Tag: Poetry

Geneva Webber: “Do you think the lobsters”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 
Do you think the lobsters

in the tanks at Red Lobster
are really red?
Or are they brackish and imperfect

with the blue rubber bands
around their claws?
Do you think the lobsters

know they could live
half a century
if given the chance?

Do you think the lobsters
know we have to believe
they don’t feel pain?

We sometimes believe that
about our own species too.

Do you think
the lobsters know?

About the Author: Geneva Webber is a sophomore Creative and Professional Writing major and is minoring in Political Science and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. She is a member of the Writing Club, is Vice President of P.A.W.S. (Pro-activism With Service) and her work has been previously published in The Insider. She has lived in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and small-town Michigan, and derives much of her writing from small, intimate, personal experiences.

.

Image Credit: Courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The American lobster Washington: Govt. Print. Off., 1895.

Howie Good: “In Defense of Prose Poetry”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

In Defense of Prose Poetry

By Howie Good

.

In Defense of Prose Poetry

Occasionally –  very occasionally – a relative or acquaintance will look up long enough from their phones to ask what a chapbook or a prose poem is. Their unfamiliarity with the terms suggests the general irrelevance of my writing to even people I’m related to. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, and it isn’t to me, but it is dispiriting. 

According to my research (OK, Wikipedia), the tradition of chapbooks arose in the 16th century, as soon as printed books became affordable, and reached its height during the 17th and 18th centuries. 

Many different kinds of ephemera and popular literature were published as chapbooks: almanacs, folk tales, ballads, nursery rhymes, poetry, and political and religious tracts. Usually between four and twenty-four pages long, and produced on rough paper with crude woodcut illustrations, chapbooks were the reading material of the poorer classes. “Twenty-volume folios will never make a revolution,” Voltaire said. “It’s the little pocket pamphlets that are to be feared.

The term “chapbook” for this type of cheap literature was coined in the 19th century and is still in use today for short, inexpensive booklets. I’ve had something more than 40 chapbooks of poetry published since the early 2000s. It’s very much like me to succeed in an area of publishing that most people have never heard of.

Continue reading “Howie Good: “In Defense of Prose Poetry”” →

James Croal Jackson: “Poppy”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 
Poppy

everywhere on the bagel, poppies
in the out of focus fields, poppies

the feeds scroll full of puppies
the home, poppies

what can you say about fireworks
has already exploded

in mouth in blood
we buds. we bud.

grandpa was a farmer
he tended to his poppies

white and wild wind
the wind. white and wild

About the Author: James Croal Jackson works in film production. His most recent chapbooks are Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022) and Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021). Recent poems are in Stirring, White Wall Review, and Vilas Avenue. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (jamescroaljackson.com)

.

Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Poppy” (2022)

John Dorsey: “Eating Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken with Larry Gawel”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 
Eating Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken with Larry Gawel

this is life how it’s supposed to be
larry with a long dangling mop of silver hair
just off the highway
resting his arm
on a rainy friday afternoon
talking about alaska denver
spain & tokyo
& this garage has never felt so small
a leaky freighter
of all the things i’ll never do now
as hummingbirds wait out the weather
by my window
we run into town for stamps & chocolate ice cream
my friend brian felster’s life
began & ended on a boat in alaska in 1982
before he died at 48 surrounded by love
richard hugo laughed by a stream with buddha
on a deserted montana hiking path
in the middle of the afternoon
larry’s glasses are drenched in rain
as we come in from outside
he is a springsteen song
always born to run
& he will never die
or run out of chicken.

About the Author: John Dorsey is the former poet laureate of Belle, Missouri and the author of Pocatello Wildflower. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

.

Image Credit: John Margolies “Chicken cowboy billboard, Elko, Nevada” (1991) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Victoria Melekian: “Who Dreams Up This Stuff”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 
Who Dreams Up This Stuff

Broken pull tabs, easy-open bottles that aren’t,
having more hot dogs than buns. There must be

a Supreme Being of Frustration who dreams up this stuff.
A deity who creates SUV’s and small parking spaces,

smoke alarms that die in the dark of night.
An entity responsible for plastic packaging that slices fingers,

and tab A that does not, by the way, fit into slot B.
Maybe an ad hoc committee, the same people who serve

on HOA boards policing patios, ensuring no plant matter
touches wood or stucco. They wrote the “i” before “e”

except after “c” rule and perfected the odds of a car battery
failing three days out of warranty. They’ve moved over

to the customer support phone line. You can hear them now:
“Please hang on. Your call is very important to us.”

About the Author: Victoria Melekian lives in Carlsbad, California. Her stories and poems have been published in print and online anthologies. She’s twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. For more, visit her website: https://victoriamelekian.com/

.

Image Credit: John Vachon “Cream cans. Antigo, Wisconsin” (1941) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Paul Jones: “Snake”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 
Snake

I used to be afraid in other ways.
When one fear comes another goes away,
I should count myself lucky in that way.
My fear of apes at night just fell away
when I saw a snake put a rat away.
Those fanged apes were dream creatures anyway.
The snake coiled and crushing. Death underway.
Those sounds. The hissing. A shriek. They outweigh
sleep's imagined deaths. They won't fade away
at dawn. Experience smooths night's highway.
Like rockets, fears race down the straight-away.
Then they take my head for their hideaway.
I used to be afraid in other ways.
But then I saw the black snake's weave and sway.

About the Author: Paul Jones poems have recently appeared in Hudson Review, Grand Little Things, Tar River Poetry, and not so long ago here in As It Ought To Be. His book, Something Wonderful, came from RedHawk Publications in 2021. In 2019, a manuscript of his poems crashed into the lunar surface carried in Israel’s Beresheet Lander. In 2021, he was inducted into the NC State Computer Science Hall of Fame.

.

Image Credit: Image originally published in Descriptiones et icones amphibiorum. Monachii, Stuttgartiae et Tubingae, Sumtibus J.G. Cottae1833. Public domain image courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library

Rose Mary Boehm: “Another ordinary story”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 
Another ordinary story

Spring, it seems, has changed
its mind. Like a disenchanted lover.
Pink, white, purple and tender greens
encased in winter-hardened water
topped with powdered sugar.
Fulgent in that white winter sun.

One harsh spring morning you
turned. No last glistening glory,
no last display of what
could have been.

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. Her latest: DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS? (Kelsay Books July 2022), WHISTLING IN THE DARK (Ciberwit July 2022), and SAUDADE (December 2022) are available on Amazon. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

.

Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Spring Blossom” (2022)

Tom Gengler: “With Stephen to an Inside Place”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 
With Stephen to an Inside Place

I finally figured out you were living in the alley.
You were up at daylight and gone
before I got up.

It hurt me to see that you had to use a walker
to get around—to go more than
three or four steps.

It was far into winter when I got to know you
and found out you were a veteran.
Your story told me

that the boy from the Pennsylvania woods
was trained to stand in harm’s way
for the puppet masters,

for the Hydra of uber-wealthy who are
thieves by any other name.
For them war

is only a means to an end. Men like Stephen
are used. They are used up and thrown
away.

You were the 1958-made fragile Christmas
ornament run over by a half-track.
You were left

to put the thousand thin glass pieces back together.
You had a stroke that crippled you.
Your body clenched.

I have felt your frozen hands when you slept outside
on concrete in the blanket bag in the snow
on top of cardboard.

Today I took you to an inside place.
Sleep, Stephen, sleep in your bed.
Let the shards

come back together as you dream.
Let the beloved boy come back,
and we’ll have coffee again.

About the Author: Tom Gengler was born and raised in Oklahoma. His degrees are in classics/philosophy (undergraduate) and theology (graduate). Among his favorite poets are Seamus Heaney, Thom Gunn, Lyn Lifshin, Marge Piercy, Charles Bukowski, Annabelle Moseley, Simon Perchik and Timothy Steele. He has had poetry published in Progenitor, Blue Collar Review, Exit 13, and The Worcester Review. His poems are forthcoming in ONE ART, Streetlight, and Westview. 

.

Image Credit: Helene Schjerfbeck “The Door” (1884) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee

CL Bledsoe: “A Lightness of Feathers”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 
A Lightness of Feathers

Who among us hasn't broken a collarbone falling
out of a tree after we climbed into a bird's nest
and pretended to be an egg? The ghost of omelets
gone wrong. Something with feathers condemned
to a passing glance. A side table. Somewhere dust
calls home. I’ll rebuild my life with doilies
and photos of surgeries I’d like to have. Did I mention
so-and-so died after a lifetime of regret and forced
choices? Never forget your name is on someone’s
Do Not Love Again list. No matter how you measure
it, you’ll never have what you’ve lost again. Another
name for insouciance. At least you’re not the kind
of bird that kicks the other eggs out of the nest
when you settle in. It’s the small victories keep
us going and coming. That’s how they get you.
I don’t even know what kind of tree it was.

About the Author: Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than thirty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, The Bottle Episode, and his newest, Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

.

Image Credit: Public domain image originally published in Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, London : Academic Press. Image courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library

Ted Jackins: “After Wayne Shorter”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 
After Wayne Shorter

Your fierce tone
Moved in silent ways,
Ambient jazz soldier,
Your ghost hangs
Like a long held note,
Like some slow breath
Over me tonight,
As I spin your
Records in
Funeral wake,
Remembering,
Remembering,
As your carefully
Chosen lines
Etch out a small
Piece of sky
Where you sit,
Now,
Perhaps sipping
Tea,
Or blowing
With 'Trane,
Ayler,
Sanders and
Many more
Saxophone poets,
Gone now,
Yet eternally
Here.

About the Author: Ted Jackins is a poet and musician living in a small town in North Carolina with his wife and 17 year old cat. They’re work has previously appeared in Red Fez, Zygote In My Coffee, Blotterature, Citizens For Decent Literature, Black Out Zine, and Outlaw Poetry. He is the author of the chapbook Psych Ward Blues (Alien Buddha Press).

Image Credit: Digitally altered public domain image of a saxophone, courtesy of Wikimedia.