Poetry – Page 14 – Writers Resist

Floating

By Penny Perry

Mother couldn’t have known what to do.
She was only twenty-five,
drove her big sister, Leona, six weeks pregnant
to the doctor’s in L.A.

Leona squinted at California bungalows,
backyards with orange trees.
She thought about her husband home worrying,
her baby waiting for her.

She told my mother about her screenplay,
a murder in the Braille room of the public library.
Then, she sat silent, her long fingers tangled like kelp.

The doctor glanced at his medical license
framed on the wall behind him,
said he was afraid to use ether.
Leona jutted her famous Heyert jaw:
“My friend Ruth told me to insist.
With ether I’ll float above the pain.”

It was hot that June morning, 1942.
No air conditioning. My mother
in the waiting room thumbed through magazines.
Big-eyed Loretta Young on the cover of Life.

It happened fast. Ether, a busy housewife,
pulled down the shades.

The doctor waved my mother in.
White face, head back, Leona was no longer breathing.
The ribbon in her dark hair floated in the breeze of a fan.

Penny Perry currently has poems in Earth’s Daughters, Lips, California Quarterly, Patterson Literary Review and the San Diego Poetry Annual. Garden Oak Press will publish my novel, Selling Pencils and Charlie in Spring 2020. “Floating” was previously published in Penny Perry’s poetry collection, Santa Monica Disposal & Salvage (Garden Oak Press, 2012).

Photo credit: Photo by Ava Sol on Unsplash.

At the Funeral of 50 Barefoot Men

By Amirah Al Wassif

once upon a time
there was an ancient place
called “Amon” village
that very far spot
where everybody talks
about the river legend
that very far spot
where everybody knows
how to distinguish
the smell of fresh bread
there, at the Amon village
where all the folks live
in their dreams
and the blazing sun cries
against the face of heaven
there, where the poor sweeper
drowns in the colors of the rainbow
and the great brown mountains
announce their upper secrets
to the mass grave
in the Amon village
where everybody talks
about the river legend
and the real tale of
50 barefoot men
in the ancient village
all people are storytellers
and all of them say
the same story
which starts with
once upon a time

there were 100 men
lived together in the same village
but 50 of them were barefoot
and the other 50 had fancy shoes!
50 men sweeping the streets
and 50 men making the bread
50 ones looking for more!
50 shoes in luxury leather
and 50 toes inflamed and cracked

the river recognized the difference
between the shoes and the toes
then it made a good decision
according to nature rules
and the river understood
the difference between
the torn clothing and the perfect ones
then it made a good decision
according to nature rules

on the ragged edge, all the people walk
under the boiling sun
all people talk
and there were two kinds of talking
talking from shoe to shoe
and talking from toe to toe
and the river didn’t love that kind of speech
so, it made a good decision
according to nature rules

50 barefoot men carrying
their empty pots
their facial bones
tell you about long age of bitterly
shabby dresses, fearful eyes
ancient faces full of pimples
much sweat
and shaky hands

50 barefoot men bearing their pain
looking for a way
to protect their feet
from another pain
but the shattered glass
everywhere

the dispossessed people died
and the rest were alive around the river
laughing, jumping, drinking
but the river has a sense of justice
so, it made a good decision
according to the nature rules
and dried up!

Amirah Al Wassif is a freelance writer and author. She has written articles, novels, short stories poems and songs. Five of her books were written in Arabic and many of her English works have been published in various cultural magazines. Amirah is passionate about producing literary works for children, teens and adults that represent cultures from around the world. Her first book, Who Do Not Eat Chocolate was published by Poetic Justice Books, and her latest illustrated book, The Cocoa Book and Other Stories was recently released by Breaking Rules Publishing.

Photo by Sofia Truppel on Unsplash.

People Keep Bothering Me with Details

By Pedro Hoffmeister

It’s beginning to snow in Tucson and it’s 65 degrees in Seattle, Washington
in February
But our president says…
He’s tweeting about…

And we should listen to him because he’s the best president we’ve had

this entire year.

That’s a fact. He’s our man. Our leader.

Another fact:
Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman, other celebrities have paid money to get their children into some of the most privileged universities, Southern Cal, The Ivies,
where the reported rape rate is higher than at nearby public schools,
Where freshman girls rush sororities, visit fraternities, trip and fall into date-rapists’ arms
But it’s okay
because some of those freshman girls look 13 when they’re 18,
look like
kids

and we all know kids don’t matter – at least not specifically – because there are so many of them.

Try this: Have you ever attempted to think of every single child on earth at the same time?

Exactly.
It’s too overwhelming like
trying to name
the name of every celebrity I’ve ever read about.

But children
without names that anyone will learn,
– people keep telling me this –
are in detention centers, Southwest Key in Phoenix, or
Southwest Key in Tucson, or Southwest Key in Youngtown, Arizona
Boring company name – if you ask me,
Boring white vans driving children through boring black gates,
They can do better.

People tell me that a different nameless child is picking the Uzbek cotton that will go into the tongue of my Nike shoes, but the tag on the shoes never says
MADE BY A CHILD’S HANDS
And that stuff is regulated by governments, so this story can’t be true
And anyway
I’m grateful because my kicks will look flawless.

Meanwhile, Asian children (it doesn’t matter where – they all look the same, be honest, they really, really do)
Asian children are wiping
anti-scratch chemicals onto the glass faces of Samsungs, ipads, iphones…
The supervisors in the factories saying something like:

“Dip the rag into the solution, wipe it across the screen, make sure to cover the entire surface, set the glass onto the belt – carefully – don’t touch the front with your grubby fingers. Now dip the rag again…”

These kids are careful – thank God – they care about quality

I’m told
these factories rotate their children every six weeks to let their hands recover from the chemicals – which is nice –
they let the children’s fingerpads and palms heal.
or they replace the children with a new crop – they’re thoughtful about things like that,
like crop rotations to keep our Southern soil healthy.
And I understand that we have to keep the products healthy – that’s what matters – no matter how hard the labor is
Plus, the children are a renewable energy source,

My friend Bill always says, “The dream of America
is a dream of small, willing hands.”

Which is funny

But this evening – all across the United States, and seriously, not funny – we’re watching our people talk about their feelings on The Bachelor
I just feel that…
I’m developing feeling for…
and these feelings are just so…

The thing I love about this show:
No one on this show wastes our time talking about
Authors
Painters
Poets
Activists

They understand that we need to take a break from TOO MUCH THINKING

And this show lets me put myself in The Bachelor’s shoes, stare out at all those women who are available to me

Hannah G., will you accept this rose?

No, actually,
Hannah B. is way skinnier
Ooh, Hannah B. in a bikini…

Hannah B., will you accept this rose?

I’ve noticed that roses on my phone look just as real as the roses in my neighbor’s yard when
I’m looking through my front window,
Realer roses
Truer

I like rose filters,
Which make me think of rose emojis

And emojis remind me of my friend KT who hates emojis – for some stupid reason or another – and doesn’t understand why the emoji movie is so funny
KT,
one of those people who tells me that
Foxconn used Chinese teen interns for 11-hour workdays to produce the iphone X.
Tells me this story twice even after I tell her that
Apple already released a statement that made it clear:
The Chinese teen interns worked voluntarily.

I do like factoids like this:
Professor E.O. Wilson discovered that the collective weight of all ants on earth matches the collective weight of all humans.

He calls the two species symbiotic
somehow
We rise,
we rise,

Like we’ve got diamonds at the meetings
Of our…
Wait, what are the physical characteristics of ants? Or physiological?
Psycho-spiritual?

What I don’t know:
Are ants spiritually and theologically aligned with my religion?

What I do know but I really DON’T care about:
Proceeds from mining for US electronics in the Congo have funded a civil war.

Please don’t tell me about that again
because where even is the Congo? Africa somewhere?

Here’s a question that matters to the people I care about the most:

Are you a part of a meal service, and – if so – which one?

Along with things I don’t care about, there are people I don’t care about as well
Or people I just don’t like
For example:
Stan from IT said something about “Hi-Def drone footage of the fracking fields of Canada” as I was searching music videos on Youtube with my friend at work, Susan.
Susan and I both laughed SO hard.

Stan said:
“What’s the matter?
or better yet,
What else matters?”

And I said to him:
“I matter.
I’m sure I matter.”
Then I looked at Susan and thought of something really smart to say:
“I matter because I know enough about science to be sure that I’m made of matter,
get it?”
Then Susan and I laughed hard again.

But Stan didn’t, and that’s what’s wrong with him. He doesn’t get things.

This is also annoying – and on the same topic:

In my Twitter feed the other day, someone Retweeted:

Is all the matter in the universe finite reconstructive
or infinite dimensional?

After publishing books with Penguin, Random House, and Simon & Schuster, 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. No content editors nixing “questionable content.” No publicists’ input on what sells. Just strong personal opinions, satire, and humor.

Amplifier poster art by Chip Thomas, photographer, public artist, activist and physician who has been working between Monument Valley and The Grand Canyon on the Navajo nation since 1987. Enjoy more of his activist and collaborative artwork here and his photography here.

Man with a Knife

By Beth Levine

Imagine
that this letter S
floats off the page
becomes a strong
rope
that wraps your hands together behind
your back, like officers do
before putting someone in
the back of a police car.

Imagine
that this letter S floats
off the page and becomes a second
strong rope
one end wraps
around your
left leg
the other hoists you up from
where you are reading this poem so
you are
hanging
upside
down.

Imagine
a man coming toward you
knife in hand
pointing at your throat.
You see
blood on his knife
blood on his hands.
There is no
possible escape.
No one to call on
for help.
No way to free
yourself.
You are
trapped.
Alone.

Imagine
how your heart
desperately races as fast
as a jackhammer and your body shakes
like an off-kilter washing machine,
and you can’t seem to breathe and
helpless tears well-up.

Imagine
how you beg for
your life, for
mercy, but your voice is smaller
than you want it to be,
like when you try to wake
from a scary dream
and you scream, but it is not audible,
not rescuing you
from the nightmare and
you keep pushing the air out
until the sound bursts from your lungs.

Imagine
how the man
keeps coming.
You try
to move him, to
touch his heart, but
his eyes are
vacant and he keeps moving
toward you,
knife in hand.
You wonder how he can be
so cold.
You wouldn’t
ever
ever
do this to another.
You couldn’t
ever
disregard their pleas.

Or could you?

Imagine
bacon.

Imagine
ice cream,
your down comforter,
zoos.

Imagine
your leather shoes,
and eggs.

Imagine
chicken wings.

Now you are the man with the knife.

Beth is a psychotherapist and an animals rights activist. She shares her life with two dogs, and enjoys hearing bird songs and being in nature. In her work, whether poetry, art, or both, she helps the marginalized be seen and heard and hopes to contribute to social change by raising awareness.

Photo by Kai Oberhäuser on Unsplash.

Questions for My Shooter

By Abby E. Murray

Which of my relatives
will point out how
I was raised humanely,
in a house with a yard
where I could pick
blueberries I grew myself
or sit on a blanket in the grass
when it was warm?
And who will tell them
that’s good because it was,
the humane life, I mean—
how I had constant
opportunities to play
or nest or use my voice,
how I carried myself
into spaces I believed
were beyond assault?
Who will ask whether
the shot was clean,
whether I suffered,
whether I was harvested
responsibly afterward,
my blood stretched far
as a rainy day envelope
or my daughter’s love?
Will the shooting be
diagnosed as a symptom
of Bad Day Disorder
or Disappointment Fever?
Will it be the opposite
of having died in vain?
Sweetheart—may I call you that?
you will, after all,
be the last to change me—
how long will I survive
after we meet?

Abby E. Murray is the editor of Collateral, a literary journal publishing work concerned with the impact of violent conflict and military service beyond the combat zone. She is the poet laureate for the city of Tacoma, Washington, where she teaches community workshops for veterans, civilians, military families, and undocumented youth. Her first book, Hail and Farewell, won the Perugia Press Poetry Prize and will be released in September 2019.

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash.

Fine People

By Paul Colton

Based on Martin Niemöller’s confession-turned-poem, “First they came …”

First a fine man killed six Sikhs in a Wisconsin temple
but Republicans did not act
because they’re not Sikhs

Then a fine man murdered black worshippers in Charleston
but Republicans did not act
because they’re not black

Then a fine man ran down counter-protestors in Charlottesville
but Republicans did not act
because they’re not lefties

Then a fine man slaughtered 11 Jews praying in Pittsburgh
but Republicans did not act
because they’re not Jews

Then a fine man assassinated Hispanics in an El Paso Walmart
but Republicans will not act decisively
because they’re not Hispanic

Soon fine people will come for pale-skinned moderates
but then it will be too late to stifle
their seething hate and assault rifles

Paul Colton has been writing about life’s vagaries for thirty-plus years. His poetry and essays have appeared in more than 75 magazines, literary journals, and poetry anthologies, including The Literary Hatchet, The Satirist, and The Moon magazine.

Photo credit: Christopher Althouse Cohen via a Creative Commons license.

Dear Mitch

By Alicia Cerra Waters

My mother found Jesus.
He was on sale at the Walmart
in El Paso.
Mom is on a budget because
no one pays her any money
to play pretend.
When she prays
to the plastic Jesus
with a ninety nine cent sticker
cemented to the back of his robes
at least she means it.

Alicia Cerra Waters is a writer and educator. She lives with her husband and son.

Fourteen Reasons to Love America the Beautiful

By Tori Cárdenas

Worn flags fall and burn / as bumper stickers / beer cans /
boardshorts / truck nuts / red visors and head coverings /
and hearts purple-swelling with pride / beneath twisted
knuckles
Paint your storm windows / with razor wire / and the
blessed blood of the unborn / seal out / pungent spices and
peppers / from your doorways / restrooms / defend your
borders
It is her fault / their fault / his fault / someone else’s
problem / Reduce to the common denominator / it is the
restaurant on the corner / serving anything but a burger and
fries
Bring your boots / your pipes / your fatigues / bring them
into the town square / to wage war on people who call it a
‘plaza’ / no room for foreign shit here / isolation is survival
Grab ’em by the pussy / treat ’em like shit / fuck their
daughters / they’re begging you / unless their chests are flat /
those ain’t the raping kind / lock them up / uptight lesbians
Circle one: true or false / if follow-up: false / if red: true /
false: blue / no news: good news / the best news / no news
to speak of here: true / not: false / don’t read all that fake
shit
They’re bringing drugs / they’re bringing rape / they’re
bringing crime / and sin and pestilence and parasites / Gas
their children begging at the nation’s bottom / and fuel the
swampy top
And yea, the Lord said, “Shoot the snowflakes / the
women / the children with brown skin / for they displease
your Lord God Almighty / on his golden Mar-a-Lago”
Cover your assets / for the end times are coming / store
your gold beneath the eaglet down of your pillows / when
your coffers runneth empty / a street of walls will meet you
You can survive on nothing / you’re still buying SPAM,
aren’t you / what about the dollar menu / it may not nourish
your cells to overthrow this epidemic / but you can still
make us money
It’s all a hoax / this climate shit / make it warmer / so we
can bust heads on the beach / blow up the schoolhouses /
teacher bullshit / gimme a pencil / sos I can black there eyes
out
Bring back the hanging / decorations / bamboo shoots are
the new manicure / Full page ads of black brown blue
babies / withered elders / toss them into the rivers / erase
them
Hey bro / got a job for you / the boss lets us drink and fuck
anything we want / don’t forget your golf clubs / got a seat
for you right here / with a guzzler helmet / and two cold
Coors Lights
Vote / your voice matters / we’re listening / psst / we want
to know what you think / it’s your right / pass the earplugs /
you fought for it / don’t you want it anymore / pussies /

Poetry editor Tori Cárdenas is a queer Tainx/Latinx poet from Northern New Mexico. In 2014, she graduated from the University of New Mexico with a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in History and English, with a concentration in Poetry. She returned to UNM in Fall 2017 to earn her MFA in Fiction. She served as Blue Mesa Review‘s 2018-2019 Poetry Editor, and serves currently as the 2019-2020 Editor-in-Chief. Tori’s work has appeared in Conceptions Southwest, VICE, Pantheon Magazine, Writers Resist online journal, and Writers Resist: The Anthology 2018, and it has been nominated for the Best of the Net anthology and a Pushcart Prize. Her works were also featured as finalists in the 2018 and 2019 Rabbit Catastrophe Press Really Good Poem Prize contests. Tori lives with her dog Sophie in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Editor’s note: The photo of the U.S. flag pistol is used for purposes of noncommercial commentary, satire, and education under the Fair Use Doctrine.

What Then?

By Kathy Lundy Derengowski

And what if the next
crazed school-shooter
is the security officer,
with a long gun
and a long memory
and a short temper,
who is tired of smart-ass kids
who call him “rent-a-cop”
and mock his lumbering swagger?
What if one too many of them
have flipped him off,
and his wife just left him
for another man or woman
and his credit card is maxed out
and his own children never call?
What then?

Kathy Lundy Derengowski is a native of San Diego County. She is an active member and co-facilitator of the Lake San Marcos Writer’s Workshop. Her work has appeared in Summation, the ekphraisis anthology of the Escondido Arts Partnership, California Quarterly, Silver Birch Press, Autumn Sky Daily, Turtle Light Press, and the Journal of Modern Poetry. She has won awards from the California State Poetry Society and been a finalist in the San Diego Book Awards poetry chapbook category. She has been a guest blogger on Trish Hopkinson’s site.

Photo by Jose Alonso on Unsplash.

That One Time My Best Friend Destroyed the World

By Avra Margariti

She goes from gun-shy to
trigger-happy
in a single breath.
That honest sun-smile
nestles in my chest
while she obliterates the world
as we know it.
She’s a rare, delicate bird
perched on the last tree of Earth
watching everything turn to
ash.

Bell jar, birdcage, formaldehyde—
everyone wants to capture her for their
post-apocalyptic
collection.

I go near her
and get a mouthful of
fire and brimstone.
Are you going to destroy the world? I ask.
Yes, she says. By making them

l i s t e n

Avra Margariti is a queer Social Work undergrad from Greece. She enjoys storytelling in all its forms and writes about diverse identities and experiences. Her work has appeared in Wolfpack Press, The Writing District, Dime Show Review, and Page & Spine.

Photo credit: Mark Turnauckas via a Create Commons license.

Malice in Four Thoughts

By Bruce Robinson

They didn’t see it coming
(how could they?)

And then it rained, rained
and we weren’t witness

so we can only surmise
that the days grew shorter

and who’s to say that clocks
could demonstrate a direction

and there was nothing
one could do about it

(which is what we did)

Recent work by Bruce Robinson appears or is forthcoming in Mobius, Fourth River/Tributaries, Pangyrus, Blueline, and the Beautiful Cadaver social justice anthology.

“Malice in Four Thoughts” was previously published by Indolent Books’ What Rough Beast.

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash.

Pompeii

By Jennifer Hernandez

When the water finally
breaches the dam,
long after empty hollows,
long after parched ground,
even after all is well,
the deluge doesn’t stop,

becomes a train,
careens through the station,
passengers left behind
on platforms, watching,

like the citizens of Pompeii
as ash rains down
from the mountain,
peaceful exterior
having hidden
the burbling stew
inside her belly.

When she blew,
it seemed so sudden,
like the breached dam,
the runaway train.

In retrospect,
there are always signs.

Jennifer Hernandez lives in Minnesota where she teaches immigrant youth and writes poetry, flash, and creative nonfiction. Much of her recent writing has been colored by her distress at what she reads in her daily news feed. Work can be found in such publications as New Verse News, Radical Teacher, Rise Up Review, and Writers Resist. She is working on a chapbook of hybrid writing about teaching as a political act.

Photo credit: Dr. Wendy Longo via a Creative Commons license.

Farewell and Welcome!

Laura Orem is retiring after almost two years as one of our dedicated volunteer poetry editors. Farewell, Laura!

While we’ll miss Laura—and her sense of humor—we’re delighted to welcome our newest poetry editor, Tori Cárdenas.

Tori is a queer Tainx/Latinx poet from Northern New Mexico. In 2014, she graduated from the University of New Mexico with a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in History and English, with a concentration in Poetry. She returned to UNM in Fall 2017 to earn her Master’s of Fine Arts in Fiction. She served as Blue Mesa Review’s 2018-2019 Poetry Editor, and serves currently as the 2019-2020 Editor-in-Chief.

Tori’s work has appeared in Conceptions Southwest, VICE, Pantheon Magazine, Writers Resist online journal, and Writers Resist: The Anthology 2018, and it has been nominated for the Best of the Net anthology and a Pushcart Prize. Her works have also been featured as finalists in the 2018 and 2019 Rabbit Catastrophe Press Really Good Poem Prize contests.

Tori lives with her dog Sophie in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Please join us in welcoming Tori—and celebrating her poem. …

White

upon buying a new car for visibility, practicality, and functionality,

the car and insurance salesmen convince me white is the best color—

it’s functional, keeping it clean is as easy as keeping the dust off of it.

at night, you will be easy to see, less likely to get pulled over or questioned,

folks will stop to help you with flats on the shoulder. on long road trips,

bugs splatter every color across your grille, red and brown and yellow—

won’t it be pretty

Manifesto

By John C. Mannone

We are desperate for life
to be found outside our
comfortable homes here
on this planet. We send
messengers to the outer
reaches of our solar system
—robots with test tube eyes
see 200 atom-heavy molecules
on Saturn’s Enceladus
geysering from a subsurface
ocean, icy plumes feathered
with biochemistry—life
essential molecules speaking
no words, only facts.
Our conjecture is at least
as clear as political banter.
We are experts at posturing—
made of many chemicals
much bigger than those
and laddered with the right
codes for human engagement,
though some links are missing.

We search for simple life
elsewhere, yet we cannot
coexist among ourselves
without destroying everything
we have.

Author’s Note: Inspired by the June 27, 2018 breaking news, “Complex Organic Molecules Discovered on Enceladus For The First Time: It has everything needed to host alien life!” by Michelle Starr. The original work is cited in Nature, “Macromolecular organic compounds from the depths of Enceladus,” volume 558, pages 564–568 (2018).

John C. Mannone has poems in Artemis Journal, Poetry South, Blue Fifth Review, Peacock Journal, Baltimore Review, Pedestal, New England Journal of Medicine, Intima, Annals of Internal Medicine and others. He’s a Jean Ritchie Fellowship winner in Appalachian literature (2017) and served as Celebrity Judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). He has three poetry collections and has been nominated for Pushcart, Rhysling, Dwarf Stars and Best of the Net awards. He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex, Silver Blade, and Liquid Imagination. He’s a professor of physics near Knoxville, TN. Follow him on Facebook and at The Art of Poetry.

Observation After Watching a National Geographic Documentary

By Joanne Sharp

Some monkeys have learned
that a rock can break open
a nut.

Other monkeys are learning
that a nut can break open
their world.

Joanne Sharp, Southern California native, graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in Art. Lifelong interests in arts practice, music, and literature led to her to poetry writing late in life. She has been published in the San Diego Poetry Annual and California Quarterly. Joanne and her family live in Del Mar. This poem appeared in Joanne’s self-published book Big World Little World.

Photo by Quinten de Graaf on Unsplash.

He Went to the City of Bridges

By Jack Ridl

For all the victims of the Tree of Life Synagogue killings

He went to the city of bridges.
He stood in front of the synagogue,
dared shake the hand of the Rabbi. He

said what his daughter and son-in-law
told him to say. He went to the city
of bridges. He went to the city

of neighborhoods. He did not climb
the stairs of the Cathedral of Learning.
He did not look in the eyes of those sitting shiva.

He said he never saw anyone standing in lines
with their signs: “YOU are not welcome here”
in the city of bridges. He went to the city

of bridges to meet the Carnegies, to see where
the steel barons sat, hundreds now standing
at the church where Fred Rogers had knelt.

He stopped by on his way to his rally.
There was also a rally in the city of bridges,
a rally for HIAS, for peace, health, and love.

He went to the city of bridges built
by the iches, the icis, the ids, and the O’s.
And I’m pretty damn sure that he crossed

the irregular streets where my immigrant
Bohemian hunky great-grandfather drove
the horses that pulled a wagon with barrels

of beer in the city where his hunky son, only
sixteen, said he was 20 and for 49 years
day after day stood on the monotonous line

doing the irrelevant, replaceable job.
At the end of that line was what lined
the twill pockets of those at their desks

He stood there day after day so his family
could eat, own a car, house, and radio. I, born
a hunky, could now be an illegal immigrant kid.

He went to the city of bridges. Then on
to his welcoming “base” to proclaim
he was loved. Loved . . . Not by the dead,

not by the trodden, the poor, the betrayed.
Unforgivable for the sorrow-filled veils.
Not loved at the border where the hope-draped

will hand over their photos, their wallets,
their backpacks, toothpaste, and children.
The crowd at the rally, that base congregation,

will roar yet again, “Lock her up!” They
will cheer at the blasphemy “Great.” They
will hate. And somewhere someone’s making

a plan and a bomb, plotting a shooting,
shrieking on Gab while the bereaved sit
in shiva, while we wonder where next.

He went to the city of bridges.

Jack Ridl’s Practicing to Walk Like a Heron (Wayne State University Press) received the ForeWords Review Gold Medal for the finest collection of poems published by a university or small press. Broken Symmetry (WSU Press) was named the year’s best book of poetry by The Society of Midland Authors. Losing Season (CavanKerry Press) was recognized by the Institute for International Sport as the year’s best sports-related book. Poet Laureate at the time, Billy Collins, selected Ridl’s Against Elegies for the chapbook award from The NYC Center for Book Arts. Ridl is co-author with Peter Schakel of Approaching Literature (Bedford/St. Martin’s). His Saint Peter and the Goldfinch was published in April, again by WSU Press. Ridl served as Honorary Chancellor of the Poetry Society of Michigan, and the Carnegie Foundation (CASE) named him Michigan’s Professor of the Year. Ridl responded to the 2016 Presidential Election by launching “In Time Project,” sharing poetry and commentary with subscribers from every continent. For more information, visit Jack’s website at www.ridl.com.

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash.

When Women Drink We Love

By Julia Tagliere

Why is it that when women drink we love
We melt at your gentle insistence
and praise your strong hands
We shed our full-body armor
and open our honeyed limbs
We forget
When women drink we love
We do not, generally, shove bottles into your rectums
or try to force your flaccid penises inside of us
as you lie on the asphalt beside a dumpster
When we drink
we do not, normally, bloody your boxer briefs
or spray our sticky souvenirs into your hair
as your mouths scream against our hands
When we drink
we do not, usually, invite friends to watch, join in, and Snap
or laugh while our bladders empty onto your faces
as you curl into the tiniest balls of garbage human beings can become
When women drink we love
When women drink we forget
And how that forgotten fear fails us
when your insistence becomes force
when your hands become fists
when your love becomes hate
When women drink, we love
and are somehow condemned
When you drink, you hate
and are somehow pardoned
Why is that
Why is that

Julia Tagliere’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Writer, The Bookends Review, Potomac Review, Gargoyle Magazine, Washington Independent Review of Books, SmokeLong Quarterly, various anthologies, and the juried photography and prose collection, Love + Lust. Winner of the 2015 William Faulkner Literary Competition for Best Short Story and the 2017 Writers Center Undiscovered Voices Fellowship, Julia recently completed her M.A. in Writing at Johns Hopkins University. She serves as an editor with The Baltimore Review and is currently working on her next novel, The Day the Music Didn’t Die. Follow her at justscribbling.com.

Photo by Kevin Butz on Unsplash.

with risk to inhabit that whole

By Grover Wehman-Brown

when asked to bring
my ancestors into the room
alongside those they would
want to harm the answer
is surely no. and i must.

over the years my attempts to bring
an orb of collectivity glowing into the rubble,
or a lantern to the wounded cave
has been met with dank pessimism.

turning “i will give up no one” into
i will not give up myself
is a slippery kind of magic
that lends itself to selfishness
and also to liberation.

the collective accounting of rape
has risen through inferno this week.
we each pitch in a stick, a log to the pile.
our molten bodies are turned
to each other now
versed in cautious solidarity.

last night the back of my body
grew dragon wings that were made
from the fire of ancestors screaming
from beyond and within two thousand years
of coercive christianity. of bodies picked apart.
the women of my people are terrified. the women
of my people scream through me and I am the
most recent one to catch fire.

at first afraid, i gathered Leslie Feinberg’s shadow into me.
a butch working with the goddess
asked me to step back into the unknown.
dry heaving next to a toilet in manhattan. a profoundly
stone. butch. blues.
what is it
about grief that makes us brave Leslie?

the risk of accounting for ancestral harm.
ancestral trauma. ancestral ambivalence.
a full body incineration. a legacy
to inhabit that whole.

Grover Wehman-Brown is a transmasculine butch poet and essayist. This poem is part of a larger collection of work engaging lesbian, queer, and transgender ancestry via the work of foundational lesbian-feminist essays. You can find Grover on twitter @gwehmanbrown and learn more at this website.

Poet’s note: This title (and poem) is derived from words within a passage by Dorothy Allison: “I am certain that none of us wants to live with the fear, the sense of loss, betrayal, and risk that I worry at all the time. I know that many of us want what Barbara Smith described in her short story—the ability to love without fear of betrayal, the confidence that we can expose our most hidden selves and not have the women we love literally disappear from our lives. I know, too, that we cannot inhabit that safe ground easily. If we are not to sacrifice some part of ourselves or our community, we will have to go through that grief, the fear of exposure, and struggle, with only a thin layer of trust that we will emerge whole and unbroken. I know of no other way to do this than to start by saying, I will give up nothing. I will give up no one.”

“Public Silence, Private Terror.” Skin: Talking about Sex, Class & Literature. Firebrand, Ithica. p. 119

Photo by Jonathan Bean on Unsplash.

This poem was first published at Medium.

One Nation, Indivisible

By Laura Grace Weldon

Our daily walk is a simple
necessary practice,
especially now
when each day’s news
spirals us into tighter circles.
Beyond birdsong and breezes we hear
jeering laughter, see teens
jumping on an elderly neighbor’s hay bales,
hooting as their weight breaks
his farm’s winter food into uselessness.
They grew up on this street.
They’ve seen the old man walk the pasture
handpicking weeds wrong for cows
before letting his 30 or so Jerseys,
Guernseys, and Holsteins out to graze.
Seen his falling down house, his rotting fenceposts,
his shoulders bent like a question mark
curving ever closer to the ground.
My husband calls to them,
his voice lost to the wind,
advances toward them, calls again.
Only when he holds up his phone,
yells “dialing the sheriff”
do they angrily leave,
first dumping cans of Coke
on a bale still standing.
All the way home my eyes water in the wind,
streaming as if scratched
by hayseed tossed in the air.
So much already crumbling into chaff.

Laura Grace Weldon is the author of the poetry collections Blackbird and Tending as well as a handbook of alternative education titled Free Range Learning. She works as an editor and leads workshops on memoir, poetry, and creative thinking. Her poetry appears in Verse Daily, J Journal, One: Jacar Press, Neurology, Penman Review, Mom Egg Review, and others. She lives on a small farm in a conservative community, but has strange sculptures in her gardens and peace flags on her porch.

Photo by Art Wave on Unsplash.

Metamorphosis Points

By Yuan Changming

I would paint my skin

Into a colorless color, & I would dye my hair

Wear two blue contacts, & I would even

Go for plastic surgery, but if I really do

I assure you, I will not remove my native village

Accent while speaking this foreign tongue (I began

To imitate like a frog at age nineteen); nor will I

Completely internalize the English syntax &

Aristotelian logic. No, I assure you that I’ll not give up

Watching movies or TV series, reading books

Listening to songs, each in Chinese though I hate them

For being too low & vulgar. I was born to eat dumplings

Doufu, & thus fated to always prefer to speak Mandarin

Though I write in English. I assure you that even if I am

Newly baptized in the currents of science, democracy &

Human rights, I will keep in line with my father’s

Haplogroup just as my sons do. No matter how

We identify ourselves or are identified by others, this is

What I assure you: I will never convert my proto selfhood

Into white Dataism, no, not

In the yellowish muscle of my heart

Yuan Changming published monographs on translation before leaving China. Currently, Yuan lives in Vancouver, where he edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan. Credits include ten Pushcart nominations, the 2018 Naji Naaman’s Literary Prize, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline and 1,489 others worldwide.

Photo by Rishi Deep on Unsplash.