EIGHTH CIRCLE

A mordant Dantean reflection on news from the Middle East
by Tom Benediktsson


When we had overpassed the twisted wood,
the flaming field, the evil ditches, then
we came upon a plain of burning blood.

Gibbering through gouts of smoke, two old men
strove. Blinded, mad, deprived of speech, they
swung their gruesome clubs again and again,

their senile faces rapt with hate and joy.
I knew them, their famous names. In the red
glare of that godless place, late on that day,

I asked my guide how they still fought. He said,
“In life they warred with lies and bombs and stones;
now stones are dust, all bombs burst, lies all sped,

they wield, not broken knives or rusted guns,
but severed limbs of their daughters and sons.”


Tom Benediktsson teaches English and creative writing at Montclair State University in New Jersey. His poems have appeared in numerous little magazines and anthologies around the country, most recently in Paterson Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, and New Delta Review.

SANCTUARY

by Esther Greenleaf Murer


Look at it this way: If we could
consign the Bush League
to the depths of the ocean trenches,
there to spend eternity mired in
graywacke, under excruciating pressure
in water superheated from the mantle
to 700 degrees Fahrenheit,
breathing rotten-egg gas—then

they'd promptly set about destroying
the giant tube worms, giant clams,
spider crabs, and most especially those
creatures unlike anything we know—
denizens of an alternate biosphere
whose very being engenders
an eerie hope.


Esther Greenleaf Murer lives in Philadelphia. She has published poetry in Friends Journal, Types & Shadows, Guinea Pig Zero, and Folly.

FOUR PUMPKIN ODES

by Verandah Porche


1. Disney

Roll from her
Garden a coach
Drawn by
Rodents.
Bear to the ball
His cinder-maid.

2. Nursery

Would Peter Peter
Put or eat her out
Of house and home
With only
Your shell
For shelter?

3. Naughty

Jack-of-no-trade
You slip from
Velvet
Pantaloons to
Moon the
Jaded stars.

4. Destiny

Had a great Fall.
Broke
Your crown.
Saw your eye.
We are what we eat.
Humble pie.


Based in rural Vermont since 1968, Verandah Porche has published The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row) and Glancing Off (See Through Books) and has pursued an alternative literary career. She has written poems and songs to accompany her community through a generation of moments and milestones. As a teacher and facilitator, she has created collaborative writing projects in schools and nontraditional settings: literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200 year-old Vermont tavern and an urban working class neighborhood. Her work has been featured on NPR’s “Artbeat,” on public radio stations around New England and in the Vermont State House. The Vermont Arts Council awarded her a Citation of Merit, honoring her contribution to the state’s cultural life in 1998, and a recent grant to support the preparation of poetry for publication and performance.

A VIGIL BEFORE HALLOWEEN

by Paul Belz


Our faces, half lit by candles-
did they seem to dangle and bounce
in the dry evening light?
Our chins glowed like our noses,
the lower halves of our eyes,
our hands that clutched candles
by our chests. Upper eyes and hair
stayed dark, like our lower torsos.
Did we look disembodied, spooky
like decorations by some trick and treat house?
Maybe we reminded you of nightmares,
eight year old girl, face pressed against a window
in a car that rolled down the avenue
between two lines of us. Your dad drove
and gave you no comment. Windows closed,
you couldn't hear our song - where have
all the flowers gone - or our soft chant
for the 2000th American dead in Iraq.
If we scared you, we ghosts, sad jack'o'lanterns,
no terror you can imagine can equal
the real pain our presence here meant.
I know children fear more than the boogey man,
think of deeper things than candy. Maybe you'll hear
whispers about us. Night borne rumors
from the TV news and grownups' whispered thoughts.
Maybe you'll learn why we stood shivering,
witnesses for the war dead. Sleep comfortably,
find some comfort in blankets and pillows
that cover your ears. One day perhaps you'll make a change
that will banish our songs' words and themes
so specters like us won't come here again.


Paul Belz is an environmental educator based in Oakland, California. His work has appeared in Just Like Cabbage Only Different, Poetalk Quarterly, Gypsy Magazine, Olive Oyl, and Oral Recall. Notes and Niches, the newsletter for the Environmental Studies department at Antioch New England Graduate School has also published a number of his poems. Belz has coordinated two reading series in the Bay Area during the past five years, and he edits WHO? a small magazine that appears sporadically. He calls it "An Earth Based Newsletter for Progressive Poets."

RECYCLED NOTE LEFT ON A REFUSE BIN

by Carol Elizabeth Owens


t.v.
drones on and on
delivering, at times
much of nothing except some filth
in the kitchen, a screen
door is open
and flies

love it
you can see them
gathering. they’re watching
whatever the payload may bring
a tabletop meal’s not
noisy enough
for them

to catch
a soundly buzz
or otherwise sample
bits & bytes of digitized wit
regurgitation lives
on a slow roll
the crust

carries
such curious
moldings— tastes are easy
to shape. advertisers know how
cash can micromanage
a flavored spin
that stinks.


Carol Elizabeth Owens is an attorney and counselor-at-law in Western New York (by way of Long Island and New York City). She enjoys technical and creative writing. Her poetry has been published in several print and virtual publications. Ms. Owens loves the ways in which words work when poetry allows them to come out and play. The poem "recycled note left on a refuse bin " is written in a form called eintou (which is West African for "pearl," as in "pearls of wisdom").

STAY THE COURSE

by Anne G. Davies


Said President Bush: "We must stay the course.
Insurgents can't rout American force.
Critics may whine, but our mission is blessed
I'm the Decider and I know best."

Then Pentagon brass had a great revelation:
All was not well in this bloodstained nation.
They saw civil life in Iraq imploding
And support for staying the course eroding.

"We're fighting Islamo-fascist thugs
High on martyrdom, the best of drugs,
It's only two weeks 'til the midterm election
Voters are screaming for a course correction.

"This is a mantra you've got to banish
Memories are short, it soon will vanish
We'll find a motto less vainglorious
If, in fact, we're not victorious
We're asking Iraqis to step up to the plate
And take charge of their anarchic state.
And we have a slogan that you can endorse:
'The Iraqi army must stay the course'."


Anne G. Davies is a fund-raising writer by profession and a writer and versifier by avocation. Her work has been published on local and regional papers. She lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.

NCLB

by Desiree Kannel


My school is surrounded by
razor wire.
Put there to keep dangers out.
Or in?
Teachers lock up, and look suspiciously
At those they are supposed to
inspire, but
hard bigotry tells them:
What’s the use?

No Child Left Behind promises a better future,
But it’s the present that hinders my dreams.
Crimes of the family handicap my fate,
And lock downs, lock outs and razor wire
keep me in my place.


Desiree Kannel is in the MFA Creative Writing program at Antioch University and teaches elementary school in Long Beach, California. She has had a short story published in Enjambed, the new literary journal for California State University, Dominguez Hills.

CRY UNCLE SAM

by Charles Frederickson


Age of Disillusionment remains overcast
With mushrooming clouds of DCeption
Tarnished silver linings pillowslip-up oversights
Stuffed shirt Same Old Sheet

Insecurity blanket smothering free expression
Bedlam of nail-biters nothing mattress
Democrazy quilt spread like humanure
Credibility unravels USurper honor frays


Dr. Charles Frederickson is a Swedish-American-Thai 4midable, 10acious, cre8ive 1derer who has wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poem for each presented on http://www.imagesof.8k.com. This maverick uniquecorn is a member of World Poets Society, based in Greece, with 100+ poetry publication credits on 5 continents, such as: Ascent Aspirations, Auckland Poetry, Blind Man's Rainbow, Both Sides Now, Caveat Lector, Cordite Poetry Review, Dance to Death, Fullosia Press, Greatworks, Green Dove, Indite Circle, Language & Culture, Listen & Be Heard, Living Poets, Madpoetry, Melange, Newtopia, New Verse News, Planet Authority, Poetry Canada, Poetry of Scotland, Poets for Peace, Poetry Superhighway, Pyramid, Sz, Ya'Sou, and Ygdrasil.

MAN ARRESTED TWICE FOR NAKED VISITS TO COFFEE STAND

by Rochelle Ratner


She's left him. Left him with nothing more than the
kitchen sink and a pair of pants. The sink is useless.
All he ever learned to do was boil water, and before
they married he threw out all the dirty dishes. They'd
pick up coffee from a drive-thru on the way to work.
He stares at his pants, forlornly. Remembers once
spilling coffee on his pants and, the next morning,
she made him take them off before they reached the
window. His boxers also. He remembers her leaning
across his naked thighs as she reached to hand the
money to the teenage girl at the counter, her large
breasts dangling ever so close to him, the scent of
shampoo still in her hair. He looks down at his pants
again. He decides to take them off and drive up for
coffee. But it's not the same.


Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.

OUR BEST BEHAVIOR

by David Feela


We do not kill children
(intentionally)
or torture and rape their mothers.
We do not loot
after destroying a family’s home.
If offered a bribe
we report it.
When humanitarian aid drops from the sky
we give the old people a chance
to drag it away.
Holidays are observed
and holy days tolerated.
If a child picks a flower
from a field of rubble
we snap a photo
and send it to Washington.
Rules of engagement
prohibit bombing cemeteries
while the enemy’s funeral is in progress.


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 Southwest Poet Series. His web page can be viewed at www.geocities.com/feelasophy.

EDWARD MORAN'S HENRY HUDSON ENTERING NY HARBOR SEPTEMBER 11, 1609

by Alan Catlin


Lone warrior
on Manhattan
Island beach

observing long
ships, sailors
from who-knew

where navigating
toward soon-
to-be harbor

site; the first
foreign terrorists
have arrived


The painting that inspired this poem may be seen in the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, MA.

Alan Catlin's latest chapbook is a long poem, "Thou Shalt Not Kill", an updating of Rexroth's seminal poem of the same name. Whereas Rexroth riffs on the abuses of the Eisenhower adminstration, the update observes abuses of power in the current administration with particular attention to the cynical, criminal behavior towards the Katrina hurricane victims. One year later, the victims are not forgotten. No matter how many candles the Bushes light, the appalling lack of humanity and the blatant hypocrisy of the folks in charge is as apparent as the disenfranchised, the homeless, and the poverty stricken people of the Gulf states.

THE BODY POLITIC

by Karl Kadie


The sun rises between two large dogs
loping angrily across the Baylands,
heads down, nosing through the ruins
of Silcon Valley.
Above, resting on the sun's shoulder,
is the still-visible moon,
a faint reminder of the big picture,
the community from which we came.
How well did our community plan?
Twenty years ago this was an industrial park,
pumping out world-changing technology,
drawing revenue from a seemingly endless tap.
Today we grab part-time work where we can get it
as a circuit designer or manufacturing analyst,
and a few weeks later
scavenge for sustenance,
prowling through the dumpsters
for something we can sell or trade,
arms sometmes scraping the bottom
of this long, economic chain.
Many talk of moving to China
the land of opportunity,
but I am older, weary of false promises,
and…someone has to tell this history.
How well did we plan?
Just look at us: cowering
behind the rocks and shacks,
waiting for the big dogs of capitalism
to pass.


Karl Kadie holds an MA in English from San Francisco State University and is a native Californian. He has been writing poetry for over thirty years, and published poems in Haiku Headlines, The New Verse News, and on poetry blogs. His poems reflect a powerful concern about the political events of the new century. Karl earns his living by providing marketing for high technology companies in the United States and Europe.

A FORCE OF HABIT

by Courtney Rae Rawls


these days he still wakes up at 4 am—
anxiety, a blunt alarm.

28 years of repetition,
he prepares his lunch like he’s on the line
bread, mayo, ham, swiss, lettuce, halve & repeat
a rhythm develops, a groove. 12 sandwiches later,

there’s no more bread and nothing to do
but watch talk shows and car commercials chanting

BUY AMERICAN which everyone in this town
already does. he never laid eyes on a toyota
until his daughter went to college on the east coast
where cars are aesthetic rather than political issues.
anymore, he’s not sure what this means, BUY AMERICAN—
laid off two years before retirement
he was told that his investment in the dream was
nonrefundable. no pension, no healthcare,
no treatment for the carpal tunnel syndrome he developed during his
tenth year. or the slipped disc during the eighteenth.
but he is hard, durable,
like a rock. so after 28 years of repetition,
he prepares his dinner like he’s on the line
and falls asleep at 10 PM—
a terse,
biting habit.


Courtney Rae Rawls is from Flint, Michigan.

POSTSCRIPT

by Mel Waldman

If Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” was more than a short story…
If it was part of our new Constitution, could we live with
random sacrifice?
Could we live with infectious, hypnotic evil?
How do we balance this contagious madness
with the love of our country?
How do we balance the Scale?

Paranoia rushes through our veins and arteries.
Terror flows recklessly
within and without.
And the Scale tips.

Dr. Mel Waldman is a poet, writer, artist, and singer/songwriter. His stories have appeared in numerous literary reviews and commercial magazines including Happy, Sweet Annie Press, Children, Churches and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, New Thought Journal, The Brooklyn Literary Review, Hardboiled Detective, Detective Story Magazine, Espionage, and The Saint. He is a past winner of the literary Gradiva Award in Psychoanalysis and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America, American Mensa, Ltd., and the American Psychological Association. Who Killed the Heartbreak Kid?, a mystery novel, was published by iUniverse in February 2006. It can be purchased at www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/, www.bn.com, at www.amazon.com, and other online bookstores or through local bookstores. Recently, some of his poems have appeared online in The Jerusalem Post.