July 2020 | poetry
Once, when beasts could shed the expensive fur
of an evil spell, and pigs find the tools
to save themselves, the frog words to secure
his place beside all that beauty, the mule—
beyond his usefulness—who lugged those sacks
of music deep inside for Brementown
proved (like the mermaid’s chronic bellyaches
to know how suffering makes one heaven’s own),
led me to believe anything was possible.
Even disappointment—having first crossed
my path disguised as a newt, for whom high
ground’s shoebox palace was never fable
to one day finding water, getting lost—
disappointment on its own true wand relies.
Shelley Benaroya
Shelley Benaroya is founding director and teaching artist for the Writing Center for Creative Aging (www.writingcenterforcreativeaging.com), launched in 2008. Her poetry has appeared in all the sins, Diner, Ekphrasis, Letters Journal, The Lyric, The Road Not Taken, Thirteenth Moon, and elsewhere. In 2017, she received the Ekphrasis Prize and a Pushcart Prize nomination.
July 2020 | poetry
Viral
Floating around
like a molecular cloud
hidden in spring flowers
wings of birds
leaves of artichoke
faces cloth
things eaten touched breathed
a Trojan army at the door
vortex unfelt unseen untasted
a pair of shoes full of venom
razor blade pants
shirt of rose thorns
maybe
in your nose mouth heart lungs
blood
until you are overrun by a million ants
carried into gaping
tunnels to feed the young
through winter
a thousand invisible punches
to the head
knocking you prone atmosphere
forced into your body
like a reluctant invader until
mystery subsides.
The Sink
When I first gazed upon the horizon
of an ocean
saw the endless
Endless freedom
Endless hope
Endless dreams
Endless art
Endless Earth
Endless life
All the places I in my mind
Until the bottles
filled with piss
Styrofoam
plastic grocery bags
six-pack rings
straws
bags
my unused medications
inorganic detritus
filling the guts
guts of fish
guts of whales
guts of humans
guts of minds
Every vista one
of disguised beauty
floating in planetary
trash.
Brad G Garber
Brad has degrees in biology, chemistry and law. He writes, paints, draws, photographs, and hunts for mushrooms and snakes in the Great Northwest. Since 1991, he has published poetry, essays and weird stuff in such publications as Edge Literary Journal, Pure Slush, Front Range Review, Tulip Tree Publishing, Sugar Mule, Third Wednesday, Barrow Street, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Barzakh Magazine, Ginosko Journal, Junto Magazine, Slab, Panoplyzine, Split Rock Review, Smoky Blue Literary Magazine, The Offbeat and other quality publications. 2011, 2013 & 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee.
