The Pale Horse

The night the trees in the orchard

dropped their peaches,

the ground shook,

 

and a nurse told us it was almost time.

His breath was little then less.

With drooping eyes, he tried

 

to speak that day and night

when our whole world was stacked

against a disappearing sky.

 

We prayed his color,

somewhere between chlorine

and chlorophyll,

 

would pinken when dawn arrived,

turning blackness to rust and pink

and then, clear blue.

 

Taking turns warming his hand,

my daughter and I switched seats

and shared memories

 

we hoped he could understand.

But nothing could stop a breeze

from blowing from the four corners

 

of the room or a blare

from seven trumpets

calling to the sea to wash it crystal.

 

Teresa Sutton

Teresa Sutton’s fourth chapbook, “Ruby Slippers for Gretel,” (under different titles) was a top 50 finalist in the Wingless Dreamer 2019 Chapbook Competition and a semi-finalist in both the 2018 Concrete Wolf Chapbook Award and the 2018 Quill’s Edge Press Chapbook Competition. Her third chapbook, “Breaking Newton’s Laws,” won 1st place in the Encircle Publication 2017 Chapbook Competition; One of the poems in the collection, “Dementia,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The final poem of the book, “Confiteor 2,” was honored with second prize in the 2018 Luminaire Award for Best Poetry. Sutton taught for 10 years at Marist College and 29 years as a high school English teacher. She has an MFA in poetry from Solstice at Pine Manor College, an MA in Literature from Western Connecticut State University, an MS in Education from SUNY New Paltz, and a BA from SUNY Albany.

Ice Melting

can’t we see that,

escorted elected barbarians

in bed with morphine drips,

confused, hapless, wanderers

like brad pitt trying to explain

strike out to walk ratios,

mormon from utah ending

two year mission to watts

trying to explain the green

stain on her white denims

 

glass of catawba

at halftime then

too drunk to sing karaoke

in nantuckett harbor after

stepping out after midnight

with crazy mad childless women

six hours a night

in casino back bars

doing a glacial hip hop stomp

 

the heavy razor edges

a classic southern Sabbath softening

to melodic sounds of bluegrass

away the crush, the glory

forgotten, erased, and discarded by

blowhard blackheaded rascist twits

who will read nietzsche in prison

just metaphors of martyrdom well placed

on the tantric twitter or

the everyday falsetto of facebook

played like a banjo

at an ozark pig roast

 

Dan Jacoby

Dan Jacoby is a graduate of Fenwick High School, St. Louis University, Chicago State University, and Governors State University. He has published poetry in the Arkansas Review, Bombay Gin, Burningword Literary Review, Canary, The Fourth River, Steel Toe Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and Red Fez to name a few. He is a former educator, steel worker, and counterintelligence agent.. He is a member of the Carlinville Writers Guild and American Academy of Poets . Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2015. Nominated for Best on the Net for Poetry in 2019 by Red Fez. His book, Blue Jeaned Buddhists, Duck Lake Books, is available where fine books are sold.

Shoshana Tehila Surek

Green.

 

Like the Mississippi River where the Rock River cuts the Rock Island Arsenal bridge in three. Like heavy clouds in that evening period when birds huddle in nests to await the next. When a single bat cuts sky too early for the mayfly too late for robin. Like threats of let loose. Like cover, like hands over mouths, like breath. Like heat. In eddies where remains of my best friend were bagged, after bound, after held, after down. Like heavy and shut. Like what I call God, what I call Heaven, what I call Green. Where sand holds ankle, promise, and anklet. Bones trace fern. Memory trace warning sign. I sit on the second truss, halfway suspended, awaiting the storm.

 

 

Dizzy.

 

stumbles to wall

catches with skin

slides to floor

 

He can feel Her.

He can feel Her.

He can feel Her.

There.

 

closes window

draws curtains

turns gold

into patina

into green

into oozing

scabs upon canvas

 

No surprises

He says

 

Or he doesn’t. Not with hands.

 

falls into child’s pose

canary knees exhausted

postulates to her to her to her

 

She watches him

until he falls asleep

 

Shoshana Tehila Surek

Shoshana Surek received her MA and MFA in Creative Writing from Regis University. Her essays, short stories, flash fiction, and poetry, can be read or are forthcoming in Carve Magazine, december Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, Malahat Review, Vestal Review, Cease, Cows, 3Elements Review, and f(r)iction Magazine. In 2017, She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she is a 2019 Curt Johnson Prose Award finalist. More of her work can be found at www.ShoshanaSurek.com.

Skin of the Days

I pulled the sheet over the hole again,

laid stones along the edge to stop

the wind from slapping it against the sky.

I didn’t want to see

how far down I’d have to leave him.

He’d showed me what I needed to know,

how to brine the meat in salt and garlic,

how to mix dill in the vinegar,

keep the cucumbers and carrots

crisp through months of snow

when I’d be alone

and no one would come up the mountain.

He taught me to talk to the mirror,

look in my own eyes, say I’m afraid,

the only way to pierce the cloud,

make it bleed your worry.

He’d always say there’s no one

who’ll get in the hole with you;

make your own mind.

For months I tried to shove the ache

back in the hole, wanted the days

to pile like shells into years,

cover it, settle the patched mound

‘til it was a flattened hill of my dead.

Every morning the steel on stone voice

cuts the air when I cook the oats,

raisins and molasses,

stare out the window at the snow,

roll his words in my mind.

Even now I whisper the rules:

throw salt over your shoulder to blind the devil,

be ready to say you’re sorry,

watch a man’s eyes when he talks

if I want to know

whether you can believe him.

 

Mark Anthony Burke

Mark Burke’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in the North American Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Sugar House Review, Nimrod International Journal and others. His work has recently been nominated for a Pushcart prize. See: markanthonyburkesongsandpoems.com

Too Late?

Albert     did you really say

science without religion is lame

 

Did you repose under constellations

hour-less nights     no calculations     no formulas

knowing infinity lives in cosmic sparkle     hoping

to stir eons of wonderment

 

When in deep contemplation     did a welling-up

ferry you into timeless paradise     priests call heaven

 

I ask you if this sacramental suspension

could be a black hole     final grave     consuming us

 

Tonight      blackness swallows me

 

Imbibed by inky abyss     turned inside out

reshaped     silent

 

I wonder of my finality    earth’s extinction

the fate of pondering

 

When you reveled under constellations

hour-less nights     did you implore God

that this luxury      not be something

time forced you leave behind

 

Did you write a verse     incant an intercession

invite tempus fugit back     over and over?

 

 

Conversation with Albert Einstein

 

Marianne Lyon

Marianne has been a music teacher for 43 years. After teaching in Hong Kong, she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews including Ravens Perch, TWJM Magazine, Earth Daughters and Indiana Voice Journal. She was nominated for the Pushcart prize in 2017. She is a member of the California Writers Club and an Adjunct Professor at Touro University in California.

Nonagenarian+ Role Model Not Racked With Concerns

Dearest Friends,

I wanted to inform you of the cats and my disposition to move from San Francisco to Palm Springs in about three weeks, living out remaining time in an easier quieter environment.

Serving on non-profit boards plus having a half-century’s active social scene has just become more than we can handle.

I’ll try to adapt to a different existence, and hope to stay in touch with everybody — but I do ask that you be patient, not push too hard – there will be a lot to adjust to plus everything takes extra time at this stage of the game.

I plan on maintaining current email address/ mobile number, will advise you of new home address/ local landline number once have settled in hopefully beginning of March.

I’m so very grateful to have wonderful chums who shower me with love along with support.

Much as I would like to see everyone prior to leaving, it’s impossible. Your understanding is appreciated.

Escape the cold, come to visit next winter during the desert’s wildflower blooming as well as January’s Film Festival if not sooner!

Particularly with my life’s partner passed, I’m missing each of you already.

Gerard Sarnat

Gerard Sarnat won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, and has been nominated for a handful of recent Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. Gerry is widely published in academic-related journals (e.g., University Chicago, Stanford, Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Harvard, Pomona, Johns Hopkins, Wesleyan, University of San Francisco) plus national (e.g., Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, MiPOesias, American Journal Of Poetry, Clementine, pamplemousse, Deluge, Poetry Quarterly, Hypnopomp, Free State Review, Poetry Circle, Poets And War, Cliterature, Qommunicate, Indolent Books, Pandemonium Press, Texas Review, San Antonio Review, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, The Los Angeles Review and The New York Times) and international publications (e.g., Review Berlin and New Ulster). He’s authored the collections Homeless Chronicles (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014), Melting the Ice King (2016). Gerry is a physician who’s built and staffed clinics for the marginalized as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently he is devoting energy/ resources to deal with global warming. Gerry’s been married since 1969 with three kids plus six grandsons, and is looking forward to future granddaughters.

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