Tag: Poetry

oppression Olympics

By Kitty Anarchy

 

you can’t even
say a problem

without someone
having a better
story than yours

suddenly they’re
the ones
telling theirs

yours out
the door

it’s the
oppression
Olympics
out here

but those
doing the
oppressing

aren’t even
playing
with us
down here

they watching
us fight
over crumbs
from up
in the
hills

 

Kitty Anarchy is an anarchafeminist, chicana womyn poet and short story writer. She has a background in social work, having earned her MSW from California State University, Long Beach, and she listens to KPFK radio. She has 7 cats, her favorite being ChiChi and 2 dogs, named Nibbit and Chato. She is published in Chiron Review, Rabid Oak Journal, Los Angeles Review, and Ghost Town Literary Journal, as well as in anthologies through Arroyo Seco Press and Picture Show Press. Visit Kitty’s website at www.kittyanarchy.com.

Photo by Donovan Valdivia on Unsplash.

The Gospel According to Saint Bryan

By Dana Kinsey

  

There was in Georgia a humble young man, jovial and curious,
who came upon two others who knew the law and the prophets.
Confined and detained, this man had no recourse but to run.
Hunted, he must have cried out to implore neighbors for help,
and sought shelter from bullets he knew were inscribed for him.

Fortunately, there was a Good Samaritan traveling the same road,
one whose benevolence forced him to stop and end the plight of
the innocent Georgian, offer him the help denied by the other men.
Sunday school lessons flooded back and he knew what he must do.
The victim was not of his race or religion, but he loved this neighbor
as he loved himself, and so reached in his pocket to offer a phone.

Gently, fearlessly, without flinching or uttering even a gasp, he
put the camera in video mode, took care to turn it horizontally
and filmed the man’s unfortunate ordeal, a sign of true mercy.
This Jesus, reincarnate, knew what a selfless gift he provided,
footage for the young man to show his grandchildren someday.

Roddie held steady to get the best quality video, kept his reactions
stifled so as to not mar the 28 seconds with any jolting or shock.
In time, all could see that his footage revealed God’s truth while
the other two men walked away appearing blameless in the town.
He thought of panning the area to show the 11 shotgun pellets
dead on the sidewalk, but he was expected in Samaria by sunset.

 

Dana Kinsey holds a BA in English and an MA in Theater from Villanova University. She is a poet, actor, freelance writer, and teacher at Lancaster Catholic High School in Pennsylvania. Her poetry has been published online in the Yellow Chair Review, The Broadkill Review, and Spillwords. Her work also appears in Fledgling Rag and Silver Needle Press. Dana’s screenplay, WaterRise, was filmed in Manhattan by Sagesse Productions. Visit Dana’s website at  www.wordsbyDK.com.

Photo credit: William “Roddie” Bryan mugshot courtesy of Glynn County Sheriff’s Office.

Response/Ability

By Schyler Butler

 

Share the photo of Keisha with tire marks cascading her back.
Remember the protest last night, the hungry eyes.
Ask the masses where were you.
Ask them taste blood in exchange for God.
After the ashes settle on the campus rooftops
and the downtown glass is swept,
pay for Speedway Marlboro’s.
Listen to birds chirp and avoid the eyes
of every child still young enough to grow.

 

Schyler Butler received her BA in English from the University of North Texas. A recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for FY 2020 and a lead poetry editor for Human/Kind Journal, her work appears and is forthcoming in Duende, Superstition Review, Obsidian, Heavy Feather Review’s #NoMorePresidents, Kissing Dynamite, and elsewhere, sometimes under the pseudonym “Iyana Sky.” She lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash.

Cicadas in Protest, 2020

By Aaron Sandberg

 

they emerge—
suddenly and briefly in large numbers—
symbols of immortality—prominent eyes—

active during the day with some calling at dawn or dusk—
modes of locomotion—walking and flight—
take to the wing to travel distances—

the structure is buckled by muscular action—
removing dirt in the process—
sometimes cause damage—
blunt spikes—
drumlike—

yet to be studied carefully—
many await formal description—
common names—red eye—black prince—
trees may be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers—

cicadas are preyed on—
making them drop to the ground—
variety of strategies to evade predators—
long lifecycles may have developed as a response—

the cicada-hunter—
mounts and carries them—
pushing with its hind legs—
sometimes over a distance—
until they can be shoved down—

a loud cicada song—
especially in chorus—
distinct distress call—
asserted to repel predators—
calls to maintain personal space—
emitted when seized or panicked—

resonating chamber—
sing in scattered groups—
an exceptionally loud song—
may use different heights and timing of calling—
loud enough to cause permanent hearing loss—
the pitch is nearly constant—the sound is continuous—
they construct an exit tunnel to the surface and emerge—

they emerge, all at once—

 

Poet’s Note:

Audre Lorde said, “Revolution is not a one time event.” With the reemergence of the cicadas this season and the uprising protests, I saw a point of positive comparison—gathering in large numbers, being viciously preyed upon, making a unified chorus of sound. This is a found poem—all the phrases here are taken in some form or another from the Cicada Wikipedia entry.

Aaron Sandberg resides in Illinois where he teaches. His recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Asimov’s Science Fiction, English Journal, Yes Poetry, One Sentence Poems, Vita Brevis Press, Literary Yard, and elsewhere. You might find him on Instagram @aarondsandberg.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash.

This Morning, I Mistake the Sound of Thunder for Bombs

By Despy Boutris

for Brittny

 

which tells you something about the state
of this country. This morning, I open Instagram

and see Céline lying through its teeth.
I’d love to write about planting flowers

on my forearms, or my best friend’s collection
of wool coats, but the police pulled guns

on her husband standing in his own yard.
I want to love my country. I’d love to write

about the scent of honeysuckle,
but this city has gone up in flames. I learned

only yesterday that Charleston was the center
of the slave trade. A few miles from the port,

another white couple exchanges vows
at a plantation. I wish I could love my country.

Right now, I live a mile from where George Floyd
grew up, hear that Cartier and Dior

have boarded up their windows uptown.
That’s more than just a metaphor. I was twelve

when Oscar Grant was killed at the same BART station
where my mother debarks. She has blonde hair,

blue eyes, has never had to fear for her life.
At seventeen, in math class, someone said

I have major jungle fever, and I watched
as my friend stiffened, brown eyes unblinking.

I waited for her to say something
so I wouldn’t have to. I still think about that.

In college, every English professor but one
was white, and I’m from California,

which thinks itself superior. In college, I read
an Audre Lorde poem and my heart beat fast

as rubber bullets leaving the barrel,
which aren’t really rubber at all, I’ve learned,

and these are what the police keep firing
at the people I love. I want so badly to love

my country. Last July, I saw a man I knew
from college on Instagram: shirtless,

in a MAGA hat, the photo captioned, America
is fiyah! If that’s true, then let’s let it burn.

 

Despy Boutris’s work is published or forthcoming in American Poetry Review, American Literary Review, Southern Indiana Review, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, The Adroit Journal, Prairie Schooner, Palette Poetry, Raleigh Review, and elsewhere. Currently, she teaches at the University of Houston, works as Assistant Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast, and serves as Editor-in-Chief of The West Review.

Photo by Donovan Valdivia on Unsplash.

War

By Linda E. Goodliffe

 

Stolen

sanity
childhood

classroom

teacher
hummus
art

photographs

home
garden
cow
goat
silver

Fire

skin

IED

arm

RPG

spine

grenade

leg

bunker buster
drone strike
mushroom cloud
burn pit

Rape

gang

woman
child

knife

vulva
vagina
cervix
uterus
bladder
breasts

Feasting

oligarch
cat
dog
vulture

on human carcass

 

Linda E. Goodliffe has both her bachelor’s degree in English/Creative Writing and her MFA in poetry from Queens University of Charlotte. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her family, which includes cocker spaniels. Linda is a veteran of the United States Navy. She believes the written word is a powerful force, and she hopes her work will contribute to the continued evolution of the human condition. You can find more of her work in the journal Leaping Clear and on her web site, lindaegoodliffe.com.

Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash.

Two Poems by Gregory Wolff

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_2″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding=”” dimension_margin=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_text]

80 Percent

The human body is 80 percent freshwater,
and 80 percent of freshwater is suspended in glaciated forms at the southern pole,
where it’s rapidly melting.
80 percent of laborers in the United States of America
live paycheck to paycheck,
and 80 percent of college students engage in drunkorexia—
that’s starving oneself to increase the effects of intoxication
(for those who don’t know). 80 percent of women don’t orgasm
from penetrative sex, and 80 percent of animal species are as of yet undiscovered.
Sadly, that doesn’t make them much safer than the rest.
80 percent of earth’s forest has been destroyed,
and 80 percent of American kids have an online presence
by the age of two. 80 percent of the world population lives under skyglow
and 80 percent of Americans believe in the existence of angels.
80 percent of America’s food went uninspected in the shutdown of 2019,
and 80 percent of Central American women and girls are raped
on their way up to the US border. If they make it, and most don’t
they will meet thirty-three million registered Republicans,
80 percent of which trust Trump more than the media.
80 percent of forest fires are started by human action or negligence,
and 80 percent of smartphone users check their phones
before brushing their teeth in the morning.
Humans have killed over 80 percent of all wild mammals on earth,
and 80 percent of Americans aren’t content
with the brightness of their smile.

Drone Love

you take me whether or not
I am willing or able
you find me in the grey streets and persimmon groves
and flatten me with your persuasion
I know you watch me
with my shy child in the rusted park
and I know you will follow me
to the very ends of the earth
your commitment is unwavering
your determination bone cold
with steely hands
you pluck me from the wedding party
and the funeral procession like a dandelion
my roots limp and in utter disarray
your silence is uncanny
and your thoughts a coded mystery
nonetheless you persist and remain always devoted, always faithful
you, after all, have haunted my dreams
since I first saw your fiery passion
touch upon the ground in the lost courtyard
of my childhood
now I wonder, as you rive the unshorn sky
your eyeless head bulging where a mind ought to be
have you already decided that I’m the one
or are you just searching
for love at first sight?

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container][fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding=”” dimension_margin=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_text]

I am an almost-PhD in philosophy turned organic farmer; writer of fiction, poetry, and children’s literature; and very proud father of two enchanted and half-wild children. I live with my family amidst the musical forests of the Saint Lawrence River Valley, just north of the Adirondack Range. My writing has appeared or is forthcoming in EVENT, Zone 3, Vassar Review, Blue River, Writers Resist, and Poets Reading the News. I am currently at work on a novel about an unlikely garden, a short story about life beneath ground, and a collection of my recent poetry. Visit my website at thewildernessofwords.com.

Photo by roya ann miller on Unsplash.

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Now More Than Ever

By Marissa Glover

 

You must pretend
this is the first
mask you’ve ever
worn—act like it
is the first time
you hid yourself
at home, away
from the unseen
thing that might
make you sick,
might kill you,
if too much gets in.

Now more than
ever, dream
of snakes walking
into the house
on legs, of teeth
cracking, collapsing
into your throat,
of flying—slowly
only two feet
above the ground.

Now more
than ever, be
calm when folks
call you coward,
cunt; let them
drink a punch—
this darker red
spreading heat
in their chests now.

More than ever
we’re alone,
together.
Everyone is
uncomfortable,
forced to pretend
this is the first
time no one
can see us,
know how
we really feel.

 

Marissa Glover teaches and writes in Florida, where she is co-editor of Orange Blossom Review and a senior editor at The Lascaux Review. Marissa’s work appears in Rust + Moth, SWWIM Every Day, and Okay Donkey, among other journals. Her debut poetry collection, Let Go of the Hands You Hold, is forthcoming from Mercer University Press in 2021. Follow Marissa on Twitter @_MarissaGlover_.

Photo credit: Kristin Schmit via a Creative Commons license.

Scrolling

By Laura Grace Weldon

 

Two penguin chicks are the only survivors
of a 40,000 bird Antarctic colony.
I imagine fuzzy hatchlings
chirping for food till silent,
scroll on to read
about a dog taught to talk
with an adaptive device. Stella,
a mixed breed, already uses 29 words
although her choices don’t include “why.”

All this bluster about GDP and NASDAQ,
about trends, ratings, followers,
about so-called political divisions
is just Oz shouting
Pay no attention
to that man behind the curtain
to keep us consuming, keep us distracted
keep us from the startling recognition

we are Stella tapping “want” “Jake” “come,”
then tapping “happy” when Jake indeed
comes home at the expected time.
We are the penguins, the ocean,
the plastic debris filling bird bellies.
Everywhere, curtains.

 

Laura Grace Weldon has published two poetry collections, Blackbird (Grayson 2019) and Tending (Aldrich 2013). She was named Ohio Poet of the Year for 2019. Laura works as a book editor and teaches community-based writing workshops. She lives with vast optimism on a small farm where she’d get more done if she didn’t spend so much time reading library books, cooking weird things, and singing to livestock. Connect with her at lauragraceweldon.com., on Facebook, and on Twitter @earnestdrollery.

Photo by Cassidy Mills on Unsplash.

White for Suffrage, Red for Riots

By Emily Knapp

 

Crack.

watch as we fracture.
shards of a broken union
used as weapons and
knives

(get out)
(we don’t want you)

heavy hearts as
women burn in India and
reds/yellows/greys
paint the streets of Paris.

We are all

fighting we are all

mad

stealing back our stars and
ripping our stripes

preservation

in the name of
democracy.

We are waiting for change.

For now,
we must navigate the slush.

And wait.

 

Emily Knapp is a native of the Chicagoland area, but fled West because she really likes seeing the sun in February. Her apartment currently resides in Denver, but you can find her in the mountains, writing, hiking, or skiing. This particular poem is in response to the New Yorker article titled, “The Impeachment Hearings and the Coming Storm.”

Photo credit: Jennifer Boyer via a Creative Commons license.

Bird Shit on Leaves

By Mark Grinyer

 

The white-speckled green
of bird-shit on leaves
painted through weeks
of days without rain
marks favored platforms
under canopies of trees
where hawks cannot spy them
but where they can see
the movements of voters
through wind-gusts and rain
that soak these havens
and wash shit away
fertilizing forests with
generations of sleaze
enduring the protection
of dissembling days
providing the illusion
of unfettered peace
as finches fight sparrows
for disappearing seeds
digesting rough diets,
attempting to breed
here where I’m watching
birds shit on leaves
avoiding the noise
of some politician’s screed.

 

Mark Grinyer spent most of his childhood and youth following his father, a U.S. Air Force officer, to many different stations in the United States and overseas, before settling in Riverside, California. Mark went to college at the University of California, Riverside, where he began writing and publishing poetry. After being drafted into the Army in 1969, he returned to the University for graduate school. and received a PhD in English and American Literature. He wrote his dissertation on the poetry of William Carlos William and developed a particular interest in the roles of poetry and poets in modern society, and in the use of scientific and natural scenes or images as vehicles for understanding our place in the modern world. He spent the next 25 years working as a technical editor and proposal specialist in the aerospace industry. After retiring in 2006, he returned to teaching for a few years at California State University, Fullerton, where he continued with his poetry.

Photo credit: Everjean via a Creative Commons license.

Group Home Rattle

By Andrés Castro

Dropped and broken,
over and over,
we were dropped broken here—
the labeled Spic and Nigger boys, said
from stupid mothers and ugly fathers, said
marked by wire gashes, gunshots, and sex toys,
waking to crying, screaming, lying, threats.
We were dropped broken here.

Who bothers to look inside the hand
that’s helping? In this cracked community,
in this grey wooden house, three administrators
glide through the rooms where we stay.

On Friday night
explosions take place when
broken heads race when
venting is play when
the shrinks stay away.

Would you listen? Could you listen
to nine broken heads screaming?
“I’m Boss!” “I’m Blade!” “I’m Cold!”
“I’m Lost!” “I’m Slick!” “I’m Blood”
“I’m Cross!” I’m Deep!” I’m Dreamin!”

No! No!
We’re drowning, not touching
bottom, drowning
in a vat of grease, blood, melting needles,
Haldol, Prolixin—
bodies inside out, twisted faces,
anatomical toys, boys
our broken heads split open,
emptying out into the street.

Please, will you tell somebody?
Notify next of kin.

 

Author’s note: The material for this poem came to me in a nightmare after I began working as a psychiatric group home counselor in 1995. I quit shortly after having to dispense powerful psychotropic drugs to the sweetest teenager who had returned a sedated shell after meeting with his abusive parents for Christmas and consequently having a breakdown and being hospitalized. Short-term therapy, including tranquilizing psychotropics, instead of empowering long-term language and learning based modalities, is still widely accepted, especially in poorer communities.

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in Poets & Writers Directory and regularly posts work on his personal blog, The Practicing Poet. He lives in Queens, NY.

Photo by Harlie Raethel on Unsplash.

I Was Ranting About

By Pedro Hoffmeister

 

the school district brought in a tech-expert,
an Apple educator, a dynamic speaker, paid a lot
of money to come speak to us, started by
asking us to name our favorite technologies,
audience members calling out new
apps and video games I’d never heard of.

I yelled, “The toilet” because it is my favorite technology.
I love excrement not sitting in a chamber pot under my bed until
I walk over and dump it out the window onto the street below.
Or – to be more precise – composting toilets are a miracle of
science, the smell of sawdust (and sawdust only)
in a sun-warmed outhouse?

But this speaker wasn’t interested in useful
[or what he called “basic”] technologies. He didn’t
understand the truth that he is actually somewhere
in the middle of all history, and that in only 200 years
this current time-period we’re living in will look cute,
or quaint, and humans will tell stories about all
the stupid things people said or believed
at the beginning of the 21st Century.

Along with an anecdote about light-switches coming
to New York hotels in 1926 (wrong by 40 years)
this tech educator told us that Gutenberg invented
the printing press, as if the printing press and moveable type
were a Western thing first, as if printing presses
hadn’t already existed for almost 600 years in China,
but this expert had no idea that all of his claims were so
American,
so simplified and sadly incorrect.

As people say, we are a nation of anti-intellectualism,
and this man is a product, who – in turn – pushes products.
We don’t teach our children contextual learning because
it takes too much time. So, I imagine this speaker as a child,
staring at his TV in wonder. Is it too harsh to say that we
consume and consume and consume until we die?

But there were Hitler-like speech quotes too,
with the requisite yelling at the end:

“We have evolved beautifully!!!”

“We are living with human efficiency that has never been equaled!!!”

“Most futurians see this as a golden age of change!!!”

I did like that last slant-rhyme he included. It made me think of
all the poems that our revered speaker had never read.

He said he wanted us to “accept the truth, and not think about ethics,”
The Blue Pill, bask in the illusion, to close our eyes
and enter the common room of the cultural cult.

Instead, I think of the Navajo Eusabio in Willa Cather’s
Death Comes for the Arch Bishop, Eusabio speaking
in the late 19th century, when arrogant men also thought
they were at the cutting edge of history. The Navajo replies:
“Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things.”

Or I think of this – my favorite Arabic proverb:
“When danger approaches, sing to it.”

So here

am I,

singing.

 

After publishing books with Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Random House (most recently the novel Too Shattered For Mending), Pedro Hoffmeister just self-published a collection of essays titled Confessions of the Last Man on Earth Without a Cell Phone, so he could say anything he wanted to say: Strong personal opinions, satire, and humor. Basically, resistance. He is now completing a collection of poems.

Photo credit: Liz West via a Creative Commons license.

The Chain & The Screens & The Fire

By Jake Phillips

 — after Alexandrea Teague’s “’My Country, ‘Tis of Thee’ (arranged for Brazen Bull)”

 

Bellows and bolts     and the king     and the king’s rage
at the price of freedom     the fire   the face like fire hot-orange
on your screen     first look at your phones   the fire given
to humankind     hot breath    fogging     hot    and he bellows
at the man in chains     as he has always done     the least racist
person that you’ve ever encountered    may the eagle peck
his liver     the lives chained     first look     look     the tweets may the eagle
peck     the deplorables on this rock     chained     a chain a storm
of characters     filthy language on fire     and you don’t want
to live with them either     the eagle feasts     on freedom
on many sides     on liver, regrowing     feast your eyes     feed    your phone
for the king     who has done more for African Americans     Americans
create their own violence     and the box was opened     all 140
characters and their hashtags     their own violence    released
unchained into the world     then they try to blame others   the violence
on many sides     the Titan the fire     the hero of culture
a really dumb guy     the liver always     and his rock     the disgusting, rat
and rodent infested mess     always returns     and the hope on the bottom
the hope     the birth certificate is a fraud     the faces
lit up with the fire     we hold our hands out     dangerous
for our country     let’s take a closer look     the chains tighten     the liver
returns     can you imagine the furor     the blaze     the pecking eternal
he watches    tweets from    Oval throne     never discriminated
the violence     a terrible thing     the mud of mankind    melting from the fire

 

Jake Phillips is a first-year poetry MFA candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Boston; a former teacher; and a former librarian. His writing has appeared in Z Poetry’s anthologies Massachusetts’ Best Emerging Poets and America’s Emerging Poets: Northeast Region. He currently works as a publishing assistant for Hanging Loose Press. Find him on Twitter @itsjustJp.

Photo credit: schizoform via a Creative Commons license.

Ring-a-Round the Rosie 2019

By Heidi J. Lobecker

 

Ring-a-round the playground

A backpack full of bullets

Pop! Pop! Pop!

We all fall down.

 

Heidi J. Lobecker has lots of fun writing. If it‘s not fun, she finds something better to do, for example: reading, sailing, camping, and eating s’mores.

Photo credit: Edwin Rosskam, Chicago, Illinois, 1941, via the U.S. Library of Congress

Serpent Song

By Candice Kelsey

I

July. A man in Thousand Oaks confronted by wildlife authorities.
The case: Exotic Reptiles
illegally stockpiled.
Neighbors suspect this guy
may not have permits for all 40 venomous snakes.
Above 100 degree heat
kept in crowded conditions
activity level through the roof. More runs to Home Depot
14 hour day.
Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians rests his hand
on the shoulder of Senior Animal Keeper Chris.
Designer snakes bred for specific mutations
mostly albinism some leucism.
Crossbred / inbred /
Screwed up / blind / jumpy.
The zoo moved the gila monsters to make room
for two black-headed pythons and four indigo
snakes.

II

November. Detroit Police warehouse confronted by the Fair Justice Project.
The case: 11,341 unprocessed rape kits
sitting for years.
Authorities determined multiple rapes
could have been prevented with a CODIS match.
Gang rape of a homeless woman
kidnapping and rape of a young girl.
More backlog
kits from 2009 finally tested in 2015.
Wayne County Prosecutor points her finger
at Detroit Police Media Relations Director Mike.
551 page report by the National Institute of Justice
reveals minimal effort corners cut
vaginal wall / cervical / penile slide /
anal / perianal slide /
buccal swab.
Colposcopy for photos of genital injury
and rulers for measuring bruises or lacerations on
women.

 

Candice Kelsey’s debut book of poetry is Still I Am Pushing (Finishing Line Press, March 2020). Her first nonfiction book explored adolescent identity in the age of social media and was recognized as an Amazon.com Top Ten Parenting Book in 2007. Her poetry has appeared in many journals, including, Poet Lore, The Cortland Review, and North Dakota Quarterly, and she was a finalist for Poetry Quarterly‘s Rebecca Lard Award. Candice’s creative nonfiction was nominated for a 2019 Pushcart Prize. She is an educator of 20 years’ standing, devoted to working with young writers. An Ohio native, she now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.

Image credit: “Eve and the Serpent” by John Dickson Batten, 1895.

Pandemic

By Summer Awad

what does empire look like
in slow motion

what of nine-to-fives
stripped of their ticking clocks

shelves – aching
from stock and restock –
baring us their bones?

–

what do you make of
shuttered cafes

laptops and coffees
on the couch –
recalibrated reality

the comfortable uncomfortable
but immune – really –
to crisis?

–

how do you inoculate
a sick society

tell the boss to care
for his worker

the landlord to relieve
his tenant

the politician to protect
her people?

how do you jolt
men awake,

illumine the stepping
stones so precariously
placed?

–

what does it mean to
be without

insurance, yes
savings, yes
without the privilege
of cozy quarantine,
true

but isn’t it without as in
without the gates – as in
outside – as in without
the demarcations of
worthiness

isn’t it who we swallow
and who we cough up
and spit out?

–

what do borders look like
drawn around each other –
around ourselves

aren’t we only as good as
what’s inside our circle –
as the company
we’ve chosen to keep

and isn’t it keep as in
provide for the sustenance of –
as in guard and protect – as in
honor and fulfill – as in
keep the Sabbath?

–

what does this silence
conjure for us

what awakenings lie in wait

what meaning can we glean
from this indefinite and holy
Saturday?

 

Summer Awad is a poet and playwright from Knoxville, Tennessee. Summer’s poetry has appeared in Little Rose Magazine and Exposition Review. Her play, WALLS: A Play for Palestine, was produced at the 2016 New York International Fringe Festival. Summer is an award-winning, local spoken-word poet. Her work focuses on her Appalachian and Palestinian heritages, as well as feminism and politics.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

A Colossal Crisis

By Shawn Aveningo-Sanders

~ after Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus”

 

When brazen towers fell, we wept in disbelief—
our great nation attacked upon her own shore.
We obeyed our leaders who hailed, “Shop More!
That’s how we’ll heal.” And we found some relief
in the stuff we hoarded, albeit the feeling brief.
We shop-till-we-drop, as credit card bills soar
so high, we can’t afford our child’s mortarboard.
Delusional and desperate, we elected the wrong chief—
unfit to save us from an enemy we can’t see.
Mr. Whipple whispers, “Secret stash on Aisle 3.”
The huddled masses, yearning to be free
of their germ-laden asses, in need of more TP,
racing toward wipes and the last shopping cart,
forgetting sage advice to stay six feet apart.

 

Shawn Aveningo-Sanders is the author of What She Was Wearing, an inspirational book of poetry/prose that reveals her #metoo secret—from survival to empowerment. Shawn’s poetry has appeared globally in over 150 literary journals and anthologies. She’s a Pushcart nominee, Best of the Net nominee, co-founder of The Poetry Box press, and managing editor for The Poeming Pigeon. Shawn is a proud mother of three and shares the creative life with her husband in Portland, Oregon.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash.

Notes from an Epicenter

By John Linstrom

                Sixteen Oaks Grove, Queens, NY

 

Sixteen oaks in two rows planted
down an island in the street:

school is closed, kids transplanted,
benches here are empty, clean and neat.

Auto shops still rollicking with laughter,
a boy walks by, dribbles his ball alone.

A bird keeps trilling, and will after;
the traffic, steady still, has slowed.

Sixteen oaks in two rows standing—
walkers pause, and then they quickly go.

 

John Linstrom’s poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in North American Review, The New Criterion, Atlanta Review, Vallum, and Cold Mountain Review. His nonfiction has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The Antioch Review and Newfound. He is series editor of The Liberty Hyde Bailey Library for Cornell University Press, making available the works of Progressive-Era environmental philosopher L. H. Bailey. He coedited The Liberty Hyde Bailey Gardener’s Companion: Essential Writings (Comstock-Cornell UP, 2019), and he prepared the centennial edition of Bailey’s ecospheric manifesto The Holy Earth (Counterpoint, 2015), featuring a new foreword by Wendell Berry. He currently lives with his wife and their joyful window garden in Queens, NY, where he is a doctoral candidate in English and American Literature at New York University. He also holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University.

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash.

Heretic Hymn from the Pandemic

By D.A. Gray

 

One morning the cats who once
Crept up to our doors – stopped.
For a time the bird’s voices grew louder
Then they, too, disappeared.

We prayed on command. We were sure
The symbols would save us.
Leaving the church we made stops
At every store that promised
A cure – the backup spells of old
Superstition – just to be sure.

A man in our town has been chosen
To head the response task force.
Each day he offers a spot of wisdom.
‘The worst you can do,’ he says,
‘is panic.’ He bows before the camera.
His hair is bright white
Like a horseman from an old tale.

Most of us simply carried on.

When the least of these grew ill
We sang solemn hymns
This time to our neighbors, and the dead
We had never met. We were begging
Forgiveness for averting our eyes, away
From them and toward the sky.

I saw my parents begin to shrink, still thinking
Tragedy could be beaten with piety.
The louder they prayed the smaller
They grew. One day my father’s
Eyes jolted open. He was small enough now
He could see it coming.

Keep calm. Be civil. After the funeral we pulled
Out the box of aphorisms
Which was always here waiting our return
In case of emergency.

If we listen we can hear the sounds of hooves,
Really the sounds of breath rasping,
The remaining beastly sounds, bringing the end
Of the tale galloping closer
Like any metaphor – if you believe it too much.

 

D.A. Gray’s poetry collection, Contested Terrain, was recently released by FutureCycle Press. His previous collection, Overwatch, was published by Grey Sparrow Press in 2011. His work has appeared in The Sewanee Review, Appalachian Heritage, The Good Men Project, Writers Resist, and Literature and the Arts, among many other journals. Gray holds an MFA from The Sewanee School of Letters and an MS from Texas A&M-Central Texas. Retired soldier and veteran, the author writes and lives in Central Texas.

“Four Horsemen” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1860.