A WOMAN SEES A REDBUD TREE ON EARTH DAY

by Ilene Millman

Bloom summoned by spring rains 

has summoned her— 

she stands on her patio square 

  

stretching up in her sleepy gray sweats, 

morning sun slowly climbing the arc of sky. 

From where she stands, all rosy 

  

blossoms up and down the redbud 

like pink freckles 

on tanned arms 

  

the woman watches 

the sun curve 

up around the tree’s branches  

  

like a playful kitten, 

and at the touchy tips 

she sees tiny heart-shaped leaves 

  

almost translucent 

as the eyelids of newborns. 

A cardinal hops from pinked arm to arm 

  

to the top of the tree 

his raucous ring of birdie, birdie, birdie 

ending in a slow trill. 

  

It was the whistle of this songbird 

rising on the gaunt wind that caught her— 

  

Aren’t we all susceptible? 

Her mind draws the details— 

  

disappearing species 

melting icecaps, rising seas 

  

and the redbud 

offering its hearts 

  

and the redbud offering 

its hearts.

Ilene Millman is a retired speech/language therapist who spent more than thirty-five years teaching children who learn differently. She published two language therapy games. Millman’s poetry received a Pushcart nomination in 2022 and is featured in print and Net journals including , The New Verse News, Potomac Review, Healing Muse, Nelle, The Journal of New Jersey Poets and others. Her first poetry collection, Adjust Speed to Weather, was published in 2018; her newest collection, A Jar of Moths, was published by Ragged Sky Press in March, 2024.

CITIZEN VAIN

by J.D. Smith




     “Donald Trump may have some controversial political views, but as the above video shows, the 69-year-old presidential candidate (and aspiring movie star) has great taste in film — even if some of his cinematic interpretations are a bit unconventional. Long before he was the star of NBC’s The Apprentice or the unlikely leader of the Republican presidential primary, Trump was a mere celebrity billionaire, which gave him time to participate in a mini-documentary project with Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris. The Fog of War and The Thin Blue Line director spent five days in 2002 with a litany of celebrities and dignitaries, filming them as they talked about their favorite movies.  . . . One interview that didn’t make the final cut was Trump talking about his favorite movie, the 1941 classic Citizen Kane.” —Jordan Zakarin, Yahoo! Movies, Sept. 9, 2015. 
     "The Movie Movie, an aborted project [by filmmaker Errol Morris], is based on the idea of taking Donald Trump, Mikhail Gorbachev and others and putting them in the movies they most admire. Isn't it possible that in an alternative universe Donald Trump actually starred in Citizen Kane?" —Errol Morris: Aborted Projects      
                 

                                 Rosebud

Who burned his sled? That would explain
The wisps of hair coiffed like a mane,
The name writ large on thrusting towers,
His rating of his works and powers.
Who wouldn’t take up his refrain?

A loser, say, without a brain
And envious he can’t obtain
Fresh wives imported like cut flowers.
     (Who burned his sled?)

A nation may endure a reign
Of fire once tended with some pain
Outlasting its appointed hours
Yet starved, for all that it devours.
The question holds fast like a stain—
       Who burned his sled?


J.D. Smith’s third collection of poems Labor Day at Venice Beach was published in 2012; his first humor collection Notes of a Tourist on Planet Earth the following year.. His poems have appeared in journals and sites including 99 Poems for the 99 Percent, Nimrod, Tar River Poetry, Texas Review, and Dark Mountain 3.