BLOOD MOON BIRTHDAY WISH

by Marjorie Tesser

On the seventh of September, the earth 

will impose itself between moon and sun

and the eclipsed moon will blush red, 

color of love and rage. It’s the anniversary 

of my long-ago birth. Of late I’m less 

than sanguine about aging. Ghosted 

by family and friends—deaths, drugs, 

dementia, dogma—my circle has waned 

to a thinner crescent. I’m not immune, 

myself at summer’s end not yet red, 

but no longer vibrant green; wan, faded. 

Back in spring my sap loved to rise, roots 

to branch-tips aspiring. Now I lay low. 

Keep mum. Abide, 

 

though our home-space tumbles 

toward burn, wreck and ruin bought 

with others’ blood. Words like “liberty”

mean something different. it’s almost 

enough to shock one silent, numb one 

to the beauties we still, for now, 

number our blessings. Blood Moon 

is said to augur transformation, 

a flushing away to make room for change. 

In this red tide, may we stay afloat, unmute, 

sow songs of praise and rage, words vivid 

as rubies. May our hues distill, deepen—

cerise to crimson, vermilion to claret,

cabernet, rufous, russet—articulate

full spectrum against falling.

Marjorie Tesser’s poetry and fiction have appeared in Whale Road Review, Cutleaf, SWWIM, The New Verse News, and others. She is the author of poetry chapbooks The Important Thing Is, (Firewheel Chapbook Award Winner), and The Magic Feather (FLP). Her poem “April” won the 2019 John B. Santoianni Award from the Academy of American Poets. She has co-edited three anthologies and is editor-in-chief of MER-Mom Egg Review. 

PICKING UP THE SETTLEMENT CHECK FROM MY SON’S WRONGFUL-DEATH CASE DURING THE ECLIPSE

by Susan Vespoli

My dead son was in the car 

with me as I drove to the lawyer’s

office to pick up my net-settlement check

and we drove past a laughing-Buddha chihuahua 

running against traffic down the center of Dunlap

 

and we drove through a split of mountain crags 

and we drove past a guy twirling and tossing a red-arrow 

sign at an intersection and my heart and gut felt on fire 

with raw grief and I said, “Well, here we are, Adam,” 

 

meaning the end of the lawsuit 

and even as I wanted to sob and flail

I could feel him smiling beside me, 

saying, there, there, like a benevolent cloud. 

 

When the paralegal handed me the check, 

she beamed as if we should don party hats, throw confetti 

and I wanted to pop every balloon in the place, 

wave the rectangular piece of paper in the air 

and say, this represents my son’s life.

 

Outside, humans were wearing tiny plastic glasses 

and looking up at the sun and the sky 

over the parking lot glowed fluorescent 

and this check felt like me saying it was okay the cop shot my son 

 

but I have fallen into a sort of love

with a man who is ironically a lawyer 

who has helped me interpret the mind-fuck 

of the legal system, understand that money the City 

of Phoenix had to pay caused them pain to spark change

 

and it is springtime on the planet 

where my son’s physical body is only a memory 

and there is a throng of 5’ tall sunflowers 

standing outside my bedroom window 

and the ocotillo in my front yard, mere sticks and thorns 

a month ago, is now covered with soft green and topped with flame-

colored flowers the wind flutters into candles on a cake.

Susan Vespoli lives in Phoenix, AZ, where citizens are still waiting for the release of the DOJ report regarding the Phoenix Police Department's excessive use of force. Her son, Adam, was killed by a police officer on March 12, 2022.

HEMORRHAGE BOP

by Cindy Veach

I watch three old white men on the news talking

about abortion how it’s no big deal for a woman

to get a bus ticket and travel to another state.

It’s trending on X, these old men in their suits and ties

with their limp cocks tucked away under the table

their small hands gesturing or resting on the table.

 

I’m hemorrhaging rage, thick red as postpartum blood.

 

And now Arizona has upheld a draconian Civil War-era

abortion law proving that the past does come back

to haunt. I almost bled out after my daughter’s birth.

I’ve never written about this. It took a helicopter

and two D&C’s to save me. A hundred years ago

I would have died of childbirth. I marched for the right

to choose in my 20’s only to lose it in my 60’s

 

I’m hemorrhaging rage, thick red as postpartum blood.

 

In the middle of yesterday the moon eclipsed the sun.

People were brought to tears as they watched

in their special protective glasses. People on both sides

of the aisle equally moved by the night of day.

The darkness I speak of is different. It digests everything

good and fattens the libidos of men.

 

I’m hemorrhaging rage, thick red as postpartum blood.

Cindy Veach is the author of Her Kind (CavanKerry Press) a 2022 Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal finalist and Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press) a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and a Massachusetts Center for the Book ‘Must Read,’ and the chapbook, Innocents (Nixes Mate). Her poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day Series, AGNI, Michigan Quarterly Review, Chicago Review, Poet Lore, Salamander, and elsewhere. A recipient of the Philip Booth Poetry Prize and Samuel Allen Washington Prize, she is poetry co-editor of MER.

NEWS OF THE WORLD THROUGH ECLIPSE GLASSES

by Bonnie Naradzay

A man detained by the Israeli military in northern Gaza shows injuries on his wrists at al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on 24 December 2023 (AFP/Said Khatib)

Israeli doctor says detained Palestinians are undergoing ‘routine’ amputations for handcuff injuries. —CNN, April 6, 2024

On my listserve, someone posts her fears 

that the pairs of eclipse glasses she ordered 

will not arrive in time. A neighbor shares a link

from NASA on how to make a pinhole camera.

In the news, I read about Palestinians detained 

outside an Israeli military base. They were given

numbers and lost their names. A doctor said

the men are chained day and night, blindfolded

at all times, hands bound behind their backs,

fed through straws. Forced to wear diapers,

dehumanized. Bound to a fence for prolonged 

times, consecutive days. Because of the injuries

caused by the shackles, the doctor performs 

“routine amputations” of their legs. At church 

this morning, after our group’s discussion 

of the Sunday readings, a woman talks about 

how good God is to her family and he knows 

what’s best for us. How can she say this,

I think, remembering Ivan Karamazov, 

“The Grand Inquisitor.” Why would God 

permit such suffering in the world?   

The Israeli Defense Force official replied

that every procedure is within the framework

of the Law and is done with “extreme care

for the human dignity of the detainees.”

All day, the wind’s unrest builds and disperses 

clouds as I try to make sense of such cruelty.

Bonnie Naradzay's manuscript will be published by Slant Books this year.  She leads weekly poetry sessions at day shelters for homeless people and at a retirement center, all in Washington DC.  Three times nominated for a Pushcart, her poems have appeared in AGNI, New Letters, RHINO, Kenyon Review, Tampa Review, EPOCH, Split This Rock, Dappled Things, and other sites. In 2010 she won the University of New Orleans Poetry Prize—a month’s stay in the South Tyrol castle of Ezra Pound’s daughter, Mary; there, she had tea with Mary, hiked the Dolomites, and read Pound’s early poems.

TOTALITY

by Mary Turzillo

The Sun and the Moon

did a courtship dance

did a contrary dance

nearer come nearer

far dance away

till the Sun mocked his luna love

japing “cold, changeable she” 

and “you love the earth more than me”

and it’s true: she grew fat, she grew thin,

he was hot, she was cold

Apollo, Diana:

stag and the doe

till she danced right in front of him

close to him, over him

taking delicious gold bites of him

throwing her skirts quite over him

till she blotted him out

til the night crickets sang

the the birds went to sleep

a black handkerchief over the land.

She punched a hole in the sky

where her lover had been

left a necklace of fire, a sparkle of beads

a diamond ring

for a minute or two:

the lovers' bright band

the dusk bridal veil

dark covered light, cold kissed the gold

the ring hung a promise 

a wedding of midnight and fire.

Mary Turzillo's Nebula-winner "Mars Is no Place for Children" and her Analog novel An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl were recommended reading on the International Space Station. She has been a finalist on the British SFA, Pushcart, Stoker, Dwarf Stars, and Rhysling ballots. Her poetry collection Lovers & Killers won the 2013 Elgin Award for Best Collection. Her fourth collaboration with Marge Simon, Victims, also won an Elgin. Her latest two books are Cast from Darkness, also with Simon, and Cosmic Cats and Fantastic Furballs. Mary lives in Berea, Ohio, with her scientist-writer husband, Geoffrey Landis. Today’s eclipse is her third such experience.

APRIL 5TH

by Terry Trowbridge

shirt available from amazon

Humidity casts a cold spell

over the Great Lakes.

When the spell is broken,

humidity continues to flicker

through the grasses and leaves.

The dampness of breath

and matted fur

attracts housecats

to the leaf piles

where mouse-casting Spring elementals

summoned little rodents into being.

 

At night, the mist turns heavy

and sinks to the ground,

exposing the orchards to starlight.

At day, water evaporates

into a quick-sky of quicklime grey.

The obscurantist Sun,

having chased away Enlightenment

comforts—too soon for lawn chairs—

into the barn workbench beer routine,

 

will remain invisible.

An eclipse is due in three days.

The cats might react confusedly.

The mice might emerge in daylight

And look up at the shadow of the Moon

darkening circle through the cloud cover.

Shadow weather defines a season of transitions.

Terry Trowbridge’s poems have appeared in many journals including, previously, The New Verse News. Terry is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for his first writing grant, and their support of so many other writers during the polycrisis.

ALL ABOUT YOU ON DECEMBER 12, 2023

by Andrės Castro

A rare astronomical event will be perfectly positioned in the night sky on Monday (Dec. 11) for some parts of the world. On that evening, an asteroid will pass in front of the curious red star Betelgeuse, eclipsing it from our vantage point here on Earth and blocking it from view for up to 15 seconds in an event known as an occultation. The asteroid is known as 319 Leona, a main belt object that orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter. Shaped roughly like an egg, 319 Leona measures some 50 by 34 miles (80 x 55 kilometers) in size. Such an event occurring to a well-known and bright star is an uncommon occurrence. Astronomers are calling the event "an extraordinary and unique opportunity" to study Betelgeuse's photosphere, the star's visible layer from which it emits most of its energy. The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome, Italy will host a free livestream (see below) of the event starting at 8 p.m. EDT on Monday, Dec. 11 (0100 GMT on Dec. 12). —Space.com

You are certainly inspiring Betelgeuse, so brazenly out there

in the night sky, especially for a poet like me, closer to leaving 
the earth than ever before. It must be amazing to be a supergiant
red star burning away in the night sky in your old age, before your 
shrinking, puffing up even larger. You may have been the red giant
in a poem I wrote about my estranged younger sister, who I see again
on your burning surface, standing like a queen, surrounded by flames, her 
arms outstretched, waiting to embrace me. I wrote it as a lamenting love poem,
one asking for forgiveness for not being a better big brother and falling short,
not knowing how to grow our love as we got older, not doing enough 
to protect her, seeing her lose all her potential to fly as she was
lured into a cage with empty promises, only to lose herself,
lose her potential to fly so sadly young. I have grown
to be a feminist raising my daughter; at least
I protected her, even with my mistakes. 
Enough about me and mine and not
mine: this poem is about you.
Thank you. Fuck that
asteroid, Leona,
coming round
to eclipse
you.

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in Poets & Writers Directory. He posts work on his personal blog, The Practicing Poet: Dialogue to Creativity, Poetry, and Liberation.

ECLIPSE, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2023

by Matt Witt

The sun will appear as a blazing ring of fire in the sky over the Americas on Saturday, Oct.14, as an annular eclipse sweeps over the continent. Photo: Digital composite view of annular solar eclipse on May 20, 2012. Seven separate exposures were made twenty minutes apart and combined into one image. (Image credit: Paul Souders via Getty Images) — Space.com

We hardly notice it at first,
just a normal morning
with people walking their dogs
and checking for messages
 
But then the light gets dimmer,
just a little at a time,
until it feels like night
and we are stumbling around
 
But this is not the end
because if we stay alert
the light comes back
and we can see again
 
 
Matt Witt is a writer and photographer in Talent, Oregon. His work may be seen at MattWittPhotography.com.

CHARLOTTESVILLE ECLIPSE

by Sally Zakariya

Messages are left on a chalkboard in Charlottesville on Aug. 10, 2018. (Jim Urquhart/Reuters via The Washington Post)

The light went out that week.

A violent march, a loathsome flag
a stunning show of moral blindness
and then the sun itself went out
hiding its light, ashamed to see
such darkness in the world.

Closing its fiery eye, the sun shut out
the hate, the taunts, the torches
the brutality and bigotry
the disregard of justice.

Earth turned, the moon moved on
along its cosmic path, and sunlight
shone once more. And now another
year, another march. But the light
of reason still has not returned.

Sally Zakariya’s Pushcart Prize-nominated poetry has appeared in 70 print and online journals. She is the author of When You Escape (Five Oaks Press, 2016), Insectomania (2013) and Arithmetic (2011), and the editor of Joys of the Table (2015). Her chapbook Personal Astronomy is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

ECLIPSE

by William Marr

from The New York Times, August 14, 1932

Young at heart
the old sun
once in a while
likes to put on
his mischievous black mask
just to scare
the superstitious jittery
shadows

He doesn’t know
we now keep shadows
safely in a world of virtual reality
where we eat and drink
make love
all without benefit
of a single ray
of sunlight

William Marr has published 23 volumes of poetry (Autumn Window and Between Heaven and Earth are in English and the rest in his native Chinese language), 3 books of essays, and several books of translations.  His most recent published work Chicago Serenade is a trilingual (Chinese/English/French) anthology of poems published in Paris in 2015. 

THE BIG EYE

by David Radavich




What is the sound
of an eclipse
or a moon’s shadow?

That is the life
we want.

Not without dissonance
but chords echoing
silk, weaving
the overhead sky
night or day.

A small tune maybe
but momentous.

Big as galaxies.

A flower that
foresees its death.

Tomorrow will be
a different clef:
quavers and justice
that ring light.

David Radavich's recent poetry collections are America Bound: An Epic for Our Time, Middle-East Mezze, and The Countries We Live In.  His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe.

APOCALYPTIC LULLABY

by Richard O'Connell

After the Portuguese of Domingos Carvalho Da Silva

Because the moon is bright and the night

Is simply announcing the dawn

And because the sea is hardly the sea

And the hose doesn't weep on the lawn

And because we've fouled the water and air

In this best of all possible hells

And because the light is simply a vibration

That excites our nervous cells

And because rock music hurts our ears

And the wind plays an aeolian harp

And because the earth breeds plenty of snakes

And goldfish are only carp

And because the plane is about to depart

And the raven repeats nevermore

And because we have to sit here and smile

Before the final big encore

And because yesterday does not exist

And the future will never come

And because we are doing a ballet

On the pin of the Hydrogen Bomb

Let's not rush to the wall and weep

And tear our hair and bewail our fate

We did as well as anyone could

Given our love and hate

And because we are pathetic clowns

Confronting the Apocalypse

Caught in the ruins of a collapsing world

Between earthquake and eclipse

Let's dance high on the hurricane deck

Before the ship slopes under our feet

Let's soak up the wealth of the sun

Before it loses its light and heat

Let's laugh at the whole wide universe

In our eyes reflected

When we close our lids it will be

As if it never existed

Let our laughter crackle across the cosmos

Where galaxies scatter and dim

Since win or lose we only leave

A trace of ash on the wind

Richard O’Connell lives in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Collections of his poetry include RetroWorlds, Simulations, Voyages, and The Bright Tower, all published by the University of Salzburg Press (now Poetry Salzburg). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, National Review, The Texas Review, Acumen, The Paris Review, Trinacria, The Formalist, Light, etc. His most recent collections are Dawn Crossing and Waiting for the Terrorists.