BENEATH THIS HEAT DOME

by W. Barrett Munn

AccuWeather, July 10, 2024

The red juiced rooster-shaped thermometer
crowed a whole octave above 100 again today.
Being forged from tin, feathers can’t be touched
unless a blister is accounted for by a salve
or some suitable soothing lotion.
In the evening beneath this heat dome,
I can see the Milky Way, and weigh in that
the temperature matches all 88 constellations,
explain how some are seen only in New Zealand

or elsewhere below the equator, forming 
constellations with names like Eridanus, Carina, 
Hydrus and Hydra, Octans and Pavo, and Sagittarius.. 
If only the smaller dipper would drip, or bigger tip 
over and spill; but the earth spins slowly, carefully, 
there's no spillage to share. In a few hours the world 
will turn, and we'll face the sun again; who knows 
how many more will die today beneath this dome, 
ferns left in the sun too long without being watered.

W. Barrett Munn is a graduate of The Institute of Children's Literature. His adult poetry has been published in Awakenings Review, San Antonio Review, The New Verse News, Copperfield Review Quarterly, Sequoia Speaks, and many others.

WHAT THEY TRIED IN MY SMALL TOWN

by Chad Parenteau

Glenn set a car on fire.
Surprisingly stuck around 
until the police arrived. 
 
Jesse got his girl pregnant.
Denied it. His family told hers
never contact him again. 
 
Tim’s Dad shot my aunt’s cat
from his window, kept guns
Tim grabbed from drawers.
 
Brian and James tried college.
Drank their first night. Thought 
licorice would conceal breath.
 
Some trolled on Facebook when 
Trump lost, angry that our world 
was bigger than where they lived.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston's long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His latest collection is The Collapsed Bookshelf. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, Nixes Mate Review, and the anthology Reimagine America from Vagabond Books. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

by Peggy Landsman

 

To be a Jew

has little to do

with you,

who you are,

what you believe in.

 

To be a Jew

has everything to do

with the world…

 

Is it big enough

for us

to live in?

 

Peggy Landsman is the author of a poetry chapbook, To-wit To-woo (Foothills Publishing). Her work has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including The Muse Strikes Back (Story Line Press), Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes (C&R Press), Nasty Women Poets (Lost Horse Press), Mezzo Cammin, The Ekphrastic Review, and a previous issue of The New Verse News. She lives in South Florida where she swims in the warm Atlantic Ocean every chance she gets.

ADVENT

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

for Nina Ciel Norgeot

Soon again
The baby will be born
The angels will sing
The shepherds
Grateful for the distraction
On a cold uneventful night
Will visit the poor family
In the stable
The magi will observe
An astronomical anomaly
Pack up their camels
And head toward its light
And we will be reminded once more
Of the news we so easily and often forget
That every newborn child
Redeems our ruined world

Buff Whitman-Bradley's poetry has appeared in many print and online journals, including Atlanta Review, Bryant Literary Review, Concho River Review, Crannog, december, Hawai'i Review, Pinyon, Rockhurst Review, Solstice, Third Wednesday and others. He has published several collections of poems, most recently, To Get Our Bearings in this Wheeling World. His interviews with soldiers who refused to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan became the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California with his wife Cynthia.