January 2019 | poetry
on the bus, after we heard the news,
I saw a woman softly sobbing into her hands;
beside her was a Whole Earth shopping bag
containing what must be heirloom or designer apples
that were almost orange in color –
perhaps a miniature pumpkin,
if such a thing exists –
and what resembled a purple pomegranate.
another woman was picking at her nails
nervously
like a monkey searching for nits.
the crying woman patted the pockets
of her all-weather jacket;
maybe she was searching for a handkerchief
to wipe her face?
but then I noticed that her face
was darkening, like the tears
were soot, and by mingling with her skin,
they were turning her entire person
into black-and-white, like an old-fashioned movie;
soon, everyone on the bus
was fading into black,
or vanishing altogether
as they bleached out of my vision.
I looked down at my hands
and I, too, no longer
had any color except shadows
and pale, ghostly flesh –
it seemed like early Halloween,
or an Edgar Allen Poe tale come to life.
someone on the bus said,
I think we’re heading back into the 1950s,
before color TV, and someone else said, no,
the 1930s, before Technicolor hit Hollywood:
it’s like in The Wizard of Oz, in Kansas,
before Dorothy meets the Munchkins,
or follows the yellow brick road.
the woman stopped her sobbing, sniffled, then said,
yes, we’re going backwards, to when white men
didn’t have to share the country with anyone else.
by Alison Jennings
Alison Jennings is retired from teaching and accounting; throughout her life, she has composed over 400 poems, and recently published several of them, in print journals and online. She lives in Seattle, where she writes poetry whenever she has time.
January 2019 | poetry
A noisy, anxious fall,
the nation hangs
on a precipice
as the noise reaches
an ugly crescendo.
In three days, we
will know the script
our nation will follow
the next two years.
As we look forward
in weary trepidation,
we mostly want it
to be over and usher
in a wintery peace.
by Janet Jenkins-Stotts
Janet Jenkins-Stotts has taught at Highland Community College, Wichita State University, and Kansas University. She has self-published a novel The Orchid Garden, and a chapbook, “Winter’s Yield. She has performed slam poems on weight loss, and women’s issues at Open Mics and slam contests.
January 2019 | poetry
My vagina and Venice Beach
both of which
are no longer that Xanadu
subculture of old school grooves and funk –
there’s no more riffing with Morrison,
no sonic hey-days
spent skating figure eights.
My vagina and Venice Beach
are haunted by the laughs of men
who’ve gentrified Bohemian-sweet virginity
with basil-honeysuckle soap
and brute celebrity.
My vagina and Venice Beach
were plowed by lucrative
boutiques, Silicon Beach, and tiny
yellow ghosts pulling out.
My vagina and Venice Beach
went from roller dancing to race riots,
Dogtown to Blue Bottle Coffee –
the boom boxes were stolen,
and the gondoliers
bought homes in the Valley.
The First Baptist Church of Venice
sits vacant and boarded up
while residents hold Sunday morning vigils
protesting the billionaire
who’s determined to make it his home.
V is for the vigil
I hold between my thighs.
by Candice Kelsey
Candice Kelsey’s poems have appeared in such journals as Poet Lore, The Cortland Review, Sibling Rivalry Press, and Wilderness House — and her work has been incorporated into multiple 3-D art installations. She has been accepted into the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Virginia Quarterly Review’s Writer’s Conference. She published a successful 2007 trade paperback with Da Capo Press. An educator of 20 years’ standing, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.
January 2019 | poetry
If these islands have names,
I do not know them,
for I am not of the earth.
If these seas have a name,
I do not know it,
for I am not of water.
If today’s soft wind has a name,
I do not know it,
for I am not of the air.
If the stars tonight have names,
I do not know them
for I am not of fire.
I am Time.
I am your moment: Now!
I know your name, I do.
by Karla Linn Merrifield
Karla Linn Merrifield, a nine-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, has had 700+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 13 books to her credit, the newest of which is Psyche’s Scroll, a book-length poem, published by The Poetry Box Select in June 2018. Forthcoming in June 2019 is her full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North, from Cirque Press. Her Godwit: Poems of Canada (FootHills Publishing) received the Eiseman Award for Poetry. She is assistant editor and poetry book reviewer for The Centrifugal Eye. She is a member of Just Poets (Rochester, NY), the Florida State Poetry Society, the New Mexico Poetry Society, and The Author’s Guild. Visit her blog, Vagabond Poet Redux, at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com. Google her name to learn more; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel; https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.
January 2019 | nonfiction
I carry two things with me at all times: mace and paranoia. I’m always looking over my shoulder. Always expecting the worst. Is that my shadow or a stranger’s? Is that man jogging or hunting for someone weak? Am I about to be mugged or hit on? There’s no sad back story here. I was never attacked. Everyone I love is still alive. I just remember watching the news before school every morning. There was always a blurb on the Christian Newsom murders. Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. It always showed the same picture. A young woman with blonde hair, only a shade lighter than my own hair, smiling next to a boy wearing a Tennessee baseball cap. They were young. Happy. Alive. The murder was never explicitly described on TV. They only ever said “heinous.” It was a heinous crime. It was a heinous crime that happened in the same town where I rode my bike. The same town where my dad parked his car. The same town where my mom worked late. I didn’t read the details of the crime until years later. I regretted it. The dark is so much scarier when the monsters are real. And when the monsters are people, people whose bones are likely the same color as mine.
Last night I was walking home from the park. I wasn’t alone, I had a man beside me. But so did Channon. I kept turning my head back and sizing up the men on the sidewalk. Joe watched me jump at shadows, and I could see him wondering, asking why. We were less than a block from campus and there was a man leaning against a tattoo parlor. He was watching us, his fist tapping the brick wall. My mace was buried in a bag. I didn’t have any money for him take. He would take my laptop, all of my writing, and maybe my phone. Maybe that would be all. Maybe I could leave with my body intact. The man turned from the wall and entered the tattoo parlor. As we walked by I kept craning my head back. I wanted to be certain.
When I got back to my room I told a friend about the man leaning against the tattoo parlor. She said I was just paranoid. Later that night I researched the difference between pepper spray and mace. I learned that pepper spray causes more pain. I went on Amazon to make sure mine was pepper spray. It is. And I added a purple stun gun to my wish list.
by Sophie Ezzell
Sophie Ezzell was the winner of two Maier Writing Awards for her works in fiction and poetry. She is currently pursuing a degree in Creative Writing from Marshall University, where she also serves as Poetry Editor for its literary magazine, Et Cetera.
