MEDICAL ADVICE TO WOMEN OF CHILDBEARING AGE

by Joan Mazza

El Salvador wants women to avoid getting pregnant until 2018, out of concern for the Zika virus rampaging through Latin America. Zika virus can cause serious birth defects, a fact that has led several Latin American countries to ask local women to hold off on getting pregnant until the outbreak is under control. El Salvador, however, is the first to announce a two-year ban on baby-making. “We’d like to suggest to all the women of fertile age that they take steps to plan their pregnancies, and avoid getting pregnant between this year and next,” El Salvador’s Deputy Health Minister Eduardo Espinoza told Reuters. Here’s the problem: Abortions are illegal in El Salvador, and birth control is hard to come by. The irony, which seems lost on El Salvador, is that the same government that denies women control over their reproductive health is now asking those same women to control their reproductive health until 2018. —Vocativ, Jan. 26, 2016.  Photo: AP

The women of El Salvador are told to not get pregnant,
to postpone starting a family. Poor women without
access to reliable birth control, single women,
girls who are raped are being told to delay families,
delay their planned pregnancies. The Zika virus

causes birth defects. More than four thousand
babies have already been born with tiny heads,
impaired cognitive functions, plus other yet-to-be-
diagnosed disabilities. Mosquitoes are carriers.
Tell them to cover up to avoid being bitten

by mosquitoes, to dress in the equivalent
of a burka. Tell them not to tempt the men who
rape them because of their skimpy clothes,
long legs, pouty lips, absence of power.

Already-pregnant women hold their bellies,
wonder what they carry, what life they
will have. How will they work and care
for these children? Abortion is illegal.
Spray poison, spray standing water, drain

swimming pools. Tell them to slather
their bodies in DEET. Tell women not to travel
to infected countries if they are pregnant
or plan to be. Aedes aegypti is an aggressive biter.

You might as well tell them not to buy yachts
or furs or SUVs or private jets. These luxuries
harm habitats, hurt the planet. Consider those
whose heads are so small they can’t see straight.
Consider the many with impaired cognition.


Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Kestrel, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, Buddhist Poetry Review, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.

AT THE LEADING CANDIDATE'S RALLY

by Steve Abbott

The answer, of course, is simple:
They are not like Us, Our heritage
and faith and flag. Not like Us, who
understand the real danger, the loss
of rightful place, above Them with
their odd odors and leather skins,
over there. And now here, among Us,
pretending They are like Us. Once
They feared Our strength, but now
We hesitate to do what must be done.
We need to do something now, to
show Them who’s in charge. We’ll
do to Them what We know They’ll do
to Us. No one knows what ’s going on.
We can’t live like this. They weave
dark webs in lives full of secrets,
hide Their evil in unfamiliar accents.
There are traitors among Us who are
helping Them, Those who want
to take what we have. The beards
of Their sons conceal explosive wire.
They’re hiding something in Their
worn suitcases, in blankets Their kids
carry. They’re stealing Your jobs,
Your kid’s future. They are waiting
for Their chance. Soon They’ll destroy
everything. Your leaders have betrayed
You, locking Your dreams in the banks
of Their friends. I’m saying what You’re
thinking, and We’re not afraid to act.
We have the weapons we need.
We can stop Them. We can be great
again. We know what We have to do.


Steve Abbott’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Connecticut Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Rattle, Evening Street Review, Plainsongs, Pudding, Wind, and Big Scream, among other journals. He edited the anthologies Cap City Poets (Pudding House, 2008) and Everything Stops and Listens (Ohio Poetry Association, 2013), and he edits Ohio Poetry Association’s annual member journal Common Threads. Night Ballet Press will publish his third chapbook The Incoherent Pull of Want later this year.  A collection of ekphrastic poems titled When the Image Speaks is seeking a publisher. He is a founder and co-coordinator of The Poetry Forum, one of the Midwest’s longest-running weekly poetry series in Columbus, where he lives with his wife Melanie Boyd.

ALL THE CHILDREN

by Cally Conan-Davies

At least 25 refugees, including 10 children, drowned in the Aegean on Thursday when their boat sank off the coast of the Greek island of Samos. The refugees were trying to reach the island from the coast of Turkey, just a few miles away, when the vessel went down. It was not known what caused the accident, but there have been dozens of similar tragedies in recent months, caused by people traffickers cramming too many refugees onto small boats. The Greek coast guard said that of the drowned children, five were boys and five girls. Ten survivors were rescued. —The Telegraph, Jan. 28, 2016. AP Photo Coast guard vessel arrives with the dead bodies of migrants at the port of Vathi on the eastern Greek island of Samos.

Out of the water,
his small ear
to the air—

we saw the photos,
froze,
outrage spilled over.

But in real time, the mean time,

eyes dry and tides change
yet the children of nowhere
keep dying on the waves

not over there
for there is no there but here
and no them but us
dying

in their wet clothes.


Cally Conan-Davies is a writer who lives by the sea.

THE DOOR

by Dino Siotis

Greece has responded furiously to proposals to modify the Schengen agreement which would see the country’s borders effectively sealed off from the rest of the continent. EU interior ministers meeting in Amsterdam on Monday discussed moving the southern frontier of the passport-free travel zone, which includes most of the EU, to the north, deploying joint police forces along the Macedonia-Greece border. Other European states piled pressure on Greece to do more to control the influx of migrants into Europe via its shores. Athens’s Syriza-led government denounced the plans, with Ioannis Mouzalas, the migration minister, calling it an “experiment” that would turn Greece into a “cemetery of souls,” according to reports. Greek public order minister Nikos Toskas said, “It is very difficult to stop small boats coming [to Greece] . . . except sinking or shooting them, which is against our European values and Greek values and we will not do that.” —Newsweek, Jan. 26, 2016

So many have come knocking at my door
lately that I have trouble keeping it closed,
thieves, beggars, friends, curriers, deliveries,

Jehovah’s Witness, students with advertising
leaflets, straw dogs, homeless cats, garbage-
collectors, bag ladies, messengers, gypsies,

street-cleaners, refugees, illegal immigrants.
I am thinking of tearing it down—the door
I mean—so anyone can just come in and say

how they feel, have something to eat, take some
clothes from the closet, maybe pick up a euro
or two that I will leave on the front table


Dino Siotis is an activist and award winning Greek poet with 25 books of poetry in Greek, English and French, president of Athens-based Poets Circle, director of Athens World Poetry Festival and in charge of Global Communication of Medellin-based World Poetry Movement. He lives in Athens.

THE ALIGNMENT

by David Chorlton

The view of the five classical planets -- Mercury to Saturn -- improves over the next week or two as Mercury climbs higher and grows brighter. Image by Roen Kelly. — Astronomy, Jan. 25, 2016. 

The view from the window early
is of a street before awakening
where a single porch light glows
beneath five planets aligned
in the pre-dawn universe.
                       The tabloids
have yet to strip naked
and campaigns for public office
are on hold while Jupiter
assumes its ancient role
as god of thunder,
                       withholding
its power in deference
to the moment’s calm. Stock markets
are yet to make a first transaction,
waiting for a signal from Mercury,
god of finance
                       and of tricks,
glowing seductively
next to Venus, who’s worried
about Saturn always trying
to invoke some revelry
                       but who, in his role
promoting freedom, can’t help
feeling glum about the way
speech has been confused
with wealth. The sky
                       is a deceptive calm
today, considering the constant proximity
of Mars, the god of war
who never rests.


David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications on- and off-line, and reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His most recent book A Field Guide to Fire was his contribution to the Fires of Change exhibition shown in Flagstaff and Tucson in Arizona.

SMACKED DOWN

by Bill Sullivan

Congress has historically treated drug abuse as a malady afflicting mostly poor, minority communities, best dealt with by locking people up for long periods of time. The epidemic of drug overdose deaths currently ravaging white populations in cities and towns across the country has altered this line of thinking, and forced lawmakers to acknowledge that addiction is a problem that knows no racial barriers and can be best addressed with treatment. —NY Times Editorial, Jan. 25, 2016. Photo: A 20-year-old heroin addict agreed to go to detox through the Gloucester [MA] Police Department Angel program in January after he overdosed. Credit: Katherine Taylor for NY Times, Jan. 24, 2016

blue nails  ashen skin
                                           pin size pupils
barely a breath
                                           another flat line looms
his savior if found
                                           a narcan syringe
white brown or black
                                           a teen or thirty something
or an aging boomer
                                           who went from prescriptions
pushed by physicians
                                           to bags of scag

he might collapse
                                           on a city street
or in a country lane
                                           be clad in a suit
or laborer's boots
                                           be an absent father
or live in lover
                                           once a dreamer
or a pragmatist
                                           now possessed
he rides a demon horse
                                           over a cliff
will it be a hospital
                                           or the morgue
for the man
                                           with the opioid eyes

for years jeered
                                           as a crackhead
or junkie
                                           he was left to die
or tossed into a cell
                                           but when the disease
infected the suburbs
                                           the country lanes
the club house
                                           and the gated estate
it was rehab for the addict
                                           progress no doubt
but too late for the poor
                                           who had no care or aid
who filled a grave
                                           or crawled around
a prison cave


Bill Sullivan is from Rhode Island where in the past five years over a thousand residents have overdosed on opioids, mainly heroin.  He is the co-author two books on twentieth century poetry, co-producer of two films and his poems have appeared in a number of on line and print publications.  His latest publication is Loon Lore in Prose and Poetry.

THE DAY THE POLKAS CRIED

by Laura Rodley






For thirty-seven years
Billy Belina drove in early morning light
or total dark to spin the polkas
on WMUA on Saturday,
not for the love of money
because he wasn’t paid
but for the love of the polkas.
Joined by Mitch Moskal and friends,
Polka Celebration ended
this morning with little warning,
cut by the powers that be
from UMass University.
Petitions are being signed
and voices raised but polkas
have been out-phased,
though folks listen on line
and twenty seven hundred
have signed from Japan
to Australia, to Chicago, polka land.
So many musicians, so many bands,
fifteen thousand shows
spurring polka music on,
but as of 11:45, that’s all gone.      


Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.

JANUARY 11, 2016 — FOR ZIGGY

by Bill Hurley

David Bowie turned 69 recently.

I turned 69 recently.

18 months ago, David Bowie found cancer in his body.

18 months ago, I found cancer in my body.

Two days ago, David Bowie still had cancer.

Two days ago, I still had cancer.

Yesterday, David Bowie died.

Yesterday, I did not.

Instead, I woke up, ate some oatmeal, played the piano,

Went to a garden, photographed statues and banyan trees,

Sipped a latte while browsing through Dorothea Lange pictures,

Had lunch in a museum café, went to a jazz concert,

Then helped the sun set in a drumming circle on the beach.

Today, I woke up again and learned that David Bowie did not.

So what am I to do with this one more day?

And how many more will I be given 

Before it’s my turn 

To return 

To Stardust?

Bill Hurley is a retired video/multimedia producer and former broadcaster.  He is a frequent contributor to open mikes around Columbus, Ohio. His work has appeared in Common Threads, The Institute for Poetic Medicine, and he won the 2005 Thurber Treat award given by Thurber House for humor/parody writing. This year he is the humor juror for The Ohio Poetry Association’s Competition for high school poets. He recently was the featured reader at The Poetry Forum. He also is the MC for the annual Poetry at Perkins event at Ohio Wesleyan University. His collection, No Weeds in Wahkeena is available on Amazon.

BEAUTIFUL AND BITTER THE WATER

by Matthew Johnson

Before God had gone down to trouble those waters,
I had dipped and wash you child in the calm waves
Of the Nile.

From rooted Jordan and Babylon child,
I sang to you those ancient songs
As I scrubbed away the dirt from your black flesh.

In the plantation cots in the golden dusk of Georgia,
In steadfast resolute,
I tried to cleanse the expanse of your black skin with water.

But now child, I’ve been unsettled.
Muddy as the blackened conscious of Delta Blues,
I’ve seen the waters turn a syrupy-hue.

I now allow you child to drink bitterness
And etch the poison of human guile
In your god-like blood and god-like skin.

Let us flow to a return child,
When I sang those old spirituals, lulling you to sleep
With the most savory of shadows and dreams.

But in those days oh child,
The waters were far too deep
And your skin was far too beautiful to leave.


Matthew Johnson is a 2015 December graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Matthew is a sports journalist who has written for the USA Today College, Fansided, StoopSports and his university newspaper, The Carolinian. Matthew’s poetry has appeared in The Coraddi and The Carolinian. He lives in North Carolina.

THE TRAGEDY IN FLINT

by Yi Wu

The stream of cold and greedy blood, still pumped
from fastened hearts at Michigan’s elites
at speeds of clunkers steered by reckless drivers,
on engines burning leaded gas, stolen
from Hades of obsolescence, is as
corrosive as the river water chlorinated
by negligent passing down of a lethal mixture
of industrial waste and calendar years

Pipes as anachronistic as a political system
whose residue has poisoned the cups
threaten to hold back children’s development
by chains of heavier metals tied on brains
as they fear sharp minds unmaimed
would sense the urgency of their replacement


Yi Wu is a writer who now calls New York City home. His work has appeared in Uppagus, Slink Chunk Press and Clockwise Cat.

THE YOUNG SOLDIERS OF GUANTANAMO

written on January 11, 2016, the fourteenth anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay detention camp

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

Image source: Amnesty International: Guantanamo’s Poetry


I try to imagine the young soldiers

Given the job of interrogating

The prisoners of Guantanamo

I try to imagine them being repulsed

By what they were ordered to do

But afraid to disobey

I try to imagine the moral crises

They may have undergone

And the collateral damage to their souls

I try to imagine surreptitious rebellions of kindness

A smuggled pencil a friendly word a bit of extra food

A hand reaching out from the wreckage of the self

I try to imagine the nightmares of cruelty

Those young men carry with them

Into their civilian lives

For generations we have filled the haunted streets

With the discarded veterans

Of our perverse wars

For generations we have practiced the art

Of mangling the spirits

Of foe and friend alike

I try to imagine a world nearly here

Where torturers and tortured

Look as equals into each other's eyes

Where the young soldiers of Guantanamo

Come to realize they have more in common

With those they tortured than with those giving orders

Where the brutalized and debased and shattered

May howl their pain and rage

And their tormentors will not turn away

Where both will become healed and whole

From what was done to them and what they did

And will walk among us with great tenderness

Buff Whitman-Bradley's poetry has appeared in many print and online journals, including Atlanta Review, Bryant Literary Review, Concho River Review, Crannog, december, Hawai'i Review, Pinyon, Rockhurst Review, Solstice, Third Wednesday and others. He has published several collections of poems, most recently, To Get Our Bearings in this Wheeling World. His interviews with soldiers who refused to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan became the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California with his wife Cynthia.

SMALL DARK OBJECT

by Paul Smith

Seconds after a Chicago police officer opened fire on him as he ran from a South Side traffic stop, 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman had collapsed in the street when the officer's partner approached to take him into custody. "I give up. I'm shot," Chatman said to Officer Lou Toth, according to Toth's statement to investigators at the scene. A bullet had struck Chatman in the right side, pierced his heart and lodged in his spine. He died on the way to a hospital. The detail of Chatman's last words was included in hundreds of pages of investigative records released by the city Friday that laid out how Chatman's suspected involvement in a violent robbery and carjacking ended with his fatal shooting less than a mile away. The documents — which included detectives' reports from the scene, autopsy results, inventory logs, lineups and transcripts of witness interviews — show that Officer Kevin Fry consistently told investigators he saw Chatman turn with a dark object in his hand as he ran full speed across the busy South Shore neighborhood intersection in the early afternoon. "Officer Fry said he believed that the object was a handgun and he was in fear of his partner's life, as Toth was in close proximity to the offender," said an incident report documenting Fry's initial interview with detectives. The object turned out to be a black iPhone box. —Chicago Tribune, Jan. 15, 2016

A small dark object
Can disappear
One minute it’s here
And the next
It is gone
Somewhere in
The Northern or the Southern Hemisphere
It’s linked to fate
Bad luck and chance
Starting its existence
In someone’s hands
Below a car-seat
A bulge in a pocket
No video caught
And then vanishing
I suppose
Into thin air
Like unicorns
Like UFO’s
Small dark objects
Are everywhere
Everywhere except
Where they are claimed to be
A small dark object is
A mystery


Paul Smith lives near Chicago.  He writes fiction & poetry.  He likes Hemingway, really likes Bukowski, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks and Slim Harpo.  He can play James Jamerson's bass solo for 'Home Cookin' by Junior Walker & the Allstars.

ROSE HAMID: WOMAN OF SALAM

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman

she stood    wearing her clothes of peace
she stood     quietly like hope
a single bush
surrounded
by a briar meadow of fear


Sister Lou Ella Hickman is a member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. She has been a teacher on all levels and she has worked in two libraries. Presently she is a freelance writer as well as a spiritual director. Her poems and articles have been published in numerous magazines as well as in After Shocks: Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo and Down to the Dark River edited by Philp Kolin.  Her first book of poetry, she: robed and wordless, published by Press 53, was released September 1, 2015.

THE BOOK OF NEMESIS, CHAPTER 2016

by Gilbert Allen

Image source: DonkeyHotey

                   
And He said, I am The Great Candidate.
All the others?
Low energy.
Stop and think for a minute, people.
You really want a GOTUS who looks like that?
This is gonna be huge.
I’ll build a ginormous wall in the desert, and Saddam is gonna pay for it.
He’s history, and I know where his money is.
I’ve got some experience with walls.
And money.
You’ll be the father of many nations, after I smite them into The Stone Age.
You’ll mark all their members with red ties, before you let them out of the rubble.
Have I said you’ll be the mother of many nations, too?
I cherish mothers.
Mothers love me.
Especially Mexican mothers.
Listen, I know how to make deals.
I’ve been making deals for a pretty long time now.
You’re gonna have so many victories you’re gonna get sick of them.
Did anyone ever tell you you look just like Abraham?        
Abraham Lincoln?
Now fall on your face already.


Gilbert Allen's most recent collection of poems is Catma, from Measure Press. A book of short stories, The Final Days of Great American Shopping, is forthcoming from USC Press in April. He lives in Travelers Rest, South Carolina.