AMERICA 253

by Scott McConnaha

 

 

I turned eight the summer of 1976

and everything seemed to swell

with bicentennial pride.

Even the cement trucks were painted

red, white, and blue and we waved

our flags at the fire engines

and high school band as they

paraded down a crowded Mission Avenue

buzzing with proud cheers and

Tootsie Rolls thrown at our feet.

It belonged to everyone, that time.

 

Today, there are some storefront windows

painted with America 250 and the light poles

down Main Street have banners with that logo,

but it's different these 50 years later.

Perhaps I've become too gun-shy, too cynical,

too resentful that these patriotic displays

have been hoarded and redefined

and now stand for all the wrong ideas

about what this country is and ought to be.

 

I looked online but haven't yet found anyone

selling America 253 shirts. I think it's a good idea

because most of us want to celebrate a different,

truer version of what this country is

and ought to be. But we know it’s going to take

a few more years to build a ballroom 

that will accommodate all of us.

Scott McConnaha is a veteran, former teacher, editor, and healthcare administrator. He and his wife live in Plymouth, Wis. He is the author of a poetry chapbook titled Without a Prayer, and his work has appeared in Mobius, America, Door is a Jar, New Verse News, Dissident Voice, and Moss Piglet, among other publications.

MIDDLE AGES CONTEMPORANEITY

by Judith Skillman

Herr Drumpf fastened by the feet

to a wooden panel, drawn behind a horse

as illustrated in Matthew Paris’s Chronica Majora,

hanged almost to the point

of death. Watch as Drumpf’s emasculated,

disemboweled, beheaded, quartered.

 

See his remains on display (as depicted in the execution

of Hugh Dispenser the Younger),

where a crowd of brightly dressed 13th century men

gather to view a ladder. A fire

blazes on the ground,

logs crisscrossed like bound limbs.

 

Another ladder holds green capped executioner

with his short sharp knife. I watch 

Mr. President’s flesh gape, pulled apart 

at collarbone and genitalia.

At the base of these Elizabethan ladders

placed in perspective by the painter, Froissart of Louise of Gruthuse,

 

a group of top-hatted gentlemen gesture.

Bulldozers sit where the ballroom

would have been, heaps of dirt piled. A group of giant moles

unearthed the newest labyrinth a la Hamas. 

And here we are, dressed to the nines,

wearing ballet-like slippers,

 

talking in low tones, holding not iPhones but harmonicas.

Let this be an example

for any would be high treasonist’s,

as well as Matthew Lambert,

the Irishman who suffered this punishment

as little ago as 1581. 

 

If he’d been a woman

he’d have been burned at the stake 

for reasons of public decency.

Judith Skillman is the author of twenty collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in Commonweal, Threepenny Review, The Southern Review, Zyzzyva, and numerous other literary journals. She has received funding from The Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust, among other organizations. Her new book is Oppression, Shanti Arts, 2026.

THE ARTHUR MURRAY STUDIO IN MOSUL

by Christopher Woods

Has gone dark and quiet and sad,
But still the dancers come,
All ages, both sexes, sit in chairs,
In circles, or in lines facing each other,
No longer allowed the art of movement.
But imagination still breathes deeply
As they imagine dancing a polka,
Foxtrot, recall the smiles of partners
Taking each other’s hands, or holding
A lover close as a song ends.
No music here now, but who can forget
A glorious Strauss waltz, a sensual samba.
Still, they cannot, will not, surrender.
So in the ballroom gloom,
They silently, defiantly,
Hum Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”
Over the din of madness
In the street outside.


Christopher Woods is a writer, teacher and photographer who lives in Texas.

WITHOUT

by Shirley J. Brewer

—Dancer Loses Foot in Boston Marathon Bombings

      from a newspaper headline

Smoke and glass,

hell sounds, her foot gone—

the amputation of a dream.

 

Just one day since

her toes painted

a promising pink.

 

She had asked for glitter;

severed sparkles

now rouged with blood.

 

They rush her off

without the limb that bore her

through every waltz, rumba, tango.

 

No time for farewells,

only a tourniquet

speaks for the ordinary

 

strapless-sandal-moments, a burst

of music—her footsteps light

on the safe and steady ballroom floor.

 

Shirley J. Brewer ( Baltimore , MD ) is a poet, educator, and workshop facilitator. Publication credits: The Cortland Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Pearl, Comstock Review, Loch Raven Review, Passager, and other journals. Her poetry books include A Little Breast Music, 2008, Passager Books and After Words, 2013, Apprentice House/Loyola University. M.A. Creative Writing/Publishing Arts, University of Baltimore.