PATH OF TOTALITY

by Pepper Trail

Eclipse Explorer from NASA

The shadow of the moon is coming to America. Prepare yourselves.

It will invade from Mexico—with no passport, no legal right—

Cross the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass and cut across Texas

Darken nineteen children’s graves in Uvalde

Fall upon Austin’s swarm of lobbyists and free-tailed bats

Pass over all the pregnant women – the happy ones and the desperate—

And cross Arkansas, over Little Rock, its history of black and white

Then Illinois, where a proud Chamber of Commerce claims

The capital of darkness: “Carbondale: Eclipse Crossroads of America”

And on to Indiana, named to commemorate the Indians (all removed by 1846)

And then—to lighten its dark mood—over carefree Cleveland

Where the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will celebrate the moment

With “Back in Black” and “Dancing in the Dark,” until the shadow

Spreads its veil over Niagara Falls, where newlyweds will look up

At the ring of fire and share an eternal moment of totality (duration: 4 minutes)

Before it slices off the tops of Vermont and New Hampshire

Lingers over the bewildered moose and citizens of Maine

And then, finally, leaves our country behind

To make the best of our return to the light of day

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

TO THE REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS OF ARKANSAS

by Pepper Trail

Trying to appeal to your humanity after the actions you have taken, the words you have said, seems as futile an exercise as can be imagined, but still I would like to gather you in a room, let us say the sanctuary of a church, as I am sure you all consider yourselves Good Christians, and introduce you to my son and make you listen as he tells you how going through transition as a teenager saved his life, and have me tell you, no, it was not easy as a parent to understand and to know how best to help and how many talks we had and the tears that we shed and the love that was always in the room and the help and compassion that the doctors gave and what a delicate delicate thing is the soul of a young person going through such an experience and to say

How Dare You

impose your complete ignorance, your unknowing fear, your pathetic insecurity, your contemptible political calculations on these young people, the most vulnerable among us, and to tell you so that you cannot pretend not to know, that your law which makes compassion illegal, which outlaws informed medical care, will without doubt condemn transgender kids to death, will without doubt inflame hate and abuse of these gentle souls who harm no one, who are only seeking to heal themselves, to become whole, which is something that you, as long as you are disfigured by fear, ignorance, and merciless cruelty, can never be.

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

BY ANY OTHER NAME: SPRING TRAINING ANGST

by Earl J. Wilcox

If some kids played it on the Pittsburgh

streets with only a Wiffle ball, a crooked

stick, and one lad to keep it from the gutters.

 

If they played it on a loamy garden patch

in an Arkansas village with a ball made

from old socks around a ball of twine.

 

If kids of any age and many sizes

played the game on a sandlot

in Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic.

 

Even if the Japanese kids decided to

practice ten hours a day just to make

the team for the family’s pride.

 

If the boys of summer began practice

in winter, in a game that no longer

uses bat boys, has no fans in the stands... 

 

And if this game has no hot dogs or

peanuts and Crackerjacks and many

players wear kerchiefs and masks

 

And if they can no longer blow bubble

gum or eat pumpkin seeds or swat each

other on the butt after a terrific play.

 

And if the balls and strikes are called

by a robot squatting behind the screen

in the stands or hovering in a drone.

 

We will still call this game BASEBALL.

 

Earl Wilcox dedicates this poem to the late Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose "Baseball Canto" remains the iconic tribute to our national pastime.

SARAH'S LEAVING

by Jeremy Thelbert Bryant

“So long, Sarah Huckabee Sanders” by J.D. Crowe

In her heavy makeup and pearls,
she spouts cheap words no one
wants to hear—
sounds of nothingness,
mantras of division.

I think back to the restaurant in Virginia,
how they had heard all they wanted,
asked her to leave, sent her on her way.
People wept because she was an “honest” woman,
a god fearing being.
What god I ask, the one of greed,
of lust,
of war?

As I watch images of her now,
during the last days of her post,
I wonder if heavy rouge and white baubles are enough.
Can they lure voters to make her governor?
Will her southern church chirp call them
                to submission,
                convert them into believing the unbelievable?

Jeremy Thelbert Bryant is a poet and a writer of creative nonfiction. He is a graduate of the low residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College. His work may be found in TheNewVerse.News, Pikeville Review, EAOGH, Anima Magazine, and Prism. He finds inspiration in the red of cardinals, in the honesty of Frida Kahlo’s artwork, and in the frankness of Tori Amos’ lyrics.

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE MOSQUE

by Devon Balwit

Kristin Collins with the letter her son Abraham Davis sent to the Masjid Al Salam Mosque (Fort Smith, Arkansas) in apology for his actions. Davis had driven his friend to the mosque on which the friend drew swastikas and curses while Davis stood watch in the driveway.—The New York Times Magazine, August 26, 2017

“I wake up and look in the mirror and I just think, ‘Who are you?’”
 —Abraham Davis quoted in "The Two Americans,” 
The New York Times Magazine, August 26, 2017

I don’t know why I did it, why I did most things.
I wanted to be bigger, harder to squash. I didn’t even

do the drawing, just drove my friends to where they
scrawled the broken-winged Swastikas. When the police

came, later, no one was surprised. In fact, we all exhaled,
the cell a hole my life had been funneled towards. When

I wrote the mosque to forgive me, I startled myself. I never
expected they would, instead, just wanted to answer

the ghosts crowding my nights. I wanted to show
who I wasn’t. They forgave me. Now comes learning

how to forgive myself. Every day, I look in the mirror,
and I think: Who are you? I look myself in the eyes.

Devon Balwit is a writer/teacher from Portland, OR. Her poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Redbird Weekly Reads, Rise-Up Review, Rat's Ass Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Mobius, What Rough Beast, and more.

LEDELL LEE, R.I.P.

by George Held

Image source: The Innocence Project

The state machinery for murder
executed its steps coolly and efficiently
in the killing of Ledell Lee.

So what if the blood on his shoes
and the hairs found at the scene
received no test for DNA?

So what if the Innocence Project
and Sister Helen Prejean protest
Ledell Lee might be not guilty?

So what if Camus warned against
executions as mere state-approved
murder? How many have heard

of Camus, Prejean, even DNA? How
many have thought hard about
the idea of state-approved murder

or resisted the confection that
medazolam’s nearing expiration date
justified eight executions in eleven days?

So the executioners poured three drugs
Into Lee: medazolam, a sedative, then
a paralyzer called vecuronium bromide—

hear the falling meter?—and a heart-
stopper, potassium chloride.
Each flawlessly performed its part.

Thus did the wheels of Arkansas justice
turn exceedingly well on 4/20/17
in the killing of Ledell Lee.

George Held, a frequent contributor to TheNewVerse.News, has received ten Pushcart nominations, including ones for both poetry and fiction in 2016. His new poetry chapbook is Phased II (Poets Wear Prada, 2016).

WHAT IN THE WORLD

by Howard Winn

Image source: ReverbPress

Is wrong with Arkansas
that cannot decide if it
is Texas or Kansas
where they elect to the Senate
the wise-ass kid everyone
rolls the eyeballs over as
he speaks in class without
raising his hand but just
butts into the middle of
serious conversations as
if only he and his opinions
matter while his elders
and the rest of the group
attend to serious learning
we have all known such
egotists who won’t shut
up and no one will cotton
to as the cliché has it
while he oblivious to
the hidden contempt
goes on and on as if
everyone shared his
own self love posturing
as if he were the rebirth
of Alexander Hamilton
that bastard of history

Howard Winn's poetry and fiction has been published recently in Dalhousie Review, Galway Review, Taj Mahal Review, Descant (Canada), Antigonish Review, Southern Humanities Review, Chaffin Review, Evansville Review, and Blueline. He has a B. A. from Vassar College and an M. A. from the Stanford University Writing Program.

PACKING HEAT IN THE PEW

by Earl J. Wilcox

Image source: HotDogma

Arkansas Senate OKs concealed weapons in church --USA TODAY, January 29, 2013

If you don’t like the preacher calling you out---
sinners, fornicators, back sliders, whoremongers,
two timers, lukewarm Christians, dead beat dads---
responding to the Word is an altar call to arms.
Say Amen like the NRA and gun-toting patriots.
Answer the call with a bullet in the barrel,
blow the messenger to kingdom come.


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.