During a previous artistic project of mine, I explored various one-person endeavours into positive change through dialogue against the backdrop of worldwide geopolitical issues. We would engage in a range of topics—from gender equality to environmental awareness—all with a focus on “the small-scale” and with forward-looking attitude. But afterwards, I was left thinking ideas/opinions on economics or finances were left unspoken.
It is argued that it is time to classify the compulsive need to hoard military-grade weapons and ammunition as a mental health issue that would preclude the said hoarding (see Table 1).
Dr. Levine, the psychiatrist, seems perfectly comfortable with long stretches of silence. Long stretches of silence are the story of my life. This is my third visit with the doctor. Mom is mad at him because he doesn’t prescribe anything for me. She wants me fixed. My mind needs mending in her opinion. He’s asked me why I’m here. I don’t answer. Looking out the window I watch a squirrel climbing up an oak tree. He loses his balance, landing on the lawn below where all the acorns are anyway but he ignores them and jumps right back onto the trunk and tries again. Stretching out to reach a limb he falls onto the grass once again. The acorns are right there. What is he really after, I wonder. I just want to hear the truth. That’s what I’m after. I think about the day I told my mom I know the truth.
Torn clouds scuttled across the sky with the beginnings of the moon’s light dancing behind them as they chased their own broken shadows. The yellow glow and low hum of the city street lamps fluttered and shook, not quite sure if it was their time to shine in the waning daylight. The air had turned cool in the evenings, keeping the large crowds of lookie loos inside the bars or coffee shops up the street from the bridge, only giving them reason to venture out for necessity instead of pleasure walks. The faint sound of moving water purred underneath him, as he sat on a bench near the end of the bridge, waiting and watching out of the corner of his eye. Without fail, he always managed to find one.
At the time, I lived on the 31st floor of a modern apartment complex for middle-income households. I loved the large grounds and being a fitness freak, the easy access to a pool and a gymnasium. I loved having a shopping mall and a multiplex cinema a stone’s throw away.
It was 4 am and I exited my Uber, teary-eyed, inebriated and nauseous. I had just ended things with Dee, the love of my life. It had been the most amazing relationship for eight years. We were two hippies who floated through life like synchronized swimmers too lazy to collect their gold medals at the Olympics.
Captain Haines sheds his rain-pressed coat and hat in the entryway of the railcar diner. Laughter from 3 a.m. troublemakers, snores from booth-ridden sleepwalkers, snaps from slow-moving line cooks cut through the smoke-festooned air in the same whirling loops.
Dark-haired, gum-popping Dina points her pen at the large central booth with only two place settings. Haines nods as he retires his trench and cap on the sharp wall hook over a bouquet of tired umbrellas.
When I first met the girl with the white bicycle, it was early spring. The tulips were only just beginning to bloom. I had often seen her, riding that overly large bicycle which had been painted entirely white, from the frame to the tires.
Then one morning, as I sat alone in the garden, she rode up to the front gate, in a plain white summer dress, and dismounted. She came to stand in front of me and stuck out her hand.
They were sitting alone on the white sand. Everyone else had gone to bed. The night was cool and calm and the waves collapsed peacefully on the shore. The rods were still standing in the sand with their lines in the water. It was said to be bad luck to take them out after sundown. “Why’s the sand white?” asked Marjorie. “I don’t know,” said Nick. “Why is anything the way it is.”
In late 1969, when I was an impressionable four-year old, someone shot Mr. Easter’s dog Runt. Mr. Easter put his dying dog into the back of his pickup truck, and booked. He feared once the drunkard started thinking about it, he might come back and shoot him too—knowing there was no heavy justification needed to shoot a black man.
Page Leland’s prose poem “Portrait: Woodbury, Indiana” is a poetic journey of narration, rhythm, and metaphor in three stanzas with lines such as these: “When we close our eyes, the sky rips open, sounds like bones breaking”; “Pass the time by searching white clouds for a sign of something divine—“; “9 pm, when the sky is dead and black and the moon is only an outstretched hand away.”
Claudia Glenn’s poetry envelops a quiet nostalgia, but in “Nana Stares Out the Window” nostalgia becomes wisdom: “Every morning the bird returns/And every morning she is greeted/By the wonder of a child/Who just saw their first snow/And the wisdom of a woman/Who decides to make a snow angel/Knowing it could be her last.”
Read “Solar Subjugation” or “Sun-Shattered Bird” by Toni La Ree Bennett and heed the poet’s warning of humanity’s demise on Earth: “And as eons pass, our descendants, if we have any,/will look back at our broadcasts and streaming/and twitters and posts and smile wistfully/at our childish excitement.”
Emily Wong draws poetic sustenance from nature’s presence. Whether in “Moths,” “Meet Me At the Stairs,” or “Change Will Come?,” natural metaphors ground the poems: moon becomes an “empress,”; dawn “the birth of light/after a long misty night,”; and day when “the light is bland,/and the colours don’t dance.”
You can’t escape the pathos that permeates Tabatha Jenkins poetry. In “Grape Jelly,” pathos mixes with reality and evokes tears: “You only have a little while left/before your mind tethers off/ and signals for the end./They’ll come with good intentions/and very little patience,/they’ll only hear what they want to.” True poetry extends pathos to life.
Conversational in style, James Knapp’s poetry revels in irony in “Dimensional Detachment Therapy”— “I walk around department stores/in my pajamas”— and employs the consequential in “Silver Linings”— “Somewhere/past the flickering/yellow light I know/you’re waiting for me.”
The concrete image is principal in August Ritchart’s poetry, but don’t mistake it for simplicity, as the image absorbs meaning. See “Visiting Hours”: “You mailed me an Easter basket this year/Inside were some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups/The special egg-shaped ones/I ate them/And these eyes can’t see far enough outside myself to know/ Which parts of me are your hand-me-downs.”
Sandeep Kumar Mishra tells stories in his poetry but he never abandons the poetic line. “Pebbles” exemplifies the skillfully crafted narration and metaphorical voice: “But patient jeweller of tides;/Volcano-born, earthquake-quarried,/Heat-cracked, wind-carved,/Death shapes compact among the rocks.”
Conjoining the language of music and the agency of poetry, Sara Marron ponders the depth of humanity’s touch. It reverberates in “Some Privileges”: “Putting my arm around your waist, taking your backpack from you to descend the subway/ platform, walking:/In relievo, sotto voce; subito triofale/A direction to make the melody stand out, voices in undertone; suddenly/triumphant.”
There is no escaping the gentle, fully in control poetic voice of Jerrice J. Bapiste. No matter the theme, her poetry blesses with meditative meaning: “My heart knows a deeper/truth. I open/the bag let some air in,/place the stone on my/wooden desk, remember/my mother loves me when/eyes tear up at sunrise/ at the old monastery.”
Rebecca Larkin knows the powerful play of irony, nowhere more so than in her poem “Get It Together”—personification and metaphor as vehicles: “We’re all rooting for him/ TO GET IT TOGETHER,/He’s basically a tree that had its feet cut off/And its nose washed out by acid rain/and its leaves of personality waxed up so hard/they can’t photo-synthesize.”
Figurative language is the essence of poetry, but its timbre is varied from poem to poem—“energetic,” “vital,” “arousing” are descriptors in Mari Pack’s poetry. See “The Milky Way As Path to the Other World”: “a life of too many sugar syrups/meat caught in a blender, coughing up/nothing but dust –/high pitched notes/ shattering in round, operatic soprano holes.”
Tyler Pesek is a self-proclaimed fan of Star Wars so it seems fitting that he would create “The Storm Trooper,” a Star Wars fan fiction story. The story begins when a solitary man discovers a lone helmet in a humble shelter and, with a touch, he enters a trance and sees the story of clone soldier 017. But below the surface of the storytelling is an intriguing and thoughtful examination of the fine line between being human and being AI.
Helen Wurthmann puts the spotlight on two siblings – and in turn, on us – in her story “Speaking Politely.” It’s Christmas and siblings Moe and Halo are on a grocery run, for wine and other festive items, and to get Halo out of the house before she picks another fight. It is during their time together on this seemingly benign errand that much is revealed about their relationship, Moe’s past, and our manufactured limits on compassion.
In “Wrong Number,” Jamie Grove explores the oft whispered topic of aging. Marilyn is alone and scared, having been taken to a hospital for reasons she cannot remember. Her aging body betrays her resolute spirit and she reaches out to Father Jones for solace, leaving a message. But she has dialed the wrong number and instead leaves a desperate message on Kirby’s voicemail. Kirby’s initial disregard for the caller wears at her and she eventually decides to visit, with fateful consequences.