WHO GOES TO BARS ANYMORE?

by Tracey Knapp

Nobody here, because this is a pandemic poem.

I didn’t want to write one. I didn’t want to love

someone once, which actually worked

for a while. You never really know what

you’re good at.  Brushing my teeth three times

a day is not my forte. Who cares?

Really, are you sitting at home

worried that I might lose a tooth? Probably      

not. You’re probably glad I wore a mask

to Target today while buying everything bagels

and cat litter. My days are so boring.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this poem bored you.

I’m just going to keep writing though, hoping

my inner elk fleets to the tree behind some

barn in a much different poem.       

In it, I would describe my lover licking

the space between my breasts—wouldn’t that

be hot? But I’d need a lover then, and some

reason to dump him at the end of this poem,

I think I just did. We’re over. So sorry.

Tracey Knapp is a poet living in Berkeley, CA. Knapp’s first full-length collection of poems, Mouth, was published by 42 Miles Press. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Poetry Daily, Rattle, Five Points, San Diego Poetry Annual and elsewhere. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has work forthcoming in the anthology Sh!t Men Say to Me: A Poetry Anthology in Response to Toxic Masculinity. Sally Lelong is a visual storyteller working in a variety of media that lend themselves to use in a conceptual framework. She lives and works in New York, and routinely exhibits her work in a variety of settings from print to thematic installations to street art.

The Wise Curse

by Patricia Walsh

We are there, waiting to be glossed over
Trapped by the formulaic for years to come
Historically deprived of joy, rooting through detritus
Cleaning under orders, loving sanitised heads
Exiled out of school, running home again,
Some disallowed goal frightens the common ground.

Running through coffee, response already given
The sleeping joke capitalises on a miserable sin,
Too upright to be spoiled, genuinely caring
Married off to the threatened, shot dead
Together as role models, grinding angles away
The stock clichés running into a glorified stasis.

The cassette tape in its bulk sings merrily down the stream,
Mature recollection watching on a parked grace,
Strong or weak, going through the unloved type
Jokes and their distance pummeling their usefulness
The useful puns gone away from all recognition
Roaring into submission, the day flying away.

Commissioned into another blame, asking for it
Not alone the funniest, of course he’s fine!
The destructive urge crashes on a wave of crime,
Inward as it seems, taking the year off
Recovering at a premium, not seeing the light,
Walking on three legs at night, the wise curse.

Patricia Walsh was born in the parish of Mourneabbey, in north Co Cork, and educated at University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology. Her poetry has been published in Stony Thursday, Southword, Narrator International, Trouvaille Review, Strukturrus, Seventh Quarry, Vox Galvia, The Quarryman, Brickplight, The Literatus, and Otherwise Engaged. She published a chapbook titled Continuity DeeErrors in 2010 and a novel, The Quest for Lost Éire, in 2014. A second collection of poetry, Citizens Arrest, was published online by Libretto in 2020. A further collection of poetry, Outstanding Balance, is scheduled for 2021. She was the featured poet in the inaugural edition of Fishbowl Magazine, and is a regular attendee at the O Bheal poetry night in Cork city. Sabiyha Prince is an anthropologist, artist, and author based in Washington, DC.  Her books and essays explore urban change and African American culture, and her paintings and photo collages grapple with memory, identity, kinship and inequality.

In the Time of Covid

by Yvonne Zipter

The stoniest of my nurses, but she’d said yes
that day. It was my anniversary. In the lobby,
my love looked up, brown eyes so familiar,

I could have cried. It’d been six days.
She looked up and then she looked away.
Gowned, masked, carrying a plastic box

like an ant farm tunneled with fluid
from my lung, the tube to my chest
invisible beneath my gown, I was

a stranger to her. I called her name.
Two layers of cloth separated our lips.
It was the sweetest kiss I’ve known.

Yvonne Zipter is the author of the poetry collections Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound, The Patience of Metal (a Lambda Literary Award Finalist), and Like Some Bookie God. She is also the author of two nonfiction books: Diamonds Are a Dyke’s Best Friend and Ransacking the Closet. Her Russian historical novel, Infraction, will be published June 1, 2021. She is retired from the University of Chicago Press, where she was a manuscript editor. Sabiyha Prince is an anthropologist, artist, and author based in Washington, DC.  Her books and essays explore urban change and African American culture, and her paintings and photo collages grapple with memory, identity, kinship and inequality.

Unspoken Truce

by Lisa Reynolds

Always so late in the day
you emerge
wearing the same crumpled khakis
and loose-fitting shirt.

While you stagger
through a sun-filled room,
eyes shielded by dark glasses,
I wait – spine straight in chair.

But your spirit doesn’t rise –         
cutting words don’t flow from your lips,
only a low sigh, followed by  
“Not today, Mom.”

And so, we sit and drink coffee
on opposite sides of thick walnut –  
an unspoken truce between us
an unnatural quiet settling in.

Lisa Reynolds is a Canadian writer of poetry and short stories whose works are published internationally in anthologies, literary journals, and magazines. She lives in a waterfront community east of Toronto, Ontario. Sabiyha Prince is an anthropologist, artist, and author based in Washington, DC.  Her books and essays explore urban change and African American culture, and her paintings and photo collages grapple with memory, identity, kinship and inequality.

A New Awareness in This Time of Uncertainty

by Jim G. Piatt

Early in the morning, an apricot mist emerged spreading
like a translucent tsunami down mountains to the West. It
covered meadows, flowed through pine and sycamore trees,
and huge leaves like hands caressed fleeting time. As I
looked through the library window, the sun’s beams
sneaked through gaps in shadowy clouds; the light
transformed the darkness and brought forth new insights.
The downy sparrows’ chattering in the Pink Lady bushes
became bits of chirping calmness. I stood in wonderment as
I mused about how a new view of life was emerging in my
mind. Simple things were becoming of intense importance:
green tea in the afternoon on the front porch, the wafting of
the aroma of newly baked cookies resting on a pink Spode
dish, an eleven o’clock hour spent with my wife talking of
simple things, and contemplating about the preciousness of
our time together. A priceless newness to simple daily
visions became vividly apparent; the greenness of the grass
after a brief rain, tiny scarlet buds appearing on roses in the
herb garden, our old cat rolling in the soft dark loam, our
pup running and barking at people walking on the road near
our house, the sight of tiers of old oak wood under a huge
rose bush with white blossoms sending their sweet aroma
into the yard, and even an old wheelbarrow filled with
small limbs and twigs gathered to start an evening fire, all
different, beautiful, necessary, and critical now… in this
time of uncertainty.

James G. Piatt, a retired professor and octogenarian, is a Best of Web nominee and three-time Pushcart nominee. He has had four books of poetry: Solace Between the Lines, Light, Ancient Rhythms, and The Silent Pond, as well 35 short stories, five novels, and 1,500 poems published worldwide. He earned his B.S. and M.A. from California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, and his doctorate from Brigham Young University. Kim McNealy Sosin is an Emerita Professor of Economics at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Her post-retirement interests include writing and photography. Her poems and photographs have appeared in Fine Lines, Failed Haiku, Daily Haiga, Voices from the Plains, Landscape Magazine, The Heron’s Nest, Wanderlust Journal, Ekphrastic Review, Global Poemic, and Sandcutters.

Another Coronavirus Spring

by Lana Hechtman Ayers

            after Molly Ellen Pearson

As soon as I open the window,
the sky climbs in dragging her
bridal train of clouds. I only
wanted to air out the pandemic
stale, instead there are kites
swooping over the kitchen sink
and hummingbirds buzzing
around the lampshade. Yesterday,
I thought my hand resembled
a piece of toast & I’m gluten
intolerant. My poor elderly cat
battles dust mice under the couch.
I wonder if I’ll ever sleep on
a raft of starlight instead of
underground, & whether my dog
dreams in color or stereo. Days
become inscrutable as kumquats
& I scribe lines of used dental floss
across the pages of my notebook.
Is it really spring or is the mud
pretending celebrity? Daffodils
solve the square root of yellow.
I zigzag from cupboard to closet
seeking a way to complete
the circuit of knowledge. My life
is forty paces, end to end. Coffee
aroma fills me with longing.
The computer screen flutters
with paper dolls, & lately I have
been struck blind looking in
mirrors, struck dumb gazing at
lettuce awaiting shredding
on the cutting board. What does
it take to make proper reparations
for being human? Some nights
the moon shouts in translated sun.
Some nights the moon is mute
& I buy raffle tickets for the rain.
I’m tired of shallow breathing, this
everlasting Gordian knot of grief.

Lana Hechtman Ayers has shepherded over eighty poetry collections into the world in her role as managing editor at three small presses. Her poems have appeared online at Rattle, Escape Into Life, Verse Daily, and The Poet’s Café, as well as in print journals and her nine published collections. She lives in an Oregon, USA town of more cows than people. Sabiyha Prince is an anthropologist, artist, and author based in Washington, DC.  Her books and essays explore urban change and African American culture, and her paintings and photo collages grapple with memory, identity, kinship and inequality.

After Icarus

by Lois Levinson

We hadn’t thought to worry
about the birds,
consumed as we were
with the threat
of sickness and death.
Each breath laced with dread,
we doomscrolled
and calculated our odds.

Last spring the birds returned,
found us secluded
under a shroud of anxiety.
They heard our silence
and raised their voices
to fill the void with song.

Late summer, despair
compounded by wildfires
devouring our mountain forests,
the air vile with smoke,
we hardly noticed
as flocks of birds
fell dead from the sky–
swallows,
flycatchers,
vireos,
bluebirds–
by the thousands.

They’d fled the infernos,
only to be trapped aloft
in the lethal grip of icy storms.
Their wind-wracked bodies
starved to feather and bone,
they plummeted to the ground,
where they lay side by side
along the rivers and roads
and in the fields,
in ghastly pantomime
of all the lives we’ve lost.

Lois Levinson is the author of Before It All Vanishes, and a chapbook, Crane Dance, both published by Finishing Line Press.  Her poems have appeared in Canary Journal, Global Poemic, Gyroscope, The Carolina Quarterly, The MacGuffin, Cloudbank and otherjournals. She lives in Denver, Colorado where she’s gotten through the past year by writing poetry and watching birds. Sulochana Mahe is an artist based in India’s former French outpost, Mahe. She dissolves herself day in, day out in social work, and art. Her work includes teaching painting to cancer patients, helping them overcome their sense of being doomed. She taught art to 150 prisoners at the Central Prison, Kannur, moving their minds to the softer sides of life. Teaching art to women at a care home in Thalassery gives her joy that colors can’t.

Fragments

by Janet McMillan Rives

Bits, pieces, scraps

            strewn everywhere

no order        no continuity

no plan                no desire

            to look forward

and me too shredded

                        not whole at all

parts of me here

            other parts there        a thought

not worth thinking

            an idea        going nowhere.

Tomorrow.      

            I’ll pick up the pieces

                       tomorrow.                

Janet McMillan Rives resides in Tucson, Arizona. Her poetry has appeared such journals as Lyrical Iowa, Raw Art Review, Ekphrastic Review, Heirlock, Sandcutters, The Blue Guitar, and Fine Lines. Herchapbook, Into This Sea of Green: Poems from the Prairie, was published in 2020. Kim McNealy Sosin is an Emerita Professor of Economics at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Her post-retirement interests include writing and photography. Her poems and photographs have appeared in Fine Lines, Failed Haiku, Daily Haiga, Voices from the Plains, Landscape Magazine, The Heron’s Nest, Wanderlust Journal, Ekphrastic Review, Global Poemic, and Sandcutters.

What He Could Control of COVID

by Eric Forsbergh

My physician friend Majid
took up santour,
his grandfather’s instrument
graced across his lap.
He says it helps him contemplate

the slope of death. Before,
the old instrument sat propped
in the corner like an elderly relative
who’s visiting: antique, passé.

Today my friend Majid began to play.
His initial notes? How awkward.
For now. But in full flight,
how eloquent the hammers, even to

their slender stalks and felted tips
as delicate as sparrow’s legs. In time,
he’ll play it for his children, to narrate
the century from the last great pestilence

to this.

Eric Forsbergh‘s poems have appeared in JAMA, Ponder Review, Artemis, Zeotrope, The Cafe Review, The Journal of Neurology and other venues. Nominated for a Pushcart by the Northern Virginia Review, he is currently volunteering as a vaccinator against COVID for the Loudoun County Public Health Department in Virginia. He is a Vietnam veteran and has served on medical mission trips to Guatemala and Appalachia. Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.

Ode to Apple Crisp

by Erika D. Walker

Oh encyclopedia of delight
it would take years
to explore you, to sing
of saucy McIntosh, Ginger
Gold cello-tone, smart-aleck
Jonathan and sweet Gala (dear little bird).

And what of the bees,
little librarians, who catalogued
each blossom, tended pollen
baskets, devoted their lives
to countless spring mornings, as if
nothing mattered more—and it didn’t.

Think of how the apples grew all summer
without thought of the pandemic,
how they grew under the orange
wildfire sky (even as ash fell),
grew without thought of riots
and all the ways humans can hate each other.

And what of the slats of sunlight
that fed the mountain orchard,
filled each apple, a bucket
of light, spilled now
on my front porch
this warm autumn evening.

Erika D. Walker’s writing has been published in Literary Mama, Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine, Bird’s Thumb, The Human Touch Journal and Medical Literary Messenger.She is the author of a poetry chapbook, Caught in the Light, a children’s picture book, Go Outside, and is co-author of Denver Mountain Parks: 100 Years of the Magnificent Dream which won a Colorado Book Award. She is a graduate of the Poetry Book Project at the Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop. David Shaw was a film, TV and stage writer for five decades. Part of a group in the 1950s credited with creating television’s Golden Age, he wrote for series such as “Mr. Peepers” and “The Defenders.” He won a Tony award for “Redhead” and received Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations. Shaw also taught screenplay writing at the American Film Institute. After retiring in the mid-1980s, he immersed himself in drawing and painting.