THE NORTH AMERICAN BLANKENSPIEL

by Michael Thomas Ellis

The North American Blankenspiel, of the order

republicanus, family deceitae, and genus 

horriblus, is a splithound of the lowest phylum,

and is prone to attack anything unlike itself.

 

Those scamsack gavelbeaters have fracked away

our goodwill, webspun our naïve trust,

sucked dry the corpus democratus, and cast

it upon the now steaming dungpyre of hope.

 

Are you bonesmack with me on this?

Or do you side, snickerdly, with these

tatterbacked pursebiters and coinseekers

who would make pissplay of our institutions?

 

Dismiss those questions at your own peril!

These sociostrats are voracious squathogs,

and they will set their spitbark eyes on you next,

should you fail to dance to their soulburnt music.

 

Rise up against the factnapping Blankenspiel!

Send these noxious truthsplitters back to their caves,

lest they make embittered trembletons of all of us,

and our republic but a fiefdom of pervious kneebenders.

Michael Thomas Ellis is retired and piddles around the suburban outskirts of Tampa, writing a few poems here and there, submitting rarely, therefore published rarely. This is a bit of a departure, but hey, 'tis the season, eh? Vote... please.

OUR BODY POLITIC

by Vera Kewes Salter

The praying mantis turns its head 
to destroy soft-bodied insects 
with its armored limbs

 

and giant ants use their  

mandibles to sever 

the mantis' narrow neck.

 

We sawed the limb 

of the flowering cherry to protect 

ourselves before the storm.

 

Now the wounded branch seeps

amber onto the blond wood

and green shoots grow.

 

There is a walnut tree that casts an even

shade and bears heavy lime-green fruit

but excretes toxic juglone that poisons 

 

all growth on the ground 

around and causes a permanent 

blight even after it is felled..

 

Will our wounds 

succumb to poison

or can green shoots grow?

Vera Kewes Salter lives and writes in New Rochelle New York.

GOODBYE, CHARON

 by David Spicer

Charon, no converted souls await you on this side 

of the river. Guided by your two ugly thugs,

Klaus the Klansman and Hector the Hell’s Angel,

you frighten the depressed night with amber hair,

its illicit brilliance shining for your devoted

minions with the dull transience of a caution light.

Charon, no new naive souls clamor for you on this

river side. Your boat collects water every time you                      

row down its waves, long ago bereft of their blue,

now shadowed by our despair. We hear your entreaties,

Charon, but your words are empty as our dead skies.

We see your eyes shine with the chaos of conflict,

but we tire of them: no more limber sycamores

bloom in the daytime. We know when the darkness

appears that you are here, your loud presence deaf

to our ears at this late date. Each of us dies, Charon,

but, if we see our end near, we want a fresh ferryman     

to steer us to our side of the stormy river that rises:

Your speeches are lies, you have cheated the taxman,

we do not need your worthless coins to hide our eyes.

Soon morning will wake and we shall demand you

depart our banks, leave with your henchmen, and veer

near the poison side of this river, where your fate awaits:

your reckoning, your trials that you have forever evaded.

David Spicer has published poems in The American Poetry Review, CircleStreet, Gargoyle, Moria, Oyster River Pages, Ploughshares, Remington Review, Santa Clara Review, The Sheepshead Review, Steam Ticket, Synaeresis, Third Wednesday, The New Verse News, Yellow Mama, and elsewhere. Nominated for a Best of the Net three times and a Pushcart twice, he is author of six chapbooks and four full-length collections, the latest two being American Maniac (Hekate Publishing) and Confessional (Cyberwit.net). His fifth, Mad Sestina King, is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press.

FROM THE ANARCHISTS IN NEW YORK

by Alan Walowitz

President T***p's attempt to paint New York City as as "anarchist jurisdiction" in a bid to withhold federal funding has left local anarchists feeling perplexed, amused, and eager to correct the record. "It reinforces the trope, and that's kind of fucked," Thom Kennon, a self-proclaimed anarchist and adjunct marketing professor at NYU, told Gothamist. At the same time, Kennon said he hoped the national attention would get more Americans interested in the left-wing political philosophy. "I immediately Signaled one of my comrades and said, 'Look, what a chance this could be to educate people about what we're really like." He added that T***p's terminology is also wrong, because "anarchists don't do jurisdictions, we do what's called prefigurative politics, building new more equitable worlds now." Gothamist, September 22, 2020

Now the big man, himself, the esteemed Gen. Wm. Barr
proclaims we’re living in an Anarchist Jurisdiction,
when, of course, even he must know
we would never do a jurisdiction,
even if caught dead in one,
or quite by mistake were seen passing through.
We would like to make clear to him and, perhaps, to you
we’d be open to Misshapen Scrums;
and might even try Chance Encounters,
though would never admit to being present in one.
Some of our kind—
though we do not take kindly
to being so assigned, nor to a genus,
quorum, or even a voting booth—
believe a Flash Mob could turn out to be delightful fun.
However, none of us would organize one,
nor others we’ve met in passing admit their desire
to participate in any event so thoughtfully planned,
which, it’s widely agreed, is more appropriate
for Quaker Meetings, Church Bazaars,
Minyans, festive Quinceañeras, or Street Fairs
featuring stained-glass windchimes—
actually, co-locations of any kind.
And especially, God forbid—though we do not acknowledge
any such collective knowing—
even a benign and accidental jurisdiction.
Still, we thank you for your ill-intention. 

After 34 years of teaching, Alan Walowitz is now retired from his second career—16 years—as a teacher of teachers.  He is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry. His books are Exactly Like Love (published by Osedax Press) and The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems (published by Truth Serum Press). Forthcoming is In the Muddle of the Night, co-written with Betsy Mars (to be published by Arroyo Seco Press).

NOVEMBER 2020

 by Mary Clurman

Wicked Wind by Tracey Savery Davis

i.
the wind blew wicked hard that day
it howled and blew
it rocked the house
though I slept safe in bed

the storm did rise to hit the house
kill flowers through the land
tear branches down, fell ancient trees
yet did not touch my head 

the storm rose up to strike our house
did everything it could 
yet I and thee so deep in sleep
still breathed, slept easily

ii.
that wind had come to seize our day
it danced and whirled and groaned
to wake up all to hold the land
but somehow let us sleep

why would this wind stop at our bed
why would it prowl away
if not that you and I were here
and sought to sleep that day

That wind has come to call on us
leave eddies, pools in hearts
to cry to you to me who dream
You sleep, you welcome death.


Mary Clurman is a retired Montessori teacher and childcare professional in Princeton, NJ, taking her first class in writing poetry. She has only run for school board but remains aggressively progressive.

AFTER THE ELECTION

by Vincent Bell

Lost Man painting by Irena Jablonski at Saatchi Art

He traveled for a long time

to be near the Atlantic Ocean.

He sleeps on a bench exhausted.

 

The west coast is in flames.

He saw planes dropping red

retardant and heard the screams

 

of people, a concerto with flaming trees.

People are afraid to leave their homes.

He is alone in the park.

 

The smoke has reached Europe

and the election has passed without a

resolution. The authorities suppress

 

civil unrest. People have given up.

Prayers failed. Self-appointed saviors

have come and gone.

 

People ask each other

if they know what’s going to happen.

The man has no place to go.

Vincent Bell is from NYC and attended NYU and Fordham. He lives with his wife in Ardsley, NY.

PONDERINGS OF A HALF-DECENT (MAYBE) WHITE MAN

by Michael L. Ruffin

The White Man (1907) by Lyonel Feininger

I'm so very tired
of the injustice.
I wonder how
exhausted I'd be
were I its victim.

I'm so very tired 
of the racism.
I wonder how 
exhausted I'd be 
were I its target.

I'm so very tired 
of the misogyny.
I wonder how 
exhausted I'd be
were I its prey.

I'm so very tired
of the privilege.
I wonder how
exhausted I'd be
were I not its beneficiary.

Michael L. Ruffin is a writer, editor, preacher, and teacher living and working in Georgia. He posts poems on Instagram (@michaell.ruffin) and prose opinions at On the Jericho Road. He is author of Fifty-Seven: A Memoir of Death and Life and  of the forthcoming Praying with Matthew. His poetry has appeared at TheNewVerse.News, 3 Moon Magazine, Rat's Ass Review, and U-Rights Magazine.

MANMADE

 by Paul Smith

In Chicago, 558 people have been killed this year. That is 158 more than 2019. (Data and graphic through Tuesday, September 22 from Chicago Tribune)

We like to think

we are safe up here

away from the rising waters

to our south

when the winds blow really hard

and the seas get angry

we watch our brothers and sisters perish

on the news

glad we’re not among them

and far to the west

where our mountains meet the sea

fires burn out of control

houses blaze till they are skeletons

our brothers and sisters

suffocate and go up in smoke

whatever twinge of sympathy ignites in us

is escorted by the comfort provided by

the distance of a thousand miles

but something else new is going on

almost a natural phenomenon

that excites all our senses

here in Englewood and Austin

bright flashes in the brown light of evening

the smell of gunpowder

the sharp crack of weaponry

the wail of raging sirens

the chill of flesh going limp

without a pulse

mothers cry

brothers and sisters

get strapped to gurneys

so ongoing and constant

it makes you think of the Devonian

the Pleistocene

the Reconstruction

Paul Smith is a civil engineer who has worked in the construction racket for many years. He has traveled all over the place and met lots of people. Some have enriched his life. Others made him wish he or they were all dead. He likes writing poetry and fiction. He also likes Newcastle Brown Ale. If you see him, buy him one. His poetry and fiction have been published in Convergence, Packingtown Review, Literary Orphans, TheNewVerse.News, and other lit mags.

THE WAY PAVER

by Nan Ottenritter

“The Four Justices” by Nelson Shanks at the National Portrait Gallery.

for Ruth Bader Ginsburg

She liked to be inclusive,

provide comfort for everyone,

this woman-loved-by-most

who accomplished-so-much.

She preferred to say way paver over

pioneer-champion-prophet-ballbuster-

activist-change-maker-hero-leader

and I think I know why.

A way paver does not part waters;

she lays paver after paver for the journey ahead.

A way paver does not construct guardrails

but provides traction, focused action.

A way paver builds upon those before,

celebrates those after, serves tea along the way.

And when her journey ends, we sip our warmth,

thankful for this paver’s way. 

Nan Ottenritter is a poet and musician who lives in Richmond, VA.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

by Katherine Smith

Artist: Steve Brodner via Pinterest

On the Senate Majority Leader

The oaks do not aspire
to spirit or imagination,
but grow straight up.
Indifferently

casting their shadows
over the saplings,
they search
for unopposed light
 
to fall from their canopy                       
into the shadowy ridged bark
of withered trees.
So too

there are human beings—
you know their names—
whose principles are limited
to domination and money.

They are called champions,
these proud lucky ones
that kill everything
that lives

beneath them.


Katherine Smith’s publications include appearances in Poetry, Cincinnati Review, Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Southern Review, and many other journals.  Her short fiction has appeared in Fiction International and Gargoyle. Her first book Argument by Design (Washington Writers’ Publishing House) appeared in 2003. Her second book of poems Woman Alone on the Mountain (Iris Press), appeared in 2014. She teaches at Montgomery College in Maryland.

THE POOL BOY WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE FALWELLS

by Guillermo Filice Castro

Giancarlo Granda, the former Miami hotel pool attendant whose accusations of an affair helped lead to Jerry Falwell's resignation from Liberty University last month, now lives in the Washington area. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post September 18, 2020)

While some stay in the

shade, others sparkle by the pool

ogling the hunky towel boy,

peach Bellini in hand. And who

knows what else stirs in their minds, brought

forth by a pulpit’s power, dumped down

into a young life: Here is my prayer for the

day when we bid farewell to the world’s Falwells.

Guillermo Filice Castro is a poet and photographer from Argentina. His chapbooks include Mixtape for a War (Seven Kitchens Press, 2018) and Agua, Fuego (Finishing Line Press, 2015). His work appears in The Brooklyn Rail, What Rough Beast, The Normal School, Fugue, Court Green, La Presa, among many others. Instagram: @guillermo_f_castro

"PERHAPS YOU SHOULD ADOPT A MORE CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ORIENTATION"

by Katherine West

In Memoriam for victims of the Rochester, New York shooting.

My doctor suggests after a complete physical 

He has failed to discover 

The source of my trouble 

Though I feel as if I will never recover 

He finds nothing in the blue pools of my eyes 

What could cause this endless weeping?

Blood pressure numbers don't lie

I will have a long time yet to live 

No medication for what ails me 

I am simply living inside-out 

He seems to imply, wearing my heart on my sleeve 

Where it has no business being, it has no clout 

In the streets, in the slums 

At the parties that are not fun 

Where students lie in pools of blood 

Too much love, he claims, not enough guns

Too much love, he claims, not enough guns 

Where students lie in pools of blood 

At the parties that are not fun 

In the streets, in the slums 

Where it has no business being, it has no clout 

He seems to imply, wearing my heart on my sleeve

I am simply living inside-out 

No medication for what ails me 

I will have a long time yet to live 

Blood pressure numbers don't lie 

What could cause this endless weeping?

He finds nothing in the blue pools of my eyes 

Though I feel as if I will never recover 

The source of my trouble 

He has failed to discover 

My doctor suggests after a complete physical 

"Perhaps you should adopt a more 

conservative political orientation."

Katherine West is the author of three collections of poetry and one novel: Scimitar Dreams, The Bone Train, Riddle, and Lion Tamer, respectively.  She has had poetry published in Bombay Gin, Lalitamba, Tanka Journal, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and TheNewVerse.News who nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019.  She lives in the mountains outside of Silver City, New Mexico where she translates Mexican revolutionary poetry and creates custom, hand-made poetry chapbooks.

BUT

by William Aarnes

Art by Clara Lieu

The guy who’s keyboarding these lines

wants to hope that the world would be better—  

more hospitable, less deadly—
if people agreed to do without guns.

But I’m the dread in his head, dwelling      
on how many guns are already loaded,

how many aimed, how many already fired,
piercing lead already in the wounded, in the dead,    

my thoughts having shot their way through    
his fingers on to his computer screen:

“Time to buy a gun or two?  Or stockpile
an arsenal?”  Sure, he’s already deleted

those thoughts. But I’m the dread in his head. 

William Aarnes lives in South Carolina.

THE LAST ELECTION

by George Held

“The worst case,” [Barton] Gellman writes [in The Atlantic], “is not that Trump rejects the election outcome. The worst case is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him.” Merely by refusing to concede, Trump could keep the electoral result in doubt through the 79-day period between Election Day and the day the next president is to be inaugurated. Gellman's reporting shows that Republicans are already discussing plans to bypass the popular vote and directly appoint electors to the Electoral College. This could lead the country to a precipice: Two men could show up to be sworn in on Inauguration Day. “One of them,” Gellman writes, “would arrive with all the tools and power of the presidency already in hand.” —Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor, The Atlantic in today’s email to subscribers releasing the magazine’s November cover story.

 ...the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote... 

—Twelfth Amendment, U.S. Constitution

 

The sound of horse-drawn tumbrils

Echoes in DuPont Circle 

Punctuated by the chop of the guillotine 

As the heads of the opposition fall—

the chairs of the most strategic committees,

ranking members of others,

obstreperous heads of key organizations... 

 

The death of the most influential liberal

Justice and her replacement

By another grim rightist ideologue 

Have opened the sluice gates

Of reprisal and crimson revenge. 

 

The Orange Duce is often smiling

As good fortune shines upon him,

Death having opened a decisive seat

On the Supreme Court—never more supreme

Than when handing down death—and then

As prescribed by the Twelfth Amendment,

He receives another term in what will be

The last election, election for life.

 

So, set in motion by his hippo

Of a compliant attorney general,

Who gets the Orange Man’s code— 

No translator needed—his bizarre fantasy

Of a return to the terror of the sans culottes

Haunts official Washington and the entire country,

 

Like a corporeal rendition of the Four

Horsemen of the Apocalypse,

Every night at 5 on Fox TV, kicked off

By a pep rally and boastful remarks

By the Orange Man in Chief,

The tumbrils roll and the glistening blade falls

While, in the continuing pandemic,

The maskless base howls in visceral support.

 

 

A longtime contributor to The New Verse News, George Held plans to vote in 2020.

PAEAN TO AUTUMN

by Earl J. Wilcox

Whitman manuscript at Duke University Libraries.

None would have believed last fall—

a serene, simple season of coolish

weather, baseball season winding

down, tailgating, leaf peeping,

early frosts all—sublime memories

of a time before now: wildfires, 

hurricanes, Covid deaths, floods, 

earthquakes, melting ice caps, 

hummingbirds astray and lost,

migrant camps afire, baseball

season so bizarre even umpires

get the blues. We need more

Whitmans, fewer Plaths, a couple

of Frosts, a seashore Oliver. 

Even an old-fashioned Wordsworth

or Shelley might spirit us away

toward winter already on its way

on this first week of autumn.

Earl J. Wilcox has sung his share of September songs.

DENIAL

by Joanne Kennedy Frazer

Dying Sunflower is a photograph by Robert Ullmann

The huge       yellow-orange sunflower
     once showy    &    tall    &    haughty       
 
looked down       on common      
      ordinary      plant life.
 
Now     petals gone     devoid     of seed     
      spine collapsing     it does not
notice        its season     has  passed.

Joanne Kennedy Frazer is a retired peace and justice director and educator for faith-based organizations at state, diocesan and national levels. Her work has appeared in several Old Mountain Press anthologies, Poetic Portions anthology, Soul-lit Spiritual Poetry, Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine, Panoply Literary Zine, Snapdragon Journal, Whirlwind Magazine, Kakalak, Red Clay Review and Gyroscope Review. Five poems were turned into a song cycle, Resistance, by composer Steven Luksan, and performed in Seattle and Durham.  Her chapbook Being Kin (CreationRising Press) was published in 2019.  She lives in Durham, NC.

THE CREW

by Mark Danowsky

Never enough love
for friends of our youth

some of whom get left behind

or so it feels

Hearing one of us went down
unnatural, too soon

I don’t know what to tell myself  

with each fresh loss
I turn a little more inward  

not ambiguous

layer on layer 

What is it we all wanted for each other back then? 
Glory? Fame? No―

togetherness

Mark Danowsky is a Philadelphia poet, author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press), Managing Editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Editor of ONE ART poetry journal.

THE RACEHORSE THEORY

by Mickey J. Corrigan

T***p tells white audience in Minnesota they have 'good genes.'

Only the best horses
the best of the best
genes all American
we have been told
winning is ours, it's
in the genes

In the genes
of the whitewashed
suburban picket fences
clean rural outposts
pristine fields, barns
purebred offspring
the best future
of the ultimate winners
of this gifted generation
history outpacing, outrunning
imagination so we cannot see
our dwindling
power dementia darkness
taking root.

Taking root
in the hayfields, cornfields
urban tracks and highways
bleachers and country clubs
of the best country
only the best
of the best of us
betting on the top
horse to win
at any cost.

At any cost
we run the track
we've run before
we keep losing
the best
of the human race
costing us
everything.


Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Novels include  Project XX about a school shooting (Salt Publishing, UK, 2017) and What I Did for Love a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, 2019). Kelsay Books recently published the poetry chapbook the disappearing self. Grandma Moses Press will publish the poetry chapbook Florida Man later this year. 

THE YEAR 2020 WEST COAST FIRES

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman 

An orange sky filled with wildfire smoke hangs above hiking trails at the Limeridge Open Space in Concord, California, on Wednesday. Photograph: Brittany Hosea-Small/AFP/Getty Images via The Guardian, September 9, 2020

Sister Lou Ella is a former teacher and librarian. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, First Things, Emmanuel, Third Wednesday, and TheNewVerse.News as well as in four anthologies: The Night’s Magician: Poems about the Moon, edited by Philip Kolin and Sue Brannan Walker, Down to the Dark River edited by Philip Kolin, Secrets edited by Sue Brannan Walker, and After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published in 2015. (Press 53.)

IMPOSSIBLE

by Diana Morley

A neighborhood destroyed by fire is seen as wildfires devastate the region, Thursday Sept. 10, 2020 in Talent, Ore. (AP Photo/Paula Bronstein via The Record Searchlight)

Two long days driving
through thick smoke
behind, ahead, behind
other fleeing drivers,
all going seventy, eighty mph
to get to air.
 
Diverted from inland to coast
from coast to inland—
fire grenades exploding 
in the hills alongside,
confusing the confused

on the road through 
Sweet Home
behind family
trailer homes
horse trailers
evacuating out of town 
till I reach a motel
where I need news— 

the radio 
assures me at 5 pm—

stock market up a tad

China, a valuable resource
for released Disney film—
‘an impossible resource to ignore.’

Author’s Note: I escaped the Alameda fire in Talent last Tuesday. For two days I thought my house was gone, then learned mine and one other neighbor’s survived on the block. That’s fire for you. My return won’t be to the neighborhood; it will be to both sorrow for my neighbors and joy for all those helping and planning for the future.

Diana Morley has published two books of poetry, one in 2019, one this year, been awarded honors by the Oregon Poetry Assn.  Lived in Oregon for 20 years, in Talent for 15 years. 

HAZED AND DIFFUSED

by Rémy Dambron

As the sound of our neighbor’s lawn 

mower pierces the silence of the hellish 
landscape forming just past our bedroom 
window my wife and I exchange mirroring 
glances of hostile befuddlement 
maddened by this man’s unfathomable 
indifference to the bewilderment of 
smoke flowing freely into his eyes 
and down deep into his lungs despite 
wearing a confident smile as he strolls 
absentmindedly through his yard 
pushing that obnoxious gas powered 
machine to shorten the small strip of 
parched grass that faces our still baffled 
faces now visibly posing the inevitable question 
what in the actual fuck is happening? 
We continue to watch in shock as I frantically 
google the news desperate to confirm that 
yes in fact there are wildfires blazing at 
our city’s doorstep in addition to riots and 
shootings and protests and looting and tagging 
and militias immersed in science refuting and 
that this conundrum of a man tending to his plot 
amidst the infiltrating remains floating in from 
burning homes incinerated cars perished 
businesses lost livelihoods vanishing forests 
and melted memories isn’t just symptomatic 
of some feverish dream or drug-induced vision 
or mystical illusion or some grave delusion but 
that our mutual astonishment is actual credible 
physical proof of the resilience of our little remaining 
sanity.

Rémy Dambron is an activist, environmentalist, and author based out of Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in What Rough Beast, Writer's Resist, Poets Reading the News, and TheNewVerse.News, focusing largely on denouncing political corruption and advocating for social justice. Without the love and support of his wife Susan, he would not be the writer he is today.  

IMAGES OF THE OREGON APOCALYPSE

 by Tricia Knoll

Scientists say that the wildfires in the West combined with drought and record heat waves could be triggering one of the Southwest’s largest migratory bird die-offs in recent decades. Photo Credit: Allison Salas/New Mexico State University via The New York Times, September 15, 2020

Is there any reason to write anything today
when ink on paper looks like soot
fallen from a malignant sky? The oneness
we dream about flies in this wind: their house
of forty years, the plastic wading pool and hose,
rake, car, Bible, gramma’s wedding pictures,
ash of curtain, ash of couch, ash of rug,
the soot is a negative of what all they had. 

How many dead birds have you ever seen
in your life? One or two bounced off a window?
Maybe your cat was a bad actor or you
were the bad actor that let your cat roam.
But piles of the dead? The migrating dead
won’t be back next year. We didn’t really
know exactly how they found their way
in the first place.

Such great weariness. With flimsy masks.
Stay inside to not be sick – you’ve followed
that mantra for months. You can’t outwalk
this cloud. Or see from one bridge to the next.
The firefighters sleep in peril. And wake
in dark fatigue. You check your air numbers
every hour and somewhere else is flooding
under winds that twirl the birds. 

Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet who lived in Portland, Oregon for 45 years. She is checking in with her friends under evacuation watches, hears of one who lost her home and sees the images with great sadness.

CUSP OF WHAT COMES NEXT

by Annie Stenzel

The Bay Bridge and San Francisco skyline, seen from Treasure Island, are barely visible through Sept. 11’s hazy air because of smoke from the state’s wildfires.Photo: Nick Otto / Special to The San Francisco Chronicle, September 19, 2020

Avert your eyes. That window frames a post-apocalyptic sky. Standard issue.
Darkness at 9:00 a.m. Six months into one cataclysm; three-plus weeks into
another. Make no joke involving sword, famine, or beasts from the wild.

Solace is scarce. Mental shelves looted of stock a person needs for survival.
Inventory now includes next to no patience. Scant fortitude. Very little
good cheer. How to re-order, regenerate, when the supply-chain is depleted?

Impossible not to think the worst. You sketch a picture captioned, “The End Times
Loom.” Remembered images from other horror stories crush barriers hastily
built to keep reality out. Reptile brain advises flight, because

how could one even begin to fight such an enemy? We are the tiny creatures
around which ash swirls wildly in our inescapable globe. All those prior
chances to live and learn; to change the course of our headlong tumble

into climate chaos. Fifty-eight years since Silent Spring. Fourteen years beyond
An Inconvenient Truth. And us with two hands still over our eyes, two
over our ears and our merry mouths declaiming, “Move along! Nothing to see here.”

Annie Stenzel was born in Illinois, but has lived on both coasts of the U.S. and on other continents at various times in her life. Her book-length collection is The First Home Air After Absence (Big Table Publishing, 2017). Her poems appear in print and online journals in the U.S. and the U.K., from Ambit to Willawaw Journal with stops at Chestnut Review, Gargoyle, Gone Lawn, On the Seawall, Psaltery & Lyre, SWWIM, The Ekphrastic Review, and The Lake, among others. A poetry editor for the online journals Right Hand Pointing and West Trestle Review, she currently lives within sight of the San Francisco Bay.