Vocabulary Lessons by Robert L. Petrillo

Our friends’ nine-year-old daughter asked
my wife the other day, Is hoe a bad word?

In these past few years we kinda blended
our families.  To the children we’re Auntie
and Uncle.  We have bonds beyond blood,
and certain privileges we can enjoy, like
taking the kids home after sleepovers.

So these questions arise from time to time:
cultural norms, biology, sometimes psychology,
plus spelling rules, homophones, semantics.
Lessons a native speaker can explain
better than one’s own parents, 
especially if there’s a whiff of impropriety.

A younger sister, six-year-old Dominique,
asked her parent:  Mama, am I black?
Her mama explained the facts to her,
apparently insufficiently, maybe
just too black and white.
So the little one countered,
I’ll ask Auntie.

As with most things though,
context matters.
Sometimes it’s other kids
on the playground; sometimes
it’s the music that filters through;
it’s almost always the daily news 
from anywhere, really.
Kids pick things up, even at six.

Why do you ask, Dominique?  
And from her soft sweet lips                    
the small hushed voice replies,
Because I don’t want to die.

 
 

About the author: Rob is a retired English teacher.  He must have absorbed his stylistic leanings from so many years of exposure, though his interest in dabbling with words has always been with him.  He currently edits the OLLI (senior college) arts and literature journal at the University of Southern Maine, and facilitates a poetry workshop there, as well.  He’s been published in Sky Island Journal,  The Blue Mountain Review, Eunoia Review, Renaissance Review and others, as well as in the anthology A Dangerous New World: Maine Voices on the Climate Crisis.  His first book of poems and essays, What Passes For a Life, is forthcoming from SCE Press.  He lives in the present in Westbrook, Maine.

Two Poems by Emma Goldman-Sherman

How Amal's Father Died During the First Intifada [1]

He was a farmer.
He had a truck
to take our produce
to the market.
The truck was small,
a flatbed with high
wooden fencing. 

When it started,
the shih-bahb [2]
used to hide
in the back
to throw stones
at the soldiers. 

My father put a lock,
but they would climb in
anyway. 
                        First
the soldiers
tore up the back
                        of the truck.

My father made a new one. 
Then we heard them
destroying it again.

He went to ask them to stop,
and they arrested him
for being outside
                        during curfew.

My father went to jail
                        for six months.
When he returned to us,
                        he rebuilt
the back of the truck.                                                                                             

Then one night he heard
                        the soldiers.
Afraid to go out to be
                        arrested again.
We could hear them
                        attacking the truck.

They called my father
                        by his name.
They pounded
                        our door
and demanded
                        he join them.
And he stayed in.

So they set his truck
                        on fire.
When he saw the flames
                        he went.

And they shot him.

 

[1] from a transcript I made to document human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza, 1993. Amal is her real name, used with permission.

[2] bunch of young kids

 
 

Paraphrasing from a Video of a Retired Mosad Agent on Twitter that I Lost but Can’t Forget

We used to go from house to house
to show them we're here
there's a phrase for it
to sit on the back of their neck
                        so they can't forget.

We worked in shifts in groups
walking down the street.
We'd pick a random house.
It could be 2 in the morning
whatever         pound on the door
wake everyone up. You can
                        imagine the scene.

Families asleep, all their things
we'd line them up, search the house
for what           for nothing
just to be there, to show them
                        here we are.

We can touch your things
                        do this to you
whenever we want.

Walk out leave their mess behind
pick another house or break for lunch
whatever         eight hour shifts
five days or nights a week.

This was my job like
combing for lice you divide
                        the head into sections
only we weren't really looking
                        only sitting
on their necks. 

 
 

About the author: Emma Goldman-Sherman's plays have been produced on 4 continents. Abraham's Daughters, about Palestinians and American Zionists, is available as a podcast at The Parsnip Ship. Emma's poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Bangalore Review, long con, Oberon, Queerlings, Non-Binary Review, Writers Resist & others. Their first flash fiction won 3rd prize in the new Fish Anthology in Ireland. They've received residencies at the Millay Colony, Ragdale & twice at WordBridge. They teach for the Dramatists Guild Institute and offer support to writers and artists at Substack and Brave Space. 

You can also find Emma on Facebook, Instagram, and X.

Waking my Hometown by Warren Woessner

When I was in high school, one
of ninety-nine in the Class of ’62,
the school was integrated,
but the colored boys and girls
still danced at one end of the gym
while their fathers drank at the one bar
that had end stools for them
and their mothers were “the help.”
All I wanted was to get out of town,
and I did. I thought I’d left it behind
for good or whatever those fools had in mind
for the Alabama Side of South Jersey.

Sixty years later, a classmate sends me
a local video of black and white kids
marching right down Main Street,
past the hotel, the deli and the diner
that were segregated back then,
to the high school I hated for so long.
They wave placards: “Black Lives Matter,”
“Existence is Resistance,”
and “Defund the Police.”
Most of them are so young.
I hope they stay in town.

 
 

About the author: I’m a patent attorney/poet who has a biotech PhD and a JD from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.  At my undergrad school, I took a creative writing class from A.R. Ammons and started writing poetry, just as Viet Nam was heating up. I co-founded Abraxas Press and WORT-FM in Madison. I have authored six collections of my poetry and received fellowships in poetry from the NEA, the McKnight Foundation and the Wisconsin Arts Board.

Find his books on Amazon.

At Derek Jarman's Cottage by Morgan Melhuish

Prospect Cottage is a bumblebee
black wood
yellow window frames

Bombus Subterraneus drink in colour
feast on red clover
blue viper’s bugloss
silver sea kale
every seed a shingle
this rock garden
an oasis in the desert of Dungensss

Down on the shore there’s a body
sea tousled flotsam
he has no name
but baked salt on skin
attracts the bees
dancing in the power station’s shadow

Boys have been washing up here for centuries
he might be French Huguenot
or Romani
Afghan or African
- this lad who failed to float

His body is a road map
a sprawling A-Z
along his spine
from Syria to Serbia,
Slovenia and Switzerland
the S of sacrifice
arteries he’s traversed
barbed wire grazes
an open wound

Britain is a bruise
a blot on his ankle
the wasted journey
he didn’t quite make
sand to stone

Bees land on bare soles
drink in salt through their feet
they know the patterns of migration
trying to thrive far from the hives of home
oblivious to borders and tragedy
there is no sweetness here

 
 

About the author: Morgan Melhuish (he/him) is a queer writer and educator from West Sussex. This year his poetry has been published by Pilot Press, petrichor, Nine Pens Press and in diet milk magazine. You can find him on X.

Chemical Rebalance for Young Cyborg Housewives by Mahaila Smith

The woman stares at the pillbox of pearls beside her bed.
She takes it in her hand, shakes out a few into her palm
then strings a necklace. She clasps it behind her neck.

She strings the chain between her fingers,
each pearl holding liquid that changes the moment
and her surroundings. She puts down the string.

She stands again and dries white dinner plates
with a pink-checkered dish towel.
She beats egg whites indeterminately and
flames meringue. She lies down on the La-Z-Boy.

Her husband comes home and she follows him into the bedroom
where he scrolls through images of automated bodies,
puts his tablet under his pillow, and falls asleep.
She puts a pearl in her mouth and bites.

Her face grows little hairs and long antennae.
Her body shrinks, back growing luminescent green.
She transforms into a luna moth
and flies directly out the bedroom window.

The transformation is a relief for her joints,
through her spine. Gravity no longer applies.

She flies under the streetlights in the park,
onto the shoulder of a man eating nasturtiums.
He offers her a sip. She flies up to the
university’s botanical garden and looks
through to butterflies and praying mantises.

She continues on to the Robotics department.
Inside is a parliament of small birds, winged insects,
each wearing miniature beaded necklaces.

Each takes a bead into their mouth
and resumes their human forms.

They turn on their robot kin
at the back of the storage space.
Everyone gives tight hugs and warm kisses.

They catch each other up on news
of women’s shelters that have been boarded up,
boarding schools swallowing more kids,
community gardens sprouting young bean pods.

They gather tightly to discuss a plan.
Android networks have studied
the cybernetic systems of the State,
which ones they should shut off, which matter.

Women whisper intel learned from flights over cities.
They celebrate and comfort one another,
they share art and survival skills
and new pearl beads, rattling in prescription bottles.

 
 

“Chemical Rebalance for Young Cyborg Housewives” was previously published by Radon Journal, where it was nominated for a Best of the Net Award and a Rhysling Award.

 
 

About the author: Mahaila Smith (any pronouns) is a young femme writer, living and working on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg in Ottawa, Ontario. They are one of the co-editors for The Sprawl Mag. They like learning theory and writing speculative poetry. Their debut chapbook, Claw Machine, was published by Anstruther Press in 2020. You can find more of their work on their website.

Video Poetry by Désirée Jung

The Analysis

 

The Border

 

From the artist: My name is Désirée Jung, and I am poet and visual artist from Vancouver, Canada. My portfolio includes published poetry, translation, and fiction. My most recent work, a series of video poems, in both English and Portuguese, speak on the relationship between language, landscape and displacement. There are three series of video poems addressing issues matters of identity, lack, desire, excess and capitalism. My visual art is also an attempt to translate light, despite hopelessly failing it. For more on my digital art, writing, as well as my video poems, please see my website: www.desireejung.com.

standing in line at airport security by Geneva Evie Toland

standing in line at airport security

and the older woman in front of me has not flown for years and she is being told by the attendant to pull out her liquids and she is unprepared so now she is trying to unzip her bag but it is locked with a small dangling latch that she cannot open because her eyes are bad and so her daughter is now helping her and the whole line has backed up and the guards are telling Denny, the man checking IDs, to not let anyone else in and the attendant is obviously pissed and the rest of us in line are too but I am trying not to be because this woman’s underwear and socks are now flopping out onto the conveyor belt and Ziploc bags of large shampoo and conditioner are emerging from the depths and the attendant is shaking her head, this is too big ma’am, and the ma’am is so flustered and the line is getting longer despite Denny going slower and finally we have the confiscated liquids in their own bin and the suitcase zipped up and the shoes off and we are moving again, the woman off to be x-rayed but her feet are too close together, her hands not in the right place, the yellow feet, ma’am, they’re saying, match the yellow feet…

…and now it is my turn to walk through the x-ray and I put my feet exactly on the yellow feet because I know what I am doing but no the alarm has gone off and there is a bright red square over my computerized crotch and another security guard, a woman, is telling me that she will need to investigate my crotch and I nod because it was not a question, and her voice is steady and efficient as she tells me, I will place my hands over your buttocks, around your waistband, and then along your inner thigh and up into your crotch, her hands graze my pussy mid air and everyone behind me in line is now watching, we are not in a private room, I didn’t know to ask for one and I wonder now would I have wanted to be alone anyway? She asks, do you have any pain areas I should be aware of? and I shake my head even though that is not true, everything down there is susceptible to spontaneous pain and there is pain I cannot even feel anymore and there is pain I thought I did not have but now I realize I still do and I am working on reclaiming this pain but not for you, lady, not for you, but she is leaning in closer, asking in a private way, is there anything up there? and again I shake my head but I feel so dirty because she seems unconvinced and I want to confess a cock was, ma’am, a cock was, but how could she know that, how could the computer tell that, this red square of sin, but her hands are moving across my waist now and along my inner thigh and she is moving fast and her hands are rough and shoving themselves up between my labias and it hurts but I do not say anything, because I do not know if there is anything I am allowed to say except at the end, for some reason, after she swipes my hands for drugs and says, all done, and waves me on, for some reason, as I hobble away, I say, thank you…

…and later, as I sit in the plane and the man next to me turns his light towards me so I can have more light and the woman next to me asks if I want anything to drink and we all smile at the child in front of us, I want to tell them what happened, I want to ask, has this ever happened to you? I want to ask, have you ever felt like nothing, no body, is yours? I want to hold their hands and tell them everything that happened up until now is the story of our whole lives, but I do not say anything because Reader, let me tell you, even now, even as I tell this story, my mouth is zipped shut.

 
 

About Geneva Evie Toland: I am a writer, farmer, naturalist, and educator currently residing on the unceded territory of the Báxoje people (Ames, Iowa). My work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Canary Literary Magazine, West Trade Review, Farmer-ish Journal, among others. I am currently a student in Iowa State University's MFA program in Creative Writing and the Environment, as well as an apprentice in actualizing equity and justice with Fierce Allies.

Find more of Geneva’s work on her website, and connect with her on Instagram.

Two Poems by Mercedes Lawry

Picking Sides

That summer I took the bus downtown
to work at Isaly’s, where I made ice cream cones
and sundaes and chipped ham sandwiches,
reading all of Ray Bradbury as the somber
suburbs turned gritty — stacked rowhouses
and sagging porches, women on stoops
hissing cigarette smoke.
I was all for poking the establishment,
(the smug dudes in white shirts running the show)
in the eye, and so, gave free lunch to my friend
Dennis, who was a mailman, hoping
my furtive moves went undetected by the people
perched on stools at the lunch counter.
In my white dress and mud-gold apron, I made milkshakes
on those loud, juddering machines, and rarely,
banana splits and was schooled by my uncle, the bigwig
who got me the job, to stop making my cones so large
and to weigh them on a tarnished steel scale.
But yearning for revolution, I continued to give everyone
a little extra — whipped cream, ham, chocolate sauce, coleslaw –
little fuck-yous from a good girl slowly going rogue.

 
 

Hunger

Hunger comes in on particles of rain,
on the slipstream, on the shadows made

by the sun’s traverse. Hunger bobs
and weaves, dances fancy steps, no matter

rags or broken windows, junk cars littering
the backyard, patio furniture in matching green.

Hunger comes for babies, for mournful children,
for the old and forgotten, for the chronically ill,

for the unlucky and for wanderers with minds afire.
Hunger comes into the foodbank with gratitude

and anger, in clouds of shame and with a jagged
sense of humor because what else? Hunger

has bony fingers, scratching at sores, itching
at dry skin, pressing on growls from an empty stomach.

Hunger’s been arrested, scorned, minimized
and denied. Hunger is everywhere,
a greedy criminal with no soul and no excuse.

 
 

About the author: Check out Mercedes’ book of poems Vestiges, and connect with her on Twitter/X.

The louder we shout, the faster we rise by Marisca Pichette

The louder we shout, the faster we rise

We all grew lavender skin
passed between bathroom stalls,
stalks drinking life from cocktails
sliding over lilac bars.

We left buds in our wake
scented like slumber.

We were always awake:
sequined with dawn
platforms reflecting puddles we crossed
with every sweaty transgression.

In packs, in herds, in flocks
of sunset splendor we come.

Lavender means more than sleep--
essential in more ways than you can count
it grows in our hearts
in wrinkles caked with glitter.

When the streets are full,
bars empty,

We spread our lavender wings
—hidden too long under binders
& blazers flecked neon—
we fly in formation

Not leaving, never fleeing
but filling the sky

An arc of bodies
uninvisible, indivisible
louder than thunder & brighter
than dawn.

When the rain comes,
put your umbrellas away.

Purple petals fall
adorning your hair
blessing your lips
& welcoming you

to spread your own enduring wings
& join us high up

in the rainbow sky.

 
 

About the author: Marisca Pichette is a queer author based in Massachusetts, on Pocumtuck and Abenaki land. Her work has appeared in Room Magazine, Flash Fiction Online, Necessary Fiction, and Plenitude Magazine, among others. She is the winner of the 2022 F(r)iction Spring Literary Contest and has been nominated for the Best of the Net, Pushcart, Utopia, and Dwarf Stars awards. Their debut poetry collection, Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair, is out now from Android Press.

Connect with them on Twitter, Instagram, and BlueSky, and see more of their work on their website.

5:29 AM by Hannah Lynn

5:29 AM

don’t you want to live forever?
isn’t that what you fear the most?
bring tears to a dry eye and reveal
the new world -

climb to the hilltop
where the song of
Hellfire
rumbling,
chortling,
chokes;
revving engines for a race;
clambers
to make noise over
the defiant cricket
conducting his orchestra;
a jogger passes with his confident stride,
and that early morning choir begins to whisper
its most familiar hymn.
the world lightens -

pay no mind to the mosquito at your ear;
droning,
churning,
metal against metal.
this is how the world is born -

through a haze
of smoke,
it brightens.
two birds fly overhead,
heading left
and where only they know?
or god?
or the wind?
this great city in a cloud
and this hilltop, littered -

i was here,
i have writ my name
amongst them!
a bone bit from the flesh,
a voice calling out!
circling cries of the gulls,
screaming at the earth
while the rest descend
on that which you have claimed -

the world brightens,
it spites.
it lives with the cricket
and his orchestra,
and with those who listen.
good morning to the immortal,
to the eternal.

 
 

About the author: South Chicago based painter and writer Hannah Lynn uses her artistic practice as meditative tools for self-discovery and inner world building. Gaining inspiration everywhere, she is in close contact with the inseparable nature of the universe and aims to “follow the thread” of her personal Labyrinth, in investigation of the fundamental truths which hold the power of imprisonment and liberation for humanity at large. Learning from Jung, she views Dreams as a gateway to this investigation - her dreams and dream-like view of the waking world is the main subject of her work.

See more of Hannah’s work on her website.

A Photographer in the War Zone by John Grey

A PHOTOGRAPHER IN THE WAR ZONE

Her face won’t sit still for
the cameraman. She’s about to run.
Her legs are out of the frame
and her eyes, her lips, are blurred.

His picture won’t win a prize.
His lens wouldn’t open wide enough
to include the small child
that she clutches to her breast.

And he captures none of her fear,
her determination. Nor the sounds
of gunshots, bomb blasts,
the cries of others – “Get outta here!”

Had he pressed the button
a moment later, she’d have been
already across the street,
slipping inside the first open doorway.

He’d have just snapped smoke,
maybe a soldier in the distance,
or a body lying on the street.
She’d have liked a copy of that:

the plaza, a moment or two
before the grenade exploded.
She could have shown it
to her grandchildren.

 
 

About the author: John Grey is an Australian poet and US resident. He has been recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Sheepshead Review. His latest books, “Covert,” “Memory Outside The Head,” and “Guest Of Myself,” are available through Amazon. He has work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Open Ceilings.

You can find him on Facebook.