MY OPEN LETTER TO ALL CHRISTIAN CLERGY FOR LENT

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS

                           for jill, preacher

the season of purple has returned

and you will preach

either giving up or taking on

and for forty days most who listen   will

but what will you say to those

whose lent has been years of forty days

who  so tired

have become shadows

yet those shadows are the ashes

crossed on ash wednesday foreheads . . .

instead of the proclamation

of giving up or taking on

perhaps you could speak for them—

the voiceless

those who have already taken on

perhaps you could speak up

for all the invisible

who must bear alone

their long and savage lent

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS is a former teacher and librarian whose writing appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Her first published book of poetry is entitled she: robed and wordless (Press 53, 2015) and her second, Writing the Stars (Press 53, 2024.) She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020.  Using five poems from her first book, James Lee III composed “Chavah’s Daughters Speak” first performed at 92Y in New York City.

THE FIRST HUNDRED DAYS

by Elizabeth Kerlikowske

If you can see the moon from your window
even through the wall of branches
then it is calling you to worship.
Hard to stay in bed,
impossible to stay in the house.  
If you can see the moon from the front porch,
you can see raccoons and the seven doe
in blue shadows. The owl wonders
what you are doing here.  Thick
wandering roots reach from the trees, 
dusted with a skin of snow, like veins 
on the backs of your hands going 
where they must go. 
If you can see the moon from Earth,
the cataclysm is still in the future.
Your breath is a cloud without shape.

Elizabeth Kerlikowske’s latest chapbook is Falling Women, with painter Mary Hatch.

THE DREAD

by William Aarnes

 after reading Stanley’s Kunitz’s translations of Anna Akhmatova

        for the contributors to The New Verse News

“He’s Threatened To Put Them In Jail”: Joe Biden Tells Katie Couric That Journalists Have Told Him Of Their Fears If Donald Trump Returns To White House —Deadline, February 22, 2024

Of course, they will jail

the journalists first

 

but the time will come

when you will pass your days

aware that the authorities

are letting you live

a circumscribed life,  

 

a couple of years

of the woman at the window  

of the apartment across the street

always fixing a stare

on you when you draw

your curtains open 

an intimidating reminder

that whatever you do

on your cell and laptop

is under surveillance,

your movements tracked,

 

a then two, three years in,

impossible to miss,

the agents in the parked car

always quick to get out

to openly follow you,

one just a few steps

above you on the escalator

and never standing more

than four people away

on a crowded subway,

you beginning to wish

you dared to confront them

with your puzzlement

about how much they are paid,

 

the time at last coming

when, one of your shadows

sipping coffee four tables away,

a dear friend will fail

to show for the lunch     

where you planned to lie

that you are too scared

to write any more poems,

not even in your head,

 

your friend not responding

to texts, you lingering

over your salad, dreading

the escorted ride home.

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.

EIGHT WAYS OF LOOKING AT A MISSING PERSON

by Kenton K. Yee

Alicia Navarro, 18, was said to be upset following an FBI raid on the apartment where she had been living in with an unidentified man in Havre, Montana. —Mail Online, August 1, 2023

after Wallace Stevens

I
In the still, the most moving thing 
is an empty chair.  
 
II
Suspicion spreads like wildfire smoke.
 
Murder and suicide are likely.
Murder, suicide, abduction, and ghosting are likely.   
 
III
What is it that captivates us so, 
the how or the why,
what happened or that it could happen to anyone?
 
IV
Memories of the missing linger
like shadows of headstones on fresh snow.
 
V
I know what the stats say and 
I know you must investigate your leads.
I know, too, that nothing’s as it first appears.
 
So disheveled men in wrinkled suits, 
why do you fixate on the husband?   
Didn’t you watch that movie?
 
VI
[—missing—]
 
VII
People are vanishing, 
some to new identities.    
 
She’s probably cruising Canada in a Mercedes,
missing the little girl and big boy she left behind. 
 
VIII
People vanish and people appear 
like shadows of headstones.
 
Please, at least let your parents know you’re okay.

Author’s Note: The two ongoing news stories about missing young women (Alicia Navarro and Carlee Russell) reappearing—Navarro after 4 years—caused me to think about why we (and the media) are so captivated by missing-person stories. According to the DoJ's NamUS database, over 600,000 US residents go missing every year, which far outnumber the 4,400 unidentified bodies turning up each year. This suggests that most of the missing are either abducted and still alive or running away and adopting new identities of their own volition.

Kenton K. Yee’s recent poems appear (or will soon) in Plume Poetry, Threepenny Review, TAB Journal, BoomerLitMag, Sugar House Review, Terrain.org, Rattle, Matter Monthly, Hawaii Pacific Review, and  The New Verse News among others. Kenton writes from Northern California.

THE LADDER

by Kavita Ratna

The ladder

against the wall

leaves 

misshapen 

shadows,

slanted in 

impossible angles.

 

The rungs

of the real and

the surreal

end

in the middle of

a blankness.

 

Rising begins

where 

the climb ends.

Kavita Ratna is a children's rights activist, poet, and a theatre enthusiast. Sea Glass is her collection of poems published by Red River. Her poems have appeared in The Kali Project: Invoking the Goddess within, A little book of serendipity, The Wise Owl, Triveni Hakai India, Haiku in Action, the Scarlet Dragonfly, the Cold Moon Journal, Five Fleas Itchy poetry, Stardust Haiku, Leaf (Journal of The Daily Haiku), and Parcham.

DRY SEASON

by William Marr

So let me be clear: climate change is an emergency.  —Joe Biden, July 20, 2022

even the shadows

are dried to the bone

their whiskers sparse and brownish

 

with no dewdrops to moisten their throats

birds won't come to the window

to chirp

to waken dreams

to inspire

 

holding a dried-up pen

a poet stares at the blank sky

where not a single trace of cloud

is in sight

 

don't expect

tears of joy

anytime soon

 

 

William Marr, a Chinese American scientist/poet/artist, has published over 30 collections of poetry and several translations. His poetry has been translated into more than ten languages and is included in high school and college textbooks in Taiwan, China Mainland, England, and Germany. A former president of the Illinois State Poetry Society, he now lives in Chicago.

CAN YOU TELL ME?

by George Salamon

As a tribute to the first responders, victims and families of those missing in the partial condo collapse, Miami Beach announced Thursday it will replace its originally planned fireworks celebration with a moment for residents to “shine a light in a symbolic gesture of unity,” according to a city press release. ... Miami Beach residents will have the option to mark Independence Day in a way that may feel more reflective of the ongoing tragedy and families’ grief and hope. —Miami Herald, July 2, 2021

Digging into the smoldering

ruins, looking for lost people,

their ashes have drifted into

the crushing water by now,

the rescuers are seeking

shadows, do their souls

enter the spirit of our

language, will we hear

them inside any thought

we utter?

George Salamon survives in St. Louis, MO and contributes to The Asses of Parnassus, Dissident Voice, and The New Verse News.

DEEP WINTER CLEANING

by Mary K O'Melveny 

Painting by Chris Austin via My Modern Met.

Our house always looks neat enough.

If you don’t stare into cupboards

or study drawers too closely. Our stuff

seems mostly under control, buffered

by simple messages, pristine lines.

Desires to peer to closely are aborted

by earnest visions, surfaces that shine.

 

Every now and then, something untidy

slips into view despite best plans,

forcing us to mop, sweep what might be

dust mites or cobwebs from doorjambs,

haul away plastic bags of trash

filled with threadbare linens, brown-edged

papers, dead tennis balls, a rash

of too small jackets, too high heels wedged

 

in closet corners. The birds benefit

from stale biscuits and limp popcorn.

A container of frozen food—whatever it

was now unknown—will not be mourned,

along with moldy bread and avocados.

We haul debris out to the bins.

A period of satisfaction follows

but prophylaxis never begins.

 

Eventually, our grimy shadows emerge,

widen once more. They lurk under chairs,

deep in cabinets, still a scourge

like monsters hidden beneath the stairs

to the basement.  A pandemic excused

us briefly from deep cleaning fits

as time marched forward and dust renewed,

but our shambolic state persists.

 

Now we are facing winter storms,

still surrounded by unexamined chaos.

Until we undertake sweeping reforms,

mops and brooms will be superfluous.

We need to unearth all our buried

secrets, those sordid truths we never found

time to tell, the hopes repeatedly miscarried.

Lay them bare on our snow-layered ground.

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.

AS SMALL AS A PIMPLE

by Dmitry Blizniuk 

translated by Sergey Gerasimov from the Russian

Stop Hate for Profit

There's no room in history for a wanderer with a backpack,

or a cobbler in a circle of splinter light,

or a girl with a walking stick.

There is nothing human in the history of humans.

We examine and study all forms and kinds of war monsters,

detective or horror stories.

History is emptied out pools of time:

people's blood and stupidity of rulers have flowed out,

and only dry mud is left,

senseless, enameled emptiness,

and pyramids, burial mounds of years and dates.

But now we see our reflection in the Internet,

colorful shadows of asses and faces in social networking sites.

A greenish sick salmon 

sluggishly slaps its tail in the dirty water

among oil spills, candy wrappers,

and all kinds of garbage.

Looking at the gasoline stain on water

you can see your reflected face—

and you are as small as a pimple.

Dmitry Blizniuk is an author from Ukraine. His most recent poems have appeared in Poet Lore, The Pinch, Salamander, Willow Springs, Grub Street, and many others. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also the author of The Red Fоrest (Fowlpox Press, 2018). He lives in Kharkov, Ukraine. Member of PEN America.

WORST CASE

by Gilbert Allen




"Corpses piled / tenderly along the curbs"
—Dorianne Laux (“Lord of the Flies,” 2020)

"I do not pity the dead, I pity the dying."
—James Wright (“At the Executed Murderer's Grave,” 1958)


Nobody dares give a damn about the dead,                                    
not now. Because if you did, you’d be
a demiurge of shadows—your own ghost,
unholy, praying for a miracle.                                                                      
A miracle to parse the mystery
of presences, of all the universe—
its molecules and light, its stars, coronas,                
infections, choices, triage, viruses.

Patient or provider, in this bed                                
you have a life to tend and medicate                      
as best you can. Till the determined day
you’ll move beyond the pity of James Wright—
above or in the ordinary earth
we creatures are condemned to walk upon.            


Gilbert Allen shelters in place in Travelers Rest, South Carolina.

PASSING BY A CEMETERY TODAY

by George Salamon

"'No chance to see their loved ones again': Funerals in Italy have been banned, and many are being buried alone" —CBS News, March 27, 2020


I pass by an old cemetery on
My way to buy gasoline.
Who lives here? I ask
As I hear singing and watch
A squirrel jump down to the grass.
Who's in charge here? I ask.
The stones stand and listen,
They don't tell me who drops
The shadows from the trees,
Or what is swishing through
The grass. Then I look, and
I see the silence.


George Salamon is washing his hands and not touching his face in St. Louis, MO.

OCTOBER LIGHT

by Buff Whitman-Bradley





It is quiet now
In the corners
Where dust collects itself
And afternoon light
Relaxes its shoulders
As it prepares
For its daily departure.
All day it has been
Early October
Hot as August or July
And drier than dry—
But we are not fooled.
Look at the leaves
Teasing us
With the faintest hints
Of the russets and golds
And wild vermillions
That soon enough
Will inhabit the snug dwellings
Where their green sister chlorophyll
Has resided
Since the February arrival
Of spring.
Look at the long shadows
Falling across houses and streets
Lounging in parks and playgrounds,
Look at the honeyed light
Sprawling on manicured lawns
And fading gardens.
Feel the air,
Apologetically hot
And promising that this heat,
This spit-thickening dryness,
Will not last much longer,
That the familiar, reassuring chill
Of autumn
Will soon return to our evenings
To herald the arrival
Of the season of heavy rains.
But of course these days
With the climate being systematically mauled
By billionaire carbon-suckers
We can’t be sure
What the coming months
Will have in store for us.
And for that matter
We cannot even count on October
Remaining the October
We have always loved,
That paragon of months,
The crown jewel
In the year’s annular passage,
The golden door
Between summer and winter.
We must struggle and hope,
Defy and resist and disrupt
To defeat those who are ravaging
Our weather and our earth
And replace them
With our kind of folks,
The ones who believe in communities
Of mutual support and nourishment,
The ones who reject profit
As a way to measure human worth,
The ones whose furious spirits take flight
In October light.


Buff Whitman-Bradley's poems have appeared in many print and online journals. His most recent books are To Get Our Bearings in this Wheeling World and Cancer Cantata. With his wife Cynthia, he produced the award-winning documentary film Outside In and, with the MIRC film collective, made the film Por Que Venimos. His interviews with soldiers refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan were made into the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California. He podcasts at: thirdactpoems.podbean.com .

THE LAWN

by Katherine Smith

Harry W. Porter Pumpkin Ash, The Lawn,
Pavilion IX, University of Virginia

On this grass in 1984
I met my true love
in front of the bookstore

where men in camouflage
brandish torches and a few women too
in fluttering skirts, march

not far from the Rotunda.
They chant of the past
but these men aren’t the past.

The past was 1984 when
we lay under the ginkgo
the man who loved

the Ivory Coast and I,
and music from Mali
played on the lawn now lit

by confused torches.
In the future
where the black-shirted men

leave their shadows
behind them in the grass,
lovers will hesitate

to lie under the ash tree.


Katherine Smith’s publications include appearances in Poetry, Cincinnati Review, Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Southern Review and many other journals.  Her short fiction has appeared in Fiction International and Gargoyle. Her first book Argument by Design (Washington Writers’ Publishing House) appeared in 2003. Her second book of poems Woman Alone on the Mountain (Iris Press), appeared in 2014. She teaches at Montgomery College in Maryland.

ON THE PRACTICE OF DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME

by David Feela

The clocks, advanced one hour, will not
save us, not from the imaginations of oblivious children
exhausted in the moist dark while waiting for school buses,
still comatose from that lost hour of sleep.

Not the shadows lengthening into evening
like tails on a tuxedo, all dressed up without
the energy to dance. Like Sisyphus’s rock,
we know pushing the sun back up the hill

won’t keep it there, and the gods won’t change
the sand in our hourglasses, and this life,
as we know it, remains fixed like a nail in the wall
where we pick up the same old hat on the way out.


David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays How Delicate These Arches released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.

WEATHER FOR DOGS

by Howie Good

Mothers and babies fleeing the red death
disappeared down a hole in the sea. And
now what do we do? Chant, “USA! USA!”

Chant, “Build a wall.” This is weather
for dogs – bomb-sniffing dogs. No one
is safe. Police are throwing their critics

out windows. Here, as Primo discovered,
there isn’t any why. There’s always only
the creep of shadows. They move, we follow.

Howie Good is the recipient of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry for his new collection Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements.