CIRCLING

artwork: ralph murre

CIRCLING

by Susan Tepper

I say we are one

And the same

Sleep-travelers

Huddled under

The same blanket

Sooner or later

Committing

The same crimes—

So why try and

Separate

The inevitable yolk

From the white

When all around us

Brethren die gasping

Circling

What seems to be

The forgotten path.  

~ previously published in The Stony Thursday Book

LAND OF THE PHARAOHS

the pharaoh "narmer" from a photo by keith shengili-roberts

LAND OF THE PHARAOHS

by Jefferson Carter

I like being called “brother”

by black men.  I like walking past

Land of the Pharaohs

& being invited in by the brothers

to bless them with a poem.

“Brothers,” I say, “brothers,

please, no keyboards, no congas,

let me lay something white & uptight

on you brothers.”  I recite my poem

about Martians & Geiger counters,

its conclusion an ironic invitation

to Jesus to drop by some morning

for coffee.  They hate it.

The brothers hate it

but they’re polite, not like Kerouac

at the Living Theater,

heckling Frank O’Hara

or the Academy Awards audience

mocking poor Sally Fields

when she said “You

like me!  You really do

like me!”  The brothers forgive me

as they’d forgive a flying nun

who alighted among them

& roosted, preening, while a brother

recited his hip-hop poem called

“Kill the Honky Muthafuckers.”

~ previously published in Get Serious

Summertime

artwork: edward hopper

Summertime

by Mary Jo Balistreri

            after Edward Hopper

Let me linger a while longer

in the sun, this warm summer breeze.

On the threshold, before you brand me

with your label, I rest my arm on stone.

You call me easy. To say I could have chosen

differently is too easy.

Let me linger a while longer.

I like the way my straw hat protects,

its ribbon trailing down

my back. I’m beautiful in my white summer dress,

good patent leather shoes.

You too are capable of what you disown.

But let me linger while you stare.

You see a naked woman in a sheer white dress.

Big tits and fleshy thighs, the dress a cover up,

a come on.

But let me linger while you stare.

I am stony determination, black isolation.

The confines of my prison and my loneliness,

my bare subsistence—I offer what I can. 

  

Let me linger a while longer, my full red lips,

almost ready, my foot about to step down.

~ first published in Mobius: The Poetry Magazine

Sound Catcher

photo: ralph murre

Sound Catcher

by Karen Stromberg

               After 39 years this is all I’ve done.

                        Dylan Thomas’ final words.

Dylan, Welsh god of the sea, what have you done

but drown yourself in sound and longing,

stroking the arched backs of words, seeking the ones

that curl together like cats on the tongue,

the ones that electrify the dark, that spark

the spongy dryness of the mind. But all your meanings

within meaning cannot disguise the fact

you did not rage against the pain. You slid

down the narrow neck of anything you found,

glass and flesh alike, and you drowned, you

who knew why water throws itself against the shore,

spurred your own demise, taking your sweet syrup

of sound, half-hidden on that agile tongue

upon which all your honey’d words were hung.

~ first published in qarrtsiluni

VW Microbus, Burning

artwork: ralph murre

VW Microbus, Burning

by John Sierpinski

We are (my wife and little girl)

at the auto repair garage, again. 

It’s Monday afternoon, and they

want another four hundred bucks

that we can ill afford.  “If we need

to…” I finally say.  “We just have

to do it,” she says.  Our daughter

has found a purple thistle sticking

up through the asphalt lot where

other broken-down cars sit.  She

touches it with her index finger.

She makes a face like the sad

mask, sniffs, but doesn’t cry.  Then

she finds a pebble.  Last night,

our battery had shorted out in West

Hollywood.  Believe it or not,

the entire rear engine compartment

became engulfed in flames.  After

I got my wife and daughter out of

the bus, I ran over to a liquor store

for water.  The owner looked

at me, skeptically, then said he

had none.  Aw, come on, I thought,

then once more outside, I snatched

his rain bucket and doused bright

orange flames.  Do you believe

he had followed me outside, grabbed

his white bucket and said, “All you

damn hippies are alike.”  The flames

had gone out, but of course the bus

wouldn’t run.  I hatched a plan.  “Push,

Honey, and I’ll walk and steer.”  My

wife had on very tight shorts.  After

a few feet, a man in a white jacket

showed up and gave us a push with

his car.  That was last night.  Now,

we’re back again.  The garage

abuts the chain link fence

to the Santa Monica Freeway,

I-10.  I can smell the acrid odor                                                           

of car exhaust.  It burns my eyes.

The noise is near deafening. 

My daughter’s soft, round face

looks through the fence.  We’re

forced to spend the money, and

get back into the insanity of the

non-stop freeway.

~ first published in Into the Teeth of the Wind

August, 1945

artwork: ralph murre

August, 1945

by Peggy Trojan

When I was twelve

we stood around the radio

to verify the news.

Japan had surrendered.

The war was really over.

My mother wiped tears.

My father was quiet.

He wasn’t even

in the war,

having lost sight

in one eye at ten.

I rode to baby sit

in Mr. Anderson’s boozy Ford.

When he jammed to a stop,

all the beer bottles

on the back seat

crashed to the floor

in celebration.

~ previously published in Dust and Fire

Capture the Drops

photo: cristina norcross

Capture the Drops

 by Cristina M.R. Norcross

Sometimes love feels rationed –

doleful, little cups

from an inattentive lover.

The forgotten word –

the rush out the door –

the, goodbye

without, I love you, too.

There is a well

that gathers affection’s rain.

Years of held hands,

of walking side-by-side –

a trail of crumbs

to remember the road,

when it wasn’t this lonely.

Cup your hands

to capture the drops.

Retrain the heart

to give a little –

a soft reed in the wind.

It all flows back.

The touch on the shoulder,

the glance back before opening the door,

the notion that

years collect –

they gather in a semi-circle

of love remembered –

love that insists on staying.

~ first published in An Ariel Anthology (Ariel Woods Books)

Donald Trump, Sr.

Donald Trump, Sr.

by Mark Zimmermann

A small man’s monotonous lot

amounts to a rut on a dull map.

A Trump man’s dollar amount

maps a natural surplus.

A small man prompts no plan

to add onto unsold land.

A Trump man puts

a dollar amount on all land,

touts an all-out proposal:

Ad plan     Dollar plan

Trumpland.

Sold.

~ previously published in Impersonations (Pebblebrook Press)

   (a book of lipogram poetry in which only those letters in the

     subject's name appear in the poem)

Snapping Turtle

artwork: jeannie e. roberts

Snapping Turtle

     by Jeannie E. Roberts

Here, where countless creatures

weave through these waters,

where wild jewelweed

and Oswego tea

explode like fireworks,

where cattail spike  

and wood ducks float

quietly, here, you hide

near lily pads, soaking

your vicious temper,  

your mighty jaws

mid these muddy waters

you call home.  Here,

something ancient rises,

unchanged, stalking,

tearing turbulently

with aquatic skill,

reptilian toughness

and cold-blooded instinct.

Here, where your life

means death

to countless creatures,

where final breaths

weave peacefully 

       

through waters,  

shining home.    

~ first appeared in Nature of it All

    (Finishing Line Press, 2013)