POSEUR

by Devon Balwit

The New York Times

Today, I’m much struck by a phrase in the news

and try it out—“I demand your unconditional surrender!”—

my finger on the trigger, a lit match by the fuse.

 

Like magic, it aligns differing views.

(Backed by troops and gelignite, no wonder!) 

I’m much struck by this phrase from the news.

 

“Bring me tribute,” I add, “your children, booze!”

and suddenly, my house dazzles with gilt-y splendor.

My finger on the trigger, a lit match by the fuse,

 

my cup runneth over with oily ooze.

I down glass after glass, a drunk on a bender,

spurred on by this phrase I pulled from the news.

 

Outside, the sky purples to the shade of a bruise.

Let lesser men hide. I now live for thunder,

my finger on the trigger, a lit match by the fuse.

 

As if on a pulpit staring down at the pews,

I fulminate, my creed’s best defender,

completely transformed by this phrase from the news,

my finger on the trigger, a lit match by the fuse.

When not making art, Devon Balwit walks in all weather and edits for Asimov Press, Asterisk Magazine, and Works in Progress.

AS I WATCH ROSALYNN CARTER’S TRIBUTE

by Barbara Eknoian

Why do tears keep falling from my eyes as I watch? They say Rosalynn stood by her husband for seventy-seven years, and that she cared deeply for the most vulnerable among us. Throughout my life, although I am a good person and wouldn’t harm anyone, I never did anything as inspiring as she did for others. When the choir sings “America the Beautiful,” I’m a young girl again at school singing. Why do I find this tribute so touching? The religious music playing is the old-fashioned kind, which I miss very much. Maybe, that’s why the tears flow easily while listening to all her good works. One of the speakers comments that Rosalyn would be pleased that First Ladies from both sides have come to honor her, including Biden, Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Trump, and everyone laughs. I feel like I’m at an inspiring church service, though I haven’t attended in years. I’m so glad I’m watching. Her husband Jimmy, left hospice at their home in Plains, Georgia, traveling l40 miles so as not to miss his wife’s tribute. He is wheeled into church. Their daughter, Amy, says, since her dad can’t speak, she’ll read a love letter he wrote to Rosalynn when he was in the Navy seventy-five years ago. I imagine him thinking this right now: 

Good-bye Darling, 

Until tomorrow 

                            Jimmy

Barbara Eknoian’s work has appeared in Chiron Review, Cadence Collective, Redshift, and Silver Birch Press's anthologies. Her recent collection of short stories Romance is Not Too Far From Here is published by Amazon. She lives in La Mirada, CA with her daughter, grandson, one cat, and a very mischievous kitten.

STRANGE CHORDS

by Rick Mullin



Mar 31, 2015: UPDATE 9:57pm PDT
Joni was found unconscious in her home this afternoon. She regained consciousness on the ambulance ride to an L.A. area hospital. She is currently in intensive care undergoing tests and is awake and in good spirits. More updates to come as we hear them. Light a candle and sing a song, let's all send good wishes her way. --jonimitchell.com


I love the way she winged it on Hejira.
Crow, not seagulls, sounded right to me.
She got away with Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter,
Don Alias on the date, and spoke
of Mingus where she used to sing. And Jaco.
It was kinda Blue-to-Kind of Blue.

A kind of transformation of the blue
horizon on a field of that high era
shot in black and white, a season chock-a-
block with ice on lipstick black. To me
she seemed the more divine. She spoke
to me from someplace new, the daughter

of a snowbound country, not the daughter
Woodstock might have wished for. But what blew
me out was anecdotal, the bespoke
position of her fingers, the Hejira
of the coffee house and Do Re Me
tautology. The maundering with Jaco

on the frozen tide, a sliding ride with Jaco
holding down the line. Abandoned daughter
of the Blues, insurgent, blond and white like me,
she bartered for the flatted fifth, a blue
note on the top. Eponymous “Hejira”
spread harmonics, spinning hub and spoke

along the endless highway Dylan spoke
of on the stage at Newport. Him, the jack of
anything he got his hands on. Oh, Hejira
to the new Medina. But Mohammad’s daughter
left behind the radio of blue
oblivion and came across to me

on carbon leather skates. She came to me
exhaling lacy signals where she spoke
into the weather and the grayscale blue.
I caught a glimpse of something like a Jack-o-
Lantern smiling in the clouds, a daughter
lost and laughing on the moon’s Hejira,

longing for Hejira, calling me,
a daughter dancing on the ice. She spoke
of Miles and swung for Jaco in the blue.


Rick Mullin's poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies. His most recent book, Sonnets from the Voyage of the Beagle, was published in December by Dos Madres Press, Loveland, Ohio.