THE GULF OF AMERICA, NÉE MEXICO

by Susan Ayres

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced on Friday that they will implement President Trump’s name change for the Gulf Coast.(wjhg)

 

                        I laugh at what you call dissolution,

                        And I know the amplitude of time.

                                                            —Walt Whitman

 

And yet she too is dissolved in a sea

of fears and worries. Will the rocks smash

her if the saltwater lets her go? In the muted

submersion there’s an isolation. The air

 

bubbles rise in a tickle. Small fish nibble

her toes. It’s not like she’s fallen to pieces.

She’s just lost her reason, her name.

She’s the brain mush and muscle mash

 

of dark swirls in the clear green water,

the murky way men possess women. Her particles

bond to the tickles. The waves push her

forward with the incoming tide. She laughs

 

at what they call dissolution. Floating

face down she knows the amplitude of time.

Susan Ayres is the author of Walk Like the Bird Flies (Finishing Line, 2023) and Red Cardinal, White Snow (Main Street Rag, 2024). Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her poems and translations have appeared in numerous journals. She studied Spanish in Cuernavaca, Mexico, practiced karate for nine years with her son, and now spends time in Texas writing, collaging, teaching, and learning tai chi.

ICE CREAM ACTIVISM

by Alisha Goldblatt

after “The Emperor of Ice Cream” by Wallace Stevens

Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images via The New York Times.

Lick the sins of countries past,

the thrown stone, and gather your pints

in unbleached paperboard, crisp waffle cones.

Sell hazelnut play on words that

signal virtue and decadence, and

slick the tongue divine, smooth on spoon.

Let slingshots rile the bull market.

The only flavor is a flavor of fear.

In the modern white freezer, vats 

blister thumbs from the plastic scoop

whose spring-back lever neatly cleaves the ice.

The Green state, the Holstein cows, the fourteenth star.

Shirtsleeves cuffed, tough and chocolate stained

to show how cold we are, and numb.

Let the melting be violent and swift. 

The only flavor is the flavor of fear. 

Alisha Goldblatt is an English teacher and writer living in Portland, Maine with her two wonderful children and one lovely husband. She has published poems in the Common Ground Review, Literary Mama, and Burningword Literary Journal, among several others. Alisha writes whenever she can and gets published when she’s lucky. 

KNOWLEDGE FROM A POEM

by Howard Winn

Wallace Stevens would have known
what to make of the leader we find
ourselves with the man who is
really the emperor of ice cream
liquid only under certain icy temperatures
and much too saccharine to be permanent
and even true and self-appointed to
lead the selfish and the stupid
with minds that speak to the child-
like desires of self and the race
they believe is the right one to
lead and rule and to kill the
different, who dare to suggest
all human kind of many colors
counts equally in a democracy
that is more solid than ice cream.


Howard Winn has just had published a collection of his poems, many of which have been published in major literary journals. He is Professor of English at SUNY.

PANDEMIC

by Sandra Sidman Larson

After Wallace Stevens


The house is quiet.
What might be said
is never ending.

Straight backed,
nothing between
the headlines explained.

It is only a question for
the dog in his curl,
only a question
of instinct

telling you
wars will
be fought.
Regardless.

And viruses will spread
on the world’s breath.

You live
in a parallel universe.
Neither you nor your dog
will move mountains.

An algorithm
from some higher power
is needed.

You might find salvation
if you wait
until the last leaf falls
the dog speaks

or the skies open, filling
you with the vision
you long for.

This probably won’t happen.
Patience.
A future is still possible.
Plan for it.

Sandra Sidman Larson, twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, has three chapbooks to her credit: Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, Over a Threshold of Roots, (both Pudding House Press Publications) and Weekend Weather: Calendar Poems.  Her chapbook Ode to Beautiful was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016 and her first full manuscript by Main Street Rag Publications in 2017.  Her poetry has been published in many venues such as the Atlanta Review, Grey Sparrow, Earth’s Daughters, and TheNewVerse.News. As a poet with grandchildren and great nieces and nephews she longs for a world where children are safe.

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT AN IMPEACHMENT DEFENSE

by Edmund Conti

13 or so Republican whitebirds.

I
Among the Carpathian Mountains
The only moving thing
Was Hunter Biden.

II
I was of three minds
Like a Congress
In which there are Republicans, women and blacks.

III
The blackbird whistled in the autumn winds.
Someone find out who he is.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A quid and a quo and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blower whistling
Or just after.

VI
Reporters filled the White House
Listening,
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood?
The blackbird cackled
Indecipherable caws.

VII
O thin men of CNN,
Why do imagine golden birds?
Do you not see the corruption?
Where is my lawyer?
Rudy. Rudy. Rudy!

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
A beautiful phone call when I hear one
Is what I know.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light
I cry out for a red light
To stop everything.

XI
He rode over Connecticut Avenue
In his limousine,
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The Washington Wizards
For blackbirds.


XII
The river is moving.
Get over it!

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The Democrats sat
Waiting.


There are many ways of looking at Edmund Conti’s poetry. Right side up is best

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A CANDIDATE

by Edmund Conti

Image source: DonkeyHotey

I

Among thirteen showy Mountebanks
The only intelligent thing
Was the hair of the Donald.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three Muslims.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
What would Ayn Rand say?

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and  a blackbird
Are one for the books but not The Book.

V

I do not know which to prefer
The beauty of my  inflections
Or the beauty of my brother’s.
Or Dad whistling
Just after Reagan.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass
The shadow of the candidate
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
A Princeton man

VII
.
O thinking men of Ohio,
Why to do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how my resume
Puts to sleep
The women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the Bible is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the candidate flew off the radar
Only Senator McCain
Seemed to notice.

X

At the sight of motorists
Merging  after  a green light,
Even the bawds of gluttony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

She throws stones
From her glass house.
Once, a fear pierced her,
In that she mistook
The shadow of her imagination
For babies.

XII

The tide is turning.
The candidate  must be flying
But not back to Cuba.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon
It was snowing
Even in Louisiana
The candidate sat and waited
OHMMMMMM


Edmund Conti is a retired poet.  He is still looking for his golden parachute.

APRIL

by T.D. Peterson

Image source: The Project Gutenberg eBook, Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories, by M. T. W.

Cruel, I should
not mention our nation's
big celebration
of pecans, welding, and poetry
is nearing, a punishment
I believe, friends, that would hurt me
lots more than you
at the annual convention
of benevolent shindigs again this year.
Pecan pie for dessert though
if able to steel your wits through
haiku roundtable, known in some circles as the yawn
from on and on ... and the PowerPoint presentation:
Metallurgy in the Dirges of Wallace Stevens.


T.D. Peterson lives with Karen, and  dogs Honu and Sherpa in Lincoln, Nebraska, nowhere near the Mississippi.