THE CLINTON MARRIAGE

by Elizabeth Kerlikowske


They’re people we might know
vaguely fighting at a table across the restaurant.
Civilized. Seething. Giants.
I use two hands to cup jagged fragments of the ring she’s thrown
hollow as a chocolate rabbit, rich and dark inside
not cheap like a shower curtain rung
gleam clearly gold.

They stand up quickly.
He sits down.
I recognize them now
from D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths:
Hera and Zeus
(page 16).
She speaks simply with no rage;
fury compacted into smashed ring shards on our table.

He looks withered, not divine,
while she manifests an aura
(page 24).
She is pardoned anything by his infidelities.
Her torso wants to leave,
but her head and feet are rooted to him like Baucis and Philemon
(Bullfinch, Chapter VI).

Zeus begs without moving his lips.
The bags under his eyes empty,
ring reforming itself like the cop in Terminator,
remarrying her public finger.


Elizabeth Kerlikowske's fourth book of poetry Dominant Hand is now available from MayApple Press. She teaches at Kellogg Community College and runs the annual Poems That Ate Our Ears Contest in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
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A SANCTUARY NEAR THE IRRAWADDY

by Frank Joussen


Burma two weeks after Cyclone Nargis
and too few voices, too few photos coming through.
But don´t switch off, don´t turn away.
Use your imagination to face the bigger picture:
rice on the runway,
hunger in the ruined harbour of Rangoon;
medicine going to waste on the planes,
epidemics threatening the flooded delta.
And in between:
The military and its junta.

Don´t start wailing now,
“you see, there´s nothing we can do.”
When the water´s rising
you shouldn´t refuse to build an arch
only because you´re not a carpenter.
Inertia in the face of
natural and political disasters
is every dictator´s dream
is every peasant´s nightmare
come true.

I, for my part, am going to take a chance.
I´ve got a friend who´s got a friend
who knows a Burmese woman
working with the nuns and monks
of a monastery near the Irrawaddy,
a sanctuary on slightly higher ground,
a refuge for the desperate.
And if you say now,
“what a long line of people
to trust”, I agree.
But look at Christianity or Buddhism:
what a long line of religious leaders –
and what a success story.
Now, I´m not sure about
Heaven or Nirvana.
I don´t know much about the Irrawaddy, either.
But I´m going to learn – by doing.
Then we will see
if help can get through.


Editor's Note: Frank Joussen tells us he will be contributing to help the victims of Cyclone Nargis via The Australia Burma Community Development Network.


Frank Joussen is a German school teacher who actively supports NGOs in India, Brazil and Africa. His poems have appeared in numerous print publications in the U.S., Canada, Germany, G.B., Ireland, Australia and India. His ezine publications include The Pedestal Magazine, Raving Dove, Poets Against War, New Verse News (U.S.A.), Poets Against War Canada, The Stephen Gill Gazette, Big Pond Rumours (Canada), The Poetry Kit, Caught in the Net and the Measure (G.B.)
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A SIMPLE SIGN

by Becky Harblin


People First,
that’s the sign. Simple,
black with plain white letters.
It hangs on a construction trailer.
No bee, or bird, or bat in sight.

People First.
What People, all people?
People first above all else?
Pat my head and feed
some people’s pockets
today, and never mind tomorrow’s
earth. Our mother’s sons and daughters
can live elsewhere
on genetically
engineered corn or cake.

People first.
We the people?
Who do we think we are?
We are the first people
with all the claims on all the soil, all the air,
all the animals, and all the waters,
posting our simple sign,
with our motto my ‘people first’
above all else.
We are the mind, separate
and severed from our earth body.

After all, what comes first,
the money,
or the chickens with no eggs?


Becky Harblin is a sculptor who works in concrete on on her farm in upstate New York. Becky starts each day by writing haiku. Her poems have been published on New Verse News - 2007/04, 07, and 09. And in North Country Journal. Her other poems may be read on her Web site.
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A MOTHER'S DAY PROCLAMATION

by Mary Saracino


"Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have heart, whether our baptism be that of water or tears!”

--Mother's Day Proclamation, Julia Ward Howe, Boston , 1870

She couldn’t anticipate that we’d sip champagne at fancy brunches,
turn her fervor into a hallmark holiday

In the name of womanhood and of humanity

Julia Ward Howe set her soul upon a nobler task

We will not have our great questions decided by irrelevant agencies

Set her courage upon loftier aims

Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause

She spoke of blood and bone

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience

She invoked the language of the womb

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs

She sounded a clarion call for unity

I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limits of nationality may be appointed

Against all adversity, she audaciously sought to abolish war

to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international question,

She meant for all of us to mother the world

the great and general interests of peace.

She meant for us to mend our rivalries,
go to our rooms until we cooled off,
kiss and make up, the way she knew we could
if we’d just listen to our mothers


Mary Saracino is a novelist, poet and memoir-writer who lives in Denver , CO . Her most recent novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006) was a 2007 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist. Her short story, "Vicky's Secret" earned the 2007 Glass Woman Prize.
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WATERING THE TAXPAYER

by David Feela


How strange to think of giving up financial stress!
Suddenly I see so clearly my tax rebate check
against the bank’s steel vault!


David Feela is a poet, free-lance writer, writing instructor, book collector, and thrift store pirate. His work has appeared in regional and national publications, including High Country News’s "Writers’s on the Range," Mountain Gazette, and in the newspaper as a "Colorado Voice" for The Denver Post. He is a contributing editor and columnist for Inside/Outside Southwest and for The Four Corners Free Press. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments (Maverick Press), won the Southwesr Poet Series. A new poetry book, The Home Atlas, will be released in 2009.
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OUR FOOL

by Julian I. Taber


You are a licensed fool, empowered to bear
about the castle a bauble stick that’s dressed
with ass’s ears and tassels and fox’s hair.
You simper on about some noble quest,
and mutter curses, rhymes and scriptures
that spoil milk and mold the game on hooks
all hung away to foil dogs and vultures
that flock to feast around the heels of cooks.
Who gave you sanction, by what majority?
What moral virtue or tortured plot
stood the test of winning this authority,
or was your status fear coerced, or bought?
The kingdom decorates this gorgeous fool
whose toxic tune and dance grow sour now.
He is, in all, our fool, our hero, our tool,
our mirror of self, our light, our sacred cow.

But jokes by fools out-kill the cannon’s fire
and may dissolve in grief the whole empire.


Julian I. Taber is a retired clinical psychologist who specialized in treating addictions and was one of the first mental health professionals to work with pathological gamblers. He has been given two national awards for this work. His first book, Learning and Programmed Instruction, was published by Addison-Wesley. His next book, In the Shadow of Chance, was privately published by members of Gamblers Anonymous. Distributed by the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, it is used in counselor training workshops. He is author of Poems for the Rest of Us, a poetry chapbook.
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KARMA OF A VET

by Chris Crittenden


splinters from that devil time
hobble him, millimeters
mark his pace, and he sweats past noon,
desperate to flee
inching shadows.

splinters-shrapnel
of life, of tortured hope, killed prayer,
strewn flesh, they
are his kevlar now, absorbing
hellos-

no smile can breach
the nests of barbed broken trust
under his skin, the exploded
jumbled corpse-heap
of memories-

the bloody hooks of guilt
under his face, ashamed zits
pimpling his cheeks,
temples too.

whiskey made his eyes red-

the rest hails to the cries
of those who had no armor,
no weapon like the hum
of the Blackhawk

under his thighs-
pump pump pump
went the thick strapping gun
mounted on the monster's head,

pump pump pump,
he laughed and painted
cartoons of spread women
on the chassis,

marking his conquests,
fun until those shadows came-
until he felt the hands of the dead,
wet as tears, rigid as teeth,
stuffing him with cold maggots.


Chris Crittenden is an anguished hermit, all that crying in the wilderness crap. It means something to him, but there are lots of ignored prophets out there in the wilds of Maine. Some recent publications are from: Offcourse, Drunken Boat, Barnwood and Merge Poetry.
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THE END

by Jill Lange

For Milena who is tired of my poems about flowers.

One day, someone will ask, "What happened
to the country that existed in the middle
of the continent known as North America?"

The Almanac will describe:

     a spacious and magnificant land abundant in mountains,
     forests, prairies, and clear, fresh water;
     containing adequate fertile ground, oil, and gold;
     supporting a strong and affluent nation;
     an experiment in equality, offering the opportunity
     to transcend class.

     This form of government existed nearly four centuries.

Will historians mark the turn of the 21st century
as the point of critical mass? And say no one cared
as the government drilled, mined and cut away resources
from protected public lands? Will they remember those
who destroyed the last of the buffalo and wolf populations
as evil or ill advised? Will they remember any of this?

Will the children ask, "Did grass grow there? And trees?
Why would a bird fly through such dead land? What would it eat?"

"What" will historians say, "lead to the end of this powerful
and promising nation?" The people were intelligent, literate,
why did they not speak? Who will consider the surging masses--
educated unemployed struggling to survive, and those employed
working harder, earning less-- lacking the will to demand integrity
from their Congress?

Will the Almanac report an opposition both ridiculed: Michael Moore;
the Dixie Chicks; Jacques Chirac, President of France;
and ignored: Greenpeace; Joan Baez; John Brady Kiesling,
US Ambassador to Greece; the United Nations?

In the year 2175, will anyone light a candle and pause
to consider the difference if in the year 2000, in the State of Florida,
the ballots of minority welfare mothers and factory workers
had been counted?


Jill Lange is an attorney, naturalist and poet who prefers to be out on the trails and beaches of her favorite wild places. Her poems reflect her interest in environmental, civil rights and political causes.
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I’M NOT SEEING IT

by Dale Goodson


it’s not there

gone
like that bright cab I couldn’t hail

gone gone

I’m watching television
but not happily
what quality I expected has vanished
fair and balanced have mutated
who am I supposed to vote for
why
I can’t vote for a stick
can’t vote for a mallet
what happened to the good soul
the pedestrian
the philosopher king

come on, Mr. Murrow
peep out
peep out and rub my stomach
like mom used to do
between poker hands
then- sir, madam
then
I’ll sleep soundly in the shady nook of our bathtub
under the faucet
above the drain
listening
listening
listening

later
I’ll pull the only lever left to me


Dale Goodson is a writer from Seattle currently living in New York City.
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THE PRICE OF A MEXICAN

On the Cinco de Mayo, 2008


by Carmen Tafolla


Six thousand dollars, Texas courts declared,
a handful of years ago,
and often less
till a Connecticut oilman’s playing-cowboy son got the job of his lifetime.
Finding no one else to blame for billions squandered playing war
he pointed his well-protected rich-boy finger
South
at a border he had enjoyed only too well
and said, “It’s THEIR fault we haven’t won this war yet.
All those Mexicans crossing that border,
bringing terrorism with them.”
(Then checked real quick behind him to make sure
the ranch hands, cooks, carpenters, and gardeners back home
no longer had their un-papered cousins still among them.)

But now, the price has gone flat bottom.
“Patriots” make speeches to stop evil immigrant kids from attending school,
stop automatic citizenship of all “those” babies born here,
raid places where undocumented workers slave twelve hour days and
round them up, deport them (right before payday), split families apart,
and NEVER let that lady with the torch shine her light
ANYWHERE facing south.
The earthskinned natives of this continent cross snake-infested miles by foot
because there is no legal way to cross if you are poor
And recent European immigrants a century esconced,
screen out the longterm residents eight thousand years upon this land,
whose Mayan ancestors invented the same zero used now to build
a high-tech world where natives of America are
exploited
in convenient, carefully evaluated, rationally managed
calculations


Carmen Tafolla is one of the most anthologized of Latina writers, whose work has appeared in Southern Exposure, The Pawn Review, The Langdon Review of the Arts, and Cipactli, among others. The author of five books of poetry and numerous children’s works, Tafolla’s new collection of short stories, The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans will be released by Wings Press next month at the International Short Story Conference in Cork, Ireland. In 1999, she was awarded the Art of Peace Award for work supporting peace, justice, and human understanding.
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EARTH DAY

by Milton P. Ehrlich


Spring is here.
Earth Day volunteers hand me
a to do list to preserve life on earth.
I walk, drive a hybrid if I have to,
jiggle the thermostat cool
in winter and warm in summer.

I climb up Fort Lee Road ,
take a short-cut on the shoulder of the highway
to the G.W. Bridge to the best bakery
in Bergen County ..
An unending flow of behemoths race by
careening around the corner as if vying
for the finish line at the Indy 500.

On Earth Day, I’m pleased to pass a patch of pansies,
yellows and blues, a surviving island surrounded
by a sea of asphalt, grime and a discarded pair
of black panties lying in the driveway of Sunoco.
Exhaust fumes and grit fill foul air.
With a running nose I step over mangled hubcaps,
busted Budweisers, a cracked five gallon jug
of Deer Park pristine drinking water and a devilish
looking horned, ribbed sex toy that must have been
tossed soon after the panties hit the ground.

I long for sun-filled April mornings when blooming forsythias
were untarnished fences of pure yellow and robust
azalea’s pink and purple blossoms illuminated front yards
like a Florentine wedding celebration.
I savored soft April evenings when my girlfriend and I
parked my old Chevy in secluded parks and streets
where giant oaks and maples provided lots of cover.
All we craved was privacy for unleashing youthful passion
as our car shook and shuddered to the sweetest pleasure
of springtime lust, grounded to the earth as best we could.


Milton P. Ehrlich’s publications can be viewed at his website: Milton.Ehrlich.com.
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STATE OF THE UNION, MORNING AFTER

by Steve Myers


He’d come down off the mountain by Vera Cruz,
past Kozy Korner and the Jewish Community Center,
tracking the doe he’d wounded, and because

I’d been shoveling all morning, and had hit that rhythm
in the early going where the blade cuts down to asphalt
easy, I admitted I hadn’t noticed the spattering

over the snowbank. Since September he’d been marking her,
he said, when she and her fawns cropped his new azaleas—
long story short, a major buttache, a fucking menace

to the neighborhood was how he put it, roadkill waiting to happen, so with my OK—shouted
over his shoulder—he’d cross my property. Reload.


An English teacher, Steve Myers’ most recent collection, Memory’s Dog, appeared in Fall 2004 from FootHills Publishing. His poems have appeared in literary journals such as The Dark Horse, Ekphrasis, Paterson Literary Review, and Poetry East, as well as in Common Wealth, an anthology featuring contemporary Pennsylvania poets.
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I HAVE LOST MY SENSE OF HUMOR

by Silvia Brandon Pérez


I am hoping it is misplaced
among the orphaned socks,
in one of the bags in the upstairs
closet, or with the bottle lids,
in the cookie tin from France
which is all that remains from Louis-Marie's
visit; it may be on my gardening table,
outdoors with the soil and the shards
of broken pots, awaiting the end
of interminable winter,
ready to bloom with the azaleas
and the phalaenopses,
or in the file where my students'
hopeful composiciones
await grading.

It would not be permanently gone;
I misplace but rarely lose things;
it has been a faithful companion
through sleet, accidents,
the death of a parent, friends,
a betrayal by this or that one,
the day I entered the hut in Bahía Kino
where the women were making hamacas;
the small boy was inside in a wheelchair-
Mercedita told me they cannot afford
the medical care that might make him better;
he sits in the dark and listens to the radio,
there are always rancheras playing in the morning,
Verónica told me her hermana is working
for the compañía; the four dollars per day
is enough for basic food and transportation;
the companies have triple shifts and bring back
the goodies that we need for our negocios,
labels in all shapes and file folders in all the colors
of the rainbow; I remember it was with me
because I laughed when Carmencita told me
a joke about gringos and shepherds;
it came with me into Arizona,
despite the vigilantes searching
for the ilegales; it was waving in the evenings
out in Crawford, Texas, it was first missing in action
on the holidays, so much food and family
rejoicing, a fake Colgate smile for the friends
and children, it is somewhere
in the vegetable crisper, with the green peppers
and the romaine lettuce,
or in the garage, with last year's slogans...


Silvia Brandon Pérez is a bilingual poet, singer/songwriter, translator and political activist. For the past three years or longer, she has begun to write poems with her feet (through marches and demonstrations). She presently lives in the Bay Area, California.
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MAN BUILDS GUILLOTINE TO KILL HIMSELF

by Amy Holman


Maybe he suffered from killer migraines. Maybe
his neck itched. Maybe he had body issues.
Maybe he was guilty over being the executioner
in a past life. Maybe 41 is not the new 31. Maybe
it was mind over matter.


Amy Holman has been playing around with current news and/or headlines for a couple of years, here and there, including publications in Failbetter, Archaeology (online), Unpleasant Event Schedule, Rattapallax, Shade, and soon, on the Red Morning Press web site. She is the author of Wait For Me, I'm Gone, which won the 2004 Dream Horse Press annual chapbook prize. She writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and work freelance as a Literary Consultant out of her tiny apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
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