Out in the Wild, by Holly Day

Out in the Wild
by Holly Day

We drive up to the old house and you promise me we won’t go crazy
living out here, all alone, with no neighbors nearby. We’ll fill the house
with babies, and that’ll be more than enough company for either of us
more than enough conversation for a whole world.

We fill our summer by pouring concrete into molds to insulate the foundation
and replacing the broken glass with great, clear panes trucked in from town.
You build me a new kitchen with a big enough stove
to fix food for all these babies we’re going to raise out here
and a sink big enough for two or three kids to line up at
to wash all those dishes I’m going to need help with.

Sometime during these dreams, I find myself
walking out to the barn out back in the middle of the night,
not just once, and almost as soon as you fall asleep
find solace in the soft, warm bodies of the family of cats nesting in the hay
in the smell of the livestock you say we’re going to eat someday.
I pretend that this is my family, out here, these tiny quiet cries in the dark
the goats bumping up against my thigh as I push past their pen
the soft clucking of the rooster, disturbed by my entrance.

You promise me I won’t get lonesome out here
surrounded by fields of purple and yellow wildflowers
hordes of butterflies as big as my small, white hand
I promise you I will try my best to fill this house with children and song
that I won’t try to run away.

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has appeared in Big Muddy, The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, Ugly Girl, and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy. She has been a featured presenter at Write On, Door County (WI), North Coast Redwoods Writers’ Conference (CA), and the Spirit Lake Poetry Series (MN). Her poetry collections are A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press) and I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.).

I Walk with Nietzsche on Saddle Mountain, by Jeff Burt

I Walk with Nietzsche on Saddle Mountain
by Jeff Burt

We climbed in a light dark enough to die in.
I felt the bark of the oak branch buzz with the electric
scraping random granite.
The mountains formed a dull terrain,
the purple majesty faded to gray.
Child-fancy thrust off
like an undersized jacket,
wonder and worship
ruined and ravaged
by the ramming and rutting of intellect,
no day remained love in itself:
horses ridden to lather and tremors,
lilac-scented air gathered in draughts,
yet still the sun set quickly.

Nietzsche said that night was not truth:
the wind blew, oaks swayed,
but despair could not fathom
and search one’s depths, failing to ring
and thrill like a familiar parental kiss.
I strode up the gravel grade
in the dark the embodiment
of my rending purity and peace.
I had found nothing worse
than the erosion of purpose
by the intrusion of nonsense.
What was left but to pluck a black banjo,
moan bucolic ditties, move cups
about the checkered table like bishops
on a chessboard, polish spots
on the floor with old socks?
Even language was nothing more
than a lengthening fish between
the stubby fingers of a man.
At best the transfer of thought
from one to another was crude
and imperfect, of emotion exiguous.
To speak meant to fail.

Each orator uttering words
into the gutter of the world
was chained like Sisyphus to failure.
But early in my life I had given up
incoherence to take up language.
If later language with cyclonic twists
had taken me to the heights
of a cosmopolitan disorder,
I could not desert the city
for laconic pastorals.
The sparks of stars had started flames
of song, and sound had never failed me.

We sat at last on the top of the mountain
watching lightning pinpointing ships
out at sea, and up the coast
a lighthouse sweeping.
I knew, then, the event
of my being. Across the valleys
of my incoherence I spoke
from the summit, and though misunderstood
the word had a form and a sound,
and the sound was the flash of a mirror,
the signal to send the runner
to speak of the flash, to utter
the signal, for I knew I had entered
the world as sound and had turned it
into physicality, following
language, living its cadence.
So I spoke and kept on speaking
frenzied words about the sea,
for if I had no meaning
it was because the meaning
lacked my experience.

Process Note: After graduating from college I packed up my car and moved 2000 miles to a place where I knew no one and had no work. But I had philosophers and poets constantly speaking to me in conversation from their books. I carried them with me wherever I went. This poem is about a particular night after reading Nietzsche, and both feeling charged up during the hike and sorry for his demise.

Jeff Burt lives in California with his wife and a July abundance of plums. He has work in Tar River Poetry, Williwaw Journal, Kestrel Journal, and Eclectica. He won the 2019 Heart Poetry Prize.

A Table Among the Weeds, by Lori Levy

A Table Among the Weeds
by Lori Levy

I could focus on the negative, how bad it is
to celebrate a birthday in Corona times. Stuck at home,
separated from one son and his family. Backyard a junkyard
of boxes and bags: merchandise my husband brought home
when he closed his business. Front yard a carpet of weeds.

But the weeds are as green as grass, and when I look closer,
I see they’re sprouting tiny purple flowers, and these gems—
because unexpected, nearly hidden—are more beautiful,
to my eyes, than a bouquet of roses. Still brimming
from a morning of phone calls full of birthday love,
I am ready to celebrate. We set a table outside,
among the weeds, yes, and patches of dry ground,
but a white tablecloth, I discover, makes all the difference.
We are missing some family, but the others, part of our household,
gather with my husband and me under a bright blue sky
to have coffee, cake, ice cream: our daughter and her husband,
our two grandchildren, our son and his fiancee—
who brings a treat to the table, a sweet potato cake
with apple slices on top, something new she’s made,
and new, for me, means better, more valued than the same old
chocolate cake I make all the time, though I’ve made that, too.
Our grandchildren follow, thrilled, behind their dad when he gets up
to feed crumbs of cake to a squirrel that’s come by, joining the party.

Later I receive a video from my daughter-in-law, a message
from the missing ones, my granddaughters, four and two-years-old,
the younger one copying, repeating after her older sister:
Happy birthday, Savta. I miss you so much. I love you so much.
I watch the video again and again, like a favorite movie
that never gets boring, the way my grandson binges on Star Wars.

Lori Levy’s poems have been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Rattle, Nimrod, Poetry East, Paterson Literary Review, and Mom Egg Review, as well as in medical humanities journals. Her family and she live in Los Angeles, but “home” has also been Vermont and Israel.

Coughing Coyotes, by Lori Levy

Coughing Coyotes
by Lori Levy

I try to hold it in, but I can’t stop laughing
in these crazy Corona times when a neighbor complains
on the Nextdoor site that her order, when it finally arrives
after ten long days, is missing the essentials, stripped down
to what the store had available: no milk or bread or
eggs for her, just ten cans of cat food.
The cat, she can’t help adding, is a stray.
A friend who wants to bake orders parchment paper
for her pan. The delivery boy brings paper bags.
Excuse me again when I hear my brother’s story
about his walk in the woods with his wife and dog—
a respite from Corona news, or so they thought,
until they noticed, back home, that their dog had a tick
and realized they’d forgotten to worry about ticks.
I wash my hands all day in case the virus is camping out
in the newspaper, the mail, the food we have delivered,
and now a new worry: coyotes have been spotted
in L.A. suburbia, including, says my son-in-law,
outside our gate one night. I’m afraid to venture out
for my morning walk around the block. Afraid of coyotes.
Don’t worry, says my brother. Just beware, he warns,
of coughing coyotes. I laugh because it’s funny.
Or it’s not, but that’s what erupts from me. Even now
when a walk around the block becomes a game
of dodge the mouths—in case one coughs. Or bites.
Or just smiles when I pass.

Lori Levy’s poems have been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Rattle, Nimrod, Poetry East, Paterson Literary Review, and Mom Egg Review, as well as in medical humanities journals. Her family and she live in Los Angeles, but “home” has also been Vermont and Israel.

English Lessons In Bangkok, by Peter Goodwin

English Lessons In Bangkok
by Peter Goodwin

Having little money
for English lessons
they offered to feed me.
Three times a week,
I was nourished
by three sisters,
whose food looked as
sexy and as spicy
as it tasted, we drank
cool sweet water
infused with aromatic flowers,
we talked and smiled
in their small house
with floors and walls
of teak built above a lazy,
lethargic almost
motionless canal.

Sometimes the mosquitoes
were as ravenous as I,
but the sisters would
never swat or spray
them, instead they
directed a fan
to blow them away.
They lived their Buddhism.

Today, when we all
seem so angry
I remember
those gentle sisters
and smile.

Teacher, traveller, playwright, poet, single or not and points in between, Peter Goodwin was raised and educated in USA and UK, settled in New York City enjoying its vibrant clutter until priced out of the City and now lives mostly near the Chesapeake Bay, becoming a reluctant provider to squirrels, deer, raccoons, birds and mosquitoes, etc. Poems published in the chapbook, No Sense Of History; and anthologies: September eleven; Maryland Voices; Listening to The Water: The Susquehanna Water Anthology; Alternatives To Surrender; Wild Things–Domestic and Otherwise; The Coming Storm as well as in various journals including Rattle, Memoir(and), River Poets Journal, Delaware Poetry Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Main Street Rag, Poeming Pigeon, LockRaven Review, Sliver of Stone, Literary Nest, Greensilk Review. Peterdgoodwin.net

After a Squall, by Peter Goodwin

After a Squall
by Peter Goodwin

The evening sky clears, the red, pink, and purple
clouds echo on the river’s surface. A gray water
tower pushes into the multi-colored sky. The water still
and sweet; a large white fishing boat is tied to the dock
of an ancient crab shack, its cracked white paint peeling,
its walls worn and weak, its tin roof a bright scorched white.

We ignore the cool autumn air, enjoying this tight cove,
protected by its tall trees, with their many
shades of green, yellow, red. The grey worn skeleton
of a dead tree lies on the water, its twisted branches stark
and bare, a rust stained work boat, with its high bow
and graceful stern sits at its dock as still as the water.

A blue heron glides silently past, landing in silence,
wading in the shallows, in silence, searching
for sustenance; sometimes the silence is disturbed
by a fish jumping, ripples echoing across the water,
reflections shimmering. The light, the water, our eyes
illuminating this small space, bathing it, beguiled by simplicity.

Teacher, traveller, playwright, poet, single or not and points in between, Peter Goodwin was raised and educated in USA and UK, settled in New York City enjoying its vibrant clutter until priced out of the City and now lives mostly near the Chesapeake Bay, becoming a reluctant provider to squirrels, deer, raccoons, birds and mosquitoes, etc. Poems published in the chapbook, No Sense Of History; and anthologies: September eleven; Maryland Voices; Listening to The Water: The Susquehanna Water Anthology; Alternatives To Surrender; Wild Things–Domestic and Otherwise; The Coming Storm as well as in various journals including Rattle, Memoir(and), River Poets Journal, Delaware Poetry Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Main Street Rag, Poeming Pigeon, LockRaven Review, Sliver of Stone, Literary Nest, Greensilk Review. Peterdgoodwin.net

Return To The Grand Canyon, by Peter Goodwin

Return To The Grand Canyon
by Peter Goodwin

We came here so many years ago
when we are just learning to live with each other
discovering the wonder of this great gash
traveling along the southern rim
every view a vision.
Hotels, campgrounds full, closed to casual visitors
so we left and camped elsewhere…I don’t remember where
We might have fought that night
We had quite a few that trip
while discovering this harsh and magnificent
western land, and how to work and live together…
we always wanted to return.

Now I have… but without you
down in the womb of this canyon
on its river in small boats
how you would have drunk in every twist
and opening of this great canyon
though perhaps uncomfortable at first,
sitting in these beautiful but unstable craft
as we rowed, floated, drifted, bounced and
flew through the rapids of this exhilarating river—
just as you were uncomfortable, at first,
when we bought a sailboat
uneasy with its tilt and a little unsure,
with its swaying, swinging and leaning movements
eventually learning to love that intimacy with water and vista—
you would have settled easily into the rhythm of the boats
and this unpredictable and dynamic river
drinking in every challenge and change of view
but your life took turns unplanned
your journey ended too early, incomplete
and I make this river trip alone
though not completely.

Teacher, traveller, playwright, poet, single or not and points in between, Peter Goodwin was raised and educated in USA and UK, settled in New York City enjoying its vibrant clutter until priced out of the City and now lives mostly near the Chesapeake Bay, becoming a reluctant provider to squirrels, deer, raccoons, birds and mosquitoes, etc. Poems published in the chapbook, No Sense Of History; and anthologies: September eleven; Maryland Voices; Listening to The Water: The Susquehanna Water Anthology; Alternatives To Surrender; Wild Things–Domestic and Otherwise; The Coming Storm as well as in various journals including Rattle, Memoir(and), River Poets Journal, Delaware Poetry Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Main Street Rag, Poeming Pigeon, LockRaven Review, Sliver of Stone, Literary Nest, Greensilk Review. Peterdgoodwin.net

Contagion Haiku, by Julia C. Spring

Contagion Haiku
by Julia C. Spring

1919
Mother, six, got flu
in winter. Spring dazzled her
eyes when she arose.

1952
Scarlet fever lock-
down. Borrowed a Samoyed
and romped in our yard.

1955
Youngest child, proud to
get polio shot before
bossy big sisters.

2020
Virus pounces, no cat
feet for it. How will the kids
remember this time?

Julia Spring is a mostly-retired social worker/lawyer who began writing haiku and short memoir pieces when her professional writing began yearning toward the personal. A number have been published. She was a prizewinner in Intima’s 2018 contest for essays in compassionate health care.

Tragedy, by Mark Danowsky

Tragedy
by Mark Danowsky

I could have sworn
you told me
disaster struck when
least expected
as it always is
in the dead of
a cheery mid-
Spring afternoon
when nothing is
supposed to
even whisper
worry

Mark Danowsky is a Philadelphia poet, author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press), Managing Editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Editor of ONE ART poetry journal.