November - Poem 15

Disbelief  / Michelle Frost

I left town for a week  a rare event

I prefer the steady hum of home

Pets and plants   endless contentment

Creative endeavors  waiting at my desk

Every wall a window of sunlight

Every window open to autumn

On my return   riding the clouds south

I pondered family news and old stories

grown children    all of us aging

Veteran's Day with my favorite Marine

Staying in a house full of pets

Winter's chill on the stoop this morning

I plug back in to my life at home

Evening news reports global outages and national grounding of aircraft  

Indescribable explosion of social media

Too much Crazy  Too many Questions

I fail to find the Hope for a poem   I will keep trying

Frank’s American Childhood / David Hadbawnik

The persistent fear – though really it’s so absurd as to not inspire much fear – that a sniper will shoot through the window from a distance, striking Frank’s American Childhood while it’s being carried in its mother’s arms

*

A new source of delight: being called from either end of the hallway, as the one calling hides in a room, poking their heads out from behind a door so they can be seen by Frank’s American Childhood as it crawls forward, catching sight of the other and cackling with joy before scampering closer, pausing, laughing; laughing, pausing, until it crawls into the room, “catching” the one who’s called out

*

Coming back to Frank’s American Childhood after a few days away. Everything’s the same, but different. A different childhood. Gazing up, warily at first. An uncertain smile, checking to see if it’s OK. Later, more at ease, crawling eagerly towards the familiar face, climbing up, standing crookedly, waiting to be lifted and held. Riding grandma’s shoulders, bouncing up and down with glee, shimmer of future joys. Standing with more and more confidence, Frank’s American Childhood, sometimes showing surprising balance, sometimes falling down

untitled   / Alexander Shalom Joseph

in the beginning

there was the word

and the word was “in” 

and I placed it

at the beginning of this poem

and this word

and the others that followed it 

came from the air

or something beyond it

for there is a song sung always

right above our heads

though we hear it with our hearts 

but how does one listen

with their heart 

I guess I’ll say this 

picture a sun beaten barn

with gapped boards

and grey wood

if you stand in the middle 

of that place and grow quiet 

as the wind moves over the world

you’ll hear a small music there 

the heart is tuned like this

all the holes and cracks life made

catch the song of all things

and echo it out

our job is to listen 

and to sing back what we hear

this is what I heard 

spinning in on the breeze

what song is it

that plays through

the breaks in your heart?

Open, Dickinson / Sally Kuzma

what opens in her poems?

door    

door    

door    

door

(the ones that open

and the one she dares not open)

window, like a pod

grass when a snake passes

and a gilded balloon– 

creature-like, caught in a tree

who tears open her imperial veins

‍ ‍And tumbles in the sea…

Hourglass / Rachel Lee

When you no longer know the right questions to ask, how to go about accomplishing your task?

Maybe it was never meant to be an accomplished task.

Maybe it’s supposed to be ongoing. Everlasting. Never-ending.

Forever and ever, amen.

How can you count time?

A sun rises. A moon fades.

It’s dark. It’s light. It’s grey.

365 days a year? 10 years in a decade?

No matter. Just a repeating cycle that doesn’t need to be counted.

The only time that has substance is now’o’clock.

The present. The here. What you smell in the air. What you feel in a tear.

It's beautiful where you stand. 

Etch-A-Sketch in the sand. 

Let’s forget our language and go into cryochambers.

Untitled / Lincoln McElwee

It wasn’t the cities I grew up in—Los Angeles, Compton, Inglewood, Monrovia, Palmdale, NoHo. It wasn’t their stereotypes, their histories. It wasn’t the site of the milkman robbed while I made mud pies in the backyard sun. It wasn’t watching a best friend get jumped for petty playground games while others held me down. It wasn’t evading drive-by shootings down the street near the babysitter’s house. It wasn’t the kid who called me queer for holding my notebook like my female friend. It wasn’t the kids who called me queer just for existing. It wasn’t the gun from a friend, the one I held in my adolescent hands like an offering to a deity I didn’t believe in. It wasn’t my grandfather’s guns I found while snooping in his room, the smell of chewing tobacco coating everything. It wasn’t all the plants that I’ve killed and the few that I’ve saved. It wasn’t the heartbreak, the heartache, the headache. It was the sight of the winter sun, a promise out of reach but reaching. It was the bite of starlight in a darkened desert. It was the soothing sound of cicadas in another country. It was the fingerless touch of the rain. It was Pluto as a planet too. It was another type of hunger altogether. It was a hunger so deep down it was sound.

untitled / Michelle Stoll

In my twenties I day-drank with a philosophy major who wasn't my boyfriend and fell asleep on a rock beside the river. Woke up feeling like a naiad

Today at lunch I had a glass of wine from a can and fell asleep before I could take off my bra, turn on Midsomer Murders, and rehydrate. Dreamed about the hot priest in Fleabag Woke up feeling like Baba Yaga with a moth ball in my mouth and a cat walking on my breasts

When I was a naiad I did all the naiadesque things I could as often as I could with as much passion as I could because I was wise enough to know my naiad days would not last but bought the line that this was tragic 

I do not miss napping on rocks or pretending to care about philosophy or settling for being someone else's muse because I feared I didn't have it in me to create on my own 

And baba Yaga is just a mean way to talk about women who know things

One thing I know: never look over your shoulder and call yourself a fool

sea chestnut (海栗)  / Sandra Tan

the literal meaning of the kanji for uni (sea urchin) is “sea chestnut”.

driving towards the main branch of uni senmonten yoichiya

for fresh uni, packed in brine or aged to mellow.

five neat rows of local varieties: murasaki uni, tinted

a hint of beetroot (instead of the deep purple its name 

might suggest). bafun uni, that resemble hedgehogs

with their short spikes, though bafun means horse dung.

harvested from the waters around hokkaido —

matsumae, hiyama, hidaka, and the islands northeast.

I think of eggshells cracked open, soft lobes cradled

in both hands. lumpy, orange gonads that cling to

each cavity like moss, sharp with the lick of salt.

I feel sorry for these little urchins. so defenceless

against man’s hooks and prongs, plucked straight

from the open seabed, dislodged from kelpy crevices.

lacking even true eyes, they sense — with hundreds

of tube feet — vague shapes of light and dark,

figuring the outline of a diver before they realise

what it is. at least the kill, when it comes, is quick. 

November - Poem 14

One Lucky Friday the 13th / Michelle Frost

If you were scheduled a flight  I'm sorry

If you had a wedding to attend  a reunion

any event with loved ones far from you

Or closing on a million dollar deal

Say it was your first time to ever fly

I'm sorry this poem isn't for you

Lucky is not what they call me

My winnings are unexpected   hard won

Thursday's flight without incident was easy

except a minor delay due to military flyover

No passenger was kept from their plans

We flew into blue like we expected to

Turns out that is now also good luck

King Midas / David Hadbawnik

What is it you’ll survive?

What will you short-circuit?

No point making those

tight turns, the small

of an elephant’s back.

Add another layer of black
to your voice so that
when you speak
you’re astonished

anyone can still
hear you at all.

Not enough light

to breathe by.

Understand this hand

is no longer yours,

not the one you’d

grown used to.

King Midas, sneaking up

on yourself in the mirror.

“Anyway, as soon as

you make your wish

you can un-do it.”

All the certainty of

a child, not knowing

that wishes have teeth

that bite down

and don’t let go.

Even if they’re made

out of cheap plastic

you found at the dollar store.

A wave holding a gun

that’s always

about to shoot.

untitled   / Alexander Shalom Joseph

on the day the ai 

grounded the planes

the birds in my backyard

sang loud

and fluttered back and forth

from tree to tree

the trees themselves 

had shed their leaves

in the last couple of days  

and all stood naked and grey

and strong and still 

framed in gold and red and brown

colors which seemed to glow

under the sky 

and the sky itself 

was blue and wide and empty 

and the sunset 

was the best I’ve seen all week

Next to Nothing, Dickinson / Sally Kuzma

I read her knowing she knows nothing–

knows its weight and its light

so close to delight

knows it in the way she keeps 

nudging up alongside death

knows it in turns of phrase–

meaning nothing, nothing else,

nothing to show, nothing to see,

nothing very odd—

near garments white like snow

near a little Arctic flower

who wanders south to summer

near the bee who aches from

being separated from his rose…

Green Tupperware Container / Lincoln McElwee

My ancestors held court at fun parties

in the fifties and sixties. The punch and cookies flowed,

and they were called cutting-edge technology.

Now there’s me. Bought in a six-pack not from a glossy catalog

but from the local grocery store,

I embrace my humble beginnings and hold whatever he fancies.

“Stasis in darkness,” he reads aloud again,

sometimes crying, and I know the feeling intimately.

Shoved in the third drawer down for days on end,

or else in the fridge by the fire-roasted cantina-style salsa,

the vegan kimchi, the empty ketchup bottles,

the expired cashew cheese.

Yesterday, I was washed clean with grapefruit-scented soap,

then fitted with extra-firm tofu and fake cheese

on gluten-free whole wheat bread, a lunch he eats with chips.

Some days, like this, are better than others—

Cold beans are the worst for smell,

and red sauce or soup can stain my skin.

Lately, he’s been too tired to put me back with the others.

He sits me on the counter near the wine glass used often,

near bananas and apples for concoctions,  

near electrolyte powder bought monthly, taken daily,

near the ever-growing bottles of pills,

near prescription notes and hospital bills.

Some days, I too am filled with pill bottles.

I hold his hope in my green keep, and I am gentle.

You see, he’s far more delicate than I am. I’ve seen him

crumpled on the cold kitchen floor at night. Crying.

In my plastic silence, I bear witness to a life few see.

In him, do I bear witness to all of humanity?

To the stranger at the crosswalk / Michelle Stoll

Soulmate is a marketing term, you know that and so do I, so what do we call that moment that passed when I said isn't this weather unbelievable and you said that you love this time of year when the hollowlight angles strangely through the maple leaves and dapples across the sidewalk. That ninety seconds or so that may have been a classic meet cute but was not at all cute because it was the universe tilting and I felt my place in it for the first time and I bet all I own, I bet my heart that you did too because for one, maybe two breaths we paused and your face softened and I could feel mine radiate with what must have been joy, and what was said between our hearts - what I would call our souls - but there we are dancing around that marketing jargon, so let's just say I heard you ask how long since we've stood this close, and I said my god what took you so long - so long you said as I turned my head for an instant to see who was calling my name, waving hello.

November - Poem 13

The Petsitter's Love Song / Michelle Frost

I have found the thing I love to do

to stay and sit with pets

homes strewn with toys

A note, "help yourself to anything"

My overnight tote in the guestroom

My home away from home

In the future I will travel only by car

Arrive to greet pets   curious   wagging

My bag of pens & poems & books stacked

beside me in a plush reading chair

All the comforts with each new stay

cozy sofas  and grassy yards for zoomies

My people with pets will understand 

"Oh, she's always been nuts for critters"

Fur babies   Man's best friend    

Binge-watching BritBox mysteries

dogs  and cats snoozing in my lap

Writing my poem for tomorrow

Frank's American Childhood / David Hadbawnik

The image of Frank’s American Childhood spiraling into the waiting arms of its mother. Her hands fully flexed, accepting the flying body with soft, fanned-out fingers, its oval form nestling perfectly in her extended forearms, which cradle it tightly to her side and breast, so that Frank’s American Childhood seems to disappear into a self-sealing aperture, snug and secure

*

The first Halloween. Trying on different wigs and hats – a red and yellow wig with devil’s horns, an old-man wig with a bald patch and a wispy gray comb-over, a cowboy hat a million times too large – everyone laughing hysterically as they take pictures of Frank’s American Childhood

*

With all the anticipation of the sudden jolt of a ski lift swinging harshly around and then scooping Frank’s American Childhood up, up

untitled   / Alexander Shalom Joseph

in the morning 

I wake and say thanks

to as much as I can think

to say thanks to 

mostly the earth 

is what I give gratitude to

for everything that is here

is hers from her of her 

the drywall the carpet

the glass the house plants

my skin the mirror in the bathroom

the trees out the window

the news on the radio

and the radio itself

all its little gears and wires

it’s all from the earth

I wake and say thanks

and can barely believe

all we have made 

from all we’ve torn up 

out of the earth

we’ve made so much

been given so much in fact

that we sometimes forget 

there is an earth beneath our feet 

an earth from which all comes

I can’t forget this

we can’t forget this

we need to remember 

and it is so easy

step outside 

into the air the earth made

through her lungs, the trees 

take in that freshness

for breath is another gift 

so is everything else

oh that we can 

sometimes remember 

where it all is from

oh that we can sometimes 

say thanks 

Meaning, Frost / Sally Kuzma

A search for meaning in the poems

of Robert Frost:

‘It’s as you throw a picture on a screen:

‘The meaning of it all is out of you;

‘The voices give you what you wish to hear.’

– so says one of his neighbors recalling

‘the roar a brook makes as it cascades, 

‘ north of Boston.

West of Boston

mid-November 2026, 

the iron gray arms of oaks

‘shrug against a zinc-white sky–

whatever they had to say

‘is drowned out by the man 

‘ with the leaf-blower 

‘ roaring through my neighbor’s yard.

we Gonna Be Alright / Rachel Lee

Baby we gonna be alright

Baby will we ever be alright

Baby has it ever been alright 

Maybe we’ll collapse from venomous darts
Bullets to our hearts

Serve a shot of whiskey froze
Clip a set of angel wings
We kiss each other to avoid saying hateful things 

The Big Light / Lincoln McElwee

I never turn the big light on.

But what is a chandelier without purpose?

A statement piece? Furniture? A ghostly fixture?

Once, at a friend’s new home,

the dining room chandelier fell and broke

into diamonds in the rough, sharp slick ice chips

immune to melting, and we called the new place haunted.

Perhaps the chandelier without purpose

is a source of luck for some.

Perhaps it’s a lone lighthouse for the liminal,

a silent, unassuming sentinel in the fight for good.

Like the mask to ward off evil purchased in Tibet,

packed still in a smashed moving box

in the bedroom closet.

It’s supposed to be hung above the front door

to ward off spirits.

One day, I’ll hang it up. I’ll join the fight.

I’ll turn the big light on.

I was a child when I witnessed my first miracle / Michelle Stoll

slipping out the patio door

haint blue bowl in hand

anticipating blackberries 

I prepare for inevitable thorn pricks

reach into the bush 

for the juiciest berries 

startle a cardinal from her nest

the empty container

the spilled berries

the wild wings

the thorns, the eggs 

in the nest 

November - Poem 12

How Place Shapes Us / Michelle Frost

The Plains  infinite sky  my grandparents farm windy trees lining the gravel road to town

Family dinner on Sunday after church

Finding Nancy Drew on the bookmobile

wholesome bones

lonesome poems

My brother on the other hand  shipped to Iraq

High school   Boot camp   Persian Gulf

He joined the Marines after graduation

Nobody saw it coming   a 100-Hour War

Teens in uniform   machine guns

Dead bodies    a burning beach

Tonight in our hometown at Chili's 

My brother and I find two open bar stools

Veterans of all ages come in and nod hello

What they share is beyond reach   silent

Nobody sees it coming

How we become where we've been

Ballad of Big Nothing / David Hadbawnik

What if you squeezed and squeezed

and nothing came out? A whole lot of

nothing made to look like something,

just the feel of a hole

going through you, so deep

you could put your arm in it

and pull yourself out

the other side, in other words,

nothing. It skips

and repeats, there’s static

crackling all around it,

an old-timey feel

and a taste, too,

actually, a tinge

of cherry on the back of the tongue.

It’s the flavor of nothing.

Green lights and then white lights

and then nothing,

you shout into it

and there’s no sound

but a deeper silence

that follows you, tugging

at the loose threads

on your clothes, as if

to say “Don’t go there.”

Hollow as the thud

of a car door being closed.

What was that? Oh,

nothing. Or maybe the number 4,

or a snake, I don’t know,

maybe a handbook on how

to weather death, outlast it

I mean, slither out from

the skin as it sighs

and flips over, slowly,

the nothing beaten deep

into the eyes, especially

at the delicate corners,

where nothing stays still,

nothing you can name.

Don’t check the time, don’t

check for messages.

There are none. This means

nothing. There is nothing

you can learn from it, it has

nothing to teach you. And, look:

it has nowhere to go, nothing

to stop its legs as they swing.

untitled   / Alexander Shalom Joseph

I’m teaching a class

at a denver nature preserve

which is sandwiched between 

two prisons and a power plant

as well as two highways 

and the edge of suburban sprawl

the class is supposed to be 

about nature writing 

and it was agreed that this place 

is the closest nature

for most of the targeted audience

and so I go there

to plan out what to do

in the parking lot I wonder 

what nature there will be 

to actually see 

in this tiny bit of trees 

shoved between all the ruin 

of the human world 

walking through the entry way

I found myself at an overlook

below me 

I find  wide grass and cattails

a lake and a river

wild turkeys squawking in the sun

the air smelling of drying leaves

and living leaves and freshness 

even though I can still hear 

the trucks on the highway

see the smog between me

and the mountains

see the shine of the prison fences

there is an immediate ease 

yes somehow this 

little scrap left of the paradise 

that the world once was 

still has power yet 

somehow there are still

wild turkeys hidden 

where you would never 

think to look

as free as they have ever been

pecking at the dirt 

making noise up at the sky 

yes somehow

we have not killed the wild yet

not all the way

may there always be 

these untamed splinters

in our city feet 

Left, Dickinson / Sally Kuzma

A Cento

what is left what is left

is it past of leaf?

You left me, sweet, two legacies–  

You left me boundaries of pain–

I left the place with all my might–  

My business — just a life I left. 

Nature lost the date of this,

   And left it in the sky.

The wind pursued the little bush,

And drove away the leaves

November left;  

I left them in the ground.

Since the mighty autumn afternoon

At least to pray is left, is left.

Tell him I only said the syntax,

And left the verb and the pronoun out. 

Fancy the sunrise left the door ajar!

TTYP / Rachel Lee

Paper lines washed out.

Happily dancing paranoia.

Squiggly lines near my cornea.

The living existing at the crematorium. 

Screaming babies on a dirt floor.

Keep them off the anthills out the front door.

My arthritis is kicking in and I can't wash the dishes.

Going blind from photosynthesis.

Where's grandma? She'll fix this.

One call away from a well thought out wishlist.

Too bad, so sad. Society found a new brand.

So shiny. Smells from France. 

Lavendar and lemongrass.

Somehow life's decayed from spoken words to symbols on a device. 

Our existence a tapestry woven from Jesus Christ. 

But if you look at the photo just right, the babies are fed. 

Words are heard and no longer read.

Demons threatened, they can't pull the thread

There's a glorious meal, no longer water and bread

How does it feel to be composed instead of vexed?

Solar-Powered Hummingbird Lights / Lincoln McElwee

Magic in the science. A nocturnal birth,

powered by the sun.

Not hummingbird moths flowering the feeders,

their pinks and browns blurring over flowers,

but waterproof metal with no need to sleep

after the heartbeat frenzy of waking day.

How they come alive at night,

each color eating the dark.

The reds are sunsets in the Mojave Desert.

The blues taste like autumn in Maine.

The yellows, bright against the night,

like bedtime prayers in a childhood home.

Open the window, let the smell of the light

chime in.

See the wisteria’s sweet perfume of honey

and lilac, listen to the ground ivy’s

pale violet flowers.

Or is it a whispered prayer for the wind to begin,

the hummingbirds motioning in the roses’

odor of sand, silt, clay?

When day breaks and hummingbirds

rouse from torpor,

the solar-powered warriors sleep in the garden,

imbibing more magic for the night.

Untitled / Michelle Stoll

Have you put a seashell to your ear

Heard the ocean?

I learned that magic from my mother

My first time at the sea --

Charleston

the weather unfair, but who knew when we'd have another

chance, another trip from Arkansas?

We filled an empty Pringles can with our treasures 

It stayed in the linen closet for years smelling of potato chip and sea salt

Listen, she'd say, listen! It's the ocean

At 30 I burned bridges 

traveled the Highlands

Scotland felt like home 

-- and I it's daughter 

above the North Atlantic,

bold as any mother's love

I stumbled on a shrine to Mary, took with me a shell

left by some pilgrim 

I hear it now.

It sounds like some home

I've never known

bedtime writing  / Sandra Tan

I write this poem 

as you are falling asleep,

waiting for me to finish writing.

stretched out on your side,

phone in hand

drooping with the minutes.

I hear the rustle of blankets

as you roll around

trying to find the perfect spot,

warmer than the aircon

but cooler than the night.

it reminds me of a bird

fluffing its nest,

lining it with feathers.

your falling asleep

is better than any poem

I’ve written.

unlike a poem, it makes me

want to rise from my seat

and enter your dream —

that I may know

what evens your breathing,

makes you stretch your limbs

across the bed

as if holding something large.

November - Poem 11

Crooked Pint Ale House / Michelle Frost

My cousin and I share a booth with a view

overlooking the greens  edge of town

Golfers  out there in shorts   49° at dusk

We are here from Arizona & Minnesota

A flock of geese fly over low   honking

We compare our graying hair   being 'here'

her face smiles just the same 

Our past unwinds as a movie trailer in mind

farm kids   driving tractors

riding bikes to Clear Lake  climbing trees

swinging on a rope in the haymow

climbing the windmill  riding horses 

Flashbacks to another  world

Today the world sees two senior ladies/

laughing    no end to their stories/

Time is a trickster    every age intertwined/ Youth shines through     a reflecting pool/

Now We have become  the old aunties

Frank’s American Childhood / David Hadbawnik

The resentful look that passes between the parents of Frank’s American Childhood when one is holding it and the other doing something else, free from the hell of having to keep quiet and stay still, straining under the weight. No thought of doing anything else in the evening, or having the energy to do anything else, eating in shifts and washing endless dishes and giving Frank’s American Childhood a bath, getting it ready for bed, coaxing it to sleep. All of it an hours-long process, blowing up larger and larger, suffocating every other concern they might have, relentless and all-consuming as they pass it back and forth, back and forth between them

*

The extreme disappointment of stepping onto the treadmill at the gym and clicking on the TV screen mounted over the console, then locating one of the movie channels, only to discover that it’s showing the very last scene of Frank’s American Childhood. In that scene, the main character – having fought her way out of the steno pool and into the executive suite by an endearing series of machinations, which have resulted in the exposure of her evil, female boss, as well as winning said boss’s paramour for herself – calls her best friend, still a lowly secretary in the steno pool, from her new office in a Manhattan skyscraper; the friend whirls around and screams this news to all the other girls in the steno pool, who burst into applause as the credits roll

*

Calico cat curled up outside the glass front door of Frank’s American Childhood, there to enjoy whatever of the coolness from the air conditioner seeps out through the cracks

*

There are people in the room, half-turned away from Frank’s American Childhood, and it wants to say something, touch them, stop them, but they move along so quickly to other rooms

untitled   / Alexander Shalom Joseph

I wake in my wood paneled room

and walk across the hardwood 

to the bathroom 

where I blow my nose 

with toilet paper 

and then turn on the sink

I dreamt of a river 

in the middle of the woods

and long to be held by it again

but as I brush my teeth

and wash my face 

I feel the river in the tap water

feel the forest in the walls

in the floors in the roof

in all that holds me yet 

and I realize 

the woods and rivers

have never left us

we have just left them

forgotten where we came from 

but where we came from

won’t forget us

oh that we could remember 

oh that we could return 

to all that we have cut down

and piped in 

all the paradise 

we refined for our pleasures

all that still keeps us alive 

Keep, Dickinson / Sally Kuzma

On a day when when trees stand bare 

exposure is what we share– 

every tender cover has fallen away

and I search her poems for what is kept

and how, and by whom.

There’s the sexton, caretaker,

keeper of the key to the shelf

behind which life lurks,

what she keeps herself 

apart from.

There’s the Sabbath which she keeps

her own way, comically, wearing only wings.

There’s her orderly housekeeping for death–

The grave my little cottage is.

There’s an oath God keeps to sparrows

Who of little love

Know how to starve

and so many secrets:  

red lady on the hill– Miss Maple?--

has an annual one

and the skies, they

can’t keep theirs at all,

telling it to the hills

‍ ‍who tell it to the orchards

who speak it to the daffodils

we sing, it seems

to keep the dark away.

Esther / Rachel Lee

The shelves stacked from floor to ceiling with canned goods

The aroma of stale food

Hot summer days turn into a forgiving moon

Folding linens from ten to noon

Learning how to swim in the motel pool

Badlands in the background of the cracked orange path

The clicking of the camera, repetitious flash

The Black Hills make for a joyous endeavor

God giving you everything He can render

Mount Rushmore isn't all that spectacular when you've been there 40 times

A cornucopia of memories decorated behind my eyes 

And as cheerful as a cherub

I admittingly admire her

She'd never judge, just sit and pray

I aspire to be like her someday

Gigantic heart shared with everyone

Talent beyond her years

Mayor, entrepreneur, business owner - so many careers

She can paint, she can sew, she can fix cars

She's my milky way in the stars

Stubborn and strict

Prom Queen with a charismatic whit 

Her beauty is fabulous

Her laugh is infectious

Her soul is equanimous

And as cheerful as a cherub

I admittingly admire her

She'd never judge, just sit and pray

I aspire to be like her someday

A living encyclopedia

A beautiful antique

A collector of the unique 

Sharing it all with you, sharing it with me, sharing it with family

A beautiful tattoo on humanity

My heart is still beating because I was blessed with a woman that never gave up

This altruistic being

I'm blessed beyond luck

Untitled / Lincoln McElwee

We were taught patience, wait, drought. We were taught, this is how you honor your dead, to cheer their chariot on. To remember the cleaving. To dance toward the light. But we wanted to live by unlearning. Lotus eaters by choice, we searched for the medicine to forget. The siren song so sickly sweet, the wax pooling freely from our ears to hear each gospel of destruction. The drink poured over and over into cups and topsoils and sent in its way to the sky. We bent towards your body. We sought you there where we left you last. We were lost in a storm, until we realized it was just life without you there to shutter the winds and stop the sands. Those rough hands, what did they mend? The art of holding childhood hearts. Days that puddled like melting ice cream. The metal bowl of plums, an offering. The strawberries. The balsamic. The honey. To everything that has an ending, the pure tincture, the crunch of leaf, the beauty of the waves from watery eyes. The off chance to live it again.

Tuesday night at Whitewater Tavern listening to Hayes Carll live / Michelle Stoll

I'm tired because my cat died yesterday and it'd been coming for a while so the preemptive grief and the guilt over sleeping with earplugs so I couldn't hear his snoring has kicked my ass and the Xanax I've taken since then is tagging along with that exhaustion but in a healing, god-knows-i-needed-this way. And it's Tuesday but maybe leaving the apartment will do me good, maybe I can cram my sad sack heart into these tight jeans and pretend it's the old days and I've got moves and enough self destructive desire to forget about my dead cat for a while until I wake up with more than I bargained for. But thank you Jesus it ain't those days anymore and I can dance to Hayes Carll singing about a bad liver and a broken heart and know that song in my bones yessir, and remember the sweetness of suffering. It's Tuesday night at the Whitewater and there are a lot of guys in plaid and women in boots and I'm there with people I love not sure how I ended up back where I started and grateful for the lonely songs, the blues hits I wrote with my body in the meantime. Mean times, how about that? The old days of feeling like an empty can and puking up Taco Bell in a parking lot makes for good songs but I'm no Lucinda and I don't want to sleep with drummers anymore despite their remarkable rhythm. Tonight is not then and  Hayes is a damn fine poet and my cat is not coming back and go ahead with your  cat lady slurs. The music was good tonight and the Jameson was strong which is more than most Tuesday nights can offer a sore heart. It's Tuesday night and my lover who gets allergy shots so he can hang out in my cat lady house is dropping me off, kissing me goodnight and the Xanax will kick in soon. The still-alive cats will settle into their usual spots beside me in this king sized bed in which I sleep like a royal fucking starfish. Before I call it a night I'll look under the bed for the cat who's gone because it makes me feel better. My heart is a bloody mess but right now on this Tuesday night I'm making it.  I should've said up front not to hope for something special at the end. Don't be disappointed, it's just how things turn out.  

syun-gyo (春暁)  / Sandra Tan

a shade in pilot’s iroshizuku (色彩雫) line of fountain pen inks

meaning, spring dawn. early 

twilight in spring. the first hours 

when the eye begins to adjust, 

and a plum sheen washes over 

the darkness, the dullest of reds. 

when the hare rushes through

the reeds, and the wind makes

the gathered trees dance 

in streaks of rain. world not yet

spoken of, not even the first

syllables. in the dark, one can 

be many things. an unripe plum. 

November - Poem 10

Where it Began / Michelle Frost

The plane descends through a small puff

one white cloud    blue sea of sky

I walk across tarmac to this terminal where I have departed and arrived since 1977 

Flying in over cornfields  farms  and streams Autumn's golden shelterbelts of trees

My uncle's nickname for me 'shelterbelt'

Tomorrow I will lunch with cousins

I am here in my hometown on the Plains

Not a toddler or teen but six decades deep

Ancient memories will emerge this week

New memories will weave into time   mine

A dear friend   fellow bookseller  has died

found sitting with a book in her lap

The news  shocking as it is    each loss

reminds me   Care deeply   Live today

Joni Mitchell just turned 83    I was 6 when I 

saw her on TV  1960s  her singing  of clouds  golden hair   golden dress   glowing guitar

so clear  I remember it still  heartfelt  timeless  I was 8 when Mrs. Shurtz began nudging me 

My poems in a tiny locking diary from mom 

They knew what I needed    indeed loved

And yet   I really don't  know  clouds    at all

Forgiveness / David Hadbawnik

The workers in Lund’s are talking

about having to cover shifts on

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

“Now we have to cover shifts

on Friday, Saturday, Sunday”

one says to another

A woman in stretch pants tilts

a bouquet upside-down to check

that it’s not leaking through its wrapper

“The one in the front?”

says the woman behind

the deli counter; “The one

in the front,” the man answers.

“I was going to get that one

over there.” Earlier today

we worked on haiku, I

and the middle school kids,

clapping to count syllables:

You wanted to own it—

you couldn’t – so what is it

you’re bringing home?

A man and a woman talking

with such bright cheer it must be

a job interview

Feeling myself melt

from the waist down,

turning into something else

each ripple a link

in a chain delicately forged – forgiveness

trailing off into silence

untitled  / Alexander Shalom Joseph

in a speech by a Hopi elder 

recorded not long ago 

we were told to know our water 

and I used to think I did

for looking up at 

the snow covered mountains 

from my backyard 

I could imagine

the slow melt 

being what fed the pipes

but now there is no snow

up there beyond the city 

10,000 year old glaciers 

are shrinking to nothing

and I no longer know

where my water comes from

for it does not rain 

and it barely snows

and yet my neighbor 

in november waters his lawn

while another sprays off his car

maybe for those 

who live in the east

all this talk of water 

seems overblown

but here in the dried out west

every time I run my tap 

it hurts 

Juniper, Thoreau / Sally Kuzma

Pour me a gin, I remember her saying, 

to ease into evening conversation, 

and mute the seething nerve

down her leg.

I remember its scent and its source,

a dark berry on a low shrub. Juniper

was common in Thoreau’s territory

but shows up mostly in Cape Cod walks,

four instances:  

the first a reference to gin-spiked ale, 

half a stoppered bottle of it

which still smacked of juniper

found in shipwrecked debris,

relic of a rowdier world;

elsewhere juniper sits in the constellation 

of oaks, pines, sassafras and other sweet woods–

its scent well known to settlers, 

a welcoming, familiar medicine.

untitled / Rachel Lee

You were never a victim

Just lost in your thoughts

A big dreamer

But maybe that's what caused you to get lost

So many attempted chances to do right

Never saw the gold, so you gave up the fight

Now you're killing yourself

Is this all out of spite?

To get back at your 'caregivers' cause they never showed you the light?

Well, I'm telling you now kid

You're walking on a tight-rope

Laying on the train tracks wishing you'd find hope

When all you feel is fear

Locked inside your head hoping death will find you there

Hold back another tear

It's mental warfare and it never goes away

You are your biggest enemy

But who you gonna blame?

Mom, Dad, that bitch that drove you insane?

I'm only writing this for you because I feel your pain

There's a fire inside of us and it's here to stay

My little brother is gone, no more love to convey

My best friend is missing, cry and call it a day

You have to act tough to hide that you never grew up

Keep rolling them dice

You'll never find luck

I played the game too

You're just gonna get stuck

Don't forget your niece and nephew 

They still need their Unc

Life's a never-ending struggle 

It never get's easier 

Good and bad 

Just learn how to juggle 

I hope you comprehend the words that I'm writing

Get over the 'trap life' and don't be such a liar

All I'm asking of you is to start fighting

Because you're not a victim

Stella Rossa / Lincoln McElwee

The doctor said, stop drinking, but that’s like telling a bird it can’t fly. Don’t tell the bird. Show it the broken wing: the abnormal test results, the enzyme spikes, the fatty liver scare. Make a scene. But it will still try, won’t it? Be there then when it falls. Show it from how high. When your birthday rolled around, I wanted to honor you. I looked for a libation. I went to Total Wine to find non-alcoholic Stella Rossa. Stella Rossa Black, it was labeled, and I thought you’d find that funny. I bought a bottle and drank the whole thing. When I told my sister that I found a non-alcoholic version of your favorite wine, she too wanted to honor you. But when we went to the store, it was nowhere to be found. I felt for a moment like I’d made things up. Like I was so deep in grief that I only imagined the wine. In the absence of libation, what do we offer the dead? A life for a life. Here, now, in a state different from your resting place, I look at the shelf of wine I barely drink. I think of you and pour the wine out.

Attempt at a eulogy for my cat who left today / Michelle Stoll

Smokey Joe Churchill

9 years and 10 months 

appeared from beneath the neighbors' flat-tired Neon

in Waynesboro, Virginia 

One of a feral colony

determined to find 

a better life, he was

sheepish, silly, always

looking for a lap to fill 

with grateful purrs, 

furniture to cover 

with cottony gray hair

From 6 pounds to 18, 

then 8 at the end 

but a never-small heart

His love of treats made

sitting still for insulin shots

easy, his gratitude for chin rubs 

unsurpassed, abundant head- bumps given freely in return

His leaving is a wench 

hooked around my sternum, pulling ribs from muscles

opening the cage of me

to prove my heart still beats

How dare it 

Sweet.

I know everyone says this

about the animals they love, 

but every last person 

in the clinic circled my boy, 

stroked his bony sides, wept, 

said goodbye

Beloved beloved beloved

iroshizuku (色彩雫)  / Sandra Tan

meaning, droplets of colour. a range of fountain pen inks produced by pilot.

ama-iro (天色): the sky over shakotan peninsula, mirroring the waters of the sea. the kind of blue you could dip your hand into, feel it streaming through your fingers. fringed by the silver-beige fronds of susuki that resemble rice stalks ripe for harvest. a group of three get out of their car, and there are two of us here, standing by the parking spot — nobody is alone here.

asa-gao (朝顔): akatsuki no tsuyu (暁の露), meaning dew of the dawn. a cultivar of the japanese morning glory whose delicate petals are the washed blue of a silk handkerchief. the kind of flower that has absorbed the rain and considered it, in search of some principle, and thereby made the colour its own. 

fuyu-gaki (冬柿): at the miyagawa market in takayama, I attempt to buy a bag of persimmons from an old lady, who dissuades me in sentences I do not understand. I later learn that these must be hung out to dry for at least three weeks before they can be eaten. this explains the strings of wrinkling orange fruit that dangle from the second-floor balconies of houses. with time, what is bitter mellows into a secret kind of sweetness, known only to the one who stands below, waiting patiently, gazing up at these cold garlands.

kon-peki (紺碧): but what difference is there, between the water and the sky? is one deeper than the other? I would say, kon-peki is the hour of the afternoon, and ama-iro the morning.

tsuki-yo (月夜): at night, you draw the big dipper with your finger, trace the three stars of orion’s belt, the glimmering point of polaris. the hunter and the great bear. there is no moon, but it is implied by these small fires in the dark.

November - Poem 9

Shrub Hub / Michelle Frost

Across the street is a dense shrub 

Songbirds burst from the glossy leaves

a confetti  blast at my bird feeder 

fast back to the bush   feathered darts 

A car speeds past  causing a flurry

Birds swoop to safety  and disappear

Momentary silence    

Now quickly back for seeds and a bath

They shake  hop  shimmy    frolicking

A pop-up splash party of chickadees

Singing in a bath warmed by sunlight 

Reveling in the rewards of seed and song 

I watch at the window and miss my friends

Frank’s American Childhood / David Hadbawnik

Frank’s American Childhood is coming to an end. But really it never ends, because it never really started

*

Black duck paddling on brackish water, diving down to catch twigs in its beak, paddles over to thick cluster of branches, drops twig, snaps beak to make loud popping noise, a signal as if in agitation at Frank’s American Childhood. Perfect smear of clouds reflected on river, man running with two dogs strapped to his waist – “Steady… steady” –  sun warming, ebbing away long morning shadows, woman coming out to open patio gate at café, dog sniffing, rushes inside, street sweeper brushes along river road, rustle of wings beating, swans long white squiggles floating along

*

Swimmers churning against current in the lido, woman snaps picture of her black labrador sitting beside her at patio picnic table, man complains about $5 coffee, boys stand rigid in trunks on gangway by swimming area, hesitating, man with dogs strapped to his waist runs by again, exhorting the dogs as they stumble together through Frank’s American Childhood, helicopter hovering nearby

untitled  / Alexander Shalom Joseph

someone asks me 

if where I live now

will be my forever home 

she must not be from the west

for questions such as this

are no longer asked

I stopped believing in forever 

when the mountains I was told

would always have snow on them

melted into granite and dust

forever is such a long time

I don’t even think 

much of what I love here 

will still be standing 

in ten years

the forests certainly won’t

look close at any pine

and you’ll quickly stop believing 

in forever 

what a privilege 

to live somewhere else 

where a home could be forever 

where the insurance companies

still think your house 

is worth covering

where the forests 

are not mostly kindling

where the mountains aren’t bare 

and the glaciers aren’t myth 

sometimes living here 

is like being haunted

by all that this place used to be

a crooked image imposed 

on what little remains

I remember 

four foot snows

and pines that stayed green

I remember thinking for a while

that nothing would change 

but that was forever ago 

Inside, Thoreau, Walden / Sally Kuzma

This may be one of the last days to work outside–

bring in the lawn furniture, put the hose

in the cellar, put in the storm doors

before snow, or very cold rain, sets the season.

Thoreau spent much of his Walden time outside–

exploring the fields, ponds, rivers, railroad tracks

of his neck of the woods– but the writing happened

inside– mentally, materially.

There are eight instances of inside in Walden, 

most of them in the chapter titled “Economy”

where he accounts for the cost of his 

experiment in frugal living.

Unlike settlers two centuries before him, 

who dug a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, 

six or seven feet deep, he bought a house, 

a railroad worker’s shanty– dank, clammy, and aguish

– for boards. 

I sometimes dream of…[a] house 

whose inside is as open and manifest 

as a bird’s nest, he wrote. So he built it, 

and the pages he drafted there 

track his thoughts about other interiors–

the mind of a twitchy squirrel 

who plays with his food– 

throwing the half-naked cobs about,

tasting only the inside of the kernel–

and a singular soaring hawk whose underfeathers gleam

like the pearly inside of a shell.

So Induced / Rachel Lee

I’m a late delinquent. My thoughts are a little different. Making the wrong decisions and abusing my prescriptions. Visual judgement by the passerby. Meandering around with only one eye. I’m sucking out the venom. No F*’s given. I’m poetic with the lyrics. Meticulously strategic. Leisurely moving to avoid all the division. Diseases spread through the region. Capsulate the muscles for the incision. I’m on stage screaming. Big city careening. At the parking lot doing jumping jacks to be the entertainer. I’m a past life inquisitive dweller. Trying to stay optimistic. But the missiles aimed at me from a distance. Chains and shackles down the wrists and ankles. Evacuation isn’t simple. Damn I miss you. My hearts a corridor and the timings perfect to explore. I see the face of the devil in pedestrians. I’m full of every antonym. Brain dead pessimist living in regrets again. Sitting for long term offenses and dreading my next sentence.

Untitled / Lincoln McElwee

We sit in a vegan steakhouse, hungry and holy,

holey and healing. How is the baking business, I ask,

wondering if he also makes cakes in heaven.

The tomatoes are cheaper than ever, he says,

and the sweet wine is so easy to find. In heaven,

there’s always wine.

You have to pay for tomatoes in the afterlife?

I ask, shaken. But the cakes, I query,

as I receive my imitation steak, its crisp of cauliflower

sizzling and seasoned. What about the cakes?

You know, the roads aren’t as long

in heaven, he says with a sweet sigh. I can walk and talk,

and I don’t grow tired. I can walk without fear of my pacemaker.

It’s a peace I never knew existed.

His eyes cloud slightly as he receives his tofu skin chicken.

It’s off the special menu, I mumble.

In heaven, he says, there is no artifice.

There is no need to think differently. I ball my fists,

more to hide my painted nails than anything else.

Dad, I say, the cakes. The cakes. The cakes.

When I was growing up in Tennessee, he says,

we kept cattle and chickens. Like the Bible says, we ate

of the earth. None of this…he gestures all around…artifice.

You said that already, dad, I say quietly.

I take a sip of vegan wine. But what is the business of heaven?

You’re a baker, I say. You were a baker. Don’t you remember?

I had my own business for a long, long time, he says.

When I met your mother, we loved to eat.

We sat in a field and ate chicken sandwiches in Carmel

on our honeymoon. We watched the butterflies flutter and flee.

Maybe this is what remembrance is, I say,

the dementia of deliverance, the useless deed

to a memory long gone. There were peaches and plums,

he says, smiling, fruit trees as far as the eye could see.

I cut into my cauliflower. I nibble at the now-cold sides.

I nod my head as always. Dutiful, even in death.   

Loose threads/poem for my mother / Michelle Stoll

 Like this, she'd say

wrapping masking tape

around my fingers 

pressing tiny hands flat against

golden shag carpet

lifting the confetti --

threads clipped when

she sewed church dresses, playclothes, 

placemats, Halloween costumes

She could have hoisted out the Hoover for the job,

but this was apprentice work

I'd never be the seamstress 

or musician, not the mother 

or hard worker like her

I wanted to be different fabric

unhemmed

One of a kind and her daughter: 

Poet, flirt, sharp-tongued wildcat

Stitched together

Seams tight

Edges left unfinished 

nakayama-tōge (中山峠)  / Sandra Tan

on a three-hour drive from sapporo to niseko,

we stop by boyo nakayama for age-imo, deep fried 

potatoes in mildly sweet batter. stand in the 

parking lot, more of a parking spot on a plateau, 

onto which late afternoon sun falls.

season of yellow light beneath orange and brown leaves,

filigreeing everything. the winding, oxbow roads.

the face of the mountain that never seems to end.

we take the slow road, sun moving across our faces

as you put on your shades. pass through kutchan,

the home of potatoes. fields of rice stalks

thinned by the cold. and who could forget

the sunflowers, large as bread plates,

drooping their heads by the roadside, 

coronas of yellow petals still retaining

their warmth. we drive quietly, my ambient music

filling the car, as iced lattes sweat into cup holders.

I’m sure this is how 

I want to grow older with you.

November - Poem 8

Life with Pets: The Suitcase / Michelle Frost

Sammie curls into blankets on the couch

Tina Marie sleeps by her chew toy

her favorite rug is a Native weave

arrows pointing east & west  near the door

They know I'm leaving

the suitcase came out this morning

no applause  only side-eye

It's only three days  I plead

While I fly north and east

They will remain south and west

Asleep   dreaming of tall grass

and running free in every direction

Interior Velocity / David Hadbawnik

Tiny dots glimpsed out of

the corner of the eye sometimes

actually are tiny dots

Keats’ brother George

lost everything in a scheme

devised by John Audubon

David Bowie and Prince

and Leonard Cohen all died

in 2016 in that order

compilation of last thoughts

fragments that shatter

the closer you look at them

the rapist everybody knew

was a rapist was finally

convicted of rape

anger turned inside-out

is still anger

only now it knows

put a pair of parentheses

around this and drop it

over the side of a bridge

your face is a glitch

that goes unseen

say this out loud in a mirror

dribbling down your chin

is your death here

let me wipe it for you

pronounce every fifth word

like you mean it

see if the others notice

an occasional pause

never hurt anyone

but a very long pause

untitled  / Alexander Shalom Joseph

I wake in my wood paneled room

and walk across the hardwood 

to the bathroom 

where I blow my nose 

with toilet paper 

and then turn on the sink

I dreamt of a river 

in the middle of the woods

and long to be held by it again

but as I brush my teeth

and wash my face 

I feel the river in the tap water

feel the forest in the walls

in the floors in the roof

in all that holds me yet 

and I realize 

the woods and rivers

have never left us

we have just left them

forgotten where we came from 

but where we came from

won’t forget us

oh that we could remember 

oh that we could return 

to all that we have cut down

and piped in 

all the paradise 

we refined for our pleasures

all that still keeps us alive

Heavy, Dickinson / Sally Kuzma

What is heavy to her, I wonder?

Hearts of course, her own, and one 

not so heavy as mine

that sings like a bobolink

annoyingly, under her window.

Also a small object: a thimble 

in the hand of a woman 

who stitches, then sickens and dies.

I want more. 

I search her poems for load,

find it in the purple of lilacs,

dew on grass, and then weight,

the freight of a delivered syllable–

burden of the spoken word.

Infant Prefiguration / Rachel Lee

Swimming around in the belly of whom 

Umbilical chord thick like sinew

Personal space dark with goo

Heart, spirit, and soul anew 

Audible music

                         Classical 

Telepathic love

                         Natural

I heard your cry then saw your eyes

Barely open, looking curiously surprised 

No comparison to meeting the love of your life 

Existence is now paternal survival

Keep my head on a swivel like there’s no tomorrow 

Holding you close won’t suffice 

Must smell your hair and watch you sleep

Heartbeat counted not once but twice

Acquiring lost teeth, chalk on the street, playing hopscotch with our feet

Always be my baby

You growing older drives me crazy

Appreciating every second that goes by

Rewind and turn back time 

That’s what would satisfy my why

Sacred Grocery Store / Lincoln McElwee

To say, holy. To say, the sacred trees of deities. To say, listen, and I will play you such sacred music. To say, this generation has a sacred responsibility. I look at the WinCo Foods parking lot and wonder if a grocery store could ever be sacred. I charge its large red letters with showing me a sign. Is it desperation, when I search online for a sacred grocery store? I get varied roti and sugarcane juice, fresh produce, clean aisles, kosher. And then, another definition: devoted exclusively to one service or use. And so a grocery store becomes sacred. Sacred grocery store. Sacred parking spot. Sacred grocery cart. And I see you alive again, singing people get ready, there’s a train a-comin’, shopping in your favorite grocery store, buying your favorite foods, the squaw bread and the slow-cooked oatmeal, the garlic and the red onions, the pasta and the quinoa. All of it sacred. And I’m there again waiting for you to finish your slow perambulations. I look at stacks of paperbacks, glossy magazines, dairy-free yogurt, red wine. How didn’t I know that all that time with you was spent in the service of the sacred? Buying gluten-free pasta in bulk, searching for your blueberry Stella Rossa wine. There are times when we hold the sacred so tightly that we tamp it down. We don’t let the sacred breathe. We don’t realize the potential in its reach.

Somnambulant / Michelle Stoll

Propped up against a kayak full of beer, 

heads buzzing with the cool spring night, 

the electricity

of (what we call) 

a chance encounter,

you tell me you went to school to be an expert 

in somnambulance. No wonder then, 

you come to me in dreams.

The first time

you made me swear to save you

at any cost. 

When I failed 

you came again, unshackled, 

radiant, wearing eternity 

like a wide-brimmed hat. 

Both times I felt your skin, muscle, 

bones give within my hands.

Last night you arrived giggling, 

bearing pawpaws, mulberries, 

haloed by fireflies, 

asked – (under long-gone summer streetlights) – 

Can we have sex? 

as if you’d asked      

Can we get ice cream? 

midnight baking  / Sandra Tan

waking in the middle of the night

to the scent of cinnamon rolls

filling the house,

someone having finished baking

not too long ago,

and gone to sleep, along with the rolls

that lie under a cotton towel

on the dining table.

is this what it’s like to wake

from a dream into 

another dream?

it brings me back to 

nights at my cousins’ house,

lying awake on the mattress

on the floor, watching the beams

of light from passing vehicles

move across the ceiling,

fade back into darkness.

hours when I felt I was

floating, that I was a character

from the anime we had watched

as a family earlier on the couch,

that there was a wide world

I did not understand 

but would reveal itself

in sweet increments.

November - Poem 7

For Bob the Robin of Britain / Michelle Frost

A bird swept down to perch on me

He whistled in my ear

I didn't have to know his song

to appreciate the tune

I only had to be still enough

for him to know we're friends

And when he finished he gave a wink

"Thanks, I'll see you again!"

Bob Robin's reply:

A bird cannot assume anything 

we can't afford to lose 

Every most important need

we carry in our beak

or stow inside our nest

But winds will blow 

and cats will hunt

There's truly no safe place

Weather   Guns   Predators

give cause to keep close watch

Despite the dangers  we flit about 

as though we hadn't a care

And when you are sad and still

We sing to you at the sill

Tiny notes of hope

"You are not Alone"

Frank’s American Childhood / David Hadbawnik

Walking through the woods, crossing the road to the trail, heading to visit the monument to Frank’s American Childhood. Already there are others milling around at the base of the monument, a stone obelisk with a star etched at its base, a candle burning there in a small red jar. And then, a disturbing scene unfolds: a young boy of perhaps eight years old, who’s been wailing for quite some time, shrieks that from a distance had sounded like a goat in pain. A thin, dark woman who must be the mother watches as the boy wheezes, coughs, moans, and hurls himself down on the ground, violently banging head and hands. The mother, far from comforting him, instead grabs his arms, beats him about the head, admonishing him all the while. At this moment the sky darkens, storm clouds gathering, lightning flashes over the mountain. At first, her party seems to include another little boy, a couple years younger than the other boy, and an older couple; but these latter break off and depart, leaving only the woman and two boys.

The older boy continues having a fit. The mother wants him to go to the monument; he won’t. The younger boy seems fine, simply milling about in anxious confusion, the difficult boy raising his arms, not able to maintain control of them. This seems like a defense against the blows of the mother; later, as though he’s attacking her in turn. She catches his wrists, twists them back, pushes him. Eventually, perhaps out of weariness, or restrained by the proximity of two men who’ve approached on bikes, she relaxes her grip and the difficult boy makes a break, storming away on the path. She turns and sprints for the younger boy, who’s bolted at the same instant towards the monument to Frank’s American Childhood, as if to please her: “See, I’m here.” She scoops up the boy and lifts him in her arms with surprising strength, clutching him horizontally to her breast as she runs after the difficult boy. In a moment she’s shepherding them into a small white car, driving slowly away on the gravel road

*

An old woman walking on the street with a shopping bag slung over one shoulder, half-hopping, half-trotting in the effort to move quickly through Frank’s American Childhood

Here is my poem for tomorrow  / Alexander Shalom Joseph

Mary Oliver appears in my car, after I have memorized her poem, a summer day. She asks me to crack the window so she can smoke. I do. She puts her feet up on the dash. She says I’ve memorized more of her poems than she has. She wonders why. I try to tell her that I want to be great like her. That if I can take in her words, hold them in my mind, maybe I can make them part of me, of my words too. She laughs. I ask her about the career of others who are doing better than me. She says they will rise and they will fall. I wonder about myself. She says I will wander on into the yellow grass and that is all anyone can hope for. Then she asks me to put some music on. Something with soul. I do. I open the windows all the way. We both nod along until her cigarette is gone and so is she. 

Gentle, Frost / Sally Kuzma

A deep growl of thunder 

this dark November morning–

then the gentlest of rains…

Reading Frost’s poems in this soft patter,

I’m curious what gentle was to him.

Where the word is found, the titles alone–

October, My Butterfly, The Housekeeper, 

The Hillside Thaw—  tell of tendernesses 

lost, found, longed for.

A haze over autumn sun  

delaying the casual discard of leaves–

Retard the sun with gentle mist, he pleas

like a lover speaking directly to 

his October:

Slow, slow!

It belongs to the God 

who released the butterfly–

from his gentle clasp–

then ungently took it back, made it

dead.

It's how neighbors want to be seen–

what a gentle lot we are–

in how they hold their hens–

Two at a time’s the rule, one on each arm.

It’s how the moon casts her light

on a thawing hillside, casts her spell

on every single lizard.

Counting Sheep / Rachel Lee

I want to see you smile

Listening to my lullaby

Grieving what no longer’s inside

Being pulled in every direction

Living obsession leads to tons of suppression

Pick your depression

But don’t mention all the ups and downs

It’ll cause too much attention

Why can’t we all just get along

Nurture the flowers so they can grow strong

Show me how to belong

Remember my problems

So I can forget them all again

6,7,8,9,10

These cycles never end

Premeditated nightmares are my new best friend

Whisper my words back to me

So I feel like a living entity

I’m just sitting here

Listening to my lullaby

Another Workday / Lincoln McElwee

Rain pelts the face like autumn felt.

I stand on a Friday wearing Monday’s socks.

They say, Blame it on Monday,

with little coffee mugs and knitted steam.

Wide field of migraine—

chalk, seaweed, bright light bellowing in the brain.

The train arrives, and we move into morning.

Wind elbows the trees, looking for a fight.

The trees: gold-brown, green-orange, red-red,

a whir of yellow like a wild canary’s flight.

Freeway foliage and steel and rocks

flanked by concrete that, in the rain,

turns into Rorschach inkblots.

The tunnel from Mercer to Judkins.

A man knits in the seat in front of me,

purple yarn against pale, steady hands.

A woman with silver hair reads a red book and squints.

I barely have the energy to stare out the window and sigh.

We open to Lake Washington.

The U-District in the distance. People. Commerce. Work.

The trees reach into the wind, envious too of flight.

Why You Yell at the Dog / Michelle Stoll

The thing that sets you off
is never just the thing

But the way the dog looked
standing in fresh pee 
beside the door

waiting

and licked your balled fist
with so much abandon

Undoes you
disowned empty-bowled
shut-mouthed  

Who else can know
but the dog

karesansui (枯山水)   / Sandra Tan

meaning, a Japanese dry garden, carefully composed to evoke natural elements such as mountains and water.  

garden without mountains and water

meant to evoke them.

the way a pink streak across the sky

suggests morning,

or a dropped feather

the act of flight.

leaning on the parapet

at shofukaku

I watch the white domes of the refinery

in the distance, plumes of steam

streaming into the cold.

no waves, so one must rake waves –

in truth, they are the waves

of the mind, in their meandering

and rippling way.

on route to fukadaso cafe

in koto, I pass a walled cemetery

between residential blocks

while a light rain falls,

the sky gray and clouded over.

I walk through the granite columns,

noticing stalks of fresh flowers

placed in empty cylinders,

purple and white, with yellow hearts.

a middle-aged couple

lighting up incense,

so quiet I don’t hear them

beneath the patter of rain.

flowers as signifiers

of the thoughts that carry on.

damp incense in the rain.

November - Poem 6

Ghost / Michelle Frost

I sift through winter-stark trees

a breeze   slight gust in leaves

what's left of me

empty gown of grief

ghost of who I used to be

I rise with the moon

glowing white   translucent

moody  shifting clouds

Night sky black and bright

A million stars my guiding light

An Encounter / David Hadbawnik

it’s clear the boy’s having

a fit of some kind

under my glare she seems

more restrained, lifts him up

with surprising strength, catches

his hands, lightning flashes

over the mountain. they can’t

possibly be going there, storming

away on the path, a candle burning

in a small red jar. she does that

thing again of diving

forward, half-hopping, half-

trotting in the effort

as the sky darkens, actually

wheezes, coughs, moans, and

not seeming to have control runs

for the younger boy, who

drives slowly past me and away

untitled / Alexander Shalom Joseph

I’m teaching a class this sunday

at a denver nature preserve

which is sandwiched between 

two prisons and a power plant

as well as two highways 

and the edge of suburban sprawl

the class is supposed to be 

about nature writing 

and it was agreed that this place 

it the closest nature

for most of the targeted audience

and so I went there yesterday

to plan out what to do

in the parking lot I wondered 

what there would be 

to actually see 

in this tiny bit of trees 

shoved between all the ruin 

walking through the entry way

I found myself at an overlook

below me wide grass and cattails

a lake and a river

wild turkeys squawked in the sun

the air smelled like drying leaves 

even though I could hear 

the trucks on the highway

see the smog between me

and the mountains

see the shine of the prison fences

there was an immediate ease 

yes somehow this 

this little scrap left

of the paradise 

that the world once was 

still has power yet 

somehow there are still

wild turkeys hidden 

where you would never 

think to look

as free as they have ever been

pecking at the dirt 

yes somehow

we have not killed the wild yet

not all the way

may there always be 

these untamed splinters

in our city feet 

Five, Frost / Sally Kuzma

Five is a fish-hook

I dangle into the collected poems of Robert Frost.

It comes up measuring 

miles, dollars, years, feet– 

the height of a hoe handle–

the size of a gang of men doing the hay

and the number of mountains ranges receding

into the sunset, into Vermont,

things that concern this chronicler of rural life.

It’s in bigger numbers too

twenty-five, the price of a prize rooster 

fifty-five, a distraught neighbors’ age 

eight-five, a year in memory

further down the online scroll of poems

the number snags on a dark story– 

‘Five hundred.

Five hundred—five—five! One, two, three, four, five”--

a dubious insurance settlement

to pay the doctor’s bill 

for a worker’s mill-crushed feet,

lament of a lone man close to flowers

who knows along which brooks

rare orchids and lady’s slippers grow,

whose wealth of knowledge can’t buy back his feet…

‘You don’t know what I mean about the flowers.’

The Gypsy / Rachel Lee

Feel all the pain, strain, and moth rotten shame

Let the disease drain

Together we always up another level

Now on the same level

Never better

I know a gypsy that told me a joke

It wasn’t funny but so sincere that I choked

She said the only way out was through the mental plane

Where everything is evoked from stones and deep terrain

“You must hollow yourself” she says. “You don’t know the way? Look at the skies… freezing snow and rain today.

He’s crying to clean all the disdain.”

Too many tears and too much to explain

“He wants to take that away. Accept all his gifts and share them today. He has so much to give but you only throw fits. You must open your eyes and forget your regrets.”

I feel warranted to say

That today was a good day

I Can’t Even Remember the Plant’s Name / Lincoln McElwee

Its edges were serrated and vibrant green,

meaning it was healthy. Meaning it was whole.

There were fresh leaves that also grew

steadily towards the light.

It won’t be like the last time, I said

as I carried it away. The woman at the nursery swore

it was special, so I gave it a nice pot, fancy dirt,

prime real estate near the fireplace.

For a while, it withstood my forgetfulness,

each occasion of thoughtless drought.

How I’d water its praying cousins

near the grow lights but forget its own existence.

How I’d marvel at the ease of the pothos,

its leaves waxy and reaching. How I’d bask

in the tale of the spider plant

rescued from overwatering at Home Depot.

I didn’t notice its own leaves drooping

and then dropping until it was too late.

Look at the language of the leaves.

The way they murmur danger in yellows and browns.

They’re like hands. They’ll tell you what you need to know.

Perhaps I wanted to play savior. To swoop

in at my appointed hour and give life.

Perhaps I wanted to make a fool of beauty,

but I’d bought the plant because it looked like mercy.

In the end, I was a savior overwhelmed with choice.

And I failed us both.

Refrigerator Homily / Michelle Stoll

Standing in front of my

refrigerator, staring at the jars

pesto used once

capers suspended in their brine

three kinds of milk 

five cheeses

two drawers of fresh produce

Such bounty 

for one woman

Because I could feed families

(except what meal is made from gourmet sauces and broccolini?)

There's a lot of empty in full

A lot of want in too much

I'm embarrassed by my options,

then by the cold air pouring

from the open door,

then by how my shame extinguishes gratitude 

I'm not making a point,

more like a prayer 

about daily bread 

and temptation 

I met a bishop who said

If you cannot see God in someone

that's a you problem

My bathroom mirror agrees

What I want to say to the woman in sweats and an AC/DC shirt

In front of the open fridge is

everyone wants something 

no one can give them

something that's not yours to give

Maybe this, fancy condiment lady:

Just stop taking

Just do that 

blue irises   / Sandra Tan

you are like a flower, too.

the folds of your hair

tied up in a bun,

the delicate angle

of your elbow, in its black sleeve,

as you hold your brush aloft,

considering a large petal.

you paint the beautiful things

of the day that I crave

when the sun goes down

and all I have is the distance

I’ve covered.

an empty table

after bath and dinner,

after the things I’ve spent all day making

and then gifted to others.

I’m not even sure if 

I have enough words left for myself.

what’s certain is that

I can’t stand the sight of 

other people’s words. 

a blue flower is much easier.

it waits on the wall, 

petals blousy, 

growing whether or not

I care to look.  

November - Poem 5

Covey of Baby Quail  / Michelle Frost

We are spies at the window

My sister and I at her kitchen sink

She tells me they arrive like this daily

baby birds  tottering along the adobe wall

young Quail popping up single-file

we count 5  6  7  8  9

clown car of desert fledglings 

miniature top hats in a row  running

One curled feather above each like a question

where to run   what was that   who are they

My sister was a cute baby Quail once   still is

We hurry to the next window to keep up

Dad Quail appears finally   black face & chest

Stoic caboose   end of the line   tall & proud

They race  along the side yard wall

down they plop to peck at the gravel

Daylight sweeps its golden broom on them

on us   a magic has cast us as children again

Delighting in silly birds  we settle in her kitchen 

glowing with joy in the retelling

Frank’s American Childhood / David Hadbawnik

Feral cats trot across the dirt lot, scattering morning birds. They perch on the side of the building next door, angling themselves almost horizontally, clutching at the slim crevices in the concrete façade of Frank’s American Childhood

*

An Arab woman wearing a dark blue uniform comes rushing out of the pharmacy and, kneeling beside the stroller, starts cooing at Frank’s American Childhood. She kneels there a long time, serenading and rubbing the cheeks of Frank’s American Childhood, the parents watching it go on for so long they begin to feel uncomfortable, extraneous, powerless to stop her

*

First, there are papers to sign. The doctor explains the procedure, and soon enough, begins doing it. The nurse stands by, holding a pacifier in the mouth of Frank’s American Childhood. There are needles, clamps, knives. The doctor bounces on his heels as he works, confident, even cocky. A soft tap on the door and another nurse tiptoes in. “That’s much better,” the doctor says, barely shifting his glance from the table, “this time you knocked before coming in, I like that.” Then, screaming and blood. When it’s done, the doctor holds up a little piece of shriveled flesh on a length of gauze, the part that was cut off of Frank’s American Childhood. “A perfect circumcision,” the doctor declares proudly

untitled / Alexander Shalom Joseph

dreams of old friends
I’ll never speak to again
why is it that my mind
returns to them so often
are there grooves in the soul
like some worn out record
that play as we sleep
do we skip in the same places
where something once hit us hard
or was taken away
after being there for so long
leaving a gap in us
how long does it take
for our heart to let go
or does it ever let go at all
last night
in the dream
this couple
who were friends with an ex
and are no longer mine
came to some cabin
I was living in in the cold
and helped me to replace
two windows
where snow was blowing in
but we are no longer friends
and the cabin was never real
and it no longer snows here
but how kind it was for them
to hold the panes
as I screwed the frames to wood
oh that in the subconscious world
all those who have left us
can still help us stay warm
oh that that warmth
can somehow carry into morning
and that whenever they are
so far from me
they can feel it too

Election, Thoreau / Sally Kuzma

Morning after Election Day, 

what sounds like rain or applause 

is actually a patter of blazing yellow leaves 

lightly lowering and as they fall 

accumulating significant thickness– 

they matter.

It’s warm enough for porch-sitting 

in New England, for facing our neighbors.

I take my place in the sun

and turn again to Thoreau, 

who held strong opinions about democracy

and what we owe each other: 

did elections color his Novembers?

I trim my search to elect, 

in Walden, in Civil Disobedience.

The electronic archive where I dive

shows just a few entries:

crackling and bonded with a force–

‍ ‍There is something electrifying in the atmosphere–

associated with being chosen–

I used to wonder at the halo of light around my shadow, 

‍ ‍and would fain fancy myself one of the elect–

a house aflame–

It was set on fire by mischievous boys, one Election night–

Charged, glowing, 

taking it down to the ground to start again.

Jumping In Full / Rachel Lee

Ethereal escape into another world

Playback the recorded tapes as the sexual desire swirls

I pickup the broken plates

Sit down and push on the brakes

Thankful, Grateful, utterly hateful

I just want to hold your hand

Walk in your footsteps so I can understand

You know a dismantled woman can’t help a broken man

Thankful, Grateful, Don’t want to be hateful

Magic wands cast spells to unfreeze a frozen pond

Dip my toe into the water

Then dive into the most intoxicating bond

Swimming in words waiting for you to respond

Thankful, Grateful, No reason to be hateful

My feet take the same steps

    It’s perceptual

My joy overrides my regrets

    It’s ineffable

My heart feels progress

    It’s gradual

It’s nice to finally meet you in this fading autumn light

We can do acrobats and postulate the facts of the afterlife

No more stitches for open wounds

No more horror show for nasty feuds

Thankful, Grateful, No longer hateful

Botanical Garden / Lincoln McElwee

I think of his heavy tread in the botanical garden, the slow crunch of dirt underfoot as we walked through the rhododendron glen. I think about the hydrangeas in summer, the trees and their brilliant fall leaves, the golden blooms of the paperbush in winter. I think about his constant question: how much further? I think about how I’d try to ignore him. I think about how the woodpeckers would hear him coming a mile away. How, at some height, in their trees, they’d pause their holey endeavors and watch his passing. With him gone, the walk through these dirt trails is quieter, his absence a remembrance. A road less and less traveled. What warm-blooded call marks his tidings on the path he now traverses? What colors cloud the brush in a blip of movement? How do beak and wingbeat signal care or caution in his adopted land? When the trees shudder, does he still take note? What moves the trees there? Is it opposite the sadness of the wild wind here? Is it heavy? Is it holy? Does it need as I need here? My friends berate me for not visiting more often. But there’s heaviness here when I step in. I walk in this calm space at times and feel nothing. I listen for the animals at times and hear nothing. Today, I think of him asking how much further, and I don’t ignore him. I shout the answer out loud.

To the banana I still haven’t eaten / Michelle Stoll

The longer you lie on the counter the sweeter you become

I’m not ready to peel you –

I’ve grown accustomed to you

watching me each morning 

beside my coffee mug

Don’t ask about the wilting bag of Caesar salad in the crisper

or compare your virtues to the sneaky avocado --

too impatient to make it into guacamole

(it would have been the star!)

You are different. You are Banana.

The smooth in smoothie

the ingredient that elevates nut bread

from questionable to comforting 

the soulmate of peanut butter

the Nanna in banana pudding

It’s true, you are an object lesson in best intentions

This time, though, I’ll follow through

won’t be too busy to bake

I’ll find the blender lid among an avalanche 

of spaghetti-stained Tupperware

Fruit flies? They are your biggest fans!

Look -- walnuts, brown sugar, eggs

Just waiting for you, Banana.

I would never gaslight you

(Bananas Foster? Not my thing)

Tomorrow you'll be perfectly ripe

My hand on this box of Nilla Wafers-- 

This time I mean it. 

aki no nagaame (秋の長雨)   / Sandra Tan

meaning, “the long rain of autumn”. from 27 august to 2 october 2026, tokyo experienced 37 consecutive days of rain, the longest stretch since records began in 1886.

the body, after a shower,

solidifies from what is clear.

bright flowers beading on the ends of my hair.

there’s a pair of bow-knot earrings

lying on the rain-drenched pavement,

side-by-side neatly as though 

someone knelt to place them.

pigeon-grey tiles on the roof,

why do you melt away as well?

last night’s storm pried open trash bags,

scattering empty cans and crushed tissues

over the planters.

leaving the train, 

I hold my books spine up

to hide their pages.

thoughts swirl and merge

quick as droplets

down the train window.

deep, yellow light in such weather

makes everything worse.

tired of transparency,

I stir milk into earl grey.

November - Poem 4

November   / Michelle Frost

The skeleton returns to his grave

All glittering goblins and one silver skull

   gently wrapped and packed away

Mr. Crow in his top hat who stood on my desk overseeing daily duties at the library and

Larger than Life Rubber Bat 

   a cat in a mask and  flickering tea lights

All the not-so-spooky fun   just Gone

    3D-printed ghosts   stack of scary books returned to their bins and boxes 

Trick-or-treaters no longer clamor

   unrecognizable in their daylight attire

Pumpkins grow sad on stoops around town

Halloween has had its Day

    Who's this? 

Well, Hello, Elf on a Shelf

    Come in, Come in!

What Kevin Said / David Hadbawnik

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you

and I will tell you

what I mean by that

a feral worrier of cats

send image of punctured lung

looks like she had herself a snack

what I mean by that is

no you’re all good

she proposed a mimosa

troubled each breath no

but what if it really were

that simple

‘you know God killed me, right?’

maybe it means he got a

really good night’s sleep

or he was approached

by an alien I mean

it could really be something

so obvious

not having any children

probably that helps

untitled / Alexander Shalom Joseph

inside we bicker
outside the forest burns
the rivers stop
long before the sea
and the land aches
of both thirst and too much water
inside we discuss paltry things
get upset at each other
storm out of the room
outside the pika
a small rodent that lives
at high elevations
gets ready to go extinct
and ten thousand varieties
of insects will die off this year
as they have every year
for a long while yet
inside we cheer or groan
at tiny wins and losses
as at the center of the ocean
an island
made of all we have thrown away
spins and grows
look up from your screens
and out at the trees
can’t you see the brown
on their leaves
all the dead branches
this is not just a sign of fall
but the fall
a great and terrible change
which the average voter
says is not their biggest priority
how can the earth
not be our focus
how can we ignore
the very thing that keeps us alive
the only thing
that keeps us alive
while inside we bicker
and outside the forest burns

Doubt, Thoreau / Sally Kuzma

In the privacy of his journal I look for his doubts.

Are they anything like my own

on this unseasonably warm ravaged yellow

November day?

Aside from figures of speech–

doubtless, no doubt, in doubt–

his doubts tend to arise around the masks of society

where pretense and ceremony preclude sincerity

and in puzzling moral proclamations:

Feb. 20. The coward's hope is suspicion, the hero's doubt a sort of hope. 

The gods neither hope nor doubt.

It get that it’s a human thing, but I find it hard to connect

until Saturday January 8, 1842

when he turns his eye to a patch of bare ground

where winter-rubbed leaves of grass–

exposed by a south wind that melted snow away–

seem in doubt whether to let go their greenness…

or absorb new juices against the coming year

There I find what we share, inhaling wet scent—

and the south wind melts my integuments also.

untitled / Rachel Lee

You are me and I am you. Fused to a metal stake with lots of glue. I’m calling to you so I can breath – say amen. What’s that you say? I’m free to defend? The clocks ticking and I’m craving to need you dear friend.

How I reach and reach and reach until I feel like Gumby. You dance and cheer on my shrine so humbly. I know you’re there. You call me. Existential words to say. I forgot them all to my dismay. The feather, the shell, the smoke I play. Pretend to be there everyday.

Enough about me. Lets hear about you. Swim to the Temple. I’m the bait, you’re the lure. Not that boisterous yet not demure. Lay me down and intertwine our souls. Show me clairvoyance and upstanding morals. 1+1=3. You emulate feelings that are so sanguine.

The Holy Trinity.

Wooly Aphids / Lincoln McElwee

 

I awoke to a host of nightmare,

flying bodies white and many.

I thought the sky had come undone,

that perhaps we were finally

witnessing the end of the world

in a flash of cloudy beauty.

A quick search, probably wrong,

listed them as wooly aphids.

Shrouded in a white waxy covering,

they look like the angels

of the aphid family.

And so I fell in love. How

could you not love a bug in drag?

Pear-shaped and soft-bodied

replaced gross and creepy crawly.

I watched them from my windows

and cheered their swooning destruction on.

I wept on the day that I opened

the blinds and found them gone.

To love something so completely

and watch it disappear is another type

of nightmare.

untitled  / Michelle Stoll

I had a long day 

heavy

two rainy trips

to the vet

my gentle gray cat 

may be dying

he sounds like an old emphysemic

I'm holding my breath

on a zoom workshop

about spirituality and writing 

feeling like old lettuce 

Upstairs neighbors doing the dance of sacred hippos

I'll sleep with earplugs later

Let's not pretend this is poetry

this loving what slips away

this tolerance for what's in my cup

this rainy election night

Gospel of hair in my coffee

It's a sore heart

a backpack of broken eggs

gray cat against my hip

...all that matters

after “the nailsea jug” (1920),  william nicholson / Sandra Tan

the nailsea glassworks was a glass and glass bottle manufacturing site established in 1788, in somerset, england. in its prime, it was the fourth largest glassworks in the country. it closed down in 1873.

moon jug, fossil-flecked,

fingerprints of clay.

once you filled the green

with plumes of smoke

dark as your glaze,

your obsidian bell. 

you hold down papers

on the end table, a cat

courting fragility.

your hollow chest

rolling over wood

in a smooth motion,

clinking on though

the factory’s long closed.

November - Poem 3

The Weather / Michelle Frost

A windstorm races across desert miles

Slams into homes

Patio furniture explodes 

Mother Nature is Pissed

She is on the roof pounding

Windows rattle   dogs tremble

This feels personal

Late-night news reports "the New Normal"

Inter-web stoics preach "the End Times"

A fresh microburst sets off car alarms

Palm trees sway wildly   hold their ground

Safety is an illusion

This angry Woman warns us tonight

Some pray  Some reload  prepare to survive

We take shelter and wait

Mother Nature will always win this fight

Frank’s American Childhood / David Hadbawnik

The astonishing depth of despair that emanates from Frank’s American Childhood. Making a sound like Popeye the Sailor – “Ack-ack-ack-ack-ack” – mouth open, showing toothless gums, flapping a tiny red tongue. Utterly inconsolable. Completely out of reach. The father carrying Frank’s American Childhood around, singing, shushing – a vigorous “Shhh!” elicits a startled glance – and then, for seemingly no reason, Frank’s American Childhood goes eerily quiet

*

The parents of Frank’s American Childhood become connoisseurs of shit. Listening closely for the explosive squirting sound, which is sometimes pushed out with a taut look of concentration. Then, they check the diaper: What color is it? Dark green, at first. They are delighted when it changes to yellow – sticky, gooey, smeared up the back of Frank’s American Childhood. The astonishing shit that gushes out, defiling the diaper but somehow leaving the flesh perfectly pink and clean

*

Picking squished blueberries out of a bowl, throwing them into the trash, dropping the good ones back into the carton. One hadn’t thought of individual blueberries before. In a way, this job would be better done by a person lacking sight, each berry needing to be fondled individually, rolled around between thumb and finger, to sense whether the skin of the berry is broken, the juice torn out. How obscene they are, raw and needy and somehow not unlike Frank’s American Childhood, little eyeballs rolling around in the hand, the crusty, puckered part where they’d been plucked at the stem

untitled / Alexander Shalom Joseph

he tells me
I’ve got some serious guts
trying to follow my dreams
that he had dreams once
but he put them down
like an old dog
and went to work instead
and yes it is about guts I guess
to do what one is called to do
but isn’t it harder
to wake up every morning
and kill the calling
drown it in too much coffee
and traffic and desk work
and then beer come night
I’ve done it too
I’ve worked long hours
at something I hated
ignored that fluttering truth
there just below my heart
that sings forever
telling of purpose and place
somehow we have been told
that this is not worth listening to
that this is just some splinter
of a fantasy lodged there
instead of our very spirit
sometimes I doubt it still
but I remember the day
I quit my day job
and drove home slow
in the middle of the morning
everything suddenly felt
bright and alive
and my bills felt enormous
but so too did my potential
I sat down and wrote a poem
and it was perfect
and terrible and terrifying
and everything
my friend who says he is unhappy
with his life and choices
but who refuses to change
tells me that it takes guts
to choose to follow my dreams
and it does but isn’t it harder
to kill them day after day
is doesn’t take much
to wake up
and step outside
and listen to the birds
it is easy actually
it is what we were meant to do

Chicken, Dickinson / Sally Kuzma

I wipe my chin, greased as usual

by what I take in– last night's 

fine chicken dinner dressed in plum, apricot, olive.

Reading, eating– it all becomes us 

in one way or another, colors 

what we put out in our name. 

I think of Dickinson’s kitchen and wonder 

if there was ever an unforgettable meal

that muscled its way into a poem

the way the one I just had is doing now.

But I see no chicken in her poems, hardly any meals at all 

save for an eagle’s golden breakfast, aka victory,
a feast she notes is unreachable for smaller birds.

Eat is close to crumbs, close to starve.

What she eats is next to nothing—

God gave a loaf to every bird,

But just a crumb to me;

I dare not eat it, though I starve…

having is just enough.

Miss Grim / Rachel Lee

They drop down on me when I'm coming

Trying to catch my breath after doing all this runnin

Wishin one day I'll control the rain and be full on an empty stomach

Plummet!

Smash!

Damn we're here at last

Crowns on, Nose up

Yeah, we're here at last

Newsflash!

Miss Grim is so radical

Feast on artificial hearts to prove we're compatible

Keep your life in the dark

It's so intangible 

Now you know need an overdue sabbatical

Same face, new name, same soul, end game

Call of the Wild / Lincoln McElwee

I wanted it to be a better home and garden, an apartment balcony worthy of a glossy two-page spread. I wanted it to be a Pinterest like, a match made in mood board heaven. I wanted it to be a refuge against the seasons, summer’s shaded balm, winter’s cozy armament. But the wrought iron patio furniture is rusting now, its tetanus smile easy in the edgy Autumn light. The hummingbird feeder lies in a tangled mess, faded orange spindles like macrame spiderwebs. And what does the birch leave after its winded shaking? Nutlets and catkins dressing the concrete, serrated yellow leaves pooling like a Guinness feat. The carpet, after rains and snow, moldy and moss-ridden, beholden to the wild wonders of each season. I often hear in the silent hours of night the shrill, small chirps of living things. They seek refuge in the broken pots emptied of their tulip bulbs, the perennials parched beyond the pale, the plastic turquoise containers lined with dead aphids and spiderwebs. Abandonment so total that it’s an ownership, the wild reclaiming its own. And then I spot the neighbors’ balconies. So clean, so pristine. For a moment, I’m eaten alive by embarrassment. I think, today will be the day, today I will reclaim what is mine. But something about the cleanliness also gnaws at me. And so the spiderwebs lace the broom and the dustpan still, their fearless geometry calling to some fractal unraveling within me. Like the moss, my mind’s its own. And so I let the wild things be. 

Fists  / Michelle Stoll

What more can I say

about fists

that a bruise has not

already said?

A well placed knuckle

goes deeper, purples longer

What can I say

about fists 

that Want has not 

already told me?

All five fingers clinched

withhold what's needed most

Make a fist

Now relax

Make a fist

Now relax

There's a good vein

Raised fist 

Fist fight

Pounding on the pulpit fist

Iron fist

Fist bump

It's all good

lemon stand at sirmione  / Sandra Tan

lemons so large they could be

footballs for children. 

the salt air and sight of the lake

make them yellow. lake garda,

lady with a blue headscarf, 

red-and-white striped sailboats

on her ears. crossing the lake

an act of faith. men onboard

raising hands to eyes in the

white glitter, scattered sand

baked to silica. cool of the chapel.

on a hill, shaded by olive trees.

cool, arched doorway on which

I place my hand, saying water.

November - Poem 2

Answering Phones at the Library  / Michelle Frost

He asked to be deleted    "I'm moving away"

     soft-spoken    polite    continuing on

        ribbon unfurling from its literary spool

            mentions of Seamus and Boorstin

                poets and journalists he reveres

Tom Brokaw and  Jane Pauley   "Our Greatest Generation"

 "The best memoir is couched in fiction...

            "Take Salinger's Catcher in the Rye   75 million sold says something!"

                    "Take Jeanette Walls' Glass Castle... as Marlon Brando would say,

                            'There's a Jeanette Walls in You, Too!' "

Continuing on, "Speak your Truth!...

       "Look how that worked out for J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter!"

Sharing favorites is love, too, and knowledge a trove

    Research and books    History and fame    Treasured

        A phone call between two strangers speaking  passionately

            one moment in common    finally,  "Thank you... Goodbye"

                    How bittersweet to hang up in the end    and to click 'delete'

Balance / David Hadbawnik

Trying to fix this

and yet he can’t, the balance

is not there, close

both eyes and fold one

leg behind the other

and stand there, feeling it,

only to fall to one

side or the other, a tender

breathing that loosens

the spine on its way

back to zero, the shortest path

between two points is always

to wobble and keep count

starting from there, the eyes

closing and opening to let

go of themselves seeing and

being seen

untitled / Alexander Shalom Joseph

the 

structure

is 

how 

I

survived 

waking to 

wild days

was nearly 

too much 

for me 

and so 

I broke 

it up

took the morning 

minute by minute 

waking and tending 

to basic needs  

then meditation for

twenty five minutes 

then I write

for an hour 

then I do

a work out 

then there’s breakfast

I do this 

ever single day 

and by nine am

I feel somewhat alive

and maybe even safe

thanks to how I

caged the days with

these same rigid routines

but 

  this morning 

       you

 in 

the soft light 

              your eyes on mine

just when I wake

all structure 

             falls away

into 

        your

  sleepwarm arms 

Burden, Thoreau / Sally Kuzma

What burdens in those journals of his?

Answers vary…

Sound– the wood’s whisper, barely audible– 

burdens the breeze along the cliffs.

Love, as epithalamium, hymeneal– 

the nuptial, marital, mating sort–

is the burden of bird song, flower song– 

in air, water, woods, deep down 

into the bowels of the earth.

Sin is a burden too, the weight– 

the Newtonian gravity– of being human

which can be countered by the buoyancy of virtue.

Devoted worshippers of beauty, he says,

who find music in the storm (albeit in a minor key)

and allow themselves to be watered, like beanfields, by rain

bear burdens more easily than the rest of us.

It’s what our boat carries– our physical bulk, 

the freight of what we need to subsist.

It’s what the breasts of common men release

when they cannot keep themselves from talking.

Lightning Strikes / Rachel Lee

Everyone knows his name

His ginger fur

Distinguished fame

The phone rang and rang

Lost and found

He’s at the pound

A premeditated game

No one to blame

Sculptures, paintings, poems

His collar, pictures, small totems

When lightning strikes the ground

And thunder rolls east

I think of my canine beast

He never pulled the leash

So I let him loose

This is my fragmented memory of Zeus

Outside My Living Room Window / Lincoln McElwee

Just last week, outside my living room window, a lone branch of yellow leaves was pure spotlight against the chalky white of birch bark and green leaves. Stressed trees gossiped about leaf drop and loud children, the lawnmower and the leaf blower. A grandmother, ready to leave, struggled with a child on the playground. She looked around, as if asking for help, but there were only the aphids, the woodchips, the leaves, the shedding paper birch trees. She kept pointing to her right, to somewhere out of sight, until, finally, she grabbed the kid and sat down in a patch of sunlight. The kid played with the playground woodchips, throwing them so hard that they landed on him instead. An airplane hummed overhead. The grandmother’s bright yellow sandals baked in the sun. Then they walked uphill, away from my apartment building, but the kid ran back to the patch of sunlight, and the yellow sandals beamed through the aphids, the leaves, the trees. Now the yellow leaves are shriveled up and brown on the ground. Now the rain pelts the earth like punishment. Now the trees gossip about the tall maple near the playground that uprooted in the rain, leaving a mud bath in its wake. Now the aphids are dead or dying. Now the days feel like a broken sandal strap, the absence of yellow, woodchips wailing for the life they once knew.

Becoming a Morning Person  / Michelle Stoll

Because the birds 

are easier to hear

before traffic picks up 

Because by 7 a.m. my limbic system

is off to the races 

I forget who I am

Because turning my ship around 

takes longer now

more effort and energy

Because I want a little thing

an hour

that's mine

The geese -- 

I would have missed them

     We know where we're going

     -- do you?

chin chow (清草)  / Sandra Tan

a jelly-like dessert made by boiling the stalks and leaves of the Chinese mesona with potassium carbonate and starch, served chilled.

when I slide the dark jelly out

from its porcelain bowl,

its gentle, tumbling form

exudes a coolness one feels

without touching.

my carton of milk, left on

the top shelf, has grown

a skim of fine slush, curdled drops.

I mix both, cleave large chunks 

with a spoon as though 

there were no end to fullness.

carry these soft-bodied beings

that slip over the rim’s curve

into the mouth, the way 

a retriever grips a bird.

to give grace to sundown.

pour milk into the night.

November - Poem 1

untitled  / Michelle Frost

Flouncy blow these flimsy limbs

Today's fresh Autumn breeze 

Arizona sunlight dims

Refreshed are desert trees

November swings in Merrily

New pumpkins scary   Bold

The Poet dreams of Autumns past

Poems squirreled away   such Gold

Oliver's Geese   Frost's Road

Stafford's Yes   and

Every bird I've ever known

  whistling my name   calling me home

Frank’s American Childhood / David Hadbawnik

Evening, sun already down, sky a dirty gray as streetlights wink on. Yet there are two men still at work in the bare bones of a building down the street, one of them climbing a ladder to reach something high on the roofless inside wall on the top floor five stories up, while the other man stands close by to pass him things, and hold the ladder, their dim outlines visible against the darkening sky of Frank’s American Childhood

*

There’s a worker mopping the floor in the lobby of Frank’s American Childhood before 7am on a Wednesday morning. He sets the bucket of water against the wall in the rear of the lobby, across from the reception desk, and steps forward with the mop to the glass front of Frank’s American Childhood, where he begins mopping back and forth, back and forth. Within a few strides the mop has lost its frothy wetness and swipes over the floor like a damp rag, leaving only the barest sheen of moisture on the tiles. The man squeezes between a sofa and coffee table as he backs his way towards the reception desk, flinging the mop head a little ways under the sofa and table without moving either

*

At bedtime, Frank’s American Childhood wakes up in its mother’s belly like popping bubbles, she says, and she looks up this phenomenon on her phone, and finds it, and the father of Frank’s American Childhood tries to feel it too, but cannot, and both of them hope Frank’s American Childhood is all right but don’t want to jinx it by saying anything, so instead roll over and go back to sleep

untitled / Alexander Shalom Joseph. / Alexander Shalom Joseph

when I was twenty years old
and hungry and bright
I sent a book of bad poems to tupelo press
and thought I would be famous

a few months later in the morning light
I woke and opened my phone
to find an email there
the results of the competition
I was set to with
that would tumble me to stardom
showed I was not in fact
a winner at all
not a star or even a comet
but just another bit of the darkness

they say doing
the same thing over and over
expecting different results
is the definition of madness
actually the definition of madness
according to a quick google
is being mentally deranged
either way art making is madness
and so is life

we all do things over and over
but in art we find miracles
the artist alchemizes
the deranged belief
stirs it, burns it, smokes it
smiles
and thinks it may end up differently

today is the first of thirty poems
that I will write for tupelo press
having been mad for a decade
the repeated pattern has now
yielded different results

Abscission, in Thoreau / Sally Kuzma

Though he had a scientific bent 

I don’t expect to find this botanical term 

for the way an organism can drop parts of itself

so I search instead for what is falling…

I search his Excursions.

First I find water, then weather:

river water jarring rocks

roaring and surging over a small

slippery wooden bridge somewhere in Quebec—

then strangely pausing in its course

to let a man pass

and snow outside the deserted hut of a woodsman–
the snow Thoreau imagines as he reconstructs 

in words another loner’s life in the woods 

on a stormy winter evening,

pipe bowl in the embers.

Closer to abscission is the sound of pignuts dropping,

their fall hastened by the work of a chickaree–

a kind of squirrel– whose scampering is audible

because of another abscission

that laid a rustling leaf-carpet underfoot.

He thoughtfully reminds us that one falling leaf

does not an autumn make; it takes a concerted

windfall in October when sugar maples in their glory

fire up and then let loose 

their rich yellows, deep scarlets,

their unexpectedly bright and delicate tints.

And sometimes, he notes, the ones who blush deepest

are the last to let go.

untitled / Rachel Lee

I’ve become accustomed to the brain damage from the loneliness and regrets 

I can see the paint pealing

Pause for the special effects

I'm blessed

Possessed

Diseased and obsessed

The Floor is falling

Catch me in the act

Too afraid to interract 

Whispered words are hacked

Distract

My bags are packed

Run until my feet turn black

Blowing smoke rings

Distracted by False dreams

Sewn up by the seams

Keep me distracted by shiny things

On Tree Frogs and Morning Coffee / Lincoln McElwee

I want a slender branch to know the whole of me, a leaf to hold my weight. I want to point with my claw-shaped bones and climb, climb, climb. Would you enter the arboreal to find me? Would you croak too at my call? What does it mean to be treeless? To hide from fish, to fear freshness? And how do I explain the moth’s taste? The dusty sweetness, the thin bite of a life held to the light. How many ants have you eaten? The hummingbird feeder crawling with chitin. What of the low earth do you crave? And what is the odor of a sunrise? Lately, it’s fully washed, sweet and citrusy. It’s pumpkin, cinnamon, allspice, orange zest. It’s the waking remnants of strawberry bedtime gummies that have never helped me sleep. And what does a tree frog do with the ability to change its color? Would I be as chameleon-like in life if my skin could corral its melatonin? Would I ignore the dangers around me, the cat, the hawk, the skunk? Would I explore the holey hollows of other trees? Would I be content, even here, on this moss-ridden balcony? Let me be a hundred yards from water and thirsting. Let me be lovestruck in a roadside ditch. Let me be pure movement in the marshes. For a moment, O morning, just let me be.

Rapture of Hackberry Leaves  / Michelle Stoll

The racket 
leaves make

(so large I mistook for opossum beneath the Hackberry)

when their golden
bodies leap 

from tops of trees,
twirl between branches

blow kisses 
over shoulders

to lichened bark 
unimpressed bird

to leaves still ahold
(clinging till the end, taking in the show)

The thing they cannot 
keep to themselves

when the ground 
says Welcome home

when they curtsey 
among their kin

(cushioning the fall, spent from gravity's rush)

when the wind tangoes them
as never before on the limb:

...Laughter!
(Again! Again!

after “periphery of speech” (2004) by Hara Mikiko / Sandra Tan

dull yellow cured yolks

cooling on the edge of the sink

in a metal bowl, bathed

in soft, warm light from the kitchen

that whispers late hours,

dinner after the day’s trudge.

when the children are in one place

and the corners of the table 

are filled. who do you imagine

to be waiting for you?

the luscious curve of the metal

sink, flecked with water. 

someone rinsed their hands

a while ago, waiting to prepare

the meal, fluff steaming rice

into little mountains like the ones

you parsed on the train home,

train handles swinging

overhead on rubber leashes

like rows of birds.   

October - Poem 31

Who will step over this Hallowe’en?  / A Cento composed by Kirsten Miles

with line selected and written by Katerina Canyon, Sam Calhoun, Luka Erausquin, Ellen Fergusun, Brett Gastineau, Joy Johnson, Nicoletta LaMarca-Sacco, H.T. Reynolds, Gabriel Phillips, and Colin Sturdevant.

Listen—
they are piling up in my throat like unspoken prayers

featherless birds beating their wings
against a cage of ribs  

how the grain curled 
up and off like golden minnows
into the stream of night 

I throw the windows wide,
call into the dark of the Salish Sea
you too watched something without speaking

how the moon sees Jupiter  rising, and decides to set  
hangs like a draw knife,

I never was the kind of being to create light
with my bare hands but I sang it from my ribcage    
and handed it out willingly

your soul served like soup bones
simmering onto paper, blooming
minding its teeth while being sweet  

I don’t want new wars to watch/read/listen to 
I thought I would rather die whole
nightly, I am re-spooled back

an ether, a mouth unknown to itself 
the city settles atop your tongue 

our sorcery showers the galaxy

brooms to the moon, charms to falling stars
that circled a twilight sun to rise with the aurora

even dust once had a name
trees bend down to sing inside of me

Glory be to all of us: finding signs as if they were

October - Poem 30

The Witch  / Katerina Canyon

Your green skin is kelp.

One sharp blink
snaps a picture of hunger
and the sharp hours you’ve posted

brooms to the moon,
charms to falling stars
that circled a twilight sun
to rise with the aurora.

We own our hunger
now that you have risen.
Who could stop you?

Our sorcery
showers the galaxy.

Everything is fractured,
and you have sung out of tune
several measures.

But it is the last day of October,
though the dead rise
with empty hands.

Your stomach was full
all of October,
when you shared your
wicked spells,

and I ate them,
and I smiled.

Draw Knife   /  Sam Calhoun

All night by the fire

I could hear the wood

smoothing itself to the flame,  

how the grain curled

up and off like golden minnows

into the stream of night,

how the heartbeat below 

in the pile of embers

never wanted to know, 

how the rain hissed

at every touch, blackened 

as if branding flame, 

how the moon sees Jupiter 

rising, and decides to set.  

hangs like a draw knife,

dew dropping 

in the morning ash 

fogging the valleys,

soot fluttering 

like the edges 

of every winged bird. 

Prometheus   /  at/om

Prometheus took fire
from the gods and
gave it to man, for
this he suffered dearly.
The gods, egotistical as
they tend to be saw the
theft of their power, even
when they gazed over
man and saw that what
Prometheus had truly
given them was warmth. 

I never was a god,
I never was the kind
of being to create light
with my bare hands but
I sang it from my ribcage
and handed it out willingly.
Prometheus gazed on with
pride while I wrote poems,
and told jokes, and sang at
the top of my lungs while the
men who called themselves
gods warms their hands by
my fire until they were
clenched around my heart,
taking its light only for themselves. 

Prometheus, I would give my liver to a thousand seagulls if I could have my fire back. 

Not Nutter Butter...Lorna Doone  /  Ellen Ferguson

Your shapely hips, Nutter Butter, murmur their siren call, yet

something lower belongs to Lorna Doone

not the deepest reach/            near knees, actually --

Crumbs from Lorna Doone cross folded calves, 

Falling from laps, less than tasty — like breadcrumbs almost,

Trails leading ... if only plays were only plays, not plates plating

All of it: doilies like antimacassars for cookies, like armor for fruit.

Parting  /  Brett Gastineau

We were standing by the coat rack in the hallway,
the air between us smelling of wool and onion,
just two bodies that had known each other’s salt
getting ready to step out into the grease of the street.

And I wanted to give you everything—
not just the laundry lists and the burnt toast,
not just the ordinary friction of our skin—
but the poems. The great, thick, bleeding ones
I kept in the drawer of my chest,
the ones I was supposed to write when
the world finally stopped shaking.

Let me sing them now before the door latches!

The poems with the marrow on them,
wet and red and trembling like a newborn calf
lifted from the warm slit of the belly.
The poems I meant to write when I had the time,
when the children were grown and sleeping
in their own beds,
when the rage went out of my hands
and left only the clean, white bone.

Listen—
they are piling up in my throat like unspoken prayers,
featherless birds beating their wings
against a cage of ribs!
The poems about the way your father’s hands looked
when he held the glass of whiskey in the kitchen dark,
the poems about the milk souring in the sun,
the poems about the exact, terrifying shape of love
that stays long after the flesh has turned to ash.

And now—

now—
we are saying goodbye.

We are pressing our mouths together,
tasting the iron, tasting the end.
And the unwritten lines fall down between us
heavy as stones,
heavy as the bodies we loved and buried,
leaving only the empty page,
leaving only the raw breath of what never
had the courage to become.

story un-telling  /  Joy Johnson

Freedom is the thing! — from morning pledgings

to founding fathers’ warnings ’bout taxing

without representing (to heck with 

central planning, no wonder preterm us

was confederation) to anthems (w)rung

from sporting events — we’re inundated with

infinite tales unsung throughout a youth

thence ignorant of what’s owed: to slaves,

natives, the earth above and below, and

how freedom’s the wrong poem: we are one.

Then comes the imposition, onto all

we see and partake, of commercialism —

how our worth is beholden to our purse —

what power it can muster to coerce

respect — from whom? nonexistent jury.

Nonetheless, we’re pistoned back and to work,

chasing what we’re told we want, reassess

courtesy American Express constant.

Makes it hard to see co-denizens of Earth

as joys unbounded and congress priceless.

Then all grown up, we settle right in to

watch the news — a story bespoke not for you:

for the oligarch!  I don’t want new wars

to watch/read/listen to.  The germane ask:

who’s paying for the tuning to? who is 

distracting us with the halftruths/untruths?

We’re being used — it’s no conspiracy —

it’s just concentrating wealth elsewhere, un-

fairly, monumentally un-so.  Since

baptism, against fascism: need’s compassion.

Every contrived separation: a ruse.

Every moment on Earth: blind love.

Our duty to the story: the truth.

fox family  / Nicoletta LaMarca-Sacco

Fox den along that curve in the trees next to the potting shed. Our dogs run, stand alert, sniff the breeze and run back to safety at our back door. Then we see the kits running and tumbling like a small circus act, twins with tails bushing out already, too young to hunt like their quick mother. One day, they are gone. Our dogs approach the den more closely like campers coming across spent coals of an old campfire. They sniff, run cautiously to the den and back, and return, tails alert, as we wondered and wished for a safe ending to the fox family’s story.

EXHIBIT  /  H.T. Reynolds

 She never understood the nature of her body, why society insisted on covering it up lest she bear it all for some man’s pleasure. Not tonight. Tonight, she was reuniting her bare skin with the stars, that ancestral air, witness to every birth, every death, every great man humbled before a woman. The textured grit of the diving board bit into the soles of her bare feet; the cold steel safety railing hugged her bare thighs like an apron. She was tired of aprons. Tired of leftovers accumulating in a dirty fridge like tombstones for that little girl—another day farther from her reach. Tonight, she will live. She will spread her arms, offer her body to the dark—dive from the highest point she knew—that ink-black void beneath her. The last time she dove from this platform, hundreds of captivated eyes held their breath, hoping she would make it. She always made it. She unlatches the safety rail, secures it, and takes her position at the edge. She’s never felt so beautiful as in this moment, cradled in the moon’s timid light. She bends her knees, leans forward, and lets gravity take her. The air swaddles her bare skin; she closes her eyes and hopes the stars are watching. 

Another Side of the Window /  Gabriel Phillips

I love you.

Can you believe it?

To hunt you, to be found

by you.

When you sleep

I slide the tiny umbrella

under your arm.

It’s your umbrella too,

you know? We belong

under the same storm.

I do not capture the deep yellow smell

I capture what makes it yellow.

That I share the moon

with your moonless planet.

When the paper is ripe

I tear it out and show you

how to sink a boat.

Do you? Know?

And so

I throw the windows wide,

call into the dark

of the Salish Sea.

Who will step over this Hallowe’en?

Who reflects the light back to the moon?

when I say the first string, 1987,  / Colin Sturdevant

I mean to say the first one was cut

before – before it could live a breath

of life and no child is a child at birth.

the first string, I say is 1987,

because it is still unspooling

like exhaled blue smoke

it is me

like exhaled blue smoke

on that day in Dallas after a funeral

snow pitifully hiding in pockets of ground

it is me

after the funeral of a 100 plus year-old aunt

a name not hitched to memory anymore

washed away by Jordan as if he was a river.

*

I cried city lines away, but not for her nor you.

For whom the fuck knows why.

Bare bottomed and loud.

An ether, a mouth unknown to itself.

*

I take the abuses, Jordan. For us three.

Nightly, I smell wine on her breath.

Nightly, I am re-spooled back.

I sob out a crown of falsettos until I pass out.

I am the string that stays.

*

Only time will tell how our threads recross. 

October - Poem 29

My Soulless Friend / Katerina Canyon

My AI helps me decide
on the right outfits—
how to style my eyebrows,
what nail style to wear.

It helps me pick out
presents for my friends.

It tells me which Bridgerton
character I resemble.

Sometimes, I ask it to read
my poetry.

I will ask it to suppose it is
my mother. Tell me why
she let my father abuse us.

It is just as lost for an answer
as I am.

It can postulate, but not really know.

It lets me keep asking
and never gets tired of my
questions.

I appreciate that it never tires
of my questions
because I have a lot of them.

Why do I have lupus?

Why is there racism?

Why do I feel so alone
when there is a world
of people around me?

Spiritus   /  Sam Calhoun

None of us 

know the end—

I opened the door 

hoping for rain, 

streaming in long 

bands from the gulf, 

wrapped to a center 

unraveling as if yarn, 

invisible, the way things are,

someone says, tossed

like old shirts in boxes—

even dust once had a name. 

More Music I Won’t Make   /  at/om

I read online 

that skeletons 

are not as stable 

as cartoons 

make them look, 

hollow bones in 

my body would 

not be able to stand 

without the 

living person 

surrounding them. 

Tragic I will never play 

xylophone 

on my own ribcage. 

Vocabulary Quiz Poem For Readers of Min Jin Lee  /  Ellen Ferguson

My child  /  Brett Gastineau

My child, I root in the soil above my own bones.

I am the hazel tree you watered with tears,

the wooden mouth that drinks your weeping

and spits out twigs, gold dresses, and slivers of rage.

I watch her—that woman with teeth like cold chalk,

that stepmother who treats you like an ash-heap,

and those two mean girls, those paper-cut sisters

with their painted eyes and empty bellies.

I want to reach down my branches and

strangle them in their silk.

I want to strip their skin like birch bark.

Look how they try to trick the Prince—

that dull boy with his shoe 

and his single obsessive vision!

The eldest takes the knife to her own foot,

lopping off her big toe to force the glass.

Blood in the leather! A crimson puddle!

The other one hacks off her own heel,

gritting her teeth while her blood waters 

the gravel.

Foolish, bleeding butchery!

And the Prince—he notices nothing 

until my birds tell him!

He sits on his white horse, blind as a stone,

taking home a mutilated foot until my

doves sing out:

“There’s blood in the shoe! The bride is wrong!”

Ah, my birds, my little white sky-servants!

They nest in my ribs, they carry your wishes

in their beaks.

They pack the dresses in air,

and when the time comes, they swoop

like small white axes to peck the eyes

of those wicked girls.

Snip, snap, a blind, dark justice!

And what of your father?

That bloodless man, 

that phantom in his own hallway.

He surrendered you to the fire,

he forgot the warmth of my skin,

he sold your childhood

for a quiet dinner and 

a woman who smells of vinegar.

I hate his cowardice more than her cruelty;

he watched you sleep in cinders

and said nothing.

And you, Cinderella—my sweet, indecisive girl!

How you linger at the edge of the ballroom,

running away three nights in a row!

You drop a shoe,

you hesitate,

you hide in the pigeon house,

torn between the ash and the crown,

afraid to want the gold,

afraid to leave the coal.

Why do you tremble when the door stands open?

Take the shoe, my child.

Take the thrown.

Let the birds blind the wicked,

let the hazel leaves fall,

and leave this ash-pit behind.

Productivity to Engagement:  each moment (tap into)  /  Joy Johnson

The proviso of the sunrise

wakens

with its discerning green light

a cascade of chemistry, biology.

The query of the sunrise

senses in me

a loss of spontaneity,

leaving behind dreams.

But the morning’s energies

propose a going in and in,

paying rapt attention

to the bird-nest-egg without doing.

How ambitious it is to recollect rightly,

to regard this dawn’s hour as a ticket

to connection beckoning consistently,

ever changing, ever the same, 

always here, never remaining.  

Again and Again.

                             Today is the day to ride.

Girl Cousins  / Nicoletta LaMarca-Sacco

When I see you

I see our grouchy great-grandma

I smell her arab-influenced Sicilian cuisine

Ravioli with sugar in the ricotta filling

Ground allspice and white pepper in the scaccia

When I move towards you

I appreciate your embrace 

We hug like sisters

Since we are all only children

When I hear you calling to your husband, I know 

that all our husbands in the “generi” club

Appreciate us-our stories, our poetry

Our cooking, the art we’ve made and collected

When I taste your cooking

I see our grandparents milling around the table

I feel grateful that the men took chairs outside

Cracked nuts and peeled fruit to help us all digest

each takes a chair, light cigarettes, fear nothing

lead us on the imperfect road that’s behind us now

HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR DEPRESSION /  H.T. Reynolds

CW: self-harm/suicidal ideation

I. It’s just a bump in the road—

my discarded body

            bound in a potato sack

            just missing the river   

II. You’ll bounce back—

            but the car’s already gone

            the side door’s closed shut

            the driver nursing a road beer

            with a lit cigarette clutched

            between his jaundiced fingers

III. Trust the process—

            that is to say you’ll acquire scars

            like a roadmap to places buried

            beneath X’s along ankle bones

beneath socks and friendly gazes

IV. Time heals all wounds—

emerging from beneath

the skin’s surface like pumped oil

the body becoming a hollow tomb

for Neverland—for the lost boys

pleading for wings—to fly again

ignoring the clock in the croc’s gut

V. No sense crying over what you can’t change—

a dollar doesn’t buy what it used to,

vending machine stick-on tattoos,

collect calls to strangers entertaining

your worth at pay phones no longer

standing sentry on street corners,

newspapers recording worthy stories

VI. Tomorrow is another day—

make friends on Discord

in every time zone

so you can ask about

the future—let them tell you

how the sun still shines

tomorrow, or that the past

isn’t as bad as you remember

VII. Things have a way of working themselves out—

prepare a meal for your depression,

your soul served like soup bones

simmering onto paper, blooming

minding its teeth while being sweet

knowing it’s not going anywhere 

Sooner Than Later /  Gabriel Phillips

My beautiful wooden desk.

Gorgeous and difficultly stiff.

It was I who collapsed my mind.

No idea of where I am

or if I am.

Burned wood. The pencil.

The liar.

Upstream in the canoe

trees bend down to sing inside of me.

I imitate the shape of the desk

and the desk notices.

But I do not notice back.

October - Poem 28

Nevermore / Katerina Canyon

When I was eight, my brother
would grab my hand and slap my face with it.
He’d laugh and say,
“Why are you hitting yourself?”

Peering at myself in the mirror,
I ask the same question,
wishing for blue eyes
when I know they are brown.

We are told we are eagles
when I know we are ravens.
The WASPy assimilation won’t take.
My hair kinks harder
with every attempt to straighten it.
It will never feather.

My lips are too large—
the teenage me was told
a hundred times.

My voice was the easiest thing to change.
I don’t say ain’t.
I harden my r.

It is a close WASPy assimilation.
People will talk with you
like you’re an eagle,

but their eyes drop in person
when they realize
you’re a raven.

I have been wearing this voice
for so long,
I think I have lost my real one.

When eagles die, people cry.
They mourn.

Ravens aren’t seen as dying.
They are seen as something
to be shooed away.
If they are killed,
no one mourns.
It is considered excused or justified.

I wish I could have my voice again,
but I picked up this assimilation
so long ago,
I do not remember
where I dropped my real voice.

Touch   /  Sam Calhoun

Wild clematis on the deck, 

how it checks for light

three leaves like ivy,

how I mistook the oils

as poison for the skin, 

how like me, only wanting

the sun across my body—

The Movies   /  at/om

There are movies coming out
that I had plans to see with
people who have been gone
for a long time. Movie releases
for series I have never seen
without my brother who lives
across the country. The next
Hunger Games movie that I
should be laughing about with
my dead friend. Upcoming
horror flicks I should have
laughed at with the people
I don’t talk to anymore. 

It’s not that I ever had a problem
with going to the movies alone.
The problem isn’t that. It’s the
seats around me all filled with ghosts.

And they all talk through the previews.

Vocabulary Quiz Poem For Readers of Min Jin Lee  /  Ellen Ferguson

The Green Ribbon (Based on a folktale) /  Brett Gastineau

A girl with a neck like a peeled willow switch
wears a ribbon of grease-stained velvet
tight as a hangman’s knot
or a stitch in a bad dream.

The boy sits with her in a room where
the wallpaper peels like a sunburn.
He asks, “Why the ribbon?”
She looks at him with eyes like cold spoons.
“Never mind,” she says.

Years pass.
The clock on the wall ticks like a dying beetle.
They grow old together among
the dust-bunnies and the smell of turnips.
Her hair turns the color of ash.
The ribbon stays green,
green as a stagnant pond under the floorboards.

She lies in the narrow bed.
The ceiling is stained with old tea.
The boy—now an old man with knuckles like walnuts—
reaches out with fingers trembling like a drowned fly.
He unties the knot.

“There,” he whispers.

Her head rolls off the pillow.
It stops at the leg of the bedside table.
Its mouth still slightly open,
surprised to find itself finally out of work.

Hope  /  Joy Johnson

"Hope! hope!" they say as the snow melts away. 

Off they fly to summit thirty to praise

The words they'll utter into each other's 

Gloves to carry away while pondering mothers

Left at home on bucket brigades.  "Pray! pray!"

They might as well say as ice shelves dissolve 

Into the sounds that escape through lips brayed

Where they worship how to make inequals

Of us and the world as compared to wealth. 

But I am not happy -- I don't sing, don't dance--

Nature is injured, she feeds us all.  Squelch 

Delusions made to distract.  Do taxation!

GGGM (the grouchy great-grandma)     / Nicoletta LaMarca-Sacco

The grouchy great-grandma my cousins in Ragusa barely knew

They thanked me for sharing a photo of her in old age. They had known her, grouchy, in her 40s-50s. I had known her, grouchy, in her 70s.

She had a spice mix, way before a TV chef cried, “BAM” whilst seasoning his homemade foods from Louisiana. Her spice mix, “misturi ri nonna Melina” contains sweet, warm spices not usually found in Italian sauces. Some of the secret ingredients I am authorized to divulge are allspice, cinnamon, and…

MY THERAPIST SAYS /  H.T. Reynolds

she’s never known a child who’s eaten dog food, let alone it being a supplement for missing minerals or vitamins or nutrients or whatever else my pediatrician told my mother when she took me in, face still greasy with kibble. She said it could’ve been the result of the empty stomach my father returned me home with that one weekend when I was still in diapers. Or from the snack cakes marked by Doug’s boxcutter so only animals would eat them—I wonder if they knew we’d cut around the gashes, learned how to spot mold spores early. Or maybe they just imagined us huddled along the trough too desperate to care—got a good laugh. I ask her what I could be missing—after all these years—why now? She grows silent for a beat—says nothing—that it’s always been nothing.

I feel the craving settle itself back in between my teeth.  

Valley Undressing /  Gabriel Phillips

Our eyes smoothed over the mountains

moving further to the left this time.

To the left was the falling breeze

the breeze did not break and turned

the fall softer than rocks.

What little bears fall from the cornea.

Do they see mamma bear licking

their wounds? Or do they wound

mamma bear to lick her wounds?

Neither peak has been touched

nor has ever touched at all. Tall

or short and neither touch. Mountains

poke holes in rivers with their canes

so they can see. They see me!

Like a surprise scab across the lips!

No more volunteering to be on all fours

unless the third and fourth are stronger

or more to the left this time. And that

mountain, the same one can be conjured

from the bottom of the empty coffee can.

Drink, drink. Push down the river, push

over yourself. Who stares until its pupils burn?

Clouds dissect the cornea

with bear claws.

October - Poem 27

poem taken down for publication / Katerina Canyon

Midsummer Opera  /  Sam Calhoun

The days slide rain,
those first runners
down the feeder pole,
except for the clef 
of the hooked end,
one drop staying 
a fortnight as did you, 
only memory now,
slipping into the flat tray 
and then onto brown-eyed
susans, having reached
the top of the deck, 
and somewhere 
someone sings
as the dragonfly 
conducts his way
through night 
blooming cereus, 
ready to clap open
at curtain call. 

Skip  /  Ellen Ferguson

Skippy skipped it:

Skipped caring

Skipped listening

Skipped reacting 

Skipped sharing

And everything was better.

Even the coffee bowed its head

Respecting

        her

            silence.

Tanka for the Poor Sleeper    /  at/om

Horrible nightmares
have always kept me from sleep
never let me stay
in the comfort of my bed
never was plagued by waking. 

Lament in the style of Paz /  Brett Gastineau

Through the apertures of the skull,

the name is scraped away,

a rusted husk cast into the breakers

where the foam boils white and indifferent.

I am an absence carved in bone,

a gray geometry of cliffs facing the tide.

No marker rises from the shale.

The sea has chewed the syllables to sand,

leaving only the salt, the bitter skin,

the inland valleys of an un-mapped chest.

The night is another windy mess,

a yellow sonnet filled with

ungentle hands.

Memory is a blind thing stumbling through the brush.

Love, an animal sense, sniffing the air for

a ghost that has already migrated south.

My heart can dream no further.

It is heavy with the ash of an old weather.

I try to remember every breath that has been before,

the angle of her shoulder in the dark,

the grammar of her touch before

the vowels dissolved.

We are provided with tears.

We think they will grow into beautiful things.

They won’t.

Now there is only the beach,

traversed by flocks of murmurs

and this body breathing alone

beneath the stars.

Tidal Force  /  Joy Johnson

However North-Shore, the cresting wave is

short-lived, crumbling to undertow, to go

back to where it once was before the moon

tugged so mercilessly, so brilliantly,

and water was made to clean the seashore. 

Alas, no cleaning hardly any more,

for in defiance of creation, man

makes permanent what should crumble, be undone.

So the roiling waves only rearrange 

what unending rubbish man makes of Earth.  

 Dining Room   / Nicoletta LaMarca-Sacco

All the delicate ceramics with curving porcelain edges, faces, trim. Breakfront, lower storage for dishes, one for salad, one for dessert, one to park bones in, one a cellar for salt. Immigrants’ dream of fancy things when humble items were left behind in the old country. Old-world recipes sneak in and are served on the new world dishes, earned one at a time from clocking in, out, in, out in New York, the greatest city in the world full of rats swinging tails under trashcans, workers hurrying despite best efforts to be on time, tourists standing open-mouthed on sidewalks sandwiched with others, homeless people ripping crusts off sandwiches, fancy cars lining up outside museums and theaters, and newcomers hoping to catching the next big thing for their family. Come home, set the table, set out pane cunzato, cracked olives, and scaccia learned from Nonna. Decorate the table so it is less humble. Celebrate your roots. The delicate features of figurines at the table, in safety, merge two places that we call home.

HEAT DEATH /  H.T. Reynolds

Doc looked through my skin

but missed her smile

between my ribs           teeth

clamped on my arteries

with their gelatinous pitch

working its way to my throat

hammering in tune

with her sharp eyes

her tender leer keeping me

still      suspended in a clock

oscillating to entropy 

My Winter as a Rainbow /  Gabriel Phillips

Where you are endless and captivate
I place a small thumb. I remember

this as a page in a tall book

about crispy forest animals.

Where you can mix green

and baby blue ice cream together

then stand in the snow, wearing a mask.

I pull a light from my belly, to place

it on the thumb. The book isn’t wet.

I see to its needs as the hungry

cobra looks into the cold bath water

of eels beneath a slow waterfall.

To hurry is to rupture as saunter

is to falling up. Neither produces

enough snow; not the tired antlers

or the dove claw clawing my throat.

We are trying to become a smaller forest.

Whose hunger has impaled the walls

around us. And foxfire, burns the mask

from my face, closing the colors

of the green and baby blue ice cream

until the moon begins squealing

until the moon floats away. 

Jack  / Colin Sturdevant

As soon as a nimble light

Is within me

I’ll be a world of ruin