THINGS EASIER THAN MARRIAGE TO IKE

by Elaine Sorrentino

Sprinting across the I-30
in the dead of night 

the leggy legend 
with infectious charm 

 

turned trauma into triumph, 

swapped bloodied and beaten
for surviving and thriving
in an act of self-preservation. 

She dared to be the needle 
that pricked the heady
Love Team balloon,
indestructible Tina  

in leather and denim
scrubbed toilets
scaled the Eiffel Tower in heels
unearthed her pain 

instead of maintaining
her 16-year limelight lie,
transforming thirty-six cents
and inconceivable drive 

into the Queen of Rock,
self-love, that second-hand emotion
had everything to do with it, 
Buddha offered nirvana.  

When the shine was off the penny
she was at peace slowing down,
asking her devoted public 
not to disturb her before noon. 

Elaine Sorrentino has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, Writing in a Women’s Voice, Global Poemic, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Agape Review, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Muddy River Poetry Review, Your Daily Poem,  Panoplyzine, Etched Onyx Magazine, and at  wildamorris.blogspot.com. She was featured on a poetry podcast at Onyx Publications. 

EMBARRASSED BY PARIS

by David Feela

Let the Eiffel Tower
dim its lights,
not in tribute
to the victims
of terrorist bombs,
but let it go dark
as a reminder
for any who counts
on light that it will not
be found in America,
home of the coal-fired heart,
where a dull intellectual climate
muffles the air,
and where truth
has turned into
a stale commodity
only fit
to feed the poor.


David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays How Delicate These Arches released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, II

by Judith Terzi

This Miami Herald editorial cartoon dramatized the plight of Jewish refugees aboard the passenger ship St. Louis, a German ocean liner most notable for a single voyage in 1939, in which her captain, Gustav Schröder, tried to find homes for 908 Jewish refugees from Germany, after they were denied entry to Cuba, the United States and Canada, until finally accepted in various European countries, which were later engulfed in World War II. Historians have estimated that, after their return to Europe, approximately a quarter of the ship's passengers died in death camps. Cartoonist: Robert Epstein/Miami Herald Staff, June 11, 1939. Caption text thanks to Wikipedia.

Creamy tomato basil soup, a hunk
of baguette at Panera, table #36.
I hear Korean spoken next to me,
two women in animated talk. I'd

like to understand. A father speaks
Arabic to his baby boy. The mother,
highlighted hair, chic jeans. They're
at my favorite table next to the fire-

place. I hear Spanish, Armenian. We
are 10 miles from the largest Armenian
diaspora in America. I hear almost no
English today, like sometimes at mega-

stores where you can't buy one roll
of toilet paper, a single box of tissues,
or a solo tube of toothpaste. Or, I
recall at the top of the Eiffel Tower

before it blushed tricolor in mourning.
The non-talkers here stare into computer
screens between mouthfuls of turkey chili
or a Frontega chicken panini. Here is

the gusto, the throb, the intonation of
America. Here, you can travel without
having to make reservations. I imagine
Delancey Street at the turn of the 20th:

Italian, Ukrainian, German, or the Yiddish
of my grandparents pulsing, reminiscing
between pushcarts, theater seats, newspaper
boys. Or what about on the St. Louis,

ship touching Cuban and U.S. shores with
refugees unwanted, then having to sail them
back to a Europe soon at war? Exhalation for
some. But no Exile, no unshackling from fear.


Judith Terzi's most recent chapbook, If You Spot Your Brother Floating By, is a collection of memoir poems from Kattywompus Press. Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including Atlanta Review (International Publication Award, 2015), Caesura, Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo), Raintown Review, Unsplendid, and Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Beyond Baroque). She lives and writes in Southern California.

INK

by Alejandro Escudé

Cyprien @MonsieurDream

I draw 

a cartoon of a god.

The god encircled 

by wolves.

The wolves 

with the faces of politicians.

I am a politician

sitting at my desk.

I hold my gonads 

tight under it,

here comes the myrrh, 

here comes

the frankincense. 

Where to draw the line?

I keep it simple 

and I fry. I make 

it complicated 

and I am incarcerated. 

Where to draw the line?

I said what I said. 

I’d say it atop 

the Eiffel Tower, too. 

I’d scream it  

from within 

the Bridge of Sighs.

Orphan. 

Poor. 

Alone. 

God-crazy. 

Where to draw, 

what to draw,

how to draw it 

fairly, plainly, lovingly.

The blood in my body 

was not ink.

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.