Editor – Page 22 – Writers Resist

Solstice

By Dotty LeMieux

It’s delivery day at St. Vincent’s Dining Room
men unloading trucks with bread, canned goods, day-old
everything for the homeless
and the not-yet homeless
hanging on by the skin of their teeth,
the ones who have teeth
and the ones who only have the skin

Scruffy off-white hair,
long brown coat like a cape
swirling around bony shoulders,
gap-toothed smile, a man
picks bagels one, two, three
from a giant plastic bag open on the sidewalk

The sidewalk not crowded yet,
the bagel bag still fairly full,
the man in the brown cape-like garment
has his pick, takes his time choosing
plain, seeded, onion,
maybe a spicy cinnamon one
to summon the spirit of the Season

Face lit up with his choices, clutched
in his two hands as he starts across the street,
hair blowing around his face,
cape billowing out behind his slender frame,
he is transformed into a Romantic poet,

reciting odes
in a proper British accent,
to adoring listeners
gathered in the glittering firelight
of the local pub,
his hands gesturing freely,
accentuating the high points
of his lyricism

Back on B St., he strides in front of my car,
stopped now to let him pass, to watch
his coattails fly in his wake,
like autumn’s last leaves
swooshing around us, into the street, launched
by winter’s first insistent breath.

I live and work in California as a writer, lawyer and campaign consultant. Previously I worked as a journalist in Cambridge Massachusetts and was part of the Second Wave feminist movement before moving to California and attending law school.

My three chapbooks are Let Us not Blame Foolish Women, Tombouctou Books; The Land, Smithereens Press; Five Angels, Five Trees Press. My work has appeared in Painted Bride, Rise Up Review, Tuck, Hanging Loose, Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review (FLAR), and other journals. In the 1980s I edited The Turkey Buzzard Review in Bolinas, California.

In 2016, I served as a Bernie Sanders Delegate to the Democratic National Convention. I have studied with poets Edith Jenkins, Joanne Kyger and Thomas Centolella and at the New College of California Poetics Program. My own website of advice and sometimes recipes for aspiring candidates for office, is www.thecampaigncookbook.blogspot.com.

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash.

Cyber War Won

By Jim Hanson

Attention Americans!
War is now Peace.
Connectivity is Security.

The First World Cyber War
to have the final virus
and end all wars is won.

As you read this news:

You are selected for cyber security
as a digitalized node on the Internet
and consumer of infinite data clouds.

You are protected from spyware and malware
by having passwords to authorized websites
and to assure access and guarantee privacy.

You are excepted from the foreign viruses
as bears and dragons are deleted and dumped
in recycled bins with the click of a key.

You are elected as the privileged user
of the world-wide cyber feedback system
made secure by Prism program surveillance.

You are connected – no need to get off line.
Everything is on line, every user included.
Nothing exists outside the digital text.

You are

channeled to
<www.wifi.com>

figured in
0’s and 1’s

reduced to
bits and bites

exiled to
infinite clouds.

Sleep well with Orwell.

You are being

Looked after.

Jim Hanson is a retired Senior Researcher at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, where he worked and taught in community development. He resides in the St. Louis area. He has a doctorate degree in sociology and is a lay-ordinated Zen Buddhist. In past years, he has published two books through Greenwood Publishing Group and numerous articles in the social sciences. He is a member of the St. Louis Poetry Center, participating in workshops and reading at Poetry at the Pointe. His current interest is writing poems about death and justice.

Photo by Camille / Kmile on Unsplash.

I’m at the End of My Rope

By Wilda Morris

(or This Vocabulary Is to Die For)

When push comes to shove, I have to admit,
we spend a lot of time shooting the breeze, kicking around ideas,
pointing out the ones that—in our judgment—bombed,
We want to give it a shot, take a stab at impressing
everyone. We want folks to be blown away so we go in
with guns blazing, try to rally the troops to our view.

We carry on like Nazis, leading the charge against the neighbor
next door who always disagrees with us.
We go ballistic, say she’s a pistol, but she’s shooting blanks.
We tell her to bite the bullet and read the resources we give her;
we’ll even drive her to the library for more ammunition
so she can join the battle for truth as we see it.

We’ll give her a killer smile but keep shooting holes in her arguments.
Still hoping she’s a pushover, we’ll repeat all our bullet points.
To be brutally honest, it’s overkill. Someday,
if she doesn’t hit the road, she’ll quit rolling
with the punches, give us a kick in the pants,
bring out the big guns. Everything will blow up in our faces.

Wilda Morris is workshop chair of Poets and Patrons and a former president of the Illinois State Poetry Society. For three years she was the chair of the Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Her poems have found homes in numerous anthologies, webzines, and print publications, including Califragile, The Ocotillo Review, and Journal of Modern Poetry. She has won awards for formal poetry, free verse and haiku. Her first poetry book was Szechwan Shrimp and Fortune Cookies: Poems from a Chinese Restaurant. Pequod Poems: Gamming with Moby-Dick, celebrating the 200th anniversary of Herman Melville, was publish in February 2019 by Kelsay Books. Her poetry blog at wildamorris.blogspot.com provides a monthly contest for other poets.

Photo by Mitya Ivanov on Unsplash.

Permission to Procure Birth Control: U.S. Government Form BC-451

By Tara Campbell

U.S. Government Form BC-451: Permission to Procure Birth Control

In accordance with the Maternal Priority Act of 2020, any and all requests for contraception must be approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Fetal Services. To that end, please complete the following questionnaire:

Name of Infernal Harlot (Last, First): _________________________________________

Citizenship status

U.S. Citizen
Naturalized U.S. Citizen*
Dual Citizen*
Permanent Resident*
Spanish-speaker*
Olive-skinned*
Otherwise suspicious*

* This is the incorrect form for your use. Please submit Form 4827: Voluntary Forfeiture of Citizenship Status and Form 3453: Requisition for Repatriation to Country of Ancestral Origin.

Race/Ethnicity

Caucasian or White
African American or Black*
Asian*
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander*
American Indian or Alaska Native*
More than one*

* This is the incorrect form for your use. Please submit Form 3453 Requisition for Repatriation to Country of Ancestral Origin. Alternatively, submit Form 3423, Requisition for Federally-Funded Sterilization.

I, Infernal Harlot (First name, Last name) ___________________________________________, am requesting permission to procure birth control for the following reason(s); check all that apply:

__ I choose not to have children at this time.
Please report for six-month Re-Acculturation Training for self and husband. Be advised, failure to do so will result in a filing with your state’s attorney general.
__ My family cannot afford to have additional children at this time.
Please be advised that per the Find A Way Act of 2020, the right of the child to be conceived supersedes any and all other potential concerns, such as present ability to feed, clothe, house, or protect current or future children. Potential parents are legally bound to procure such means should conception occur, and as such, all petitions for birth control lodged upon this basis will be rejected.
__ Bearing a child will disrupt completion of school/my ability to work.
Per the 2021 Patriot Mother Act, an approved and notarized Form 1426b: Justification for Continuance of Educational/Professional activities must be attached. Please note that applications filed under this justification will be investigated and may result in termination/expulsion from your educational program.
__ Health risks associated with pregnancy.
Per the 2022 Valiant Vessel Act, you must attach a statement from your pastor attesting that the benefit to the world of any potential child that might have been conceived was considered coequally with the value of its mother’s survival. Please note, physicians’ statements are no longer considered valid.
__ I’m too young to have children.
Please consult the 2023 Budding Young Future Act, which revised age of consent with parental or assaulter’s permission, and harmonized it with appropriate childbearing age on a national level.
__ To regulate my periods.
Attach a statement from your husband along with form HOLI-1: Certification of Training: Understanding God’s Plan for You. Please note, physicians’ statements are no longer considered valid.
__ Treatment for ovarian cysts, endometriosis, or other health conditions unrelated to pregnancy prevention.
Attach statements from your husband and your pastor, along with form HOLI-1: Certification of Training: Understanding God’s Plan for You. Please note, physicians’ statements are no longer considered valid.
__ Risk of sexual assault.
Attach proof of address; most recent crime report from your precinct, certified by a reliable male law enforcement official; notarized letters from any potential assailants granting you their permission to not bear their children; and form HOLI-1: Certification of Training: Understanding God’s Plan for You.
__ I am dating a married CEO or Member of Congress.
Attach copy of text messages and current mailing address for immediate shipment of contraceptives.

IMPORTANT NOTE: All petitions based on reasons 1 through 8 will be rejected per the Fetal Host Act of 2024.

________________________________________________________________________
Name and Social Security Number of Infernal Harlot (print)

________________________________________________ ______________________
Signature of responsible party Date

________________________________________________
Relationship to Infernal Harlot (Husband/Father/GOP Elected Representative)

By signing this form, you acknowledge that you have given your wife/daughter/mistress permission to procure birth control, which may render your household subject to additional surveillance. Please be advised that per the Purity of Penetration Act of 2020, all carnal activity, including that between husband and wife, but with the exception noted in point 9 above, is purely for purposes of procreation. Anyone who knowingly commits fornication (sexual contact for purposes other than procreation, with the exception of point 9 above) may be subject to prosecution under federal law, potentially resulting in fines and/or jail time, and forfeiture of present and/or future rights to erectile dysfunction therapy.

Tara Campbell (www.taracampbell.com) is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction editor at Barrelhouse. Prior publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Jellyfish Review, Booth, and Strange Horizons. She’s the author of a novel, TreeVolution, a hybrid fiction/poetry collection; Circe’s Bicycle, and a short story collection, Midnight at the Organporium. She received her MFA from American University in 2019.

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash.

Not Again

By Michael Rubin

Vote for her, rally for him, believe in them, who said what again?
March for this, assemble for that, stand for what, elections again?
Unemployment up, attention span down, un-follow them, swipe left again.

Subpoena her, grand jury him, depose them, who did what again?
Shooting in Florida, murder in Texas, sexual assault in Washington, not this again?
GoFund this, Kickstart that, pray for them, make it great again.

Michael Rubin is born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. He graduated from UC Davis in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in political science, and currently works in the cyber-security industry. He first fell in love with poetry when he was eight years old after presenting “The Edge of the World” by Shel Silverstein to his entire elementary school. Michael pursues poetry as an escape from the hustle and bustle of life in the city.

Photo by Brian Wertheim on Unsplash.

Life Is Glass

By Phyllis Klein

“There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily,
and so do dreams and hearts.” – Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things

Breaking: Buzz of a bone fractured, burst of a bowl hitting the floor,
boom of a heart splitting. Please like me. A dream as it shatters.
Please think I’m good. Whistle of a word as it severs from itself into the air.
Of a scream demolished.

Moments of breaking: Hand over the mouth, gagging, pushed into a room, door locked from
the inside. Parties, drinking. Why did I do that? The seconds it takes to get
lost. Smash of consciousness as it disappears. Disillusion’s waking
croak. Where are my clothes? Fragmentation into terror.

How it happens: Remembering, forgetting. Was I drugged?
After school, at a party, pungency of impact, taste without
permission. No proof. In the sacristy, in a back seat, a hotel
or a bedroom, did it happen?

Breaking: Dust of collision, whiff of dreams burning, nightmares strike,
cymbals snarl in the brain. I’m repulsive. Floating above it
all in a disappeared body.

Why she didn’t tell: Pretend. It didn’t happen.
No one will swallow it. He threatened, laughed, was stronger, bigger.
It’s my fault. They won’t believe me. Pretend. Have to see him sneer.
Hide it.

What happens next: Cracks. Panic, a plane taking off in the gut.
Armor, as involuntary as neurons saying run, but all there is is a
wall. Looking ok, nobody knows. Get over it. What is PTSD? The thing
that won’t leave, the image, the smell, the taste that’s a plague.

The crush of shame. Lack of sleep. When is it over?
Feeling it, numbing it. Not understanding yet that greatness
comes from damage.

Phyllis Klein’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies, including, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Portside, Sweet: A Literary Confection, 3Elements, The Poetry Hotel, I-70, and the Minnesota Review. She was a finalist in the Sweet Poetry Contest, 2017, the Carolyn Forche Humanitarian Poetry Contest, 2019, and the Fischer Prize, 2019. She was nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2018. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years, she sees writing poetry as artistic dialogue—an intimate relationship-building process that fosters healing on many levels.

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash.

Just the Facts, Please

By Caroline Taylor

It’s okay if you don’t recognize the make or model of the car that hit you. It’s okay if you can’t be sure it was gray or silver, and no one expects you to recall the license plate details. After all, they came out of nowhere. Your car is totaled, and you have a broken arm. Of course, you didn’t notice anything about the person driving the car that hit you. You were a victim, and the perpetrator will be brought to justice with very little concern for the damage it might do to their reputation.

You’ll be understood if you can’t be sure the mugger or school shooter had a shotgun or an automatic rifle or had blue eyes or brown or if their hoodie was navy or black or if they were young or old. You’re just lucky to be a survivor. Everyone gets that. And hardly anyone cares what pain or humiliation the ensuing publicity might cause the perpetrator, provided they survived.

But if you’re the victim of a sexual assault, you don’t have a chance in hell of being believed unless you can recall exactly when it happened (to the second, if possible) and where it happened (address, room number, zip code), including if you were raped on the floor of the living room, in a bedroom (which bedroom?), or elsewhere like, for example, an office or a bar or a deserted warehouse (what were you doing there?). If the attack happened outside, you must recall whether it was in a park, in a car, or in an alley (what were you doing there?). If you were assaulted in a rural area, it is paramount that you remember the exact phase of the moon, whether it was cloudy or rainy or snowy, and whether any animals you observed or heard were cattle, sheep, horses, wolves, or coyotes. No one will sympathize if you cannot describe the biota—corn field, wheat field, tree farm, pasture, woods, desert—and, if woods, whether the trees were conifers or deciduous or a mix, or, if desert, whether the cacti were epiphytic or globular or a mix.

Unless you were blindfolded, you will be expected to recall the full name and physical description of the perpetrator, as well as any potential witnesses and whether they (or you) were inebriated. If your inebriation incapacitated you because it was a roofie, you will be accused of poor judgment. You will be required to describe the clothes you were wearing. You must recall what the perpetrator and any witnesses said, and when they said it. You will need to provide their addresses, both physical and online, and phone numbers.

If you cannot recall these details or failed to videotape the attack, you will be suspected of having a faulty memory or making a false report for ulterior motives. (Of course, if you did happen to record the attack, that fact could also be used to suggest the assault was a setup.)

Not everyone understands that you are a victim of a sexual assault. Many people persist in believing you must have asked for it. Sometimes, especially when the stakes are high, you could remember every detail and have all the facts and contact details for more than one credible, corroborating witness, and still be blamed for your role in sullying the reputation of the person who attacked you. Women, and more recently young Catholics of either sex, know that this double standard applies today, as it has for millennia. Unfortunately, those with an outsized sense of entitlement and their own ulterior motives know this, too.

Caroline Taylor is the author of five mysteries and one short story collection. Visit her at www.carolinestories.com.

Image by pixel2013 from Pixabay.

You Don’t Get My Obedience

By Max Mundan

You’ve got it now-
-the title, the office, the power-
-your filthy, greedy, tiny hands
in our pockets, in our coffers,
on our pussies, on the button.
You’re on the top of the world
and have the means today
to satisfy every sad, perverse desire
but you don’t get my obedience.

You’ve got it all-
-the reins, the whip, the chains-
-your greasy, pudgy fingers
holding both the carrot
and the stick—your foot,
stepping down upon our necks.
You can silence the press
and make us all criminals
for demanding the country we love
but you don’t get my obedience.

I will dog you and expose you
as the charlatan you are,
I will scream, I will blaspheme you.
I will take your silly name in vain.
I will block your path
and call your bluff
and correct your spelling
when you tweet out
that you hate me-
-that you hate us-
-that you hate
everything we stand for.

Me, and millions like me,
will pour into the streets-
-to demand democracy-
-demand accountability-
-to demand decency-
even though we realize
that you have no idea
what these words mean.

You’ve got them all-
-your toadies, your scumbags, your villains-
-your ass-licking sycophants
and your blood-sucking leeches,
ready and willing
to tear to the ground
all the good that we’ve built.
You can have this momentary victory
but you don’t get my obedience.

Max Mundan is a freelance writer and a poet. He is the author of four published poetry collections, including Junkies Die Alone (Thought Catalog Books, 2014) and Five Words That Can Cripple a Man (Underground Voices, 2016). Max’s work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Dressing Room Poetry, Eunoia Review, Wilderness House Literary Journal, Type House Magazine, Avalon Literary Review Review, Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles, and Agave among others. He can be found resisting fascism at maxmundan.net and @maxmundan on Twitter.

Photo by Paul Sableman via a Creative Commons license.

June Cleaver Roasts a Fucking Turkey

By Sarah Ito

Thanksgiving day dawns chilly and bright
With a touch of sparkly frost
Spiking the pumpkin,
On Turkey Day
In Amerika
Or Murica
Or the Estados Unidos,
Depending upon where
You crossed the border
And how.

Football game’s today.
The Big Game
After that epic meal
Of donated Tom Turkey, canned cranberries,
Aunt Ginny’s perpetual string-bean casserole…
And maybe some eggnog from the food pantry
Down at the Salvation Army
If, by chance, an expired case or two was donated
By Mr. and Mrs. Patel, who own the corner convenience store.

The family’s all here, almost…
Wally had a dirty urine; couldn’t get a pass from rehab.
Yusef, he’s driving for Uber all day…
And Manuel’s bussing tables at the club.
But Keisha’s on her way, with five of her kids,
And two sweet potato pies, made from scratch,
And sweetened condensed milk.
Her man, the Beaver, might drop by later…
But maybe not.
You never know, with that sketchy Beaver.

June retrieves a lacy tablecloth from the cupboard,
An heirloom handed down from her mother’s side
Of the famalama.
It graces the wobbly dinette table,
Making it look like Thanksgiving
In the Cleaver’s doublewide.
June fiddles with her necklace of plastic pearls, hoping
That her anxiety meds
Will kick in.
Elevating the unbearable
To the normal.
Then she remembers…
There was no Xanax to take this morning, bottle’s empty.
Prescription benefit cancelled
Like her charge card down
At the IGA.
June reaches for a can of Old Milwaukee instead, a tall one, and pops the ring,
Drizzling frosty suds down the peter-pan collar
Of her freshly pressed shirtwaist.

Life’s not so bad, she thinks.
Cable didn’t get cut off yet, we can still catch the Big Game…
Aunt Ginny appears, wearing her festive apron
Adorned with dancing Pilgrim hats and laughing turkeys.
How are you holding up, June, she asks.
It’s strange, first Thanksgiving without Ward here to carve the turkey.
Aunt Ginny doesn’t really care that much…
She smells the hops and barley of June’s
Tall cold one, and an old familiar longing
Stirs within,
Like the clink clink clink of a shaken jigger
Full of orange juice and poison.

June downs another slug of suds.
She wants to scream, she wants to cry.
She wants to crawl back into bed,
Warm and alone.
But she can’t.
A rusty Toyota has squealed to a halt
Leaving an inky contrail of motor oil,
A salutation leaked in Valvoline
Across the driveway.

Keisha’s here! June announces, her enthusiasm stale
Like the tray of Parker House rolls
Sitting on the counter
Awaiting a reheating in the microwave.
Aunt Ginny lights up as a bevy of grandchildren burst through the door…
Catherine, Mary, Brad, and the twins, Tyrese and Tyrone.
Welcome, Keisha, June says, Welcome, Children.

Happy Thanksgiving, Gramma June.
Happy Thanksgiving, Auntie Ginny!
The children call out as one unit,
Excited and hungry.
We watched the parade on TV, they chatter.
We saw Big Bird and the Black Panther!
We saw the cops taze a drunk guy in a Santa suit!

Well, that’s nice. children, June says, dabbing her eyes
With a tea towel.
Blotched mascara
Ringing the bags beneath her eyes
Like the masque of some insane raccoon.

What’s wrong, Gramma June, the children ask…
Nothing, children, it’s just the onions, June lies.
There are no onions in the Cleaver doublewide.
There was no money left over in the budget for a sack of Vidalias.
The tears are on the house.
Come, let’s eat, and we’ll have some of your mother’s sweet potato pie and watch the Big Game.
Aunt Ginny offers up grace, thanking her Higher Power
For ten years sober…
For the meal they are about to enjoy, and the blessings
Of family, and the roof over their heads
On this cold November day.
June says a few words in remembrance of Ward,
Whose heart gave out while waiting in line
At the DMV.
A consequence of outstanding parking tickets
And a municipal office lacking
An AED.
Keisha curses out the absent Beaver,
And the fathers of all her children
And all men, everywhere.

The children dig in
Their hunger godless and prayerless
As turkey and fixings appear on the dinette
And the chatter rises to the level
Of a junior high school cafeteria
High on soda pop.
June says Keisha, Guess who bought the old house! You’ll never guess.
June knows who bought the old house. Aunt Ginny informed her weeks ago.
The Montoyas. The Montoyas bought it.
Keisha spoons more stuffing onto her plate.
They’re the family that owns the taco truck.
“Tacos Without Borders” they call it.
I know, says June, They park it over by the Social Services office. I’ve had their fish tacos.

Aunt Ginny puts up two paper plates for the cousins,
Manuel and Yusef,
To enjoy much later, when their workday of serving
Others
Finally ends
And they return home to their own slice of turkey
And Stovetop stuffing
Microwaved to perfection.
The Big Game is on now, and
The children gather ‘round the television
As the players drop to one knee
While Lady Gaga renders the National Anthem to the roar of the crowd.
Aunt Ginny takes exception.
It’s so disrespectful, she opines, Our veterans deserve better.
June polishes off her cold one. Our anthem deserves better than Gaga, she thinks.
Aloud, she says, Better think about the twins. What if they were on the receiving end of, well,
you know…

That’s right, Keisha says, a smudge of marshmallowy sweet potatoes lingering
At the corners of her lips. We got to think about the twins
The Big Game kicks off. Wish Lumpy and Eddie were here with us today, June thinks.
I hope they’re enjoying their honeymoon in Belize.
Where exactly is Belize, anyway?
Is that where those caravan people come from?
Do they have turkey dinner in Belize?

June joins the others on the sofa, the entire family butt cheek to butt cheek in front of the big television.
The flickering light from the screen warms the gloom
June says to everyone and no one, Ward served in the Army so the twins can be safe. So we all can be safe and say and do what we want. We should be grateful for that.
And grateful that we have one another.

We are grateful, say Keisha and Aunt Ginny.
Can we have more sweet potato pie? ask Tyrese and Tyrone.
Let’s watch a movie later, say Catherine, Mary and Brad. It’s a Wonderful Life! That one!

June fiddles with her pearls again.
The string snaps. Plastic beads rain down everywhere and bounce on the bare floor.
The family laughs.
Maybe Santa will bring you new pearls for Christmas, says Tyrese.
June smiles.
Maybe.
June would settle for a new prescription plan,
Or the cash to pay her lot rent
With a little left over
For a case of Old Milwaukee.
But pearls would be nice,
Too…

Thanksgiving day ends chilly and dark
With a touch of sparkling frost
Spiking the pumpkin,
On Turkey Day
In Amerika
or Murica
Or the Estados Unidos,
Depending upon where
You crossed the border
And how.

Sarah Ito is a published novelist, essayist, poet and sometimes actor, and an Army veteran.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sarah Ito is one of the actors in the wonderful video on our homepage, “Eating Twinkies with God.” Enjoy watching it.

A Walk in the Sun

By Milton P. Ehrlich

Shooting at each other—
more exciting than sex.
Blood tastes better
than vintage wine.

One of our ladies-man guys
howls in pain trying to piss.
Sergeant bellows: Ain’t you
ever had the clap before?

If I was not ordered
to carry the BAR—slung
over my weary shoulder
with a torn rotator cuff,

I might have enjoyed
the camaraderie
of a walk in the sun—until
an ambush tourniquets my breath.

A burst of my machine gun
hops them up and down
with still-open eyes and red-hot toes.
Their legs scatter high in the air
like the high kick-ready Rockettes.

We are all outsiders
who used to be human.
The quicksand of hate
sucks the love out of us,

and the elixir of violence
promises a rush until we see
what we have wasted.

We step into silence.

Milton P. Ehrlich, Ph.D., is an 87-year-old psychologist. He is also a Korean War veteran who has published many poems in periodicals such as the Wisconsin Review, Descant, Toronto Quarterly Review, London Grip, Vox Poetica, Taj Mahal Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, and the New York Times.

Photo by Holly Mindrup on Unsplash.

Going Gray: A Woman’s Right to Choose

By Dorothy Rice

In a 2005 essay, Nora Ephron wrote, “There’s a reason why 40, 50, and 60 don’t look the way they used to, and it’s not because of feminism or better living through exercise. It’s because of hair dye.” She went on to say, “In the 1950s, only 7 percent of American women dyed their hair; today there are parts of Manhattan and LA where there are no gray-haired women at all.”

The same could have been said about Sacramento, where I live.

That 2005 essay coincided with the first time I grew out my gray. After decades coloring, high-lighting and straightening my hair, it had begun to fall out in clumps. I went cold turkey. When my swath of graying roots had widened to a few inches, I hacked off over a foot of dark-brown hair, leaving little more than a salt and pepper helmet. As if by magic, I acquired a new super power, invisibility. Walking the streets of the city where I’d lived and worked for thirty years, acquaintances rushed past without a glimmer of recognition.

I’d become a ghost. I considered a career as a jewel thief or spy—there was no chance I’d be identified in a lineup.

Thankfully, my hair grows fast. Within two years it was long enough to weave a decent French braid. Multi-hued strands twined between my shoulder blades like colorful embroidery threads. Holding a hand mirror and considering the effect from all angles, I was pleased. No more helmet of shame. Women of a certain age began to sidle up to me on the sidewalk and in the super market produce aisle and whisper that I was brave, that they would never have the guts to go gray. They all assured me that while I looked great, it would look awful on them.

The first few times this happened, I was flattered. Brave beat invisible. But when the reaction became routine, I had to wonder. Was I brave because I’d stopped coloring my gray or because I dared to go out in public?

Then came the coup de grâce. I was out to lunch with my sisters, all three of us hovering around sixty. As she took our orders, and without a moment’s hesitation, the twenty-something waitress congratulated me on my beautiful daughters.

“Mother, daughter lunches are the best,” she added, beaming down at us.

A lifetime of sibling rivalry reared its head. I’d weathered invisibility and being lauded for unearned heroism, but I could not abide being mistaken for my sisters’ mother. I returned to the salon.

Fast forward five years. At another lunch with my sisters and our partners, my older sister announced that she was ready; it was time for her to go gray.

“Wouldn’t it be fun if the three of us did it together?” she said.

My younger sister’s boyfriend—also in his sixties, with lovely white hair—blinked at his beloved’s cascade of chestnut curls, pushed back his chair and blurted, “I didn’t know you dyed your hair.”

“Awkward,” my older sister said.

“My sister went gray,” the boyfriend added, in a sober tone, “I think it makes her looks old.”

I’ve met his sister. She doesn’t look old. She looks her age.

I didn’t say anything. No point starting a family feud. But inside, I fumed. Why are men allowed to age gracefully, to own their years, without being labeled old? And what’s wrong with old, anyway?

This pressure for mature women to masquerade as girls is blatant sexism and ageism, and I wasn’t having it. At past sixty, my inner 60s activist roared to life.

I went gray, again.

That was two years ago. I now have half a foot of mixed gray, white and gunmetal up top and another six inches of dyed brown at the bottom. A reverse ombré. Younger women pay good money to flaunt their dark roots in the name of fashion. I flaunt my lighter roots with no effort at all.

The hair color landscape has changed since Ephron’s 2005 essay. According to the fashion magazines, gray is now the number one hair color trend. Of course, the photos accompanying these articles often show younger women—celebrities and style icons—whose dramatic ashen locks contrast with their youthful complexions.

This time around, my hair garners complements from young twenty- and thirty-something women, often with pink, blue or gray hair. The reaction from my female peers has changed too.

“I love your hair,” they say. “It’s so sexy.”

I’ve yet to receive any comments from men. I imagine they look at me and through me. Perhaps they see their mothers and grandmothers, rather than someone they might conceivably have sex with.

Don’t they look in the mirror?

Dorothy Rice is the author The Reluctant Artist, an art book/memoir published by Shanti Arts in October 2015. Gray Is the New Black, a memoir of ageism, sexism and self-acceptance, is forthcoming from Otis Books in Spring 2019. After raising five children and retiring from a career in environmental protection, Rice earned an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside, Palm Desert, at 60. Her essays and stories have been widely published in literary journals. Learn more at www.dorothyriceauthor.com.

Photo courtesy of the author.

After

By Calida Osti

You can’t cover it in snow. It will seep through and turn into muddy slush and
slide into your neighbors’
third story windows
right past the new
drapes they ordered from amazon.com.

You can’t redecorate it or rename it and think that will work new
names are old names.

It isn’t new.
It can’t be washed
away and drained
in a claw-
footed tub even if you dose the tub in kerosene after.

It isn’t okay
to watch and say nothing as long as you are not
the one
slurring touching burning.

It isn’t ignorance. You can’t get rid of
it by reading any books they say
maybe Harry Potter, but what if
the reader burns the book after?

It isn’t heritage. You can’t
shoot it through the back of a black boy and then pick it up and wave it around. Should it be
burned after?

Calida Osti is currently enrolled in Lindenwood University’s creative writing M.F.A. program. She lives in West Lafayette, IN, with her fiancée, Kaylah. You can check her out on Instagram or Twitter at @rawr_lida or by visiting www.calidaosti.com.

Photo credit: Jc Olivera via a Creative Commons license.

Mr. Trump’s Sunday Morning Service

By Judith Skillman

Water-worn image of an eye
etched and lined, the tilted earth
no longer holds its metal.

Water worms the soil until
a hollow man comes to rule—
a toad gurgling ribbit ribbit.

Power over versus personal power
duel it out à la 21st
siècle psycho babble.

To whomever enforced laws,
the falling into and down,
implore: Is this my swan song?

St. Francis of Assisi drowns.
Pockets full of skunk, possum.
Belly up lies the large coon.

Catholic helpmates come to look
for one singing candled hymns—
find litany: foam, stone, fur.

In his bed the king began
to be poor and sick, Monsieur Macron.
The toad lips lies, the eye sees.

Judith Skillman’s recent books are Premise of Light, Tebot Bach; and Came Home to Winter, Deerbrook Editions. She is the recipient of grants from Artist Trust and from the Academy of American Poets. Her work has appeared in Shenandoah, Poetry, Cimarron Review, The Southern Review, and other journals. Visit www.judithskillman.com.

Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash.

What Crosses

By Jane Rosenberg LaForge

Teeth and rosaries:
the hard business of taking
a census, in this case
one of erasure, pound
for pound of marrow
and pith, the appropriation
of bone for bracelets,
tree bark for embracing
new belief systems.
Everything funneled into
flat equations, which should
come out even, if
the arithmetic is properly
executed. If not, we’ll just
have extra, and affect some

disappearances, Gaps
in history, with regularity
that goes into record-keeping
overseas, the circumstances
always desperate, now
with the watermarks and seals.
Wax is such weak material,
corruptible as religion.
Unlike the bottom facts
memorized or pinned
on the inside of jackets,
who was made criminal
by which accident, who
could not be ground down
into a spice or artifact,
or mortared into an atmosphere
of sacrifice and myths
hollowed out or smoothed
over as if a faux decoration
in a kitchen: where
the stories begin,
if migration ever ends.

Jane Rosenberg LaForge is the granddaughter of what are now called “illegal immigrants” who came to the US from the Ukraine and Rumania, via Canada. Her poem “Thoughts and Prayers” appeared on Writers Resist on February 22, 2018. She is also a novelist and memoirist. More information, visit jane-rosenberg-laforge.com.

Photo by Malcolm Lightbody on Unsplash.

Want Fries With That?

By Jon Wesick

The smell of reused, vegetable oil made Uncle Sam’s mouth water as he examined the backlit menu above the brushed-steel counter. When the cashier in the multicolored baseball cap motioned, Uncle Sam stepped forward.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger, fries, and root beer.”

“That’ll be $6.25.”

The harsh overhead lights exposed the acne the cashier had tried to cover with over-the-counter zit cream.

Uncle Sam reached into his striped trousers, found his wallet empty, and whispered, “May I see your manager?”

The assistant manager approached the customer in the star-spangled suit, fingering his sparse mustache, something he did when annoyed. He needed to shut this down quickly so he could return to his office and complete his algebra homework.

“Help you?”

“Listen, that $3 trillion war to eliminate those nonexistent nukes left me a little short, so,” Uncle Sam removed a yellowed parchment from his lapel pocket and unfolded it, its handwritten words flaking from the surface and falling to the linoleum floor, “so, how about I trade you for this?”

The assistant manager squinted at the document. Even a first-year, community-college student knew you don’t spell Congress with fs.

“It’s the last copy of the Bill of Rights,” Uncle Sam said. “Freedom of speech and religion, your right to protest and to a fair trial—I’ll give up all of that for just one of your tasty burgers. Hell, I’ll even throw in a woman’s right to control her own body. I sure do love those burgers—the juicy meat, golden cheese, and tart pickle!”

The assistant manager told the cashier to give Uncle Sam what he wanted and slipped the Bill of Rights into a FedEx envelope addressed to corporate. They’d surely reward him by taking him on full-time or maybe even promoting him to manager.

Uncle Sam carried his meal to a fiberglass table. In his eyes, the rights that soldiers died protecting were not even worth lobster or steak Delmonico but only a gray hockey-puck of previously frozen meat topped with processed cheese, “secret sauce,” and wilted lettuce, all on a stale bun.

When the assistant manager heard the last slug of soda burble through Uncle Sam’s straw, he approached with a proposition.

“Care for dessert? How about sweet apple filling wrapped in a tender, golden-brown crust? I’ll give it to you for the low, low price of your schools, libraries, and the codes to your nuclear weapons.”

Jon Wesick is an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual. He’s published hundreds of poems and stories in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Metal Scratches, Pearl, Slipstream, Space and Time, Tales of the Talisman, and Zahir. The editors of Knot Magazine nominated his story “The Visitor” for a Pushcart Prize. His poem “Meditation Instruction” won the Editor’s Choice Award in the 2016 Spirit First Contest. Another poem, “Bread and Circuses,” won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists Contest. “Richard Feynman’s Commute” shared third place in the 2017 Rhysling Award’s short poem category. Jon is the author of the poetry collection Words of Power, Dances of Freedom , a short story collection, The Alchemist’s Grandson Changes His Name, and several novels. Visit his website at jonwesick.com.

Two Poems by Jeremy Nathan Marks

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Interiors

Everybody is into interiors in the time
of that commander-in-chief who shall not be named

I am into carcasses
though not the kind you eat
unless you are starving and hopefully
not even then

Tell me how you feel
and I will consult my price index
slide rule and the latest RAICES report

A pinch of snuff is what I need
take off the dust of a plain where all his trophies
lie

That is
before we give them
Anglo-Saxon names
hashtags
and Twitter handles.

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Cotton Mather exchange

When the Red wall came
down in eighty-nine
pairs of blue jeans belting
delta blues toasted
the Ramones in chablis
glasses made of napalm
while storming Charlie’s
checkpoints
street poets busted
for drugs yelled from their
cells that a man named
Mumia was serving thought
crime status four thousand miles
west
of the Stasi
as German Army Jackets
sold surplus in outer
ring suburbs whose towns
of Leipzig and Berlin
twice underwent a name change
becoming southern English banks in
praise of the Cotton Mather exchange.

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Jeremy Nathan Marks is an American living in London, Canada (no, Trump did not cause this as I already was here). He is a 2017 Pushcart nominee in poetry and recent work appears/is appearing in Chiron Review, NRM Magazine, Poets Reading The News, Cajun Mutt Press, Mojave River, Rat’s Ass, New Reader Magazine, The Blue Hour, The Blue Nib, The Wire’s Dream, Landlocked Lyres, The Wild Word, Credo Espoir, Unlikely Stories, Landlocked Lyres, OTV Magazine, Alien Pub, Bravearts, Runcible Spoon, and Poetry Pacific. Jeremy writes regular political/historical essays for The Black Lion magazine. His short story, “Detroit 2099,” will be published in The Nature of Cities Anthology in 2019. Jeremy’s educational/Socratic teaching website can be found here.

Image credit: Witches presenting wax dolls to the devil, featured in The History of Witches and Wizards (1720), Wellcome Library, courtesy of The Public Domain Review.

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Untitled art by Beth Levine

Beth Levine shares her life with two dogs. She is vegan and an animal rights activist, believing that the root of all injustice is the idea that some lives matter less, and no living being should be exploited. She is a psychotherapist, writes poetry, creates visual artwork, and feeds the birds, squirrels and raccoons who live in her backyard. Her website is www.ArtByBethLevine.com.

what i imagine

By Kate McLaughlin

were it that easy, that words alone could save us.
sometimes i let myself imagine
grammatical rebels and daily syllables
of resistance with bold punctuated uprisings.

if words alone could save us,
i’d write all night. in my grammar book,
recruitment would be what hanging prepositions exist for.
hangin’ at all the cool spots, they’d get millennials
to sign up and join in.

dangling surreptitiously, irrefutable proof of
political corruption would be regularly gathered.
obtained by those sneaky participles, of course.

words of compassion and scientifically based research
would always talk louder than money—literally.

‘and justice for all,’ along with other empty phrases,
would be sent to a dictionary boot camp to ensure
they attain their true meaning.

females written in the passive voice would be archaic
grammar. the rule would be women directing action verbs,
issuing commands and making countless interjections.

i’d write similes that could fly like superman and they’d
reunite migrant families, break up nazi rallies and stop
speeding bullets.

and i’d create metaphors that could morph into their conjured
images, like, stories are a respite, words are an oasis,
providing a vacation to the over-pronounced, weary activists
and a livable picture of the world as it could be.

this is what i imagine,
during my nights of hyphenated sleep,
if words alone could save us,
if similes could fly like superman.

Kate McLaughlin lives and works in Portland, Maine, with her rescue dog Greta. She keeps her elected representatives on speed dial and is known to attend political rallies. She is fond of dogs, books, gardening and the occasional vodka martini. She is not fond of winter or Senator Susan Collins.

Photo by Ihor Malytskyi on Unsplash.

The Wall that Trump Built

A dystopian cumulative tale by Robbie Gamble

This is the wall that Trump built.

This is the base that supported the wall that Trump built.

This is the anger that stirred up the base that supported the wall that Trump built.

These are the migrants, the “rapists and thugs,” such a shadowy danger disturbing the base that supported the wall that Trump built.

This is the border, impossibly long, so porous and broken, allowing the migrants to enter the shadows and rile up the base that demanded the wall that Trump built.

This is a trade deal, it’s complex and cruel: It regulates cross-border movement of goods, forcing loopholes and quotas to broker an edge for tycoons with free assets, ignoring the base that turned out for the wall that Trump built.

These are the jobs in old factories and plants that were culled out through high economic design, pushing robots or outsourcing, labor be damned! Low-skilled workers get broken and pushed to the edge by tycoons who contemptuously leaned on their base to deliver the wall that Trump built.

Now look! Here comes the scapegoating, racist and raw, pumping Rust Belt resentment through cynical rants, perpetrated by pundits decreeing false fears of the Muslim, or Mexican, wild-eyed and brown, terrorizing communities over the edge of what once “made us great,” now an insecure race, huddled back of the wall that Trump built.

And this is our hemisphere, wary and sore, home to natives, conquistadors, entrepreneurs, and then waves upon waves of the tired and poor, out of steerage, from bondage, from privilege too. An evolving community, fractious yet proud; wracked with growing pains, now on a small-minded course. Will we go it alone? You can see it from space: that raw scar of a wall that Trump built.

Robbie Gamble’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Scoundrel Time, Solstice, RHINO, Pangyrus, and Poet Lore. He was the winner of the 2017 Carve Poetry prize. He works as a nurse practitioner caring for homeless people in Boston, Massachusetts.

Trumpty Dumpty image from the U.S. Library of Congress.

The man who killed me got out of prison this week

By Marissa Glover

I do not dream of winning
the Heisman Trophy, of going pro
after a standout junior year,
of one day being inducted
in the NFL Hall of Fame.

I do not dream of breaking records
or wearing rings or signing contracts
with Nike and Gatorade. I do not
dream of retiring to the ESPN booth
to offer commentary on Monday nights.

I do not dream of Hail Mary catches
of beating defenders, of dancing in the end
zone after a touchdown. I do not dream
of kneeling for the anthem or standing
for the flag or protesting the police.

I do not dream of justice—there is no justice
to be had. There is only earth and sky
and moms who raise their grandsons
and moms who die from four bullets
to the belly.

I do not dream of who my son will be
when he grows up, where he will go
to college, if he will play the game
his father loved. I do not dream.

Marissa Glover teaches and writes in the United States, where she spends most of her time sweating. Currently the Co-Editor for Orange Blossom Review and the Poetry Editor at Barren Press, Marissa was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize by The Lascaux Review for her poem “Some Things Are Decided Before You Are Born.” Her poetry has also appeared in Stoneboat Literary Journal, After the Pause, Gyroscope Review, War, Literature & the Arts, and New Verse News, among others. You can follow Marissa on Twitter @_MarissaGlover_.

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash.