{"id":4527,"date":"2026-02-04T13:34:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=4527"},"modified":"2026-02-15T15:42:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T20:42:42","slug":"spring-summer-issue","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=4527","title":{"rendered":"Spring-Summer 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a><\/a>
\n(Cover Art \u2014 Summer Gargoyle<\/i> photo by kerry rawlinson<\/a>)<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

The Poetry<\/h3>\n

<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nCatherine Arra<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAT THE END OF NIGHT
\n 
\nI hear the 5:30 a.m. phone alarm
\nmuffled under your pillow,
\n 
\nyou breathe-moan-sigh,
\nhear Daisy, old like us,
\n 
\nrise from her bed, shake out bones
\nbow to groom face in paws,
\n 
\nthen wait for you to rise,
\nshake out a stiff-tired body
\n 
\nand don downy fleece for \u201cWalkies\u201d
\nin -8 January degrees,
\n 
\nbut first, I lock you, arm-leg
\nin place, pull you into my morning
\n 
\nkiss and hold, like a birthday card
\ncelebration when years are fewer
\n 
\nand Daisy barks, sparks,
\nwhirls and twirls
\n 
\nto say the same.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Bagato<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
\n 
\nAnyone can shoot down
\ntheir own hallway,
\nbut if you built the castle yourself
\nyou can lie in it, too.
\n 
\nThe wife\u2019s not sure what
\nyou want to eat;
\nshe has you smell
\nthe egg before she cooks it.
\nNo smell, no problem.
\nMost things smell like death.
\nThis isn\u2019t one of them.
\n 
\nDrive a hard bargain
\nwherever you can,
\nthat\u2019s what I say.
\nYou can see the will
\ndrain out of their eyes.
\nThey\u2019ll agree to anything
\nat that point. No one can
\nargue without a spine.
\nHand it back to
\nthem with the receipt.
\nYou won\u2019t see him again.
\nGoes with the territory.
\nDidn\u2019t get into this business
\nto make friends.
\n 
\nGive me a dead
\nsquirrel and I can make
\nlunch money out of it.
\nEach part has a
\nprice and a purpose.
\nThat\u2019s life.
\nSome assembly required.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLeo Balaban<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI NEED A VACATION
\n 
\nI\u2019m always paid to keep my head up, I have no leave.
\nUsually there\u2019s an electric cable coming through the vinyl
\ntiles of the factory ceiling connected to my spine, violently
\nzapping each vertebra into place when it\u2019s time to produce,<\/p>\n

but just for now the cables have been replaced
\nby a thread from the collar of my shirt. It\u2019s been caught
\nin the almost stringy bark from the top of palm trees,
\neach vertebra is encouraged into place, gently
\nrolling back the shoulders and neck to face the sun. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBen Banyard<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nEVERYBODY’S TALKIN’
\n 
\nHe whistles along to the radio
\nas he wriggles each tile free,
\nstacks them neatly for later.
\n 
\nKeeps the radio loud
\nso he can’t hear
\nthe rows and the chatter,
\ndogs shut in alone all day,
\nbabies screaming for their naps.
\n 
\nNext come the rotten battens,
\nragged felt which must be 40 years old.
\nA blue-sky day, with a lively breeze
\nwhich rushes into the attic below,
\nstirs suitcases of old clothes, keepsakes.
\n 
\nThis lonely routine,
\nevery day of a working life,
\nthe heights and the heavy gloves,
\na whole day of hammering,
\non the lookout for rain and sunburn,
\nwith views to die for. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarshall Begel<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHIS IS JUST TO SAVE TIME
\n 
\nI have eaten
\nthe wheelbarrow
\nbeside the white chickens
\nwhich you were probably
\ndepending upon
\nForgive me
\nIt was so red
\nand so glazed with rain<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Beveridge<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nThe Clearing
\nfor Paula Baker<\/i>
\n 
\nRain threatened, but didn’t do much more
\nthan piss. You, excited about your new house.
\nWe walked the property, held hands as we entered
\nthe path into the woods. Massive chunks
\nof cut tree previous owners had never cleared,
\npaths, sun and droplets through foliage.
\nYou turned left. \u201cAnd check this out!\u201d I saw
\na table, chair, teapot. Then we crested
\nthe treeline and the space found its way
\ninto my breath.
\n           The fire pit to warm the tea
\nnow choked with beer cans so faded we couldn’t
\ndiscern the class of the previous supplicants.
\nWe knew, though, that they worshipped: chicken-
\nwire sconce nailed to the tree at the very south
\nof the clearing, above it a skull affixed.
\nUnhuman, yet no animal either of us recognized.
\nAlien, or as old as the beer cans. But it is true
\nthat whatever the altar and whomever
\nthe goddess, worship is worship, and in the presence
\nof the holy I can do no less.
\n           I prime you with lips
\non the back of your neck, clothing shed with a touch
\nas if gravity had failed in the presence of the divine.
\nYour freckles deepen under my tongue, back
\nand breasts awash in beautiful burnished copper, my
\nhands, lips lowered, lowered again, and as if by magic
\nthe teapot flung to the ground, your body in its place,
\nour demon, our idol, our incubus forever in our gaze<\/p>\n

as my lips affix to you, most sensitive of all
\nyour so sensitive skin, and you sing hymns, wordless
\nsoprano arias to whatever deity would accept such
\na sacrament (\u201ctake, eat, this is my body, which is wetted
\nfor you\u201d). You sing the heavens down, previous drips
\nnow a torrent. Unbroken bass thunder rumbles
\ncounterpoint your ever-higher song, its clench
\naround my tongue, my fingers. I can wait
\nno longer, straighten, and you eager guide me
\ninto the very apse, most sacred space we know. We
\nworship as we know how, naked, wet, your hymns
\nshattering the dam, the long, shuddered release (\u201ctake,
\ndrink, this is our love, which confirms the Covenant
\nbetween angel and demon\u201d)
\n           then rest, coolness
\nof rain against sweat-and come-slicked bodies. We look
\nup at our totem and know we have offered a better
\nsacrifice than tea, than beer. We rose up,
\nand we went before him into Galilee.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE LOVERS (REVERSED)
\n 
\nBlessed be the makers of Effexor
\nand its various side effects.
\nBlessed be the past relationships
\nand the blood they leave behind them
\nin the water. Blessed be
\nthe societal norms, the pressures of decay.
\n 
\nAnd blessed be those angels who ignore it all
\nand let their fingers sew the shards
\ninto a new blanket, let their tongues
\nevoke new, muskier songs,
\na sustenance we always knew we needed
\nbut were never able to articulate
\nwith our own fumbling stumps.
\n 
\n 
\nWEDDING DAY
\n 
\n\u201cEvery day is someone’s wedding day,\u201d
\nshe said, nestling closer
\nunder the crook of my shoulder,
\n\u201cbut November
\nis a bad month for marrying.\u201d
\n 
\nI could feel, this
\ntime as every time,
\nher breasts pressed
\nagainst my side,
\nher thigh on mine.
\n 
\nI started to wonder:
\nafter pulling the virgin birth stunt,
\nMary and Joseph got married
\nand, presumably, went
\nback to carpentry.
\n 
\nBut, when he took her
\nas a husband,
\nwas she ever again with child?
\n 
\nDid Jesus have any sisters?
\n 
\nThe bible, like divorced
\nmen, has a tendency
\nto never mention the women
\nit has no use for. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nF.S. Blake<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHAIKU
\n 
\nocean tide pulling
\nsand from under my bare feet
\nyour ring left no mark<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRose Mary Boehm<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE PHANTOM\u2019S LYRE
\n 
\nShe saw it melt into the wall
\non this dark Venetian night,
\nthere, by the Ponte dei Sospiri.<\/i>
\nTrembling
\nshe touches the spot.
\nNeeds to know.
\n 
\nThere is nothing,
\njust cold bricks and slime.
\n 
\nBlack water laps against dark stone.
\nAncient eyes caress top-lit wavelets.
\nSkeletal hands raise a silvery lyre
\nabove the water.
\n 
\nSorrowful sounds drip into her heart.
\nTorpor overwhelms her longing.
\n 
\nFrom the canal rises a cloud
\nof hungry souls
\nseeking not victims
\nbut a giver\u2019s feast.
\n 
\nLoud voices and bright lights
\nfall from ornate windows,
\nand the girl\u2019s cold fingers
\nno longer pluck the strings.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Burt<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCORKSCREW
\n  
\nTrading cards on the hot pavement near Orchard Drive,
\na dull pink mural of apples and cherry trees,
\nwe pause, too wound to sit, full of corkscrew and knurl,
\n 
\ngo light firecrackers that the old women in the neighborhood
\nwill startle as they pace on porches like protective curs
\nor wolves penning their kill. One wails like a baby crying.
\n 
\nAn August day passes like this, then another, another,
\ndreamlike, uneventful, deep, our souls imprinted
\nby mothering nature, indolence, waiting to be born, detach.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRaymond Byrnes<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLIBRARY TRIP
\n 
\nMy thoughts still scattered
\nlike crickets at a garage door\u2019s
\nsudden lift, I select a table,
\nconnect my laptop, and lean back
\nto reminisce and write.
\n 
\nI close my eyes and begin to recall
\na young woman\u2019s words whispered
\nbeneath a moonlit yellow maple when
\nan old man across the aisle starts
\nyelling something like Norwegian
\n 
\nat a little face on his iPhone
\nas the PA system crackles out
\nan invitation to join a writers\u2019
\ngroup down the hall and a baby
\nwails in the children\u2019s section.
\n 
\nI concentrate on my blank screen
\nconfident that autumn leaves
\nand recollected words will soon
\nbegin to fall across the page, when a
\ntext beeps in to pick up milk and bread.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Taylor Carlisle<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHIS SPRING
\n 
\ni.
\nAPRIL FOOLS
\n 
\nIn France April Fools is
\npoisson d\u2019avril,<\/i> April Fish Day
\nafter a Renaissance poem
\ndescribing the spring
\nyounglings, easiest to catch
\nfalling for a foolish joke
\nlove is that joke,
\na mad lover\u2019s misjudgment.
\nYou are the fish.
\n 
\nii.
\nMAY DAY
\n 
\nGood morning, dogwood
\ncoming into life again
\nafter winter
\ngood morning bare feet
\nand wind moving
\nthe chimes that sound like birds
\nand the birds.
\n 
\n 
\nBUT IN JUNE
\n 
\nEach day begins,
\nthe birds talking to themselves
\na chorus of chirrups
\nclose to the weather.
\nIn the garden, rosemary, begonias,
\nwicker, a lavender breeze.
\nThese days belong to feathers.
\nAnother summer,
\nwhen I hoped to divine something
\nfrom dust and sweat if only
\nthe permission to be bird-happy
\nwhile I think about the swiftness of
\nlife disappearing if I need
\nto make myself miserable.
\n 
\n 
\nACTINIC
\n 
\nI am melting
\nthe actinic keratoses
\noff my thighs
\nwith a poultice.
\nThey are dissolving
\nlike salted
\nslugs. I am
\nreleasing the rogue
\ncells like nematodes
\nfrom a subway tunnel.
\nSaints preserve me
\nbut not those ugly
\nsenile disturbances
\nthat interrupt my
\nlive-forever fantasy.
\nToday, I have settled
\ninto a dream
\nof let-me go clear,
\nlift me up smooth
\nas baby skin,
\noh Lord, slick
\nas the leaches
\nand minnows
\ndispensed from
\nPapa\u2019s Self-Serve Bait,
\nin Houghton Lake
\nMichigan.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlex Carrigan<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nARS POETICA: SLEEP NUMBER
\nAfter \u201cArs Poetica # ___\u201d by Clayre Benzad\u00f3n<\/i>
\n 
\nI don\u2019t know how
\nyou can share
\n 
\nthis bed with me,
\nhandle my cold feet
\n 
\nagainst your back,
\nor the back of my hand
\n 
\nhitting your cheek
\nevery time I roll over.
\n 
\nI don\u2019t know how
\nyou can sleep peacefully
\n 
\nthrough my muttering,
\nwords you\u2019ve never heard
\n 
\nbefore I drooled them
\nonto my pillow.
\n 
\nI don\u2019t know how
\nyou can swallow
\n 
\nmy hair as it
\nbrushes your lips,
\n 
\nstrands braided into your teeth
\nthat threaten to pull them all
\n 
\nout if I\u2019m suddenly awoken by
\nthe sound of a school bus outside.
\n 
\nI know I\u2019m not an
\neasy person to share
\n 
\nall of your
\nnights with.
\n 
\nI\u2019ll put these thoughts
\non a Post-It note you\u2019ll find
\n 
\nstuck on your forehead
\nwhen you wake up today
\n 
\nso you know I can\u2019t wait
\nfor us to go to sleep again.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRichard Collins<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSCIENCE AND MISCELLANEOUS
\n 
\nIn the London Library, works devoted to the subject of Love
\nare classified under the heading<\/i> Science and Miscellaneous.
\n\u2014Anthony Powell, To Keep the Ball Rolling<\/i>
\n 
\nAnd who\u2019s to say that\u2019s not right, after all?
\n 
\nFor who\u2019d deny the aptnesses of physics,
\nbiology, physio-psychology,
\nsociology and soforthology
\nin what Ovid called simply love\u2019s aesthetics?
\n 
\nIsn\u2019t love often just quantum mixes
\nof chemistry and electricity,
\nflesh and stone, madness mingled with sanity,
\nhypotheses and mistakes without fixes?
\n 
\nHow else classify our random researches
\ninto pleasure and sadness, finickiness
\nand sloth, bittersweet erotic stickiness,
\nthe whole cocktail of a soul\u2019s drunken urges?
\n 
\nWhile you can tour the London Library,
\ndon\u2019t expect just to browse at your leisure
\nin search of dusty facts or musty pleasure
\nwhether technical or literary.
\n 
\nIn sum, Science and Miscellaneous<\/i>
\ncan embrace any number of things like<\/i> love
\nfound under the sun or even above,
\nmuch that is crude, but nothing extraneous.
\n 
\nSo who\u2019s to say that\u2019s not the right heading
\nto hold both theory and praxis of bedding
\n(or, as Old Coppernose made love, beheading)
\nwith or without biblical begetting?
\n 
\nFor doesn\u2019t love, like science, encompass all?<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGOAT\u2019S MILK YOGURT
\n 
\nThere is no other panic
\nlike when your child disappears
\nand you immediately see
\nthe look on your son\u2019s face
\nof disbelief at his own blood
\nat what is happening to him
\nat evil he should never learn
\nas you race toward the restroom
\nbecause at his sister\u2019s soccer tournament
\nhe needs to poo and you say you\u2019ll follow
\nin a minute after you finish this goat\u2019s milk
\nbecause yogurt in restrooms, bad pairing
\nbut Joshua\u2019s on the small side to go alone.
\nAnd he\u2019s gone.
\n 
\nAfter the golden dog named Oak
\nbroke free dragging leather leash
\nthat streamed like a kite\u2019s tail
\nas he chased a stag into the forest,
\nyou searched. If that leash should snag
\nOak would stay silent\u2014instinct not revealing
\nhis location\u2014and if attacked
\nhe would fight with his teeth
\nto the last beat of his heart.
\nYou tramped acorn acres calling \u201cOak!\u201d
\nThree days later scratching at your door
\nthe dog with chewed-off leash appeared
\nfor a meal, a long snooze.
\n 
\nMonths later you meet a woman
\nwho greets Oak as the father
\nof her chocolate lab\u2019s puppies,
\na swarm of calico golden and brown.
\nShe offers you one. More than a stag
\nhe chased, three days. Just so comes Joshua
\nfrom the farther, cleaner restroom
\nwalking with a classmate named Lakshmi,
\nher teeth a white flash in a dark smile.
\n 
\nGoat milk tastes like human.
\nBoth good. One, special.
\nA puppy, thanks, no.
\nChildren grow so fast.
\n 
\n 
\nOLDIES RADIO
\n 
\nA girl mouthing into a microphone
\nin Brooklyn enters your brain through
\nheadphones six decades later in California
\nso you\u2019re smelling sexy wet wool mittens
\nin a steam-heated basement apartment
\ngetting your first ever blowjob
\nwith amazing embarrassing results
\nwith sun glinting off snowbanks outside
\nplanted in your memory having nothing to do
\nwith the lyrics of the goddamn song.
\n 
\nA song you don\u2019t remember, mind you,
\ntriggering all this, a pleasant melody
\nin a voice rendered metallic by mic
\nlike brakes on a subway train.
\n   Please
\n   love me forever<\/i>
\n 
\nWikipedia says the singer of shrill
\n(age 15) recorded the song solo,
\nthen the producer overdubbed
\nwith smooth doo-wop singers from Queens,
\nand a minor hit was born to travel
\ncross-continent to worm onto your playlist
\nbringing mittens and claustrophobia
\nfrom when you loved, yes crushingly
\nbriefly loved a red-pigtail girl
\nwho had a voice like birdsong.
\n   Don\u2019t
\n   forget me never<\/i>
\n 
\nDoes this ever happen to you?
\n 
\n 
\nA ROUTINE PROCEDURE
\n 
\n\u201cNobody dies from it\u201d
\nsays the nurse
\nmeaning less than
\none tenth of one per cent
\nbut my feet must pace
\nthe waiting room tiles
\n 
\nShe is the bare back
\nwhere I press my bare chest
\nwhose breasts I cup
\nwhose behind fits my frontal spoon
\neach night
\n 
\nShe is 77 years old
\n 
\nIf you say Eww
\nthen fuck you
\n 
\nShe is my routine
\nmy procedure
\nmy life\u2019s companion
\n 
\n 
\nWHEN VOICES BLEND
\n 
\nI\u2019m no musician but one summer
\nfor campers with my guitar
\nI sang sad folkie songs.
\n 
\nTell old Bill, when he comes home
\nTo leave those downtown gals alone
\nThis mornin\u2019, this evenin\u2019, so soon\u2026<\/i>
\n 
\nAnother counselor, Reggie
\nwith the better voice, high tenor
\njoined my low in a harmony that thrilled,
\nsent electroshock quivers deep in my chest.
\nClosest we ever came to touch.
\n 
\nReggie black, me white.
\nInside him, a sadness\u2014you heard it
\nin the notes, the tinge of blue.
\nGirls always sweet on him.
\nHe danced, laughed, shied away.
\nQueer, back then in Missouri, a dirty word.
\n 
\nI didn\u2019t understand the mechanics
\nof harmony, how the notes, which way.
\nSame so, the culture of gay.
\n  
\nAnd the world shot us out
\nlike pepper spray. No contact
\nuntil a photo, Facebook, an obit saying
\nin New York he taught music, drama,
\nbeloved by college kids, appeared
\non stage with Meryl Streep.
\n 
\nOh Lord, tune for me my old guitar.
\nFingers are stiff but in a Mendocino fog
\nafter half a century comes the music
\nof memory, the mystery of harmony,
\nthe shock of love\u2014this morning,
\nthis evening, too late.
\n 
\n 
\nI\u2019M LOOKING AT YOUR HEART
\nNOT STARING AT YOUR BREASTS
\n 
\nLong ago I built a wall
\nof smooth boulders
\nwithout mortar
\non a hillside
\ndaring gravity
\nto find flaws
\n 
\nMoss and lichen
\nmade home on stone
\nwhile seed settled
\ninto niche
\n 
\nRoots tumble rocks
\nwith their quiet strength
\nlike the power
\nof milk
\n 
\nGrandchildren scramble
\nfrom your chest
\nand we laugh<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTony Dawson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGAZA STRIPPED
\n 
\nBibi Netanyahu\u2019s Ashkenazi origins
\nseem so nominatively appropriate
\nas he reduced Gaza City to ashes
\nwith the efficiency of the Third Reich.
\nTrump sent Marco Rubio to wail
\nwith Bibi at the wailing wall
\nwhile Palestinians were slaughtered,
\ntheir homes reduced to rubble,
\nand their children starved to death.
\nThe recent Scholastic-style dispute,
\nespecially among equivocating
\nEuropean nations and others, was not
\nhow many angels could dance on a pinhead
\nbut how many deaths added up to genocide.
\n 
\n 
\nSTORM
\n 
\nTonight, the earth is as thirsty as
\nan alcoholic that can\u2019t stop drinking.
\nIts friend the sky has dropped by
\nin the company of Storm Emilia
\nladen with crates of cloud booze,
\nnow pouring down as torrential rain.
\nThe earth can\u2019t sink it fast enough,
\nits cups are spilling water everywhere.
\nThis spectacle of rain falling in sheets
\nor as curtains blotting out the landscape
\ntakes me back to my early childhood
\nwhen my father used to stand at the door
\nof the kitchen and to my bewilderment,
\nwould roar at the sky, \u201cSend it down, David!\u201d <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Delaney<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\nMEDITATION TEMPLE
\n 
\nThis life is short, fragile, and deceptive as a spring Mayflower or sunny rainbow.
\n 
\nReceiving no benefit upon hearing any of the melodious teachings, like a stone thrown into water, is a sign of not having enough merit.
\n 
\nIf wise beings discontinue their great deeds, this empty world will look much emptier.
\n 
\nIn this world of pitch dark ignorance, like a sunless day, a moonless night or a starless sky, suddenly a bolt of lightning strikes. That quickly human life passes.
\n 
\nThe Buddha taught that one must avoid the two extremes of being rich and poor.
\n 
\nWhat is the use of this meaningless body when you don\u2019t have an essential knowledge?
\n 
\nLike the moon shines on every water surface, the kind-hearted one will always think of every being\u2019s wellness.
\n 
\nNot looking forward is a sign of a fool. Though there is a wide road ahead, the fool chooses the cliff\u2019s edge.
\n 
\nRenounce this empty world like a dog renounces grass.
\n 
\nIf water drops can accumulate to be an ocean, one can accumulate a lot of virtues if he tries hard.
\n 
\nDrop by drop even a large container can be filled. The wise advance little by little, improve themselves, and finally attain bodhi mind.
\n 
\nA senile old person cannot do much, so do good while you are still young.
\n 
\nA fault of this life is that it only lasts as long as a swift waterfall.
\n 
\nThe sun rises on the summit of a snowcapped mountain the same way thoughts appear in a wise person\u2019s mind.
\n 
\nDo not make trouble by telling lies even if the world comes to an end and the earth breaks into pieces.
\n 
\nThe karma of this life follows one as the shadow of a bird follows the bird itself.
\n 
\nOne day a sharp arrow will pierce the head of a cow caught in the rocks. Likewise, while you are running here and there one day the arrow of death will pierce you.
\n 
\nThe path of truthfulness is straight and firm.
\n 
\nA found poem of sorts, consisting of Buddhist teachings on signs
\nencountered to and from Aryabal Meditation Temple, Terelj Tuv (Mongolia). <\/i><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSal Difalco<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPHYLLIS
\n 
\nI thought of you yesterday.
\nRed pumps, plump feet
\nand the smell of fuzzy orchids
\nsmeared across my eyes
\nand Mick Jagger lips.
\nThe living room scene
\ncarried on for a slap wash
\nof the thighs, easy on
\nthe firmament, easy slide
\nwere it happening
\nwithout the ma and pa
\nsnoozing upstairs
\non their water bed.
\nI doubt they were
\nducking and wicking
\nas cleverly as I was.
\nTaking it with eyelids
\nas if stapled down
\nand the mouth almost
\nopen but not quite
\nreminds me of surrender
\nand bliss wrapped
\nin Hudson Bay blankets
\nyour pa liked to lay
\nacross his diabetic legs
\nwhen we all painfully
\nsat around watching
\nthe Stanley Cup playoffs.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCraig Dobson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCASAVECCHIA
\n 
\nIt\u2019s a little after nine
\nwhen I ease myself into the virgin
\nand know that everything will be fine.
\nAn old friend\u2019s daughter, I\u2019ve known her years.
\nAware how uncertain first times can be,
\nshe asked this of me, wanting \u2013 whatever came later \u2013
\nits strangeness gentled almost to the familiar.
\n 
\nThe bodies work their ancient ways.
\nBy one, she\u2019s back in her own bed
\nand I\u2019m left with a whisky in the curtained night.
\nThe lamplight\u2019s antique sepia stains the old oak floor.
\nAsh heaps grey behind cobwebs trammeling the rusted grate.
\nThe tumbler drips its amber in
\nand, with it, the beginning of all this for me \u2013
\n 
\nmy white-walled, blue-skied childhood abroad:
\nthe ubiquity of scent and colour, bare sunlit skin always near,
\nthe aunt who watched me more intently each year;
\nher friend\u2019s borrowed flat one still, hot afternoon
\nthe dogs dozed through, their dream cries coupling ours.
\n 
\nDid she, I wonder \u2013 among the half-empty
\nwine glasses and candlelit plates littering
\nour family table that evening \u2013 feel as I do now?
\nWas she nourished by or just emptier from
\nour secret afternoon? I felt both tonight, at times,
\nthen neither.
\n 
\nIn what remains, the weary drink-eased hours
\nentertain a paradox of desires at once older
\nand younger than my recall, till each one
\nsettles in relief, like the pile of unswept ash
\nshadowing the lamp\u2019s far reach.
\n 
\nFoolish with all I\u2019ve learned since then,
\nI\u2019d need her here to help me with them.
\nAnd though only silence echoes
\nthe gilding, relic passages of time,
\nI still wonder would she come again \u2013
\narm extended to take mine
\nand lead me, gentle, to that other room?<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJan\u00e9 Dowd<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSILKEN
\n 
\nMarriage is a reckoning:
\nwhat you owe me, how I’ve been
\nwrong\/ed, all the ways
\none is better than another.
\n 
\nThe short years skid past
\ncomposed of long days and
\nwildflowers: those we see along the way,
\nthose we pick for fleeting bouquets,
\nand those that bloom unexpectedly
\nafter fire or frost. The fragile
\nones we notice
\nonly after
\nthey’re lost
\n 
\n 
\nPOSSIBLE CURSES
\n 
\nthe squirrel pup
\nI tired of feeding
\nand later found
\ncold, stiff
\ndead
\n 
\nall the antelope:
\nimpala, kudu,
\nblesbok, gnu
\nkeeping my
\nfeet in the air and
\nout of the blood
\nand guts sloshing
\naround the bed. learning
\nanimals carry
\ntheir waste
\nready-formed
\nunexpelled, waiting;
\nalso: mammals ooze milk
\neven after death
\ngiraffes cry silent
\ntears when they die
\n 
\nthe many fledgling
\ndoves I abducted,
\nignorantly condemned,
\nthinking
\nthey needed
\nme
\n 
\nthe short girl named
\nKarin that wanted
\nto adore me
\nbe my friend
\nlook up to me
\n   be held –
\nhow she hunted
\nmy eyes
\nacross the room, mouthing
\nare you mad at me<\/i>, gesturing
\na clumsy I love you<\/i>
\n 
\nthe dark girl named
\nCindy that kissed
\nme against
\na cupboard in a lava
\nlamp-lit teenage bedroom
\nbuzzing with boys and booze
\nher giggling breath
\non my lips, my neck
\nthe disconcerting undertow;
\nlater on a rooftop
\nshe tells me no one knows
\nthanks me, watches me learn
\nto smoke
\n 
\nthe shy girl named
\nSusan who kept
\nher eye on me
\nfrom the wings, pulled at
\nthe heavy curtain cord
\nslipped me a note with
\nthe five-minute call:
\ndo you remember
\nme? can we
\nfinally
\nbe friends?<\/i>
\n 
\nthe boyman that barely
\nbedded me at eighteen
\nwhen he was a virginal
\ntwenty-three, who later
\nraged at my
\ndenial \u2013 indignant
\ndisbelieving, so recently
\nself-satisfied
\n 
\nsomeone whose boyfriend
\nI trapped for a night, poolside
\nstarlight (he pretended
\nnot to know me
\nwhen she arrived;
\nnow I don’t
\nrecall
\nhis name)
\n 
\nthe small black boy
\nmy big white father
\nthreatened with
\na knife at his throat
\n 
\nmy grandpa Tom’s
\nscorned mistress
\n 
\nwho became a witch
\nwhile he was walking
\n 
\naway, screaming at
\nhis back:
\n 
\na curse on you,
\nyour children
\nand theirs:
\n 
\n   never
\n   shall you
\n   be satisfied<\/i><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDamien Farley<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBRANDY AND MY CRAYONS
\n 
\nfinding I\u2019m a little tired of me \u2013
\ntired of my reason and the plural \u2013
\nI concentrate on the contemplation
\nof Comet\u00ae sprinkled, now scrubbing
\nbathtub crayons (implements,
\nI advocate, should be part of
\nevery American adult\u2019s existence,
\nfor, if I had you in my shower to myself,
\nI\u2019d make love to you and scrawl
\ndescriptions of your wicked beauty
\nupon each surface there)<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoseph Farley<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE SUBJECT WAS WALRUSES
\n 
\nYou walked out in a huff
\ntaking your handlebar mustache
\nwith you.
\n 
\nSome people can be so sensitive.
\nIt was only a comment
\nabout facial hair.
\n 
\nIf you were a woman
\nI could have understood,
\nbut you are a man
\n 
\nin middle age
\ntrying to regain
\nsomething,
\n 
\na part of a past
\nleft behind decades ago.
\nI know
\n 
\nyou would have rather
\nbought a flashy sports car,
\nthe kind I could not fit in.
\n 
\nLack of money made you choose
\nthat damned mustache instead.
\nOne dead caterpillar
\n 
\non your lip
\nwas not enough.
\nNo.
\n 
\nYou had to give it company.
\nNow you are gone,
\nalong with your larvae.
\n 
\nGod knows I will miss
\nyour friendship,
\nbut not your mustache.
\n 
\nThat thing had to go.
\nEven if it wound up
\ntaking you with it. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nVern Fein<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCLASS-CONSCIOUS TOMATOES
\n 
\nThe rich hoard all things Earth.
\nIn the15th century this ripe,
\njuicy, red delicacy turned deadly
\nfor the upper classes.
\nAs they dined at fancy dinners,
\nthe privileged avoided them
\nlike the plague.
\n 
\nNot so the poor. The abundant
\ntomatoes enriched their fare
\nand helped their waifs bloom.
\nWas this some kind of heavenly justice\u2014
\nGod giving a hand up
\nto the broken and downtrodden?
\n 
\nThe expensive pewter dishes,
\nmetal mixing with the tomato acid,
\nproduced the deadly poison.
\n 
\nThe wooden plates of the poor
\nwere safe as they squished
\nthe delicious into their mouths
\nand were thankful. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Freborg<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSCRAPBOOK MEMORIES
\n 
\nI really miss your old girlfriend,
\nthe one with the long hair and trim figure,
\nthe one who\u2019d play frisbee on the putting green at night,
\nwalk miles up hills and down the streets to see the sights,
\ntry out new foods just to see what they were like.
\n 
\nShe wanted to see it all and do it all.
\n 
\nShe\u2019d drive down the coast on a whim,
\npack up and move to the other coast for a dream.
\nSleep in the car when she couldn\u2019t find a room,
\neat your chili con carne, spicy as it was,
\nstay at a concert until the band had to go.
\n 
\nIn a word, she was young.
\n 
\nEvery day opened the door on something new to do.
\nNow, each day seems to close a door on a thing I used to do.
\n 
\nI miss that girl. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMeg Freer<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nOFFERINGS
\nlove and not justice is the point of things<\/i>
\n(W. Kittredge, Hole in the Sky)
\n 
\nShe lights a cigarette as she exits the liquor store,
\nhe calls to her as she walks toward her BMW,
\nshe responds, \u201cBack in a sec,\u201d opens the car door
\nand returns with a second cigarette\u2014perhaps
\nthe only thing they have in common, this woman
\nin a short black dress and this man slumped
\nagainst the wall, the building his backbone
\nat that moment, a cigarette the best
\nthe woman can offer besides her presence. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nReb Friou<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMAN
\n 
\nHe literally handed me a baseball bat and begged me to chase him with it around campus so I did as I was told. I invited him to my dorm and we got drunk even though I was literally a minor and he was a full grown adult. We made out on the dance floor and he put his hands down my pants after I had literally just puked and was trying to go to sleep. We only spoke one more time after this and he just told me not to take things so literally.
\n 
\n 
\nMY FIRST KISS WAS
\n 
\nin the stairwell of a convent. When
\nhe grabbed my hand to pull me close
\nI slid across the terrazzo floor in my Mary
\nJanes. He shoved his unbrushed tongue
\nagainst my twelve year old molars. One
\nby one we returned to AP Human
\nGeography. I tucked my shirt back into my
\nskort and he rearranged his boner.
\nWe never spoke again.
\n 
\n 
\n2017
\n 
\nmy gf was a debutante and i was an afterthought. in places where it was just tuesday, it was just tuesday. here it was mardi gras in new orleans. i thought if i protested the deb world something would change; like maybe no more white men would dress in blackface or make fun of trans ppl. and by protesting i mean sitting at home instead of watching my gf parade around in a wedding gown on the arm of some boy home from college. i wasn\u2019t being an activist i just wanted to lay down all the time because i had sworn off eating and was anxious. but i had to go and i wore a gown my stepmother lent me and i even shaved my armpits for the first time in a year so as not to embarrass my gf\u2019s lineage. during the national anthem i tried to remain seated and my stepmom dragged me up by the arm. also, my gf and i couldn\u2019t even act like gfs at the ball after the debut because they had already announced she was a women and gender studies major and that was cause for concern amongst the ball-goers. i was so slender and so faint and my mother was worried my sexuality was causing anorexia. she texted this to me. my father was pissed that my gf had been sleeping over for months and he hadn\u2019t realized we were finger banging. the man in blackface was unknown to me and definitely someone\u2019s father and the world was bleak. my stomach was growling and my gf was a debutante. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMac Gay<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDISHWATER AND LIGHT
\n 
\nI think I had been going to
\nthe Church of Tell Me All Your
\nThoughts of God Because I\u2019d Really
\nLike to Meet Her all my life,
\neven though I was born in 1948 and
\nwildly hindered by Methodist foolishness.
\nThen in 2013, when I met the real God,
\nmy dog Skip, I think I knew
\nthe door to heaven had finally
\nopened, for there was no ego
\non the pogo anymore. And when he
\ndied he died upon the cross across
\na million miles of frustration. Ultimate
\nprostration was then my ongoing posture,
\nfor I finally knew unconditional love.
\nIt was like God was Dog was Dove. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Grey<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI AM HAVING A BAD MOMENT
\n 
\nRecall slams into thought
\nlike cars coming from opposite directions,
\nboth hugging the middle lane.
\n 
\nMy head is a mangle
\nof nostalgia
\nand what do I do next.
\n 
\nGale takes my hand
\nlike some kind of rescue vehicle
\nbut the crash occurred
\nwhere she can\u2019t see.
\n 
\nAnd she is there, twice:
\nthe child yet to know me,
\nthe elder, looking back on our relationship.
\n 
\nSomeone lived.
\nSomeone died.
\nShe doesn\u2019t get to choose.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE RATS
\n 
\nA woodpecker vanished.
\nSo did a chickadee.
\n 
\nThen, all at once, the mockingbird,
\nthe mourning dove and Carolina wren
\n 
\ntook off for the nearby forest.
\nThe sparrows, at first, were reluctant
\n 
\nbut, eventually, they moved on
\nto other houses.
\n 
\nThe finches followed them,
\neven their gold summer brethren.
\n 
\nThe hummingbirds not only left,
\nthey didn\u2019t even arrive.
\n 
\nThe pole from which the feeder hung
\nstands empty.
\n 
\nEvery corner of the yard
\nis patrolled by a bait box.
\n 
\nNearby construction has upset
\nthe local rat population.
\n 
\nThey\u2019re drawn to anything that sniffs of food.
\nThey take the bait
\n 
\nbut like wildebeest in lions\u2019 territory,
\nrats survive by being so many.
\n 
\nThey breed in great numbers.
\nLike anything feral, they steal from what belongs.
\n 
\nTaking down the feeders has been
\nmy greatest sacrifice.
\n 
\nNo more birdwatching.
\nNo more carnival of colors and behaviors.
\n 
\nThe rats have won.
\nTheir corpses prove it. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGary Grossman<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTWENTY-SEVEN DAYS AFTER MOM DIED
\n 
\nphotographs by her friends began
\nfloating in, gray-scale 2 X 3\u2019s,
\n4 X 6\u2019s, even an occasional
\nKodachrome<\/i> slide.
\n 
\nMom smiling prior to the late
\nMay day when snake-like Mexico
\nhighway 2D, wrapped round her neck
\nand hissed snap. She died instantly,
\ndidn’t feel a thing,<\/i> said the Guardia.<\/i>
\n 
\nFifty-two years later, a third cousin
\nhands me a jpeg, crisp and clear
\nas Gustave Cailliebotte’s portrait
\nof Parisians on a rainy day.
\nA photographic capture designed
\nto overwrite files burned on my
\namygdala. As if Mom’s mania,
\ndepression and blows could be
\nexcised by the crop and blur
\nfunctions of Photoshop. As if
\nhistory could be negated,
\nor erased. As if this distant cousin
\ndidn\u2019t know exactly what he was doing.
\n 
\n 
\nBOMB CYCLONE
\n 
\nI’m not sure
\nwar analogies
\n 
\nwork with
\nweather
\n 
\nor climate,
\nthe latter
\n 
\nlong-term,
\nthe former
\n 
\nthis
\nafternoon. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nStephen Ground<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDARWIN
\n 
\nsaturated to the tips
\n      like
\na kerosene wick
\n      that\u2019s
\nprimed & ready to
\n      sizzle,
\n 
\nI slurp behind the
\n      wheel,
\nchortle the engine to
\n      life,
\n& wordlessly wait
\n   for
\n 
\nNature to happen.
\n 
\n 
\nHEART & HEAD
\n 
\nit\u2019s great when they\u2019re
\nbelting epic oratorios in
\npeerless harmony, but as
\nof this moment I\u2019d slay
\nsomething endangered for
\njust one of these jokers to
\nlearn the damn words.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nNevin Nahar Haque<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPERMUTATIONS AND COMBINATIONS
\n 
\nthe other day I typed your last name
\nnext to my first. two red dotted lines.
\nunder both yours and mine. didn\u2019t
\nadd (insert your last name here) to
\nmy dictionary. instead I idiotically
\ntried my first middle and last then
\na \u2014 to join your last name with
\nmine like a hyphen would make
\nall four names sing together but it
\nlooked like too many pieces of a
\njigsaw puzzle that didn\u2019t fit with
\neach other. tried my first last and
\nanother hanging hyphen with yours
\ntried my first middle and your last
\nI tried too many permutations and
\ncombinations and it all failed me.
\nI could never turn my head towards
\nsomeone who could call out to me,
\n\u201chey, Mrs. (insert your name here)!\u201d
\nfour red lines. three red lines. two.
\ntruth be told your name doesn\u2019t
\nmatch mine your life doesn\u2019t match
\nmine your character doesn\u2019t match
\nmine. yet you were one of the few
\npeople I\u2019ve ever met who always
\nreferred to me by my whole name.
\nyou corrected people when they\u2019d
\nget it wrong. though you, too, could
\nnever fully pronounce the sounds
\nyou could never pause slightly at
\nthe lilt of my different accent but
\nyou tried, still. you tried, once.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Helweg-Larsen<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nEARTH (AND MARS)
\n 
\nThis planet is humanity\u2019s place of birth,
\nbut not the end of what we\u2019re capable of –
\nwe\u2019ve just begun.
\n 
\nBut don\u2019t let Elon Musk take off from Earth:
\nhe\u2019ll nuke us if and when he gets pissed off\u2026
\nor just for fun.
\n 
\n 
\n1+1=?
\n 
\nThe kids are in a muddle,
\ncan\u2019t get the math to sum:
\nthe girls just want to cuddle,
\nthe boys just want to come.
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Henson<\/a><\/strong><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE EASY PART
\n 
\nYou always said
\nyours was the easy part.
\nI knew what you meant,
\nbut didn\u2019t want to admit it.
\nThe color of your eyes
\nwouldn’t let me.
\n 
\nI refused help.
\nIt had always been
\njust you and me.
\nI kept your meds straight
\non my own.
\nGetting you out of bed
\nwas the hardest part,
\nbut my heart was stronger
\nthan my back.
\n 
\nYou loved it when I opened
\nthe bedroom window
\nso you could hear the birds.
\nYou said they sang you
\ninto the past.
\n 
\nThat morning,
\nyou forced a smile
\nand said it wasn\u2019t so easy
\nafter all.
\n 
\nThe birds went silent.
\nI heard my future.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMatt Hohner<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n“LINCOLN THE RAIL SPLITTER\u201d (NORMAN ROCKWELL, 1964)<\/A>
\n   Butler Institute of American Art,
\n   Youngstown, Ohio<\/i>
\n 
\nThe scale is monumental, perspective,
\nheroic. You are young, smooth-faced,
\neyes plunged into a hefty tome in your
\nleft hand, axe clutched by its neck
\nin your right, sable hair tousled
\nand rough against the clouds
\nbuilding in the sky overhead.
\nThin as a balustrade, suspenders
\npull up your brown work pants tucked
\ninto frontiersman boots, the last, crisp
\noak leaves of autumn crushed underfoot.
\nBehind you, the fence you\u2019re mending
\nwith rails hewn from the trees, now flat
\nstumps, around you. A narrow flag
\nof smoke rises from the log cabin
\nchimney in the flat below, an open
\nfield cleared of old growth, dense forest
\nthe color of gold and fire and blood
\ndefining your horizon. Always measured,
\na plum bob slung over your shoulder
\npoints to a red handkerchief half-tucked,
\nhalf-spilling from your pants pocket.
\nYou are bathed in a soft, white glow
\nacross the shoulders on an otherwise
\novercast day. How desperately I want
\nto believe that old manifest promise,
\nthat elusive myth, the national lie
\nalways just past an optimist\u2019s reach.
\nThere is soil on your blue shirt, sweat
\nstaining your pants, your dark coat
\nslung over your arm. In this moment,
\nyou pause to savor a passage before
\ngetting on with the work, before a
\nnation\u2019s war with itself would ravage
\nyou, before you, too, would give
\nyour life on the unholy altar
\nof America\u2019s original sin.
\n 
\n 
\nSIERRA, TUNA, SNAPPER
\n 
\nfor Alejandro Carranza Medina, Colombian fisherman murdered
\nin the Caribbean on September 15, 2025 by a U.S. military strike
\n 
\n\u201cHe went offshore to catch sierra, tuna, and snapper, which are
\nfound far out at this time of year.\u201d
\n  \u2014Cesar Henriquez, friend since childhood<\/i>*
\n 
\nA boat full of nets
\nleaves a warm shore
\nfor the last time
\nheading east towards
\na thin horizon glow
\nunder a Milky Way
\nsparkling like cinders,
\nlike shrapnel. I imagine
\namong the glittering
\ndome of trillions, a
\npinprick or two snuffed
\nlong ago, their light,
\nlike memory, still
\narriving for us to see,
\ntheir widowed planets
\ndrifting untethered by
\ngravity like flotsam
\nin a sea of darkness.
\nSomewhere a man
\nscratches another mark
\nonto a martini shaker,
\npours himself a glass,
\nadds another olive
\nto the ones already
\nspeared through and
\nsunk to the bottom. <\/a>
\n* Source: CBS News<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBeth Houston<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSEPTEMBER
\n 
\nWhen spring\u2019s ghost joins me on the deck to watch
\nGilt city lights click on across the bay,
\nSome downtown maid squeaks windows, wipes the splotch
\nBetween us. Here, this quiet view. Soft clay
\nAnd pungent eucalyptus, thick with rain,
\nExude their essence. Summer\u2019s gloom unwinds,
\nA pane has shattered, and each rampant cane
\nOf luscious juicy blackberries reminds
\nMy grief entwining August\u2019s humid air.
\nA wedge of geese pries open autumn, herds
\nFat purple clouds toward dusk above the glare
\nOf distant offices. Your murdered words
\nOf love on voicemail echo you were dead
\nBefore you put that bullet through your head. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nEdward Cody Huddleston<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMY MESS
\n 
\nMy mess has a bit of a mind right now,
\na mind of its own. I\u2019ve got OCD\u2014
\nnot as in i\u2019M sO oCd AbOuT tHaT<\/i>\u2014
\nbut the actual medical condition and I hate
\nmedication because it makes me feel
\n 
\nlike I\u2019m not myself but after accepting that
\nspending hours every day trying to crack
\nmy knuckles in the right order and stepping
\non just the safe floor tiles unless
\nsomeone\u2019s watching in which case I have to
\ndo it over again when they\u2019re not watching
\nis no longer feasible.
\n 
\nSo, I\u2019m trying Paxil again
\nand my mess has a bit of a mind right now
\nand I\u2019m trying to be mindful of it trying
\nto make me mind it because yes, it\u2019s possible
\nto ignore the compulsions to perform rituals,
\nbut that doesn\u2019t make it easy.
\n 
\nIt\u2019s like when I took steroids
\nafter pulling a muscle in my neck,
\nand I could finally turn my head again,
\never so slightly,
\never so slowly.
\n 
\nIf I seem like I\u2019m not myself these days,
\nmaybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m not or because
\nI am for the first time in a long time,
\nbut either way, my mess has a bit of a mind right now. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKellin James<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHAT I\u2019D DO WITH A TIME MACHINE
\n 
\nSee Nirvana. See the Pistols and the Clash and the Kennedys. Get Jim Morrison and Richey Edwards and HIDE from X to sleep with me, because my most grandiose delusion is that I think I could. See Waterparks and catch them outside the venue after the encore. Hold up a real analog lighter in a rock show pit. Go to Warped, and go again. See Fall Out Boy and My Chem and Panic! before Ryan Ross left. Turn myself fifteen again and linger at that final Warped. Stay long enough to see Waterparks\u2019 set, because I didn\u2019t the first time. Stay for every iteration of that June. Stay in the bedroom that is now only nominally mine. Stay in the bedroom that is now no longer my mother\u2019s. Stay in the bedroom that is now only on holidays my sister\u2019s. Dig through her cassette collection. Dig through her sketchbooks and her diaries and her photo albums. Do it under threat of discovery, and stay in her room even after I\u2019m caught, silent, eyes closed, while she yells. Keep her voice in my head. Keep her shampoo on my skin. Steal the shampoo and pretend I\u2019m her every time someone buries their face in my hair. Bury my face in her hair. Don\u2019t cut my hair. Steal the cassettes. Steal her jewelry. Buy her more jewelry that looks like the jewelry I stole. Hope she doesn\u2019t notice. If she does, hope she doesn\u2019t mind. Catch myself in the mirror and realize most of these clothes could be hers. Imagine another lifetime where they are. Turn her twelve again and linger at that birthday party. Gift-wrap everything I took and leave it by the door. Dye her hair. Dye my hair. Take her to see Nirvana with me. Create a time paradox. Create more. Collapse every other timeline if it would make her happy. Destroy the rest of the universe. I don\u2019t care about physics. I don\u2019t care about possibility. I don\u2019t care about rights and wrongs. I want my sister back. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCarol Kanter<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHOW COULD THERE BE A BETTER DAY
\n 
\nwhen walking my dog
\nthe first three people we pass
\ninitiate \u201cGood Morning\u201d
\nthis mild summer no-rain day\u2026
\n 
\nwhen I just had word
\na friend\u2019s medical procedure
\nwent well and no-news,
\ngood-news of kids, grands\u2026
\n 
\nwhen the latest loan
\nfrom my local library branch
\nis engaging me, the next
\n \u201chold\u201d already waiting\u2026
\n 
\nwhen I solved today\u2019s
\nConnections with no mis-step,
\nnailed Wordle in three,
\nachieved Amazing on the Bee\u2026
\n 
\nwhen discipline rivets me,
\nself-absorbed, to eye merely
\nwhat\u2019s at hand, blind to lies,
\ninjustice, freedoms\u2019 demise? <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDaniel Kemper<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWE TALKED
\n 
\nWhy the mumbled answers, often feeling
\nweary, staring out the window: bitter,
\nwistful, dreamy, harried — always reeling,
\nnot engaging, letting out a titter,
\nmocking laughs or strange and distant crying?
\nBut eventually she says it’s cancer,
\nnot affairs, not me – then we were trying,
\ntalking even if there was no answer.
\nBut I would have those awful times again:
\nI whispered her to sleep and once she slept
\nI stroked her scalp and tucked her sheets, and then
\nI ran off to the shower and I wept.
\nWe talked. We really talked though it was draining,
\nas one, about the time that was remaining.
\n 
\n 
\nCANCER, SILENCE
\n 
\nCancer. Silence. Not the kind you’re thinking.
\nNot a silent, moonlit, snowy prairie,
\nnot an endless road, a sun that’s sinking,
\nonly silence served for dinner, wary
\nsilence, staring at a measured serving,
\nstraining bite by bite to manage. Cancer.
\nSilence. Not a lonely meal–observing
\nspaces left between the words, the answer
\nnever coming, worry never ending,
\nonly pushed around the plate and waiting,
\ntaking time to show, without defending:
\nI am not my cancer. Then relating:
\nCancer, not your worst imagination.
\nSilence marbled through the conversation.
\n 
\n 
\nNO MATTER WHAT, YOU’VE GOT TO STRUT
\n 
\nA courtly, grand, tradition; sure, but men
\nare men, and poets, poets; so, of course
\nbehind their art is merry mischief, force
\nof guile, if not just force; but having then
\nbeen properly improper once again
\nwith risqu\u00e9 sonnets, sometimes merely coarse
\n(if richly rhymed), how long must we endorse
\nthese minuets? Will someone shout, A-men!?
\n 
\nStep it up and shake a foot, a
\nhand, a bodice: make it syncopated–
\nlet it, having been elaborated,
\nsettle for a minute.
\nStrike a pose. Then strut. And put a
\nlittle music in it.
\n 
\n 
\nPARADISOS
\n   A woman of valor, who can find?
\n   –Proverbs 31:10
\n 
\nGardening doesn’t begin to describe her activity.
\nCarefully freeing her hand from her glove momentarily,
\ntwisting a sepal, un-crumbling a blossom, passivity
\nnever in even the tiniest gesture, she airily
\nloses herself in the moment, then turning the art of her
\ntenderness downward, she presses the rich, odoriferous
\nhumus with vigor. It needs her attention; it’s part of her
\nhaven. Her messy amusement provokes a vociferous
\ngrunt and she giggles. Amazing. Then grabbing her glove for a
\nstroll through the rosemary, down to a fountain that’s spluttering
\njoy, she immerses her fingers–and fills me with love for a
\nwoman creating an art of a garden’s de-cluttering.
\nBeautiful doesn’t begin to describe her intensity,
\ntending a garden of human and holy immensity.
\n 
\n 
\nIT’S RAINING LEAVES
\n 
\nIt’s raining leaves.
\nA spangled light like tender fingers combs
\nthrough slender maple limbs;
\na sliver of a whisper
\nbends and quivers
\nthe leaves
\naway from them.
\nIt’s raining leaves,
\nand as the auburn air, adrift,
\nfumbles
\nwith the tresses that it brushes
\nwith butterfly kisses
\nof gold and rouge and rust,
\nso my tumbling thoughts return
\nto you, across the way.
\nYou feel my eyes.
\nYou let them stay.
\nYet keep your boundaries, in
\nan accommodating way.
\nIt’s raining leaves.
\nMy heart believes
\nit’s really raining.
\nMy mind does not believe:
\nit only dreams.
\nAnd my soul
\nhas always loved you.
\nIt’s raining leaves. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nOlivia Koo<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCHIPPED CUP
\n 
\nThe rim is uneven,
\na bite taken out of porcelain.
\nI drink carefully,
\nlips finding a safe place.
\n 
\nIt feels like a shortcut,
\npretending nothing\u2019s broken
\nbecause I can still use it.
\n 
\nBut it\u2019s also shorthand:
\nthe chip tells me that
\nthe cup has been dropped,
\nand someone still decided
\nit was worth keeping anyway.
\n 
\nWhite glaze, rough edge,
\na little scar I touch every morning,
\nas if to remind myself:
\nfragile things don\u2019t stop holding. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nChristian Lingner<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n(THE) FALL
\n 
\nWith eyes glutted
\non summer\u2019s green,
\nwe give a hearty greeting
\n 
\nto the flush-flooded,
\nruddy scene
\nof handsome summer, bleeding. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCharles Livesay<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNOTIFICATION
\n 
\nShe steps out of her sister\u2019s bakery
\nafter the breakfast rush. The rest
\nof the day is always a steady trickle:
\nguys in navy ties, college kids,
\nstay-at-home moms
\nwho call her honey<\/i> and sugar<\/i>
\nin syrupy voices but never
\nbother to learn her name.
\nShe won\u2019t vape,
\ntakes a real cigarette break,
\ngives herself a chance to check
\nthe voicemail that buzzed her phone
\nwhen she was up to her elbows
\nin biscuit dough. She checks her notifications.
\nSomebody called from the prison.
\nShe wonders what her husband wants
\ntoday, hears a bored woman say
\nshe\u2019s sorry but Jamal died of wounds
\nsustained last night. Condolences.
\n 
\nAcross the road,
\nSusan stands with hands wrapped
\naround the chains of a playground swing,
\nwatches her baby girl jumping
\nfrom her own swing\u2019s seat.
\nShe could do without
\nall that screaming from the street. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKelsey D. Mahaffey<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDON\u2019T GO YET
\n 
\nWait. I know there\u2019s more
\nI could say. Did I tell you
\nI fled from childhood\u2014
\neyes pinched & throat closed?
\n 
\nStuck borrowing from others,
\nmy breath a red dress
\nI didn\u2019t find until age forty.
\n 
\nNever flattering,
\nI used to avoid the family
\nof reds except in anger,
\nopting for the basic
\nnecessity of coal-liner black.
\n 
\nBut the siren-red 1980\u2019s blouse
\nthat screamed for me from the vintage sale bin,
\nlong forgotten beneath pockets of torn
\nPearl Jam flannel & crushed blue silk,
\n 
\nnow flames in front of my closet
\nlike a fresh breath of fire\u2014
\n 
\none I refuse to put out. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Martino<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nENTERING THE WHIRLPOOL
\n 
\nApril, day of the Fool,
\na heap of broken sun
\nbeams, with evening
\nrising and \u201cPleased
\nto meet you,\u201d a potted
\nlilac, fixed and pasted,
\nforgetfully (or almost)
\nwasted, gulping fear
\nby the handful,
\nthe bartender mixing
\nanother Memory &
\nDesire, jukebox waxing
\nnostalgic: \u201cCome on,
\nbaby, light my fire!\u201d<\/i>
\nwhen, out of the dead
\nland, a dull, dried
\ntuber stirs, Lazarus
\n-like with a little life,
\nthough extra cruel
\nin its surprise, as if
\nthe whole planet
\ndid tilt and pull
\nat the root of one
\ncurled gray hair,
\nand shifting to adjust
\nmy jeans at the crotch
\nand alleviate the clutch,
\nI spill headlong off
\nthe bar\u2019s high chair.
\n 
\n 
\nOFF THE GRID
\n 
\nWell, well, what have we here?
\nTr\u00e8s passer?<\/i> Hypocrite reader?
\nOr C: Brave sonneteer? At any rate,
\nsomething undeniably, irresistibly
\n 
\nqueer. Guess you didn\u2019t see the gate
\nof blackberry bushes back there.
\nOr maybe you thought you could
\noutstrip Fate. Have it your way,
\n 
\nand not ingratiate. You thought
\nyou\u2019d cross Enemy Lines and not
\nINSTIGATE!?<\/i> I flash my \u201cpeace\u201d
\nand expectorate. I give the high
\n 
\nsign of Democracy. Two fleshy
\nmiddle fingers and using all three.
\nCan\u2019t tell the left from the right.
\nDead ringers in the year of the plague.
\n 
\nBlights! Hammers! Factions! <\/i>
\nLast one out \u2019s a rotted leg.
\nSee that sky turning black as a lung?
\nPreview of coming attractions.
\n 
\nWhat\u2019samatter? Rat got your tongue?
\nSmartphone gone dumb?
\nMind and Sky are One.
\nNow let\u2019s have some
\n 
\nFUN.<\/i> Set phaser to stun.
\n(Write it!) Thou art stone
\nthat once was stoner<\/i>. This isn\u2019t a bone,
\nit\u2019s a boner. And I\u2019m not alone.
\n 
\nI\u2019m a loner. Cranking off in
\nthe northeast wind,
\nslipping over your notion
\nlike a drone.
\n 
\n 
\nFIN DE SI\u00c8CLE
\n 
\nHomer!<\/i>\u2014you old War
\nHorse looking for the gift
\nin my gab. Getting round
\nas a doughnut and more
\n 
\nyellow, I see. Control-Shift
\n-Z. What\u2019s lost is now found.
\nWent down to get uptown.
\nLots of titty at the Museum.
\n 
\nCome on! Let\u2019s go and see\u2019um!
\nHow she came off the brush.
\nBack when Skulls were all
\nthe rage. Enough to make
\n 
\nDeath blush. The Rite
\nof Spring peeled open like
\na cadaver\u2019s arm. Tendons
\nin mid-pluck. Change your
\n 
\nboots. Change your luck.
\nOne ploughed algorithm
\nat a time. Think Brueghel
\ntaking on the animal kingdom
\n 
\nwith encyclopedic precision.
\nWhite stripe right across
\nmy back. Scalpel\u2019s incision.
\nFade to black. Woke with fig
\n 
\nleaf of Amnesia. Strategically
\nplaced just to tease ya.
\nStuck a feather in his map
\nand called it Micronesia.
\n 
\nAttack of the Endless
\nSkeleton Army. Infinity
\nin one small chip of space.
\nThe focus is on Light, Sky,
\n 
\nWater as a single boiling
\nsphere. Hang a guilt frame
\naround your fear. The pearl
\nearring sheds a tear. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKen Massicotte<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAFTERLIFE
\n 
\nEvery Monday, a group of recently deceased people
\ncheck-in. The social workers in the lodge ask them
\n to go back over their life and choose one single
\nmemory to take into the afterlife.<\/i>
\n\u2014Afterlife, by Hirokazu Kore-eda
\n 
\nI\u2019m a young boy with narrow shoulders
\nhome for lunch
\nthen hurrying to cross the street to get back to school.
\nIt\u2019s a windy day in September
\nwith dust and leaves flying everywhere
\nand I\u2019m wild in the whirl from summer to fall.
\nI misjudge the traffic
\nand I\u2019m hit by a station wagon with a big chrome fender.
\nI’m knocked down but not too hurt
\nand I run back home \u2014
\ndisturbing butterflies in the goldenrod
\nin the unpaved alley \u2014
\nup the rusty wrought iron stairs
\nto my mother in the kitchen doing dishes.
\nMy head is bleeding but I don’t know this
\nand I have a headache and I’m crying.
\nThe driver has followed me to our back door
\nand he’s carrying my scuffed, brown-leather satchel.
\nMy mother takes me to a dark bedroom
\nand lays a cold compress on my forehead.
\nShe\u2019s dressed for her shift in her nurse\u2019s uniform
\nand I fall asleep
\nand I feel safe. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHannah McLeod<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMY UTERUS IS ATTACKING ME
\n   After Pelvic Inflammatory Disease<\/i>
\n 
\nPat Benatar almost got it right \u2014 only \u2014
\nmy uterus is a battlefield. She is
\non the prowl, moving in for the kill, screaming
\nlike a banshee as she comes for the tender organs,
\nscraping them out with a dull spoon. She reeks
\nof week-old iron and relishes the taste of clot-riddled
\nblood relish. You never see her coming, a blazing
\nswirl of red so red it soups black and brown,
\nLas Vegas drowning in molten lava \u2014 pavement,
\ndirt, sand, red velvet carpet, and neon light stew.
\nGirl dinners and smile at everyone, especially presumptuous
\nold men or else the pain gets worse. Dip my clit in
\nbuttermilk and put a cat underneath it \u2014 the inebriated
\ndriver of my pain-dazed mind. Agony hunches
\nover the girl, not the other way around. I stab
\nthrough my skin and tear it all out \u2014 how about that?
\nDusty\u2019s ready to fuckin go. I\u2019ll take a knife to it right now,
\nwith the same precision as cutting fat off pork, which is to
\nsay, very little. Careful as a dump truck. The whole thing
\nwill come out smooth in one piece. Hijo de puta,
\nt\u00fa puedes con todo. This knife is glowing like a temptress
\nin the night and I am answering her call. Slicing through
\nthe silent skin like a banshee\u2019s scream. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLindsay McLeod<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBLIND DATE
\n 
\nIt\u2019s a roll of the dice
\nit\u2019s the turn of a card
\nmakes me feel Jesus Christ
\nit shouldn\u2019t be this hard,
\nto find someone who’s nice
\nand attractive to me
\nbut on this carousel
\nI\u2019ve found only… let\u2019s see
\n 
\nTrace was full blown racist
\nI suspected Venus had a penis,
\nEnid was a children\u2019s author
\nironic, Enid was the meanest,
\n 
\ndear Scarlet near insisted
\nwe should hop straight into bed
\nbut I resisted because her eyes
\nrolled round like marbles in her head
\n 
\nmet Quasimodo by the tower
\nthen there was Cerberus by the gate,
\nmet Manson then met Alice
\n(Alice, she was running late)
\n 
\nmother Mary was still in mourning
\nshe outlined all she chose to hate,
\nnext came Tessie (that got messy)
\nwho posted me her \u2018target\u2019 weight
\n 
\nnasty Stella the astrologer
\ncould not believe that I\u2019d refuse,
\n\u2018You must have Neptune late in retrograde.\u2019
\nI told her, \u2018That\u2019s not it… it\u2019s you.\u2019
\n 
\nSome were happy, some were damaged
\n(and now I know that I am too),
\nsome were easy, some were hard
\nsome wanted things I couldn\u2019t do.
\n 
\nSo why put myself out there
\nwhy should I bother, even try?
\n 
\nI suppose it\u2019s because,
\ninitial hellos can be awkward
\nbut it’s better than
\nliving inside of goodbye.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKate McNairy<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP\u2026
\n\u2014 Emily Dickinson
\n 
\nbare-naked
\nI walk thru
\nraw December.
\n 
\nmy pubic leaves
\nbrush the ground.
\n 
\nmy fatty bosoms, suet
\nfor the woodpecker feeder.
\n 
\nmy fleshy stomach
\nan outie bellybutton
\nmirrors itself in the pond.
\n 
\nI cast my eyes
\nup to the lunar orb,
\nvery very soon
\n 
\nI\u2019ll be up there
\npart of that nude
\nblue-green moon. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMike Mesterton-Gibbons<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBIGGER AND LOWER
\n 
\nThe bull in a Paulus Potter painting once had
\nmuch larger testicles. Experts believe he toned it
\ndown to respect 17th-century sensibilities.<\/i>
\n 
\nB<\/b>efore The Bull was partly painted out,
\nI<\/b>ts balls were bigger, dangling lower down\u2014
\nG<\/b>enteel Dutch folk were bashful, then, about
\nG<\/b>igantic orbs on pictures hung in town
\nE<\/b>stablishments. Conservators, who are
\nR<\/b>estoring this iconic painting (by
\n 
\nA<\/b> Dutchman) with their modern repertoire,
\nN<\/b>ot only, using X-rays, verify
\nD<\/b>imensions, but can also resurrect,
\n 
\nL<\/b>ike new, the glories last seen long ago
\nO<\/b>n Potter’s Bull and give it more respect,
\nW<\/b>ith all of its endowment still on show …
\nE<\/b>xcept, they don’t\u2014in art, Dutch bourgeoisie
\nR<\/b>emain as bashful as they used to be! <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarla Dial Moore<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBORDER LINES
\n  After Saadi Youssef<\/i>
\n 
\nWe paused at a crosswalk \u2014
\n  a traffic light changed,
\n  the country changed,
\n  and borders moved beneath us.
\n 
\nI am stranded here, without a map
\n  apart from history \u2014
\n  what clues it provides:
\n  the borders have moved beneath us.
\n 
\nHow will I find America
\n  once the fog burns away
\n  and grackles return to their perch?
\n  The borders have moved beneath us.
\n 
\nMy home lies buried now
\n  in sands of red and blue,
\n  where masked men wait in unmarked cars
\n  and the borders shift beneath us.
\n 
\nWhere will my home be
\n  when you no longer remember me,
\n  when the dog has forgotten my scent:
\n  Will the borders still move beneath us?
\n 
\nHow will I know America
\n  when the bluebonnets burn in the fields
\n  and all of this language runs dry,
\n  now that the borders have moved beneath us? <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLydia Pearson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nA NEW DANCE
\n\u2018Palm to palm is a holy palmer’s kiss.’<\/i>
\n 
\nYour palm touched mine; you jolted me awake.
\nI hadn’t realised I’d been sleeping.
\nThose periwinkle eyes twinkling under
\nthe club lights, your face lit bright,
\nmade me look at you with wonder.
\n 
\nMy breath caught in my throat,
\nout of place, like a stray tendril of hair
\nfalling over my eyes, blinding.
\nMy heart hammers hard, beating
\nlike a drum caught behind my ribs.
\n 
\n A new dance begins. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKenneth Pobo<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nEAGLE IN MAY
\n 
\nAn eagle leaves a shadow on our boat
\nand claims a pine on the opposite shore.
\nWe watch a yellow water lily float.
\nAn eagle leaves a shadow on our boat–
\nA loon swims by singing a mournful note.
\nThe quiet lake shines like a liquid floor.
\nAn eagle leaves a shadow on our boat
\nand claims a pine on the opposite shore. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTom Probasco<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nVOLCANO
\n 
\nYou and your mother arrive home early
\nas a cold December first
\nis turning warmer
\nand a virus
\nis turning your mother\u2019s stomach.
\nSuddenly your demands
\nare my schedule the rest of the day.
\n 
\nAt eight months there isn\u2019t much
\nthat you can do for yourself.
\nThe day wears on and I wear down,
\nand I wonder:
\nWhat will you learn from me?
\nMy plans and the course I\u2019ve set us on
\nlook crazier by the hour.
\n 
\nYour suppertime rolls around.
\nWe finish that feeding.
\nI lift you from your chair,
\nand then it starts.
\nYou grab my head and squeeze.
\nI push my mouth into the crease
\nbetween your head and shoulder,
\nwhere your neck will someday be,
\nand begin to chant in a deep voice:
\nBoo boo boo.
\nBoo boo boo.
\nBoo boo boo.
\nSqueezing harder you draw a deep breath
\nand shriek.
\nLaughter pours forth like lava,
\nlike many times before, and yet
\nit spews out like a surprise.
\nLike a gift.
\nA gift this time instead of a curse
\nfrom the earth\u2019s evolution.
\nI stand with you in its warmth,
\nbetween the dining room and living room,
\ngrateful for the eruption. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSabrina Ramet<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDUCKS ARE COSMOPOLITANS
\n 
\nDucks are cosmopolitans,
\nand share the same traditions.
\nResearch shows with certainty
\nthat all of their cognition
\n 
\nis everywhere identical
\nand every time they quack,
\nany duck around the world
\ncan give a quacking back.
\n 
\nThey don\u2019t establish nations,
\nthey never go to war,
\nand there is much to learn as well
\nfrom their ancient lore.
\n 
\nBut crows are squawking all day long;
\nthey think they\u2019re copacetic.
\nGeese are raving nationalists,
\nand swans are just pathetic. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCharles Rammelkamp<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n\u201cYOU CAN FIND THE ASSHOLE IN ANYBODY,\u201d
\n 
\nmy friend Greeley observed.
\nA freshman in college, I thought it profound.
\nYes, it\u2019s easy to ridicule, sneer, isn\u2019t it?
\nThe way the Tea Party patriots made fun
\nof Obama\u2019s slogan about hope,
\nthe way MAGA Neanderthals sneer
\nat \u201cwoke,\u201d as if compassion is laughable.
\nThe way I sneer at MAGA Neanderthals.
\n 
\nHow did Abe Lincoln put it?
\nIf you go around looking for the bad in people,
\nyou will surely find it.
\nI first heard that in Pollyanna<\/i>, starring Hayley Mills.
\nBut when I mentioned Greeley\u2019s comment
\nto my roommate Will,
\nWill said, \u201cHe got that from me.
\nI said it first,\u201d
\neager to claim credit.
\n 
\nIt made me look at Will in a new way,
\nas if I\u2019d discovered something about him
\nI hadn\u2019t seen before.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWilliam James Rosser<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGOLD WINGS
\n 
\nThis piteous lament of mourning doves
\nalights from the folds of the Catawba
\nacross the road. And with a blue and grayed-
\nwhite backdrop of high cirrus floating south,
\nthe sunlight shivers through the paling leaves,
\nillumines their spread wings like brushstrokes of
\nPissarro\u2019s paint on ochre-toned canvas.
\n 
\nOr, stacks of bouillon bars when the dark vault
\ngroans open for the taking \u2013 Light, as now,
\nspreading across my silent porch, flitting
\nthrough what I, at first, perceived were earfuls
\nof waxwing birds in sudden migration,
\nlike gold dust streaks across the early sky \u2013
\nthen making for an unguarded border.
\n 
\nMourning doves rising. No steeples in sight.
\nIt\u2019s Sunday morning. It\u2019s cold, I\u2019m broke, no alms,
\nlandlocked and slighted \u2013 far from the crossing.
\nYet feathered by calmest coos and rarest
\ngold wings, despite the nearing clouds and rain.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Rutherford<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMY GRANDMOTHER WITH DEMENTIA
\nDESCRIBES A FAMILY PHOTOGRAPH
\n 
\nThat picture cost a whole month’s salary,
\nthey took it at the funeral home in town.
\nLook at the clothes! Fit for a gallery!
\nBack then, in pictures, everyone would frown.
\nThe children came down with the whooping cough,
\nin nineteen twenty-nine, that was the year
\nthe market crashed and the farm was written off.
\nAt the time, they lived down the road, so near,
\nand Dad was finished with sharecropping then,
\ndrove Momma into town with cuts of ham,
\ncanned peaches, and some Bayer aspirin.
\nShe worked miracles with them in her hands
\nwith a thermometer, and iodine,
\nand no vaccines, she kept us all alive.
\nShe couldn\u2019t save poor cousin Ira Jean,
\none day she sat up, sang a hymn, and died. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLeon Sare<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNOW THAT\u2019S WHAT I CALL A YEARNING
\nFOR THE MASTICATED FLESH
\n 
\nyou are too large for my skin
\ni knew it the second i laid eyes on you
\ncombing the crowd for a set of shortcomings that would play nice with mine
\nbut your fingers are hot under my offered weakness
\nand your hair is coarse and well kept, lined in glitter and night air
\n(i am drywall against you, harsh and cold)
\n(easily broken, when bent at the right angle)
\n 
\nmy body does not offer the kind of real estate it takes to house guests gracefully
\nthere is not an inch of skin you could burrow under
\nthat won\u2019t do permanent damage
\n(i am going to invite you regardless)
\ni will leave doors cracked in their frames, lamps buzzing into the night
\noffer blood and flesh and beautiful, meaningless smiles
\npray you take the bait
\n 
\ni am in the market for new souvenirs
\n(i don\u2019t know how to get this close to someone without leaving gouges)
\nwe will return to our respective lives
\nwith pieces of each other stuck in our teeth
\n 
\n(the common ground will be good for us) <\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPenelope Scambly Schott<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWIND GUSTS EXCEED 30 MPH
\n 
\nOver billowing wheatfields
\ntwo struggling ravens blow backwards,
\n 
\nahead of them up on the utility tower
\nimpatient squawk of hungry nestlings.
\n 
\nDecades ago at my local A&P
\nhow I hesitated near the meat counter
\n 
\ntotaling my one-dollar bills,
\nadding the quarters and dimes,
\n 
\nmy own nestlings waiting to be fed. <\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJason Schwartz<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTASHLICH
\n 
\nYou told bedtime stories
\nthrough optic-white
\ndentures: escaping Romania,
\nan orphan on a train\u2019s roof, eating
\nyellowed ice
\namong valises.
\n 
\nThen a soldier presses
\n a pistol to your skull base
\n like a wax seal. A hollow
\nclick. You tumble into a thistled
\nminefield and I fall
\nasleep in He-Man undies.
\n 
\nMornings, you dipped
\n bagel chunks in milky coffee.
\n The mug chattered. Between
\n dystrophic nails, you raised
\n the drowned
\n like tallit fringes to your lips.
\n 
\nSaba, when my daughter learns
\n not to eat lip gloss, do I squeeze
\nthe dawdling trigger
\nof your ischemic stroke
\n or cast you like a sin
\ninto the Hudson? <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nClaire Scott<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nRUBBINGS FROM GRAVESTONES
\n 
\n  & when
\nHuge oil portraits of my parents
\nhung on the dining room walls
\nas though we lived in a museum and people
\npaid good money to wander through
\nonly no one ever came
\n 
\n  & although
\nEach night after the maids in white uniforms
\npassed plates of uninspired food
\nus four kids sat eyes down
\non our silent steaks and potatoes or pushed
\nthe Friday fish around with silver forks
\n 
\n  & because
\nWe didn\u2019t want to see those eyes
\nwatching us from the walls, eyes
\nthat could see the lies, saying our mother
\nmade big breakfasts no need to bring
\nturkey sandwiches to school
\n 
\n  & while
\nMy mother licked the butter balls
\nignoring her dinner, slurping her scotch
\nmy father in a coat and tie carefully carved his meat
\ninto perfect squares before taking a bite
\nwilling her to sanity.
\n 
\n 
\nUNMOORED
\n 
\nfloating out to sea, no sail, no compass
\nno telescope, no welcoming harbor
\nin sight
\n 
\n  as a kid I loved drifting on a raft
\n  waking to find I was too far away to see the dock
\n  paddling with delight the whole way back
\n 
\nnot so much now, no need for new adventures
\nlonging for the safety of the shore
\nold age winning, wrinkles multiplying like sea stars
\n 
\na blocked artery, a pacemaker
\nwho is this person with bruises
\nfrom blood thinners, muscles aching from statins
\n 
\n  where is the grinning girl on the raft
\n  fingers trailing the water
\n  not worried about being lost
\n 
\nis the welcoming harbor the last stop?
\na helpless hopeless lonely shelter?
\nif so I want to sail on a little longer
\n 
\nmy boat whittled by weather
\ngnawed by barnacles
\nI want to learn to love the sea
\nthe way I did when I was twelve<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCarol Shillibeer<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNEMESIS IS SEEN IN FULL JUDGE’S ROBES
\nWALKING DOWN PORTLAND AVENUE.
\n 
\nI hear about this from Callisto. I was on a three-day job for Themis, when Callisto turns up at the hotel where I am staying. She sees me in the lobby and comes over.
\n 
\nMe, I was just chilling with a big cup of coffee and a murder mystery. It is so weird when Callisto shows up someplace. I swear I can feel a subtle rumble in the floors, like a huge bear is walking by. There\u2019s even the faintest smell of wood, moss, leaf mold, or something that reminds me of the forest floor. She comes to sit next to me. She\u2019s the slightest of women in her human form. Beautiful too. Wavy brown hair, golden skin, a tailored suit that looks Anne Taylor to me. When she puts her arm up on the chair I realize the suit is probably silk. Burgundy. The fabric moves shadow in a way that makes Callisto seem as if she\u2019s rippling.
\n 
\nAfter a beat she said did you hear? Nemesis is close by<\/i>. I was thankful that she had waited to speak until I wasn\u2019t drinking. I put my coffee down on the small table in front of us and asked, do you know why she is here?<\/i>
\n 
\nCallisto shakes her head. I don\u2019t, but don\u2019t you think it might be related to the Orange Doofus?
\n 
\nOh I hope so,<\/i> I say. I pick up my coffee again. Man that would be great<\/i>, I say to Callisto. She nods. I sigh with happiness at the thought of Nemesis on the job. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTricia L. Somers<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSANCHO
\n 
\nI used to like to look
\ninto your eyes.
\nI saw stars fall into winter,
\nspring, and then summer skies.
\n 
\nYou said my name
\nwith your lying smile,
\nand sat me on your knee,
\nI\u2019m so very cherished.
\n 
\nLittle creeks rush
\ndown the hills of Earth\u2019s cheeks,
\nto the house on the corner.
\n 
\nAs we listen to the rain,
\nyour best friend\u2019s girlfriend
\nwaits for you down the street.
\n 
\n 
\nARMS EXCHANGE
\n 
\nRockets stamped in black ink
\nUS MUNITIONS<\/i>
\nAutographed by former
\nrock stars and politicians
\nduring a photo op
\nwhere they draw hearts
\non the bombs and smile
\n 
\nExchanged for small arms
\nof children with their names
\nwritten in black ink
\nso their mother can know
\nit is her child\u2019s body part
\nand take them home
\nin a plastic bag <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKathryn Spratt<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE FOLKSY WISDOM I INTEND
\nTO DISPENSE ABOUT WHITE RABBITS
\nWHEN I AM APPROPRIATELY OLD
\n 
\nSay he’s a real-life magician
\ncapable of casting spells
\nthat poof you gorgeous between the sheets.
\nBurrowed deep beneath blankets
\nat the foot of your bed,
\nlop-eared Insecurity will still be hangry,
\nand boy can rabbits bite.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJulie Standig<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAGALMATOPHILIA
\n 
\nThe Mannequin of Surf Avenue,
\nstood steadfast in my aunt\u2019s kitchen.
\n 
\nThis headless body on cast iron base,
\nmesmerized me as a child,
\n 
\nbuilt like my aunt, squat and strong\u2014
\nbusty and wide-waisted. An armless form,
\n 
\nwrapped in linen, layered over cotton batting,
\nand often found shoulder-to-shoulder
\n 
\nwith Aunt Ray as she prepared borscht,
\nkreplachs in chicken broth and fresh challah.
\n 
\nI had no idea what to do with this thing.
\nSince my uncle, the tailor, was long dead,
\n 
\nthe mannequin stood idly naked for years,
\noverseeing Ray, sadly cooking for one.
\n 
\nOne of the Russian movers asked,
\ncan I claim this body for myself?<\/i>
\n 
\nThis thing? My aunt\u2019s unshapely form,
\ncovered in water marks and whoknowswhat?
\n 
\nWas this middle-aged Russian an Agalmatophilian?
\nI frowned, Aunt Ray would shrug, meshuggana.<\/i>
\n 
\nBut my uncle, a small Bedzin warrior,
\nhe would slyly smile, nod and wink.
\n 
\n 
\nBEIGE AND BOTTLED
\n 
\nMy granddaughters watch
\nas I pencil in faded eyebrows.
\n  Where did they go Nana?<\/i>
\n  They\u2019re here, just gray now.
\n 
\nTheir fingers rummage through my make-up.
\nWarm Bronze Shimmer eyeshadow
\nDusty Rose cream blush
\nPink Taupe lipstick
\nFifty shades of beige\u2014natural is not easy.
\n  Watch\u2019s this do?<\/i>
\n 
\nThe 5-year-old picks up blush\u2014
\n  Why do you always wear make-up?<\/i>
\n  I think it makes me look better.
\nShe scrutinizes my applications,
\nnot quite buying the end result.
\n 
\nWe sit together at breakfast,
\nsans make-up, hair uncombed.
\n  Nana, you need to put on your young stuff.<\/i>
\n  You really think so?
\nShe looks at me and sternly nods. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlex Stolis<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIF I\u2019D HAD THE CHANCE I WOULD\u2019VE
\nTOLD MY SON & DAUGHTER
\n 
\nWhen night falls asleep,
\npaint its earthen walls
\n 
\nbrilliant sunrise orange
\n& watch colors bleed,
\n 
\nthe horizon thick with tears & music of birdsong.
\n 
\nconversate with Verlaine
\n& Rimbaud,
\n 
\nfollow a random river,
\ncollect stones & sing
\n 
\na love song as the Fates spin, weave & cut around you.
\n 
\nSwap stories with Odyseuss,
\ntell your tales, tall & wide,
\n 
\nstrap them to the mast, sail
\ninto the wine-dark sea & write
\n 
\na new chapter bold enough to quench the thirst of the gods.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFaith Thiebaud<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHIRD DATE
\n 
\nAs I was sitting in my loveseat with
\nan empty cup of kraft mac and cheese
\non the coffee table
\nyour head tilts\u2013 eyes wide
\n 
\n\u201cDo you not eat because you don\u2019t want to get fat?\u201d
\n 
\nNo one has ever asked so bluntly
\nIt both offended and fascinated me
\nIt was like in that moment you discovered anorexia
\nbut there was no judgement no pity no uncomfort
\njust a longing to understand and a desire
\nto share a meal with me
\n 
\n 
\nWE COULD NEVER AGREE ON BABY NAMES
\n 
\nWe were supposed to be having babies,
\nraising life in a little historic townhouse
\nideally downtown, so that I could walk
\nto the coffee shop everyday with the
\ndog and the kids.
\nI wonder if we would have had a girl
\nfirst, or a boy.
\nWould we have stopped at one? Two?
\nSurely not three.
\nWould we have taken family photos
\nat every holiday and have large canvases
\nof our smiling faces covering the walls?
\nWould we have worn matching outfits\u2013
\nafter you pitched a fit of course\u2013
\nOr would we be more subtle,
\nmaybe some matching shoes?
\nWould our daughter have my nose and
\nour son, your eyes?
\nI can see us now\u2013
\ncurled up in bed, with the dog in between
\nmy legs, a spunky pigtailed daughter
\nkicking my ribs in her sleep,
\nand a mousy younger brother who
\naccidentally knocks over the collection
\nof bottles on your bedside table\u2013 crying
\nbecause daddy hasn\u2019t had much sleep
\nand is quick to anger when hungover\u2013
\nThe floor covered in shit because the
\ndog was not let out before you
\nstumbled into bed
\nand me, eyes wide open
\nbut stiff as a board
\nnot minding the
\nrepeated jabs in the ribs.
\n 
\n <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDan Thompson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHAN SHAN
\n 
\nCrazy old man
\nsitting on Cold Mountain \u2013
\nstories about you abound.
\n 
\nLiving in the time of Li Bo and Du Fu
\nand the eastward journey of Dhyana to China,
\nwhat choice was there for you?
\n 
\nToday you would be put away \u2013
\na menace to society,
\na danger to yourself.
\n 
\nNo doubt you\u2019d be found
\nclinically disturbed \u2013 <\/i>
\nand with a raft of prescriptions
\nand consultations
\nyou might be cured
\nof your eccentric ways.
\n 
\nBut without you, Old Graybeard,
\nwhere would we all be today?
\n 
\nYou and your friend \u2013
\ntwo crazy old men
\nroaring with laughter in the wilderness \u2026 <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBarbara Ungar<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTO STUART BARTOW
\n(after Frank O\u2019Hara)
\n 
\nI can\u2019t believe there\u2019s not another world where
\nwe\u2019ll sit and read new poems to each other
\nhigh on Salem\u2019s hill, looking out upon
\nthe blue hills of the Green Mountains.
\nYou can be Issa, I\u2019ll be Li Ch\u2019ing
\nChao, and our cats will be our cats.
\nOr shall we circle the lake, swimming
\nand fishing companionably as Yeats\u2019
\nwild swans, or a pair of loons, or lovers.
\nNotes from you, delivered by the full moon
\nto my too big bed, say, Don\u2019t worry,
\nthe insurmountable night will be over
\nso fast. Wish you were here, but no hurry\u2014
\nout beyond Circumference. See you soon.
\n 
\n 
\nAUGUST ENCORE
\n 
\nIf I hold you any closer, I\u2019ll be behind you.<\/i>
\n  \u2014Groucho
\n 
\nAnd so I start my 70th year.
\nThought I\u2019d be wiser by now.
\nAlways the crickets\u2019 tiny violins\u2026
\n 
\nYou\u2019re behind me, I\u2019m behind you,
\nwe passed through each other like ghosts.
\n 
\nInscription on a gold engagement ring
\nthat opens out into a micro-cosmos:
\nThe whole universe is in your hands. <\/i>
\n 
\nI am held in your green arms
\nbut cannot grasp you back.
\n 
\nI\u2019m real because you believe in me, <\/i>
\nCaptain Gregg says to Mrs Muir,
\nbut there will be no handsome hologram
\n 
\nhovering about the house. It\u2019s more subtle.
\nYou\u2019re eternal, I\u2019m swept away\u2014is that it?
\n 
\nThere goes summer. A cricket, singing.
\nHummingbirds and monarchs hunt
\nfor late blooms. I can feel the pause, the
\nhinge, all of us taking a deep breath\u2014<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMaura Way<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nOSSIFIED
\n 
\nTalking is for the exchange of information<\/i>, I brainwash
\nmyself because my heart is breaking and my ovaries are
\ncracked. Data is not connection. Now that I know what lack
\nof estrogen feels like I realize I should have had a more
\ncompelling rhetoric about making babies. Like bones,
\nhormone rafters hold up only so much, the rest is you. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMadelyn Whelan<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNOSFERATU
\n 
\n\u201cDesire makes you filthy,\u201d
\nhe says,
\n 
\nnot out of scorn
\nbut burgeoning lust.
\n 
\nWhat else is there
\nto do
\n 
\nwhen the worst of you
\nis unearthed,
\n 
\nand in your bareness
\nthe other grows hungry?
\n 
\nWant blooms
\nin place of shame, unexpected.
\n 
\nThe gnash of teeth
\nwhile tongues slide
\n 
\nin the thick
\ndark,
\n 
\nthe moon \u2014
\na gleaming witness. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHeather Wishik<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCUSS WORDS SOUND BETTER IN FRENCH
\n 
\n\u201cMerde,\u201d she says, and again, \u201cMerde.\u201d
\nHer cut finger bleeds profusely over the salad greens.
\nDish towel wrapped around the wound, she dumps
\nthe bloody leaves into a strainer, rinses them
\nin the soapstone sink with a wink in my direction.
\n 
\n\u201cPersonne ne le saura.\u201d Red hair to her mid-back,
\na diplomat\u2019s brat. Her accented French betrays
\nher story – Morocco born. Her red and yellow
\ncurtains color the light brighter than the day.
\n\u201cMerde,\u201d she says, and again, \u201cMerde.\u201d <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Wright<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE TIME WILL COME
\n 
\nwhen there\u2019s a last time for everything.
\nThink of the hug you gave your granddaughter
\ntoday after lunch at Dairy Queen.
\nChicken tenders, salad & ice cream
\nfilling your bellies. No thought
\nbeyond how nice a nap
\nmight be when you get home.
\n 
\nWho would send or receive
\nyour last email, text, or phone call?
\nMaybe an old friend you hadn\u2019t
\nheard from in a long time.
\nCatching up on her son\u2019s job
\nas director of a homeless shelter,
\nyour daughter\u2019s foray into owning
\nan antique shop. Goodbye
\n& a promise to keep in touch.
\n 
\nThe last time you mow the grass,
\nrobins recognize nature\u2019s plan,
\nflutter around, sing a requiem
\nas you putter about, thinking
\nabout the roast you\u2019ll cook for dinner.
\nYou\u2019ll never know their music was for you. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Yamrus<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHEN I WAS A KID
\n 
\nand
\ncouldn\u2019t
\nread yet, i used to
\nask my sister to read things to me
\n 
\nand
\nshe was kind
\nand patient and
\nread everything that i asked her to read:
\n 
\ncereal boxes,
\nlabels on cans,
\nstreet signs, billboards,
\nwhatever there was to read
\nshe used to read it, and finally
\n 
\nher
\npatience
\nwore thin and
\ni don\u2019t know how old
\ni was at the time, but i\u2019ll soon be 75,
\n 
\nand
\ni remember it
\nlike it was yesterday…
\n 
\nwe
\nwere watching
\nThe Lone Ranger on tv,
\n 
\nand
\nthe bad guys
\nhad The Ranger tied up
\nand they lit a stick of dynamite
\n 
\nand
\nset it on top
\nof a box that had
\nletters on the side and
\nwhile i kinda knew what
\nthe box was, and what it said,
\n 
\ni still
\nhad to ask her
\nto read it to me anyway,
\n 
\nand she
\ngot mad as hell
\nand said it was dynamite
\n 
\nand
\nshe was sick of
\nreading everything for me
\n 
\nand
\nwas never
\ngonna do it again.
\n 
\never.
\n 
\nand she
\nwalked out
\nof the room and
\ni yelled back at her:
\ni don\u2019t care what you think,
\nand as soon as i learn how to read
\ni\u2019m gonna read everything everywhere that ever was
\n 
\nand you\u2019re not gonna stop me! <\/i>
\n 
\nand
\nthat was
\nnearly 70 years ago
\nand my sister lives in Albuquerque now,
\n 
\nand she
\nkept her word,
\nand dammit, so did i. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nB\u00e4noo Zan<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMOSHA\u2019EREH
\n 
\nI recite a line\u2014\u2014You recite another
\nstarting with the last letter of my verse\u2014
\nWe orate for hours in Shiraz\u2014
\nthe realm of beauty, wine, and poetry
\n 
\nI lost the line who gave me my name
\nand the one who gave me breath
\n 
\nI lost my words\u2014my land
\nwrote myself in another script\u2014
\nwas lost in struggle
\n 
\nWriting abandons intent in translation
\nI am an unheard pronoun
\non this tongue of infinite idioms
\nLanguage does not work in this language
\n 
\nThe stones dry in the wind and the sun
\nbut the eye floods a resourceful stream
\nWhat did I expect when I left my passport behind?
\n 
\nI steal fire from Prometheus
\nand time from Time
\nfor poetry joust\u2014mosha\u2019ereh\u2014
\nwith poetry<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

The Reviews<\/h3>\n

 
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nRichard Collins<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nON HAVING NO HEAD: JOHNNY CORDOVA\u2019S THE BROKEN BUDDHA ( ROADSIDE PRESS, 2026 <\/A> ).
\n 
\nOne of the best books on Buddhism I ever read is Douglas Harding\u2019s On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious.<\/i> I was reminded of this when reading Johnny Cordova\u2019s forthcoming first book of poetry, <\/i>The Broken Buddha<\/i> (Roadside Press, 2026). This makes sense, considering that the literary forebears Cordova hangs out with are such as Li Po, Ryokan, Ikkyu, Jim Morrison, Indian fakirs, and sundry beggar poets. What they all have in common is that their spiritual journeys are embedded in the sensual floating world, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes heartbreaking, always true.
\n 
\nThere aren\u2019t many writers who can make a collection of poetry read like a lyric novella, but this is the effect of the book\u2019s three sections, which take us from erotic adventures in Thailand in \u201cAll Night Rain,\u201d through his spiritual tours in India in \u201cSketches of India,\u201d then back to the roots of an American upbringing (and downfalls) to see where it all began and may end in the final section called \u201cAshes.\u201d
\n 
\nThe Broken Buddha of the title poem serves as the controlling metaphor and synopsis of the poet\u2019s story, how he identifies with an ancient Burmese statue that he finds in a public bazaar. It had been broken, he speculates, by some careless monk, only to be cast off as trash and then to languish in the marketplace for years until:
\n 
\nI bought him because I too missed a step
\nand went crashing down some stairs
\nmy love in my arms
\nand could not be put back
\ntogether.
\n 
\nThus the ensuing exploration of getting entangled in the “red thread of passion between one\u2019s legs” in Thailand, the search for clarity and reparation in India, and a narrative resolution at home as he finds forgiveness in the ashes of the bridges he has burnt in his life, and above all in the ashes of his young daughter whose death was a breakage that could only be repaired by repairing his life.
\n 
\nIf we are honest, though, we are all broken, just as we are all Buddha. One loses one\u2019s head, unable to see ourselves except from the partial perspective of a disembodied self-awareness. But this perspective can be made whole again, if only we embrace our whole selves, body and mind. We can put our heads back on. Losing it can be painful, but as Harding explains, also necessary for any awakening that comes with spanking the ego. The repair serves as a reminder of what egregious errors we humans are capable of, but also how they teach us lessons we might otherwise have missed out on. I should point out that Cordova never comes off as a didact or moralist, that is my own projection and interpretation. Always candid, never crude, he continues to embrace the messy proposition of being human, with all its brokenness and put-togetherness.
\n 
\nKintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken things with gold and lacquer to demonstrate not only the ephemeral nature of our material nature, but also how broken things (like hearts and buddhas) can be even more beautiful when repaired with art, can in fact have a life that endures well after their first unbroken one.
\n 
\nFull disclosure: I once met Johnny Cordova briefly at the Arizona ashram where he practices a daily meditation and tends the resting place of the ashes of his daughter. And where he lives with his wife, the poet Dominique Ahkong. Together they co-edit Sh\u014d Poetry Journal,<\/i> resurrected in 2023 after a twenty-year gap, along with their new Beggar Poet Series. I can tell you this: you can hardly see “the crooked \/ cracked line” around his neck, and it is golden. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPeter Mladinic<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMore, a review of Captain Beefheart Never Licked My Decals Off, Baby<\/i>, by John Yamrus. Anxiety Press<\/a>. 2025. $16. paper.
\n 
\nJohn Yamrus is in the packed house of a big theater. The Magic Band has finished their concert, and the audience wants them to come back. Captain Beefheart comes back on stage alone, stands and whistles the entire “More,” a pop song antithetical to the avant-garde sounds of the band. No words, no music except for the Captain\u2019s whistling. Then he walks off. Just one example of the outrageousness evoked in this John Yamrus memoir introduced by Sarah Hajkowski, who gets it. With not-a-word-wasted Hajkowski nails Yamrus, and his memoir. “The whiff of lofty principles with no substance will always catch his nose with distrust, but the ass-end-of-a-fish authenticity of real hold on tight weirdos has Yamrus\u2019 eternal respect.” More about the fish, a dead fish, later in this review. In centering his memoir around The Magic Band\u2019s album Trout Mask Replica<\/i>, Yamrus “reels in” ideas on art, music, and literature that place the album in a cultural milieu that is at the center of his artistic-spiritual life. How he says what he says is key to an appreciation of a writer who has been rightly called “the master of minimalism.” Like Sarah Hajkowski, John Yamrus comes right to the point.
\n 
\nRobert Frost, when asked to define poetry, said it\u2019s a thing poets write. Art is a thing artists do. In putting the Beefheart album in an artistic context, John Yamrus notes how The Magic Band\u2019s thrift store, ragtag attire sets their album art apart from album covers of other musicians of the psychedelic era of the late 60s and early 70s, whose attire reflected a sort of ruffled shirt Elizabethan look. Yamrus mentions The Rolling Stones; other examples of that ruffled attire are Paul Revere and the Raiders, and The Yardbirds. The ragtag Magic Band not only sounded different but also looked different, in thrift store threads that, on album covers, got a reaction. Yamrus likens The Magic Band\u2019s attire and their music to Marcel Duchamp\u2019s Nude Descending a Staircase,<\/i> the painting\u2019s “fractured bits and pieces and angles and edges and how they all came together to make something whole and different and real.” On The Magic Band\u2019s album <\/i>Trout Mask Replica<\/i>, “cut 13, DALI\u2019S CAR” is “a direct reference to the king of surrealists, Salvador Dali.” Also the surreal artist Andy Warhol is referenced as Yamrus links what listeners hear (music) to what views see (art).
\n 
\n A poem “old records” in the middle of his memoir, ends with the mention of Lee Andrews and The Hearts, a vocal group from the 50s; some call their music doo wop, others say rhythm & blues. To Yamrus, labels are not important; what\u2019s important is the distinctive sound that leads Yamrus in his poem to call the group “the one and only Lee Andrews and The Hearts.” He explores The Magic Band\u2019s roots in the blues and the similarity of Don van Vliet, Captain Beefheart\u2019s voice, his sound, to the sound of the famous blues musician Howlin Wolf. Yamrus talks about Bob Dylan\u2019s transition from acoustic to electric music, and about another innovator, Frank Zappa, whose band van Vliet played in and who recorded The Magic Band\u2019s Trout Mask Replica<\/i>. John Coltrane\u2019s A Love Supreme<\/i> is Trout Mask\u2019<\/i>s jazz counterpart. Two very different albums, Beefheart and Coltrane are similar to Yamrus in that”It seems to me that every artist\u2026every real artist\u2026pushes things to the limit and then pushes again, harder.” Coltrane\u2019s a good example.
\n 
\nAllen Ginsberg\u2019s poem “Howl,” also pushed things to the limit, as did the innovative poems of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and the prose of Jack Kerouac. Similarly, in the nineteenth century Lewis Carroll\u2019s Alice in Wonderland<\/i> was something new, surreal, and real.
\n 
\nYamrus references the twentieth century science fiction of Clifford Simak, and the fiction and nonfiction of Norman Mailer, differentiating the hard edged prose of Mailer\u2019s The Fight,<\/i> an account of the famous boxing match in Zaire between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, to Mailer\u2019s mannered first novel The Naked and the Dead<\/i>. Readers can only wonder if the author of The Armies of the Night<\/i> appreciated Trout Mask Replica<\/i>. Just as Yamrus\u2019s insights lead him to links between Trout Mask<\/i> and art, they also bring him to things that the best of Mailer have in common with that album, namely attitude and reaction. Yamrus recalls Miles Davis in a get-right-down-to-it attitude. “Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is the other 80 percent.”
\n 
\nPeople react to art. John Yamrus does. The album cover of Trout Mask Replica,<\/i> Captain Beefheart holding up a dead fish to his face, got John\u2019s attention. As did the Hot Tuna concert where, for a moment, the rest of the band appeared to be mocking their fiddler Papa John Creach as he was playing a solo on “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning” that his audience, Yamrus among them, was really “getting into.” At another concert, The Magic Band at the Comerford Theater, the reaction is different. Yamrus evokes in concise, exacting phases the dim depth of the Comerford, placing his readers right there, way up in the balcony, as Captain Beefheart, called back for an encore, whistles his solo rendition of “More.” That got their attention. Yamrus tells everything his readers need to know, right down “to the warm red cloth seats we were in” and not a word is wasted. In her introduction Sarah Hajkowski says:
\n 
\n  ”Composed by Don \u201cCaptain Beefheart” Van Vliet and his Magic Band in 1969, the controversial studio album Trout Mask Replica is the center point from which the entire narrative branches out.”
\n 
\nYamrus illuminates; he discovers connections between art and music, art and literature, and music and literature, that he likely hadn\u2019t thought of before beginning his memoir. In his need to know, he creates those connections, and does it with attitude.
\n 
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

And a Coda<\/h3>\n

 
\n 
\nJohn Yamrus<\/strong>
\n 
\nTALK ABOUT SYNCHRONICITY
\n 
\n Talk about synchronicity . . . and blind, stinkin\u2019 luck! Every now and then I seem to do something right (no matter what my wife says). Here\u2019s the story: I recently published a book called CAPTAIN BEEFHEART NEVER LICKED MY DECALS OFF, BABY. It\u2019s a really short book (trust me), but I had high ambitions and tried to touch a lot of bases with it. On the surface it\u2019s a book about a 1968 rock and roll album that very few people have heard of and even fewer (trust me, again!) understand or appreciate. The album is called Trout Mask Replica and the group is Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band. The title of my book kinda references an album they released right after Trout Mask, called Lick My Decals Off, Baby and people have told me (as if I didn\u2019t already know) that giving my book the title that I did doesn\u2019t make any sense, but you gotta look at it from my perspective and think about how bad it would have been if I called the book CAPTAIN BEEFHEART\u2019S TROUT MASK FUNHOUSE or something like that. It wouldn\u2019t have made any sense, and you wouldn\u2019t be reading this article right now because I wouldn\u2019t have cared a rip to write it.
\n 
\n Anyway, for some reason, the book struck a chord with readers . . . people who regularly buy my books and people who are still able to look back at the \u201860s and smile. And that\u2019s cool.
\n 
\n Like I was saying, the book tries to touch a lot of bases in a very few pages \u2013 but hey, I AM known mostly as a minimalist. I\u2019ve even taken it so far as to publish a poem that\u2019s just one word long. I can talk about that poem and the dust it stirred up in a ton of places and all the “literary” arguments it caused, but right now I\u2019ll let that conversation sit for another time and place . . . right now I\u2019m talking about my Beefheart book, and the things in the book that have absolutely nothing at all to do with The Captain or his music or that one, strange and wonderful album. Things like the genetic duplication of dinosaurs and the pros and cons of running away from home. And why are there very few corner candy stores around anymore? What\u2019s with that? And whatever happened to the nice old man and old lady who ran the one you used to go to?
\n 
\nIf you can dig all that, maybe you\u2019ll dig the book.
\n 
\nBut, I was talking about synchronicity . . . at least that was the first line of this little article here. Synchronicity. It\u2019s such a nice word. It feels good when you say it. It makes you sound like you know what you\u2019re talking about. It makes you sound smart.
\n 
\nMost times, I don\u2019t. And most times I\u2019m not, so I looked it up . . .synchronicity. The first definition I found described it as “The simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related, but have no discernable causal connection.<\/i>”
\n 
\nThat\u2019ll work. No discernable causal connection.
\n 
\nNow, put that thought in your back pocket and let me get back to talking about the book. Like I said, it was doing well (and that\u2019s a relative term, because I\u2019m very much a small press kind of guy with small press kind of sales, so you know what that means) and I was looking for ways and places to help get the word out . . . for me and my publisher and even those few readers who have stuck with me thru everything for more years than I care to count. Actually, I DO count . . . I can tell you how many books I\u2019ve published (43) and how many poems I\u2019ve published (exactly 3,587 as of yesterday morning) and how many years I\u2019ve been doing all this (55. My first book came out in 1970, which actually makes me older than dirt or snot, whichever came first).
\n 
\nSo, here I am, looking for ways to get the word out on my little book about a band nobody\u2019s heard about and an album very few love. And I start looking around on my computer. I start looking up websites and Facebook groups about Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band and I was sort of surprised to see just how many Beefheart groups and sites there are. Tons of them. Some with just a few members . . . maybe a couple dozen or a hundred or so . . . and some with thousands and thousands. I have to say I was surprised. And the marketer in me . . . the salesman in me . . . starts to thinking . . . what if I joined some of these groups and posted some things about my book? Wouldn\u2019t that<\/i> be a great way to get the word out and get a couple or two or three new readers?
\n 
\nSo, I did it. First, I joined some groups and then started posting some of those goofy little ads about my books that have served me so well in the past. I geared it toward the Beefheart book, of course . . . and when people responded with a comment or a “like,” I took it from there. And it was fun. It still is. And then it got to a point where I was even in some “chats” or whatever the heck they\u2019re called (remember, I\u2019m 74 and not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to computers and things) and I start talking back and forth with someone named Jeff. He seemed like a nice enough and smart enough guy, so I looked up his name (I\u2019m at least smart enough to be able to do that) and the guy\u2019s name is Jeff Cotton. A nice name. Ordinary enough. Jeff.
\n 
\nI can\u2019t say we talked for very long . . . I mean, we didn\u2019t swap photos of our dogs or early girlfriends or anything like that, but, we talked and he really<\/i> seemed to know what he was talking about when it came to Trout Mask. And then (I\u2019ll keep this short and maybe even leave out some stuff that doesn\u2019t need to be brought up here and now) . . . and then he sends me this old publicity picture of himself from way back in 1968 . . . back when he was more popularly known as Antennae Jimmy Semens. It turns out that Jeff Cotton . . . the same Jeff Cotton I had been talking with back and forth . . . the guy who seemed to know an awful lot about the Trout Mask album was and still is Jeff Cotton, AKA Antennae Jimmy Semens! He played freakin\u2019 guitar on one of my favorite albums ever. How cool is that???
\n 
\nTalk about synchronicity. Talk about cool. Talk about this old rock and roll lover having a pinch me moment! I couldn\u2019t wait to tell my wife! I couldn\u2019t wait to tell everybody! My stupid little book got me talking with THE Antennae Jimmy Semens.
\n 
\nI told Kathy, and I don\u2019t think she was impressed. Much. I mean, she smiled, but it was the kind of smile you give your old uncle Dutch when you see he finally figured out how to put his toupee on straight. But, we\u2019ve been married 50 years (as of a couple weeks ago) . . . long enough to know that she thought I did good.
\n 
\nSo, here I am, right now, sitting here at my desk in the basement. I got a new book out . . . I got to talk (however briefly) with the guy who played guitar on Trout Mask Replica, one of the best and coolest albums ever . . and I have a wife who loves me enough to let me know when I finally went and got my wig on straight.
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

The Artists’ Bios:<\/h3>\n

 
\n 
\nCatherine Arra<\/a><\/strong> is the author of four full-length poetry collections and four chapbooks. A former English and writing teacher, she now facilitates local writing groups. Her newest chapbook, Perennial Cosmology<\/i>, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Her newest full-length collection, Last Evening With All the Versions of Myself<\/i>, was first finalist in the 2025 Donna Wolf-Palacio Poetry Book Prize and will be published by Finishing Line Press, September 2026. Arra lives in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York with her partner Alex Stolis and their dog Daisy. www.catherinearra.com<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Bagato<\/a><\/strong> produces poetry and prose as well as mail art, electronic music and glitch video. His latest books document experimental text work from the past few years, including And the Trillions, Part 2, In the Engine Room with Bettie and Andrea Reading Pornography, Gonch Poems, Robot Speak, and Floral Float Flume: Flue Flit Flip. A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at jeffbagato.wordpress.com<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLeo Balaban<\/a><\/strong> is a 23-year-old writer and poet from Brooklyn. He studied English and fell in love with poetry at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. His senior year collection, To Be Still<\/i>, received honors and can be viewed on Skidmore’s CreativeMatter repository. He is now working on getting more of his work published and creating his first chapbook Blue Period.<\/i><\/a>
\n 
\nBen Banyard<\/a><\/strong> lives in Portishead, UK, on the North Somerset coast. His three collections to date are Hi-Viz<\/i> (Yaffle Press, 2021), We Are All Lucky<\/i> (Indigo Dreams, 2018) and Communing<\/i> (Indigo Dreams, 2016). Ben edits Black Nore Review blacknorereview.wordpress.com\/<\/a> Website: https:\/\/benbanyard.wordpress.com\/<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarshall Begel<\/a><\/strong> became a serious poetry hobbyist when he found that bad jokes are better received in meter and rhyme. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin and has had many pieces in the journals Light and Lighten Up Online.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Beveridge<\/a><\/strong> (he\/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com)<\/a> and writes poetry on unceded Mingo land (Akron, OH). He published his first poem in a non-vanity\/non-school publication in November 1988, and it’s been all downhill since. Recent\/upcoming appearances in Random Sample Review, Golgonooza, and The Stray Branch, among others.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nF.S. Blake<\/a><\/strong> is a Bronze Star decorated U.S. Army Veteran and Pushcart Prize nominated poet. His work appears in The Military Review, Welter at University of Baltimore, San Pedro River Review, and The Main Street Rag, among others. His chapbooks, Terminal Leave, Above the Gold Fields, and The Few Drops Known are available from Finishing Line Press. His full-length poetry collection, Forever or a Week is forthcoming from Kelsay Books.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nA German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm<\/a><\/strong> lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, eight poetry collections and one chapbook, her work has been widely published mostly by US poetry journals. A new full-length poetry collection is forthcoming in 2026. rose-mary-boehm-poet.com\/><\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Burt<\/a><\/strong> lives in Santa Cruz County, California. He has contributed work previously to Rat’s Ass Review, Williwaw Journal, Willows Wept Review, and Heartwood. He has a new book out in January from Sheila-Na-Gig, The Root Endures. More can be found at jeff-burt.com<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRaymond Byrnes<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poems appear in scores of print and on-line journals such as Main Street Rag, Cathexis Northwest Press<\/i>, and Shot Glass Journal<\/i>. His work has been featured as Editor\u2019s Choice in at least six, including Typishly, Third Wednesday<\/i>, and The Writer’s Almanac<\/i>. He lives in Virginia.<\/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 winner of the 2020 Phillip H. McMath Poetry Award. Her work has appeared widely, most recently in Attached to the Living World, the Ecopoetry Anthology, Vol.2. Her website is wendytaylorcarlisle.com<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlex Carrigan<\/a><\/strong> (he\/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Alexandria, VA. He is the author of Now Let\u2019s Get Brunch (Querencia Press, 2023) and May All Our Pain Be Champagne (Alien Buddha Press, 2022).
\n 
\n <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRichard Collins<\/a><\/strong>, abbot of the New Orleans Zen Temple, lives in Sewanee, Tennessee. His books include In Search of the Hermaphrodite: A Memoir (Tough Poets, 2024), Stone Nest (Shanti Arts, 2025), and Cartoons for the Chaos (forthcoming from Shanti Arts). Special features and nominations (Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Spiritual Literature) appear in Clockhouse, Philly Chapbook Review, Sh\u014d Poetry Journal, Willows Wept Review, and Seventh Quarry.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/a><\/strong> has repaired hundreds of houses to support his writing habit among the redwood trees in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His new book of poetry is \u201cbuck naked is the opposite of hate.\u201d<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTony Dawson<\/a><\/strong>, an 88-year-old English writer, has been living in Seville since 1989 and continues to publish widely in the USA, UK and Australia since he took up writing during the pandemic. Many of his poems have been published as three small collections: Afterthoughts<\/i> ISBN 9788119 228348, reviewed: london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson<\/a> Musings<\/i> ISBN 97819115 819666, reviewed: london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson2<\/a> and Reflections in a Dirty Mirror<\/i> ISBN 9781915819949 reviewed: london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson3<\/a> as well as a selection of flash fiction, Curiouser and Curiouser<\/i> ISBN 9788119 654932.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Delaney<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s publications include Waypoints<\/i> (2017), a collection of place poems, Twenty Questions<\/i> (2019), a chapbook, Delicate Arch<\/i> (2022), poems and photographs of national parks and monuments, Gal\u00e1pagos<\/i> (2023), a collaborative chapbook of his son Andrew\u2019s photographs and his poems, Nile<\/i> (2024), poems and photographs about Egypt, Filing Order: Sonnets<\/i> (2025), and CATechisms<\/i> (2025), poems and photographs about his senior cat. He lives in Port Townsend, WA.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSal Difalco<\/a><\/strong> writes from Toronto, Canada.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCraig Dobson<\/a><\/strong> has had poetry and short fiction published in magazines in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia. He’s currently working towards his first collection of poetry. He lives and works in the UK.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJan\u00e9 Dowd<\/a><\/strong> (b.1987) is a South African poet whose work explores the tension between tenderness and rupture, often drawing on the natural world as witness and counterpart. Her poems move through grief, wonder, and the bewildering work of being human, with a voice that is intimate, reflective, and unafraid of complexity.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDamien Farley<\/a><\/strong> is not a writer. He is native to, and resides in, northern New Jersey. He is probably old enough to be your father. (Might he be? Ask your mom.) His first published work recently appeared in Maudlin House<\/i> and Tap into Poetry<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoseph Farley<\/a><\/strong>‘s poetry collections include The Dog Scowls Instead Of Biting, Hard Times For The Circus Clown, Yellow Brick Pilgrim, Written In The Sand, Longing For The Mother Tongue, Her Eyes, and Suckers. His fiction books include Beware The Cartoonist, Nightmares And Hiccups, Farts And Daydreams, Once Upon A Time In Whitechapel, Labor Day, and For The Birds. He served as editor of Axe Factory for 23 years.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nA recent octogenarian, Vern Fein<\/a><\/strong> has published over 300 poems and short prose pieces in over 100 different sites. A few are: Gyroscope Review, Young Raven\u2019s Review, Bindweed, *82 Review, River And South, Grey Sparrow Journal, and Rat’s Ass Review . His second poetry book\u2014REFLECTION ON DOTS\u2014was released late last year. A better new year to all.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Freborg<\/a><\/strong> is a retired social worker and former editor whose poetry has been published by Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Right Hand Pointing, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Misfit, and WestWard Quarterly. She is a frequent contributor to Scalar Comedy and Little Old Lady Comedy. Her pleasures are her family, learning new things, and remembering old times. She writes poetry to find out what she is thinking but does not always like the result.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMeg Freer<\/a><\/strong> lives in Ontario, where she works in the arts. Her work has appeared in many journals, and she has published four poetry chapbooks. She is co-poetry editor for The Sunlight Press<\/i> and you can find her published work on her Facebook page, or her Substack blog at: https:\/\/megfreer.substack.com\/<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nReb Friou<\/a><\/strong> is writing and crying. They are the creator and coeditor of adultgroceries.com<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMac Gay<\/a><\/strong> is the author of 7 poetry collections. His poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Main Street Rag, and The American Journal of Poetry. He lives in Covington Ga. with his partner Jana Peirce.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Grey<\/a><\/strong> is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, \u201cBittersweet\u201d, \u201cSubject Matters\u201d and \u201cBetween Two Fires\u201d are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Levitate, Writer\u2019s Block and Trampoline.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGary D. Grossman<\/a><\/strong> enjoys sharing his poems and essays, published in 70+ literary reviews. He doesn’t enter contests but his work has been nominated for the usual awards, i.e., Pushcart, Best of Net, etc.- no wins yet, so meh, right? His graphic memoir, three books of poetry and gourmet venison cookbook all may be purchased via his website or Amazon. Gary enjoys running, fishing, gardening and playing ukulele. Website: https:\/\/www.garygrossman.net\/<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nStephen Ground<\/a><\/strong> is a writer and filmmaker based in Treaty Six Territory [Edmonton, Canada].<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nNevin Nahar Haque<\/a><\/strong> is a Muslim, Bangladeshi-American storyteller born and raised in Queens, New York. Her writing explores the intersections between generational trauma, diaspora, psychoanalysis, grief, and love. She is currently a fiction MFA candidate at Columbia University School of the Arts, working on her first novel.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAnglo-Danish by birth but Bahamian by upbringing, Robin Helweg-Larsen<\/a><\/strong> has lived and worked in the Bahamas (bank clerk), Denmark (factories and janitorial), Canada (prison guard, bookstore owner), Australia (restaurant work), USA (25 years of developing and teaching business simulations around the world). Now working on his poetry at formalverse.com<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Henson<\/a><\/strong> and his wife reside in Illinois. His work has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net and has appeared in various publications including Best Microfictions 2025, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Ghost Parachute, Moonpark Review, Maudlin House, and Literally Stories. His website is http:\/\/writings217.wordpress.com<\/a>. His X handle is @annalou8.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMatt Hohner<\/a><\/strong> (MFA, Naropa University) has published two collections: At the Edge of a Thousand Years<\/i>, winner of the 2023 Jacar Press Poetry Book Contest (now out of print), and Thresholds and Other Poems<\/i> (Apprentice House 2018). His publications include Prairie Fire, Rattle: Poets Respond, Takah\u0113, Smartish Pace, New Contrast, Narrative Magazine, Poetry Ireland, Prairie Schooner, The Baltimore Review<\/i>, and elsewhere. Hohner is the Poetry Editor at The Loch Raven Review<\/i>.
\n 
\nFacebook: facebook.com\/MattHohnerPoet <\/a>
\n 
\nBluesky: charmcitypoet<\/a>
\n 
\nInstagram: mobtownpoet<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBeth Houston<\/a><\/strong> (www.bethhouston.com)<\/a> has taught writing (mostly creative writing) at ten universities and colleges in California and Florida and has worked as a writer and editor. She has published a couple hundred poems in dozens of literary journals. She writes free verse and formal poetry, mostly sonnets, and has published a novel, two nonfiction books, and six poetry books (out of print). She edits the Extreme formal poetry anthologies via one of her indie presses, Rhizome Press (www.rhizomepress.com)<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nEdward Cody Huddleston<\/a><\/strong> was born in New Jersey, raised in Georgia, and now occupies several liminal spaces. His poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction have been widely published and won numerous awards. He loves haiku and his debut collection, Wildflowers in a Vase<\/i>, is available from Red Moon Press. You can visit him online at echuddleston.com.<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKellin James<\/a><\/strong> studies anthropology and creative writing at University of California, Riverside. He has previously been published in Two Hawks Quarterly.<\/i> <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCarol Kanter<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poetry appears in over ninety journals and three chapbooks: \u201cOut of Southern Africa,\u201d and \u201cChronicle of Dog\u201d (FinishingLine Press); \u201cOf Water\u201d (Peterborough Poetry Project). She paired poems with her husband\u2019s photographs for four coffee-table books. DualArtsPress.com<\/a> Carol is a psychotherapist; her book And Baby Makes Three<\/i> explores the emotional transitions to parenthood.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDaniel Kemper<\/a><\/strong>, a former tournament-winning wrestler, black belt in traditional Shotokan karate, and infantryman has earned a BA in English, an MCSE (Systems Engineering), an MBA, and an MA in English and had works accepted for publication at more than a dozen magazines, including a pushcart nomination. He’s been an invited presenter at PAMLA 2024 and presided over the Poetics Panel in 2025 and has been the feature poet at several Sacramento venues.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nOlivia Koo<\/a><\/strong> is a high school student and emerging poet. When she\u2019s not writing, she enjoys reading, movies, and music. She is currently putting together her writing portfolio.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nChristian Lingner<\/a><\/strong> is a teacher, songwriter, and poet living in Nashville, TN. He is an enthusiast of John Prine and of the Kansas City Chiefs, and enjoys going on long walks with his wife and little son.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCharles Richard Livesay<\/a><\/strong> is a forty-four year old teacher from Knoxville, Tennessee, and has started taking his writing seriously this year. He has had poems published in Strange Horizons, Dreams and Nightmares, 4LPH4NUM3RIC, Trollbreath, and forthcoming in Star*Line. Send Email<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKelsey D. Mahaffey<\/a><\/strong> is a Nashville poet who keeps half her heart in New Orleans. Her work can be seen in: Deep South Magazine, Pinch, Arkansas Review, SWING, Eunoia Review, and Cumberland River Review, among others. Her debut chapbook, No Fault of Water, is available now from Finishing Line Press. Find more at www.kelseydmahaffey.com.<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Martino<\/a><\/strong> is a writer, photographer, and educator currently residing in Hong Kong. His debut poetry collection, American Sonnet (Half Inch Press), a suite of 51 “little songs,” was published in September 2025. Some of his other poems have found a home at North Dakota Quarterly, Another Chicago Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, and J Journal, among others. He is the Executive Editor at Home Planet News. (homeplanetnews.com)<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKen Massicotte<\/a><\/strong> is a poet and musician who lives in Hamilton, Ontario. He has taught English in various countries, delivered furniture and flowers. He has been published in many journals, including: Grain, New Square, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, New World Writing, Main Street Rag, and Waxing and Waning. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHannah McLeod<\/a><\/strong> is an educator, fiction writer, and poet from Appalachia. Her fiction has been published in Yonder Literary Magazine and Re:AL Literary Magazine. Her poetry has been published in The Banyan Review and Saw Palm. She can be reached at mcleodh828@gmail.com.<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLindsay McLeod<\/a><\/strong> lives down the Port in South Australia with his cattle dog, Mary. His writing has won awards and been published all over (in spite of rhyme and reason) and found homes most recently with THE HUMAN WRITERS, MENISCUS, EPHEMERAL ELEGIES, TIPTON POETRY, SNAKESKIN, PULSEBEAT<\/i> and THE MARTELLO<\/i>. Forced into early retirement, Lindsay is said to be considering a life of crime to support his poetry habit.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKate McNairy<\/a><\/strong> \u2014Take, for example, two words walk\u2014one up, one down a narrow set of stairs. The moments they jostle, shuffle, shift as the words meet each other is the space when the poem begins. I\u2019ve published three chapbooks the latest When the Cats Yawn<\/i> (2025),Finishing Line Press. I live with Jon and two kittens, Comet and Dark Star who bring us lots of fun.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMike Mesterton-Gibbons<\/a><\/strong> is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Light, Lighten Up Online, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, WestWard Quarterly and several other journals. In 2025 he won the Children’s Unpublished category of the Eyelands Book Awards with Flora\u2019s Flock and Other Stories to Read Aloud<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPeter Mladinic<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s most recent book of poems, The Whitestone Bridge, is available from Anxiety Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarla Dial Moore<\/a><\/strong> is a recovering journalist and poet living in San Antonio, Texas. She was a 2025 \u201cBest of the Net\u201d nominee whose work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Merion West, The Metaworker, The Quasar Review, When the River Speaks, Soul Poetry, Prose and Art Magazine, San Antonio Review, and others.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLydia Pearson<\/a><\/strong> is an emerging 22-year old writer from Lancashire, England. She is currently studying English Literature and Creative Writing, hoping for a 2:1. She’s had 36 poems, 24 articles, 5 pieces of short fiction, 14 blog posts and 16 posts for Mental Health Notebook published, plus 260+ fanworks since April 2019. She’s currently working on her debut novel, ‘Love Dotty.’ She aspires to be a published novelist, poet and journalist one day.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKenneth Pobo<\/a><\/strong> (he\/him) has a new book out called It\u2019s Me, Dulcet Tones (Half Inch Press) and a chapbook called Raylene And Skip (Wolfson Press). He\u2019s retired and looking forward to spring so he can garden.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTom Probasco<\/a><\/strong> has had poems published in Rat\u2019s Ass Review,<\/i> the Northwest Indiana Literary Journal,<\/i> the INverse Poetry Archive,<\/i> and in several Indiana Writers Center publications, including Flying Island<\/i>. In addition to writing the occasional poem, he plays harmonica in the Indianapolis band North of Shanidar.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSabrina Ramet<\/a><\/strong> was born in London, England, earned her undergraduate degree in Philosophy at Stanford University, and her Ph.D. in Political Science at UCLA. She has published 16 books of history. She has also published six absurdist verse and two short absurdist novellas with a hybrid publisher (New Academia Publishing). She likes to sing songs from Irving Berlin around the house and sometimes yodels in restaurants.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCharles Rammelkamp<\/a><\/strong> is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore. A collection of persona poems and dramatic monologues involving burlesque stars, The Trapeze of Your Flesh<\/i>, was recently published by BlazeVOX Books. His collection, The Tao According to Calvin Coolidge<\/i>, has just been published by Kelsay Books.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nkerry rawlinson<\/a><\/strong> is a mental nomad & bloody-minded optimist who gravitated from sunny Zambian skies to solid Canadian soil. Her photo-art covers and awards include: Consilience Journal; Makarelle; Rattle; CAGO Online Gallery<\/i> and recent publications include: IceFloe Press Geographies; Novus Literary; Inscape; Wild Roof Journal; NonBinary Review, Touchstone<\/i> amongst others. She’s also the recipient of New Millennium Writings; Princemere & Canterbury<\/i> Poetry Prizes, and has placed in several more, e.g. CV2; Haiku Crush; Bridport<\/i>. kerry’s enthralled with the gore, music, brutality & beauty of the world, the edges of which she explores in her work. She still wanders barefoot through dislocation & belonging\u2014and still drinks too much (tea). kerryrawlinson.com<\/a> @kerryrawli<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWilliam James Rosser<\/a><\/strong> is a poet and former sommelier living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He studied journalism and literature at Lamar University, and admires the poetics of, among many, Archibald MacLeish, Robert Penn Warren, R. S. Gwynn, and Robert Hass. His work has appeared previously in RAR, as well as Texas Poetry Assignment Quarterly and the upcoming issue of Chiron Review. He writes from a century-old house, at the foot of the Osage Hills.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Rutherford<\/a><\/strong> is a poet and writer living in Beaumont, TX with his wife and three badly behaved cats. When not working at the Department of English and Modern Languages at Lamar University, he is an MFA candidate at the University of St. Thomas(Houston). <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLeon Sare<\/a><\/strong> is a writer from the American Midwest, specializing in poetry, genre horror, and the nauseating ordeal of having a body. They\u2019ve been published in a local collection, Journey 2025<\/i>. Sare is the proud owner of The Abdicated Flesh Lifestyle Ministries, which live at abdicatedflesh.substack.com.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPenelope Scambly Schott<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s recent books include WAVING FLY SWATTERS AT ANGELS and ON DUFUR HILL. She is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJason Schwartz<\/a><\/strong> is a crypto tax lawyer. His work has appeared in Dodging the Rain and Toasted Cheese. He posts about crypto, taxes, and cryptoart as @CryptoTaxGuyETH<\/a> on X.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\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 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>
\n 
\n 
\nCarol Shillibeer<\/a><\/strong>‘s poems have been published in many print and online publications, and received nominations for both Pushcart and Best of Net. One of her most recent manuscripts language be like won the 2025 Alfred G. Bailey Prize for poetry.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTricia L. Somers<\/a><\/strong> lives with her family and a couple of crazy cats in L.A. Ca. You can find her work in La Resaca Issue 2, New Verse News, Poetry Marathon anthologies 2022 & 2025, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, and elsewhere. Visit her at Bitch n\u2019 Complain on Substack.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKathryn Spratt<\/a><\/strong> has received the Brilliant Poetry prize and the Eleanore B. North Poetry Award. Her poetry has appeared in Consilience and Rue Scribe. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJulie Standig<\/a><\/strong> is the author of two poetry books\u2014 The Forsaken Little Black Book<\/i>, (Kelsay Books) which was nominated for an Eric Hoffer Award and a chapbook, Memsahib Memoirs<\/i> (Plan B Press). Her poems have appeared in Schuylkill Valley Journal, Gyroscope Review, New Verse News, Macqueen’s Quinterly, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, One Art<\/i> and elsewhere. A lifetime New Yorker, she now resides in Bucks County with her husband and their springer spaniel.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlex Stolis<\/a><\/strong> has had poems published in numerous journals. Two full length collections Pop. 1280<\/i>, and John Berryman Died Here<\/i> were released by Cyberwit and are available on Amazon. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Piker\u2019s Press, Ekphrastic Review, Louisiana Literature Review, Burningwood Literary Journal, and Star 82 Review. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife<\/i>, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024, RIP Winston Smith<\/i> from Alien Buddha Press 2024, and <\/i>The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres<\/i>, 2024 by Bottlecap Press. He lives in upstate New York with his partner, poet Catherine Arra.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFaith Thiebaud<\/a><\/strong> is a 25 year old East Texan poet and writer. You can find her on most socials @faiththiebs.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDan Thompson<\/a><\/strong> (PhD) is a U.S. Army veteran and former editor-in-chief whose creative and critical work has appeared in a wide range of literary and scholarly journals, including, within the past year, issues of Feral, Canary, Eclectica, The Raven Review, Black Coffee Review, Rat\u2019s Ass Review,<\/i> and Jerry Jazz Musician<\/i>, among others. In an earlier life, he worked as a music producer for educational videos and as a disc jockey at a country-music radio station. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBarbara Ungar<\/a><\/strong> is the author of six books, most recently After Naming the Animals<\/i> (The Word Works). Honors include the Snyder Publication Prize, Gival Poetry Prize, and being named to Kirkus Reviews\u2019 Best Indie Books of 2015 and 2019. Her work has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Bulgarian.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMaura Way<\/a><\/strong> is the author of Mummery<\/i> (2023) and Another Bungalow<\/i> (2017), both from Press 53. Her poetry has appeared widely in journals such as DIAGRAM, Puerto del Sol, Poet Lore, Cleaver<\/i>, and The Hong Kong Review.<\/i> She has also been a school teacher for over twenty years, most recently at New Garden Friends.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMadelyn Whelan<\/a><\/strong> is a queer poet originally from the Boston area, currently in their first year of Oregon State University’s MFA program for poetry. She has attended the Juniper Summer Writing Institute, and writes to further understand themself and the world, as well as to find queerness wherever it exists. She has work published in BRUISER.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHeather Wishik<\/a><\/strong> is a poet and visual artist living in Woodstock, VT. She studied poetry with Ellen Bryant Voigt and Heather McHugh at Goddard College, and with Marie Howe, Jessica Greenbaum and others since. Her poems have been published in literary magazines and anthologies including Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time (Larkin & Morse, 1988), and more recently in Dreamers Creative Writing, 2024, and Sprout: An Eco-Urban Poetry Journal, Issue 3, 2023.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Wright<\/a><\/strong> lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in As It Ought To Be, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, One Art, Loch Raven Review, Panoply, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, The Beatnik Cowboy, The New Verse News<\/i>, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her first chapbook, Ready or Not<\/i>, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Yamrus<\/a><\/strong> is widely recognized as master of minimalism and the neo-noir in modern poetry. In a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, he has had nearly 4,000 poems published in books, magazines and anthologies around the world. His writing is often taught in college and university courses. Three of his more than 40 books have been published in translation. Fittingly, the 75 year old\u2019s newest book is a volume of his signature minimalist poetry called AIN\u2019T DONE YET.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nB\u00e4noo Zan<\/a><\/strong> is a poet, translator, and curator, with numerous published pieces and books including Songs of Exile<\/i> and Letters to My Father<\/i>. She is the founder of Shab-e She\u2019r (Poetry Night), Canada\u2019s most diverse and brave poetry open mic series (inception 2012). B\u00e4noo, with Cy Strom, is the co-editor of the anthology: Woman Life Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution<\/i> and the recipient of the 2025 Writers\u2019 Union of Canada Freedom to Read Award.
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

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\n 
\nEdited by Roderick Bates
\n 
\nRAT\u2019S ASS REVIEW SPRING-SUMMER ISSUE 2026 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<\/div>\n

 
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          (Cover Art \u2014 Summer Gargoyle photo by kerry rawlinson)           The Poetry       Catherine Arra     AT THE END OF NIGHT   I hear the 5:30 a.m. phone alarm muffled under your pillow,   you breathe-moan-sigh, hear Daisy, old like us,   rise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4527","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nSpring-Summer 2026 -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=4527\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spring-Summer 2026 -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"          (Cover Art \u2014 Summer 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