12 December 2009

Peggy Barnett

M. L. Emmett

Sarah Frost

Ruth Goring

Carolyn Moretti

Peggy Barnett

.
.

Where Are You


Where are you when the deep hole
in the long vertical silver stripes is black
and smoking,
and burning,
and oh my God
there is another black hole
smoking and burning.
Where are you when the people,
little black spider arms and legs,
raisins thrown from a window
falling so slowly,
oh so slowly down,
down, down.
Everything down
down,
down.
As falling slivers of steel,
turning,
glinted like mirrors
reflecting the sun,
moving jewels in the blue sky,
the awesome beauty
of a kenetic sculpture
I thought
as I look up and then down,
standing there unmoving
amongst the other shadows
in the low yellow morning sun
on Fifth Ave..
Standing there unmoving
cars stopped with doors open,
radios on three different stations
telling us what we’re looking at
that morning.
Where are you when the first silver tower turns to dust
and falls,
down,
a cloud crumbling swiftly to earth
to not exist anymore.
Where are you when the tall slim white antenna piercing the
oh so blue sky
sways first to the left,
then to the right,
(just as your opinions appear left
then sway to the right)
then the antenna swaying to the left,
oh no its not possible,
then it riding down the center
piercing the heart of the second dust cloud
as it descends down,
down
to the ground and disappears.
Three thousand lives
gone
where they were there before.
Suddenly the blue sky
is there,
where it was not before.

Where are you when
the missiles fall down on the children night and day,
day and night,
a rain of hatred
that never stopps.
Could you have withstood it?
You who sit in your living room
night and day,
day and night,
in the cool mist of evergreen
deciding who is right and wrong
with only propaganda to guide you.
Where are you when buying a loaf of bread
is a political statement
with hatred in the eyes of the baker
as images of Gaza flash on Al Jazeera
from the TV on the counter.
I buy three eggs and scurry away
past the police guarding the Damascus Gate.
The mussein wakes me every morning
calling me to prayer.
Where are you when
you just can’t stand it anymore
just can’t stand it anymore
and you lose it.
you LOSE it
because you’re human,
and you love your children
just as they do.
And you lose your children
just as they do.
And now you both stand childless.

Who are you that you assign blame
to one side or the other?
There is no one side.
There is no side.
No side.
Only death that threatens all sides.
And where are you when death threatens all?
Just
thousands and thousands of miles away
expressing opinions.


(author retains copyright)



M. L. Emmett

.
.

THE MATHEMATICS OF POVERTY


The poor keep moving
as if relocation
could reframe the algebra.

They cannot see that repetition
traces patterns
in their life.

New beginnings become as hopeless
as stale finales
of debt and desperation.

Wishful thinking makes for certainties
gambling against the odds
of possibilities.

Whispered prayers and incantations
leaves no space
for reason’s compass to steady and settle.

If they stood still and mapped the moment
both sides of the equation
would simplify

and they might construct
a new geometry
of anger.


Bio:
Maggie Emmett is the current Convenor of Friendly Street Poets, the longest running poetry reading group in the southern hemisphere. There are in their 35th year of operation in Adelaide South Australia. Maggie is from Reading in Berkshire but now lives in Norwood SA. She has worked as a Registered Nurse for 15years mainly in ICU, Retrieval & Casualty services. Also, she has worked in India & Africa. Her second working life was in English & Media Studies, as a graduate, post grad & academic. Now she is an editor with Activator Communications. She has two daughters, three grandchildren and is a poodle tragic. Her main ambition is to protest against injustice, cruelty, poverty until she dies and to daily increase the empathy quotient in the world. Her personal dream is to become the official Poet Laureate of Norwood.



(author retains copyright)



Sarah Frost

.
.

Mumbai


Grief ...
the bereaved
screams from the newspaper.

Two years old,
eyes shut,
he clutches a ball,
the neck of his carer.

His tender mouth
inconsolable,
stretched across his face
like a wound.

Mother shot, father shot,
saved by a nanny,
but seared, a poem of loss
blaring across his face.


Bio:
Sarah Frost is 36 years old and a single mother to a five year old boy. She works as an editor for Juta Legalbrief in Durban, South Africa. She has been writing poetry for the past fourteen years. She has completed an MA in English Literature, and also a module on Creative Writing, through UKZN.



(author retains copyright)



Ruth Goring

.
.

Under


I return to passion fruit, to patios,
bees hovering in geraniums,
muted voices, small girls tossing silky hair
over their shoulders like wind bending grasses.
To clouds, swimming strokes, water
pouring itself, pouring.

I write about death
and pull back: how to approach it
without saying dead, blood, body
or murderous intent, without saying Colombia,
paramilitary or gun. Only the sweat
on people’s lips, the bus’s lumbering trajectory,
the bags of beans and corn, the sleeping child,
the checkpoint, selection of passengers,
chainsaw’s sharp-toothed snarl.

The river passes, keeps passing, folding itself
around this bend, accepts and folds in
two long bags weighted with stones.
They slide to its muddy depths, the river
rises imperceptibly, returns to its pastime
of folding to catch sun fragments by the thousands:
Catch. Mirror. Flash. Fold.


Bio:
Ruth Goring grew up in Colombia, and many of her recent poems are set amid that country's decades-long civil war. She codirects Across the Americas (www.acrosstheamericas.org), which advocates for peace and just economic relations between North and South. Ruth's collection Yellow Doors was published in 2004 by WordFarm; her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in Conte, The Externalist, Avocet, Dos Passos Review, Raving Dove, Off the Coast, Chicago Quarterly Review, Out of Line, the Goodreads newsletter, and other journals. She lives in Chicago, and her bread-and-butter work is editing books at a university press.




(author retains copyright)



Carolyn Moretti

.
.

Outcry


How lucky America is
to speak English—
a language with no gender—

otherwise we couldn’t
use the word 'marriage'
to describe the union
of two same-gendered words

like God and government.


Bio:
Carolyn Moretti received her B.A. in English from Hofstra University in December 2009. She has recently completed her first poetry chapbook and looks forward to working on her second. Carolyn was published in Newsday's 'Fresh Voices' section in July 2001 and won the Nassau County Young Authors Competition in 2004.



(author retains copyright)



28 November 2009

Ann Hostetler

Mark A. Murphy

Diana Woodcock

Ann Hostetler

.
.

Martyr

In memory of Marwa El-Sherbini, d. 1 July 2009 in Dresden, Germany


It all began on the playground.
Her three-year-old son tugged at her skirts.
A grown man sat on the swing.
Please allow my son to use the swing, she said.
“Go back where you came from,” he shouted.
“Terrorist. Whore. You’ve no right to be here.”

She’d been a handball champion
in Alexandria, earned a degree in Pharmacy,
married a Geneticist, who came to Dresden
to work in the Max Planck Institute.
How dare he speak to her like that in front of her son?
To him she was just a woman in a headscarf. Noxious Muslim.
She called the police. He was arrested and fined.
It should have ended then and there.

But he fought the fine,
compelled her to meet him in the courtroom.
Three months pregnant, she came with husband and son,
all she had. In front of the judge
he shouted: “You have no right to live,”
pulled out a knife, stabbed her eighteen times.
Everyone stood still. Only her husband rushed to her side,
shared the stab wounds, was shot mistakenly by police.

In Egypt where thousands came to her funeral
they call her the headscarf martyr,
but her son still calls her mama
when he looks behind the picture of the smiling woman,
her dark eyes shining with love,
for the one who asked if he could have
a turn on the playground swing.


Bio:
Ann Hostetler is the author of Empty Room with Light, a collection of poems, and editor of A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana. This year she is a Guest Professor at the University of Freiburg in Germany and at the Technical University of Dresden.



(author retains copyright)


Mark A. Murphy

.
.

Night-wanderer’s Plea

for Ernesto Cardenal

Brother, a prayer, if you will,
in the encroaching dark for the lady of the night
who shares my meal of onion and tomatoes
and never finishes it, perhaps out of politeness,
though her stomach has shrunk
to the size of a walnut.
Tell me the right words to say to take away the pain
that demolishes self and leaves only longing?

In what century do we disparage a girl
for being poor while the baron and the banker
dine at the gala luncheon
with the business man and policy maker?
In what century do we praise the millionaire,
whilst the mother in exile,
only moments away begs for pennies
on the subway train with her daughter?

Ernesto, you who have always been of the people,
a kindness for the pole dancer
in your night rosary who lost her only son
and shares my lonely room in times of poverty.
You who have cared for so many,
a hope for the cam-girl who I courted every night
throughout April, seeking not a union of the body,
but a refuge from the weight of compassion.

A blessing, then, for all our sisters,
still innocent but much used,
born to servitude and self-doubt,
forced to endure the endless nights of the flesh
whilst the pimp and the thief make merry.
These are the travesties we live by –
old friend, a plea for all the poor,
before the night swallows us all in darkness.


Bio:
Most recently my poems have been published by Poetry New Zealand, Quarterly Poetry Review Singapore, Apollo's Lyre (Canada), Poetry Scotland, The Warwick Review (UK), Istanbul Literature Review (Turkey), Contemporary Literary Horizons (Romania), The Paris Atlantic Journal (France), The American Dissident (US), The Tampa Review (US), Left Curve (US) and The Stinging Fly (Ireland).
I was born in 1969 and currently live in Huddersfield, England. I studied philosophy (BA) and poetry (MA) at University. I am currently looking for a publisher for my MS, Night-watch Man & Muse.



(author retains copyright)


Diana Woodcock

.
.

AFTER THE BOMBING

After the bombing, the taste of hatred
hung in the air, pain of injury and despair,
doubt and darkness in eyes and everywhere—
sadness reigned. I set about consoling,
tenderly loving the wounded, the next suicide
bomber. I gave, pardoned, died a little more
each day—only by grace feeling the embrace
of the Divine penetrating all time and space.

Earth carried on with its task of annual greening.
Maple Syrup Festival in Vermont. Point of equal
balance light and dark. Rivulets flowing with
melted snow. I wondered where the souls of the
damned go. Morning glories climbing my garden
wall might know. Not me—mere ascetic and seeker
still, waiting for a frog to jump into the old pond.

Slightest breeze pleases me these days—
seeking only simplicity, patience, compassion,
emptiness. Pitied a seagull pushing against
a strong headwind blowing in off the coast this dawn.
Begged my neighbor cementing into place a
chevaux-de-frise around his property wall,
Don’t, please!

For ten days once, I listened only to the teachings of
crickets, dragonflies, flowing water. Left even my
divining bone behind. Mad with love, no one around
to see. Thought of freight yards, boat docks, calls
to prayer and ticking clocks—everyone else going
somewhere. Stayed still all those ten long days—
kept silent save for an evening song. No one else to
touch, I threw my arms around sun and moon till all
too soon time came to climb down the mountain,
take the ferry that fortunately was in no hurry
to get me back on the fast track.

After that—and now this bombing
a reminder—it’s all been clear profit:
every waking moment.


Bio:
Diana Woodcock’s first chapbook, Travels of a Gwai Lo, was published in 2009 by Toadlily Press, which also nominated her for a Pushcart Prize. Forthcoming chapbooks include Mandala (the 14th in Foothills Publishing's Poets on Peace series) and In the Shade of the Sidra Tree (Finishing Line Press). Recipient of the 2007 Creekwalker Poetry Prize, her poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2008 (selected by Mark Strand), Nimrod, Crab Orchard Review, Atlanta Review and other journals and anthologies. Currently teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, she has lived in Tibet, Macau and Thailand.



(author retains copyright)



14 November 2009

Jess Del Balzo

Kristin LaTour

Robert Verdon

Jess Del Balzo

.
.

Who Let You Out of the Womb?

Now, I know what you’re thinking: one in three women—isn’t that a bit redundant? I went to school for writing, shouldn’t I know a cliché when I spit one out? And therein lies the problem: there are too many like me, trying to outrun the shadows crowding close until we realize, one day, that somehow we’re only haunting ourselves here.

No time for “why” and “how,” we’ve learned the oldest, truest arts—honesty and pried-open legs— the proper names for what we can’t say out loud. Before we stood onstage, products of cause-effect collisions on rushing rivers of statistics, we had names once too, you know.

I was not born to be your electric light, your future daughter’s shining example. It’s pretty to think that danger can be labeled clearly and the path away well lit, but really, kid, you’ve got to be kidding me. If you hear “rape” and think “victim,” then that’s your problem.

Seriously, who let you out of the womb? Guys like you are the reason I take birth-control pills with my vitamins: The last thing this world needs is more privileged assholes, more big stupid mouths sprouting opinions on things they’ll never have to worry about.

Telling me you have a bra-burning mother won’t make me hate you any less. The way she may have been too busy throwing symbols into a bonfire to tell you why, we get tired, kid. I worry about how I’d explain these dark circles under the eyes to a daughter, how to tell a son not to draw any for the girls brave enough to let him love them.

Your lineage isn’t a “get out of the doghouse free” card. If you really knew all about that “blah-blah feminist thing” and that rape has been “done before,” you’d know it’s only going to get worse if you’d rather hear a well-rounded three-minute poem called, “How I Got Over It.” You don’t just “bounce back,” turn the other cheek and sew the wound between the legs back together. You put on your boots and you start fucking walking.

Do you know what it is to survive, kid? To get in bed at the end of another long day and sigh with relief that you made it through? Recovery isn’t just something that happens—a neat beginning, middle and end—it’s something you live for the rest of your life.

So maybe you’re a little young to have met too many of us. Why don’t you come see me in a few years, after some pretty thing you love cries through the night in your arms over something you can’t fix. We’ll see how far your blah-blah bullshit gets you then.


Bio:
My work has appeared in various print and online journals, anthologies and other publications, most recently, Damselfly Press, CRIT Journal and DecomP Magazine. A graduate of Emerson College, I was also an active member of the Boston performance poetry scene, appearing in venues in and around the city. I have self-published two chapbooks and released an album of spoken word and music called Lampshade Girls & Other Renegades. I currently live and work in New York City.



(author retains copyright)



Return

Kristin LaTour

.
.

Lecture 12: War Problems

“There is no fixed mathematical calculation for what is or isn’t an acceptable level of civilian casualties” Colonel Jim Hellis, U.S. Army War College.

If we are x, and y is others,
we can assume that our lives are of a higher value
because we follow the rules of war.
And our churches and skyscrapers
are more valuable than y’s since y uses theirs for cover.
So if our lives and buildings are more valuable,
we can use force against y until y is overcome
or shows itself as more equal to us.

Furthermore, let’s say that x equals one school full of children,
but we must add in z, the number of men with missiles hiding in the building too,
and subtract the number of our soldiers said men have killed.
And say the number of children is 25,
and the number of terrorists with missiles is 3,
and there are 10 dead soldiers.
And if we add in the cost to train each of those soldiers,
divide by the cosine of the arc of their lives,
and factor in their families’ grief and public opinion,
we arrive at 18,
which is also the age when those young soldiers could join the Army,
and there we have it.

We can bomb that school since the young men who were killed
cannot have died in vain and at such expense,
and since more will die if those 3 terrorists aren’t killed,
and since the children in the school will just grow up to become 25 more gunmen.

The questions you may have about the lives of innocent children
being more valuable than those of grown men,
about their eyes being more sad, their tears more wet, their parents more loving,
about how people feel guilt when they see a child bloodied, missing a hand or a leg
as he is carried from a bombed school,

the answer to all of these is no.

There is no assigned value for a child without hands.


Bio:
I'm a poet living outside of Chicago in Aurora, IL. I teach at Joliet Jr. College, and am active in Chicago's poetry circles, especially by performing at open mics. I have two chapbooks, Red Beaver Lake, Minnesota published by Pudding house Press, and Blood published by Naked Mannequin press. My work has appeared in After Hours, Pearl, and online at LaFovea.org and New Verse News.



(author retains copyright)



Return

Robert Verdon

.
.

Anzac Day at Tuross

things we can’t quite recall …
north of Coila lake
grey clouds mirror the low range
the surf comes in like a country train
king parrots land on the bird-feeder
like the arrival of the bee-box
in this paragon of coastal development
Tuross, mate

and I missed the Dawn Service

suddenly the sun explodes
a nuclear tiara over the sea
we’re from inland
nowhere near Hiroshima

the comely clouds pink, then cottony
the planet spins
another profitable day begins

… things we can't quite recall
the busker at the shops who makes me cry
glissandos of genocide
our own little world war

how many died here and dreamed
213 years ago?


Bio:
Born in London in 1954, I have been a writer since the age of 8. I came close to winning the Anutech Prize (Canberra, Australia) in 1992 and was a finalist in 1994 and 1998. I live in Canberra and have much short fiction and poetry published here and abroad. I was a member of the collective Aberrant Genotype Press 1998-2002 until admitted to hospital with cirrhosis of the lover, sorry, a typo, liver. (I have nothing to do with the Pheasant Pluckers, www.pheasantpluckers.com.au.) My books include The Well-Scrubbed Desert (Polonius, 1994), Her Brilliant Career (Aberrant Genotype Press, 1998), My Cat Eats Spaghetti (Ginninderra Press, 1999), and The Artful Dole-Bludger [with Caroline Ambrus] (Irrepressible Press, 2000). I have an Honours degree in English and (almost) a Masters in Applied Linguistics. A PhD is possibly on the way. And they say the poor get children.



(author retains copyright)



31 October 2009

Sarah Elizabeth Hall

Chris G. Vaillancourt

Daniel Wilcox

Sarah Elizabeth Hall

.
.

Pardon Me

I am an amnesty.
A type of propaganda
that would make old Tweed
proud-- a sebaceous gland oozing
the lies taught to me
by my forefathers.
I wear their sociopath,
unjudged.

They’ve left me
no company tonight
A nuclear light keeps hope
alive. Iridescent as Saddam
and Gomorrah.

I reside in the mesopotamic
promise that brought us all
together. A collaboration
of fists.

I am the legacy.
A gilded liver
full of your saloon–
collecting for punitive
damages.

Until I casually paw
at your broken door.

Wanting more.

Wanting more.


Bio:
I am currently an MA Literature student at the University of South Florida holding a BA in Creative Writing and an undergraduate certificate in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. I have traveled Northern America at length and have lived in Hawaii, Florida, and North Carolina.



(author retains copyright)



Chris G. Vaillancourt

.
.



Intellectual Space Tripper

If people were forced
to eat what they killed
there would be no more wars.
If we were compelled to
obey the words of Jesus
there would be
no starvation
no aggravation
no hatred
We would live in peace.
Our values are strange.
You are not real until
you have a piece of paper
declaring that you have been born.
As you grow older
the pile of paper increases
and indicates the control
that is exercised over us all.
We live in one large armed camp
that devours the idealism of youth
trapping us in credit and debts.
We have possessions, but we do
not have peace.
Violence on the streets
is blamed on the poor.
The rich man hides in his
fortress and complains about
the race problem; the drug problem;
the unemployment problem;
the homeless problem.
His answer to the 'problems' is
to increase his home security.
He lives in splendour but
he does not know peace.
The conservative element thinks
the movement amongst people
for peace comes from the enemy.
The ideology of change is foreign.
Instead it is preferred that chains
be increased over the minds
of the people under their feet.
Exploitation of resources is known
as economic security.
The answer to anarchy is to collect the
young men and send them off
to fight in a war.
They make speeches, but still
we do not have peace.
The moral code of the world
has deserted into a state of anarchy.
Chaos rules our cities and drugs
inhibit our will to be free.
Our universities have been
conditioned not to educate, instead
to turn out more drones for the hive
The mindset is that a degree is
only used to create employment.
There is fear in educating the masses
to their capability to be free.
The entire game is to create divisions
that set one group against another.
Fight in wars that are not ours
and dream of flags and medals
as something to be desired.
Preparations are underway to
implant methods to destroy
our collective will to breath.
It is a strange sort of world
that calls itself free
when death
stalks our cities.
If people were forced
to eat what they killed
there would be no more wars.
We would have peace.


Bio:
Chris G. Vaillancourt has been involved in the art of writing as long as he can remember. Chris is a Canadian poet who has enjoyed publication in numerous small poetry magazines and newsletters,such as Pagan Lady Poetry Journal, The Inkling; The Lance; Opussum Review; Red Dragon; Poesia International; Plum Ruby Review; Windsor Star; Quills, Poetry Sharings, Poesy, Poetry Stop, Detour Memphis,and a host of other print and ezine publications.. He has enjoyed the publication of several chapbooks of his poetry, such titles as "Doors And Windows" (4 Winds Press) and "teardrop of Coloured Soul" (PublishAmerica) Currently his new book, "I Walk Naked Into A Cloud" is set to be relased in the next few months. He has a BA in Psychology from the University of Windsor and a Diploma in Sacerdotal Ministry from the Saint Andrew Theological Institute. Chris lives in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.



(author retains copyright)



Daniel Wilcox

.
.

To Whom It Does Not Concern:

Dear Monarch, Sovereign, etc.,
I hear that you pardoned
Another girl so troubled,
Raped; 'so it ever goes'
In your modern country;
What if I don't quite
Admire your travesty?

For her being in a vehicle
With a man not her kin,
She's only to be lashed
And imprisoned because
Of a gang rape by seven.
How generous of your lowness
Down from the basement
Below the fires of the burning.

So, if I don't bow to your Law,
Pardon me—surely you won't
Since I'm an infidel which in your script
Means hell to pay of the holocaust sort.

But when are you going to ever stop
Blaming innocent ones for the acts
Of religious men's defiling preys?

Sincerely not,
For your generosity to Miriam.


Bio:
Daniel Wilcox, a former activist, teacher, and wanderer--from Nebraska to the Middle East--casts his lines out upon the world's turbulent waters and wide shores in Counterexample Poetics, Moria, The November Third Club, Tipton Poetry Journal, Lunarosity, The New Verse News, The Recusant, etc. His book of poetry, Dark Energy, was published in 2009 by Diminuendo Press. "The Faces of Stone" based on his time in the Middle East, appeared in both The Danforth Review and Danse Macabre. Daniel lives with a speculative novel The Feeling of the Earth, poems of Psalms, Yawps, and Howls, and his mystery-loving wife, on the central coast of California. Website: http://seaquaker.com


(author retains copyright)



17 October 2009

Carol Berg

Rajasvini Bhansali

Kathy Briccetti

Lee Schwartz

Carol Berg

.
.

Abu Ghraib

Some might say it is not polite to watch
the skin pull itself apart, or the red
wet wound, or for the body to interrogate
itself. But you must watch.
You are not permitted to help.
The preparations: select, pinch
fold and compress. The stretching
and the pulling down. Gravity
with its scraping teeth, with its
twirl & squish.
The slow control of the juice
hardening into crust. A technique
others cannot understand.
A technique with regard
to the bite. The chew.

Bio:
I have poems forthcoming or in Fifth Wednesday Journal, Pebble Lake Review, Rhino, Sweet: A Literary Confection, Tattoo Highway, and elsewhere. I have my MFA from Stonecoast and have an MA in English Literature. I also work part-time as a Writing Tutor at Pine Manor College.



(author retains copyright)



Rajasvini Bhansali

.
.

Beedi

as your fingers flaunt
this funnel-shaped fashion statement
slim one-hundred percent
exotic
organic
hand-rolled Indian
cigarette called beedi
I ask you to consider
a six-year old
paying back his father’s fourteen dollar loan
his sister’s dowry
his own freedom condemned to a one room industry
for the next four, five or maybe ten years
indigenous handicrafts?
well
he carried his father’s debt
beaten each day with the edge
of a sharp crooked stick
till he bleeds
to make one bonus beedi
over his quota of fifteen hundred
till he bleeds
to roll his childhood
in smoke
as your fingers flick into ashes
his twenty hour workday

Bio:
Rajasvini Bhansali is passionate about building the capacity of people and grassroots organizations to facilitate sustainable social change through transnational organizing, art, conversation and resources and has lived and worked in Kenya, India, United States and Canada. She currently works as a program officer for a social change funder called International Development Exchange based in San Francisco that supports grassroots organizations and social movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Born and raised in India, she immigrated to the United States in 1993 and became a student teacher poet with June Jordan’s Poetry for the People at UC Berkeley. This experience had her teaching poetry to prisoners, homeless people and youth. In Austin, Texas, she worked with Sharon Bridgforth’s Finding Voice project and started a workshop series for multiethnic youth organizers called Poets on the Frontlines at Resistencia Bookstore. She’s written, published and performed poetry since 1995. She is currently working on her book titled Impermanent Resident.



(author retains copyright)





Kathy Briccetti

.
.

Incongruity

You, the man in the darkened storefront doorway, spit the words, “Fuckin’ Lezzies,” and when she and I were a block away and my heart had settled, I thought, what do you know? You were gray with dirt and grease, and your words slipped out sloshy and you stunk of unwashed hair and exhaled hootch. She and I were walking home from the movies, walking at a clip because it was later than we liked to be out at night downtown, even though there were two of us, even though nothing had happened before.

You think you recognized in a glance who we were to each other when we passed your cardboard divan that night. We were not holding hands, we did not have boy haircuts, wear work boots. We did not walk bowlegged or with particular heaviness. Was it our purposeful strides? Our synchronized gaits? Did we walk a little too close to each other? Maybe you spit those words at all women parading by your boudoir. If the shoe fits.

Don’t you realize in what town you’re shacking up, dude? This is Berkeley, man, you know, Bezerkeley, and here in Berkeley you don’t spit out that word or the others. Fag. Queer. Butch. Dike. I don’t call you a fucking homeless squatter alky or call the cops to run you out of town. Who the hell are you calling me a Lezzie? Or anything. Anything at all.

Bio:
Kathy Briccetti’s memoir, BLOOD STRANGERS, is forthcoming from Heyday Books (spring 2010). Her essays, opinion pieces, poetry, and book reviews have been published in Sojourn; Under the Sun; Dos Passos Review; upstreet number three; So to Speak: A feminist journal of language and art; The Bark, Literary Mama, Chicago Tribune; The Writer; San Francisco Chronicle Magazine; hip Mama; Brain, Child; Teaching Tolerance and others. She has read her essays on public radio, and her work has appeared in several anthologies including The Maternal is Political (Seal Press, 2008); The Writing Group Book (Chicago Review Press, 2003); and The Essential Hip Mama (Seal Press, 2004). Awards include a Pushcart Prize nomination, and a residency at the Vermont Studio Center.


(author retains copyright)



Lee Schwartz

.
.

Gay Sheep

There’s a lab off the Pacific Highway
where they snare gay sheep, turn them straight,
no more wooly love come dragging
by the top edge of the hill.

Injecting gay sheep with estrogen
to keep the natural order,:
replant fences and implant desire,
to plump them up for slaughter chops.

We play God in the garden
while most species in the wild are choked,
the salmon have lost their way,
snared in black tarry waters, the seal extinct.

The future is drawn in plastic buckets,
genes in savings deposit vaults,
tinkering with nature’s Gameboy,
creating dwarf melons, mating grapes.

What does man want to extol
that Thoreau has not celebrated,
while we go sheep shopping at the Gap,
admiring every hanger of iceberg lettuce.

Don’t tell me who to love,
Don’t legislate my heart to fall on blue or brown eyes,
I am not your coal mine or your cornfield,
I will choose whose lips to warm.

And the sheep with the coarse and wiry coat?
Wouldn’t we prefer sleek and glossy?
What about seeing eye cats? Faster turtles?
Deer that don’t stop in the headlights?

You go down that long Pacific highway
and build a Sparta to keep up with the trends,
see if you can weed out the gene that pulls the trigger,
rapes women, and votes Republican.

Bio:
Ms. Lee Schwartz likes to explore her world from the handlebars of her English racer. Her daughter just started Smith college and she's enjoying her second home with her husband in Great Barrington. She has published in several small journals and been a poet in residence at the 92nd St. Y. You can find her reading at the Bowery Poetry Club/ KGB Bar and Blue Stockings in downtown NYC. She is a winner of the Patterson Literary Review Allen Ginsberg Award 2008 and 2009.



(author retains copyright)



03 October 2009

Peter Branson

Stephen Williams

Peter Branson

.
.

Alien

Blatant of cleavage, belly, sleek soft thigh,
unwittingly full blast, young girls broadcast
‘available’. We’re cool with that yet don’t
like cover ups. Well under five per cent
wear burkas anyway. Why not men too?
You didn’t find the nuns who hounded you
through primary school bizarre, except, sky-high
on chastity, that cold sadistic look.

No need to fret about make up or hair.
Recall headscarf and rollers worn to work?
More subtle too: by wanton wind divined,
exotic lingerie, underexposed,
kissing that cool silk skin. Can’t see their eyes:
should we trust sculpted looks or what’s inside?



Enduring Freedom
August 2009

Three children playing with a shell were blown
to bits in Helmand Province yesterday.

Back home three others mourn a father’s death.
Murder of innocence!” the headline shouts.
Where is he now?” one asks. “In heaven, love,
they say. “With freedom there’s a price to pay.
Everything’s relative, God only knows.
Will it bear fruit, this cross of sacrifice?

The town is quietened while the piper plays
Amazing Grace. Along High Street, folk pause,
watch loved ones toss red roses at the hearse,
turn back into their lives. Graveside, Last Post
is sounding, drowns in silence at flood tide.
Six riflemen fire blanks. There’s no reply.


Bio:
Peter Branson lives in Rode Heath, a village in South Cheshire, England. A former teacher and lecturer, he now organises writing workshops. Until recently he was Writer-in-residence for “All Write” run by Stoke-on-Trent Libraries. Over the last four years he has had work published, or accepted for publication, by many mainstream poetry journals in Britain, including Acumen, Ambit, Envoi, Magma, The London Magazine, Iota, 14, Fire, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Nottingham, Pulsar, Red Ink, the Recusant and Other Poetry. He has also had poems published in USA, Canada, EIRE, Australia and New Zealand. In the last two years he has had success in poetry competitions including, more recently, a first prize in The Envoi International, a second place in The Writing Magazine Open and highly-commendeds in The Petra Kenney and The Speakeasy. His first collection, “The Accidental Tourist”, was published in May 2008. He is about to have an E book published by ‘The Recusant’.


(author retains copyright)






Stephen Williams

.
.

No Man's Land

You're shaking,
mumbling on

barren plain of smoldering
stumps,

distant city
smoking ruins,

river full
boiling ash,

burnt boots,
hanging rags,

coughing hoarse,
chewing blood,

you survived the blast,
doomsday bomb,

searching mile after mile,
no woman to touch,

no holy house,
no sacred word.


Bio:
Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night. He was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. His parents are native Texans. He has lived most of his life in California. His poetry has appeared here and there and in-between...



(author retains copyright)



19 September 2009

Susan V. Facknitz

Gary Dubola Memi

Susan V. Facknitz

.
.
Sacred

Rifle fire on afternoon streets
hits buildings, bodies, orange and red,
erupts; arms splay as they fall
or flee. Brown dirt runs red into ocher,
the colors of this season.
The woman was going to work
among the bare trees of Baghdad.
She entered the building as she always had,
headscarf in place, eyes averted.
But the soldier was nervous.
Here only days, still smelling of soap
and the breezes off the bay,
he knew about the things
that had been done, the bodies of soldiers
that had been landed at the base
the morning he’d shipped out. She held her bag
tightly. She could feel the bulky square
it contained. She felt its edges,
thought about the power it held, that soon
it would unleash. He saw her coming,
approached her first. She stiffened,
gripped her bag as he brought the dog
closer, ordered her to stop, stand still.
She couldn’t let this happen. Outside,
the clear air, wind washed, whistled
along the alley, as she refused, as he shouted
and she turned, hands on the sacred package,
holy words echoing in her head,
the pages of the book trembling,
her feet beginning their terror
as the guns rose
and she fell
and the others after.


Bio:
Susan V. Facknitz lives in Massanetta Springs, Virginia. She teaches literature and creative writing at James Madison University. She has published poems in Poetry East, Louisiana Literature and New Orleans Review.


(author retains copyright)



Return

Gary Dubola Memi

.
.
A Treatise on the Nature of Previously Published Electronic Arts

Please take this protest
And consider it a threat
Yes you

Writing to you
Is like writing for war
Or anything else

Your applied rules
Your universal theory
Is keeping me bound

When I break free
I mean really free
I will take a piece of you with me

The part that cares
And the part that wears clothes
The cart that comes before the horse

I have divorced myself
From the ridiculous notion
That your red tape is gracious

I will canvas my own halls
And spin my own wheels
For as long as your greasy rules apply

What you're missing
As a lot
Is probably not much

Today
But maybe tomorrow
A solid gem will burden you

Often in treaty
We bring things to tables
Like bread from hearth

Thanks for being consistent
My protest remains the same
Against you as it is with others

Not to lump
But how does it feel
To fold your arms at a gift

A common problem
A simple fix
Set this poem free


Bio:
Gary Dubola Memi currently lives on Long Island and commutes into Manhattan five days a week for work. On these mornings, you can find him writing poems, turning your sleepy train car into a veritable café. That is if you ride the Long Island Rail Road. You can also follow his progress at www.railroadpoetry.blogspot.com. Gary lives with his wife and dog and yet to be gender constructed fetus.


(author retains copyright)



Return

05 September 2009

Greg Veitch

Stephen Williams

Greg Veitch

.
.
Concerning the Bellboy

The milkmaid in Vermeer’s paintings with the
shabby blue apron, the look of bitter
romance washing her face with a gray simplicity;

perhaps it was the shepherd’s son who had never
returned her simplest fears, or perhaps just the
pyrite complexion of Lord Donahue’s oldest

nephew, her mind elsewhere as tallow clings to
wrinkles in her work. Ground anise, sharp
lavender in quiet haste while the outside

world revives its frenzied pulse; oh what a
pleasure to see the new candles just as
the lady suggested. Perhaps now the

soft smell of emptiness formerly kicked
under the tin wash basin returns up
the sleeve of the coxcomb that evening.


Bio:
Greg Veitch is an upcoming writer in Guilford, Connecticut. So far he has only been published in a few small literary magazines, one of which belongs to his high school. Do not overlook him though--just because he has not been recognized to a great extent does not mean his writing is anything less than mind-numbingly exciting. (He may simply be a bit shy.)


(author retains copyright)



Return

Stephen Williams

.
.
In A Dark Time

In a dark time
within us and here,
we smooth ourselves over
with oil and gossip.

Beating our heels into the floor music,
paying more with less
awareness.

Whistling old songs
like they'll save us.

Give us that shot,
vaccine against swine
boiled in the underworld.

There's not enough
lighthouses to cast light over the dying sea.

The fires are burning California.

Where's the great Kennedy from yesterday?

Only Dylan still has a spark to share.

We should march for something...

We're in a vacuum of overpopulation,
soulless mass,
lost

in a dark time.


Bio:
Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night. He was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. His parents are native Texans. He has lived most of his life in California. His poetry has appeared in Anthology, Avocet, Blue Collar Review, The Broome Review, Byline Magazine, Chronogram Magazine, Eskimo Pie, Fissure Magazine, Freefall, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Hawaii Review, HUNGUR, Liquid Imagination, Nerve Cowboy, Mirror Dance, POEM, Poesia, Posey, protestpoems.org, Purpose, REAL, Tales from the Moonlit Path, and others.


(author retains copyright)



Return

22 August 2009

Heather Egret

Anick Roschi

Stephen Williams

Heather Egret

.
.
Debtors' Prison

Just try to find room in my debtors’ prison,
Where smoking is allowed and shops abound
And everything one buys, including diapers,
Encourages friendly-user finance charge
To party hardy—up to 30%;
If debtors can pay anything, it’s that.

Use of the lavatory is not free,
Rates dependent on manufacturers’ ease
The inside, foregoing the outside long ago,
Won’t recall there’s an outside after all.
Those hit hard by default are more broad
And inmates tend to roam around smoking.

Here cigarettes are worth more than all the gold
In California. Sideshow ethics,
Tobacco companies, consumer advocates,
Courtroom entertainment for the condemned,
Who struggle that not to borrow or steal
It’s as likely to find a home mortgage

Allotted inside a banana peel.
That’s why institutionalized smoke,
Both cloudy and clear under all this pressure.
Bless the downtrodden, grown increasing sane!
O, how to work hard to pay for our sin
When profits reaped to not turn round again?

Bio:
Heather Egret works in nonprofit finance in New York City and lives in Queens, NY. Her poetry has appeared in St. Luke’s Review, The Register Citizen, and the Paradigm Journal. Her full-length play, Oracle Bones, has been developed at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre and read by New World Theatre, NY in its summer reading series.

(author retains copyright)

Return

Anick Roschi

.
.
Capital Ground

Now is the shared time
Of our last riches

To each birth
Freedom
A drop of water
Thirsty of river

To each birth
Equality
A drop of sweat
Exhausted of misery

To each birth
Fraternity
A drop of air
Dirty of deserts

Now is the exorcised time
Of our planetary reasons

The articulated time
Of a capital
Ground.


Bio:
Anick Roschi has dual nationality; Swiss and French. After engineering studies in Geneva, he travelled extensivley in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. On his return, he retrained in social workers and worked for children's causes in Geneva. He has won first prize at Fiele Filiochta in Ireland, and has had work published in several anthologies in Belgium, Spain and Italy.


(author retains copyright)



Return

Stephen Williams

.
.
Doomsday

Over L.A.
dust floating
down

on our knees
scratching

shade
under tubular clouds

divining for water
groaning

movie theater
ancient on the corner

echoing warnings
we laughed at back then

smooching
in the dark
teenagers

I still dream
of your breasts

before the continual thunder.


Bio:
Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night. He was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. His parents are native Texans. He has lived most of his life in California. His poetry has appeared in Anthology, Avocet, Blue Collar Review, The Broome Review, Byline Magazine, Chronogram Magazine, Fissure Magazine, Freefall, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Hawaii Review, HUNGUR, Liquid Imagination, Nerve Cowboy, Mirror Dance, POEM, Poesia, Posey, Purpose, REAL, Tales from the Moonlit Path, and many others.


(author retains copyright)



Return

08 August 2009

Daniel Callaghan

Nicole Goodwin

Anthony Lee

Daniel Callaghan

.
.
Rosewood, Florida

Not far to our Pasco north, the ruins of Rosewood lay,
Mute witness of another day not long ago when
White slew black: not just flesh but dreams and hopes,
And the black was told: you never will be free,
Nor can your children hope to be, nor grandchildren
Dare to see a day when they too can have a dream,
And think to see that it will come true.
You, who bear the skin that now is white,
What lights your way through browned parchments
That still say only man shall be free, not me who is
Not white, nor me who is not man? Do you stand in pride
Of this nation so long empty of its promise? Will you stand
Pridefully in its way, to this day, when promises come due, and
Finally are true, for me, for us--and not just for you?
There came a time, when humankind first stood up to see
Across savannahs in Africa’s birthplace for us all,
And some ventured out to roam in waves, then came home
Before setting out once more, and settling down in
Europe’s cold caves, becoming more and more white,
Then daring unknown seas to claim a new continent’s shores,
Driving a race of red off their land and into cages of earth.
Do you remember proclaiming liberty, fighting to be free—
For whom? Not me who is not white, nor woman who is not he.
Rosewood’s long-kept secret now emerges from green dark—
Black towns rose and fell, and to be black until recently, was not free,
But rather, to wait, to know, fearing that all you know, make and are,
Can by a single white lie on a New Year’s Day, simply cease to be.


Bio:
Daniel Callaghan is a retired high school English teacher and bookseller living in Florida. A former captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and the Special Forces (Airborne), Daniel is now a felon after being convicted for stopping a float in a local parade that he believes demeans and exploits American Indian culture and spirituality. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tarpon Springs, is Head Librarian of the West Pasco Historical Society, and protests the continuing wars every Friday on Highway 19 in Pasco County.



(author retains copyright)



Return

Nicole Goodwin

.
.
A Poem for Reinaldo

No one fights when beauty dies
Whether it was crushed by human hands
Or just with words and undying wills
There is always silence.
Looking deep into this fact,
Even I am no exception.

Dedicated to Reinaldo Arenas


Bio:
Nicole Goodwin is a twenty-eight year old single mother, writer and poet born and raised in New York City. She has performed at many spoken word venues including two featured performances at V-Day Poetry Benefit Concert on Feb 2005, and the Defenders of Love Benefit on Feb 2008. Her further literary achievements include the publications in three non-fiction anthologies: We Got Issues: A Young Woman’s Guide To A Bold, Courageous and Empowered Life There By Hangs A Tale: The Birth Issue, and the August Issue of Underwired Magazine, poetic inclusion in the 2008 Voices of Israel Anthology, The City College of New York’s very own publication Promethean along with a fictional piece printed in City College’s Global City Review.





(author retains copyright)



Return

Anthony A. Lee

.
.
Where is Neda?

Telephone images
jerk on my TV screen.
Crowds in the streets.
I push as hard as I can
but can’t come close.
Boys throwing rocks at men
in uniform, guns raised and cocked.
Boys in face masks.
Girls in scarves
hand them their stones.

There is blood.
The doctor’s hands can’t stop it.
He boards a plane the next day.
I am too far away and feel nothing.
All men are born as my brothers.
They are young.
They will grow bigger.
All women my sisters—
my lovers—and the men.

At night on the roof
a woman cries,
shrill, clear, angry:
Allah-u Akbar!
to begin the night chorus.
There are more dark rooftops.
God is Great!

I hear the human voices.
Is this prayer?
A deep voice asks
Neda koja’st? ...
A question?
Neda koja’st? is the answer.
Where is Neda?
Where is my sister?

Neda-jan, where are you?


Bio:
Anthony A. Lee, Ph.D. teaches African American history (and other subjects) at UCLA. His poems have been published in ONTHEBUS, The Homestead Review, Arts Dialogue, Warpland, and the 2003 anthology of the Valley Contemporary Poets (Sherman Oaks, CA). He is the winner of the Nat Turner Poetry Prize for 2003 (Cross Keys Press). His first book of poems, This Poem Means, was the winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award for 2005 (Lotus Press). Some of his translations have been published in Táhirih: A Portrait in Poetry: Selected Poems of Qurratu’l-‘Ayn (Kalimát Press, 2004).


(author retains copyright)



Return

18 July 2009

Katrina Carmichael

Katrina Carmichael

.
.
The Question of Purpose

All of life is purpose, purpose, purpose
And yet I've found none. Drastically easier to
Deal with a purpose when sure of the pureness
Of God. My first fountain of doubt burst through
When I was twelve -- the first time I put my
Bible down. I saw hate, hate, hate. Hateful
Crimes, hateful minds, hateful times-- all denied.
Those who read only the Word, the faithful,
Their tombs cry the creed, "Turn the other cheek;
Look no further than your own purposeful space."
How odd--that God would reward those who seek
Him, while others gape at a martyr's burnt face.
I can't battle that which I do not believe
But I can beg, plead, let no purpose bleed me.


Bio:
Katrina Carmichael was born in Atlanta, Georgia, where she first fell in love with the arts. She started her artistic career at the ripe age of three when she discovered dance and theatre. Since then, Katrina has written and published numerous plays, poems, and short fiction pieces. She holds an M.A. in Professional Writing with an emphasis in poetry from Kennesaw State University and a B.F.A. in Theatre Arts from Boston University.


(author retains copyright)



Return

04 July 2009

Juanita Lewison-Snyder

Craig Teichen

Sharran Windwalker

Juanita Lewison-Snyder

.
.
third world

since school is now forbidden,
the closest they can get to news of the outside world
is at the feet of their eldest schoolmate,
who despite the risks, still braids her hair
with tantalizing stories they all know are made up
but none-the-less hopeful,
against a backdrop of soldiers
patrolling their lives daily with words & bayonets,
using rules like grenades to toss randomly
into doorways opened to the heat .

among girls
10 is the new 21--
ripe enough to spill alcohol down their small throats,
stroke dark hair away from eyes stinging with tears,
carving name & rank in their cherry blossom backs
as if their feet were planted deep
in the red mud along the riverbank.

boys fare no better,
a type of livestock to be prodded along dusty roads with sticks,
not to be trusted least they bite and grow horns of their own.
these, laugh the soldiers, regard with an wary eye
and the butt of your rifle.

the years roll on
and thin-boned dogs continue to roam
the ditches and back alleys of suburbia
looking for scraps among debris,
and skittish children still mill in dark places
awaiting the chance to gather for a good story.


Bio:
I am a poet currently living on the beautiful southern Oregon coast. My work has appeared in such publications as The Beacon, Oceana, Loggers World, The Model Horse Gazette, The Hobby Horse News, and The Brayer. My great-grandfather ran an underground press at the turn of the century in Mexico and was often imprisioned by the government. I guess that's where I got my big mouth.


(author retains copyright)



Craig Teichen

.
.
All Your Weapons

le beau monde: AK-47s, M-16s, Apache helicopters

how kind are all your weapons? have they heroes to endure?
do they always aim for numbers? is their lock on us secure?

at their barrel's end, a flower? do they put on love a spin?
in the carriage of their motion does each flower child win?

is their priming powder ready? does their action have a stall?
does the script belong to many? of the dead have they recall?

so when we get through history ... pray ... what nations do they claim?
does armistice mean liberty and Hitler have a name?

how kind are all your weapons? have they bothered death before?
do they have a sense of duty ... namely: let's just stick to war?

do the dreams of others matter? should we listen to their Troy?
does their fire-power chatter mean each soldier's a good boy?

and while their strength here is not shy and people's hopes go broke
it's comforting to know the lie: that war is good for folk


Bio:
Craig Teichen is a long-standing Chicago resident, poet and short-story writer. He is also a gay rights, anti-war activist.


(author retains copyright)



Sharran Windwalker

.
.
Let the World Change You

It seems quite obvious
hardships, pain and suffering
are for most the norm.
It seems equally true
that most who live in rich nations
are quite blinded to this fact –
unless the fact can sell commercial time
and it is splashed on the TV
or headlined in the newspaper –

Ignoring the plight of millions
cannot be so easy, can it?
Apparently, it can.
Just call it “cognitive dissonance.”
Call it lack of empathy.
Call it lack of compassion.
But really, it’s lack of awareness.

I met a fellow-traveller
who had seen many parts of this world,
– not the touristy-type places
splashed as bill-boards on ocean-fronts –
but places where everyday is a struggle
and each struggle, an adventure.

He claimed the people he met
in those skeletal places
changed his outlook on life.
It was there he saw compassion come alive
for the very first time.
It was there people showed him life
is neither about money nor possessions,
nor about finding happiness.

It was there he heard laughter as from a child –
free and sincere.
There he tasted food fully appreciated
and there he found
he could give thanks for life
for each day there is a miracle –
not of survival as many believe
but of joyful acceptance.


Bio:
Sharran is a "natural" kind of natural person. For example, he won't drive a car, preferring to walk or bicycle wherever he goes, and molding the procurement of his simple needs around these two basic modes of transportation. Hence, Sharran senses much more of the world around him than do most people. This keen environmental awareness is reflected in much of his poetry.


(author retains copyright)



20 June 2009

Lynn Ciesielski

Mary C. O'Malley

Scott Owens

Ivana Plucinski

Lynn Ciesielski

.
.

Ruling Through Terror

Gender driven fornication madness.
Political outcry. Fear instilling hell.
Pinch hit rapist soldiers
with arsenals stored in their pants.
Their flies serve as safety locks for rifles
they've carried with them all of their lives.

Ammunition loaded scum for hire.
Destroy the woman from within.
With permanent stun gun they rob her wealth,
squelch her dignity, her royalty, her humanity,
her ability to heal, to nurture,
to create new life,
to breathe growth into barren earth.
Now her confidence dissipates.

They steal her children,
destroy them too,
beyond the love of those powerful arms
that reach out to gather.
They emasculate her husband
by taking his ability
to provide for and protect
his cherished family.

Undermine the opposition
because they've got the power.
They'll hold onto it tight,
never let you speak,
never let you breathe.
They'll steal away your soul.

Would-be saviors seek to obtain
revenge for the victim and place the blame
where collective blame lies,
but the more deserved accusations fly
the more they fall
on ears stuffed with victims'
war torn dashikis.

Corruption begets corruption.
Oppression simply succeeds
at the hands and hearts of new rulers
who steal the worth from victims,
who seethe and simmer with the need for constant revolution.
Perpetrators rise to power, take it ever so higher,
robbing pride from others' fall in shame.


Bio:
This poem was written to decry the mass committing of rape in Zimbabwe as a political crime.


(author retains copyright)


Mary C. O'Malley

.
.
The Deposition: A Giving of Witness

Off center,
the dead Messiah
is embraced
by a crowd
of females,
gathered in
grief; watching
with the female
gaze of life. All
within a
barren scene
of hard rock,
dead trees.

Acrobatic angels dressed
in rose
and peacock blue, free
fall from
rain full clouds.
their faces
sainted with tears.

And on
the right the
men stand repulsed.
They see
their dead hero
dead as
a criminal but
cannot touch him.

Only John,
in Venetian red
stretches his hand
As if to
break the feared
circle. They
are frozen. Like
those other disciples
hiding in
daylight roped together.
Invisible as
their presence in
the picture.

Christ head rests
in the
lap of Mary
arrayed in
biblical virgin blue
a crown encircled,
made by
worn maternal hands.

Mary of
Magdela, robed in
gold, cradles
once anointed feet.


Bio:
I am published both online in venues such as Box Care Review and in print in anthologies,zines, and readings. I have a MSW and MFA and five children.


(author retains copyright)



Scott Owens

.
.

Noblesse Oblige

Third world countries rejoice!
We bring you salvation and civilization,
though it may cost you your life.
Dunking, pressing, hanging,
burning at the stake,
pulling assent out of heretics
with rack and screw,
never sparing the rod
from Muslim or Jew,
crusading against unbelievers
by drowning and hacking,
burning and sacking,
purifying in the name of Deus Vult,
or anything manifest,
genocide of Arawak
Aztec, Inca, slash
and burn, enslavement of Africans,
middle passage, internment then,
detainment now,
good Christian Nazis chuffing off
Jews to Auschwitz or slaughterhouse,
mutilation of Vietnamese children,
inquisition, crucifixion, excommunication,
waterboarding, confession, liberation,
Ra, Ra, Ra,
Huzzah, Hallelujah, and Amen
simply convert, submit, and
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa,
all will be forgiven,
no penalty but collateral damage,
decapitation, shock and awe,
welcome to perfection,
celibacy maintained by fondling boys,
supremacy by economic sanction,
distant starving of millions.
Said one true believer to another,
It’s a good thing it’s all about forgiveness
because Lord knows we need it.


Bio:
I teach at a community college in a very Southern town.

(author retains copyright)



Ivana Plucinski

.
.

And All Seas Turned Black

What order next of man prevails,
Is there treachery in Gethsemane,
Does quinquennium of Ninevah
Hold full with ancient oils
Of brutal retributions?

Chronometer what might you say?
What hour now rings or cuckoo calls
This linear time might fade away,
The hands may come full circle
Of this Newton-wavelength phase!

The white skinned lords of force
By guile and blood in name of Christ
Have raped and hewn their mother
Till comforts are for shame
Inheritance of hemlock for a child.

Is Mabus within our midst
The third to follow emperor and tyrant
The last of all the anti-Christ,
Or shall apocalyptic horsemen ride
Diseases and foul weather?

Aye, my lords ye know not yet
Original sin of knowledge!
These pyramids to lose white marble
As your brains turn withered stone
In the rock of all ages past

Not this not that without respect
Ye creatures of the interface
The elemental chart alas is toys
For greedy fingers that might
Compound a whimpering of all fate.

Hopi-shamans spirit drummed
From insignificance a
That might tell the final days
One thousand years before
And all the seas turned black.


Bio:
Ivana Plucinski is emerging writer. Her origins are in Slovakia. She resides in Germany. Her poems appeared in e-zines, such as www.poeticmatrix.com, www.AllThingsGirl.com, www.poetrydances.com and others where she is exploring both physical and spiritual relationships with emphasis on nonlinearity. Although she has never been published, she is an active writer, currently she is working on her epic historical saga.


(author retains copyright)



06 June 2009

Jessica Barrog

Ariana Cisneros

David D. Horowitz

Roy Jacobstein

Jessica Barrog

.
.
Oppression


Opened your hands to our

People when their backs ached from

Prejudice. We

Resisted when you promised to

Emancipate our

Serfs. You laid

Shackles upon our children’s

Imaginations. Yet it is

Obvious we are

Not the weak ones.


Bio:
Jessica Barrog is a sophomore in the Creative Writing Department at the San Francisco School of the Arts. Although she has never been published, she is an active writer and hopes to make a career from writing some day.


(author retains copyright)



Return

Ariana Cisneros

.
.
Girl poem

Color me red,
With a hand melted crayon
Slabbish wax shoved up your fingernails
Reminisce about kindergarten in your painting apron
On the strings of your guitar
On the negatives of your filmstrip
Tell me a story about innocence

Color me red
Because we're curious creatures
Build truth off of lies
And and lies off of childhood games
Spin the bottle, seven minutes in heaven, truth or dare
Later we play beer pong, ten fingers, and hotseat
We revert giggles and bashful smiles to
"Honey, you ARE my hotseat!"
A flick of the eyes
A flush of the cheeks
A few whispers
And hello everybody,
We have a couple!

Color me red,
Color me green too,
So I can fit on
Christmas cards
Flags of
Oriental nationalist colors
Winter commercials
For sales on scarves at Ross
And in the foliage of a Marquez book
All women are same in his stories
None of them are red
Or green,
Or blue,
Or orange
Or any color
Except for the fussy mess that is kindergarten crayons
The knot of strangled wire that is your guitar
The cloud of filmstrips
That is your movie

Color me red,
Because I am red,
We can do word to word associations
Like jury notes they read
Anger,
Alcohol,
Toilets with bad odors,
Bloodstains,
Redrum,
We can do Rorschach tests:
You can see
The taciturn,
The violent,
The schizophrenic
Oh, you're so emotional,
It must be PMS

Color me red
A dull red this time
Find "burnt sienna" in your crayon box
Because after all of this
We are jaded,
Sardonic
And sarcastic
Don't ask me questions
Don't give me excuses
And don't follow me
We all wonder why we sigh
At kindergartners
At psychosis tests
After a while
Being chipped away
Being rusted
Being dry and salt-stained
No longer red, but a dark shade of brown.


Bio:
Ariana Cisneros is a sophomore in San Francisco School of the Arts's Creative Writing program.


(author retains copyright)



Return

David D. Horowitz

.
.
SOME TALK IS NOT CHEAP

The king dreads murmurs. Now, dissent earns jail
Or bullet in an alley, bomb through mail,
Or dagger to the heart, or enemies
Who live to make truth crawl home on its knees
And die there. Martyrs might persist. Dissent
That strong and brave don't dare call less than saint.


Bio:
I founded and manage Rose Alley Press. My most recent poetry books, from Rose Alley, are Stars Beyond the Battlesmoke; Wildfire, Candleflame; Resin from the Rain; and Streetlamp, Treetop, Star. My poems have been published in The Lyric, Candelabrum, The New Formalist, and many other journals. Recent essays have appeared in Exterminating Angel and IBPA Independent. In 2005, I won the PoetsWest Achievement Award. In 2007, I edited, as well as published, the Rose Alley Press anthology: Limbs of the Pine, Peaks of the Range. I give frequent readings in and around Seattle, where I live. My Web site is www.rosealleypress.com.



(author retains copyright)



Return

Roy Jacobstein

.
.
IMMORTALITY

Gatling and Colt,
Mauser and Lüger,
Kalashnikov, Uzi -

you men of invention
live on in the hammer
and the grip, muzzle

and buttstock, bluing,
fire, recoil—wherever
you are, blood pools,

wound and clot
flashing the code,
your family name

shattering bone.


Bio:
Roy Jacobstein is the author of three books of poetry, Fuchsia in Cambodia (NWU Press/TriQuarterly Books, 2008), A Form of Optimism (University Press of New England, 2006, selected by Lucia Perillo for the Samuel French Morse Prize) and Ripe (University of Wisconsin Press, 2002, selected by Edward Hirsch for the Felix Pollak Prize). He is a public health physician who works on women's reproductive health programs in Africa and Asia.



(author retains copyright)



Return

23 May 2009

C. E. Chaffin

Paul A. Toth


C. E. Chaffin

.
.

Not Enough Hamlets

Jesus stands on a green hill rank with clover
and autographs a thousand bleached skulls:
one for each righteous man
in the last millennium.


Once pitied as a crucifix of red mahogany
inside some gothic alcove
before a candle's tiny holocaust,
he comes to reassert himself
late in the twentieth century
to test the waters for a second coming.

He soon learns no one cares if he takes a lover
or has a slush fund or molds the truth
to soothe his audience's ears,
but that he should never eat veal or wear fur
or own a car or claim to really understand
the plight of minorities,
lest we doubt his sensitivity (that is,
whatever television requires).

He learns that feminists discount him,
gays are shocked he isn't,
blacks resent his master's skin,
Jews despise him as a sell-out,
seniors fear the effect
of his healings on Medicare,
teens find him irrelevant
to their super-caffeinated suffering,
though children still love him
(they don't know any better).

After consulting with campaign strategists
Jesus decides the world isn't ready.
Everything's too watered down.
No one's passionate about
good and evil anymore:
Satanists run summer camps,
pedophiles have websites,
televangelists promote cosmetics.
Eliot's hollow men
look virtuous by comparison.

Jesus stands on a green hill rank with clover
and lays the last skull down.
Park sanitation workers gather them
into red biohazard bags for incineration.
There were never enough Hamlets to hold them, anyway.


Bio:
C.E. Chaffin, M.D., FAAFP, edited The Melic Review www.melicreview.com for eight years prior to its hiatus. Widely published, he has written literary criticism, fiction, personal essays, and has been the featured poet in over twenty magazines. In the last ten years he's had over 500 pieces published. Credits include: The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Pedestal, The Philadelphia Inquirer Book Review and Rattle. His new volume, “Unexpected Light: Selected Poems and Love Poems 1998-2008,” published by Diminuendo Press, can be ordered at:
http://cechaffin.com/light.html Website: www.cechaffin.com Blog: www.cechaffin.blogspot.com


(author retains copyright)



Return

Paul A. Toth

.
.


To Troubled Laborers and Other Lonely People

When you wash the hotel beams
no metaphysical claptrap
shall rescue you from the fingerprinted
panels you scrub, no Buddha
adorn you, no Christ relieve you,
no pagan gods bathe you in mud
to purify that soul you know you haven't.
And when you go home to your entertainment
no doors in the walls will open to ancient tunnels
and no redemption shall shake your weary hands;
it's just what it is and here is where you are.
You must hallucinate to free yourself.
Steel being steel hardens your heart,
and the fingerprints you clean were left
by beam leaners whose cardboard crowns you steal.
Work a little less hard, you capitalist,
and make the most of your pay. Go on strike
and slow production, you one-woman union.
Stare at the guests and make them nervous:
They've yet to take their anti-depressants.
Now you're a queen in this one little way,
and you required no spiritual guidance to become one.
Swallow the bees and eat wasps
and frighten the a-holy customers.
Don't smile when you work; howl like a samurai,
an inward scream, silent yet heard,
bringing down this hotel beam by beam.

Bio:
Paul A. Toth lives in Florida. His first novel, "Fizz," and its successor, "Fishnet," are available now, with "Finale" due in July of 2009. His poetry has been featured by The Potomac, Nth Position, Piker Press, Arabesques Review, and others.


(author retains copyright)


09 May 2009

Charlie Creekmore

Jason Venner

Charlie Creekmore

.
.
Assembly Instructions

1. Acting as an agent for Queen Victoria, conquer a loose collection of 52 warring tribes in East Africa and call it the Cradle of Civilization.

2. Build a "Lunatic Line," employing several elderly male lions to devour 28 Asian railway workers, digest enough Africans that nobody bothers to count them, drag away a European sleeping in his tent beside his wife, and board one of the first trains to eat the passengers.

3. At mile 317 construct a shantytown out of corrugated iron erected on swampy soil called "black cotton." Equip the staff with enough rats and plague to make their lives interesting. Act gobsmacked when this lay-by turns into the most important city in Africa. Anglify its name from the Maasai for cool water and put up a sign reading "Nairobi" at the railroad station.

4. Practice white mischief at every chance, making Nairobi a playground for penniless Limey aristocrats whose main interests are drinking, horse racing, knocking up friends' wives, and shooting each other in the ear. For diversion, domesticate and ride zebras.

5. Turn the natives into worthless lackeys wearing white gloves. Take over their land. Pass laws forcing them to work for settlers. Shoot or arrest anyone who mentions the word "Uhuru."

6. Start a civil war under the assumption that 50,000 Mau Maus must be wrong. Name its leader after a mountain and keep whoever can be rounded up in detention camps surrounded by barbed wire and fence posts spiked with sharpened bamboo. Slaughter 13,577 Kikuyu freedom fighters without blinking an eye and repeat after me: "Power is never having to say you're sorry."

7. In face of universal revolt, declare Uhuru at midnight, install Jomo Kenyatta as President, and send Kip Keino to America to rewrite all concepts of distance running and altitude training.

8. When Kenyatta dies, empower an egomaniac with the ironic name of Moi. Make him a stooge of the moneyed Wa-benzi. Suck the people dry. Implement a corrupt system of political appointees. Shoot or arrest anyone who mentions the word "Uhuru."

9. Except for despotic rule, assassinations, and loud chest thumping, make the women do everything else.

Bio:

I spent several years in Kenya while working for the United Nations. My poems have appeared in The Malcontent, We Magazine, Asylum, Bouillabaisse, The Prose Poem, Prism International, Howling Dog, Quarry, The Fiddlehead, Queens Quarterly, The Strain, Pomegranate, and Wascana Review.


(author retains copyright)



Return

Jason Venner

.
.
This You Must Know

Revolution is a complete replacement,
one for another;

an establishment torn to its foundation
and rebuilt again;

a phenomenon of unexplained bodily transformation,
the conjugation of in-and-animate;

a cycle of forms, both heavenly and machine; a swirl
of patterns on pavements and interstates.

Many mistake revolution for rebellion,
the embodied action of the rebel,

who seeks to undermine authority
through the use of force

and intimidation. Rebellion however, is easily misled
by impassioned speech,

opinion and drink, and should be trusted
as much as an apology.

Given revolution’s resolve in certain matters,
rebellion is hesitant to make promises,

and seeks rejection, while revolution
seeks completion.

There is a marked distinction.


Bio:
I earned my MFA through the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in May of 2008 and currently teach composition and creative writing at the University of Akron and Kent State Stark University. I am an editor for the Akron-based lit mag Barn Owl Review and some of my independent work has been published in EDGZ, The Naugatuck River Review, Glass: an online journal of poetry, and Softblow to name a few. In my spare time, I take hikes and play guitar.

(author retains copyright)



Return

25 April 2009

Priscilla Chan

T. L. Cooper

Owen Gallagher

Kimberly Ruth

Priscilla Chan

.
.
What I have learned in the 16 years of my life


I have learned
To hate those who are different from me,
To force religious opinions upon a state,
And make it a law
Because we should dictate whom others may love.

I have learned, from this world,
My teachers, uncles and aunts,
To choose hatred instead of love,
To avoid gays and lesbians,
Because they are wretched, disgusting servants of Satan.

I have learned, from you all,
That equality is for everyone…
…who is not homosexual, bisexual or transgender.
That we should “protect” marriage,
From the gross obscenity that so very defines homosexuality.

I have learned, from leaders of our great government,
That we, the children, should hate and discriminate;
And when the time comes for our own children
To step on the surface of this planet,
That we should pass this hatred down, generation to generation,
So that humanity can never move forward.

This is what I have learned in the 16 years of my life.


Bio:
I am a 16-year-old bisexual female living in California, USA.
My immediate family and I are all either atheist or agnostic but most of my relatives (uncles and aunts) here in California are Christian and were supportive of Proposition 8.
I am very upset about that proposition, and even more about the passage of it.
I am an Asian-American, having been born in Hong Kong and lived there for almost 13 years.
This poem is a satire, strongly centered on the policies that my uncles and aunts are teaching their children, on some lawsuit cases in California that I know of, and on the sad, obvious message about these people.

When a man judges, he judges himself.

(author retains copyright)


T. L. Cooper

.
.
TRAPPED

Living in our own little worlds
Ignoring the pain outside
Rewriting our role in destruction
Focused on our own trivialities
Blaming others for the mistakes we make
Avoiding our part in the solution
Pushing our beliefs on others
Avoiding the truth before us
Shifting the story to fit our needs
Running from our responsibilities to others
Turning a blind eye when it hurts
Feeling the pain only when it hits home
Wishing someone would fix it

Until we embrace
Our role in the world
Our responsibilities to humankind
The impact of our actions
The interconnectivity of the world
The story outside our own daily existence
We will remain
Trapped


Bio:
T. L. Cooper grew up in Tollesboro, Kentucky. She graduated from Eastern Kentucky University with a B.S. in Corrections and Juvenile Services and a minor in Psychology. Her short stories, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in anthologies, magazines, and books. She is the author of the novel, All She Ever Wanted. Currently, she and her husband live in Albany, Oregon. For more information, please visit www.tlcooper.com.



(author retains copyright)




Return

Owen Gallagher

.
.
SERVING MY REDUNDANCY NOTICE

Another taxing night in the House of Commons.
I sweep up crumpled papers,
wipe sweat and dust from benches,
apply vinegar to stubborn stains.
Hunched in the Prime Minister's place
I rehearse how I'll inform my wife of my redundancy.
Tick, tick, tick, goes the clock.

My knuckles turn white at the Dispatch Box.
I rage against a world that deprives people of work.
I think to plant a device which is timed.
Rise to unblock loos, wipe graffiti from stalls,
cycle to lie beside my restless wife.
Tick, tick, tick, goes the bomb.


Bio:
Owen Gallagher is a primary teacher in Southall, London.
His last poetry collection was Sat Guru Snowman, Peterloo Poets.




(author retains copyright)




Return

Kimberly Ruth

.
.
ON THE ELECTRODYNAMICS OF DYING BODIES*
*Title appropriated from Albert Einstein’s essay “On The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” which introduced his theory of special relativity.


CONSEQUENCE ONE

It is titled War Execution. His face is contorted with one eye shut and the other only half- so, like a broken window stuck ajar, yet he stands straight, shoulders down, hands behind his back. If they are tied, I do not know. He is young, in his twenties, maybe, and a gun is pressed against his head. FLASH. Capture iniquity. FLASH. Expose truth. FLASH.

The moment the shutter is released: visible light is reflected from the objects in the camera’s field of view: an objective moment of brutality

until a man with a red, white, and blue pin breathes a sigh of relief.


CONSEQUENCE TWO

What if it were now, as they thought it was then,
when the earth was still flat and you
could walk around barefoot, with unpolished
toes and teased hair. But, the force is too strong,

when the yellow lines become invisible and
when there is no place beautiful left to go,

that she who stands still will fall
faster than she who just came back
from getting her hair cut.


CONSEQUENCE THREE

“Seven confirmed cases
and seventeen more awaiting
confirmation,” says someone.

”By comparison, last January
there were only
five suicides in the Army,”

the voice continued because
the clock on the wall was ticking
faster than the watches of those

falling from the sky.



Bio:
Kimberly Ruth is a recent graduate from SUNY New Paltz where she received a BFA in photography and a BA in journalism. She plans to attend graduate school in the fall, where she will work towards an MFA degree in fine art. She has been published in a number of online journals including Gloom Cupboard, Ditch Poetry, Bijou Poetry and elimae. You can view samples of her art work at kimberlyruth.blogspot.com.


(author retains copyright)




Return