Static and chitchat

by Melanie Choukas-Bradly
 

If I can avoid it I will
The static of chitchat
Talk so small it rattles and fades

I tell you tell he tells she tells
One up storytelling
With shallow laughter brackets

Leave the table with me now
And walk outside
The night awaits, all dark, all deep


* * * * *

Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and award-winning author of seven nature books, including City of Trees and A Year in Rock Creek Park. Her book, Wild Walking—A Guide to Forest Bathing Through the Seasons will be released in June. Melanie began writing poetry during the pandemic and had the good fortune to discover Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice. The site has featured many of her poems, including “How to Silence a Woman,” “If I have loved you,” “The Water Cooler,” and “Muddled Grief,” which won Moon Prizes. Her poetry has also appeared in New Verse News.   

Waiting for Mastodons          

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley


The large fruits are massed on the ground
Under the tree, routed and grooved like brains, brightly chartreuse
As if waiting for the megafauna of their co-evolution to return and feast

The wrinkled orbs are eloquent in their non-movement
No one disturbs them
The mastodon and the mammoth

Had a time that is not ours, once shared
With the Osage Orange, a tree stumbling into the future
With its hapless fruit

Mastodons can’t return to the electric green banquet
So fetchingly spread for them
On brown winter earth
A mismatch in time we are coming to know


* * * * *

Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and award-winning author of seven nature books, including City of Trees and A Year in Rock Creek Park. Her book, Wild Walking—A Guide to Forest Bathing Through the Seasons will be released in June. Melanie began writing poetry during the pandemic and had the good fortune to discover Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice. The site has featured many of her poems, including “How to Silence a Woman,” “If I have loved you,” “The Water Cooler,” and “Muddled Grief,” which won Moon Prizes. Her poetry has also appeared in New Verse News.   

Knowing You're Gone

by Sandra Kohler


I go out on this cold brilliantly sunny
March afternoon to try to take my
power walk, a walk I haven't done
since your death two weeks ago.

The sun's brutal, its light not revelation
but obstruction, shutting down my eyes
in a manner which seems to echo the way
my climbing legs feel, awkward, unsure.

On the long steep hill up Tremlett Street
I feel my breath giving out, I'm afraid
my legs will fail me. Half the way up,
I stop, turn around, turn back, start

down again. I talk to the stone lion on
the porch of a house on Waldeck Street,
I mutter at the ugly yellow color of
the corner home of neighbors who

used to be friends and aren't. When
I get back to our house and go inside,
I expect to find you there, expect
to tell you all of the details, share

that walk with you. You're not here.
You won't ever be here again. I learn
my loneliness, my loss of all that
we used to share, again and again.


* * * * *

Sandra Kohler’s third collection of poems, Improbable Music (Word Press). appeared in May, 2011. Earlier collections are The Country of Women (Calyx, 1995) and The Ceremonies of Longing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003). Her poems have appeared in journals, including The Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, and many others over the past 45 years. In 2018, a poem of hers was chosen to be part of Jenny Holzer’s permanent installation at the Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia.

On the day of your death...

                                             by Sandra Kohler


I vowed to live without you.
I found your documents hidden,
I wrote lists of what to do
with your clothes, your books,
your possessions; I remembered
your body making love to mine.
I made up a story about your
childhood and laughed at it.
I sang songs that we loved
to listen to; I wept.


* * * * *

Sandra Kohler’s third collection of poems, Improbable Music (Word Press). appeared in May, 2011. Earlier collections are The Country of Women (Calyx, 1995) and The Ceremonies of Longing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003). Her poems have appeared in journals, including The Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, and many others over the past 45 years. In 2018, a poem of hers was chosen to be part of Jenny Holzer’s permanent installation at the Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia.

 

Glamour

by Rose Mary Boehm


Aunt Lil wore her black hat at a coquettish angle,
its little veil pulled over her forehead.
She was Arpège and blood-red lipstick,
long, pointed fingernails to match, nylon stockings,
everything I wanted to be one day.
She bought me ‘Schillerlocken’*.

My uncle was a lawyer,
a tall tree in a forest of lesser trees.
He seldom bent down to my ten-year-old,
somewhat undernourished body.
With a stentorian voice he hinted
that I was making a nuisance of myself
just by being a kid.
I found out later that he had always thought
my mother a creature of a lesser race.
She didn’t speak like one is used to hearing.

It was whispered behind fluttering hands
that Aunt Lil had been a barmaid.
Now she was the wife of a professional,
was perfume and lace, and a deep-red slit
replaced her mouth when she laughed.
Which she didn’t do often.

The idea that this childless couple would look after me
for ten days while my mother went back
to East Germany (in danger of being sent to a Russian
gulag if caught) to sort out the lives we left behind in a hurry
had been hammered out between the women.

Uncle Fried looked at me across the huge dining table
as he would a fly and frowned.
‘Has nobody shown you how to eat
with knife and fork, child?’
My voice not quite steady from fear:
‘We had nothing to cut, Uncle.’


* * * * *

"Schillerlocken" is a sweet, cone-shaped German pastry. The name was inspired by the typical curly wigs that men, like the German poet Friedrich Schiller, used to wear in the 18th century.”

"Glamour" was first published in the Rose Mary Boehm's collection Life Stuff (Kelsay, November 2023)

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as eight poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was three times nominated for a Pushcart and once for Best of Net. Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders? (Kelsay Books, July 2022), Whistling in the Dark (Cyberwit, July 2022), and Saudade (December 2022) are available on Amazon. Also available on Amazon is a new collection, Life Stuff, published by Kelsay Books November 2023. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

The Black Bird

by Rose Mary Boehm 


Holland. Fifty-five years ago.
The back garden’s lawn sloping gently
towards the dark water of the canal.
There is a willow, its soft, green arms
reaching all the way down to the grass.
And there are tulips.
Almost black tulips,
their slender stems choreographed in a silent dance.
And there is a six-months old little boy in his buggy.

Twitt, twitt, chirrp, twitt, caw, flutters and wooshes,
some sharp beaks are pecking at an intruder.
Birds flitting by or leisurely thumping the lawn
for worms, a duck doing its splashy upside-down bit
into the murk of the canal water
only to lift up its beak dripping with black muck.
More ducks paddle towards a goal
only they know, leaving in their wake watery cuts
that silver the quiet canal.
The occasional canoe, the paddles almost soundless.
I look out of the kitchen window.
My little boy has been too quiet
for far too long.
I stare.

His mouth pursed in concentration,
in his pudgy little fingers the shortbread given to him
by my friend as a peace offering.
One by one he feeds crumbs to a black bird of some size
that’s sits on the edge of the buggy’s tray, its head moving
nervously from side to side, or perhaps it’s just to see
his benefactor better. Both are intense, sometimes talking,
in holy communion.


* * * * *

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as eight poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was three times nominated for a Pushcart and once for Best of Net. Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders? (Kelsay Books, July 2022), Whistling in the Dark (Cyberwit, July 2022), and Saudade (December 2022) are available on Amazon. Also available on Amazon is a new collection, Life Stuff, published by Kelsay Books November 2023. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

The Attic is an Umbrella             

by Jen Schneider

 
with no springs but ample shade.
wingspan surprisingly wide,
metal clasps not yet retired --
 
a blend of weeds and wild things 
 
copies of Where the Wild Things Are,
Goodnight Moon, and Ferdinand
open to consume (conflicts
unresolved, plots unclear)
despite broken spines 
 
Sign Here!
 
contracts and constructs
clauses and canopies
 
and of infinite capacity for 
tears and torn everything – 

           a yellow slicker, size small, arms interlocked.
           photos of phantoms and fanatics. 
           DNA strands with lobster-claw clasps and faux beads.
            acid-washed denim with cherry patches on each knee
            overalls with golden threads on (s)worn seats.
            stuffed bears with no hearts.
            plucked sunflowers, now dry.
            chipped ceramic plates, three generations displaced.
            birth certificates marked Do Not Return to Sender.
            sealed envelopes with unfamiliar names penned in faded ink.
            undeveloped Kodak rolls. Caps closed.
            overexposed MRI films in yellowed envelopes.
            moth wings -- singular and tongue-tied.
            mice seeking twice-daily feedings.
            feral readings and nursery rhymes 
 
the attic is an umbrella –
 
its wooden rafters deceptively strong
its floorboards recently wired. a router
of some kind. wires conspire
alongside instinct
 
When!
 
a small hole in the far-left corner grows,
simultaneously light and shadow, origins
unknown -- a hungry crow, termites, mama
birds. shelter both proper and depersonalized.  
a welcome landing, unnamed
inhabitants consume all things,
 
I’m hungry! 
 
both wild and (re)tried,
amongst
items documented in handsewn
labels along collars and size-two Keds,
 
never (not yet) worn – 
 
the cotton blanket, knit by hand,
remains folded, in fetal form,
 
secure in blue Tupperware. hidden
from the impending storm
 
           Seek shelter! 
 
the attic is an umbrella –
ripe of unresolved conflict.
 
           last-place jerseys (tanks)
           keychains to locked doors
           stolen things (time)
           shells from unwelcome shores
           denim shorts (poorly sized) 
 
plot and pinch points breached
pop-up storms and breech births.
 
its metal spokes
rusted and untrusted. 
its contents soaked.
 
a puddle pools
beneath my feet of cotton
socks. the air cools. a bird
stirs. the sun winks in dotted
lines. the floorboard creaks.
 
Again!
 
I’ll patch none of it, I think
as the bird returns to sleep
and the realtor waits,
 
as if I could if I tried,
 
            Coming!   
 
the attic is an umbrella --
of shafts and springs
 
instead, I sit on a seat
of construction paper, legs
crossed, and contemplate
the shelter of places once
known -- forever young. 
 
 
* * * * *

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Her most recent collection, 14 (Plus) Reasons Why published with free lines press, is now available. 

Thursday, After Dark    

by Jen Schneider

 
The next time you fancy a walk, you could be joined by Ed Sheeran. He’s teamed up with Peloton to create an exclusive audio collaboration for a new series of Outdoor Walks. Each episode, which will also feature Peloton Instructors Jon Hosking or Germany's Tobias Heinze, features music from his new album and connected, immersive and intimate storytelling.
 
The same day Peloton announces a recall,
a recall of over 2.2 million exercise bikes
 
Ed Sheeren announces a Peloton partnership,
the same week he wins a suit for
copyright infringement
 
and I think, where do they find
the energy
and why would I want to walk,
to walk with Ed Sheeran 
 
I’d much rather listen to him sing --
or stream Marvin Gaye tunes
and debate just how similar (or not)
the overall experience
of “Thinking Out Loud” is to “Let’s Get It On”
 
in a solitary (s)pace
 
As I sit, and think,
my husband texts --
 
             Check IT Out
             three houses to the left
 
I text back --
 
             What’s IT?
 
He sends a picture,
along with descriptive text --
 
             Strong.
             Outdoor friendly.
             Durable.
             Waterproof.
             Rust-free.
             Free to take.
             No questions asked.  
 
If I were still in the market
for a love-match this might be it.
 
It’s a five-tier something.
 
Perhaps a shelf.
Perhaps another discarded story.
 
I lace up my New Balance and 
take the walk experts highly recommend.
 
Coincidentally, it’s May, the National
Month for Walking
 
I circle the block five times, like the hawks overhead,
evaluate the degree to which I am hungry, and assess
if the prey is to my liking             
 
Each loop another chance
to (re)imagine the offering
of walking --
 
I’d been in the market for a new hobby.
 
Maybe I’d pick up gardening and stock
clay pots full of cacti and other things
that don’t require much water to breathe. 
 
Or maybe I’d use it to store
drafts of my works-in-progress
 
Only the shelves have neither character nor backbones.
That can’t be a good influence on plot or conflict resolution. 
 
Friends suggest cross stitch or pottery.
Colleagues recommend crochet and knitting.
It’s fun with a purpose, they say.
Plus, you can still watch TV
alongside Ed.

I watch the bait,
careful to anticipate
anyone else approaching.
 
as Ed offers moody ballads,
tonics for misery and memory,
Succession, The Last of Us, and Ted Lasso
are visual reminders that we all face mortality,
and to push seasons beyond their natural life
is usually unbecoming. 
 
I could use it to
 
             collect dishes,
             secure binoculars,
             store bird feed
 
But I won’t –
 
Frog and Toad’s vibe
much more to my liking
 
Fuck it, I say. Who am I kidding?
I’m as depleted as I’ve ever been. 
 
Ed’s songs on my mind --
I write emails and can’t even
hit delete once I know
I won’t click send.
 
Digital graveyards as real
as the plotted and potted variety,
I take a closer look
and greet my reflection
under the moonlit sky.
 
Two outdated structures
looking for their next gig.
 
A ladybug crawls along one edge
A moth hovers in a far corner.
Its joints are rusted
A familiar fate.
I contemplate, then think
of my grandmother and the text
I received just after she took her last breath.
 
The message documented the time and place
as if that might change things
 
Her hip went first,
then her heart.
 
Walking had been her link,
to happiness
 
She’d scour the town’s flea markets most weekends
became an expert in curbside negotiations.
 
Until all joints rusted
and balance could no longer be trusted.
 
I wonder what she might of thought
of the Ed Sheeran and Peloton
partnership. 
 
She started to speak ill of most things --
 
One evening she told my offspring to fuck it.
 
“Fuck it all,” she said.
 
“Life’s a bitch in the end anyway.”
 
On the day we buried her
I learned that there are many forms
of recycling.
 
Stories of youth. Supersized.
Prized recipes. In locked diaries.
Bare soles on scalding concrete.
A baby born with a husband overseas.
Nazis in Germany. Holdups in fish markets.
Mattress on the floor of second-floor apartments.
Early morning eclairs from downstairs bakeries.
 
A great aunt scoffed,
displeased at the rabbi’s retelling.
 
For the graveside funeral,
the cemetery entrance had a sign.
 
             Turn right for the 9 am.
             Hang left for the noon double. 
 
Only it’s night and I still have work to do.
 
My grandmother was a fan of vodka at noon, with double ice.
 
“Rainbow bridge bullshit,” she said when her husband of fifty years passed.
 
“That’s it. That’s the end.”
 
“The end of what?” my toddler asked,
followed by, “Can I have more juice?”
 
“You betcha,” she said. “Apple or tomato?
Both keep things running.”
 
Now, the town picks up,
picks up anything within reason though the website
fine print clarifies that items over fifty pounds cost an extra ten dollars
 
I focus on the object.
 
Like a teacher whose name I can’t remember once instructed.
 
The third shelf is sagging, I think.
 
Imperfections magnified under the microscope,
the microscope of computer-strained eyes 
 
Like the funnel (or tunnel) of falsehoods on which I was raised.
 
             Bologna tastes better on wheat
             Diets secure destiny
             Bikinis are sweeter rewards than baked goods
             Pluto is a planet and planets belong to all mankind
             Contradictions in real time
 
Each Friday at dawn,
at dawn in the small pockets of air
between Here and There, Then and Now,
the garbage truck makes its rounds.
 
I let the five-story shelf be,
don’t need anything else
to clean or care for 
 

I suspect my husband knew,
knew all along.
 
He texts –
 
             What do you think?
 
Or is it Ed Sheeran calling.
 
             I don’t reply


* * * * *

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Her most recent collection, 14 (Plus) Reasons Why published with free lines press, is now available. 

I Believe in Life

                              by Karen Friedland


not an afterlife,
but the one we’ve got
right here.

I believe in the earth,
its changing seasons,
its people whose paths
I’ve been so lucky to cross,
its sturdy animals, too.

No regrets, no bitterness,
no pettiness—
that’s behind me, now.

I’ve entered a holy realm—
not the bardo—

just savoring my last moments
in sunshine,
as if in prayer.


* * * * *

Once a grant writer by trade, Karen Friedland had poetry published in the Lily Poetry Review, Nixes Mate Review, One Art, and others. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her books are Places That Are Gone and Tales from the Teacup Palace. Karen lived in Boston with her husband, two dogs and a cat. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in November 2021, two days before her 58th birthday, and died on April 14, 2024.

Dancing In High Heels

by Marisa Cimbal

After Nancy Krygowski


She’s knitting a sweater, she’s dancing the jitterbug with me,
she’s wearing a colorful pants suit hiding her deformity. She’s playing
canasta and mahjong. She’s shuffling the cards, singing
you are my sunshine. She’s polishing my nails, brushing my hair, saying she’s proud
of me. She’s turning 85. She’s calling from Florida, saying
it’s humid and sweaty. She’s writing a letter saying she’s making
me a hat, what color should it be, she’s missing me. She’s sitting at the pool, swatting
flies, baking sugar cookies. She’s shopping at Publix using a cane. She’s reading
Danielle Steele, line dancing, watching Jeopardy. She’s washing
her clothes with Clorox, hanging them in the shower. She’s wearing
red lipstick, waving at the airport, saying she’s not
what she used to be. She’s cooking pot roast with potato pancakes, moving
very slowly. She’s telling my boyfriend to marry me, she’s giving
him a ring. She’s in a wheelchair, singing songs, smiling. She’s telling
stories of her youth, saying she wants me to be happy. She has a feeding tube, she’s saying
it’s OK, she’s not hungry. She’s asking mom to let her go, she’s barely speaking. 
She does not remember me. I see her in my dreams – she’s dancing
in high heels and she’s finally free. 


* * * * *

Marisa Cimbal lives in Hoboken, New Jersey with her husband and dog, Elsa, and is the mother of twin daughters. She works in New York City in healthcare communications and is now fulfilling her dream of being a poet and a writer of nonfiction. Most recently, her work has appeared in Children, Churches and Daddies, Rat’s Ass Review, Sad Girls Literary Magazine, The Ravens Perch, Humans of the World and forthcoming in The Academy of the Heart and Mind.

LOVERS DEPART

by Violeta Zlatareva


Now it's my turn. Pain comes
in the fragile shoes of misplaced trust.
There's something to lose, but can we
even say that we've gained anything?
The city's crows circle like in a fairytale.
A fair-skinned girl watches them, amazed.
The beggar in the corner falls into panic
for her delicate, pink bow and goldish hair.
The boulevard buzzes with cars and money,
everyone involuntarily breathes in other people's thoughts.
Cigarettes lie moistened deeply in my coat,
ready for death whenever I desire.
Now it's my turn. A red light
tells me I can leave forever,
but a few honks suddenly stop me
and I understood—the girl had left before me.


* * * * *

Violeta Zlatareva was born in 1992 in Velingrad, Bulgaria. She is the author of Whale Academy, a collection of short stories published by Ars in 2021 and adapted and presented by the theater Via Verde. Her second book, Register Misfortunes,  was released in September 2023. Her work has appeared in a variety of print and electronic media, as well as poetry collections and anthologies such as Flight, Magic in Green, Poetry Against the War, and others. She has received national and regional literary honors.

ALMOST FEARLESS

by Violeta Zlatareva


I'm not scared by the empty night streets,
or the coughing drunkard around the corner.
I have bitten hands,
to steal from the air;
I’ve been eaten by dogs,
while I was starving.
I'm not afraid to tear my shoes,
they used to be cheap and often tore.
My feet
breathed the night streets,
but I was afraid of no one.

Rabbit throats squealed bloodily
as I smiled and sang like a child.
I didn't weep for hugs so I wouldn't
end up at the sink next to their eyes.

Water in the cement, brick upon brick -
all existed in alignment.
Until you decided to unleash your hair.
Tie it up before I collapse.


* * * * *

Violeta Zlatareva was born in 1992 in Velingrad, Bulgaria. She is the author of Whale Academy, a collection of short stories published by Ars in 2021 and adapted and presented by the theater Via Verde. Her second book, Register Misfortunes,  was released in September 2023. Her work has appeared in a variety of print and electronic media, as well as poetry collections and anthologies such as Flight, Magic in Green, Poetry Against the War, and others. She has received national and regional literary honors.

 

ODE TO THOSE IN A TRAUMA CENTER WAITING ROOM

by Lorri Ventura


Together alone
While their loved ones undergo medical procedures
They stare blindly at a crookedly mounted TV
Offering soap operas at full-volume

They fan through dog-eared pages
Of months-old People magazines
And gnaw on ragged fingertips
As their lips dance with anxious prayers

Around them, an intercom crackles
Calling color codes
That trigger storms of scrubs, lab coats
And rattling service carts
Flashing past

They pace back and forth
Across threadbare carpeting
In front of an aquarium
Filled with colorful tropical fish
Placed there to provide cheer and diversion
But ominously message-laden
With two rotund goldfish
Floating upside down at the water’s surface

They pretend not to see the people
Who share the crowded room with them
Each one emotionally isolated and unprepared

Like those in the throes of surgery
Those who wait
Hover between life and death


* * * * *

Lorri Ventura is a retired special education administrator living in Massachusetts. Her poetry has been featured in AllPoetry, Mad Swirl, Parapraxis, Quabbin Quills, and Red Eft Review. She is a three-time winner of Writing in a Woman's Voice's Moon Prize.

 

 

Snapshot
            -after the composite photograph Secret Garden
            by Karen Elias

by Marjorie Maddox


In the photo within the photo, the small girl waters the earth, 
the dirt-tinged past wedged between twigs in a garden 
fenced-in by stones and memory. The imaginary, the dead, 
the living—all crisscross like brittle vines. Who is looking out
at the world now? Beyond the bright blossoms, a coffin
looms small. Or is it a working well? At the edge of the yard lies

the future. Gray or green? The end of the story lies
in what we choose. The small child waters the earth.
Is she me? Is she you? She knows nothing of coffins
at the edge of the world, just keeps watering her garden,
the seeds she cannot see. She believes someone else looks out
for the rest of the earth, for her. She doesn’t know the dead

sky has something to tell her, the fragile dome already dying
the day pride and desire cracked Eden with the lie
of plucked dominion. All she wants is to look out
at the well at the end of her yard. There, beneath the earth,
more water hides. She believes this, feeds her garden
religiously. Will you tell her? Will I? Soon the coffin

looms larger; the stone wall cracks. Someone is coughing.
A child peers from behind a crumbling fence. Is she the new Eden, dying
again? But still, there is that old photo; the small child loves her garden.
Surely, she can learn to till and plant, to care for the creatures that lie
beyond the boundaries of her own square of walled-in earth. 
Surely, she can look within, then learn to look outside

her small plot. Will you teach her? Will I? A garden is a lookout
for the world, the view long. What will you build? A well? A coffin?
In the photo within the photo, a child waters a new old earth.
Will she replenish the dried-up well, follow the wisest dead
and recover Eden, detouring around all lies?
Will she sense the Christ child there, digging in the garden?

In the photo within the photo, the small girl waters her garden:
there is no fear or drought, no contamination. Look out
at the world. Look in at the sins of omission. Prophecy lies
just beyond our garden walls; the now rusted nails in the coffin
pollute even our wells. And yet, the small girl is listening. The dead
teach us this. Return with her to Eden. Show her the earth

can still bloom with God’s glory, can deconstruct the world’s coffin.
The dead rise up calling for mercy. Will you listen? Will I? The earth
waits impatiently. Outside/within us, the secret answer lies: Look—the Garden.

* * * * *

Secret Garden by Karen Elias

"Snapshot" was previously published in Caring for Creation: St. Andrew's Episcopal Church 2022 Poetry Contest Anthology, "Snapshot" (poem), "Secret Garden" (photo).

Professor at Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published 16 collections of poetry—including How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? (Kelsay); Seeing Things (Wildhouse); Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); Begin with a Question (International Book and Illumination Book Award Winners); Shanti Arts ekphrastic collaborations Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (w/Karen Elias) and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (w/Anna Lee Hafer www.hafer.work and others. is forthcoming. She also has published a story collection, 4 children’s books, and two anthologies (co-editor), and is assistant editor of Presence and host of Poetry Moment www.marjoriemaddox.com.

Karen Elias is an artist / activist who uses photography to record the fragility of the natural world and raise awareness about the climate crisis. Recently she has also been using photo-collage techniques to explore more complex and psychological aspects of our human connections to nature. Her work is in private collections, has been exhibited extensively, and has won numerous awards.  

Ode to Almost-Silence

by Marjorie Maddox


Praise to the door clicking shut,
to absence warming up the room,

but not completely: fireplace flame still
spitting its lazy opinions, radiator

humming its calm, the floorboard’s creak
letting you know it’s still there

but won’t interrupt like the brash
morning jazz your husband plays

before coffee opens the ears
to thought and conversation.

Here: the louder hush of outside world
kept out—wind, occasional cat,

an emergency (not yours)
begging for someone else

to run, or fix, or bark commands
that can’t break into this cordoned-off

zone of chosen contemplation—
where, sometimes, even now, you hear

the memory of waves, the scratch
of sole on sand, the swirl of shells, and even

your chin lifting into salty air
as you listen not for the lost

and gone, but for what is
there and here inside

the ear and the empty
house, not empty after all.


* * * * *

"Ode to Almost-Silence" was previously published in The Grotto and Heart Beats and is forthcoming in the author’s book Seeing Things (Wildhouse, 2024). The author retains all rights.

Professor at Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published 16 collections of poetry—including How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? (Kelsay); Seeing Things (Wildhouse); Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); Begin with a Question (International Book and Illumination Book Award Winners); Shanti Arts ekphrastic collaborations Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (w/Karen Elias) and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (w/Anna Lee Hafer www.hafer.work and others. is forthcoming. She also has published a story collection, 4 children’s books, and two anthologies (co-editor), and is assistant editor of Presence and host of Poetry Moment www.marjoriemaddox.com

 

This month, another Moon Prize, the 135^th, goes to June Crawford Sanders's exuberant poem "Not Grimm."

 

Not Grimm

 

by June Crawford Sanders

 

 

I'm no princess but there's this one hill

on the way to my house that when

it snows then melts then refreezes

is as smooth as the fairy tale

glass mountain which was said to be

as smooth as ice and I'm not sure

a prince himself could ride up

even if I threw three golden apples

but if he did we sure could

have fun sledding back down.

 

 

 

This month, the 134th Moon Prize goes to Susan Isla Tepper's riveting story "Air Over Hanoi."

Air Over Hanoi

by Susan Isla Tepper

 
Soldiers are filing across the tarmac earlier than was scheduled.  We just de-planed a load of them from Guam, and now we stews are tearing through the Boeing 707, cleaning up as best we can.  Until a few bombs showed up on the planes, recently, Vietnamese ground service did the cleaning.  Not anymore. In a moment soldiers will be boarding and we don’t have our hats on yet.      
 
“Boarding!” comes over the intercom.  
 
Lana is rummaging through the overhead rack.  “Who put their damn crew kit on my hat!   It’s all crushed!”    
 
We’re proud of our hats with our wings pinned to them.  Stiff blue pillbox hats a la Jackie Kennedy.  It’s a reg to wear your hat during boarding and deplaning.  Even in Vietnam. The bulkheads have been yanked out turning passenger planes into troop ships.  A seemingly endless number of young boy-men to fill every seat.
 
I traded into this trip for the Honolulu layover.  I don’t hold this line. Girls way more senior than I am hold this line; though I can’t imagine why.  Despite the wet oppressive heat I still get a shiver down my spine as the first of the soldiers start climbing the metal stairs.
 
“Don’t forget to smile,” Margie is saying. 
 
She’s twenty-seven and thinks she knows it all.  I’m 19 and a half.  The youngest you can be to work for this airline.  I’ve been flying less than a year.  Mostly Madrid and Lisbon, sometimes London and Paris.  In London the hotel towel racks are heated.
 
I stand beside Margie at what is normally the first class cabin door; under normal circumstances.  The first soldier steps into the plane. He looks old around his eyes.  Margie and I smile saying, “Welcome Aboard.”  
 
Some smile back, some do not.  I start feeling terrible.   I’m sweating from my armpits, across my top lip, my scalp, inside my shoes and underwear.    
 
Last to board are the stretchers.  Margie keeps smiling; I have to give her that.  She smiles through the moaning behind barriers made from hung bed sheets, where the seats have been removed.  Medics assist those men.  I am told to keep out of their way.    
 
I begin feeling wrecked.   I didn’t feel wrecked when we came in for landing.  I had looked down, saw the fires burning here and there, the expanse of green and the paddies.  
 
For take-off I strap in next to Margie on the (usually) first class jump-seat. “How many times have you flown this rotation?”  I say.
 
“A few years.”
 
“A few years!”
 
She scrutinizes my face.  “Someone’s gotta do it.”
 
“I suppose.” 
 
Finally the plane is beginning to cool off.  The cockpit door swings open and the flight engineer sticks his head out.  “Could one of you sweet things bring me a Coke.”
 
“Sure!” I unbuckle my shoulder harness, jumping up.  The Coke can is barely cool; but there’s no time to start cracking ice. 
 
He thanks me with a grin and a wink.  “We’ll have some fun in Honolulu,” he says.
 
On the jump-seat Margie is having a last cigarette.  “The no-smoking sign is lit,” I tell her.
 
“Hon, this is Nam not Dayton.”
 
I strap back in as music fills the plane: Up, Up, and Away.  The same old tune always played on take-offs and landings.  Everywhere.  Here it sounds strange, unsettling.        
        
Margie bumps the side of my leg with hers. “It’ll be fine.”
 
Suddenly I’m glad to have this senior girl beside me.  Even though she’s a little odd. She carries her own ashtray in her purse, taken from an armrest.  Behind her back the other girls laugh about it.  She catches me looking at the ashtray in her lap. 
 
“We all have our thing,” she says.  “What’s your’s?  Secretly married?”  That, too, is strictly against regs.
 
I shake my head.  “No. You?”
 
“Naw.  I date a pilot who’s married.”
 
I turn my head toward the cockpit.
 
“Not them.”  She smiles.  “They’re good guys.  Always with the jokes, keeping up morale for the men.”  She takes a few quick puffs. “My guy has a Rome trip this month.”
 
“Why don’t you bid Rome?  You have enough seniority.”
 
“His wife is on that trip.”
 
“You mean she’s working it?”
 
“Yep.”  Then the plane begins to taxi and Margie grinds out the cigarette in her little personal ashtray.  “How old are you?”
 
“Almost twenty.”
 
“You’ve got a lot to learn.”   
 
The plane shudders down the runway, gains speed then lifts, music soaring on the choral part, when the pilot breaks in staticky over the intercom.  “Welcome aboard ladies and gentlemen.  We are in the air over Hanoi.” 
 
A huge roar of laughter fills the cabin.  And we lift higher into the sky.    


* * * * *

"Air Over Hanoi" was first published by Gargoyle Online https://gargoylemagazine.com/susan-tepper-2/

Susan Isla Tepper is a widely published writer in all genres, and the author of twelve books and two stage plays currently in some form of production which changes periodically according to the covid stats. Later this year another novel titled ‘Hair of a Fallen Angel’ will be published. www.susantepper.com

 

(Self) Love Potion
Family recipe | Full moon required

by Marion Chiariglione


I.
Reach for your cabinets.

Get up on a ladder if need be
& find the strength to make this,
your own recipe.

Don’t deviate too much or you could lose
pieces of yourself only to be found
in someone else you’d call “soulmate”.

II.
Start with a pinch—2 or 3 grains—of confidence
obtained at the crossroads of external validation & emancipation.

III.
Do not confuse newly found attention for admiration.

IV.
Add in 1 cup of tears—careful!
These need to be collected on a new moon
after moments of unrecognizable abandon—

V.
Mix in 1/4 of trust issues.

VI.
Don't forget to add 10 grams of family trauma
& je-ne-sais-quoi
pulled from the depths
of ancestral secrets—no je t’aime allowed at the altar.

VII.
Extract from Maman’s body 26 years worth of self-deprecation
& from that lineage decide the amount of painful blood to empty out.
Commit—for once—to the feeling of abandon.

VIII.
Now, dirty your hands & take ownership of
the path you’ve walked for centuries.

Harness the power
of generations behind your eyes.

IX.
Mix all ingredients well—Watch!
Feel your selves come alive at the hearth’s
fire—center love within.

X.
Expect results three full moons from now.


* * * * *

Marion Chiariglione is a writer and artist from Avignon, France currently living in Columbus, OH. Her work as a poet explores what it means to build new identities, to relate the self to others and to embody and embrace one’s feelings. She holds a MS in Computer Science and has published scientific work as part of her day job as a Data Scientist at The Ohio State University. This is her first poetry publication.