KRONOS EATS HIS CHILDREN

by Susan McLean

Kronos rules a golden age.
A.I. fulfills his every whim.
He fracks to fuel his leverage.
He won't let regulations trim
his profits or his privilege.

Kronos drives an SUV:
it's comfortable; he needs his room.
When there's a place he wants to be,
his private jet can save him time,
and time is money, naturally.

You can't eat money, though, so when
the ice caps melt, the oceans warm,
droughts, floods, and hurricanes pile on,
and all the crops dry up or drown,

his kids will find he's eaten them.

Susan McLean, a retired English professor from Southwest Minnesota State University, taught a course in Greek myth and literature for thirty years, and finds that those myths continue to resonate with what's happening now.

THEY PROPPED THE DEAD MAN UP: AN ALLEGORY

by Sandra Anfang

We were waist deep in the big muddy

and the big fool said to push on. 

—Pete Seeger, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”

A man I used to know

who knew a man I used to know

told me a story about

the old man’s funeral.

How they propped him up

in his single bed like a child’s

dressed him in his favorite

cowboy shirt, hat, & boots.

How their feet carved circles

in the small front room

of his cabin, how they passed 

around the punch, dished up

the casseroles, poured the wine.

All the while, he lay in his bed

in the corner, where it had been wheeled

watching them enjoy the feast.

He didn’t miss a beat.

He looked great—alive as you or me

said the man I used to know.

Maybe a little ashen.

“They propped the dead man up”

cycles through my brain

like a country refrain.

If they hadn’t heard the story

of how his Kawasaki overshot

the freeway bridge, a suspected 

heart attack the cause

you might have thought he was

enjoying an afternoon nap.

This scenario would not

be hard to replicate:

(an old man waving from

the window of an SUV; 

the steel-spiked wall of his dissembling).

During the parsing of the meatloaf

the news, the deviled eggs

they propped the dead man up 

and life continued

more or less

as it had before.

Sandra Anfang is an award-winning poet, poetry teacher, and editor. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including San Francisco Peace and Hope, West Trestle Review, Spillway, and Rattle. Her two chapbooks, Looking Glass Heart and Road Worrier, were published by Finishing Line Press in 2016 and 2018, respectively. Xylem Highway, a full-length collection, was published by Main Street Rag in 2019. Sandra teaches with California Poets in the Schools and hosts Rivertown Poets, a monthly reading series, in Petaluma, California. She is spending her sheltering-in-place days writing poetry and haiku, taking long walks, and texting for MoveOn.org to defeat t***p.

PRESUMPTION

by Catherine Wald

Image source: NY Daily News

So many are the barriers we cross –
mountains, rivers, doorways in
and doorways out – we can’t
pause at every junction
to ponder the alternatives,
consider every sharp stake
we might be impaled on; every
body of water eager to swallow
us up; every potential mechanical
malfunction in a world dominated
by machines.

What would life be like if,
every time you drove across a
train track, you had to wonder
what your kids would do without
you, how your gas tank might im-
plode on impact, who you are likely
to kill without meaning any harm?

What we presumed:  SUVs
are invulnerable, trains
are stoppable, each of us
has the right to traverse
any obstacle that blocks
our path.

Were we wrong?


Catherine Wald has frequently taken the Metro North train from New York City to Valhalla. Her books include poetry (Distant, burned-out stars, Finishing Line Press, 2011), nonfiction (The Resilient Writer: Stories of Rejection and Triumph From 23 Top Authors, Persea Books, 2005) and a translation from French of Valery Larbaud’s Childish Things (Sun & Moon Press). Her poems have been published in American Journal of Nursing, Buddhist Poetry Review, Chronogram, Exit 13, Friends Journal, Jewish Literary Journal, The New Poet, Society of Classical Poets, The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly andWestchester Review.

CONTAMINATED

by Howard Winn

Image source: International Marine Salvage

 
Men in space suits are removing
lead and asbestos
from a house down our street.
Begun in the twenties,
this house remained from when innocence
prevailed as did cancer the crab,
moving sideways into the lungs
and other vital organs, both male and female,
from room paint, hot air ducts and shingles
covering innocent Cape Cod cottages,
moon walkers in airtight costumes
earn a healthy living from the fear of death,
this summer house is  now year round.
It holds an angular blonde mother
who runs along Shore Road with like wives,
a sinewy square-jawed father who drives
his hefty SUV to work and to his health club,
and coaches his vigorous son for little league fame
in the weekly mowed large side lawn
cared for by a landscape service that comes
in substantial truck and trailer to haul away
the unwanted grass.
across the street from our front windows.
In the mist of life, death by carcinogens lurks
in the up-scale décor and in the pipes of necessity.
Running, running, running,
they cannot run away.
Running, running, running,
they cannot run away.
Nes est certain, vita est non


Most recently Howard Winn had poems and fiction published in The Dalhousie Review, Descant (Canada), Cactus Heart, Main Street Rag, Caduceus, Burning Word,  Pennsylvania Literary Journal. Southern Humanities Review, Cutting Edgz and Borderlands. His B. A. is from Vassar College. His graduate degree is from the Writing Program at Stanford University. His doctoral work was done at New York University. He is a State University of New York faculty member.