Scott McDaniel

April 2019 | Best of Net nominee, poetry

An I-40 Road Song

 

Rusting roof top words invite us

to change course and See Rock City.

On the radio, “American Pie” crashes into static.

I’m on my back in the back,

watching the traffic of tree branches pass.

Mom tells Dad to slow.

 

I-40 is an infinite list of options

that we won’t choose:

we will not stop for Casey Jones Village,

will not veer up highway 641 to catch

the Tennessee River Freshwater Pearl Farm.

We drive on by.

 

Tourist traps, Dad whispers, seemingly to himself.

It’s been too long since Mom has seen her Mom—

moms need their moms too, it seems

so we go on

through last night’s rain,

through Appalachian oaks,

through smoke-like fog,

through towns with crooked sheriffs

and newly constructed revival tents

through the silence between us

 

Finally, we arrive,

and after cursory greetings

and “you’re getting so talls,”

I find myself staring at the popcorn ceiling

from my grandmother’s couch,

eyes searching for passing trees

and signs for Hidden Hollow or The Mule

on the Cliff — Finding a shelf of unread books.

 

 

The Statue of Robert E. Lee Contemplates his Removal

 

When I see the forgotten,

the dirty ones pushing stolen

carts, their fingerless wool

gloves gripping tight to all

they have left, I find myself

thinking back to those

rat boiling winters

when supplies were short,

the mud was thick

and the men wanted to battle

only to pillage

blankets.

 

Standing atop this pedestal

overlooking my namesake park,

I’ve seen more than one mugging.

More than one poet penning metaphors

in a comp book. Protests, wedding ceremonies,

artists, rapes…

 

to me it all looked like

death and sounded like the

burning howls that have haunted

me since the Wilderness. Death

didn’t die in the fields of Slaughter Pen Farm

or the trenches of Richmond. It followed me

here. Just last week

 

I saw a car careen

and kill a child. The driver ran

around the wreck screaming,

it was all my fault! It was all

my fault. As if that chant

could change the choice.

I said the same incantation

at Gettysburg but learned

the dead stayed dead

and the dying kept dying.

I offered to step down,

tender my resignation

only to be refused so I

resigned myself to more

 

 

and more and I got so

Goddamn weary of it all.

 

Take me down.

For the love of God.

Take me down.

 

 

Scott McDaniel

The work of Pushcart Prize-nominated poet Scott McDaniel has been featured in Mad Swirl, Deep South Magazine, Oberon Poetry Magazine, Common Ground Review and The New Guard. He has read throughout his home state of Arkansas as well as Manhattan and Castletownroche, Ireland. Scott began writing poetry at an early age and was encouraged to do so by his cousin, award-winning inaugural poet Miller Williams. He lives and works in his hometown of Jonesboro, Arkansas; a city outside of Memphis that is highly influenced by the culture of the Mississippi Delta. His writings reflect the unique hues, quirks and broken promises of the modern south.

On Hearing ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ When You Don’t Have Kids

April 2019 | poetry

after Reginald Shephard’s “My Mother Was No White Dove”

 

I am not a Mom

yet Mom’s what they think.

 

I am a woman

and Mom’s what they see.

 

Adults write about their mothers

as if composing a greeting card.

 

Their mothers are kind, supportive

an inspiration even sixty years later.

 

People raised by troubled mothers

…those poems are rare.

 

Finally a poet whose mother was

“…the clouded-over night…”

 

When the young man returns my credit card,

says, Happy Mother’s Day! I am pleased

to think he does not know such darkness.

 

 

Mary C. Rowin

Mary C. Rowin’s poetry has appeared in publications such as Panopoly, Stoneboat, Hummingbird and Oakwood Literary Magazine. Recent awards include poetry prizes from The Nebraska Writers Guild, and Journal from the Heartland. Mary’s poem “Centering,” published in the Winter 2018 issue of Blue Heron Review, was nominated for the Push Cart Anthology. Mary lives with her husband in Middleton, Wisconsin.

It’s 1938 Again

April 2019 | poetry

it’s 1938 again, glass shatters

shards scatter, lives don’t matter

state sponsored murder sanctioned

and the constituents celebrate

and the constituents applaud

 

toxic rallies continue

hot coals are thrown into boiling

pots of ignorant meltdown ignited

and the constituents celebrate

and the constituents applaud

 

the fallout spreads

and the fallout is out of control

as ash and smoke hover like

low hanging clouds hiding our eyes

from daylight tempting us with madness

 

the morning sonnet of the Song Thrush

the nighttime chirp of crickets, the glitter

at dusk from fireflies are no longer only

cries of children cries of mothers

cries of fathers and weeping walls

 

blood runs in the street blood runs in the rivers

blood drips, drips, drips in the drains while mirth

reigns in chateaus, castles and towers tall, tall, tall

and the constituents are happy

and the constituents celebrate

and the constituents applaud

 

it’s 1938 again

 

Jerry T Johnson

Jerry T. Johnson is a Poet and Spoken Word Artist whose poetry has appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies. Jerry often features at a variety of spoken word venues in the New York City area and he currently lives in Danbury, Connecticut with his wife Raye.

Gone

April 2019 | fiction

My husband and I go to the church craft fair. We are surprised because my mother is there. Her booth is in the corner. She is selling crocheted baby blankets and baby beanies. We don’t think it’s her at first. The booth is draped in black. Her products are black, too. No pretty-in-pink pink or robin’s-egg-blue. Not even the occasional relief of white. When we get close, my mother puts down the beanie she’s working on and smiles shyly. I smile shyly, too. My husband wanders away to the booth that has pottery car parts.

The woman in the booth next to my mother’s comes over and says,

“She’ll need a ride home.”

Like I wouldn’t know this.

My mother’s eyes are as big as a puppy’s. She nods. I nod back.

Then I go and spend money on gifts. Because that’s what you do at a church craft fair. Jesus died on a cross. His robe was shredded. We have to buy him a new one.

When I get back to my mother’s booth, it is packed up. Like Christ, she is gone. My husband, who bought a pottery V-8 engine, finds me in the corner confused. The woman in the booth next to my mother’s comes over and says,

“She’s waiting for you in your car.”

Like I wouldn’t know this.

My husband and I go out to the parking lot, and there she is. My mother’s in the driver’s seat. We are surprised. My mother never liked to drive. Before she died, she didn’t even have a driver’s license. My husband next to me says,

“Move over, Mary.”

My mother doesn’t move. She looks straight ahead and stays in the seat. Just when we least expect it, my mother starts the car, and drives off.

Quickly.

My husband’s jaw drops.

I am bereft.

“She left.” I say.

“She took the car,” my husband says.

“What will we do?” he adds. “She’s gone.”

Like I don’t know this. Like every cell in my body doesn’t know this.

 

 

Nan Wigington

Nan Wigington works as a para-educator in an autism center classroom. Her flash fiction has appeared in Gravel, the Gordon Square Review, and Pure Slush.

Dave Sims

April 2019 | visual art

Blood Moon From Back of War Pony

Blood Moon From Back of War Pony

 

Dave Sims

After 30+ years of teaching in colleges, universities, military bases, and prisons from Alaska to Louisiana, Dave Sims retired to the mountains of central Pennsylvania where he now dwells and creates. His most recent comix appear in The Nashville Review, Talking Writing, and Freeze Ray, and panels from his digital painting sequence “Somewhere Around the Edges,” appear on the cover and in the Winter 2019 issue of The Raw Art Review. He can be contacted on Instagram at tincansims.