LIKE A HURRICANE

by Mary K O’Melveny

She blew in like a Hurricane

A river deep    A mountain high

 

She ditched Ike   Took over the mike

Blew our minds   Broke our hearts

 

Tina Turner knew first hand 

What love’s got to do with it

 

She told us what we needed

Knew what we wanted

 

Tina stamped her feet   Released her hips  

Danced like unleashed wind

 

She defied age   Demanded respect

Broke the rules   Exposed the fools

 

Tina wore Stiletto heels   Spangled dresses

Split sexy skirts    Spiky blonde hair

 

She even taught Mick Jagger

How to dance   swivel   shake

 

Tina shouted loud   Made us proud

Said we’d better be good to her

 

She will keep on like a Hurricane   

Turning    Burning   Churning  

 

Tina was our Queen of Rock ‘n Roll 

Simply the best   Better than all the rest

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

HERE WE ARE

by Dan Brook 

here we are

we must do

what is difficult

we must do

what is necessary

we must be

we must be

the bay

polluted & pissed in

used, abused

trying to support life

we must sustain

we must be

the rainforest

slashed & burned

choking, smoking

trying to breathe

we must regenerate

we must be

the ocean

jumped in & dumped in

crashing, thrashing

trying to wash

we must cleanse

we must be

the Earth

ridden roughshod

quaking, spinning

trying to survive

we must live

we must be

the worm

stepped over & on

wiggling, wriggling

trying to burrow

we must be humble

we must be

the other

feared & hated

mistaken, misunderstood

trying to communicate

we must be compassionate

we must be

democracy

inefficient & empowering

attacked, defended

trying to survive

we must act

we must be

ourselves

proud & vibrant

scarred, scared

trying to be

we must be better

we must be

who we are

together & alone

all of us, together

trying to thrive

we must be the best us

Dan Brook teaches in the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at San Jose State University and is, most recently, the author of Sweet Nothings (Hekate Publishing).

LISTLESS

by Tricia Knoll

I’ve grown weary of best of
recipes with wine
or cookie doughs
which candidate raised the most
murder mysteries
and top discoveries
must-see
movies
raw hip-hop
and alternative songs
records for longest feather
boa
lies we stopped counting
we endured
the year of fire
flood
wind
tornadoes
and can’t we just move
on
knowing what needs
to be done
and do it.

Tricia Knoll has seen dozens of media lists of "best of" in the news. The flashes of what famous people died in 2019 (without including the names of all the victims of bombings and war) and is suspicious there are also lists of the year of the most people who died by gun violence, etc. 

METASTASIS

by Tracey Gratch

As oncology has become the hottest space within pharmaceuticals and biotech, the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is pretty much now the Super Bowl for companies in this space. Meetings like ASCO [May 30 - June 3, 2014] certainly do lead to companies releasing important data on pipeline candidates, as well as often hosting meetings/presentation to explain their pipelines and development strategies in more details. It's worth remembering, though, that a lot of what is presented is early stage, includes limited number of patients, and often focuses on metrics like response rate that are ultimately less significant than metrics like overall survival. -- Stephen D., Simpson, The Motley Fool, May 16, 2014. Image source: ASCO.

I attend the morning session
hopeful, there might be
a trial, maybe something;
she'll fit the thing they need.

Poker-faced, the lead guy says
the endpoints went unmet in this phase three,
but in some subset, it looks promising.

Back home, things would deteriorate;
she'll go back in this week,

as I'll wander the exhibit hall, endless
and commercialized, in ways nearly obscene.
The start-ups and the biotechs, lure attendees
in with chocolate crepes and fresh coffee.

At 2 PM, another friend will text:
she's made it through,
and on her brain, some pressure's been relieved.

There, staring dazed and vacantly, (after all,
it is day three) through the haze of late-stage entities,
through the fleeting, spit-shined pipeline dreams --

the posters offer palpably: the best
the best can offer here can offer only
two to three, and maybe improve quality;
and none of it comes free.


Tracey Gratch lives in Quincy, MA with her husband and their four children. Her poems have appeared in journals and  publications including Mezzo Cammin, The Literary Bohemian, The Flea, Annals of Internal Medicine, Boston Literary Magazine,  The New Verse News and The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine. Her poem, "Strong Woman" is included in the American College of Physicians, On Being A Doctor, Volume 4, published in April, 2014.