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Cape May, NJ: Memoirs of an Old House, Shakespeare’s Moths
CAPE MAY, NJ: MEMOIRS OF AN OLD HOUSE I. Ah, but I talk too much for an old house. Enough now. Understand the rest on your own. Take the Saturday tour. Meet my friends. Some are well cared for, others rundown. But all, like me, are well past one hundred,…
Kamikaze Bird
People who live in glass houses Recognize the sound— The dull but loud and sudden thump Of the Kamikaze Bird against the window. In seasons past, the simple task Required only the bagging Of the deceased and the tossing Of the bag into the can; No pomp and circumstance Requested,…
Eileen Baland
Eileen Baland is Assistant Professor of English at East Texas Baptist University, where she teaches literature and writing. She holds a Ph.D. in Literary Studies from the University of Texas at Dallas, an MLA in Literary Journalism and a B.A. in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Southern Methodist University. She is…
Soon Shall the Winter’s Foil Be Here
—Walt Whitman I know by the tingling tease in the autumn air that soon the trees will begin to show their yearly alteration, and I shall need to readjust my thoughts to cooler days. Winter's onslaught will not be sudden, so there is time to foil the threat of howling…
Beslan, What If…
BESLAN Tonight I will hold you, Alana, And keep you warm. You were the smartest girl In your class and know the Word “terrorist” does not exist In a third grader's vocabulary. I will hold you tonight, Pretty little girl in pigtails, Chestnut brown hair, Gentle eyes. Your mother cries…
Single Malt
He stands there, hands on hips like a great authoritative Bacchus disciple. You've got to go there. You must be there to get the real feel of what is going on. You must be in Scotland near Islay, so said my dad to us boys as we sat around the…
Soft Summer Rain
a little boy sits alone on a stone wall in a soft summer rain humming a tune his father used to sing him to sleep with while rocking in the glider chair between his little bed and the wall from his father's arms he could look all the way down…
The Nature Trail
When I am a lad about the age of ten, my mother takes my older sister and me to visit a park to which we've never been. “It'll be fun. You'll love it. Just wait and see.” The place is fantastic! It has a lake, a swimming pool, even horseback…
Dry Parched Kisses
She sits marooned, an ancient figurehead, Sallow and broad, weathered and lost, While the sands of life and memory pile up Around her ancient flanks. She smiles at memories Of days when she could leap and run and fly Pan-like through the air, and never come down, Never feel cold,…
No Gift Ever Loved Me More
In Anchorage mother stepped out of a Wien Air Alaska jet into the terminal where I sat alone with my baby watching me, she saw herself she longed to turn backward past the splintered shards of betrayal to sing to us her old songs, and never be lonely we would…
Milk and Cookies for Grandma
I spent so many years making sure that your needs were met; many times, ignoring things that I needed. I understood. You were old and those that are aging have less time to enjoy their days, while the younger can wait. Sometimes when I came home from work, stressed and…
Lullabies for Tonight
For the Homeless at the Mission Now, as evening descends and the smoke of your last cigarette lingers in the cough-filled air, rest easy on the crude bunk. In clothes not washed for weeks, sleep sweetly tonight. As you curl yourself into the you before you were born, may any…
Climbing the Water Tower
Climbing the water tower's ladder to see my home Slow rung by rusty rung Grasping the cold steel handles Feet following hands, one beat behind Slow rung by rusty rung Body intent on just one more rung, not looking down Feet following hands, one beat behind In quiet darkness before…
A Walk
gravel crunches under our shoes we walk holding hands not speaking along a road that turns out of sight ahead of us through a stand of tulip trees waving golden in the cold air dark clouds coalesce above us the waning sunshine bright under the black billows running tangential to…
The Difficulties
By Ruth Hill
In Search of Paradise Lost
I am driving down a long expressway, with my hands gripping the steering wheel—tight. There is an underlying fear, knowing that I am not good at abiding by the rules. But the road is littered with signs—a sudden turn to the right— STOP! Then, a sharp veering to the left.…
The Bowpicker
I The two boats tied together One, a station where we capture in columns of figures the screeching pumping mindless cacophony of migrating seabirds, a seething funnel that billows from horizon bead and fans through the straits. A drifting bunkhouse to flop and doze and read, or lie on belly…
Omaha. Day one. The Day-6 June
My heart drags down my khaki sleeves as I kneel on the pink sands of Omaha Beach below nine thousand still stars crying out from folded clouds. I hear hoarse whispering on soft sealed lips reflecting side sand-papered shells. Scrape the surface. Pink-blue blood filters through grains of sand, blood,…
Touchstones
She walks the restless land, the weight of generations upon her soul, her heart descending like the autumn leaves fluttering upon the gold-tinged brilliance of the funeral fire, the air electric with voices of ancient spirits communing with the recent dead. Along the winding banks where mysteries of generations unfold…
Mirrors not for Them
My hero—my male hero—was thin as a rail. Gawky leapt to mind immediately. Polite mood, “ill-favored.” Not just his looks! Could say failure was stalking him, had it not caught up so frequently. As a farmer, he spun a good yarn. As a store-keeper, he, er, uh, spun a good…
Ars anti-Poetica/Halloween candy
Our New Poetry dwells in a literary Reality, both virtual and literal. Our tribe assembles tonight for this year's Ritual. New Verse to be our verse should be close to the ground, substantial in heavy We are like we were last year, but we are different too. nouns for things…
Nightfall
It is dark now a cloud benumbed moon grieves for memory lost the distraught wind stalks between high grasses seeking its youth owls roost, soft feathered in darkened poplars creatures unseen move inevitably to their nightly fate insects buzz and hum demented dervish dirges for those soon doomed while the…
True Roots
To the left of me and to my right apple trees regal in March bloom, in front of me a Sabbath sun, setting hazy this tranquil evening As I intrude through this enchantment I pause, and for a second, as the wind whistles around me and different birdchirps sweeten the…
Daisy Carbine Mantra
I The BB jammed in under the nail of his thumb— a perfect ball of copper buried in the pink swell of his flesh; he yelled ripping the nail back as he teased it out in a bubble of blood and we stopped shooting, crawled out from behind bales of…
War Story, River Around a Village
WAR STORY He takes pictures with the camera his father sent with a note: This is so you can send pictures home. He likes landscapes, aerials with smoke rising from squares of brown and green, like cotton escaping a quilt from home. On ground, he tries to capture the humid…
Lying in the Dark
The mosquito netting my mother drew over our heads was fine and white, like gauze bandages. She tucked it at the bottom of the bed, pulled it up, and draped it over the headboard rail. God bless, she said, and we lay in the heavy dark, shrinking from those loud,…
Spoils of War
Korea, 1951 In winter war and mud an ivory curve gleams too much for bone. My father toes up bowls small as kneecaps—bowls hidden with care, buried for keeping, the home burned flat, dead in the path of the tank grunting closer. At his feet, the earth is quaking from…
Mother and Daughter with Apples and A Shoe
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER WITH APPLES In the attic at 6 De Lairessestraat, skillful young men work under low light. In their hands: pens, carbon paper, blades. An attic in Amsterdam, 1942, where the false identity cards are made— for Jews, or men slated for forced labor in Germany. Small apples…
The Devouring, Stalingrad
THE DEVOURING Auschwitz, 1943 Our babies, creamy as lilies, have run away and have buried their songs in the deep woods. We put down our fiddles to look for them as we hastily cut out a moon from thick yellow paper and stitch it to the sky for light. In…
In Manhattan, After
Like Hiroshima's vague silhouettes of stunned bodies blinded, seared photographically, negatives hurled by heat and light onto still walls of bank buildings far enough the shock of the blast, a sun's rumble, left them standing in the other shock, the light, the instant of exposure x-rayed blindly making flat surprised…
Killing a Gathering of Cells, Saving Angel
KILLING A GATHERING OF CELLS A nightingale sits in darkness and sings to cheer Its own solitude with sweet sounds. Adonais Percy Bysshe Shelley I will show you pain today. The universal gift. The unwelcome sleuth entertained in slanted dark rooms, With early mornings arranging themselves Like dented toy soldier…
An Open Letter to John Ashcroft, Attorney General of the United States
On January 28, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that he spent $8,000 of taxpayer's money for drapes to cover up the exposed breast of The Spirit of Justice, an 18ft aluminum statue of a woman that stands in the Hall of Justice. John, John, John, you've got your priorities…
The Animals
The expert on training search dogs said the dogs should not suffer the aftermath of disaster, they will not show signs of post-traumatic stress, that animals do not know one building from another or associate the pain of events with place. They do not remember what happened on Tuesday. They…
C. Lynn Shaffer
C. Lynn Shaffer is a former winner of an Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Intro Award in poetry and a semi-finalist in Louisiana Literature's poetry competition. She has published poetry in journals such as Clackamas Literary Review and Wind magazine, as well as book reviews in Cream City…
Joanna Catherine Scott
Born during an air raid over London, Joanna Catherine Scott was raised in Australia by a mother who had been a radio actress but got saved and became instead a Pentecostal preacher, exorcist and healer, and a father who was very silent. She tutored formal logic and British analytic philosophy…
Carolyn Moore
Carolyn Moore participated in the Green Movement as it struggled to become the Green Party of California. Through both phases, she worked for peace and continues to freelance in that endeavor now that she is back in her home state, Oregon. In the past fifteen years, Moore's poetry, fiction, and…
Victor Lodato
Victor Lodato is a poet and playwright. A 2002 Guggenheim Fellow, he is also the recipient of a 2002 Helen Merrill Award. Other honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Princess Grace Foundation, Art Matters, as well as a New Forms Grant (Rockefeller Foundation/NEA). Earlier this…
Elizabeth Howkins
Elizabeth Howkins began to write after winning an essay contest at age ten. She has worked as a foreign language teacher, an antiques dealer and a bilingual counselors' assistant. Currently she is a literacy intern teacher and is working on several plays. Ms. Howkins' short stories have appeared in Spout…
Raphael Dagold
Raphael Dagold is a poet, photographer, teacher, and woodworker. He operates a custom cabinet and furniture shop. His poems have appeared in Quarterly West, Indiana Review, two girls review, Frank, Shirim, The Oregonian, Born (an online mixed-media magazine), and is forthcoming in Bridges. His two fables from Versions of Aesop,…
Kathleen M. Conley
Kathleen M. Conley was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She served two tours as a Navy nurse in Vietnam and worked as a Mental Health Crisis Counselor for many years before becoming disabled with back problems. Ms. Conley has been writing poetry for many years. She won a…
Claire Braz-Valentine
Claire Braz-Valentine is a widely published poet, a freelance writer of both children's and adult fiction and nonfiction, and an award winning playwright. Her poems have been featured in many anthologies. Her plays have been produced in New York, Los Angeles and across the United States, and in Finland, Greece,…
Steve Amick
Steve Amick lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan and received an MFA from George Mason University. His short stories have appeared on National Public Radio, in the anthology The Sound of Writing (Doubleday), Playboy, The Southern Review, The New England Review, The Tulane Review, River City, Story and McSweeney's. He has…
Sasha Returning
He wanted a job as a clown. He walked miles remembering the music. Even in sleep, he dreamed about her greeting him. They might join the circus and learn how to fly the trapeze. She was sleeping when it killed her; she, the child, were still, asleep. He expected to…
The Homecoming
(11/11/01) In subtle fields the casualties of leaves hang yellow. Frost's ghosts graze the bullet grass, Awakening crisp footfall. The boy imagines going home. Dawn's blood, he thinks, robes trees with autumn, But I am going home. For this is death's dawn And crammed with poppy-clots, and memories Of home's…
Give Me Tomorrow
“They were in their 20s but might have been 100. In answer to my idiot question, 'If I were God, what would you want for Christmas,' one tried to answer and failed until, looking into that unpromising sky, he said, 'Give me tomorrow.'” - David Douglas Duncan, about American soldiers…
To Home, Winter 1943
“Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear? The father it is, with his infant so dear; He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm, He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.” [1] I can scarcely hold the bottle, these rags that hold my fingers…
The Near Occasion of Sin
To Miss Marianne Moore Hairy face, skin wings, eyeteeth of bone, black thought of it swinging from the chandelier, upside down above me in my bed: I too dislike it. I hear whirring and its squeaky voice in my dreams: it wakes me, years after. He says be grateful, you…
Patti Patton
Patti Patton's short story “Gas Lines” won the 2002 Truckee Meadows Writing Conference Fiction Prize. She has an MFA in playwriting from the University of California, and in June she had a staged reading of “Chiophobia (fear of snow)” at the Edward Albee Final Frontier Theater Conference in Valdez, Alaska.…
Nicholas Green
Nicholas Green hails from Great Britain. He writes, “I have copy and screenwriting websites, but not one for poetry. I am represented by Blake Friedmann—a London literary agency—for screenwriting. Nothing as yet produced (sore point!).”
Ginny Lowe Connors
Ginny Lowe Connors is the author of two poetry collections: The Unparalleled Beauty of a Crooked Line and Barbarians in the Kitchen, as well as a chapbook, Under the Porch, winner of the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize. In addition, she has edited several anthologies. She's won numerous awards for her…
