.
.
Martin Galvin
Yaminah Abdur-Rahim
Vivek Sharma
Bill Sullivan
Martin Galvin
.
.
A Logic for Bonuses
We want our half. It’s not debatable.
If we don’t get what’s coming, here’s your plight:
We’ll sing out loud and that would be regrettable.
The bonuses will seem quite reasonable
To some but not to you - who are so tight.
We must have half. It’s not debatable.
We think our songs are quite forgettable
and we can’t read the music in this light
But we will sing and that would be regrettable.
We don’t pretend that what we sing is valuable
We’re way off key. We know it stinks. No doubt.
Still, we’ll have our half. It’s not debatable.
A frog in a bog is flatly more amenable
To harmony, more apt to hit a note that’s right.
Yes, when we sing it is regrettable.
We know our voices are lamentable.
No dancing to our tunes, nothing lyrical and light.
We need our half. It’s not debatable
Or else we’ll sing out loud: Regrettable.
bio:
Since 1996, I have published over 170 more poems in a wide variety of journals and magazines, including Poetry, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, Commonweal, Midwest Quarterly, Alimentum, OntheBus, Image, and Poetry East, and in a number of anthologies including Best American Poetry 1997 and Poets Against The War edited by Sam Hamill. In 2007, I was awarded a month-long residency at Yaddo.
(author retains copyright)
Return
.
A Logic for Bonuses
We want our half. It’s not debatable.
If we don’t get what’s coming, here’s your plight:
We’ll sing out loud and that would be regrettable.
The bonuses will seem quite reasonable
To some but not to you - who are so tight.
We must have half. It’s not debatable.
We think our songs are quite forgettable
and we can’t read the music in this light
But we will sing and that would be regrettable.
We don’t pretend that what we sing is valuable
We’re way off key. We know it stinks. No doubt.
Still, we’ll have our half. It’s not debatable.
A frog in a bog is flatly more amenable
To harmony, more apt to hit a note that’s right.
Yes, when we sing it is regrettable.
We know our voices are lamentable.
No dancing to our tunes, nothing lyrical and light.
We need our half. It’s not debatable
Or else we’ll sing out loud: Regrettable.
bio:
Since 1996, I have published over 170 more poems in a wide variety of journals and magazines, including Poetry, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, Commonweal, Midwest Quarterly, Alimentum, OntheBus, Image, and Poetry East, and in a number of anthologies including Best American Poetry 1997 and Poets Against The War edited by Sam Hamill. In 2007, I was awarded a month-long residency at Yaddo.
(author retains copyright)
Return
Yaminah Abdur-Rahim
.
.
Child's Play
When I think of this Earth,
The sky becomes more important
The people less so.
We are armies of dust—
Falling away without whim
and raw as the planet itself
alone and cold in space.
There are mountains—
They are larger than ourselves.
We lament our ideas in comparison
When there is sun,
We forget.
Forging names and clans in
Armor of the children.
bio:
Yaminah is an amateur hip hop head from Oakland, CA. She likes capitalism like she likes malaria.
(author retains copyright)
Return
.
Child's Play
When I think of this Earth,
The sky becomes more important
The people less so.
We are armies of dust—
Falling away without whim
and raw as the planet itself
alone and cold in space.
There are mountains—
They are larger than ourselves.
We lament our ideas in comparison
When there is sun,
We forget.
Forging names and clans in
Armor of the children.
bio:
Yaminah is an amateur hip hop head from Oakland, CA. She likes capitalism like she likes malaria.
(author retains copyright)
Return
Vivek Sharma
.
.
America as disputed territory
It is not politically correct to say it, but
foreigners see in the future a possibility
of America becoming a disputed territory.
Imagine those Indians, dead for centuries
rebirthing armed and angry
demanding their original property
and at gunpoint, asking for compensation
for their generations of depravity.
You might dismiss their fears
under charges of improbability
but they see in future the possibility
of America as a disputed territory.
Imagine the slaves, lynched to their graves,
returning able bodies, seeking a revolution,
rights listed in the constitution -
equality, liberty and retributions
to their lack of real opportunity.
You might think that racism is past
does not exist in your country
but when they see your reality
they, unbiased by propaganda machinery,
can smell in the future a possibility
of America becoming a disputed country.
What if millions in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Palestine and South American hinterlands,
announce their own demands
decide to arrive as refugees
to their much hated country.
Immigration laws are defenseless
against swarms of locusts
arriving unexpected, unannounced
to feed on the harvest of others
without pang or guilt or sympathy
they believe you've caused them to suffer terribly
they could haunt you, or at least explore the possibility
of converting America into a disputed territory.
When oil will run out and dollar decay
owing to a stronger world economy,
when Saudi lenders will pinch you harder
for every Japanese byte of luxury,
when inflated GPAs will crash
under the feet of third world intellect,
when your cars, your weapons, your movies,
a reformed world will start to reject,
when Mexicans will refuse to bow down,
work for less for Americans,
when African dictators will be executed
and new democracies rouse new developments,
when China's industry, India's IT, Russian exports
will foster new fraternities, new Europes,
and even friendly nations will demand spoils
ask for return of imperialistic colonies
if Jewish, Christian and Muslim zealots
chose this nation as center of conflict
and if in embattled economy
the victorious President turns socialist
you will find yourself in strange calamity
your lifestyle, as you know it, will cease to be,
and even though this all seems unlikely,
and it may turn out to be all fallacy,
foreigners words as one poet's fancy
or maybe they are just rephrasing
the recurrent lessons from human history -
the power center shifts recurrently.
It is not politically correct to state it,
but we foreigners hear the alarm bells,
and fear the possibility
of America becoming a war worn territory.
bio:
Vivek Sharma holds a doctorate in engineering and is a Pushcart nominated poet. His work is published or forthcoming in Poetry, Kartika Review, The Cortland Review, Bateau, Atlanta Review, etc. He writes columns and verses for Divya Himachal (a Hindi newspaper in India) and his research is published in science journals. Vivek grew up in Himachal Pradesh, a state in the Himalayas, India. He is currently a post-doctoral research associate at MIT. Vivek's first book of verse "The Saga of a Crumpled Piece of Paper" will be published by Writers Workshop, Calcutta in 2009.
(author retains copyright)
Return
.
America as disputed territory
It is not politically correct to say it, but
foreigners see in the future a possibility
of America becoming a disputed territory.
Imagine those Indians, dead for centuries
rebirthing armed and angry
demanding their original property
and at gunpoint, asking for compensation
for their generations of depravity.
You might dismiss their fears
under charges of improbability
but they see in future the possibility
of America as a disputed territory.
Imagine the slaves, lynched to their graves,
returning able bodies, seeking a revolution,
rights listed in the constitution -
equality, liberty and retributions
to their lack of real opportunity.
You might think that racism is past
does not exist in your country
but when they see your reality
they, unbiased by propaganda machinery,
can smell in the future a possibility
of America becoming a disputed country.
What if millions in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Palestine and South American hinterlands,
announce their own demands
decide to arrive as refugees
to their much hated country.
Immigration laws are defenseless
against swarms of locusts
arriving unexpected, unannounced
to feed on the harvest of others
without pang or guilt or sympathy
they believe you've caused them to suffer terribly
they could haunt you, or at least explore the possibility
of converting America into a disputed territory.
When oil will run out and dollar decay
owing to a stronger world economy,
when Saudi lenders will pinch you harder
for every Japanese byte of luxury,
when inflated GPAs will crash
under the feet of third world intellect,
when your cars, your weapons, your movies,
a reformed world will start to reject,
when Mexicans will refuse to bow down,
work for less for Americans,
when African dictators will be executed
and new democracies rouse new developments,
when China's industry, India's IT, Russian exports
will foster new fraternities, new Europes,
and even friendly nations will demand spoils
ask for return of imperialistic colonies
if Jewish, Christian and Muslim zealots
chose this nation as center of conflict
and if in embattled economy
the victorious President turns socialist
you will find yourself in strange calamity
your lifestyle, as you know it, will cease to be,
and even though this all seems unlikely,
and it may turn out to be all fallacy,
foreigners words as one poet's fancy
or maybe they are just rephrasing
the recurrent lessons from human history -
the power center shifts recurrently.
It is not politically correct to state it,
but we foreigners hear the alarm bells,
and fear the possibility
of America becoming a war worn territory.
bio:
Vivek Sharma holds a doctorate in engineering and is a Pushcart nominated poet. His work is published or forthcoming in Poetry, Kartika Review, The Cortland Review, Bateau, Atlanta Review, etc. He writes columns and verses for Divya Himachal (a Hindi newspaper in India) and his research is published in science journals. Vivek grew up in Himachal Pradesh, a state in the Himalayas, India. He is currently a post-doctoral research associate at MIT. Vivek's first book of verse "The Saga of a Crumpled Piece of Paper" will be published by Writers Workshop, Calcutta in 2009.
(author retains copyright)
Return
Bill Sullivan
.
.
Go, sad letter
Go, sad letter.
Let the world know that once I
laughed and played in the Thai
fields and shyly eyed my first
love, Yuan, on my thirteenth birthday.
By the times the rains had ceased
and the rice had been harvested,
we had shared stories, sang songs,
and dreamt of the cloudless days ahead.
Let them know that the sun disappeared
when the Bangkok broker came to appraise
the young girls of my village. I rue
the day he cast his greedy eyes on me.
To my penniless father he offered a way
to pay his bills; to me a new life in the city
where I would find a rewarding career.
Let your readers know I was not deceived.
When my father counted the broker’s loan,
and I heard the agent say my work would pay
off the debt, my heart splintered and a woeful wind
swept the pieces away. When I left with the broker,
I could not look at my father for one reason.
And I could not look at Yuan for another.
Sad letter, let all the too young- to- be women
In Thailand, Cambodia, the Ukraine, Turkey
Hungary, Columbia and America know
that there is no glamorous city awaiting them.
Explain that only pain, abuse and imprisonment
reside there. Tell them that in this and other
carnal houses we are forged and hammered
into sex slaves, sex machines, forced day and night
to pollute our bodies, to hollow out our souls,
until we are of no worth to anyone
-not our parents, not our suitors, not the villagers,
not the urban dwellers. All will turn their heads;
all will say we are unclean, unredeemed, unwanted.
But before you close, become an angry letter.
Scald with boiling words the shameless men
who come sneaking through these doors
doing to us what they would not do to their
daughters or sisters. Out the corrupt authorities
who close their eyes as they collect their bribes.
As for the perpetrators, demand that they be paraded
through the streets and then sentenced to wander
under the distant desert’s blistering sun where
they can begin their life-long penance.
When you do this, I shall sign my name.
bio:
Bill Sullivan is professor emeritus, Keene State College, Keene, NH. He currently has a poem posted on Babelfruit and just received an artistic merit award from The Writer's Circle's national poetry competition for his poem, "Voiceless."
(author retains copyright)
Return
.
Go, sad letter
Go, sad letter.
Let the world know that once I
laughed and played in the Thai
fields and shyly eyed my first
love, Yuan, on my thirteenth birthday.
By the times the rains had ceased
and the rice had been harvested,
we had shared stories, sang songs,
and dreamt of the cloudless days ahead.
Let them know that the sun disappeared
when the Bangkok broker came to appraise
the young girls of my village. I rue
the day he cast his greedy eyes on me.
To my penniless father he offered a way
to pay his bills; to me a new life in the city
where I would find a rewarding career.
Let your readers know I was not deceived.
When my father counted the broker’s loan,
and I heard the agent say my work would pay
off the debt, my heart splintered and a woeful wind
swept the pieces away. When I left with the broker,
I could not look at my father for one reason.
And I could not look at Yuan for another.
Sad letter, let all the too young- to- be women
In Thailand, Cambodia, the Ukraine, Turkey
Hungary, Columbia and America know
that there is no glamorous city awaiting them.
Explain that only pain, abuse and imprisonment
reside there. Tell them that in this and other
carnal houses we are forged and hammered
into sex slaves, sex machines, forced day and night
to pollute our bodies, to hollow out our souls,
until we are of no worth to anyone
-not our parents, not our suitors, not the villagers,
not the urban dwellers. All will turn their heads;
all will say we are unclean, unredeemed, unwanted.
But before you close, become an angry letter.
Scald with boiling words the shameless men
who come sneaking through these doors
doing to us what they would not do to their
daughters or sisters. Out the corrupt authorities
who close their eyes as they collect their bribes.
As for the perpetrators, demand that they be paraded
through the streets and then sentenced to wander
under the distant desert’s blistering sun where
they can begin their life-long penance.
When you do this, I shall sign my name.
bio:
Bill Sullivan is professor emeritus, Keene State College, Keene, NH. He currently has a poem posted on Babelfruit and just received an artistic merit award from The Writer's Circle's national poetry competition for his poem, "Voiceless."
(author retains copyright)
Return
James Daniel Palumbo
.
.
All In The Delivery
.............A man walks into a bakery
.............the baker, a young couple picking out a cake,
.............some old people drinking coffee, and the baker’s son
.............all turn to see his face, and shake their heads
.............as he mumbles a quick something under his breath
..........................—wait, have you heard this before?
.............Okay…
.............When the smoke settles, there is nothing left
.............of the man, or the baker, or the old people
.............and their coffee, and the baker’s son stumbles
.............outside in a daze, through what he only hopes
.............is syrup and pieces of pastry
Bio:
I'm a musician, screenwriter, and a graduate of the University of North Carolina Wilmington writing program, now living in Wilmington.
(author retains copyright)
Return
.
All In The Delivery
.............A man walks into a bakery
.............the baker, a young couple picking out a cake,
.............some old people drinking coffee, and the baker’s son
.............all turn to see his face, and shake their heads
.............as he mumbles a quick something under his breath
..........................—wait, have you heard this before?
.............Okay…
.............When the smoke settles, there is nothing left
.............of the man, or the baker, or the old people
.............and their coffee, and the baker’s son stumbles
.............outside in a daze, through what he only hopes
.............is syrup and pieces of pastry
Bio:
I'm a musician, screenwriter, and a graduate of the University of North Carolina Wilmington writing program, now living in Wilmington.
(author retains copyright)
Return
Peter Murphy
.
.
If This Be Treason
...............The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire
...............is incoming friendly fire.
Property is theft, laments the man who never was
because he owns none, wondering how
the huge oceanfront homes occupy themselves
when they are not sheltering their families from taxes.
Capitalism is not love, his mother taught him
before breaking up. An ounce of image is worth
a pound of incompetence in any economy,
her own life sprouted from a bottle of gin.
I’ve been bamboozled, complains the iron curtain.
Give me back my wall and my economy
and my resources and my gray, gray shelf lives
and my health care and my parades and my Leningrad.
I want my Leningrad!
Give me my masses whose hope turned their hoes
to soil up an empire which could feed itself and march
and keep on marching and feeding and making.
...............Man exploits man, each according to his ability.
...............Company announces chair leaving.
...............Miners refuse to work after death.
Make me a tomb, Goodyear orders
the man who never was, who hoists a brown bag
over his shoulder, the storefront advertising
We Delivery! on its paned glass.
Bio:
Peter E. Murphy is the author of Stubborn Child (2005), a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize, and a chapbook, Thorough & Efficient (2008) both from Jane Street Press. He lives in southern New Jersey where he teaches at Richard Stockton College and directs the annual Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway in Cape May and other programs for writers and teachers. He received a 2009 Poetry Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
(author retains copyright)
Return
.
If This Be Treason
...............The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire
...............is incoming friendly fire.
Property is theft, laments the man who never was
because he owns none, wondering how
the huge oceanfront homes occupy themselves
when they are not sheltering their families from taxes.
Capitalism is not love, his mother taught him
before breaking up. An ounce of image is worth
a pound of incompetence in any economy,
her own life sprouted from a bottle of gin.
I’ve been bamboozled, complains the iron curtain.
Give me back my wall and my economy
and my resources and my gray, gray shelf lives
and my health care and my parades and my Leningrad.
I want my Leningrad!
Give me my masses whose hope turned their hoes
to soil up an empire which could feed itself and march
and keep on marching and feeding and making.
...............Man exploits man, each according to his ability.
...............Company announces chair leaving.
...............Miners refuse to work after death.
Make me a tomb, Goodyear orders
the man who never was, who hoists a brown bag
over his shoulder, the storefront advertising
We Delivery! on its paned glass.
Bio:
Peter E. Murphy is the author of Stubborn Child (2005), a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize, and a chapbook, Thorough & Efficient (2008) both from Jane Street Press. He lives in southern New Jersey where he teaches at Richard Stockton College and directs the annual Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway in Cape May and other programs for writers and teachers. He received a 2009 Poetry Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
(author retains copyright)
Return
Sara DiMaggio
.
.
Catalogue (attempting elegy)
..................................................................................................My fellow citizens,
The foot is the shoe is the mouth is the hand no
is the toe. We cover the unseen, the unseeable.
Placed in the ground now everywhere
..................................................................................................at this hour,
a finger touches a new body grows.
Pieces must be buried so that a village may grow.
I have been told. I cut off
..................................................................................................American and coalition forces
what I do not need, plant it in the ground.
This is how to save a life, I explain, gesturing
to my removed parts. In the spring yellow ribbons
..................................................................................................are in the early stages
fall from our hair, tie new leaves to the trees.
If strings were released the structure would fall.
The structure, the sky. I water my limbs
..................................................................................................of military operations
but nothing grows. Hush, I say.
Lay against the time.
The border is a problem and so
..................................................................................................to disarm Iraq
we throw bodies at the skin part by part.
To show our devotion we build
a river of snow no a river of feet
..................................................................................................to free its people
no more a river of hands a river of teeth.
Each tooth is an eagle each tooth is a fish.
Swim up stream around streams. One tooth falls
..................................................................................................and to defend
from the river and continues to grow.
We cut a door inside it, live
in this enameled cave. We fit inside the way
..................................................................................................the world from
a tooth fits in a mouth. No.
The way a mouth fits in a fire. Against,
and because of
..................................................................................................grave danger.
Bio:
Sara DiMaggio currently resides in the Bronx, where she is a
teacher of middle school writing. She holds an MFA in poetry from the
University of Michigan, where she received the 2008 Moveen Fellowship.
(author retains copyright)
Return
.
Catalogue (attempting elegy)
..................................................................................................My fellow citizens,
The foot is the shoe is the mouth is the hand no
is the toe. We cover the unseen, the unseeable.
Placed in the ground now everywhere
..................................................................................................at this hour,
a finger touches a new body grows.
Pieces must be buried so that a village may grow.
I have been told. I cut off
..................................................................................................American and coalition forces
what I do not need, plant it in the ground.
This is how to save a life, I explain, gesturing
to my removed parts. In the spring yellow ribbons
..................................................................................................are in the early stages
fall from our hair, tie new leaves to the trees.
If strings were released the structure would fall.
The structure, the sky. I water my limbs
..................................................................................................of military operations
but nothing grows. Hush, I say.
Lay against the time.
The border is a problem and so
..................................................................................................to disarm Iraq
we throw bodies at the skin part by part.
To show our devotion we build
a river of snow no a river of feet
..................................................................................................to free its people
no more a river of hands a river of teeth.
Each tooth is an eagle each tooth is a fish.
Swim up stream around streams. One tooth falls
..................................................................................................and to defend
from the river and continues to grow.
We cut a door inside it, live
in this enameled cave. We fit inside the way
..................................................................................................the world from
a tooth fits in a mouth. No.
The way a mouth fits in a fire. Against,
and because of
..................................................................................................grave danger.
Bio:
Sara DiMaggio currently resides in the Bronx, where she is a
teacher of middle school writing. She holds an MFA in poetry from the
University of Michigan, where she received the 2008 Moveen Fellowship.
(author retains copyright)
Return
Katrina Hays
.
.
Fling the World Upright
...............Shari'ah, or sacred law, is the combined set of
...............individual and social duties prescribed by the Islamic faith.
Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was
visiting her grandmother when the world
capsized. God – why do you allow the hawser
of sanity to yellow and snap, hurling
us into sin? She was thirteen; a child.
A brave one, to report the grim act done
to her by craven men. But in the eyes
of Shari’ah—her adultery. Stoned
to death, Aisha (whose name sounds like wind
rushing across sand) died in Somalia:
victim of lust and law. And here, within
my grief such vengeance writhes. I am appalled
that I would pluck those men from my right eye.
Their offense against us all— Misery.
...............Shari'ah, or sacred law, is the combined set of
...............individual and social duties prescribed by the Islamic faith.
Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was
visiting her grandmother when the world
capsized. God – why do you allow the hawser
of sanity to yellow and snap, hurling
us into sin? She was thirteen; a child.
A brave one, to report the grim act done
to her by craven men. But in the eyes
of Shari’ah—her adultery. Stoned
to death, Aisha (whose name sounds like wind
rushing across sand) died in Somalia:
victim of lust and law. And here, within
my grief such vengeance writhes. I am appalled
that I would pluck those men from my right eye.
Their offense against us all— Misery.
Bio:
Katrina Hays is a writer who lives in Bend, Oregon. She is a student in the Rainier Writing Workshop, the MFA in Creative Writing program at Pacific Lutheran University.
(author retains copyright)
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