NOMINATING HIGH RISK

by Margaret Rozga 

“Top of the Ticket” cartoon by David Horsey / Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2016.

Imagine a rabbit, running, late.
Imagine a rabbit no earlier
on the ground than under.

Alice locked out of the garden
too big, too small, never right
as much on the ground as under,

uncertain of direction,
advised only to take the road
that gets her where she wants to go,
as if she knew, either on the ground or under.

Even at tea, her place changes,
is changed, exchanged, until
she’s displaced, no rhyme nor reason
either on the ground or under.

At the queen’s command an unruly hand
of insubstantial and un-gamely subjects.
At risk anyone, everyone’s head,
no less on these grounds than under.

What time is this, what times are these,
rude, rough, incomprehensible
how a rabbit’s world surfaced,
and calm picnic grounds went under.

Alice, you just dreamed you fell and didn’t
know when, how, or where you’d stop.
Now that dream is playing out
on our ground,
not under.

Margaret Rozga is a poet, essayist, and author of a play, March On Milwaukee: A Memoir of the Open Housing Protests.  Her new manuscript of poems focuses on Jessie Benton Frémont (1824-1902), who actively campaigned in 1856 for her husband  John Charles Frémont, the first Republican candidate for president on an anti-slavery platform.

THIS PAST FULL MOON

by Laura Rodley

Image Source: Victoria Advocate

At night sometimes lying
on wings makes it hard to sleep
especially on a bright moon night
like last night, I must turn
my arms towards her beaming
the luminescence feeds wings’ feathers
a fuel that requires no burning
but tingles as feathers are reborn, intact,
charged with the gentle beaming,
moonlight you do not have to hide
your eyes against, consciences
are like that; you do not have
to hide from them, wearing
wings steers you in the right direction
there’s no right or wrong, just clarity
a moonbeam’s worth, all
you ever needed.


Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.

SUCCESSOR S/ELECTION

by Karen Neuberg

Image source: LevittownNow

We are unsure who to s/elect
and take a peek under. This leads
to new understanding and at least one
skinned knee. How easily the world rocks
back and forth between mystery
and revelation. Vision or revulsion
stack in individual ways resulting   
in no consensus. Someone suggests
a water test. Another fire. No one cares
to make the attempt. We continue
leaderless but full of direction until a previously-
unknown candidate emerges from behind a boulder
and behaves as though s/he knows both
what we do and what we don’t.


Karen Neuberg lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her chapbook, Detailed Still, was published by Poets Wear Prada. She has previously published at The New Verse News.