A Romantic aesthetic trashed today, out of fashion,
Obsolete, passé.
Fuck flung around like grass seed,
Awesome attached to every third noun,
And Lucien Freud’s bloated bodies
leaping off canvas to strut the national stage.
Trending, a head-to-head race to vulgarity.
Locked-in, wine required, needs still surging.
Virginia Beards lives on in the oxymoronic Amish/fox-hunting farm country of southeast Pennsylvania after teaching British and European literature for 23 years at Penn State University. Her poetry book Exit Pursued by a Bear and Others was published by Oermead Press in 2014. She also has three short stories in Chester County Fiction (2014); poems in Scoundrel Time, and in W.O.E.—Writing on the Edge (U. of California, Davis), a critical edition of a 19th century British novel (Rutgers University Press), plus assorted “scholarly” articles. Other: an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College. Recently she won a prize from Scoundrel Time for the best pandemic poems.Liz Baron is an artist and restaurateur who lives in Texas by way of New York City. She and her husband, Jim, founded, own and operate four Mexican-Southwestern restaurants. She got her Bachelor of Fine Art from Pratt Institute but stopped painting when restaurant work and family life consumed most of her time. She is grateful to the online art classes of Sketchbook Skool that helped her regain the joy of a regular art practice.
I’m an empty vehicle parked motionless I lay on the ground here covered in bugs and earth just like I’ll be in death when I’ve forgotten everything I forget all of myself to remember you leaves and bugs in my hair I feel like a queen adorned with the crawling life of nature’s crown
if I can’t find joy in life I’ll find it in death for thank god in death there is final forgetting that which gains life from my death is my salvation there’s beauty in death and decay when it is inverted for in dissolution to another its life is converted here I lie covered in my own death in my backyard
I can assure those still living I’ve never been more peaceful however you imagine me, truth is, I’m in elysian fields and all that I was is returning to life look in the eye of the ant that crawls from my grave or the smoke that spirals up from my ashes ashes to ashes and dust to dust come what passes
on the day that you’re born your wishes nobody asks I return here again to my own unborn life in my backyard we dislike flies because they thrive on our rotting flesh and the aversion to dirt is an ownership issue at heart I am a queen of Nature in my own death garland like Persephone of white asphodel
the triumphal procession of life goes over my grave the day will shine as never before for something tomorrow when every particle of my body gives up its claim a lifelong lease returning from where it came this isn’t my body I only had it on lend break me in pieces and carry away
it’s my turn to return the debt of my first day and so the first & the last days keep coming & going for all and each death is justified by each new breath for every new breath is justified by a new joy and joy is the justification for everything else to Livingkind I donate my life in whole
in this moment my own heart bursts with Understanding in my own death I will do service to you the answer to the question which I’ve been seeking which isn’t justified otherwise in my daily existence for only in death can I do the Ultimate Service on the altar of joy I am willing sacrificial victim
life is a death and death is a life, I’m crawling with bugs I’ll never be thirsty or hungry again when I’m dead all my bodily needs something else’s new problem the aphid that crawls on my knee is my good friend this is what happens when you forget on a whole new level visions of death cloak me in peace
I am in the presence of the Great Being only in death the life it is eternally seeking what irony that I’d await my own destruction with pleasure and it is more than right that it should be so the balancing weights of Nature have beauty of their own making but before I leave, the seed of this poem I put in the ground
you are my flower in the moment that you pluck it and read it and when you blow it again it will be reseeded your first breath was the reason for my own death for only in death can all accounts be reckoned—
II.
Empty vehicle parked motionless When you make room, look what enters
My body sits in the aftershocks of the presence In my non-existence it finds its existence
I float here without identity and I am in heaven I am a willing servant to your Visions
Eternal joy burst forth in my heart today Concrete slab is a lot more comfortable than I usually give it credit
So many problems are solved only in death Being the plaything of god is my life’s newfound purpose
Enter my body so I can carol your song I could say I’ve been ravished and never felt better
An eternity of time has passed and somehow I feel younger The note of an airplane’s whistle faints overhead
Here I lay plastered to half a lit globe in Universe Turning a thousand miles per hour reports Galileo
All around me Life continues on just like it’ll do when I’m gone But it has left a trail behind with which I’m blazing
I open my eyes to see wooden David Michelangelo’s Vision reverberates into this vision
I promise to repay every talent that I’m given—
III.
I’m an empty vehicle parked motionless I forget who I am and what it was I was supposed to do—
Dawn Bratton lives in California and writes poetry and short poetic fiction that explores themes of death, narratives with the past, perception, the nature of reality, and rediscovering meaning through experience. Her work has recently appeared in MARY: A Journal of New Writing, Calliope on the Web, and Disquiet Arts. Liz Baron is an artist and restaurateur who lives in Texas by way of New York City. She and her husband, Jim, founded, own and operate four Mexican-Southwestern restaurants. She got her Bachelor of Fine Art from Pratt Institute but stopped painting when restaurant work and family life consumed most of her time. She is grateful to the online art classes of Sketchbook Skool that helped her regain the joy of a regular art practice.
As he makes his interminable ten-minute morning round.
Haru, the grey splattered cat lies on the balcony ledge,
Whiskers glistening as the morning sunlight bounces off the streaks,
A gentle hum of the traffic creeps into the back of the head
As my city wakes up gently to a 40s jazz piano drift.
The lukewarm summer breeze blows to bowed sleepy buds
Promising a hot day and a blustery crusty dusk,
A loaded breakfast tray lay on the red-towelled table;
The kaolin coffee pot smokes out of its pouted spout
As the BBCF cups wait expectantly to be filled.
A single cornett of a blue morning-glory gloriously
Plays its silent reveille to the beginning of a new day
Stirring my soul into a wakefulness like a feather fluff
Lifted off by the soft caress of a careless breeze.
I close my eyes and exhale in whispered gratitude.
A poet, a singer songwriter, and a passionate ultra-runner, Aaron Pamei is a civil servant in the defence Ministry. Several of his poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies, like International Journal Setu, IFP, The Little Journal, Insulatus, etc. Most of his songs and poems deal with social and human conditions. A loving father to two daughters, and wife, he currently lives in Delhi. Liz Baron is an artist and restaurateur who lives in Texas by way of New York City. She and her husband, Jim, founded, own and operate four Mexican-Southwestern restaurants. She got her Bachelor of Fine Art from Pratt Institute but stopped painting when restaurant work and family life consumed most of her time. She is grateful to the online art classes of Sketchbook Skool that helped her regain the joy of a regular art practice.
Your friend, who often critiques the film How the West Was Won with its reluctant harmonica-playing hero and its blue-eyed killer, posted a video of the Seekers singing “I’ll Never Find Another You” on Facebook. You don’t remember the movie anymore, having confused its plot with a collage from the Clint Eastwood catalog. But you weep every time balladeers launch into the chords to the lyrics you lived with for six months in 2012. When yet another woman asked you not to write her into your poems. When your white German shepherd could no longer feel your hands brushing against the grain of her coat. Before you smoothed her hair from crown to tail. It was the year you read Behind the Beautiful Forever and This Is How You Lose Her.. Near Thanksgiving you sang Springsteen to the woman, rhyming “I’m on fire” and “born to run.” And Christmas carols from the last week of November, until she escaped into a Key West short story sometime between New Year’s and Epiphany. The day you surrendered your German shepherd to the Rainbow Bridge you don’t believe in your debt of loneliness came due to the blue-eyed bounty hunter with his taunts about belts with suspenders. You’ve watched Unforgiven like an addiction. ever since. As if seeking the answer to a question no one will ever ask you. As always, unprepared to travel through another storm without a guide.
Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. His poems have appeared in Fatal Flaw, Woolgathering Review, and Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the LIfe and Work of Bob Dylan. Poems are forthcoming in Flying Island, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and The Pine Cone Review. Liz Baron is an artist and restaurateur who lives in Texas by way of New York City. She and her husband, Jim, founded, own and operate four Mexican-Southwestern restaurants. She got her Bachelor of Fine Art from Pratt Institute but stopped painting when restaurant work and family life consumed most of her time. She is grateful to the online art classes of Sketchbook Skool that helped her regain the joy of a regular art practice.
The end of spring is near It was as short as winter but warmer. What’s going on with the seasons? Why do they intertwine? Can’t even tell when one starts And the other begins anymore. Some winter days felt like summer, And some spring days felt like winter. I think summer will be hell sprinkled With freezing days and fierce winds. Not looking forward to the months ahead And not wanting to see spring end. The rest of spring should go in a Time Capsule ‘cause the future is unknown. Neither many sparrows, doves, nor Hummingbirds came around this spring, And the milkweed awaits for the butterfly. I don’t want to see the end of spring Because the garden is still waiting in full Bloom to feed buzzing bees and mockingbirds. Tomato bugs chose to stay away this spring, too, Last year we had five and named them all. Estrellita didn’t get to chase many butterflies This year, but she did catch a small bird that Lay on the garage floor for days till someone Found it and showed it to the guilty-looking Cat that rolled over on the windowsill and went Back to dreaming of a better spring. This nearing end of spring is giving me the blues And it feels like a good idea to get the house A good cleaning and I a good cleansing, too, ‘Cause everything around here is looking rather Gray, and that’s one color that doesn’t match With spring.
Martina Robles Gallegos was born and raised in Mexico and came to the United States at 14. She got a Master’s degree from Grand Canyon University after a near fatal hemorrhagic stroke . Her works have appeared in the Altadena Anthology: Poetry Review 2015, 2017, 2018, Hometown Pasadena, Spirit Fire Review, Poetry Super Highway, Silver Birch Press, Central Coast Poetry Shows, Basta! and more recently, in the award-winning anthology, When the Virus Came Calling: COVID-19 Strikes America. Published by Golden Foothills Press, editor, Thelma T. Reyna. Liz Baron is an artist and restaurateur who lives in Texas by way of New York City. She and her husband, Jim, founded, own and operate four Mexican-Southwestern restaurants. She got her Bachelor of Fine Art from Pratt Institute but stopped painting when restaurant work and family life consumed most of her time. She is grateful to the online art classes of Sketchbook Skool that helped her regain the joy of a regular art practice.
We miss the Oakland exit, rush haplessly forward— as vaguely to the south, the stranded Princess Cruise Ship—and
onto the Bay Bridge, off on Yerba Buena, head to Treasure Island.
“It’s landfill,” I tell him, “you wouldn’t want to be here in an earthquake. The whole island
will liquefy.” “Liquify?” “Melt,” I explain.
We drive past decrepit apartment complexes surrounded by a churning bay. Great mountainous
humps of soil where developers, we guess, are planning to build and make vast money.
March, somewhere between Oakland and San Francisco and a child in a puffy parka and a hat with earflaps
tries to balance on a kiddie bike. We scramble out on a rocky jetty,
walk back to the parking lot, look over an ersatz chainlink . See: a caved in segment
of road filled with seawater. Corroded pipes. As if
to warn us the instability is real, the road sags, lumps up with asphalt patchwork.
Abandoned office building: broken windows, thrashed blinds. Paint peeling off old
military buildings. “This is what I think Chernobyl must look like.” “Yeah.” As we get ready
to leave, I say, “There’s a market? Let’s take a look.” Inside we find what can’t be
found in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco: yogurt, bleach, fat
packages of tortellini, rows of toilet paper. “Take only two,” a sign says,
but no one is taking even one. A man with a cane wears a surgical mask
pulled down below his chin. We buy empty spray bottles, yogurt. At the checkout
a man talks loudly, rolls his eyes at our full cart, “They are making a big deal
over nothing. Nothing.” We let a woman with two small items step ahead of us.
The grim-faced clerk does not make eye contact, dutifully fills bags,
while the man talks on and on.
Elizabeth Robinson is the author of 16 books, most recently Rumor from Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press. She has been the winner of the National Poetry Series for Pure Descent(Sun & Moon), and the Fence Modern Poets Prize for Apprehend. Robinson’s mixed genre meditation, On Ghosts, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in Poetry. She is married to the poet Randy Prunty. Liz Baron is an artist and restaurateur who lives in Texas by way of New York City. She and her husband, Jim, founded, own and operate four Mexican-Southwestern restaurants. She got her Bachelor of Fine Art from Pratt Institute but stopped painting when restaurant work and family life consumed most of her time. She is grateful to the online art classes of Sketchbook Skool that helped her regain the joy of a regular art practice.
The day of the two-foot snowstorm (was it in March?), the patio chairs filled with broad-shouldered,
square-headed snow guests decked out all in white, leaning slightly forward, engaged in animated conversation,
old friends seated around a table laid in a thick damask, and, though they were chilled, I could sense their sparkle,
the heat they generated, and I envied them, yearned to join in the effortless ambiance of melodious babble.
Then the sun came out, and, like vanilla snow cones on a summer day, they began to puddle.
I grieved their meltdown, the inevitable subsiding, as though I needed more proof of impermanence.
* But now it is May, and, like a cicada emerging from a seventeen-year burial, I am ravenous
for your company. Dare we meet for coffee? I’ll put on that crimson silk scarf, the one whose ends flow
behind me like soaring wings. I’ll dust off my red shoes, find my old purse, drive the disconcertingly unfamiliar streets
to our favorite coffee place and greet you with a hug. We will sit down at an outdoor table with our cappuccinos,
shake off our cobwebbed cloaks of isolation and blink in this new brightness, a bit bewildered
by the screenless sight and sound of one another.
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 Global Poemic, Canary Journal, Gyroscope, The Literary Nest, Cloudbank and other journals. She lives in Denver, Colorado where she’s gotten through the past year by writing poetry and watching birds. Liz Baron is an artist and restaurateur who lives in Texas by way of New York City. She and her husband, Jim, founded, own and operate four Mexican-Southwestern restaurants. She got her Bachelor of Fine Art from Pratt Institute but stopped painting when restaurant work and family life consumed most of her time. She is grateful to the online art classes of Sketchbook Skool that helped her regain the joy of a regular art practice.
The tomatoes were called Green Zebra or Jupiter’s Stripes, these varietals mingled with Yellow as Hell and Orb of Gold or Total Nuclear Apocalypse. Who knows? They were all late bloomers, grown from seed, trays laid out in the bathroom for weeks before I tucked them into their earthen beds.
But what a summer, COVID-19 a feeling as well as a disease, the garden a slow-growing pause from quarantine despite the snails and katydids. Maybe I forced the plants to stay small, so I would have more to do. Let me water you forever, they intuited, knowing at the end, nothing but certain death.
Meanwhile, the Red Spangled Flag, Cinnamon Stick Watermelon Big Ass, and the Bursting with Overwhelming Joy flamed with burgundy, scarlet, flame, pulsed to the Make the Damn Homemade Sauce sonata. Meanwhile, I watered on, my dark shadow against the fence, my back bent, stooped, me no seedling, me the tender, the bearer, the crone, the woman who holds the hose.
Jessica Barksdale’s second poetry collection Grim Honey was published in April, and her fifteenth novel, The Play’s the Thing, is forthcoming in May 2021. Recently retired, she taught composition, literature, and creative writing at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California for thirty-two years and continues to teach novel writing online for UCLA Extension and in the online MFA program for Southern New Hampshire University. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband.Liz Baron is an artist and restaurateur who lives in Texas by way of New York City. She and her husband, Jim, founded, own and operate four Mexican-Southwestern restaurants. She got her Bachelor of Fine Art from Pratt Institute but stopped painting when restaurant work and family life consumed most of her time. She is grateful to the online art classes of Sketchbook Skool that helped her regain the joy of a regular art practice.
the birds, they fill the streets. See their wings, their feathers, their excretions. This town has never been abandoned, even as the people leave behind the unoccupied benches, the water fountains reflecting the gold. Its roofs are broken and scattered, the dust has settled on the pots and pans in the run-down kitchens. And as the last inhabitant clears up their space, an ant carrying a sugar cube the size of a caravan will move in, an owl will watch them go, twisting their neck as to wave them goodbye. Goodbye, and may it all go well. Goodbye, and be safe. Goodbye.
Kika Man 文詠玲 (26 May, 1997) is a writer and a student from Belgium, and also from Hong Kong. She has always been writing and playing and learning and reading. To them, all of these are one and the same. Kika writes about mental health, traveling and dreaming, about her mixed identity, about music and blueness. Alongside writing poetry, she is part of Slam-T (a spoken word & slam poetry platform). They have majored in Eastern Languages and Cultures: China at Ghent University and are currently chasing after a degree and PhD in Gender and Diversity and Cultural studies. Kika’s first poetry book will be published soon in 2021-2022. Liz Baron is an artist and restaurateur who lives in Texas by way of New York City. She and her husband, Jim, founded, own and operate four Mexican-Southwestern restaurants. She got her Bachelor of Fine Art from Pratt Institute but stopped painting when restaurant work and family life consumed most of her time. She is grateful to the online art classes of Sketchbook Skool that helped her regain the joy of a regular art practice.
Oh, how a body craves the spark from a body in the flesh
sharing breath from everyone’s words
to see all of you and all
of you and you
watch how you tap your feet shift your weight
hunch forward lean into my space
look straight on at me so I know
we are riding the kite of our confab together
rising looping diving.
We brush elbows and hands passing lemon honey rum
to embellish our brew
draw idle swirls with our spoons
metal clinks on china rims shiver of chimes from the linden tree
take in each other
never taking together for granted again
curls of steam from our drinks cinnamon cardamom
sharp and sweet on our tongues.
Connie Zumpf lives and writes in Denver, Colorado where she is a longtime member of Lighthouse Writers Workshop. Her work has appeared in New Ohio Review, North American Review, Pilgrimage Magazine, The Christian Century, I-70 Review, and other publications. Educated as a developmental psychologist, her poems explore themes of impermanence, aging, and the human curiosity to reach into and beyond the “self we know.” Her poetry chapbook, Under This Sun, was published by Finishing Line Press in March 2020. Liz Baron is an artist and restaurateur who lives in Texas by way of New York City. She and her husband, Jim, founded, own and operate four Mexican-Southwestern restaurants. She got her Bachelor of Fine Art from Pratt Institute but stopped painting when restaurant work and family life consumed most of her time. She is grateful to the online art classes of Sketchbook Skool that helped her regain the joy of a regular art practice.
Global Poemic 