SQUIRREL SPOTTING

by Sarah P. Blanchard

Dead Canary Art Print Designed and sold by artfulprovender

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

— T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

Squirrel spotting

A sincere apology for nothing

for doing nothing

for becoming the nothing we have become.

A heartfelt apology in advance

for whatever comes next.

squirrel

Warnings? Of course we had those.

We had our cameras out, recording everything:

grievances, outrages, lies, and the

infinite variations of a canary’s death. We

added our comments to all the

shrill unpleasant alarms

squirrel

raised by popular prophets nodding somberly

at those shrill cries of doom. But too many alarms

were smothered beneath clever ridicule

squirrel

about painted clowns and bitcoin plunges.

Yes we raised shields. But only a few

too late, too slowly, and only after

reading the manual twice. Always

mistaking shields for weapons

squirrel

we searched instead for the familiar

smiling faces of traitors who counseled

easy appeasements, comfortable conciliations

squirrel

while murderers performed overtime.

We were warned about the sky falling

squirrel

but we’re good now. We’ve got our cameras ready.

Sarah P. Blanchard is the author of the novel Drawn from Life, the story collection Playing Chess with Bulls, and a poetry chapbook titled river, horse, morning. A former instructor of English and writing at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, she writes now from her home in northeastern Connecticut.

THE DAILY BRIEF

by Michal Rubin

Counting backwards. Day 318 of a war. 

Yesterday the yard flooded,

an email hollered at me-

“317 days of slaughter”.

I apologized.

 

Counting backwards. Day 303 of a war.

Ishaq starved to death. His motorcycle

remained under the rubble,

he loved it. The motorcycle. He didn’t holler.

I apologized.

 

Counting backwards. Day 300 of a war.

West of the city, carrying food on his

bike, Khaled rode too close 

to the missile. Burial site unknown.

I apologized.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

 

.

 

.

 

Counting backwards. Day 36 of a war. 

I am at a conference. Unseasonably warm. 

I brought the wrong clothes. Elham 

dropped the embroidered bag when 

a sniper’s bullet reached her.

I apologized.

 

Counting backwards. Day 13 of a war.

In a poem Hiba wrote “We are not just

transients passing”. Her poems rippled

through the world, she was killed. 

At home. An airstrike.

I apologized.

 

In a beginning. Day 1 of this war.

Clear sky, a small pond, 

a gentle fall in SC. Horror

surges afar. No flutter in this pond.

I call home—

I don't apologize.

Michal Rubin is an Israeli, living in Columbia, SC. The impetus for her writing came from the years-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a  psychotherapist, a Cantor and a poet, she brings forth the challenge of distinguishing truths from myths, awareness vs. denial, conformity vs. individuation. Her work was published in Psychotic Education,  The Art and Science of Psychotherapy, Wrath Bearing Tree journal,  Rise Up Journal, Topical Poetry,  Fall-Lines,  The Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Waxing & Waning: A Literary Journal,  South Carolina Bards Poetry Anthology 2023, Palestine-Israel Journal, Critical Muslim, and a chapbook published by Cathexis Northwest Press.

TO BE A WITCH IN SCOTLAND

by Lynn White

From allegations of cursing the king’s ships, to shape-shifting into animals and birds, or dancing with the devil, a satanic panic in early modern Scotland meant that thousands of women were accused of witchcraft in the 16th-18th centuries with many executed. Now, three centuries after the Witchcraft Act was repealed, campaigners are on course to win pardons and official apologies for the estimated 3,837 people–84% of whom were women–tried as witches, of which two-thirds were executed and burned. After a two-year campaign by the Witches of Scotland group, a member’s bill in the Scottish parliament has secured the support of Nicola Sturgeon’s administration to clear the names of those accused, the Sunday Times reported. The move follows a precedent by the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the US that proclaimed victims of the Salem witch trials innocent in 2001. —The Guardian, December 19, 2021

Scotland was not the place to be a witch,

it really wasn’t.

There were more than four thousand witch trials

in Scotland

putting Salem to shame,

the Witch-Finders boasted.

One would suppose that 

wise women did not become witches,

but it seems,

many did

and paid a hot and heavy price.

So not many would be dancing,

even at Christmas,

even in spirit 

few would rise

for the occasion

only the bravest

would celebrate.

But this Christmas in Scotland

there is something more

a vindication,

a recognition of innocence

that does not require bravery to celebrate.

Even though it’s three hundred years late.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

HOW TO EAT THE MOON

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

With salt, of course,

though there’s the matter of how

to get the salt to stick

without the assist of gravity.

And paired with a slightly chilled sauvignon blanc,

preferably from Marlborough, of course,

with its hints of green pepper and grass.

It doesn’t taste like cheese after all,

but then the experts never seem to be right.

It tastes more like, well, hard to say.

Try another bite.

You never thought you’d be here, did you,

sampling these bits of reflected light.

Almost as unexpected as the apology

earlier tonight from the man in the suit

so blue it looked black.

Maybe not a white. A red.

A cab. Dark fruit. Full body.

One that’s needed time to evolve.

Its complex woody tones will compliment

the moon’s impressive density.

What was it he said? “While

we obviously cannot change

the past, it is clear that we

must change the future.”

Toast to the future

and raise your glass

and take another nibble of moon.

Notice how dark it is, really,

about the color of asphalt, worn down.

It’s only because space itself is so dark

that the moon seems light.

All along you thought it was white.

Where else have you been wrong?

Perhaps between sips

and forkfuls you’ll find an apology

ripening there on your own startled tongue.

Perhaps you’ll dare to speak it.

The night makes its usual rounds.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poetry has appeared in O Magazine, in back alleys, on A Prairie Home Companion and on river rocks. She was recently appointed Poet Laureate of Colorado’s Western Slope used the position to launch “Heard of Poets,” an interactive poetry map of Western Colorado poets. She directed the Telluride Writers Guild for 10 years and now co-directs the Talking Gourds Poetry Club. Since 2005, she’s written a poem a day. Favorite one-word mantra: Adjust.

VISIT TO HIROSHIMA

by Alejandro Escudé

A boy looks at a huge photograph showing Hiroshima city after the 1945 atomic bombing. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Japan August 6, 2007. Reuters/Toru Hanai via International Business Times.

Oh children of Japan,

the dot that inflated
to the size of a neutron star.

Oh children of Japan,

you watched your own feet
evaporate.

Oh children of Japan,

you clung to a rope
thick as an Egyptian obelisk.

Oh children of Japan,

an apology flying like
a bomber evading a blast.

Oh children of Japan,

your bodies, a pile
of blackened marbles.


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.

KOMAGATU MARU

by Akua Lezli Hope





Forgiveness,
                      an evolution
Apology
                is          
                     revolution
Acknowledgment
                               does not redeem
                               but embodies
growth                          maturity                understanding
re                                   cog                                nition            
               known
                                see            again
                                             grant permission        
 now                            better                        now now now    
the  denied
                       arrival
                              has landed
disembark

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, and metal, to create poems, patterns, stories, music, ornaments, wearables, jewelry, adornments and peace whenever possible. A third generation Caribbean American, New Yorker and firstborn, she has won fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts,  Ragdale, Hurston Wright writers, and the National Endowment for The Arts.  She is a Cave Canem fellow. Her manuscript, Them Gone, won Red Paint Hill Publishing’s Editor’s Prize and will be published in 2016.