High Abuse

By Gary Beck 

I once dreamed of a land

where all were free

with equal opportunity.

Grade school cured me of that.

As I grew up

prejudice, discrimination,

hatred, violence

pervaded my country,

poisoning the home of democracy.

It took a while for me to learn

our rulers weren’t elected officials,

but obscure oligarchs

who bought legislators

for their own needs,

rather then the nation.

And when amoral corporations

abandoned America

for higher profit abroad,

removing a blue collar class

that resisted the bosses,

leaving a rust belt

to defile the landscape.

And year after year

more and more of our rights

were taken away

until our birthright is tarnished
by ruthless exploiters

of a once hopeful people.

Gary Beck has spent his adult life as a theater director. He has 14 published chapbooks. His poetry collections include Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press), Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines, Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings, The Remission of Order and Contusions (Winter Goose Publishing). Conditioned Response (Nazar Look), Virtual Living (Thurston Howl Publications), Blossoms of Decay,Expectations, Blunt Force and Transitions (Wordcatcher Publishing). His  novels include Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing), Call to Valor and Crumbling Ramparts(Gnome on Pig Productions), Sudden Conflicts (Lillicat Publishers). Acts of Defiance  and Flare Up Wordcatcher Publishing). His short story collections include A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications), Now I Accuse and other stories (Winter Goose Publishing) and Dogs Don’t Send Flowers and other stories (Wordcatcher Publishing). The Republic of Dreams and other essays (Gnome on Pig Productions). Feast or Famine and other one act-plays will be published by Wordcatcher Publishing. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of magazines. He lives in New York City.

Dear America

By Jose Bello

Our Administration has failed
They passed laws against our people
Took away our rights and our freedom
and still expect to be hailed?
Chales!
Dear America,
You and your administration caused fear -
fear through separation.
Instead of building trust with our people
do y'all prefer this racial tension?
Oppressed.
I live my life in frustration.
Private prisons, political funding,
mass incarceration - you make the connection.
I speak for the victims who pay for this scam -
Vietnamese, Jamaican, African, Cambodian,
Mexican, Salvadoran, on and on.
Together we stand.
We demand respect.
We want our dignity back.
Our roots run deep in this country,
now that's a true fact.
Dear Americans,
What's the whole point of repeating these facts?
Well I'm here to let you know
We want to feel safe
Whether we're Brown, Asian, or Black.
We don't want your jobs,
we don't want your money.
We're here to work hard. pay taxes, and study.
The fight has begun.
"We will never be apart chiquito"
is what I promised my son.
Y'all can try and justify your actions
and try and make excuses
The bottom line here is that in the end
the people always triumph
and the government loses.
Dear America,
Do not consider this a threat
Our intentions are the continue making America great
It's time to begin standing up for what's right
Criminalizing children,
separating families
"Our national security" -
Does this make it alright?
No. It doesn't and it won't.
The youth have to stand up
We have to unite with our peers
Let's begin educating our children
Speak wisdom into their ears
Because at the end of the day
I am you, and you are me.
Together we are.
Sincerely,
Those seeds you tried to bury.

Jose Bello was picked up by ICE two days after reciting this poem in protest.  Resist! 

Imprint on Bench of a Bus Stop

By Hardarshan Singh Valia

The snow flake

falling on a bench

of a bus stop

refused to cover the space

that was left empty

by a female fast-food worker

whose complaint

of workplace sexual harassment

fell on deaf ears.

The snow flake

attached to

a lonely tear

meandered around

the empty space

and dissolved quietly

into an undulating image

crying for a shape.

This poem was written on January 15, 2019, in response to a TV documentary by Gretchen Carlson entitled ‘Breaking the Silence’. 

OK to Say

By Laurinda Lind

It’s the opposite of what John
Lennon said he saw through

the installation spyglass in
the leading version of how

he got his second wife and is
what the so-called president

said one week between planes
when asked if he would fire

the special counsel working out
whether he’s sold the country off

overseas, it’s what most of them
said to Spacey or wanted to say

to Weinstein or couldn’t say
to Cosby or meant to say

to Moore or were terrified
wouldn’t work once they tried

it on Trump. One consonant
only and one vowel coming

out the mouth by way of the nose:
No. And what it means is no.


Laurinda Lind lives in northern New York where not long ago, wind blew trees down flat and unroofed a school. Her work has appeared in Blueline, Comstock Review, Constellations, Paterson Literary Review, and Radius; also anthologies Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan (New Rivers Press) and AFTERMATH: Explorations of Loss and Grief (Radix Media). In 2018, she won first place in both the Keats-Shelley Prize for adult poetry and the New York State Fair poetry competition.

The moth-eater

By Sarah Bigham

Alone in the attic
The moth-eater waits
For those who come calling
And just want to take

The blankets and dowries
The moth-eater keeps
Giving chase to the thieves
Who flutter and creep

Fabrics are brittle
When set against time
As are old diaries and
Books coated in grime

I do not tear at the seams
I do not leak from the core
I do not fade away slowly
Dripping conscience through pores

The moth-eater guards
The moth-eater eats
And the moth-eater growls
While I dream in my sleep

Send indictments and tweets
There is a committee that greets
Conmen and liars
And launderers and cheats

Empaneled in Washington
Other moth-eaters wait
For those who went trawling
And just wanted to take.


Sarah Bigham writes from the United States where she lives with her kind chemist wife, three independent cats, an unwieldy herb garden, and near-constant outrage at the general state of the world tempered with love for those doing their best to make a difference. Find her at www.sgbigham.com.

20/20

By Susan P. Blevins

Let’s hope
by the time we
get to 2020, if
we’re not blown
up by nuclear
weapons by then,
or rotted from the
inside out by un-
fettered pollution,
or shot while we pray,
that we are as a
nation, blessed with the
improbable gift of
20/20 vision.

Measured in Minutes

By Jennifer Saunders 

I read it, and I saw a drunken sexual assault that probably was measured in minutes by two creeps with no premeditation. — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) on Twitter 9/17/18 1:28 AM, responding to attempted rape allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.

Cover (one Mississippi) your (two Mississippi) mouth. 

Smash (three Mississippi) that (four Mississippi) palm (five Mississippi) 

good and hard (six Mississippi) 

against (seven Mississippi) your lips. 

Find a body (eight Mississippi) bigger (nine Mississippi) than (ten Mississippi) yours 

(eleven Mississippi)

and push (twelve Mississippi) (thirteen Mississippi) (fourteen Mississippi) yourself 

                        (fifteen Mississippi) down 

                                    (sixteen Mississippi) on 

                                                (seventeen Mississippi) the bed 

and turn (eighteen Mississippi) up (nineteen Mississippi) the (twenty Mississippi) music 

                                                            (twenty-one Mississippi) (twenty-two Mississippi) 

louder. 

Cover (twenty-three Mississippi) 

that (twenty-four Mississippi) 

mouth (twenty-five Mississippi). 

Push (twenty-five Mississippi) harder (twenty-six Mississippi). 

Now tear (twenty-seven Mississippi) at (twenty-eight Mississippi) your (twenty-nine Mississippi) clothes. 

(Thirty Mississippi)

Never (thirty-one Mississippi)             forget   (thirty-two Mississippi) 

there (thirty-three Mississippi) are (thirty-four Mississippi) two (thirty-five Mississippi) of (thirty-six Mississippi) them (thirty-seven Mississippi) 

twoofthemtwoofthemtwoofthemtwoofthem               in         the       room    with     you.

(Thirty-eight Mississippi). 

(Thirty-nine Mississippi). 

(Forty Mississippi).

Try (forty-one Mississippi) to (forty-two Mississippi) yell (forty-three Mississippi)

for (forty-four Mississippi) 

                        help. 

                                    Go on. 

Push (forty-five Mississippi) that (forty-six Mississippi) hand (forty-seven Mississippi) down (forty-eight Mississippi) hard (forty-nine Mississippi). 

Yank (fifty Mississippi) 

            at (fifty-one Mississippi) 

                        your (fifty-two Mississippi) 

                                    clothes (fifty-three Mississippi). 

Push (fifty-four Mississippi).

                                                            Yank (fifty-five Mississippi).

Push (fifty-six Mississippi).

                                                            Yank (fifty-seven Mississippi).

                                    

Can (fifty-eight Mississippi) you (fifty-nine Mississippi) still (sixty Mississippi) breathe? 

Good. 

That’s one. 

Now. 

Begin (one Mississippi)                      again.

This poem was first published in Glass: A Journal of Poetry in September 2018 and reprinted by permission of the author.  Jennifer Saunders is a poet currently living in German-speaking Switzerland. Her poetry and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Dunes Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, San Pedro River Review, Spillway, The Shallow Ends, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Self-Portrait with Housewife, was selected by Gail Wronsky as the winner of the 2017 Clockwise Chapbook contest and is forthcoming from Tebot Bach Press. Jennifer holds an MFA from Pacific University and in the winters she teaches skating at a hockey school.

Ghost stories

By Nixi Schroeder

I am 13 when I have my first paranormal encounter:
a whispered moan fizzling in the wind like a holler from a car window—
“Ay girl, lemme get that pussayyyyyyyyy….”

My father does not believe me.

I am sixteen and it happens again, this time
“Nice tits.” My mother explains
this is a common psychic phenomenon.
I am seventeen when a spirit at Wal-Mart asks what I have in my jeans;
my boyfriend says this is a compliment, says
I am lucky to hear such spirits speak.

I am nineteen.
A wandering sprite asks if I want to get a drink.
When I decline I am haunted for three hours
through cafés, narrow streets, and alleyways by
a shadow presence marked in eye corner glimpses.
I do not go home for fear of the Ouiji board.
I do not go to the police:
the police do not believe ghost stories.

We all know a girl who wasn’t believed.

We’ve all been the girl who wasn’t believed:
I have a friend whose ass was grabbed in a frat, a ghost hand
leaving finger bruises as an invisible mouth suffocated her scream—
she tried to call the ghostbusters but was threatened with retaliation,
like so many girls are threatened with retaliation—another friend
was the victim of possession—
held down in her bed until she shrieked in silent tongues;
the police asked why she was not carrying a rosary;
her mother is still making monthly payments to an exorcist
who has not told her to speak
because he knows
her voice is still another’s
possession.

We all know victims of possession. I have an aunt
who has scars across her cheeks from where her husband marked her
as a possession;
the police told her to stay in a haunted house
to protect her children,
now even after the restraining order she still receives visitations,
her husband’s spectre rattling the chains which bind
so many women, and
at the end of this poem I will hear a harsh
voice, whispering “not all ghosts,”
whispering “quit being so dramatic—

one in five women are always so dramatic”
and I will say, no, not all ghosts.
Not all ghosts,
but
enough.


Nixi Schroeder is a MA student of English at Truman State University. Her poetry has been featured by The FEM, Eyedrum Periodically, Spectrum, Red Dashboard Press, and Windfall Magazine, among other publications.

I Was Raped. By My Husband. I Was 18.

By Katherine Perry

In America
after walking down the aisle
and having my father give me away
to a man who changed my name
and insisted that I was his:
        no one else should look at me
and demanded I report back to him every male person I saw every day
and I must have sex any time he wanted
but I shouldn’t want sex:
        that would be a sin
        pray about it here, on your knees,
        ask God for forgiveness for your terrible sins
my body became his
his property.

This was 1988.
I was turning 19, and he wanted me pregnant
to carry his babies
but I was scared of him
of having a girl child
so I took birth control pills in secret, prescribed by my female obgyn.

I was scared of him
so I broke away by pushing off the couch
with the full force of my thighs,
knocking him into the fireplace,
and this freed me from his arm’s latch,
and I ran to my car, getting away just in time
and my step-mother said go back to him:
        Ephesians 5:22-23: Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands 
        as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife 
        as Christ is the head of the church, his body, 
        of which he is the Savior. 
and my father said, yeah. You better.
so I did.

And the next time, when my husband hid my car keys,
I ran to our neighbor,
and asked for help
and he sent me back too.

It was spring
before a female coworker said to me:
                        this isn’t right
                        go to college
and I asked my mom to help me
and she put her body between us,
so that I could pack my clothes and jewelry,
everything I owned into one Toyota car trunk:
        thirteen inch Sony
        one hardback chair
        three expensive pots and pans
        and a set of good china.

When I left, he screamed after me, “If I can’t have you, no one will.”
and I was afraid he would show up at work threatening
and everyone would know
so I said I had abandoned my husband
because I was afraid.

Finally, I drove out of town and to college, in terror that he might chase me
so I paid for the divorce so that he would let me go without killing me.
I was 19.
I paid him monthly until the lease ran out.
I paid him my reputation.
I let everyone believe
I jilted him.

I told no one that he raped me.
I told no one that I was afraid to be alone with the man I married.
Instead, I paid him with my hometown:
        the water and the twinkling lights on Mobile Bay on long, fall nights.
        Spanish moss and seafood, the catching of fish and shrimp,
        magnolia-tree leaves and wisteria-blossomed world
        of my childhood with white-sand beaches.

I paid him with my gods.
I paid him with my belief in good.
I paid him with my entire family
who I never told.

I unfolded bill after bill of my life and gave it over to him
because I told no one. And to survive, I needed to get away,
to learn to live on my own, without fear.
I told no one, because so few would listen,
until now.


Katherine D. Perry is an Associate Professor of English at Perimeter College of Georgia State University. Some of her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Women’s Studies Quarterly, The Dead Mule of Southern Literature, Eco-Chick, Poetry Quarterly, Melusine, Southern Women’s Review, Bloodroot, Borderlands, Women’s Studies, RiverSedge, Rio Grande Review, and 13th Moon. She works in Georgia prisons to bring literature and poetry to incarcerated students and is currently building a prison initiative with Georgia State University to bring college courses into Georgia state prisons. She lives in Decatur, Georgia with her spouse and two children

BIOLOGICAL CONTROL

By Linda Drach

they feed on our silence
glaze us
in sticky dew

from one perspective, they are highly successful:
stunted growth, low yields, withered leaves
curled inward

so what do we do?
you tell me
I tell you

like drops of blood, spattering:
ladybugs, spilling out
by the thousands

Linda Drach is a a Portland, Oregon writer who works in public health research and evaluation, including projects related to HIV, sexual and domestic violence, and criminal justice. My writing ranges from the scientific to the lyric, and has been published in peer-review journals like the American Journal of Public Health and Public Health Reports, and the literary journal VoiceCatcher.

As the World Splits Open*

By Andrena Zawinski

Fear of rape is a cold wind blowing...

on a woman’s hunched back—Marge Piercy, 1975

Six men rape and murder a New Delhi medical student 

on a bus, her ashes and their crime scattered 

to winds crossing the Ganges. 

  A woman is raped 

  every twenty minutes in India.

Three brothers take two low caste village girls, 

twist their scarves into nooses to cut deep into their necks, 

leave them to die hanging from a mango tree.

   Women protestors are blasted 

   by police water cannons.

A mob of twenty attack a girl in Cairo's Tahrir Square

in front of her parents at a presidential inauguration,

her body bloodied, clawed raw, clothes torn from her.

   Crimes against women 

   are repeated and unpunished.

Women go shopping, to school, to jobs in Ciudad Juarez. 

They disappear, their bodies found stabbed, dismembered, 

mutilated, torched––desert blood.

  Crimes against women

   remain unsolved and unstoppable.

Five soldiers rape a Nairobi mother, charge her for insulting 

a government body, her sentence delayed to breastfeed. 

  A crime against one woman

  is a crime against all women.

Buried neck high, stoned before a thousand spectators, 

a Somali girl suffers a public death for reporting her rape. 

Hundreds of Nigerian girls are kidnapped for sex slave trade 

to be brokered across the Middle East, Europe, Russia.

Girls bought and sold as talismans of youth and virility 

in India, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, are more likely 

to die than learn how to read. 

  Countless millions of children

  are ravished in times of war. 

On the home front two Steubenville quarterbacks 

and one receiver brag a girl you get drunk can’t say no, 

are videotaped for a youtube splash. 

  One in four American women

  will be raped in her lifetime
on dorm floors, in labs, in classrooms, bathrooms, at work,

or just walking home watching the moon and the stars

        as the world splits open, 

        cold winds blowing 

        across their hunched backs.

Andrena Zawinski, long-time feminist activist in the Women Against Violence Against Women Movement, is the author of three full collections of poetry: Landings (Kelsay Books), Something About (PEN Oakland Award, Blue Light Press), and Traveling in Reflected Light (Kenneth Patchen Prize, Pig Iron Press). She founded and runs a Women’s Poetry Salon in the San Francisco Bay Area and is Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com.

*The title “As the World Splits Open” comes from Muriel Rukeyser’s “What if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open."

Madam Physician

By Fae Kayarian

Madam Physician-
I never saw myself in medicine
until I met you.

I only knew of straight white men,
wearing straight white coats,
who always assured me that
It’s too complicated to explain
and You should try something else.

All I’ve ever wanted to be
is a clinician, a physician, a doctor,
but all people can ever see
is just a girl, a female, a woman.

Madam Physician-
Seeing you changed how
I see myself.

You commanded the operating room,
not by force or fear,
but with a presence that announced
We must do our best
and Let’s fight with everything we’ve got.

I can’t imagine being
a clinician, a physician, a doctor,
who transcends the label of
being just a girl, a female, a woman.

Madam Physician-
I will always be humbled by the gift
you gave me.

I can remember your eyes,
always focused and always giving,
that looked into mine as you told me
You are worthy of dreaming
and You have a place in medicine.

Madam Physician-
I am everything I am
I can become everything I wish to be.

Fae Kayarian lives in Boston, Massachusetts, where she is an undergraduate student enrolled in the Behavioral Neuroscience program at Northeastern University. She is also a research student and a volunteer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. She is a proud Bostonian, and enjoys running, biking and discovering music venues in the city.

Deception

By Natalie Calderon

America, the so-called land of the free
 But is it still free if I take a knee?
Our president wants to “Make America Great Again”
But keeps putting roadblocks in the path of equality
I’m worried things will only get worse from here
I adjure to feel secure but how can I when
My so-called leader is acting so immature
My hope in humanity is fading
Because of all the degrading
My heart hurts as racism is pervading
I feel anger in my soul as it anchors my stomach
My spirit is damaged by the baggage of hate I carry
But I must stay strong for the struggles to come
I just hope my pride doesn’t go numb


This poem was selected by Nicholas Kristof and the Poetry Society of America from a call for poems of resistance to Trump's policies.

We are the ones

who will break the glass ceiling
who will fight for what is right
who will not grow weary in doing good
who will reap what we sow
who will not give up.
who will teach girls they can do anything
who will not forget the battles of women
who will never relent
who will make history
hers, as it always was.

By Kathryn Dillard


Kathryn Dillard lives in northern California and works as a teacher at a local K-8 Waldorf school. She studied English and creative writing at University of California-Davis. In her free time, she enjoys writing, gardening and playing with her 9 month old son.

Saying is better than not saying

By Ruth Goring

1. Last night a couple of church friends and I were at the Chicago O’Hare protest against the Muslim ban and the border wall. It was beautiful. A young ponytailed Middle Eastern–looking man led most of the chants; he jumped up and down with manic energy, though his voice eventually cracked into a piccolo range. He was beautiful.
2. As we prepared to leave, I used the bathroom and found out that I was bleeding.
3. Early this morning I was still bleeding. I emailed my boss to request a sick day and went to sleep.
4. When I woke up, I called my medical group to make an appointment. A nurse asked about my symptoms and said I should see an ob-gyn within three days. My ob-gyn didn’t have an appointment available till March.
5. Of all the network’s ob-gyns in the city of Chicago, there was only one, an elderly white male, who had any appointment times available before March. It was today at noon. I took it.
6. I arrived on time but had to wait a long time after I was taken to a room, after the nurse came to take my blood pressure, and after she returned to get the instruments ready.
7. I told both the nurse and the doctor that this area of my body is extremely sensitive nowadays, that the instrument they were going to use had caused me great pain a couple of years earlier.
8. The doctor proceeded to do a first check, sans instrument, quickly and roughly. I cried out, then lay there crying.
9. “Relax your muscles,” he said as he reached for the instrument. “I can’t relax when it hurts so much,” I wailed.
10. He stopped and pulled back without deploying the instrument. “OK,” he said. “Get up and get your clothes on after we leave the room.” I did.
11. He came back and said, “There is always a plan B.” So now the plan is to do an ultrasound, and if it shows thickened tissue, they’ll do minor surgery to get what they need for a biopsy. I asked about sedation and he said yes, they can make it painless.
12. Why didn’t they believe me when I said the other way would be too painful? Why not start with plan B? Why, after all these years and so many medical advances, are they still routinely sticking thick, rigid rods into women rather than developing supple, flexible instruments that could do the job just as well?
13. Oh. Because older white men.
14. (Last time I had a mammogram, the technician did tell me that machines with curved lines are finally on their way. Finally.
15. As I drove to get a few groceries, the news came on my radio. American consular officials in various embassies around the world have sent a message to the White House explaining that the directive to stop and deport refugees and visitors and immigrants from seven Muslim countries is creating ill will, that ISIS is cheering, that the US will be forfeiting many economic benefits from its immigrants.
16. Later as I headed home, the news was back on. The White House sent a message back: conform to the directive or give up your job.
17. I turned off the radio, overwhelmed with sadness. I thought of an old friend of my parents who has been dogging my Facebook posts, those where I express my political beliefs and concerns most passionately, and arguing relentlessly. Never with the slightest acknowledgment of common Christian faith, or of any common ground at all. With no grace. I have tried to be respectful and focus on the topic at hand.
18. Yesterday I called on people in certain states to be in touch with their senators in opposition to the appointment of Betsy DeVos. This old friend, a resident of one of those states, said thank you, I will call to ask mine to support DeVos.
19. I thought about married friends who may have to forgo a trip to see the husband’s family. His homeland isn’t one of the seven, but it is a Muslim-majority country. He is Christian.
20. I thought about the bleeding. At least the doctor did retreat to plan B, because I yelled.
21. The bleeding seems to have petered out for now. I am home now,  decaf Constant Comment. I have an appointment very soon for the ultrasound.
22. I sent the old friend a polite PM about her impoliteness; I said I need a break. Then I blocked her.
23. I will keep yelling.

Ruth Goring’s poetry collections are Soap Is Political (Glass Lyre, 2015) and Yellow Doors (WordFarm, 2003); her children’s picture book Adriana’s Angels / Los ángeles de Adriana (Sparkhouse) came out this fall. Ruth’s poems have appeared, or will soon, in RHINO, New Madrid, Crab Orchard Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Aeolian Harp 3, CALYX, and the anthology Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump’s America (NYQ Books). She edits books at the University of Chicago Press and teaches an editing course at the Graham School for Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.

Blue Hair & Fortune Cookies

By Najah LaVerne

Can I get a fortune cookie?
I'll pay you $1, the homeless man said.
Why should this simple question startle the staff
of Panda Express, while making its patrons laugh?
2017 has revealed more women with blue hair
Than any other time in my more than 60 years.
I ponder: Is it magic,
Because "black lives matter,"
Or is it that politics are now flaming red?


Najah LaVerne Haqiqah is a writer and an International Poet Society’s second place winner (2008). She has published two chapbooks and she is currently completing her first full-length book of poem. She is a retired journalist and adjunct professor of English Composition. She volunteers as a docent for the Los Angeles Public Library and promotes Peace, Prayer and Forgiveness Day initiated in 2006 to inspire peace and forgiveness with regard to the September 11, 2001 attack on the USA.

The President Elect

By Norman Stock

I wake to hear the latest news
Trump’s adviser dislikes Jews
should I take cover, should I run
will I be under the gun
with Donald Trump it's hard to say
he keeps changing every day
first he’s in a Twitter war
then he’s talking to Al Gore
and  gets a phone call from Taiwan
is he taking China on
or just kidding, what’s the deal
is this nincompoop for real
does he even have the guts
to straighten out, or is he nuts
are we facing the abyss
with this madman, or is this
like his campaign was, just a con
what the fuck is going on
whatever this election meant
it made him the president
as I said when it was done
holy shit, the bastard won

Pickled Dreams Naked, Buying Breakfast For My Kamikaze Pilot, winner of the Peregrine Smith Poetry Contest. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, College English  The New York Quarterly, Verse, The New England Review, Denver Quarterly, and many other magazines, as well as in anthologies and textbooks. The recipient of awards from the Writer’s Voice, Poets & Writers’ Maureen Egen Writers Exchange, the Bennington Writing Workshops, and the Tanne Foundation, he has also been a Bread Loaf fellow, a Sewanee scholar, and a finalist for Poet Laureate of Queens. Formerly the Acquisitions Librarian at Montclair State University, from which he retired  in 2005, he lives with his wife, Lydia Chang, a clinical psychotherapist, in Jackson Heights New York.

The Trump Wall

By William Marr

Built at the border of our hearts

this wall of the 21st century will grow 

drawing nourishment from all dark corners

of human nature

to become the Great Wall

of America

Hold it!

are you trying to come in

or get out

William Marr has published volumes of poetry (two in English and the rest in his native Chinese language), 3 books of essays, several books of translations, and 10 eBooks. His most recent published work, Chicago Serenade, is a trilingual (Chinese/English/French) anthology of poems published in Paris in 2015. His poetry has been translated into more than ten languages and included in over one hundred anthologies.  Some of his poems are used in high school and college textbooks in Taiwan, China, England, and Germany.   He is a former president of the Illinois State Poetry Society and has received numerous honors, including several awards for his poetry and translations. His Website, The Art World of William Marr displays some of his literary and artistic works.

Climate Change Theories After Another Surprise Snowstorm

By Adam Stone

I’m not really a summer guy

I like winter

I like winter because I like snow

I like snow like I like my men:

Deep

Untouched in photographs

Shoveled off my porch before I go to work

I like my snow like I like my men

Accumulating softly while I sleep.

I like my men like I like my snow,

Which is to say
At the beginning of the season

I remember them fondly

But the minute they require me

 to do the least amount of work
I hope to never see one of those flakes again

I like my men like I like my snow
Light and fluffy at first

But heavier and more full of grit

the deeper you dig

I like my men like I like my snow

In theory

I like men

I like snow

I’m often judged harshly by those who don’t understand

My appreciation of either

And why do I like snow?
Is it in my genes?

Or do I like it because I was raised

in a climate where winter was tolerated

if not full accepted.

I like my men like I like my snow -

Oh god.  Temporary?

Just for a few months out of the year?

It’s been a long time since I lived anywhere temperate

So do I maybe like snow

Because I’ve spent over half my life identifying

As someone who likes snow?

No. I could never live in a climate lacking winter.

I tried that once in college

And again in my mid-twenties when I was

Chasing the mechanical rabbit of heteronormative success

That I was told would make me happy

But I like snow

I don’t always want to like snow

But I do always like snow

Even when it is inconvenient

Even when it keeps me from achieving something

That I believe I have the right to achieve

Even when it means the world is too cold to bear

Without protection.

Adam Stone is an amazing slam poet who lives in the Boston area.  You should hear his work any time you can.  

SOMEONE KILLED THE WELWITSCHIA

By Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor

A 2000 year old plant, protected by law, the largest collection
outside Namibia at the Georgia Botany Greenhouse
where Spring 2016 someone shouted, you gotta come see this!
where "this" meant a student worker's oversight to raise the beds or water the red sand. Whomever it was, "The Plant Man" in charge hasn't arrived at forgiveness.

I took 2 peases
of your jewelry. Wy
I took it is because you wear
pretty jewelry
and it makes
me feel a lot
bad for what
I took from.

My 6 year-old daughter's friend wrote, on her mother's orders, when the girl revealed stolen necklaces hidden for months behind a chair in her room. "Stolen" might be too strong a word for the cheap, costume pieces mimicking garnet, lapis. I'd hardly noticed them gone.

Who hasn't treasured then regretted something they shouldn't have done, hidden it in a room's corner?

I was just like that once, flushing one too many baby wipes down the toilet causing $27,000 in flood damage; or tangled in bedsheets with a boy calling in "sick."

The poet says all poems are about sex or death
and if not sex, then love; if not death
then loss. Forgiveness is a little death,
losing anger's leathery ribbon leaves, the false belief that what's precious can be preserved.

I will never taka anything agian.

Her promise, a fragile scratch on vellum paper,
destined to be broken.


MELISA (Misha) CAHNMANN-TAYLOR is the author of three books: Imperfect Tense (poems), Teachers Act Up: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities Through Theatre, and Arts-Based Research in Education. Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia and poetry editor for Anthropology & Humanism, she directs National Endowment for the Arts "Big Read" programs and an annual poetry series. Her research, teaching, and service concern emerging and creative engagement in public (bi)literacy education.