What We’re Here for for bart solarczyk & bob phillips
your whole generation seemed to know how to swat away a compliment
kind words tossed into a river full of mud & rust born out of houses with tin roofs & tar paper hearts by men & women who knew the weight of factory gloves after so many years their fingers piercing the very edges of time
even poems are just about doing the job
like pushing a mop or wiping sweat away from your heart after the loss of a friend or a spouse or your sanity knowing that’s just what time does knowing you just have to keep putting the work in
because that’s what we’re here for.
About the Author:John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, and Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2023). He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.
Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Historic house with tin roof in Eutaw, Alabama” (2010) Public domain image courtesy of The Library of Congress
The last time I spoke to my husband was a Saturday night before bed. We hugged and gave each other a smooch on the lips. My husband put his hands on my shoulders and said, “Now tomorrow morning we will go to Trower’s for sure!” Several Sundays were missed because of bad weather. He drove to Trower’s, a twenty-minute drive, because his cigarette brand was not sold in any of our local stores. We used to go to Trower’s for breakfast, but that was before my husband became more depressed and weaker due to cancer, and vascular disease. He began to withdraw from society, except for Trower’s. He had given up his life-long hobbies making reproductions of Kentucky and Pennsylvania muzzle loaders and playing the banjo. He no longer practiced Buddhism. On several occasions he said he wanted to die but didn’t want me left “flapping in the wind.” I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I was always silent, just holding his hand. If I would have assured him I would be okay, would that be like giving him permission to kill himself? If I said I wouldn’t be okay, that would put an extra burden on him.
What had we been through in the last two or more years because of his illnesses? Endless doctor appointments, Cat-scans, bloodwork, X-rays, radiation treatment, stent surgery. Bad reactions to several antidepressants. Falling, requiring a hospital stay which revealed nothing. Physical therapy to gain strength. He didn’t become strong. He became weaker, falling several more times. On one occasion, he fell against the bedroom door, and I could barely get the door open to lift him onto the bed. I wouldn’t allow him to smoke in the house, only in his room. I had uncontrolled asthma. He didn’t resent this decision except on very cold winter days when his open ventilating window made the room unbearable. But at least he smoked his half a cigarette very quickly: a half a cigarette every hour. We had many disagreements about his smoking, but since he had been smoking for more than 60 years, the thought of him quitting was out of the question for him. “The damage is done, I’m 80 so how many years do I have left anyway? I have to have one pleasure.” I would rant and rave about the insanity of lethal corporations and government regulations that outlawed heroin and weed, but not cigarettes. My only coping mechanism. “Well, it’s your choice to smoke, but at least I don’t have to enable your addiction by going with you to Trower’s.” I eventually went with him, but I didn’t drive, rationalizing that at least I wasn’t a total enabler.
On that last evening I ever saw my husband alive, I resigned myself to drive him in the morning to get his cigarettes rather than having him die in a car crash. His decreased depth perception and slowed reflex problems didn’t bode well for a successful trip. “Goodnight, sweetheart.” “Me, too.” When he wasn’t out of bed by 6:30 am, I knocked on his door. Since there was no reassuring answer that he was awake, I opened the door. His head was sticking out of the covers. I touched his cold head. I moved his head. There was no response. I kissed him on the forehead and said, “I’ll always love you.” I walked out to the living room to call 911.
“This is it!” I said to myself, as I ambivalently welcomed death into my house.
About the Author: Connie Woodring is a 79-year-old retired psychotherapist who has been getting back to her true love of writing after 45 years in her real job. She has had many poems published in over 40 journals including one nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize. She has had ten excerpts from her novel Visiting Hours, published in various journals. She has had five excerpts from her non-fiction book, What Power? Which People? Reflections on Power Abuse and Empowerment, published in various journals. Her memoir was published in White Wall Review.
“Adieu, but let me cherish, The hope with which I cannot part contempt may wound, and coldness chill But still, it lingers in my heart.”
Farewell by Anne Brontë
mourners filed into your home
gathered around a table's harsh surface in the dining room— intended for birthdays Thanksgiving Christmas— gutting fish shrouded in a makeshift cloth
instead of a boning knife razor sharp stockpiled photographs lay
two-inch thick faded heaps—
you— Miss University of Florida smile from a float
hold your bouquet — dark roses
over your satin sash over your heart-sounds
at the beach tipped chin brown eyes
deny rain
your smile perched atop the grand canyon refuses to wilt
free-falls all the way down
the color of your sore throat
fringed in distressed mahogany wishing today was your birthday—
you’d blow out candles in front of me
gusts blast through windows
winter storms july
your jigsaw-puzzle life trembles unlike never before
I hear your silence— weightless as a fly’s wing
the sound of your gun
About the Author: Andi (Andrea) Horowitz is an older emerging poet who lives in Fort Myers, FL., with her husband and their two cairn terriers, BeCa and Bleecker. She taught high school English and speech and was also the drama coach. Her students remain one of her life’s greatest gifts. Andrea can be read in VARIANT LIT, STONE PACIFIC, NEW NOTE, GRIFFEL MAG. and others. She has a manuscript titled: tasted lies, misnomers, and balderdash in chicken soup at a fine hotel serving cheap champagne coming out later this year. Andrea dreams of a world devoid of stains.
The Way We Know Before We Know for Mike James, poet (d. 12/17/23)
You were dying and I was dreaming of you, something nice. I wish I could be there again, a last time with you. You were thinner, shirt weighing you down like in recent photos I’d seen, and dying in the dream, but still lively, saying something Mike-like to me.
Mid-December chill, covered in layers, I lay awake, my husband (whom you highly approved of) deep into his pain-pill sleep. His stillness worried my fretful night. And finally, the dream, then waking from it only to get the news an hour later.
In the blackness of subconscious, I now know: a questioning. Were you still in the blur of hospice? Your eyes awake, wife touching your hand, five kids all around. Like the five of us ringed Mother’s bed, singing a Slavonic prayer, the priest anointing her with attar of rose. Was it serene that way for you, for them?
Your wife, those children, now dazed with the dizzying grief I’ve known, no easier even with death expected. You’d told me it wouldn’t be long, after all those doctors, knives, cocktails of cruel chemicals.
You had hoped to see Christmas, but felt thankful for so much— soulmate, children, job, poems you were supposed to write and did. And I know you weren’t just saying it (you never said anything just to please).
My last text to you was I love you. You’ll always be my poetry buddy. Your response: a heart icon, red and beating.
About the Author: Karen Paul Holmes won the 2023 Lascaux Poetry Prize and received a Special Mention in The Pushcart Prize Anthology. She has two books: No Such Thing as Distance (Terrapin)and Untying the Knot (Aldrich). Poetry credits include The Writer’s Almanac, The Slowdown, Verse Daily, Diode, and Plume. She hosts the Side Door Poets in Atlanta and is grateful to Mike James who was the second member way back when it started.
Within a week of burying my husband, I took all his clothes, minus three shirts, from hangers and drawers, stuffed them into garbage bags and hauled them off to a church donation bin. I took down pictures of him, of us. I slipped into my extra-large meatsuit each morning and went to work, took care of my sick mother and my daughters. I believed that getting through the day was enough, then it wasn’t and there he was. To find that kind of love again, to cradle that love in my bones, a baby in a carriage, a love I’ll raise knowing everything here is ephemeral. Babe, these are just meatsuits, this new love promises, love never dies. I want to believe that we can raise love high above the bulky restrictions we inhabit, a dozen balloons floating above us like angels instead of a tumor resting at the base of a skull, a tombstone, a marker, these meatsuits.
About the Author: Rebecca Schumejda is the author of several full-length collections including Falling Forward (sunnyoutside press), Cadillac Men (NYQ Books), Waiting at the Dead End Diner (Bottom Dog Press), Our One-Way Street (NYQ Books) Something Like Forgiveness, a single epic poem accompanied by collage art by Hosho McCreesh (Stubborn Mule Press) and her new collection Sentenced (NYQ Books). She is the co-editor at Trailer Park Quarterly. She received her MA in Poetics from San Francisco State University and her BA from SUNY New Paltz. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her family. You can find her online at: rebecca-schumejda.com
Image Credit: Ben Shahn “Clothes hanging in house at farmland auction, New Carlisle [i.e. Marysville], Ohio” (1938) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
on this shortest day of the year my grief is long just four days since you transitioned from this world to realm of sweet angels & revered poets passed
now more than ever i picture you as marlena in pink no longer needing to maintain the burly john wayne façade to appease employer & bigots alike
you were my brother-sister-confidante you’d say there’s your TMI for the day i’d insist there’s no such thing & treasure your confidence it was a privilege being your ally a pleasure your chosen family
there’s a seat for you now at the table of your cherished ghosts— marlene dietrich robert lowell james dickey ezra pound hemingway warhol haring rocky brando & wayne as great as they were your legacy is secure
most magnificent is the hopeful certainty you’re with your dearest grandmother again— first ally first cheerleader first force for good the first to really see you for you
About the Author: Leslie M. Rupracht has poems in Asheville Poetry Review, As It Ought To Be Magazine, Aeolian Harp, Chiron Review, K’in, The Ekphrastic Review, Gargoyle, Anti-Heroin Chic, Kakalak, a chapbook, Splintered Memories (Main Street Rag), and elsewhere. She completed her first full-length poetry manuscript in 2023 and hopes to find it a good home. An editor, poet, writer, visual artist, and rescued pit bull mama, Leslie is co-founder and host of the monthly reading series, Waterbean Poetry Night at the Mic, in Huntersville, North Carolina.
As It Ought To Be 