Issue #44
Ann Weil
Seeking light on the question of rational living,
those who strive to save the lives of man
are compelled to an evolution
instead of revolution,
from jellyfish to a being possessed,
a bony framework in an upright position
willing to live on sun-kissed vibrations
within the body itself, one energy
which has all the power to harmonize.
Provided there is a true hunger,
spiritual unfoldment takes place.
Author’s note: This poem was constructed by erasure from the 716-word introduction to Food for the Traveler, What to Eat and Why (Dora C.C.L Roper, 1916, public domain).
Taking the Long Way Home
Streetlights shining on new snowfall.
Driving on a diamond-strewn road,
slowly, so as not to slide on the slick.
Slowly, so as not to rush the arrival.
The woman, her gloved hands gripping
the wheel, wears the illusion of control
like a favorite sweater pulled snug
against the hard weather up ahead.
Like black ice, rage emerges out of thin air
at the house in the woods. It is always
the not-knowing when that is hardest to bear,
and will she be target or bystander?
She’d planned to skip this year, but
was told a no-show would “destroy the family”.
Eggnog and guilt passed around like bestsellers—
everyone has a sip and a turn at the pages.
Headlights shine on shapes crossing the road.
A man carrying a sled holds a little girl’s
mittened hand. The ache takes root
as the woman watches them walk away.
A half-mile more through a tilted snow globe,
she rounds the bend. The driveway is freshly
plowed, a thick, white blanket drapes the roof,
the lights of the tree glow in the window.
Such a beautiful night for pretending.
After a long teaching career in K-12 and university, Ann Weil has returned to her first love— writing poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications including Third Wednesday, The Healing Muse (October 2021, vol. 21), Heron Tree, Thimble Literary Magazine (vol. 3, #4, March 2021) and Clementine Unbound. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Laura Celise Lippman
Suicide Storm
A metronome of tree branches beats
against the house,
bellows of wind batter
the kitchen windows
Sleep eludes me, I toss and turn
Crows huddle in their roosts,
coots hug the shore
A crow flits past, then another,
alighting atop
swinging curtains of birch trees
I’m afraid to go outside lest
the chill shatter my heart
Buses rumble on the street,
clearing their throats
under our windows.
The spirit of my friend’s daughter
crawls in and out
of my coat
like a caul of spiders
Rain lashes the roof and erases
our footprints
fossil-dried in the dirt below
Clouds riffle and foam
along the mountains’
snowy crowns
An airplane shudders,
traveling South
The human storm blows me empty
Laura Celise Lippman is a retired family physician who has found some satisfaction in writing and studying poetry, doing citizen science and grandparenting. She is trying to maintain some calm during these crazy times. Her most recent work has appeared in Mobius, a Journal of Social Change, Poydras Review, and Sin Fronteras (Issue #25).
Damian Ward Hey
Belinda Spoke a Fake Language
Belinda spoke a fake language. It was English, but it wasn’t. Not
really. At least not like English anyone I knew ever spoke.
I resented her for it. I imagined it came out of
all those dusty, moldy-smelling, thick-bloated
volumes Grandpa Ezra kept in his basement
library. She’d read down there, all Summer.
I really think she read too much. Her words
began to stink of it. The things she said
were old, archaic weirdnesses. She told them
Heaven hath thrown forth her stars.
(She may have had a minor stroke.)
Into each morning sun, she cast
her laughter, and calmed the ancients,
set about as lawn chairs. Poetic—not
poetry, exactly. She ravened of a waning moon.
She misbegot the Autumn’s ring. I heard her
Harrow through the dog-torn altared enclaves
haply placed inside the dawning psyche.
Just what was I to make of this?
What demon lived inside her mouth?
Belinda! What became of you, my older sister,
whose clear tongue made my younger world lucid?
Do you know what you are saying?
Belinda turned her face to me, and answered:
What I say is mine; it is my province.
You’re grown, now.
Go make your own world lucid.
Love Beknows a Choiceful Thing
(Wernicke’s Aphasic Love Poem)
Love beknows a choiceful thing
meandering through the hempered heart
it noless lefillits you old by soul
and teleflammands no freeling force.
If back-eyed sing, is you more me,
our oldendive forks to umptward dart,
consorder it misconstruly bit
myopathy underwent for coarse.
Yet you, but you, but aft anew,
redumple the orn of laylee tarn
gin it agin! I would the nairs
unrankle the floom and gorty hues.
So sinkle and sigh with rash ontire
to inter-regotiate the barn –
I’ll not-to reshun your moon nor I,
nor mockalorn gant my leavened yous.
Damian Ward Hey’s poems have appeared, most recently, in Black Flowers. His work has also appeared in Madness Muse Press; Formidable Woman Sanctuary; The Rye Whiskey Review; Jerry Jazz Musician and Happy Fukkadays 2 U (The Alien Buddha Press). More poems will be published in Rat’s Ass Review (Summer 2021) and Cajun Mutt Press (April 2022).
Shi Yang Su
On My First Death Under Sun
Ooh
burning sun strode over the eastern skyline
engulfed haughty skyscrapers without teeth or tongue
it clutched the power to change me
(lolled around and lifted up
like willow cricket balancing its body) chanting its
emptied elegy in raucous treble
from grave sunshine shadowed. Ignited my carcass in dust
& sprinkled light on golden-sweat sea
We moved around to feel the warmth
Yet my little corpse too pale for sunburn
shivered under ultraviolet ray and scattered into sunstruck cells
a moist kiss from God
my mama worried a lot
she brought me sun lotion and smeared it on
gently
scrupulously
oxybenzone oozing underneath epidermis
biting oil pricked thin magma vessels pest satisfied, struck thorax bell
with dampness dried in flame a humming iron-brand on chest
left me breathing like a fish slipped out of ocean salt
little green spots
crowded on ankle and arm
braided my mild headache’s thread
chemicals’ noxious smell conquered senses
like dazzling pendants in a bar
sunbathe a dizzy dance with no wrist to fondly grab
children’s little chaos about who to serve in next play
volley ball leaped above sight lapping my split lip
I waited for its landing on sand a dull thud, sunspots,
a fall and flounder for a moment I
saw my mother’s shadow reversed
baffled by her staggering
Kindly
pedestrians with crepe bows came to weep
a little sand dune burial mound
Lamentable
play funeral at seven with sunglasses on.
Shi Yang Su is an international student who is currently studying creative writing. She loves reading poems and would like to share her own works with others.
Jared Beloff
Self Portrait as a Double Helix
In the beginning there were words, a void, but I am.
Jacob, weary in exile, awakens chimeras
along the indecipherable curve of my spine,
disfigured dreams rising in the desert sky
blessed in his ignorance with heritage.
A nitrogen base woos another:
Lay with me. Be my love.
They twist in the night repelled and attractive
grouping phosphates
smearing sugared molecules
conjugating bonds of hydrogen love poetry:
paired repaired parting
Let’s be honest, you have no way of knowing any of this.
We are all just ribbons of flesh.
The first snake (no not that one)
to wrap its tail around another
and meet the moment can mate.
a longfin eel travels thousands of miles,
carrying its weight the promise of many births.
Jared Beloff is a teacher and poet who lives in Queens, NY with his wife and two daughters. You can find his work in littledeathlit, Much Love, Mag, and the forthcoming issue of The Westchester Review (Spring 2021). You can find him online on Twitter @read_instead and instagram @Jared_W_Beloff
Sally Badawi
The Apartment is Not a Pyramid
There is a building where walls bounce
fruit sellers’ voices, inside a blue sofa
mapped our family tree as Tita gathered
buckets, hefting hours without
sloshing and lined them next to the basket
of knitting needles, laid Gido and Ammo in
yarn spools and, like eggs in a nest, she fed
us 19 buttons to tether us all over
the world, and in the cupboard folded
nightgowns sat empty of her
body and when she died surely
the apartment died, her body
programmed for obsolescence—
a slow abstraction, a faint yellow
scent of ghee: the apartment is
leaking through peeling green
shutters and there’s grief in the storm
drains and the bed sheets
can’t soak it up fast enough.
Sally Badawi teaches writing in Portland, Oregon where she lives with her husband and two children. You can find her most recent work at The Dillydoun Review and forthcoming in Months To Years‘ Spring 2021 issue. You can follow her on Twitter @sallymbadawi.
Cameron Morse
Sound Bites
A cancer that begins
in the brain
becomes synonymous
with the brain
an ingrown toenail
total eclipse
*
Hurrying to clear the concrete
pad before the next
snowfall, Lili folds herself
into the crawlspace
with a red toy shovel
*
I call my phone
on your phone
I call myself
from every room
in the house
hearing nothing
I do not answer
*
Things turn up in the loam
each object with its own
karmic weight
a dog chain, baby
spoon, green cigarette
lighter still flicks
flame of the previous
occupant fallen
through the deck boards
Cameron Morse lives with his wife Lili and two children in Independence, Missouri. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including New Letters, Bridge Eight, Portland Review and South Dakota Review. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is Far Other (Woodley Press, 2020).
Richard Dinges, Jr.
Granddaughter
Held in my arms,
she fixes her eyes
on the big screen,
a primary color
palette that moves
gently to rhythm
of nursery songs
changed slightly
from my memory.
Her fingers grab
mine and loosen
in time with music
that prepares her
for her future
that I do not see.
Barn Still Life
Old barn on hill
gutted, roof half
stoved, galvanized
yet rusted tin
skinned sheets bent
across weeds, wood
bones exposed to
setting sun, a soul
expired beside
clean red steel walls
and white roof
with its wide open
doors that gape
and consume the old
wind that blows wild
across open prairies.
Richard Dinges, Jr. lives and works by a pond among trees and grassland, along with his wife, one dog, three cats, and eleven chickens. Big Windows Review, Decomp Journal, Oracle, Sandy River Review (forthcoming 2021), and Pennsylvania English (forthcoming, TBD) most recently accepted his poems for their publications.