BRUSH WITH BRAVERY FROM 4,500 MILES

by Becky DeVito

“Walk Through Claude’s Gardens” by Tatyana Pchelnikova.
Tatyana Pchelnikova’s website of original art.
Tatyana Pchelnikova at Made for Bravery.
Tatyana Pchelnikova on Instagram.

I’m on my second of four cups of gunpowder 

green tea and here’s a tweet from Zelenskyy: 

now there’s Made With Bravery, an online shop 

where anyone with a Visa card 

can make a miniscule contribution to the war. 

I don’t like to brag but if online shopping 

were a competitive sport I could medal 

in the cool stuff at a good price event, so let’s get to it: 

vyshyvanka shirts—I could wear one of those. 

Such a flattering cut, but the stitching sprouts all over. 

Look at this men’s vyshyvanka. Simplicity 

is elegance, right? No one to buy it for 

but why should that stop me? The sleeves 

would be too long and perhaps they’d snicker 

at my cross-dressing. I don’t think I’d care 

much about that but then there are folks 

who would think culturally illiterate

and so many already think that goes with American

so I can’t buy one of those. T-shirts are okay but 

I can’t wear yellow near my face and hey—

there’s an art category and that’s perfect. 

I won’t have to worry about the size, but the shipping! 

And international—better not think about it 

or I’ll never get to the finish line. 

 

That abstract painting with every shade 

of pink and green and all those textures…

which I can always return to later. Scroll down to a riot 

of flowers. I mean, a peaceful demonstration. 

That word is used inappropriately so often. Crowded, 

standing together. Reds and yellows and purples shout 

over each other, but they have something substantial to say.

About joy, or the need to let all your color catapult 

you into the next dimension and whatever shape that takes, 

I could use reminding. Click and it’s Walk 

Through Claude’s Gardens, and I believe it. 

Those petals curl right off the canvas the oil is so thick 

and wait, this is an oil painting, not a print? 

I’ve never owned an oil painting. Maybe I can afford it—

yes, $247 is something I can do, especially for an original.

How big is 50*50 cm, anyway? Another tab to convert 

centimeters to inches, 20x20, that’s a nice size 

and I definitely love it. Have to have it. 

 

Put in my address: why can’t Chrome translate 

the countries in the dropdown list? I’ve seen США 

so many times in the tweets but it would be a shame 

if it got sent to the wrong country. 

Google Translate says I was right 

and I’d better be, after 6 ½ months 

of keeping up with this war 

that was supposedly never again, 

and why won’t they let me specify my state? 

I guess it could arrive with only the zip. I want it. 

I put in my Visa number and the next screen 

isn’t in dollars anymore but UAH. 

 

Whoa, that’s a lot of digits 

so another tab for a currency converter 

and yes it’s right so I press Pay and it says 

I still need to make the payment for my order. 

At least they’re recognizing I have an order. 

I call the number on the back of the card 

and plug my other ear to hear the voice from India 

say nothing was declined, nothing was purchased 

today and they would know even if it was a minute ago 

so I have to solve it through the site. I email 

and ask if someone could have bought it 

during the cup of tea between when I started 

putting in my address and when I pressed Pay 

and so could I commission a similar one 

and I’d better get this taken care of soon 

because if she sells her entire stock on the first day 

it won’t be long before they’re four times the price. 

Good for her, but I’ll be shut out 

and there are so few occasions to join 

this awful war from 4,500 miles away 

and it’s not in my cart so I really hope 

it’s being saved in cyberspace  

while the customer service people wade 

through the backlog including three emails 

from me and that painting would 

fill the beige void I get sucked into 

for every virtual meeting 

much better than this starting-to-get-long 

black-and-white poem. 

 

By now they’re all struggling to sleep 

through air raid sirens because the Russian army 

thinks they’re making gains when they lob 

their missiles at apartment buildings, but those HIMARS 

we sent have been really good at shooting 

rockets out of the sky so maybe none will land near her 

tonight and Kyiv is 7 hours ahead of Connecticut 

so I hope when I wake 

there will be more than the automatic reply from Bravery 

waiting for me here in my inbox. Hold on—

how did this fraud alert slip in? 

Yes, I recognize that purchase. 

Why did it take eight hours 

when the lady from the credit card company 

said it would have shown up instantly? 

 

Thank God I left the tab open 

after I kept telling it to Pay 

because I can’t find the painting on the site 

anymore but they’re still trying to fingerprint my browser

from hours before so I reload and press Pay 

and it doesn’t work the first time but 

reload that sucker again and 

Wahoo! I’m the new owner of actual art 

and look I got it done before midnight 

and wow she must have been just as frazzled 

because it’s only 6:46 am there 

and here’s the shipping label, all ready to go. 

Tatyana Pchelnikova, you’re amazing. 

I subscribed for updates because I have another 

empty wall and you’ll be my go-to artist 

even after the invaders 

have had enough of their genocidal nonsense. 

 

Becky DeVito is pleased to report subsequent purchases at Made With Bravery have gone much more smoothly, including the names of countries appearing in English in the dropdown list. Becky DeVito has used poetry as a means of working her way through trauma. Her experiences writing poetry led her to investigate the ways in which poets come to new insights through the process of drafting and revising their poems for her doctoral dissertation. She is a professor of psychology at the Capital campus of CT State Community College in Hartford, Connecticut. Her poems have been published in The Ekphrastic Review, Frogpond, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Naugatuck River Review, Ribbons: Tanka Society of America Journal, and others. Join her on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. 

CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT

by Lee Patton

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan via Quartz

After the Killings 14 December 2012

I could hear 40s screwball dialogue as I woke late,
groggy, that mass-murder morning.  “What’s on TV?”
I asked. “Barbara Stanwyck flick,” you called out
from the kitchen, turning over the French toast.

I gulped coffee while Stanwyck’s character fakes
homemaker celebrity, claiming a country house
 for sham motherhood, not even knowing the name
of the baby who appears out of nowhere. Stanwyck

has to pretend the baby’s hers and put on a diaper
but fumbles.  She’s never changed one in her life.
(Like me, Stanwyck can’t help out one little kid.)
So anyway, then Christmas comes to Connecticut

with all the snow on church steeples and the village
green, glad kids, school out, toy guns, blinking Xmas
trees, the whole New England drill.  Though I knew
it was filmed on a Hollywood lot, the icicles phony,

I wanted it to be real, for that California kid I was,
who yearned for the True American Christmas—
not green grass but sparkling snowfields, not rain
but frosty, flaky white skies, not go-carts but sleds

on the nearest slope. Now, aged orphan, I yearn
for everyone who’s dead. I’d give anything to wake
late and find my dad starting the turkey, my mom
fluttering nearby, turning French toast on the stove,

my big brother plucking slices before they made it
to the table. We can’t recreate that taste, the real
Mexican vanilla my mom used to dazzle the mix.
They’re gone, Mom, Dad, Brother. Christmases pass,

lifeless. I hoped Christmas kept true in Connecticut,
perfect for all yearning kids, when the news came on.

Lee Patton, a Denverite, writes fiction, poetry, drama and commentary. He's won prizes in 2016 and 2017 from Poetry Matters and Winning Writers. Quarterlies that have published his work include Best New Writing 2012, The Threepenny Review, The Massachusetts Review, The California Quarterly,  Poetry Quarterly, Ellipsis, Hawaii-Pacific Review, Adirondack Review and Memoir Journal. His third novel My Aim Is True is out from Dreamspinner Press. “Faith of Power,” a novella, appears in Main Street Rag's 2017 suspense anthology.

MY SIX-MONTH DAR MEMBERSHIP

by Tricia Knoll

The Joining

Because of a maple fife.

My mother did the hard work
chasing down county seats
tracing that Webb girl,
genes where you got a second toe
longer than your big one.
The shoe fits when you honor that toe.

My grandmother, widow of the warden
wanted the grid filled
back to the Webb House,
that bawdy tavern
Braintree’s seat of battle plans.
My mother did the bidding
of grandmother’s nagging, finding

Jabez Cleveland, a fifer
in the Connecticut 8th regiment
died, thirty-eight at Bunker Hill.
He played a simple six-hole flute
of infantry battle calls
wake ups, soldiers, marching tunes
over greens, through woods
in-the-reeds shepherds songs
legacy of wind in thigh bone.

His thick blood of revolution
cries in my veins
--and in yours--
this must end
and heats me up
too many flag-draped coffins
limb from limb
so much this earth has given

Keep the simple six-hole flute
at your fingertips, my girls,
your pulse a beating drum.

The Parting of Ways

I thought learning
of generals and simple bravery
powder horns and compasses
would help me know

Jabez and his flute
the stepping drum
his blood, mine
that of my girls

Then bowed gray heads
chins to chests with golden pins
ask God
to bless America
there the flute calls me elsewhere

My Jabez plays
a humpback whale song,
a mother’s shrill screams in Gaza
above a bloody baby cradled,
plays for soldiers on both sides
wanting home
for monarchs out of milkweed,
AIDS orphans --
an aching god does not single out
the few

or ignores adopted babies
Bangladesh, Korea,
China, the Ukraine --
their blood becomes
our dearest family blood
they too may
hear a Jabez and his fife

I tuck his tune inside
my breath of reed
and boiling breast
to change direction.



Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet who is also a master gardener and a frequent writer of letters to the editor of The Oregonian. Recent poetry publications include RAIN Magazine, VoiceCatcher, Verseweaver, Muddy River Poetry Review, and Pirene's Fountain.

THE NEWTOWN MASSACRE

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

Human Giraffe by Subwaysurfer. Image source: Art Jumble Blog

When my children were little
I used to tell them that I was a giraffe
You’re not a giraffe, Daddy!
They would insist
But I stuck to my story
Oh yes I am

When their friends came over
My children would say
Our Daddy says he is a giraffe
But he’s not
The friends would look at me quizzically
And I would say
Oh yes I am

One year I decorated a birthday cake
With a pink and green giraffe
That’s me I said
And although my daughter was growing older
And no longer amused by the same old routine
She indulged me and said
You’re not a giraffe, Daddy
But I could see in her eyes
What she was really thinking –
Whatever
And soon I stopped being a giraffe
Once and for all

I remembered all this today
As I stood silently in the rain
In our little town’s park
With one of my grown daughters
And a score of others grieving the gunning down
Of twenty school children in Connecticut
And I thought about
All the silly-dumb-boring family jokes
Those murdered children will not hear
Over and over and over again
About all the stories that will not be read aloud
About the bikes and games and snazzy sneakers
That won’t get bought for birthdays
About the pet names and nicknames
That will go unused
Missy, Natty, Buddy Boy, Baby Cakes
Mikey, Skeeter, Nan

I believe I chose to be a giraffe
Because it seems such an odd and improbable creature
Something Evolution doodled on a notepad
During a long dull meeting
A goofy-looking non-threatening beast
That doesn’t scare little ones
A gentle quiet Mister Rogers kind of animal
With a body as big as a house
Where a child could take shelter during a storm
And be safe

It is morning in the Serengeti
Clear skies 60-plus degrees and climbing
And while giraffes are waking up to another day
Of browsing in the treetops
And caring for their young
A long cold dark night begins
In Newtown, Connecticut
And in the wintery, violence-wracked heart of America


Buff Whitman-Bradley is the author of four books of poetry, b. eagle, poet; The Honey Philosophies; Realpolitik; and When Compasses Grow Old; and the chapbook, Everything Wakes Up! His poetry has appeared in many print and online journals. He is also co-editor, with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley and Sarah Lazare, of the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He has co-produced/directed two documentary films, the award-winning Outside In (with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley) and Por Que Venimos (with the MIRC Film Collective). He lives in northern California.

AFTER READING THE HEADLINES

by Howie Good

Image source: Julia's Journical

I went
along the road.
Gravediggers
followed.
They followed
everywhere,

eavesdropping
on painful
memories

being
described
in hushed
tones.

Suddenly
the sun set.
The red
came off
on my hands.

Nobody said,
How sad.

Night was
a dark room.
The stars
were the holes
in the ceiling.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

by Rhiannon Thorne

"This evening, Michelle and I will do what I know every parent in America will do, which is hug our children a little tighter, and we'll tell them that we love them, and we'll remind each other how deeply we love one another. But there are families in Connecticut who cannot do that tonight . . ."

Next year I will wrap you presents
and you will not understand the need for bows,
but will reach towards them for days
in anticipation.

I will fret my wardrobe decision: do I dress you
for photographs or in a pattern that will hide
your smudgy fingerprints?  Or maybe the floral one
your grandmother, your father's mother,
will surely buy you to match her couch.

You'll have to wear it sometime, anyways,
to appease her.

You will laugh, pressing slobbered fingers
into sticky cake, and scowl at the flash while I sing you
Happy Birthday; whisper in your ear:
it was the happiest day of my life.

In Connecticut, a former mother will spend the week crying.
She will wonder what flowers
she should order for your birthday: White roses
or something with color?

She will sink down to her knees on a fresh wound
with well established grass.

I love you, she will say; it was the worst day
of my life.


Rhiannon Thorne’s work has appeared/is forthcoming in Gr@wl!x, Surreal Grotesque, The Legendary, Ditch, The Junk Lot Review, Vox Poetica, Zygote in my Coffee, e-Fiction, and Fried Chicken and Coffee. She also co-edits the online publication cahoodaloodaling.

SHOWER OF BULLETS

"Will you still see meteors tonight, December 14, 2012?" --EarthSky

by Priscilla Lignori


Shower of bullets
replaced one of stars - heartbreak
in Connecticut


Priscilla Lignori is a psychotherapist in private practice and the winner of international awards for haiku poetry. The founder and teacher of Hudson Valley Haiku-kai, a community dedicated to studying and living the Way of Haiku, her poems have been published in the World Haiku Review, The Asahi Hakuist Network, Ko magazine, and The Mainichi Daily News.

NEWTOWN EPITAPH

by Alan Catlin

A circle of flags
lowered to
half-mast;

someone has been
killing our
children.

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

CONCEAL AND CARRY

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

The families of victims grieve near Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman opened fire on school children and staff in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Adrees Latif

In a landmark announcement,  yesterday’s breaking news, licenses in Florida to conceal and carry, will reach one million, who’s willing to parry, as gun owners may also choose, to Stand Their Ground, and who will defend the dead victims found; who will speak for little children, in kindergarten class,  who dead and dying in numbers amass,  who clutching crayons and teddy bears, will carry horror in numbered  years,  who can no longer say, what we learned in Newton today, as gun fire boomed, and tiny bodies fell, who will give witness to what they can tell,  what they know and what they saw, who will add to the numbered law?


Lucille Gang Shulklapper is a poet , fiction writer , workshop leader, mother, and grandmother.