AT THE LOCAL LOCKSMITH SHACK,I ORDER AN EXTRA HOUSE KEY

by Alejandro Escudé

The locksmith grinds it, sparks flying, but he stops to point
to the TV screen, the news on, cop killings in New York,

and sternly the locksmith warns the killing signals the end of days.
I tell him cops have been shot before. He looks at me, his eyes 

peering over his glasses, “Do you read the Bible?” I answer, no.
He says, “You should, for you, for your family.” 

When he hands me the new key, I look down
at the the locksmith’s fingers, stained black, phosphorescent. 

In the reenactment on the news the shooter is fire engine red
and the cops are blue. One falls, then the other falls too. 

They do not animate the red man shooting himself.
I wonder the life that brought the locksmith to the Apocalypse. 

A myriad keys hanging above his head, lying around; silver
and gold keys, keys to free anything from its locked place.

Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems, My Earthbound Eye, in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. 

THE EYE OF EARTH

by Martin Elster

Image source: NotThatKindofGirl

The eye of Earth peers, spellbound, through a chink
in melting pond ice, trying not to blink
into the blue enveloping its gaze.
It’s never seen the sun before, whose rays
scatter through the atmosphere, a link

to outer space, where constellations wink
their secrets. Billows take a healthy drink
of water vapor, amble past, amaze
    the eye of Earth.

Its habitat now teeters on the brink.
Though trees have bared their limbs, grooves black as ink
crisscross the leaf-strewn liquefying glaze,  
whose softening increases with the days.
The gravity of this, though, cannot sink
    the eye of Earth.


Martin Elster, author of There’s a Dog in the Heavens!, is also a composer and serves as percussionist for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His poems have appeared in such journals as Astropoetica, The Flea, The Martian Wave, The Rotary Dial, and in the anthologies Taking Turns: Sonnets from Eratosphere, The 2012 Rhysling Anthology, and New Sun Rising: Stories for Japan. Martin’s poem, “Walking With the Birds and the Bones Through Fairview Cemetery” received first prize in the Thomas Gray Anniversary Poetry Competition 2014.

HOW FAR IS AMERICA FROM HERE ?

by Howard Winn

Image source: Tnooz

What has happened to the sign posts,
the route numbers,
and why does the compass
seem not to work?
Has someone burned the maps,
torn up the directions,
pointed in the wrong way
while standing at the side of the road?
The noise from the speakers
seems to disguise the words
or make them into a meaningless mumble.
Who is talking?
What do they want?
It is difficult to see past that mirage
created in the Texas heat
over the road onward.
The scene appears like a cool lake,
shimmering in the sunlight,
calling for a redemptive baptism,
that turns the highway ahead
into seeming holy water.
Will we walk upon it,
following some self-defined sacred leader,
or will we find the surface
hard and black like the shadows
of the storytellers who lead us.
How far is America from here?


Howard Winn's poetry and fiction has been published recently in Dalhousie Review, Galway Review, Taj Mahal Review, Descant (Canada), Antigonish Review, Southern Humanities Review, Chaffin Review, Evansville Review, and Blueline. He has a B. A. from Vassar College and an M. A. from the Stanford University Writing Program.

FOLLOWING THE NEWS, WE RETURN YOU TO THE MUSIC OF THE SEASON

by Maryann Corbett

Students in India mourn the Pakistani students lost in the Peshawar school attack last week.

And as the alto line shoulders its ache
of dissonance against the calm soprano,
I think, Always the same mysterium:

The moment when at last the milk-drunk infant
droops against the breast, and the new mother
sighs into sleep, is darkened by the knowledge
that soldiers from a foreign empire are quartered
in the next street, while a strongman in the hills
clings to to his shreds of power. When he strikes,
we wake to scenes of the bloody slaughter of children.

For them there are few carols, rarely sung.

                        Peshawar
                        remembered on 28 December,
                        Feast of the Holy Innocents

Maryann Corbett's poems, essays, and translations have appeared in Southwest Review, Barrow Street, Rattle, River Styx, Atlanta Review, The Evansville Review, Measure, Literary Imagination, The Dark Horse, Mezzo Cammin, Linebreak, Subtropics, Verse Daily, American Life in Poetry, The Poetry Foundation, The Writer's Almanac, and many other venues in print and online, as well an assortment of anthologies, most recently Obsession: Sestinas in the Twenty-First Century. She has been a several-time Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, a finalist for the 2009 Morton Marr Prize, the 2010 Best of the Net anthology, and the 2011 Able Muse Book Prize, and a winner of the Lyric Memorial Award, the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize, and the Richard Wilbur Poetry Award. Her third book, Mid Evil, is the Wilbur Award winner and is forthcoming from the University of Evansville Press.

ROBERT FROST POSTS ON FACEBOOK

by Earl J. Wilcox

Sat down on back porch
This morning after feeding
Chickens, like yesterday.
Watched morning mist
Circle round apple orchard,
Listened long to lonesome
Dove coo its mate. Two lines
Of new poem came to me
During a long night. “Whose
Woods these are I think I know,”
But next line does not seem right,
Still I post it here for interest
To see if anyone likes it.
“His house is in the village
Though.” Now if only I had
A few more lines to go with
These two I might make a poem.
Probably won’t come to much,
Yet the Rhode Island Red Rooster
Liked the lines when I said them
To him. What do you think?
I will see if I can get more
Started while I walk around farm.
Cloudy and cold here in Vermont
Today. Could even snow. Rob.


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.

CANNIBAL KING,or EVERYWHERE IS SANDY HOOK

by Howie Good

God, if there is one,
must be a very old man
who sits on a stool
in the shade of a sidewalk tree,
now & again dozing off,
his stubbly chin
dropping onto his chest,
while not far away
bat-winged dogs
devour the schoolchildren
he’s just too full
to devour himself.


All proceeds from Howie Good's latest book of poetry,  Fugitive Pieces (Right Hand Press), go to the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley.

WORK WE'VE FAILED TO DO

by Barry Koplen

In the wings,
trouble greets submission;
guns speak. Murder calls
random numbers.

Mine? Yours?
The guy who commands
Curiosity to find water
on Mars?

He's distracted or
he will be
when the Super Bowl draws

nigh or when Miley
wears little or nothing but
the gunman is not

distracted. Like an actor,
he loves his role so much
we can't keep him
in the wings.


For more than fifty years, Barry Koplen has been writing poetry and prose. Often published by friendly journals too arcane to mention, he received his MFA from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Recently, he completed the second half of a two-volume collection of poems and essays. The first, Whale of Grief, complements Wail of Joy, the second; both are related to impressions of life as a Jew in a non-Jewish world. His No Gold Stars tells his personal story of the integration of the Greenville, SC school system. His latest Why Don’t They Believe Me? Four of Us Saw the Saucer will be available in January. Currently, he is completing two collections of poems while teaching Creative Writing in Virginia at Danville Community College.

GREEN TEA AND A CANDY BAR

by David Chorlton

On a desert cool December evening
outside the CVS branch
a dark shape in the parking lot
asks for green tea and a candy bar.
He doesn’t say Please, doesn’t

want to chat, doesn’t introduce
himself, doesn’t offer a story
to explain why he’s here
with a rolled up blanket and
bad teeth; he just stirs like a conscience

with Christmas on the way
and knows what he wants
even if he’ll settle for less.
It’s difficult to concentrate
on peace and goodwill when

there are hostages in the news,
as well as police and yellow tape
around the house where a man
died of self-inflicted wounds
after killing his ex-wife and whomever

else was within range, while
the breaking story farther away
is more brutal than a video game.
A truce would be nice, or an outbreak
of compassion. Maybe a little snow

to fall on Phoenix to convince us
of the season. We select an energy bar
to go with the tea, not exactly
what he asked for, but he takes it
as he turns to leave without offering

a Thank You, just heaves
his bundle onto his back as if
to load a world of worry he can’t change
and tell us what he really wants
is a cup of hot coffee.

David Chorlton came to Arizona in 1978 after living in England and Austria. He has spent more than three decades stretched between cultures and writing poetry, the pick of which has just appeared as his Selected Poems, from FutureCycle Press.

IN THE DEEPEST TRENCH

by Anne Graue

dark/cold/silent until the submerged
vessel/submersible grinds its way
with its own ethic/light and the eel/fish/
snail/dog floats in search of food

in its own water its own dark/cold
swimming deep as deep as the sub
has sunk in search of something
to catalog/write/study/announce/name

in the name of science with God's
backing who commissioned
the naming of all earth's creatures
and so the work continues—a new

species never before subject
to the flashbulbs, its white
translucence necessary
for surviving in the depths

of the Mariana Trench
along the inner slope where
plankton and other food float
into the snail-fish mouth, waved

in by wing-like fins, steered mouth-ward
by the eel-like tail day in and out
where no day is marked with light
or its absence, the existence

is a new discovery for the fish
explorer of the ocean bottom
in deep/dark/cold/blackwater
where the adapted snailfish/eeldog

surviving lightless floating for food
is lost to hubris with no other
survival mode—the naming
changes everything—recognizing

life that has been—protected
by molecules now dependent
on a name which is why someone
took the time to write it down.


Originally from Kansas, Anne Graue lives, writes, and teaches online from her home in New York's Hudson Valley. Her poems have appeared in Compass Rose, Ginosko Literary Journal, The New Verse News, and The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly. 

PHILOSOPHY

by Donna Hilbert

The British Prime Minister

fucks a pig in the first episode

of “The Black Mirror”

on prime-time TV,  just as the terrorists

demanded, to save the princess

whom they’d kidnapped

before the first frame.

As incentive, they’ve presented

her severed finger in a box to prove

they’re serious. Mean business.

Sorry to spoil it for you.

But, alas, all plots are spoiled

in this life slipping fast past satire

into theater beyond absurd.

What role would suit you to perform?

Terrorist? Princess? PM? Pig?

Me, I choose to play non-contemplating pig,

happy and innocent in my muck

until evil overtakes me from behind.

Donna Hilbert's latest book is The Congress of Luminous Bodies, 2013, Aoritc Books. She writes, leads workshops, and carps about movies from her home in Long Beach California. 

THE BOATS

by Joan Colby

Mithridates survived 17 days before expiring.

Head, hands and feet stuck out
Between two wooden boats.
The face, the extremities smeared
With honey for insects, stinging wasps,
Flies. Force fed so that he lives
In the torment of worms and maggots
Eating him from the inside out. A death
Reserved for traitors.

A cordon drawn. He needs to hide.
They’d walked from the blast
Satisfied. Now it’s gone wrong.
His brother’s body beneath wheels.
Bleeding, he crawls under the tarp
Of a white boat in someone’s yard.
All day, silent, Trapped in torment
eating him from the inside out.

Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize.  Properties of Matter was published in spring of 2014 by Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press. 

THE CANDLE OF PEACE -- ADVENT II

by Marc Janssen




Violent economy, pays: blood -- storms --
While the high school choir sings of peace on earth.
In the street standing, hands raised, “Don’t shoot”
While the high school choir sings of peace on earth.
On TV hostile faces express “views”
While the high school choir sings of peace on earth.
Oh Henry, it has been a long long time,
And hate still mocks the song of peace on earth.
The violence of our days, fear in our nights,
Pleads for peace on earth good will to men.


Marc Janssen grew up in the State of Jefferson, educated in Southern California and currently resides in Oregon. Janssen is a former copywriter and marketer who now works as a bureaucrat. He is regularly published in journals and magazines such as The New Verse News, Off the Coast, The Ottawa Arts Review, Cirque Journal, Vine Leaves and in anthologies including Manifest West and The Northern California Perspective. 

CYBERBULLYING HACKTIVISTS

by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Suspects responsible for recent cyberbullying attacks targeting State College Area School District students were identified Tuesday. Superintendent Bob O’Donnell said more than one person ran a Twitter account called @SCHateTweets, which posted its first tweet Thursday. State College Police Chief Tom King said at least two people set up the account, but neither he nor O’Donnell would confirm that they were students. The account targeted about 50 State High students, Principal Scott DeShong and O’Donnell. The tweets ranged from attacking students’ personalities and appearances to alleging sexual promiscuity and drug use. --(State College, PA) Centre Daily Times, December 16, 2014



cyberbullying faceless gutless soulless cowardice

hiding behind internet smokescreen anonymity

provides abusers pretending they’re tough

actually insecure unhappy social outcasts



malicious rumors taunts vile put-downs

transmitted through email instant messaging

chat room exchanges digital images

sent to victim’s cellular phone



cyberstalking is equal opportunity offender

knowing no geographical socio-cultural bounds

don’t live in shell of

silence tell someone report crime



reportedly over half of adolescents

have been harassed or participated

in cruel denigrating online attacks

inflicting emotional distressful psychological trauma



girls are about twice as

likely as boys to be

cyberbully victims and perpetrators also

more likely to contemplate suicide



people who love themselves won’t

belittle others knowing what’s right

doesn’t mean much unless you

do what’s right – stop cyberbullying!


No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 

BREAD AND CIRCUSES 2014

by George Salamon

Charities are being run by for-profit financial firms. And take our most prestigious universities. It's become an oft-repeated argument that they have become hedge funds with tax-exempt colleges attached. --Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica, Dec. 10, 2014

Nothing is sacred, all is corrupted
From giving to learning
Wall Street money and
Corporate voices
Confer commands.
A people once free and proud
Has been bought and sold,
Hired and fired, outsourced,
Downsized and rightsized,
Sliced up like a salami.
His knife, he attacks with
"Sharklike intensity."
His smile is dazzling.
He's got our bread
And we are his circuses.


George Salamon taught at several East Coast  colleges, worked as a business journalist and editor, and now contributes regularly to the Gateway Journalism Review, Jewish Currents and The New Verse News from St. Louis, MO.