January 2022 | poetry
We track this slow animal in the snow
because it leaves a blood trail
and we think that makes it vulnerable
But then it circles back
breaks the trap and eats the bait
and suddenly disappears
Or comes up behind us
to prove its fangs are real
and at the same time
whispers to us in a soft voice
It lives in artefacts
among monuments and ruins
and at night drinks and carouses
and knocks on doors with its pommel
touting a swashbuckling history
But then finally grows old
and into a child again
was when it was first only a word
delicate as freedom or liberty
dried into a fragile antiquity
subtle as synapses in the brain
or the language of animals
Sing louder they say
and it will leave us alone
and when we dream of flight
it proves to us we have not
the wisdom of birds
George Moore
George Moore’s collections include Children’s Drawings of the Universe (Salmon Poetry 2015) and Saint Agnes Outside the Walls (FutureCycle 2016). He has published poetry in The Atlantic, Poetry, Arc, North American Review, Stand, and Orion. Nominated for seven Pushcart Prizes, and a finalist for The National Poetry Series, he presently lives on the south shore of Nova Scotia.
January 2022 | poetry
In This House We Believe In
blogs that pant and drool
speaking with the manager
In This House We Believe In
the latent philosophy of tater tots
Bundt cakes that know how to testify
In This House We Believe In
pinball melodies of washer/dryer combos
chihuahuas that wear lipstick
futures that refuse their present
therapists who prescribe cages in cages
In This House We Believe In
the salt & pepper of the masses
and of course, sanctimonious final lines.
Rikki Santer
Rikki Santer’s poetry has received many honors including six Pushcart and three Ohioana book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her eleventh poetry collection, Stopover, which is in conversation with the original Twilight Zone series was recently published by Luchador Press. Please contact her through her website: rikkisanter.com
January 2022 | poetry
This breathing light is
full of past afternoons, curved as sails.
I try to find the Mountain Man album
I would listen to in the last house,
in the lamp’s honeying, in the shampoo smell
and closeness of a rose-patterned quilt.
Some things are a sun
the heavy months have slipped in front of:
the songs I alight on are more recent,
but I listen as a Saturday fades
in that chore-filled way.
A core: in between the swoop of voices
I can hear my hands smooth fabric,
make small predictions.
I still find it hard to tell
which shirts will hold damp longest,
gathered in their furthest corners.
In other words, idle things occur,
and occur to me: my father playing guitar
by the rough stone side of a daydream.
Being twelve, the stalled shape time takes on;
the plastic strings, varnish that peeled
away with a small noise sometimes,
left flywing shapes. The feeling
leaf-weightless and portable.
Alicia Byrne Keane
Alicia Byrne Keane is a poet and PhD student from Dublin. Alicia has a first class honours degree in English Literature and French from Trinity College Dublin and a MSt. in English Literature 1900-Present from Oxford University, and is currently finishing an Irish Research Council-funded PhD study that problematizes ‘vagueness’ and the ethics of translation in the work of Samuel Beckett and Haruki Murakami, at TCD. Alicia’s poetry has been published in The Moth, The Colorado Review, The Cardiff Review, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Banshee, Bayou, Entropy, Abridged, and the Honest Ulsterman, among others. Alicia’s poem ‘surface audience’ was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net Prize; the short story ‘Snorkels’ was featured in Marrowbone Books’ anthology ‘The Globe and Scales.’ Alicia is in receipt of an Irish Arts Council Agility Award.
January 2022 | poetry
Saturday morning to ourselves.
No husbands, no kids.
The lake house, a friend’s but ours
for a few hours. We shimmy
out of jeans into bathing suits,
one piece, thanks very much.
On the pier, I drop my cover-up,
dangle feet in cool water. You say
no one’s seen me in a suit since the
kids were born.
No judgment, I answer,
all the while thinking
why don’t we ever take it easy
on ourselves, we women? Be more like
men. Never a thought to
belly bursting its waistband,
to skin once smooth and firm, now
sagging. Eyes never darting
downward in shame for appearing
less than perfect.
The sun behind does its magic,
transforms us to long shadows
dancing, shimmering,
transports us, two young girls
laughing, carefree
on a do-nothing summer’s day.
Peggy Hammond
Peggy Hammond’s recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Pangyrus, The Comstock Review, For Women Who Roar, Fragmented Voices, The Sandy River Review, ONE ART, and elsewhere. A Best of the Net nominee, her chapbook The Fifth House Tilts is due out fall 2022 (Kelsay Books). Her full-length play A Little Bit of Destiny was produced by OdysseyStage Theatre in Durham, NC.
January 2022 | poetry
I ran
she said, you’ll fall over, stupid
I tripped
she said, one day you’ll break a leg
I sang,
she said, you’re badly out of tune
I smiled
she said, that’ll get you into trouble
I lived
without running, tripping, singing, smiling
I screamed
silenced her, claimed my stalled freedoms
Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon
Ceinwen lives near Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and writes short stories and poetry. She is widely published in online magazines and in print anthologies. Her first chapbook was published in July 2019: ‘Cerddi Bach’ [Little Poems], Hedgehog Press. She is a Pushcart Prize (2019 & 2020) and Forward Prize (2019) nominee She is developing practice as a participatory arts facilitator and believes everyone’s voice counts, even when their stories are hard to hear.
January 2022 | poetry
In the desert men
left their red hand prints
in high caves
We climbed to see them
In the arid map-drawn panhandle
men found shadowed crevices
to scratch out figures
of their prey
then self symbols
some magic to catch them?
We trudge and climb
to find them
Our thirsty days lead us
to dry lands
and hidden places searching
for the reasons that flicker
in the dark recesses of our minds
whisper welcome
to what we seek
even in the heavy silences
of these humid-breathed
and drowsy afternoons.
Carol Hamilton
Carol Hamilton has retired from teaching 2nd grade through graduate school in Connecticut, Indiana, and Oklahoma, from storytelling and volunteer medical translating. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has published 17 books: children’s novels, legends and poetry and has been nominated nine times for a Pushcart Prize. She has won a Southwest Book Award, Oklahoma Book Award, David Ray Poetry Prize, Byline Magazine literary awards in both short story and poetry, Warren Keith Poetry Award, Pegasus Award and a Chiron Review Chapbook Award.
