Home Poetry

MY LIFE BY DISNEY

by Dana Roeser

At twilight
when I was gathering 
         newly sprouted arugula
in the backyard garden, a cardinal
sang to me

from the high limb of 
         an ancient elm. It was a sweet
song
that I tried
         to answer. I apologized again
for Alice killing the robin

because the more I think of it
         the more I think she did
do in Laura. 
         A day after the murder
         I pulled up in my dirt-streaked Toyota

sobbing so hard 
         I soaked a box of Kleenex.
         I could hardly get up the steps.

Alice was inconvenienced, always
having to use the back door. Was she inconvenienced
         by my caring about the robin?

*   *  *

I will not, I cannot, 
         look in the nest 
             high up under the eave
         of my house.
The babes in the woods 
                clinging to each other
in the cushiony bed—frozen with their mouths open—
         their rubbery beaks—
         Or were they still perfect eggs—unhatched—
also frozen—
         b/c the mother left
against her will? 

I’ll never look at Alice the same. And truly I 
         don’t know she was the perpetrator.
The one time that I left her out
         when I pulled away. 
            I knew I’d be back in a couple hours.
I knew the weather was sunny 
            and hospitable.
Alice stared at me
from the end of the driveway

because she likes to go in when I’m out.
   But I was embarrassed
            being already seven minutes
late for Sarah, and I didn’t want
to open my car door,
                              disrupt the bird.

Immaturity is my humility—but that’s for another poem—or no poem.
         (Ask the cardinal.)

The bird calls are a relay, a transference. 
         They know each other
and they all have witnessed it. 
         The father, somewhere, witnessed.
That is the only explanation for the disappearance of
the dogged mother. 
         She sat on that nest, breast puffed, eyes bulging
         and inscrutable,
         her tail jutting out like a stick

through cold rain—she was under the eave, I watched her from
            little arched windows at
the top of the front door. It was ridiculous,
         the weather. 
            We had more than one night
at freezing. (I was busy then covering the
                   baby greens with bed clothes.)
The neighbor cats
            were not clued in, had no
territorial vendetta, though they, especially lithe Horace, may
         have been called in as accomplices.

Tonight. I had come from a twelve-step meeting
                   where people were kind.

I went to one at noon too—I said just who did I think I was?
         Mother-goose? A bird-whisperer? Yet,
         Beach, at Clay Knob Stable today, was also kind, 
            soft, grabbing for apple pieces with
                     his velvety, oversized lips—and disappointed,
I’m sure, that we didn’t get to do our after-
ride ritual (Christy turned him out
            for me) because I had to run

to the car before 4 p.m. to do a financial thing 
         on the phone, the stock market
         had supposedly rallied. 
         My ex-husband told me 
         today was a good day.
I have no income to speak of, as I am old.
         I am spending down the funds that came to me
                   in the divorce. I am almost five years 
         older than my former husband.
                   He still has a job. 
         Income from the part-time job I did have this semester,
according to my accountant,
         actually cost
                  me money. 
         Do the math.
         Weep.

How in the hell 
         did I mislay this man 
                   and my family?
Why can’t I visualize
         my Canadian boyfriend
when he is not here?
My dear Canadian boyfriend who actually said on
            Messenger this week: 
            If we break up (or words
         to that effect), if I have to get a girlfriend 
(online/yoga class/
         coffee shop, etc.) 
         because I can’t wait any longer
for us to be together,
         “I will always interact with you.”

Jesus Christ on a bright purple crutch!!!!

And then on my way home from my circuitous
         “self-care” travels today,
I realized our relationship

         was another victim 
         of my “magical thinking.” As durable 
as Sleeping Beauty 
         or Snow White—their chirping, carefully-colored birds
         and chipmunks—
bursting into song . . .

while Laura is 
         carefully extracting worms
from my little as-yet-untilled strip garden 
         between house 
                   and driveway 
under the nest—

the cat’s 
         going to get her
with lightning speed,

with sharp claws.



O HOLY WEEK, O HOLY SATURDAY


Black Saturday Jesus is in the tomb
            germinating and the people
across the street are rocking out
            to some kind of grinding repetitive
hip hop, interspersed with Bollywood.
            We are college students
We are going to be having a loud
            party this afternoon
and we deserve to enjoy college. So Jesus
            hung in his cocoon while
I burned a fire, opened all the windows,
            felt suicidal and went through
mountains of random bills catalogs manuscripts
            and papers and ultimately
raked through cat litter, took it out with garbage,
            recycling, and compost
all to the grinding neighborhood beat. Kept trying
            to figure out what they could
do to it. Not sex. Not work. Maybe shouting
            at each other at a party, clambering over
each other, dominating
            on their huge wooden oversized chair
in the back yard or in the ever-repeating
            hacky sack or foosball game.

                                    What is really the use of trying
            to win at divorce counseling
when you flunked marriage counseling
            and your ex-husband has a personality
disorder? Patti my beautiful, stoic
            Buddhist AA
sponsor tried to say.
            When you already lost
spectacularly.
            What is your expectation, I believe
she said. Also, maybe implicitly, well
            NVM implicitly. Let’s just say
Patti knows me, has known me. I’m surprised
            she speaks to me.

Jesus was still hatching while this evening I rolled
            my cart through Fresh Thyme. Some appearing-
families, endless sturdy children rolling
            in and out of carts;
the stringy-haired
            tender-looking Goth woman in
the soup aisle, the very thin wan blond
            woman with whom I conferred over the
sushi case. Only California Roll
            remained. She put hers back,
and, later,
            I did mine. Bland tonight
even worse tomorrow and what was I doing
            eating all that white rice. Couple other
random people. Somebody by the Medjool organic
            dates, I think. Maybe a couple near the
remains of the broccoli or bok choy. Produce
            waning. We were all convivial.
We were all flunking Easter.
            At every turn, the handle of my cart
was shocking me.

            After the checker saw the absurdly
expensive “natural,” with-the-shiny-foil
            packaging, Sierra-something,
couture cat food I bought
            and I told her how much better
my cats’ coats were, she and I
            went over her mini-labradoodle
stud’s diet and coat
            supplement. Apparently
his coat is bedraggled. He’s still picked
            up by the breeder twice a month
to do his thing, but it appears that
            it’s wearing him out—all
those different women—or that was
            my guess. I told her I wanted
a dog, which made us both
            happy, me b/c it would
get me out of the man thing.
            The loneliness thing.
All this while a line of people
            formed behind me and random
groceries were plowing
            forward on the belt.

                                                     Driving home
I thought about how sad Beach had seemed
            at the barn yesterday, grounded
in his stall with his hurt foot and the dear
            young person, who must be
home-schooled, far too innocent at age
            seventeen to be attending
any public high school even
            in rural Indiana.
Her fresh face in my face
            asking me all sorts of questions about
Beach, about patient, shark-faced Indy whom
            I’d ridden that day instead of Beach,
about posting the trot,
            and so on. And today
at Fresh Thyme
            the other young person maybe
the same age or a bit older
            going on about the mini-labradoodle
set up. They sort of lease the dog, foster
            him, whatever.

            In all seriousness, I think these
dear earnest young people are what
            Jesus is thinking about there
in the dark. They’re inheriting rampant
            porn, a frying earth, a parent-
and grandparent-killing pandemic. Oh,
            and a brutal war and genocide
on television. & that other thing.

            My raspberries at some point must’ve
gotten loose, were rolling all over the grocery
            bag apparently, because several
dropped into my yard when I got home
            and I just popped them all
in my mouth. All that abundance. All that
            freshness on the young
people’s faces.

            Jesus, think hard. Meditate hard.
As previously stated, I don’t know how
            Patti can stand me, and come to
think of it, I’m not sure she can. We talked
            about meditation. A woman she reads
who writes about Zen and the twelve steps.
            Irish formerly-Catholic Patti said “I hate Easter”
and I must say it was something of a relief.
            I’d neglected to say I’d wanted
to write to my hot convert friend
            up in Toledo
 and say Happy Easter,
            that I missed the big bonfire at my former church
in which we threw
            our palms from the week before;
our little candles lit, blown out,
            and re-lit in the dark sanctuary. The Litany of
the Saints, so beautiful, to which I’d sobbed every year—
            including three years ago—not two hours
before, in our living room, exhausted—
            I’d been to a student event
with my husband before the service—
            and the Vigil had lasted three and a half
hours—when my husband told me he was
            leaving me.

                                    The week after that I went back
            to Mass, not knowing where else
to take my outsized pain—it was packed
            and a woman next to me gave me
her handkerchief
            as my sobbing was getting messy—
and I was convinced it was a message
            from my dead father who always gave
me a hankie and whose clean, folded handkerchiefs
            looked just like hers.

I could hardly get out of the church after
            Mass or through the ensuing
days in which my husband vaguely confessed
            about two other women and precisely
set about organizing his move which happened
            ten days later.

                                    How many times had I stood
in that parking lot before that fire
            with my husband and sometimes one
or the other, or both, of our daughters?
            And then gone
in to stand in the dark sanctuary waiting
            for our little white candles
in the paper cones to be lit hand to
            hand from the priest’s
Pascal candle. Staying standing
            for the long, long reading
of Genesis where
            God divided the light
from the darkness and Exodus, the
            Lord in the pillar of fire
and cloud. Oh how I wish I were there now.

            I heard we are having
yet another hard frost tonight
            —though it is April—
and again I congratulate myself
            for not planting anything yet.
I’m sure it is beautiful there at the garden
            under the dark, pink full moon.
                        Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us.
Saint Michael, pray for us.
            Holy Angels of God . . . .
            The frost drops tonight

like stars.
            Perfect hairy red raspberries tumbling
out of the back door of my car
            and into the yard.



HAPPY DAYS


                        Belle hiding in the narrow brush jump
covered with red faux-brick paper. (Note to both horse and rider:
            the thing will not give.)
                        Her fluffy head
and fat tail coming out of the open top. Frustrated Cohen the
            black pit bull cross
            hanging around her licking her face.

Christy says Let me get a rope for the dog
            so I can rescue the cat
and Roxy can jump the brush jump.

I’m trotting around on Beach. I had to do energy work—
                        my guestimate of Reiki—
            on the horse before I went out there. Seriously.
I didn’t know that that was what I was doing.
            But he lowered his head and let his eyelashes drop
            when I stroked
            the bone behind his right ear.
Also looked at me dreamily
            when I kissed him square on the face.                         

                        Riders don’t always realize that horses
            need reassurance. The day before’s lesson, C. admitted,
“went south.” We were scraping mud
                        off Beach from either side.
 She thought 13-year-old Suzette could handle him,
            but instead he veered right
and broke into a canter down
            the rail—
            maybe she poked him with her heel—

            Suzettte ended up coming off INTO the wall of the indoor
breaking off a tooth—and fracturing her jaw.

                        Still she had the presence of mind,
Christy said, to ask for someone to look for
            her tooth. (Which I did not know
            until today was even
            a “thing.” Those who watch
                        hockey know about it?)
I’m sure the mom was not pleased, but
                        the liability waiver
—which refers to the “inherent risks of equine activities”
            and “death”—is in huge block letters on
            the tack room door.

And everybody signs a copy.

            My job today was to calm Beach down
enough to get him to go over the small jumps
                        without running out. (Or, God forbid,
into one of the hayfields stretching in
            every direction.)
Lily, another beginner, had helped him to realize
            that running out might be an attractive option.

                        The cat hiding in the brush jump, with the dog sniffing her face
            reminded me of how John, about age 12, used to hold
Douglas, age 10, down on the floor and I would slap him.

Then when Mother appeared, John and I would lie.

I am getting ready to confront my ex-husband
            in divorce counseling, to let him know
how much he hurt me. Is that not the most laughable
                        thing you ever heard? Like a person who
                                    pursued two
people while holding my hand
                        in “marriage therapy,” as he called it,
                        would suddenly
be capable of compassion?

Ha ha ha.

The cat’s head rotating around above the box reminded
            me of the woman’s head in Happy Days
the Beckett play my boyfriend lent me.
            Honestly, the grief over our uncertain future
                        is tormenting each of us
            in different ways. He can’t get across the Canadian/U.S. border
and I am a basket case about going up there.

My love bleeds and I go very blank. If I’m going to
            have excision surgery I need to prepare for it.

I need energy work. On myself. Courage to                
            get dipped in acid
            again.
I DO NOT visualize myself as Winnie in                                           
            Happy Days, the tiny circuit of toothbrush,
toothpaste, and comb—
buried to her waist in an earthen mound
            beneath a “trompe-l’oeil backcloth” of
                        “unbroken plain and sky.” A black bag and
parasol beside her. When will “Willie,”
lying asleep
somewhere behind her, speak?
                        Brush and comb
            the hair if it has not
been done or trim the nails

if they are in need of trimming. . . .
            This is going to be another happy day!



REVOLVING DOOR OF SPRING: CHECK ON ME


Trina T. has gone back out.
           It was all over WLFI.

Two OWIs in twenty-four hours.
           First she got hung up on 

a snow drift, drunk, then motored off
           from the officer

who tried to help her. Then she
           had an accident. “You should

have seen her mug shot,” Emily said,
           “and people were

saying things like ‘Lafayette’s finest’
           in the comment

section. Brandi and I had to
           defend her.”
                                 March 11th, apparently,

is the day my father will be released from
           the hospital. On his 93rd

birthday, his blood pressure was 69
           over 40.
                      “I always think

March 11th is the day we start
           to ride outside,” Christy says.

“We could probably ride in the outdoor
           today but we wouldn’t

be able to get there. All the snow is
           melting—the ground

is soaked.” March 11th is three days from
           today. No one knows if Trina has

been bailed out.
           Her husband had just gotten

out of prison which “could
           have been a factor.”
                                               That train accident

was by my rather obvious
           deduction a suicide. The train

was coming from the west
           and Rachel just rolled

her truck slowly onto the track.
           Three-column obituary. An engineer

who traveled the world, rode
           and showed a horse

named Orion, loved guinea pigs, pottery
           (which she made), sunflowers.

In other words, who lived eighty
           lives to my one. Christy

and Josie knew her. I heard about it
           at the barn when I was

having my lesson. Walking and trotting,
           always getting yelled at,

always waiting for the chance
           to jump (when I was young, it was “hunt”).

A hanger-on at the barn—with ten-year-old
           cohorts, college girl

stable helpers. “She, the witness, observed
           and heard the train

coming from the west
           and saw the pickup truck

slowly edge up onto the tracks,” said the
           Chief Deputy.
                                    When Doug heard

about Dad, via my voice mail, yesterday,
           it took eight hours for

him to get back to me. He was
           talking really slow. I wondered

how much he’d been
           drinking. I could tell

he didn’t feel up to calling Thea and sorting
           out the visiting rotation.
                                                  When they

told me Tammy died, I had
           to look up her obituary picture

to remember who she was.  Emily,
           recently relapsed and on the run

from CPS (having been caught driving drunk
           with her child), was the one

who found her. When you endanger
           children as much as she has, Child

Protection Services becomes CPS. Emily had tried
           to call Tammy to check on her

but she didn’t pick up. When
           Emily went over to check on her, she

found her naked on the
           bed, fresh—or not—from the

shower. Emily flashed back to her mother’s
           suicide by alcohol overdose,

replete with note, on her ninth birthday,
           and then tried to kill herself two and

a half weeks later. It was Tammy’s sister
           who called to check

and upon hearing Emily’s garbled voice
           called 911. She had been very, very

thorough in her overdose, though I can’t
           remember right now what

combination of drugs and alcohol she told
           me she used.
                                Arlene at the nursing home

was perfectly cheerful about
           my father last night, said she

only wished they’d caught it sooner
           so he could have avoided going

to the hospital.
                              He sounds
           like he is trying

to speak from a deep
           well. Thea said on the phone

that when she arrived she found
           him “unresponsive,” deploying

a medical default/buzz word. I knew
           it would be okay, though, because

the night nurse “Jackie” last night
           on the phone said she was right

outside his door, had just checked on him, and
           that he was “adorable.”                           
                                                             A man in the my

home meeting about
           whom I’ve been nursing

some kind of an obsession asked me
            for my phone number and I nearly

died. I kept thinking, Is this a date? I gave
           him my number and my last

name and he gave me his. I know what it was
           really for. I know we had

more important things to do
            in that room than

have a Valentine’s dance. I think about him,
           how raw and in pain he seemed a

month or two ago, how I was worried
           he’d go back out

(but he didn’t and that was all
           that mattered).
                                       When Andy refused

to watch Lola, and Mia was paranoid,
           I told her to ask

the reason. She ended up
           sobbing to him on the phone. Then

someone she knew from Lola’s school
           saw Mia in Target in the hour

before the meeting and offered to take her so Mia
           could have some peace.

Andy said it was just work that
           was bothering him. Mia’s friend

texted a photo of Lola at Tractor Supply—
           or was it Rural King?

I didn’t ask the man why he wanted
           my number. I did not want

to end up sobbing.
                             Doug,
           it’s Daylight Savings

Time, drag yourself up out of that
           hole you’re in. Dad is not dead.

Let’s work on his obituary while there’s
           still time. I’ll tell you

when it’s otherwise. Slim, in your
           gold shoes, carry on,

keep deploying your charm. Mia,
           tell the truth to Andy. Emily, one day

at a time, keep coming back. I’ll call you,
           Doug, and tell you when to

enter the hole for good. Meanwhile, pick up
           your phone once every

thousand years. Let me check on you.



BIO

Dana Roeser’s fourth book, All Transparent Things Need Thundershirts, won the Wilder Prize at Two Sylvias Press and was published in September 2019. Her previous books won the Juniper Prize and the Samuel French Morse Prize (twice). She was a recipient of the GLCA New Writers Award, an NEA Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and several other awards and residencies. Recent work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Poem-a-Day, The Glacier, North American Review, DIAGRAM, Pleiades, Guesthouse, Barrow Street, Laurel Review, and others. For more information, please see www.danaroeser.com.

“dates”

by Uzomah Ugwu


1.

Dark shots
Passed out moons
Arise for the night

2.

Moonshine Sundays
Bulls on charge
Meet with red, bullseye

3.

Met with gloom
Decided against the wall
Dreams arranging dates with nightmares

4.

Ice cream cones licked
By adults that
Can’t relive their childhood



“saying goodbye”


Was this a different love song
The kind you only heard in your head

Unmade beds, removed pillows spread across the room
Far to the left I find you in spirits I thought
you were tired of being accustomed to

You locked on tight like a crab on the shore
to an idea that did not include a saga
Where I was a character foreshadowing
great things that in the end you wanted

But was something you couldn’t go after
A new chapter for you to outline a new mattress
For us to spring off of

Which did not matter
what part we couldn’t get pass in our past
couldn’t be hidden
Our love did not spring after winter in
season long after to hear the birds sing outside

Our disturbed windows with the type of crust
similar to ones found in the pockets of your eyes
That I looked into a hundred times wanting

to believe you, believe this believe us
We were just blind and needed to see pass
what it was really worth and giving something more than

Another try because this was a different love song
the one where you forget to cry because you can’t
Accept saying hello or most importantly
knowing when to say goodbye



“trail of blood”


Outside her belly is the distant north
That outweigh risks. She clutches her tummy
Like a check-up to see if it’s there watching above


Life caught in the air
She breathes two breathes
Two come out. One inhale
They make it
Hard to stand
Can’t keep the pace
No one is alerted
They walk on too painful to make a plea to stop


A trail of blood lies behind her
Paired with the outline of her shoes
She can’t find a heartbeat
For her or her baby
She grabs her belly once more
She walks to freedom alone
With a problem with her god
Soiled in the loss of life
Now hollow, she sees the border
As not a place to live life but to lose one





BIO

Uzomah Ugwu is a poet/writer, curator, editor, and multi-disciplined artist. Her poetry, writing, and art have been featured internationally in various publications, galleries, art spaces, and museums. She is a political, social, and cultural activist. Her core focus is on human rights, mental health, animal rights, and the rights of LGBTQIA persons. She is also the managing editor and founder of Arte Realizzata.







WHEN THE WARM DAY DIES

By Nolo Segundo


When the warm day dies
And the cool night sets in,
Then I’ll be there, beside
You my love, feeling the
Heat of a beating heart,
My arms wrapped round
Your empty shoulders as
I whisper silent words of
Love and longing in your
Lonely, unadorned ear….



THE TIME OF NOSTALGIA


We went to visit our old neighbor
after they moved her to a nursing home,
an old English lady of ninety-one,
still with that accent of east-end London
and the sweet pleasantness of the kind.

She was too old, too alone to live alone.
She would forget to turn off the gas range
or how to turn on the thermostat or TV,
She had trouble following a simple talk,
but remembered the Blitz, 75 years past,
as if the Nazi bastards were still at the door,
and London was in turmoil: as though Hell
had crashed through the gates of Heaven.

So her family moved her, leaving empty
the house next door, empty of our friend
of 30 some years, empty of her lilting
English accent and her sharp sense of
good old fashioned English humor…
and it seemed like someone had died.

After a few weeks we went to visit her,
my wife and I, taking some sweets and
a small plant—oh yes, and our sadness
too—though we made sure to leave it
outside, unattended to for the moment.

We entered a very large and rambling
sort of building, with pleasant lawns
and locked doors and intercoms for
some voice to decide if you can enter.
It was like sort of a prison, you think,
but a very nice and very clean prison.
Our neighbor was in a special wing,
called rather romantically, ‘Cedar Cove’
and as we entered through yet another
set of stout doors, we greeted her and
she smiled back, but very much as
one might greet a total stranger….



ON EATING AN ORANGE AND SEEING GOD


I miss the big navels when they are not in season,
but almost any orange will do when I really want to see God.

But it must be done right, this seeing, this apprehension of the
Lord of the Universe, Lord of All the Worlds, both seen and
unseen….

First I feel how firm the orange is, rolling it in my hands,
the hands of an artist, the hands of a poet, and now the stiff
and cracked hands of an old man—
then I slice it in half and look at its flesh, its brightness,
its moistness, its color—
if the insides beckon, urging my mouth to bite,
I first cut each half into half and then slowly, carefully—
as all rituals demand—I put one of the cut pieces between
my longing lips and gradually, with a sort of grace, bite
into the flesh of the sacrificial fruit.

I feel the juice flow down my throat and recall the taste of
every orange I ever had, even in my childhood—or so it
seems, with this little miracle of eating an orange.

As I finish absorbing, still slowly and gracefully, its flesh,
the last bit of what had been one of the myriad wonders
of the world, I look at the ragged pieces of orange peel
and I see poetry—or God—it’s really the same thing,
isn’t it?



BIO

Nolo Segundo, pen name of L.j. Carber, 77, became a published poet in his 8th decade in over 190 literary journals in 15 counties on 4 continents. A retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia], he has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and thrice for Best of the Net. Cyberwit.net has published 3 collections: The Enormity of Existence (2020); Of Ether and Earth (2021); and Soul Songs (2022). These titles reflect the awareness he gained when he had an NDE whilst nearly drowning in a Vermont river: That he has—IS—a consciousness that predates birth and survives death, what poets since Plato have called the soul.






The Bees, the Rain and the Dark

by Josh Humphrey

My daughters are scared of the bees
            haunt the woodshed,
            float     unpredictable
                       like so much bad luck.
They are my payment for the eighties,
            when we killed the fireflies
            with our baseball bats
            just to see their pure light
                       smeared
                       uncontained neon.
This time is one of murder hornets.
            not one of accidental
                       light.

I am afraid of the storms,
            how they are
            beyond            words,
            rage like          old Gods,
            how the ferocious rain
                       makes fast rivers
                       in the garage.
The lightning will find the ancient tree
            every time,
            make it dance
                       until it drops.
The soft rain with gentle hands is gone,
            how it never forgot a name
                        or a face.

We are all afraid of the darkness –
            the basement is made
            of scrape and claw,
            murmuring      pipe.
Our old dog sits at the top of the stairs
            head cocked    tail low,
            afraid
                        but waiting nonetheless.
The deep corners of the yard hold
            that night of    screaming
            when I could not find
            the animal in   the trap.

It is what we get for messy life,
            endless reminder
            that we are      circles
            to close.
A day is long enough to remember twice
            everything you tried
                        to forget.



Newark Danced with Me Tonight

Newark danced with me tonight,
Miles Davis on the radio and I
floated over the Clay Street Bridge,
hit the ramp to 280 and was flying,
adding my lights to the thousand,
trying to put stars in starless sky.

Newark danced with me tonight
and I was safe behind my wheel
because my brother was not
and that is a cost already paid
and I am suddenly 48 and the girls
are no longer girls, but it is okay.

Newark danced with me tonight.
We had Freddie Freeloader on
the radio and we fell into place,
every second window blazing with
life.  The moon behind the church
was every God we needed.

Newark danced with me tonight.
Even though I am still such loosely
contained grief and I count my steps
even and my watch is telling me
to breathe and in the morning I will
have to do this in the awful reverse.

Newark danced with me tonight,
with me in my invisible middle age.
Even gone, Miles Davis played
his golden trumpet empty and I
understood how the world works
for the eternity of exit 13 to exit 5B.



BIO

Josh Humphrey’s poetry has appeared in some other places, including Lullwater Review, Paterson Literary Review, Lips, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Soundings East, Naugatuck River Review, Streetlight and Oberon. It is forthcoming in Twin Bill and the Aeolian Harp Anthology. Currently, he works as a Library Director in his hometown of Kearny, New Jersey, a job that inspires much writing. He is a lover of books, records and chocolates.










KEYHOLE MAW

by Diane Webster


The keyhole maws like a cave opening
until the spelunker’s key wiggles, jiggles,
slides backside down into the gap
dodging stalactites jutting
into jigsaw-puzzle-like jags
until fit tightens at extremity;
the key rotates to free its form-fitting grip,
and a tunnel opens into a cavern
unlocking a room to wander treasures
until exploration halts, and the key
reverses, shimmies out
leaving a keyhole gaping again.



STONE NEST


Beside the river the stone’s footprint
betrays its passing to the hunter
who kneels and presses his hand
into the imprint letting his fingertips
trace how long ago it had passed,
how much it weighed,
how long this had been home.

He searches the trail ahead for tossed
skid marks or broken shards,
but only this sole indenture
pocks the nearest horizon.

The river’s runoff rumbles
over sisters, brothers, cousins
perhaps this stone itself
holding its breath until the shore
carves farther east around the bend,
and dry land welcomes the stone
into its nest again.



CLOCK TICKS


Like a clock
in silence –
tick, tick, tick.
Waiting for the alarm
to go off; waiting
for the alarm
not to go off.

Wanting the clock
to stop ticking!
But what if it does?
Listening to
tick, tick, tick.



STORY PROBLEM


At the same time
two crows leap
from the same branch
of the same dead tree.

One flies east; one flies west.
One flies at 12 miles per hour;
one flies at 15 miles per hour.
One flies into a head wind
blowing at 20 miles per hour;
one flies with the tail wind
of 20 miles per hour.
In 31 minutes how far
will each crow be from the other?

Who cares?
One crow spots a deer carcass
alongside the road and swoops
down for a snack.
One crow dips its wing
and spirals into the sky
then dives down to land
lightly on a fence post.
It faces the wind and pretends
to fly like a dog
poking its head out a car window.



WARY EDGES


Feral cats
like homeless people
slink around the edges.

Wary of eye-to-eye
contact they lie low
in you-don’t-really-
see-me mode.

Comfortable only
in their own clowders
of tents, cardboard boxes,
sleeping bags coiled
together like curled up cats
lying in cinnamon roll buns
ready for the baking
when the sun rises.




BIO

Diane Webster‘s work has appeared in El Portal, North Dakota Quarterly, New English Review, Verdad and other literary magazines. She had a micro-chap published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022, 2023 and 2024. One of Diane’s poems was nominated for Best of the Net in 2022. Diane retired in 2022 after 40 years in the newspaper industry.







Reviewed by Claire Hamner Matturro


The poems in Lola Haskins’ newest collection, Homelight (Charlotte Lit Press 2023), are equally elegant and eloquent in their graceful blend of theme, imagery, and language. Elegant in their refined, fluent use of words and eloquent in their visions and messages, these are luminous poems. While some poems are nearly haiku-short, others contain many stanzas, yet all resonate with beguiling, stirring words from a poet with a close connection to the natural world and an intense perceptiveness. There’s a spiritual quality to many of the poems, even a metaphysical element to some as in “The Discovery” where “time is as / random as the patterns the sun makes on / any given day…” As Haskins travels between accessible and elusive, the personal and the observational, Homelight offers a stunning collection of well-crafted, evocative poems which flow with a natural rhythm.

Organized into seven named sections, these 63 poems are diverse in their topics. In part one, titled “On the Shoulders of Giants,” Haskins writes in the style of such renowned poets as William Blake, W. S. Merwin and Mary Oliver. In part two, “Wings,” she celebrates wild birds, often a topic of hers in prior collections. Other named sections include: “And They Are Gone,” “(In)humanity,” “Corona,” “The Slapped Girl,” and “Rehearsing.”

Haskins’ talent for the poetry of nature is well established with her prior books and her poems of the natural world stands out superbly in Homelights too. As a long-time environmentalist and outdoors enthusiast, she occasionally tilts these poems toward a world-weary awareness of what we are damaging and seeing slipping away. In “Dominion,” she questions when we will understand how “the tips of our fingers / are like yellow butterflies? Reach for them and they are gone.” In “Those Who Look Alike but Are Not,” she ends the poem with “They are not the ones destroying the world.” Yet, the poems usually lend themselves to hopefulness and celebration of what we still have as she finds a yin and yang equilibrium. For example, in “The Hundred and One Names of the Wind,” Haskins rejoices in the wind for “its voices / have taught us song, / and its swaying   dance.” Yet, she also recognizes “for any day / of the world it may crush us under / our houses.” In the end, she wonders “be we wise or foolish    do we / understand what we have done.”

Haskins’ vivid use of metaphors, simile, and precise, unique descriptions is so powerful that images lifted from the natural world become so much more—which of course is the alchemy in truly good poems. In “The Salt Marsh,” for example, “At dusk the water turns melted pearl” and in, “Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love,” readers find “The earth is a kind chair. When I have stopped breathing she will not tell me / I must get up.” In “At the Park,” robins “drab as dead leaves” nonetheless rise “like children swinging / lanterns, stars among the darkened trees.” And the bird in “The Woodpecker” will “hammer at the tree / like a resolute / toddler / pounding pegs.”

Among the nature and personal poems, a few are also topical. The pandemic appears in the section titled “Corona, 2019-2021” where in a poem entitled “Woods,” Haskins observes sharply that “Home and here are / the only places / I’m allowed / now the world is sick.” Yet, even in that narrowed space, she finds beauty—“A tiny violet moth / has fallen in love / with my socks.”

Other topical poems include “Aleppo,” where a Syria father “speaks of his six month old boy, born here / who has never seen the sky.” In “Bear,” referencing Ukraine, she writes:

         If a group of bears attacks your village, lie still.
         If they are not fooled, fight back with everything they are trying to rip out.
         If this means you have to set fire to your country, do it.

The most deeply personal poems are those in “The Slapped Girl” and in “Rehearsing.” One of the poems in those sections is a bittersweet, haunting love poem entitled “Though We Can Never Be Together.” In only twelve sublime lines, the poem captures both a story and a feeling, beginning with this line: “I live with you  / in the interstice between breath and breath / in the cool damp hollows tides leave in the sand” and ending with these words:

         And I wear you
         the way a Sikh wears his cord
         under his clothes
         in token of the ineffable beauty of the world.

All in all, these are rich, layered poems of beauty and transcendence which once more establishes Lola Haskins as a poet worthy of her many accolades and worthy of reading, re-reading, and cherishing.

Lola Haskins’ poems have been broadcast over the BBC and her work has appeared in such prestigious publications as The Atlantic, London Review of Books, The New York Quarterly, Georgia Review, Rattle, Prairie Schooner, and others. Her body of work also includes thirteen previous collections of poetry, a beginner’s guide to the poetry life, and a non-fiction book about Florida cemeteries. Twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, she has been honored with three book prizes, two NEA fellowships, four Florida Cultural Affairs fellowships, the Emily Dickinson/Writer Magazine award from Poetry Society of America, and many others.

         Dominion

         By Lola Haskins, from Homelights and used with permission

         We name the birds and think those are their names
         but our throats are helpless when calling flights pass over
         and we can’t taste the earth that comes up with the worm in a robin’s beak
         nor in the worst moments of our lives can we approach the way an owl sobs.

         We analyze the sky using charts      one phenomenon at a time
         yet when light pierces the clouds like our visions of God we turn into
         open mouths   and when that light enters us     no matter how much
         we want to keep it     because we do not have the tools     we can never.

         We wade through undergrowth whose leaves and sticks are our words for them
         but the nodules and stitchings on our ankles will always know more about plants
         than we do  and we have no idea what to call the way trees dwarf us  nor when
         we hold them     how to interpret the patterns their barks leave on our cheeks.

         We have stories but we cannot parse them  so when we step on a seedling struggling
         through a crack we never think of Cain and Abel     nor does the way water
         cascades towards us from high and  ancient rock bring Rapunzel to mind
         nor when we look at the stars do we remember As it was in the beginning.

         When will we understand that all our classifications are only attempted dust?
         That nothing pinned to a card is true?  That sight and hearing
         and taste and our hearts and our brains and the tips of our fingers
         are like yellow butterflies?  Reach for them and they are gone.





BIO

Claire Hamner Matturro has been a journalist, lawyer, organic blueberry farmer, and college instructor. She is the author of eight novels, including a series published by HarperCollins. Her poetry appears in Slant, Kissing Dynamite, New Verse News, One Art, Muddy River Poetry Review, Tiger Moth Review, Lascaux Review, and Glassworks. Her reviews of poetry appear in Southern Literary Review, where she’s an associate editor, and in Slant, Compulsive Reader, and Verse-Virtual.





COMPOST OF MY CHILDREN’S CHILDREN

by J.A. Lane


Gathering amongst my body
(camping out in a sense)
are images that’ll remain until my
flesh, bones, and blues become the
compost within the garden of my children’s children.

Steadily able, probably more-than at this moment,
daydreaming of the promised life of
rejoicing and praising and singing,
all while imagining the growth of my
children’s children and their garden.



GRAVITATING TOWARD THE MELANCHOLY FONDNESS I ONCE SHARED WITH A STRANGER NAMED GILDA


I got lost.
Somewhere between the
yippies! and the trees
I was awakened to
the scent of an hours old cigarette.
There, within the
night dives, I tried
to peek at the fortune of her shimmer.
Gilda smiled like I always knew she could.
I am found.



THE LAST DRAG FROM 12/18/1978


permeates and bathes
the night lungs in a warmth you haven’t
felt in what some think of as decades; but you call
them years. The momentary respite is long enough to think
it’ll keep on and on and on. Your eyes open to nothing
but snow; just a man in the cold,
waiting for life.



BIO

J. A. Lane is a writer whose short stories, plays, and poems focus on exploring moments in time that often examine the depths of the human condition. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.







STORIES

by Elizabeth Morse


They make up stories for each other like children,
drinking tea and leaning together over the couch.
Their laughter crackles through the rooms.
Heat fills the midnight windows while each tale
bounces and glows. Even the electrical storm
beginning outside cannot shock them apart.


ESCAPE


It’s hazardous outside.
I’m double locking the door to protect you.
I’m your mother and I want to keep you safe.
You’re escaping? They’ll eat you alive.
Don’t you know they all have knives, guns?
They stick up banks and pawn shops.
Supermarkets, too. Watch yourself.

Why are you running away?
You never had much common sense,
never return books on time to the library
Do you think you can just leave?
Your father and I are so concerned.
You can’t just live on the sidewalk
or under the trees in the park.
You’d be reckless enough
to eat a pigeon.


IN THE DEPTHS

In memory of Zach Harris


My cousin died in the coal mines on his twenty-seventh birthday
in the highlands of West Virginia. He dreamed of the Milky Way,
that walkway of stars. Biscuits and gravy for breakfast,
then work. That afternoon, he fell into a lost mine,
cavern of nightmares, stepping on the paper-thin edge of sky.
Accident in the coal fields, the news reports announced.

Every song about the coal mines is a dark ballad,
a room without windows. The mines take and don’t return.
So many think they are secure from the depths of earth.
My cousin died in the coal mines on his twenty-seventh birthday,
expecting his days to be the same, counting on it in ways he couldn’t,
dreams reaching upward, away from the deep that killed him.

 

BIO

Elizabeth Morse values the quirky, the darkly humorous. She is hard-wired to be a night-owl and writes exclusively after 9 PM. Her work has been published in literary magazines such as Ginosko, Survision, and Kestrel. Her poetry chapbook, “The Color Between the Hours,” is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in late 2023. She was a finalist in the Blue Light Press full-length poetry collection contest and has her MFA from Brooklyn College. A job in information technology supports her writing.









Old Man Winter

By Annette Gagliardi


Snow whiffs from branches—
no thaw in sight

the white slick of January
cold enough for unseen flames

heats the blistering cold,         leaping
across space like Jack Frost

etching my window
silent scratches, making light years

string time — broken chrysalis
and webbed wonder

a caravan of long-lashed camels searching
for warmth like finding water

in the blazing desert
thread the days with a meager

wisp of transformation
smell the sweat of winter’s chill

sizeable piles of relaxing snow
let old man winter die a dawdling death



Partial Eclipse


Grey-brown creeps
                        over the horizon
on its way to sundown,
                        shading the bridges,

ridges of trees and hills and buildings
            as it gathers the troops of night

for a full-scale
            assault on the lightness
of midday, offering another brand
            of illumination

that supplies shadow by the bucketful,
            adds nuances to all the silhouettes

not seen in the brightness
                        and chases
the clarity of day away.
            “I surrender.” I say

in my most
            mysterious voice.
Like a lover, shadows oblige my request
            embracing daylight     and me with it.

We are the penumbra
            cocooned
 in the gathered gloaming.




BIO



Annette Gagliardi looks at the dimly, tinted shadows and morphed illusions that becomes life and finds illumination. She sees what others do not and grasps the fruit hiding there, then squeezes all the juice that life has to offer and serves it up as poetry – or jelly, depending on the day. Her work has appeared in many literary journals in Canada, England and the USA. Gagliardi’s first poetry collection, titled: A Short Supply of Viability, and her first historical fiction, titled: Ponderosa Pines: Days of the Deadwood Forest Fire were both published in 2022. Visit her author website at: https://annette-gagliardi.com







The Preterite

by Frederick Pollack


You’ve been called in to construct
a language. You should feel flattered,
perhaps honored, that they chose you
despite your amateurism. What worries you
is theirs: vital texts
are missing from shelves and computer.
Meals are slow and cold.
The girl assigned to help you is eager
when there, but never there. You wonder if
she loathes you. With the instincts imparted
by age and marginality, you wonder
if you were selected simply
to get language and/or you out of the way.
But that’s upsetting; you immerse yourself
in the advantages and disadvantages
of agglutinative, fusional … Zamenhof
was eurocentric; you want to bring in
that Japanese noun for the sound of a pencil
rolling across a table, a Warrumungu expression
for thirst that brought you to tears, once …
What’s worst is they never told you
whether they want something ideal
or pragmatic, mere trade-talk. Given
your nature and the effects
of solitude you tend towards the ideal:
that harmony Leibniz convinced himself
the West would achieve by imitating
Mandarin. Your notebooks fill
with ideograms, vast melded radiating
concepts. All seem based
on reddened eyes, a haunted spotted hand.



Plein Air

Raying along the short blocks
beneath the usual big cloud
(like the belly, I think, of a boar),
the westering light creates
a Wagner-effect that is almost
too much. The rubble-slides
twinkle from glass;
I’ll omit most of that
and the rays, but retain,
inevitably, the upended, somehow
embarrassed vehicles,
the crater ponds.

Some trace in the air affects
my oils, but this adds
an aleatoric kick. And I’m never
quite sure what I’m seeing through
the mask. At Times Square,
all paper posters
are torn (they’ve been done), but
the looming Black Squares
that used to throb with ads lend
a focus, can be made to have
poignance, as if longing for
an image, any image.



Eye of the Denier


The years, high double digit, are
a weight, a block – what can you do
with that? But the days
were many; it’s easy enough
to multiply, and then you have
such a wealth! You could even
obtain a blank set
of calendars, from an environmental
NGO, spread them over
a floor and discover the animals
mysteriously linked to
your months, some gone now.

And from the little empty squares, like a mole
peering out, a bird who nests in earth,
a mouse among rocks or a small or
large cat, the true
protagonist of those days
would emerge – you could peer down at him
making love
and money, successfully striking
foes and poses,
disdainful of your gaze and the flat white world.



The Harbor Cruise


Half a kilometer past
the marina, the boat turns east,
and as it parallels the shore, the lights
that gild the walls of hotels, casinos,
seafront mansions, and those
of looming inland office buildings
go on more or less at once. Overwhelming
tourists aboard with magic:
the calm sea calmer, air cooler with dusk, the boat
turning, the lights – all for them! While older
locals, here to rekindle whatever,
applaud a successful expensive effect.
The captain, alert to his radar, avoids
yachts entering and leaving, heedlessly,
the harbor, a cruise ship’s wake. Young
guests, mostly rich and native,
perceive the lights as a signal for something,
though unsure what it is besides drinking.

And as all crowd the bar and table,
the distinction between those wearing
tuxedos and those in shorts and T-shirts
increasingly galls the old, diverts
the young who notice. Holding
glasses and plates, the groups separate,
tourists distinct in each; but in
the romantic darkness all are merely
shapes, with the lights of the city reaching
for them across the water. Seeing
bits of the young, the nicer old
attempt to forgive their laughter. Seeing
them, the young at most recall
superiors to get around.
Some figures, outfits, and the sea are noted.
One of the old remembers
lighting a cigarette in darkness; thinks,
If I could do that now I would be real.



BIO

Frederick Pollack is the author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS, both Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press. Three collections of shorter poems, A POVERTY OF WORDS, (Prolific Press, 2015), LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), and THE BEAUTIFUL LOSSES (Better Than Starbucks Books, September 2023). Pollack has appeared in Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Magma (UK), Bateau, Fulcrum, Chiron Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, etc. Online, poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Hamilton Stone Review, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire Review, Mudlark, Rat’s Ass Review, Faircloth Review, Triggerfish, etc. Website: www.frederickpollack.com





THE GROUND BREEDS TREES

By Lawrence Bridges

The ground breeds trees with an itch for air beneath our armor of atmosphere. The sea’s restless swaying so seldom visits land it thinks land’s a beast, a fish so large its scales are windows where my pocket square reflects, flowers on weapons, born to tame, upholding the best of all tides. The soaring thunderheads of smell eclipse rain, snow pebbles, and crunching road under turning tire. We proposed an opera here and built if for the deaf to know the depth of music, to spike frozen notes into rocky ground, to freshen spring of our next year.



NO ONE BOTHERS ME

No one bothers me. I’m not accountable to anyone. I’m forgotten and happy, not centuries dead but alive, today! I pass unnoticed, driving next to you. I stand on your sidewalk admiring your walnut tree, cataloging the pleasures I never miss while enjoying them. I’m nobody’s somebody, loafing in each day’s summer parts, in a coat with binoculars, on an ocean voyage, with wings. I’m unproductive, never make things, march with bands, hurl morning papers, read in a park, everybody’s nobody.



WHEN I TRIED TO SLEEP

When I tried to sleep, I slept for a year. When I tried indolence, I withered to sticks, anxious that I could never return to rigor, knowing my notion of work made me a loafer. I disappeared, no forehead, hands, stomach, or nose, no seat for chairs, elbows for desks, feet for floors. I just clawed the air in silence around you. I am your breeze, bird at your window, your morning temblor.



THAT BERG OF AIR

That berg of air out the train window flies south with all my cares. It’s crosswind you don’t hear until you’re in the next lane. Relinquishment, then a forgotten verb. Choose one. Remembers. Reminds. Reprieves. Restores. R is for red. Roar past emotions like shredded paper that doesn’t cling. No wake wallowing. Wait a few days and you’ll have forgotten.






BIO

Lawrence Bridges’ poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Tampa Review. He has published three volumes of poetry: Horses on Drums (Red Hen Press, 2006), Flip Days (Red Hen Press, 2009), and Brownwood (Tupelo Press, 2016). You can find him on IG: @larrybridges







a girl shaves her legs for the first time

by Charlotte Suttee


the razor chokes
on spider-leg hair,
roils cold water,
and coughs again,
to erase bit by bit
her body thicket.

her thighs crack
like moth wings
cornered and dry
for the dustpan
(weeping).




Hat Trick


The climbing gym’s closed so we watch
the Chicago Bears draft a defensive back
from Washington. We pick a scab on our chin
clean off. We don’t get sad this time when
the frat boys talk about the girl’s deadlifting
ass and can still enjoy the same sunshine.
What else do we do? We don’t reply to Nana’s
text: “I want you to be in heaven with me.
Please respond.” She would love to see us
come home with one of these hairless men
strutting to the door in greasy gym shorts
who headline their Instagram profiles with
1# God 2# Family 3# Football. She would
clap her hands together and weep, the perv.
We stretch out one leg. We forget to stretch
the other. We watch the Dolphins pick next.
We wonder what to do with Freedom and freedom,
if we can get away without seeing another snow
and ski on banana leaves until the knees give
in then mercury tremors finish us. Papa made lots
of money calculating bullet trajectories and
cut off his gay son. We don’t know the gay son’s
name but we know he rides motorcycles. We love
our grandparents, their bone spurs, cancers, and other
Freedoms. Nana taught us how to glue anything
to anything else and this is our most precious
talent. Papa taught us how to wrestle for our life.
We pull love out for them like hares from a magic
hat. Jeff Goldblum tries to get us to bet on our
favorite sports team in an app. The gym closes
early on Friday because there are better things to
do, like following the trail of frat boys to
their drinking games posted in dirt backyards,
then waking up in time for church on Sunday.




We will always betray ourselves


moving as fast as we do
through embracing arms
we go so fast with a force so loud
we must wonder
if we heard a             snap
we must wonder
if we could have finally been held



Madrigal (as a type of bird)


    i am a teenager and wish
i could be smart enough to draw
     as poorly as them
the ones with a place
     threaded through their fingerbones
i made my hills rounder
     than they come
because childhood is learning
     how not to see.
i only know how to draw the
     birds
with hands pieced together from graves
     it’s so dead this me now
the bird on its head a
     deliberate accident
but creating is throwing
     a piece of broccoli
over family thanksgiving
     into the fat laughing mouths
of people who set house alarms
     like violence.
creation opposes birds on their feet
     but the wings disturb  God
the tears from nana’s eyes





BIO

Charlotte Suttee’s poetry is published in a handful of Colorado magazines and her experimental speculative fiction novel “Weather and Beasts and Growing Things” is available through Lethe Press. She howls, cooks, and explores with her husband in Minas Gerais, Brazil.







Lost Thought

By Duane Anderson


Something finally showed up
after a too long of time,
knocking at the door to my mind,
a thought, patiently waiting
for me to open it up
before disappearing,
lost and forgotten,
like the many before it,
but once again, not quick enough.


WAOFTMM

(WHISKEY ALPHA ZERO FOX TROT MIKE MIKE)


We do not talk any more.
I do not understand his language.
Dots and dashes,
dashes and dots.
I have no antenna
or radio
to receive his messages.
He speaks in Morse code.
He may as well speak
the language of the apes.



BIO

Duane Anderson currently lives in La Vista, NE. He has had poems published in Fine Lines, Cholla Needles, Tipton Poetry Journal, and several other publications. He is the author of ‘On the Corner of Walk and Don’t Walk,’ ‘The Blood Drives: One Pint Down,’ and ‘Conquer the Mountains.’











East of Emmaus

By Michał Zieliński


All flows together, even if so painfully slow.
The baptized & the doves tweet in bursts,
Johnny got the back of his neck Brazilian waxed,
but he ain’t gonna spoil none for Leif & Chris,
& I talk too much, so we’re just being cute & innocent ab it.

Then Josh comes by, like “Hey, wanna see a trick?”
So he makes Jordan run with Bud Light & turns pebbles into chips.
The air went putrid, the poisoned tilapia floating about,
but it was then that me & the Messiah turned friends for life
& I felt a glowing ribbon emerging from my hair whorl.

1 night, Josh tells me to split myself in 2 to go
both beyond the pillars of Hercules & north of Danube.
“What the heck man? What is there for me to do?
I’m too old to be a rapper, too young to be a millennial!”
But before I replied he was already making out with Jude.

When they took him down, I left the town, once sweet like the wine
of quarter-term night, now gross like the pukes the morning after.
So under this onion-cutting sky of steel it’s just me & a homez of mine,
& half of a cig we’ll pass till it gets so short it burns our fingers
& just drops on the stony road. Your story ends here. Ours didn’t.




homeric Oregano

FNAP! it’s summertime,         it’s Oregano time.       purple
flowers,           torches in the daylight,           spades of green,
leaves with peach hair.           i came to talk, perennial
son of the basin.          between us the roaring vacuum of time,

the abyss of white       peering from between letters,
the silence       between nondescript syllables.
NOOOOOOO!            the brightness of the mountain
is the sole common     waypoint. we will never be lovelier

than we are now.         get it offa me! Time! i can’t stand it,
i can accept only not too hot summers           before i’m old again.
YEAH             opposite leaves           follow the burning,
cracking into murmurs            i struggle to transcribe into

straw circles.   faces carry what’s lost.            LE’S GOOO!  Yin —
there is            the heat of Love,         irresistible.                 Yang —
the cold lemonade       gulped from below,     running down
soft stones.      the beverage is a matchmaker, our bumblebee.

eyes locked, we swerve.         though it’s a thing of the past,
gone Soon after constant laws                        like the ice cubes melting,
watering down the ambrosia.              taste the pain! bless
the inflorescence, late but still!          cheer before the Ulp!




Baby Car

                                    One newborn car tried to
                                    carry me into the air in its bout,
                                             for a glimpse at grander perspective,
                                             for a fleeting touch of Death,
                                             for a cliffhanger,
                                             for a moment of uncertainty.

     James is gonna save them.
                                                            I murmured in the dark,
                                                teetering on the twin sharp points
                                                of solitary orchid scissors.
                                                This means they’re frozen until the next episode,
                                                            screaming in the corner,
                                                                                                   but safe.

                                    Cats are born blind & deaf, but into mother’s warmth.
                                    Cars are born complete, but cast alone into cold superposition
          dormant
                                                                                                                                       volant
                                    meant to viciously race each other since infancy.

                                  This driver was mad his brand new ride
                                  got scratched. I tried my best not to yell.
                                                It was a baby car after all.




Frank O’Hara Eyes on My Wings

I recognized a lamp, started flap after flap,
charcoal trace from the trunk to the nose, a thread of a rod
to the fresco, like the settling ashes — still warm & nameless.
Half-words come thru giggles, a great psalm in this space of interruptions.

I let it drip, the teary sand in some hourglass, even if
time & time again I mourn the years gone where
what’s real history is a mystery & all the truth drowned
the moment a moment is no longer now. Just like this one.

Me? I’m no witness, just a passerby. Don’t you worry, paddle on
to the lake’s apple, where the moon likes to swing doubled,
where the sand regroups & lovers’ sweet words soften
further into the abyss, under the algae powerhouses regime.

Up & down, here I go, no note taken,
just a postcard to be eased between unread pages,
erroneous navigation due to no fault of mine,
a little out-of-character irony to smile at — once by the light.




Hell Parade at Szczeliniec

Backpacks against chests,
sponges of sweat, jammed
between dried seas. A weekend

trip down the walls that
speak but can’t hear. Made
in their shape, for our times,

ever so slowly, down that
throat, where tomfoolery
is mass murder, we tiptoe.




BIO

Michał Zieliński lives in Poland’s Lower Silesia. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Metaworker, Wayward & Upward anthology, The River, and elsewhere.







ON THE WAY HOME FROM THE CANCER SUPPORT GROUP

by Elizabeth Crowell


She tries to forget the discussion of human suffering,
the side effect to tongue or to the heart, which can burn too.
She listens to NPR to remember her stance (liberal) and the world (screwed).

A sudden orchard comes and goes, its steely branches, barb-wired in winter sun. Months back,
the doctors gaped in their white coats
as if they’ve heard the wrong joke. The diagnosis is preposterous.

She tries to think of better times, but what are those?
The children’s tiny coats and boots, a crazy night in Troy, NY?
What do you go back to when you are afraid of dying?

She thinks of all her misplaced conviction,
like how she bothers to correct people who use who instead of whom.
And now, for God’s sake, a flock of wild turkeys make her lurch.

A dozen or so of them, their red and brown paisley, stocky bodies
awkward as suitcases, their branch-thin legs strut
their reaching, stiff-necked gait across the road.

Two dozen eyes glare at her with a so what?
No pity there, just their tweaking bodies,
moving like old comedians in silent movies.



PEONIES AND WINGS


I did not know these were peonies,
these heavy-headed, tight, thick blossoms

layers dozens of pink petals,
blooming right now on the side of the house.

I have seen them painted in a still-life
by Manet, a postcard I thumbtacked to a wall,

two white peonies, lying on a wooden table,
picked, doomed, extraordinarily open.

More than once, I have asked myself,
how can you not recognize the world?

When I was a child, an aunt and I
walked in those same New Hampshire woods.

She bent at nearly every plant and said aloud,
skunk cabbage, cinnamon fern, trillium,

virgin bowercreeper, boneset, bunchberry. She called them
rough-fruited or common, tall, wild, almost extinct.

It was like a dream language, those words
like the shadows of clouds on a moonlit lake.

I dreaded the flash of a fish at the end of a line,
silver-belly glint, fanned fins, a parent’s question

What kind of fish is it? Did I make a deal,
a decision not to know, or did I think

in time I would come to simply know
the way we do with love and loss?

I am leaving sooner than I thought,
Though whoever thinks of leaving

once they have arrived, wet and bodied?
Today I see a dusty-feather bird, a bit of blue color.

It flies, tight-winged, from my black fence to the sky,
then stays on the pitch of the barn.

Its distinct call must be recognizable,
but I don’t recognize it, even in the shadows,

where our senses deepen like small tribes,
waiting to ambush the unknown.





BIO

Elizabeth Crowell grew up in northern New Jersey and has a B.A. from Smith College in English Literature and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry from Columbia University. She taught college and high school English for many years. Her work has been published in such journals as Bellevue Literary Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Paterson Literary Review, and others. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Poetry Prize and originally published in the Tipton Review. She lives outside of Boston with her wife and teenage children.







Toads, Viruses, and Climate Change

by Cynthia Pratt


Tell me about tomorrow or the next.
How it reaches into your belly,
reminds us we are going extinct.
I try to caulk over gaps and the
heat, too hot actually. Try to adjust
to sickness or death. Not me yet
but of course it could be.
Those others die without any
visual knowledge of me knowing them.
The heat is oppressive and the weather
dry like a toad’s back.

The wives’ tale about not rubbing it’s back
is still a memory. What else can reach
as far down as sad moments allow?
My hand warts up as a reminder
that I once believed. I smother the lump
with clear fingernail polish, a treatment
handed down from generations,
as if heat, and the unbreathing skin
will choke all viruses, cure that which
rocks out of kilter.



I Almost Sent You This Postcard


Have you seen a sting-ray
skeleton? The bones
fan out like a geisha’s
accoutrement, cooling
her painted skin,
but here, it moves through
film of liquid atmosphere.

The skeleton splays out,
too beautiful to sting,
but that is the deception
of beauty, isn’t it?
The bruise after the
violent, full-lipped kiss.



The Visit


I’m visiting the sister with such bad luck:
bad husband, bad job, kids that were not easy.

Slender and neat, she chatters about San Diego,
her daughter, granddaughter, the granddaughter’s husband,
how large cities are difficult.
Asks questions but the space for answering
grows shorter and shorter.

I’m visiting my sister, the beauty queen whom
photographers begged for a pose for their portfolios,
the sister who convinced me I was privileged to
polish her shoes when I was 10.

The sister who had her younger sister
screen the men at the door, to see
if she was available.

Still, she is lovely, even now,
even when she has given up hennaing her hair,
gone to a softer pale red, or
maybe not, maybe giving up the tremendous
work of it, letting those thick natural curls go
entirely to what they want to be.

I’m visiting and I’m giving her advice
between the breaths that are mistaken for short pauses:
            Try riding the bus to get to know the city;
            see if the library has part-time work.

Me, the kid, who begged to try on her crinoline skirts,
suggesting a plan of action
and thinking of all those boys turned away.



Fall, Falling


If I knew it was the right time,
I would find fall
beckoning, the bark
course against my hand stroke.
I watch time ticking in circles.
I mind the waiting for the coming season.

Knots tick past me. I am a currach,
moored in an inlet, watching.
Write, please write.
Crows fall from the sky.
I know it’s food they are after,
my stomach knots.

Names hang onto sharp, thorned roses.
Even still, the boat, my mind,
drifts up and down with each leave-
taking, the bed between us a crumpled leaf.
I can’t make it right.
From shore, you wave.

I think it’s goodbye.
Roses dry in the vase you gave me,
dry strokes against my hand.
It is too late to face the fall.
I hear the crows caw
from my bed.

I cannot rise.
Under the nightstand a damselfly is dying.





BIO

Cynthia Pratt is one of the founding members of the Olympia Poetry Network’s board which has been in existence for over 30 years. Her poems have appeared in Crab Creek Review, Raven Chronicles, Bellingham Review, Quill & Parchment, Feminist Theology Poetry, The Raven’s Perch and other publications, and in the anthologies, Tattoos on Cedar (2006), Godiva Speaks (2011), two anthologies by the Fusion Collective, Dancing on the Edges (2017) and Garden of the Covid Museum (2021), Hidden in Childhood anthology and the anthology by Washington Humanities and Empty Bowl Press, I Sing the Salmon Home (2023). Her manuscript, Celestial Drift¸ was published in 2017. She is a former Fish and Wildlife biologist having graduated from Humboldt State University in Science and The Evergreen State University in the Master’s of Environmental Studies program. She was a former Lacey Councilmember and the Deputy Mayor of the City of Lacey for the last 12 years, with her term ending in December 2021. She is the first Poet Laureate of Lacey as of 2022.







Favorite

by Wayne-Daniel Berard


I have a feeling that each
of us lives in their favorite
scene the backdrop the
default setting of our lives
Me, I sit at an arched window
my first night in the magic
I look over the moon-pathed
lake (who cares if it’s spotlight
over backyard pool) I stroke
snowy owl beside me who is
actually Albee our cat and I’m
home
your son (but mine too)
and his girlfriend upstairs your
mom (my bestie) watching late
Red Sox from Oracle Park, across
the breezeway your sister and
her husband in barn renovated
against all ill winds
and you
who moves through every picture
every scene opening all the doors
password “Kiss me good night”
I just did
they’re all my house-mates
but tomorrow and tomorrow
and tomorrow you
teach me flight.



until finally


I don’t know where
the manna comes from
I don’t know how
the quail appear
I thought it was
just a story but
here here here
they are every
morning every
day I should
have starved
by now throat
closed like a
cockroach prayer
but the water is
as sweet and
everywhere as
air fresh air
the freshest air
and the eagles
came for frodo
and harry woke
up in the arms
of giant and I,
I shall not want.
Oh Hero of the
Realm! Lumos
yourself like
sunflower at
night prayer,
shema shema
shema until
ears unpop
depressurize,
wrestle yourself
through the dark
gate that opens
enfin on today’s
dunkies with cream
that you sip beside
the tree-lily
yellow pink and real
as lore
repeating itself until
we get it right



BIO

Wayne-Daniel Berard, PhD, is an educator, poet, writer, shaman, sage, and Gryffindor. An adoptee and former Franciscan seminarian, his adoption search led to the discovery and embrace of his Jewishness. Wayne-Daniel is a Peace Chaplain, an interfaith clergy person and former college chaplain. He is the author of 12 published books, including Little Ghosts on Castle Floors, Poems Informed by the Potterverse (Kelsay Books 2022). He lives in Mansfield, MA, with his wife, The Lovely Christine and their cats, Harry and Albus.





SONG

by J. R. Solonche


Old English sang, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch zang and German Sang.
Male hedonistic pleasures are summarized as wine, women, and song.

Speaking of pleasures, in my time I’ve heard many a siren song.
I’ll write a song and dance ghazal next, but in this one I have to say “a dance and a song.”

I can’t think of anything I’ve bought or sold for a song.
Rolling Stone Magazine ranks Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” the #1 song.

Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is ranked the #1 pop song.
W.C. Handy’s “Memphis Blue” is the greatest blues song.

“Hoochie Coochie Man” by Muddy Waters is the greatest blues song.
B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone” is the greatest blues song.

“I’d Rather Go Blind” by Etta James is the greatest blues song.
Howlin Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” is the greatest blues song.

         So, Solonche, you do know that you need one more song?
         Yes, I do know I need one more song, so here is my swan song.



DANCE


Middle English: from Old French dancer (verb), dance (noun), of unknown origin.
Terpsichore (the most beautiful of the nine) is the Greek muse of dance.

As I promised, now I can quote the correct idiom of a song and a dance.
I never went to my high school prom because I didn’t know how to dance.

One of the biggest hit songs (The Bee Gees) is “You Should Be Dancing.”
The debut (2008) single (Grammy nominated 2009) by Lady Gaga was “Just Dance.”

The samba of Brazil is the world’s most popular folk dance.
Baladi is a form of Egyptian belly dance, a truly hypnotic dance.

The hora is a popular Israeli circle dance.
Popular in South Africa is the gumboot (they wear Wellingtons) dance.

Clogging is the official Kentucky and North Carolina state dance.
Minnesota is the only state that has no official state dance.

          So, Solonche, will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?
          Oh, someday, one day, maybe Sunday, I may, I mean, I might join the dance.



HOLY


Old English hālig, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German heilig.
William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well: “Love is holy.”

In the first season (1966) of Batman, Robin said 356 phrases with holy.
The room in a synagogue where only the rabbi may enter is the holy of holies.

The exclamation used by Captain Marvel to mean Wow! is Holy Moley!
The trademark expression of Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto (1917-2007) was Holy cow!

In the New Testament, “set apart” is the definition of holiness.
In the Old Testament, connection to God’s perfection was holiness.

Sapta (seven) Puri (town) are the seven cities in India considered the most holy.
In Buddhism, Bodh Gaya (where Buddha attained Enlightenment) is the holiest.

In the Shinto religion of Japan, The Grand Shrine of Ise is considered the most holy.
Of the sacred sites for Muslims, The Ka’ba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is the most holy.

          So, Solonche, you atheist, what, if anything, do you consider holy?
          Like the other atheist above said, “Love is holy.”





BIO

Professor Emeritus of English at SUNY Orange, J.R. Solonche has published poetry in more than 500 magazines, journals, and anthologies since the early 70s, including The New Criterion, The New York Times, The Threepenny Review, The American Scholar, The Progressive, Poetry Northwest, Salmagundi, The Literary Review, The Sun, The American Journal of Poetry, Poet Lore, Poetry East, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and Free Verse. His poems have been read on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac and other radio shows and have been translated into Portuguese, Italian, German, and Korean. He is the author of Beautiful Day (Deerbrook Editions), Won’t Be Long (Deerbrook Editions), Heart’s Content (Five Oaks Press), Invisible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by Five Oaks Press), The Black Birch (Kelsay Books), I, Emily Dickinson & Other Found Poems (Deerbrook Editions), In Short Order (Kelsay Books), Tomorrow, Today and Yesterday (Deerbrook Editions), True Enough  (Dos Madres Press), The Jewish Dancing Master (Ravenna Press), If You Should See Me Walking on the Road (Kelsay Books), In a Public Place (Dos Madres Press), To Say the Least (Dos Madres Press), The Time of Your Life (Adelaide Books), The Porch Poems (Deerbrook Editions , 2020 Shelf Unbound Notable Indie Book), Enjoy Yourself  (Serving House Books), Piano Music (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by Serving House Books), For All I Know (Kelsay Books), A Guide of the Perplexed (Serving House Books), The Moon Is the Capital of the World (Word Tech Communications), Years Later (Adelaide Books), The Dust (Dos Madres Press), Selected Poems 2002-2021 (nominated for the National Book Award by Serving House Books), Life-Size (Kelsay Books), The Five Notebooks of Zhao Li (Adelaide Books), Coming To (Word Tech Communications/David Robert Books), The Lost Notebook of Zhao Li (Dos Madres Press, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize), Around Here (Kelsay Books), It’s About Time (Deerbrook Editions), The Book of a Small Fisherman (Shanti Arts Publishing), Leda (Dos Madres Press), The Dreams of the Gods (Kelsay Books), Alone (David Robert Books), The Eglantine (Shanti Arts Publishing), and coauthor with his wife Joan I. Siegel of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). He lives in the Hudson Valley.







The Change I Never Expected

by CLS Sandoval


No safe place to land—only distractions from the inevitable
Everything most sacred thrown to the fire
I was careless, selfish
I failed
Ignorance was bliss
That belief that I was invincible
I was wrong but I felt so safe
So impenetrable
Now just vulnerable
Unheard
Undervalued
It doesn’t matter
But she does
We are reclaiming the forgotten
We are writing ourselves into our own history
We are bodies with bodies performing
Disorientation of loss
Once we go into
Mourning
We never come out
We are never ready for death
Even when it’s a relief
Our art
Our craft
Our life’s blood and beat
Destabilizing
Exploring
Return to the mundane
Return to tradition
The massage of the message
Literary
Speak
Reframe pains, betrayals
Transformation



the pebble


it started with a pebble
she took it as a favor
no problem on her shoulders
she just wanted to offer help
and others learned she was willing to shoulder a pebble
word spread quickly
they formed lines
requesting she take another pebble
pebbles became rocks
then a little bigger
then boulders
requests became statements
demands
then people just silently dumped their burdens
she knew this was on her
no complaints allowed
the baggage had piled up so gradually
she expected nothing to change



Waiting


Full speed ahead.
Always.
Do something productive.
Don’t just spin wheels.
Make progress forward.
We were ready to go.
We had been ready for months.
Finally ready to tell those closest to us.
Tight lipped, but selecting our important people to know.
Then they told everyone.
Everyone we know was the way they explained it.
And we had to take it back.
Stop mid race.
Undo.
Stop planning.
Cancel orders.
Call everyone.
We know to announce the feet.
It’s empty.
It’s isolating.
It’s no longer.
Must remember, it’s no tragedy.
The baby didn’t die.
Nothing bad happened to the mother.
She just made a different choice.
A choice that no longer includes us.
 “Don’t worry, Mommy,” my six-year-old says. There are lots of babies. There’s a birth mommy who will need us someone will pick us.”





BIO

CLS Sandoval, PhD (she/her) is a pushcart nominated writer and communication professor with accolades in film, academia, and creative writing who speaks, signs, acts, publishes, sings, performs, writes, paints, teaches and rarely relaxes. She’s a flash fiction and poetry editor for Dark Onus Lit. She has presented over 50 times at communication conferences, published 15 academic articles, two academic books, three full-length literary collections, three chapbooks, as well as flash and poetry pieces in several literary journals, recently including Opiate Magazine, The Journal of Magical Wonder, and A Moon of One’s Own. She is raising her daughter and dog with her husband in Alhambra, CA.















Black

by James Iovino


The rain here splashes
air into nothing—
Maggie said this to me once, that
maybe when we die there is a nothing
like the black nothing before we were born.
A tiny egg of time in a vast
and tiding black ocean.

A glance out of the window tonight
leaves everything this dark:
black as black darkness in the bottom cave,
the quilted black, bobbing
in the endless seas between galaxies.
The black when we close our eyes in front of a casket.

She said her father died,
and now he was nowhere,
and not being that close to death
it struck me as kind of odd.
My grandfather died before I was born,
and I see this black in my father—
stares across the Christmas dinner table
to an empty seat, conversing over bills
with the air by the fireplace.
The time he packed me in the car
on a moist August day and cried at the gravestone,
in front of his restless son.

She asked me, How do we exist
in this black? I think
we bury our dead alive.



Divorce, September 4, 1985


Two cantaloupes lay outside,
tipped up on the patio between the deck and lawn.
A giant crescent cut out of the larger one
exposes the rich orange of melon
and as I walk closer to the bay window,
ants scurry along the lacerated fruit
like chocolate sprinkles on ice cream.
One ant is alone, confused.
He is running around the melon
like an equator. He hasn’t learned
he cannot burrow under the thick corded shell,
that this is what it’s for—
so the ant zips away
without a snip of melon, just the cordage
of the melon-skin rasp on his legs.
I swing around to the woman on the stairs—
sleek hair and shoes shrugged off,
looking plainly to the wall behind me,
over my shoulder like a suspension bridge.
As I leave out the front door,
I am no better than the smallest ant
engaging for the first time, a pulpy mass
who hides its fruit like a rind.



Planting Trees on an Easel


Touch the rough cord of the canvas.
Run fingertips across it like you would
a lover’s chin: from corner to corner,
a hand tickles doughy flesh.

The palette is freckled with fat splotches
to rinse the surface with sable hair, or knife.
Berries thick—black, red hybrids
squinched off oil branches
drying like blood on concrete.

Watch as a tree’s roots
web inside the soil of canvas.
When there are too many trees,
build a cabin of wood. If a cold lake
gleams a motionless, porcelain dish—
the ripples of water over a jetty of rocks.
Place a foot in the happy grass, comb
your toes through the scalp of grain.

When I walk to class,
after mornings of planting trees on an easel,
the grind and mash of gravel beneath my feet,
I sometimes think of anti-matter,
inter-stellar clouds, life coming down
from a hasp of space,
rinses a fallow field, lichen spreads
like the green oxidation of copper.
The lifeblood lines along the throat—
Much like a carefree stroke of brush,
a sifting of paint on the canvas.




BIO

James Iovino was educated at St. Andrews and Oxford and has master’s degrees in medieval history, international relations, and theology. He enjoys training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, traditional American and Japanese tattoo art, horology, and cutlery. His poetry has appeared in the Mankato Poetry Review. Originally from Long Island, New York, and still in possession of a considerable accent, he lives with his wife and six kids in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.







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