MONA’S HEAD SPEAKS

by Tara Menon

A grinning man who decapitated his wife and paraded down the street with her head in his hands has been jailed for just eight years in Iran. Mum-of-one Mona Heydari (above) was just 17 when she was dragged from a car outside the family home and killed in February last year, a court heard. Her husband Sajjad Heydari and his brother Heydar carried out the brutal attack in Ahvaz, the capital of the southwestern Khuzestan Province. Mona, who had been married since the age of 12, had fled her violent husband with another man, the court heard. However, the woman was tracked down in Turkey by her own father - named as Javid in local media - who returned her to her violent husband. The man allegedly used Interpol to trace his daughter and returned her to Iran, where her husband - who is also her cousin - slaughtered her, claiming she had shamed him. —The Mirror (UK), January 19, 2023

How much is my head worth
in my country?
Beheaded that is
with pools of blood.
Eight years?
So little for my murderer.
Why not seventeen
for every year I’ve lived?
Or eighty minus seventeen
assuming I’d have become an octogenarian.

I fled his violence,
but my family lured me back to Iran
with assurances I’d be safe. I was not.
And then my family pardoned my husband
else he’d have been killed by the state.
No woman is free from danger

when unfair laws lurk.

 
Ask Mahsa Amini,
who was killed for showing 
a bit of hair peeping out of her burqa.
 
Look up at the sky
where we hover
waiting to enter heaven
after justice finds its way to earth.
We could blow the clouds, strike lightning bolts,
thunder from above forever.
The weight of our souls burdens hearts, 
but no one knows
we’re also present inside palpitating organs
to get across our message.

Tara Menon is an Indian-American writer based in Lexington, Massachusetts. Her most recent poems have been published in Tipton Poetry Journal, Arlington Literary Journal, San Pedro River Review, and The Loch Raven Review. Her latest fiction has appeared in The Hong Kong Review, Litro, The Bookends Review, Rio Grande Review, and The Evening Street Review. She is also a book reviewer and essayist whose pieces have appeared in many journals.

FOR JOAN DIDION WHO

by Mary K O'Melveny

Told it like it is    Like it was

  if we had been paying better attention

Made us see what she saw   and be grateful

 

Stared into storms  wearing night vision goggles

  in case we missed some essential point

Exposed each slant of light    tone of voice   shadowed figure

 

Crafted a perfect sentence   Drafted a fine line

Saw that a paragraph can hold more weight than gold

  if it opened our eyes wider   and we did not blink

 

Spoke with timbre of choruses and echoing canyons

 we could hear her whispers cutting through darkness

  in case we lost the soundtrack of our own lives

 

Understood more than most   Less is more

  there is little room for error   restraint can be operatic

   understatement can be perfect   is often preferable

 

Laid out the sorrowful news that we will not survive

  recast such tales as memoir   you always lose what you need

Told us don’t bother to weep    Timing is everything

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

ON BEING STUCK AND STACKED DECKS

by Jen Schneider

Dave Granlund cartoon via Milford Daily News.

1. Something bitter. Noun. Plural.

2. Something sour. Noun. Plural.

3. Something sweet. Noun. Plural.

4. Something vulnerable. Noun. Plural.

5. Someone who is vulnerable. Noun. Plural.

6. Something that is increasing in number. Noun. Plural.

7. Something else that increases in number. Noun. Plural.

8. A Whole number. Greater than six and less than eleven.

9. A whole number. Less than six

10. An antonym for permanent.

11. A synonym for the adjective just 

12. Another word for exonerated

Breaking news alerts proliferate. 

Prosper, too. Prime time menus 

of mixed reviews mingle and morph 

amongst clam covered 

palms and sweat stained pits.

Stomachs ache 

of __1__ and __2__. 

 

Memories of __3__ fade into

forever setting suns as storm 

clouds crystallize. Frowns

form. Red and blue ink

blur. Times New Roman

font crosses paths with Lato.

Wet signatures dry. Personals 

pay final respects. Records

are released. 

 

Wild prey wait on nearby wires. Dollars

wait in nearby banks. Electric

energy both watching and waiting. 

Lighting strikes in predictable patterns

and on predictable prey.

 

The vulnerable press. Charge, too.

No matter. Mathematics makes

for logical work and two consonants 

(F / R)

and two vowels 

(E / E) 

yield a limited

number of combinations. 

Permutations, too.

 

Reef(s) hover at or near

the surface of stormy seas. 

Barriers built to protect those

in need - __4__

and __5__ weaken

until those in need become

no more than numbers. 

 

Data most revealing. 

Most numbers grow - 

__6__ and __7__

while others diminish. 

Brute force always finds a way

to unlock combinations long

proffered as secure. Sentences

often flip, then flop. __8__ turns

to __9__with a subtle twist.

Zippers release and seams snap.

Nylon curtains drop and faux

satin sheets fall. Silver

linings dissipate.

Accounts empty then fill.

 

Golden standards have always been tarnished.

Gambling has always been a predetermined 

proposition. Printing presses turn out F.R.E.E.

passes as pressed charges turn off the lights.

Light, too. Games systems everywhere.

 

Not all Aces are pure. 

Not all Spades are sacred. 

To win is not always ___10___.

To be free, not always __11__.

 

Hands reveal hidden tricks

and luck turns. Locks turn left 

and engines run. Game on 

and now over. Energy depleted.

 

To be free 

is not to be __12__.

Jen Schneider is an educator, attorney, and writer. She lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Philadelphia. Her work appears in The Popular Culture Studies Journal, unstamatic, Zingara Poetry Review, Streetlight Magazine, Chaleur Magazine, LSE Review of Books, and other literary and scholarly journals.

HANDS

by Ruth Lehrer

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny makes a heart gesture with his hands while in a cage in the Moscow City Court on Tuesday. His suspended sentence from his 2014 criminal conviction was ultimately converted to a prison term. (Press Service of Simonovsky District Court/Handout/Reuters via CBC)

He’s in a glass box right now they call it the aquarium we can’t hear him 

    can he hear us

the judge pretends to read judgment the news already knows already 

    prints her words

before they exit her mouth leave her tongue like a corrupt mind meld 

    two years eight

months in a prison colony with his silent hands he flashes a heart to his wife 

    who takes

off her mask and waves.

Ruth Lehrer is a writer and sign language interpreter living in western Massachusetts. She is the author of the novel Being Fishkill and the poetry chapbook Tiger Laughs When You Push.

HOPE AND HISTORY RHYME

by Susannah Greenberg





Hope and history
stutter and gaffe.
Corruption and cruelty
point and laugh.

Then Joe rolls in
like Moses leaning on his staff,
sentence flows from sentence,
and then a paragraph.

He says so many dead,
and so many infected.
We deserve the truth.
We deserve to be protected.

Hope and history come together
when you need but don’t expect it.


Susannah Greenberg is an independent book publicist at Susannah Greenberg Public Relations.  

THE SENTENCING OF MICHAEL SLAGER

by Harold Oberman

Judy Scott holds a photo of her son Walter Scott on Thursday after Michael Slager, a former police officer who shot and killed Mr. Scott in 2015 after a traffic stop, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for violating Mr. Scott’s civil rights. Credit: Credit Randall Hill/Reuters via The New York Times, December 7, 2017

I went to middle school with him,
Walter Scott.  He was a year behind
And, as to his details, I don't remember.
I just don't remember.

I pulled out an old Annual after the shooting.
Wallace Middle School.  New Horizons. 1979.
My parents sent me there against the advice of their peers.
"Violence," they said, "had happened,"
The past year.  Middle school violence
In the Seventies.  A big brawl, perhaps a stabbing
At the most.  So antique.

38 years later, Walter Scott’s shot in the back.
The cop got 20 years.
Violence does not have a half-life
That diminishes over time
Or a blood-red glow that grows dimmer,
Though we wish it did.

He wears a large-collared shirt in the Annual.
I can't tell its colors.
The photos, back then, were all black and white.

Harold Oberman is a lawyer working and writing in Charleston, SC. His first poem was published in middle school and, subsequently, he has had his work published in TheNewVerse.News.

ON HER BEHALF

a found poem
by Mac McClurkan

The sentence handed down in a trial for incest in rural Valley County, Mont., pictured here, has led to a call for the judge in the trial to be impeached. Matthew Brown/AP via NPR, October 20, 2016.

The defendant’s daughter, age 12, did not attend the sentencing hearing. No one testified on her behalf. The presiding judge in Montana cited the lack of direct input from the victim, or an advocate on behalf of the victim. The defendant, who admitted to raping his daughter multiple times, was sentenced to 60 days in jail. Court records show the victim’s mother, who testified he has two sons that still love him and need their father in their lives, walked in on the father raping the child. The victim’s mother’s mother testified the defendant’s children, especially his sons, will be devastated if their dad is no longer a part of their lives. The defendant’s daughter, age 12, did not attend the sentencing hearing. No one testified on her behalf.

Mac McClurkan is a hobby farmer, disc golf enthusiast, and aspiring writer. He lives in rural Michigan with his wife (who is a MUCH better writer), two dogs, and five chickens. 

DEFROCKING

by James M. Croteau





Defrocking numbers thrown about,
I think of "mine",
the pedophile priest
in the parish of my youth,
all us Catholic boys
had one in my day, lucky
boys just didn't know
at the time. Just heard
he'd been brought to justice,
though the phrase barely fits,
he was tried and convicted
in a court that was Catholic,
and of course
he was sentenced, poor man,
to no priestly duties, not ever,
and told to spend the rest of his life
in prayer, and in penance.


James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 28 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the southern United States and loved his mother very much. He has had poems published in Hoot: a Postcard review of {mini} poetry and prose, The New Verse News, and Right Hand Pointing. He has a series of poems upcoming in April 2014 in Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry.