READING THE TEA LEAVES

by Kit Zak 

Since our first report, the massive campaign against climate science – and action on climate, funded by oil barons the Koch Brothers has come to light. And while fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil, whose very products are causing global warming, continue to fund think tanks driving the campaigns, much of the foundation funding has now been driven underground, masked by a funding front-group called the Donors Trust – and its associate Donors Capital Fund, two “donor-advised” funds created to hide the real givers and thus shield them from negative exposure of their support for these campaigns. Funding to the organizations that comprise the denial machine has risen during the Obama presidency, just as the urgency of climate solutions and promise of policy advances also rose. --Greenpeace, September, 2013

three falls later
traces of Sandy's wrath linger
losses top 50 billion
in a swath from Norfolk to Maine

Tacloban's cyclone
bodies line roadsides
the unnamed dumped in mass graves
thirst  hunger  disease stalk
the half-dead search for Mom and Son
among shack-splintered debris

tornadoes blight Illinois
tearing through twelve states
the highest winds ever
telephone poles stuck in trees
cars flipped upside down, found two lots away
500 homes in one town rubbled

fossil fuel moguls sigh
calculate their rising costs.


Kit Zak lives with her husband in Lewes,  DE. She has most recently had poems published in an anthology about motherhood as well as in the following journals: Avocet: A Nature Journal, The Blue Collar  Review,  and A Time of Singing.

THE YEAR IN REVIEW IN PICTURES: AN ABRIDGED SECTION

by Alan Catlin

2012 Collage by Laura Serra

“Every war is ironic because every war is worse
than expected.” Paul Fussell 1924-2012


American sailors with captured Somali pirates
Thousands of people return home after ten years of war, Darfur
Frozen child, refugee camp, Afghanistan
Man on fire running, New Delhi
Nik Wallenda highwire walking over Niagara Falls Gorge
Kim Jong reviewing the troops, May Day, North Korea
Human skull and bones mass grave, Mazar I Sharif, Afghanistan
Pussy Riot in Moscow Courtroom cage
Wendy Maritza Rodriquez after seeing the corpse of a relative
Forty six new graves cut in a field, Krymsk, Russia
Statue of Blessed Virgin Mary after the fire, Breezy Point, Queens
Aerial View of Manhattan showing blackout of the city after Sandy
Israeli family braced for incoming rockets near Ashdod
Palestine residents clearing debris, Gaza City, the next day
Night in Syria after airstrike in Aleppo
26 killed, 20 children, 6 adults, Newtown, Connecticut elementary
            school massacre (not shown)


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.

THE CHRISTMAS AFTER

by Carolyn W. Callighan A storm the size of all of Europe blew Along the coast. The buildings and the dunes, Mere toys against a sea, urged through the moon's Insistent push of water, spun and flew In all directions. Picked up by the wind, Possessions were encased in sand. Each one, Grief-stricken, stared at damage done. And, turning, Sand and damage to no end. . . . And now, weeks later, holidays and lights ring in A time of joy, but how to celebrate When all is topsy-turvy? How do we create A place of peace and joy, and stop the spin? We look within ourselves, and here we find The strength we need to heal, and to be kind. Carolyn W. Callighan grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, then moved to the East Coast for college and work thereafter.  She lived and worked for several decades in Boston, Phildalphia, Washington, and, finally, the New York City area.  Now, after several decades, she is back in Nashville.

OH! CHRISTMAS TREE!

by Lynnie Gobeille

Rhode Island Holiday Tree: State To Leave 'Christmas' Out Of Lighting Ceremony-- Huffington Post

I live in the State of Rhode Island

A place governed by folks refusing to see –

That no matter -  what you call it

It’s still a Christmas tree.

The food pantry shelves are empty

Sandy’s “Homeless” remain in the cold

Let’s all hold hands, raise our voices together

Sing the story that needs to be told.

Flip the switch! Go ahead turn the lights on

Gaze at the beautiful Tree

You can call it whatever you want to

It’ll still mean:  HOPE : to me.

Lynnie Gobeille is passionate about poetry. She is one of the co-founders / editors of The Origami Poems Project, a world wide “free poetry event” based in Rhode Island . Her micro-chapbooks can be found there. Her work has been published in various journals and on-line poetry sites. Her mantra?  “We can change the world, one free poetry book at a time”.

NEWS ITEM ON HURRICANE SANDY

by Iris Litt

Image source: Jacksonville Wine Guide

According to the news report
some downtowners had to resort
to flushing their toilets with wine.
I think that’s fine
but the politically-correct are outraged,
they have a different take:
It’s like Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake”
since, in the projects, people hauled water
up many more flights than they oughta.
So toast this flushing way-to-go
with pinot noir, cabernet, merlot
chianti, montepulciani
or maybe an Italian bubbly
which may act doubly
on all that slush
and you’ll have a royal flush.

Let them complain.
If (please not) we have another hurricane,
me, I’m flushing with champagne.


Iris Litt’s most recent book of poetry is What I Wanted to Say from Shivastan Publishing. An earlier book of poetry, Word Love,  was published by Cosmic Trend Publications.  She has had poems in many literary magazines including Onthebus, Confrontation, Hiram Poetry Review, The  New Renaissance, Asphodel, Poetry Now, Central Park, Icarus, The Rambunctious Review, Pearl, The Ledge, Earth's Daughters, Poet Lore, Scholastic, and Atlantic Monthly (special college edition).  She has had short stories in Travellers Tales, Prima Materia, Out Of The Catskills,  and The Second Word Thursdays Anthology; and articles in Pacific Coast Journal, Writer's Digest, and The Writer.  She teaches writing workshops in Woodstock, NY, and has taught creative writing at Bard College,  SUNY/Ulster, Arts Society of Kingston, Writers in the Mountains, Educational Alliance, New York Public Library, and Marble Collegiate Church. She lives in Woodstock and in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

CLEANING UP AFTER THE HURRICANE

by Joan Mazza

 

                           for those still suffering

Along the streets of New York, Long Island,

and Staten Island, mounds of debris at the curb

after Hurricane Sandy. Couches and bedding,

pillows and papers, broken dinnerware.

Soggy books already molding. Boats on lawns,

cars deluged. Homes washed away or burned.

Like after Andrew in Miami—

equal to thirty years worth of garbage,

truck after truck in a caravan to the landfill.

Years of clothing gone, some new, coats

knitted sweaters, handmade quilts, towels,

embroidered tablecloths. Trashed.

Some things can’t be replaced by insurance:

the stuffed dog I’ve had since I was three,

my notebooks with first drafts of poetry.

family portraits on the wall, these pie tins

handled by my mother, ladle my grandmother

brought back from Italy. Beloved junk.

 
Joan Mazza has worked as a psychotherapist, writing coach, certified sex therapist, and medical microbiologist, has appeared on radio and TV as a dream specialist. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Perigee/Putnam). Her work has appeared in Kestrel, Stone’s Throw, Rattle, Writer's Digest, Playgirl, and Writer's Journal. She now writes poetry and does fabric art in rural central Virginia.

DIRE WARNINGS

by Linda Lerner

Image source: Linda Lerner

we were warned to keep away from strangers
to be suspicious of anyone not like us

people of other races and of different religions from ours
atheists and all free spirits especially artists

we were warned about sleeping in other people’s homes
eating food we weren’t familiar with

getting overexcited and too emotional about things
of danger lurking in sleep away camp and open road clubs

discouraged from swimming, bike riding getting too much sun
we were warned about touching ourselves and

of men who only wanted one thing
about drugs and sex and how “the more you get the more you want”

we were warned about many things
but nobody warned us about the trees

we played ring around the rosy under
that kept the sun from burning us

trees whose leaves dazzled us with color every autumn
infested with fungus or mold and dying of root rot

environmentalists sent out alarms with  predictions
we dismissed along with climate change as nonsense

nobody warned us that the trees would become killers
and uproot lifting up slabs of concrete from under us

break thru iron gates into homes flattening cars 
killing anyone in their way

nobody warned us…


Linda Lerner's Takes Guts and Years Sometimes (New & Selected Poems) is published by New York Quarterly Press.

ARE YOU BEING SERFED?

by James Cronin

Image source: Occupy Sandy Relief

Power lines await the squall.
Climate, hotter and wetter,
plays its part. Which is better,
trim the trees or let them fall?

The boss, moneyed, payday sees,
(too many workers will rile
the market) and so with guile
says trim the costs not the trees.

Oil barons who led BP,
joining moguls making mints,
put profits first then repent,
cutting corners kills at sea.

Shadow bankers weave and bob,
sales of swindles yet unpriced
making millions, what a heist!
Who’d suspect an inside job?

One party’s solons, knowing
nothing, pitch to rustic fools:
lower taxes, skewer rules,
keep the fracking oil flowing.

Damn teachers and their unions,
cops, firemen too; who needs them?
Workers should find their bottom,
picking grapes or green onions.

Health care lies can work once more.
Use some fibs and bull feces,
let the old die in pieces.
Stuck with vouchers? Don’t get sore.

Who knows best? The top percent.
Laid off workers need not frown,
Swiss bank wealth will trickle down.
The homeless can save on rent.

Pledge all to that man Grover;
backed by billions, he can grin.
Gut the country? It’s no sin,
“starve the beast” ‘til it’s over.

Like lemmings attempting flight,
or dogs in sad distemper,
folks fall free, not a whimper.
The day’s sold, who’ll price the night?


After a four decade career in the law, both as a lawyer and as a juvenile court judge, James Cronin is enjoying his retirement pursuing literary studies and creative writing.

MAYBE SANDY IS ANOTHER NAME FOR KARMA

by Ngoma

some say they should have
named her karma
i'm not sure
if she was a conspiracy theory,
or an act of god
bible thumpers called her
a revelation
a halloween trick or treat
a politician's opportunity disguised as disaster
some claim it was punishment for sin
but churches were flooded too
steeples and oak trees in the wind
proof that global warming deniers can't ignore
we could say I told you so
and maybe this is a wake up call
as roller coaster rides are buried in the flood
and marathoners take up hotel space
while many victims have no food
or a place to lay their heads
bodies still being found
in flooded burnt out homes
with no escape by subways
filled with water like underground cesspools
as Jamie Curtis talks about survival kits on Jay Leno
and tells us to donate money to the Red Cross
yet to show up in Mount Vernon
with gas lines around the block
for gas stations that are empty
meanwhile the major news media
act as though disaster only happens in america
as the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba
are ignored by major media
and there is no FEMA to guarantee votes for Obama on election day
suddenly we see what it may be like to live in a 3rd world country
where lack of gas and electricity is an everyday experience
and half the world is a disaster area
waiting for a relief concert to raise funds
that would not be needed if the wealth was redistributed
and warnings of global warming had been heeded


Ngoma is a performance poet, multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and paradigm shifter who for over 40 years has used culture as a tool to raise sociopolitical and spiritual consciousness through work that encourages critical thought. A former member of Amiri Baraka's Spirit House Movers and Players and of the Contemporary Freedom Song Duo, Serious Bizness, Ngoma weaves poetry and songs that raise contradictions and search for a just and peaceful world. Ngoma was the Prop Slam Winner of the 1997 National Poetry Slam Competition in Middletown, CT and has been published in African Voices Magazine, Long Shot Anthology, The Underwood Review, Signifyin' Harlem Review, Bum Rush The Page/Def Jam Anthology, Poems On The Road To Peace (Yale Press) and Let Loose On The World: Celebrating Amiri Baraka at 75. He was featured in the PBS Spoken Word Documentary "The Apro-Poets" with Allen Ginsberg. Ngoma has curated and hosted the poetry slam at the Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. Family Festival of Environmental and Social Justice (Yale University, New Haven, CT) since 1996. He was a selected participant in the Badilisha Poetry Xchange in Cape Town, South Africa in fall of 2009. In December of 2011 he was initiated as an Obatala Priest in Ibadan, Nigeria.

BANSHEE

by Carolyn Gregory

Image source: NASA

The banshee began to howl
near Halloween,
twisting branches in a dance
of wind and rain

She wore her necklace
of skulls and teeth,
slapping a tambourine
to a four four beat

Black cats scattered!

Her backup singers shimmeyed
and swayed,
tossing long green hair
and tapping on the window

It was an unholy dance,
full of screaming sirens.
Sequins of fire flashed by


Carolyn Gregory's poems and essays on music have been published in American Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Bellowing Ark, Seattle Review, and Stylus. She was featured in For Lovers and Other Losses. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2011 and is a past recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council award. Her book, Open Letters, was published by Windmill Editions in 2009 and her next, Facing the Music, will be published in 2012.
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