October 2018 | poetry
i carry infection in saliva
like a point of pride
see, my city reeks of bone
tall skeleton skyscrapers
i’m numb again
as dental drill enters me
year after year
what birthed my decays?
raised to desire new
wants every day
wanting even wanting
my dad worked at a ford factory
after the great depression
churned out a new kid
every few years
seasons of rust
spreading on steel
here’s the sunset
he’d wake us to say &
spend the days molding
the yard
rough hands on saw
that was satisfactory
to him
for me oaks are cold towers &
grass not godmade
took a clump in my mouth
from the graveyard as a child &
i swear i tasted
death
but could not digest it
i’m but a skeleton
all life’s experiences
slip through me
masticating childhood
no pondering
the future with mom and dad
scooping fries at ponderosa &
we’d always go for seconds &
mint ice cream after
by James Croal Jackson
James Croal Jackson is the author of The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Columbia Journal, Hobart, and elsewhere. He edits The Mantle, a poetry journal, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Find more at jimjakk.com.
July 2018 | poetry
The Slush-Yo-Mouth truck pulls up
in the magic half-hour between
softball and baseball tournaments
with cobalt blue paint chipping off
as the truck bounces off the potholes
and split-in-half bats left on the dirt
road leading into the park from the
county highway. A Snow Cone in
purple parachute pants, no shirt,
and oversized aviator sunglasses
riding a neon green and burnt
orange skateboard is painted
to the right of the serving window,
using a mini version of itself as
a microphone while Wu Tang Clan
screams they’re nothing to fuck with
from the open back doors, singing
along but quit when the youth pastor
walks by, terrified he’d tell our coach
and we’d have to run laps around
the field. The younger kids pull chunks
of paint off and throw them at each
other when the games start back up
and their parents turn back to watch as
the pitcher panics about the left-handed
batter who just moved to town. We
watch and throw hunks that missed
the intended kid back into the impromptu
fighting pit to see how much more
chaos we could cause. We wait in line
behind the kids who run up with a couple
of dollar bills in one hand and boiled
peanuts in the other even though
they’re still sticky from their morning
moon pies and R.C. colas, covered
in stains from the black sand we called
dirt and clay from the unfished ball field.
We change behind the Port-a-Jons that
smell like weed, Ax body spray, and puked
up corndogs from our cleats into flip flops
and softball pants into cheer-shorts, ignoring
what our mothers said about how girls
who roll their shorts more than once
end up like Glenda the hooker.
by Betsy Rupp
Betsy Rupp’s previous work appears in Emrys Journal and has been accepted for presentation at the Southern Writers Graduate Conference. She is currently working toward completing her MFA in Poetry at Florida State University. Previously, she earned her MA in English Literature, with a concentration in Poetry, from Mississippi State University. She focuses her work on exploring the beautiful strangeness of her small Florida hometown.
July 2018 | Best of Net nominee, poetry
Waking at Night
Such a short distance between genius
and shit. Take those elephant turds
Bruce Nauman (1991 Walker Art Center)
stacked in piles on the floor, soft cannon balls,
so appealing to some humans, something we can
all relate to. In my claustrophobic little corner
(compared to the Milky Way) I am happy,
moon-devotée that I am with a rag of the ancient
floating first hand outside my window. Take
these lines written in the darkness around
my bed. I hope they don’t cross
over themselves creating rows like il-
legible barbed wire some French girls
stood behind at the end of a world war,
brunette and blond collaborators
whose hair was shorn, the sign for bedding up
with a Wehrmacht man who gave them cognac
and nylons they could sell on the black market.
The girls’–women’s– heads, skulls, spat upon,
cross-and-bones thin, reviled little female
christs. It’s just dizziness. It’ll pass. It’s just this
time of night and the room so small. There
are bad dreams and then it’s over and they/
we can go back to sleep again.
But why would anybody
take this shit from the elephant kings,
their balls. Even the elephants were
astonished that their turds
were sold with their ivory.
Their leftovers.
We Missed the Boat
after Brave Irene by William Steig
Never compare yourself to another,
especially when she’s Irene Bobbin,
at the door to her mother’s little yellow
parlor with its pictures and mannequin.
“Bye! I’ll deliver the gown to the duchess.”
Mrs. Bobbin, a single mom, brimming
with exhaustion called from her bed,
“Don’t go, Irene. A storm’s in full swing.”
But Irene set off with gown in box,
into the darkening winter afternoon.
(You and I set out, too, on a mission.)
Even though the wind tore open
the box, even though the snow
was hip high, even though Irene
thought she was lost, maybe going
in circles, she struggled on.
(Did we quit too early?)
Somewhere past Farmer Bennett’s
pasture the wind was so strong it
blew away two tissue paper ghosts
that sheltered the beautiful pink,
sparkly dress. And the dress, too.
(What went wrong for us?)
Irene had a mission for sure.
She was focused on succeeding,
a matter of food for the cupboards,
wood for her mother’s cold stove,
and something for the pot on it.
(We could’ve tried harder, I guess.)
Irene‘s tasks doubled: now
she must find the lost gown.
Through gangly, primordial woods
where there’s no sense of direction,
she stumbled on, snow blind, from tree
to tree until her little legs protested
they could lift themselves no more.
But there! At wit’s end, there was
the dress, plastered to a tree,
decking the trunk out for a party.
(Maybe the Fates were against us.)
A sight indeed for sore eyes.
And not much farther on, an amber
window light spilled out over the snow.
The palace! Irene huddled before the door.
Like a snow sculpture, but she’d made it!
(And if she hadn’t? That happens, too.)
All good things followed: the Duchess’s
pleasure at the gown, the warm ballroom,
the delicious feast an absolute joy
for porridge-fed Irene. And best of all,
a purse full of money for her mom. The end.
(It almost hurts, others’ triumphs, they feel so good.)
by Sharon Chmielarz
Sharon Chmielarz has had eleven books of poetry published, the latest, “little eternities,” in Sept. 2017. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize seven times and five of her books runners-up for literary awards. Kirkus Reviews named her “The Widow’s House” one of the 100 best books in 2016. She was born in South Dakota but has spent her adult life in Minneapolis, MN.
July 2018 | Best of Net nominee, poetry
We are all lined down;
deep and thick in a pit;
so black there is no other color
where pleas and prayers cannot escape
but seep down this jail of flesh.
There is no room to bleed.
Our ghosts scoff, “Show us your chains.
Give us your screams and your wails.
Tell us your stories and tales
of the ocean, of sales,
of fields, of bales,
or we don’t know you.”
Children barter unearned coin
with unmarked hands
and forsake God for gimme and gold
to buy peace from the secret sin.
They covet another color;
any other color.
What I hate about my color is my hate.
What I hate about my color is my sorrow.
What I hate about my color is that color
is so precious to the Beast.
God made us black.
The Beast made it matter.
Still, our ghosts scoff, “Show us your chains.
Give us your screams and your wails.
Tell us your stories and tales
of the ocean, of sales,
of fields, of bales,
or we don’t know you.”
What I love about my color are my mothers.
What I love about my color are my brothers;
sanctuary, survival, solace, and succor.
I may scale the strong walls,
and stronger walls that we build
with guilt, blame and shame.
and exorcise ghosts
that scoff and boast.
by Stuart James Forrest
Stuart James Forrest developed a passion for creative writing while attending the Stanford University Continuing Studies Program. He enjoys writing poetry and short stories and hopes to develop enough skill to be a strong, creative representative of his generation of Black Americans who lived through a very tumultuous period in American history.
July 2018 | poetry
Aum Ah Loka Ah Hung
Jah Sirocco Loam Shekinah Sirrah Sung
Slippers and Tea
Flippers and Thee
Hi Dee Ho / Hi Dee Hee
Tee Hee Tee Hee
Bless me Holy Father for I have pinned
thy priests’ performance to a document of sins:
from raping little children to enslaving Indians,
from enflaming witches, to left freezing street denizens;
a bejewelled hierarchy,
women blamed and excluded;
the task overdue: Ask forgiveness — please the dead —
for doctrine of discovery, terra nullius, indebted payments
for lands and autonomy stolen, coloured citizens
fallen to a cross on one hand, larcenous sword of Jesus in t’other.
pray for the wind for the curtains that bulge at windows
breeze to cool the fevers of memory
More, you say, more…. Economy’s profit, the crop tall and green;
but mono-, not poly-, lone farmer on empty plain,
without bison or predaceous partners: no wolves, no bears —
no gophers, no hawks; fields of one plant, ahh Christ,
how’d I get stuck here, no neighbours, no helpers,
just me ‘n’ this bleedin’ time-delimited scheme?
pleasant little creek from the glacier’s tongue
meanders even froths through high meadow
tasting the soil its knowable limits
Pipe wrench and wires, screw threads and welds,
mechanico-industrial pumps roaring out dulled life, pitting
worker ‘gainst worker, race against race,
cis- against genders of any other;
theft division and greed engrained industry’s
employment, wage slaves the norm, boss above workers;
owners on holiday, counting their harm.
oh lord won’t you grant me…
a seat round the fire
In the systems of robbery blue notes drone, counterpoint
to a march of military gore — the ordinary scheme of things.
Jazz rocks through agonies of approved comportment,
belies the instructive stance, upsetting the conditioned woes;
unseating the ministers to the dance floor of doom, the generals,
the hireling politicians chanting choruses after chorus
where the blood red river flows.
sing the silk road sing the desert and mountains
horses and camels elephants and yaks
sings with the animals sings to the distant sea
oh hear the answers
Bludgeoned laughter
not so funny;
all that piss pot
full of money.
Sort out the good ‘uns,
kill all the bad;
lever up the leavings
for the little buggered lad;
lever up the leavings
that the women never had;
lost it on the shore,
lost it in the war,
tore up the deed
to the burning store.
by Philip Kienholz
Philip Kienholz studied creative writing at North Dakota State University and received a B. Arch from the University of Manitoba. Publishing credits include a 2016 book, Display: Poems; two chapbooks, The Third Rib Knife, and Born to Rant, Coerced to Smile, as well as poems in journals: Whirlwind, Windsor Review, Greenzine, River Dhamma, Links, Poetry Halifax, Global Tapestry Journal, NeWest Review, Cutting Edge, Quarry, Atticus Review, Whetstone, Prairie Fire, Ecospeak, and Crazy Horse.
July 2018 | poetry
Grievance is impatient;
Grief is patient.
On the sidewalk outside the Millgate Inn,
in a baseball cap, with a catcher’s mit,
it waits at 4:15 P.M. Father had promised
the dunes sculpted by wind and water
last summer and all autumn then
Persona of the displaced roots,
the tiding stem that broke ground
in winter before one last freeze,
Only a slip of a feral bud speaks
but the scent of its voice drowns
in the evening bustle of bawdymen
roughhousing toward homekept ladies.
On the pavement so many once like itself
spread from the factory gate like Jews
rushing from Cossacks; the furnace
of the mill is the eye and the heart
of the Czar. The feral bud
waits for the thick hand
of its planter to pluck it up
into the swirl of homerush,
the scent of its voice on the ear
of the old man whose grace
levels the pavement. Today,
it will say, will we go Dunes–
to the dunes and write in the sand.
A strange rough cloth stands behind
the bud; it is the messenger
who carries the charred boot.
Dew on the first petal of the flower;
winter comes again. The street
empties while the petals unfold.
The tiding stem woodens;
it is a line pointing, a ray outward
toward the center, pistil and stamen.
Like a lump of slag, the seed planter
in a steel vase is lowered, is planted.
The sapling headstone erect without word.
He had wanted no words on him.
Give me a tree on my chest; it is best,
for I have made roots where there were
once none.
So I shall stand forever in the tree,
in one place.
Sea-oats imported, planted on dunes
that had long squirmed like a worm’s
belly on hot pavement, going nowhere.
The sea-oats’ dying blackened dunes
with their dust; they have reddened
sunsets with pollen, done the work of ages.
The dunes are a place or remnant of place
before the sea-oats worked it, drained
the tidal pools, and flattened the world
as it was. The sea-oats shaded the grass,
nurtured the feral buds,
became food for trees.
Be no flower on another man’s lapel,
he had said; be a wild rose
thorny and elegant and wild
like the grass at the dunes
The trees became houses then homes.
History began in these homes,
repeated the world as it was,
and that world as it was then
became the world as it is now
The Dunes. Sculpted by wind.
The furnace fires.
My father’s tree,
my tree, its roots in place.
by John Horvath Jr
Mississippian John Horváth Jr publishes internationally since the 1960s (recently in Munyori Review (Zimbabwe); Broad River Review (print). Pink Litter, and Olentangy Review). After Vanderbilt and Florida State universities, “Doc” Horváth taught at historically Black colleges. Since 1997, to promote contemporary international poetry, Horváth edits www.poetryrepairs.com.
