Day -hab driver
I pick him
up from his
day hab program
he is smiling
but I give him a Tylenol
because it is raining
and I don’t know
what to expect
On those days
Elvis, the Beatles
or kidz bop?
I ask him
praying it’s not
the last one
A horrible station
where they auto tune
kids singing
bubble gum pop songs
he chooses the Beatles
and smiles when I sing
along to day tripper
We turn on
South Main Street
not far from
The whataburger
where I gave
the drifter who
approached my window
seven dollars
His left eye
looking straight
at me
his right eye
a one way
ticket out
About the Author: Melanie Browne is a poet and fiction writer from Texas. She has been published in several anthologies including This is Poetry Volume IV: Poets of the Southand Cowboys &Cocktails Poetry from the True Grit Saloon.
Image Credit: Esther Bubley “Bus trip from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Washington, D.C. Looking out of bus window in Tennessee” (1943) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
17. 07. 2023
From the balcony -
empty Taco Bell cups
race down the street
like hysterical kids.
Hollyhocks thrash
against one another
in the wind.
Summer is sick
and I run my finger
along the balcony rail,
feeling the tender
warmth from the lingering
touches of sunshine.
When the storm arrives,
I am far too interested
in watching it unfold
to care about what’s been.
I want
nothing more than
for change,
to always feel this way.
About the Author: Gwil James Thomas is a poet, novelist and inept musician. He lives in his hometown of Bristol, England but has also lived in London, Brighton and Spain. His twelfth chapbook of poetry Wild River Carry me to Sea will be published soon by Back Room Poetry. His poems have recently featured in Viper’s Tongue, DLF Lit, Paper & Ink, The Songs From The Underground anthology and Late Britain Zine. He plans to one day build a house, amongst other things. Instagram: @gwiljamesthomas
Image Credit:Herman Saftleven “A Hollyhock” (1682) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
Cast them into the wind
We arrive at the shore
eroded since we were last here
& recite the first line of a prayer
water is water is water.
At home, my wife puts her hand
on my own to stop me from
adding too much masala to the pot.
After dinner I carry our child,
sunburnt & sleepy, to their bed
where they ask for a story.
There are the things they don’t tell you about grief.
It can be the sound of blood running across the sky
& also the softest brush of a wing.
I get up to turn off the light and put down the book
one more chapter? I ease back down
gently sweep the sand from the floor & begin.
About the Author: Hilesh Patel is a writer, consultant, educator, artist and member of the art group The Chicago ACT Collective. He was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and has called Chicago home for most of his life. His work has been published in Passengers Journal, Relief Journal, Jaggery and others. You can find him most days teaching adjunct classes, reading, grinding cardamom, and on Instagram and Twitter at @hilesh.
Image Credit:Hugo Simberg “The Wind Blows” (1897) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
YOUR GIFT OF STARSSic itur ad astra – Virgil
for Bruce
Around 1 AM we bounced seven miles out a rough dirt
Road, through locked gates, into the mountains to arrive
At Karen’s uninhabited trailer, which she spent all the
Previous afternoon cleaning, then making up a bed we
Could use for what was left of the night. She stocked it
With bottles of water, freshly drawn from her springs.
She showed me how to work the generator, and
Pointed out that we would need to pee outside, then
She drove down the steep hill to her place, leaving us
With flashlights to make our way around. Once we
Settled in, you disappeared into the cold air of the yard.
I found you gazing at a broad, clear sky dense with stars.
Excited, you pointed out the various constellations to me,
Especially the ones you could seldom see anywhere else,
Telling me some of the ancient stories behind them,
How they came to be ensconced in the night sky.
It seemed that the new moon had politely excused herself
From the scene just so you could index the constellations
Then hand them to me with their interconnections revealed, a
Gift which I would never have requested, but will never forget
begun 07/01-29/2023
Santa Rosa, CA
events occurred the early morning of 06/18/2023
Yorkville Ranch Road, Mendocino County, CA
About the Author: M.J. Arcangelini, (b.1952, Pennsylvania) has resided in northern California since 1979. He has published extensively in both print and online venues & over a dozen anthologies. He is the author of 6 published collections, the most recent of which is PAWNING MY SINS, 2022 (Luchador Press).
Image Credit:Henri-Edmond Cross “Landscape with Stars” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
On Reflection
How is it done? In coloured pencils with washes
and masks, blenders and frisket film.
And if I take your face and mask your eyes,
leave them white or fill them with ash, what then?
Where will you go when I pull off that frame,
how will you round out if I withhold
the shading, will water wash on wax
and will your skin fall off when I use
the eraser on that highlight I left in your hair?
The perfume on the tux you wore
when you were speaking before your peers
is getting old and brackish.
The wardrobe is full of past events
for which I do not take responsibility. When
you wanted your image back it had crumpled.
About the Author: Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as seven poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a ‘Pushcart’, once for ‘Best of Net’. Her latest: DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS? (Kelsay Books July 2022), WHISTLING IN THE DARK (Cyberwit July 2022), and SAUDADE (December 2022) are available on Amazon. A new MS, LIFE STUFF, has been scheduled by Kelsay Books for February 2023. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/
Image Credit:Honoré Daumier “Head of a Man V” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
It’s 2023, and We Still Need to Read Sally Carrighar
By Sue Blaustein
The late author Sally Carrighar’s work is out of print. Between 1944 and 1975, Carrighar (1898-1985) published one novel, eight works of “nature writing” and an autobiography (Home to the Wilderness). Two of her books One Day at Beetle Rock and One Day at Teton Marsh were made into Disney features, making those titles very well-known.
I must’ve read one or more of her books when I was in grade or middle school. As an adult, I found them while browsing used bookstores. They looked familiar, and I bought and read them again. By that time, I was a poet with a day job – better prepared to appreciate how exact, humble, and brilliant a writer; and how meticulous an observer she was.
If you’ve never read her work, you don’t know yet, how in a few paragraphs – say about the reproductive habits of a freshwater mollusk – she could expand and reshape the way you see non-human creatures, yourself, and the world we inhabit together.
The swan mussel was not nearly as complex a creature as man, but even she had her satisfactions, and a simple nervous system with which to experience them.
Every creature – swan mussels included – has vital and specific needs. If those needs are satisfied, we live. Of course, the word “satisfy”carries layers of other meanings for humans. Most likely few if any apply to our mussel. Carrighar’s deft use of the word satisfactions doesn’t load mollusks up with human emotions and yet…it opens the door to kinship.
How does the mussel breathe and eat? Carrighar explains how it pulls water into one tube and expels it through the other, thus receiving oxygen for the gills and minute plants and animals for nourishment.
No doubt she enjoyed some draughts of this living broth more than others; on windy days when the pond was stirred, the greater amount of oxygen may have felt rather invigorating. These were not very stimulating events, but the mussel was not equipped for excitement.
Enjoyed?Invigorating? Though these words come close to attributing human perception to a mollusk, they make a valid point more vivid. For any creature, no moment is the same as the one before, or ones to come. Experiencing and responding to change is what nervous systems are for. The language opens a portal, a way to imagine what it’s like to be something else. A way to care.
Gloria Mundi
I am in title his executor,
de facto the chief mourner.
He lived his adult life alone
but did die with company-
a hired tender and me.
A man who admitted
to fallibility but rarely
to vices or wrongdoing,
a man so private that I
read his past in his papers.
I buried and eulogized him
and marshalled all the wealth
he’d been reluctant to spend,
hard earned but not enjoyed,
for distribution to strangers.
I was perhaps his closest friend
and huckster for the indulgences
I wanted him to give himself,
but now must strew his measure
to the unknowing and the greedy.
About the Author: Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over four hundred fifty stories and poems published so far, and eight books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of eight review editors.
Image Credit: Charles Aubrey “Flower Still Life” Public domain image courtesy of the Getty Open Content Program.
Afraid of Heights
Yes, I am,
and maybe you are too—
vision blurs, stomach turns,
ground falls away.
Any bridge or ledge,
any tall building or tower
makes me tremble
and Oh, God,
never look down!
You may slip and fall,
you may be drawn into
its vortex.
Is it fear of falling,
or fear of jumping?
Might I lose control
or welcome new freedom?
I’ve thought long on it,
but only after, breathless,
I am across.
Once on a bridge
holding my baby
in my arms, I
shuttered and sat
straight down
wooden railing at my back.
In a glass elevator
I melted like candle wax
to the floor and stayed
for the door’s release.
I admit it here,
look it in the eye,
risk all, and welcome
any sweet relief.
About the Author: Larry Smith is a poet, fiction writer, memoirist and editor of Bottom Dog Press books in Ohio. He and his wife Ann cofounded a meditation center in Huron, Ohio. His most recent book is CONNECTIONS: Moring Dew: Tanka.
Image Credit: Detroit Publishing Company “Cliff stairway, High Bridge, Ky.” (1907) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Haiku from my Grandmother
I
“Don’t you think we should “eat that stuff now because it “expires in five weeks.”
II
“I don’t need my cane; “I just use my shopping cart— “I shop at Walgreens.”
III
“Did you take your cups “to the sink already or “are they still down there?”
IV
“Did you know that Paul’s “answer for everything is “drink another beer??!?!!”
V
“Don’t you have something “you should be doing today? “Why are you still here??”
VI
“I’m not eating that! “Just what do you think I am? “Some kind of vulture??”
About the Author: G. M. H. Thompson enjoys golden sunsets with fine wine, taking long walks on the beach, & getting to know you better.
Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Kitchen spice pantry at the Joseph D. Oliver House, also known as Copshaholm, in South Bend, Indiana” (2016) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
The Other Genesis
What do we see outside
except a canopy of ebony wings,
garlands of feathery smoke
moving on blackened water?
Against the sketchy light
it looks like a cancer patient
showing us their fifth x-ray.
The troubled lungs, highlighted:
a cage of full-grown crows
in a space too small for them
and anxious for routes to escape,
fanning their jittery wings
against imprisoning walls.
Something screamed in fear,
locked inside us, watching.
Resistance is useless, absurd,
trapped in something we are.
We saw their work when free:
the substantial killing
along the state route. They strutted
around the roadkill, plucking
at bits of the dying creatures,
supple as the playful light.
When will it end? we ask.
And why did it ever begin?
We are the understanding they lack.
So we took them deep inside us.
About the Author: Royal Rhodes, who was trained in the Classics, is a retired educator who taught classes in global religions and Death & Dying for almost forty years. His poems have appeared in: Ekstasis Poetry, Snakeskin Poetry, The Montreal Review, The Cafe Review, and other places. His poetry/art collaborations have been published with The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press in North Carolina.
Image Credit: Image originally from British Ornithology: Norwich: Bacon,1815-22. Courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library
As It Ought To Be 