THE SOUND OF THE WELL

by Shirin Jabalameli

Beneath a cracked and ancient dome,

the wind slips through fissures,

circling the hull of a stranded ship.

Coffee grows cold upon the table,

and the Sufi, in quiet prayer,

speaks to the blackness of a crow.

From the dragon’s mouth

a rope of light leaps forth

onto masks that melt, one by one,

their cracking faces ringing

like a forgotten church bell

through the air of poverty’s hell.

The city,

a fractured mirror,

sees its own face in a thousand shattered pieces

and screams.

The broken tick-tock of a clock

scratches the latch of time’s doors,

and from a silent well

the voice of a child rises,

still remembering the name of their mother.

The crow spreads its wings,

and the wind carries the scent of stale bread.

The Sufi stirs the coffee in a whirlpool

and with a sip drinks the world anew.

Shirin Jabalameli is a multifaceted Iranian artist, poet, painter, photographer, and writer. She has authored books including Crows Rarely Laugh, Apranik, and 101 Moments. Her latest work, an illustrated poetry collection titled 25 Fell from the Frame was recently published. Her poems have appeared in international journals such as Braided Way Magazine (USA), The Lake (UK), and The New Verse News (USA).

Shirin’s poem in its original Persian follows:

صدای چاه

زیر گنبدی ترک‌خورده

باد از شکاف‌ها عبور می‌کند

و بر شانه‌ی کشتی به گل‌نشسته می‌چرخد.

قهوه روی میز سرد شده است

و صوفی در سکوت

با سیاهی یک کلاغ مناجات می‌کند.

از دهان اژدها

ریسمان نور می‌جهد

بر ماسک‌هایی که یکی‌یکی

ذوب می‌شوند،

و صدای ترک‌خوردن چهره‌ها

چون ناقوس کلیسای فراموش‌شده

در هوای جهنم می‌پیچد.

شهر،

چون آینه‌ای ترک‌خورده،

چهره‌اش را در هزار پاره‌ی مخدوش می‌بیند

و جیغ می‌کشد.

تیک‌تاکِ از کارافتاده‌ی ساعت

کلون درهای زمان را می‌خراشد

و در چاهی خاموش،

صدای کودکی می‌پیچد

که هنوز نام مادرش را از یاد نبرده است.

کلاغ بال‌هایش را باز می‌کند

و باد بوی نمِ نانِ کهنه را می‌برد.

صوفی قهوه را در گرداب می‌چرخاند

و با جرعه‌ای جهان را دوباره می‌نوشد.

AT TACO BELL

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

on Earth Day 2023

Art by Yinza

At Taco Bell

I watch a crow

Reconnoiter the parking lot

For scraps and morsels

Of sustenance.

With it’s dagger-like

Sleek black beak

It flips over

Discarded take-out cartons,

Pokes into empty soda cups,

Snaps up torn bits

Of tortillas,

All without surrendering

A shred of its natural dignity.

As it struts defiantly,

Like a corvid Napoleon,

In front of oncoming cars,

Its spine remains perfectly straight,

Its head held high,

Its bearing proud.

“Get me a burrito,”

The crow orders.

“Hot sauce?” I ask.

“Get me a root beer,”

The crow commands.

“Small, medium, or large?”

I inquire.

Here is a bird

Of natural authority,

A bird with no self-doubt,

A bird who was born 

To take charge.

You’d think with all 

These leadership qualities

Crows might have an interest

In running for public office, but

Too smart to be Republicans,

Too forthright 

To be Democrats,

Crows are dyed-in-the-quills anarchists

Who believe that no crow

Is better than any other crow,

And that no government is better

Than no government.

Buff Whitman-Bradley’s poems have been widely published in print and online journals.  His latest book is And What Will We Sing? (Kelsay Books). He podcasts at thirdactpoems.podbean.com and lives in northern California with his wife, Cynthia.

A TANKA FOR THE TWO PEOPLE KILLED IN KHARKIV BY A RUSSIAN MORTAR SHELL

"A loaf of bread on a park bench, collecting snow. A puddle of blood nearby. Those were the traces of two lives lost this past week, two people killed as they sat sharing a late lunch or an early dinner, or maybe just feeding pigeons. No one seemed to know their names. They died at around 5:30 in the afternoon on Sunday in the southeastern Slobidskyi district of Kharkiv from a mortar strike, residents said, describing the victims as an older woman and a middle-aged man." —Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Natalia Yermak, The New York Times, April 6, 2022. Original photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Jimmy Pappas is the Zoom moderator for the Poetry Society of New Hampshire.

ROOSTER

by Richard Garcia

Hand carved & hand painted rooster by Avelino Perez from Oaxaca, Mexico

Ricardo the rooster
only crows at dawn
or at 3 a.m. or noon.
So you never know.
Tonight he might crow
especially loud at the full moon.
Really loud.

             Ricardo
              the rooster  lives on the border.
so his papers, passports, birth certificate
                         like his crowing skills
are quite in order.
 For first he climbs
                         the fence of Colossal
& from thence
                         greets El Sol in Spanish,
Then he bows & greets
                         the sun in English:
 Coo-coo-rico!
                         Cock-a-doddle-do!
Coo-coo-rico!
                         Cock-a-doddle-do!
 Ola, Señor Sol,
                                    How are you?


Richard Garcia is the author of The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press, The Chair from BOA, and Porridge from Press 53. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. He has won a Pushcart prize and has been in Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C.

AFTER PNEUMONIA, AFTER ACQUITTAL

by Kathleen McClung

Graphic for “Scare in the Crow” from the CD Heart of Wood by My Father's Son

I hear it first before I see: lone crow,
insistent, caws. A president who lies
and struts, here a loud bird.  The one surprise:
how long it grips that twig-ringed spot below
the Walgreens cursive script, the huge display window
of beauty creams, pills, potions, some device
for whitening our teeth—swell merchandise
or “perfect” in his lexicon. The crow
seems rooted to that perch, unyielding bird
commanding passersby to hear its call.
Sheer volume. Sheer relentlessness. No grace
or nuance here, no eloquence, no words.
Just shameless, crude intent: drown out, appall
all those outside its nest, its tilted base.

Kathleen McClung is the author of Temporary Kin, The Typists Play Monopoly, and Almost the Rowboat. She teaches at Skyline College and The Writing Salon and judges sonnets for the Soul-Making Keats literary competition. She lives in San Francisco.

BLACK ANGEL

by Anne Myles

Last week, a long-awaited report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change showed that the worst consequences of global warming would occur even sooner than previously thought. Listen to the story of the findings at The Daily podcast.


Cellar cracks seep after long days of rain
in summer-like October. The ground is full,
water pressing out like tears that can’t be held,
staking its claim to prairie’s ancient ocean.
I hear the crows call now! and now! again
as gold leaves fall and grass glows emerald,
and far away, a hurricane archangel
rearranges edges of the continent.
Oh angel, I’ve heard myself plead half-aloud
sometimes in longing, with no one to address;
oh crow, fierce eye, what lies beyond the clouds?
We see the years roll towards an emptiness
of heat-scorched fields, drowned earth, and barren reef.
Let your black wing fold itself around our grief.

Originally from New York, Anne Myles is associate professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa. A specialist in early American literature, she has recently rediscovered her poetic voice, one effect of the present troubles she is thankful for. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ghost City Review, Ink and Nebula, Friends Journal, Lavender Review, and Thimble.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER

by Brigitte Goetze

" . . . the lethal intensity and degree of witch-hunting

. . . was unmatched anywhere else in the New World."

—“The Witch Trials That America Forgot” by Ray Cavanaugh,

Time, October 31, 2016

The last time they pilloried the old
woman for her ugly face, her nasty nature,
they were titillated by her secret
communications—you know about
the scandalous allegations, the fear, the hysteria.
Did you ever think that it was just
twelve generations ago?

We have come a long way, baby. Haven't we,
through the suffering of our handcuffed
great-great-grandmothers, earned universal suffrage?
But, once again, crones who dare to crow about
are being tarred with that ancient brush.
Who can name the terror
that a wrinkled face holds?


Brigitte Goetze,  retired biologist and goat farmer, now spends her time spinning all kinds of yarns.

CORVIDS

by Jonathan Travelstead

Image source: WebEcoist

Want to catch an illegal alien? Study the crow,
its shiny things. Foil hat. Mirrors, chewing gum wrappers
wadded in nests.

We haven't been family for three hundred million years.
Their minds are closer to the lizard brain
where we parted ways, descending different trees.

Yet watch them make tools from straws they use,
solving riddles which require up to eight steps of critical thinking
to deftly pincer out the strip of raw beef.

Crafty. Pistachio, floating in a glass. I watched a crow fly
between an alley and a picnic table, plinking pebbles
and small stones until enough water

displaced the nut to within reach of its beak.
They're smarter than you. We haven't evolved in the right direction
to distinguish their motivations.

Pepper them with shot, and they remember, tell the next
generation about the change in route and elevation.
Screen a dome over the tomatoes walled within your garden

and a few tunnel the fence, but first send scouts
proficient in the killdeer's portrayal of a broken wing
along your flank, divert you while a murder

marches on the front gate. They'll rob you blind. In Arizona,
I hear blackberry pies vanish from windows.
Sheets hanging on the line disappear.

Canadian fishermen drop lines into holes
rough-cut in ice, later report their lines drawn up in a spaghetti tangle
of nylon, scales, and black feathers on the red snow.

Crow, rook, blackbird, raven- call them what you want.
Hell, my Chevy broke down near Roswell and one completed
my solenoid's broken circuit with a flat-head,

then wouldn't take a dime! Each can do the job of ten men.
They don't think like we do.

They don't need much.

Jonathan Travelstead served in the Air Force National Guard for six years as a firefighter and currently works as a full-time firefighter for the city of Murphysboro. Having finished his MFA at Southern Illinois University of Carbondale, he now works on an old dirt-bike he hopes will one day get him to the salt flats of Bolivia. He has published work in The Iowa Review and on Poetrydaily.com among others, and his first collection How We Bury Our Dead by Cobalt/Thumbnail Press is forthcoming in February, 2015.