MADE FOR THESE TIMES

by David Rosenthal

     In memoriam Brian Wilson

If everything is upside down
and backwards, as it seems to be,
then we should see fragility
as virtuous, and hear the sound

of weeping love as strength. We should
behold a penchant to break down
with awe, and bless the hallowed ground
of teary joy and childish good.

A guy I knew in grad school said,
“I’d hate to see the freak who’s well
adjusted to this world.” We tell
ourselves that isn’t us, we’ve fed

our egos with a comforting
belief that someone who adapts
survives. But without a collapse,
without an aching, broken string

of failures, we can never be
resilient, never truly sing
a harmony that makes a wing
of sorrow, fluttering but free.

David Rosenthal is a public school teacher in Berkeley, California. He has contributed to Rattle, HAD, Rust & Moth, Birmingham Poetry Review, Teachers & Writers Magazine, and others. He’s been a Nemerov Sonnet Award Finalist and Pushcart Nominee. He’s the author of The Wild Geography of Misplaced Things (Kelsay Books).

THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE OF 2024

by Cecil Morris

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

In the other room the Presidents debate

or speak in sound bites, trade accusations,

paint themselves in camouflage of words

and I can’t listen, sickened by them both,

these two awful ghosts of elections past,

one a self-aggrandizing victim stew,

one the merest shadow of glory gone.

I hear myself and my sister in single digits:

I know you are but what am I, I am rubber

you are glue, bounces off me sticks to you.

This format guaranteed failure. It makes

my heart shrivel, my stomach ache and cry.

Have we learned nothing? I think of my kid’s

guinea pig Harry on his squeaking wheel.

He learned the sound of the vegetable bin

being opened and knew it was time to scream

for cilantro, for parsley, for something

that fed him. I think of Peggy Lee’s voice,

weary, worn, singing “Is that all there is?”

and wonder if we can save ourselves

from self destruction, from bombast and hate,

if we can learn to recognize what’s best

for us, for our children, and work for that.

I want to request asylum without

having to wait for years in a crowded line

in a country foreign to my dreams.

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher, has poems appearing or forthcoming in Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, Sugar House Review, Willawaw Journal, and elsewhere. He and his patient partner, the mother of their children, divide their year between the cool Oregon coast and California’s relatively dry Central Valley.

HERE LIE DEAD IN TEXAS

by Amy Worley

Nick Anderson

Here lie dead

a star gazer

a trailblazer

a bodhisattva

2 artists with tiny Mona Lisas

stamped on their still small spirts

not yet emerged.

 

Here lie dead

two seasoned, storied, spirit guides,

who were delicately, precisely, so, so lightly,

tending gossamer spirits.

 

Here lie dead

would-be mothers &

would-be fathers &

all the glorious would-be children &

all the would-be made inside them.

 

Here lie dead

among the bullets & bone fragments

unwritten books & unbuilt churches

un-prayed prayers in the

dark, wet cave of adolescence.

 

Here lie dead

the African-descended

the Mexican-descended

the whatever mix descended

double helixes no longer spiraling.

 

Among the dead

slivering over bloody bodies &

and rising up to stare us in our unseeing eyes

is the serpent of our failure.

 

Not an either/or failure but a slimy sludge

of yes/and foundering and non-doing,

with a forked tongue &

voluminous, sweet-smelling venom.

 

Here lie dead

in this community graveyard

a virologist

an ecologist

a drummer

a plumber

a shattered grandmother whose shards pierce like shrapnel.

 

Here lie dead

what we didn’t do to serve an unwell young man &

what we didn’t do to protect the hatching of the future.

 

Here lie dead

we all

knowing of good & evil

and choosing to hide behind the tall, dark tree

rather than stand naked in the dappled light of truth.

 

Amy Worley is a poet and nonfiction writer living in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, two boys, and her literary dog, Leroy. She is also an attorney and management consultant. She has a BA in English Literature and a Juris Doctorate. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared in various online and hardcopy publications.

THE CALL

by Maria Lisella

The call came

A three-story roof,

not a big building

serious enough

to break bones.

A day later,

another call comes.

A room

at Jacobi.

 

I plan.

He drives.

I’m the passenger.

She’ll be there, you know.

I know, I hear myself say,

the mother is always there.

 

I hate

the stereotype, but it fits.

The mother takes him back.

He doesn’t get better.

He never leaves except

this way.

 

The cycle—failure,

salvation, failure,

a passive remote control.

Patched up.

Lateral moves

ward to ward.

Suicide watch.

 

From the parameter,

I watch.

Stepmother

not blood

not natural.

Despair respects no borders

legal, illegal.

 

You love what you touch,

love more what touches you.

Maria Lisella is the recipient of a Poet Laureate Fellowship from the American Academy of Poets and the author of Thieves in the Family (NYQ Books), Amore on Hope Street (Finishing Line Press) and Two Naked Feet (Poets Wear Prada). She co-curates the Italian American Writers Association readings and is a travel writer by trade.

AFGHANISTAN

by Robert Halleck

I didn't like "These Boots Are Made For Walking."

I loved "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?"

It needed to end.

I'm going into the garage

to find my old shirt

that says

Robert Halleck is a member of San Diego's Not Dead Yet Poets, a Vietnam War veteran, and a man who continues to write poetry to help him understand life.