2002) and Assistant Editor of Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal<\/i>. He blogs at @worldenoughblog.wordpress.com<\/a>.
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\nBoris Kokotov<\/a><\/strong> was born in Moscow. He writes poems and short stories. He is the author of several poetry collections. His original work and translations to English have appeared in Adelaide, Blackbird, Chiron Review, Constellations, The Lake, Poet Lore<\/i>, and Washington Square Review<\/i>, among others. He lives in Baltimore.
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\nAjay Kumar<\/a><\/strong> is a student based in Chennai, India whose works have appeared most recently in The Bangalore Review, Runcible Spoon & Plum Tree Tavern among others.
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\nLinda Lerner<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s When Death is a Red Balloon<\/i>, was published by Lummox Press, in 2019. Her previously published collections include, A Dance Around the Cauldron<\/i>, a prose work which consists of nine characters during the Salem witch trials brought into our own times. Yes, the Ducks Were Real & Takes Guts and Years Sometimes<\/i> was published by NYQ Books<\/i> in 2011 & 2015. Current publications include, Maintenant, Gargoyle, Paterson Literary Review, Caf\u00e9 Review, Trailer Park Quarterly, Wilderness Literary House Review, Cape Rock, Gargoyle, Piker Press, Home Planet New<\/i>, etc. In spring, 2015 she read six poems on WBAI, a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station licensed to New York City.
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\nMichael H. Levin<\/a><\/strong> is a lawyer, solar energy developer and writer based in Washington DC. His work has appeared on stage and in chapbooks, anthologies and numerous periodicals, and has received poetry and feature journalism awards. His chapbook, Falcons<\/i>, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press summer 2020. See michaellevinpoetry.com<\/a> and twopianosplayingforlife.org<\/a>.
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\nNancy Smiler Levinson<\/a><\/strong> is author of MOMENTS OF DAWN: A Poetic Memoir of Love & Family; Affliction & Affirmation, as well as work that has appeared in Rat’s Ass Review, Poetica, Voice of Eve, Constellations, Jewish Literary Journal, Drunk Monkey, The Copperfield Review, Burningword, several anthologies, and elsewhere. In past chapters of her life she published some thirty books for young readers, focused on history, historical fiction, and biography.
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\nJames Lineberger<\/a><\/strong> wrote the book and lyrics for the rock opera, The Survival of Saint Joan<\/i>, and the screen adaptation of the movie Taps<\/i>. His poetry has appeared in Boulevard; The Cortland Review; The Main Street Rag; UCity Review; Natural Bridge; Rat’s Ass Review; Pembroke Magazine; Quarter After Eight; Free State Review; Sheila-Na-Gig; B O D Y; Misfit Magazine; and New Ohio Review.
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\nDonna Macomber<\/a><\/strong> is a passionate activist who works for racial and gender justice. She believes that vulnerability and creativity are tools for social change. Donna has facilitated the Opening the Heart Workshop at Omega and Kripalu Institutes for 20 years. She is endlessly curious, has a poetic relationship to truth and struggle, and believes that healing happens at the root when we allow ourselves to show up fully. Donna lives in Brattleboro, Vermont with her woodworker love, Laury, and their feisty black lab pup.
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\nTamara Madison<\/a><\/strong> is the author of the chapbook \u201cThe Belly Remembers\u201d, and two full-length volumes of poetry, \u201cWild Domestic\u201d and \u201cMoraine\u201d, all published by Pearl Editions. Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, Your Daily Poem, A Year of Being Here, Nerve Cowboy, the Writer\u2019s Almanac, Sheila-Na-Gig and many other publications. She has recently retired from teaching English and French in Los Angeles and is happy to finally get some sleep. More about Tamara can be found at tamaramadisonpoetry<\/a>.
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\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.’
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\nJeremy Nathan Marks<\/a><\/strong> lives in London, Ontario. Recent work is found in Barren Magazine, Dissident Voice, On the Seawall, New Verse News, 365 Tomorrows, Unlikely Stories, The Courtship of Winds, and Literary Orphans.
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\nFrom associate professor of English to management trainer to retiree, Carolyn Martin<\/a><\/strong> has published poems in journals throughout North America, Australia, and the UK. Her fourth collection, A Penchant for Masquerades<\/i>, was released by Unsolicited Press in 2019. She is currently the poetry editor of Kosmos Quarterly: journal for global transformation<\/i>. Find out more about Carolyn at carolynmartinpoet.com<\/a>.
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\nTim Mayo<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s second collection, Thesaurus of Separation<\/i> was published by Phoenicia Publishing of Montreal in July of 2016. In 2017 it was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award and the Montaigne Medal. His latest book, Notes to the Mental Hospital Timekeeper<\/i>, was published by Kelsay Books in November of 2019. He lives in Brattleboro, Vermont.
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\nJanet McCann<\/a><\/strong> taught at Texas A&M University for 46 years, then retired. Latest book: THE CRONE AT THE CASINO, Lamar U. Press, 2015.
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\nCaitlin McCarthy<\/a><\/strong> is a poet living and writing just outside of Houston, Texas. She graduated in 2017 with a BA in English from Stephen F. Austin State University and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing with the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Her work was previously published in HUMID and is forthcoming in Down in the Dirt.
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\nMark J. Mitchell<\/a><\/strong> was born in Chicago and grew up in southern California. His latest poetry collection, Starting from Tu Fu was just published by Encircle Publications. A new collection is due out in December from Cherry Grove. He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka and Dante. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the activist and documentarian Joan Juster, where he makes a sort of living pointing out pretty things. A meager online presence can be found at MarkJMitchellwriter<\/a>
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\nSabyasachi Nag<\/a><\/strong> (Sachi) is the author of two books of poetry: Bloodlines (Writers Workshop, 2006) and Could You Please, Please Stop Singing (Mosaic Press, 2015). His third poetry collection, “Uncharted” is forthcoming in 2020. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming in several anthologies and publications including Canadian Literature, Contemporary Verse 2, Grain, Perihelion, The Antigonish Review, The Dalhousie Review, The Maynard and Vallum among others. He is a graduate of the Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University and holds a graduate certificate in Creative Writing from the Humber School for Writers. He lives in Ontario, Canada.
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\nJames B. Nicola<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poetry and prose have appeared in the Antioch, Southwest, Green Mountains<\/i>, and Atlanta Reviews<\/i> and Barrow Street<\/i>, garnering a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review<\/i> awards, and six Pushcart Prize nominations. His collections are Manhattan Plaza<\/i> (2014), Stage to Page<\/i> (2016), Wind in the Cave (2017), Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018), and Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond<\/i> (2019). His nonfiction book Playing the Audience<\/i> won a Choice<\/i> magazine award. jamesbnicola<\/a>.
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\nRobert Nisbet<\/a><\/strong> is a Welsh poet, sometime creative writing tutor at Trinity College, Carmarthen, living a little way down the coast from Dylan Thomas\u2019s Boathouse. He has published widely and in roughly equal measures in Britain and the USA. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee for 2020.
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\nEdward O’Dwyer<\/a><\/strong> is a writer from Ireland. His poetry collection The Rain on Cruise’s Street<\/i> (Salmon Poetry, 2014) was Highly Commended in the Forward Prizes. The follow-up, Bad News, Good News, Bad News<\/i> (Salmon Poetry, 2017) contains the Eigse Michael Hartnett award-winning poem ‘The Whole History of Dancing’. The collection of very short stories, Cheat Sheets<\/i> (Truth Serum Press, 2018) is his current book. A third poetry collection, Exquisite Prisons<\/i>, is due out in Summer 2020.
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\nG. M. Palmer<\/a><\/strong> lives with his wife and daughters on a poodle farm in North Florida. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Literary Matters, The Hopkins Review, Grub Street Grackle, The Raintown Review, Goliad, and elsewhere. Find his work at gmpalmer.com<\/a> & find him @gm_palmer<\/a>.
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\nHeather Pease<\/a><\/strong> is a poet; her work centers on vulnerability, feminism, sexuality, identity, and mental health. Her first book of poetry \u201cOut of the Weeds\u201d was published in 2020. She has been published in A Teenagers Guide to Feminism<\/i> by Pear Shaped Press and the San Diego Annual<\/i> as well as several other journals, e-books, and international publications. Heather aims to make people think about subjects often stigmatized through society. She lives in Southern California.
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\nSimon Perchik<\/a><\/strong> is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker<\/i> and elsewhere. His most recent collection is The Rosenblum Poems<\/i> published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library<\/i>, 2020. For more information including free e-books and his essay \u201cMagic, Illusion and Other Realities\u201d please visit his website atwww.simonperchik.com<\/a>. To view one of his interviews please follow this link<\/a>.
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\nStuart Pickford<\/a><\/strong> lives in Harrogate, England and teaches in a local comprehensive school. He is married with three children. His second collection, <i>Swimming with Jellyfish<\/i> was published by smith\/doorstop.
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\nFrederick Pollack<\/a><\/strong> is the author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS, both Story Line Press; the former to be reissued by Red Hen Press, and two collections of shorter poems, A POVERTY OF WORDS, (Prolific Press, 2015) and LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018). Pollack has appeared in Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Fish Anthology<\/i> (Ireland), Magma<\/i> (UK), Bateau, Fulcrum, Chiron Review, Chicago Quarterly Review<\/i>, etc. Online, poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Hamilton Stone Review, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire Review, Mudlark, Rat\u2019s Ass Review<\/i> (2017), Occupoetry, Faircloth Review, Triggerfish<\/i>, etc. Poetics: neither navelgazing mainstream nor academic pseudo-avant-garde.
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\nTwo of Ken Poyner<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poetry collections and four of his short fiction collections are widely available (try Amazon or Smashwords or barkingmoosepress.com<\/a>. He lives with his power-lifter wife, various cats and betta fish in the southeastern corner of Virginia. He spent thirty-three years in information security, moonlighting as a writer. Now, he writes dangerously full-time. Ken’s personal web page is www.kpoyner.com<\/a>, and his twitter handle is @KenPoyner2<\/a>.
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\nSuzanne S.Rancourt<\/a><\/strong>, EXAT, is of Abenaki\/Huron descent. Her book, Billboard in the Clouds<\/i>, Curbstone Press, (Second print with NU Press), received the Native Writers\u2019 Circle of the Americas First Book Award. Her second, murmurs at the gate<\/i>, Unsolicited Press, 2019. She is a USMC and Army Veteran. Her poetry, and non-fiction have been published widely. For more info:expressivearts.com<\/a>.
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\nBill Ratner<\/a><\/strong> is a 9-time winner of The Moth Story Slams<\/i>. His spoken word performances are featured on National Public Radio\u2019s Good Food<\/i>, and The Business<\/i>, and he is published in The Chiron Review, The Baltimore Review, Rattlecast, Pleiades, KYSO Flash, The Missouri Review Audio<\/i>. He narrates movie trailers and cartoons. billratner.com\/author<\/a> \u2022 @billratner<\/a>.
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\nPatrick T. Reardon<\/a><\/strong>, who has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize, is the author of eight books, including the poetry collection Requiem for David. His poetry has appeared in Eclectica, Esthetic Apostle, Literary Orphans, Rhino, Spank the Carp, Main Street Rag, The Write Launch, Meat for Tea, Tipton Poetry Journal, UCity Review and Under a Warm Green Linden. His novella Babe was short-listed by Stewart O\u2019Nan for the annual Faulkner-Wisdom Contest.
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\nBelinda Rimmer<\/a><\/strong>‘s poems are widely published in magazines, including: Under the Radar, Ambit, Brittle Star, Dream Catcher, and Ink, Sweat & Tears. In 2017, she won the Poetry in Motion Competition to turn her poem into an award winning film. In 2018, she came second in the Ambit Poetry Competition. She was runner-up in the 2019 Stanza Poetry Competition. She was also joint winner of the Indigo-First Pamphlet Competition, 2018, with Touching Sharks in Monaco.
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\nHeather Lee Rogers<\/a><\/strong> compulsively tells stories as a writer and an actor in NYC. Her poems have recently appeared in the following printed and online publications: The Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Harbinger Asylum, Here Comes Everyone (UK), Leopardskin & Limes, El Portal, S\/Tick, Waterways, Adanna Literary Journal, Jersey Devil Press, Eunoia Review and Adelaide Lit Magazine, etc\u2026 More of her work can be read at heatherleerogerspoetry.com<\/a>.
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\nMichael L. Ruffin<\/a><\/strong> is a writer, editor, preacher, and teacher living and working in Georgia. He posts poems on Instagram at @michaellruffin<\/a> and opinion at On the Jericho Road<\/a>. He is the author of Fifty-Seven: A Memoir of Death and Life<\/i>, and of the upcoming Praying with Matthew<\/i>.
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\nEd Ruzicka<\/a><\/strong> has published one book, \u201cEngines of Belief\u201d, and has recently had his second, \u201cMy Life in Cars\u201d, accepted for release later in the year. Ed\u2019s poems have appeared in the Atlanta Review, Rattle, the New Millennium Review as well as many other literary journals and anthologies. Ed is an Occupational Therapist who lives with his wife, Renee, in Baton Rouge, LA. More at:edrpoet.com<\/a>.
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\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<\/i> and Until I Couldn\u2019t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters\u2019 Journey in Photography and Poetry<\/i>.
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\nMir-Yashar (Yash) Seyedbagheri<\/a><\/strong> is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. His story, “Soon,” was nominated for a Pushcart. Yash\u2019s stories are forthcoming or have been published in Caf\u00e9 Lit, Mad Swirl, 50 Word Stories, and Ariel Chart, among others.
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\nJ. D. Smith<\/a><\/strong>‘s fourth collection, The Killing Tree<\/i>, was published in 2016, and he has been awarded a Fellowship from the United States National Endowment for the Arts. His other books include the essay collection Dowsing and Science<\/i> (2011) and the children’s picture book The Best Mariachi in the World<\/i> (2008). Smith lives and works in Washington, DC.
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\nPaul Smith<\/a><\/strong> is a civil engineer who has worked in the construction racket for many years. He has traveled all over the place and met lots of people. Some have enriched his life. Others made him wish he or they were all dead. He likes writing poetry and fiction. He also likes Newcastle Brown Ale. If you see him, buy him one. His poetry and fiction have been published in Convergence, Missouri Review, Literary Orphans and other lit mags.
\n 
\n 
\nAlec Solomita<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s stories and poems have appeared in many publications, including The Adirondack Review, The Southwest Review, The Galway Review, The Blue Nib, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Bold+Italic, and The Lake. He was shortlisted by the Bridport Prize and Southword Journal and longlisted by the Over The Edge New Writer Contest 2019. He was named a finalist by the Noctua Review. His poetry chapbook, \u201cDo Not Forsake Me,\u201d was published in 2017. He lives in Massachusetts.
\n 
\n 
\nJaime Speed<\/a><\/strong> earned an MA in English in the same place she lives, works, and plays: Saskatchewan, Canada. She enjoys reading, throwing weights, and dancing badly. Having never left campus, she has found her forever home among brick buildings, students, and research.
\n 
\n 
\nPhilip St. Clair<\/a><\/strong>‘s ninth collection of poetry, Red Cup, Green Lawn<\/i>, was published earlier this year by Main Street Rag Publishing. He has received the Bullis Prize from Poetry Northwest<\/i> and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kentucky Arts council. He lives in Ashland, Kentucky. Please visit his website for more information.
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Angelo Stephens<\/a><\/strong> has published 22 books, including the novel The Brooklyn Book of the Dead and the travel memoir Lost in Seoul (Random House, 1990). His next book is a collection of prose poems about an out-of-work actor who lands the part of Hamlet, and is entitled History of Theatre or the Glass of Fashion; it is being published by MadHat Press.
\n 
\n 
\nChris Stewart<\/a><\/strong> likes to play with words. He’s performed across the UK, Finland and Estonia. You can see his award-winning filmpoems here<\/a>.
\n 
\n 
\nDavid J. Thompson<\/a><\/strong> is a former prep school teacher and coach. He loves Spain, The Simpsons<\/i>, and movies. His latest chapbook, Shake My Ashes<\/i>, is available from Alien Buddha Press. A series of 1400 of his postcards is part of the permanent collection at The Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois. Please visit his photo website at ninemilephoto.com.
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Thornton<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s memoir, On Broken Glass: Loving and Losing John Gardner<\/i>, was published in 2000 by Carroll & Graf, New York. Poems have been published in Paintbrush Journal, The Denver Quarterly, Rats Ass Review and SoFloPoJo<\/i>. Short stories have been anthologized in The Best American Mystery Stories 2016<\/i> and Flash Fiction Annual (2017) <\/i>. Susan lives and works in Binghamton New York and, for her sins, is a high school teacher of French.
\n 
\n 
\nMeg Tuite<\/a><\/strong> is author of four story collections and five chapbooks. She won the Twin Antlers Poetry award for her poetry collection, Bare Bulbs Swinging. She teaches writing retreats and online classes hosted by Bending Genres. She is also the fiction editor of Bending Genres and associate editor at Narrative Magazine. megtuite.com<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPeggy Turnbull<\/a><\/strong> lives next to a road closed for road construction. She used to be a librarian and now writes poems, even when she’s not #safer at home. Her chapbook, “The Joy of Their Holiness” is forthcoming from Alabaster Leaves Publishing.
\n 
\n 
\nMichele Waering<\/a><\/strong> gained an MLitt in Creative Writing from The University of Glasgow. Her work has appeared in A Thousand Cranes: Scottish Poets for Japan; Envoi; The Interpreter\u2019s House; World Haiku Review; San Pedro River Review; Red River Review; The Ghazal Page; Fuga No Makoto; From Glasgow to Saturn, and Allegro. She lives in Renfrewshire, Scotland.
\n 
\n 
\nDaniel Warzecha<\/a><\/strong> lives and writes out of Austin, Texas, where he also enjoys playing and listening to many kinds of music.
\n 
\n 
\nRussel Winick<\/a><\/strong> recently began writing poetry at nearly age 65, after concluding a long legal career. Langston Hughes\u2019 work is a primary inspiration for him. Mr. Winick\u2019s poems have been selected for publication in The Society of Classical Poets, Snakeskin, Blue Unicorn<\/i>; and Lighten Up Online<\/i>.
\n 
\n 
\nCharles Wyatt<\/a><\/strong> is the author of two collections of short fiction (a third is forthcoming), a novella, and two poetry collections. A third fiction collection, Houses, is forthcoming from Hidden River Arts. He lives in Nashville, TN where he was principal flutist of the Nashville Symphony for 25 years. www.charleswyatt.com
\n 
\n 
\nKathrine Yets<\/a><\/strong> lives in St. Francis WI. She instructs English at various universities. Her chapbook So I Can Write is freshly published by Cyberwit. The Animal Within is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press.
\n 
\n 
\nLouis Zieja<\/a><\/strong> (he\/him) is a cinematographer, collage artist and writer originally from Philadelphia. His poetry has been published in the Ghost City Review and is upcoming in the Neologism Poetry Journal and Rogue Agent. His comic book series \u201cThe Subliminals\u201d, a collaboration with artist Anton Blake, will be published in late 2020.
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\n <\/p>\n

Back to Top<\/a>
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\n <\/p>\n

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Edited by Roderick Bates<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

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RAT’S ASS REVIEW SUMMER ISSUE 2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<\/p>\n<\/h4>\n

 
\n 
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          Go to the Poets’ Bios     Glen Armstrong     BOILED WATER AND KETCHUP   On the stairs, I eat cabbage soup,   but the \u201cstairs\u201d and the \u201ccabbage\u201d   are there just to make my life sound   better, more there for you   like matching chairs or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3445,"parent":0,"menu_order":18,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3397","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nSummer 2020 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=3397\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Summer 2020 Issue -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"        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