{"id":3557,"date":"2020-10-10T11:28:19","date_gmt":"2020-10-10T15:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=3557"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T22:14:08","slug":"winter-2020-issue","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=3557","title":{"rendered":"Winter 2020 Issue<\/b>"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n<\/a>
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\n(Cover Art: TRIGEMINAL by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad<\/a><\/strong>)
\n 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nB. Anne Adriaens<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTOLKIEN\u2019S COUNTRY\u2014107\/2
\n 
\nYou cycle together on the first fine-weather afternoon,
\nfields and landmark power plant ahead, the cooling towers\u2019
\nshadows a brief respite from the sun\u2019s sudden beating.
\n 
\nThe spot\u2019s already taken by a cuddling couple, random inches of
\nskin exposed, and too much booze ensues at the Nag\u2019s Head
\non the bridge, a sparkle from the river reflected in your pint.
\n 
\nWhen you leave the crowded beer garden and pedal your way
\nhome, side by side in slanting light, the last of adolescent
\nlust spurs you on, straight to the floor-bound mattress.
\n 
\nMidnight has just gone when you wake, ravenous but not yet
\nable to move, wide open eyes fixed on one point, you admit
\nyou quite like the slatted doors of the built-in wardrobe.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKemmer Anderson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBOOK RATS
\n 
\nI am a book in the existential library.
\nI am read by rats \u2013 not subliminal rats,
\nbut dung leaving, shelf-shitting rats
\nthat drop dark turds
\nwhen they turn the page in the text.
\n 
\nBlack print on the page dissolves,
\nall letters point to rat dung.
\nSurreal, you say.
\nMerde r\u00e9el, je dit.
\nIls mangent les livres.
\nAll language is eaten, being eaten,
\nwill be eaten in time.
\n 
\nBeware of rat.com.
\nTheir droppings usurp the pupils in your eye.
\nMy book glue provides protein \u2013
\na sweet carbohydrate for the metabolism of rodents.
\nMy pages, sliced bread, dry to crunch,
\nbut good for lunch without cheese.
\n 
\nOne particular academic rat with a feast for Shakespeare
\nate a page from Romeo and Juliet:
\n\u201cTybalt, you rat-catcher\u201d is no more.
\n 
\nThese same rats, descendants to
\nThomas Jefferson\u2019s aristocratic rats
\nthat ate his wallet and minuets while he slept,
\nnow run free in my library.
\nSo much for the independence of rats.
\n 
\nI know how to catch these bastards.
\nI will bait the trap with words
\nand wait for them to feed on poetry.
\n 
\n 
\nJOHN X: THE GOOD SHEPHERD
\nAfter Richard Wilbur
\n 
\nAlthough pig farmers don\u2019t like you,
\nwe sheepherders need your voice
\nto call our ewes
\nby name and sift the choice
\n 
\nlambs for market. You could help our flock
\nand keep our stock secure
\nby insuring the narrow gate is locked
\nat night. Your hand, Jesus, could cure
\n 
\nthe sheep of any disease the herd might have.
\nAfter all, you are the Good Shepherd. So
\nstay with us. Your hand is salve
\nto all who need to know
\n 
\nwhere wandering lambs stray
\nfrom this pasture fold.
\nAlso we need you to pray
\nfor lost sheep and keep the hungry fed till they are sold.
\n 
\n 
\nVILLANELLE FOR CHANGE
\n 
\nRule by twitter stops at the White House door
\nwith garbled language spewed from raving rage
\nwhen President Donald Trump is no more
\n 
\nbecause a new president will settle the score
\nwith a written voice for a living wage
\nsince twitter rule stops at the White House door.
\n 
\nThe climate changes since hope begins to soar
\nas America prepares for the Ecology Age
\nbecause Donald Trump\u2019s reign is \u201cNevermore.\u201d
\n 
\nWhen sane gun laws pass from the Senate floor,
\nautomatic weapons will not rule this age:
\nthe gun lobby gets a closed White House door.
\n 
\nThe Torch of Liberty shines from our shore.
\nThe huddled mass of children in the cage
\nare free. This despot Trump will tweet no more
\n 
\nwhen our nation through the vote will restore
\nthe balance of Justice to a level gage.
\nRule by twitter stops at the White House door
\nwhen President Trump\u2019s power is no more.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Bagato<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCLAWING WITH A DRUMSTICK
\n 
\nWhether it\u2019s the roll of the dice
\nor the flip of the omelet in the pan,
\nthere\u2019s still a way to get ahead in this world,
\nlike a silver spoon up the old wazoo,
\nlike a penny on the sidewalk,
\nlike a money machine
\nwith a three count team:
\nlemon lemon lime
\napple cherry banana\u2014
\nlike a fruited pie on the fruited plain,
\nsweet and runny under a crust
\ngone golden in the spotlight;
\nthey run up, they run down,
\nthey run thither and yon,
\nbut nobody makes biscuits
\nlike a fat cat grabbing
\nat the laser light beamed
\nfrom the hand of his master,
\ntap dancing at the feet
\nof the big man\u2014
\nyou\u2019ve got red gold,
\ngreen gold, black
\ngold, but gold\u2019s only yellow
\nwhen it\u2019s pissed out slowly,
\nlike the juice of a tree,
\nlike a heartbeat drum,
\nlike blood from a banker,
\nlike candy from a baby,
\nlike vinegar poured by a miser\u2019s hand,
\nlike time, sweet time\u2014
\nclick click clicking away
\nat the everloving end
\nof the universe<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Beveridge<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGHOTI
\n 
\nA mathematical progression
\nthat never even got far enough
\nto be a Nigerian prince\u2019s email
\n 
\nnothing more the graffiti
\nthat muddies up the walls
\nleaves behind only fumes
\n 
\nand I love you, her last note
\nsaid, I\u2019ll always love you,
\nbut sharing my life with you
\nwould be a small waste
\n 
\none bird, its wings locked
\nforever in debate over whether
\nCapistrano or Canada is
\nits destination
\n 
\nends, always, in stalemate
\nfacts hammered away
\nwith the greed of oil,
\nthe lust of asphalt, of crushed
\ngravel, the many definitions
\nof pitch, the endless will
\nto\u2014what?\u2014if not power
\n 
\nand so I sit on this train
\nplatform in Abington, PA
\nand read your note again
\nand listen to a half-dozen girls
\nplay double dutch on the other side
\n 
\nand wonder if I should dangle
\nmy legs over the side
\nwhen the train comes
\nor board it and see
\nif it will take me somewhere sunny<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWilliam C. Blome<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDOWN GUATEMALA HILLS
\n 
\nYou have to wonder how such a girl
\never developed rough, pomegranate nipples,
\nand I get mad as Hades the many times
\nI keep pulling and pulling and cutting my lip.
\nRight now you have to wonder if this bus
\never passed a safety inspection with the set
\nof brakes it reveals and squeals on the last
\nride of the day down Guatemala hills,
\ntrip so bumpy in the asphalt of night
\nthere\u2019s nowhere for my masculine anger
\nto hop off and help smooth the shit outside,
\nmuch less to get her to postpone rubbing
\nher training bra up against my shoulder (oh
\nshe sands and sands my muscles with it),
\nand she spreads all over her narrow seat
\nand pushes her tongue far inside my ear
\nand giggles I might just be old enough
\nto be an uncle, a priest, or a granddad.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJimmy Broccoli<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nOVERTHINKING LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER
\n 
\nIt would be easier to stab him
\nthan to cut this watermelon into even slices
\nGoddamn dull knife, impotent cutlery
\nHe waits patiently in the living room
\nas smoke rises from pans
\nTemperature probably too high for the recipe
\n 
\nI\u2019m in the kitchen wearing my favorite tie
\nan obvious first date in houses
\nMy dogs sniff him and approve, and I smile
\nI\u2019ll not burn the motherfucking dinner
\nHe might be worth it
\n 
\nI enter the room and time stands still
\nHe looks at me lovingly, as I overthink and pause
\nmotherfucking food on a well-planned platter
\nI carry it without spilling shit
\nEverything is where it should be
\nand that might include me<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nIngrid Bruck<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFISHING FOR DAD
\n 
\nDad spent boyhood summers fishing at a camp on Lake George
\nA crack of the line, spring music played in our side yard
\nWith a precise snap of his wrist, he\u2019d practice throws with the rod
\nHis long graceful fingers tied the flies he used for casting
\n 
\nA crack of the line, spring music played in our side yard
\nThoughts of the rainbow glow of a hooked trout in a tail-ballet on water
\nHis long graceful fingers tied the flies he used for casting
\nNo gutting dirty work for this original catch and release man
\n 
\nImagining the rainbow glow of a hooked trout in a tail-dance on water
\nHe praised the beauty of trout he fished in the Battenkill
\nNo gutting dirty work, he practiced catch and release
\nHe wrote articles and poems that Fly Fisherman published
\n 
\nHe enthused over the beautiful trout he fished in the Battenkill
\nMom walked dirt roads or read books while dad cast and fished
\nHe treasured copies of his writing in Fly Fisherman
\nDad spent boyhood summers at a Lake George camp fishing
\n 
\n 
\nA PRAISE POEM
\n 
\nI admire my grandaughter and flowers
\nWe isolate at home during COVID
\n 
\nThree-year Wrenna home-locked, daycare closed
\nBlooming catkins drape the pussy willow
\n 
\nShe expresses delight building Legos
\nMiniature daffodils brighten the fog
\n 
\nShe colors intensely inside the lines
\nCups of pastel crocus fill with raindrops
\n 
\nShe crayons a purple face, pink hair, green shoes
\nStark white snowdrops on bare black earth
\n 
\nMallory asks to play, Wrenna\u2019s parents send her away
\nHeavy clumps of blue violets bloom on the hill
\n 
\nWrenna holds a battery operated music box
\nForsythia flowers push out sunshine petals
\n 
\nShe practices twirls in a dance for Aili, her sister
\nHellebores, glorious clusters of colored bells
\n 
\nDizzy, she falls, no tears, picks herself up
\nBloom studded dandelions spread in rosettes
\n 
\nCut off from friends, Wrenna hugs her baby sister
\nOutside the window, flowers and the virus thrive.
\n 
\n 
\n(See Leslie McKay<\/a><\/strong> below for one additional poem
\nco-authored by Ingrid Bruck)<\/strong><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRaymond Byrnes<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBUTTON COLLECTION
\n 
\nIn a pasture hosting only birdsong on a breeze
\ncorn rows filled one autumn day with rows
\nof running men bellowing madly into mayhem.
\n 
\nFive hundred thousand heavy musket balls and
\nrifle bullets smashed both ways through bones,
\nflew astray, or dropped from trembling fingers.
\n 
\nIn moonless night on hallowed ground, like a
\npriest swinging incense smoke, a trespasser
\nsweeps his relic detector just above the grass.
\n 
\nWhen a ground-penetrating signal bounces off
\na metal object, only his headphones register a
\ntelltale ping before he kneels, trowel in hand.
\n 
\nAfter what feels in the dark like a horse-shoe nail
\nhe extracts a pristine, three-ring Selma Arsenal
\nbullet that should fetch twenty or more on eBay.
\n 
\nLast night, in a field once covered by a thousand
\ncanvas tents, he found an \u201cA\u201d artillery button from
\na Union officer\u2019s coat, its sewing-shank still intact,
\n 
\nbut no sound returned from the surgeon\u2019s pit ten
\ninches down, where sawn-off leg bones lie near
\na soldier who died waiting on a stretcher.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Taylor Carlisle<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nABSENT\/PRESENT
\n\u201cto be absent from the body is to be present with the lord\u201d St. Paul
\n 
\nWhen I danced with an angel-faced mortal,
\nor was it the human-faced divine?
\nI wasn\u2019t troubled by belief or hands on my breast.
\nI corpsed myself as we waltzed. I classified
\n 
\nuninvited kisses with the sidelong glances
\nof Susannah\u2019s elders, and eschewed
\nthat conscience-carrying part of me
\nalways trying to lock the dance hall door.
\n 
\nA bald man on the sidelines shouted,
\nHeaven is best! Better than disreputable largess,
\nI guessed. I pondered his message,
\neventually jettisoned my bygones, and entered
\n 
\nthe room of my body with its grapevines, riots,
\nwith its stolen canoodle and red rubber boots.
\n 
\n 
\nA FEW WORDS TO THE NEWCOMER
\n 
\nWelcome to the hillsides\u2019 stones, the sparse,
\nbright shine of grass among the rocks. Welcome
\nto here from your abandoned somewhere else.
\n 
\nYou may have come, as many do, from someplace
\nwith those splendid scudding clouds, the sound of sea
\nwe never hear up here. Your motive could have been
\n 
\ncheap rent, or as is usual, a man. What you\u2019ll find
\nare rocks and moss on hills we say are mountains,
\nand of course, poor folks and wretched politics.
\n 
\nDid you have those? You think we\u2019d fret, but
\nwe\u2019re content with rusting cars, tin roofs and flags
\nthat testify to all the history we know. We hunt.
\n 
\nWe fish. We keep our heads down. We do what
\nThe Sheriff says to do. Until we don\u2019t. Welcome.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKitty Carpenter<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDEAR FUTURE DOCTOR
\n 
\nI keep imagining my head
\nplopped in a roasting pan
\nto catch the drippings,
\nthe rest of me on a steel slab
\ndraped in a white sheet,
\nthis body a box of organs
\ndiscarded piece by piece
\ninto a black trash can.
\n 
\nWill it be four years, or forty?
\nWill you give me a name,
\nmake up stories with your colleagues
\nabout the jagged J on my right thumb,
\nthe chunk of flesh gone from my knee,
\nthe 8-ball tattoo on the small my back\u2014
\n 
\nWill you wonder
\nif these quadriceps carried me up
\nmountains before they wasted,
\nif this pelvis swayed
\nand salsaed as neurons fired,
\ninterpreting music,
\nif the sensory nerves sparked
\nat a faint brush of fingertips
\nbefore they, too, had nothing
\nleft to give. Will you wonder
\nhow many tongues pushed
\nopen these now-grayed lips
\n 
\nbefore you open me, one
\nof 9.63 in a million,
\nsaw through the sternum,
\ncrack back the ribs\u2014
\nthe sound, I\u2019ve heard,
\nlike a branch snapped beneath a boot\u2014
\nto study the disease
\nthat took me. I wanted
\nto give all of myself one last time.
\nplease, take your time with me\u2014
\nthere\u2019s no one
\nto come for the ashes.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSudasi Clement<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSTAR PARTY
\n 
\nA barn owl\u2019s subdued celebration: Woo-hoo.
\nDust from a broken comet burns through the sky,
\nwhich is what drew me out here in the first place.
\nThat, and a dream in which I was crying
\n 
\nbecause I\u2019d missed the meteor shower.
\nNever in this other, wakeful life have I felt
\nsuch despair at the sight of a sunrise. There goes
\nanother, dragging its hot, ionized tail behind.
\n 
\nMost shooting stars are smaller than pebbles
\nyou\u2019d toss at a lover\u2019s window.
\nMy loved ones blaze through the atmosphere
\ntoo, glowing from all the friction.
\n 
\nSubterranean creatures clear their bunkers
\nof debris, and one more meteor hustles by.
\nThe barn owl sings her bare-bones song\u2014
\nminor-key comfort in the lull before dawn.
\n 
\n 
\nNAMASTE
\n 
\nThe brokenness in me bows
\nto the brokenness in you.
\n 
\nThe moth in my brain
\nsees the pyro in yours
\nand readies a match.
\n 
\nThis lump in my throat
\nknows that knot in your gut.
\n 
\nGhost of child-me
\ngives ghost of child-you
\nthe once-over and says\u2014
\n 
\nlet\u2019s rub our scars together
\nand make a new thing.
\n 
\n 
\nCOYOTE
\n 
\nShe\u2019s different than the others, all feint and flirt
\neyeing our boy-dog through the glass.
\n 
\nHis spine twitches and teases
\nlong black fur into a sexy pompadour.
\n 
\nShe snuffles under junipers for quail eggs,
\nprances atop gopher mounds.
\n 
\nLifts her head to listen as his high, wild whine
\nbuilds to frenzied hubba hubba.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWanda Morrow Clevenger<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIT WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE END
\n 
\nwhen she said
\nif anyone asked why
\nI couldn\u2019t join girl scouts
\nor band or any other
\nschool club
\nthat required money
\nI should say
\nI didn\u2019t have a dad<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlan Cohen<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLOOMS
\n 
\nIf the past seems more reliable than the present
\nperhaps it\u2019s because we own it
\n(a film, not a play)
\n 
\nWhat we know easier to compass
\nthan what we want
\nor want to understand
\n 
\nBoth shift
\nThe historical tree may turn from oak to maple
\nWe may substitute a face, a name
\n 
\nBut that is, like artistic revision, in the interest of the story
\nso that what is over the next hill
\nis not simply another hill, matters
\n 
\nIn the here and now
\nwe are so small, so insignificant
\ncan only explore a single letter of the epic that sprawls each moment
\n 
\nIn memory we grow
\nthe world shrinks
\nmeaning looms<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSONG OF TWELFTH PEACE
\n 
\nAt school
\nin my twelfth year of life
\nfascinated as fur sprouted
\nI mastered articulation of twelfth
\nnot twelth not twelf
\nwhile my voice strangely cracked
\nbeyond my control.
\n 
\nIn elbowing hallways
\namong boys of wispy mustache
\nat moments almost random
\nspringing beyond control
\nmy hard-on waved hello
\nconcealed by cotton from giggly
\ngirls hiding their own secrets
\nof twelfth body.
\n 
\nAt home
\nI took long showers
\nwhere singing
\nin a chamber of sound
\nsprayed by hot needles
\nthe voice never cracked.
\nBriefly in my control
\nhair, voice, blood.
\nPeace had a melody
\nand was wet.
\n 
\n 
\nAS A FAVOR I SWEEP RACCOON POOP
\nFROM MY LANDLADY\u2019S ROOF
\n 
\nIn return she mixes me a hot toddy
\nand shows the gangway constructed
\nby her husband Cyrus, a series of planks
\nfrom the acorn tree to her kitchen window
\nwhere raccoons enter and ransack her shelves.
\nIn spring they bring cubs.
\nCyrus fed them from his fingers.
\nHe collapsed right here at the table. His heart.
\n 
\nShe calls owls to that same window.
\nThey come and stare but never enter.
\nLast week an owl brought a dead vole
\nwith the head removed. An offering.
\nShe could hear Cyrus laughing.
\nThere\u2019s an echo in this house.
\nCyrus used to tell her to touch her toes
\nand then he\u2019d touch her from behind.
\nThey had no children, he couldn\u2019t.
\n 
\nOnce a raccoon somehow ignited
\na stove burner and set itself on fire.
\nShe threw a pot of tea.
\nThe coon vaulted out the window.
\nProbably died. When animals die
\nyou never see them. Almost never.
\nSometimes at night Cyrus wakes her,
\nwhispers this or that. Silly stuff,
\nand then he chuckles. The echo.
\n 
\nThat\u2019s enough hot toddies, don\u2019t you think?
\nNow go away before I touch my toes.
\n 
\n 
\nBLUEBOTTLE BLOWFLIES
\n 
\nFlying blueberries
\nof red eye and spindly leg
\nthunk against window glass, seeking escape.
\nWinged maggots,
\nreincarnation of rat who squeezed
\ninto my house, gnawed at my apples,
\ndropped turds on my chairs,
\ndied somewhere secret
\nwithin my walls.
\n 
\nScreens are means to keep bugs out
\nbut now I open all portals as exits, not entries.
\nBehold\u2014fresh outdoor scent.
\nThey migrate by the dozens, by the hundreds
\nbuzzing out passages to freedom
\nfrom an origin of decay.
\nSo too some day will go my soul.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKen Cumberlidge<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPRESENT INDICATIVE
\nfor Caron Freeborn, 1966 – 2020
\n 
\nIt isn’t that I cannot find the words.
\nI know them, every one, and how they work:
\nthat meek, accepting noise they make’s
\nfamiliar and old.
\n 
\nBut with you, they just won’t ‘take’.
\n 
\nMy stubborn tongue will not be told
\nand, unconsoled, refuses to comply,
\ncannot see why it should associate
\nyour name with any concept so
\nunmeet:
\n 
\nso pale-anaemic, sickly-sweet;
\n 
\nso plain\u2026 fucking… banal
\n 
\nas
\nthe past tense.
\n 
\n 
\nTHESE SHOES
\n 
\nThese shoes
\n  \u2013 I haven’t quite got used to just yet
\nThese shoes
\n  \u2013 I kinda hope I never will
\nThese shoes
\n  \u2013 Gave a shop assistant cause to be thankful they paid
\n  attention during that one-off diversity awareness afternoon
\n 
\nThese shoes
\n  \u2013 Have never been beyond my front door
\nThese shoes
\n  \u2013 Turn my six-two into six-five
\nThese shoes
\n  \u2013 Make walking downstairs a unique challenge for a
\n   62 year-old 15-stone man with a compromised left knee
\n 
\nBut oh… these shoes!
\n 
\nThese shoes
\n  \u2013 Lift me up and out of myself
\n       \u2026 maybe into myself?
\n                  I’m not exactly sure
\n 
\n 
\n                 but
\n                 truth be told
\n                 in these shoes
\n                 I don’t care.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE WAY
\n 
\nAnd here it is. Again.
\n 
\nThe tipping-point:
\nthat tilted moment when,
\n 
\ngut-squirmed and churning,
\nburning with reluctance,
\n 
\nyou acknowledge that this thing
\nyou’ve known with them as with no other
\n 
\n\u2013 this once-and-only, confidential,
\n precious slice of specialness \u2013
\n 
\nis gone.
\n 
\n 
\nNeither one of you has said as much,
\nof course: you still trade likes, share memes
\n 
\nbut looking back, it’s clear you’ve been
\nthe one making the running for a while;
\n 
\nthat if, right now, you gave up on
\nyour brief, infrequent texts and calls,
\n 
\nattempts to make arrangements that
\njust lately never quite seem to work out,
\n 
\nyou’d be dead before they’d ever
\nthink to check if you’re OK.
\n 
\n 
\nAin’t that the way?
\n 
\n 
\nTHE GIFT
\n 
\nThe temperature
\nof human blood
\nis 37 degrees.
\n 
\nCanine blood
\nruns hotter by
\napproximately 2
\n 
\n\u2013 a fact, right now,
\nof which I’m glad,
\nthe season being winter
\n 
\nthe wind not
\nup for
\ncompromise
\n 
\nand having lost
\nmy right glove
\nyesterday.
\n 
\nMy dog is large,
\nthe bag
\ncommensurate:
\n 
\nheavy, firm
\nyet yielding
\nin my pocketed caress.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPatricia Davis-Muffett<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMOTHERLESS
\n 
\nSome years, I have left the calendar
\non July–a perpetual 31st–
\nnot wanting to see the month of August come.
\n 
\nUsually, we mark the day
\nonly with a call or text–
\nwe two who loved her most:
\nonly daughter; late life love,
\nthough in the end,
\nyou loved her most fully,
\nescorted her
\ndown that dark path
\nas far as you could go.
\n 
\nNo matter if I turn the page or not,
\nthe day will come–eyes open
\nthen squeezing shut.
\nLet it be tomorrow
\nwhen I am just the motherless daughter
\nand not the one who is losing her again.
\n 
\nThis thirteenth year
\nI will gather my children
\nset a beautiful table
\nuse her wedding china
\nher mother\u2019s crystal.
\nI will fill vases–
\ndaisies, yellow roses–
\nI will serve shrimp cocktail,
\nput ice cubes in wine.
\nWe will end with cookies stuffed with chocolate chips,
\nbutter pecan straight from the box.
\nWe\u2019ll lay out photo albums built
\none paper corner at a time,
\nspread Broadway playbills
\nover the tablecloth she embroidered,
\nalternate singing showtunes and hymns.
\n 
\nWhen dark settles,
\nwe will take off our shoes,
\nprocess into the yard
\ncool grass between our toes.
\nOne by one,
\nwe\u2019ll step into the garden
\nsifting rich black dirt
\nbetween our fingers
\nbreathe in the tomatoes,
\nnewly pruned.
\nLet the fireflies whirl–
\nusher out this day.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE BRIDE PRICE
\n 
\nHere, at my kitchen table,
\nat the dawn of the twenty-first century,
\nwe discuss her bride price.
\n 
\nLucky, she has traveled
\nthese 7,777 miles
\nacross an ocean
\nacross continents
\ncarrying nothing
\nbut a suitcase
\nand her will to thrive.
\n 
\nShe strode over my threshold,
\nassessed my children
\nlined up before her,
\nlooked me over, adopted us.
\nFrom then on, we were hers.
\n 
\nNow, after years of considering,
\nshe has decided to open this door again
\nallow a quiet, careful man
\ninto the space she had bricked over
\nwhen the last one in proved violent.
\n 
\nWe are considering the question
\nposed by the families,
\nridiculous to all of us–
\nto him, to her, to me:
\nHow many cows is she worth?
\n 
\nA tradition yes–but the families
\nback home in Botswana, in Lesotho,
\nwould consider only
\nhow beautiful she is
\nhow pure her body
\nhow likely to bear children
\nhow skilled at keeping house.
\n 
\nWhere are the cows
\nfor the way she got up
\nafter a man bloodied her face, her body,
\nand searched the wide world
\nfor the fastest way
\nto a visa, a paying job,
\nputting thousands of miles between them?
\n 
\nWhere are the cows
\nfor the nights spent studying
\nlate into the night,
\nthe heavy courseload carried
\nafter carrying two toddlers
\nthrough their small lives
\nall day?
\n 
\nWhere are the cows
\nfor the force of her love,
\nencircling this broken child
\nmaking him whole
\nin a broken world?
\n 
\nI know it\u2019s tradition–
\nthat you will pay the price together
\nto appease her uncles
\nto help his mother save face.
\nThe fact is, though,
\nhe can\u2019t afford you.
\n 
\nSet the price so high
\nthe only one who can pay
\nis you.
\nIt is time to fill
\nyour own field with cows.
\nDress yourself in silk and gold
\nand claim what was always yours.
\n 
\n 
\nKNEADING
\n 
\nStanding in the dark kitchen,
\nwoman of a dozen lists,
\nI try not to kill the yeast.
\n 
\nTurning flour in the bowl,
\nI know I ought to love this
\ndigging in of hands, rhythmic churning.
\n 
\nMy lists fill space left empty by the recipe
\nwhat must be done by day\u2019s end, week\u2019s end, month\u2019s end.
\nShoulder muscles tighten. I throw the yeasty dough at faster pace.
\n 
\nNow, stretch the loaf,
\npull beneath heels of hands.
\nThe lists dissolve in texture.
\n 
\nMy great grandmother here in the empty kitchen,
\nbody smeared with flour, sweat, her children\u2019s handprints,
\nlaundry soap and garden soil.
\n 
\nShe kneads the dough for Samuel
\nwho called himself her father only til her wedding day.
\nShe folds it on itself for Robert,
\nIrish husband whose hatred locked him
\nin an upper bedroom, the cyclops eye of the house.
\nShe stretches the loaf for her children–
\nfor sons who might become someone,
\ndaughters who might marry well.
\n 
\nDough folded, left to rise,
\nshe checks her list of orders.
\nThank God for lazy women
\nwho will keep her making bread
\nso she can feed her children.
\n 
\nThe bread is more than kneaded now
\nthe lists await a moment up ahead,
\nbut for now there is the rising
\nof the dough, the sun, my family.
\nI hold my hands up to my face,
\nbreathe in the yeast and flour
\nfor one last moment.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBenjamin Davis<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBLUES BASEMENTS
\n 
\nWe headed to Memphis in a place called Tennessee, a city known for blues music and segregation. (Segregation is a thing like when you’re a kid, and you try to keep your peas out of your mashed potatoes except you have an irrational fear of peas and you’re a potato). They also had shrimp, and it was good, blackened. We asked the waitress for a place to see some Blues. She told us about a place in that part of town “Take a taxi,” she told us, “I always take a taxi when I go out in that part of town.” She paused, then added, “There are a lot of bad people.” And we went there to a jazz bar in the basement of a hotel. My mother had a little blue backpack on, and in line, we heard: “Look at this cute little white lady with her cute little backpack.” My mother got us whiskies and we sat. The place was packed wall to wall, and no one looked at us funny, but they did look at my mother’s backpack a lot. The music started to play, and everyone forgot the backpack. It was music like I’d never heard. The room gyrated as the rhythm built on itself before exploding into an irresistible jig. It was an earthquake of movement. Everyone danced and flakes of sweat flung all over the place. It was on the walls and the ceiling and on the little blue backpack. We, too, danced. It was so loud and full of joy that we all went blind. I had to stumble outside for air holding the hall rails to guide me out onto the dark street. The bar carried on without me. I watched as two couples, arm-in-arm-in-arm, came walking down the sidewalk toward me. They looked to the bar, felt the rhythm, and walked in. A few seconds later, they came out. They were walking closer together whispering to one another, and as they passed, I heard one of them say, “No, I think not.”<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSteve Deutsch<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCHANCE
\n 
\nBeneath the blare
\nand buzz of station crowd
\nI thought, just now,
\nI caught
\n 
\nthat old pet name
\nyou used so long ago\u2014
\nto torment, to tease,
\nand to endear.
\n 
\nAnxiously,
\nI scan the faces
\nwith care\u2014
\nlooking for?
\n 
\nWhat do we
\nhold to
\nin the passing
\nof our years?
\n 
\nWhat do we
\nfail to?
\nBy choice
\nand reason?
\n 
\nOr is it just
\nthe pick
\nof a card
\nin a well-mixed deck?
\n 
\nIf I had
\na hundred lives
\nlike this one
\nwould I remember you
\n 
\nin one, or nearly all?
\nOr would I come up
\nas empty
\nas I do today?
\n 
\n 
\nRETICENCE
\n 
\nBy now, we gravitate
\nto a few familiar places\u2014
\ntoday we are camped out
\nin our local bar\u2014
\ndark and dank.
\nBut it\u2019s cool,
\nthe beer is cold,
\nand we have
\nbeen coming here
\nsince we were
\nbarely legal.
\n 
\nIt\u2019s an odd comfort
\nthat nothing
\nhas changed
\nin more
\nthan thirty years,
\nthe tables
\nstill etched
\nwith the names
\nof long dead loves\u2014
\nhearts and arrows.
\n 
\nHave I told you
\nabout Marty?
\nMy old friend,
\na man of few words,
\nprefers an occasional grunt
\nto sustained conversation.
\nAnd that works for me\u2014
\nI love to talk
\nand the grunts
\nare enough
\nto convince me
\nI\u2019m not talking
\nto myself
\n 
\nBut today he is
\nbusting to tell
\nme something.
\nSo I go on and on
\nabout the five bucks
\nSal owes me
\nfrom a bet on the Mets
\nand watch him twitch
\nand try to be polite.
\n 
\nFinally,
\nAs I pause
\nTo drink my beer,
\nHe says\u2014
\nwith a face
\nI\u2019d never seen before,
\n\u201cI ran into my dad
\nLast night in the diner.
\n 
\nAnd, it\u2019s as if
\na dam had burst.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCraig Dobson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBIRD-HATING
\n 
\nIt cost me all I had. I borrowed more
\nfor delivery, and for the men to put it up. Told them it was art.
\nHad to smile when one advised bird scarers.
\n 
\nWhen they went, I stood before it, ran my fingers round
\nthe marks their sucker grips had left. Scraped off
\nall the warning tape. Checked the industrial adhesive
\nhardening each section invisibly to the next.
\n 
\nThe following day I cleaned it. Not halfway through,
\nmy first success. A male blackbird\u2019s stunning song \u2013
\nhis wings beating the ground, his yellow bill stilling.
\n 
\nWhen I\u2019d done, it was astonishing. I could barely tell,
\nmyself, any sense of a beyond. No surprise
\nthe robin couldn\u2019t.
\n 
\nThat became my routine. Each morning I\u2019d wipe the dawn
\nfrom its colossal face. The dew, the bugs, the cobwebs\u2019 lethal lace.
\nThen wait.
\n 
\nThe difference in their weight, their speed, their angle of impact \u2013
\nin time, I learned to tell them all, could mouth
\nswallow
\nbefore it had even finished its fall.
\n 
\nLaughed till I cried
\nwhen the woodpigeon\u2019s idiotic, wing-clap parabola hit,
\nbouncing crooked as a rugby ball, spilling its crop.
\n 
\nThe barn owl\u2019s September dusk glided in on a silence that cracked
\nto leave him broken-winged and bleeding.
\nFinished with a stick, I nailed him \u2013 upside down \u2013
\nlopsided wings pinned out.
\n 
\nIt\u2019s spring, now. On clear mornings, the sun hits so hard I can\u2019t look.
\nGaze instead at where the buzzards laze. If I had the means
\nI\u2019d raise it there,
\nwith nothing but light and the clear blue
\ndrawing those ragged wings towards it, unaware.
\n 
\nYesterday, near the end, I pressed my forehead
\nagainst its coolness, each exhalation misting the world.
\nA blue-tit was hunting grubs the other side,
\none of the thousand daily forays to feed its young.
\nSo close, I could see the price of instinct:
\nits thinness, shabby feathers, dulled reactions, the lack of customary care
\nthat not even my breath\u2019s unwitting, opaque warning would save it from.
\n 
\n 
\nAN ATTITUDE
\n 
\nSurprised they still exist in such numbers,
\nI study the taxidermists\u2019 ads online.
\n 
\nNot baulking at my request \u2013 We\u2019ve seen stranger before <\/i>\u2013
\nthe man and his young assistant arrive two days later,
\nas rain\u2019s obscuring grey clears the bottom of our garden
\nand then the nearby park, and the whole newly shining town.
\n 
\nDeclining tea, they ask to see what they\u2019ll quote on,
\nand I lead the way to where, propped on the sturdiest
\nof the French provincial chairs we bought that year in Brittany,
\nour relationship is slumped, inert, its colour gone.
\n 
\nHow long?<\/i> the elder asks, direct.
\n 
\nQuite a while<\/i>, I venture. I mean\u2026 longer than we\u2026<\/i>
\nbut am dumbed by an unexpected sense of impropriety.
\n 
\nHe bends closer to inspect. Animated, he comments
\nto the younger, picking out some things
\nI\u2019d never noticed, others not thought important.
\n 
\nHave you decided on a pose?<\/i>
\n 
\nWe\u2019d talked of this before they came
\nand yet, when I go to say,
\nI feel as if a sentence is being passed.
\n 
\nExchanging looks, they straighten up.
\nWe\u2019d use traditional wool and wire for the form,
\nnot polyurethane, and retain as much of the original
\nas we could. We believe it adds authenticity.<\/i>
\n 
\nGrateful and emboldened, I try again.
\nWe thought\u2026 turning back, perhaps\u2026 you know,
\nglancing round, as if it was\u2026 well\u2026 looking for\u2026<\/i>
\nbut the words I think I want
\nstill in my throat without a sound.
\n 
\nThis technique\u2026<\/i> he adds, to free me
\nfrom the halting silence, means it could \u2013
\ndepending on the light and where you stood \u2013
\nseem either something lost\u2026 or something found.<\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nCONVENIENCE
\n 
\nA slice of fir and birch beside the busy road,
\nfattening to fields beyond the traffic\u2019s moan.
\nLitter seeded its ragged margins,
\ntissues, shit and condoms further in.
\n 
\nDriving that way to our holidays,
\nwe could\u2019ve waited for the postcard hills
\nto start or the river\u2019s stone-bridged grace
\ngathering to spill into a sun-embroidered sea,
\n 
\nbut the irony of the place somehow grew to be
\nan integral part \u2013 uncramping our legs among
\nthe strewn waste, joking at the mess and dodging
\nturds to pee, barely concealed from the streaming cars.
\n 
\nLast time I saw it, I hadn\u2019t stopped there for a decade
\nand didn\u2019t then, though a sidelong glance displayed
\nthe spread of trash \u2013 fly-tipped black sacks
\nand white goods barely clearing the road.
\n 
\nI sped past, beggaring what must once
\nhave alchemised this stand\u2019s rag-end plight,
\nennobling its share in our annual pilgrimage
\nto a fortnight in the promised land.
\n 
\nWithout that, its disabusing reprise offered
\nnothing more than necessity \u2013 an unloveliness fit only
\nfor whatever jettisoned regard left its litter on the verge
\nor its abject urges further in, hidden by the trees.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE RETURN OF AGAMEMNON
\nTO THE INTERNATIONAL BANKING SECTOR
\n 
\nAs Troy falls at last (he\u2019d hedged, of course:
\noptioned the sea lanes for victory or retreat)
\nhe texts \u2018cu soon\u2019 to his wife, loads his vast
\ncontainer fleet with a hoard of swag and slaves,
\nwaves the wooden nag goodbye and boards
\nhis Lear jet for home, leaving Ilium to burn.
\n 
\nHaving netted his dreams, he can\u2019t appreciate
\nhis partner\u2019s true interest in his return \u2013
\nher investment of a decade\u2019s taxing wait
\nto repay the price of their daughter\u2019s sacrifice \u2013
\nand bullishly reckons without her
\naxing certain assets to offset his toxic debt.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nClive Donovan<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSLUDGE
\n 
\nThis sludged-up drain:
\nskeletons that dangled once from my lime tree
\npicking nightmarish elements as from a trance of slime
\nbits of ham tomato sandwich
\nthat never should have been flushed down the sink
\nI made it in good faith for you
\nsuch unwholesome chutney in this drain
\nfoul phlegm and goo
\nand soggy worms where did they come from?
\nand yet I have to beat the dog away
\nhe longs to lick the protein up
\nhalf retching I reach to the depths
\ncoughing and gargling up to you
\nDon’t pour the acid yet!
\nour gelid black kitchen fat
\nand scum of sloughed skin
\nthis joint accumulation of discard
\nwe create without consideration
\nan awful lesson of our punk life
\nif only I could grasp it
\nand would it be too horrible at this point to think of
\nour dead baby pulled from a womb?
\nand from the roof a tuft of shifted moss
\ngutter-grit and a feather for God’s sake
\nand wrapped around the viscid hook
\nimperishable shreds of your dark and lovely hair.
\n 
\n 
\nTAKE THIS FLY
\n 
\nTake this fly, for instance,
\nas an example of life.
\nHe preys on death and breeds on it,
\nhe is helpful in this way.
\nHis maligned maggots help shift
\nthe unclaimed baggage of corpse.
\n 
\nSo why, he wonders, is a single leg of his
\nstuck fast to this yellow viscid paper?
\nWho has got it in for me?
\nI’ve got to think!
\nThe glue is emotionless. He looks around,
\nspies three others in a worse condition. They are dead.
\n 
\nI could tell him now that the loss of wing
\nwould be the most terrible thing,
\nbut I watch the dilemma of his struggle
\nlike a cool executioner and I ponder;
\nat what point does the light go out
\nfrom his multiple eye?<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Dorroh<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nEXPOSED
\n 
\nI pulled down your past
\nand watched it ooze onto
\nthe floor, spreading like
\nhot jelly, exposing your
\nfootsteps and soul. You
\nasked to look at mine
\nsince it was only right
\nand would make it better
\nbetween us.
\n 
\nMine was airy and
\nlight like crepe batter.
\nThe death of your mother
\nand the loss of my job
\nat the bank; your cancer,
\nmy bulging disc.
\n 
\nThe checklist of personal
\nhistories served no purpose.
\nAimless one-upping, Hmph!
\n 
\nAfter sucking on cigarettes,
\nwe pulled up our pasts and
\nwalked out into the morning
\nfog.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nNeil Douglas<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBATH NIGHT AT SCYLLA\u2019S
\nAfter \u2018Scylla\u2019<\/a> a painting by Ithell Colquhon 1938
\n 
\nme pubes like seaweed drifting
\ndown below in salty water
\n 
\nabove me knees together
\nas if kissing one another
\n 
\nbetween me thighs an opening
\nfor the boat to take to harbour
\n 
\nthe solitary sailor
\nwho feeds me ever after<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJessica Dubey<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHEY DON\u2019T SHAVE YOUR HEAD ANYMORE
\n 
\nI want to reach out and touch the bald head
\nof the man sitting in front of me, forbidden
\nas a museum painting,
\nlike the photorealist\u2019s rendition
\nof fruit and cheese I saw at a gallery
\nthe night before.
\nI held myself back wanting to pluck
\none of the glistening grapes
\nand pop it in my mouth\u2014that kind
\nof temptation\u2014to run my hand
\nover the smooth scape
\nof his head, scarless
\nunless you count the ring of freckles
\nthe sun left behind, those ripe little spots
\non an otherwise untouched scalp.
\n 
\nI think about the sickle-shaped scar
\non my husband\u2019s head, now buried
\nunder a healthy crop of hair.
\nHow even after it healed
\nhe didn\u2019t want me to touch it.
\nHow I longed to run my fingers
\nthrough his hair the way I did
\non road trips, my left hand
\nslipping past his shoulder,
\nmy fingers raking the soft locks,
\nmassaging his scalp as he drove.
\n 
\nThey don\u2019t shave your head anymore
\nbefore the scalpel makes that decisive cut.
\nRadiation had already taken so much
\nof his hair. What was left
\nlaid down on either side of the incision,
\nthe skin held closed by a long track
\nof tightly spaced staples
\nfrom the nape to the peak of his head.
\nThe most badass thing I\u2019d ever seen.
\nI took a picture so he could see it later,
\nafter the pain had gained some distance.
\n 
\nHe wondered for months
\nif his hair would grow back.
\nNow that it has, he tells his barber
\nto cut it short, really short,
\nso he doesn\u2019t have to comb it anymore,
\nso every morning
\nhe just has to run his fingers through it.
\n 
\n 
\nNEEDLE IN THE GROOVE
\n 
\nHere we are again at the confluence
\n  of hot car seat and kitten
\n     with a broken neck
\nI am buckled
\n   into the same car
\n     that minutes earlier left
\nits radial tire imprint
\n  on my left thigh
\n     I am buckled
\ninto the same memory
\n  that imprints on my mind
\n     and later the kitten
\nimprinted on the Labrador
\n  who with its soft gaping love
\n     picked it up
\nstrode across the lawn
\n  lapping up the kitten\u2019s newness
\n     its just-opened eyes
\ntook it in its noble mouth
\n  and rolled it from its tongue
\n     past awful teeth
\nto my father\u2019s feet
\n  who scooped up the barely-there
\n     kitten in one hand
\nhammer in the other
\n  and walked out of sight
\n     I reach back
\nfrom the driver\u2019s seat
\n  for the little girl
\n     road rash on her back
\nfusing with hot vinyl
\n  I reach for the kitten
\n     the loll of its neck
\nreach for my father\u2019s hand
\n  soft and dangerous
\n     as the canine mouth
\nreach and reach and find only
\n  the worn handle
\n     of the hammer<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarchell Dyon<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE WEDDING DRESS
\n 
\nI wore a dress tiger leather
\nLovers’ Lane stick-to-my-thighs sexy
\na wedding dress not virginal white, not of lace or silk,
\nand not the kind of winter wedding dress
\nI imagined as a child.
\nFor my wedding march I\u2019ve snagged myself
\na Hobbit for a husband.
\nAlan was nice toddling at my side.
\n 
\nBut he wasn\u2019t Lou.
\nBy now, Lou would\u2019ve had his tongue down my throat.
\nBy now, Lou was three states away.
\n 
\nLove at first sight.
\nThe Midnight Chapel would be all Alan\u2019s idea.
\nFor future generations,
\nI would let him believe.
\nFrom a pool of highly influential Vegas conventioneers
\nI saw My pigeon
\nthe rest history.
\n 
\nSatisfied Alan slept cuddled in pearled satin sheets
\nI got up from him to count the unending casino lights,
\nas I watched them. I fold again my wedding dress
\ntiger leather stick-to-my-thighs sexy.
\n 
\nWith my hand,
\nI chased down each imaginary wrinkle
\nanother month and I\u2019ll be showing.
\nI petted my leather wedding dress once more.
\nOne last time I thought of Lou, and
\nthe only good luck Lou ever gave me,
\nthis dress.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Estabrook<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWOODSTOCK 50
\n 
\nYes I know
\nit\u2019s the 50 year anniversary of Woodstock
\nthe granddaddy of all music festivals
\nfeatured many of the bands and performers
\nI still love:
\nJimi, Janis, The Who, Jefferson Airplane,
\nJoe Cocker, Canned Heat, Mountain,
\nGrateful Dead, Santana, Country Joe and the Fish,
\nCrosby, Stills & Nash . . . But no I didn\u2019t go.
\nI was working three jobs
\nat the time saving to buy my girl\u2019s
\nengagement ring.
\n 
\nBut I confess I never
\nwould\u2019ve taken her there anyway
\ntoo uncertain too dangerous.
\nCaught in the rain and mud
\ncrammed in among thousands of strangers
\nwasn\u2019t my idea of a good time.
\nI wasn\u2019t that much
\nof a free spirit back then (or now actually).
\nBesides, what was I supposed to tell her dad:
\nI\u2019m taking your daughter hundreds
\nof miles away to sleep in a muddy field
\nfor three nights with thousands
\nof drugged-out whack-a-doodles. Nope,
\nthat never would\u2019ve worked.
\n 
\n 
\nKING ARTHUR DIED IN AD 538
\n 
\nThings are about the same
\nhere, same as always, snowy out
\nanother boring lunch.
\n 
\nDid you know that King Arthur
\n(of the Round Table and all that)
\nwas real and died in 538?
\n 
\nSimply trying to imagine
\n538 is difficult, nearly impossible
\nso long ago, so vague and dark.
\n 
\nMost likely King Arthur was a Roman general.
\n 
\nTons of rubbish written
\nabout the Arthurian Legends.
\nLike with trying to find the historical Jesus.
\n 
\nAlbert Schweitzer for example tried and failed.
\nBut questing after the historical Arthur
\ncould prove fruitful.
\n 
\nThe big problem is having to learn
\nall those archaic languages: Saxon, Anglo,
\nCeltic, Kentish, Pictish, Jutish, Cumbric, Irish.
\n 
\nWelsh too, don\u2019t forget Welsh.
\nForget it. Just getting modern English
\ndown has kept me occupied for decades.
\n 
\nNo, no Arthur for me.
\nBesides I gotta go make myself
\na sandwich or something.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nVern Fein<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFODDER
\n 
\nYears ago, when my wife and I drove deep into red clay
\nfor a Georgia wedding, we explored outside Atlanta.
\nWe both loved antiques and quaint
\nshops with doodads and local candies,
\nbut noticed Army recruiting signs,
\nby most of the cash registers,
\nan expected rite of passage
\nfor recent high school graduates\u2014a way to glory,
\na badge of honor to escape dirt roads,
\nclosed store fronts, weedy playgrounds\u2014
\nthe bright cardboard signs spelling fodder
\nfor the great Mad Cow in the sky
\nwho chews and chews and cuds them up.
\n 
\nOn the news this morning, a father and his son
\nfrom Georgia, argue for Freedom
\nnot to wear masks or distance
\nas they mass-return to school despite every Covid warning.
\nThe curly-blond boy,
\na linebacker on the football team,
\nmouths Freedom as if it were something stuck in his teeth.
\nHis Dad, sporting a Bass cap,
\nmouths the same words like a fish gasping for air,
\nasserts his right to get sick and die
\njust as the young men and women did so long ago
\nwhen I was younger and thought it would change.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLynn Finger<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nINCIDENT OUTSIDE A SMALL TOWN
\n 
\nDriving. Tumbleweeds, dust devils, & heifers have ribboned past. I
\nstop for gas at the convenience store & ask the older couple
\nstanding behind the counter for the ladies. Old A\/C unit shakes
\nlike a rock in a can & a radio murmurs. Their unspoken space
\n 
\nan illusion of together, uneven, like the linoleum, smooth & buckled,
\n& the old guy smiles at me while the woman, hair in a bun, looks at a
\nmagazine. I find the restroom down the hall past a few mop buckets &
\nan aged coke machine. The single stall\u2019s door is gone. Then I see a hole
\n 
\nin the wall where the paint was smooth, now buckled. I look through.
\nAnother eye looks back. I stuff the hole with paper towels & go out
\nto the counter. The man is gone. I put two jumbo candy bars &
\na licorice stick bag there, & say, \u201cI think there\u2019s someone looking through
\n 
\na hole in the ladies\u2019 room.\u201d She says, \u201c$10.59 please.\u201d I come back to it.
\n\u201cMaybe someone could patch the hole?\u201d Her eye meets mine. \u201cNot a lot
\ngets patched around here.\u201d She hands me the bag. \u201cEnjoy.\u201d She goes back
\nto reading her magazine. I take the bag, go out into the blind prairie wind. I
\n 
\nfind a bench in the parking lot to sit & eat. I think she\u2019s never leaving
\nthe store, or him. & patching the hole would be to admit it was there
\nin the first place. When I open the wrappers, tree birds flutter to the candy
\nin my hands, grabbing with greedy beaks & eyes.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Ford<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTIDYING YOUR GARDEN AHEAD OF THE WAKE
\n 
\nI edge the lawn with my eyes closed,
\nhesitantly. It remains yours, after all,
\nfor an undetermined period of time.
\n 
\nOn my swollen hands and knees
\nbeneath the flyblown skirts of the
\nMagnolia, I find a gathering of the
\n 
\nusual hangers-on; geums, alchemilla,
\nother turned-aways hoping to go
\nnoisily unnoticed in the semi-darkness,
\n 
\nand a queue of sprouted ashlings
\nalong the hedgeline, still too young
\nto understand or have heard about
\n 
\nthe dieback. I decide to keep it that way
\nfor now. There is ivy everywhere,
\nof course, though not yet sprouting
\n 
\nthis year\u2019s crop of catpiss flowers,
\nand brambles that rake my wrists
\nevery time we cross on the stairs,
\n 
\nwondering what the other is drinking.
\nInside, the party will be starting. I can
\nhear its quickening rumble, should go.
\n 
\nYet somehow, in the tightly-wrapped
\nlabours of the long day, I\u2019ve failed
\nto notice the rain until now, as it seeps
\n 
\ndown beyond the layers of my clothing.
\nIt comes to rest, a gentle deadweight in
\nthe god-forsaken hollows of my heart.
\n 
\n 
\nLISTENING TO \u201cA DAY IN THE LIFE\u201d FOR THE FIRST TIME
\n 
\n 
\nEverything had already been done before.
\nYet somehow anything still remains possible.
\nIn your room, the wallpaper is made up
\nof geometric shapes, and there are
\npictures that would embarrass you now.
\nThere are many miscalculations to come,
\nbut you are only thirteen, and most things
\ncan and will be forgiven. The matter of
\nthe galaxies has yet to separate itself,
\ninto objects with fixed orbits, into emptiness.
\nThe idea of giving names to all of this \u2013
\nlet alone writing it down in words,
\nlet alone reshaping it with your hands \u2013
\ncreates a terror you cannot imagine.
\nYou will see the blow coming long before
\nyou feel it, yet be powerless to stop it.
\nYou will never be exactly sure what it was.
\nThe stylus continues to rise and fall
\npolitely in the grooves with every revolution.
\nAnything can seem trivial if seen from
\nan appropriate angle, the view obscured.
\n“I’d love to turn you on” he told you,
\nand you immediately thought of that girl,
\nthe one who’d be the first ever to spit
\nher mayfly heart into your open mouth.
\nYou were an incomparable idiot, even then.
\nYou do not read the news anymore, oh boy,
\nbut that final chord still threatens to shake you
\nawake. It still hasn’t finished dying away yet . . .<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMeg Freer<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBEYOND EQUILIBRIUM
\n 
\nA man and woman trim their front lawns with scissors
\nin different parts of the city, break their own limits,
\nattempt invisible mending of the weather in their spinning minds.
\nI get out the mapping pens, label the outliers, draw what is missing
\nfrom other planets, complete the cosmic exit strategy.
\n 
\nMy airplane pretzel package indicates the \u201cabsence of peanuts.\u201d
\nIts strong gravitational field warns me to keep fingertips
\naway from the event horizon or it will nibble my nails.
\nIf it turns Earth into a black hole, that will ruin the whole day\u2014
\nmy margin of safety depends on a small slope on the floor.
\n 
\n 
\nVISIONARY TALES
\nto my father\u2019s memory
\n 
\nYou took me at age 10
\nto your beloved German art films,
\nand I didn\u2019t have nightmares
\nabout Herzog\u2019s hypnotized chickens,
\nbut visions of Kaspar Hauser
\nstabbed in the chest, his head bleeding,
\nand later, Nosferatu the Vampyre,
\nhis systematic killing of the ship\u2019s crew,
\nswarms of rats bringing disease,
\nthe final stake through his heart.
\n 
\nYou gave me at age 12
\na book by Ursula K. Le Guin,
\nand I read\u2014and reread
\nuntil I felt ill\u2014the passage
\nabout the traveling foreign priest
\ndragged into deep Orsinian snow,
\nhis throat slit on a stone altar,
\nhis belly slashed, entrails spilling out
\nsteaming on the cold ground
\nnear the heathen folk\u2019s burial mound.
\n 
\nNow I know what erases night\u2019s dreams,
\nbut the back cover of the book I hold
\nthis morning shows a poet
\nwho resembles you in an unnerving way,
\nas if he were a brother of yours,
\ndark eyes gentle but haunting,
\nhis smug enjoyment of the camera
\nrequiring me to gaze back, though I can\u2019t
\nstand deep study of this compelling face
\nand settle for short glances.
\n 
\nIf only the publisher had placed
\nthe photo inside the book,
\nI wouldn\u2019t feel the need to let it
\ninterrupt my dream-clearing,
\nand this self-imposed discomfort
\nfeels a little too close
\nto my compulsion to revisit
\nunsettling images, so I shelve the book,
\nresist the urge to recall that last tail-twitch
\nafter the squirrel ran in front of the car.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGerald Friedman<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE MANAGED WILD GARDEN IN NEW MEXICO
\n 
\nEl Ni\u00f1o gave us enough snow and rain
\nto germinate the feral larkspur seeds
\nthat skipped last year. Must think: their lapis needs
\nsome gold for contrast.
\n            The beeblossoms I brought
\nin from the empty lot have too-free reign;
\nthey\u2019re crowding the red-whiskered clammyweeds.
\nI\u2019ll have to pull some, though I like their white
\nflowers on wiry stems, which I first thought
\nlacked one petal. I looked again: it\u2019s plain
\nthey\u2019re shaped like butterflies.
\n             I\u2019m glad I chose
\nto spare the seed-eating ants that sting and bite,
\nbuild foot-high, scorched-earth hills. They taught
\na friend a lesson. She used bait to kill
\nhers off; her dogs got ticks.
\n             I drag the hose
\non dirt I\u2019ve tramped into paths, hoping there might
\nbe gypsum scorpionflowers coming where
\nI left seeds from that friend\u2019s yard, but there\u2019s still
\nnothing. At least my one datura grows\u2014
\nthe flower made of milk that soon goes sour
\nin sun.
\n    A passerby now stops to stare
\nand tell me in good Spanglish that he will
\nhelp with weeding. People don\u2019t get this style
\nof landscape. Wonder what he\u2019d want an hour.
\nMy neighbor\u2019s yard could use even more care,
\nlittered with goatheads, brimming with the vile
\nmustard I pull each spring, plus (now I smile)
\ntwo stray larkspurs\u2014and a scorpionflower.
\n 
\n 
\nSPRING ASSURANCE
\n 
\nAs our boots trample weeds, tear sod
\nto shreds that freeze at night\u2014
\nwe\u2019ve lost right-angle discipline\u2014
\nas the slush releases brown patches
\nand the smell of three months\u2019 rot,
\nas the sky steams up,
\nworms are shifting humus like mail drivers;
\nrain is simmering the snow away.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAnna E. Fullmer<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSNOW ANGEL GALLOWS
\n 
\nBefore dropping to the grass-tipped snow,
\nyou walk outside like a man condemned or
\nlike primitive man learning to walk upright, or
\nI observe from above, like both. You hunch
\nagainst the stiff March wind and without a coat,
\nanother qualification of my design\u2014the offered deal\u2014
\nto spread open and enter the warm spot between
\nmy legs for a snow angel.
\n 
\n 
\nNEW FURNITURE
\n 
\nUnderneath the old bed,
\nI find a dead tick,
\nbrought in on the back of the dog
\nyou never wanted. New lamps
\nand a duvet, gradient blue.
\nI diminish in color. Tea spills
\non a paper towel.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMac Gay<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCHURCH
\n 
\nHe dropped down to the ground
\non a rope of hope.
\nLeast that’s what He said,
\nmore or less. And there’s that
\nwonky promise you make.
\nThe whole thing’s antidote
\nto the snake and the
\nmonumental mistake.
\nThe gaffe that resulted
\nin subtraction of laughter.
\nThe poof of the bubble of
\neach of us here ever after.
\nAnd the whole thing like Santa:
\nall wrapped up in math
\nthat doesn’t add up
\nunless you close your eyes,
\nturn around three times,
\nsay magic words.
\nIf not for the fear,
\nwe’d say the whole
\nthing’s for the birds.
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nHARD TIME
\n 
\nThe cancer showed up
\nlike a cat creeping into the yard.
\nBy that I mean no fanfare,
\nno hoopla, maybe a breeze’s
\nruffling of leaves, or cold
\nmoonlight. No bells ringing, no
\nwhistles blowing. Just another
\nevery other, till the diagnosis
\ncame with that little odd
\npain. Then things changed,
\nmostly inside, where the fear
\nroared class 5 hurricane.
\nEverything outside that hell
\nlooked pretty much the same–
\nyet not quite: At once, trees
\nloomed taller, boulders bigger,
\nholes deeper. Roads much longer–
\neverything in the world got farther
\napart. I wasn’t so smart anymore,
\neither. My future tall thirty
\nguaranteed years of good luck
\nnow had hexes on them.
\nWas there nothing I could keep?
\nPain has a trash can lid it bangs,
\nso you can’t sleep. And fear,
\nthat little boy blue, blows his
\ndamn horn all night, too.
\nWide awake in the gloomy house
\nyou can feel death–fat, still, dark–
\nintent on you, the mouse.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFrancis Golm<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE OLD MAN
\n 
\nI am eight years old.
\nI am eight years old and having a temper tantrum.
\nI am eight years old and having a temper tantrum because I have been accused of something I didn\u2019t do.
\nBecause I have been accused of something I didn\u2019t do I am jumping up and down
\nBecause I have been accused of something I didn\u2019t do I am jumping up and down and screaming
\nBecause I have been accused of something I didn\u2019t do I am jumping up and down and screaming because I have been accused of something I didn\u2019t do.
\nI am eight years old.
\nI am sick of being told what to do.
\n 
\nI am twenty-five years old.
\nI am twenty-five years old and I am throwing a glass bottle
\nI am twenty-five years old and I am throwing a glass bottle at the kitchen wall
\nI am twenty-five years old and I am throwing a glass bottle at the kitchen wall and kicking a watermelon
\nI am twenty-five years old and I am throwing a glass bottle at the kitchen wall and kicking a watermelon and screaming
\nI am twenty-five years old and I am throwing a glass bottle at the kitchen wall and kicking a watermelon and screaming and been drinking
\nI am twenty-five years old and I am throwing a glass bottle at the kitchen wall and kicking a watermelon and screaming and been drinking when he enters.
\nI am twenty-five years old.
\n 
\nHe is fifty-three years old.
\nHe is fifty-three years old and he is crying.
\nHe is fifty-three years old and he is crying and puts his arms around me.
\nHe is fifty-three years old and he is crying and puts his arms around me and cries.
\nHe is fifty-three years old and he is crying and puts his arms around me and cries and I hold him.
\nI am twenty-five years old.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHank Greenspan<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCONFESSION
\n 
\nOK, I admit it.
\nI\u2019m a socialist anarchist God-darning
\ndrug-dealing green-new-dealing
\nbaby-killing demon, and I want to
\neat your guns.
\n 
\nFor breakfast.
\nAnd after that I will cancel
\nyour bowling trophies, flagpoles, lawn ornaments,
\ncement frogs and other water features
\nthat I find offensive. Because frogs suck
\nflies.
\n 
\nI\u2019m targeting your heritage, your family,
\nand your lunch, so you better
\nmind your back, buddy, better mind your front,
\nbuddy, better mind your mind, charlie,
\ncause I can make you sleepwalk naked to Arby\u2019s
\nwhile whistling Dixie
\nthrice.
\n 
\nTrust me, you can\u2019t trust me,
\nI\u2019m as dangerous as they come.
\nI put the onus in coronus
\nand I\u2019ll gag you with a mask
\nthat I dipped in diptheria high dose vax
\nthrice.
\n 
\nI\u2019m the fungus in your lungus
\nI\u2019m a Chinese Muslim chink
\nin you armor where I\u2019m coming
\nup your plumbing. So I wouldn\u2019t brush my teeth
\nor stop to get a drink.
\n 
\nI\u2019m there, waiting.
\n 
\n 
\nACCIDENTS HAPPEN
\n 
\nPerhaps a random golf shot snakes by Secret Service and finds him on the fifth tee.
\nAn asteroid is less likely, but don\u2019t tell that to dinosaurs.
\n It\u2019s a question of scale.
\nSometimes branches fall. Coconuts fall independently.
\nSometimes swordfish leap into boats, slashing.
\nThere are poison frogs, rusty nails, diamondbacks, and bus drivers having coronaries.
\nWhat if Mike Lindell fell over with an armful of My Pillows?
\nOr the Michelin Man.
\nAccidents happen.
\n 
\nThere is black ice and black holes,
\nmanholes and sinkholes,
\nespecially in Florida.
\nWhat if it was a false negative?
\nWhat if it was a false negative?
\nWhat if it was a false negative?
\nAccidents happen.
\n 
\nThere is not minding the gap.
\nThere are overlooks and undergrounds,
\nScenic vistas
\nover fallen rock zones
\nwhere deer and moose can cross
\nat night, without warning.
\nIn 1961
\n a piece of Sputnik dropped onto 8th Street in Manitowoc, Wisconsin
\nat night, without warning.
\nAccidents happen.
\n 
\nBaseballs are hit out of the park.
\nJavelins and shot puts are thrown off track.
\nSo, too, Nascars.
\nSumo wrestlers slip on wet floors in washrooms.
\nBirds fall, frogs fall, Niagara Falls.
\nFeral cats and rabid bats and belly fat and this and that.
\nFlying Wallendas and Cirque du Soleil.
\nPeople walk backwards on roads and tightropes.
\nSome neglect to wear orange during deer season.
\nAccidents happen.
\n 
\nThere are short circuits
\nin bad sockets
\nand evil clowns
\nand wayward rockets.
\nThere is uncertainty
\nin these uncertain times.
\nListeria reminds us that lettuce doesn\u2019t kill people.
\nFarmers kill people.
\nThere are Bad Farmers.
\nAccidents happen.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Grey<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSOLID
\n 
\nI\u2019m solid with Georgia chain-gang guards.
\nI drive by the inmates in their stripes
\ncleaning up the roadside.
\nThe guys with the truncheons sees that it gets done right.
\n 
\nI could run for Governor
\non just that momentary good feeling
\nof everything under control,
\nof bad guys getting what they\u2019ve got coming to them.
\n 
\nI could make a speech with two of them guys
\nin their khaki uniforms at my side
\nand the audience would lather up like rabid pigs.
\nI thought the size of my car was enough reason for running,
\n 
\nBut seeing the highway get clean,
\nwatching the bent backs doing it,
\nand their overseers never taking their eyes
\noff their prisoners for one minute \u2013
\n 
\nI could run on that ticket, I swear.
\nMy opponent, that sick sorrowful Joe,
\nlooks like a mortician at a bargain-basement funeral,
\nas he whines on about the poor and needy.
\n 
\nI should stop and get myself photographed
\nwith one of them fancy rifles in my hand.
\nLike \u201cgive me your vote or I\u2019ll shoot.\u201d
\nNo, better yet, make that, \u201cand I\u2019ll shoot.\u201d
\n 
\n 
\nNEW GIRL
\n 
\nThe fathers drool.
\nThe mothers warn the sons.
\nWorse than hanging with the wrong crowd
\nis hanging with someone
\nso crowded into her t-shirt and jeans.
\n 
\nShe\u2019s new in town.
\nOnly sixteen but she looks twenty.
\nThat sound you hear
\nis young girls gnashing their teeth.
\nThe road to womanhood
\nis meant to be long,
\nwith snags like training bras,
\nbarricades like acne.
\nIt\u2019s not fair when someone takes
\na shortcut.
\n 
\nShe walks embarrassedly,
\neyes down,
\nfollowing the weeds
\nthat sprout through sidewalk cracks.
\nIt\u2019s not her fault
\nthat she\u2019s not one of them.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLois Marie Harrod<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nONE MORE THING ABOUT MARRIAGE
\n 
\nSometimes One is amorous and the Other steamy.
\nOr One erogenous, the Other stoned.
\n 
\nYou know how it goes, how it went,
\nthe titillating zones gone groaning into the latitudes.
\n 
\nOne wants something The Other does
\nnot really but goes along, Goodness
\n 
\nknows here\u2019s where Morality crawls
\ninto bed, riding the Other\u2019s rudimentaries.
\n 
\nOne wants to hear that amateur quartet
\nplay Scriabin\u2019s Andante and Scherzo for String
\n 
\nOrchestra<\/i> while the Other contemplates
\nclever things to say later:
\n 
\nWell, that concert was worse than the one
\nwhen the orchestra played
\n 
\nMaurice Ravel\u2019s Pavane for a Dead Princess<\/i>\u2014
\nexcruciating, the orchestra sawing on so slowly,
\n 
\na dead pavane for a deader princess.<\/i>
\nFunny the first time Ravel said it, ha, ha,
\n 
\nbut maybe not when One or the Other
\nquotes it to One or the Other at 6 am\u2014
\n 
\nLet\u2019s just get this over with, says One.
\nLet\u2019s do this over, says the Other.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Heidenstam<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nASPIRATIONAL
\n 
\nthis will do, yes, this will bloody do
\nstaying here, warm, curled under the bedclothes
\nvague sounds outside
\nvague pictures in the head
\nlike images on eyelids
\nyes, this will do
\nwho wants to
\ngo out
\nmeet
\nchat
\nenough of that, quite enough of that
\nthe body cleaning, the dressing, the going
\nthe smiling talking
\nthe lying, the dreaming
\nand fuck hope, fuck politics, fuck political correctness
\nfuck love, fuck thinking things will ever really change
\nbut it\u2019s good, it\u2019s just you, it\u2019s a kind of freedom
\nthey can\u2019t blame you
\nfor not fighting
\nif it was
\nhibernation time.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Helweg-Larsen<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE FALL OF ROME
\n 
\nJesus, a preacher with fake miracles,
\nhis \u201cSea\u201d of Galilee just eight miles wide–
\nrebelling against Rome and crucified–
\nhis failure clear (though words were lyrical)…
\nyou\u2019d think \u201cMessiah\u201d was satirical!
\nBut epileptic Paul a chance descried
\nto shut out other gods and thoughts worldwide,
\nand thus seal up Rome\u2019s vital spiracles.
\nSo, building on apocalyptic fears,
\nthe Jewish Jesus ends where Paul begins.
\nScientists, artists, poets, engineers,
\nare suffocated as the new faith wins.
\nAll progress is set back a thousand years.
\nThe Roman Empire died for Jesus\u2019s sins.
\n 
\n 
\nONE TRUE RELIGIONS
\n 
\nNo vision brings the whole world to its knees.
\nJains, Hindus, Buddhists, Mithraists, Parsees,
\nMoses, Muhammad, Jesus or St. Paul,
\nOne True Religions never conquer all.
\nHumans are simply too cantankerous
\nfor any one belief to anchor us.
\n 
\nSuccess at once leads into sects and schisms:
\nthe One Pure Ray of Light hits human prisms,
\nand egos, power grabs, love of dispute,
\ntraditions, curiosity, all loot
\nthe intellectual wealth of strong belief.
\nThis year\u2019s great guru\u2019s merely last year\u2019s thief.
\n 
\nControl\u2019s maintained by sword and flame, not thought.
\nIn failure, drink the Kool Aid or get shot.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJack Henry<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nONE LAST KISS
\n 
\nit\u2019s been seven months
\nsince our fingers intertwined,
\nsince our lips held fire,
\nsince a headboard slammed against
\nthe wall, shaking loose memory
\nand promise unfulfilled.
\n 
\nhe stares up at me,
\nas i pull on my clothes.
\nasks me to stay,
\nasks me why i always leave.
\n 
\nhe doesn\u2019t know who i am.
\n 
\none last kiss,
\ncommitments for next time.
\nbut this was the last time.
\nhe doesn\u2019t know that yet.
\n 
\nwhen i cross into west Texas,
\nhe calls, i let it go.
\nno message,
\nbut message received.
\n 
\n 
\nLAST CALL
\n 
\ni met
\nher down
\nat a bar,
\nnear Sea Side Cove
\nwhere old
\npeople circle
\nin Chryslers
\nand wait on
\ndeath.
\n 
\nshe has
\nblack eyes
\nand a
\ntattoo
\nof Felix
\nthe Cat
\non her
\nthigh.
\nup high
\nwhere
\nhope lives.
\n 
\nwe trade
\nstories
\nabout
\nthis and that
\nbefore
\nstumbling
\nout
\nthe front
\ndoor,
\njust after
\nlast call.
\n 
\nwe end
\nup
\nacross the
\nstreet
\nat the
\nBlue Star
\nMotel.
\n 
\nshe
\npasses
\nout,
\nstarts
\nto choke.
\ni sit her
\nupright,
\ncall 911 &
\nlight a cigarette
\nin the shadows
\njust as
\nsirens
\nstart to
\narrive.
\n 
\n 
\nIF I AM BEING HONEST
\n 
\nif i\u2019m being honest
\ni prefer cocaine to fucking,
\ni\u2019m not prone to addiction,
\nor reality tv, or paint-by-number
\nmornings where prosperity lives.
\n 
\nif i\u2019m being honest
\ni\u2019d rather suck a cock
\nin a stall of a dive bar,
\nor bend for stranger
\nat per hour motel
\nin the echo of an airport
\non the West side
\nof town.
\n 
\nif i\u2019m being honest
\ni enjoy middle-of-the-night
\nwalks through parts
\nof a city
\nmost wouldn\u2019t
\nknow
\nduring the bright part of day.
\n 
\nif i am being honest
\ni\u2019m just average,
\nliving in vanilla
\nhiding in a fantasy
\nthat\u2019ll never taste
\nthe warmth of
\na welcoming sun.
\n 
\nif i am being honest\u2026
\n 
\n 
\nEX-GIRLFRIEND
\n 
\nmy eyes flood with memories,
\na dam collapses from simple touch.
\nall i have left is the burn of
\npaint thinner deep in my lungs.
\n 
\nthere is no caption
\nfor this photograph.
\nnot a thousand words.
\nmaybe a dozen, maybe less.
\n 
\ni never loved you, she said
\nnot really. i thought you knew.
\n 
\nshe took a picture with her phone camera
\na moment before she left and
\nsent it to me from the backseat
\nof her Lyft.
\n 
\nmaybe i loved you a little, she wrote
\nand i smiled at the photograph
\nof me flipping her off.
\n 
\nthat seems to be caption enough.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarcia Hindson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFRESH AIR ADDICT
\n 
\nI swallow days as though they are sweets.
\nStuff them in my mouth until I cannot speak.
\n 
\nMy thoughts have unshelled the patience of eggs.
\nI try for a soft demureness, but fail.
\n 
\nThe woods tempt me with
\nthe eroticism of full nests
\n 
\nso I close my voyeuristic heart to the lure
\nof paths strewn wide open under trees.
\n 
\nSoon the foxgloves will awaken, demand my attention.
\n 
\nWildlands make a wench of me with a single wink.
\nI am a gluttonous romantic for anything green.
\n 
\nMoss makes me salivate by revealing a single
\nsporophyte wriggling seductively in a breeze.
\n 
\nBe cruel enough to tempt my fingers with a patch
\nof lichen on an aged birch and I will drool for hours.
\n 
\nI want to dip my toes through the skin of the Top Pond.
\nAllow the cool, sticky wetness to spread slowly up my legs.
\n 
\nMy heart has a curlew stuck in its left ventricle
\nthat needs a meadow to stroke its wild feathers calm.
\n 
\nThe walls of my house are convinced I am about
\nto do a scarpering so they lean in on my constantly.
\n 
\nI am so desperate for outside I dream about licking
\nthe spines of books with pornographic titles:
\n 
\nUprooted,
\nThe Hidden Life Of Trees,
\nThe Living Mountain,
\nThe Wild Places.
\n 
\nEven the commas are panting.
\nOh yes. Oh   yes.
\n 
\nO     H       Y       E       S!
\n 
\n 
\nWAYS TO IMPRESS A POETESS
\n 
\nIf you decide to love me, prove it with poetry.
\n 
\nBring me a Valentine Anthology written by abominable
\nsnowwomen as they blizzard away from the world.
\n 
\nShow me lines composed on Westminster Bridge
\nafter the city floods and rubber ducks take over parliament.
\n 
\nBring me odes that sleep in the stomachs of wheelie bins
\nas they daydream lives for themselves as pacifist daleks.
\n 
\nShower my shelves with sonnets that refuse to stop
\nrhyming at fourteen because the stroppy teenager in their
\niambic pentameter has a severe case of numeric acne.
\n 
\nName every one of your cats Byron, your dogs Syphilis.
\nWhen you break wind, say you pantoumed rather than farted.
\n 
\nUrinate lines of haiku onto the first settling snow of the season.
\n 
\nJapanese masters
\ndidn’t fear to be pissheads.
\nYou shouldn\u2019t either
\n 
\nChain my heart with cinquains all written
\non the theme of geriatric leprechaun porn.
\n 
\nIf this is all too wham, bam, Tanka you, ma\u2019am
\nmaybe I\u2019m not the right kind of couplet for you.
\n 
\nHave your fingernails trimmed into lozenges or shards
\nif you really want to impress my latent simile side.
\n 
\nLearn to oil your nerves as slippery as confessional poetry.
\n 
\nDon\u2019t ever say I\u2019m your Plath or Sexton though
\nor this adoration will end in the form of an Erasure Poem.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMary Beth Hines<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nYOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME
\n 
\nYou win some, you lose some, Fitzwilliam
\ngrins, and his gold tooth glints.
\nOff with my shawl, my boots, a ring.
\n 
\nLee\u2019s basement\u2019s freezing as I strip
\noff my layers, bet high and early,
\nbluff through my blue lips.
\n 
\nYou can\u2019t lose \u2018em all, Lee was fond
\nof saying back when she first
\ntalked me into playing.
\n 
\nRound by round I grow closer
\nto a win despite a few tough losses
\nthat demonstrate my grit.
\n 
\nVince has great instincts,
\nFitzy\u2019s proved a pro, and Lee,
\never-cautious, knows when to quit.
\n 
\nTwo pairs beats one, and a straight
\nbeats them both, and my clothes in
\nthat pile mean\u2019s the game\u2019s finally over.
\n 
\nSeems you can\u2019t win for losing, Fitz
\ncommiserates, as he stretches out his arms
\nto sweep his winnings in.
\n 
\n 
\nMARY, MARY
\n 
\nHey, look at me, an old-world immigrant\u2019s daughter,
\ndecked out in lace, an elegant model.
\nWith my hair teased out and the light just right,
\nI bloom\u2014a lily in the grit-blown city.
\nBehind me is the trellis where my garden grows,
\nhydrangea for my hair, bee balm for my breasts
\nwhich I must conceal now that I\u2019m fourteen,
\nthough I cinch my waist so my figure can be seen.
\nThe boys from St. Mike\u2019s like to walk me
\nhome from school. My Irish mother lectures.
\nMy quiet father stews. But I tell them not to worry.
\nI have this well in hand. When a boy tries to kiss me
\nI say a quick prayer, swing my skirt,
\nclick my heels, close my eyes, and dare.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nChristopher Hivner<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHIGH SUN
\n 
\nIt was warm that afternoon,
\nheat, humidity, desire
\nall pasted together,
\na craft project
\nof you and me
\nfucking on a blanket
\nin the yard.
\nGood thing
\nyour parents lived
\nfar away from
\nbeady eyes looking through
\nthe bent slats of ancient blinds.
\nIt had been a good day,
\nfun abounded,
\nfinished off
\nwith public nudity
\nand a carnal act
\nwe both needed
\nin a place
\nthat was familiar
\nbut with a trace of danger
\nsince you know who
\ncould come home.
\nEven the high sun
\ncouldn\u2019t melt our lust
\nfor a brief hour
\nof our youth.
\nI see that moment sometimes
\nwhen I think of you,
\nour fractious breathing
\nlike a dirty rock n\u2019 roll song
\ngetting bleeped on the radio.
\nMy body into yours,
\nyour body into mine,
\nthe smell of your skin
\nmixed with hot, summer air,
\nit\u2019s all like it happened yesterday
\nwhen I think of you
\non that summer day
\nwith us maybe still in love.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGil Hoy<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGIFT
\n 
\nI remember when
\nI was still growing.
\nWhen my mother (who wasn\u2019t
\nmuch of a drinker) had three glasses
\nof wine, was behind the wheel
\n(she shouldn\u2019t have been),
\nand started chanting: \u201cI love life,
\nI love life, I love life.\u201d While gently
\nhonking the car horn.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTim Hunt<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSOMETIMES
\n 
\nDon\u2019t believe those stories
\n\u2019bout Rest Stop Romeos
\nand Truck Stop Angels. Out
\non the real road of life
\nyou pay for what you get.
\n 
\nOnly thing free’s the air
\nthrough your window, the refill
\non your coffee, and that smile
\nthe waitress slings as she plays
\nyou for her tip.
\n 
\n        And when you
\nget to seeing things this real,
\nyou know you\u2019ve been out there
\ntoo damn long doing the gear shift boogaloo,
\n 
\nbecause sometimes that smile
\nis a smile, even though her feet do ache
\nand she knows you\u2019re only good
\nfor a quarter, as she fills your thermos.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJames Croal Jackson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nON THE TABLE AT OUR FAMILY
\n 
\ngathering is a photo of me
\nin flip-flops atop the roof
\nof my childhood home
\nholding a rake to the sky
\nmy brother says I did not
\n 
\nrecognize that was you
\nmy sister says wow you are
\nactually doing manual labor
\nand in my mind I know
\nthat was the morning after
\n 
\nMegan stayed over when
\nI was visiting from LA and
\nI had just finished raking
\ngrimy blackened leaves off
\nthe roof that gathered in
\n 
\nthe years since Dad died
\nbut it\u2019s true he made me
\nhate the yard and stressed
\nthe lawn as living in a filth
\nwe\u2019d have to fix and every
\n 
\nfew days in the summer
\nhe\u2019d place the red mower
\noutside the shed waiting
\nfor me to kill the grass in
\ndiminishing rectangles<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMatthew King<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nA LITTLE RAIN
\n 
\nIf you\u2019re a farmer
\nthere\u2019s always something
\nwrong with the weather
\nthough it sometimes takes
\na while to know what –
\nthe first drops of rain
\nin weeks may become
\nthe start of a flood
\nor just one more day
\nthere wasn\u2019t enough
\nand the drought went on
\nand everyone said
\nit\u2019s raining so why
\nare you complaining
\nas usual so
\nyou tried to explain
\nthis little rain will
\nhardly help at all –
\nyour crops won\u2019t revive
\nbecause they\u2019re cheered up
\nby a little rain
\nlike a bit of sun
\njust before nightfall
\nlate in November
\nmight reach you in time
\nso you\u2019ll decide not
\nto blow out your brains.
\nNot everything breaks
\nfor better or worse
\nwith a change in mood.
\n 
\n 
\nON WANTING TO WRITE A FUNNY POEM
\nABOUT THE HEADLINE \u201cWHAT HAPPENS
\nIF TRUMP LOSES BUT REFUSES TO CONCEDE?\u201d
\n 
\nThe trouble with the Nazis was they were
\n ridiculous.
\nI don\u2019t mean that was the worst thing
\n about Nazis.
\nBut it led to all the other
\n trouble.
\nHow could these jokers possibly be
\n for real?
\nHow could you take these crazy angry children
\n seriously?
\nUnless you took them really, really
\n seriously.
\nIf you\u2019d even let them occupy
\n your brain,
\nyou could only want to
\n mock them,
\nand move on to something more
\n worthwhile,
\nsupposing you were a serious person
\n yourself,
\nthough not a really, really
\n serious person.
\n 
\nI saw the ridiculous question
\n and I started
\nthinking up absurd answers:
\n volcanoes
\nwill suck fire from the sky!
\n The top-
\nselling flavour of ice cream will be
\n mint chocolate chip!
\nUnder certain originalist constitutional interpretations
\n rocks
\nwill spontaneously turn into
\n puppies!
\nBut then I thought better of it
\n \u2026 maybe.
\nAnd maybe the situation is something like
\n this:
\n 
\nI think a kid tried to mug me once.
\n I kept walking,
\ninto a store, and wondered, did that
\n really happen?
\nI thought he pulled a knife and said,
\n \u201cGive me your wallet!\u201d
\nBut I\u2019m not sure, because I just
\n ignored him.
\nHe was a pipsqueak, and it seemed like
\n a joke,
\nbut I didn\u2019t stop to mock him, in case
\n it wasn\u2019t.
\nIf it really happened, and he was really
\n serious,
\nthen ignoring him worked,
\n that time.
\n 
\nBut it may not have happened,
\nand it may not have worked.
\nThe kid could have been really
\n really
\n serious.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMaureen Kingston<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE DONUT DEBATE
\n 
\nFor some, the origin story\u2019s the end-all: where the flour began, how the oil was pressed. For others, only the makers matter, the dough-shapers. Their debate? Whether to bet the jockey or the horse, the baker or the deep-fryer. On the other side of the display case, craving customers don\u2019t care about process; product is king. Their drama? Texture type, whether cake or yeast is the superior choice. Most secretly prefer both but at different times of day. On the way to work, only the sober cake donut\u2014monk\u2019s-cowl brown\u2014will do. After dark, yeast wins out. After being the key\u2014after the bar closes, in the afterglow of fireworks, after orgasmic flying dreams. In any aftermath, only excess will do. Glossy glaze. Thick powder. Oozing Boston or Bavarian or maple creme. No combination\u2019s too over-the-top in after-time. Think Adam and Eve after the fact, ravenous, their dessert plates overflowing with apple-pie-filled donuts dusted with cinnamon sugar. Their dilemma? To add or not to add the scoop of vanilla.
\n 
\nOktoberfest\u2014
\nYoda counsels Godot to
\nfall again, fall better
\n 
\n 
\nPAIN MANAGEMENT
\n after “Christina’s World”<\/a> Andrew Wyeth, 1948
\n 
\nEvery two hours, the same infantile mission. Hoist. Lose crutch control. Fall back into the recliner. Your splinted right foot\u2019s three times the size of the left one. Not as swollen as last week but still ugly, sloughing instant-potato skin flakes.
\n 
\nYou were master of your plein air domain before the accident. Now? A garret shut-in. With no landscape to paint you thumb \u201cChristina\u2019s World\u201d online, block the woman\u2019s form with your palm.
\n 
\n\u201cThe break\u2019s a temporary disability,\u201d your doctor says this morning, stuffing a PT schedule into your tote. You nod, pretend to go along with his plan.
\n 
\nIn truth, you\u2019re conflicted. Become the clever chimp who learns to use a stick? Or remain as-is, the tripod dog everyone loves to hug?
\n 
\nseven
\non a hardness scale
\nbackwoods flint<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSarah Mackey Kirby<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCHICAGO
\n 
\nWe walked that stretch of city river.
\nAlgae-baked, stained lake clay teal.
\nFace-feel icy, wind-kicked blow
\nin heart-broke heal and love that showed.
\nAnd oh-so-very-January snow.
\n 
\nWhite drops falling down from air.
\nNo-coat you acting I-don\u2019t-care.
\nMy eyes shined my I-told-you-so
\nwhile those frost-wet hands
\ngave you away.
\nSo I lent you my pocket,
\nand you gave me a smile.
\nWinter-paired,
\nwe strolled awhile.
\n 
\nThe joy when you saw
\nmy blister-hide gait.
\nTraipsing the blues in a feet-bruised state
\nin shoes I\u2019d owned since \u201998,
\nyou\u2019d warned me that I shouldn\u2019t wear.
\nTheir worn-down soles with holes to spare.
\n 
\nSo no-coat you and old-shoes me
\nriver-bank moved with a skyscraper view.
\nShowing off dumb in tongue-freeze breeze.
\nMouth-numb walking in five degrees.
\nMy street-hobble feet
\nand your one warm hand,
\nwith grins pinned on
\nin Chicagoland.
\n 
\n 
\nMARRYING YOU
\n 
\nBroken pieces of glass still sparkle
\nwhen the sun catches the right angle.
\nEven the tiniest shards. Gleaming, wanting
\nto be noticed. Specks of former selves
\ncollapsed into quiet corners,
\nwaiting to be swept up.
\n 
\nMost of the year, Dogwoods lose their bloom,
\nreplaced by small green-leaf canopies. That hide.
\nOr stripped to bare branches. Without protection.
\nBut for a blink of time in Southern Spring,
\nblossom pink and white, daring to unfold.
\nAs they should, full potential on display.
\n 
\nHigh tide moves salt and debris
\nonto hard-packed sand, pushing through
\nhesitance of worn-down ocean at other times
\nof day. Daring to trace reluctant space.
\nWrapping shells in foam,
\nshells no longer vulnerable to picking.
\n 
\nMarrying you was no beginning,
\nor saying of vows, or making of plans.
\nIt was another day with you, same as all those before.
\nWhere we fell into arms, and mouth, and skin.
\nStilling the noise. Blocking stumbles
\ncaused by shadows,
\nwhere sun should pour light.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWilson Koewing<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nRED HEAD
\n 
\nWhen I was younger and more sober,
\nI had a woman with red hair, thick lips and meaty thighs.
\nShe would suck me off in under a minute and act like that was owning me.
\nShe was right.
\nI did whatever she said for eight months.
\n<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJennifer Lagier<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFIFTH PERIOD FELONY
\n 
\nThree p.m. high school P.E. class\u2014
\nhot, stuffy gym where the clumsy
\nand disinterested come together
\nfor an hour of orchestrated torture,
\nbalance beam bruises, basketball stumbles.
\n 
\nJoan and I perfect the art
\nof mock badminton, simulated slams,
\nracquets flailing on either side of a net,
\nminus the birdie.
\nWe delight bored classmates
\nwith forceful serves, diving backhand saves,
\nfierce back and forth rallies.
\n 
\nOne afternoon we entertain ourselves
\nall period until Miss Colbert, our humorless teacher,
\nfinally notices the absence of required plastic projectile.
\nHer fury makes detention that much sweeter.
\nWe write insincere confessions,
\nprofess contrition, make fake amends.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRichard LeDue<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTOO SCARED FOR TAKEOUT OR DELIVERY
\n 
\nI was in high school my first time
\neating in at a Taco Bell
\n(attached to a KFC,
\nsharing bathrooms).
\n 
\nI wish there was a hair in my burrito,
\nso this poem could be about a customer’s
\noutrage towards a failed policy
\non hairnets, or that the spices
\ntickled my tongue, made me blush
\nmore than my first kiss,
\nbut it was just okay,
\ndidn’t lure me away
\nfrom the secret sauce of a Big Mac,
\nor turn me against tortillas.
\n 
\nNow, after months of looking out
\nthe same window every day,
\nof winning staring contests with crows
\nand losing the same argument with myself,
\nI miss an average burrito
\nmade by someone else.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMare Leonard<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE CONSERVATORY HENRI MATISSE
\n 
\nI need a sunny room today.
\n The Corona virus surges,
\n 
\nI wish to wear an orange
\n checkered dress,
\n 
\n rest an elbow on a chair,
\n 
\n a dog asleep at my feet.
\n 
\nPhilodendrons surround,
\n 
\nproof of survival
\non this cold spring
\n 
\n day when a walk
\n at the creek was arduous.
\n 
\nThe wind slapped my face,
\n caught my husband\u2019s Met cap.
\n 
\nWe watched it float
\nsouth to no where.
\n 
\nThe only relief,
\na promise of pansies.
\n 
\n I dream of this
\na yellow lounge chair,
\na friend near,
\n her long blue dress
\n like a velvet creek.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael H. Levin<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLOST CAUSE
\n(Virginia, 1847)
\n 
\nWhen the bucks bolted their night shed
\nwe saddled up, carbines and whips
\nhandy. It was a fine hour
\nfor hunting: low quarter-moon,
\nmares snorting the soft velvet way
\nthat mares do; hounds hock by hock
\non the trail.
\n 
\nThey didn\u2019t get far.
\nSurrounded by torch-flare the pearls
\nof their eyes shone back flickers.
\nHorseflesh circling
\nwe lashed but used
\ncladded butts sparingly. No
\nneed to maim
\n 
\nexcept by example \u2013 value
\nwants to be saved. It\u2019s known
\nwhat\u2019s required to avoid wasting
\nworth: each shred of resistance
\ncrushed like campfires and drowned.
\nIf she\u2019s slow to the task, beat her down.
\nWhen there\u2019s dust
\n 
\non the floor or a leaf goes
\nunpicked, or the soup arrives cold
\nor a lane is weed-grown, or an
\ninsolent stare gives you fleas
\nin the ear — beat them down. An ember
\nthat smolders
\n 
\nwill soon be ablaze. Crush crush these
\nat birth to preserve ordained days:
\nour broad-planked domains dressed with
\nsilver and glass, oiled highboys
\nthat shimmer in chandeliered dusk
\ncool hoopskirt verandahs (that
\nlavender musk!).
\n 
\nNothing in Scripture suggests
\notherwise. The precepts are clear
\nabout Ham serving Shem \u2013 a rule
\nhanded down since the time of
\nthe Flood. Order means ordered:
\nan ironbound decree blocking small-brained
\nbehemoths
\n 
\nfrom rising to prey.
\nBorn to this, I sleep well.
\nThough hooves beating past
\nconjure flame-lit
\ndark faces that glimmer
\nin strange and unusual
\nplaces.
\n 
\n 
\nWATCHING BEES
\n 
\nI\u2019m looking at a bee
\ndance slowly to its compass
\nthrough the thrust-out leaves
\nof cherry trees that drop
\npink double blossoms
\non a dusty asphalt drive.
\n 
\nPatched fellow, he\u2019s not
\nlooking at me. Diverging, all
\nfurred purpose, see him bumble
\nto the next browned bloom,
\nmapping the day\u2019s descent from
\nbranch to flowering shrub
\n 
\nto plump red tulip lips
\nthat pucker up below. Comes now the
\nfalling time we thoughtlessly
\ncall spring, when petals open
\nthen proceed to dessicate
\nand die. When pollen folk
\n 
\nmake haste to seize the last
\nsweet drip or crumb, alive
\nto ticking landscapes,
\nto accelerating sun. I\u2019m looking
\nat a me who\u2019s disregarded by
\na bee. Whose eye sees less
\n 
\nacutely, seeking out a
\nhive. Who lacks the surefoot
\nyellow of this insect
\non a vine; yet still may laud
\nwhat saves our seasons
\nfrom degrading into shards.
\n 
\n 
\nWHAT IS IT DIES TODAY
\n 
\nAll laws blown off like leaves
\ncold hate slides down the streets
\nmisrule usurps routine
\ngross insults turd up speech
\nno fact seems safe to state
\nbland lies smear every screen
\nmean crowds chant gangster words
\nwhile children drown in reach
\n 
\nwild anger poisons friends
\nrestraint\u2019s gone back to bed
\nthe sky turns dark then red
\nthe demon claws his prey
\nhis minions get their way
\n 
\nwhat is it dies today<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJames Lineberger<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nOVERCOMING MALAISE
\n 
\nthe trick is to take
\naction as when old wives toss
\nsalt over their
\nshoulders so pick and choose
\ntill you find the one
\nthat works for you
\nstart out say by entering
\na strange neighborhood and as the sun sets
\nand some street guy stares
\nat you take
\na charcoal pencil and scrawl
\ndancing skeletons on a church wall
\nor my uncle’s favorite
\nafter he got out of the corps and was often afflicted
\nin a similar fashion: leave the office
\nleave that whole
\nforeign bureaucratic world behind
\nand return to the firing range for some
\nlong bursts with a thompson
\nor you maybe could just swear
\noff art for a month create nothing
\nat all until the fever
\nhas died away so completely
\nyou’re no longer your daughter’s father caught up
\nin a world you never imagined
\nbut a boy younger than she
\nstanding by the canal with your brother
\nand cupping your balls like a safari
\nhunter as you peer at the camera from an old half-forgotten photo
\nthe monkeys there even then
\ngibbering and swinging
\non the mast
\nof some abandoned boat begging you
\nto come back and play
\n 
\n 
\nSOME THINGS STICK BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHY
\n 
\nlike in the summer of ’42
\nwe were living down by the Buster Boyd bridge
\nnear Floyd Sechler and his wife Dora Belle
\nwho watched after me and my little brothers while mama and daddy
\nworked at the bomb factory over in Steele Creek.
\n 
\nFloyd had a game leg and couldn’t be in the army
\nso he was made a part-time
\ndeputy sheriff for the county and because of the war effort
\nhe had to use his own ’39 Ford
\nbut the county did give him a blinking red light on the dash for emergencies
\nand some days when he was home
\nFloyd would let us sit in the parked car
\nand turn on the light and make whiny sounds like a siren.
\n 
\nBut our best times with Floyd
\nwere when he would take us in to Charlotte
\non Saturdays to watch the double feature cowboy movies
\nand our favorite serial the adventures of Red Ryder
\nwhich only had twelve chapters
\nbut we had seen them all more than once and could tell you
\nhow Red escaped every awful ending every time
\nbut each one always felt like new because this was
\nDon Barry playing Red Ryder and he was so good
\nthey started calling him Don “Red” Barry
\neven after he was through with it
\nand off being other heroes like the Sombrero Kid
\nor the Wyoming Wildcat.
\n 
\nExcept one Saturday late that night
\nsome drunk guy
\nwas returning home from the pavilion square dance
\nin the back of somebody else’s
\npickup and either he fell off
\nor his crazy girl friend pushed him out the open tailgate
\nand Floyd said
\nthat after the coroner had finished looking around he would take us
\nto where it happened
\nat the top of the big hill near the turnoff to Mount Holly.
\n 
\nAnd sure enough
\nwhen we got there you could still see
\nsome dark spatters
\nin one of the ruts which Floyd said was blood
\nfrom where the man’s head hit the road
\nand we could touch it if we wanted to
\nand don’t be scared he said
\nthere aint no such a thing as ghosts
\nand if it was their blood would be white
\nbut when we stood back didn’t dare
\nhe laughed and dipped his fingers in it and daubed it
\ndown his cheeks and then he started
\ndoing a kind of war dance like
\na indian brave from the movies and we joined in
\nwhooping and hollering and dancing around until
\n 
\nall of a sudden with hardly
\n 
\nany warning the sky just opened up and here came the rain
\na real gully washer
\nso slanting and thick you couldn’t hardly see
\nin front of you but Floyd gathered us
\ninto his car with the red light blinking
\nand slid and swerved all the way down that muddy road
\nwhile i kept my eyes shut like it was
\nthe cliffhanger ending of a Red Ryder chapter
\nbut it wasn’t a movie it was Floyd who was a real life deputy
\nand I knew somehow we were safe
\n 
\nwhich I guess we were
\n 
\nbut that night and the whole next day the storm kept coming down
\nand during all the rigamarole
\nwhen Floyd was supposed to be on guard at a roadblock
\nhe didn’t show up at all he just disappeared
\nleaving Dora Belle and the deputy job behind
\nand headed for Detroit City to work at the Chevy plant
\nwhich was booming
\nthen because of the war effort
\nand Dora Belle had to move back to China Grove to live with her mama
\nwhich was the last anybody
\nheard about Floyd until the fall of ’62
\nwhen the sheriff visited Dora Belle to say sorry for your loss but Floyd had got into a bar fight
\nwith a Chippewa squaw who killed him with a box cutter
\nwhen he tried to scalp her
\nand excuse me ma’am the sheriff said we need you to sign here
\nif you want him to come back home.
\n 
\nBut then to beat all
\none night on the evening news
\nin the middle of a story about the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood
\nthere on the sidewalk cross my heart was Don Barry
\nin a Red Ryder shirt and neckerchief
\nhanding out flyers to ask his fans for a donation
\nof “just one dollar” so he could start up
\na new series of westerns “with clean cut heroes that used to be
\nlike kids could look up to” but truth is he was just
\nanother old-timey actor
\nthat nobody hardly remembered except the ones of us
\nwho grew up watching him
\nand nothing much came of his project yet somehow
\nhe managed to squeeze by on bit parts
\nuntil the summer of 1980
\nwhen he finally said the hell with it and put a gun to his head.
\n 
\nStill I have to wonder
\nif any of it adds up to anything
\nor how any of us — Floyd, me, you –are ‘spose to luck out and find
\nthe proper path for a good life
\nor do we just give up and lay down wishing for some decent way to die?
\n 
\nLike late last night on the eve of my 84th birthday
\nthere I was at the ER
\ngetting a catheter stuck in my weenie
\nbecause all of a sudden for no logical reason
\nI couldn’t piss at all
\nand I’m crying like a baby
\nand this litttle woman doctor says don’t be so loud you’ll make
\nthe other patients afraid.
\nand I wanna say I know I know and tell her how I wish I was silent and strong
\nlike mama and daddy
\nmaking bombs six days a week sometimes seven to blow up the Japs
\nwhile every day they had to come home with their skin turning yellow from the gunpowder
\nbut I never heard ’em complain
\nand every time they earned some extra pay
\nit went right back into war bonds
\n 
\nAnd I wanna be brave like that I do and Floyd Floyd how I wish Floyd was still here
\ndancing his war dance to make my fears go away
\nand yes like Red Ryder at the cliffhangers
\nor even Don Barry his self
\nwho spent his whole life pretending he was somebody else
\nand kept looking back to the time
\nhe had his own movie horse named Banner and wore
\na brace of stag grip 44’s
\nand how everybody loved him
\nexcept his second wife Barbara who said she sometimes
\nprayed somebody would shoot the bastard dead but never dreamed
\nhe would be the one.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFay L. Loomis<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGRABBED BY THE PUSSY
\n 
\nPussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?
\nI’ve been to D.C. to visit the King.
\nPussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?
\nI frightened a little mouse under his chair.
\n 
\nPussy cat, pussy cat, what did you next?
\nI witnessed the King exceedingly vexed.
\nPussy cat, pussy cat, what did you then?
\nI leapt o\u2019er the wall-fence; he bunkered in.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMaggie Mackay<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGUNNISTER MAN
\n 
\nPeat slides around me, musky turf,
\nmen digging for darkening days.
\nI perished in a winter storm
\ndespite my woollen coverings.
\n 
\nThere\u2019s no feel of softness now
\nand my broken skull flinches
\nat this movement. Bone inside
\nmy sleeve fragments and stocking shudders.
\n 
\nOther men make an itinerary,
\nmark the fair isle pattern, my right
\nhandedness from the glove\u2019s patches.
\nI loved to knit. Men must see this.
\nThe weight of a skein, click of needles
\nas I worked a line. Light, soil shift.
\n 
\nMy pelvis, eye sockets quiver, nests
\nfor beetles and slithering creatures.
\nGrain of bone has dissolved to touch,
\ncold as this earth\u2019s spring water,
\nrain soaked as in that deadly winter.
\n 
\nMy fingernails touch seasons\u2019 scent.
\nI reach for my favourite horn spoon,
\nfor its silkiness. My toenails wiggle
\nin a fruitless search for my long coat hem.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE FRAME LEAKS ANGLED LIGHT
\nafter the painting \u2018Interior, The Croft House<\/a>\u2019 by F.C.B. Cadell
\n 
\nLet the vibrant lead you into delicate detail
\nalong the run of floor towards a long sunlit space.
\nImagine wild beasts beyond, the deer, fox, hawk.
\n 
\nImmerse yourself in the vibrant detail,
\nbursting unconstrained from this tight frame
\ninto an expanse of cropped sunlit space.
\n 
\nCadell paints the vibrant in loose brushstrokes
\nof violent tones, silky, bold, and free, wild beasts,
\nMatisse, Van Gogh, undercoating cropped, angled light.
\n 
\nVibrant violent tones sing in sunlit silky space, Van Gogh,
\nLes Fauves, strident undercoats, the thought of Matisse\u2019s voice
\ngo a tone more extreme, – for blue, ultramarine, for red, vermillion.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBob MacKenzie<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAS THE SPARROW DIES
\n 
\ntentative against the snow
\nas the sky before chinook
\nsilent in your sleep the song
\nblossoms red beyond your throat:
\n 
\nas white gives way to purple
\nshall you fly again as song?
\n 
\n 
\nAUTUMN LEAVES
\n 
\nand you and I or some small part
\nspiral red and vital turning
\nlighter whiteward outward downish
\nsofter in the cooling uplift
\ndawning wind across the sunset
\nred and orange soon to settle
\nso like the dark the autumn leaves<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGiovanni Mangiante<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE FINAL BLINK
\n 
\nit will happen
\nwhen my bones carry the wisdom of forbidden books\u2014
\nmy spine bent like theirs;
\nmy teeth and nails yellow like their pages:
\n 
\nthey may have escaped the fire. I’m not sure if I will.
\n 
\nit will happen
\nwhen my skin is heavy and no-one is forgiven.
\nI will become the splintered chair I rest upon;
\nthe rattling of windows;
\nthe sway of curtains in London;
\nthe fanglike fury of being at odds with the world
\nand its scythe-shaped people.
\n 
\nupon this chair will rest
\nthe Peruvian poet who did not die in Paris,
\nand did not fear the downpour
\nbut screamed and danced under it instead.
\n 
\nI will smile the same way I smiled in my youth,
\n 
\nand I will lower my head towards the floor,
\nto be old
\nfor the last time.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDS Maolalai<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nEARLY ON.
\n 
\nI wrote quite a lot
\nin the voice
\nof a character. this was
\nearly on \u2013 I wrote
\nabout scumbags;
\nall bukowski
\nand filth.
\nthought it was obvious
\nthat if I wrote poetry
\nthen what I was writing
\nwasn’t all about
\nme. it wasn’t \u2013 I
\nwas a fool. spent all my time
\nreading damn
\nstupid magazines. thought
\nit was worth it
\nto get my word out. it wasn’t.
\nthought it was artistry \u2013 like that’s
\nalways good. like a sun
\nshining over a factory
\nand burning through various
\ncarcinogens \u2013 such beautiful colours;
\nno value at all.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDoug May<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLOSS OF MEMORY
\n 
\nThe doctor said
\nit was
\nsometimes
\nhard to tell
\n 
\nbeing born
\na little
\nslow
\n 
\nfrom dragging out
\nthe last
\nfarewell.
\n 
\nSo make ready my tires
\nfor an unbalanced load
\nand patches of fog
\nbeside a slick road.
\n 
\n 
\nNORTH OF FLAGSTAFF
\n 
\nHow much precious silence remained for them
\nto kill, how cold the bitterroot clump of
\nash on the morning they broke drover\u2019s camp,
\ntwo waddies in chaps and hand-me down
\nwork shirts, a Georgia shavetail and a
\nbucktoothed Apache rising up slowly
\nfrom burnt scraggly beards of buffalograss
\nand the unclaimed land of shared mistrust.
\n 
\nHow cautiously, deliberately they
\nhitched the trailer, drove on in silence
\nwith steel pieces tucked to their sides,
\nhow the stars shone and the world\u2019s peace rose
\nas they sailed toward pie and coffee,
\nthe good of all loss gone into gentle guns.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTim Mayo<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAMELIA\u2019S CAT
\n 
\nOn those final days when my lover
\nlay unhooked in her hospital bed,
\nhovering between the heavenly bodies
\nof life and death, I would travel
\n 
\nthe Earth to her place, where the cat,
\ncurled in a window, slept and waited
\nfor her daily nourishment with yawning
\nambivalence and a hunter\u2019s hunger.
\n 
\nSated, she would then stretch out
\nto the ends of her claws as if grasping
\nat the small hopeful pieces of air
\ntrying to enter the closed window.
\n 
\nAnd I\u2019d begin to hum a lullaby
\nto keep her company, some tune
\nI\u2019d only just remembered from that
\nspeechless part of life called infancy.
\n 
\nDay in and day out I would do this,
\nopening the window to fill the room
\nwith earthly noises while the cat toyed
\nwith the fluttering air like a wounded bird.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoan Mazza<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLONELINESS IS A PASSPORT
\n 
\nto the Eden of solitude where silence
\nlets you hear your thoughts and track
\nyour moods. Enter with full permission
\nto do as you please, practice piano at 3 AM,
\ntake up impasto painting. Or sleep.
\nFollow your nose to cucumbers with lemon,
\ndance to red music with a tambourine.
\nWhen you lie down in the grass you will hear
\nagain the harmonies of earth and sky.
\nWhitman reminds us we contain
\nmultitudes, hidden selves to know and love,
\nentangled in an avalanche of personalities
\nonce disowned. Alone, no one stomps
\non your dreams or enthusiasm, throws
\na wet blanket on a glimmer of creativity.
\nYou are your best companion, dead
\nor alive. In solitude, no one barks criticism
\nor breaks your arm as an expression of deep
\nattachment, or announces with sincerity,
\nYou\u2019re mine and no one else will have you.<\/i>
\nYou\u2019ll never receive a bouquet of roses
\nbugged with a listening device. Sing
\nas loud as you want, talk to yourself,
\ncontradict yourself, enjoy your mushy
\nmind. This is your chance to become
\nfamously anonymous, like the hermits you
\nalways admired: the two Emilys,
\nSalinger, Harper Lee. Living close
\nto trees, you can sun yourself naked
\nwhere only birds and squirrels have a view.
\nThe senior crow cocks his head,
\nmurmurs in Caw dialect, which you
\ntranslate as Halleluiah! Finally.<\/i>
\nYou take issue with the sky\u2019s palette,
\npaint it in purple, pink, and orange.
\n 
\n 
\nMIXING YOUR MEDIA
\n 
\nFive months inside a house with books
\nin each room, including bathrooms,
\nmusic on cassettes, vinyl, and CD.
\nOne room dedicated to art and sewing,
\nfabrics and notions, paints and papers
\nsorted in see-through plastic bins. A pantry
\nwith baking pans in every shape and size.
\n 
\nI want a divorce from plastic, from
\nvirtual classes on Zoom, from iPad
\nand laptop screens. I want something
\nreal\u2014twigs with curly lichens, wooden
\nbowls filled with leaf litter, flower petals,
\nand yellow tulip poplar\u2019s first leaves
\nin spring and first to fall in August.
\n 
\nGive me end-of-summer vegetables piled
\non my counter: tomatoes, yellow squash,
\nand oversized zucchini ready for layering
\nwith three cheeses. Give me eggplant
\nfor a savory Parmigiana, sweet potatoes,
\nthe crash and rumble of afternoon storms,
\nthe sweet anticipation of firelight
\n 
\nthrough the wood stove\u2019s door. My hands
\ncry for the tactile and tangible, bread
\ndough shaped and braided like clay
\nin a silent room without a radio, the scent
\nof baking bread and muffins served
\nwith whipped butter, softened in humid
\nair. Enough talk of viruses and masks, voting,
\n 
\ndrilling, fracking. You can keep your joy
\nover manufacturing. We know what to do,
\nhow to care for each other and ourselves, how
\nto stay home, close to the earth. Let me return
\nto the analog world of books made of paper,
\nink, and glue. Let me find hope among the fungi
\n 
\npopped overnight from the mossy ground\u2014
\nfragrant and colorful in crimson and orange,
\ninviting trolls to abandon the Internet.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLeslie McKay<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMY SILK SHIRT
\n~ by Ingrid Bruck & Leslie McKay (italics<\/i>)
\n 
\npandemic deprived
\nwild uncut curly hair
\nlining silver
\n 
\nfinding respite in
\nan elegant orange beanie<\/i>
\n 
\nupstaging locks
\nreddish lemony marigolds
\nmy silk shirt
\n 
\nthe box of silk worms
\nI leave at school
\nmissing from my desk<\/i>
\n 
\ncreeping up behind me
\na bogeyman plays gotcha
\n 
\nkung fu fighting
\nin a brand new mask
\nan old warrior<\/i><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nE.V. McLoughlin<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLEARNING TO FALL
\n 
\nThe key is to not fight the fall, but roll with it, as paratroopers do.
\n– K. Murphy, NY Times<\/i>
\n 
\nI.
\n 
\nFalling used to be a swing once,
\nall the sharp edges of stones,
\nand a rapidly disappearing motorbike
\nleaving me dust and stitches.
\n 
\nFalling used to be the top of the stairs
\nconnecting the big and little school,
\ngoing mountainously down,
\nmy head swimming with vertigo.
\n 
\nWhen I dream about it,
\nI do not let myself fall.
\n 
\nII.
\n 
\nI was always afraid of change.
\n 
\nIn winter, it’s airborne contagions,
\ncroup, influenza, vomiting bugs;
\nin spring, weakened immune systems,
\nice on roads, my birthday;
\nin summer, fomo, skin cancer,
\nairport security (I always look guilty
\nno matter what I choose to bring with me),
\n 
\nthis autumn, it’s letting you go.
\n 
\nFive Factor Model of personality
\nis based on these main traits:
\nextraversion, neuroticism,
\nconscientiousness, agreeableness,
\nand openness to experience.<\/i>
\n 
\nBest way to wake up, you said,
\nis to make yourself fall.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n Jason Melvin<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nVERY LARGE MIRRORS
\n 
\nWhen I look at my penis
\nin the hotel room mirror
\ndirectly above the toilet tank
\nit looks respectable
\n        King Trumpet-esque
\nNot the Crimini
\nI usually hold while pissing
\n 
\nStrange
\n        How looking at something
\n        instead of down on it
\ncan change perceptions
\n 
\nA giant mirror
\ninstead of a head board
\n        explains the half chub
\nI\u2019m currently aiming
\n 
\nMy wife doesn\u2019t share
\n        in my excitement
\nwatching the carnal exploits
\nof the animals that are us
\n 
\nBody image reservations
\ncurrently plaguing her to giggles
\nare lost to me
\n 
\nThey shouldn\u2019t be
\npot-bellied         saggy
\nhair blanketing everything
\n        except the top
\nThe last pick on the
\nporno casting agents couch
\n 
\nbut we are ancient Greece
\nWe are smooth marble
\nfornicating as gods
\nWe are going to fuck
\n 
\nand I\u2019m going to watch
\n 
\n 
\nADULT CHILD
\n 
\nI find it odd to hug you       I want to
\nbut I don\u2019t know where my head goes
\nDo I bury it in your chest?
\nLay my cheek against your breast?
\nIf I were to kiss you on the cheek
\nour beards would entangle
\nI\u2019ve never kissed a beard before
\n 
\nI want to shout how proud I am
\nall you did was put together lawn furniture
\nbut you didn\u2019t even look at the pictograms
\nyesterday you tore apart a motorcycle
\nBecause you can       I ask
\nHow do you know these things?<\/i>      your reply
\n I just see things that way<\/i>       How fucking cool is that?
\n 
\nI feel I should write a book on parenting
\nObviously, I did an amazing job
\nYou have a good job       a woman who loves you
\ntwo well-behaved dogs       you perform
\namazing feats of handy-mannery and use tools and stuff
\nI would write the book      and it would sell millions
\nI\u2019m just not exactly sure what I did<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMike Mesterton-Gibbons<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSHOW ME THE MONET<\/a>
\n 
\nS<\/b>erenely and divinely Japanese!
\nH<\/b>ow else could one describe Claude’s garden scene
\nO<\/b>f water lilies under willow trees
\nW<\/b>here nature has been made to look pristine?
\nM<\/b>aybe instead describe it as a fraud:
\nE<\/b>ast meeting west where you and I are conned
\nT<\/b>o think the garden’s how ’twas seen by Claude! …
\nH<\/b>ave you not wondered if his painted pond
\nE<\/b>rased a truth? I mean discarded junk,
\nM<\/b>oved out of sight by short and deft brush strokes,
\nO<\/b>ils gracing canvas, till you would have thunk
\nN<\/b>o one could guess Claude played the best of jokes\u2014
\nE<\/b>xcept if they had seen a shopping cart
\nT<\/b>ipped over in the pond in Banksy’s art!<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCameron Morse<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAPOLOGIES
\n 
\nI\u2019m sorry the washcloth I draped over the shower wall dripped onto the floor. I won\u2019t tap out the coffee grinder anymore on Grandma\u2019s quartz countertop. I won\u2019t leave my p.j. bottoms and t-shirt on the bathroom mat. Yes, I know my pubic hairs are wont to decorate the toilet bowl. I\u2019m sorry for my pubic hairs. I apologize for the mold. I will sidestep the pink elephant quilt upon which our Omi does her tummy time lest my fungus spread to her scalp. If only I could learn to cook a few good meals but you don\u2019t want my cabbage and quiche just takes too long. I always leave a mess, anyway, and that just makes it harder on you. I\u2019m glad you like my scrambled eggs. You\u2019re not being sarcastic when you say I should work at First Watch, are you? I know you like them and why can\u2019t I tell you where I am all the time and what I was doing, where I was standing, when Theo stepped on the baby and why did I shout Don\u2019t Step on The Baby so Grandma could hear when what I really said was STOP.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nC. G. Nelson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nALL OF THIS
\n 
\n\u201cThis is why I love you.\u201d
\n 
\nSimple words uttered in a quiet
\nmoment surrounded by blankets,
\nsurrendering to pillows.
\n 
\nHe told her he loved her eyes,
\nand her laugh,
\nand her smile,
\nand her philosophies,
\nand even her soft, round belly.
\n 
\nHe told her that he loved
\neven the things she hated
\nabout herself.
\n 
\n\u201cThis is why I love you.\u201d
\n 
\n\u201cWhy?\u201d she whispered.
\n 
\n\u201cBecause you\u2019re just all of this.\u201d
\nAnd he pointed at the universe.
\n 
\n 
\nUPON LIVING IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
\n 
\nThe blanket of the city
\nwraps itself around you\u2014
\nnot in the most inviting way\u2014
\nbut in the most inescapable way.
\n 
\nThe more it wraps around you,
\nthe more you want to embrace it.
\n 
\nIt\u2019s cyclical\u2014
\nevery city is.
\n 
\nEach one ebbs and flows with
\nnew tides of people.
\nNew stories that fill its streets
\nwith electricity and lather.
\n 
\nEventually it will take the story out
\nof you,
\nand you\u2019ll be forced to leave.
\nAfter all,
\nno one can take the spinning forever.
\n 
\nAnd the city
\nwill grow tired of your story
\nand will look for new ones to tell.
\n 
\nCome now\u2014
\nrest your head upon the pillow
\nand dream of days when you were lost
\nin the muggy arms of a summer evening.
\n 
\nThe summer evening will be dreaming
\nof days holding up new people to
\ndrink in the sights of the city,
\nand the city will dream of
\ndrinking in the sights
\nof new people.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJames B. Nicola<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMATTERS OF LEARNING
\n 
\nIt\u2019s this, but in the morning will be this
\nand that, the tossing night turned casual
\nparting with a dawn of such courtesies
\nthat chill the smolder of brief mutual
\n 
\npotential. Side by side we’ll lie, uneven.
\nOne of us shall miscall the other’s name;
\nthe other, rue and grow disinterested
\nbut want so not to hurt, nor cringe, nor blame,
\n 
\nwe’ll sue to win a second night of heaven,
\na fourth, an Nth, whose pleasure’s only cost
\nwill be the inexorably hollowed bed
\nfull-fevered as a summer garden lost.
\n 
\nOr so have weighed the phantoms of the past,
\nbut they don\u2019t matter now. There were a few
\nthat mattered once. Of course they didn\u2019t last.
\nNot that they have a thing to do with you,
\n 
\nfor though we learn from history and time,
\nthey only smart like winds which sting then go,
\ntheir mark no more than an occluded seam
\nwe feel beneath the skin but never show.
\n 
\nOur comforter is anonymity.
\nTomorrow, then, we\u2019ll ramify anew.
\nTonight we\u2019ll hold each other timelessly,
\npretending that it matters that we do.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMark Niedzwiedz<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nVAN GOGH WITHOUT THE FROTH
\n 
\nThe word art is tiny and uncomplicated
\nOne does not have to wear a bowtie
\nFeather boa, or flamingo pink lipstick
\nTo hear, or see its worth.
\nOne does not have to speak in riddles
\nGestures, or use long boorish words
\nTo process, or feel its power or intimacy
\nArt is straight-up bleedin\u2019 obvious
\nSo, please luvvy, don\u2019t chuckle knowingly
\nAt the musings of this geezer
\nFor I get Shostakovich
\nAnd that enigmatic bird, Mona Lisa
\n 
\nThree red dots on a snow-white canvas.
\nNah, that ain\u2019t art
\nFour stanzas of tripe and onions
\nNah, that ain\u2019t from the heart
\nFive movements of kettle drum and bassoon
\nThink I\u2019d rather listen to my grandmother fart
\nAnd all this stuff and nonsense hides behind the petticoat
\nOf words like subjective, eclectic, ahead of its time
\nNo room for the song with a tune
\nNo place for the saccharin poem heady on rhyme
\nFor I and my ilk are out of date, proper unwashed
\nVagrants in dire need of schooling by the fragrant, fashionistas
\nAll I can say to that is kiss my arse
\n 
\nThen there\u2019s the good stuff, for don\u2019t we all love Vincent?
\nWho in a hundred years went from the barely digestible
\nTo high table, gorged on genius
\nFrom lonely, desperate hours
\nTo forty million dollars\u2019 worth of sunflowers
\nAnd all because one starry night he lopped off his ear
\nThis is not art, but the art of the ridiculous
\nSure, count me in for the bright, brilliant yellows
\nFor there\u2019s no doubt, Vincent was the most talented of fellows
\nBut then let art be, free to say nothing
\nOr to bring down the universe, whatever
\nLong live pukka, kosher art, long live Van Gogh
\nVan Gogh that is without the froth<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Nisbet<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTRACKING
\n 
\nThe day after Boxing Day, cold, bright,
\n me and Travis, fourteen, out, crossing fields.
\n 
\nWe saw the tracks, on the long slope up
\nfrom the village. Horses\u2019 hooves dug deep
\ninto the muddy grass (Boxing Day it had poured),
\nthen, the slope easing, stretching, wider apart,
\n 
\nand now and again we saw, fainter but clear,
\nodd dog prints at the outer edges. The Hunt?
\nHad to be. We looked for fox tracks, unclear
\nwhat they\u2019d look like. Faint? It\u2019s a small animal.
\n 
\nBut in the clearing before the copse, we saw,
\nfrom a field away, ripped grass, a skirmish scene.
\nBlood, steeped in, splashed, chunks of red fur. Guts.
\nAs I remember, we just stood a while, heads bowed.
\n 
\nNext term, in Holy Joe\u2019s discussion class,
\na debate. Fox hunting should be abolished.
\nYoung Taylor took the lead, blasted
\nthe aristocrats, stirred feeling for animals.
\n 
\nAngela opposed, Hunt-Ball-in-five-years\u2019-time
\nAngela. She, effervescent, damned the pest,
\nthe slayer of chickens, destroyer of livelihoods.
\n 
\nAnd me and Travis? Listened. Said Holy Joe,
\nTravis? John? Nothing? A real pair of puddings
\nin debate, you two.
\nNext lesson, history.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSharon Olson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAFTER \u201cL\u2019ARRI\u00c8RE-PAYS\u201d BY BONNEFOY
\n 
\nThe not-quite-seen, the territory not yet reached,
\nthe hidden countryside, the back beyond,
\n 
\nthe curious estate down the street from my first home,
\nwhere John Muir\u2019s friends had gathered, a naturalist\u2019s salon
\nthat ended before I was born,
\n 
\nthe scraps of conversation I could never quite hear
\nfrom adults in the living room, childhood as a trial
\nI wished would soon be over,
\n 
\nplaces described to me I\u2019d never see,
\nthe high huts in the Bernese Oberland,
\nSt. Augustine\u2019s fountain of youth.
\n 
\nI think of the picnics we carved out of the grass
\nwhen we were only slightly past adolescence,
\ngreen sunlight on yellow ground,
\nchasing away the cows just down the road
\nfrom a stand of redwoods.
\n 
\nNow when I turn my hand over, liver spots they used to call them,
\nand yet someone said recently my palms were uncommonly soft.
\n 
\nAnd in my lap this train ticket similarly worn, stamped and folded,
\nthe window of my compartment with its changing view,
\nthe engine reaching the viaduct first
\nlike a snake that curves to examine its own tail.
\n 
\n 
\nTHINKING OF D\u00dcRER AFTER SEEING AN AGNES VARDA FILM
\n Albrecht D\u00fcrer\u2019s \u201cEve,\u201d oil on panel<\/a>, 1507
\n 
\nThe first art critic to describe me coming out of the shower
\njudged me ungainly, wooden, a Northern Renaissance nude
\nlacking the more favored Mediterranean grace.
\n 
\nShe and I were in college together where references like these
\nmattered. So I grew my hair to cover my undersized breasts
\nand hunched my shoulders to produce some sort of cleavage.
\n 
\nI practiced standing behind columns to bifurcate my ungallant
\nskeleton, imagined Death entrancing me into his Dance
\nstraight out of a painting by Hans Baldung Grien.
\n 
\nAs D\u00fcrer lay dying, Hans clipped a lock of his hair,
\na keepsake to retain the power of the master, wondered
\nif the great man felt his scalp twitch.
\n 
\nIn the late afternoon I watched how Varda unmasked
\na woman\u2019s soul, how she summoned D\u00fcrer\u2019s naked Eve
\nbackhanding an apple with her flippant wrist,
\n 
\nan Eve slim-hipped and disingenuously feeding her pet snake,
\nunperturbed to be unclothed, as if fresh from the shower,
\nshaking her curls in liberation from bystanders\u2019 comments,
\nunwrapping her gaze.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBasilike Pappa<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSPIEL
\n 
\nI swear to you by the waters of this river; beyond these walls there is a world. You found your way
\n under the stones, penetrated it with your streams. You’ve seen me naked before, but never like this.
\n 
\nOn the moon and stars I swear to you; the darkness that connects our tissues to these fears will be
\n severed by a ray of light. Swirling like motes of dust, we’ll meet inside our dreams.
\n 
\nI am telling you: the music of the spheres… I felt it; I still feel it. As old as the sands in the desert, as
\nthe ice in my freezer. At night it sounds like sighs. If you don’t mind, why should I?
\n 
\nI swear to you on a peacock’s feather; this ache is primordial. Decidedly secret \u2013 so hushed. Our hands
\ncan’t save the world, just us. Let’s do this together.
\n 
\nBy the fire sparks that rise up into the sky I swear; our minds can burn a gateway through the sunset.
\nRescue comes harsh before our eyes. I can soften it with my tongue \u2013 let my try.
\n 
\nI swear to you upon the olive groves; the world has seen us many times. In bells, letters, poison, lore.
\nI promise you: our paper boats will always sail across the seas.
\n 
\nAll this and more I swear to you upon the greatest god \u2013 sun on copper coffee pot.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJon Parsons<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTO MILTON AND HIS PIEDMONTESE
\n 
\nIn 1655, blind and stiff-necked, Puritan John Milton learned
\nthe Pope\u2019s militia had thrown some Protestants, infants in
\ntheir mothers\u2019 arms, off an Alpine precipice to a rocky death,
\nand retorted with a bellicose sonnet, warranting reply.
\n 
\nPathetic poet, calling out in pride
\nto God for petty vengeance, you were blind
\nto his great scheme and how his mercy shined
\nupon those sinless innocents who died
\nas sparrows fall (their hapless mothers cried
\nsuch moans no megaphone required to find
\ntheir way to omnipresent Ear) a kind
\nof practicing, perhaps, how angels glide.
\n 
\nIt was their \u201crolling down\u201d one must suppose
\nso shocked a gentle soul who knows sharp blade,
\nand brimstone, and broad wave God wisely chose
\nto suffer little children, hence you prayed
\nrevenge on Popish shepherds who\u2019d dispose
\nthose God Himself declined, seconding aid.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Perchan<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n13 WAYS OF LOOKING
\nAT A SIX-WORD STORY
\n 
\n 
\nI
\nAt Lovers Leap paused. Reconsidered. Nope.
\n 
\nII
\nMolotov cocktail dresses. Ideological cleavages exposed.
\n 
\nIII
\nA clean, well-shaven place it wasn\u2019t.
\n 
\nIV
\nFrog prince kissed. Tasted like chicken.
\n 
\nV
\nRasputin brainstorm: \u201cHitch wagon to Tsar!\u201d
\n 
\nVI
\nImelda\u2019s shoes: 2000 pairs, never used.
\n 
\nVII
\nRats with Big Hair. Poodledom infiltrated.
\n 
\nVIII
\nDolly Parton\u2019s knockers \u2013 Pod People back?
\n 
\nIX
\nSasquatch retires. Gorilla suit for sale.
\n 
\nX
\nNeanderthal Hotline: Grunt. Grunt? Grunt. Grunt? . . .
\n 
\nXI
\nAlone tonight? Christian Escorts: Dial R-A-P-T-U-R-E.
\n 
\nXII
\nEaster basket surprise. Bunnies in heat.
\n 
\nXIII
\nStadium Bobblehead Day! Bring kids! Hatchets!
\n 
\n 
\nWHAT THEY<\/i> HAVE TO SAY
\n 
\n with too much makeup
\n and a broken shoe<\/i>
\n Tom Waits
\n 
\nThe one you drag back
\nfrom that sleazy dive
\nwho proceeds to hide
\nevery single knife in
\nyour kitchen has just
\ntold you a keen slice
\nof her real life story
\n 
\n 
\nNATIONAL INJECTION DAY
\n 
\nYou know how in
\n   the old movies
\nwhen they pull a
\n   lever to give
\na killer the chair
\n   all the lights in
\nthe prison cells
\n   dim almost to
\nBlackness.
\n   Now when they slip
\na needle into
\n   a \u201csuitable\u201d vein
\nto deliver
\n   that lethal dose
\nall the deadhead
\n   junkies in town
\nalleys snap out
\n   of their nods and
\nBlink.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDarrell Petska<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSINE NOMINE
\n 
\nLot\u2019s wife, with a backward glance
\ntoward the hearth she long stoked,
\nthe rooms that quaked with laughter,
\nthe fevered conjugal bed
\nbeneath sparkling desert skies.
\n 
\nLot\u2019s wife, ascribed by men
\nno intimate\u2019s name, yet his lover,
\ncook and scullery maid,
\nmother of their two daughters
\nand ally of his tepid prophecies.
\n 
\nLot\u2019s wife, cleaved of home,
\nshorn of memories and dreams,
\ncaught in Yahweh\u2019s bluster
\nand Old Testament indifference
\nto a woman\u2019s heart and mind.
\n 
\nLot\u2019s wife looked homeward.
\nFearful Lot, washed-up Lot,
\ndrunken Lot, hiding in the desert,
\nbedded his conniving daughters
\nwho mothered Israel’s arch enemies.
\n 
\nLot\u2019s hapless wife, victimized
\nby god and men, pilloried in salt,
\nconsigned to history like Noah\u2019s wife,
\nHam\u2019s wife, Simeon\u2019s wife\u2014
\ndunning history for a name.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGary Pollard<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWATER-BLUE
\n 
\nI have dived deeply
\ninto your water of blue
\nI swam eagerly
\ndown and through
\nI have touched the depths
\nat your water\u2019s floor
\nbefore coming back for air
\nthen down again once more
\nyet after all my observations
\nI have failed to understand
\nyour water of blue
\nand its threshold of sand<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKen Poyner<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGOD RESTS FROM CREATION
\n 
\nGod came also to Rosie O\u2019Henry.
\nWhy was this not recorded?
\n 
\nRosie had a small apartment
\njust inside Chesapeake Beach:
\nshe used to sit on the balcony
\nwhere she could barely see
\nthe lights of ships in the bay
\n 
\ncoming, going, or waiting.
\nRosie was not all that much to look at,
\nbut filled a bikini well enough
\nand wantonly grew prettier in dimming light.
\n 
\nThis was not recorded either.
\n 
\nBy the time God made his proposal,
\nRosie\u2019s on again, off again boy friend
\nhad moved out this cycle
\nand Rosie had been playing the field
\n 
\nfor more than a summer\u2019s month.
\nA good apartment,
\nfull time job, no pets:
\nwhat is not to want in this relationship?
\n 
\nWhen God explained the coming events
\nRosie thought: so what is new?
\nIt\u2019s been that way with me
\nfor ten years now, and I\u2019m not complaining.
\nBut she did tell him she was no virgin –
\n 
\nand this is not recorded either –
\n 
\nHe said I can fix that.
\nKnowing by now the end of this story
\nshe said, Lord, why would you?
\n 
\nThen took out those explosively high heels
\nno woman could walk long in,
\nand carelessly opened the fresh
\ntwist cap of her last bottle
\nof sweet, red, grocery store wine.
\n 
\nIn this, we can read no meaning.
\n 
\n 
\nHURRICANE SURVIVAL
\n 
\nIt took twelve days
\nand at 6:55 or so,
\ndim into morning, the lights came on.
\n 
\nIsabel was still a thing of the news.
\nCategory five at sea, category three
\nwhen it limped ashore. We lost power
\naround 10:00, and then set up the radio,
\nopened the front and back doors – since at our place
\nwind was no bother \u2013 and then, for entertainment,
\nrode our exercise cycles to the noise.
\n 
\nAt times we would watch the trees cringe,
\nwe would worry the maple three doors down
\nmight surrender its quickly tiring grip
\non the already water-logged soil
\nand smack us in the second story.
\n 
\nBut it held. We found, later that day
\nas we walked the aftermath in the next
\nneighborhood over, too many good trees had given in.
\nFor us, we could sit with our doors open
\nand imagine the electricity would be back by morning,
\nwonder why the storm was angrier to others.
\n 
\nBut electricity did not come.
\n 
\nSeptember, and the heat started in on us.
\nWe could make our meals with the gas stove on the first day,
\ndrove the remaining days of our disempowerment
\nto a part of the city with real, civilization-delivering electricity,
\nair conditioning, and television news.
\n 
\nDay after day, a townhouse project
\nin the middle of Virginia\u2019s largest city
\nsat without power. We could understand
\nthe lone family at the end of half a mile
\n0f uninterrupted wires – outpost of civilization
\nadvanced too far, too deep – having to wait;
\nbut we were hundreds, at the spine of the region:
\na blot of low-and-middle-income homes, mostly
\nlow-income families, established beside \u2013
\nbut thankfully not yet part of \u2013 the city\u2019s worst crime problem.
\nWe had natural gas for hot water, flashlights
\nand batteries and candles, and got ice at a fair price.
\n 
\nNo shortage, no gouging, no unfair advantage.
\n 
\nI – mostly white, but proud of my native American
\nsmattering of unremembered bloodline – proposed
\nto my black neighbor that our predicament
\nlay perhaps in the fact that our neighborhood
\nethnically tallies out ninety percent in appearance
\nmore like him than like me. Years he and I had been united
\nin a gangling geometry of acknowledgement gestures,
\nlittle more than truce offerings and staggered recognition,
\n 
\nconversations about his dog being
\nour binding thread. But he right then
\nindependently proposed to the power company
\na lawsuit,
\nand I volunteered to sign on as token.
\n 
\nTwo hours later we had fifty minutes of power –
\na tease and a test and a proof of effort – then
\ntwo days later full restoration. Hurricanes
\nwill never for me be simply small adventures,
\nsomething to survive and innocently marvel at.
\nHurricanes blow out. The weather never changes.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCarson Pytell<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDirections
\n 
\nI’d like eggs most,
\nscrew the chickens,
\nwhichever came first,
\nlike how you can’t know
\nif they were called services
\nbefore or after they realized
\nserviceability yields profit
\nthe way travelers brake
\nto ask for directions
\nto the nearest KFC,
\nhungry for eggs.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nEmalisa Rose<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBLISSFUL
\n 
\nyou were lightning
\ni was the sky
\ninterrupted
\n 
\nmoments before
\nwe made rain.
\n 
\n 
\nCHOCOLATES NO NUTS
\n 
\nI’d stop first for booze
\nthen into the market
\nto bring you some chocolate
\n“chocolate\u2026 no nuts” you’d
\nsay… “I just can’t digest them”
\n 
\nI’d strut through the aisles
\nwith my short skirt stilettos
\nstacking the cart with whatever
\nwe’d need for our rendezvous
\n 
\nCheckout gal May, always
\nthe same, with her saggy
\nface Brillo hair starting to
\nbald, with that smirk and an
\neye roll, searing right into me
\njust knowing I was miles from
\nmy life in suburbia.
\n 
\n 
\nUNDANGLING MY PARTICIPLES
\n 
\nI love to undangle my participles as you
\nwatch me metabolize metaphors flash
\ndance my lexicon with my long legged
\nstilettos turning the corner of commas and
\no how i love those apostrophe moons and
\ntankas of tulips in this garden of word play
\nas i alliterate on your predicate over the
\ncliffside of consonants adjectives and run on
\netceteras as you spin me all dizzy on this
\nportal of poetry, where i rhyme just for you
\nand think nonsense is true sense when there
\nis love, albeit on a rooftop or park and ride
\nor any place magical and kinky and where
\nit’s just you and me in our own psychedelic
\nfar out sonnet of the infinite as we exist\u2026 a
\ndream within a poetic dream (between the
\nparentheses)<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPeter Schneider<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE CORA\u00c7ON FUNCTION
\n 
\nShe was a cold virginal Irish former nun
\nlarge and very white
\nI did not understand her
\n 
\nnot, I mean, what she said
\nbut what she was
\nher intent that is
\n 
\nhad no words for it then
\nher motor her motive
\nits consequence for us
\n 
\nher terrified students
\nin high school mathematics
\nThe wooden room resounded
\n 
\nwith her brass voice
\nif you got it she could become
\nfriendly if such a word applied
\n 
\nNo, cold is not accurate
\nrather a hot numerical passion
\nher love was anger
\n 
\na furious zeal
\nand one day I got it or so I thought
\nthe cora\u00e7on function
\n 
\ngenerating a heart-shape
\nturned on its side on the graph paper
\nburgeoning out from origin
\n 
\na string of numbers dragging a small
\nbody twisting around itself
\nwith a peculiar sideways gravity
\n 
\nFifty and more years later
\nlying on my side in the cardiac unit
\nI rejoin this equation
\n 
\nand recall how she sang La Vie en Rose
\nat the faculty talent show
\nwhile I accompanied her on piano
\n 
\nnot her best student I
\nremember the wine-colored taffeta dress
\nthe tight brown curls framing
\n 
\nher pearl-toned face
\nthe up-turned nose
\nperched above the massive body
\n 
\nAh Miss Cotter dear Maggie
\nI\u2019m sure you\u2019re gone now
\nbut I\u2019m still here
\n 
\nalong with a strange thing inside me
\nthis sloshing whumping function<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nClaire Scott<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE LANGUAGE OF LUKEWARM LOVE
\n 
\nConjugated into separate beds, separate bedrooms
\nsynonym for I never said, yes you did, oh well
\na love that rhymes with sort of, kind of
\ntrue love in the past tense or is it the past perfect
\nconjugated in the present tense of apathy:
\nlost or lingering or limping or too lazy
\n 
\nTo find ways to deal with the improbable, the long shot
\nto stoke the embers, to stroke each other, to rearrange
\nthe coals of lassitude, of listlessness, of lethargy
\nto shake up syllables, find new synonyms, a new syntax:
\na vacation for two in Bali, sleeping naked on the beach
\nstrolling through Barcelona, sipping Sangria in sidewalk caf\u00e9s
\n 
\nWhat if the spark never flares, the flame doesn\u2019t flame
\nwhat if the future tense is a table for one under the exit sign
\neasier to live with tepid love in parallel lives
\neasier to wonder what if and say oh well<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nYash Seyedbagheri<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDEAR HOPEFUL
\n 
\ndear hopeful,
\nwhy have you darted behind bruised clouds
\nwithout a word
\nwhere new voices volley
\nlaughter like constipated geese in big glasses and whispered
\nstories told with satisfaction of
\n 
\npsychiatric wards, fathers who drink, sisters who fuck their younger brothers
\n and people mowed down by freight trains, severed legs carried away after
\n twenty-four suicide attempts, going on twenty-five
\n and don\u2019t forget about being woke on coffee tables and proclaiming revolutions
\na child with fourteen blue tricycles, bicycles, BMWs,
\nwhile dear hopeful, once you could have found joy in a Dodge Stratus
\n 
\ndear hopeful, you\u2019re not looking to the shadows
\nonce you danced, a darting ballerina
\nover night skies
\nand butter-colored streetlamps
\nwhile trees whispered their whoosh
\nand I danced with you under harvest moons
\n 
\nI call you once, twice, thrice now
\nbut a bottle of Pinot busts
\na bottle of pills pops
\nanother sister fucks a brother, another train mows down
\na head and spectators gasp and cue their laugh tracks
\ndear hopeful, why couldn\u2019t you break through
\n 
\nI need a little Pinot too
\nno pills. one glass, two glasses,
\njust enough until you come
\nwhen you come
\nif you come
\nwhere the fuck are you?
\n 
\na train crash looks mighty enticing right now
\njust a little
\ncan I have a detail
\nof a head
\na leg
\ncan I have
\n 
\nyou laugh with me
\n 
\ndear hopeful?
\n 
\n 
\nAN ORDER OF NEGATIVITY
\n 
\nI\u2019ll have two sides of train crashes
\na mutilated body for dipping sauce
\nand could I have an overturned boxcar
\none charred edifice,
\n a crying mother, a couple packs of dead kids
\ndon\u2019t forget the crying mother
\nthis is all to go, of course
\noh wait
\na suicide, a shooting, a semiautomatic, some pills, a poisoned diplomat
\nfor dessert
\nhave a nice day<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCathryn Shea<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI’M NOT REALLY WATCHING ANY NEWS
\n 
\nCouldn\u2019t you just undress
\nthe news lady slinked up
\nin her sleeveless shift,
\nthe outline of her little tummy
\ncuteness. Am I a sex fiend?
\nIgnore my obsession.
\nI don\u2019t want to undress
\nthe weatherman
\nyet.
\nAlthough, upholstered
\nin his blue suit
\nhe\u2019s adorable
\npointing to what looks like
\na tourniquet
\nto hold back rain,
\nwound of a cloud tied up.
\nThe limp drought of itself.
\n 
\n 
\nQUARRIES
\n 
\nMagnificent mouths
\nto feed. The prey
\nand ours.
\nI think of melted nature
\nroasted and stewed.
\nMy father used red nail polish
\nto paint the sights of his rifles,
\ntheir gunstocks he spent hours checkering,
\nthe grip and forearm,
\nwith cutters and fine files
\nand he would finish the stocks
\nwith linseed oil and wax.
\nI was a kid. All I knew was
\nthis was his craft.
\nLike a warden\u2019s burden.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Short<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nENGINEER
\n 
\nShe had an old Volkswagen
\nand at weekends
\nwe\u2019d drive to the country,
\nstop in some small market town
\nfor fish and chips
\nor tea in a corner caf\u00e9.
\nWe were young
\nso not thinking constantly
\nabout corruption,
\ninjustice or conspiracies.
\n 
\nAnother time was passion
\nin a broom cupboard
\nat the University
\nuntil someone opened the door.
\nShe had a serious side
\nas well, of course:
\nstudying to be an engineer
\n and aiming for control over men
\n 
\nbut we were young
\nwith time for mountain walks
\nand madness.
\nI sometimes wonder
\nwhat eventually became of her,
\nhow many kids she had
\nand how many
\nbridges she designed.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nM. G. Stephens<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nThe seven poems below are taken from Stephens’ latest book of poems, History of Theatre or The Glass of Fashion, which is slated to appear in December of 2020, published by MadHat Press<\/a>, Cheshire, Massachusetts. Mr. Stephens first appeared in Rat’s Ass Review in the summer 2020 issue, with his poem Kazakhstan<\/a>.
\n 
\n 
\nTHIS AIN\u2019T NO OPHELIA, HONEY
\n 
\nThis weary night I lay down to sleep and dream, my mouth stale from drink and garlic, the dimension of my room flat and black, the status of my feelings unprofitable. At first I thought it seemed this way\u2014seemed. I asked myself\u2014not, it is, but seems? For many hours I lay awake, unable to sleep, but finally I drifted off, my breath iambic and even, no longer rushed and full of the fever of the day, I rested. I dreamed, too. What I dreamed was not of Ophelia, though I thought of her before sleep, as I did my mother, thinking of them in one image. This night was given to Helen, I do not know why, but it was of her I dreamt, as though she were everywhere, and nowhere at all. I had been thinking of an anecdote about James Joyce in which he named an ugly photograph of a woman after Helen. A man, Schwarz by name, accused Joyce of killing Helen when the writer pointed out how old she must be after living with Menelaus, then Paris, her time in Troy, and then how old she was when Dante saw her in the Inferno. “Killed Helen,” Joyce said, laughing. Yet the Helen I saw was even older than Joyce’s; she was before goat song and the dithyramb. I walked in this dream past Thespis, then Arion, back into the drama, into the pre-history, into her moment. There I stood in her bedroom in Troy. Like a casting director I had in my hand her resume and photos. I am Hamlet, I told her. You little weasel, she said, have you ever been fucked? she asked. I mean have you ever really been fucked good, my little man in your britches and buskins? Well, I said, there’s always Ophelia, and she laughed, Helen let out this awful guffaw. Get over here, she smirked, Prince of Denmark.
\n 
\n 
\nHALF-ASS AND ME, HALF-DRUNK, AT A BACK TABLE IN THE HALF MOON
\n 
\nIf Henry Hudson stopped here, it was a night when sinks clogged and the river named after him rolled down Fordham Road in the Bronx. (Oh, them Fordham Indians, they do know how to paddle them there canoes across Spuyten Duyvil and other swirling eddies.) People come from miles away, including New Rochelle and Yonkers to eat their hearts out, burp garlic, and drink Italian wine in the places on Arthur Avenue, but this place is like a corner pizza parlor, only with a backroom with red and white checked tablecloths, and a lady who sticks her head out of the heated kitchen. (Some days her face is like Anna Magnani; sometimes she looks beautiful, though deranged; somewhere I saw her on the street as ugly as your sister.) Hey, Half-Ass says, you want to step outside and fight me like a man, nobody says nothing bad about my sister! Take it easy, chill out, I said, or you’ll die of massive seizures, especially after all that garlic bread and red wine, I don’t even know your sister, Half-Ass. (This was a lie, ’cause his sister and me, we go on the fly to motels near Whitestone, and I even seen her pee into her own hand and blow the wiz into the air like bubbles.) Did you know that Henry Hudson’s boat, the Half-Moon, sailed up the Hudson River, ages ago, I asked Half-Ass, who ordered us another bottle of house red. Fuck you, he said, you big-mouth phony with your ideas and your, and your whatever you got, credit cards, which ain’t worth shit here, go down the block to Amici’s. (Half-Ass, I said. Don’t call me that, he shouted, my name is Cornelius, just like yours, and you got no business telling me about some man’s boat when I know for certain he drove a car, ’cause there’s a parkway named after him which you ought to get on and drive north out of my sight, ya bastard.) Everybody around here knows that the Half Moon has nothing to do with Henry Hudson and boats because it was named after the Full Moon Cafe which burnt to the ground many moons ago, and they opened this pizza joint and little bistro, only half the size of the old one. How I know this, Half-Ass, Cornelius that is, told me, and a man with a sister like his can’t be all that dumb.
\n 
\n 
\nRED MAPLE
\n 
\nIf I told you of the bush in the yard, its pale blossom, I mean, I was concerned, I think you would understand; and we spoke of other issues, the weather, the family, I think I never conveyed tension in my loins, a feeling so outside of family, I wanted to touch, touch your eyelids, your lips, your neck, your shoulders, impossible places for me or for you, I dreamed of legs and, I dreamed, because we had touched each other everywhere, I thought, I imagined we would touch, where you ache, I touched, I touched your legs, inside, I touch outside, I touch your breasts, I touch, I touch, I kiss, I kiss, oh little sparrow, you whisper, oh jackdaw and magpie. When I grab your belly, it is meat, it is real, it is healing, and you are heat, I have a heart, you are a woman, and I am this man, this is how the world began.
\n 
\n 
\nR & R
\n 
\nMy first R & R was in Casablanca, a real deadbeat sort of town, and then the ship went on to Spain, I lost my cherry in a Palma de Majorca whorehouse in Chinatown, the Kansas Bar, it was called, and from there it was all rock and roll, I remember my first trip to Korea back in the seventies, no cherry anymore, I drove out of Seoul in a Mercedes, digging the rice fields, going up to Panmunjom, what a motherfucker that was, and the heat that summer was another kind of motherfucker, I played golf with an orange ball one winter, my brothers-in-law out to show me a good time, what I know about Asia has to do with what I know about anything, and I don’t know a thing, still as cherry as that kid in Casablanca, looking for opium and theatrical acts which included women and donkeys.
\n 
\n 
\nSUR LA ROUTE
\n 
\nI’m walking down the highway where they are working on the highway, it’s a hot sort of day and I’m on my way to work down the highway on this sort of day which is hot and humid, I’m not timid when I say hello to the men on the highway because they are working and I am going to work, I say, Hi, they say, What’s happening, it is an ordinary day except that the highway is full of heat bubble twists, the drifters drink wine at the roadway intersection, all of us dreaming of intercourse, more than interstate commerce, I know, I say to myself, I was working on the highway, once going down a highway to work like I am going now, only I was working for the highway, and now I am using the highway, it’s that sort of day…
\n 
\n 
\nSONNET SONG
\n 
\nMy mistress is a tempest in camera, and on camera she purrs like a tiger. Oh, tender one, your tender loins so tasty, fitting into my groin. If I give you heat and trust, if you offer me wetness and lust. What is the gender of the beast with two backs at this nocturnal feast? After that night we became a pair. We sat on the bedsheet, eating a pear. Love, if only I thought of it\u2014two more lines make this a sonnet. But I lack, what a poet called formal invention, the rigorous formality of poetry; I think he meant that I write prose, that this is prose, and it’s true. I do I do I do.
\n 
\n 
\nSELF-HELP
\n 
\nHe told me, both of us on the flight deck of the rehab, that when his father was drunk on rum, the old man lay snoring on his bed upstairs. The patient said, “I placed a burning cigarette between his dark fingers and whispered, ‘die, motherfucker,’ and I poured kerosene on his mattress, lit it, and went back to my room, where I pretended to sleep, listening to the flames crackle, smelling the smoke. Burn, baby, burn, I sang. But he came to just before the flames consumed his working man’s body, he woke me and the other children, rushing us into the streets of St. Albans, Queens, New York, where we all watched the fire lick through the upper rooms of our mortgaged house. Father asked if I was all right. ‘I’m all right,’ I said, but it was shortly after that that I left home and joined the Marines.”<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPaul Tanner<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMILLENNIAL BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
\n 
\nthe boss is off
\nthe supervisor is off
\nand the only other person in today
\njust pulled a sicky.
\n 
\nyou\u2019re the only one
\nhere
\n 
\nthe shop keys
\ndigging into your thigh
\nas you serve the rabid queue:
\nget more staff! it says
\nterrible customer service! it says
\nlike you chose
\nto work in such conditions
\njust to annoy them
\n 
\nand then
\nthe area manager shows up:
\n 
\njust you? he asks.
\nevidently! you tell him,
\nscanning and packing like crazy.
\n 
\nhmm, well, he gets out his clipboard.
\nthat\u2019s no reason to let standards slip, is it?
\nand off he goes down aisle 1,
\nthumbing the button of his pen,
\nhis little nib
\nexcitedly poking
\nin and out and in and out \u2026
\n 
\n 
\nTRICKLE-DOWN SOMETHING, I GUESS
\n 
\nevery night she\u2019s asked me for money.
\nevery night she\u2019s here, at this bus stop
\nwaiting for me.
\nand tonight I do my shift and who do I see
\ncoming yonder?
\n 
\nexcuse me \u2026 she starts.
\n 
\nlook! I cut her off. enough! I\u2019m sick of doing a graveyard shift for taxable minimum wage, only to come here and pay you guilt tax, because of the shit life choices you make! you don\u2019t even have the decency to spend it on deodorant, I have to inhale your ever-rancid cider sweat fumes every time you emotionally mug me!
\n 
\nbut \u2013
\n 
\na pound here, fifty pee there, it adds up you know! and what good does it do either of us? I\u2019m broke now too! all because I\u2019m scared of being labelled a heartless snob! well not anymore! I\u2019ve had enough! you hear me, you relentless hag? I\u2019ve had enough of being bled dry from all sides, so do me a favour and kill yourself, and maybe then I can keep some of that mythical surplus income I\u2019ve heard so much about!
\n 
\nI was just gonna pay you back, she says
\nand she shows me the old browned five-pound note in her hand.
\nI know it\u2019s not all of it \u2026
\n 
\noh, I blink at it. sorry, I \u2013
\n 
\nno, sod ya then, she says
\nand walks off,
\n 
\ngreat.
\nnow I have to give her double tomorrow night.
\n 
\n 
\nWHY I LOOK BOTH WAYS
\nBEFORE CROSSING
\nA ONE-WAY STREET
\n 
\nI\u2019ve seen people
\nactually take off
\ntheir masks
\n 
\nbefore going into
\na shop.
\n 
\nthey take off their masks
\nto show off a grin
\nthat could eat through
\nany old shit:
\n 
\neven this.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPaul Telles<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMy XXXL Jacket Tells Me Off
\n 
\nI can\u2019t forget the day you noticed me
\nHanging among your excess clothes. You took
\nThe time to model me, giggling to see
\nHow small you had become, how good you looked.
\n 
\nWe were close once, meeting each day to hide
\nThe body that shamed you. We hugged on planes
\nAnd preened at work. We fashioned cashmere lies
\nTo gild the flabby self you stuffed with pain.
\n 
\nIt\u2019s clear your flesh needed to shrink away
\nFrom me and seek a safer size, but why
\nStore me? If I\u2019m a prize, put me on display.
\nIf I\u2019m just trash, I should be cast aside.
\n 
\nPlease don\u2019t risk making me your secret friend.
\nI never want to hold you tight again.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nElinor Ann Walker<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nORIONIDS, FIELD REPORT
\n 
\nIt\u2019s not really that cold.
\nI see the first before I\u2019m even settled.
\nI\u2019m on my back in the brittle grass
\nbefore the next four fall. Night noises
\nfall around me, too. My dog\u2019s face hovers
\nover mine. Sometimes all I see is his chin,
\nsilhouetted. Colder now that I\u2019m still,
\nI start count, as if by that act I summon
\nthe stars, and I\u2019m up to ten when I hear the train
\nwhistle a low wail that fades, lonesome
\nin the distance, then coyotes, a few yips,
\nthen howls, until my dog howls along
\nwith either the train or them. It doesn\u2019t matter.
\nI\u2019m not sure which is closer.
\nHis breath is a plume in the dark;
\nthen he\u2019s gone across the field, and I hope
\nfor one more, repeating the mantra to myself
\none more, one more, one more
\nuntil that star streaks across the sky, trailing
\nlight, faint and quick. There. Not there.
\nMaybe I conjured the vision, my eyes watering,
\nmy face now cold, my back stiff on the ground.
\nI think to myself: I am rigid like a corpse.
\nThe dog checks on me, warm breath coming back.
\nIt\u2019s possible to be still in a turning world,
\nto let the dark be dark,
\nthe cold be cold,
\nthe sky be what it is,
\nthe stars what they are
\nor once were.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDan Wiencek<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPOSSIBLE HAWK DISPLAY
\n 
\nAbove trees that may be
\nalder or may be beech
\na possible hawk display
\n 
\nconjectural arcs of predation
\nswing across wild guesses of wind
\n 
\nto the rabbit, the hawk
\nis a fact, to the wind
\nan interloper
\n 
\nlike the leaf tumbling in
\ngravity\u2019s fingers, vein side
\nup, vein side down, over
\n 
\nand over until the bet
\nis won or lost, the hawk
\n 
\nconfirmed
\nor merely probable
\n 
\n 
\nTHIS TIME, HE IS JACOB
\n 
\nWe are outdoors walking side by side and he is next to me, the son I did not have, holding my hand though he is far too old. The air is stuck in place and I am desperate for a breeze. There are pictures in the clouds but I cannot decipher them. This time, he is Jacob, he would be 26 or thereabouts and he was sacrificed for the sake of two college degrees (four if you count grad school) and I feel absurdly lucky he is with me even if I cannot make out the details of his face. I try to lift him by his waist and nearly collapse under him and he laughs at me, Come on Dad, he says, there isn\u2019t any wind here and the clouds are all lies anyway
\n<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSimon Williams<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGENTS
\n 
\nStanding at the urinals,
\nthe stranger next to me farted
\nand apologised profusely.
\n 
\nAiming to ease his embarrassment
\nI said, ‘If you can’t loose one here,
\nwhere can you?’
\n 
\n‘Among the dunes
\nthree kilometres North of Merzouga’,
\nhe replied, after some consideration.
\n 
\n‘Deep in the Amazon rainforest,’
\ncame a voice from the first cubicle,
\n\u2018just West of Manaus, in a dug-out\u2019.
\n 
\n‘Was that you?’
\nsaid a bloke from the second stall.
\n‘There was no good fishing there for weeks.’
\n 
\n‘On the ice flows of Antarctica,’
\nsaid the washroom attendant,
\n‘in the middle of the long, long night.’
\n 
\n‘In a space suit,’ called Jim Lovell,
\nhaving a shower in the room
\nreserved for truckers,
\n 
\n‘Completely self-contained
\nand you’re the only one
\nto ever know.’
\n 
\n 
\nSLINGSHOT BULLETS
\n 
\nThe Romans often inscribed the rugby-ball shaped lead bullets for their
\nslingshots with insults, like \u2018Ouch\u2019, \u2018Take that\u2019 and \u2018Lodge well\u2019.
\n 
\nWe cornered him in the milecastle,
\nwith his lame stirrup still in his hand,
\ntook it from him, had him kneel.
\n 
\nWe emptied out his pouch of metal eggs,
\nasked him what the letters on them meant,
\ntook away his reluctance with his own pugio.
\n 
\nHe said They\u2019re insults, mainly.
\nThis one says \u2018Here\u2019s a sugar plum\u2019
\nand this \u2018From Pompey\u2019s Arse\u2019.
\n 
\nWe didn\u2019t laugh, so many crippled
\nby his little jests, so many whose bones
\nwere split, flesh punctured, brains holed.
\n 
\nJust one thing I said before we ended him.
\nIt\u2019s all been so much waste in the casting.
\nThere\u2019s not a one of us reads Latin.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRussel G. Winick<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE DATING DRILL
\n 
\nAs most describe the dating drill
\nthe first step has to be,
\ndetermining if there exists
\nsufficient chemistry.
\n 
\nIf one finds no attraction
\nthen it seems the likely fate,
\nis those two folks will never have
\nthat vaunted second date.
\n 
\nIf warranted by chemistry
\nthe next phase thus will be,
\nto scientifically explore
\ncompatibility.
\n 
\nThat one\u2019s the greatest challenge faced
\nin figuring the fit.
\nIt must work now and also as
\nthe future changes it.
\n 
\nThe greatest cause of misery
\nof anything we know?
\nChemistry that\u2019s high,
\ncompatibility that\u2019s low.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Wright<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDIRECTIONS FOR JOY
\n 
\nSnuggle in your sheets
\nwith Kim Addonizio.
\nYou with your spent senses,
\nher with her Batgirl brain.
\nKeep the book open
\neven when not reading.
\nDrink some wine,
\nsplash some on the page.
\nNot just any page, turn to
\n\u201cDivine.\u201d The poem will absorb
\nthe soft blush of intoxication.
\nJust like you, when in bed,
\nhands wrapped around
\nwhat you love.
\n 
\n 
\nWHEN MY PAJAMAS WEAR OUT, IT\u2019S TIME FOR THE PANDEMIC TO END
\nfor M.M.
\n 
\nHair bound in a rubber band
\nevery day for six months straight
\n 
\nBra buried in the bureau drawer,
\nsocks stuck in time that ended March 2020
\n 
\nElastic waist on my pajama bottoms stretched
\nbeyond usefulness, sagging low
\n 
\nAss crack hanging out, I don my mask,
\nwalk next door to my plumber neighbor.
\n 
\nWe bend to the camera six feet apart,
\nmoon this life, this virus.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan J. Wurtzburg<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPANDEMIC JOURNEYS
\n 
\nA rather boring grocery list clutched in my hand,
\nI venture into Safeway. A good name for this current
\ntime of trouble, although it doesn\u2019t always feel safe,
\nas such. Blueberries, bananas, oh, yes, some apples,
\nsince we are trying to eat healthily to stave off illness.
\n 
\nAisles are directional, which still seems challenging for some,
\nnot sure why this is so difficult. Masked figures stomp
\nboldly toward me, making me feel less than friendly.
\nMilk, beer, and orange juice placed in the cart, a few treats
\nare needed at home. Simple pleasures in hard times.
\n 
\nNot everyone understands Hawaii health directives,
\nalthough all wear facial coverings in the store.
\nOne day, the words \u201cfuck head\u201d escaped my lips, but
\nthat guy pushed by me. Mostly, I am polite, trying
\nto model appropriate aloha. Oh, yes, I need chocolate.
\n 
\nI feel more nervous in Safeway than during any lone jungle
\nexpedition. Walking around verdant Corcovado,
\nCosta Rica, in 1982, was far less nerve-racking.
\nYes, I braved thirst, sharks, and alligators, but careless
\nyoung men are my new fear. Yup, wine is on the list.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMaura Yzmore<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBRUCE BANNER GETS A PHYSICAL
\n 
\nthe nurse\u2019s mouth puckers
\nvery much like an asshole
\ntrying to stop the exit
\nof a rancid burrito
\n 
\nshe sighs, inflates again
\nblood-pressure cuff on my arm
\n 
\nlooks mighty disappointed
\nthen asks if I\u2019d gained weight
\nif I get exercise often
\nif there is stress in my life
\n 
\nI sit there, looking at her
\ntry to breathe, I really do
\ntry to calm myself down
\nher ass-face makes it too hard
\n 
\nI say I\u2019m always angry
\n 
\nbefore I burst at the seams
\nand I am free again
\nin ratty purple pants
\nsmashing my way outta there
\n 
\nlike a rancid burrito
\nblowing the tightest asshole
\n 
\n 
\n <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nB. Anne Adriaens<\/a><\/strong> currently lives in Somerset, Britain. Her work tends to reflect her interest in alienation and all things weird and dark, as well as her concerns about the environment. She\u2019s written several dystopian prose pieces and is finalising her first poetry collection. You can read her in Helios Quarterly, Harpur Palate, Glasgow Review of Books, Thimble Magazine, The Blue Nib, Poetry Ireland Review and The Honest Ulsterman.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKemmer Anderson<\/a><\/strong> taught 40 years at McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tennessee where he was faculty advisor to the Amnesty International Chapter. He recently published a collection of essays: Milton at Monticello: Thomas Jefferson’s Reading of John Milton. Thanks to Homer, Euripides, and St. John’s College, he has published a series of poems: Palamedes: Lost Muse of Justice. He encountered rats while feeding chickens on Wing Shadow Farm.<\/a>
\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>..<\/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 Blood and Thunder, Feral, and Grand Little Things, among others.
\n 
\nSocial Media:
\nIG: @ebolaisthesavior<\/a>
\nDiaspora<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWilliam C. Blome<\/a><\/strong> writes poetry and short fiction. He lives wedged between Baltimore and Washington, DC, and he once swiped a master\u2019s degree from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. His work has seen the light of day in such fine little mags as Poetry London, PRISM International, Fleas on the Dog, Fiction Southeast, Roanoke Review, and The California Quarterly. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJimmy Broccoli<\/a><\/strong> is a Branch Manager of a library in the Greater Metropolitan Area of Atlanta. He enjoys playing with puppies and writing frightening verse. You can contact him on Facebook. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nIngrid Bruck<\/a><\/strong> lives in Amish country in Pennsylvania USA across the street from an Amish farm, where work horses pull the plows and retired racehorses pull carriages. Since retiring as a library director, she dedicates herself to writing short forms and short poems. Current work appears in Failed Haiku, Halcyon Days, Quatrain.Fish and Halibut. Poetry website: www.ingridbruck.com<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRaymond Byrnes<\/a><\/strong>: For many years he managed communications for the U.S. Geological Survey\u2019s National Land Imaging Program. His recent work has been read on The Writer’s Almanac and accepted\/published in Main Street Rag, Third Wednesday, Shot Glass Journal, Typishly, Split Rock Review, and numerous other journals. He lives in Virginia. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Taylor Carlisle<\/a><\/strong> lives and writes in the Arkansas Ozarks. She is the author of four books, including The Mercy of Traffic, and On the Way to the Promised Land Zoo, and five chapbooks. Her work appears on line in Persimmon Tree, pacificREVIEW, 2RiverView, Bracken, San Pedro River Review and others and in fourteen anthologies. For more information, check her web site at wendytaylorcarlisle.com<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKitty Carpenter<\/a><\/strong> studied Creative Writing and Missouri State University and is a regular participant at the River Pretty Writer\u2019s Retreat in the beautiful Missouri Ozarks. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Aurorean, Paddle Shots: A River Pretty Anthology Vol 2, Dove Tales: Writing for Peace, and Painted Bride Quarterly, among others. Her poem Farm Sonnet was a finalist for the 2020 Rattle Poetry Prize. Kitty is currently a caregiver for neurodivergent and disabled individuals and lives in rural Missouri with her cranky, senior dog and four rambunctious cats. Twitter: @lit_spider<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSudasi Clement<\/a><\/strong> is the former poetry editor of Santa Fe Literary Review (2006-2016). Her work has appeared in Slipstream, The Main Street Rag, pacificREVIEW, Sierra Nevada Review, and Room Magazine, among others. She won the 2012 Slipstream Press chapbook contest with her manuscript, The Bones We Have in Common. She lives in Santa Fe, NM. <\/a>
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\nWanda Morrow Clevenger<\/a><\/strong> lives in Hettick, IL \u2013 population 200, give or take. Over 600 pieces of her work appear in 169 print and electronic publications. The first three volumes of a 5-volume set titled where the hogs ate the cabbage have published through Writing Knights Press:
\nyoung and unadorned<\/i><\/a>
\nno dyeing in machines<\/i><\/a>
\nfried everything & booze<\/i><\/a><\/a>
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\nAlan Cohen<\/a><\/strong> has published poems in Our Twentieth Century\u2019s Greatest Poems, The Beast in a Cage of Words, The New England Journal of Medicine, Praxis Magazine, Literary Yard, The Blue Nib, CHILLFILTR, The Road Not Taken, The Wild Word, Front Porch Review, Cabildo Quarterly, Leaping Clear, In Parenthesis. He continues to write poems, a few a month, as he has for 55 years now. <\/a>
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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 Random Saints \u2014 poems of kindness for an unkind age. <\/a>
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\n62 year-old prize-winning* poet and recovering actor Ken Cumberlidge<\/a><\/strong> was born in Birkenhead and cut his performance teeth on the Liverpool pub poetry scene of the 1970s. His work has appeared variously in print and, more recently, in numerous online journals. Since 2011 Ken has been based in Norwich, but can be lured out of cover by good company and an open mic \u2013 a proclivity that has led him to become an habitu\u00e9 of the fetid underworld that is the slam poetry\/spoken word scene. He likes it. A lot.
\nKen\u2019s poetry on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com\/ken_cumberlidge_poetry<\/a>
\nKen\u2019s YouTube channel: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCrEPf1MlegfAJyKDA5-wNqQ<\/a>
\n* the prize was a chocolate cake. He guessed its weight. <\/a>
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\nPatricia Davis-Muffett<\/a><\/strong> holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota and her work has appeared in The Slate, Limestone, Coal City Review, Gypsy Cab, Zuzu\u2019s Petals Quarterly, on Minnesota Public Radio and in the di-verse-city anthology of the Austin International Poetry Festival. She lives in Rockville, Maryland, with her husband, three children, one good dog, one bad puppy and a demon of a cat. She makes her living in technology marketing. <\/a>
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\nBenjamin Davis<\/a><\/strong> is an American writer living somewhere outside of America. He is an ex-fintech journalist and current culture columnist covering Russia. His short works have appeared in Star 82 Review, 5×5, Maudlin House, Cease, Cows, and elsewhere. <\/a>
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\nAfter a glamorous childhood in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Steve Deutsch<\/a><\/strong> (and his wife, Karen), settled in State College, PA. They have one son\u2014the guitarist for the avant-garde group, Gang Gang Dance. Over the last two years, Steve\u2019s work has appeared in more than two dozen print and on-line journals. He was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is the current poetry editor for Centered Magazine. Steve\u2019s chapbook, Perhaps You Can, was published by Kelsay Books in 2019. His full length poetry book, The Persistence of Memory,\u201d has just been published by Kelsay. <\/a>
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\nCraig Dobson<\/a><\/strong> has had poems and short fiction pieces published in The London Magazine, The Rialto, Better Than Starbucks, The Interpreter’s House, Active Muse, The Literary Hatchet, Poetry Ireland Review, Magma, The North, Prole and Poetry Salzburg Review. He’s got work forthcoming in THINK and The Dark Horse. <\/a>
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\nClive Donovan<\/a><\/strong> has published in a fair few poetry magazines, some pretty straight, others more experimental, including Stand, The Journal, Prole, Erbacce, Projectionists Playground, Playerist, Streetcake and the Rats Ass Review. He lives in Totnes, Devon, England. <\/a>
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\nJohn Dorroh<\/a><\/strong> may have taught high school science for a few decades. Whether he did is still being discussed. His poetry has appeared in a lot of journals such as Feral, Os Pressan, Selcouth Station, Red Fez, Blue Moon Literary & Art Review, and many more. He also likes to write short fiction and rants. <\/a>
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\nNeil Douglas<\/a><\/strong> is a doctor-poet working in London’s East End UK. He has work published in The North, Hippocrates anthology 2018, Ekphrastic Review, by Proverse in Hong Kong, and most recently in the NHS anthology ‘These Are the Hands’. He is a member of the Covent Garden Stanza, a collective of poets affiliated with the Poetry Society in London. <\/a>
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\nJessica Dubey<\/a><\/strong> is a poet living in upstate New York. She was a 2018 nominee for a Best of the Net Award and was Kissing Dynamite\u2019s September 2019 featured poet. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including Oxidant | Engine, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, The American Journal of Poetry and IthacaLit. <\/a>
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\nMarchell Dyon<\/a><\/strong> is a poetry enthusiast. She enjoys reading poetry wherever she can find it. Once she was nominated for the best of the net prize for her poem As I Stand by My Window Dreaming of Falling. Her most recent publications are Toasted Cheese Lit Journal, Trouvaille Review and Medusa\u2019s kitchen. She has constantly developed her craft despite having both schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. She continues to write in Chicago IL. <\/a>
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\nMichael Estabrook<\/a><\/strong>: Retired now writing more poems and working more outside just noticed two Cooper\u2019s hawks staked out in the yard or rather above it which explains the nerve-wracked chipmunks. The Poet\u2019s Curse, A Miscellany (The Poetry Box, 2019) is a recent collection. <\/a>
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\nA retired special education teacher, Vern Fein<\/a><\/strong> has published over one hundred poems on over sixty sites, a few being: *82 Review, Bindweed Magazine, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Gyroscope Review, Courtship of Winds, Broadkill Review, Monterey Poetry Review, and Corvus Review. <\/a>
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\nLynn Finger<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poetry has appeared in Night Music Journal, Ekphrastic Review, Mineral Lit Mag, Feral, and is forthcoming in Drunk Monkeys, Thimble and 8Poems. Lynn is an editor at Harpy Hybrid Review, and works with a group that mentors writers in prison. <\/a>
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\nRobert Ford<\/a><\/strong>‘s poetry has appeared in print and online publications in the UK, US and elsewhere, including Under the Radar, Brittle Star, Dime Show Review, The Interpreter’s House and San Pedro River Review. More of his work can be found at wezzlehead.wordpress.com<\/a><\/a>
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\nMeg Freer<\/a><\/strong> grew up in Missoula, Montana, went to school in Minnesota and New Jersey, and now lives in Ontario. Her poems have won awards and have been published in anthologies and journals such as Vallum, Eastern Iowa Review and Rat\u2019s Ass Review. In 2017 she won a writing fellowship and attended the Summer Literary Seminars in Tbilisi. She enjoys taking photos and being active outdoors year-round, and wishes she had more time for writing poetry. <\/a>
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\nGerald Friedman<\/a><\/strong> grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and now teaches physics and math at Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico. He’d like to go back to teaching in person. He has published poems in various journals, recently Santa Fe Literary Review, Quatrain.fish, and Panoply. <\/a>
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\nAnna E. Fullmer<\/a><\/strong> is a Library Assistant at Cleveland Public Library in the Youth Department, slinging story times and songs about the ABCs. Once upon a time, she was the lead singer of a band, but that was back when bands played shows. She writes songs, poems, and to-do lists. <\/a>
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\nMac Gay<\/a><\/strong>‘s forthcoming collection Ghost Hunt from Eyewear Publishing Ltd. is now scheduled for release in December. Farm Alarm was runner up for the Robert Phillips Prize and was out last July from Texas Review Press. His poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Main Street Rag, the Texas Poetry Calendar. His newest, Death’s Dearth, is currently searching for a home. <\/a>
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\nFrancis Golm<\/a><\/strong> is funny boo-hoo-hoo as well as ha-ha-ha. His stories and poems have appeared in many magazines including The Rat’s Ass Review and The Wrong Quarterly. Check him out on Twitter @SideBurnedPoet<\/a>.<\/a>
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\nHank Greenspan<\/a><\/strong> is a retiring academic (from the University of Michigan), an expiring psychologist, an inspiring playwright, and an aspiring poet. Despite once being Fulbright, his writing tends dark. He is currently working on a play about the \u201cmad jester\u201d of the Warsaw Ghetto. That about sums it up. henrygreenspan.com<\/a><\/a>
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\nJohn Grey<\/a><\/strong> is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Connecticut River Review, Soundings East, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in West Trade Review, Willard and Maple and Redactions. <\/a>
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\nLois Marie Harrod<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s 17th collection Woman was published by Blue Lyra in February 2020. Her Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks; her chapbook And She Took the Heart appeared in January 2016; Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press) and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013. A Dodge poet, she is published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3. She teaches at the Evergreen Forum in Princeton and at The College of New Jersey. Links to her online work www.loismarieharrod.org<\/a><\/a>
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\nDavid Heidenstam<\/a><\/strong> grew up in England in the 1950s. Trained as a political scientist, he has worked as a laborer, security guard, editor, sailboat delivery cook\/crewman, and warden of backpackers\u2019 hostels in Ireland. In the 1970s he was one of those responsible for the Body books series, which went into 16 languages and in some cultures gave ordinary people access to health and body information for the first time. His website is at davidheidenstam.com<\/a><\/a>
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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. <\/a>
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\nJack Henry<\/a><\/strong> is a writer\/editor based in Southern California. Recent publications can be found in Raven\u2019s Cage, Horror Sleaze Trash, Red Fez, Rusty Truck, Dope Fiend Daily, Smoking Typewriter, and Fearless, among others. He is also editor of Heroin Love Songs and 1870 Press. A new book, Driving W\/Crazy, will be available in the Fall of 2020 from Punk Hostage Press. <\/a>
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\nMarcia Hindson<\/a><\/strong> lives in County Durham and claims she is a full-time wanderer of woods and daydreams. When awake, she has had pieces published with The Interpreter’s House, Bare Fiction, Obsessed With Pipework, Riggwelter, and Atrium, as well as others. She\u2019s rumoured to have fourteen unruly badgers but only remembers the names of two. She grows pumpkins now but does not wish to become a fairy godmother. Yet. <\/a>
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\nMary Beth Hines<\/a><\/strong> lives and writes from her home in Massachusetts. Her work appears in journals such as Crab Orchard Review, Eclectica, Lighten Up Online, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, and Snakeskin Poetry Webzine, among others. <\/a>
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\nChristopher Hivner<\/a><\/strong> writes from a small town in Pennsylvania surrounded by books (a little bit of everything) and the echoes of music (mostly hard rock\/heavy metal and blues). His poetry collection \u201cIn the Blood\u201d was recently published by Cyberwit.net. website: www.chrishivner.com<\/a>, Facebook: Christopher Hivner – Author, Twitter: @Your_screams<\/a><\/a>
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\nGil Hoy<\/a><\/strong> is a Best of the Net nominated Boston poet who studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. He previously received a B.A. in Philosophy from BU, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Hoy wrestled on BU\u2019s wrestling team and finished in second place in the New England University Wrestling Championships his senior year. He served as a Brookline, MA Selectman for 4 terms. Hoy\u2019s poetry has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Ariel Chart, Right Hand Pointing, Indian Periodical, Rusty Truck, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The New Verse News, the penmen review, and elsewhere. <\/a>
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\nTim Hunt<\/a><\/strong> is the author of four collections: Ticket Stubs & Liner Notes (winner of the 2018 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award), The Tao of Twang and Poem\u2019s Poems & Other Poems (both CW Books), and Fault Lines (The Backwaters Press). Recognitions include The Chester H. Jones National Poetry Prize. His final teaching post was Illinois State University where he was University Professor. He and his wife Susan live in Normal, Illinois. (tahunt.com\/poetry<\/a>)<\/a><\/p>\n

 
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\nJames Croal Jackson<\/a><\/strong> (he\/him\/his) is a Filipino-American poet. He has a chapbook, The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017), and recent poems in Sampsonia Way, San Antonio Review, and Pacifica. He edits The Mantle Poetry (themantlepoetry.com<\/a>) and works in film production in Pittsburgh, PA. (jamescroaljackson.com<\/a>)<\/a>
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\nMatthew King<\/a><\/strong> used to teach philosophy at York University in Toronto, and is the author of Heidegger and Happiness. He now lives in what Al Purdy called \u201cthe country north of Belleville\u201d, where he walks a rope bridge between the neighbouring mountaintops of philosophy and poetry. <\/a>
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\nMaureen Kingston<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poems and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in B O D Y, Akitsu Quarterly, Contemporary Haibun Online, Failed Haiku: A Journal of English Senryu, Gone Lawn, Gyroscope Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, KYSO, MacQueen\u2019s Quinterly, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, and Star 82 Review. A few of her poems and prose pieces have also been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart awards. <\/a>
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\nSarah Mackey Kirby<\/a><\/strong> is a Kentucky poet and writer. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Connecticut River Review, Impspired, Muddy River Poetry Review, Rat’s Ass Review, Punk Noir, and elsewhere. She holds an M.A. in Teaching and a B.A. in Political Science. She and her husband share their home with a sweet cat and a mischievous Cockapoo. <\/a>
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\nWilson Koewing<\/a><\/strong> is a writer from South Carolina. His work is forthcoming in Gargoyle, Trampset, The Loch Raven Review, Blue Lake Review and Bull: Men’s Fiction. <\/a>
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\nJennifer Lagier<\/a><\/strong> has published eighteen books and in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines, taught with California Poets in the Schools, edits the Monterey Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Recent publications: Harbinger Asylum, The Rockford Review, Syndic Literary Journal, From Everywhere A Little: A Migration Anthology, Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California, Missing Persons: Reflections on Dementia, Silent Screams: Poetic Journeys Through Addiction and Recovery. Newest books: Camille Mobilizes (FutureCycle Press), Trumped Up Election (Xi Draconis Books), Dystopia Playlist (CyberWit), and Camille Comes Unglued (CyberWit). Forthcoming title: Meditations on Seascapes and Cypress (Blue Light Press).
\nWebsite: jlagier.net<\/a>
\nFacebook: www.facebook.com\/JenniferLagier\/<\/a><\/a>
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\nRichard LeDue<\/a><\/strong> was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, but currently lives in Norway House, Manitoba with his wife and son. His poems have appeared in various publications throughout 2019, and more work is forthcoming throughout 2020, including a chapbook from Kelsey Books. <\/a>
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\nMare Leonard<\/a><\/strong> lives and works in the Hudson Valley where she is an Associate of the Institute for Writing and Thinking and the MAT programs at Bard College. She has published five chapbooks of poetry and the latest at Finishing Line Press in 2018. She is hoping to find a publisher for a chapbook of Ekphrastic poetry but wants to concentrate on writing poems of resistance. <\/a>
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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 third chapbook, Falcons, was published July 1, 2020 & now is available through Amazon or direct through his poetry site. See michaellevinpoetry.com<\/a> and twopianosplayingforlife.org<\/a>.<\/a>
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\nJames Lineberger<\/a><\/strong> is a retired playwright and screenwriter. 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; B O D Y; Misfit Magazine; and New Ohio Review. <\/a>
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\nFay L. Loomis<\/a><\/strong> lives a particularly quiet life in the woods in upstate New York. A member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers, her poetry and prose have appeared in print and online publications, including Peacock Journal, Postcard Poems and Prose, Watershed Review, River Poets Journal, Breath and Shadow, Celestial Musings: Poems Inspired by the Night Sky, and Love Me, Love My Belly. <\/a>
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\nMaggie Mackay<\/a><\/strong> loves family history, winding it into poems published in print and online journals, one in the award-winning #MeToo anthology, another in a recent George Eliot collection. Others were nominated for The Forward Prize, Best Single Poem with two commended in the Mothers\u2019 Milk Writing Prize. Her pamphlet \u2018The Heart of the Run\u2019 is published by Picaroon Poetry. Her full collection \u2018A West Coast Psalter\u2019 will appear in early 2021. She is a reviewer for sphinxreview.co.uk<\/a>\/.<\/a>
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\nBob MacKenzie<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poetry has appeared in more than 400 journals including Literary Review of Canada, Dalhousie Review, Windsor Review, and Vallum Magazine. He’s published seven volumes of poetry and his work’s been in numerous anthologies. Bob’s received local and international awards for his writing as well as an Ontario Arts Council grant (literature), Canada Council Grant (performance), and Fellowship for the Summer Literary Seminars in Georgia. With the group Poem de Terre, Bob’s released six albums. <\/a>
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\nGiovanni Mangiante<\/a><\/strong> is a bi-lingual writer from Lima, Peru. He has work published in Three Rooms Press, Fearsome Critters, The Raven Review, Cajun Mutt Press, Cr\u00eape & Penn, Impspired, Open Minds Quarterly, Necro Magazine, and more. In writing, he found a way to cope with BPD. <\/a>
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\nDS Maolalai<\/a><\/strong> has been nominated six times for Best of the Net and three times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, “Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden” (Encircle Press, 2016) and “Sad Havoc Among the Birds” (Turas Press, 2019) <\/a>
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\nDoug May<\/a><\/strong> recently published a collection (\u201cSongs From The Back Row\u201d) and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a slow learner with ADD and has worked many jobs, everything from playing in a rock and roll cover band to shelf stocker, delivery driver, janitor and home health aide. Some of his poems have appeared in Raw Art Review, Blinders, Edge, Beloit Poetry Journal and North Dakota Quarterly. <\/a>
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\nTim Mayo<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s second collection, Thesaurus of Separation 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, was published by Kelsay Books in 2019 and won a 2020 Eric Hoffer Book Award. He is a seven time Pushcart Prize nominee. <\/a>
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\nJoan Mazza<\/a><\/strong> has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin\/Putnam). Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Poet Lore, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia. www.JoanMazza.com<\/a><\/a>
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\nLeslie McKay<\/a><\/strong> is a Kiwi haijin\/ prose poet and writing coach. Her work is published in various journals and anthologies and in 2016 she won the Caselberg International Poetry Prize. She lives in the mountains near the West Coast of the South Island. <\/a>
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\nE.V. McLoughlin<\/a><\/strong>‘s writing has appeared in Awkward Mermaid, Bangor Literary Journal, the Blue Nib, Rat’s Ass Review, and Wizards in Space. Her poems were longlisted for Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2016 and shortlisted for the Fresher Writing Prize 2017. E.V. loves tea, books, and city lights and lives in Northern Ireland. <\/a>
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\nJason Melvin<\/a><\/strong> is a happily married father of three children. He has been writing for years as therapy, the current therapy necessitated by the fact that he\u2019s getting older and his children are leaving to become adults. His work has recently appeared in From Whispers to Roars, The Beatnik Cowboy, and The Closed Eye Open, and is upcoming in The Raw Art Review. <\/a>
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\nMike Mesterton-Gibbons<\/a><\/strong> is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University. He still builds mathematical models of animal behavior. But not teaching means time for writing, especially acrostic sonnets, one of which won the Adult Category of the Southern Shakespeare Company’s 2020 Sonnet Contest. Others have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily and The Satirist. He also writes limericks, several of which have appeared in Britain’s Daily Mail. <\/a>
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\nCameron Morse<\/a><\/strong> was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2014. With a 14.6 month life expectancy, he entered the Creative Writing Program at the University of Missouri\u2014Kansas City and, in 2018, graduated with an M.F.A. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including New Letters, Bridge Eight, Portland Review and South Dakota Review. His first poetry collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is Baldy (Spartan Press, 2020). He lives with his wife Lili and two children in Independence, Missouri, where he serves as a poetry editor at Harbor Review and the poetry editor at Harbor Editions. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website. <\/a>
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\nC.G. Nelson<\/a><\/strong> has been an avid reader of poetry since she was thirteen years old. Her first loves were Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe. C.G. Nelson is a new poet. She went to the University of Washington, where she graduated with a degree in English and Philosophy. Find her on Twitter @CGNelsonwrites<\/a>.<\/a>
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\nJames B. Nicola<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poetry and prose have appeared in the Antioch, Southwest, Green Mountains, and Atlanta Reviews; Barrow Street; and RAR, garnering one Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, and six Pushcart Prize nominations. His collections are Manhattan Plaza, Stage to Page, Wind in the Cave, Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists, and Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (2019). His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice magazine award. sites.google.com\/site\/jamesbnicola<\/a><\/a>
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\nFrom the UK, Mark Niedzwiedz<\/a><\/strong> is a professional composer and lyricist, which helps bring rhythm and musicality to his poetry. Lyric writing may pave the way for penning poetry, but Mark is well aware that song lyrics and poetry most of the time are at best distant cousins.
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\nMark has his own take on the world and though life is a serious business, his poems are often lightened or darkened with humour. Poetry is a relatively new venture for Mark and with that comes the usual insecurity about whether or not his poems are any good, but publication does wonders for self-doubt! <\/a>
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\nRobert Nisbet<\/a><\/strong> is a Welsh poet who has been published widely and in roughly equal measures in Britain and the USA, appearing regularly in San Pedro River Review, Third Wednesday and Panoply. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee for 2020. <\/a>
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\nSharon Olson<\/a><\/strong> is a retired Palo Alto, California librarian who lives in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Her publications include two full-length books of poetry, The Long Night of Flying (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2006) and Will There Be Music? (Cherry Grove Collections, 2019). She is a member of the ensemble group Cool Women Poets. See more information at her blog: https:\/\/slopoet.blogspot.com\/p\/poems.html<\/a>.<\/a>
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\nBasilike Pappa<\/a><\/strong> lives and writes in Greece. Her work has appeared on Rat’s Ass Review, Intrinsick, Surreal Poetics, Bones Journal for Contemporary Haiku, Dodging the Rain, Timeless Tales, Visual Verse and Free Verse Revolution. <\/a>
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\nA trial lawyer by day, Jon Parsons<\/a><\/strong> writes poetry to force meaning, form, grace, and beauty on a world of tumult and confusion. <\/a>
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\nRobert Perchan<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poetry chapbooks are Mythic Instinct Afternoon (2005 Poetry West Prize) and Overdressed to Kill (Backwaters Press 2005 Weldon Kees Award). His poetry collection Fluid in Darkness, Frozen in Light won the 1999 Pearl Poetry Prize. His avant-la-lettre flash novel Perchan\u2019s Chorea: Eros and Exile (Watermark Press, Wichita, 1991) was translated into French and published by Quidam Editeurs (Meudon) in 2002. He eats and drinks in Pusan, South Korea. Find him at robertperchan.com<\/a>.<\/a>
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\nDarrell Petska<\/a><\/strong> is a retired communications editor, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Besides previously appearing in Rat’s Ass Review, he has published in Muddy River Poetry Review, Chiron Review, Star 82 Review, Verse-Virtual and widely elsewhere (see conservancies.wordpress.com). Forty years a father (eight years a grandfather), and longer as a husband, Darrell lives outside Madison, Wisconsin. <\/a>
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\nWriting poetry is Gary Pollard<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s unlikely passion. Gary came from a humble background and spent most of his working life in manual work. At the age of 38 years Gary had a change of career, becoming a Support Worker for underprivileged children and this sparked a desire to communicate with wider society via the medium of poetry. In 2019 he published his first poetry collection \u201cThe Wandering Lyricist\u201d with Augur Press and his new collection contains poetry from his travels and life experience as a working father. <\/a>
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\nKen Poyner<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s collections of brief fictions, Constant Animals, Avenging Cartography, Revenge of the House Hurlers, and Engaging Cattle; and poetry, The Book of Robot and Victims of a Failed Civics, can be located at Amazon, most online booksellers, and through links at www.barkingmoosepress.com. He spent 33 years in information system management, is married to a world record holding female powerlifter, and has a family of several rescue cats and betta fish. <\/a>
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\nCover Artist Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad<\/a><\/strong> is an Indian-Australian artist, poet, and pianist. She is a member of The North Shore Poetry Project. She has been painting and exhibiting for the past twenty years and her paintings can be found in many private collections. She has been widely published in both print and online literary journals and anthologies including Star 82 Review, Otoliths, 3 AM Magazine, and has work forthcoming in Parentheses Journal, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere. <\/a>
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\nCarson Pytell<\/a><\/strong> is a poet living in a small town outside Albany, NY whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous venues online and in print. His debut short collection, First-Year (Alien Buddha Press, 2020), and first chapbook, Trail (Guerrilla Genesis Press, 2020), are now available on Amazon. <\/a>
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\n 
\nEmalisa Rose<\/a><\/strong> lives by a shore town which provides much of the inspiration for her art. Much of her poetry writes itself while she is sitting at the beach. She collects shells and enjoys making murals with them. She also creates macrame designs and knits dolls. She is a volunteer at an animal shelter and knits blankets for the cats there. She works part time in a NY middle school as a lunch lady. She has six grandkids and hopes to instill a love for art in their lives. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPeter Schneider<\/a><\/strong> is a poet and psychotherapist who lives in Brooklyn, NY. and Rochester, Vt. His poems have appeared in AMP: The Journal of Digital Literature (Hofstra Univ.); The Buddhist Poetry Review; Mobius: The Journal of Social Change; The Shot-glass Journal; Kairos; Better Than Starbucks; Big Windows Review; Amethyst Review; and in the broadside collection, A Midnight Snack. His debut collection, The Map is Not the Territory was published by Anaphora Literary Press in April 2018. His MFA is from Columbia University and his Ph.D. is in clinical psychology from New York University. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nClaire Scott<\/a><\/strong> is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn\u2019t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters\u2019 Journey in Photography and Poetry. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nYash Seyedbagheri<\/a><\/strong> is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. A native of Idaho, Yash\u2019s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Caf\u00e9 Lit, and Ariel Chart, among others. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCathryn Shea<\/a><\/strong>‘s first full-length poetry collection is \u201cGenealogy Lesson for the Laity\u201d (Unsolicited Press, September 2020). Cathryn\u2019s poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and appears in New Orleans Review, Typehouse, Tar River Poetry, Rust + Moth, Tinderbox, and elsewhere. See https:\/\/www.cathrynshea.com<\/a> and @cathy_shea<\/a> on Twitter. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Short<\/a><\/strong> lives in Liverpool again after many years in southern Europe. Poems and stories have appeared in Rat’s Ass Review, Lamplit Underground, Kissing Dynamite, The Blue Nib, Sarasvati, The Lake, Hobo Camp Review, Poetry Salzburg and Barcelona Ink. His pamphlet Unknown Territory (Black Light Engine Room Press) was published in June. He used to read at open mics in Liverpool, Chester and beyond. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nM. G. 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). After living in London for many years (15), he currently lives just north of Chicago. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPaul Tanner<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s been earning minimum wage, and writing about, for 15 years now. No, really. He was shortlisted for the Erbacce 2020 Prize. He didn\u2019t win, but still, it sounds good, dunnit? His latest collection \u201cShop Talk: Poems for Shop Workers\u201d is published by Penniless Press. His star sign is Libido. Hobbies include bombing, pillage and colouring in. Yeah. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPaul Telles<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poems have appeared in several print and digital publications, including BoomerLitMag, The Decameron: Tales From the Pandemic, and Children, Churches, and Daddies. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nElinor Ann Walker<\/a><\/strong> holds a Ph.D. in English from UNC-Chapel Hill and is an adjunct professor at University of Maryland Global Campus. Ann\u2019s work appears or is forthcoming in perhappened mag, Mezzo Cammin, Better Than Starbucks, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Whale Road Review, The Ekphrastic Review, and Black Bough Poetry, among others, and in several anthologies. She lives with her husband and three dogs, is the mother of two college-aged sons, and does her best writing outside. Her website is https:\/\/elinorannwalker.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDan Wiencek<\/a><\/strong> is a poet, critic and humorist who lives in Portland, Oregon. When not making poems, he writes for a luxury travel company and has walked in the same shoes on the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Serengeti Plains and the Abbey Road crosswalk. Someday he will write a poem about those shoes. His work has appeared in McSweeney\u2019s Internet Tendency, Hypertrophic Literary, New Ohio Review, Timberline Review and other publications. He is currently working on his first collection of poems. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSimon Williams<\/a><\/strong> https:\/\/www.simonwilliams.info<\/a>) has eight published collections, his latest being a co-authored pamphlet with Susan Taylor, The Weather House, (simonwilliams.info\/books)<\/a> which has also toured in performance. Simon was elected The Bard of Exeter in 2013, founded the large-format magazine, The Broadsheet and is currently developing a one-man, science-based poetry show, Cosmic Latte. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRussel G. Winick<\/a><\/strong> began writing poetry at nearly age 65, after concluding a long attorney career. Langston Hughes\u2019 work is his primary inspiration. In addition to Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Mr. Winick\u2019s poems have been selected for publication in The Society Of Classical Poets, Blue Unicorn, Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Westward Quarterly, Verse Virtual, The Road Not Taken, Sparks of Calliope, and Auroras & Blossoms. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Wright<\/a><\/strong> lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Ekphrastic Review, Re-side, Panoply, Black Bough Poetry, Spank the Carp, Ariel Chart, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was recently published by Finishing Line Press. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan J. Wurtzburg<\/a><\/strong> is a retired academic (Ph.D., Anthropology), and lives in Hawaii. Yes, she does enjoy the island life. She writes and runs her editing business (Sandy Dog Books LLC), in between water sports, hiking, walking her dog, and socializing online, while she waits for the pandemic to diminish. In a former life, she traveled the world, and explored archaeological sites, but now ventures beyond the island through books. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMaura Yzmore<\/a><\/strong> writes fiction and poetry for fun, equations and code for profit. Her poetry can be found in Neologism Poetry, Back Patio Press, The Daily Drunk, and elsewhere. Website:maurayzmore.com<\/a> Twitter:@MauraYzmore<\/a>
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

\n 
\n 
\nBack to Top<\/a> 
\n 
\nEdited by Roderick Bates
\n 
\nRAT\u2019S ASS REVIEW WINTER ISSUE 2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<\/div>\n

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        (Cover Art: TRIGEMINAL by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad)         B. Anne Adriaens     TOLKIEN\u2019S COUNTRY\u2014107\/2   You cycle together on the first fine-weather afternoon, fields and landmark power plant ahead, the cooling towers\u2019 shadows a brief respite from the sun\u2019s sudden beating.   The spot\u2019s already taken by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":17,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3557","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nWinter 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=3557\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Winter 2020 Issue -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"        (Cover Art: TRIGEMINAL by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad)         B. Anne Adriaens     TOLKIEN\u2019S COUNTRY\u2014107\/2   You cycle together on the first fine-weather afternoon, fields and landmark power plant ahead, the cooling towers\u2019 shadows a brief respite from the sun\u2019s sudden beating.   The spot\u2019s already taken by […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=3557\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/82218108785\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-04T22:14:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Prahlad-Oormila-Vijayakrishnan-Cover-Art-Trigeminal-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2017\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"162 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=3557\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=3557\",\"name\":\"Winter 2020 Issue -\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=3557#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=3557#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/10\\\/Prahlad-Oormila-Vijayakrishnan-Cover-Art-Trigeminal-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-10-10T15:28:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-04T22:14:08+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=3557#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=3557\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=3557#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/10\\\/Prahlad-Oormila-Vijayakrishnan-Cover-Art-Trigeminal-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/10\\\/Prahlad-Oormila-Vijayakrishnan-Cover-Art-Trigeminal-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2017,\"height\":2560},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?page_id=3557#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Winter 2020 Issue\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/\",\"name\":\"Rat's Ass Review\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Rat's Ass Review\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/02\\\/Rat-No-Hat-Smaller.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/02\\\/Rat-No-Hat-Smaller.jpg\",\"width\":2460,\"height\":1968,\"caption\":\"Rat's Ass Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ratsassreview.net\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/groups\\\/82218108785\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Winter 2020 Issue -","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=3557","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Winter 2020 Issue -","og_description":"        (Cover Art: TRIGEMINAL by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad)         B. 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