GOING HOME

by Anne Harding Woodworth

Portrait of Grant Wahl by Dan Leydon. “Grant arrived home Monday, December 12, and this transition was handled with the utmost care and sensitivity… An autopsy was performed by the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office. Grant died from the rupture of a slowly growing, undetected ascending aortic aneurysm with hemopericardium. The chest pressure he experienced shortly before his death may have represented the initial symptoms. No amount of CPR or shocks would have saved him. His death was unrelated to COVID. His death was unrelated to vaccination status. There was nothing nefarious about his death. While the world knew Grant as a great journalist, we knew him as a man who approached the world with openness and love.” —Céline Gounder, Grant’s Wife, at Substack.

      In memory of Grant Wahl

The shoot-out wasn’t over

when you left.

But you know by now

that Argentina sent

The Netherlands packing,

a fitting end to a soccer game,

to any game, really,

which is all it is we’re playing.

You, one of the lucky ones—

you turned yours into a living.

Living. You lived to the max,

free to write of parties,

beautiful vistas, catastrophes,

trivia, friends, fears, premonitions.

Your wrote down your observations

of injustice as fluidly as those

of offside or of a shoot-out.

You left early, Grant, probably

just hours before you’d posted

your “Three Thoughts” on the game.

And the Netherlands went home.

Anne Harding Woodworth’s eighth book of poetry, Gender: Two Novellas in Verse, is a Literary Titan Silver Award Winner. Her book Trouble received the 2022 William Meredith Award for Poetry.

WHAT WE WANT TO HEAR

by Suzette Bishop

A former Border Patrol agent who confessed to killing four sex workers in 2018 was convicted Wednesday of capital murder, after jurors heard recordings of him telling investigators he was trying to "clean up the streets" of his South Texas hometown. —NPR, December 7, 2022

God loves you, she tells him

When he says he wants to kill himself,

And he shoots her

Along I-35,

The road I’ve taken

Countless times out of Laredo.

The woman who escapes his truck

And Border Patrol-issued gun

Leaves him grasping her shirt

At the gas station

Around the corner from me.

He lives in a nearby subdivision

In the newer, shinier part of town

Built on ranch land belonging to a Mexican family

When this was Mexico,

In litigation for years, sold for almost nothing.

She coaxes him to take her to get cigarettes

When the realization he’s the one who killed the others

Pricks her like cactus. 

San Bernardo where he picked up

Prostitutes is further south

Off I-35.

You’ll find rundown motels,

Mid-century nostalgia,

A few restaurants

Including at least one that served both food

And, unbeknownst to us, women,

Another where the waiter

Would wait until my husband went to the restroom

To meet my eyes,

Nod knowingly, even walked over once

To tell me I’m pretty,

Running after us one evening in the parking lot

With some special smoothie

He made just for me.

He was gone the next time we went there.

Spilling out of Olive Garden

At the mall across the highway

After a work luncheon,

A woman begged us for money.

I gave her my styrofoam of leftovers,

But I knew it wasn’t enough,

No shade offered from the palm trees

Cordoning off our oasis from

Heroin alley,

This road,

Bait,

This moment of telling her,

You could be my wife, now,

Live in this house she left,

Following the underpasses

And drainage ditches.

Flooring it

To a nicer road built on stolen desert.

When the woman escapes,

He drives home, arms the place,

Guns and ammo laid out on the kitchen island’s granite

And speeds out onto the highway again,

The section where you can hear teens

Drag race.

He catches two more victims

Before he’s caught,

Throwing their bodies like trash

Along the highway.

He said it was to clean up the streets.

A student wrote about one victim, a relative,

Addicted, her children were raised by her mother,

Rehab hadn’t worked,

But they still loved her,

Told the children she loved them

And would get better,

Couldn’t believe how she’d died,

Left alone in buzzing scrub brush.

On Sundays, teenagers

show off their muscle cars

Along San Bernardo,

Police having to direct traffic,

Kids calling to each other out the windows,

Sometimes saying everything we want to hear,

Probably some of these women, once.

Suzette Bishop has published three poetry books and two chapbooks, including her most recent chapbook, Jaguar’s Book of the Dead. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. She lives with her husband and two cats. 

P-22

by Barbara Parchim

The famous Hollywood-roaming mountain lion known as P-22 is drastically underweight and was probably struck and injured by a car, wildlife experts who conducted a health examination on the big cat said on Tuesday. The male cougar, whose killing of a leashed dog has raised concerns about its behavior, probably will not be released back into the wild and could be sent to an animal sanctuary or euthanized, depending on its health, the California department of fish and wildlife said. —The Guardian, December 14, 2022

you overstepped your allotment

designated when we took over the landscape—

 

wandered into the backyards of

designer dogs that scamper like prey

 

crossed the wrong freeways—

a concrete grid overlaid on the land

 

meaningless, artificial boundaries

not mapped in your DNA

 

how could you know

only certain spaces were allowed?

 

how solitary your existence

far from the Santa Monica mountains

 

the occasional park,

a checkerboard of wild between our constructs

 

what happens next is our decision

as we decide everything in our dominion

 

your celebrity may evoke some empathy

as the wild slips away

 

 

Barbara Parchim lives on a small farm in southwest Oregon.  She enjoys gardening and hiking and volunteered for several years at a wildlife rehabilitation facility.  Her poems have appeared in Allegro, Isacoustic, The NewVerse News, Turtle Island Quarterly, Windfall, Front Porch Review, Jefferson Journal, Cirque, and others.  Her first book What Remains was published by Flowstone Press in October, 2021.

A COLLAGE OF HANGINGS

by Lisa St. John

Iran executed a second prisoner on Monday convicted over crimes committed during the nationwide protests challenging the country’s theocracy, publicly hanging him from a construction crane as a gruesome warning to others.  The execution of Majidreza Rahnavard came less than a month after he allegedly fatally stabbed two members of a paramilitary force after purportedly becoming angry about security forces killing protesters. The development underscores the speed at which Iran now carries out death sentences handed down for those detained in the demonstrations that the government hopes to put down. Activists warn that at least a dozen people already have been sentenced to death in closed-door hearings. At least 488 people have been killed since the demonstrations began in mid-September, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that’s been monitoring the protests. Another 18,200 people have been detained by authorities. Iran’s Mizan news agency, which falls under the country’s judiciary, published a collage of images of Rahnavard hanging from the crane, his hands and feet bound, a black bag over his head. AP, December 13, 2022

His hands and feet bound,

a black bag over his head.

 

Majidreza Rahnavard, we won’t remember

your name. But your death will add

to the gruesome pictures of memory.

 

He had been convicted on the charge of 

“moharebeh,” of waging war against god.

 

Evidently, god can’t take care of himself,

fight his own battles, or defend his

own honor. 

 

Typically, those condemned are alive

as the crane lifts them off their feet

 

What lesson would be learned otherwise? 

Those left “on the wall” of The Handmaid’s Tale

also had their heads bagged. 

Just fiction.

 

“But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, 

was still breathing...” Night by Elie Wiesel 

Just history.

 

Just a girl who wouldn’t wear a scarf,

no pubic hanging, killed in custody

mysteriously. 

 

At least 488 people have been killed since

the demonstrations began… another 18,200

people have been detained.

 

Just news.

Lisa St. John is a writer living in upstate New York. Her chapbook Ponderings is available on her website. Her first full-length book of poetry Swallowing Stones is forthcoming from Kelsay Day Books. Lisa has published her poetry in journals such as The Poet’s Billow, Light, Entropy Magazine, The Poetry Distillery, Poets Reading the News, and Chronogram Magazine. Lisa’s nonfiction work has been published in Grief Digest and Sleet Magazine.

HISTORY RECALLS

by Tom Bauer

Everybody knew she was a trojan horse.

(Just insert and get the power you need!)

All that busy unity behind the scenes;

one big team serving money, not People.

I guess the game is fun, but science shows

the best games work for all players, not just

the handful who get to make all the rules.

And this is a sore game of lies, of values

used for misdirection; heartfelt statements

we stepped in and now must wipe off our shoes.

But even as I curse them for ice skating

over the faces of those who watch, like me,

I wonder, despite my outrage and disgust:

what are they gonna do next to line their nests?

Tom Bauer's an old coot who lives in Montreal and plays a lot of board games.

DIASPORA FOOTBALL

by Indran Amirthanayagam

It was a difficult day at the Qatar World Cup. Our American ambassadors, 

Argentina and Brazil, both with attacking teams who strike as lightning 

and sit back as well controlling the ball, dribbling it back and forth, 

 

wearing the patience down of their European opponents—had leads 

vanish with minutes to go, the European powers striking back, 

and in the case of Croatia pulling off the upset, mighty Brazil losing 

 

on penalties. But Argentina survived. Shot its penalties with clinical 

power, and their goalkeeper used his brain to anticipate the directions 

of the Dutch kicks. I am writing this to remember a Friday in December 

 

when honor lay on the field, and glory, and also bitter defeat. This is 

the field of battle, the football field, the field of dreams, the field of 

identities, how if our country loses we shift then to its natural neighbor, 

 

overcoming regional rivalries in the name of a greater continental unity. 

Imagine how Moroccans feel now as they represent their country and all 

of Africa and all migrants too, as many have grown up away from 

 

their kingdom, in exile, when they strap on their boots to play Portugal 

in the next quarterfinal? My documenting pen will dress with them. 

The diaspora team, my friend calls not only Morocco but France, 

 

England and many others. Football is the identity card, 

the passport. Borders are fluid, 2022 composed of a motley crew 

of border crossers, migrant wonders, football envoys.

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is the newest collection of Indran's own poems. Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

BLEEDING

by Mykyta Ryzhykh 

All non-critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Odesa was without power after Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities, leaving 1.5 million people without power, officials said on Saturday. All non-critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Odesa was without power after Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities, leaving 1.5 million people without power, officials said on Saturday. —Reuters, December 10, 2022

Today, we are imposing sanctions on three Russian entities connected to Moscow’s growing military relationship with Tehran – a relationship that includes the transfer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) from Iran. The Kremlin is deploying these UAVs against Ukraine, including in large-scale attacks on civilian infrastructure. —US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, December 10, 2022

while the metal birds of death 

want to peck out our eyes 

 

bald eagle of flesh and blood 

flies towards winter

 

frosts are not terrible for 

those who are bleeding

Mykyta Ryzhykh from Ukraine (Nova Kakhovka Citу). Winner of the “Art Against Drugs” international competition. Published in the journals Dzvin, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route , Better Than Starbucks, Littoral Press.

ODE TO MY TESLA

by Timothy Hennum

Oh how shiny she sits,
a cord thick as my wrist dangles from her hip.
Oh how silent she moves,
her screen—flat as a flag—glows bright as the moon.
Perched behind her wheel, parked and alone,
I scroll through their tweets and scowl at my phone.
How easy it would be to delete my account;
to push a few buttons and finally be out.
But what about her?
Now these smooth lines, this warm screen, her sweet purrs
do not bring me joy.
And no longer can I look at her, her screen a decoy
mounted to that dark dash, that inflated hood, those obnoxious rims, 
and not think of him.

Timothy Hennum is a writer and a physical therapist living in Minneapolis with his wife and two daughters. His writing has appeared in Your Fire Magazine, Intrinsick Magazine, Gear Junkie Magazine, and the Minneapolis StarTribune. 

SPITBALL MASTER HAIKU

Homage to Gaylord Perry, 1938-2022

CooperTunes

by Earl J. Wilcox

Stiches seams       grip tight
Gaylord’s secret sauce   in flight
Cy Young       Saliva 

 
Earl Wilcox writes from South Carolina, up the road from where Gaylord Perry spent his  last years teaching his grandsons the fine arts of pitching.

CROSSING THE DNIEPER

by W. Luther Jett

The small motor boat carrying Tetiana Svitlova and her husband, Vladyslav Svitlov, was hit by gunfire as the couple crossed the Dnieper River on Sunday. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post, December 6, 2022)

For Tetiana Svitlova, 75, who was shot by a sniper while crossing the Dnieper from Russian-occupied territory to liberated Kherson.

There is snow on the boat now

where the woman fell

while crossing the river two hours

ago—where the woman

in that moment reached out for

her husband—two

hours ago mid-river the woman

fell—snow covers

the boat—the place where she fell

crossing the grey river—

she was shot—have we mentioned?—

that is why she fell—

crossing the river now is dangerous—

there is snow now

to cover the place she—the woman—

bled out crossing

the river—on her way to safety

W. Luther Jett is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland and a retired special educator. His poetry has been published in numerous journals as well as several anthologies. He is the author of five poetry chapbooks: Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father (Finishing Line Press, 2015), Our Situation (Prolific Press, 2018), Everyone Disappears (Finishing Line Press, 2020), Little Wars (Kelsay Books, 2021), and Watchman, What of the Night? (CW Books, 2022).

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE...

by Darcy Grabenstein

 

They plastered their hate-filled propaganda
on walls, on posts, anywhere, everywhere
They started with boycotts of businesses
They isolated us, segregated in ghettos
They labeled us with yellow patches
They pilfered property, possessions
They ruthlessly humiliated us
They herded us like cattle
to concentration camps
Working us mercilessly
through illness, hunger
The cruelly conducted
medical experiments
They implemented
the ”Final Solution”
Until we could not
gasp for breath.
They attempt coups at the Capitol
and across the pond in Germany
 
They slaughter innocents
in nightclubs
synagogues
mosques
churches
 
They ban books
they ban choices
they ban love
 
They’re just warming up.
 
And that chills me to my bones.

Always a lover of words, Darcy Grabenstein started her career in journalism. Now a marketing writer by profession, she turns to poetry as a creative outlet. Darcy is a contributing writer for the thINKingDANCE. She has had works published on RitualWell.org and in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

REVENGE

by Howie Good

Antisemitic hate crimes in New York City more than doubled last month from a year ago, NYPD data show — a troubling trend that unfolded against a backdrop of high-profile figures making headlines for remarks targeting Jewish people. —New York Daily News, December 5, 2022

The nicely dressed grandmother

seated next to me at the holiday concert

began to complain under her breath

when the high school orchestra

broke into the Chanukkah song “Dreidel Dreidel”

after 40 minutes of Christmas music.

It’s a good thing I’m accustomed

since an early age to cringing inside.

My father, after the factory permanently closed,

would just stare at the TV for hours,

a broken man, morose, prostrate, unshaven.

Out of the corner of my eye

I examined the still muttering woman

and for once wished that life

was like the plot of one of those

direct-to-video Bruce Willis actioners—

blah blah, pow pow.

Howie Good's latest poetry book is The Horses Were Beautiful (2022), available from Grey Book Press. Redhawk Publications is publishing his collection Swimming in Oblivion: New and Selected Poems later this year.

WHITE PAPER

by Alexis Krasilovsky

Photocollage by the poet.

Blank sheets of white paper were a symbol of defiance over the weekend as Chinese protesters braved likely prosecution to openly oppose the government's policy of zero tolerance for COVID and public dissent. —Newsweek, November 28, 2022.  China has rolled back its most severe Covid policies—including forcing people into quarantine camps—just a week after landmark protests against the strict controls. —BBC, December 7, 2022

the white hibiscus

moves in solidarity

with the protesters

who hoist white posters

of invisible slogans

perfumed with freedom.

Alexis Krasilovsky was born in Alaska, survived sexual assault at gunpoint, knows what it’s like to be completely deaf, and has traveled to over twenty countries. Educated at Yale and CalArts (MFA Film/Video), Krasilovsky is the author of “Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems” (Cyberwit – finalist, 2022 International Book Awards) and other books. Her award-winning poetry film, "The Parking Lot of Dreams" (2021) has screened in over a dozen festivals worldwide.

OLD MAN IN WINTER

by George Salamon

CBS News Sacramento

You live long enough

you're no longer afraid

of death, but of what

life can still do to you.

George Salamon lives in St. Louis, MO, and had his 88th birthday in October.