YEAR OF THE RANT

by Robert Knox

In a year in which only personal realities 
are consulted by humans, 
in which only over-sized creatures are heard 
and they merely grunt

In a year in which the hogs that grunt 
are only human, 
in which it can be seen that 
their blinkered eyes are rightly suspicious
and monitor the intrusive attentions 
of folks with cameras,
who are neither journalists nor tourists, 
but uniformed executioners bearing witness on themselves
 
In a year in which the words of the truly reproachable  
bear witness against themselves,  
in which the words of the prophets 
are everywhere and too numerous to recall
amidst the blinding lights of the next enormity,
too large for even the wiser among us to believe, 
or the most gullible
 
In which even the loudest of unsanctioned mouths 
fall silent,
for there is simply too much to say
 
and no lack of overpaid oath-breakers 
clamoring to bear witness against themselves.

Robert Knox is a poet, fiction writer, Boston Globe correspondent, and the author of a novel based on the Sacco and Vanzetti case, titled Suosso's Lane. As a contributing editor for the online poetry journal Verse-Virtual his poems appear regularly on that site. They have also appeared in journals such as Off The Coast, The Journal of American Poetry, South Florida Poetry Journal, TheNewVerse.News, Califragile, and Unlikely Stories. His poetry chapbook Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty, published in 2017, was nominated for a Massachusetts Best Book award. The chapbook Cocktails in the Wild followed in 2018. He was recently named the winner of the 2019 Anita McAndrews Poetry Award.

WHEN JESUS TOOK A KNEE

by Alejandro Escudé

When Jesus took a knee
beside the palm tree
and the Romans there
paused, gulped the air,
no one could believe
Pontius Pilate’s decree
that all those who
did the same, who
took a knee as Jesus
did, those dividing us,
meaning the Romans,
should be treated as
traitors to the empire
and be set on fire
or hung upon a cross
which is cut of cypress.

A vision was bestowed
to those alive, glowed
a white H upon a field,
with a ball, oval-shaped,
alighting over the center
emitted by a gladiator
below, a ball or a skull,
one couldn’t really tell
but watched it soar high
as a crowd sprang nigh
to cheer the spectacle,
the human-like tentacle,
a wingspan to the bars
and then the long limbs,
finally the head, eyes
like blackened starlight,
the man hanging there
for all to witness, bare
save for a shoulder pad
nimble and heavy, a hood
red-gold, an eagle spread,
a man who cried, bled.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE HORSES

by Tricia Knoll

Horse Statue by jellobuster at DeviantArt

One million dead in the Civil War,
if you count the mules.
Which I do.

I say, blowtorch the rebel statue
men off their mounts and keep
the horses striding on their pedestals.

They were not traitors
to their country, showed no sign
of caring who they carried,

black or white, male or
female. Their integrity
is without question.

They did the work
they were asked to do
without a nod at glory.

Tricia Knoll is an Oregon poet with a deep fondness for horses. I can see these statues with newly installed saddles replacing the old white men, perhaps ladders for children to climb up on. 

THE BOATS

by Joan Colby

Mithridates survived 17 days before expiring.

Head, hands and feet stuck out
Between two wooden boats.
The face, the extremities smeared
With honey for insects, stinging wasps,
Flies. Force fed so that he lives
In the torment of worms and maggots
Eating him from the inside out. A death
Reserved for traitors.

A cordon drawn. He needs to hide.
They’d walked from the blast
Satisfied. Now it’s gone wrong.
His brother’s body beneath wheels.
Bleeding, he crawls under the tarp
Of a white boat in someone’s yard.
All day, silent, Trapped in torment
eating him from the inside out.

Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize.  Properties of Matter was published in spring of 2014 by Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.