FOOTAGE

by Kai Jensen

The bridge falls so quickly.
The ship seems stationary
like a fat little house
alight behind the dark lattice
tiled with coloured rectangles
or a plump insistent animal
nudging a leg for food.
On air, laconic voices
discuss the situation.
It seems there’s a crew up there.
The pilots wring their hands—
their bad dream’s turned real.
Nothing seems to change
but the bridge falls
all at once, its cobweb drooping
then brushed away.
The men dozing in their cabs
awake to death. A city stalls.

Kai Jensen’s father was born in Baltimore, the site of the recent bridge disaster, while Kai was born in Philadelphia. As a child he emigrated to New Zealand with his family, and is now an Australian. Kai works from home as an editor at Wallaga Lake on the Far South Coast of New South Wales. His poems have appeared in most leading Australasian literary journals and, in the United States, have been published in or accepted by The Inquisitive Eater, Men Matters Online, The NewVerseNews, Rattle and The Fictional Cafe.

REQUIEM FOR ELIJAH

by Shelly Blankman




How do you say goodbye? Always a brew
of duty and love, a fusion of friendship and
family. Stir in politics and the recipe can
kill the comfort of mourners united in grief.

This country said goodbye to a statesman
and grieved in prayer and song, in speeches
and memories by colleagues, family, friends,
religious and political leaders. Those who knew

him and those who did not. Thousands filled
the church and lined the streets to honor a
man loved by the people he served, reviled
by a government he angered with his staunch

defense of human rights and lifetime lessons
of common sense. Absence of a president
unnoticed in the presence of a humble hero.
Elijah Cummings, a Baltimore native, would

certainly have sunk into the annals of history, if
not for raising the spirits of those mired in chaos
and despair. A sharecropper’s son who lived what
he’d learned and left the legacy of a legend.


Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Shelly Blankman now lives in Columbia, Maryland with her husband, three cat rescues and a foster dog. Her poetry has appeared in First Literary Review-East, The Ekphrastic Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, and other publications

HOW TO REMOVE CONFEDERATE STATUES

by Patty Mosco Holloway





Locate them in Baltimore.
Give no advance notice, little fanfare.
Do it quickly; do it quietly
under cover of darkness
in the wee hours of the morning.
Allow flashing red lights and backup beeps
on heavy equipment.
Hire crews in T-shirts and hardhats.
Use crowbars, cranes, and cargo straps.
Hoist statues whole, bronze tons,
onto flatbed trucks.
Procure police cars to escort statues
out of town at sunrise.
Let the new day's rays
illuminate empty pedestals.

Next?

Find cranes strong enough
to hoist hatred from hearts.

Patty Mosco Holloway is a writing teacher.  She lives in Denver, Colorado. She often "hears" the starts of poems in conversations.  Advice:  Don't talk to her.

LOW BEAMS IN THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA

by James Croteau

Along the Mississippi Delta. Image source: My American Odyssey

Only low beams lit the road

as my parents drove Highway 61

from Memphis through Clarksdale

to Cleveland with civil rights marches

all around us. I never knew

it's not a delta at all, no mouth

until further south. It's all alluvial

plain, this place of my birth. Grandpa

disembarked in Baltimore's harbor

in 1921, moved south when

cotton was still king but

he never planted. Instead he owned

a five and dime on Main Street

in Cleveland. I was proud

to help clerk. Sometimes he'd aim

squinted eyes my way, talk the Italian

he taught me “follow that N-word."

"It's the longest stretch of straight road

east of the Great River," my dad

always said as he drove, low beams

to avoid blinding the oncoming

drivers like us. We got used to not seeing

anything beyond the white

cotton by the side of the road.

Living legacies are often at the periphery

of the privileged. Even amid

outcries at the murders in the streets

and the churches, we whites miss

the lay of the land by

low beaming our questions--

Was the officer following policy?

Was the shooter mentally ill?

Isn't the KKK really to blame?

But I've been lucky, my eyes

have been pried apart by

a few good people. I see some

beyond the well-meant

intentions in front of my face.

The fertile flatness was freely

brought by the floods of the Yazoo

and Mississippi, then it was stolen

and exploited--Indian removal, slavery,

sharecropping, Jim Crow de jure

and de facto, this history's alive and

denied. If I high beam my heart

I can see that I could have been

Darren Wilson, even Dylann Roof.

I learn how the land of my birth

really lies, only when I can feel

the white of my finger placed

everyday on the trigger of the gun

I was given on the day I was born.

James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 28 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the southern United States and loved his mother very much. He has had poems published in Hoot: a Postcard review of {mini} poetry and prose, The New Verse News, and Right Hand Pointing. He has a series of poems upcoming in April 2014 in Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry.

FIELD BOX 54

by Alejandro Escudé



Its come down to this: empty
major league baseball stands
while the game goes on below,


except for the one skeleton
sitting in Field Box 54, wolfing
down a hot dog whole, tossing peanuts
into its open jaw.


The hot dog bun perfectly preserved
and the pristine peanut shells
scattering past the skeleton’s severed
spinal chord.


The lonely announcer
can’t believe his eyes. “It appears
to be enjoying the game!” he says.


And why not? The whole stadium
to itself, Orioles against
the White Sox, nothing to worry about,


though it still remembers
the gelid badge pressed to its ear

and the godforsaken fear.

Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems, My Earthbound Eye, in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

ON WATCHING THE LOCAL EVENING NEWS IN A BAR WITH A WHITE, FORMER COMMUNITY POLICE OFFICER, COMMENTING ON A YOUNG COP’S RESTRAINT DURING AN ARMED CONFRONTATION WITH A BLACK SUSPECT

by Alan Catlin






Red-faced, standing as close
to TV as possible, shaking his
clenched fist at the screen,
former police sergeant screams
at images of young black suspect
in handcuffs, arresting officer
nearby, escorting him to squad
car, “What’s wrong with him?
Is he sick or something?
They should take his gun away
from him now. Suspend his ass
but good.  No, they should have
his badge!  Protocol, my ass.
The only protocol there is, is:
the only good nigger, is a dead
nigger. If I were still on the force,
me and my boys would know what
to do. Hell, there are probably
enough of us left still in the ranks
they’ll take care of business but
good. We should be talking about:
Man killed in armed confrontation,
not some 'exercised remarkable
restraint' bullshit. That asshole
will be out in a couple of years and
he’ll get another gun and someone
else will get killed. Happens all the time.
That’s why we shoot them when we can.
That cop better get his ass to the range
and remember what his weapon is for.”


Author’s note: I wrote this poem in response to recent incidents across the country involving white police officers and black “suspects”.  The actual incident in my poem occurred a few years ago, and I had let it slide thinking, who would want to hear about just another racist cop? The monologue is not an exact transcription of  the former police sergeant’s speech but it comes as close as I can recall. Believe me, though, the substance is the same. In the city of the poem, the police force operated for decades as the private army of the mayor, almost totally without restraint. Of note: There has been one party in charge of the city since the 19th century, and it was only after the death of the longest serving mayor in the history of the state that some restraints were applied to the police force. That was in the middle seventies. This particular officer began his career under the auspices of ”the mayor” so his attitude dies hard. I don’t believe all officers are like that. Maybe not even a lot of them are like that.  I remain grateful to all the cops who saved my butt when I worked in more than one rough tavern, when I really needed help. Some of them are still counted as friends of mine. Still the fact remains: they Do exist, have always existed, and need to be stopped from existing now, and in the future.


Alan Catlin has published numerous chapbooks and full-length books of poetry and prose, the latest of which, from March Street Press, is Alien Nation.

BALTIMORE CARGO

by Patricia Jakovich VanAmburg

Image source:  A Guide to the History of Slavery in Maryland (The Maryland State Archives, Annapolis MD and the University of Maryland College Park, MD)

Why did we not see cargo arriving
with the first slave ship whose
rotten timber roiled the harbor
leaving tobacco in our pockets…

cargo of manumission’s
low skilled “quasi-freedmen”
filling local factories for
twenty percent cheaper wages
and a city of transient pockets…

cargo of professional
“blood tub” rioters and
Know Nothing fraud
dividing a city until
free Blacks were pocketed
into segregated education…

cargo from World War II
steel Liberty Ships promising
jobs for thousands of poor
white southerners while
expanding corporate pockets…

cargo from decades
of racial blockbusting
depreciating neighborhoods
building heroin ghettos
bulging pockets of crime…

We should keep in mind
what we put in our pockets.


Patricia Jakovich VanAmburg teaches literature at Howard Community College in Columbia Maryland where she is also affiliated with The Little Patuxent Review. Her most recent chapbook is titled Watching for Birds.

MEANWHILE

by Earl J. Wilcox

Everth Cabrera bats against the White Sox in the eighth inning of the Orioles' 8-2 win at Camden Yards. The game was closed to the public. It was the first time a major league game had been played without a paying crowd, according to MLB historian John Thorn.  (Kenneth K. Lam / Baltimore Sun April 29, 2015)

The gulls from the nearby harbor start the wave.
The cotton candy droops, hot dogs cold, no beer today.
The organ player plays and sings Take Me Out to the Ball Game.
The bull pen players scratch where and when they please.
Rain or shine, the teams play on as if thousands were in the stands.
Abner Doubleday smiles, the Babe is baffled, Gehrig speaks to no one.

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.

THE PRESS SECRETARY FORGETS HIS LINES

by Judith Terzi

President Obama said Friday that White House press secretary Jay Carney will be stepping down from his job and be replaced by deputy Josh Earnest. ‘It's been an amazing experience,’ Carney said after Obama's announcement. ‘Just so fulfilling’.”  --USA Today, May 30, 2014

Yes, Michelle and B went out for pizza. Yes,
macaroni. They're in Baltimore. That's

where my mother was born. Well, really,
she was born in Annapolis; her father

worried sick she'd marry a sailor. We're
fundamentally all from Baltimore,

aren't we? We are all on the same page. Even
Vlad. He flew in last night. Staying

in the spare closet. I mean closest bedroom
to the rest of the O's. Yes, he can.

He can recite couplets from the Rubaiyat. He's
a real gadabout from Siberia to the gulf

stream waters, from D.C. to Donetsk. Yes,
I believe he believes that this land

is his land, folks. Yes, two-thirds of Americans
fundamentally believe in didactic melting.

Yes, I believe that at the end of the day, we're all
on the same page at the end of the day.

No, man, I don't believe we've ever met
a Talisman close up in Baltimore. No,

no, I don't believe in direct talk with anyone.
I've lost my water bottle. Does anyone

happen to have a jug of bread, a loaf of wine?
A bow-wow? My water bottle walked off

with Joe. Slipped down the neck of a crane.
My keychain has disappeared, too. If you

see one with rhinestones and an owl and a million
keys, bend down and pick it up. No, no,

no, no pussy cat. Yes, I believe there's a recent
recall on carbon emissions. Yes, over

a million first-time visitors to the website over
the weekend. Now that's a real rhinestone.


Judith Terzi is a poet living in Pasadena, California. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Centrifugal Eye, Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo), Pacific Coast Poetry Series' Los Angeles Poetry Anthology (Beyond Baroque), TheRaintown Review, and elsewhere. Her latest chapbook from Finishing Line is Ghazal for a Chambermaid. A former high school French teacher, she also taught English at California State University, Los Angeles, as well as in Algiers, Algeria.