October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
It’s To Die For
the beauty of
this night,
its strange glow
of light rising
after days
of heavy rain.
At nightfall
the sky is alight
with pink
and yellow fire—
owlet moths
that thought
they were hidden
are in a frenzy over
the last purple spikes
of catnip. You and I
walk without words
as rain returns,
darkness resettles.
I have finally
figured it out,
I say: the only
price we must pay
for all this beauty
is to die for it.
Mid-September
This morning I stoop
to pull wild grass away
from bleeding hearts
and columbine, untangle
iris from spiderwort.
Has it been since June
that I knelt upon this ground?
A summer overgrown
has choked the simple
beginnings of spring—
an elderly mother’s move,
repairs to a rundown home,
common occurrences of life
that like the sheaths
of lady’s thumb
choke, cover, obscure
adjacent bloom.
I weed along toward noon.
Sun lightens the delicate leaves
of coral bells, bare black
earth again revealed,
and I lean heavily on
soil scarcely redeemed.
by Judith Grissmer
Judith Grissmer’s work has been published in the Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, the Golden Nib Online Anthology (2010 first place in poetry VA Writers Club), The Blue Ridge Anthology (2008/2010 first place in poetry, Blue Ridge Writers Club), The Alembic, Crack the Spine, Mikrokosmos Journal, and Schuylkill Valley Journal. Work is forthcoming in the Edison Literary Review and Penmen Review. She has attended poetry workshops and classes in universities and writing centers, worked independently with instructors at those centers, and has participated in writers’ critique groups for many years.
October 2015 | back-issues, fiction
When I was in sixth grade Mom asked me what I wanted to do for the summer. “Camp is good, you’ll make friends.” She said it like an adopted kid wouldn’t get confused. You got me almost yesterday.
Mom and Dad were getting a divorce and didn’t want me around while they decided. Maybe I skewed the thought process. When I looked over the camps they were mostly the kind with cabins or rooms, that I would write letters back home. Mom already figured out that I wouldn’t write letters, she must have known that in college I wouldn’t pick up the phone either.
She didn’t pick up when Dad called. Sighed. Made remarks that she thought were funny, because she would make a funny voice. “It’s your father. God.” I chose a day camp, and she was good at being glad. “You’ll like it, I bet, but if you change your mind, tell me.”
Halfway through summer they seemed to get along. I ruined the process again, righted the train crash of their marriage. Japanese and Jewish; her family fought his family in the war. Romeo and Juliet were supposed to die in the end, but I figured I knew what it was like if they didn’t. I said this to my English teacher once and he moved past the issue quickly. He didn’t want the other kids to think as hard about it as I did, even though half of them had.
They didn’t get divorced until I was in college. I didn’t answer the phone when they called about it; just an email. They got rid of me, but not each other, I liked to think. It was too late to change my mind about day camp.
by Jono Naito
Jono Naito is a recovering New Yorker and MFA student at Syracuse University. His work has appeared in Bard Lux Literary Magazine, Paper Darts Magazine, and the Eunoia Review, as well as online at jononaito.com. He lives with his partner-in-crime and an arrogant bird that looks like an avocado.
October 2015 | back-issues, fiction
I tried so hard to keep fear away from her. In the garden, I’d say, “See, honey, a worm,” and watch her pick it up, never showing the squeamishness that kept me from touching a worm myself.
We read stories of strong, brave women, who surmounted obstacles, forging ahead, not allowing fear to vanquish them. Overprotected Understood Betsy learned to stand on her own, and when she and little Molly were accidentally abandoned at the county fair, Betsy hid her fear. She promised Molly she would find a way home—and she did. In So Far form the Bamboo Grove, Yoko and her sister survived horrifying war privations and subsistence conditions before being reunited with their family.
When my daughter went to college in 2002, with the ashes of the Twin Towers still nearly visible, we walked up the Harlem hill, through the wrought iron gate into the university that had welcomed immigrants. Then we walked down the hill to the Hudson River.
“Which way is home?” I asked. She pointed north,.
“Right,” I told her. “The river goes home, If anything happens, try to get a ride north, as far as you can if you can’t get all the way. Route 9, Broadway here, goes all the way to Saratoga. You can follow Route 9 home. If you can’t go by road, follow the river. It will take a long time, weeks, maybe longer, but the Hudson will bring you home.”
She listened, nodding silently but confidently, secure in her strength, in her wood skills, in her ability to find my love waiting for her whatever happened, where ever she went, secure in the shining innocence of youth.
I left her and drove home listening to the rattling chains of fear traveling with me.
by Jane Arnold
Jane Arnold has been writing and publishing nonfiction essays and memoir for over 25 years. During the past five years, she has been writing and publishing fiction, including flash fiction and short stories. She teaches writing and literature at a community college.
October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
Social sensibilities
in the Information Age
are communicated in sound bytes,
exchanging mostly trivia
in brief, revealing detail
that neither satisfies,
nor extends relationships,
tersely structured
for minimal response
from diminutive users.
by Gary Beck
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. He has 11 published chapbooks. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways (Winter Goose Publishing). Perceptions, Displays, Fault Lines and Tremors will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. Conditioned Response will be published by Nazar Look. His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press) Acts of Defiance (Artema Press). Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing). His short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.
October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
Oh, home of cracked bones,
crypt of condensed composure.
My time has arrived.
One bone, two bones, three bones, rattle my bones,
shake the box until its cobwebbed truth tumbles out
onto hard-packed dust. Shredded into ivory splinters,
you’ll find the derailed train that hurtles toward you,
only a few feet away now. Before you crash, look
closer. Find the starfish patterns that sway on my
prison’s wall and congratulate them for commendable
perseverance. Scratch the surface of the midnight air.
Breathe the chemicals that rise from your skin. Pray
to the earth, press your lips against the summer’s final
remaining blade of grass and beg release from your
bindings. Remember the last time you swallowed
a watermelon seed, and remember the first time
the winter wind clutched your umbrella, allowing
the cold to seep quietly, smoothly into your bones.
Oh, home of new bones,
crypt of condensed composure.
Your time arrives soon.
by Hannah Warren
Hannah is currently an undergraduate English major at Mississippi State University. Upon graduation, she wishes to pursue a Master in Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing; she is published in Nota Bene. She may be found rambling at inksplatteredwords.blogspot.com.
