THE HOMOPHILOUS GENE

by James Penha

“You’ll see people complaining that the media doesn’t give as much prominence to terrorism atrocities outside of Western Europe as it does to those that take place in cities like Paris or Brussels. The data shows it is much, much harder to get people to read those stories.” 

—Martin Belam, Medium, March 28, 2016

I shall always ❤ New York. And on Marathon Day I stand again

with Boston, and #BlackLivesMatter in every Charleston nightly.

Bien sûr je suis Paris parce que j’aime Paris chaque instant,

chaque moment de l'année. Bruxelles?  Bruxelles est assez

de français pour moi d'être Bruxelles maar ook

Vlaams naar Brussel elk moment van het jaar.

Last summer I devoured simit and baklava at Taksim windows

and petted sprawled dogs in the shade of the Obelisks: İstanbul'u

(but to Ankara I have never been).

Part of me must be Lahore. Remember? it was Easter after all

although I cannot find a timely # for that attack 3 weeks ago

(#PeshawarAttack impertinent; #PakistanBleeding obsolete) and

if میں نے پاکستان تھے whenever a bomb explodes in Pakistan

how to find the time to face Java and Bali?

islands where I love a Muslim whose faith in  الله 

is sighted darkly at every Western checkpoint, mall, hotel,
monitored whitely by attendants on Southwest Airlines,

and so I will—must—be Aleppo, Hit and Lashkar Gah 

walking dead from graves cracked open by exceptional shocks

of retribution and survival 
of the selfish.

James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News .

IN THE LAND OF THE STUCK

by James M. Croteau

Poke London's website Global Rich List allows individuals to compare their wealth with the rest of world. Their hope is that seeing privilege will inspire those with wealth to share more of it.

I glance up to the fifty-inch screen, Brussels, the bombings,
pictures of three men with carts in the airport. While CNN
ticks ISIS #2 killed in U.S. operation, then Cruz blames Trump

for tabloid story. I can't tell what that’s about, Cruz's head is now
talking but the TV's muted for the theme to Dawson’s Creek. How American
this song, Dunkin' Donuts, me, my laptop screen split between Word and

Facebook, my table with coffee and muffin. There's a new post on
my home feed with a word too frequent among friends as I age:
metastasized, before I can think I click like. That's not right. No bombs

are bursting in my middle class air, and my news ticker's streaming that
my yard needs a mow, my dog's shots are now due, and in Track Changes
21 comments still need my attention. My life's full of small needs--this

I can see. The music seems mocking: I don’t want to wait for our lives
to be over. Am I waiting? I can see what I've got, there's a website
for that-- entered $60,000 a year, didn't add benefits or assets, and still

only one tenth of a percent of the world is wealthier than me. Then I pretend
my life as I know it will last, but twilight's last gleaming's becoming hard
to ignore. O'er my ramparts, I see folks missing-- mom, dad, a whole generation,

a cousin, three friends. My fingers password Caring Bridge faster than
Facebook. I sigh and glance down to my edits, my muffin, my coffee.


James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 31 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the U.S. south in the 60’s and 70’s and his writing often reflects that experience. His poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Right Hand Pointing, Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South and Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry among others. His first chapbook will be published by Redbird Chapbooks in 2016.

HELIUM LEAKAGE

by Kristina England

Image source: Chasing Davies

I take my nephew to Sesame Street Live.
Sick, I would rather inchworm under
a comforter, so I buy him a juice box,
let him sit an aisle away, the show far
from sold out, convince myself it will
give him some freedom and space.

At intermission, there are Elmo balloons.
JoJo begs for Cookie Monster blue.  I tell
him they're double-sided, the back is fire
red, because everything has two faces.
He clenches his hands, won’t give up,

keeps stammering, I want it. I want it.
I say there's a difference between want
and need, reject his appeals. He contorts
his three-year-old face into a tantrum
that's acceptable at his age, later uses
his empty fist to rub away tears as
we head for the car, hand in hand.

Three days pass. Brussels is bombed.
Terrorists say the worst is yet to come.
And, sure enough, the comb-over man
climbs on dead bodies to point at polls,
tantrums his way into too many minds,
terror his decor for the Presidential bed.

I can hear Mick Jagger singing what
I've already seen back at the theater
when a girl lost her newly purchased
balloon. My nephew and me, necks
craned, watched a bag full of gas
float to the arched, heaving ceiling.

I wonder if the balloon stayed there
long after we left, long after the girl
cried out all her snot.  I want to go
back, not to retrieve a present for
my nephew, but rather to see if that
tinfoil face has popped or if it is still
clinging to an ounce of substance.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Her writing has been published in several magazines, including Gargoyle, Silver Birch Press, and Story Shack Magazine.