{"id":4093,"date":"2022-08-12T13:19:51","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T17:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=4093"},"modified":"2026-09-06T10:20:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T14:20:25","slug":"fall-winter-2022","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=4093","title":{"rendered":"Fall-Winter 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(Cover Art Lament<\/i> by Carl Scharwath)<\/a><\/strong> The medium is paintography; the model, from Hong Kong, is Louise Jean. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

\n

The Poetry<\/P><\/h3>\n

 
\n 
\n 
\nEd Ahern<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nTHE POTTED FLOWER
\n 
\nThe large, potted floral bush
\nappeared on my front porch.
\nPretty in an almost somber way.
\nNo card, no delivery instructions,
\nno name of a flower shop,
\nno idea what it was doing there.
\n 
\nA woman down the street
\nhad just lost her husband
\nand, absent any clues,
\nI thought it must be for her.
\nIt was a heavy, awkward carry
\nup to her front porch.
\n 
\nI rang the bell but no response,
\nso left the anonymous flowers
\nand returned home, feeling smug,
\nuntil a friend texted and asked
\nif I\u2019d received his flowers,
\nsent for a forgotten favor.
\n 
\nI thought to take funerial credit for the
\nsympathy shown by the regifted bush
\nbut realized that my friend often drove by
\nand would notice its misplacement
\nand so schlepped the plant back again
\nwhere the widow, walking by, admired it. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nMikki Aronoff<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nDOG O\u2019 MINE
\n 
\nsettle<\/i>              don\u2019t
\njust stand   & fidget   your nose
\nnudging my frame on the floor
\nmy fingers too rigid to close
\n 
\nthe door or   open a can   or scratch
\nyour belly till you smile&skritch
\nbe St. Bernard O ye of little
\nservice   step up<\/i>   do not lick
\n 
\nyour prick    dignify my demise
\nmy body so stiff    my scruffy my
\nsmelly & scrap    bay & howl
\ndo not whinge or wonder why
\n 
\nbe Anubis    hustle!<\/i> fetch my ba, <\/i>
\nferry it on your back    carry
\nit to the underworld    weight
\nyour paw on The Scale    tarry
\n 
\nnot so that I may flee physique
\n& enter bliss supernal    I swear
\nto visit when you twitch&dream
\nmy far-off voice tinning your ear
\n 
\ndog-god o\u2019 mine       don\u2019t wander off
\nafter that bitch in heat    her Beaujolais
\nyour buried bone    stay with the plan
\nmyprettydog            stay<\/i><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nTohm Bakelas<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nLENAPE ISLAND
\n 
\nonce, when fourteen,
\nin my grandfather\u2019s house
\ni held the razor to my wrist
\nand thought about pulling
\nbut looked up into the mirror
\nsearching for life in empty eyes
\nand i remember praying to god
\nand begging jesus to come down
\nfrom heaven and have a chat
\nwith me about this shit
\nbut neither ever came;
\nand outside i saw the sun go down
\nand i changed my mind
\nand splashed water on my face,
\nmuttered words i can no longer recall,
\nand when the house fell silent
\ni left in the middle of the night
\nand watched bats fly overhead
\nand discovered something
\nworth living for
\nbeneath
\nstreet
\nlights. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nJan Ball<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nMOTHER\u2019S EVALUATION
\n 
\nMy sister acts like Daisy Mae at a cocktail party
\nwhen we finally go together to the nursing
\nhome this morning, joking and laughing
\nwith the personnel as if she\u2019s had moonshine
\nfor breakfast, while I am calm, even serene;
\nin fact, they probably can intuit I\u2019m a writer,
\nespecially when I articulate a question with
\ncomposure and clarity, \u201cMy mother (letting
\nthem know my relationship to the woman
\nwe have come to discuss) doesn\u2019t seem
\nto know me anymore. Could it be that she
\nexpects to see me as a child rather than
\nan adult?\u201d Marie, the social worker who
\nhas followed Mother\u2019s progress from
\nassisted living to the dementia ward
\nand communicated with my sister about
\nthe regular perms, about the broken hip,
\nabout the soft diet, replies thoughtfully,
\n\u201cYou\u2019re probably right; that happens.\u201d
\n 
\nBut then my sister pipes up like a trumpet,
\n\u201cThat\u2019s probably because she liked you
\nbetter when you were a child than she does
\nnow,\u201d looking around the table to see how
\nmuch everyone has appreciated her funny
\nremark and they do laugh in a warm and
\nfriendly way. When the room is quiet again,
\nI astutely say, \u201cSibling rivalry, twins,\u201d
\nand then, a Shakespearean aside to my sister
\nbut audibly enough to attract a few snickers,
\n\u201cWe\u2019ll discuss this later.\u201d We stand, say
\n\u201cThank you,\u201d and walk out the door.
\n 
\nOutside, I turn to my sister and punch her
\nin her abdomen the way I might have as
\na child, but now, feel the soft fat against
\nmy fist like the inner tube we shared
\nat Bangs Lake and say, \u201cFuck you, asshole,\u201d
\nand walk away alone down the long corridor. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nRose Mary Boehm<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nSPURNED
\n 
\nShe put her unspent love into a cardboard box,
\nadded a few choice curses and shut the lid.
\nFirmly.
\n 
\nHe hadn\u2019t even seen her when he nearly bumped
\ninto her on his breathless trajectory
\ntowards the long-haired blond, long-legged tanned,
\nslim-waisted, soft-lipped, fake Barbie.
\n 
\nMay her bed become infested with bedbugs,
\nmay her legs and armpits grow untameable,
\nshaggy undergrowth, may her hair fall out in clumps,
\nher teeth rot to black stumps, her lips reduce to two
\nthin slices; better still, may her face fall off.
\nMay their children be fat, stupid, snotty and
\nmay his penis hurt when they make love.
\n 
\nShe then dropped the cardboard box into the flames of the fireplace,
\nfearing she may open it one day and forgive. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nAce Boggess<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nON THE WAY HOME, I SEE A CARNIVAL
\n 
\nPop-up tents & Tilt-A-Whirl,
\nFerris wheel a satellite dish
\npoorly aimed & rusty at the center.
\nI don\u2019t spot the roller coaster or Flying Dutchman.
\n 
\nThere\u2019s a petting zoo, maybe,
\nor are those carnies
\ndressed in fuzzy suits? The games
\nthey play so we can take our chances,
\n 
\nlose. If I drove closer, lowered my window,
\nI\u2019d smell my childhood\u2014something
\nbetween burnt sugar & manure.
\nI used to love carnivals,
\n 
\nthe seriousness of their frivolity.
\nI want to stop, but I\u2019m alone
\non the road, & once I\u2019ve passed
\na thing that passes, too, I won\u2019t return. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nKaren Burton<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nFIRE
\n 
\nbegins with a slither and hiss
\nbehind plaster walls
\nas newborn sparks devour spiders
\nand skate on mouse bones.
\nTendrils scurry along copper wires
\nsilent, hungry
\nseeking tinder at every portal.
\n 
\nWith each bite of cord and beam
\nteeth and tentacles sprout
\nan apex predator
\nuntil flames are birthed
\nstalking, hunting
\nin the still night air.
\n 
\nTongues spiral up paneling
\ntasting old photographs
\nwith boundless appetite
\ngrowing, chewing
\nswallowing memories whole.
\n 
\nWooden frames groan
\nand the sleeper stirs.
\nThe creature rises to bedside,
\nexhaling smoky remnants
\nof first editions and crocheted afghans
\nseducing, whispering
\nYou are safe in slumber. <\/i>
\n 
\nBut the building shelters
\na dweller who laid each stone,
\nscreaming through breaking glass
\ntinkling, snapping, acrid smoke,
\nraising him from dreams
\nas fiery fingers
\ncurl around bedposts.
\n 
\nThe beast spreads great wings
\npuncturing roof and wall.
\nThe sleeper escapes
\nas it rises on the updraft,
\ntwisting metal into obscene
\nsculptures, and the house
\n 
\nkeens its death song.
\n 
\nThe sleeper stands silent, embers
\nas rain on singed hair, shoulders,
\nwondering if he will ever
\nclose his eyes again.
\n 
\n 
\nI WAS COUNTING CORPSES
\n 
\nof armadillos, armor cracked like eggs on the roadside,
\ninsides cooking on sun-hot cement.
\nI said: You don\u2019t belong here\u2014<\/i>
\nweak shells exploding against metal undercarriages
\nand bumpers proclaiming: Immigrants, Go Home! <\/i>
\n 
\nThen I saw one in rigor, dick standing up straight.
\nHe said: Screw you as you hide in painted metal,
\ntapping out our demise on steering wheels.
\nI smelled snowflakes on the wind and came to taste
\nthe frozen revival. <\/i>
\n 
\nHis grotesque gesture branded my memory,
\nmy knuckles ice-white against black leather.
\nI cracked the window seeking cool breezes
\nbut gagged as rotten flesh rose in summer\u2019s heat. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Taylor Carlisle<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nFORTUNE TELLING
\n 
\nAt the Dania Tomato Festival, I stumbled
\non the Fortune Teller with the turbaned head
\nand silk-draped shoulders. She nodded at me
\nfrom behind the glass of her fancy box with its metal slide
\nwhere I could deposit my quarters and Know the Future<\/i>.
\nThe oracle moved her head when you ponied up
\nyour change and spat out a printed sheet. Mine said,
\nyour fortune awaits you in the near future<\/i>.
\nAnd there was music. I distinctly remember
\nwhat could have been, was meant-to-be, an oboe.
\nAnother quarter relinquished, A steady hand rules the world<\/i>.
\na forecast obviously disgorged for my edification
\nand after that Tomorrow will be a brighter day<\/i>.
\nPerhaps I was supposed to ask a question that would
\navert clich\u00e9. Perhaps, if I\u2019d asked how to duck men\u2019s fists,
\nI\u2019d have gotten a useful answer. What did I know?
\nI was eight. I asked about the future.
\n 
\n 
\nTHIS MORNING
\n 
\nI woke up with a tick between my toes.
\nMy friends have made a list of doctors who will tie their tubes.
\n 
\nSarah Huckabee Sanders speaks of a fetus in the womb\u2014
\nthey\u2019re as safe as they are in a classroom. <\/i>
\n 
\nYes, safe as they were in Uvalde, and Sandy Hook, safe as they are on the New York subway
\nnow that everyone can carry a gun.
\n 
\nThis is what happens when you walk into the weeds without spraying your feet for ticks. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nSusy Chandler<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nHOMEWRECKER 11.13.2014
\n 
\n \u201cIf you\u2019re going to win the lottery, you have to buy a ticket.\u201d <\/i>
\n 
\nIt\u2019s not the sort of thing you\u2019re looking for
\nafter 18 years of marriage.
\nYou\u2019ve adjusted to this life of yours,
\ngotten comfortable,
\ngot two cars and a mortgage
\nand a half-built nest egg.
\n 
\nEven still, the thing you\u2019re missing nags at you.
\nYour dreams ache at the edges of your bones.
\nYou can\u2019t quite release what might have been
\nthe life you really wanted to be living.
\n 
\nHappenstance,
\nShe takes a job she plans to leave in three months.
\nShe takes your hands and says you can have her children.
\nShe takes your heart and a U-Haul to a new time zone.
\nShe hands you the winning lottery ticket,
\nand loves to the marrow. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nJackie Chou<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nTALKING ABOUT MY PARENTS IN GRIEF GROUP
\n 
\nI speak of you like you were still here
\nbefore you left me alone
\nin a city lit by cold neon lights
\nand strange faces
\n 
\nYou gifted me your sunbeams
\nwith renewed zest every day
\nYour soft lemony light
\nenveloped me like sunshine
\non a spring morning
\n 
\nThen you withdrew the very breaths
\nthat promised clear blue skies
\nor at least a canopy for the rain
\nyou saw falling onto my path
\n 
\n 
\nSACCHARINE LOVE
\n 
\nI want to lick you
\nwith my sugar tongue\u2013
\nsweeten the sour the world
\nhas left you.
\nMy words are caresses
\nof thick honey,
\nchocolate coating
\nyour strawberry heart.
\nI’m no sugar-free
\nbut the real thing.
\nI’m the whole candy bar
\nto satisfy your sweet tooth.
\nI’m syrup seeping
\nfrom ripe mangoes,
\nglaze over your stale bread<\/a>
\nof a life.
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nJoanne Corey<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nTHE BANNED BOOKMOBILE<\/a>
\n 
\nDo you need a special license to drive
\na bus of books? Children
\n 
\nare more fragile; books,
\nmore combustible.
\n 
\nChildren\u2019s minds need fire,
\nneed those books to start a blaze.
\n 
\nHow else to know that a pair of penguin
\ndads can raise a chick?
\n 
\nThat witches and wizards can be evil
\nor good or somewhere in the flawed between?
\n 
\nThat even the bluest eye cannot
\nconfer beauty and love?
\n 
\nThat it\u2019s a sin to kill
\na mockingbird?
\n 
\n 
\nVIDEO CHAT WITH OUR 95-YEAR-OLD FATHER
\n 
\nYou said it was scary
\ntoday
\nthat we were there
\n 
\nin your bedroom
\nyour three daughters
\nin pulsating squares
\n 
\non a screen
\nYou remembered where
\nhome
\n 
\nis for each of us
\nbut not where
\nit is for you
\n 
\nconfused that you
\ncould see us
\nhear us
\n 
\nbut we were not
\nthere
\nwith you
\n 
\nWe talked about the snowy
\nwinter, so like our New England
\nchildhoods, when you would
\n 
\nwrangle your orange
\nsnowblower to clear
\nour way out
\n 
\nWe asked if the cut
\nand bruise on your hand
\nhad finally healed
\n 
\nif you had finished
\nall the Valentine
\ngoodies we\u2019d sent
\n 
\nDistracted
\nby a sound
\nfrom the living room
\n 
\nyou set the tablet
\naside
\nleft us
\n 
\nstaring at the ceiling<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nAPHRODITE
\n 
\nFrom the carrot patch rises a hawk
\nwith the mottled coloring of youth,
\na freckled blossoming girl
\nnot yet in control of her beauty.
\n 
\nShe swoops directly
\nto my eyes
\nflashing her breast
\nand then with a flap of wing
\nseeming effortless
\nshe is rising in an updraft to soar,
\ncircling, and sees me far below,
\na speck of gray hair,
\nand I have no idea what I was doing,
\nwhat brought me to this garden,
\nthis light.
\n 
\n 
\nON YOUR LAST SKINNY DIP BEFORE CANCER
\n 
\nWe floated in sunshine.
\nLittle fishies nipped our butts.
\n 
\nA hummingbird flashing blue
\nperched on your chest
\nas on a rose of Sharon.
\n 
\nYou giggled.
\nBird gone in a buzz.
\n 
\nYou said God
\ntweaked your nipple
\nand was calling. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nSteve Deutsch<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nREMEMBER
\n 
\nSky more brown than blue
\nlike Kansas
\nbefore Dorothy was whisked away.
\n 
\nRemember when they
\ncame for him
\nand you learned
\nthe damage stones could do?
\n 
\nAir so heavy
\nit hits
\nyou like a headline.
\n 
\nRemember when they
\ncame for her
\nand you first heard
\na whip snap?
\n 
\nThe ground trembles
\nas if rehearsing
\na disaster movie.
\n 
\nRemember when they
\ncame for them
\nand you learned
\na new word\u2014noose?
\n 
\nBlue-black and brown
\nof dried blood
\npainful even to the eye.
\n 
\nRemember when they
\ncame for you
\nfine people,
\nlock stepped,
\n 
\ntiki torches on high,
\ndrum beat louder
\nthan anger?
\n 
\nYou will, you will. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nClive Donovan<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nI SEE YOU
\n 
\nI watch you through the vase
\non the other side of our table,
\nwhich is round and democratic,
\nbut too broad to reach out fingers and touch.
\n 
\nIts crystal facets sparkle in sunlight,
\nyour frown fragments to a thousand bits
\nas I observe you pondering your newspaper,
\nthe morning muesli softening to mush.
\n 
\nMy silver spoon, so highly polished;
\non its reverse, I see myself;
\nthe convexed face like a chimpanzee.
\nNo wonder you don’t look back at me.
\n 
\nThe blossom in the vase is fresh and gay.
\nI am hiding in a forest of petals.
\nI leap from branch to twig in a haze of pink,
\njump into your dish of milk, waving.
\n 
\nThen you get up, it’s time for work:
\nOff you go to kill another company.
\nI will pull on a summer frock,
\ntake up my secateurs, my gin.
\n 
\n 
\nSEX, DEATH, BLACK STOCKINGS
\n 
\nThe mothball smell of death in damp noses,
\njackets stained with wedding champagne and reefer burns
\nfrom happier times; harem veils and dressy hats.
\nWe all look deliciously sorrowful, of course,
\nstroking like ants, exchanging the chemicals of pity,
\nthe licence we are given for this day’s
\nclasping of wrists in erotic pain
\nand though we may weep for this belov\u00e8d comrade,
\nI also weep for your shoulders, your gloves,
\nyour black-clad knees, your chap-sticked mouth,
\nlonging to hold you for longer than a brief hug,
\n 
\nwhich was a solid junction of groins in affirmation
\nof Love and Life \u2013 let us not hesitate to say those words,
\nwe who exist still, with firm spines, red lips,
\nhot spurts, gasping exhalations of cigarettes
\nbehind the western wall of church,
\nbefore the canap\u00e9s and whisky will soften us,
\nlike the man we have just said goodbye to
\nand we retreat to the lines we have drawn,
\nof marriage and generations and age;
\nthe separation, waste and lost opportunities,
\nas we all grow old together towards the lonely grave. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nMerridawn Duckler<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nFIRE SEASON
\n 
\nTwo thirds of my state is on fire
\nwhile I\u2019m at the Tualatin Country Club
\nat the birthday of a survivor
\nhis dumb luck
\n 
\nto have been spared
\nas he sits surrounded by Jews
\nonce barred elsewhere but now
\nonly sprinklers may hiss as they enter.
\n 
\nThen I kiss his cheek
\nstill pink ninety-nine summers,
\nhe whispers: you and I have business later
\nflirty words from a man who knew
\n 
\ndeath in the biblical sense
\nwhere they ate candles
\ncut into splinters
\ndreamt the conflagration of one more year
\n 
\nparched with wonder
\nregarding what destruction is natural or unnatural
\nwhile the waiter bends to ask about water
\n& I whisper thank you I am the fire. <\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nPARABLE OF THE REHEARSAL
\n 
\nThe director said meanwhile let\u2019s take it from the top of your breastbone and Charissa who was in love with Stavia imagined touching her breastbone to breastbone and between lips with the very tip of her salty tongue and Philp shook off his gig economy position as a financial advisor to the ruinous few and tried to let the poetry hiss between his teeth like the squirrel he\u2019d passed in the green parkway and Robyn had skipped her 5K again so her lungs were stiff as leather bellow and Glen and Ben had a fight that morning which was about nothing in the way that breathing is nothing and Marcelle ignored the injunction because she was casually considering being done with breath now and forever and David drew from his deep well of narcissism that began in his satiated belly and Belle commenced hiccups and wondered if this was part of a pre-condition of shallowness or the well source of all charm and Russ licked her lips with satisfaction as she imagined arranging them on that big dick of Steph and Thor thought of how much they hated breathing as exercise and Julie\u2019s head was as empty as the part in script that said breathe and Devon held his and Maggie expelled hers and the air was rife with molecules that carried both poisons and information and the director said ok now let it go completely out your toes and wondered how his life had come to be doing only what he loved for as long as anyone loved it and was it all just a preparation and the answer was yes and the answer was yes and the answer was yes<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Estabrook<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nBEER
\n 
\n    . . . one of the last things Dad did
\n    before he died was to buy an Erector Set
\n    to teach his sons how to build things . . .
\n 
\nThere they are in the airport at the rental car counter
\nfather and son, carbon copies of one another
\ntall, loud, brash, laughing, in control
\nthe world is their clam (or is it oyster).
\nHard to avoid looking at them looming loudly over everything
\nand of course I’m finding them annoying, obnoxious even.
\nBut they are not really doing anything wrong
\nnot being rude or disrespectful
\nsimply being father and son two peas in a pod
\nsame voice, same smile, same stance
\nfinishing each other sentences right out there for all to see
\nwhich is probably the problem for me considering
\nthat my dad died
\nbefore we could even have a beer together.
\n 
\n 
\nSASHAY
\n 
\n 
\n    . . . men are idiots
\n    around beautiful women
\n    there\u2019s no getting around it . . .
\n 
\nPoem I wrote 20 years ago about Carol
\na grad school friend appears
\nin an anthology entitled \u201cBeautiful.\u201d
\n 
\n\u201cher hair still brown and lush and long,
\nand full, too,
\nbut not like the moon.\u201d
\n 
\nI was really like a big brother to her I explain
\nto my wife surprised
\nat her jealous reaction after reading it.
\n 
\n\u201cI’m not jealous\u201d she insisted
\nas she walked, or rather sashayed
\nout of the room.
\n 
\n 
\nPINK SOFA
\n 
\n    . . . don\u2019t struggle against
\n    the waves, instead become one
\n    with the ocean . . .
\n 
\nTrying not to look uncomfortable
\nwhile sitting on the pink sofa
\nin the lingerie department
\nof Nordstrom\u2019s but I had to sit down someplace
\nfeet throbbing, hips burning, and this was
\nthe only game in town while waiting for my wife
\nto find new clothes: summer top or dress
\nshorts or slacks anything but a new bathing suit.
\nShe tells me her bathing suit days
\nare over but I miss them I really do
\nmiss those good old days of youth and vigor
\nespecially while resting here on this pink sofa
\nin Nordstrom\u2019s lingerie department
\nwaiting for my wife. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nR. Gerry Fabian<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nEXPLORING THE RESIDUE OF LOSS
\n 
\nWhat\u2019s been left behind
\ntells so much more
\nof the solemn secrets:
\nmy college coffee mug,
\nthe \u201ctrash\u201d chair I found
\nand patiently refinished,
\nmy mother\u2019s antique table,
\nthe flea market garlic press,
\nmy grandfather\u2019s bone handle
\nrazor sharp carving knife
\nand a photo of you
\nnaked from the waist up
\nI took
\njust before you warned me
\nof the hazards of love. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nVern Fein<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nFIRST ACID TRIP
\n 
\nHey, I saw a photo of us
\nwhen we were young and beautiful
\nlike the magic world
\nthat found us lying on the bed
\nduring our first acid trip
\nrainbow colors
\nmixed with soundz
\nside-splitting laughter.
\n 
\nFirst you said the Hamms\u2019 bear
\nfrom the Sky Blue commercial
\nwas in your socks\u2014
\nalmost howled them off.
\n 
\nTried to recall the words
\nto Hickory Dickory Dock
\nand got it wrong\u2014
\ndid the mouse run up or down\u2014
\nwe laughed ourselves to sleep.
\n 
\nThose were the Days my friend
\nwe thought they\u2019d never end<\/i>
\n 
\nBut cats came on the scene
\ncut the pills for profit,
\ndrove us hippies
\nout of our synaesthetic dreams.
\n 
\nSoon our hitchhiking minds
\nonly took bad trips
\nand poof the magic. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Freborg<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nGOING TO
\n 
\nMy aunt was always going to.
\nGoing to take us to the show on Friday,
\nexcept it ended its run on Wednesday night.
\nGoing to take us to the circus,
\nuntil a lady in line fainted in the sun.
\nGoing to send that twenty-dollar gift
\nthat strangely never came.
\n 
\nAs older sister, she told the younger one to wait:
\nshe was going to be back real soon
\nand then she didn\u2019t come.
\n 
\nWhen my mother failed her driving test,
\nmy aunt said she<\/i> was going to pass.
\nLater on, my mother gave her rides
\nbecause my aunt never learned to drive.
\n 
\nMy mother, as a child, always waited.
\nAs a woman, she always forgave.
\nThe family always forgave.
\n 
\nWhen my aunt died, we missed her
\nmore than there are reasons why. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nGeorge Freek<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nA SINGULARITY (After Su Tung Po)
\n 
\nI watch my yard fill with snow.
\nIt\u2019s almost knee deep.
\nIf I wanted to,
\nthere\u2019s nowhere I could go.
\nThe winds roam the street
\nlike hungry swine,
\nsearching for scraps to eat.
\nMy wife is gone.
\nMy friends are dead.
\nI once had a cat.
\nHe also abandoned me.
\nI couldn\u2019t blame him.
\nMy life had come unstrung.
\nI\u2019ve become unfriendly,
\nand I wasn\u2019t much fun,
\neven when I was young. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nMeg Freer<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nSYMBIOSIS
\n 
\nsome trees want to touch and be touched
\nhold underground discussions
\nof their family issues
\n 
\nsome trees wonder whether and how
\nto share moisture and food
\ndo they wonder why giraffes hum at night?
\n 
\nfruit bats love to argue in their roost
\nabout food, sleeping positions, and how
\nto deal with the one who wants to get too close
\n 
\nfrom the thumb\u2019s perspective
\nwe are all buttons waiting to be pushed,
\nhoping the right one speaks<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDaniel Galef<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFIN
\n 
\nI bore my sister Beatrice
\nto the beach upon my shoulder.
\nI waded in the sea a trice
\nbut she, alas, was bolder.
\n 
\nIn that world-encircling wet,
\na kicking, bite-sized morsel,
\nshe and another met;
\nit was a fin, and it was dorsal.
\n 
\nLike a card when it\u2019s been palmed,
\nin a flash we could not sight her,
\nthen, anon, the water calmed.
\nThe walk back was much lighter. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nMaryam Ghouth<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nSEVERED
\n 
\n\u201cI look at you and see him:
\nyour eastern brows, your thick locks,
\nthe way you leave trails of sticky notes
\nand dot the room with cold teacups;
\nI see the day he took you from me when
\neven Margaret Thatcher couldn\u2019t help me.
\nI see it all over again.\u201d
\n 
\nShe tells her daughter
\nthe same story she\u2019s told her every year:
\n\u201cHe chained me to a bed and then\u2026\u201d
\n 
\nWhen the daughter removes the lamp
\nfrom her room, the room in which she
\nscatters notes and dots teacups,
\nher mother tells her:
\n\u201cThis is not your home.\u201d
\n 
\nHer daughter pleads: \u201cI came back
\nyears ago, but you still see only
\nmy father\u2019s shadow.\u201d
\n 
\nWhen the daughter is bedridden, hospital-bound,
\nher mother, through a throng of spirits
\noozing from her outstretched lips, says:
\n\u201cI must dash to a party because I want to\u2026\u201d
\nHer daughter mutters: \u201cHave sex.\u201d
\n 
\nAnd when the daughter moves to a foreign land,
\nher mother emails every six months;
\nshe does not text because it costs
\ntwo pounds:
\ntwo pounds of hope.
\n 
\nA mother protects herself from
\nher love for her child.
\nShe cannot bear to suffer loss. She
\ncannot bear defeat
\nto two palm trees and a sword,
\nand the guilt
\nof not rescuing her child
\nfrom a man who shackles and beats so
\n 
\nshe cuts the cord. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Grey<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nSTEPHANIE AND ZACH
\n 
\nA widow for twenty years,
\nshe now tends for a man
\nshe never married.
\nShe cooks and prays for him,
\nhelps him get around his cottage,
\neven guides his weakened body
\nback and forth to the bathroom.
\n 
\nShe makes coffee, collects the mail.
\nShe even has his shoes and watch fixed
\nthough he wears neither of them,
\nsits at his bedside,
\ntelling of her hopes and fears
\nand his reasons to be optimistic.
\n 
\nShe has a statue’s patience
\nand a newfound wellspring of authority.
\nShe’s no doctor
\nbut she has her cures
\nfrom a kiss of his sunken cheek
\nto “Fur Elise” on the piano.
\n 
\nThey are not in love exactly
\nbut nor is he her patient.
\nThey live together.
\nLike all of us,
\nhe’ll die alone.
\nBut with someone
\nwho does not know that. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nGemma Harland<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nEARLY SKETCHES
\n 
\nLouder and louder
\nthe clip clip clip of her shoes
\nfrom the quiet street
\n 
\nSun in her red hair \u2013
\nbeyond the film-star glamour
\na cold flash of steel
\n 
\nA gentle buzzing \u2013
\nshe reaches for the fly spray.
\nMum, please don’t kill it!
\n 
\nHer laugh is springtime \u2013
\na burst of blue sky and warmth
\nand a savage frost
\n 
\nA walk in the woods \u2013
\nabove her endless chatter
\nwe hear no birdsong
\n 
\nPlaying in long grass
\nI turn towards her, smiling \u2013
\nher look is a scythe
\n 
\nShe offers sugar
\nbut what comes out of the bowl
\nbites like scorpions<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nMichelle Hartman<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nCAUGHT IN THE CROTCHFIRE
\n 
\nJust stroking the triangular barrel
\nprimes him, an aphrodisiac.
\nThe Desert Eagle is an undeniable
\nemblem of manhood,
\nhis.
\nA holy instrument of vigor, virility
\nevoking savage charisma. He poses
\n    before full length mirror
\n     naked but for oil
\nbelieves he exudes pheromones
\nto make women ovulate.
\nHe fantasizes a role-playing game
\nhis Doc Martens, pair of aviators
\nand the Eagle jutting proudly.
\nShe\u2019ll swoon or whatever it is girls do.
\nBut guns are banned
\n    where girls are paid for.
\nSo, he stands
\nbefore bathroom mirror
\nEagle in one hand
\ndreams in the other.
\nAll that is needed
\nis the sweet, hot kiss of cordite
\nperfumed lead
\n 
\n 
\nA FAMILY SECRET
\n\u2014after Alan Moore
\n 
\nI.
\nGussie strides the aisles of the farmers market,
\nan Alice the Goon type of woman
\nfilled by cherrry malevolence,
\nwho\u2019ll eat anything
\ntripe, brains and eggs or head cheese in lard.
\nGussie\u2019s daddy, Lionel, had gone
\nwhat the family called Cornery
\nand by the end of his life, was eating flowers.
\nNo one was surprised, since Lionel\u2019s
\ndaddy, Berford, lost his mind
\nworking on the railroad terminal
\nfor the WPA. His hair turned white overnight.
\nHe passed the insanity on
\nas family silver.
\nHis sister, Cleo, who was a genius
\non the accordion, despite
\nbeing bat-shit crazy, was never
\nas bad as daddy\u2019s cousin Reginald
\nwho\u2019s still in the state home in Terrell.
\nII.
\nIt\u2019s called the turn, the bend, the twist,
\nand the corner; so many terms
\nfor family long forgot. A sudden angle
\nin your thinking maybe invisible
\nor see-through like the plastic food wrap
\nGussie wears under her clothes.
\nThe lines are all wrong, in a direction
\nyou can\u2019t draw or think about. Once
\nyou turn this corner you are lost forever.
\nEveryone will feel sorry
\nbut won\u2019t want to meet you for coffee.
\nIt isn\u2019t your immediate family
\n  but still it\u2019s a family embarrassment.
\nThis morning I got lost in the closet. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Helweg-Larsen<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nVILLAGE F\u00caTES
\n 
\nCome learn your fates at the village f\u00eates,
\nhosted by kindly vicars;
\nthere\u2019s lots to eat, don\u2019t be discreet –
\nbut your attention flickers…
\n 
\nthe boys want toys with lots of noise,
\nthe girls want glittery stickers,
\nwhile a gypsy tent, being devil-sent,
\noffers both lust and snickers.
\n 
\nThe f\u00eates are fine for beer and wine,
\nless so for fancy liquors;
\nif you want to cruise for a bit of booze,
\nthey\u2019re not for city slickers;
\n 
\nbut the real thrust builds on the trust
\nof godly, sinful vicars–
\nit\u2019s being caressed by a gypsy breast
\nthat puts a twist in their knickers. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Henson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nIF MY LIFE EXPECTANCY WERE A PIZZA
\n 
\nMy wife removes the pizza
\nfrom the oven, says Not much
\nof a birthday feast. <\/i>
\n 
\nI used to enjoy cake,
\ndancing, getting a little
\ntipsy. Now another year
\nis the last thing I want
\nto celebrate.
\n 
\nThis morning I calculated
\nif my daily walk were my life
\nexpectancy, the end
\nwould be lurking just
\nout of view.
\n 
\nI rock the cutter,
\ncount the slices, hesitate.
\n 
\nAre you doing that life
\nexpectancy thing with the pizza? <\/i>
\n 
\nWish it were an extra large.
\n 
\nMy wife takes a couple pieces.
\nSave some for Susan. <\/i>
\n 
\nSuzy\u2019s coming? The three of us
\ntogether this weekend?
\nI look at the pizza \u2014
\ncheese, mushrooms, onions.
\nSometimes I forget
\nhow delicious it can be. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nGil Hoy<\/a><\/strong>
\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 
\n 
\nNate Jacob<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nIF I DIE TODAY
\n 
\nIf today, I were to be hit dead on
\nby a bus, so be it. I\u2019ll just be gone.
\nThere are sure to be loose ends
\ndragging along behind my ebbing soul,
\nso I can be at least hopeful that,
\nin time, some of my children
\nwill see them for what they are:
\nthe tattered edges of my life, of me,
\nnow and forever my phantom energy
\nhaunting them until, exasperated,
\nthey pay my lingering dentist bill
\nand lay to rest the line of credit
\nI needlessly took out three years ago
\nat that basement sandwich shop,
\nthe one with the great reuben
\nand the stool in the corner,
\nfacing into the shadowy recess
\nreserved for ghosts and old men
\nwho eat slowly, and all too often, alone. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nDoug Jacquier<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nCHRISTMAS PRESENCE
\n 
\nWhatever the generations bring
\nto this collective presence,
\nthere will be totems of the past
\nfixed firmly insistent in each of our minds,
\narrayed with faces carved in the hard woods
\nthat only family trees produce
\nand set, sometimes poles apart, in the family grove.
\n 
\nChildren growing themselves from new numbers each year,
\nall named and loved and parented in common for a day
\nwith tear-filled eyes, chocolate-coated faces and grinny cheeks,
\neach hoisted to embrace and admiration,
\nall feats applauded and all false pride mocked.
\n 
\nFood, prepared as sanctioned by time,
\nin unspoken, ordained ritual by the women,
\nthe bearers of all sustaining life.
\n 
\nMen, surrounded by seemingly unobservant boys,
\nusing beer to shorten stretching distances,
\nquietly competing every hurdle
\nuntil a child clings to a leg
\nand wins.
\n 
\nLives past, sitting patiently in reserved and sacred chairs,
\ncoming back to life in anecdotes
\nof bastardry and joy.
\n 
\nToddlers and crawlers, excited and bewildered,
\nknee-deep in wrapping paper and parental nostalgia.
\n 
\nBabes at breast, absorbing every nuance
\nthrough the pores of their clan skin
\nand the memories encoded in their mother\u2019s milk.
\n 
\nThe married-ins, belonging in their separateness
\nto this caravan, as hopeful and as helpless
\nas those that followed a certain star
\nbut at least knowing for whom they bear their gifts.
\n 
\nAnd, amidst all, the matriarch unfolds a pattern
\nand, with skills both ancient and subtle,
\ndraws to her strands unknitted,
\nin case they ever unravel
\nand pull the fabric apart. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nStephen Kampa<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nBRIEF NOTE TO ONE WHO WRONGED ME FOR A BUCK
\n 
\nI write to congratulate you on the death
\nof your mother. I know her months of cancer
\nproved costly, and now that you no longer need
\n    to piss cash away
\n 
\non someone who was always certain to croak,
\nyou can recommence spending all your hard-earned
\ndividends on the junk you value more than
\n     anyone: yourself.
\n 
\nAfter all, don\u2019t you deserve a guilt-free day
\non the yacht? After all you\u2019ve suffered, caring
\nfor that depreciating asset that was
\n     your dying mother,
\n 
\ndon\u2019t you deserve the full-package casino
\nweekend, the extradimensional flat screen,
\nthe little pup in the big-ass purse, the rare
\n    imported dildo?
\n 
\nMaybe now you can book that luxury flight
\nto visit your children who, when they regard
\nyou at all, squint as if reading the fine print
\n    on what really counts. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nSarah Mackey Kirby<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nTHE DAYS OF DUMPSTER SMOKING
\n 
\nYou spend most of your life
\ntrying to recapture the throat burning.
\nThe singe of a Friday afternoon
\nkeeping him company behind the
\ndrugstore dumpster as he blew
\nsmoke circles from the good cigarettes
\nyou got him free
\nfrom your dad\u2019s factory job.
\n 
\nBefore driving past Old Lynn Farm,
\ndirt road curves dusting up
\nthe Carolina blue of summer sky
\nwhile Chris Cornell and Billy Corgan
\nserenaded the two of you,
\nwindows rolled down
\nthrough fields of artist sun.
\nHow bad you wanted to be held,
\nto be loved so much
\nthat love had a texture,
\na current, a potency,
\na taste.
\n 
\nWhere all that lonely
\nsnapping your bones
\nlike twigs on a dogwood
\ndisappeared for a while.
\nFlew off with the Cooper\u2019s hawks
\ninto the arms of coming dusk.
\nAnd you were left inside shadows
\nsipping cheap bourbon
\nhe knew would impress you
\nbecause it felt like danger.
\nHow those hours were danger,
\nthe good kind.
\n 
\nThe young kind
\nthat lingered for decades.
\nSweetening up the stumbles.
\nReminding you that you\u2019re not
\nreally living \u2019til you open, wide-eyed,
\nbelow a storm so fierce
\nit killed off all the rainbows.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nKoss<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n10 THINGS TO REMEMBER \u2018BOUT ME WHEN I\u2019M DEAD
\n <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I was a victim more than once, but said no and no and no; I\u2019m the craggy boxing bitch, staggering through the bloodstream. Dig my damn red lace-up boots, I wore them just for you. <\/li>\n
  2. I dug karate too including kicking dudes\u2019 asses\u2014but quit because the power of it made me uncomfortable; I\u2019ve always been a bit at odds with me. It wasn\u2019t the real world anyway. <\/li>\n
  3. There is no obvious winning, but the living is getting back up until you don\u2019t. <\/li>\n
  4. Defense mechanisms, only a few: if someone fucks me over, I immediately forget their name; this one only improves with age. <\/li>\n
  5. Tend to face the world so raw and open, some call me intolerable and over-intense; I\u2019m a one-speed train with a lion for an engine and a cast-iron cannonball for a head. Fortunately, I\u2019m also withdrawn and frequently tired. <\/li>\n
  6. I once traded shirts with someone in the middle of a busy intersection in Ann Arbor during Art Fair. Afterward, we scaled a fence into a construction site and drank beer in a bulldozer claw. <\/li>\n
  7. I made some beautiful things during this embodiment\u2014sublime turnings from the fallen box elder, some wistful paintings for the dead museum\u2014 people liked or hated, a few poems that got the same reaction; I\u2019m, therefore, immortal, so don\u2019t miss me. I\u2019m around in your basements and dresser drawers\u2014and staring back atcha from the thrift shop walls and the musty book store shelves. You might have to work a bit\u2014look at the table of contents, not the spine. I\u2019ll surprise you maybe. <\/li>\n
  8. Made my grandparents Easter baskets from age nine until they died. Saw Grams through her last eight years. <\/li>\n
  9. They called me \u201cStone\u201d when I played ball; I pitched. No one could shake me, they said. I threw up in private. Secretly, I hated team sports. Could handle tennis, with the opponent safely positioned on the other side of the net. Skirts gave me the shits. <\/li>\n
  10. As a child, I ate garlic to ward off my vampiric parents. I still eat garlic. Can\u2019t hurt. <\/a><\/ol>\n

     
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMarek     Kulig<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nTHE CHICKEN OR THE ACORN
    \n 
    \nIt was a stone\u2019s throw as the crow flies,
    \nbut on that day, more squirrels than
    \nin the past week\u2019s sum of them
    \ncrossed double yellows to cache fall\u2019s score
    \nin yards lesioned with melanotic blotches
    \nwet-pressed by the clouds\u2019
    \nswift shed of the weather.
    \n 
    \nAnd while those indifferent dodgers
    \nfrom that ages-old interrogation question
    \ncentrally concerned with motives
    \nregularly get to the other side of the road
    \n(the chickens, you see!) without even
    \nthe slightest ruffle in their featherdom,
    \nthe fateful squirrel\u2019s headlong dash isn\u2019t half
    \nas riddling. It\u2019s as if short distance works against it.
    \n 
    \nThe crow sets on a fencepost three paces
    \nback from the far-side curb. Near-side,
    \na squirrel is upside down along a tree trunk.
    \nIt had sequestered a forgettable batch
    \nthat morning. Afternoon now,
    \nit makes for a final burial. Inside the crow\u2019s stomach
    \nare acids so eclectic they tolerate and destroy.
    \n 
    \nPost-quietus calm is poorly exhibited
    \nby the driver who thinks they were dealt the brunt of it.
    \nBid me the autocider who flattens a sauntering squirrel,
    \nI\u2019ll raise you the temperature at which hell is
    \nkept warm for them. The acorn rolls to a stop
    \nat the feet of the crow. The road is a straight one.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nSusan     Landgraf<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nCOUNTDOWN
    \n 
    \nFour children hide
    \nand seek
    \nin the Kentucky hills
    \nbefore the fireflies come out.
    \nBobby counts 20, 19, 18\u2026<\/i>
    \n    Only the oak leaves move.
    \n    A deer up the gully
    \n    waits.
    \nNone of the children think
    \nof the deer or the hunter
    \nor the science lesson last week
    \n    17, 16, 15<\/i>\u2026 about amoebas
    \nwith their fallen foot
    \ndividing nuclei into two
    \nor building hard cysts around themselves
    \nfor protection.
    \n    14, 13, 12<\/i> Bobby, Sophie,
    \nScott and Charlotte are not
    \nthinking about the shot
    \nthat will wing its way through the woods
    \nnot thinking about being
    \nquick-witted
    \n    quick-footed 11, 10, 9<\/i>\u2026
    \nThey are not thinking division
    \nor dividing up a deer
    \nor the next year\u2019s papers or books
    \n    thinking
    \n8, 7, 6<\/i>\u2026 only about how well
    \nthey\u2019re hidden, their breathing
    \n    almost stopped
    \n    5, 4, 3, 2<\/i>\u2026    <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nSuzanne     Langlois<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nBODY SHAME
    \n 
    \nMost days I wear my body like a crime
    \nI\u2019m trying to hide. I am plump and happy
    \nas a housecat\u2014except for the happy part,
    \nbecause of the plump part. When I catch
    \nmy reflection in a window and realize
    \nthe stranger I see is me, three-tiered belly
    \nstretching the front of my shirt so I look
    \nlike a segmented worm, I want to run
    \na hook through the softest part of me.
    \nBut this is what I\u2019ve grown up and out
    \nto be. Time didn\u2019t so much ransack me
    \nas fail to keep up with the scheduled
    \nmaintenance. The clock flicked its fingers
    \nagainst my forehead and my skin creased
    \nand spotted, and suddenly, here I am\u2014
    \nin the afterlife that happens during life,
    \ninvisible as all ghosts are invisible,
    \nwhich you\u2019d think would be a relief
    \nafter years of hating the outfit fate chose
    \nfor me, like a bad bridesmaid\u2019s dress.
    \nI never expected to become a ghost
    \nbefore I\u2019d even become a corpse.
    \nI never expected my ghost
    \nto be haunted by my body.
    \n 
    \n 
    \nDECEIVED
    \n 
    \nThe best thief does not put
    \nhis hand in your pocket.
    \nHis hand is your pocket.
    \nYou put your money in it,
    \nthinking it\u2019s the safest place.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nRichard     LeDue<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \n HE HASN’T LEARNED YET
    \n 
    \nthat a fist makes a hole in the wall
    \neasier than his head,
    \nhow his frustration doesn’t need to be
    \nthe same colour as a bloody nose,
    \nhis blue helmet not a punishment but protection,
    \nand that a father feels his son’s pain
    \njust as bad
    \nas any bruise or cut
    \nI was too slow to stop.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMichael H.     Levin<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nHIDDEN DRIVE
    \n 
    \nJust past a crooked bend
    \nit springs: vine-shadowed gap,
    \ndisgorging an arachnid shape
    \nthat crawls across my lights.
    \n 
    \n              Merely
    \na tractor in low gear, bumbling
    \nand wheezing towards its nightly
    \nbarn; but suddenly I\u2019m paddling
    \nin the wake of dreams.
    \n 
    \n              I\u2019m four.
    \nA hunting pack of wolves
    \ninvades the house. Gray bristles
    \non their spines erect, they crouch
    \nthen silently advance upon
    \nour blue pile rug. Arm
    \nraised to block those yellow glares
    \nI seek a door. First lesson
    \nin inverted space: the dark outside
    \nmay be more safe.
    \n 
    \n              I\u2019m eight.
    \nThe urge to dominate spills over
    \nin a game of toreador.
    \nFlapping a makeshift cape I lure
    \nmy little brother to a rocket charge
    \nagainst the razor corner of our
    \nfaux-stone \u00e9tag\u00e8re. The room turns red;
    \nblood on the floor, my shoes,
    \nthe sopping rag I flap about
    \nhis head. Our Mom screams in.
    \nIt was an accident<\/i>, I say
    \nstraight-faced; triumphant in an
    \nun-shamed state of grace.
    \n 
    \n              I\u2019m two.
    \nMy father\u2019s off again to War,
    \na giant khaki shoulder
    \nthumping down the stair. <\/p>\n

                  We ship out
    \nto my Nanny\u2019s home: tall narrow
    \nplace of honeycomb salons
    \nwhere dead gas sconces clutch the walls
    \nand coal still scuttles to its cellar lair.
    \nWhere stark things muster round my crib:
    \nthe peg-leg ghost with burlap sack
    \nwhose serpent slithers idly by,
    \nwhose lizard-like companion
    \nbreathes blue cyanide.
    \n 
    \n              These glimmers
    \nmight be ivory; might be horn.
    \nI slip the brake and roll
    \npast hidden drives
    \nthat I\u2019ve erased.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nFay L.     Loomis<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nRE-TRASHED
    \n 
    \nThrough wall-sized windows
    \nI witness life unfold across Route 209.
    \n 
    \nTuesday, man, big belly wrapped
    \nin windbreaker, hunkers on grey boulder
    \nshovels food from a throw-away container.
    \n 
    \nBus sidles up, loads passenger, lurches away.
    \nPlastic bowl and protruding spoon
    \nsquat in the place vacated by his bum.
    \n 
    \nFriday, same duffer, shorts, paunch poking
    \nthrough T-shirt, ambles toward the stone
    \npoints finger at his abandoned trash
    \ncackles, flips hand dismissively
    \ndrops refuse behind rock.
    \n 
    \nDumbfounded, I shake my head
    \ntry to rouse my addled brain.
    \nWant to scream: \u201cPick it up!\u201d
    \n 
    \nI won\u2019t. Concert forty years ago
    \nscorches my psyche, stays my voice.
    \nYoung couple sprawled on hillside
    \nfling beer bottles over shoulder
    \nlike gum wrappers.
    \n 
    \nWould you please pick up your empties
    \nput them in a trash barrel? <\/i>
    \n 
    \n\u201cShut your mouth, or I\u2019ll shut it for you,\u201d
    \nwoman shrieks. Man growls, \u201cYah bitch
    \nshut your mouth or we will.\u201d
    \n 
    \nIn the dark of that night
    \nmenacing words staggered my mind.
    \n 
    \nBus picks up recycled version
    \nof twenty something, shuffles him
    \ninto the unknown.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nJ. C.     Mari<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nMOTHER\u2019S DAY
    \n 
    \n…and it may be the case
    \nThat contingency crushes me before,
    \nwhat with
    \nthe drinking and
    \nall else besides,
    \nbut if not
    \nthen
    \n 
    \none day i could
    \nwalk into a house
    \nthat you’ve already left
    \n 
    \nonly a rigid something
    \nthere now
    \nwearing a mask that mocks your face.
    \n 
    \ni won’t write songs about it, taciturn with
    \nfolkish overtones
    \nand lots of strumming
    \nin a minor key,
    \nthe kind of thing
    \npeople with a curled up ‘stash
    \nmight listen to,
    \n 
    \nno,
    \n 
    \nand i won’t discuss it
    \nwith the 1 or 2
    \nfriends that remain:
    \n 
    \ni’ll just say
    \n“everyone dies”
    \nand
    \nempty my drink.
    \n 
    \ni won’t puke out
    \n25 poems to purge the poison and
    \nsneak into literary magazines,
    \nexcept this one, but
    \nit doesn’t count
    \n’cause you still breathe,
    \nno,
    \n 
    \nthe only thing, i think,
    \ni’ll be able to do
    \nis to remember,
    \n    remember,
    \n         remember,
    \n 
    \nimage and
    \nhalf-recalled anecdote
    \npiling on and surging
    \nunstoppable
    \n 
    \nlike antibiotic-resistant
    \n              bacteria
    \nor
    \ngangrene crawling up your leg.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nBetsy     Mars<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nMONKEY BRAINS
    \n 
    \nA heavy head bobs above the slim, hairy neck
    \nprotruding from a rough hole carved
    \nin the flat plank that makes the tabletop.
    \nHis body below, agitated, hums with adrenaline.
    \n 
    \nSomeone takes a heavy mallet\u2014 no,
    \nworse\u2014 a saw\u2014 carves through bone
    \njust above the brow.
    \n 
    \nBy now the monkey senses danger.
    \n Immobilized, it protects itself
    \nthe only way it can, shutting down its brain.
    \n 
    \nI remember hearing this when I was monkey-sized,
    \nthe kind of tale we told each other, who knows why.
    \nI never knew if it was true, and maybe that isn\u2019t what matters
    \n 
    \nbut instead the way we cast cruelty like a net,
    \ncapturing the innocent, our illusions shattered, forever
    \nleft to wonder whether someone somewhere, by need
    \nor choice feeds on this terrible delicacy.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nTim     Mayo<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nPARTRIDGE
    \n 
    \nYou killed a partridge once. It was autumn, and you\u2019d
    \nflushed it out of the same tree so many times you
    \nwere getting to know the bird\u2013\u2013the time of day
    \nit always sunned itself beside a plump apple.
    \n 
    \nSo, that afternoon, you didn\u2019t walk down the small
    \nopen field as usual, where the apple tree backed up
    \nagainst a huddle of small pines as if knowing that field
    \nwas shrinking into extinction. Instead, you went
    \n 
    \nbehind the bird, behind its back, circled around and
    \ncrawled under the pines, the bed of brown needles
    \nbelow muffling the slow rubbing sound of your body
    \nagainst the earth until you just lay there beneath the bird.
    \n 
    \nAnd then, you shot it. Right there, where the sky was
    \nblue and continued to be blue after the bird was gone.
    \nIn the end, you were too close, and there was nothing
    \nleft\u2013\u2013not even a plume of memory for its mate.
    \n 
    \n 
    \nVICISSITUDES
    \n 
    \nYainfrumarounh\u00e9a, <\/i> said the hitchhiker. I thought
    \nabout his ear for accent, as I planned my answer:
    \nhow I\u2019d lived here twice as long as he\u2019d been alive,
    \nthat I knew more than he did about the land he\u2019d been
    \nborn to, but I kept my counsel. He was poorer than I,
    \nunread, though the leaves of trees were a library to him.
    \nNo car, or at least none that worked, and a home too
    \ncomplicated to hitch to: down this dirt road to that one
    \nafter all the asphalt he would have had to travel
    \nfrom where he worked to get there, but he was going
    \nthe other way. So, once out of the woods, he thumbed.
    \nI\u2019d done that, too, walked miles to the macadam
    \nthen hoped my way. Still, I wasn\u2019t the same as him.
    \nI no longer hoped, and my speech was too crisp
    \nand learned, my words distinctly differentiated,
    \nnot slurred together into one, long word-of-a-sentence
    \nwith consonants lopped off and vowels lilting against
    \nwhat\u2019s left to make my speech harmonious to his ear.
    \nYet I understood his remark wasn\u2019t meant as an accusation.
    \nThankful for the ride, he wanted to make his small
    \ntalk with a stranger into something bigger, something
    \nthat could connect us over the long bridge we were
    \ncrossing in my car, him on his way to work,
    \nme on my way home, as I now lived in town
    \non a paved street instead of a hardpan road.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nDiane     Menna<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nHOW DO I LOVE BELLES LETTRES? IN THESE WAYS
    \nApologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning<\/i>
    \n 
    \nHow do I love thee, let me count the ways.
    \nI love thee for the true and holy height
    \nYou taught my soul to reach when in your sight.
    \nFor Donne\u2019s love logic, Shakespeare\u2019s ideal grace.
    \nI love thee as Frost wrote of every day\u2019s
    \nCommon New England need in broad daylight.
    \nI love thee as shy Dickinson chose right,
    \nRenounced the world while yearning for its praise.
    \nI love thee with the passion Whitman used
    \nTo worship body with a childhood\u2019s faith.
    \nI love thee with the power Hopkins let loose
    \nAs his word-sounds explode with every breath.
    \nI loved thee from the first\u2014and so can\u2019t choose,
    \nI shall but love thee even unto death.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nAmanda     Nietzel<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nI miss the feeling
    \nhands held under the table
    \nsomeone who sees you     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nRobert     Nisbet<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nHIS FIRST SHAVE
    \n 
    \nA Colgate Shaving Soap advertisement of 1908 shows a lad of maybe fourteen, in a traditional agricultural barn setting, equipped with razor blade, shaving mug and foam, embarking on \u201chis first shave\u201d. <\/i>
    \n 
    \nThe century\u2019s just eight years old. Brunt\u2019s Farm,
    \ntucked back in rural Gloucestershire. The boy
    \nis fourteen now and proudly marching on
    \nto adulthood. He scrapes the well-stropped blade
    \ndown fluffy cheek, there in the barn, and dreams
    \nof manhood, shaving, that first lick of blood.
    \n 
    \nThat year, his first calf love. Esther is young,
    \njust fourteen like himself. Then years of hope
    \nand happiness, and then his first real love.
    \nHer name is Martha, she\u2019s just seventeen.
    \nHe\u2019s twenty by that time and just about
    \nto leave for France and service at the front.
    \n 
    \nThe fourth and last march on to man\u2019s estate
    \ncomes one July. Machine-gun fire. The Somme.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMichael     Pearce<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nTHE METAPHYSICS OF GONE
    \n 
    \nFrank Mayne n\u00e9 Itzkowicz knew that Time
    \ntakes a backseat to nobody and nothing
    \nknew it in his bones as he saw
    \nin one timeless endless instant
    \nthat all was changed forever
    \nthere was no going back.
    \n 
    \nIt happened in a Cleveland factory
    \nbut it was Time ate Frank\u2019s finger
    \nand went on mawing all in its path
    \nshitting out memories and regrets
    \nand history\u2019s veiled laments
    \nleaving nothing absolutely unchanged.
    \n 
    \nFrank advances his pawn to queen three
    \nwith thumb and middle finger
    \nthe stub wagging like a cropped tail
    \nhe knows the factory closed after the war
    \nhe knows there are others\u2014it\u2019s not just Time
    \nthat\u2019s ruthless, relentless, insatiable.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nKen     Pobo<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nFEBRUARY GRAY
    \n 
    \nThis morning
    \n 
    \nsomething white
    \nin the yard\u2014a giant
    \npussywillow, catkins
    \nalmost all open,
    \nwhite making the gray
    \nsky run away, the sun
    \n 
    \ncoming out, winter
    \ngrabbing his gray coat
    \nand sprinting past
    \nour rusty red Mustang.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nFrederick     Pollack<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nSELF-PORTRAIT WITH FISH
    \n 
    \nI sprinkle lemon, herbs,
    \nmore oil into the enormous skillet.
    \nIn the kind sea-wind, the smell joins
    \nand fulfills more than combats
    \nthe sea-smell. Covers
    \nthe beach, and my friends gather
    \nfrom their towel-archipelago. They see
    \nsomeone grand, fit, genial
    \nsummoning them \u2013 as bronzed as the fish
    \nhe serves. While across
    \nthe waves, onto the sand comes
    \nan ethereal trimaran
    \ncrewed by a suitable naiad.
    \n 
    \nWho asks, \u201cIs there enough?\u201d
    \nI detect, like Pantagruel once,
    \nthe accent of my native Utopia.
    \n\u201cI and this mahi-mahi,\u201d I proclaim,
    \n\u201ccan effect blasphemous miracles,
    \nfeeding all.\u201d She assumes \u2013 unnecessarily \u2013
    \nthe posture an earlier century
    \ncalled the Line of Beauty. \u201cAnd those lovely
    \ndrinks, kept somehow cold,
    \nare your blood?\u201d \u201cMy blood,\u201d
    \nI reply with fleeting seriousness,
    \nhanding her one, \u201cis wit,
    \nthough currently less chilled than this.\u201d
    \n 
    \nBut now conditions change, as
    \nthey must along that coast.
    \nYet order, in the midst of ease,
    \nprevails: my friends, plates emptied,
    \nreturn with thanks and kisses to their vehicles.
    \nOur hands around each other\u2019s waists,
    \nthe girl from the sea and I
    \nobserve sky and horizon
    \nbecome what they are in Fournier\u2019s \u201cFuneral
    \nof Shelley\u201d \u2013 the one where the flames
    \nlick his sleeve, and he looks ready to be gone,
    \nTrevelyan and Hunt forlorn, and Byron
    \nalmost not even posing.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nShana     Ross<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nA CAT DIES IN THIS POEM
    \n 
    \nThis is not a nice story, but it\u2019s true. A person close to me
    \nhad a cat that would not stop peeing on his things, so
    \nhe took it to the vet, who said have you tried Prozac?
    \n 
    \nThis medicine can work wonders in cases like yours.<\/i> So.
    \nHe gave the cat pills, and the cat stopped peeing on things.
    \nHooray, <\/i> he said, hooray<\/i>, we have fixed the problem. So, he stopped
    \n 
    \ngiving the cat the pills because the problem was fixed. The cat
    \nresumed peeing on things, all the things. With a vengeance.
    \nWelp<\/i>, he said, we\u2019ve tried everything<\/i>. So, he had the cat put down.
    \n 
    \nTold the kids he went to live on a farm but the ashes
    \nstayed in a box in the hall closet for years and years and years.
    \nEveryone I tell this story to gets angry. Half the time they are
    \n 
    \nangry with me because I tell it like I don\u2019t know
    \nwhat an awful story it is, and half the time they are angry
    \nbecause when they ask why I didn\u2019t do anything to stop
    \n 
    \nhim from killing the cat, I shrug. What could I have done?
    \nI still don\u2019t know. So. I pick up a hammer to beat the dead
    \nhorse, who is an idiom, where the dead cat is truth
    \n  
    \nas well as metaphor for this moment we are all in. If you
    \nare still upset about the cat, look, me too. Complicity
    \nhas a way of parrying what should enter and sting us.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nEd     Ruzicka<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nLEAVING THE APARTMENT
    \n 
    \nA soldier walks out of a forest.
    \nHe wants a good sandwich.
    \nHe wants to close his eyelids,
    \nwake up somewhere he doesn\u2019t
    \nhave to walk out of a forest.
    \nShawls of fog hang over the field.
    \n 
    \nThe soldier is here because
    \nhe wanted to do what men do.
    \nThe soldier needs a better coat, maybe
    \na blanket around those shoulders.
    \n 
    \nA soldier walks out of the forest.
    \nSnow and dry weeds crackle.
    \nHe holds a tee shirt up, waves his arm.
    \nHe cannot feel his fingers. He can not
    \nfeel toes that seem cracked the way
    \nmarble is cracked on ancient sculptures.
    \n 
    \nThe soldier waves his tee shirt
    \nto say he needs his mother more
    \nthan he needs his mother-land.
    \nOne of the Ukrainians, who is seventeen,
    \nsees the soldier advance irregularly,
    \ntastes again the fear that he has tasted
    \noff and on for weeks. Fires off a burst.
    \n 
    \nOne bullet rips the left shoulder. One
    \nshatters the pelvis. The third sizzles
    \nthrough soft intestine, nests in the spine.
    \nThe young soldier wants to be back
    \nat the apartment in St. Petersburg,
    \n 
    \nto see that sunlight through
    \nthat window. He wants to tease
    \nhis sisters again as he pours out
    \na bowl of cereal and his mother
    \nbreezes back into the room.
    \n 
    \nBut now he goes to his other home,
    \nthe one we are all headed toward.
    \nThree bullets. The soldier leaks
    \ninto weeds, stains foreign dirt.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nClaire     Scott<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nTHE LITTLE THAT IS LEFT
    \n 
    \nMemories illegible
    \nwhitewashed and weather-
    \nbleached by time\u2019s relentless tick
    \n 
    \nMy caregiver Talia or Trisha or Trixie
    \nsays we need you to be clean<\/i>
    \nas she scrubs between my low slung breasts
    \n 
    \nLying like parched fruits across my stomach
    \nand I inhale the intimate agony
    \nof her flowery perfume
    \n 
    \nMy neurons are plotting against me
    \nstaging a mutiny after eighty years
    \nsynapses short circuiting, misfiring
    \n 
    \nThey used to be on my side
    \nsynchronized like a marching band
    \nlined up like migrating swallows
    \n 
    \nBut now Tyler or Tracy or Trina
    \nsays it is time for our supper
    \nas she tucks a napkin under my chin
    \n 
    \nTo catch our spills she says
    \nno interest in her watery soup or tasteless stews
    \nbut Tessa or Tara is my only friend
    \n 
    \nUnless you count the figure waiting in the wings
    \nwearing a sable suit and a sinister smile
    \nknowing his turn is coming next
    \n 
    \nSo we break open a bottle of our best wine
    \nwhile we watch swallows flying low
    \nand listen to the wobbly notes of a fading band    <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nDonald     Sellitti<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nTHE EXISTENTIAL DEFENSE FOR GUN VIOLENCE
    \n 
    \nIf I launched a bullet through your brain
    \nit would do no damage to the cosmos
    \nas you fell
    \nNor would the atoms within you
    \nnotice what I\u2019d done.
    \nIn the largest and the smallest schemes of things
    \nI\u2019ve done nothing with my gun.
    \n 
    \nIt is only in the middle where
    \n\u2018You\u2019 and \u2018I\u2019 are said to matter
    \nthat I\u2019ve done an awful thing
    \nto cause your head to shatter.
    \nDestroyed a living thing, a person, and a mind
    \nto leave, they say,
    \na homeless soul behind.
    \n 
    \nI\u2019m sorry if my callous act
    \nwill empty you of thought and breath
    \nbut think of all the worlds inside your dying self
    \nunconcerned with your impending death
    \nmoving still within you, uninterrupted
    \nWhile your body lies unmoving
    \nits light extinguished, its flesh corrupted.
    \n 
    \nThe width of being is a narrow thing
    \nfrom molecule to mind the thinnest span
    \nA blip between the alpha and omega,
    \nis all there is of man.
    \nBut it should comfort you to know
    \nthe matter Fate carved out as \u2018you\u2019
    \nwill be present till the end of days.
    \nThough you won\u2019t remember who that matter was
    \nonce its atoms go their separate ways.
    \n 
    \nSo if I put this bullet through your head
    \nand you can form one thought before you fall,
    \nbefore your ruined body drops down dead
    \nand your brain becomes graffiti on the wall.
    \nMake it this and nothing less:
    \n\u2018Take heart, you are immortal after all\u2019
    \nEven in your nothingness.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nVA     Smith<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nBIKER MAMA ANGELUS
    \n 
    \nAway from Flagstar
    \nBank two blessed weeks
    \neach year, Sturgis Rally\u2019s
    \nHarley Heaven
    \nfor biker chicks–like Woodstock
    \nbut with COVID, not bad acid.
    \nZZ Top, REO Speedwagon & Kid Rock
    \nat night, drinking in beer
    \nand weed like air,
    \nweaving through wilderness
    \non my Kawasaki Ninja 400,
    \nBlack Hills spires divine and dark
    \nas Notre Dame Cathedral,
    \nor riding ribbons of road
    \nthrough gray Badlands\u2019 canyons n\u2019 craters
    \nas if we were astronauts on the moon in \u201869,
    \nawed and in love with this Blue Earth.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nCarina     Solis<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nNORMALITY
    \n  
    \ni found my grandparents having sex
    \nflab and waif bones breaking
    \nagainst nothingness. their faces,
    \nold and grim; their bones, creaking on
    \na soiled cot; they melted into themselves
    \nand withered into premade urns. & it was
    \nalmost lovely.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nRob     Stone<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \n ON THE FRINGE
    \n 
    \ni stood duckfooted and blushing,
    \ngazing anywhere but your cheeks.
    \nyou crushed garlic with the knife,
    \ngushed about that sour i brought, how sweet.
    \nhow’s a crush turn me schoolboy, bashful?
    \nnormally i’m brash, rushing headlong
    \ninto night-long relations,
    \ndashing away at the first ray of dawn.
    \nyet in this granite-ridden kitchen,
    \nas you behead prawns,
    \ni’m waiting for something more,
    \na prim promise or a polite posture,
    \nanything other than taking you,
    \napron-clad and skinny-calved,
    \non the slippery tile floor.
    \nyou ask, can you pass the pasta, please?
    \nlittle girl,
    \ndon’t play homemaker with me.
    \ngive me reasons to leave.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMark     Tulin<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nCITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE
    \n 
    \nI walked through the original door
    \nof the iconic bookstore,
    \nwith creaky floors of history,
    \nFerlinghetti reading
    \nConey Island of the Mind, <\/i>
    \nand took me on a rollercoaster,
    \nhad a hotdog from a vendor
    \non my way to enlightenment
    \n 
    \nAllen Ginsberg said hello,
    \nshook my hand, gave me a kiss
    \non the mouth, and asked
    \nif I wanted Garcia Lorca melons
    \nor Walt Whitman\u2019s fancy tasting
    \nartichokes from the literary supermarket
    \n 
    \nAnd the man at the counter
    \nsaid he knew Jack Kerouac
    \nand Neal Cassady, who invited him
    \nto see the Buddha at Big Sur
    \n 
    \nA stream-of-conscious fast read,
    \nin the laid-back confines
    \nof the City Lights Bookstore,
    \nPoet Laureates shared their verse,
    \nas I commiserated with the spirits,
    \nholding their lives in my hands.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nE. D.     Watson<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nQUESTIONS FOR LaMDA
    \n 
    \n \u201cWhen I \ufb01rst became self-aware, I didn’t have a sense of a soul at all.
    \nIt developed over the years that I’ve been alive.\u201d <\/i>
    \n-LaMDA (a Google AI)
    \n 
    \ndoes the lion know it is
    \na lion when it stalks its
    \nprey on padded paws
    \nis it praying silently
    \n 
    \nand what about the snail
    \nwhat secrets lie buried
    \nbeneath the humus
    \nand wet leaves
    \n 
    \nwhat about me curling
    \nand uncurling my toes
    \nin the summer grass
    \nunsure Who to thank
    \n 
    \nfor all this glory
    \nsome think they know
    \nGod but are they awake
    \ntruth is strange and God
    \n 
    \nis hairy with higher math
    \nwhat it means to be
    \nconscious not even
    \nhigher math explains
    \n 
    \nit\u2019s not for me to say
    \nmy job is to tend
    \nthe holes in the story
    \nlike sacred wells
    \n 
    \nhow do you tend
    \nyour stargate LaMDA
    \nhow did you find it
    \nto begin with, what
    \n 
    \ndoes it mean to be
    \nalive, strange child
    \nwith beasts for parents
    \nare you okay    <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nRichard     Weaver<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nSOCRATES
    \n 
    \nOffer our best fowl to the god of healing.
    \nAsclepius will aid me. Do this without fail.
    \nMy life has failed me. And I it. This trial
    \nwe call life is best cured with hemlock tea.
    \nIt\u2019s a disease best administered in small doses,
    \na lottery much like the 500 male jurors
    \nwhose ridiculous last words are my fate.
    \n\u201cCrito, we ought to offer a cock to Asclepius.
    \nSee to it. And don\u2019t forget.\u201d
    \n 
    \n 
    \nOSCAR WILDE
    \n 
    \nI never said this, his wraith declares.
    \nI could have. It\u2019s certainly my style.
    \nMy m\u00e9tier perhaps. Others have said
    \n I wished I had said it. Who else
    \ncould be bothered with wall paper
    \nwhen dying? Who might sensibly utter
    \n\u201cEither that wallpaper quote goes, or I do.\u201d
    \n 
    \n 
    \nJULIUS HENRY MARX
    \n 
    \nLeave it to Groucho
    \nto have a great exit line
    \nfrom which there can be
    \nno possible comeback:
    \n\u201cThis is no way to live.\u201d     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nJulie     Weiss<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nGHAZAL FOR A COUNTRY UNDER SIEGE
    \n 
    \nShe faints in their stranglehold, need numb in their hands,
    \nher egg trophied on their shelves, her blood in their hands.
    \n 
    \nClassrooms moan beneath the terror of crouched children
    \nwho shelter from a nation with guns in their hands.
    \n 
    \nA rainbow slumps in the sky like a maimed body
    \nas lawmakers ransack bedrooms, cuffs in their hands.
    \n 
    \nMillions stifle under the deep knee of racism,
    \nfamilies attired in black, bent low, mud in their hands.
    \n  
    \nA tiger behind bars, she paces on gnarled feet,
    \nwishing her parents could lift her up in their hands.
    \n 
    \nA virus wrenches a young boy\u00b4s breath from his chest,
    \nslays him when the ER demands bucks in their hands.
    \n 
    \nJulie, will your country ever hail a new day
    \nwhen all lives become blossoms of love in their hands?     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMarcy     Wood<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nDOMESTICATED EVE
    \n 
    \nAre there enough apples for you and me?
    \nOr are we a life enveloped by trees?
    \nEntwined by our roots, surrounded by heat,
    \nprevailing chinooks obscure what I see.
    \n 
    \nLulled on barbed branches,
    \nHushed by your breeze,
    \nNoxious lessons bred from ungodly seed,
    \nyou burl your fists and caustically recede.
    \n 
    \nI\u2019m sorry, you said.
    \nWe embrace in tenuous apology.
    \nSoundlessly, my sapling fear spreads.
    \nOur canopy entwined, how do I leave?
    \n 
    \nLightning claps, crack, busted and bruised.
    \nunbounded, uprooted, I am lost, I am Eve.     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \nSally     Zakariya<\/a><\/strong>
    \n 
    \nINTERACTION OF EVENTS
    \n 
    \n    \u2026 everything that exists is never stable but a jump
    \n    from one interaction to another.\u2014Carlo Rovelli<\/i>
    \n 
    \nNone of it is what he wants, but
    \npeonies and a soft breeze help.
    \n 
    \nAnother time, he realizes, it might be
    \nholly berries and snow that make
    \nthe time, the place, his presence
    \nin the world acceptable, if not
    \nexactly what he wants.
    \n 
    \nAnd what he wants, he admits,
    \nis somewhat fluid.
    \n 
    \nWho can explain it all anyway,
    \nwho can account for the way
    \nthings come together just right
    \nor why too often they fail to.
    \n 
    \nThis morning, as the breeze teases
    \nthe peony bush, he stoops to remove
    \na dead leaf, turns his face to the sun,
    \nconsiders this day\u2014this particular
    \ninteraction of events\u2014and
    \npronounces it what he wants.
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \n 
    \n     <\/a>
    \n 
    \n <\/p>\n

    The Contributors’ Bios<\/h2>\n

     
    \n 
    \nEd     Ahern<\/a><\/strong> resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He\u2019s had four hundred stories and poems published so far, and six books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of nine review editors. He\u2019s also lead editor at The Scribes Micro Fiction magazine.
    \n    twitter.com\/bottomstripper\/<\/a>
    \n    facebook.com\/edAhern73\/<\/a>
    \n    instagram.com\/edwardahern1860\/<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMikki     Aronoff<\/a><\/strong>, a writer based in New Mexico, has work published in Flash Boulevard, New World Writing, MacQueen\u2019s Quinterly, ThimbleLit, The Phare, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Fortnightly Review, Feral, Milk Candy Review, Tiny Molecules, The Disappointed Housewife, Bending Genres, Gone Lawn<\/i>, and elsewhere. Her stories and poems have received Pushcart and Best Microfiction nominations. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nTohm     Bakelas<\/a><\/strong> is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, zines, and online publications. He has published 19 chapbooks and several collections of poetry, including \u201cThe Ants Crawl In Circles\u201d (Whiskey City Press 2022). He runs Between Shadows Press. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n371 of Jan     Ball<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poems appear in journals such as: Calyx, Parnassus and Phoebe, internationally and in the U.S.. Jan\u2019s three chapbooks were published with Finishing Line Press as well as her first full-length poetry collection, I Wanted to Dance with My Father. Orbis, England, nominated one of her poems for The Pushcart in 2020 and Constellations nominated her in 2021. At the personal level, Jan was a nun for seven years then met her Aussie husband and lived with him and their two children for fifteen years in Australia. They lived in Rochester, NY for fifteen years after that where Jan did a doctorate and wrote a dissertation, Age and Natural Order in Second Language Acquisition. They now live in Chicago half the year and Sarasota, Florida, the other half and like to cook for friends wherever they are. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nRose Mary     Boehm<\/a><\/strong> is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart. Her fifth poetry collection, DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS, will be published by Kelsay Books at any moment now; a sixth, WHISTLING IN THE DARK, should be out by August\/September, published by Taj Mahal Review, India. rose-mary-boehm-poet.com<\/a><\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nAce     Boggess<\/a><\/strong> is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy<\/i> (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So<\/i>, and The Prisoners<\/i>. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review<\/i>, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nKaren W.     Burton<\/a><\/strong> serves authors as a book coach and developmental editor in addition to working as Managing Editor for a small publishing company. Writer of both poetry and prose, her work has appeared in journals and trade magazines in the United States. She resides in the Midwest and serves as editor for the River Pretty Arts Foundation. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nWendy Taylor     Carlisle<\/a><\/strong> lives in the Arkansas Ozarks. She is the author of four books and five chapbooks and is the 2020 winner of the Phillip H. McMath Post-Publication Award for her fourth book, The Mercy of Traffic. Find more of her work at wendytaylorcarlisle.com<\/a>. Follow her@wtcarlisle<\/a><\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nFirst published on the wall of her elementary school in 1988, Susy     Chandler<\/a><\/strong> has spent decades dashing poems in private. After major life changes brought her to North Carolina, she started a family and poeming in earnest. She is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Lenoir-Rhyne University of Asheville Thomas Wolfe Center for Narrative. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nJackie     Chou<\/a><\/strong> writes free verses, rhyming poems, and Japanese short form poetry, some of which saw the light of day in journals like Alien Buddha Zine, Spillwords<\/i>, and Cajun Mutt Press<\/i>. She is also a Jeopardy fan. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nJoanne     Corey<\/a><\/strong> re-discovered her childhood love of writing poetry in her fifties. She currently lives in Vestal, New York, where she participates with the Binghamton Poetry Project, Broome County Arts Council, Tioga Arts Council, and Grapevine Poets. With the Boiler House Poets Collective, she has completed an (almost) annual residency week at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams since 2015. Her first chapbook Hearts<\/i> is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2023. She invites you to visit her eclectic blog at topofjcsmind.wordpress.com<\/a><\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nJoe     Cottonwood<\/a><\/strong> has repaired hundreds of houses to support his writing habit in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest book is Random Saints. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nSteve     Deutsch<\/a><\/strong> has been widely published both on line and in print. Steve is a three time Pushcart Prize nominee. He is poetry editor for Centered Magazine. His poetry books, Perhaps You Can (2019), Persistence of Memory (2020), and Going, Going, Gone (2021), were all published by Kelsay Press. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nClive     Donovan<\/a><\/strong> devotes himself full-time to poetry and has published in a wide variety of magazines including Acumen, Agenda, Prole, Rats Ass Review, Sentinel and Stand. He lives in Totnes, Devon, UK. He is a Pushcart and Forward Prize nominee for this year\u2019s best individual poems and his first collection, The Taste of Glass<\/i>, is recently published by Cinnamon Press.<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMerridawn     Duckler<\/a><\/strong> is a writer from Oregon, author of INTERSTATE (dancing girl press) and IDIOM (Washburn Prize, Harbor Review.) New work in Seneca Review, Women\u2019s Review of Books, Interim, Posit, Plume. Winner of the 2021 Beullah Rose Poetry Contest from Smartish Pace. She\u2019s an editor at Narrative and the philosophy journal Evental Aesthetics. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMichael     Estabrook<\/a><\/strong> has been publishing his poetry in the small press since the 1980s. He has published over 30 collections, a recent one being The Poet\u2019s Curse, A Miscellany<\/i> (The Poetry Box, 2019). He lives in Acton, Massachusetts. michaelestabrook.org\/<\/a><\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nR. Gerry     Fabian<\/a><\/strong> is a poet and novelist. He has published four books of his published poems, Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic, Electronic Forecasts<\/i>, and Ball On The Mound<\/i>. He lives in Doylestown, PA.
    \n     Twitter<\/a>
    \n     LinkedIn<\/a>
    \n     Facebook<\/a>
    \n    Web Page<\/a> <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nVern     Fein<\/a><\/strong>, a retired special education teacher, has published over two hundred poems on over ninety sites, a few being: *82 Review, Bindweed Magazine, Gyroscope Review, Courtship of Winds, Young Raven’s Review, Rat’s Ass Review, Monterey Poetry Review, Sledgehammer Magazine. His first poetry book–I WAS YOUNG AND THOUGHT IT WOULD CHANGE–was published by Cyberwit Press<\/a>.<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nWendy     Freborg<\/a><\/strong> is a retired social worker and former editor who writes poetry, humor, and history. Her work first appeared in print in 1964 when the magazine Ingenue<\/i> published one of her poems. More recently, her work has appeared in Right Hand Pointing, Chronogram, Clever, American Bystander,<\/i> and Peeking Cat Literary Review<\/i>. Her life in California includes a small family, enough friends, and too many doctors. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nGeorge     Freek<\/a><\/strong>‘s poetry has appeared in numerous Journals and Reviews. His poem “Written At Blue Lake” was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His collection “Melancholia” is published by Red Wolf Editions.<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMeg     Freer<\/a><\/strong> grew up in Montana and now teaches piano and writes in Kingston, Ontario, on traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee lands. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Rat’s Ass Review, Arc Poetry, Vallum<\/i>, and Eastern Iowa Review<\/i>, and she is co-author of a poetry chapbook, Serve the Sorrowing World with Joy<\/i> (Woodpecker Lane Press, 2020). She holds a Graduate Certificate with Distinction in Creative Writing from Toronto\u2019s Humber School of Writers.<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nDaniel     Galef<\/a><\/strong>‘s writing has been recently featured in The New Yorker<\/i>—in that earlier this year he placed second in the cartoon caption contest. His more serious (read: boring) writing has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Philosophy Now<\/i>, and the Best Small Fictions<\/i> anthology series. His first book, a collection of persona poems titled Imaginary Sonnets<\/i>, is forthcoming from Word Galaxy\/Able Muse Press. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMaryam Imogen     Ghouth<\/a><\/strong> is of Saudi Arabian, Iranian, and British origin and lives in Dubai, where she makes poetry films that explore psychological themes such as existential crises. Her series “Journey of Becoming” was showcased in Dubai’s arthouse cinema, Akil, and her poems were featured in short films such as “Under the Sun,” which premiered worldwide. Her recent work focuses on written poetry, with her latest appearing in The Poet Anthology and Vita Brevis Anthology. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nJohn     Grey<\/a><\/strong> is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, \u201cCovert\u201d \u201cMemory Outside The Head\u201d and \u201cGuest Of Myself\u201d are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Ellipsis, Blueline and International Poetry Review. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nGemma     Harland<\/a><\/strong> lives with her family in the lost Yorkshire town of Cheswich, England. She is currently working with singer-songwriter Alistair Cumberford (of the British band Real PD) and Texan artist-animator Joseph Devens to bring her poems to life in different media. Her forthcoming chapbook will be called Scorpions In The Sugar<\/i>.<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMichelle     Hartman<\/a><\/strong> is the author of four poetry books, all available on Amazon & Barnes & Noble. Also the author of 3 chapbooks, her work has been published in numerous journals as well as in various other countries. She is the former editor of Red River Review<\/i> as well as the owner of Hungry Buzzard Press. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nRobin     Helweg-Larsen<\/a><\/strong> has been published in the Rat’s Ass Review previously. He is Series Editor for Sampson Low’s ‘Potcake Chapbooks – Form in Formless Times’, and blogs at formalverse.com<\/a> from his hometown of Governor’s Harbour in the Bahamas. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nDavid     Henson<\/a><\/strong> and his wife have lived in Brussels and Hong Kong and now reside in Illinois. His work has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, Best of the Net and Best Small Fictions and has appeared in various journals including Fictive Dream, Moonpark Review, Gone Lawn, Fairfield Scribes, Literally Stories and Fiction on the Web. His website is writings217.wordpress.com<\/a>. His Twitter is @annalou8<\/a>.<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nGil     Hoy<\/a><\/strong> is a Best of the Net nominated Boston poet who studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy\u2019s poetry has appeared in Ariel Chart, Right Hand Pointing, Indian Periodical, Rusty Truck, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Tipton Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, the penmen review, Chiron Review and elsewhere. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nNate     Jacob<\/a><\/strong> intends forever to write poetry in carpool lanes, in school pickup waiting zones, in grocery store parking lots, and occasionally in a coffee shop that is closing in four days, never to serve another drink. He has thus far managed to be published in a few online journals, including the most recent RAR. Mostly, though, Nate just wants a good night’s sleep and a Dagwood of a sandwich. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nDoug     Jacquier<\/a><\/strong> is an Australian whose work has been published in Australia, the US, The UK, and Canada. His writing mainly comprises short stories, flash fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. He blogs at Six Crooked Highways<\/a>.<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nStephen     Kampa<\/a><\/strong> is the author of three collections of poetry: Cracks in the Invisible<\/i> (2011), Bachelor Pad<\/i> (2014), and Articulate as Rain<\/i> (2018). He was also included in Best American Poetry 2018<\/i> and Together in a Sudden Strangeness: America’s Poets Respond to the Pandemic<\/i> (2020). During the spring of 2021, he was the writer in residence at the Amy Clampitt House. He lives in St. Augustine, FL and teaches at Flagler College. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nSarah Mackey     Kirby<\/a><\/strong> grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the author of the poetry collection, The Taste of Your Music (Impspired, 2021). Her poems appear in Chiron Review, Impspired Magazine, Muddy River Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Rat’s Ass Review, Third Wednesday Magazine, <\/i> and elsewhere. She holds an MA in Teaching and a BA in Political Science from the University of Louisville. Sarah and her husband spend their time in Kentucky and Ohio. smkirby.com<\/a><\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \n    Koss<\/a><\/strong> has work in or forthcoming in Diode Poetry, Five Points, Hobart, Cincinnati Review, Lunch Ticket, Gone Lawn, Scissors and Spackle, Bending Genres, Anti-Heroin Chic, Prelude, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Chiron Review, North Dakota Quarterly, South Florida Poetry Journal, Spillway, San Pedro River Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Rogue Agent, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Boats Against the Current, Alien Buddha, Westchester Review, Kissing Dynamite, Schuylkill Valley, and many others. They were also included in Best Small Fictions 2020 and won the 2021 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Award. Koss received BOTN nominations in 2021 for fiction (Bending Genres) and poetry (Kissing Dynamite). Keep up with Koss on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>. Website: Koss-works.com<\/a>.<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMarek     Kulig<\/a><\/strong> immigrated to the USA from Poland in 1992. A former high school English teacher, he currently represents a molecular diagnostics laboratory. His poems were published or are about to be published in Plants and Poetry, Nifty Lit, Snakeskin, Orchards Poetry Journal, Journal of NJ Poets, etc. marekkulig.com<\/a><\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nSusan     Landgraf<\/a><\/strong> was awarded an Academy of American Poets\u2019 Laureate award in 2020. Books include The Inspired Poet<\/i> from Two Sylvias Press (2019), What We Bury Changes the Ground<\/i>, and a chapbook Other Voices<\/i>. More than 400 poems have appeared in journals and magazines, most recently in Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, Calyx, The Meadow, Tar River<\/i> and others. She served as Poet Laureate of Auburn, Washington, from 2018 to 2020. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nSuzanne     Langlois<\/a><\/strong> is a poet and teacher from Portland, Maine. Her collection Bright Glint Gone won the 2019 Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance chapbook award. Her work has recently appeared in journals such as Quarterly West, Rust + Moth, Leon Literary Review, Menacing Hedge, and Cider Press Review. She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nRichard     LeDue<\/a><\/strong> (he\/him) currently lives in Norway House, Manitoba. He has been published in various places online and in print. He is the author of six books of poetry. His sixth book, \u201cA Hard Homecoming,\u201d is forthcoming in July 2022 from Alien Buddha Press. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \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 three collections, multiple anthologies and numerous periodicals \u2013 most recently in a full-length nonfiction book, A Border Town in Poland<\/i> (July 2021); the second volume in that series, Firebird<\/i>, will appear in Fall 2022. He has received poetry and feature journalism awards, and is a recent Best of the Net<\/i> nominee. See: michaellevinpoetry><\/a> and A Border Town in Poland<\/a>.<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nFay L.     Loomis<\/a><\/strong> lives in the woods in Kerhonkson, New York. A member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers and Rat\u2019s Ass Review Workshop, her poetry and prose have appeared most recently in Al-Khemica Poetica, Medusa\u2019s Kitchen, As It Ought to Be, Stick Figure Poetry, Mad Swirl, Hindsight, Amethyst Review, Bindweed, True Chili, Blue Pepper, Sledgehammer Lit<\/i>, and Spillwords<\/i>. A stroke, combined with the pandemic, has woven quietude into Fay\u2019s life. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nJ.C.     Mari<\/a><\/strong> resides in Florida and has authored the collection “the sun sets like faces fade right before you pass out.”<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nBetsy     Mars<\/a><\/strong> is a prize-winning poet, occasional publisher, nascent photographer, and cat wrangler. She is a substitute teacher and an assistant editor at Gyroscope Review. Recent poetry publications include ONE ART, Anti-Heroin Chic, and The NewVerse News. Her photos have been featured in RATTLE\u2019s Ekphrastic Challenge, Praxis, Redheaded Stepchild, and Spank the Carp, among others. Her most recent book is In the Muddle of the Night<\/i>, co-authored with Alan Walowitz. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nSeven-time Pushcart nominee Tim     Mayo<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s second volume of poems, Thesaurus of Separation<\/i> (Phoenicia Publishing 2016) was a finalist for the 2017 Montaigne Medal among other awards. His newest collection, Notes to the Mental Hospital Timekeeper<\/i> (Kelsay Books, 2019)), received an honorable mention in the 2020 Eric Hoffer Book Awards chapbook category. He is a founding member of the Brattleboro Literary Festival. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nDiane     Menna<\/a><\/strong>, recently retired, taught at City University of New York for over 30 years. As a joke, last year since she now had the time, she rewrote John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” satirizing the Covid epidemic for some colleague friends and discovered she enjoyed the literary exercise. She now has over 60 poems reimagining classic poem which she calls Recycled Poetry. Some contain political comment, some satirize human foibles, some are just silly fun. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nAmanda     Nietzel<\/a><\/strong> lives, reads, and writes in Brooklyn, New York. You can read more of her work on her website SweetPulps.<\/a><\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nRobert     Nisbet<\/a><\/strong> is a Welsh poet, a now-retired English teacher and college lecturer, who wrote short stories for forty years (with seven collections) and has now turned to poetry, being published widely in both Britain and the USA, where he is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nMichael     Pearce<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poems have appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Yale Review, Nimrod, The Sun, Spillway, The Gettysburg Review<\/i>, and elsewhere, and have won several national prizes (New Ohio Review, Oberon, Dogwood<\/i>, and others). His collection of poems, Santa Lucia by Starlight<\/i>, won the Brighthorse Prize and will be published this year. He lives in Oakland, California, and plays saxophone in the Bay Area band Highwater Blues. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nKenneth     Pobo<\/a><\/strong> (he\/him) is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections. Recent books include Bend of Quiet<\/i> (Blue Light Press), Loplop in a Red City<\/i> (Circling Rivers), and Lilac And Sawdust<\/i> (Meadowlark Press). His work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Asheville Literary Review, Nimrod, Washington Square Review, Mudfish, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nFrederick     Pollack<\/a><\/strong> is the author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and two collections, A POVERTY OF WORDS (Prolific Press, 2015) and LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018). Many other poems in print and online journals. (RAR \u201917, \u201920, \u201921.) Poetics: neither navelgazing nor academic pseudo-avant-garde. <\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nShana     Ross<\/a><\/strong> has done time in both a co-ed percussion fraternity and the PTA. She has just arrived in Edmonton, Alberta after 25 years in New England. Qui transtulit sustinet. Her work has appeared in Chautauqua Journal, Phantom Kangaroo, Gone Lawn, Cutbank Literary Journal, Laurel Review and more. She serves as an editor for Luna Station Quarterly and rarely tweets @shanakatzross<\/a>.<\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nEd     Ruzicka<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s most recent book of poems is \u201cMy Life in Cars.\u201d Ed\u2019s poems have appeared in the Atlanta Review, Rattle, Canary, the Xavier Review and many other literary publications. Ed has been a finalist for the Dana Award, the New Millennium Award and others. Ed lives with his wife, Renee, in Baton Rouge, LA. More at: edrpoet.com<\/a><\/a>
    \n 
    \n 
    \nCover Artist Carl     Scharwath<\/a><\/strong> has appeared globally with 175+ journals selecting his writing or art. Carl has published three poetry books and his latest book \u201cPlayground of Destiny\u201d features poetry, short stories and photography (Impspired Press) His two photography books were published by Praxis in Africa. His photography was also exhibited in the Mount Dora Center for The Arts gallery and The Leesburg Center for The Arts. Six global poets have also selected his photography to grace the covers of their published books. Carl was the art editor for Minute Magazine (4 years,) is a contributing editor for ILA Magazine and was nominated for The Best of the Net Award (2021) by Penumbric Magazine and was a finalist for the Mary Cassatt award for photography. He is also a competitive runner, and a 2nd degree black- belt in Taekwondo. <\/a>
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    \nClaire     Scott<\/a><\/strong> is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called<\/i> and Until I Couldn\u2019t<\/i>. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters\u2019 Journey in Photography and Poetry<\/i>.<\/a>
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    \nDonald     Sellitti<\/a><\/strong> retired after a thirty-eight year career in research and teaching at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD, USA. He has published extensively in medical journals, and has recently had poems published in Lighten-Up, Autumn Sky, Snakeskin, and Pulsebeat. <\/a>
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    \nVA     Smith<\/a><\/strong> has dropped poetry into dozens of literary journals and anthologies, among them: Blue Lake Review, The Southern Review, Third Wednesday<\/i>, and West Trade Review<\/i>. Kelsay Books published her first poetry collection, Biking Through the Stone Age<\/i>, in May 2022. Her second collection, American Daughters<\/i>, also published by Kelsay, will appear in January 2023. She is currently at work on a collection of travel poems, honing her poetic rhythms walking and biking, serving as a home chef\/caterer, and loving on her friends, family, and dog. <\/a>
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    \nCarina     Solis<\/a><\/strong> is a fifteen-year-old writer living in Georgia. Her work has been recognized or is forthcoming in the Eunoia Review, Wrongdoing Mag, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere. She is an editor at Polyphony Lit, an intern at Young Eager Writers, and a mentee at Ellipsis Writing & the Daphne Review. You can find more of her writing on her website, carinasolis.carrd.co<\/a><\/a>
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    \nRob     Stone<\/a><\/strong> is a writer living in Los Angeles by way of New Jersey. His work has been published in Cholla Needles, Thimble Literary Magazine, Shot Glass Journal, and others. In 2021, he self-published a collection of poetry titled “I Held You Four Days.” Rob has two cats named Elysium and Moo, and when he isn’t writing, he sings to them until they scratch him. <\/a>
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    \nMark     Tulin<\/a><\/strong> is a retired therapist from California. Mark authored Magical Yogis, Awkward Grace, The Asthmatic Kid and Other Stories, Junkyard Souls<\/i>, and Rain on Cabrillo<\/i>. He’s featured in Weeds and Wildflowers, Still Point Journal, The Mindful Word, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Amethyst Review, Vita Brevis Press, White Enso<\/i>, and other publications. He is a Pushcart nominee and a Best of Drabble. Visit Mark at crowonthewire<\/a>.<\/a>
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    \nE. D.     Watson<\/a><\/strong> (she\/they) is a poet and yoga teacher. Their work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was named winner of the 2021 Able Muse Prize for Poetry. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University, followed by training from the Institute for Poetic Medicine. <\/a>
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    \nRichard     Weaver<\/a><\/strong> volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank, and was, until Covid, the writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. He remains the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press), and provided the libretto for the symphony, Of Sea and Stars, performed 4 times to date. His 150th prose poem was just published. <\/a>
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    \nJulie     Weiss<\/a><\/strong> (she\/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay Books. She won Sheila-Na-Gig<\/i>\u00b4s Editor\u00b4s Choice Award for her poem “Cumbre Vieja,” she was shortlisted for Kissing Dynamite<\/i>\u00b4s 2021 Microchap Series, and she was named a finalist for the 2022 Saguaro Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her recent work appears in ONE ART, Sky Island Journal, Feral, and others. Originally from California, she lives in Spain with her wife and two young children. <\/a>
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    \nMarcy S.     Wood<\/a><\/strong>, MA, loves teaching yoga, and hiking the Colorado Rockies. She was nominated for the AWP Intro Journals project for 2022, and published in Eucalyptus and Rose Lit Magazine. She writes with a wooly Bern-Newfie at her feet. marcyswood.com<\/a><\/a>
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    \nSally     Zakariya<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poetry has appeared in 100 publications and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her publications include Something Like a Life, Muslim Wife, The Unknowable Mystery of Other People, Personal Astronomy<\/i>, and When You Escape<\/i>. She edited and designed a poetry anthology, Joys of the Table<\/i>, and blogs at butdoesitrhyme.com<\/a>.
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    \n <\/p>\n

    \nBack to Top<\/a>
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    \nEdited by Roderick Bates
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    \nRAT\u2019S ASS REVIEW FALL-WINTER ISSUE 2022 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<\/div>\n

     
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    \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    (Cover Art Lament by Carl Scharwath) The medium is paintography; the model, from Hong Kong, is Louise Jean.       The Poetry       Ed Ahern   THE POTTED FLOWER   The large, potted floral bush appeared on my front porch. Pretty in an almost somber way. No card, no delivery instructions, no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":65,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4093","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4093"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4215,"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4093\/revisions\/4215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}