I Cannot Live Without You

                                    for Joe Biden’s inauguration, January 20, 2021

by Leonore Hildebrandt


Dear Country, today is good––
a bright and breezy morning that awakens every cell of your body.
The birds and trees and meadows and clouds balance with the earth’s movement.
The people who have taken you for granted pause for a moment
and regard you. As always, you are generous, welcoming them back.
My dear country, today you celebrate.

The past has left you wounded.
You have come face to face with your fragility––
the house of democracy broken into and vandalized,
servants of the constitution brazen, betraying the people.
You have come through the tumult in the streets,
the howling of sirens, hate-words, confederate flags.
You have been cloistered, lonely, and sick.
You mourn the losses.

And so today your vision of greatness returns to its roots––humility––
you note that you are one of many who are gathered at the table.
While you have not achieved all you set out to do,
you had the audacity to dream of equality and justice.
You are built on the wish for “a more perfect Union.”
My dear Country, you are beautiful––resilient.
Already the hills swept by last year’s fires are greening.
As public spaces reopen, the life of communities will rebound.
We will send our children to school, mingle in the city’s streets,
gather at potlucks, coffee shops, and corner stores.
We will kiss our grandkids, offer a hand, a heart,
the compassionate touch we’ve been craving.
We will agree on what the numbers tell us.

Dear Country, I cannot live without you.
In fact, I need you more.
And I no longer feel helpless when I reach out to you.
As we look at one another with fresh eyes, may I be honest?
I’m still disappointed that you would allow a man into the White House
who cares about himself above all.
I’m still tense when I think of the gamers and breakers of things,
their threats both open-carry and concealed.

But I long for you to heal, dear Country.
You deserve applause, street-dancers, a rainbow, a bouquet of roses!
You deserve decency and know-how.
Today I see the linking of arms––
an elastic chain to guard the transfer of power.
I see you waving to your global neighbors, rejoining their efforts
to keep the earth livable, to stand up to demagogues.
Because the eagle which you so proudly display in your emblems
cannot live by itself. It needs mountains and valleys
and plains where other creatures, too, may thrive.
It needs a spring, a weeping cloud, a stream.
It needs a tree to rest on, the air to soar into.

Today you recall the story of the thirteen Colonies
that formed a new single nation. They adopted a motto
written on the scroll clenched in the eagle's beak:
E pluribus unum––out of many, one.
It was the Roman scholar Cicero who said it first––
the webs of family, friendship, and community
give rise to society and the state.
"When each person loves the other as much as himself,
it makes one out of many.” Dear Country,
you have restored the missing pronouns––herself, themselves––
you know that one is made of many, and one is among many,
and one depends on many.
 
Ancient Rome believed in natural signs as clues
when planning for the country’s future.
An augur observed the behavior of birds
to see whether the gods favored a proposed action.
So I try it myself, watch the eagle’s comeback
in the wind-swept woods by the bay. 
I watch the piñon jays––noisy flocks of dry shrub-lands.
They are pecking at cones, gathering,
cashing seeds that will sprout and grow.
Birds––during migration, a shimmering river of wings
flows through the darkness of night.
The Roman augurs must have learned much
about the ambitions of small bodies.

Today’s celebration is as momentous as a migration.
Dear Country, you may be tired, and yet your workers keep showing up.
Your mothers are struggling harder than ever for the common good.
Your doctors and nurses and caretakers keep mustering strength.
The helpers at food pantries, the activists for a living earth,
the protesters for Black Lives all offer visions of kinship.
Taught by history, your people are dogged in their hope,
for this has not been the last pandemic,
the last struggle for racial equality,
the last attempt by partisans to lead you astray.

But today you are breathing the sweet air.
Inauguration––a rite of passage,
a tribute to the bond between you, my dear Country,
and the people gathered here and elsewhere under the arc of sky.
Today, when we listen to the birds, we say, “How brave they are.”
E pluribus unum––out of many, one.
Our sustenance, our learning––out of many.
Each seed a confluence of many.


* * * * *

"I Cannot Live Without You" was first published in Poets Reading the News. 

Leonore Hildebrandt is the author of the poetry collections Where You Happen to Be,
The Work at Hand, and The Next Unknown. Her poems and translations have appeared
in the Cimarron Review, Denver Quarterly, Harpur Palate, Poetry Daily, Rhino, and the
Sugar House Review, among other journals. She was nominated several times for a
Pushcart Prize. A native of Germany, Leonore lives “off the grid” in Harrington, Maine,
and spends the winter in Silver City, New Mexico.

 

Love, your daughter

by Emily House


You've broken my heart
And you've broken my heart
And you've broken my heart again.

The therapists say,
“Manage expectations.”
Since I was nineteen they've
Told me what it is to outgrow,
Out-mature,
One's parents

They tell me 
but
Outliving parents is the only primal piece our brains can give us.

And I shouldn't be surprised that you
Believe what you believe

You spent my entire childhood 
Twisting truths 
Both ancient and modern
Pretending persecution.
Meanwhile
I was in college before I heard the term

“Worldview”

Before I realized there was more
Than
One.

You couldn't protect me from the babysitter's brother
Or your anger
And your belt.
From food insecurity
From moving over and over
Because you couldn't keep a job.
You couldn't protect my shoulders from 
The heavy weight of your tears, either

You gave me all of the power, and none of the power.

You've broken my heart, again and again. 
And you've broken my heart again.

You never stopped moving
Never stopped losing 
Jobs and loosely defined friends.
Borderline?
Sociopathy?
ASD?

I'm left holding the pieces and puzzles,
While you have no intention of seeking answers.

I'm left with your debts
And your pain
And your memories

While you claim to remember
Almost nothing at all
And twist what truth remains.

I could be angry.
I could cut you off.
I could join you,
If only in pretending all is well.

But.

You've broken my heart
And you've broken my heart
And you've broken my heart again.


* * * * *

Emily House is a writer and high school English teacher. She lives in Iowa with her family, whom she loves. When she isn't guiding young minds, her life revolves around words and emotions. She views poetry as a natural consequence of this and hopes her works bring healing and insight to all readers. 

This month there is an additional Moon Prize, the 72^nd. It was donated anonymously by a prior Moon Prize winner, and it goes to Kari Gunter-Seymour's poem "I Come From A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen."

I Come From A Place So Deep
Inside America It Can’t Be Seen

by Kari Gunter-Seymour


White oaks thrash, moonlight drifts
the ceiling, as if I’m under water.
Propane coils, warms my bones.

Gone are the magics and songs,
all the things our grandmothers buried–
piles of feathers and angel bones,

inscribed by all who came before.
When I was twelve, my cousins
called me ugly, enough to make it last.

Tonight a celebrity on Oprah
imagines a future where features
can be removed and replaced

on a whim. A moth presses wings
thin as paper against my window,
more beautiful than I could ever be.

Ryegrass raise seedy heads
beyond the bull thistle and preen.
Everything alive aches for more.


* * * * *

"I Come From A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen" was first published in
Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Volume XII, and is part of Kari Gunter-Seymour’s poetry collection A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2020).

Kari Gunter-Seymour’s poetry collections include A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2020) and Serving (Crisis Chronicles Press 2018/2020-Expanded Edition). Her work is firmly attached to her home soil and is an examination of the long-lasting effects of stereotype and false narratives surrounding Appalachians. Her poems appear in numerous journals and publications including Verse Daily, Rattle, Still, The NY Times and on her website: www.karigunterseymourpoet.com. She is the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year and Poet Laureate of Ohio.

The 71st Moon Prize in honor of today's full moon goes to Elise Stuart's poem "Who Does the World Belong To?"

Who Does the World Belong To?

by Elise Stuart


To the raven, and their calling
To the fox, rarely seen
To the coyote, howling in the distance
To the bluebirds, flying down from the branch.

It belongs to the trees, stark and naked in winter
To the flowing river
To the nearly opened bud
To the green stones, the white shells.

It belongs to the lonely peak of the mountain
the bowl of the valley
the burning heat of the desert
the dripping rain forest.

It belongs to the constant moon
To the stars, breathing above―
And we will come and go
And we will come and go.


* * * * *

Elise Stuart is a writer of poetry and short stories. She’s facilitated numerous poetry workshops for students in Silver City schools, feeling how important it is to give voice to youth. Her first poetry book, and then her memoir, My Mother and I, We Talk Cat were both published in 2017. She lives in Silver City, New Mexico with four cats, a sweet rascal of a pup, and her piano.

 

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

by Mary J. Breen

Some say our name is the sweetest sound we know, but surely that’s only true for those who like their names. However, like them or not, we care a lot about what we are called. The names we are given define us and survive us, reflecting family, language, culture, and religion. Our names are how we are known in birth records, school records, work records, prison records, marriage records, pension records, and death records; and our names are forever attached to the letters and books we write, the paintings we paint, and the buildings we build. Our names are our links to the past and the future.

My son came to understand the importance of names. When he was about ten, he decided that he hated his. No longer was he going to answer to Gabriel; he was going to be Gabe, only Gabe. (I think someone had teased him for his “girly” name. Sigh.) We tried, but it was hard to remember his new name overnight; perhaps that’s why he thought it might work better if he changed it officially. I kept telling him that that wasn’t necessary. Then one day he spotted a sign on a building: Federal Ministry of Corrections. “That’s it!” he cried. He was practically hopping up and down on the spot. “Here it is! Here’s where we go to correct my name!”

I too, when I was young, wanted a new name although it hadn’t occurred to me to appeal to the government for help. In the 1950s, Marys were as common as head colds; two in every class and three on every team. My name also seemed to compel relatives and even perfect strangers to call me Mary, Mary, quite contrary or Just Mary, the name of a popular children’s radio show in Canada at that time. Right, I was Just Mary. My mother pronounced it MAY-ree. It’s a good thing I hadn’t yet heard Jimmy Stewart say MAH-ry in It’s a Wonderful Life, so soft, down deep in his throat. It would have made MAY-ree even worse.

My parents’ opinion that Mary was the loveliest name of all, so holy, so universal, did nothing to change my mind. What I wanted was something less boring and ordinary, something just for me. After all, I got to pick good names for my dolls and my kittens, so why couldn’t I choose one for myself? At about age twelve, I came up with the perfect solution: since my second name is Josephine, I announced I would henceforth be known as Mary Jo, a name I’d seen in a book. My father was not impressed. “If Mary is good enough for the Blessed Virgin,” he said, “it’s good enough for you.” And so Mary I remained.

Twenty years later, during the heady days of the counterculture and early feminism, names took on new significance. First we changed Miss or Mrs. to Ms. to remove any reference to marital status, and then we dropped our married surnames to return us to what we called “our own names.” Some women also gave their babies extraordinary names like Athena, Gaia, and Zen. Within this naming fever, many of us also realized that our own first names were much too traditional, so we changed them to reflect the strong liberated women we wanted to be. Here was my big chance, but try as I did, I could never decide on a good new name. I didn’t want to be Morning or Miah or Majesty; besides, I already had a new name that I was very happy with: Mummy.

And so I remained Just Mary.

The years passed and mostly I had outgrown my wish for a new and better name. Then I had my first grandchild. When he was about two, he and his mother were visiting from afar. He was starting to imitate words well, so my daughter said, “Jacob; this is your Granny. Can you say ‘Granny’?” He looked up at me, and in a very sober, clear voice said, “Dogal” (a rhyme with “mogul”). My daughter and I fell about laughing, and decided to wait until he’d forgotten about this daft name. However, when we tried again, his answer was the same, an emphatic “Dogal!” And so this became it—the name both he and his brother call me. And in that way that good ideas can arrive with speed and grace and accuracy, I realized that this was what I’d been waiting for all my life: a unique name, a special name, and one given to me by someone I will love forever.


* * * * *

A version of "What's in a Name" was previously published in Grandparents Day Magazine (Australia) in 2011.

Mary J. Breen is the author of two books about women's health. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in national newspapers, essay collections, travel magazines, health journals, and literary magazines including Brick, The Christian Science Monitor, Ars Medica, The National Post, and JAMA Cardiology. She was a regular contributor to The Toast. She lives in Peterborough Ontario Canada where, among other things, she teaches writing.

 

Tourists

by Leslie Dianne


The tourists use maps
to navigate the city
they unfurl
billowing sheets
hold onto them like
sails and glide across the
sidewalks in a cluster
forming german, french
and italian shapes with
their hands and mouths

I notice them when they stop
heads together in a circle
like prayer
they pour over
lines and words
finger measure distances
and flip the map
from left to right
they leave their
shadows across
the paper like dolls
they can cut out
and string together

I step close to them
and offer my silhouette
hoping that when
they find their
next destination
they will fold me up
and make me part
of their day
 

* * * * *

Leslie Dianne is a poet, novelist, screenwriter, playwright and performer whose work has been acclaimed internationally in places such as the Harrogate Fringe Festival in Great Britain, The International Arts Festival in Tuscany, Italy and at La Mama in NYC.  She received her BA in French Literature from CUNY and her poems have appeared in The Lake, Ghost City Review, The Literary Yard, and About Place Journal.  Her poetry was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Ruby May

by Kari Gunter-Seymour


My mama hates children and dogs.
Even her own. No matter that she makes
this clear, announces it regular.
Wherever she goes, there’s a child
or hound set to wallow her, as if
she smells of jelly beans or Alpo. 
Manic, she will coo you penniless.
Depressed, she’ll peel the skin
off your face with nary a whip
of her curly head. Now she says,
I wanted to live seemly, set out to be kind,
reaches for her Bible. She says
Uncle Bub used to tickle her
up under her chin and otherwise
on whiskey nights. Says she and Fanny June
would build forts with kitchen chairs
and Grammie’s starflower quilt,
crawl deep inside, lure the cat
with baloney, lie side-by-side,
lock fingers in pinky swear,
hearts crossed, hoped he’d die.


* * * * *

"Ruby May" was first published in Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Volume XII and is part of Kari Gunter-Seymour’s poetry collection A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2020).

Kari Gunter-Seymour’s poetry collections include A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2020) and Serving (Crisis Chronicles Press 2018/2020-Expanded Edition). Her work is firmly attached to her home soil and is an examination of the long-lasting effects of stereotype and false narratives surrounding Appalachians. Her poems appear in numerous journals and publications including Verse Daily, Rattle, Still, The NY Times and on her website: www.karigunterseymourpoet.com. She is the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year and Poet Laureate of Ohio.

I Come From A Place So Deep
Inside America It Can’t Be Seen

by Kari Gunter-Seymour


White oaks thrash, moonlight drifts
the ceiling, as if I’m under water.
Propane coils, warms my bones.

Gone are the magics and songs,
all the things our grandmothers buried–
piles of feathers and angel bones,

inscribed by all who came before.
When I was twelve, my cousins
called me ugly, enough to make it last.

Tonight a celebrity on Oprah
imagines a future where features
can be removed and replaced

on a whim. A moth presses wings
thin as paper against my window,
more beautiful than I could ever be.

Ryegrass raise seedy heads
beyond the bull thistle and preen.
Everything alive aches for more.


* * * * *

" I Come From A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen" was first published in
Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Volume XII and is part of Kari Gunter-Seymour’s poetry collection A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2020).

Kari Gunter-Seymour’s poetry collections include A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2020) and Serving (Crisis Chronicles Press 2018/2020-Expanded Edition). Her work is firmly attached to her home soil and is an examination of the long-lasting effects of stereotype and false narratives surrounding Appalachians. Her poems appear in numerous journals and publications including Verse Daily, Rattle, Still, The NY Times and on her website: www.karigunterseymourpoet.com. She is the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year and Poet Laureate of Ohio.

Political Ad

by Patricia N. McLaughlin


I’m a political ad.
I’m invective and vile.
I work on the psyche.
I can twist the truth 
into a bald-faced lie.
I bend token laws with ease.
All you have to do is watch me,
let me sink into your mind,
            just take me
            with a chunk of rock salt.

I know how to doctor images,
how to spread fake news.
I can maximize the damage,
obscure the man’s record,
show the woman’s flaws
            that wreck her race.

What are you waiting for—
have faith in All-American Capitalism.

You’re still an undecided voter.
It’s not too late to manipulate your mind.
Who said
            the ends won’t justify the means?

Let me foul your judgment.
I’ll sully it with dirt.
You’ll thank me for mixing up
            more mud for you to sling.

Buy what I sell.
You’re one of many suckers.

There is no market for truth anymore.


* * * * *

Patricia N. McLaughlin is a writer of multiple genres, including prize-winning children’s literature and flash fiction. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Oregon and has taught at several esteemed colleges and universities, earning awards for distinguished service and teaching excellence. Her first collection of poetry, The Hierophant, was published in 2020. She makes her home in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her spouse, Trish, and their miniature dachshund, Lexi.

 

Workaday

by Anita S. Pulier

...what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
—Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays

Not yet allowed to cross the street
I waited patiently at the corner,
peering down the block, until he appeared
walking home from the F train.

I, who have
traveled the world,
seen many wonders,
believe that no
wilderness trek,
no safari thrill,
has ever compared
to the moment I would spot him,
my five-year-old heart racing,
small frame bouncing up and down,
waving, screaming Daddy, Daddy,

and he would laugh,
drop his briefcase,
lift me high above the world,
challenge me to guess
which sweaty palm held
a piece of bubblegum
or penny candy.

Oblivious to his
long and burdensome day,
I long assumed that my joy,
my earth shaking happiness,
was all that consumed us both.


* * * * *

"Pandemic Reality Show" was first published in Juniper and is part of Anita S. Pulier's new poetry collection Toast (Finishing Line Press, 2021).

Anita S. Pulier’s three chapbooks Perfect Diet, The Lovely Mundane and Sounds of Morning and her book The Butchers Diamond  were published by Finishing Line Press. Her second full length book Toast has just been released. Anita’s poems have appeared both online and in print in many journals and her work is included in six anthologies. Anita has been the featured poet nine times on The Writers Almanac.
Her website is: http://psymeet.com/anitaspulier/

Pandemic Reality Show

For Sima

by Anita S. Pulier


Another quarantined morning
weather irrelevant —
she walks into her closet,
inhales stale scents and
with the power of a fairytale kiss
wakes a dormant dress,
gingerly removes it from a dusty hanger,
decides to revive one neglected outfit
every quarantined day, smooths
the silk dress, lays it out on her bed,
showers, combs her greying hair,
puts on makeup, earrings, wraps
her mother’s ancient pearl necklace
around her neck, grabs her phone,
snaps a selfie, smiles, at an aging woman
wearing her favorite blue silk
deftly redefining a shapeless day.
Allowing the silk to caress her,
she stares out the bedroom window
at the cloudless blue sky, hits send.


* * * * *

"Pandemic Reality Show" is from Anita S. Pulier's new poetry collection Toast (Finishing Line Press, 2021).

Anita S. Pulier’s three chapbooks Perfect Diet, The Lovely Mundane and Sounds of Morning and her book The Butchers Diamond  were published by Finishing Line Press. Her second full length book Toast has just been released. Anita’s poems have appeared both online and in print in many journals and her work is included in six anthologies. Anita has been the featured poet nine times on The Writers Almanac.
Her website is: http://psymeet.com/anitaspulier/

Writing In A Woman's Voice is on equinox sabbatical until March 21, 2021. Happy first day of spring or fall to all of you.

Conflicted 

by Elaine Sorrentino 


ON MY HONOR
One size-nine foot stuck in childhood,
the other straddles adolescence,  
tumultuous early teen years, seeking validation.
Where do I belong?

I WILL TRY
My right arm, tugged into obedience, shrieks
be loyal, responsible, courteous, predictable;
I am a rule follower, a Girl Scout, it’s all I know,
predictable, always choosing the right path.

TO DO MY DUTY
My left arm, yanked with such intensity
it nearly hangs from its socket, the blossoming me 
the new version longing to be unique, sensual, confident, 
fancies action reflecting my changing mind and body.

TO GOD AND MY COUNTRY
The desire to pursue the real me yearnings battles
the desire to obey the trustworthy acceptable directives,
high school calls, decisions are imminent.
Will I live the coming years obedient or authentic?

TO HELP OTHER PEOPLE AT ALL TIMES
In my heart I want to be sultry, gravelly-voiced Carly,
or my version of her, warbling about teen angst and lost loves
from behind a piano, trading Kumbaya for You're So Vain; 
but in my uniform I forget how to dream. 

AND TO OBEY THE GIRL SCOUT LAWS
So, I don my ill-fitting uniform for a final stare,
unfasten the award badges and pins from the sash,
peeling away layers of rules to uncover my true self;
newly liberated from the trusty roadmap  
I dance with exhilaration down an uncharted path.


* * * * *

Elaine Sorrentino is Communications Director at South Shore Conservatory in Hingham, MA, where she creates promotional and first-person content for press and for a blog called SSC Musings.  Facilitator of the Duxbury Poetry Circle, she has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Writers’ Magazine, The Writers Newsletter, Haiku Universe, Failed Haiku, and has won the monthly poetry challenge at wildamorris.blogspot.com.   

A Young Woman Swimming

by Agnes Ezra Arabella


She stepped in
like ice alone
could save her
she dived,
slicing the wave
with her body 
her fresh ponytail
submerged
like a silk scarf
then swam moving the
water away
like whirlpools
could hold her buoyantly 
save her from the headache
whispering words
They had been there all night
like a rocking chair
the crisp Atlantic 
close to Cape Cod
air.
The pull of the waves 
and the tide was
an amethyst 
for a moment
purple and pale blue.
A fire
Too lovely for 
a drowning.
A drowning 
that first starts by
being swallowed by 
a wave.
the kind that goes up 
the nose 
and feels like the whole
head is being
submerged in water.
The kind that stings 
the back of the nostril
and feels like your 
mother has washed 
your mouth out
with soap
to float
Solo
Dead man
toes pointing to the sky
She thought of
Anne Boleyn at the guillotine.
"Annabel"
The name floated in her head
the name
"Annabel"
The one eyed cat her
neighbor had found 
under the enclosed porch
The cat was left
during the Pandemic
could not be afforded anymore
Poor destitute fool 
charmed her way in 
through the basement window
And shrieking bloody murder at 5 am
Sometimes Annabel would sleep
and use her head as a pillow
She remembered,
He said,
"No I have to go."
He wanted to find the comet 
at 3 in the morning.
She told him to take a picture for her
The elements electric
Telephone wire fossils
run the sky.
But, remember you 
cannot capture the tail
of a comet on a cellphone.
You need a slower exposure.
You need a Tripod to put the 
camera on.
She floated the dead man's float,
Getting the water 
in her nose and mouth,
When the waves came in from the faster
moving motor boat
went over the waves
leaving a wave of surf
to flip over her 
buoy head as she looked into 
a very blue sky
Clouds that looked like
pulled cotton balls on
her dresser
She wanted to,
"Flee on her donkey,
from the madhouse 
before it was too late,"
She wanted him to touch her
on the couch
as they lay watching television.
She wanted him to look into
her eyes
and see her
She wanted him to lick her ear
Like a lollipop
The unsettled girl with her voices and the 
lovely girl with her graces
Her ability to turn the world at every angle
Prism like
Optical illusion after optical illusion
warped but crystal like
in beaming reflection when the
sun hit
just right
More holy then an evil eye
The crystal prism produced
light
as sharp as a razor blade
She wanted him to love this 
The prism
but he never knew how she was
The voices beating through the night
So secret
Safety
Safety
was a rock 
she wanted to swim to
She wanted to believe 
she could be more lucid.
He gave her a red miniature rose
from his garden
he grew it
on the front yard patio
She put it behind her ear
and drove
with it 
all the way home.
Home-she would return to herself
Like her dead man's float 
She lifted herself out of the water,
Licking off the salt 
on her lips. 
staring into a well
of dug out sculpted sand.


* * * * *

"A Young Woman Swimming" is part of Agnes Ezra Arabella's upcoming poetry collection Beach: Still Lives of the Ocean.

Agnes Ezra Arabella studied English Literature and Writing at Smith College with Kurt Vonnegut and Jack Gilbert. Went on to teach English in the South Bronx and Queens and became a quiet writer working on an upcoming poetry collection called Beach: Still Lives of the Ocean.

 

In an Alternate Universe

by Mish (Eileen Murphy)


Dad, if for a nanosecond,

we could touch
our fingertips,

your firm fingertips
to my trembling tips,

we’d become
alternate universes.
Brushing
against one another,

not bruising,

I breathe in
your air,

and you breathe in
mine.

We exhale together
Then laugh.

It’s still light against dark here;

there’s still cause and effect
on my side of the line.

But in one parallel universe,
scared,
you slip off
into the night.

In another
parallel universe,
you sigh
with exhaustion.

While,
in yet another
parallel universe—
this one’s called Earth—

you’ll
never return.


* * * * *

Mish (Eileen Murphy) has published poetry in Fortune Written on Wet Grass (2020), Evil Me (2020), and Sex & Ketchup (forthcoming 2021). She is  Associate Poetry Editor for Cultural Weekly and teaches English/literature at Polk State College. Mish also illustrated Phoebe and Ito are dogs by John Yamrus (2019).

Compose Rudimentary Praise Songs Daily

by Karen Friedland


To the wind,
to the ever-changing weather,
to the birds that wake you,
to the city that bears you,
to the strange times you’ve survived.

To your particular allotment of years—
your decades, your century—
and the music, words and famous people
that lodged there.

To the odd assortment of friends and neighbors
whose paths you’ve haphazardly crossed
in the places where you landed,
as if pre-ordained.

But nothing is pre-ordained—
it’s all just happenstance magic.


* * * * *

" Compose Rudimentary Praise Songs Daily" is part of the Karen Friedland's chapbook Tales from the Teacup Palace (Červená Barva Press, 2020).

A nonprofit grant writer by day, Karen Friedland’s poems have been published in The Lily Poetry Review, Constellations, Nixes Mate Review, Writing in a Women’s Voice, Vox Populi and others. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and another was displayed for a year in Boston’s City Hall. Her two books of poems are Tales from the Teacup Palace (Červená Barva Press) and Places That Are Gone (Nixes Mate Books). She lives in a quiet neighborhood of Boston with her husband, two dogs, cat, and altogether too many house plants.

Ridiculously Alive     

by Karen Friedland


I am thinking about
the small spaces I inhabit
and the tiny things
I see every day—the very stones on the road.

I am thinking
that I will continue to reject
that which insults my soul—
this gets easier every year.

I am turning my mind instead
to everything that is now living—
my husband on the couch, reading the paper,
the dogs, softly snoring beside us,
the late summer crickets, with their fading serenade.

Everything, I know, dies
but this does not grieve me right now—

Because at this moment,
everything is so brilliantly,
almost ridiculously, alive.


* * * * *

"Ridiculously Alive" was first published in Vox Populi (2020) and is part of the author's chapbook Tales from the Teacup Palace (Červená Barva Press, 2020).

A nonprofit grant writer by day, Karen Friedland’s poems have been published in The Lily Poetry Review, Constellations, Nixes Mate Review, Writing in a Women’s Voice, Vox Populi and others. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and another was displayed for a year in Boston’s City Hall. Her two books of poems are Tales from the Teacup Palace (Cervena Barva Press) and Places That Are Gone (Nixes Mate Books). She lives in a quiet neighborhood of Boston with her husband, two dogs, cat, and altogether too many house plants.

Some Enchanted Evening...

                                 For Pam

by Carole Baldock


Of course it's all just a dream,
on the set of 'South Pacific'.
The setting I do believe, is Cannes
where the world famous actress
whose name escapes us both,
sashays up to you, eagerly,
enthusiastic as a dj,
so sure this role is meant for her.
The sun is gleaming on your hair and skin
as you casually lean back
(aquamarine pool background),
teeth gleaming in your sleepy smile,
which is widening into laughter as you slowly shake your head.
Or maybe you caught me mouthing:
The car – the bloody car...
Of course it's a dream.

Close-up of a barn, I think,
the gorgeous French film star
daintily stroking the sleekly curving silver bonnet
as if made of plush or fur,
or, because we are in Cannes,
as lovingly as if a woman's body.
Turning, he smiles, arms wide,
alerted by the crunch of gravel
to my arrival.
And I know this part is mine.
Before long, I'll be sitting there beside him, wind blowing
through my hair as we hit the high road,
driving off into the sunset.
It's where I am meant to be.
Even if it is all just a dream.


* * * * *

Carole Baldock is proud owner of 3 children (all in good working order); 2 cats (need slight attention), a BA Hons and Orbis, International Literary Journal. Widely published, with enough poems over the years to fill a drawer, she has a pamphlet, BITCHING, to her name, as well as a collection, Give Me Where to Stand, published by Headland.

And the universe resounds

by Brooke Herter James


Look what I can do!

proclaims the light outside
the kitchen window
where I stand still
in pajamas waiting
for the coffee to brew.
The hillside is ablaze,
Rothko orange beneath
a sky so deep slate blue,
I want to wake my husband.
Then the phone buzzes,
and a photo appears
of my six-week old grandson
in a turquoise-striped onesie,
smiling full on
for the first time.

Look what I can do!


* * * * *

Brooke Herter James is the author of two poetry chapbooks, The Widest Eye (2016) and Spring took the Long Way Around (2019) and one children’s book, Why Did the Farmer Cross the Road? (2017). Her poems have appeared in Orbis and Rattle (forthcoming), as well as the online publications Poets Reading the News, New Verse News, Flapper Press and Typishly. She lives on small farm in Vermont with her husband, four hens, two donkeys and a dog. Postcards from Montana is her soon-to-be-published collection of prose, poetry and photographs.

 

someone whose shoes I didn’t recognize

by Jan Ball


Sarah’s Inn, a refuge for beaten women,
I discovered when I read a notice
scotch-taped to the mirror in the women’s
fourth floor bathroom, at Loyola Lewis Towers,
downtown Chicago across from the Water
Tower, a pink paper, exposing a confessional
subject in this private, almost cloistered space,
that says, “Call us if you or someone you
know is involved in domestic violence,”
three tear-off tabs already missing. These
speckled marble corridor floors transport people
from all over the world and I’ve heard that some
Asians are known for their wife-beating even today
and I did hear my student in the stall next to me
once gulping sobs and moaning something over
and over again like a chant in a language I
only just recognized as Korean although I
could tell by her shoes who it was anyway, but
there haven’t been many Koreans around so
maybe someone else tore off those little scraps
of paper, someone whose shoes I wouldn’t recognize.


* * * * *

"someone whose shoes I didn't recognize" was first published in Phoebe, 2005. 

Jan Ball has had 337 poems published in various journals including: Atlanta Review, American Journal of Poetry, Calyx, and Phoebe, internationally as well as in the U.S.. Jan’s three chapbooks and full length poetry collection, I Wanted to Dance With My Father, are available from Finishing Line Press and Amazon. She was nominated by Orbis, England, 2020, for a Pushcart award. Jan was a nun or seven years and taught ESL, most recently at the university level. When not traveling, or gardening at their farm, Jan and her husband like to cook for friends.

 

Custody of the Eyes

by Jan Ball


Breathing heavily, she furtively
wraps her fingers around the bindings   
of two books from the stacks at Alverno
College, Milwaukee, where she is
studying while a second year novice
in the Mother House on Layton Boulevard.

She presses the titles against the crucifix
that hangs on her chest, as lovingly
as she used to hold her infant nieces
and nephews—Wuthering Heights
and Rousseau’s Emile—both books
recommended by lay teachers in her classes
and approved by her novice mistress
as educational enough for an exception.

When she checks the books out
at the circulation desk, she keeps
custody of the eyes, looking down
at the floor or she might glow
like the phosphorescent poster
of a prayer she kept in her bedroom
before entering the convent,
so thrilled to read a book besides
the psalms in her breviary,
beautiful as the ancient words are:
    
As the deer thirsts for running water,
  so my soul is thirsting, for you, my God,

as well as spiritual reading, and textbooks:
        How to Write an Essay or History
                 of the Ancient World.

Once back at the convent, she covers
the books with brown paper as Sister
Archelaus suggests so no one can see
the forbidden fruit or guess the reason
for the brilliant new light in her eyes.


* * * * ** *

Jan Ball has had 337 poems published in various journals including: Atlanta Review, American Journal of Poetry, Calyx, and Phoebe, internationally as well as in the U.S.. Jan’s three chapbooks and full length poetry collection, I Wanted to Dance With My Father, are available from Finishing Line Press and Amazon. She was nominated by Orbis, England, 2020, for a Pushcart award. Jan was a nun or seven years and taught ESL, most recently at the university level. When not traveling, or gardening at their farm, Jan and her husband like to cook for friends.

 

Not Gone

by Lynne Zotalis

You ruined me, but what pleasure

                                the spoiling, the ruination

                     utter abandon

   the level of intimacy

                    anticipating,

                         relishing the refined touch,

                            the whispered brush of your lips

                                                             tongue tasting stroke.

               Nine years later the aesthete remains, a knowing

              shadow

             ephemeral

        no longer hurting or wounding

                       No

                     Now I bask with a sense of

                 fingers resting tenderly at home

                           upon my neck

                  a slight squeeze now and again

                 inferring in your singularly, quiet way

                      all of the words you didn’t voice.


* * * * *

Lynne Zotalis’s short stories have won publication for three years in the R.H. Cunningham Short Story Contest through Willowdown Books. Her poetry has appeared in Tuck Magazine, writinginawoman’svoice, The Poetic Bond VII, VIII and IX, and Lyrical Iowa. Her grief recovery book, Saying Goodbye to Chuck, promotes an interactive method of incorporating a daily journal to enunciate the readers’ personal grief process, available on Amazon. Her latest book, Hippie at Heart (What I Used to Be, I Still Am) and the rest of her publications are listed on the Amazon author page. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DC6GZ7T  

 

Red Camelias

                        after Marie Howe

by Ronna Magy


Kitchen sink clogged for days,
crusty dishes long in a pile. Delft oatmeal
bowl, silver stirring spoon, half-sipped
Gatorade, ice blue.
Wooden blinds seal the living room
dark.
 
I’ve been thinking. This is what we do
on the path to leaving. I’ve thought it
often the past few days.
When she said she couldn’t eat,
couldn’t sleep, felt alone
without her wife, shivered, afraid,
though she couldn’t say she
wanted death.
 
It’s January. I’m not sure another
spring will come for her, another
time of red camelias and pink azaleas
blooming outside that door.
 
But at moments, I catch myself
motioning to her in dreams, saying,
Hold onto my shoulder, there is more
to this life. And in yesterday’s mirror
glimpse the two of them
strolling the beach,
red camelias winding through silvered hair.


* * * * *

Los Angeles-based poet, Ronna Magy was raised in Detroit, Michigan. Her work is published in: Writers Resist, American Writers Review, Artists and Climate Change, Persimmon Tree, Nasty Women Poets, Sinister Wisdom, Trivia: Voices of Feminism, and elsewhere.

 

Who Does the World Belong To?

by Elise Stuart


To the raven, and their calling
To the fox, rarely seen
To the coyote, howling in the distance
To the bluebirds, flying down from the branch.

It belongs to the trees, stark and naked in winter
To the flowing river
To the nearly opened bud
To the green stones, the white shells.

It belongs to the lonely peak of the mountain
the bowl of the valley
the burning heat of the desert
the dripping rain forest.

It belongs to the constant moon
To the stars, breathing above―
And we will come and go
And we will come and go.


* * * * *

Elise Stuart is a writer of poetry and short stories. She’s facilitated numerous poetry workshops for students in Silver City schools, feeling how important it is to give voice to youth. Her first poetry book, and then her memoir, My Mother and I, We Talk Cat were both published in 2017. She lives in Silver City, New Mexico with four cats, a sweet rascal of a pup, and her piano.

 

Power Play

by Alexis Rhone Fancher

When my lover tells me I cannot say no, and I protest, she parts my legs, says yes, baby. Yes. I do what I’m told. No becomes a foreign country. I take it as permission. Open season. So when the waiter asks if there’ll be anything else, I peruse his menu. I’m stuffed, but I say yes, cram my mouth with macaroons and chocolate. And when the Lyft driver seduces me in the rear-view, eyes me like prey, asks, May I kiss you? I say yes. And when the long-legged woman I’ve long lusted after at the gym wonders aloud if I’m single, asks me to dinner and a movie, I say yes. And when she invites me into her bed, what can I say but yes, yes, yes? And when my fan in Nova Scotia begs me to be his muse, to sanction an explicit ode to my breasts, my ankles, my lower lip, a poem he’d never show his wife, I cannot say no to his lust and delusion. Now he wants to climb me, sublime me, shoot me full of stars. Is this what you want, too? he writes, and I answer yes. And when I return to my lover at last and she sinks into the heady dampness between my thighs, looks up at me and asks, Have you been faithful? I say, Yes.

* * * * *

©Alexis Rhone Fancher. "Power Play" was first published in Harbor Review, 2020, and nominated for Best of the Net, 2020.

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Cleaver, Diode, Duende, Pirene’s Fountain, Poetry East, Pedestal Magazine and elsewhere. She’s authored five poetry collections, most recently, Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). EROTIC: New & Selected, from New York Quarterly, and another, full-length collection (in Italian) by Edizioni Ensemble, Italia, will both be published in 2021. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com