THE IMPORTANCE OF A BLIZZARD

by Michael Carosone

Exeter, NH, February 16, 2015. Photo by Emmaline Kim.

 
It takes a blizzard to stop time

to stop the hamsters from turning the wheels
            to stop the mice from running in the mazes
                        to stop the rat race

to make people slow down

and breathe
             and appreciate
                        and think

to make people realize

that they are not hamsters
            not mice
                        not rats


Michael Carosone is a writer, educator, activist, and native New Yorker from Kings Bay/Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. With his partner, Joseph LoGiudice, he wrote and edited the book, Our Naked Lives: Essays from Gay Italian American Men (Bordighera Press, May 2013), a collection of 15 personal essays on the lives of Gay Italian American men. His poems and essays have been published in a variety of books and journals. He writes on personal, political, and social topics and issues, including marginalized peoples and literatures, especially Italian Americans and people of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (GLBTQ) community. He is pursuing his Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) degree in English Education at Teachers College of Columbia University, and his dissertation will focus on incorporating marginalized literatures and writers—Queer and Italian American—into the English classroom, in grades K-12 and at the college level. He lives in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, with his partner, Joseph LoGiudice.

GETTING READY FOR THE STORM

by Catherine Wald

Photo by Carly Simon posted on Facebook, January 28, 2015

It’s as if Christmas was coming
round all over again – roads
so busy, stores so packed, faces
so intent.  We do love our doom-
sayers; we also love preparing
for the end of the world.

Everything has a purpose.
Flashlight batteries, rock salt,
milk have been transformed
from uninteresting to
essential.

We scan the skies. We
remember what clouds look
like, how they move, how
they lord it over us.

We all believe in the same
higher power, united
in our need to defend
and shelter ourselves,
keep our bellies full.

No one disagrees, not even
about scientific fact; we
accept that every snowflake
has six points and is mostly
made of water, as are we.


Catherine Wald is a poet, journalist, translator and author whose books include poetry (Distant, burned-out stars, Finishing Line Press, 2011), nonfiction (The Resilient Writer: Stories of Rejection and Triumph From 23 Top Authors, Persea Books, 2005) and a translation from French of Valery Larbaud’s Childish Things (Sun & Moon Press).  Her poems have been published in American Journal of Nursing, Buddhist Poetry Review, Chronogram, Exit 13, Friends Journal, Jewish Literary Journal, The New Poet, Society of Classical Poets, The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly and Westchester Review.

SEXY MOTHER NATURE

by Lylanne Musselman

Photo source: Wunderground -- Uploaded by: Gordanian — Monday January 27, 2014 — Green Camp, OH

Snow rollers, hoar frost,
Lake Erie ice balls –
if one didn’t know better
it sounds as if Mother Nature
has turned to pornography,
or sophomoric humor.

Don’t be snowed
by her cold-shoulder.

She must love seeing
meteorologists across
the Midwest, and beyond,
rushing to measure
those frigid inches and boast
of record breaking nights and days,
buried knee-deep in her
winter white blankets.


Lylanne Musselman is an award winning poet and artist, who lives in Toledo, Ohio. Her poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Literary Brushstrokes, Pank, New Verse News, Cyclamens & Swords, and The Prose-Poem Project among others, and many anthologies. She is the author of three chapbooks, and a co-author of Company of Women: New & Selected Poems (Chatter House Press, 2013). Presently, she is Coordinator of Creative Writing at Terra State Community College, and teaches online writing courses for Ivy Tech Community College. She is participating in the 2014 Oulipost, a found poetry event during National Poetry Month, sponsored by the Found Poetry Review.

AFTER THE MASSACRE

by Howie Good

Photograph by Phil Armitage

1
January has been mostly absent. No need to look online for what it means. I already know what it means. It means there’s a girl at the door collecting for cancer. Alcohol intensifies the effect. Theology, too. Whoever doesn’t love incongruity doesn’t love me. The clock raises its penciled-in eyebrows. I don’t talk in my sleep; I scream.

2
I wake up to snow drifting down, dry and brittle, like the ashes of murdered six-year-olds. Hey! No problem! the weather girl assures everyone. I have become someone I never wanted to be, the way songs have become their own jingles. Hear it? The cold, dark howls of women giving birth to monsters in attics.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.