TEAR GAS AND WOAD

by Peleg Held

A nude protester—dubbed later “Naked Athena"—faces off against law enforcement officers during a protest against racial inequality in Portland, Ore., on July 18. Credit Nathan Howard/Reuters via The New York Times.

Omnes vero se Britanni vitro inficiunt, quod caeruleum efficit colorem. —Julius Caesar, The Gallic Wars


She fingers the blue on slowly, feralled in its wake;
she counts the steps from inside out the fenced-in fields of grace.

A vitrumned likeness wavers, a cats-lick from the rim,
in the tea cup in the circle of the saucer's closing ring.

Let the tongue tip shape the watchword in the shallows of its bow;
let sentry sleep and serpent sing beneath the shuddered vow.

Here is where their end is born; there is nothing at the gate
but ink and skin, the sylph herself: the cunt-directed state.

Caesar may misread you in the peripherals of his glass
or more likely overlook you, a needle in the grass

but as you plunge into his heel he will see the face
of what gives womb its dark and what gives blood its taste.


Peleg Held lives in Hiram, Maine with his partner and 21 chickens led by the world's tiniest rooster, Gavroche-That-Lives.

HOLIDAYS

by Katherine West 

Paleo Art by John Gurche

Today the wilderness is too big.
Even my own body
was made for an ancient
race created on a larger scale.
My hands are winter gloves,
gorilla hands, capable and waterproof.
My feet leave huge, deep prints
in the snow. My heavy head
is too big for my ski cap,
my thick arms too long for my coat.
I am a Neanderthal. I know what to do.
I have survived a lot. Wilderness and I
are the same size. Language
does not interest us. Nor love.

And yet, deep inside, resting under
my primitive heart like a baby,
is my modern self. And like a fetus
I curl in the warmth of the prehistoric
womb and suck my thumb.
I have bad dreams. I cry, but my tears
are absorbed by amniotic fluid
and my moans are muffled by blood.

I want to talk. I want to dance.
I want to read a book. Write a poem.
But everyone else is interested in survival—
their own, not mine. Like my splendid
cave woman, they eat meat. Not words.
Not views. Their dogs run off
with sheep innards hanging from their mouths.

They are right. I am wrong.
These holidays are about having enough
to eat. Not having enough to love.
We have come full circle—
grown thin and sensitive then
muscular and numb all over again.
My neighbor may freeze, but as long
as I don't, life is good.

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near the Gila Wilderness, where she writes poetry about the soul-importance of wilderness, performs it with her musician husband, Yaakov, and teaches seasonal poetry workshops that revolve around "wilderness writing." She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Lalitamba and Bombay Gin. Her poem "And Then the Sky" was recently nominated by TheNewVerse.News for a Pushcart Prize.

MOTHER OF ALL

by Mimi German

Marker Painting "PIETA-2" Black Pieta Ethnic Folk Art Black religious art African

The Mother

of all

Bombs



the

(space)

mother

(space)

of

(space)

ALL

(space)

bombs

The
Mother
of all
bombs

repeated chanted repeated chanted
sung liturgized canonized infantilized eroticized epitomized

into being

a mantra of man

the Mother
of All

Bombs

the mother of ALL bombs

chants the news so many times
that it becomes a thing

this

Mother

of all
Bombs



My
nipples
lactate
blood




tonight
cloaked inside
my Grandmother’s blanket
my mother’s mother,
i write
with mourning sickness
under my fingernails

the taste of burnt skin
inhabits my tongue

my grandmother
had a scar
on her abdomen
a c-section.

my mother
wanted
to enter life
feet first

the Mother
of ALL
Bombs

an
empty
womb
is
bleeding



mother
mother
mother
mother

mother of all
mother of ALL
Mother of ALL

bombs

goes the chant


mother
of dead child
on exploded soil
on Mother Earth
in the Mother Land
in Afghanistan


314,000,000 dollars worth
of
mothers
of
dead children
and
children
with
dead mothers

wrote a poem this morning
about shadows

while

the Mother
of All
Bombs

was chanting itself
into being

there are

no Mothers

of

Bombs


only
men
who
make
bombs
to
drop
them
on
Mothers.


Mimi German is a Queer Poet, Free Radical and an Activist for human rights in Portland, OR.

RESERVE

by William Aarnes

Image source: UniteWomen.org

She lies on their bed,
still dressed.  She tells him.

that in this country,
if—a big if—

the penis and clitoris
are private parts,

 the uterus is not.
“My womb,” she explains,

patting her abdomen,
“is public domain,

one of millions of reserves
set aside to attest

to some people’s belief
that any fetus

has more sanctity
than any mother.”

She rubs her brow.
“Gives me a headache.”


William Aarnes lives and writes in South Carolina.