NOT MERELY A GENTLE PROD

by Sharon Olson

“Ecstasy of St. Teresa” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

As Bernini would have it, Teresa entered a quasi-orgasmic

state, calling out to her would-be husband Jesus! and explaining

later how the prick of the arrow exulted and burned at the same

time

and I think of my Mr. Moderna, the jolt he gives me, the fever,

the chills, the battle royale he is willing to undergo on my behalf, 

even though he is not entirely faithful, as I hear others claiming 

him

think of the lily and its deep chamber penetrated by the sharp

bill of its hummingbird swordsman, we do not hear her cry out 

or think he has forsaken her by darting into the orifices

of all the neighbor lilies

and yet in this year of multiple piercings, the throngs of the would-

be vaccinated circling in the vestibules, the ante-chambers

of their chosen clinics, the buzzing and murmuring will be

echoed even

by the hosanna of the seventeen-year emerging cicada swarm,

Brood X they are called, like the crucifix but here only a reference

to the number 10, the power of their song jacked up to the nth

degree, what has got into them, what probe, what stick?

Sharon Olson is a retired librarian who has recently moved to Annapolis, Maryland. Her book The Long Night of Flying was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2006. Her second book Will There Be Music? was published by Cherry Grove Collections in 2019. She will be getting her second dose of Moderna today.

AFTER FOLKLORE

by Mark Danowsky





Coming around
not knowing
love was
near arrival

Such joy
is discovery
your magic
arrow missed

My heart
filling deeper
rises gently
fresh struck

Deft archer
snags me
narrow fellow
gone delicate


Mark Danowsky is a Philadelphia poet, author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press), Managing Editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Editor of ONE ART poetry journal.

NOVEMBER 2020

by Gil Hoy

Graphic: MoveOn.org

When the poet's
arrow hits the mark,

a wishful paragraph
can become

a single word:

Blue

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and served four terms as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman. He is a member of the Brookline Democratic Town Committee. 

THE BLOODIED BOY AND THE GAMES

by Jay Sizemore





Can you hit the water like a knife,
so sharp and so quiet
it remains oblivious to the stabbing?
          No somersaults by choice.
          Every building a potential grave,
          a rubble of tombstones disarrayed.

Can you run faster than death,
with a nation of gasps
riding your shoulders and spine?
           Here, a gold medal for a sunrise.
           We wipe the blood from our eyes.
           We dig our children free of debris
           and carry them like bombs.

Are you sure you picked the right God?
Has the arrow loosed itself
from behind your ear
and found the center of the universe?
Doesn’t the ocean sound like applause?
           There are so many that are lost.
           Their names vanish like landscape details
           pulled further and further away.
           This fog makes blind strangers of us all
           bruised bodies hurting to be touched.

Is the world watching?
I’ve balanced my entire life
upon a beam no wider
than the average human foot.
I’ve turned myself into a compass,
a needle floating inside a leaf.
I’ve conditioned my frame,
hardened my senses
through repetition,
becoming an instrument
of precision
lifting fighter jets
up over my head.
Will you fold my indiscretions into a flag,
while a black man bites the curb,
and forgive me for being great?
             Stare into his eyes.
             Dark as polished stone,
             the blank gaze
             of a shell-shocked child,
             his blood dried to his cheek
             like an unwanted birthmark
             not given at birth.
             It’s no mistake that the human heart
             is larger than a grenade.
             Are you sure you picked the right God?


Jay Sizemore writes poetry and fiction. He has been  published in places such as Rattle, McNeese Review, Jabberwock, and Crab Orchard Review. He lives in Nashville, TN.

HUNTING SEASON

by Jay Sizemore

Pearly whites. Teeth. Not teeth.
Privilege.
$50,000 to kill a black man.
In the safari grassland of Zimbabwe,
a man with white skin, white teeth, white erectile dysfunction,
draws back his bow. He knows the dark has no soul.
It’s only an animal.
The grass ripples in waves, flashing between shades
of brown and yellow and green.
His arrow strikes true, bowstring vibrato hum,
the familiar inhuman cry.
The rifle to finish the job. A bullet through the heart,
the animal heart.
Careful to get no blood on his khakis.
Poses for photographs with his trophy,
his prized fetish, fresh frothy crimson, foaming
from its mouth. He’ll cut off its head, mount it on his wall,
maybe make its black skin into a rug.
Just another dead thing to stand on.

Blue lights. Blue shirts. Blue eyes.
Privilege.
The lion doesn’t have a license plate.
The lion doesn’t have a license.
Lions shouldn’t be driving, their primal instinct
is to kill, to gnaw marrow from healthy bones.
Question the lion. These things don’t speak English.
The lion will grunt and growl, avoid eye contact,
that dead yellow stare,
that scent of bloody breath.
This is why he carries a handgun.
This is why he’s trained his trigger hand.
The lion has no pride, it’s been drinking gin,
dribbled it down its beautiful black mane.
Old car animal sweat, fight or flight.
It’ll reach for its keys.
Tell the lion to stop.
It’ll reach under the seat.
Don’t think twice.
Shoot the lion in the head.
No one will riot.


Jay Sizemore doesn’t win awards. Founder of Crow Hollow Books, he writes poems and stories and scribbles his name a lot onto electronic pads for material possessions. He listens to Ryan Adams and drinks Four Roses. You can find his work online in places if you go looking, including his chapbook Confessions of a Porn Addict, available on Amazon. His wife puts up with his shit in Nashville, TN.

BELATED

by Megan Collins

I’ll admit I did it, too—loved a lion
I’d never heard of until he was dead.
Scrolling through photographs, I fell
for his amber eyes. I even noted how—
in some poses—he seemed as benign
as my golden retriever, asleep at my feet.
When I read of the arrow in this lion’s side,
the forty hours he suffered, I felt my throat
stiffen like cooling wax, felt my eyes
sting as if exposed to flame.

For days, I said his name—Cecil, Cecil—
but I had to Google the woman (Sandra!)
who died in a jail cell, who’d been dragged
from her car, pulled by her collar like a dog.
I loved her, then, too—how she fought
in ways I’ve never had to, how her smile
in photographs made me want to smile back.
Her laughter, I imagined, would sound like a song.

But—how easy it is to love a victim.
How easy to love what’s already gone.


Megan Collins holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University. She teaches creative writing and literature in Connecticut, and is also an editor of 3Elements Review. Her work has appeared in many journals, including Compose, Linebreak, Rattle, Spillway, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. 

HENNY-PENNY AND HER SEQUESTER WALK

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

Steve Sack, Cagle Cartoons, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

Silver-brittle sky-house snaps
handcuffs on its prisoners

the urgency of fear
startles some lizards

who walk on water  bodies  upright
escaping locomotion  no tracks

the fuchsia  impatiens
spills her blossoms onto brick

the sky is falling cries Henny-penny
I must warn the people

a duck rides a decoy like a horse
veering nowhere on its back

a boy fastens a target to a tree
alien green parrots scream

the needle sinks into the flesh
the arrow flies into the black

hungry pythons swallow deer
a dog named Forrest drowns

a child draws her lost cat
pointed ears small paws rounded eyes

she tapes it to a tree until its face
fades from it penciled tail

in a coat of oil a bird grows cold
its blackened wing remains

Henny-penny trips and falls
foxes make a meal of her

leave her carcass
on their party's trail

Lucille Gang Shulklapper has published short stories as well as four chapbooks of poetry, most recently, In the Tunnel, (March Street Press, 2008).  She has won awards and competitions from National League of Pen Women: Nob Hill Branch, Palm Beach Repertory Theater, the R. Rofihe Poetry Trophy, and others.  Her work has been anthologized and appears in many publications, including: Jerry Jazz Musician;  Poetic Voices Without Borders, Gulfstream and The Prose Poem Project. She has led workshops for The Florida Center for the Book, and workshops facilitated through The Palm Beach Poetry Festival.  Her first picture book, Stuck in Bed, Fred, has been accepted for publication in 2013.