THIS IS A TEST. THIS IS A TEST.

by Tricia Knoll

 

 

 

Today on the radio the Bach fugue in B minor stands in for the emergency alert system two-tone blast before a three-tone blurt signaling end of alert. Theme, counterpoint and fragments in the coda. While missiles explode over Tel Aviv, ignite a Dubai hotel. One got the Supreme Leader. Another pulverizes a girl’s school in Iran. Kansas declares IDs of transgender people invalid. A preacher explains intergenerational trauma within the legacy of slavery. The BBC reports 72 tigers in Thailand have died recently of distemper. If it takes a minute to open a bottle, pour out a pill and take it, I have spent 456 days of my life swallowing an antidepressant. (And I thought it was lame that I have spent more than 12 weeks celebrating Christmas Days.) This is a test. This is a test. Going forward, how sad will life be?

 

Vermont poet Tricia Knoll is writing a book of poetry about sadness, The Run-on Story. Her next poetry book Gathering Marbles about aging will come out from Fernwood Press in 2027. 

BLESS

an abecedarian

by Susan Vespoli

Photo source: DeMilked

Holiday depression feels a lot like regular depression, but it’s triggered by the onset of holidays, holiday get-togethers, large family gatherings, and attending or hosting social events. Holiday depression is similar to “winter blues,” but it may come and go in quick bursts as one event ends and another begins, or it can linger for the days or weeks leading up to and beyond the holiday season. —Cleveland Clinic, December 13, 2023

all the shiny

baubles and brouhaha of

Christmas. Seasonal

depression. Air-filled

enormous plastic Santas bobbing 

front yards. Fairy lights

glittering rooftops. Guy in tight 

holiday pants, knit like a sweater,

in Safeway.

Jubilant crimson poinsettias. My daughter

Kate hospitalized again. Oh,

let it work this time, I hear

myself beseech the sky.

“No,” the

omnipotent ozone replies,

“power.” Oh yeah. Powerlessness. 

Quiet morning sun

rises, turns navy gray into orange

sherbet. I

tilt my head back and there

undulates a 

vibration of grackles 

waving and wafting like winged

eXclamation points, black dots

yodeling squawks, pepper grinder of

zest that, in unison, settle on an electrical wire like musical notes.

Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, AZ and believes in the power of writing to stay sane. Her work has been published in The New Verse News, Anti-Heroin Chic, ONE ART, Gyroscope Review, Rattle, and other cool spots.

TO A CHORUS OF TEARS

by tom bauer

It seems inevitable his eyes would look like that
singing that song, effulgent with yearning
for things lost, as the river weaves towards
the past. Reminds me of cartoon eyebrows,
pointed in an inverted ‘V’, like a tent,
anguished peaks over wounded disks, singing
what might be the saddest song ever made.

An invisible step leads to this next question,
on foot, an actual physical object
moving in space, in the moment of space,
not merely that moment witnessed onscreen,
a moment now in the past, outside this one,
this moment here with the keyboard, the echo,
the cat on the radiator nesting his head.

Are we free? As time waves out, are we free?
Free of the pain, the breath, the trees and light?
For it seems we are not free on earth, to choose
to run or fight, to give or take, we are
in moments welded to our choices,
fixed outside freedom, choosing what we must.

So are we free, then, when we die? Is that it?

tom bauer lives in montreal with his sons and plays boardgames.

CLEARLY

by Barbara Loots





Clearly this explains a lot
about the president we’ve got.
For basement, substitute your bed.
Computer?  Say tv instead.
Every click of Twitter thumb?
Neurons in the brain go numb
until the whole damn thing is gone.
The skull is empty. Sad. Poor Don.


Frequent contributor to lightpoetrymagazine.com, Barbara Loots keeps an eye on the news from Kansas City, MO. New collection The Beekeeper and other love poems coming soon from Kelsay Books. 

FOURTH OF JULY 2017

by Susan P. Blevins

Sad Food Face Canvas Print  by Smetek

I could not celebrate this year
the lonely clamor to feed the hole in our
hearts with hot dogs and hamburgers,
hoping for alchemical miracle, from
simple-minded barbecue to
manna from heaven to feed our wounded
hearts, but instead all we ate turned to
bitterness and regret, leaving a
mouthful of ashes and dust,
uneasy and hungry still, listening to
the bands, watching the fireworks
in all their frenzied attempt to heal the
mockery of 2017’s Independence Day.

Susan P. Blevins’s blood pressure is up since last November. She is sure the country will have serious health problems in the next four years unless an antidote is found.