THIRST

by Katherine West

Via The Daily Caller

And so there came upon me a time of great thirst.  Dust and hatred rose from desert roads, and monsoon puddles turned white, the evergreens unchanged as totems made of stone.  Oh!  How I thirsted for the softness of peace, of leaves and seasons, for yellow, the true color of death. 

For death there must be water, so we drove along the Mimbres River to Lake Robert, my neck soon sore from looking up at the tones of lemon, tangerine, rust, gold--all moving as if paint could not stop once it reached the canvas, but continued to mix and blend and breathe unbiased beauty.

In between were ragged signs bleached by the sun:  Don't Blame Me I Voted for Trump  or simply: Fuck Biden, right next to: We Love Cyclists, with seats in the shade for the tired traveler. 

The lake was a sequin-beaded dress from the 1920's that the wind exploded into diamond bits that blinded us where we sat beneath the willows that could not cease their orange song for every ear. 

There we died.  We drank color and light until we too exploded--then coalesced on the walk back, talking with Lalo the fisherman about the 90 year old woman with terminal cancer who caught the biggest catfish he'd ever seen, right there where he was fishing today, and he'd shown her the place, his secret spot that he showed to no one, and she'd whooped so loud people could hear her all the way across the lake, and she died that winter, where no one could swim due to all the hooks left in the sand, left in the mind, and we forgot to bring food so we ate the peace of apolitical ospreys fishing with Lalo in the morning as if the RVers with their Don't Tread on Me flags didn't exist, only their grandchildren, lying on their bellies in the sand, hanging over the bank, scooping up the craw fish the grebes eat, while we swallowed gallons of yellow death, and yet were empty, empty, empty, and light as leaves. 

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico and at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado. Using the name Kit West, Katherine's new novel, When Night Comes, A Christmas Carol Revisited came out in 2020, and a selection of poetry entitled Raising the Sparks will come out in 2021, both published by Breaking Rules Publishing for whom she also teaches Creative Writing workshops.  The sequel to When Night Comes will also be released by BRP in 2021. It is called Slave, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Revisited. She is also an artist. 

PUT DOWN THE FISHERMAN

A LITTLE RICHARD CENTO
by Chad Frame





"I’ve been gay all my life and I know God is a God of love, not of hate. How can I (put) down the fisherman when I’ve been fishing all my life?” 
     —Little Richard (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020)


If it don’t fit, don’t force it. Can’t help it. Son,
you better watch your step. Papa put me out
of the house, curtains and makeup, cherry-

red, long hair hanging everywhere. All
around the world, the magnolia smells
sweet, and white cotton warm. You said

you loved me, went to the window, peeped
through the blind—a whole lotta shakin’, good
goddamn. How can I put down the fisherman

when I been fishing all my life? Bad luck
baby put a jinx on me—ooh! my soul!—
this land of a thousand dances. You keep on

knockin’, but you can’t hear this jukebox jumpin’.
Keep on knockin’, gonna ring your door
till I break your bell. Go, cat, go. Rip it up,

good golly, heeby jeebies. Uptempo,
directly from my heart, you call it rock & roll.
At regular tempo, you keep on knockin’,

rhythm & blues. You keep on knockin’, baby,
say you only want to dance. Well, alright.
Come on over, baby—but you can’t come in.

Chad Frame’s work appears in Rattle, Mom Egg Review, Barrelhouse, Rust+Moth, and other journals and anthologies, as well as on iTunes from the Library of Congress. He is the Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program and Poet Laureate Emeritus of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, the Poetry Editor of Ovunque Siamo: New Italian-American Writing, a founding member of the No River Twice poetry improv performance troupe, and founder of the Caesura Poetry Festival and Retreat.

TO THE FAMILY OF A VIETNAMESE MAN KILLED IN HIS BOATON THE MEKONG DELTA, 1968

by Peg Quinn

On January 1968, sighting the enemy, the door gunner aboard a Huey helicopter opens fire on a target below in the Mekong Delta. Image source: The History Channel

Dear grieving family,
your father, son, brother, uncle
still screams in the heart of his killer

Was he fishing that day
or wiring mortars?
Doesn’t matter

our young, dumb helicopter pilot
was obeying orders when his
rat-a-tat-tat shattered his target

gripping his soul with a grief
that won’t untangle

fifty years later,
he trembles when telling the story
and your father, son, brother, uncle
lives again,
his dreams floating
in bloody water and we
want to go back
rewrite the day,
let him arrive home, happy
with fish for dinner
because our young dumb soldier
was looking over his other shoulder

and will get to grow old with simple,
ordinary, explainable
regrets.


Peg Quinn is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, mural and theatrical set painter, award winning quilter and art specialists at a private school in Santa Barbara, California.