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You Had to Be There
“War is good for you.” Tim Page as quoted in The First Casualty by Philip Knightly In Vietnam, they grew a kind of miniature banana too small for export, but orange and sweet. You had to be there, that morning, on the banana road where an explosion took off the…
Ghosts
She cared nothing for the useless, material things that others seemed to live for. She could not understand the way they thought the brand of shampoo, jeans, sneakers mattered so much that a mockery would be made of anyone who purchased an unknown, a “Kmart blue light special” as they…
The Song of Iraq
I saw the sheik wiring his beard with explosives. I saw the sheik leading young foxholes out of a journalist's slit-open throat. I saw the sheik at Pak Punjab eating tomatoes that were bombs. I saw the sheik holding our president's hand and robbing the faces of the dahlias there.…
Gulf War News Sign-Off, with Video Tricks
Today's war ended the way yesterday's war ended: a Star-Spangled Banner duet scored for Mount Rushmore and F-16. It's two shots of tequila past midnight. The F-16's wings hallucinate — through the spotting scope of my twenty inch Zenith — into sky-calipers, measuring the gap between Lincoln's eye and ear.…
Marsha Truman Cooper
In 1987, I won first prize in the New Letters Writing Contests for poetry. I also won the Bernice Slote Poetry Award from Prairie Schooner in the early nineties. Pudding House Publications reissued Substantial Holdings, a chapbook of mine that won their competition in 1986. The 2002 edition has been…
Rob Cook
Rob Cook lives in New York City where he co-edits Skidrow Penthouse with Stephanie Dickinson. His first manuscript, The Cellophane Madonnas, was a finalist in the New Issues Poetry Prize competition and a finalist for the Gerald Cable Book Award. His work has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, New Orleans…
Soldier’s Heart
They call me madman of the trees, king gone astray, witless one, mimic of birds, folly's friend, the wild mad king. Sweeney? I am not Sweeney. Sweeney was a tall strong man who raised his voice and his arms against anyone who slighted him. He was a king, that tall…
To Sing the World
Each language has its own music And those who sing it are its harmonic true From opening bars they recognize each other They are as staccato to legato As guttural is to milk As icebergs from lagoons They smolder and hiss as fire steams from water As plucked guitars from…
Broken Windows at Reims
In the town of Reims, the office of the bourgeois optician kept rubble behind its facade, and Will saw the shutters on the second floor, fallen together like an ineffective fan above the balustrade. Near the cathedral, he passed the cemetery, arbitrary joke, bombed, enormous marble stones ripped from their…
Floating Girl (Angel of War)
“...doubling up in pain like a river with these white flowers….” Jose Louis Hidalgo Floating face down, She is part of the river's script of bodies, Its holy marginalia. Her head floats inside her own hair Her body drifts in moonlight, in privacy beyond rain: the hour has lost its…
Patricia Monaghan
Patricia Monaghan, daughter of a Purple Heart veteran of the Korean conflict, is a convinced member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), to which she was drawn during the Vietnam War by its testimonies of simplicity and peace. She is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Dancing…
Joel Long
Joel Long's book Winged Insects (1999) was chosen by Jane Hirshfield as winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award. His poems have appeared in Bellingham Review, Poet Lore, Sou'wester, Seattle Review, Willow Springs, Prairie Schooner, Northern Lights, Sonora…
Robert Randolph
Professor Randolph teaches in the Department of English at Texas State University-San Marcos. A recipient of Fulbright scholarships in Finland and Greece, his poems have been published in Poetry, The Georgia Review, Mid-American Review, Lullwater Review, Plainsong, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Kentucky Poetry Review, MSS and Negative Capability. Bacchae Press…
A Midcentury Advent
Time in this house was thick-woven, like the wool of the old workmen's caps doffed in the dark for early Mass in early winter: spare Advent, purple over black, wax-and-wood smells, bump of heavy doors, whisper of heavy coats. The night watch at an ancient city's gate where neither kings…
The French Railroad at Quang Tri, Snapshots from a Battle, Mud-Walking
THE FRENCH RAILROAD AT QUANG TRI for Thomas “Pepper” Catterson Are they still there: those railway tracks I walked along at blood dusk, after a day tracking loco-motive men tracking me; green killers all, every one of us, hidden in the endangered landscape, overgrown with stubborn shrubs and pagodas, worn…
Another Country
For Cruz You live under a sky with no horizon. The mountains flap behind your home like a great dark bird. His claws are sharpened with silver coils that squeeze you, cutting you to shreds. While I wait for the gate to open, memories of you open: thick chested man…
Because We Are Men, Vets, Rehab. Journal
BECAUSE WE ARE MEN i. awake Those war-whooping days we retrieved the paper dog-eared on the steps in the damp, and spread it first thing on the counter with coffee. What was it that riveted us to the carnage ahead of politics (o bitter amusement), the comics, even the sports?…
1960-2002, A Testimony
(in honor of Thomas Lily) 1 From our graves, where our life's summation will be “here lies an old generation,” what shall we answer the young, those who found words of innocence? Who will bring a fresh bud to the tombs of men who breathed among flowers of doom? Who…
Richard Levine
Richard Levine's “Snapshots from a Battle” was published as a chapbook by Headwaters Press (New York, 2001). “Mud-Walking” was published in Rattapallax #4. “The French Railroad at Quang Tri” has appeared in Medicinal Purposes Literary Review. An LP is a Listening Post, “a nasty (usually two-man) detail, wherein you set…
Charles Atkinson
Charles Atkinson was born and raised in New England, graduated cum laude from Amherst College, and served with the Peace Corps in Manila, Republic of the Philippines. He completed a Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he currently teaches writing. His first collection, The Only Cure I…
Ned Condini
Ned Condini, writer, translator and literary critic, received the PEN/Poggioli Award for his versions of poet Mario Luzi (New York, 1986). Short stories and poems of his have appeared in Translation (New York), The Mississippi Review, Prairie Schooner, The Partisan Review, Mid-American Review, Negative Capability, Italian Americana, Chelsea, Yale Review…
For Jen
an elegy Jennifer, your relics leave me empty. They were never you. Shoebox of triangle-folded notes, red corsage, T-shirt (size small), photographs: at seven, on a cereal box, at nineteen, at odds with the world, on the beach, in a dorm room, laughing in their faces, the loudest voice in…
Old Hawk
It had been easy once— a dozen effortless strokes—just the right attitude of wings, climbing the wind as a child climbs a wave, floating upward, just catching the crest, then turning downwind for the easy glide. Now, circling, conserving every measure of energy, (a small movement below worth investigating) Old…
Intimidation
Intimidation by definition can only mean separation pits one against the other encourages retribution Mama Africa she lived the struggle evaded shadow men witnessed Apartheid crumble They confront the white policemen demand to know why the boy is being detained his arm wrenched behind his back an angled decoy He…
Stillborn
Every place our ship sailed was flown from the kite of my stillborn child. I saw him/her rise from an Incan mummy bundle, grow thickset and short to utilize the thin air of the Andes. I would not strap with the awful bindings to misshape her noble head in her…
The Window
That open window in the projects, To where a mantis sometimes climbed eleven stories to pray. From where we saw the Third Avenue El and fell asleep to its sound. Through which the smoke of incense and aroma of fried pork chops escaped. And I'd observe Officer Jiménez (Jiminy to…
Does Anyone Know I’m Here?
It's every city in every state I've ever been, the sidewalks, the streets, the smells and noise, the irrational clutter of shops, homes and offices. Voices that rise and fall, muffled by grit and hazy panes where graying blinds slice light into pales that hide them from me, and me…
Daniel E. Speers
Dan Speers has written numerous college and adult education textbooks primarily in computer applications and programming languages. He is a former award-winning journalist and columnist who embraced a love of technology and holds a number of US and foreign patents in instant photography and optical computing. Returning to his early…
de profundis
does of any of it matter the hours days years the faces without names the voices without sound a sudden memory stirs the soul as the darkness of a long forgotten time is penetrated and one face one name one treasured voice returns in an incredibly sparkling moment to touch…
Mason City Ladies’ Sewing Circle
Fiddle fern hangs near corner porch column, scent of Honeysuckle suspends in air, swing sways at porch end, lemonade pitcher, glasses, sliced lemons, plated ice-box cookies set on wicker serving table, calico cat naps on railing crook, rainbow glints off cut glass framed in Grandmother Susan's mahogany front door, baskets…
The Dark Room
The safe-light leaks moist red into the darkness. Bach sings his magic hills, the door says Keep out. Balancing light and time, strengthening solutions, patience, love of solitude—but in the end one must become a swimmer somersaulting beneath clear green water. We'd spent the week in Marrakash, Mother, my three…
Catherine De Laney
Mary Ann Wehler
Elaine Winer
Jeremy Johnson Jackson the Third
I love my teddy bear. I call him Jeremy Johnson Jackson the Third. Jez for short. Jeremy Johnson Jackson the Third. I love my teddy bear. He always gets close when I need him. He's so soft, he's so cuddly. Sometimes my tears just disappear into his fur. I love…
Train Journey
Good-be Adelaide, Mother and Dad. I see you trying not to cry. Go on cry, so will I. The train is moving earth and sky. You've had each other for thirty years. Be happy, plan another tour. I'm crying, crying, crying not to Not to not to not to not…
Fritillary
Sweet bright grasses fringed about a secret cove, With little rasping voices, softer than the waves that curl, Softer than the winds that trill a harmony across the dunes, Telling tales ... Butterflies brown and white, with lead-light marks upon their wings With tiny cooing voices, softer than terns, softer…
Adam Wallace
Ann Tregenza
Jennie Herrera
Latrun, Margalit, and First Born
LATRUN Why I saved him I don't know. A funny looking fat kid with no friends. Used to come to scout meetings with a stick he said for the coyotes. We'd see coyotes maybe once in five years. But he always knew his way in the dark. And he never…
Speaking of Speaking
Good evening and welcome. Before we begin, please turn off any cell phones, pagers, watches free standing inserts, November, dogma, the capitals of Europe and fleece. And why not take a moment now to unwrap that cough drop or hard candy suck on it, spit it out, cry me a…
T’was the Week After Doomsday
T'was the week after doomsday, when all through the land, not a creature was living, they'd all turned to sand, the humans were hung from the bridges with snares, a sign that the cannibals soon would be there. The children were scared, hiding under their beds, while visions of savagery…
The Flight Line Commedia
Canto I: Stranded in Las Vegas Halfway home I found myself astray. A Friday journey out of RNO To TUS became a life's dismay. The tale is dark and strange, but even so, The things I saw and lessons learned are those That all who travel by the air should…
The Ryme of the Old-Time Musique Man
It was an ancient beardy man He shoppeth at a mall. He stopped we three at the HMV, Croaked, “Wherefore Shoppst thou y'all? There isn't much to see here boys, This place is such a mess— Your HMV and A&F GNC and CVS. Besides, CDs are second rate. I've scoured…
The Wife of Lance Allot
On worsted lines the washing dries Damp trails of whites, rank bales of lyes The dross of kids, the mess of dyes My life is crap, the lady cries The wife of Lance Allot. And up and down her patience goes One minute fine, the next she blows And through…
A Frivolous Social Event in the USA
Concept by Miley Cyrus Abridgement by self I dismounted my steed at the L.A. crossroads With but a dream and a busking-shawl, Here was the orgy-place of plenitude and fame, And great alterity in mine eyes withal. Ascended I into a rickshaw-sleigh And to my right was the Hollywood mark;…
Hurl
I I saw the biggest mouths of my generation devouring double bacon blue cheese burgers and large curly fries, slurping thirty-two-ounce colas and Dr. Peppers, dribbling mustard, ketchup and relish on themselves and looking like a food fight, hip-heavy lard-asses, barely able to reach for another handful of nachos or…
Poetry Workshop (Mary had a little lamb)
“How could she?” someone said, “have a lamb?” Another added, “She must have been scammed.” “Her lover was a beast,” one shouted out, “a horrible man.” “Mary,” an older man said. “That's very virginal isn't it? Hmmm, I'm not so sure that it really fits. Perhaps the speaker has a…
The Felching of the Oct’pus
A fun-sized epic in antiheroic couplets, dedicated to: The two rapscallions who challenged me to write it Cephalopod fetishists everywhere and a narrow subset of Japanese businessmen. Now then most wat'ry and slime-crusted muse Invoking the muse Awaken from your dark aquatic snooze; You who have filled the poets' heads…
