G.I. STUDENT

by Hugo De Sarro


We sat on the grass
and listened to the bells,
and I was elsewhere
pretending and listening
to a more disruptive sound.
There were whispers, soft laughter,
and white faces floating
in the dim and sensual light,
and I observed at a distance.

And when we walked in the dark
of the trees across the road
and held hands and didn’t talk
and stopped now and then to kiss,
I strolled a separate path,
unhanded and unkissed.

At the freshmen fire,
I felt no glow, no warmth.
I didn't sing; my voice wasn’t mine.
I knew I was miscast; too much had changed.


Hugo De Sarro is a former adjunct college English instructor. His work has been published in a variety of journals, including Eureka Literary Magazine, Absinthe Literary Review, Colorado Review, Pulsar, Oklahoma Literary Review, and others in the U.S. and internationally.

HOW TO UNDERSTAND WAR

by Liane Ellison Norman


Say one child dies.

The house that houses grief may stand intact,
books on the shelves, dishes in cupboards,
towels on racks, scraper on the porch,
where dirt from muddy shoes falls off, floors
swept.

Disease storms the door, rips up
the floor, interrogates incomprehensibly.

The house becomes a foreign place
to stumble through at night into a land
of numbed not-sleep, broken at last
by the dull thud just before the grenade
of morning explodes.
Then multiply.


Liane Ellison Norman won the Wisteria Prize in January 2007, awarded by Paper Journey Press, for her poem "What There'd Been." She has also published poems in the Madwomen in the Attic Anthology (2007), Pittsburgh Post Gazette and Pittsburgh City Paper. Her first book of poetry, The Duration of Grief, was published in 1990 by Smoke & Mirrors Press, which also published her novel, Stitches in Air: A Novel About Mozart's Mother (2001.) A biography, Hammer of Justice: Molly Rush and the Plowshares Eight (1990) and Simpleton Story: A Fairy Tale For a Nuclear Age (1985) were published by PPI Books. She has also published many essays, articles and reviews.

MONOPOLY MONOTONY

by Charles Frederickson


Monos = one Polein = to sell
        Lazy unfair as loaded dice
                Supply & demand virtual unreal estate
                        Fake moola GOing for broke

                        250 million gamesters hooked worldwide
                27 trance-elations languages including Braille
        Goal financial solvency while forcing
Opponents into bankruptcy assets lost

Little greenhouses red do drop-inns
        Railroaded to part with utilities
                Placing hope in Community Chest
                        Last Chance sub-prime mortgage foreclosed

                        Wall Street Boardwalk tumbling down
                Tarnishing In Gold Wet Rust
        Infestment broker blamed for indebtedness
Get out of jail Free


Dr. Charles Frederickson is a Swedish/American/Thai No Holds Bard who may be described as a Wired Weirdo, Independent Outsider or Wonkish Ex-spurt. This e-gadfly has wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poem for each presented on http://www.imagesof.8k.com. A member of World Poets Society, based in Greece, his unique poetic style has been featured in more than 200 publications on 6 continents. A gallery of his artwork can be viewed at Ascent Aspirations and his “PoeArtry” word and image combos appear regularly as Poem of the Day @ listenandbeheard.net.

FLASHER

by David Chorlton


You're minding your own business on a sunny day
when a man wearing a raincoat sidles up beside you
and before you have time to inquire
after his manner of dress he touches the sleeve
of your shirt with a Pssst to attract your attention.
He glances around, licks his lips, eyes you up and down
which makes you nervous, but he quickly acts
to reassure you that you're in no danger.
The weather today is idyllic. The stock market is in bloom
and there's a spring in everyone's step. Now this man
steps in front of you, peels back one side of his coat
to reveal a few inches of the lining. Do you want to see more?
Of course you do. So he shows you more. It's small print.
You didn't see this on TV and not this and not this
he salivates. You can't divert your attention
from the stories as he points to them, the one about
the victims of the war for which you're paying
and the one about who met with your senator before the vote
on health insurance. He's showing everything now,
breathing heavily. Here's surveillance, torture, contributions
to campaigns that never end, memos leaked from secret
meetings and a list of scapegoats to activate in case
of national emergency. And he's off. There he goes
gripping the edges of his coat and laughing the way
a person laughs when nothing is funny anymore. When he acts
in good conscience and when he leaves
it's you who feels dirty.


David Chorlton lives in Phoenix, writes and paints and keeps track of local wildlife. His newest book, The Porous Desert, was published this summer by FutureCycle Press, and testifies to his having internalised the desert during the past twenty-nine years. Some of his art work can be seen at http://www.davidchorlton.mysite.com/.

IN CARACAS

by Rochelle Ratner


He's getting buried in the morning! Ding dong! The bells are gonna chime. Pull out the stopper! Let's have a whopper! But get him to the morgue on time! He's twenty years old. His motorcycle lies by the side of the creek, and the water's rising rapidly. They might have killed him, but they didn't get the bike. His father and brothers drag his body further from the water, but it's nearly impossible in this mud. They've been waiting five hours now. The hearse is busy retrieving the bodies of other murdered sons, those who have no motorcycles left. The stench is becoming unbearable. Finally his father flags down a taxi. This is in Caracas. And there probably won't be any bells.


Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Leads (Otoliths Press, 2007), Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.

MY DOG CAME UP MISSING

by Nancy D. Tolson


Pigskin
Dogs dead
A thug in a football jersey
Money don’t buy sense nor dignity
Endorsements for leather sneakers should remain
Instead of time to think about you becoming more humane


Nancy D. Tolson is an associate professor who writes both academically and creatively. Her poetry and stories can be found in various journals (online and print) and books including Bum Rush the Page; A Def Poetry Jam (2002), Erotic Haiku (2004) and Bleeding on the Page: Women Writing About Menstruation (forthcoming).

COSMIC

by James Penha


Astronomers observing a distant region of space say they have discovered something truly remarkable: a whole lot of nothing. The enormous void, nearly a billion light years across, is empty of normal matter ... "What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the universe," [co-discoverer Liliya] Williams said. "It looks like something to be taken seriously,” said Brent Tully, a University of Hawaii astronomer.

--CBC News, August 24, 2007

A vast starless, spherical silence
emptied of gravity,
matter, reason,
normal

galactic articles, amendments,
justices, bills,
and rights
(balanced so infinitely before in orbits)

spreads astronomically across this universe—
a great nothing—
from Washington to Baghdad,
Afghanistan to Guantanamo.


James Penha edits The New Verse News. A new collection of his expatriate poems, No Bones to Carry, is due out from New Sins Press this summer. Info at jamespenha.com.

DON'T YOU DARE REST IN PEACE, GRACE PALEY

by Earl J Wilcox


You were as hard to contain as chicken with its head cut off.
Speaker for the dissident, fiction writer for those of us who

wanted to learn our craft from the inside out---such stunning
use of the vernacular. Then all that verve and vivid verisimilitude

like nobody before and not for a long time afterward. One of a kind,
Grace, we do all adore you, but we don’t want to make you an icon.

You’d come back and haunt us, chiding the hell out of us, telling
us how to make a poem out of your obit. Or a short story. Or show

us how to stroll through the park while reading our stuff to see if it worked. Today is the day, dear Grace, the time to try it, but I don’t

think I have the guts you did. I’m afraid the dogs will bark, the locals munching on feta or sipping on pinot grigio will run away and doves

will shit on me for trying. But if you think I should do it, by God, I’m going to do it. Here I go. Wish me luck. Don’t you dare rest in peace.


Earl J. Wilcox founded The Robert Frost Review, which he edited for more than a decade. His poetry was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

BEHIND THE LINES

by Steve De France


He lies on his side, eyes open--- watching.
They don’t focus---his gray eyes just watch you.
Hugging the legs of an L.A. bus bench, his arms
are tangled around the iron in an unnatural way.
Naked legs thrust out onto the sidewalk.
Most people walk around. A few step over.
The bench back above him is an advertisement.
(maybe for him a bomb shelter).It has a picture
of a fat black man. He looks well fed.
Above him in red letters are the words:
ATTORNEY LARRY H. PARKER GOT ME TEN MILLION.
In small letters a disclaimer. It states each case is unique.
And as in life, there are no guarantees.

A bus hisses & thunders to a stop.
An Indian or Pakistan woman
is lowered off in a wheel chair.
Her chair can't roll over the man.
He blocks her sidewalk. She screams.
Brown & black faces gather to poke
& punch the guy. He groans.

A Los Angeles police car shows up. Two cops.
A white female, a black male.
Politically correct.
Suspicion swells---the crowd stops chattering & scatters.
Half don't have identity papers. Others are inherently
afraid of any police.

The police guy's very short, the female's unusually tall.
I imagine them as lovers.
The cops sit the guy up. He starts coughing.
Suddenly he pukes on the female officer's leg.

They stand him up against the wall
at Washington & Grand.
traffic's tangling around them,
for a minute I thought they might shoot him.

Suddenly the man stands to attention and says:
"Is this Baghdad? Am I under arrest? What are the charges?
I am corporal Jones serial# 2yusmc…”
The small cop says, “It’s OK, soldier.
Almost gently---he touches his shoulder.
“There are no charges.”

The female reads his rights & with rubber gloves
leads him toward the police unit.
They drive off without conviction.
They'll leave him somewhere behind the lines---
where no one cares too much,
maybe Chinatown.


Steve De France is a widely published poet, playwright and essayist both in America and in Great Britain. His work has appeared in literary publications in Canada, France, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, India and Australia. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry in both 2002 and 2003. A few recent publications include The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Mid-American Poetry Review, Ambit, Atlantic, and The Sun. In England he won a Reader's Award in Orbis Magazine for his poem "Hawks." In the United States he won the Josh Samuels' Annual Poetry Competition (2003) for his poem: "The Man Who Loved Mermaids." His play The Killer had its world premiere at the Garage Theatre in Long Beach, California (Sept-October 2006). In 1999, he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Chapman University for his writing.

GIFT

by Nancy Kenney Connolly

for Barack Obama

You cannot marry a giraffe, his mother was told, think
of the children---what kind of son---

his mother was staring at clouds, seeing tufts of milkweed in the
mouths of white-winged doves, seeing rainbow seeds
conceiving a new breed of son who stood

above, head and shoulders,

and she watched his cottony lips
munching, munching mimosa leaves
of every flavor---
sweet and sour, au vin rouge, drenched with ketchup

sometimes bitter as an empty stomach---

and then she heard
him negotiate with gangly grace the underbrush, the strangling vines,
to flex his telescopic neck

and scan the sky for a far savanna where
rainbow seeds could sprout, he

leading others there.


Nancy Kenney Connolly lives in Austin TX, though she will soon move to the Chapel Hill area of NC. Her poetry has been published in such journals as Asheville Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Concho River Review, The Lyric, Sycamore Review, and many others. She has three books, most recently Second Wind, and a chapbook, I Take This World, winner of the Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest.

PAGE FIVE, COLUMN THREE

by John Grey


Had it been a president,
it might have made page one.
A governor, at least,
would have had his name
spelled correctly.
But fifty men
suffocated in the back of a truck,
not a passport between them,
must lump together as one
smelly, sweltering corpse
to fit the column inches.
The last line states,
the driver was arrested.
But it says nowhere
how the country got away.


John Grey's latest book is What Else Is There from Main Street Rag. He has been published recently in Agni, Worcester Review, South Carolina Review, and The Journal Of The American Medical Association.

CNN WORLD NEWS: DARFUR

by Bill Britton


Above an arc of black coffee,
ebony figures,
gnarled and wrapped
in dusty parchment,
lean across the screen,
their eyes charred by hunger,
their nurslings adrift
in a wasteland of withered breasts,
their bodies bent by indifferent winds
that swirl over umbered landscapes
and scourge this kindling of races
raked into barren corners
and lost in the gaze of camera lenses.


Bill Britton is copy editor for American Journal of Philology and is presently associated with a project designed to raise public awareness regarding the immediate dangers inherent to greenhouse gas emissions. His earlier therapeutic regimen as a commercial shellfish harvester has been replaced by daily rides on his bicycle and motorcycle, both of which serve to clear his brain and thus make way for new trivialities. A (faithful) former Marine, Bill is an adamant pacifist and atheist, an anathema to today's U.S. polity.

SIPPING PINOT GRIGIO AND ADMONISHING MARIGOLDS

by Earl J. Wilcox


Walking bare foot in our back yard wet from dew,
we survey our fifty-foot kingdom, where zesty
zinnias, scrawny marigolds coexist in a sunny spot.
The flowers--- with equal fertilizer, encouraging words
---remind us of an ongoing oncology concern
roiling about South Carolina’s spiritual health.

Revolutionaries have coexisted here for more
than three hundred years. Our landscape is
littered or decorated—depending on one’s view
of history---with battle sites and cemeteries.
Markers stake out gardens of hallowed ground.
A new revolutionary battle cry is heard in our
land: an ultra-conservative religious cult signals
its intent to invade, take control of the citizenry.

If this rapturous revolution explodes,
will our morning rituals be altered, can
we still choose sunny spots for planting,
walk unfettered among lush grass, hearty
or puny plants? Such trivial catechism is not
preached lightly by these heaven bounders
seeking to convert our population. In their
theology, Sundays may be only for church
going---no more back yard worship, sipping
pinot grigio, praising marigolds and zinnias.


Earl J. Wilcox founded The Robert Frost Review, which he edited for more than a decade. His poetry was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

DOLL PEDDLER

by Marcelle Kasprowicz


Which one do you want
I guarantee you will not find
a better assortment anywhere

The white crusader on the red horse
is obsolete
but still very popular
It also comes
as a black-garbed masked warrior
with curved sword
or belt of plastic
strapped around his waist
I have an overstock
in that line

On special today
I have this mud spattered trench doll
slumped over barbed wire
It used to be sold as
“Warrior to end all wars”

You're looking at the one
dearest to my heart
The one with the steel pot
and the parachute
It comes with its own landing craft
chocolate bars and chewing gum
Another option on this one
is a model of the Enola Gay

If you cannot find one you like
they're making new ones everyday
I have several on order
from this catalog
Look
this one comes with its jury-rigged armored MV
A nice touch
Don't you think

And then you have the grab-bag
with quite a nice selection
tribal warriors with spears or machetes
genocidal militia...


Marcelle Kasprowicz was born in Niort, France. She received an M.A. from UT at Austin. She is an Austin resident. She writes in English and French and also translates her French poems in English. In 2001 she was awarded first prize for her poem "House of Bones" in the Austin International Poetry Festival Anthology. She had her poems published in Ascent Aspiration, Farfelu, The Texas Poetry Calendar, Languageandculture.net (on line). She is the author of Organza Skies, a book of poems about the Davis Mountains of West Texas, published in 2005.