Suitcase Full of Ordinary

by Joan Leotta


In the attic of my mind,
amid the detritus of childhood,
sits a suitcase full of ordinary moments,
days passed without comment,
waits…locked away.
Knocked about  by life’s larger forces,
its corners are rounded, red fabric
of colorful sunrise and sunsets torn.
Bits of “plaster” bumped from my
inner walls,
scratches on my own inner frame,
I pull this case down from that inner attic,
glad I’ve found it,
though I’m both curious and
afraid of what might be hiding inside.
Now, I need to find the key,
to unlock the importance
of the ordinary that rests within.


* * * * *

Joan Leotta is a writer and story performer, expressing her love of words and desire to encourage others on page and on stage. Her work has been published widely as poems, essays, articles, and books. On stage she most often performs folk and personal tales dealing with food, family, nature, and strong women. She has been published in Writing in Woman’s Voice, Silver Birch, The Ekphrastic Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Tema, and others.

November wonder

by Mary Wescott Riser


Where two closed gates meet
at the end
of the road
beyond the Cedar Grove Baptist Church,
all is the color of Virginia November:
iron clay, oak leaves,
early dusk, gold rings.

The moon is a cradle of light,
rocking in the late afternoon sky.

So close beside the car window,
a cardinal grabs a branch and bounces,
red feather edges vibrant,
snapping up red berries,
from that scrubby bush.

How many times have we been here before
and why is it always new?


* * * * *

Mary Wescott Riser worked in Virginia independent schools for 30 years, most recently as Head of School at James River Day School, a K-8 day co-ed day school in Lynchburg, Virginia, where she served as Head for ten years. Mary received her B.A. in English and Philosophy from Georgetown University and her M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Oregon. She writes the education blog “What’s Best For the Children?” www.maryriser.org. Mary and her husband, George, live in Covesville, Virginia and have two adult children.

High Noon

by Cynthia Anderson


The poet exits the building
in the middle of a reading,

leaves her papers at the podium
to heed the call of the trail.

She climbs higher, rounds
the bend, picks her way

through rockpiles, shouts,
Can you hear me?

Her voice carries all the way
back—everyone knows

where she is. Satisfied, she
descends to read a few more.

Instead of words, she lets
the scent of sage, chaparral,

and open space waft from
her body. The audience breathes
these poems of the desert
while the clock keeps ticking.


* * * * *

Cynthia Anderson lives in the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree National Park. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, and she is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She has authored nine collections and co-edited the anthology A Bird Black As the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens. Recently she guest edited Cholla Needles 46, which is available on Amazon. www.cynthiaandersonpoet.com

Bone Mother

by Cynthia Anderson


She dwells in the seat
of the sacred, building
the framework that lets you

move through this world—
stern and stoic, shunned
and unbeautiful, her face

a skull, a study in stone.
Used to being ignored,
taken for granted,

she walks within you,
every step an affirmation
of her power. She leans

on her staff, looking
straight into you,
twin suns for eyes,

crescent moons
on her cloak.
She has waited

for you a long time.
She knows how
your story ends.


* * * * *

Cynthia Anderson lives in the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree National Park. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, and she is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She has authored nine collections and co-edited the anthology A Bird Black As the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens. Recently she guest edited Cholla Needles 46, which is available on Amazon. www.cynthiaandersonpoet.com

     I Was A Nineties Girl

by S. J. Stephens
 

I wanted to be Madonna     with her stacked jelly bracelets and forbidden sexuality     a style of every nineties girl’s dream and every boy’s fantasy            she was more than ambition mocking      virginity and      scoffing the doctrine of her youth     daring to defy the laws of man and church     In my room singing     La Isla Bonita     with little idea of its meaning     A young girl with eyes like the desert     the music moved through my body     sang to my innocence at the first mention  of  wild dreams      and tropical storms gathering      I was touched beneath my skin through my bones     into the marrow     where all secrets are held      and wait  

It was a time of designer Guess jeans and peg rolled pants     high ponytails     and that guy who believed I was     on fire for the lord     and     I was burning in that fire      deeply immersed in the word     but also submerged in Bel Biv Devoe  Do Me Baby and Color me Bad    I Wanna Sex You Up     Boys to Men singing     I’ll Make Love To You

My first kiss, a dead thing flopping     on wet sand        before love          came with a second kiss     and his hand covering my breast     kneading my flesh     a deafening music     tuned to perfection        but boys make lousy lovers on driveways            with clumsy attempts at seduction     even when the stars are clear     warm air cooled by the hour     submerged in feeling     under a spell that resonates through decades of good lovers       and bad lovers   beneath those first moments of bliss        when rational thought lost       to the hum of lust     I want that magic in every kiss     in every touch of lips      and in my lover’s words  

We were     pretty girls with blue eyeshadow and black mascara     pink cheeks and frosted pink lips     teased hair three inches high     and hairspray stuck to the bathroom floor     we were girls on the verge     before cell phones and computers     a dark craze emerged     Madonna posed naked on the street     pushing the limits of virtue     beyond what my experience could beat out in time to the righteous music     playing in the background     a soundtrack to the nineties    

After rock n roll     Ruth Bader Ginsberg     and Madeleine Albright     gave way to the commercialization of my body      tricked into objectifying my sexuality     my body      until we     all women      bleed openly      reduced to sexuality        stripped of power          we slit our own wrists      in unwitted suicide 

I fear that legacy as I am the nineties girl    living proof that progress isn’t always progress      my misspent regrets are worthless in the currency of living     pennies on the dollar in the exchange of memories      at today’s rate     I’ll keep my memories     because I know this wild ride isn’t new      every generation     lives through decades of change     and at least I know        while you exploit          my girlhood                   

                       

I am an unapologetic bad ass feminist bitch.       

     * * * * *

S.J. Stephens lives and writes in the coastal town of Wilmington, North Carolina.  She is an MFA candidate for poetry at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. In addition to publishing in journals such as The Licking River Review and Sugared Water, she has recently published a chapbook, Where All the Birds Are Dancing, with Finishing Line Press. 

 

wrong turn

by Eve Rifkah


I walk into a spa, a bodega, a superette, a groceria
all faces unrecognizable

caught in mid-breath
all eyes focus
I the stranger
more lost than ever

all eyes focus
they wear the same plaid shirt
silence breaks across rows
of cans with muted labels of strange fruits,
coffee, corn meal, dairy creamer from the US

I ask the way beyond twisted streets
that end in dry fountains
blocked doorways
muffled birdsong

all eyes focus
on my confusion
pale skin
short skirt

the silence broken by scratches
as a raven walks across a counter
the motion breaks,
a still life of silent men,  brown roots
bulbous tubers

the men come to life
wave their arms attempt language
caws catch in their mouths
ricochet across the aisles
screech arrows into me

I spin in the doorway
face the blinding light of midday
run past dry fountains
through a stone arch that starts to crumble
stones rolling beneath my feet
gritgrey dust grabs my clothes, my skin 
I run to the next corner
where intersecting streets have no names
turn toward the scent of spices, yeast, perfumes, gasoline
race breath clogged
into crash of sound
rumble of traffic, of people
too many people all    
laughing, yelling, snarling, 
swirling in a ragged dance 

I stumble into a spa, a bodega, a superette, a groceria
all the faces unrecognizable  


* * * * *

Eve Rifkah was co-founder of Poetry Oasis, Inc. (1998-2012), a non-profit poetry association dedicated to education and promoting local poets. Founder and editor of DINER, a literary magazine with a 7-year run. MFA Vermont College.

She is author of Dear Suzanne (WordTech Communications, 2010) and Outcasts: the Penikese Leper Hospital 1905-1921 (Little Pear Press, 2010). Chapbook Scar Tissue (Finishing Line Press, 2017), At the Leprosarium, 2003 winner of the Revelever Chapbook Contest.

When My Heart Stops, I’ll Float My Boat on a Lake

                                                                       by Dianna MacKinnon Henning


far away. I’ll have my writing pens with me
to spear fish that flaunt their fluidity. When

waves tickle rainbow trout the stars will break
out in laughter. The water won’t be deep.

Just wet.

The shoreline is a girl’s kerchief. She’s bolts
across sand to escape the bronze gilded man
with his bow and arrow. He’s just a tan man
attempting to look like a shape shifter. Mud

fills his tracks.

A gale with a mustache tips my rowboat.
My liver is cast iron. It refuses to sink.


* * * * *

Dianna MacKinnon Henning taught through California Poets in the Schools, received several CAC grants and taught poetry workshops through the William James Association’s Prison Arts Program which included Folsom Prison. Henning’s third poetry book Cathedral of the Hand published 2016 by Finishing Line Press. Recent Publications: Pacific Poetry; New American Writing; The Kerf; The Moth, Ireland; Mojave River Review; the New Verse News; Sequestrum; VerseVirtual; Your Daily Poem and Naugatuck River Review. Four-time Pushcart nominee.