Ice Melting

April 2020 | poetry, Pushcart nominee

can’t we see that,

escorted elected barbarians

in bed with morphine drips,

confused, hapless, wanderers

like brad pitt trying to explain

strike out to walk ratios,

mormon from utah ending

two year mission to watts

trying to explain the green

stain on her white denims

glass of catawba

at halftime then

too drunk to sing karaoke

in nantuckett harbor after

stepping out after midnight

with crazy mad childless women

six hours a night

in casino back bars

doing a glacial hip hop stomp

the heavy razor edges

a classic southern Sabbath softening

to melodic sounds of bluegrass

away the crush, the glory

forgotten, erased, and discarded by

blowhard blackheaded rascist twits

who will read nietzsche in prison

just metaphors of martyrdom well placed

on the tantric twitter or

the everyday falsetto of facebook

played like a banjo

at an ozark pig roast

Dan Jacoby

Dan Jacoby is a graduate of Fenwick High School, St. Louis University, Chicago State University, and Governors State University. He has published poetry in the Arkansas Review, Bombay Gin, Burningword Literary Review, Canary, The Fourth River, Steel Toe Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and Red Fez to name a few. He is a former educator, steel worker, and counterintelligence agent.. He is a member of the Carlinville Writers Guild and American Academy of Poets . Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2015. Nominated for Best on the Net for Poetry in 2019 by Red Fez. His book, Blue Jeaned Buddhists, Duck Lake Books, is available where fine books are sold.

Shoshana Tehila Surek

April 2020 | poetry, Pushcart nominee

Green.

Like the Mississippi River where the Rock River cuts the Rock Island Arsenal bridge in three. Like heavy clouds in that evening period when birds huddle in nests to await the next. When a single bat cuts sky too early for the mayfly too late for robin. Like threats of let loose. Like cover, like hands over mouths, like breath. Like heat. In eddies where remains of my best friend were bagged, after bound, after held, after down. Like heavy and shut. Like what I call God, what I call Heaven, what I call Green. Where sand holds ankle, promise, and anklet. Bones trace fern. Memory trace warning sign. I sit on the second truss, halfway suspended, awaiting the storm.

Dizzy.

stumbles to wall

catches with skin

slides to floor

He can feel Her.

He can feel Her.

He can feel Her.

There.

closes window

draws curtains

turns gold

into patina

into green

into oozing

scabs upon canvas

No surprises

He says

Or he doesn’t. Not with hands.

falls into child’s pose

canary knees exhausted

postulates to her to her to her

She watches him

until he falls asleep

Shoshana Tehila Surek

Shoshana Surek received her MA and MFA in Creative Writing from Regis University. Her essays, short stories, flash fiction, and poetry, can be read or are forthcoming in Carve Magazine, december Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, Malahat Review, Vestal Review, Cease, Cows, 3Elements Review, and f(r)iction Magazine. In 2017, She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she is a 2019 Curt Johnson Prose Award finalist. More of her work can be found at www.ShoshanaSurek.com.