KOMMENO

by Janice D. Soderling

On August 16, 1943, the Greek village of Kommeno was destroyed, and one hundred fifty villagers massacred. 74 were children under the age of 10. Photo source: Kommeno. A narrative reconstruction of a war crime committed by the Wehrmacht in Greece.

Always they are with us in this room
watching as we laugh or write or rest.
Some never learned to speak. Like vaporous spume
they drift, small shades: dry-eyed, perplexed, distressed.
Months pass, and years, and decades, still they wait
for honest news, and even the littlest
ones keep watch. Men who exterminate
small babes like rats must surely have good cause.
One day, one may drop by to motivate
the deed—mistake or joke or small-print clause?
The little sprites want only to know why
they had to die.


Janice D. Soderling has often had poems at NVN. She is a poet, writer and translator whose work can be read in many print and online magazines and anthologies.

ANUBIS SPEAKS

by Anne Harding Woodworth




I will embalm the gun,
dip it in antimony salts and mercury
to preserve the image
of a life that is no more.
I will detach the grip and the trigger.
Both have fingerprints,
which cannot be erased
thoroughly, but I will try
before I reattach the parts to the body.
History must be able
to interpret the design
and the intention
centuries from now.
I will hook the bullet, pull it
through the barrel nose,
steep it in formaldehyde
and return it to its chamber.
History must be able
to decipher the bullet’s use
as the empowering heart
of a cherished anatomy.
I will wrap the gun in linen strips,
brush them with sweet resin
to conceal the stench of death.
And I will place tokens
within the wrappings,
a sword, a toy, a raven,
a rose, a razorblade.
This is my duty:
to prepare a thing for the journey
across the river,
where it will be judged
for its deeds on earth.


Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of four books of poetry and two chapbooks. Her work is widely published in literary journals and on line in the U.S. and abroad. She divides her time between the mountains of Western North Carolina and Washington, D.C., where she is a member of the poetry board at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

MADE IN CHINA

by George Salamon

  My granddaughter's kitten stayed with me for a week.
  Her name is Mila.
  She's affectionate and playful.
  I bought her a furry toy mouse at the market.
  She batted it around the living room floor.
  She hid it under a dining room chair.

  She got bored and nestled against my arm next to the computer.
  I picked up the mouse.
  "Made in China," it said on the label.
  Where else, I thought.
  But I couldn't imagine the worker who made Mila's mouse.
  I couldn't see her face, hear her voice, watch her walk.

  I wanted to talk with her.
  What toys did she have when she was little?
  Did she love or hate school?
  Was her third grade teacher like Miss Grundy?
  What did she and her friends laugh about?
  Did her life turn out as she expected?

  I'll never find answers to my questions.
  In the global economy, human voices and fingerprints disappear.
  Transactions mesh into a seamless web without them.
  It's better, that way, for Return on Investment.
  Hansel and Gretel could follow pebbles home to human dwelling.
  There's no path for going back anymore.


George Salamon lives and writes in St. Louis, Missouri.

THE SINGED FLAG AT THE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

by Tricia Knoll

"Two of the hallmarks of a Southern Oregon summer are heated theatrical performances in Ashland and wildfires in the surrounding forests. This week those two are at odds, as the smoke from numerous area fires has led to the cancellation of performances on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s open-air Elizabethan Stage." --Oregon Live, August 1, 2013
Images: Pisanio and Imogen painted by J. Hoppner (1801); Incident Management Team fire photo.

Wild fire tears forward on the Rogue
River, tickling Zane Grey’s one-room
cabin of hand-hewed logs,
in the purple sage.

Smoke jumpers, helicopters lifting
the weight of water, scorch, death
of fire fighters, children in face masks --
the West burns and those at risk
do not breathe. Homeowners pack
again, photos, pets, and wills.

Today’s dragons breathe names
of Big Windy northwest of Merlin,
a Whiskey complex, Brimstone.
Name the culprit lightning,
name the culprit record-breaking
hot summer days without rain.
Name a culprit human hand.

The actors shut the outdoor Shakespeare
plays in Ashland. No white flag
calls out merry troupes to juggle.
Cymbeline’s Imogen pockets her dark letter
asking for a horse with wings,
not tonight when the sky
is blight and ash.

The newspaper asks for more
than the National Guard, for more
from the government, and we,
the comfortable elsewhere, ride home
in guzzle cars to sit in Adirondack
chairs, content to do less
to clear the air of residue
that got us here.


Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet. She has endured fires near Sisters, Oregon on two occasions.

CALIFORNIA TEEN RESCUED, MURDERER DECEASED

by Kristina England

Members of the extended Anderson and Saincome families, with James Lee DiMaggio (right) are seen in this June 2011 photo provided to the AP by Andrea Saincome. James Lee DiMaggio was killed after being sought in the abduction of Hannah Anderson (reclining). Ethan Anderson (on floor, left) was found killed along with his mother. Source: New York Daily News.

My uncle leans forward on the couch,
the news flashing across the screen.
A cop for over twenty years,
his own son a murderer -
lust, anger, drugs, the boy’s undoing.

The reports read Dead... and Alive,
but I’ve seen the ones who make it
the victims’ and murderer’s families,
what they had before,
what they thought they had,
all some distorted, unobtainable past.

My uncle’s son, caught, arrested,
locked up, then let go,
walks the streets somewhere,
neither man nor ghost,
dead or alive.

His victims - one deceased, one rescued -
nothing more than archived captions,
some story that passed away,
when the next one and the next one
and the very next one
came to life.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her poetry and fiction is published or forthcoming in Decades Review, Gargoyle, Linguistic Erosion, The Story Shack, and other journals.

AMERICA'S GOD (A LULLABY)

by David Breeden

“It was all God’s plan.” --George Zimmerman

In the United States, God
loves white and violent, it
seems; loves what’s inhuman,
it looks. Look at His plan

working as it does. In the
US, God loves those laws
that fill the jails, that fill
the pockets of the rich,

it appears. Just look. He--
yes, must be a He--gives
a vindictive wink and nod
to the violent, as long as

it’s Christian.

In the United States, God
likes the way Florida does it.
Loves the way Texas does
people in. Likes his women
on a short leash; his people

poor; likes violence and guns
a lot. In the United States, God
loves his guys white. Just look.
See how things are in the plan.

In the United States, God likes
many of his children murdered.
Some in prison. Most poor. Just
look at the justice. It’s some

God’s plan.


Rev. Dr. David Breeden has a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a Ph.D. from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi, with additional study in writing and Buddhism at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He also has a Master of Divinity degree from Meadville Lombard Theological School. Rev. David is Senior Minister at First Unitarian Society, Minneapolis. The author of many books, tweets at @dbreeden.

OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE

by Richard O'Connell

Image source: http://www.timetrips.co.uk/gw%20armour.htm

                            from the Greek of Archilochus

What if I thew away my ox-hide shield
And ran to save my skin. Let some Thracian strut
When he picks it up. Fanatics die on the spot.
No professional's about to lose his butt.

      
Richard O’Connell lives in Hillsboro Beach, Florida. Collections of his poetry include RetroWorlds, Simulations, Voyages and The Bright Tower, all published by the University of Salzburg Press (now Poetry Salzburg). His poems have appeared in  The Paris Review,  The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Measure, Margie, National Review, The Texas Review, Acumen, The Formalist,  Light, etc.

RELICS

by Anne Harding Woodworth

“We have found a holy thing in a chest,”

said lead archaeologist Professor Gülgün Köroğlu.

“It is a piece of a cross.” UPI.com, August 2, 2013

Photos, undated and curled,
4x6s, 5x7s, lie out in the garage
in a metal chest, some framed, some loose,
some stained with wine and oil,
places miles away with names forgotten,
forgotten eyes and smiles,
pieces of you and me that have lain buried
decades, centuries, millennia,
to be remembered in swabs of saliva
from the inside of a cheek someday.
They will ask: who were our mothers?
when did we live? how did we die?
From the photos nothing will be known
of cracked ribs, nothing of teeth
(though they’ll say we ate grains, of course).
And what about the nutshells
at the bottom of the chest?
Carbon 14 will determine that squirrels
entered it a half-life ago. And surely
it’s the squirrels that gnawed
that rough slat of wood among the photos
with its ancient glyphs of black ink along the edge,
a stick that measured, or so they will say,
the height and width of a holy thing.


Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of four books of poetry and two chapbooks. Her work is widely published in literary journals and on line in the U.S. and abroad. She divides her time between the mountains of Western North Carolina and Washington, D.C., where she is a member of the poetry board at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

RACE

by Howard Winn

Micah Kogo of Kenya captures first place in the Beach to Beacon 10K road race in Cape Elizabeth Saturday. Kogo won his second Beach to Beacon race in three years with a time of 28 minutes, 3.2 seconds. --Ernie Clark, Bangor Daily News, Aug. 03, 2013. Image source: http://www.beach2beacon.org/

There are no black faces in my town
in the suburbs of Portland, Maine,
except when they run the marathon
from Crescent Beach to the Portland Head
lighthouse where usually vacationers leave
the tour buses to admire the wild waves
whitening  the Atlantic water
against the splintering rocks of our
craggy Casco Bay.
On our street of young couples
with the requisite two small children,
the portable basketball hoops and backboards,
scooters and skateboards,
it is tricky to tell them apart
which is what is overheard when
they speak of the black faces
that appear once a year.
The hard young men who bicycle
in spandex and stream-lined helmets
after work and on week-ends,
leave for labor in similar SUVs
at about the same time each work day.
Young toned wives with careful hair
watch the exuberant toddlers
and run together in packs
on Shore Road during their nap time
or when the Granny is in charge.
But never that one time of year
when the Africans from Kenya,
Ethiopia, Ghana, Congo or South Africa,
male and female, race the road
from Beach to Beacon and
win for the money to send home
to hungry villagers who export
their beloved sons and daughters
world-wide to run the marathons
for white Western money.
Afterwards what is left
is the newspaper reports,
in paper and on the Internet,
the signs along the roads announcing
the mileage covered and to come,
the washable paint on the highways
that make beginning and end
of our world famous race
until it is rained away,
the bleachers in the park
and the portable potties for
observer and participant.
The signs, white and red,
announcing the event
and warning of street closings
will come down eventually, detached
and stored by the Town of Cape Elizabeth
for the competition next year
when black faces will appear
to run and win that race again.


Most recently Howard Winn had poems and fiction published in The Dalhousie Review, Descant (Canada), Cactus Heart, Main Street Rag, Caduceus, Burning Word,  Pennsylvania Literary Journal. Southern Humanities Review, Cutting Edgz and Borderlands. His B. A. is from Vassar College. His graduate degree is from the Writing Program at Stanford University. His doctoral work was done at New York University. He is a State University of New York faculty member.

OF COURSE

by Gabriel Squailia

Of course there are atheists in foxholes, 

they're all suicidal, and of course there are

two snowflakes shaped the same, 

they just melted, and Schrödinger's cat

is observing you too, you know, 

and she sees a little lie in every truth you tell

and a great big truth in all the lies, 

and I'm the atheist in the foxhole, 

and I'm also a liar, so thank God

the new Pope says it's okay.

Gabriel Squailia lives in the Berkshires, writing novels and poems while working as DJ BFG.

THRENODY (FOR THE VICTIMS OF HIROSHIMA)

by Howie Good

It’s years later,
but still August,

the sky erupting
in abrupt reds
& parsimonious purples

like God’s own
fiery flesh,

until nowhere
is everywhere,

& our faces are flecked
with sharp grains
of martyrs’ bones.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.

DIFFICULT TO SWALLOW

by Buff Whitman-Bradley





Lakota grandmothers in South Dakota
Report that the Department of Social Services
Illegally places Lakota children in foster care
Away from their communities
And extended families
And that those children are continually dosed
With an array of psychoactive drugs
Thus providing pharmaceutical corporations
With a lucrative market
As well as a ready supply of guinea pigs.
When two Lakota children’s noses
Would not stop bleeding
From the medications they he were being fed
Instead of discontinuing the drugs
Doctors sutured their nostrils shut

I know there are those who believe
That humanity is making moral progress
But I see progress in the opposite direction:
As the forces of accumulation and profit grind on
They have become ever more monstrously creative
And efficient
And effective
At mangling lives
Decimating communities
Torturing bodies
And pulverizing spirits.

The good Dr. King told us
That the moral arc of the universe
Bends toward justice
But if I were a little Lakota boy
Stolen from my people
Used as a lab rat
Gagging on the blood pooled in my throat
From a sewn-up nose
I might find that
Difficult to swallow.


Buff Whitman-Bradley is the author of four books of poetry, b. eagle, poet; The Honey Philosophies; Realpolitik; and When Compasses Grow Old; and the chapbook, Everything Wakes Up! His poetry has appeared in many print and online journals. He is also co-editor, with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley and Sarah Lazare, of the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War.  He has co-produced/directed two documentary films, the award-winning Outside In (with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley) and Por Que Venimos (with the MIRC Film Collective).  He lives in northern California.

LOVING SCRABBLE

by Tricia Knoll

"Hasbro pulls its support of Scrabble's organizing tournament organization -- the National Scrabble Association". --NY Times, July 14, 2013

Words for love: Japanese 2, Sanskrit 96, Ancient Persian 80, Greek 3, English 1

She, sidewinding from the center star: TWOS.

he building from sibilance, up to down: ONES

she slides, pushing tiles over and under ONES, LONESOME

grabbing g, he forges EGO

she built LOVE from loneliness

and he VAGUE from love

she bridges loneliness to vague: NAG

he pounced on VAGUE to USURP

and she that P for PAPA

he pushed TIT up to TWOS

triumph in hard combinations
bedding down together as if
WOO and WED
DARLING and ADORE
VEIL and LACE
TUX and TINGLE and COMMIT
outshone
YES down from YOKE
BUZZ and BLESS and BED,
JOY, JISM, SORROW, and SPARK
EX (triple word score) and SUE and LEFT
FIRE from IRE, ACE hung from AWE
STALE and MATE

she’s left at end with an unplaceable U
he with I


Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet who loves word games, plays several on her I-Phone and has known some scarey competitive women Scrabble players.

THE PENIS

by Cally Conan-Davies





I don't have one, or rather the one I have

hides discreetly in its little hood. As they should.

A piquant pea, appropriately kept to weather

all kinds of climates hot to chill, with folds

and layers to peel back. And a hook. When laid bare

it won't grow to a tree for all the world to see,

unless of course I'm really a spotted hyena

in which case it would serve a multitude

of purposeful functions: pee, nooky, parturition

(apparently, mine warms to big words though);

and it could be that because it doesn't grow

to industrial proportions, it's easier to ignore it,

easier to relieve it whether anyone is looking or not

and much easier to tell it no, no, no.

Cally Conan-Davies is an Australian writer and teacher who moved to the United States in 2012. Her poems have appeared, and are forthcoming, in Poetry, The New Criterion, The Hudson Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Raintown Review, The Sewanee Review and The Southwest Review, among others. She lives mostly in Oregon.