WE’LL TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER

by Thomas R. Smith

Everything is a little damaged now.

Even the things you buy new, like a book

or a chair. Long lines at the return counter.

The country is a little damaged too,

or maybe a lot. People’s ability

to speak honestly stunned by threat, even

churches preaching the gospel of force.

Best turn away from the gambling dens

of the pollsters, twist the radio knob

to cut off the loud voice in mid-sentence.

Walk down some quiet street in your town

that’s loved you. Trust the kindnesses received

and especially the kindnesses you’ve given.

That goodness can’t be voted out of your heart.

Thomas R. Smith’s recent books are a poetry collection Medicine Year (Paris Morning Publications) and a prose work Poetry on the Side of Nature: Writing the Nature Poem as an Act of Survival (Red Dragonfly Press). He lives in western Wisconsin near the Kinnickinnic River.

THE PEOPLE IN GAZA KEEP DYING

by Richard Jeffrey Newman

Crowds of displaced Palestinians at a UNRWA-affiliated school in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on December 19th, 2023. Photo: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via AP at Jewish Currents.

“You don’t need overt bloodshed to cause significant violence that ends people’s lives. Many people will die unnecessary deaths due to deprivation.” —Yara Asi quoted by Maya Rosen in “The Epidemiological War on Gaza,” Jewish Currents, January 5, 2024

 

This morning on my daily walk

I met a long-haired shepherd

with ambiguous eyes.

I slowed my pace,

watched the dog’s walker

rein the animal’s curiosity in,

winding tightly around her hand

the tether we tell ourselves

protects people like me,

who believe all others

will of course welcome the friendship

we assume they assume we intend,

and in that moment, the rage

I thought I’d put behind me

at the words of the poet

whose book I was asked to review

sent its own tether out,

and I heard myself again

reading his lines aloud

as I sat some months ago

alone among my books,

confirming I’d not misread

his refusal of history,

the willful pleasure he took

in a hatred I disowned long ago,

no differently, I have no doubt,

than that dog, under

the right circumstances,

would disown its leash,

and perhaps its master as well.

I don’t remember much

about my own opportunity,

except that I was standing

in my sophomore dorm hallway

while a man from a country

I knew nothing about,

except that I knew nothing,

looked at me with disbelief.

“You really believe those mothers

love their sons so little

that they bring them into the world

just to make them martyrs?”

I had not said exactly that,

but it was my meaning,

as its hatred was,

in poem after poem,

the lie that poet embraced.

I started to ask if the dog was friendly,

but the woman spit out, “Come!”

and pulled him hard into the gutter.

I let my question sink back into silence,

which I thought at first

was how I should respond

to that poet’s betrayal

of this art that saved my life,

but then I wrote the review.

It’s in the world. I want to know

what difference it has made.

Richard Jeffrey Newman has published three books of his own poetry, T’shuvah (Fernwood Press 2023), Words for What Those Men Have Done (Guernica Editions 2017), and The Silence of Men (CavanKerry Press 2006), as well as three books of translation from classical Persian poetry, Selections from Saadi’s Gulistan, Selections from Saadi’s Bustan (Global Scholarly Publications 2004 & 2006), and The Teller of Tales: Stories from Ferdowsi’s Shahameh (Junction Press 2011). He curates the First Tuesdays reading series, is the Executive Director of Newtown Literary, and is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College.

UNDER FOSTER GRANTS

by Tom Bauer

Joni Mitchell Performs Surprise Show at Newport Folk Festival: The 78-year-old artist performed a full set, her first in about two decades, at the renowned festival in Rhode Island on Sunday. —The New York Times, July 25, 2022

Joni at the Newport Folk Fest sings "Both

Sides Now." Anyone else remember that one?

Is that the first time you saw her face? The

album with her face on it? Was that the song

you first heard by her? Your first impression?

How a voice splits and changes over years,

through all kinds of stages, shaped by time

and keeping time. It can be a long long way

to go to recognize a lilt that’s aged in

a paint box of mellow feelings and thoughtful

remonstrances, lilts, dances. So like a book

that opens, one each side, beginning to end,

making her way, flitting along, hearing

her turn the words one chapter at a time.

Tom Bauer's an old coot who lives in Montreal and plays a lot of board games.

MAUS IS A NEW BEST SELLER

by Tom Bauer

(CNN) Within weeks of a Tennessee school district moving to ban "Maus," a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel depicting the horrors of the Holocaust, readers are propelling it to the top of best seller lists more than 30 years after it was first published.

Maybe we should ban everything good? Like

inequity, peace and restraint? Let’s ban

fairness, truth and care while we’re at it; and

freedom and justice. Make them bestsellers too!

We could make the world a better place and ban

apple trees, sunny skies and clean fresh air.

And any kind of universal income.

And transparency. Veganism! Ban that!

What else would work? What else could we ban

to make it come back stronger? Listening? Sense?

Any efforts to hear the other side?

Definitely ban green new deals and wealth tax,

and progressive politicians most of all.

Ban it all and make the world a better place!

Tom Bauer grew up playing violin and listening to spoken word recordings. When he was ten, he rashly announced he was going to be a poet. He did a bunch of university and stuff. He's had some poems published. He lives in Montreal and plays board games.

AND SOMEBODY LAY THIS BOOK DOWN

A found poem of lines selected from the transcript of the January meeting of the McMinn County, Tennessee School Board considering the removal of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Maus from their curriculum teaching about the Holocaust.

by Dick Westheimer

Cartoon by Andy Marlette, Pensacola News Journal, January 29, 2022

     “There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.” 

― Hannah Arendt

You see the naked pictures. You see the razor.

You see the blade where the mom is cutting herself. 

You see her laying in a pool of her own blood.

Please, somebody lay this book down.

Sure, we do the Holocaust, but we have

processes and procedures in place here. 

We can tell the kids what happened, but we don’t need 

all the nakedness and all the other stuff.

Can I lay that in front of a child?

It ain’t happening. It is not happening.

It’s like when you’re watching TV 

and a cuss word or nude scene comes on

and you don’t look at it. You don’t look at it.

Again, reading this to myself, it was decent 

until the end. Until the end,

I really enjoyed it. I liked it. 

The end was stupid, though.

It shows people hanging, it shows them 

killing kids. It is not wise or healthy

Somebody lay this book down and say 

Look it was taught! Look it was taught! 

Say! Look! It was taught!

If I was trying to indoctrinate somebody’s kids, 

this is how I would do it. You put this stuff just so, 

this vulgarity, and the kids, they soak it in.

We don’t need the scene of the mice hanging from the tree.

We don’t need all the nakedness and all the other stuff.

We don’t need the curse words and foul language.

I never had a book with a naked picture in it! 

I never had a book with foul language!

So I vote to do away with the book.

I Vote To Do Away With The Book!

And somebody lay this book down, because

somebody will say look, it was taught in the classrooms. 

So, Madam Chairman. I’m going to bring this to a head. 

I started it so now I am going to bring it to a head. 

I move that we remove this book.

I move that we remove this book!

Dick Westheimer has—in the company of his wife Debbie—lived, gardened and raised five children on their plot of land in rural southwest Ohio. He is a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist. In addition, his recent poems have appeared or are upcoming in Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Rise Up Review, Sheila Na-Gig, Snapdragon Journal of Art and Healing, and Cutthroat.

BOOK TITLES NOT ACCESSIBLE FOR CLASSROOM USE

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman, I.W.B.S.

“School librarians are professionals dedicated to the education and protection of children while cultivating a thirst for knowledge. We should trust them to do their jobs – while holding them accountable – not subvert their expertise by searching for a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. There are already processes in place if a parent wants to challenge a book that they find inappropriate or have concerns about. These processes are designed at the local level to adjudicate the challenges because one size does not fit all when it comes to education. The state should respect the local processes in place in Texas.” —Texas Library Association, January 20, 2022. Photo by Getty; Adam Maida at "This Is a Shakedown: Texas has a book-banning problem" by Emma Sarappo at The Atlantic, December 9, 2021

                                     

deep in the heart of texas 

there is a bonfire of books 

burning words  

like witches 

there is no white heat   

no smoke 

but still they burn 

in their sealed boxes 

by those who would coffin thought 

beware 

those who would scatter the ashes 

what is written on paper 

is also written in stone 

Sister Lou Ella has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer.  Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, First Things, Emmanuel, Third Wednesday, and The New Verse News as well as in four anthologies: The Night’s Magician: Poems about the Moon, edited by Philip Kolin and Sue Brannan Walker, Down to the Dark River edited by Philip Kolin, Secrets edited by Sue Brannan Walker and After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo.  She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published in 2015 (Press 53.) On May 11, 2021, five poems from her book which had been set to music by James Lee III were performed by the opera star Susanna Phillips, star clarinetist Anthony McGill, pianist Mayra Huang at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The group of songs is entitled “Chavah’s Daughters Speak.”

OUT OF THE RACE

by David L Williams

Cartoon by Nick Anderson at The Week

A Republican state lawmaker has launched an investigation into Texas school districts over the type of books they have, particularly if they pertain to race or sexuality or "make students feel discomfort." State Rep. Matt Krause, in his role as chair of the House Committee on General Investigating, notified the Texas Education Agency that he is "initiating an inquiry into Texas school district content," according to an Oct. 25 letter obtained by The Texas Tribune… His list of titles includes bestsellers and award winners alike, from the 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates to last year's book club favorites: “Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot” by Mikki Kendall and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. —The Texas Tribune, October 26, 2021

The Brahmin cried, ‘I found a corpse inside

My mind, and gave it decent burial

To finally start the journey of my life

That had to wait until I became equal.’

I learned of this while reading a great book

I’d heard so much about, and now at last

Am disappointed at how long it took

To broach deep inequalities from Caste.

I doubt the author will raise much complaint

My paraphrasing that self-reformed Brahmin

Who boldly cast away the lifelong taint

He felt from having had to wear an emblem

Of how this hierarchy in history

Inflicted untold horrors and misery

Which still continue to the present day

Enslaved as mudsills in the USA.

Editor's Note: In quotation marks in stanza one is a paraphrase adapted from the words of a Brahmin quoted by Isabel Wilkerson on page 364 of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Minor adaptations by the poet create here a sort of “found poetic stanza.” For more on Wilkerson's book, see her NYT Magazine piece "America’s Enduring Caste System" and Sunil Khilnani’s New Yorker review, “Isabel Wilkerson’s World-Historical Theory of Race and Caste.”

David L Williams is recently retired from 34 years teaching high school English in Lincoln, Nebraska, his primary residence since he went to college there in the 80s. His poetry has mostly been written since May of 2021, and he has only recently started trying to publish, with success already in several journals.

WINTER MORNING

by Terri Kirby Erickson

Beyond the snow-laden hill and ice-covered

field, ancient oaks are raising their bare limbs

toward a sky marbled with clouds. Gilded by

a sun we cannot yet see, they look fixed to the

firmament, their shifting so subtle it seems as

if these clouds might never move again, as if

time itself has stopped and winter has come

to stay. I would not mind it. It is cozy here by

the fire, watching the day begin through panes

of glass, my hair busily turning white, my body

grateful for its rest. I never thought of growing

older, imagined I would look and feel the same

forever. But the decades fly by, and now winter

seems to suit me best. There is nothing I need

to do and no place to be. A good book is open

on my lap, and my husband of thirty years is

just up the stairs. I can see the little boy next

door already sledding with his mother. He will

remember always how it felt to zoom down the

steep bank with the person he loves best in all

the world—both laughing, faces red from the

cold. Meanwhile, oaks that will never again be

saplings, hold within themselves the memory

of spring. And the winter sky that was, only

moments ago, filled with gilded clouds, has at

last allowed them to drift ever so slowly away.

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of six collections of poetry, including A Sun Inside My Chest (Press 53), winner of the 2021 International Book Award for Poetry. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including "American Life in Poetry," Atlanta Review, ONE ART, Poet’s Market, The Broad River Review, The Sun, The Writer’s Almanac, Sport Literate, Verse Daily. Her awards include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and a Nautilus Silver Book Award. She lives in North Carolina.

WHITEWASH

by Eileen Ivey Sirota

About 100 people, many of them Native Americans, held a protest in Pierre in September to push for improved teaching of Native American history and culture in South Dakota schools and to decry removal of Native references from proposed social studies standards. Photo: Courtesy DRG Media Group via Kelo, November 14, 2021.

All the white pages lovely, unspoiled

by time, untouched by torment.

All aboard. 

 

An uninterrupted arc of progress. 

Heroes on horseback.  See Dick and Jane

in their triumphant ignorance. 

 

We have torn you

from our history books, those fairy tales

for innocents and children.

 

Unseen and unheard are the children we ripped

from their mothers, sent away

to boarding schools to be laundered

and whitened, their mother tongue ripped out.

 

“Kill the Indian and save the man,” proclaimed Richard Pratt. 

At the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania,

one hundred eighty-six graves

cradle their small bones.

 

From your mouths we tore         

the sacred place names and stamped them

on our suburban street signs.                                                 

 

So many ways of killing—the bullet, the blanket,

the exile, the pretending, the silence.                                   

The silence.

 

 

Eileen Ivey Sirota is a poet and psychotherapist, the author of a chapbook, Out of Order, published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.  Her poems also have appeared in Calyx, Ekphrastic Review, District Lines, The New Verse News, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly. 

IN THE TIME OF COVID: 52 MORE THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

by Susan Terris

On a train from Victoria to Lake Louise, I found a deck of cards called 52 Things to Try Once in Your Life. Because I’m rather superstitious, it took ten years and sheltering because of covid-19 to remove the cellophane and look at the deck. Though I meant to look forward, the cards kept demanding I look back. Shuffling randomly, I decided it does not matter how many circuses I have watched or that, more than once, I’ve asked a stranger out. Ridden a motorcycle? Yes, as a teenager, though forbidden, I rode Louis Guttman’s around Hampton Park. Written the Great American Novel? Do 21 books published for children and young adults, add up to a yes here? And sure, I’ve milked a cow, yawned through an all-nighter, tasted snow, bought a lottery ticket, ridden in a hot air balloon, been on a safari. And I’ve flown a kite, changed a diaper, fed a horse, and slept under the stars. What about invent? Yes, in the early days of computers I trained with secretaries from law offices and PG&E on the new IBM Displaywriter. While doing this, I “invented” 2 new work-arounds for the machine that IBM added to their original brochure. Children’s books written: yes, already answered. I’ve gone fishing, read a whole book in one night, pooped in the woods, won awards, gone skinny dipping, been massaged, written and received love letters. (Is this getting boring? Too bad. Can’t stop here.) I’ve made a wish, bought stock, spoken in public. Front row seats? Yes, Saw Othello with James Earl Jones and noted in his death scene that he had plantars warts on the bottoms of both feet. I have written to a president but won’t say who it was or if I was praising or blaming him. And of course, I’ve been to a baseball game, a beauty salon, dressed to thrill (or tried to), climbed many mountains (literal and figurative), left a big tip, supported a good cause—like the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. I’ve watched something grow—not only my plants but my children, grandchildren, and now am watching great grandchildren.

 

I’ve also gone singing in the rain when I was about 17, after seeing Singin’ in the Rain, at the old Esquire movie theater with my best friend Susie and my 7 year old sister where we exited into rain, put up our umbrellas, and walked along the top of a low wall singing, "Singin’ in the Rain." But wait—stop. This is where the questions begin to get harder. Yes, I’ve had a tattoo yet not the one anyone wants. After a mastectomy and reconstruction, the newly formed nipple and areola were tattooed. So now, after this sober moment, I fan out the handful of unaccomplished or undesired cards. I’ve never read only the first and last page of War and Peace or any other book, never owned an autographed picture of someone famous, never stayed in bed all day even when sick. I have never thought of trying to forgive my parents who gave me little to complain about. I’ve never made a Life List or Bucket List but would like to visit the Hermitage Museum, see Angkor Wat, Easter Island, and the Great Barrier Reef (so I guess in my head, I have an unwritten list).

This takes me to the final two cards. Two yesses, I have saved for last. Have I asked important Life Questions? Yes, so each morning when I look in the bathroom mirror, I ask myself: Who am I? What am I doing? And why? Where am I going and why? Yes, there still is one more card. It says Face Mask. At any other time in my life, I would have just said yes: made them out of paper, papier maché, clay, plaster. Carved them from wood. But now, in the Time of Covid, the card haunts me. Eyes of the mask are closed like a death mask. And now I wear masks everywhere. Now the face mask is part of my morning mirror’s life questions. Now not where am I going, but will I or we ever go anywhere again or will we ever stop being afraid, stop masking (both literally and figuratively) our fears. Is there, I ask my mirror image each morning, even going to be a future? Will we ever again return to the life and the world as we once knew it?

Susan Terris’ recent books are Familiar Tense (Marsh Hawk) 2019; Take Two: Film Studies (Omnidawn) 2017, Memos (Omnidawn) 2015; and Ghost of Yesterday: New & Selected Poems (Marsh Hawk) 2012. She's the author of 7 books of poetry, 17 chapbooks, 3 artist's books, and one play.  Journals include The Southern Review, Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, and Ploughshares. A poem of hers appeared in Pushcart Prize XXXI. A poem from Memos was in Best American Poetry 2015. Her newest chapbook is Dream Fragments, which won the 2019 Swan Scythe Press Award. Ms. Terris is editor emerita of Spillway Magazine and a poetry editor at Pedestal.

THE BALLAD OF 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

by Peter Nohrnberg

Illustration by Chris Riddell, The Guardian, June 6, 2020

Now gather round ye faithful Folk
For I have a tale to tell
About a righteous POTUS who
Like Jesus harrowed Hell!

When terrorists (Antifa trained)
Assembled in the Park
And cast a shadow on his House
Of White with all their Dark

He gathered up his Family
(They helped with his Election)
And said without a trace of fear
“It’s time for an Inspection!”

Down and down, far underground
Where mole rats make their home:
He ventured to an Underworld
deep within Earth’s loam.

Fathoms below The People’s House,
A Bunker built for crisis:
With plumbing, air con, freezers full
Of tea and cake and ices;

Clocks, computers, radios,
Guns and knives and tasers,
flashlights, nightlights, bowling balls,
and triple-bladed razors.

One musty room was full of shelves
That held strange leather things.
The President took one of them
And ruffled its mottled wings.

“Now what the hell is this thing here?”
He asked with scornful look.
Quoth the Secret Service Man,
“Sir, it’s called a Book.”

Behind a shelf then stepped an Aide
Whom none recalled descending:
His face obscured by sunglasses,
His jerkin needing mending.

“Some say strange powers Books possess,
Hold wisdom of the ages:
Tales of the past for future use
Contained within their pages.”

The President just gave a shrug
And dropped it on the floor.
He walked right out and asked to see
If there was anything more.

He passed through many well stocked rooms
All suitably provisioned
For the year-long nuclear Winter that
Dr. Strangelove had envisioned.

A Room much vaster than the rest
held medical supplies.
And when He spied a Ventilator
The scales fell from his eyes.

“This shithole bunker is the pits,
It’s ugly and it’s dim,
I wouldn’t put Kim Jung-un up here
Let alone my next of kin.

No Twitter, Big Macs, tanning beds:
How could I have a life?
The pornos in the home theater
Are older than my wife!”

And so with that the President
Ascended from the Cave.
He rose up from that deathly place  
Like our Savior from the Grave!

He claimed a tax deduction on
The bunker’s cancelled lease,
Then heard ten thousand Citizens
All protesting in Peace.

“What the hell? They’re still here?
I thought they had gone home!
Bring me General William Barr
It’s time to flood the zone!”

Out of a pond in Garden Rose
Hopped forth a wondrous sight:
A Bullfrog clad in Brooks Brothers,
Croaked he, “Unite the Right!”

His toady eyes betrayed no shame
From out his tortoiseshell glasses.
He whispered into the Joint Chief’s ear
“It’s time to kick some asses!

For all those gathered fail to see
Our Savior Has Arisen!
Bring me our Proud Boys with batons
From the Texas Bureau of Prisons!”

Then from Ivanka’s ruby Lips
These honeyed words did drop:
“O Big Daddy ain’t it time
For an upbeat photo op?”

Another mayonnaise-faced Damsel
(She was yclept Hope Hicks)
Recalled a hallowed Church nearby
To help Him in His fix.

The Photographer urged getting there
before the sun had set;
So they smoked and gassed those uppity Folks
In the Park of Lafayette.

Once the acrid air had cleared
The President took his stroll:
O what a wonderous thing to see
An upright walking Troll!

He stood before the ancient Kirk
In a suit that did not fit;
Ivanka from Max Mara Purse
Pulled out the Holy Writ.

She handed Him the booky thing
He did not know its function.
He held it high above His Head
Like a bidder at an auction.

He did not read a single Verse,
Nor recite a Psalm.
The cameras clicked and no one spoke;
There was an eerie calm.

The Nation watched the scene unfold
From start to finish brief.
Those who could breathe, they held their breath
In total disbelief.

POTUS tried to find his groove,
He tweeted “Law and Order!”
Around His Keep He built a Wall
Just like at the Border.

His House of White He made a Jail,
Himself its Detainee:
Like a Castaway on a desert Isle,
Or a Strongman wannabee.

But He had been a Prisoner
Before this tale was told.
His mindforged Manacles were wrought
Of twenty-four carat Gold.

The White House dark, the Streets alive;
The Pundits have their answer.
Come November our Prisoner-in-Chief
Will be awaiting transfer…

A scholar of literary modernism specializing in James Joyce, Peter Nohrnberg also writes poetry and satire. He has served as poetry ambassador to the City of Cambridge, MA, and his poems have appeared in Notre Dame Review, Wisconsin Review, Oxford Poetry, and Oberon, among other journals. He currently vents his spleen on satirely.com .

CLOSING THE BOOK ON GEORGE FELL

by Jimmy Pappas

Source: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund

Because of this I will weep and wail; I will go about barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and moan like an owl. —Micah 1:8


1.

the page of a book
            can be a leaf
                        can be a butterfly wing

a book in a college dormitory
            on a Saturday night
                        with a young man studying

can be a starting line
            can be a point of departure
                        can be a loaded gun

2.

closing a book
            on a young man studying
                        can be a wormhole

to travel across
            the United States
                         to California

to Vietnam
            to Cambodia
                        to death

3.

I closed the book
on a young man
studying.

A bit of light air
grazed my cheek,
pushed me along.

The weight of air
at sea level is 14.7
pounds per square inch,

but what is
            the weight of air
                         with friendship?

4.

How does a young man studying plead?

Like this: Please, guys, I'm in trouble.
I'm gonna flunk out. I need to study.
Please let me do this.

How does a young man ignore his friend's plea?

Like this: Come on, Man. It's Saturday night.
We're going to party. You can study tomorrow.
There's always time.

5.

How do you close a book on a friend who is studying?
Do what I did: Just take the cover and flip it over.

6.

What makes a breeze?
            The warm air of friendship rises.
            The cold air of ignorance settles.

7.

The breeze moved us through an evening of drinking,
through a day of lounging around until thinking became
exhaustion, became another day of forgetting
until you left us and we forgot about what we did.

8.

pages of a book are many butterfly wings

9.

a chance encounter in a Greyhound bus station

you had the smell
            of fear and death

my friend told you not to go
but you were not one to stir a breeze

10.

On May 23rd, 1970, I saw a giant beetle
lying in a Saigon gutter on its back
struggling with its legs to turn over.

That evening I made love to my girl friend
while you were humping the boonies in Cambodia.

11.

I don't know what the breeze told me that night,
but I did know it would always be there at my back.

It whispered in my ear,

            remember
                        butterfly wings are leaves

            remember
                        leaves of a book are butterfly wings

Something happened. I didn't know what it was.

12.

When I learned about your death,
I could not understand one thing:

How could anyone
            have expected you
                        to kill another human?

13.

I wear my military jacket to get in the mood.
I find your name on the Wall.

I place my
            right knee
            on the ground
I place my
            left arm on
            my left knee

In my right hand I hold a piece of paper
with a handwritten couplet on it:

Over the distance of 10,000 miles I heard your cry
of how very very much you did not want to die.

I set the paper down at the base of the Wall.
I rested my forehead on my arms. I could not pray.
I wanted to cry, but I was unable to.
Instead, I looked up and stared at my reflection.
I placed two fingers against your name on the Wall.

Behind me, elementary school children on field trips
ran through the grass laughing. They have not yet learned
that the world they see today will not be the same world
tomorrow. A breeze will blow and carry them along.
Today they do not understand, tomorrow they will.
They will feel the breeze and understand the butterfly.

One young boy who hangs back,
            frightened
                        by all the noise,
reminds me of George Fell,
            who must have been
            the gentlest soldier
            who ever lived.

Jimmy Pappas served in South Vietnam during the war as an English instructor with South Vietnamese soldiers in helicopter training. At the same time, George Fell, his friend from college, died in the incursion into Cambodia on May 23, 1970. On that day, commanders announced the death of 190 American soldiers, 500 South Vietnamese soldiers, and 8,000 "enemy troops" in what was described as a "success." One day, several years before that, Jimmy and his friends closed a book on George while he was studying one Saturday night. George flunked out of school, and their paths went in different directions. To this day, George's college friends still love him.

DEATH OF A CRITIC

by Mark Danowsky

Harold Bloom 1930-2019

No one is left now
who will swing his arms wide-----
claim knowledge of the entirety
of The Western Canon

The man who wrote the book
on who the wise among us
ought to remember
has left the stage

Who now can swoop in
to tell us how it is?

Gone are the Great Claim-Makers

More than ever now
we need help knowing
where to look
for what is true & valuable

None of us can claim
to have read everything

Some of us can raise a hand
& solemnly swear
we are up to no good

Many of us can remember
a time when we used to feel
we knew more

Knowledge begets holes
in our theories about this world

The Critic has left us
his anxiety of influence

The Critic has left us
a list of what once signified
our greatest gifts


Mark Danowsky is a poet / writer from Philadelphia and author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press, 2018). He’s Managing Editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal.

ABOUT COMEY

by Frederick Shiels

Distraction Accomplished by Pia Guerra at The Nib

we were never wrong, nor were we right, nor did we know.
El Jefe de 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has no doubts: October, 2016:
“It took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made
in light of the kind of opposition he had where
they’re trying to protect her from criminal prosecution,”
or—April, 2018, "not smart," "failure", "slimeball," "the worst
FBI director in history." And yet

Comey stresses:  "I don’t buy this stuff about
him being mentally incompetent or early stages of dementia.
He strikes me as a person of above average intelligence who’s tracking conversations."
in other words—"not mentally unfit to be president,
but morally so . . .  a stain,"
The Director-emeritus seems not to be vengeful
not concerned about the weather, the yellow showers,

Summed it up—to date—about his first (public) meeting with the Man,
"well coiffed," he said, "hands about average" (charitably)
"And so I’m walking forward thinking that, thinking:
“How could he think this is a good idea? That he’s going to try to hug me,
the guy that a whole lot of people think, although that’s not true,

but think I tried to get him elected president—
and did. Isn’t he master of television? This is disastrous.”—
and so it is.


Frederick Shiels is an aspiring poet and Prof. Emeritus of Politics and History at Mercy College. He has published in Avocet, Deep South Review, The Hudson River Anthology, TheNewVerse.News, and most recent book is Preventable Disasters.

READING WHILE BLACK

by Floyd Cheung

“. . . it remains unclear whether he was holding a gun or a book at the time he was shot.”  --Brian Flood for The Wrap, September 21, 2016


driving while black
            we know
reading while black
            also dangerous
how could it not be?
         
Narrative of the Life
            of Frederick Douglass
provides an account
            of resistance
with words and fists

Of Mice and Men
            a tale of friendship
dreams and desire
            in which euthanasia
is the best choice

I Know Why
            the Caged Bird Sings
why Maya becomes Mary
            why Maya
turns to poetry

Othello
            married to Desdemona
leader of an army
            betrayed by Iago
and himself

reading
            waiting
dreaming
            knowing
dangerous


Floyd Cheung has taught American literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, since 1999. His chapbook Jazz at Manzanar was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014.

BOOK OF LOSS, ONE YEAR

by Shirley J. Brewer

In remembrance of December 14, 2012

Make the manual severe
in appearance: the cover dark,
a title deeply engraved.

Select paper that weighs
down the hand, every page
suffering between its peers

clothed in black type. Allow
an abundance of question marks,
the agony of white space.

Words confound. Include
birdsong, tulips in bloom,
strawberries, vanilla mist.

Call this book Newtown.
Say it softly. Families still weep.
Craters pock their hearts.

Wait, start over. Change the cover.
Choose pinks, blues, soft greens, yellows
for the children, their teachers.

Add pictures of the dead,
each in a favorite shirt or dress—
not the ones with bullet holes.

Let sweet memories repeat. Let grief
bleed into ink. Write one chapter at a time.
You will never reach the end.


Shirley J. Brewer is a poet, educator, and workshop facilitator. In addition to previous poems in The New Verse News, her poetry has appeared in The Cortland Review, Comstock Review, Passager, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and other publications. Her poetry chapbook, A Little Breast Music, was published in 2008 by Passager Books. A second book of poems, After Words, was published in 2013 by Apprentice House/Loyola University.