by Anne Graue
Scaling the fence in San Jose
he smiled at himself,
proud to have not taken
that first drag in the seventh
grade when his friend Gavin
held out the pack of Marlboros.
His breathing was easy now,
and he felt his sneakers
hit the tarmac with some give.
He smiled again
circling the phrase "Homeland Security."
His comb in his back pocket,
he jumped inside the well
of the landing gear, finding
a place to roll his adolescence
into a position that might
outlast the flight, his unconsciousness,
his conscious act of defiance--his parents'
frantic search for their son gone
missing, who was a good kid, didn't smoke
or do drugs, who was smart enough,
who knew that hitching a ride inside
the outside of a 767 was a possibility.
His body folded up easily above the wheels--
he woke in paradise, combed his hair,
remembered how the noise was so great
and the cold was so numbing.
Anne Graue writes poetry and teaches online from her home in New York's Hudson Valley. Her poems have appeared in Paradigm, Compass Rose, Sixfold Journal, and The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly, and she was a finalist in the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award competition for 2013. She has written reviews of literary magazines for NewPages.com.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, BORN 450 YEARS AGO TODAY
by Earl J. Wilcox
Rapper from Avon:
Yo, you stun our souls, our mate.
Sing on, man, sing on.
Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.
 |
| Image source: Elephant . . . Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw! But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king. --Hamlet 5.1 |
Rapper from Avon:
Yo, you stun our souls, our mate.
Sing on, man, sing on.
Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
LEGAL ARGUMENTS
by David Chorlton
A river soaks slowly into statutes
piled upon it by way
of the arguments
that a hundred year supply
of illusions is guaranteed.
By paragraph and case law
the current is diverted
while promises are laid
instead of foundations
for houses for whom
the weather forecast is running
dry. With cufflinks shining
like spring runoff
a developer listens closely
to his counsel say
that taking away the water
will have no adverse impact
on the river, begging
the question whether language
can outlast meaning.
 |
| Tucson, AZ -- The Arizona Department of Water Resources has approved a massive groundwater pumping project that will drain the Upper San Pedro River in Southern Arizona. This decision comes despite opposition from the property owners along the river and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and ignores the project’s impact on the birds, wildlife, and local residents and businesses that are dependent on a healthy river. --Earth Justice, April 16, 2013 |
A river soaks slowly into statutes
piled upon it by way
of the arguments
that a hundred year supply
of illusions is guaranteed.
By paragraph and case law
the current is diverted
while promises are laid
instead of foundations
for houses for whom
the weather forecast is running
dry. With cufflinks shining
like spring runoff
a developer listens closely
to his counsel say
that taking away the water
will have no adverse impact
on the river, begging
the question whether language
can outlast meaning.
David Chorlton has
lived in Phoenix since 1978, and still sees his surroundings with an
outsider's eye. This helps his writing projects, which include a new
poetry collection,"The Devil's Sonata," from FutureCycle Press.
ENCIRCLING LOOM
by James Grabill
Amniotic drops of prehistoric dew on the canyon rim walls luminesce with light in the brain.
Complex otherness floats in womb-pulse swaths crossing the Pacific in adaptations of bodily cells.
Under blinding stars, electrical ancestral stories pour down through the small houses of losses and gain, where future scarcity looms and a dark-violet eyelash carries more weight than we know.
As the road goes out on its own, the root in a seed will decide. Where daylight drives the atmosphere, a shirtless boy swims in the sea of air. The cradle collides with shadow and magnetic lineage in current encircling turns.
As overflow sleep expands and contacts in the spectrum, the unfinished complex mind has an eye for complexity in the world.
Isn’t this where separation from the whole grew opposable thumbs and set off on the road coming back?
What part of the whole would being exclude? What animals haven’t loved and feared this air?
James Grabill’s poems have appeared in numerous periodicals such as Stand (UK), Magma (UK), Toronto Quarterly (CAN), Harvard Review (US), Terrain (US), Seneca Review (US), Urthona (UK), kayak (US), Plumwood Mountain (AUS), Caliban (US), Spittoon (US), Weber: The Contemporary West (US), The Common Review (US), and The Buddhist Poetry Review (US). His books of poems include Poem Rising Out of the Earth and Standing Up in Someone and An Indigo Scent after the Rain. He lives in Oregon, where he teaches 'systems thinking' relative to sustainability.
Amniotic drops of prehistoric dew on the canyon rim walls luminesce with light in the brain.
Complex otherness floats in womb-pulse swaths crossing the Pacific in adaptations of bodily cells.
Under blinding stars, electrical ancestral stories pour down through the small houses of losses and gain, where future scarcity looms and a dark-violet eyelash carries more weight than we know.
As the road goes out on its own, the root in a seed will decide. Where daylight drives the atmosphere, a shirtless boy swims in the sea of air. The cradle collides with shadow and magnetic lineage in current encircling turns.
As overflow sleep expands and contacts in the spectrum, the unfinished complex mind has an eye for complexity in the world.
Isn’t this where separation from the whole grew opposable thumbs and set off on the road coming back?
What part of the whole would being exclude? What animals haven’t loved and feared this air?
James Grabill’s poems have appeared in numerous periodicals such as Stand (UK), Magma (UK), Toronto Quarterly (CAN), Harvard Review (US), Terrain (US), Seneca Review (US), Urthona (UK), kayak (US), Plumwood Mountain (AUS), Caliban (US), Spittoon (US), Weber: The Contemporary West (US), The Common Review (US), and The Buddhist Poetry Review (US). His books of poems include Poem Rising Out of the Earth and Standing Up in Someone and An Indigo Scent after the Rain. He lives in Oregon, where he teaches 'systems thinking' relative to sustainability.
SERENITY SERENADE
Let reality be reality spontaneously
Flowing wherever it so chooses
Find bliss stay a while
Pause to reflect harmless pleasures
Accept what is desiring less
Achieving more relax trusting reanquility
Feeling oneness with natural quietude
No whistles horns sirens alarms
Good humor helps lighten burdens
Genuine smile soothing calming influence
Cheerfully attracting keeping devoted friends
Disposition antidote for depressing angst
Inhale exhale it does help
Breathe in deep hold it
Silencing overactive imagination which never
Knows when to shut up
The quieter you become the
More you’re able to hear
Filter out noisy stressful static
Concentrate on inner consciousness tranquility
Filling emptiness with overflowing nature
Commit energies to environmental awareness
Planet balancing equilibrium passed on
Future generations spoiled brat legacy
No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .
Monday, April 21, 2014
AN UNJUST LAW
by Gil Hoy
Can’t get Ohio out of my
head, damn.
Took 26 minutes to kill
him, some new-fangled
poison not the usual,
a half-baked horror show.
Sour drugs flowed through
blue veins, the prisoner
strapped to a gurney gasped
vacant eyes staring,
rattling,
nose snorting,
choking almost guttural--
like food stuck in your
windpipe
on and on, convulsions.
By all accounts, he was
a horrible savage man
25 years ago,
raped, tortured and killed
a young woman with child,
just married, still to live
and be enjoyed.
So nothing cruel or unusual
here, an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth,
Lex talionis, as prophesied.
But this death more
like a Macabre blunder
at a public square picnic
hangin’ from days old,
when the man’s head
in the too-tight hemp noose
might come clean off,
Minute after lingering
minutes, following terrible
60 second minutes
Strangling from the inside,
a mammal gasps for breath.
Heard that his blood in the
crowd had to cover their ears
and wipe their tears from
soaked ashen faces,
I say listen up, after what he did.
If you agree, show the
video play-back to your son,
so he can see what we do,
though slow suffocation
is not for the squeamish,
something to Hide?
Murder: premeditation
and unlawful killing,
the state does you one better,
premeditation and ceremony,
and who are we
to tell the state what to do,
sounds AOK to me.
Much ado about nothing.
Throw to hungry lions
crush ‘em with fat elephants,
devoured by wild sweaty-toothed beasts
does the trick
tear them apart by Galloping horses,
burn him like an over-cooked
headless turkey for your Thanksgiving roast,
crucifixion, decapitation, boil until cooked.
Firing squad? Pass the loaded Gun
please, stoning? A duplicitous
contest to see who casts the first
stone. Disembowelment, OK,
dismemberment, tie him to a
cannon and set the charge, so cool
your mouth just drips with blood
like a stale English Pudding,
gas, hangings, electric chair,
That covers it.
But somewhere I read and
believed to the marrow, now
shaking terrified: turn to him
the other cheek also, or we
will all be Toothless and Blind.
No one’s listening or caring
anymore,
Blood red Hearts disgorged on a
winding cobblestone trail that leads
to a distant dream
That our eyes don’t hear anymore
and that tastes forgotten anyway.
Gil Hoy is a trial lawyer in Boston, and grew up in Brookline, MA. He received a B.A in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.A. degree in Government from Georgetown University, and a law degree from the University of Virginia. Gil is an elected member of the Brookline Democratic Town Committee, and served as a Brookline Selectman, the Town's highest elected office, for 12 years. Gil is married, with three children, and lives in Brookline, MA.
 |
| The drawn-out execution of Dennis McGuire has prompted many to question lethal injection in Ohio. McGuire's execution took about 25 minutes; a state expert said he expected it to happen in a matter of minutes. --The Associated Press via The Plain Dealer, January 26, 2014. |
Can’t get Ohio out of my
head, damn.
Took 26 minutes to kill
him, some new-fangled
poison not the usual,
a half-baked horror show.
Sour drugs flowed through
blue veins, the prisoner
strapped to a gurney gasped
vacant eyes staring,
rattling,
nose snorting,
choking almost guttural--
like food stuck in your
windpipe
on and on, convulsions.
By all accounts, he was
a horrible savage man
25 years ago,
raped, tortured and killed
a young woman with child,
just married, still to live
and be enjoyed.
So nothing cruel or unusual
here, an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth,
Lex talionis, as prophesied.
But this death more
like a Macabre blunder
at a public square picnic
hangin’ from days old,
when the man’s head
in the too-tight hemp noose
might come clean off,
Minute after lingering
minutes, following terrible
60 second minutes
Strangling from the inside,
a mammal gasps for breath.
Heard that his blood in the
crowd had to cover their ears
and wipe their tears from
soaked ashen faces,
I say listen up, after what he did.
If you agree, show the
video play-back to your son,
so he can see what we do,
though slow suffocation
is not for the squeamish,
something to Hide?
Murder: premeditation
and unlawful killing,
the state does you one better,
premeditation and ceremony,
and who are we
to tell the state what to do,
sounds AOK to me.
Much ado about nothing.
Throw to hungry lions
crush ‘em with fat elephants,
devoured by wild sweaty-toothed beasts
does the trick
tear them apart by Galloping horses,
burn him like an over-cooked
headless turkey for your Thanksgiving roast,
crucifixion, decapitation, boil until cooked.
Firing squad? Pass the loaded Gun
please, stoning? A duplicitous
contest to see who casts the first
stone. Disembowelment, OK,
dismemberment, tie him to a
cannon and set the charge, so cool
your mouth just drips with blood
like a stale English Pudding,
gas, hangings, electric chair,
That covers it.
But somewhere I read and
believed to the marrow, now
shaking terrified: turn to him
the other cheek also, or we
will all be Toothless and Blind.
No one’s listening or caring
anymore,
Blood red Hearts disgorged on a
winding cobblestone trail that leads
to a distant dream
That our eyes don’t hear anymore
and that tastes forgotten anyway.
Gil Hoy is a trial lawyer in Boston, and grew up in Brookline, MA. He received a B.A in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.A. degree in Government from Georgetown University, and a law degree from the University of Virginia. Gil is an elected member of the Brookline Democratic Town Committee, and served as a Brookline Selectman, the Town's highest elected office, for 12 years. Gil is married, with three children, and lives in Brookline, MA.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
CHURCH CALL
by Antony Johae
It was Orthodox Easter and the church was full.
The chanting of prayers stretched into the night.
The celebrants sat, then rose to sing
Crossing themselves in three-fold Love.
They awaited the glorious hour of twelve
When Christ would rise in saving Grace
And all would cry that He was risen.
Next to me a man with a phone
placed between us on the pew
he looking down at it constantly
and when his hand stretched out to it
it lit as though at his command,
then out when he withdrew his hand
as though its charge had gone – and slept.
He turned to me when the mass was done,
shook my hand with a friendly grip.
“Emad’s my name, I’m Syrian born.
And you, I think, from London – right?”
I told him I came from Colchester town
but he’d heard only of the Manchester team.
We chatted for a while about this and that
the church emptying as we sat.
Then he made to go. “Your phone,”
I said, it lying silent still.
Aghast at his forgetting
he picked it up and it at once
lit up, he whispering keenly,
“I’m waiting for a call from God.”
Antony Johae is a freelance writer and divides his time between Lebanon and England.
 |
| Image source: City-Data |
It was Orthodox Easter and the church was full.
The chanting of prayers stretched into the night.
The celebrants sat, then rose to sing
Crossing themselves in three-fold Love.
They awaited the glorious hour of twelve
When Christ would rise in saving Grace
And all would cry that He was risen.
Next to me a man with a phone
placed between us on the pew
he looking down at it constantly
and when his hand stretched out to it
it lit as though at his command,
then out when he withdrew his hand
as though its charge had gone – and slept.
He turned to me when the mass was done,
shook my hand with a friendly grip.
“Emad’s my name, I’m Syrian born.
And you, I think, from London – right?”
I told him I came from Colchester town
but he’d heard only of the Manchester team.
We chatted for a while about this and that
the church emptying as we sat.
Then he made to go. “Your phone,”
I said, it lying silent still.
Aghast at his forgetting
he picked it up and it at once
lit up, he whispering keenly,
“I’m waiting for a call from God.”
Antony Johae is a freelance writer and divides his time between Lebanon and England.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
THE OTHER NINETY-EIGHT PER CENT
by Laura Rodley
Migrant worker’s hands stained green
from picking spinach, green leaves
full of iron he cannot eat, washes
his hands in a bowl in his room
sleeps on a bare mattress on the floor
window glass broken, curtains frayed
their once brilliant yellows whitened
with sun that only tans his face
deeper, squints his eyes when
he walks back out to the rows of spinach
washing his hands in the sprinkler
set for the plants, not allocated
for him, the chuckwagon rolls in, sells
warm bagels and cream cheese, hot coffee
but not Columbian like he drank at home,
the drops of mercy that carried him through
the morning, saving money for his daughter’s
communion, the priest's drops of mercy,
holy water touched to her forehead
to protect her, keep her from a future
like this where he bends his back to the hot soil
the green leaves he cannot eat;
they are for sale, not for him.
Maybe at home the corn he planted
has come up, maybe his conchita
has already picked them, or his son,
what he would give to go back home,
only drops of mercy now
the sweat that rolls down his face
ten o’clock sun and it’s already eighty degrees,
and the spinach needs picking before it wilts.
Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee, won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press. Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.
 |
| 28th Annual Alma Spinach Festival, April 19, 2014 |
Migrant worker’s hands stained green
from picking spinach, green leaves
full of iron he cannot eat, washes
his hands in a bowl in his room
sleeps on a bare mattress on the floor
window glass broken, curtains frayed
their once brilliant yellows whitened
with sun that only tans his face
deeper, squints his eyes when
he walks back out to the rows of spinach
washing his hands in the sprinkler
set for the plants, not allocated
for him, the chuckwagon rolls in, sells
warm bagels and cream cheese, hot coffee
but not Columbian like he drank at home,
the drops of mercy that carried him through
the morning, saving money for his daughter’s
communion, the priest's drops of mercy,
holy water touched to her forehead
to protect her, keep her from a future
like this where he bends his back to the hot soil
the green leaves he cannot eat;
they are for sale, not for him.
Maybe at home the corn he planted
has come up, maybe his conchita
has already picked them, or his son,
what he would give to go back home,
only drops of mercy now
the sweat that rolls down his face
ten o’clock sun and it’s already eighty degrees,
and the spinach needs picking before it wilts.
Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee, won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press. Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.
Friday, April 18, 2014
CHILDREN OF THE WAR
by Jonel Abellanosa
Forced to memorize
The bullet’s alphabet, study
Arguments of machine guns,
Grenades, mortars. We’ll
Have our day, or pay.
Streets couldn’t keep secrets.
Death machines in the sky
Bombarding our holes.
When we found weapons without
Their warriors, we convened like men.
Favored with the will to leave,
Saddled with sacks of uncertainty,
Others swarm like ants past borders
To whatever morsels surprise hopes.
They might return one day.
Fate doesn’t choose the fallen:
Some look peacefully asleep,
Woundless, without bruises,
No hints of fear in their faces
But they’re dead.
We who live among ruins
Learn to survive unparented,
Conflicts claiming adults faster,
Grownups succumbing
To freedom’s lies easier.
In our games we pretend
To be soldiers. In lulls some
Stoke comfort round found
Fires, too afraid to fall asleep,
Too young to be storytellers.
Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines. His poetry is forthcoming in Anglican Theological Review, Pyrokinection, Ancient Paths, Inkscrawl, and has appeared in Windhover, The Lyric, PEN Peace Mindanao anthology, Star*Line, Liquid Imagination, Mobius Journal of Social Change, Inwood Indiana Press, Jellyfish Whispers, Golden Lantern, Poetry Quarterly, New Verse News, Qarrtsiluni, Anak Sastra: Stories for Southeast Asia, Fox Chase Review, Burning Word, Barefoot Review, Red River Review, Philippines Free Press, Philippine Graphic. He is working on his first poetry collection, Multiverse.
 |
“On Tuesday, we saw the aftermath of the mortar round which crashed into the schoolyard where children were assembling for the start of classes. Torn trainers and little black shoes ripped in two were stuck in dark pools of congealed blood. One boy, Sinar Matanious, died instantly that day. Sixty children and teachers are being treated for injuries, including a young girl whose two legs had to be amputated. On Wednesday, we heard a loud blast when we were inside a school used as a shelter for displaced families in the city of Homs. Children who had recently escaped the painful siege of the rebel-held Old Quarter were in the midst of describing their frightening ordeal there of living under constant bombardment and gunfire.” --Lyse Doucet, BBC News, April 17, 2014
Image source: A Mis Behaved Woman |
Forced to memorize
The bullet’s alphabet, study
Arguments of machine guns,
Grenades, mortars. We’ll
Have our day, or pay.
Streets couldn’t keep secrets.
Death machines in the sky
Bombarding our holes.
When we found weapons without
Their warriors, we convened like men.
Favored with the will to leave,
Saddled with sacks of uncertainty,
Others swarm like ants past borders
To whatever morsels surprise hopes.
They might return one day.
Fate doesn’t choose the fallen:
Some look peacefully asleep,
Woundless, without bruises,
No hints of fear in their faces
But they’re dead.
We who live among ruins
Learn to survive unparented,
Conflicts claiming adults faster,
Grownups succumbing
To freedom’s lies easier.
In our games we pretend
To be soldiers. In lulls some
Stoke comfort round found
Fires, too afraid to fall asleep,
Too young to be storytellers.
Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines. His poetry is forthcoming in Anglican Theological Review, Pyrokinection, Ancient Paths, Inkscrawl, and has appeared in Windhover, The Lyric, PEN Peace Mindanao anthology, Star*Line, Liquid Imagination, Mobius Journal of Social Change, Inwood Indiana Press, Jellyfish Whispers, Golden Lantern, Poetry Quarterly, New Verse News, Qarrtsiluni, Anak Sastra: Stories for Southeast Asia, Fox Chase Review, Burning Word, Barefoot Review, Red River Review, Philippines Free Press, Philippine Graphic. He is working on his first poetry collection, Multiverse.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
BOGEYMAN
by James O. Ferrugia
The New York Police Department has abandoned a secretive program that dispatched plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on conversations and built detailed files on where people ate, prayed and shopped, the department said. --NY Times, April 15, 2014
I board an early bird Southwest flight late ― non-stop
LA to Chicago ― scuffle down the aisle dragging
my carry-on to the last empty seat where my determination
to stifle a claustrophobic cattle car feeling is over-
whelmed by the presence of my two seat-mates.
Preconceived notions spread out uninvited before me
like a patchwork perfect quilt of midwest farmland
at thirty thousand feet, notions cultivated
in the rich bottomlands of fear and prejudice
by generations of family and friends and teachers and priests
and pearly-eyed strangers whispering dark-toned warnings
about those people: japs and jews and niggers and spics
and gooks and guineas and queers and . . . I’m staring.
I excuse myself, shamefaced, and slide into the center
seat as they eye me uncomfortably, lips pursed
behind well-trimmed goatees, fidgeting and fingering
their colorful kaffiyehs with slender, tawny hands, looking for
all the world like strangers in a strange and dangerous land.
James O. Ferrugia lives in Columbia, MO. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Solo Novo and Big Muddy; his songs have been published and recorded on the 3-CD compilation, This is My America, and the Rand Bishop CD, Big Emotions.
 |
| Image source: Loonwatch.com |
The New York Police Department has abandoned a secretive program that dispatched plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on conversations and built detailed files on where people ate, prayed and shopped, the department said. --NY Times, April 15, 2014
I board an early bird Southwest flight late ― non-stop
LA to Chicago ― scuffle down the aisle dragging
my carry-on to the last empty seat where my determination
to stifle a claustrophobic cattle car feeling is over-
whelmed by the presence of my two seat-mates.
Preconceived notions spread out uninvited before me
like a patchwork perfect quilt of midwest farmland
at thirty thousand feet, notions cultivated
in the rich bottomlands of fear and prejudice
by generations of family and friends and teachers and priests
and pearly-eyed strangers whispering dark-toned warnings
about those people: japs and jews and niggers and spics
and gooks and guineas and queers and . . . I’m staring.
I excuse myself, shamefaced, and slide into the center
seat as they eye me uncomfortably, lips pursed
behind well-trimmed goatees, fidgeting and fingering
their colorful kaffiyehs with slender, tawny hands, looking for
all the world like strangers in a strange and dangerous land.
James O. Ferrugia lives in Columbia, MO. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Solo Novo and Big Muddy; his songs have been published and recorded on the 3-CD compilation, This is My America, and the Rand Bishop CD, Big Emotions.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
IT MIGHT RAIN
by Jim Gustafson
Even on the clearest day
when the sky is dressed-up
in its best self
It might rain
Even after the storm
when the water gutters
down to mix the earth in mud
It might rain
Even in the night
when the airliners strobe
unclouded in the sky
it might rain
Even beyond the door
when breath comes
and goes home with ease
it might rain
Jim Gustafson’s most recent book, Driving Home, was published by Aldrich Press in 2013 and is a 2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee. He is an MFA candidate at the University of Tampa, teaches at Edison State College and lives in Fort Myers, Florida, where he reads, writes, and pulls weeds.
 |
| Reat Underwood, 14; his grandfather; and another innocent bystander were shot and killed when an anti-Semitic gunman opened fire in the parking lot of a Jewish Community Center in Kansas City on the eve of Passover. --Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America |
"My wife has always been concerned about some loonies out there
doing this type of stuff. You hear these things and it's really surreal. . . .
Even on the clearest day
when the sky is dressed-up
in its best self
It might rain
Even after the storm
when the water gutters
down to mix the earth in mud
It might rain
Even in the night
when the airliners strobe
unclouded in the sky
it might rain
Even beyond the door
when breath comes
and goes home with ease
it might rain
Jim Gustafson’s most recent book, Driving Home, was published by Aldrich Press in 2013 and is a 2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee. He is an MFA candidate at the University of Tampa, teaches at Edison State College and lives in Fort Myers, Florida, where he reads, writes, and pulls weeds.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
BOSTON APRIL
by Sarah Edwards
We were a river of runners.
Each one, a drop of water
poured over the finish line.
We found no respite or reward,
but only waves of wounds
crashed red upon the pavement.
Now we run with bombs
to throw at the tears,
to make them stop
being blood.
Sarah Edwards is a retired clergyperson, former runner, remembering....
 |
| Image source: Boston University Facebook Page |
We were a river of runners.
Each one, a drop of water
poured over the finish line.
We found no respite or reward,
but only waves of wounds
crashed red upon the pavement.
Now we run with bombs
to throw at the tears,
to make them stop
being blood.
Sarah Edwards is a retired clergyperson, former runner, remembering....
Monday, April 14, 2014
IN THE TIME OF MAD MEN: 1960-1969
by Sharon Lask Munson
She doesn’t laugh when he proclaims
before their wedding
he will be the one
to bring in the money, dole it out.
All he expects in return—
three meals a day
and a lot of you know what.
If it were ten years later
she might have read
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
or Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics,
might have seriously questioned
her choice of a mate.
Eventually breakfasts of bacon and eggs
turn into cheerios and cold milk.
Still, she sets up, dishes out, pours.
In due course she finds a job
refuses to hand over her paycheck—
continues with meals, irons his shirts
empties ashtrays, plants roses, dahlias
deals with the plumber when the sink clogs,
the construction guy for the new thermal windows
until early one morning,
as the bleached sun
bursts through gray smoky clouds
she walks out of the house
leaving her key in the lock
ignores the morning paper
tossed on the porch,
takes no notice of
milk in the milk chute
beginning to sour.
No note is left on the mantle,
no witness driving by takes notice,
no neighbor glances
from behind lace curtains
and like Harry Houdini’s escape act—
she squares her shoulders,
tightens her grip on a small valise,
quickens her pace
and disappears into tomorrow.
Sharon Lask Munson is the author of the chapbook Stillness Settles Down the Lane (Uttered Chaos Press, 2010) and a full-length book of poems That Certain Blue (Blue Light Press, 2011). She lives and writes in Eugene, Oregon.
She doesn’t laugh when he proclaims
before their wedding
he will be the one
to bring in the money, dole it out.
All he expects in return—
three meals a day
and a lot of you know what.
If it were ten years later
she might have read
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
or Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics,
might have seriously questioned
her choice of a mate.
Eventually breakfasts of bacon and eggs
turn into cheerios and cold milk.
Still, she sets up, dishes out, pours.
In due course she finds a job
refuses to hand over her paycheck—
continues with meals, irons his shirts
empties ashtrays, plants roses, dahlias
deals with the plumber when the sink clogs,
the construction guy for the new thermal windows
until early one morning,
as the bleached sun
bursts through gray smoky clouds
she walks out of the house
leaving her key in the lock
ignores the morning paper
tossed on the porch,
takes no notice of
milk in the milk chute
beginning to sour.
No note is left on the mantle,
no witness driving by takes notice,
no neighbor glances
from behind lace curtains
and like Harry Houdini’s escape act—
she squares her shoulders,
tightens her grip on a small valise,
quickens her pace
and disappears into tomorrow.
Sharon Lask Munson is the author of the chapbook Stillness Settles Down the Lane (Uttered Chaos Press, 2010) and a full-length book of poems That Certain Blue (Blue Light Press, 2011). She lives and writes in Eugene, Oregon.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
FOR YUNA. FOR HER FATHER.
by Paula Schulz
Fukishima five years later: only one unaccounted for
For Yuna: a small deity to keep her company forever.
For her father: one pink tennis shoe.
He can visit only ten times a year, stay only five hours.
So he does, come hell or high water or blizzard, though
there’s not even a cold hope of finding her now.
But their connection not grey waves
nor cesium 137’s silver melt can sunder.
The blind hunt for anything of Yuna’s:
to keep sanity and soul together
from rising sun to rising sun, year after year--
this is the heart’s grind and gnaw,
this is the stone permanence of love.
Paula Schulz has taught for nearly twenty years. She lives in Slinger, Wisconsin with her husband, Greg.
 |
| (CBS News) — Norio Kimura knows he may never find his daughter’s body amid the radioactive rubble of Okuma, Japan, his deserted hometown near the Fukushima power plant. Still, he returns as often as authorities will allow, looking for Yuna, his dead daughter. It’s what keeps him sane. The survivors of Okuma, about 11,000, left the town after the earthquake on March 11, 2011, most never to return. Yuna was one of 111 – including Kimura’s wife and father — who perished in the earthquake; her body is the only one not recovered there. Kimura has so far found just one of her shoes. |
Fukishima five years later: only one unaccounted for
For Yuna: a small deity to keep her company forever.
For her father: one pink tennis shoe.
He can visit only ten times a year, stay only five hours.
So he does, come hell or high water or blizzard, though
there’s not even a cold hope of finding her now.
But their connection not grey waves
nor cesium 137’s silver melt can sunder.
The blind hunt for anything of Yuna’s:
to keep sanity and soul together
from rising sun to rising sun, year after year--
this is the heart’s grind and gnaw,
this is the stone permanence of love.
Paula Schulz has taught for nearly twenty years. She lives in Slinger, Wisconsin with her husband, Greg.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
THE SOMETIMES LAKE
by Laura Rodley
Low in the pasture slings a wide clear lake,
winds rippling its surface without a break.
Wide and wider still each day it grows
fed by the runoff of fast melting snow,
so wide today whole pasture is sheer green
from water with slivers of icy sheen,
tall white birch and pine reflected, the sky
and all its clouds, rippling, three feet high.
The Sometimes Lake stands, it legs quickly moving,
mallards land, peddle round, flick tails, grooving.
No herons yet, no tiny frogs, just ducks
and Canadian Geese who press their luck
landing where other times they’d have to duck
no farmers treasure they, wings tightly tucked.
Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee, won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press. Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.
 |
| Image source: The Heart of New England |
Low in the pasture slings a wide clear lake,
winds rippling its surface without a break.
Wide and wider still each day it grows
fed by the runoff of fast melting snow,
so wide today whole pasture is sheer green
from water with slivers of icy sheen,
tall white birch and pine reflected, the sky
and all its clouds, rippling, three feet high.
The Sometimes Lake stands, it legs quickly moving,
mallards land, peddle round, flick tails, grooving.
No herons yet, no tiny frogs, just ducks
and Canadian Geese who press their luck
landing where other times they’d have to duck
no farmers treasure they, wings tightly tucked.
Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee, won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press. Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.
Friday, April 11, 2014
THE KNOWN UNKNOWN
by Margaret Rozga
He squints through his narrow glasses, looking
above the shoulder and beyond the ear
of the journalist.
He takes the numerical part
of the question, ruminates,
Two, three. Not so many.
He draws his lip in an upward
arch flat against his face. His teeth edge
into the opening of what passes for a smile.
Death falls from the sky
Death marches on the capitol.
Truck bombs, IEDs, rocket propelled grenade launchers.
Death strikes back.
Put death in prison. Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo.
A black hole at Bagram. Secret centers of interrogation.
Enhanced death.
Waterboard until the interrogated wish they were dead.
Construct your smile out of this vacuum.
Margaret Rozga has published two books, Two Hundred Nights and One Day and Though I Haven’t Been to Baghdad. Her most recent poems and book reviews appear in the Spring 2014 issue of Verse Wisconsin online.
He squints through his narrow glasses, looking
above the shoulder and beyond the ear
of the journalist.
He takes the numerical part
of the question, ruminates,
Two, three. Not so many.
He draws his lip in an upward
arch flat against his face. His teeth edge
into the opening of what passes for a smile.
Death falls from the sky
Death marches on the capitol.
Truck bombs, IEDs, rocket propelled grenade launchers.
Death strikes back.
Put death in prison. Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo.
A black hole at Bagram. Secret centers of interrogation.
Enhanced death.
Waterboard until the interrogated wish they were dead.
Construct your smile out of this vacuum.
Margaret Rozga has published two books, Two Hundred Nights and One Day and Though I Haven’t Been to Baghdad. Her most recent poems and book reviews appear in the Spring 2014 issue of Verse Wisconsin online.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
TO AN AFGHANI WOMAN
by Sarah Edwards
Today on my azalea street
The church bells rang
“O God of peace
Make wars throughout the world
To cease
To cease”
I walk out to my sunny curb
Pick up folded daily news
In a photo coffin
There you are
again
again
No veil can hide
The shroud of fear
You wear into exploding streets
To brace against the fiery dust
And death
And death
You send your children off to school
Into a backpack bombed out world
That tears their limbs and scatters them
Like textbook pages left
Unread
Unread
To Allah and to God
I do not speak
They do not hear
To you
I know not
What to say
Our bells are raucous
Clanging wildly
Stop now
Stop now
Stop
Sarah Edwards is a retired clergyperson in the United Church of Christ, who now turns sermons into poems and poems into sermons. NVN is a well-used resource.
 |
Image source: Policy Mic; Image credit: AP |
Today on my azalea street
The church bells rang
“O God of peace
Make wars throughout the world
To cease
To cease”
I walk out to my sunny curb
Pick up folded daily news
In a photo coffin
There you are
again
again
No veil can hide
The shroud of fear
You wear into exploding streets
To brace against the fiery dust
And death
And death
You send your children off to school
Into a backpack bombed out world
That tears their limbs and scatters them
Like textbook pages left
Unread
Unread
To Allah and to God
I do not speak
They do not hear
To you
I know not
What to say
Our bells are raucous
Clanging wildly
Stop now
Stop now
Stop
Sarah Edwards is a retired clergyperson in the United Church of Christ, who now turns sermons into poems and poems into sermons. NVN is a well-used resource.
Wednesday, April 09, 2014
AT THE VENETIAN RESORT CASINO ON THE STRIP
by Janet Leahy
LAS VEGAS (The Borowitz Report)—The casino billionaire and Republican kingmaker Sheldon Adelson met several 2016 G.O.P. candidates available for purchase over the weekend, but decided to buy none of them, Adelson confirmed today. --The New Yorker, March 31, 2014
An escape to Vegas, to bend
the ear
of a rich man, a foot
in the silver door
to dirty money, to hunger
that gnaws
for more, a psalm of himself
chips piled high to buy
someone plastic, the candidate
cannot wear a dark patina
Janet Leahy writes poetry in New Berlin, Wisconsin. A member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, she has two collections of poetry, The Storm, Poems of War, Iraq and Not My Mother's Classroom.
LAS VEGAS (The Borowitz Report)—The casino billionaire and Republican kingmaker Sheldon Adelson met several 2016 G.O.P. candidates available for purchase over the weekend, but decided to buy none of them, Adelson confirmed today. --The New Yorker, March 31, 2014
An escape to Vegas, to bend
the ear
of a rich man, a foot
in the silver door
to dirty money, to hunger
that gnaws
for more, a psalm of himself
chips piled high to buy
someone plastic, the candidate
cannot wear a dark patina
Janet Leahy writes poetry in New Berlin, Wisconsin. A member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, she has two collections of poetry, The Storm, Poems of War, Iraq and Not My Mother's Classroom.
Tuesday, April 08, 2014
BEFORE DAWN IN TEHRAN
by Raul Puzon
for the painter and the singer
European parliament angers Iran with human rights resolution: Islamic republic dismisses MEP accusations of freedom of speech restrictions and call for executions moratorium. --The Guardian, April 7, 2014
Why cannot I forget that August mud
gray in the rain, the old revered facade
harsh in the afternoon, the stubborn god?
I still remember your unsaid goodbye,
the orchard’s hush, the throatless bulbul’s sigh,
the sudden air, the angel’s phantom lie.
The pomegranates are crimson now but odd.
If I’ll go first, recall that tulip bud
I gave you when the crescent moon unclad.
With covered eyes and limbs untied, I’ll try
to wilt and sway— together you and I.
In autumn do the soft persimmons die?
Beside you I’ll engrave that earth with blood.
With you I’ll tell the world our last aubade.
Raul Puzon is a human rights and LGBT activist who writes poetry and short fiction.
for the painter and the singer
 |
| Iran hanged teenagers Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari in 2005 because they were gay. Image source: ExecutedToday.com |
European parliament angers Iran with human rights resolution: Islamic republic dismisses MEP accusations of freedom of speech restrictions and call for executions moratorium. --The Guardian, April 7, 2014
Why cannot I forget that August mud
gray in the rain, the old revered facade
harsh in the afternoon, the stubborn god?
I still remember your unsaid goodbye,
the orchard’s hush, the throatless bulbul’s sigh,
the sudden air, the angel’s phantom lie.
The pomegranates are crimson now but odd.
If I’ll go first, recall that tulip bud
I gave you when the crescent moon unclad.
With covered eyes and limbs untied, I’ll try
to wilt and sway— together you and I.
In autumn do the soft persimmons die?
Beside you I’ll engrave that earth with blood.
With you I’ll tell the world our last aubade.
Raul Puzon is a human rights and LGBT activist who writes poetry and short fiction.
Monday, April 07, 2014
BE PREPARED FOR THE BIG IF
by Tricia Knoll
Nehalem Bay Spit, Oregon
Twenty years ago a snowy plover explored
the bay spit to nest -- I could have been there.
A June day when one palm-size trilling wader
scooted on stick-black legs on the scruff
of a minus tide poking for shore flies.
Perhaps I didn’t notice.
Were nester-plovers to show up now,
rules weigh down the bird books, heavy NO
horseback riding, kite flying, dogs,
bicycles, sand sails, beach volleyball,
kites above the tide line. Back ups
include poisoned eggs to kill
crows and ravens that gobble
plover eggs. Ropes
to keep birders out.
One commissioner complains
of limiting family fun.
Another fears phone calls.
We’d notice the yellow signage
to save the tiny plover.
The betting at the bar
is the plover will be a no show.
So the waves have washed
across the tides of time.
Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet. Urban Wild, her poetry chapbook, is now available from Finishing Line Press.
 |
| Image credit: lukich / 123RF Stock Photo |
Nehalem Bay Spit, Oregon
Twenty years ago a snowy plover explored
the bay spit to nest -- I could have been there.
A June day when one palm-size trilling wader
scooted on stick-black legs on the scruff
of a minus tide poking for shore flies.
Perhaps I didn’t notice.
Were nester-plovers to show up now,
rules weigh down the bird books, heavy NO
horseback riding, kite flying, dogs,
bicycles, sand sails, beach volleyball,
kites above the tide line. Back ups
include poisoned eggs to kill
crows and ravens that gobble
plover eggs. Ropes
to keep birders out.
One commissioner complains
of limiting family fun.
Another fears phone calls.
We’d notice the yellow signage
to save the tiny plover.
The betting at the bar
is the plover will be a no show.
So the waves have washed
across the tides of time.
Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet. Urban Wild, her poetry chapbook, is now available from Finishing Line Press.
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