HOPE

by Sandra Anfang

“Hope and Justice” by David Garibaldi

is not the thing with feathers bickering at the feeder

bullying the finches into flight

 

nor the Hallmark card, faded from decades of cliché

shoved in the back of the dollar store rack

 

Hope is not the white dove flying from the open hymnal

like a pop-up book, nor the blond god on 

 

nana’s closet door smiling from his ruby throne.

It’s not the inscription on the hand-drawn

 

sign buried in roses at the site of the latest

black man’s murder by the men in blue

 

nor the Christian Covid patient emoting from

his ICU bed, hoarding oxygen and prayers

 

while millions of deniers chorus no,

we won’t go to vaccine clinics.

 

Hope is not the promised land behind

a child’s eyes when she mouths on bended knee

 

bless mommy and daddy and

all the creatures in the sea.

 

Is hope the force that pulls us from our beds

when the world seems to have given up?

 

Is it the hands that brew the coffee, steep the tea

debate existence with our feline friends

 

hands that kindle the ritual of another day

as if our time were endless here.

 

Sandra Anfang is a poet, editor, poetry teacher, and visual artist. She’s the author of Looking Glass Heart and Road Worrier (Finishing Line Press, 2016 and 2018) and Xylem Highway (Main Street Rag, 2019) and the founder of Rivertown Poets in Petaluma, CA. Since Covid overtook our lives, she alternates between binging on statistics and walking and writing to allay her fears.

HERE IN THE WEST WE SMOKE

by David Feela

California lights up first thing 

in the morning

while Utah brews 

its second cup.

Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado

congregate on the patio

like neighbors, sharing stories

about wind and lightning strikes.

The Marlboro man 

still saddled, staring west,

leans toward sunrise’s glowing tip

and inhales the day. 

David Feela writes monthly columns for The Four Corners Free Press and The Durango Telegraph. Unsolicited Press released his newest chapbook Little Acres in 2019.

LEMMINGS

by Katherine West

"As the Delta variant spreads, Republican reluctance will mean thousands more deaths."

—Salon, July 9, 2021

They come from far and near we don't know why

We hear them long before we see the crowd 

We fear they come together now to die 

Some try to staunch the flow of blood and lies 

Some turn away, the noise of death too loud 

They come from far and near we don't know why

They bring their children sick enough to fly 

Their freedom flags now used to make their shrouds 

We fear they come together now to die 

Some recognize a neighbor with a cry 

They look away their faces pale and proud 

They come from far and near we don't know why 

They fall before they cross the finish line 

They call for help forgetting all their doubt 

We fear they come together now to die 

We watch their souls return to love and sky 

The stain of rage and hate we can't wash out 

They come from far and near we don't know why 

We fear they come together now to die 

 

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico and at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado. Using the name Kit West, Katherine's new novel, When Night Comes, A Christmas Carol Revisited came out in 2020, and a selection of poetry entitled Raising the Sparks will come out in 2021, both published by Breaking Rules Publishing.  The sequel to When Night Comes will also be released by BRP in 2021. It is called Slave, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Revisited. She is also an artist.

GOODNIGHT EARTH

a cautionary tale, a cry from the heart,

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

after Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

“Goodbye Earth” by Satovi at Deviant Art.

The fires, floods and extreme weather seen around the world in recent months are just a foretaste of what can be expected if global heating takes hold, scientists say, as the world’s leading authority on climate change prepares to warn of an imminent and dire risk to the global climate system. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will on Monday publish a landmark report, the most comprehensive assessment yet, less than three months before vital UN talks that will determine the future course of life on Earth. —The Guardian, August 8, 2021

Goodnight Earth

So blue and white

We’re sad to leave

Your days so bright

And starlit nights

Goodnight Earth

We cannot say

We did our best,

Now there’s no way

That we can stay

Goodnight raging forest fires

Goodnight rising seas

Goodnight melting glaciers

Goodnight honey bees

And so much more than these

Goodnight to the children

Who never breathed clean air

Who ate contaminated food

And didn’t have a prayer

Of a world that was fair

Goodnight to those who fought

For justice and equality

A return to wiser ways

Of diversity and sanity

And universal community

Goodnight friends and loved ones

Goodnight plants and beasts

Of our little planet 

That we caused to overheat

And otherwise mistreat

We won’t be coming back

We had our chance and blew it

Our story has a moral

But no one left to listen to it

(Or again to misconstrue it?)

So goodnight creek

Good night birds

Goodnight music

Goodnight words

Goodnight window

Goodnight door

Goodnight slippers

On the floor

Goodnight games

Goodnight toys

Goodnight girls

And goodnight boys

Goodnight chair

Goodnight spoon

Goodnight stars

And goodnight moon

Goodnight lark

And owl and thrush

Goodnight old lady

Whisphering Hush

Goodnight Earth

Buff Whitman-Bradley’s poetry has appeared in many print and online journals.  His new book is At the Driveway Guitar Sale from Main Street Rag Publishing.  He podcasts poems on again, memory, and mortality at thirdactpoems.podbean.com and lives with his wife, Cynthia, in northern California.

ECHO CANYON

by David Chorlton

 

When you call into Echo Canyon

and your voice gets lost

not even the sky will hear it ask

for directions. Only the heat climbs this far

on a day like today

when the thrashers are calling and the hummingbirds

sparkle. It’s beautiful

among the rocks

where cacti smile through their needles

and mesquite keep a foothold

on the steepest slopes. There’s a broad

vista from trail’s end, but

it takes water to reach it and only

the coyotes know

where to find it. If waves of light

suddenly distort everything

around you, forget the long journey that brought you

here, never mind the fare it cost or

the promise of a good time from the man

you came to meet in person, who

so casually climbs beyond your reach: turn

back. If you’re lucky

a lizard will show you the way.

If you’re lucky.

David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems often reflect his affection for the natural world.  A new book of older poems, Unmapped Worlds, is out from FutureCycle Press. He recently took up watercoloring again, after twenty dry years.

DEUS EX MACHINA, AFGHANISTAN

by Bonnie Naradzay

Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller speaks during an official handover ceremony in Kabul. Hours later, Miller departed in a Black Hawk helicopter. —The Washington Post, July 12, 2021. Credit: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images via The Washington Post.

The Vietnamese mechanic in the VW repair place 

fixed my car radio today and as I drove off,

I heard the BBC’s news about Afghanistan:

American bombs dropped from the air, in a war

now directed from Tampa, Florida, are killing

the doomed citizens caught in the crossfire 

between the Taliban and the Afghan troops, 

abandoned in what’s called a “civil war,” 

but it’s not. Translators are beheaded now; 

you can read about how we betrayed them. 

The war cost over two trillion dollars, not 

counting the dead, the maimed, ruined lives. 

(“History will not forget it,” Haji Sakhi said, 

as he fled with his daughters to save them from 

the Taliban again.) We turned off the electricity 

in Bagram and left in the dead of night. Who recalls 

the taxi driver, whom our countrymen tortured 

in Bagram, the old abandoned Soviet base, nearly 

twenty years ago? Mr. Dilawar was dead, 

they said, before they cut him down. "Our job," 

explained the last American commander there,

"is just not to forget." His Black Hawk helicopter

lifted him up in a cloud of dust: our deus ex machina.

Bonnie Naradzay leads poetry salons at a day shelter for homeless people and also at a retirement community, both in Washington DC. Poems are in AGNI, New Letters (Pushcart nomination), RHINO, Kenyon Review Online, Tampa Review, Tar River Poetry, Florida Review Online, EPOCH, The American Journal of Poetry, Xavier Review, Pinch (Pushcart nomination), The New Verse News, and countless others.

CONVENIENCE

by Martin Elster

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and thousands of artificial intelligence experts call for a ban on fully autonomous weapons.  Such weapons would be able to identify, select and attack without further human intervention. They are just around the corner. We must act now, before it's too late. Human Rights Watch on Monday urged governments to negotiate a treaty that sets standards for meaningful human control over lethal autonomous weapons. The call came a day before representatives from 50 countries met in Geneva to discuss the issue.

To let our killer robots choose their quarry

is more convenient than us deciding.

When they’re correct, it is commendatory.

When wrong (they rarely are), we hope you’re hiding.

They’ve learned to never gun down a civilian.

They’ve learned to only shoot our adversary.

Though true that seven hundred in a million

civvies get taken out, that’s not as scary

as what our nemesis can do to us.

Our killer robots keep you safe, we tell you.

No need to fret. Don’t be a gloomy Gus!

They are convenient. They’ll seldom fell you.

They’re smart, autonomous. Although not flawless,

they’re here to serve. But if you’re harmed? Just call us.

Martin Elster, who never misses a beat, was for many years a percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His career in music has influenced his fondness for writing metrical verse, which has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the US and abroad. A full-length collection Celestial Euphony was published by Plum White Press in 2019.

BEFORE EARTH IS LOST

by George Salamon

“In Conclusion” by Peter Kuper at The Nib

"Humans have become as great an influence on the planet as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs," Anthony Barnosky, Stanford University biologist, quoted in The New York Times, July 30, 2021

Paradise was lost long ago,

now it's the turn of Earth,

where humans have assumed

privileges and rights for themselves:

this island belongs to us, one

nation claims, another the right

to inhabit space.

We're mammals, denying the

prehistory of our origins, the

story of how our ancestors

turned the earth's jungles into

today's fortress of machine

and stone.

We've moved too quickly past

the awe for earth's order, left

behind in the wild, playful

nature of the child, now that 

we are beginning to feel the

coming storm.

George Salamon lives and waits, hoping for the best, in St. Louis, MO.

STURGIS HERE WE COME

by Jan Chronister

“If you are a Covid-19 coronavirus and happen to miss Lollapalooza, don’t fret or make crying, boo-hoo motions with your spikes. There will be other upcoming opportunities such as the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally 2021 which is set to begin next week, August 6 at Sturgis, South Dakota and continue through August 15. The Sturgis Rally website says, ‘We’re spreading out wings.’ With over 500,000 people expected, that may not be the only thing that’s spreading. As I covered for Forbes last September, one study estimated that the 2020 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally caused over 260,000 new Covid-19 coronavirus cases. While you shouldn’t bank on that specific number since the study had a number of limitations that I described, it wouldn’t surprising if the 2020 Sturgis Rally did contribute to the SARS-CoV2 surges seen last Summer.” —Bruce Y. Lee, Forbes, July 31, 2021

Doesn’t matter that we did this

last year, spread the virus

cross-country. Doesn’t matter

that we will gather in bars, 

spew saliva while we shout

face to face, maskless.

Doesn’t matter that

we are unvaccinated.

What matters is that we are free,

our hogs roar down the highway,

jobs and offices forgotten. 

Doesn’t matter that small

businesses just barely caught up,

will have to close again,

students, teachers, parents

left wondering how to cope.

Consumers plan to stock up

on toilet paper, coffee, flour. 

None of this matters.

No libtards can tell us

what to do. Fauci

is evil. Masks

don’t work. The virus

was engineered by globalists

to thin the herd.

We’ll survive—

doesn’t matter who else dies.

Jan Chronister recently resurfaced and is mad that we may all have to don masks and lock down to survive. She is grateful her home is in the country in northern Wisconsin, her freezer is full, and she can always work on poems while isolated.

TOSSING DICE IN FLORIDA

by Mickey J. Corrigan

"Florida Hurdles" — Claytoonz by Clay Jones

You flip a seven and—

the day hatches bright, shiny

new penny in the white sand

bronze bodies washing off 

emptiness at the azure shore.

Morning brings no escape

from one's and two's

wild gaze, rocky wonders

a better hand today

to grasp straws with claws.

The afternoon overheats

hard scowls over face cards

erasing your winnings

double-crossing the house.

Happy hour obliterates 

all of tomorrow's concerns:

another wave of cool luck

or a fast ride under glass

flashing lights ablaze.

Night sounds simmer down

squelched by humid air 

the eerie cries of coyotes

nosing barrels of scraps

soaked in fresh blood.

The unknown lingers:

that you awaken again

to another day of play

fate on your side… 

or you're forced to fold

beating, beating

like bones on a drum—

taps, not reveille.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes tropical noir with a dark humor. Her poetry has been widely published in literary journals and chapbooks. In 2020, Grandma Moses Press released Florida Man. Her novel The Physics of Grief puts the fun back in funerals while taking a serious look at the process of mourning (QuoScript, UK, 2021). 

THE FISH ROTS

by Bruce Bennett

“Since when do Republicans care more about criminals in jail than the cops who put them there? Since when do they coddle domestic terrorists? Since Donald T***p. A new report in The Daily Beast shows how the fish rots from the big orange head.” —Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, July 31, 2021

How many hurt? How many dead? 

How many at that rotten core? 

The fish rots from the big orange head. 

 

How many let themselves be led 

by what they rightly should abhor? 

How many hurt? How many dead? 

 

What was it that he did and said? 

What is it that they now ignore? 

The fish rots from the big orange head. 

 

Who should have been in jail instead 

of causing riots most deplore? 

How many hurt? How many dead? 

 

How long are we to suffer dread 

as he pursues his sick, sick war? 

The fish rots from the big orange head 

 

Whose stink continues still to spread 

through regions none can now restore. 

How many hurt? How many dead? 

The fish rots from the big orange head! 

Bruce Bennett is the author of ten books of poetry and more than thirty poetry chapbooks. His most recent full-length book is Just Another Day in Just Our Town: Poems New and Selected, 2000-2016 (Orchises Press, 2017). He was a co-founder and served as an editor of the literary journals Field and Ploughshares. From 1973 until his retirement in 2014, he taught Literature and Creative Writing at Wells College, and is now Emeritus Professor of English. In 2012 he was awarded a Pushcart Prize.

GASLIGHTS

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

Above: In a scene from Gaslight (1944), Brian (Joseph Cotton) demonstrates to Paula (Ingrid Bergman) that her husband has been lying to her in an attempt to drive her crazy. It is the title of this drama that gives us the word that describes the Big Trumplican Lies. 

We need mo’ body armor, Mo

We need the Man on the line, Jim

Andrew, the Shaman says he used Carlson

Wagonlit to book his trip which is proof that

 

It was a tourist visit.

 

Kevin says, Elise, you take it

610,000 examples and it’s up to you

to suggest each one’s fakin’ it

 

We’re setting up an audit

and they’re all gonna turn up

in the same valley of dry bones

where Ezekiel hid the ballots  

Tucker and Laura gonna move the jam

while Sean will provide cover 

urging our supporters to get

 

The jab.  

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in Canada. Recent work appears/is appearing in As It Ought To Be, Unlikely Stories, Bluepepper, The Journal of Expressive Writing, Sledgehammer Lit, The Pangolin Review, Every Day Fiction, Ginosko Review, Dissident Voice, 365 Tomorrows, and New Reader Magazine. His full length collection Fat Dogs and Amorous Insects is being published by Alien Buddha Press this fall. 

ANY QUESTIONS?

by Clyde Always

Beware “the Delta”—COVID’s spawn

and, coming soon : “the Epsilon”

(Cyrillic once the Grecian’s gone).

  So, be you willing-to or not,

  you’ll get your monthly booster shot.

 

But, if the needle makes you flinch,

then drop your muzzle just an inch

and brace to feel the slightest pinch…

  Bi-weekly this procedure goes:

  we jam a Q-tip up your nose.

 

If still ill-motives you presume

we’ll lock you in a padded room

where daily lectures via ZOOM

  we hope may help you yet to learn

  your health’s our only real concern.

Clyde Always is an accomplished cartoonist, poet, painter, novelist and Vaudevillian entertainer. His writings and/or illustrations have been printed in the Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Light, Slackjaw, Scarfff Comics, etc. etc. You can see his storytelling act, live and in-person, any Friday evening, at the Scott Street Labyrinth in San Francisco, CA.

D IS FOR DELTA

by Mary K O'Melveny

In math, Delta means change.

An isosceles triangle points the way

to changes in quantity:

  more sick

  more hospital beds

  more ventilators

  more dead

  more masks

  more six foot limits:

    apart from each other

    down in the ground.

 

Changes as in differences in.

  As in:

    yesterday there was reason to hope

    last week we went to a concert

    the airport was full of tourists

  As in:

    the rate of change is significant:

    red lines rise on graphs

    there are no lines of people seeking vaccines

    there are now some lines but not enough.

Changes as in variables.

  As in:

    yesterday I met you at a party

    today I am at the doctor’s office

    tomorrow my family will hold a zoom remembrance.

In science, Delta means a sometimes triangular mass of sediment.     

  As in:

     silt and sand lodged in a river’s mouth

     spit into the sea  or a lake  or a plain

        as in Mississippi    or Okavango   or Kalahari

     tides and waves create sandbars and dendritic silt

        as in the Nile   or the Ganges

     estuaries of brackish water form at the confluence of sea and river

        as in China’s Yellow River.

   Some Deltas become abandoned  

the rivers leave   discard their channels   dry up

   that too denotes movement   change. 

  That change is called avulsion:

    As in:

      the sudden separation of mass from one place to another

      the sudden separation of reason from the brain

      the sudden movement from reality to fantasy.

 

Delta can be a girl’s name:

   books of baby names call it appealing   chic  unique

       fit for a child of grace and distinction.

 This too will change. 

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.