Be Wary of Sadness in Dark Times

April 2020 | poetry

I notice my parents’ aging as I do my own:

Not at all, then in a photo, all at once.

I blink and seasons, eons have passed.

Now Winter speaks to me, her voice

a groan of boilers straining against cold—

Don’t be sad. Does not the frost remind

of home? Of baking Piroshki with Grandma?

On sluggish mornings such as this, when

the sun sweats to warm the chilly earth,

I wonder what my napping son is dreaming,

what he will ask when he grows old—

Remember that photo of Grandma and Grandpa?

They are smiling and, though it’s getting dark, I smile back.

What was it you wrote about America and hope?

(So much happens when we’re asleep;

One morning I awoke to an altered Earth.)

You’ve begun to stir. I hear your happy babbling.

This darkness is heavy; I won’t let it crush you too.

Andy Posner

Andy Posner grew up in Los Angeles and earned an MA in Environmental Studies at Brown. While there, he founded Capital Good Fund, a nonprofit that provides financial services to low-income families. When not working, he enjoys reading, writing, watching documentaries, and ranting about the state of the world. He has had his poetry published in several journals, including Burningword Literary Journal (which nominated his poem ‘The Machinery of the State’ for the Pushcart Poetry Prize), Noble/Gas Quarterly, and The Esthetic Apostle.

Claire Scott

April 2020 | poetry

Another Poem About Liberals

Some of us use paper straws & take two minute showers

others schlepp coffee cups to Starbucks

to be filled with almond milk lattes

many of us separate paper & plastic for recycling

then yank plastic bags from the dispenser at Whole Foods

& fill them with crème fraîche, avocados & pine nuts

a few tell the server they will keep their plate, thank you

no need for a clean one for their entrée

of Atlantic salmon or T-bone steak

several car pool if convenient, maybe once a month

then fly to the Barbados or Cancun or Kauai

for lavish vacations in five star hotels

air conditioning blasting in each room

one of us planted a tree, another bought an LED light bulb

all of us feel virtuous about our choices, our laudable intentions

that leave us with a taste of piety on our tongues

none of us wants to look at islands of trash

floating in the Pacific, forests burning in Brazil

none of us wants to hear the thrum of extinction

marching steadily behind

finger bones pointing at our backs

Grey Witches

Three ancient sisters huddle together

passing one rheumy eye between them

each taking a turn, ten minutes max

bickering since only one can see the clock

each sister with a different perspective à la Freud

depending on how she was treated by her mother (never her father)

Deino afraid of everything, gulping Xanax by the fistful

staying home at night, watching sitcoms with curtains closed

Enyo a woman of rage, marching for gay rights, trans rights, squirrels’ rights

throwing fire bombs into right wing protesters, cheering as they explode

Pemphredo a visionary sending out alarms of rising waters,

bones on bleached deserts, wars fought with iron spears

three stygian witches who rule a swamp

three me’s with one eye between them

Claire Scott

Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.

Escape from L.A. in a Tube Elevator to The Green Cave

April 2020 | poetry

Los Angeles energy and diversity

sometimes combined with a sort of

malevolence and I needed an escape

At first I had closed the blinds to the

sea, visitors asked me why, I said it

just served to emphasize I’d gone as

far West as I could go and Alger’s

advice was meant for younger men

and it saddened me. Then I came to

find The Tube. In moments before

sleep, I would enter a pneumatic

tube of copper and glass and it sent

me deep into the earth with a quiet

whooshing sound, and I’d descend

smoothly with a growing sense of

calm, down, down, down until the

elevator came to a slow, non-jolting

stop, and the doors slid open to

reveal a scene: walkways, panorama

of depths and finished walls chipped

out of cavelike structures, softly lit

but well-lit, the light was green but

greenish gold in areas, industrial

machines whirred and performed

generative tasks and men in hard

hats walked about checking things

and took no notice of me. The big

machines, made of one foot pipes

bolted together with flanges were

all industrial green on concrete

pads, with gauges and louvered

sides, and I knew they supplied the

power and light for the complex, a

seemingly endless cave of tranquil

energy, there for me whenever I

needed it for restoration and deep

green sleep to face the L.A. day.

Guinotte Wise

Guinotte Wise writes and welds steel sculpture on a farm in Resume Speed, Kansas. His short story collection (Night Train, Cold Beer) won publication by a university press and enough money to fix the soffits. Five more books since. A 5-time Pushcart nominee, his fiction and poetry have been published in numerous literary journals including Atticus, The MacGuffin, Southern Humanities Review, Rattle and The American Journal of Poetry. His wife has an honest job in the city and drives 100 miles a day to keep it. Some work is at http://www.wisesculpture.com

Boundaries

April 2020 | poetry

I am a stranger

I am not your bird

I am not your sea

I am not your inspiration

I am not your tree

I am not your ear ear

I am not your flirt

I am not your overseer

I am not your dirt

I am not your Ledbetter

I am not your Freud

I am not your fairy tale

I am not your every wish for

I am not your Prophet

I am not your favor and favor and favor

I am a

stranger

Wendy Gist

Wendy Gist was raised in the forest of the Southwest on the outskirts of Flagstaff, Arizona. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in For Women Who Roar, Fourth River, New Plains Review, Oyez Review, Rio Grande Review, Soundings Review, St. Austin Review, Sundog Lit, The Chaffey Review, Tulane Review and other fine journals. Gist has worked as a professional contributing writer for many leading publications including Better Nutrition, Caribbean Travel and Life, eDiets, New Mexico Magazine, Pilates Style, Today’s Diet and Nutrition, and numerous others (national and international). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of the chapbook Moods of the Dream Fog (Finishing Line Press, 2016). She was named semifinalist for The Best Small Fictions, 2017.