2023

 

 

FEBRUARY

 

 

Michele Bombardier, William Ogden Haynes, Mary Beth Hines, Julie Allyn Johnson,

Haro Lee, Juan Pablo Mobili, J. R. Solonche, Sarah White, Rodney Wood.

 

 

 

 

MICHELE BOMBARDIER

 

Don’t Ask Me How I Know

 

how to roll out of a moving car, but what you do

is aim your shoulder to the gutter.

Slide your right hand along the door handle, lean

forward and turn your body towards the driver

 

to camouflage this action. Notice his hands

twitching on the steering wheel,

his eyes on the rearview mirror. Talk fast.

Tell him you’re pregnant. Your mother

 

sick, your dog lost, you have the virus.

That flush of fire and ice in your chest?

You have one chance to leave this car alive.

Think ballistic. Think low and hard. Commit.

 

If the road turns, he’ll slow. That’s all you need.

Trust me when I say the white-knuckled grip

of your left hand on your backpack will hold

even when the skin scrapes down to bone.

 

Michele Bombardier's debut collection What We Do was a Washington Book Award finalist. Her poems and reviews have appeared in JAMA, Parabola, Alaska Quarterly Review, Poetry International and many others. She is a Hedgebrook fellow, the founder of Fishplate Poetry, and the inaugural poet laureate of her town.

 

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WILLIAM OGDEN HAYNES

 

Moving Toward the Light

 

The town has been absorbed in the scent

and murmur of the night, storefronts sleeping

 

shoulder-to-shoulder, the colored streamers

over the car lot hang limp in the dark, the

 

depot exudes soft light, as the station-master

pushes a broom, quietly awaiting the morning

 

train. In the still inky morning, the man at

the bakery lights his oven and the policeman

 

completes his rounds. The town pier is empty,

save for a homeless man sitting in the darkness

 

on its weathered bed of planks, beginning a

rare day of sobriety. As the town reaches the

 

farthest limit of night, a calmness settles on

the man’s spirit and he experiences the wonder

 

of sunrise, like an eye opening for the first

time. He marvels at the bloodied edge of dawn,

 

a scrap of sky stained with purple, and the

shimmer of golden sun beginning to shake

 

through the trees. The hills are clad in rose

and amethyst, the sun glints on the water,

 

and the fragrance of a bountiful earth is

everywhere. And in that dawn, creatures

 

begin to move in their own ways, either

toward the newly risen sun, or to hide in

 

burrows and spots of shade. The bat, mouse,

salamander and tree frog head for the darkness.

 

The lizard, garter snake, turtle and the man

on the dock, wait to bask in the sun.

 

Last Rights

 

The morning of the funeral, she pulls into

the church parking lot wearing a black silk

dress. Curtains of opaque rain obscure the

 

entrance to the cathedral, as her windshield

wipers wave back and forth at their fastest

pace. She thinks of how she ended up here.

 

How she had navigated the riptide of his

dying. How he had fought so hard for a

year, dragging his suitcase of rocks, until

 

the end came with a wordless farewell.

Now she sits in the car casting a carefully

appraising eye on the cathedral, a throng of

 

sensations bubbling up inside of her. People,

nameless as mushrooms, ascend the stone

church steps with open umbrellas to hear

 

a liturgy that is outmoded as paraffin or

inkwells. They will line up to ingest the body

and blood of Christ that the priest doles out

 

in miserly measure. Neither she nor her

husband were believers, but she let herself get

talked into this by a funeral director who strongly

 

suggested the service, with a faint accent of

reproach. She doesn’t want to go in, besides she

has forgotten her umbrella. She wheels out of the

 

parking lot and heads for home as the storm

subsides. In the backyard driveway next to his

workshop, she pictures him there and smiles.

 

The wipers have stopped now, and the sun

breaks through. The wind chases the remaining

storm clouds to the east, and a bird next to the

 

workshop drinks from the overturned lid of a

paint can. She knows there is nowhere else in

the world she would rather be, than right here.

 

William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama who was born in Michigan. He has published nine collections of poetry (Points of Interest, Uncommon Pursuits, Remnants, Stories in Stained Glass, Carvings, Going South, Contemplations, Time on My Hands and The Works) and one book of short stories (Youthful Indiscretions) all available on Amazon.com.  Over 200 of his poems and short stories have appeared in literary journals and his work is frequently anthologized. http://www.williamogdenhaynes.com

 

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MARY BETH HINES

 

To a Goddess

 

Bless her, my child, this brave

bouquet of blazing crimson roses.

 

Tender the touch of cleaved

barbed stalks safely swathed in cotton—

 

a gone grandmother’s something-old,

found, passed down from aunties.

 

Bless the ruby worry beads that wreathe

her wedding flowers, gift from another

 

grandmother who treasured her and Jesus—

sad-eyed boy on pastel brooch, swaying

                    

silver pendant. She holds it all so tenderly,

manicured hands thrumming—

 

lace-laden hips, pomegranate lips,

night suffused with sweetness.

 

Grant her tremble, breath, rose moon.

Suspend wrath, umbrage, envy.

 

She’s a mere mortal, honeyed fruit—

bough-strung, pierced, sprung, flying.

 

Mary Beth Hines’s poetry collection, Winter at a Summer House, was published by Kelsay Press in November 2021. Her poems appear in Cider Press Review, The Lake, Tar River, The MacGuffin, Valparaiso, and elsewhere. Her short fiction was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Visit her at www.marybethhines.com.

 

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JULIE ALLYN JOHNSON

 

abecedarian pomp & circumstance, circa 1987

 

alabaster boys downplay the easy charms bestowed at

birth; doors w  i  d  e open via sterling spoons laden with gold, silver, rubies

 

crowns of Anglo glory, every country club male an entitled heir of

dowries spawned by the American dream, princes of the Washington

 

elite, Wall Street masters of the universe, grand families inured from all

forfeitures of privilege.  ah, these men… but princesses too, like you, peering through lace

 

giggly girly-girls tutored in impeccable taste, spring breaks in the Maldives, Bora Bora 

horses & dressage at eight, debutante soirees for 600, so keen your leverage over Papa,

 

immune from his stern eye, the claps on the back, the when-you’re-a-man

jocularity your brothers, uncles, classmates celebrate with blissful arrogance,

 

keepsakes of entitlements unknown to you, you gender-accident prior to the womb.

livelihoods, status, overarching purpose dictated by power-wielded pairings, matches

 

manipulated & engineered by Daddy-Knows-Best (mother with some small say too)

nudged with a subtle forcefulness, an open checkbook, the best appointments, views

 

of Central Park.  daughters:  any held goals and ambitions relegated to — nothing at all.

preservation of the social strata, protecting your place, (knowing your place), is the

 

quintessential redress should any offspring-induced imbalance, any semblance of thorny

rebellion threaten the time-honored, utilitarian, class-dictated, Manhattan-squired

 

status quo.  bennies, Jim Beam, vodka, white zin, the new kid in town: cocaine.

transportation to new locales, no need to pack your bags, punch a ticket, fly first class.

 

under neon’s glare & strangling lights, the quiet roar of the anonymous masses

vacillates between stop, go.  left, right.  right, wrong.  in, out.  over, out.  you vs. the world

 

writ large: pseudo-ambitions never taken seriously.  enduring visions of yourselves as

xenas: stout & mighty women.  embracing, from birth, Tiffany diamond tiaras turned

 

yoke-cum-albatross, turned Sisyphus-stones, you cry out against the indignities of life.

zip it!, rails the riff-raff.             ah, but aren’t all inequities simply relative, my dears?

 

Julie Allyn Johnson is a sawyer's daughter from the American Midwest. Her current obsession is tackling the rough and tumble sport of quilting and the accumulation of fabric. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Julie’s poetry can be found in various journals including Star*Line, The Briar Cliff Review, Granfalloon and Chestnut Review.  

 

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HARO LEE

 

Prelude in the Living Room

 

There’s this room. There’s a television set in there.

 

Black box of a thing. It’s an ethnic TV, got that blue Mother Mary

figurine on top and the church calendar nailed beside it.

It’s my grandma’s old screen.

 

All day it’s running, expiring a little. Red

life line plugged to its ass and taped to the wallpaper. That way

it stays faithful to us.

 

There’s some real awful shit going on. It’s the anniversary

of a massacre and no one wants to watch that. We pass through

lovelier channels: two soap operas, an American cartoon

 

chafed into Korean. Talk show hosts. We like that. Keep it kindling,

so that somewhere, there’s a couple of ghosts

in conversation over mung bean tea.

 

Haro Lee lives in South Korea with her grandmother. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review, Zone 3 Press, The Offing, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. She was also the recipient of Epiphany Magazine’s Breakout 8 Writers Prize. You can find her @pilnyeosdaughter.

 

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JUAN PABLO MOBILI 

 

Old Preferences

When you believe what you hear, what you believe is a voice

Frank Bidart

 

I preferred my grandmother’s voice,

so soft, I used to think that listening hard

might bruise what she was saying.

 

I preferred the way her roasted chicken

tasted, so lightly salted the first bite did not

interrupt what you were thinking.

 

I preferred to run barefoot through

her tiled corridor, so smooth and cool

outside the silence of the bedrooms.

 

I preferred her jasmine to her roses,

its fragrance without thorns, free

from fickleness and beauty.

 

I preferred what I could reach more

than the unattainable, being noticed

more than loved excessively.

 

I preferred to believe what she said,

never alarming, inviting flight

but modestly, like a single fallen feather.

 

I preferred to think of her

when I thought

she’d live forever.

 

Juan Pablo Mobili was born in Buenos Aires, and adopted by New York. His poems appeared or will be appearing in The American Journal of Poetry, Hanging Loose, South Florida Poetry Journal, Louisville Review, Impspired (UK), The Wild Word (Germany), and Otoliths (Australia), among others. His work received an Honorable Mention from the International Human Rights Art Festival, and multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net. His chapbook, Contraband, was published in 2022.

 

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J. R. SOLONCHE

 

Roadkill

 

I smelled it first, three

seconds of death down

the lungs, before I saw it,

the groundhog on its back

there in the middle of the road,

meeting of careless man and

careless animal, a coincidence

of carelessness. But, oh, how

hard, how hard it is to blame

this thing on nothing more than

carelessness, than coincidence.

How hard to choke on a better

blame. How hard to be so easy.

  

Of What

 

It’s most of the calls now.

The news of the deaths.

Of the colleagues. Of the

friends. Of the neighbors.

Of those we barely knew

but will remember when

reminded. “Oh, yes, wasn’t

he the one who…?” we say.

“Was it a heart attack? Was

it cancer? Cancer of what?”

we say.“Of the bladder? Of

the prostate? Of the throat?

Of the stomach?” we say.

And why do we need to

know? Why the fuck do we

need to know of what? Can’t

we just know he died? Isn’t

that enough? Oh, no. That

isn’t enough. We do. Yes,

we do need to know of what.

 

Nominated for the National Book Award and twice-nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of twenty-six books of poetry and co-author of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.

 

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SARAH WHITE

 

The Opposite of Ode  

 

This is the Season, in New England,

that claims to paint its maples red

and yellow. Yet all it really does

is drain the green from its limbs,

and lay the clean trees down

along soft mountain cushions.

Then, everyone pretends the

leafy husks are jewels, and genuine.

 

But there’s an omen 

in the name of the Season: 

Fall is our term

for the Expulsion from Eden.

And Fall, for humans,

is often the last thing that happens.

 

Sarah White's memoir, The Poem Has Reasons: a Story of Far Love, was published in Spring, 2022. She lives in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

 

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RODNEY WOOD

The Royal Antediluvian Order Of Buffaloes Lodge And The Rolling Stones At The Red Lion, Sutton, March 1963

 

During the hols I stayed with my brother

at a pub and one night watched him from

the upstairs lounge window arguing with

a couple of drunks who pulled out knives

but they backed away, cowered by tattoos

crawling over Popeye muscles. Even

the guard dog, Henry, a drooling, evil

bloodhound was scared. My brother even

took the piss out of coppers who’d laugh

and put away their pencils and notebooks.

I’m up early cleaning, bottling (mainly light

ales), evenings I’m talking to a breeze of

punters and in the wee wee hours listening

to the teak radiogram play light classics

by Holst, Gilbert & Sullivan, Tchaikovsky

and Rachmaninoff. It was new to me who’d

grown up listening to the Light Programme

and songs by Connie Francis, Pat Boone,

Frank Sinatra, Cliff, Elvis and Frank Ifield.

wearing cowboy stuff, arrows and yodelling.

Afternoons I’m in a Victorian Hall

used by a minor lodge of the RAOB,

which at least explains the surprised buffalo

heads mounted on the wall staring with

glass eyes. There’s a stream of windows

high up, peeling green wallpaper, a wooden

stage in the corner that’s hospitable

to an upright piano, ornate lectern painted

red, white and blue, a small table surrounded

by rusty stools and an old snooker table

in the middle, complete with dusty green

that wasn’t blazing. I spent hours with cue

and ivory balls making long pots, doubles,

cannons, kill, spin and jump shots. I was

a banger who always hit the ball too hard.

Once I acted as a waiter carrying drinks

from the bar for a five piece playing covers of

Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley.

Between songs the band took the piss out of

each other about wearing the wrong colour

socks or liking white rock ‘n’ roll. At the end

of the rehearsal someone pulled out a knife:

I’m gonna stab that Dixieland shit to death.

They left, leaving me to clear up glasses,

what looked like talc and a scrawled setlist.

Me and the Buff heads didn’t like them but

then you can’t always get what you want.

 

Rodney Wood lives in Farnborough and worked in London and Guildford before retiring. His poems have appeared recently in Atrium, The High Window, The Journal, Orbis, Magma (where he was Selected Poet in the deaf issue) and Envoi. He jointly runs a monthly open mic at The Lightbox in Woking. His debut pamphlet, Dante Called You Beatrice, appeared in 2017 and When Listening Isn't Enough, in 2021.

 

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