A FRIEND BREAKS HIS RENAISSANCE SWORD ON A PAPAYA

by Kristina England

Any fruit can hide the fierceness of its rinds.
We should never believe the weapon invincible.

Record low temperatures today, risk of frostbite,
hard wind claps bathroom vents.
It's like they're cheering on the cold.

President of United States accuses former president
of wire tapping, calls him "sick," then berates
Arnold Schwarzenegger on Twitter
for being a "pathetic" reality show host.

Brain hurting from malnutrition,
I reorganize the living room two times,
split myself in half, one part here,
one part looking back at what we had.

Sometimes the chance of turning
to salt is more rewarding
than the alternative.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Her writing has been published in several magazines, including Gargoyle, Silver Birch Press, and Tipton Poetry Journal.

ALTERNATIVE FACTS

by Kristina England

Cover created by Tim O’Brien, Professor at Pratt Institute and President at Society Of Illustrators

1.

Hate crimes are increasing in schools.
That's a lie, Mother stammers over the phone.
No, it's a fact.
Well they deserve it,  
putting "Black Lives Matter" stickers
on the back of their cars.
Of course they matter . . . 

2.

The drought outside is not a drought.
The planet is not warming.
It's just a dry spell.
Let it go. We'll be fine.

3.

Pink hats.
More than one million?
Pwah.
There were no pink hats.
Even if there was an "alleged" march,
it's obvious they didn't vote
anyway.

4.

Mother puts shackles on my hands,
says it's the latest fashion,
says to be happy where I am.
Silent, stay, good girl.

I am in a room with no mirrors
no windows, no way of reflecting.
I shed tears into my hand,
look for hope in a cupped pond,
but the water has seeped,
through, skin cracks in
white-walled room.

I start chanting, release me, release me.
Mother fixes her crown and says,
There's no prison here.
We live in a castle made of ice cream.

I chant louder and louder
until I can hear a frenzy of pink hats
chant in unison.

Mother frowns, asks a servant
to bring her another reporter's head on a platter.
And cut off these daughters' ears.
All of them, the servant asks.
All of them, she says,
then goes back to tweeting about her day.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  She is a writer and photographer.

IT SEEMS

by Kristina England

The pride flag flies at half-staff over the MB Lounge in Worcester during a vigil for the victims of the attack in Orlando Sunday. T&G Staff/Rick Cinclair. —Worcester Telegram & Gazette, June 20, 2016

there remains a bit of cockamamie in the kettle,
no matter how much we try to reshape its bitter ends.
Here, in Worcester, Mass, we lower a rainbow flag,
while, in Alabama, there is apparently a right time
and a wrong to mourn. It seems we are reading
from a very different dictionary or theirs is upside
down. Other countries look at us funny. Who could
blame them?  I drink coffee with my breakfast, enjoy
dark roast, yet I own more flavors, even a tea kettle,
to welcome visitors of any kind, because who can tell
you what beans or leaves to like?  Which one will get
you to the ultimate high?  We all have an acquired taste
and if you refuse to accept someone else's company
by way of their choice, break your kettle in angst,
perhaps I should buy two more, bright porcelain ones,
hand-made with doves, encase them in glass, dedicate
them to anyone that leaves a state that will never give
one sip of dignity a try.  Look around. See what all us
wide-eyed wakers see. There in the distance, so many
mugs that once gleamed beautifully, clinked in the early
morn, now shards of glass under a closed and brutal fist.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have been published in several magazines, including Gargoyle, Muddy River Poetry Journal, and Pure Slush. She can be followed on Facebook.

HELIUM LEAKAGE

by Kristina England

Image source: Chasing Davies

I take my nephew to Sesame Street Live.
Sick, I would rather inchworm under
a comforter, so I buy him a juice box,
let him sit an aisle away, the show far
from sold out, convince myself it will
give him some freedom and space.

At intermission, there are Elmo balloons.
JoJo begs for Cookie Monster blue.  I tell
him they're double-sided, the back is fire
red, because everything has two faces.
He clenches his hands, won’t give up,

keeps stammering, I want it. I want it.
I say there's a difference between want
and need, reject his appeals. He contorts
his three-year-old face into a tantrum
that's acceptable at his age, later uses
his empty fist to rub away tears as
we head for the car, hand in hand.

Three days pass. Brussels is bombed.
Terrorists say the worst is yet to come.
And, sure enough, the comb-over man
climbs on dead bodies to point at polls,
tantrums his way into too many minds,
terror his decor for the Presidential bed.

I can hear Mick Jagger singing what
I've already seen back at the theater
when a girl lost her newly purchased
balloon. My nephew and me, necks
craned, watched a bag full of gas
float to the arched, heaving ceiling.

I wonder if the balloon stayed there
long after we left, long after the girl
cried out all her snot.  I want to go
back, not to retrieve a present for
my nephew, but rather to see if that
tinfoil face has popped or if it is still
clinging to an ounce of substance.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Her writing has been published in several magazines, including Gargoyle, Silver Birch Press, and Story Shack Magazine.

REPORTING IN FROM THE SKY

by Kristina England





Last night, I forced myself into slumber
as a nine alarm fire left my State in grief,
two Boston firemen perishing in the ashes.
Now, sky-based for five hours,
I click the internet icon on my phone
receive no connection.
Too cheap to pay for inflight service,
I know nothing of the ground,
of my family, my country,
only of what I see -
the periwinkle sky,
my unfinished seltzer,
aircrew maneuvering the aisle,
and my travel buddy, one Deb Fisher,
her head tilted to the right,
arms crossed,
the soft breath of sleep
moving her forward in time.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her fiction and poetry is published or forthcoming at Gargoyle, The New Verse News, The Story Shack, The Quotable, and other magazines. Her first collection of short stories will be published in the 2014 Poet's Haven Author Series.

EL BORDO

by Kristina England

Image source: Mexodus

‘South Texas businessman [and Texas Senate candidate] Chris Mapp, 53, told this editorial board that ranchers should be allowed to shoot on sight anyone illegally crossing the border on to their land, referred to such people as “wetbacks,” and called the president a “socialist son of a bitch.”’--The Dallas Morning News editorial (16 February 2014) endorsing Sen. John Cornyn.

My aunt loves to eat Mexican food
so we go out for dinner,
order guacamole, flautas, fajitas.
None of it is authentic,
but what is these days?

My aunt asks the waitress where she's from,
how to say "you're welcome" in Spanish,
then says "Gracias" about nine times.
If we were at any other restaurant,
she'd complain about poor English,
that it's a God-given right to be American.

My aunt knows nothing about El Bordo
or the displaced people living there,
deported by our government,
left between two countries
in a land full of sewage and trash,
most having lived in America so long
they are unable to speak with Tijuana.
Tired, hungry, they walk the border,
no longer sure which direction is home,

while my aunt, red in her politics,
fills her belly with wine and beans,
stumbles over the words "De nada,"
her language gnarled by barbed wire,
disjointed, misplaced.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her fiction and poetry is published or forthcoming at Gargoyle, The New Verse News, The Story Shack, The Quotable, and other magazines. Her first collection of short stories will be published in the 2014 Poet's Haven Author Series.

THE MAGNITUDE OF MURDER

by Kristina England

JORDAN DAVIS

1.

In Florida, a man is found guilty of attempted murder,
though the boy he shot did not survive.

The argument:
first degree means premeditation,
not acting on fear.

But isn't racism some form of preparation,
some form of an excuse?

2.

My grandmother once forbid my sister
from marrying a Puerto Rican,
because all their men "are cheats."

My sister married him anyway.

And (eventually) my grandmother
admitted to her own wrong doing,
but not until after there were
too many ghosts to bury.

3.

The man says the boy had a gun.
The boy MUST have had a gun.
But the only weapon that day
was a mind bent by societal beliefs.

And yet, the magnitude of murder
is weighed on the loudness of music,
the amount of time it took to reach for a gun,
the minutes till the man fired
all those assumptions
at a boy in the wrong parking lot
at just the wrong time.

4.

And what of the man?

He earns no name in this poem.
He belongs where the boy has mistakenly gone:
in a grave that needs no remembrance,
but rather loses its meaning over time.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her fiction and poetry is published or forthcoming at Gargoyle, New Verse News, The Story Shack, The Quotable, and other magazines. Her first collection of short stories will be published in the 2014 Poet's Haven Author Series.

SEEING THE LIGHT

by Kristina England

On March 7, 1965, a march by civil rights demonstrators was broken up in Selma, Ala., by state troopers and a sheriff's posse.

When Martin Luther King marched,
he had equality in mind.
No line drawn down the middle
on who could cross;
just people walking together
for freedom, for rights.

Women took the same stride
with voting, abortion,
the ability to work
alongside a suited man.

The government, now in foot
with same-sex marriage,
plans to offer survivor benefits
should a partner pass away.

As an assistant professor,
I met a young man who lost
one mother to cancer,
then watched his second mom
lose her bank account in court,
her love deemed illegal, non-existent.

So many people have given their lives
for the truth of their skin
whether color, religion, persuasion.
And, though, a child will apologize
for the silliest of things,
we'll skirt around the word sorry
with laws, holidays, and parades

while the ghosts of our past linger,
waiting to play judge
to the child, woman, man
marching down the street,
exposed, vulnerable,
ready to fall victim
time and time again
to our heavy, unwarranted hands.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her fiction and poetry is published or forthcoming at Gargoyle, New Verse News, The Story Shack, The Quotable, and other magazines. Her first collection of short stories will be published in the 2014 Poet's Haven Author Series.

THINKING IN THE ABSTRACT

by Kristina England

If the Amanda Knox trial was a piece of art,
it would be Van Gogh's ear,
something you know is lost
but, as with so many amputated ears --
Simpson, Zimmerman, Anthony --
there's no way to hear the truth
through all the muffled questions,
lack of evidence,
ours minds teetering back and forth
like an unbalanced scale,
heads pulsing with the footsteps
of a murderer
who will never be free.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Her writing is published or forthcoming at Extract(s), The New Verse News, The Story Shack, Tipton Poetry Journal, and other magazines.

PROGRESSION

by Kristina England

Yesterday I woke to people talking about ducks,
a dynasty, some man that believes in the bible,
says homosexuality is not what God proclaimed.
I don’t have Cable, stumble through the news,
piecing it together like a young child
does with puberty, hormones, identity.
Today I woke to Uganda passing a law:
life in jail for those who partake in same sex love.
How does the dynasty man feel about this news?
He says he’s a love thy neighbor kind of guy,
does not promote hate or discrimination.
He just sticks to interpretation of the written page.
But what does he think of Uganda?
How does it make him feel inside?
I’ve been around long enough to know
that the human word means little
compared to the judgements of the mind.
Perhaps the duck man will squirm,
hold himself back from quacking
at how hard it is to love yourself,
to realize we are all fallible men.
Or he’ll skim over the headline,
say Uganda is not his problem.
He has nothing to do with Uganda.
He’s just an average, God-fearing man.
Then, he’ll grab his gun, hunt duck for dinner,
So what if he’d rather hunt a moose today.
Ducks are what he knows and understands.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Her writing is published or forthcoming at Extract(s), The New Verse News, The Story Shack, Tipton Poetry Journal, and other magazines.

SELF PORTRAIT OF A PRESIDENT

by Kristina England

Artists have been painting themselves for ages,
a narcissistic undertone in their strokes.
We are all painters,
prone to staring in the mirror,
tweezers, razors, makeup
tasked with refining our complexions.
We are beasts of beauty,
so why not capture ourselves
in the best and worst of lights?
A face will only last a lifetime (or less).
We should each grab a camera,
smile into the lens,
introduce self-love into our daily routine,
a much needed moment of clarity
that's been absent for too long.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Her writing is published or forthcoming at Extract(s), Gargoyle, New Verse News, The Story Shack, and other magazines.

REMNANTS OF THE CRASH

by Kristina England

            Headline: "Actor Paul Walker dies in car crash,"
            the blaze making his beautiful face unidentifiable.


All I can think is "I hope he died on impact"
because that wasn't the case for you -
no seatbelt, ejected at high speeds,
thrown under your own wheels,
those once vibrant eyes dulling
under the red and white flash of disaster,
your son, stuck in the backseat,
begging for "momma" to soothe
his temporary and long-term boo-boos
as you shuddered out the last breaths
of mother, wife, friend on your graveled grave.

Maybe the driving laws were never meant for the driver.
Maybe they are there for the ones left behind
with the gut-wrenching task of identifying
a once beautiful face.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Her fiction and poetry is published or forthcoming at Extract(s), Gargoyle, The Story Shack, Tipton Poetry Journal.

PARAPHERNALIA

by Kristina England

Image source: TaxProf Blog (in response to “The Sex Toys in the Attic” in the NY Times, November 9, 2013).

The most popular article of the week:
New York Time's "Sex Toys in the Attic,"
some older woman's concerns
about her "romping" days,
some toy she collected from a boyfriend.
Surely she's seen the news -
child porn ring broken up in Canada,
over 300 people involved.
Maybe she wrote the article before
the Toronto mayor took crack,
got cracked, cracked a nation.
Or she wanted to lighten the load.
God knows we need a good laugh
and perhaps the occasional mishap
of some not-so-cozy artifact
found under our mother's bed
is enough to pause this avalanche.
There is, after all, some innocence
left in this disjointed world.
And if there's not,
let's keep pretending
vibrators matter
in all these earthquakes,
tsunamis, the tremor
of our minds.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Her fiction and poetry is published or forthcoming at Gargoyle, Found Poetry Review, The Story Shack, Tipton Poetry Journal, and other journals.

TUBULAR WEAPON

by Kristina England





I.

No one knows what she was thinking.
How could we?
Half of us are still trying to understand
ourselves
never mind some woman
who drove through a barrier.
The world is full of barriers
anyway.

II.

A gun is designed to discharge bullets.
A car is used to transport.

Place these two objects together
create friction
a chase
a bang bang bang
that leaves people ducking.

III.

Crazy, people say...

to open fire on a car
to keep driving
to be an onlooker

IV.

An officer empties his gun
stumbles home through the headlines
reaches down for his toddler
kisses his lil’ chub-chub.

He thinks of the confined gas within his gun
how he released it into moving windows
that sometimes a tubular weapon
can protect the many
yet leave a child motherless.

He goes about his evening
barely able to sleep
reloads the device in the morning
because the next time could be different
it always is

and he is so close to hearing
his daughter say the words -
“dad”, “daddy”, “dada”.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her poetry and fiction is published or forthcoming in Extract(s), Gargoyle, New Verse News, The Story Shack, The Quotable, and other journals.

MAN EATER

by Kristina England




A highly addictive drug whose name derives from the green, scaly sores that develop on users’ rotting flesh was reported to have found a toehold in the United States this week. --LA Times, September 28, 2013


1.

A woman lies on an operating table.
Metal tools deconstruct her brain,
then reassemble it.
She wakes, relieved to see another day,
expects the healing process,
the pain of coming back to life.
Weeks later, doctors inform
her the medical equipment was tainted,
the extra life that surgery gave her
may be eaten away;
she'd go mad in the process.
But they couldn't know for sure.
They had to wait
with her and seven other patients.
So the doctors, the media,
the whole world sat down,
flipped through magazines
while she went mad anyway.

2.

A boy will inject himself in Arizona
with a drug called Krokodil.
Gasoline and oil in the blood,
his arm will bubble up,
go gangrene.

Two years to live,
he'll shoot up again,
reduce the days
with heroin.

3.

A skin rash bans my friend's mother
from hugging her before surgery.

Lauren has stage 3 breast cancer.
Her mother - MRSA.
They can't even be in the same room
or else Lauren could get sick,
contract a flesh eating disease.

They know the odds, separate themselves,
wait to feel that mother-daughter touch again,
believing they will because belief
is the only thing between us
and the facts.

4.

Flesh eating bacteria is breeding.
We find it in our conversations.

My mother and I tongueless from politics,
our conflicting thoughts on Obamacare
some tool, some needle, some rash
we refuse to deal with.

She sits on the right side of the table.
I circle my fork through spaghetti

on the left.

Soon we'll be dead to each other -
a statistic, an autopsy.

It will hurt.
It will be maddening.

And yet, we'll still inject ourselves,
unwilling to believe
we are addicted,
we are suicidal,
we are the boy in Arizona,
senseless,
always searching for that ultimate high.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her poetry and fiction is published or forthcoming in Extract(s), Gargoyle, New Verse News, The Story Shack, The Quotable, and other journals.

CALIFORNIA TEEN RESCUED, MURDERER DECEASED

by Kristina England

Members of the extended Anderson and Saincome families, with James Lee DiMaggio (right) are seen in this June 2011 photo provided to the AP by Andrea Saincome. James Lee DiMaggio was killed after being sought in the abduction of Hannah Anderson (reclining). Ethan Anderson (on floor, left) was found killed along with his mother. Source: New York Daily News.

My uncle leans forward on the couch,
the news flashing across the screen.
A cop for over twenty years,
his own son a murderer -
lust, anger, drugs, the boy’s undoing.

The reports read Dead... and Alive,
but I’ve seen the ones who make it
the victims’ and murderer’s families,
what they had before,
what they thought they had,
all some distorted, unobtainable past.

My uncle’s son, caught, arrested,
locked up, then let go,
walks the streets somewhere,
neither man nor ghost,
dead or alive.

His victims - one deceased, one rescued -
nothing more than archived captions,
some story that passed away,
when the next one and the next one
and the very next one
came to life.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her poetry and fiction is published or forthcoming in Decades Review, Gargoyle, Linguistic Erosion, The Story Shack, and other journals.