CHICAGO STOCK (YARDS) 1954

WHISPERS OF THE NOW

by Corey Weinstein

We were born on a sigh of relief

trembling lips after Nazi butchers’ blade,

pasty grins of “don’t mention it please”

elders hiding this truth from their brood.

 

Trembling from Babi Yar family’s ruin

our adults invoked a solace of silence.

Just let us strive, be free range kids. 

We, fizzy bubbles of sorrows’ cauldron.

 

     (now this genocide in Palestine)

     (children, press, doctors targets)

 

High grades and high jinks were our sweet lot

summer’s play, bikes and balls all day.

Bubbles can only break, learn the horror

noxious smells waft up from stockyards.

 

     (rubble trapped death stench)

     (homes and hope lie in waste)

 

Hot days joy mixed with sirloin slaughter

what could our folks have had on their mind?

Pens of cattle, hogs not dear Kyiv cousins,

grins not groans for Rogers Park preteens.

 

     (miasma of cruelty’s purpose)

     (to break a peoples’ spirit)

   

When we unearthed the bloodbath’s facts

sighs of relief became embarrassed stutters.

Children left to fathom a world’s dread, 

parents’ silence a kindly confusing legacy.

 

     (what are parents thinking now?)

     (telling kids about Gaza now?)

Corey Weinstein’s poetry has been published in Haight Asbury Literary Journal, Vistas and Byways, The New Verse News, Our California 2024, The Ekphrastic Review, Forum (City College of San Francisco), California State Poetry Society, Visitant, Abandoned Mine, Speak Poetry of San Mateo County, California State Poetry Society and Jewish Currents, and he wrote and performed a singspiel called Erased: Babi Yar, the SS and Me. In his free time, he hosts San Francisco OLLI’s Poetry Workshop Circle and plays the clarinet in his local jazz band, Tandem, his synagogue choir and woodwind ensembles.

YEAR IN REVIEW

by Barbara Simmons

“In the weightlessness of space.” Oil on canvas painting by Anastasia Balabina (Ukraine).

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. —Joan Didion

 

What were the stories that seemed mental U-turns,

that needed returning to, never ending?  At year’s

end, 2021’s review heralded tales most told,

the big look back compactly written,

the headlines sculpting what had happened

into what we should remember.

I’ve skimmed the stories alphabetically, but find the letter C

for COVID is my alpha, tireless virus with infinite variations. I 

flip quickly to the Fed, to China, climate, revivals

on Broadway, deaths we expected someday, but maybe

not this year, like Didion’s, Sondheim’s, Tutu’s.

The story I return to most takes me on SpaceX travels,

finding weightlessness a way to reconstruct my sight,

no longer lineated up and down,

but now a new fluidity, a chance to stream myself beyond

the time and space of just one journey,

just one life, to understand how we are multitudes,

how we are singular, how we are both chorus, soloist, conductor

in a musical rendition of this year reviewed

and what we need most is to listen to stories we’ve composed,

and play

and play

and play

until we fully hear.

 

Barbara Simmons grew up in Boston, graduated from Wellesley, and now lives in San Jose. As a secondary school English teacher, she loved her students who inspired her to think about the many ways we communicate. Retired, she savors exploring words as ways to remember, envision, celebrate, mourn, always trying to understand human-ity. Publications have included Hartskill Review, Boston Accent, The New Verse News, Soul-Lit, 300 Days of Sun, Writing it Real, Capsule Stories: Isolation Edition, and OASIS. Her book of poetry Offertories: Exclamations and Disequilibriums will be published in Spring 2022.

TOSSING DICE IN FLORIDA

by Mickey J. Corrigan

"Florida Hurdles" — Claytoonz by Clay Jones

You flip a seven and—

the day hatches bright, shiny

new penny in the white sand

bronze bodies washing off 

emptiness at the azure shore.

Morning brings no escape

from one's and two's

wild gaze, rocky wonders

a better hand today

to grasp straws with claws.

The afternoon overheats

hard scowls over face cards

erasing your winnings

double-crossing the house.

Happy hour obliterates 

all of tomorrow's concerns:

another wave of cool luck

or a fast ride under glass

flashing lights ablaze.

Night sounds simmer down

squelched by humid air 

the eerie cries of coyotes

nosing barrels of scraps

soaked in fresh blood.

The unknown lingers:

that you awaken again

to another day of play

fate on your side… 

or you're forced to fold

beating, beating

like bones on a drum—

taps, not reveille.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes tropical noir with a dark humor. Her poetry has been widely published in literary journals and chapbooks. In 2020, Grandma Moses Press released Florida Man. Her novel The Physics of Grief puts the fun back in funerals while taking a serious look at the process of mourning (QuoScript, UK, 2021). 

DALIAN PLAY

by Don Kingfisher Campbell

Photos by Aihua Gao on a square in Dalian, China

A week after lockdown is lifted
People gather in the square
To kick a soccer ball around
Ride bicycles with training wheels
Or just walk together again

This afternoon a blonde doll
In a blue satin dress and
A pink eared white bunny
On all fours sit on a wooden
Park bench ready to eat

The little girl with a pink hat
And blue surgical mask serves
Them slices of plastic pizza
Using a blue plastic shovel
To dish the yellow wedges

The doll falls ill at dinner
The girl places a packet of
Soft cotton cleansing wipes
As a pillow on the red scooter
Rolling as an ambulance

The girl in the pink hat gives
The doll mouth to mouth
While wearing the mask
The bunny at the bench
Doesn’t want to eat anymore

Twitches its nose at the small
Boy sporting a black woolen
Ball cap and smaller blue mask
He tries to get the stuffed bunny
To chew on some faux bread

Meanwhile the doll rests
Eyes closed, her blue shoes
Tethered by a red ribbon
To her wrist dangle under
This nearby hospital bench

The boy comes to visit
Offers dolly a few pine nuts
As medicine for the virus
In what they have named
Wuhan Children’s Hospital

Don Kingfisher Campbell, MFA from Antioch University L.A., has taught at Occidental College Upward Bound for 35 years, been poetry editor of the Angel City Review, publisher of Spectrum magazine, and host of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading and workshop series in Pasadena, California.

TAKING THE MOUND

by Mick Murphy

​

Thomas Eakins

Baseball Players Practicing, 1875

Watercolor on paper

Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design

​                For Robbie

​

​You tidy up,

​as in a boys room,

​moving the earth around.

​Dirt and small bits of stone

​the rakes passed over.

​Sins of omission if

​left untended can cost you

​the game.

​Your pitcher’s crease

​is lamb white, your heart

​the same.

​Yet unmarked by the spikes

​of the enemy.

​Your arms are supple and

​ready under home

​cotton whites.

​Your glove new leather

​oiled and shaped the night before.

​You love our summer game.

​

​But they come, the people from

​the world, and you have to pitch to them.

Mick Murphy is astudent of Amy Holman at the Hudson Valley Writers center in Sleepy Hollow New York. A former business executive, he has studied and written poems for many years. His work looks at personal and spiritual issues and the intersection of these with the life of his generation. He lives in the Hudson Valley of New York. He also writes about sports.