Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 25 20 | Jill Kitchen

Jill Kitchen
Hope’s Return

She is an arrow, bent and worn,
buried for years beneath soot
and stone, forgetting where
and whether to aim. Hesitation
shakes my hand: I do not recognize her.
I have been hunted unarmed for so long
that my skin has become a fleshy armor
thick with doubt and distrust.

But the moon whispers to me, smiling.

Fear and flames surround me, heat shimmer blur
above skyline. I swallow hard and reach for the arrow,
her feathered fletching. A brightening of memory
shudders through me, from a time without language.
I take in her form, turning her slowly,
measuring her weight. My hands straighten
her bruised spine, wipe away dark
clumps of dirt and sharpen her blade.

I fashion a bow from November’s dusk and take aim.

—Submitted on 11/23/2020

Jill Kitchen‘s work is forthcoming in Naugatuck River Review, where she was a finalist in the 12th Annual Narrative Poetry contest. She holds a BA from Colorado College with a major in Romance languages and lives in Boulder, Colo.

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 24 20 | Chad Parenteau

Chad Parenteau
Fringe Fringes the Fringe

Million MAGA March, November 14, 2020

Twelve more years! Twelve more years!
Signs and chants compete for cameras.
Christ is King! Christ is King!
Pro-Trumper makes plea for unity

while signs and chants compete for cameras.
America first! America always!
Christ is King! Christ is King!
Proud Boys! Stand back! Stand by!


America first! America always!
Trump meets admirers via motorcade.
Proud Boys! Stand back! Stand by!
Hair peppered with new age, alleged wisdom.

Trump meets admirers via motorcade.
He tweets, “DC Police, get going,”
hair peppered with new age, alleged wisdom.
“Do your job and don’t hold back!”

He tweets, “DC Police, get going,”
while night colors dim to black and blue.
“Do your job and don’t hold back!”
Proud boys stand by memorial phallus

while night colors dim to black and blue.
“And even if Trump don’t win…”
(Proud boys stand by memorial phallus)
“…we will come back even stronger!”

“And even if Trump don’t win…”
Pro-Trumper makes plea for unity.
“…we will come back even stronger!”
Twelve more years! Twelve more years!

—Submitted on 11/23/2020

Chad Parenteau is the author of The Collapsed Bookshelf (Tell-Tale Chapbooks, 2020) and Patron Emeritus (FootHills Publishing, 2013). His poems have appeared in RésonanceeQueen Mob’s Tea-HouseCape Cod Poetry ReviewTell-Tale InklingsOff The Coast, and other journals. Parenteau is a regular contributor to Headline Poetry & Press as well as associate editor of Oddball Magazine. Online at chadparenteaupoetforhire.com.

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 23 20 | Sarah Van Arsdale

Sarah Van Arsdale
Seven Dreams

When you sleep tonight, don’t dream of the gloved hand reaching from the dark for your leg, your chest, your most private, interior thoughts, the heart of your heart.
…dream of the tulip bulbs you planted, before this change, when you had only a droplet of hope, just enough to put them in the ground, as if you believed in spring.

When you sleep tonight, don’t dream of the last stoppered breath, the boot on the neck, the rope, the knife in the throat of hope, the face pressed against the pavement, the multitudes shouting, and one man calling for his mother.
…dream of sea serpents, wrapped around your shoulders: your guardians, your witnesses, your lovers.

When you sleep tonight, don’t dream of the deep snows of the coming risky winter, the virus spiraling in our blood, fencing us from one another.
…dream of a mare walking freely in the bright morning light, the wide shadow she casts against the frosty grass, how the earth trembles at her footfall. Her mane, trembling a little as she moves.

When you sleep tonight, don’t dream of burning trees, crashing into the arms of the forest, the sky bright with fire.
….dream of the wingbeats of birds, coming to your garden, singing in their secret languages, at last.

When you sleep tonight, don’t dream of the man, spitting, wild-eyed, his face reddened, defending his sins in front of the world.
…dream of a woman, describing the alleyways of the brain, telling the story of a girl who found her own way in the dark forest, at midnight, frightened but determined, the owl and the jaguar guiding her to safety.

When you sleep tonight, don’t dream of the mouth spilling forth lies after lies, a river of meat and rotted wood, blood and rusted nails.
…dream of the pear tree in autumn, the leaves carpeting the ground with color, the deer surrounding it as the sun goes down.

When you sleep tonight, don’t dream of criminal men, smiling indifferently, stained with the blood of the innocents, plotting in the stink of their own smoke. There are too many of them for your dreams, and they are so unworthy.
…dream of the swirl of people, dancing, the chorus of horns and tambourines, and the bells ringing over all of the world, even Paris, France, as if a great war with many dead had ended.

Dream of this, my daughter: the tulips, your hope, the perfect, imperfect power you hold in your hands.

Sarah Van Arsdale con Marisa Bevington
Los Siete Sueños

Cuando duermas esta noche, no sueñes con la mano enguantada, alcanzando desde la oscuridad hacia tu pierna, tu pecho, tus pensamientos interiores más privados, el corazón de tu corazón.
…sueña con los bulbos de tulipán que enterraste, antes de este cambio, cuando tenías solo una gotita de esperanza, lo justo para ponerlos en la tierra, como si creyeras en la primavera.

Cuando duermas esta noche, no sueñes con el último aliento sofocado, la bota en el cuello, la cuerda, el puñal en la garganta de la esperanza, la cara presionada contra el pavimento, la multitud de personas gritando, y un hombre llamando a su madre.
…sueña con serpientes del mar, alrededor de tus hombros: tus guardianes, tus testigos, tus amantes.

Cuando duermas esta noche, no sueñes con la nieve profunda del invierno peligroso que se acerca, y ni con el virus girando por nuestra sangre, creando una cerca entre uno y el otro.
…sueña con una yegua caminando libremente, abajo la brillante luz de la mañana, la amplia sombra que proyecta sobre el césped escarchado, cómo la tiembla la tierra bajo sus pisadas. Sus crines, temblando un poco mientras se mueve.

Cuando duermas esta noche, no sueñes con árboles que se queman, que se estrellan contra los brazos del bosque, el cielo que brilla con el fuego.
…sueña con los aleteos de los pájaros, acercándose a tu (tu) jardín, cantando en sus lenguas secretas, por fin.

Cuando duermas esta noche, no sueñes con el hombre escupiendo, con ojos desorbitados, con la cara enrojecida, defendiendo sus pecados frente al mundo.
…sueña con una mujer, describiendo los callejones del cerebro, contando la historia de una niña que descubrió su propio camino en el bosque oscuro, a la medianoche, asustada pero decidida, el búho y el jaguar guiándola hacia a un lugar seguro.

Cuando duermas esta noche, no sueñes con la boca que derrama mentira tras mentira, un río de carne y madera podrida, de sangre y clavos oxidados.
…sueña con el peral en otoño, las hojas tapizando de color el suelo, los ciervos rodeándolo mientras el sol declina.

Cuando duermas esta noche, no sueñes con hombres criminales, sonriendo con displicencia, manchados con la sangre de los inocentes, conspirando en el tufo de su propia humareda. Hay demasiados de ellos para tus sueños, y son tan indignos.
…sueña con el remolino de gente, bailando, el coro de cornetas y panderetas, y las campanas sonando por todo el mundo, hasta en París, Francia, como si una gran guerra con muchos muertos hubiera terminado.

Sueña en esto, mija: los tulipanes, tu esperanza, el poder perfecto e imperfecto que sostienes en tus manos.

—Submitted on 11/22/2020

Sarah Van Arsdale is the author of The Catamount, a narrative poem with her watercolor illustrations (Nomadic Press, 2017). She is the author of the fiction works In Case of Emergency, Break Glass (Queen’s Ferry Press, 2016), Grand Isle (State University Press of New York, 2012), Blue (Univ Tennessee Press, 2003), and Toward Amnesia (Riverhead Hardcover, 1996). Her poetry and essays have been published in many journals. Van Arsdale teaches creative writing in the low-residency MFA program at Antioch University. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Online at sarahvanarsdale.com.

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 22 20 | Melissa Eleftherion

Melissa Eleftherion
Impatient Liminal

The pauses and interludes
& mesoganglia & aerenchyma
leave breathing space
enough to weave
the phosphorus &
nitrogen

otherwise
how to float
make movable
experience

transformational imaginal
transimaginal poetics
liminal and braiding
ecologies of understanding
the interrelatedness
interrelationship
of beings
in practice
in joy
and community
if we all
shine on
we
make
radiant music

there’s so much more
than that brutal grey
retaining wall
these synaptic fields
emit memory
as imaginal proteins
the sugars
make the fabric

—Submitted on 11/21/2020

Melissa Eleftherion is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), little ditch (above/ground press, 2018), and trauma suture (above/ground press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Entropy, Flag+Void, Lunch TicketPith, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and other journals. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Eleftherion lives in Northern California, where she manages the Ukiah Library, teaches creative writing, and curates the LOBA Reading Series. Online at apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 21 20 | Margo Taft Stever

Margo Taft Stever
Bomb Shelter Explosion Report

Sputnik circled the earth; people imagined atomic bombs. Russians
blasted Yuri Gagarin into the cosmos—the space race the new now.
Soviets placed nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Police Report, November 11, 1967: Explosion occurred
in underground bomb shelter, 300 yards north of main
residence, thirty feet east of garage. Fuse box found near
victim’s left hand. Object partially covered with blood.

Kennedy ordered, “fallout protection for Americans
as rapidly as possible. We owe that kind of insurance to
our families,” October 6, 1961. He asked Congress
for $100 million to construct shelters.

Mr. Taft’s wife called to report the bomb shelter
blew up. Her husband, Hulbert Taft, was inside.

Soviets tested the first atomic bomb. Some Americans dug shelters
at night to keep neighbors from knowing. A cartoon turtle, Bert, urged
children to duck and cover. Bomb shelters sold like hula hoops. Newspapers
reported radiation readings next to the day’s weather report.

Officers Miller, Hiatt, Wiebold, Arthur, Brakvill, Schlie, and Gruenmaier
responded. Upon arrival, they went directly to the location. The shelter was
demolished, the roof caved in. Sod, dirt, and chunks of concrete scattered
all around. Some white smoke drifted from the southwest corner, and also,
from the entrance door. Dirt and sod were blown about one hundred feet.

Russians warned, “It would take really very few multimegaton nuclear bombs to wipe out
your small and densely populated countries and instantly kill you in your lairs.” Because
gamma rays travel in straight lines, entrance ramps were built at right angles. Blast doors
would pillow the shock wave of a nuclear blast and regained their prior shape.

Mr. Taft had parked his car, a yellow Pontiac Firebird, in front of the barn,
directly west of the shelter. Dirt from the explosion was on top of the car.
The shelter looked like the roof raised, then fell on the floor. A small area
along the north and west wall was not completely caved in.

The Snyder shelter designer spec’d sand floors so dwellers could bury
turds and piss. Shelters included battery-powered radios, lanterns,
sleeping bags, cots, chemical toilets, heating systems, fuel tanks, firearms
(to keep neighbors out). Necessary supplies included bottled drinking water,
first-aid kits, reading, writing, recreational material, cleaning supplies, and clothing.

Officer Arthur checked the blast areas, but could not find the victim. The Fire
Department responded, along with all available men from the Service
Department. All men started shoveling dirt from the roof.

On TV, people watched Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet, and
apocalyptic movies—On the Beach, The Last Man on Earth. Wall Street predicted
the bomb shelter building craze profits could increase to twenty billion.

The fire department tried to put out smoke from the southwest
corner. An electrical fire commenced and arced with water
until someone pulled a switch in the house.

Survival stores sold atomic bomb protection outfits. General Foods and
General Mills advertised dried shelter meals. A worried farmer in Iowa
built a fallout shelter for 200 cows. Salaried spotters searched for suspect
objects in the skies.

Carter Construction Company responded with two backhoes to remove
dirt and gravel from the caved-in roof. White smoke had an odor assumed
to be propane gas. The caretaker, Mr. Liming, located the underground tank
and turned off the gas at which time the white smoke ceased.

Some clients forced contractors to construct shelters at night.

The backhoes arrived at 5:00 p.m. and the body of my uncle, Mr. Hulbert Taft,
was located ten feet from the entrance door, four feet west of the front interior wall.
The body was face down with the head toward the south. His left foot was pinned
under a large I-beam. His clothing was partially burned, and he was
bleeding from his head. Near his left hand lay the electrical circuit
breaker with blood on it, and a small wrench was nearby.

Teachers at odd moments screamed, “Drop,” and students hid under desks.
Teachers led children into basements or forced them to duck under desks.
Not allowed to go to the bathroom, many children wet their pants.

The Hamilton County Coroner was advised to move the body
to the county morgue. Dr. Victor Strauss, the family doctor, was at the scene.
Taft was pronounced dead by Strauss. His body was examined by Dr. Adriano
who found the victim to have been in perfect health prior to death. Taft
suffered a crushed chest and head injuries; apparently, he died
in the explosion as determined by lack of carbon monoxide in his lungs.

The U.S. government cautioned that flimsy shelters could burn inhabitants to a crisp
or crush them like grapefruits. Conelrad (Control of Electromagnetic Radiation) broadcast
advice suggesting two weeks of food would allow for survival from a nuclear bomb.
Each adult could take 130 mg of potassium iodide a day and each child 65 mg to bolster
thyroid glands against deadly intake of radioactive iodide.

At 11:00 a.m., November 11, 1967, the reporting officer, Patrolman Miller,
interviewed three girls—Pamela Baker, age 8, her sister, Gillian Baker, age 7, and a
friend, Becky Thompson, age 8, who were at the residence at the time of the
explosion. The Tafts had recently acquired a small pony. The girls were looking at
the pony when the shelter exploded. Mrs. Baker, their mother, advised of heavy
concentrations of dirt in their hair, but they were not injured by the blast.

Life Magazine praised a couple who spent their honeymoon in a bomb shelter.
Someone lied to his neighbors, stating that his shelter was a wine cellar.

The arson investigator, Mr. Peterson thought that the mixture of gas
and oxygen at the time Mr. Taft entered the shelter had to be at its
highest ignition point. He believed Mr. Taft entered shortly
before 4:00 p.m., November 11, and smelled a strong concentration of gas.
He is thought to have gone over to the fuse box and pulled the main circuit
breaker at which time small sparks resulted and the explosion occurred.

In one of the first “Twilight Zones,” the protagonist returns from a space mission;
everything is destroyed by nuclear holocaust. One human left is alone.

In an interview, the victim’s son and daughter-in-law assured that
their father was in good health and spirit. He had only minor problems,
nothing that would lead him to an intentional explosion. He checked
the shelter every day after work. He had no known enemies.

—Submitted on 11/21/2020

Margo Taft Stever is the author of Cracked Piano (CavanKerry Press, 2019), Ghost Moose (Kattywompus Press, 2019), The Lunatic Ball (Kattywompus Press, 2015), The Hudson Line (Main Street Rag, 2012), Frozen Spring (Mid-List Press, 2002) and Reading the Night Sky (Riverstone Press, 1996). Her work has appeared in Verse DailyPrairie Schooner, Connecticut Review, Cincinnati ReviewPlume, and other journals. Stever is founder of the Hudson Valley Writers Center and founding and current co-editor of Slapering Hol Press. She lives in Sleepy Hollow, NY.

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He Did It All for Poetry

The Sensitive Side of Donald Trump

As we near the end of the Trump administration, I find myself searching for a silver lining. I have finally found it in The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump, a groundbreaking poetry anthology.

What if there’s a hidden dimension to Donald Trump—a sensitive, poetic side? Driven by just this question, Rob Sears began combing Trump’s words for signs of poetry. Sears is a creative director at the venerable advertising agency McCann Erickson He has written comedy and fiction for McSweeney’s, and co-wrote wrote a sitcom for Audible He lives in Finsbury Park, London, with his wife.

By simply taking the 45th President of the United States’ tweets and transcripts, cutting them up and reordering them, Sears unearthed a trove of beautiful verse that was just waiting to be discovered.

This profound and engaging collection gives readers a glimpse of Trump’s innermost thoughts and feelings on everything from the nature of truth, to what he hates about the British business magnate, Lord Alan Michael Sugar. This hitherto hidden Donald will surprise and delight both fans and foes alike.

Now in a new edition with fifteen all-new poems, Sears takes us deeper. This timely publication includes Sears’s scholarly footnotes, and an insightful introduction in which Sears excavates new critical angles and insights into the President’s poetry—depths of meaning that the casual reader might initially overlook.

What better way to say goodbye to Trump—the man and the administration—than by delving into his own poetic oeuvre?

  • Item Weight : 10.9 ounces
  • Hardcover : 176 pages
  • ISBN-10 : 1786894726
  • Dimensions : 5.3 x 0.8 x 8.7 inches
  • ISBN-13 : 978-1786894724
  • Publisher : Canongate Books; Main – New edition (November 5, 2019)
  • Language: : English

Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 20 20 | Michael Cunningham

Michael Cunningham
Corona Psalm

You don’t have to feel lonely.

You don’t have to eat from cable news
like an endless buffet.

Listen, the birds are singing.

Listen, the rain is making love
to the city streets.

Watch, the leaves give birth
and the trees that hold them.

You don’t have to be alone.

Drink from the stream
within yourself.

Pull yourself away from the world
the same way you would tug a child
away from an open flame.

Drink from the stream
drink and be well.

—Submitted on 10/17/2020 to the erstwhile What Rough Beast series

Michael Cunningham is a school librarian and outdoor nature educator trained in Waldorf education and biodynamic farming.

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 19 20 | Kevin McIlvoy

Kevin McIlvoy
Inaugural

I want you to know,
the dome is 307 feet high,
135 feet in diameter.

The structure contains
4000 tons of iron that flexes
during atmospheric change—

in the way of a
lily unfolding counter-
clockwise as it lifts—

in the way of a
mother reaching up
for her treed child—

in the way of a
branch holding you out
wild toward the cold—

in the way of a
swallowtail’s wings
fluttering while nectaring—

in the way of the
oaken bucket rocking on
and sinking into well water—

in the well dug near
the oak tree swelling larger
for over 600 seasons—

in the way of the
granite that is the bedrock of
of our dimmed blue world.

I want you to know,
granite is many
times thicker than the

combined thickness of
all other rock—and
has never been a

portion of human
or vegetal or
animal material.

Struck by lightning,
granite makes the sound
of cannon-echo—

of beliefs, of fears
drummed from forested banks
by wandering river-dwellers.

It is the parent rock
I want you to know.
Granite is the parent rock.

The eroded steps home
are slick in this rain.
Take it—take my hand.

—Submitted on 11/19/2020

Kevin McIlvoy is the author of At the Gate of All Wonder (Tupelo Press, 2018), 57 Octaves Below Middle C (Four Way Books, 2017), The Complete History of New Mexico (Graywolf Press, 2005), Hyssop (TriQuarterly, 1998), Little Peg (Atheneum, 1991), The Fifth Station (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1987), and A Waltz (Lynx House, 1981). He teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Warren Wilson College, and lives near Asheville, NC. 

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 18 20 | Diane Kendig

Diane Kendig
Report From the Watch

Mornings my friend posts a photo of his sunrise
from a gated community in South Carolina
while in Cleveland we crawl through autumn

agog with flowers, gourds and hazel nuts, but know
Covid’s gonna be different for us come winter.
It’s not over by a long shot—a long shot no longer

a cliché exactly, though I don’t own a gun.
John’s photos are idyllic, light brightening wildly
or mistily vague but warmer than here

where it’s colder each day. Our trees finally
shot up yellow, and my neighbor’s burning bush
went to town in a red as original as sin.

Me, I’m moving in for the long haul, which seems heavier
this week, carrying the last of this and that. “Six more months,”
says my friend in Atlanta. What do Southerners know.

I wave from inside my window, rimed for the first time
this year, breathe on the glass, rub open a circle
that steams over, write with my finger, OK 4 NOW.

—Submitted on 11/09/2020

Diane Kendig‘s latest book is Prison Terms (Main Street Rag, 2017).  With Robert E. McDonough, she co-edited the tribute anthology In the Company of Russell Atkins (Red Giant Books, 2016). Kendig’s poems have appeared in J Journal, Wordgathering, Valparaiso Review, and other journals. Curator of the Cuyahoga County Public Library weblog, Read + Write, she is on the web at dianekendig.com.

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 17 20 | Kait Walser

Kait Walser
Today the Role of Your Childhood Babysitter Will Be Played by the Electoral College

Your new babysitter has certain ways of doing things
—experience, let’s say—yeah. Tried and true. Says
he’s been around the block. Not his first rodeo, kiddo.
So, when you’re hungry at 11:40 am, he lets you know
that lunchtime is at twelve noon, on the dot. A little
discipline won’t kill you and why don’t you just set
the table while you wait. Think about what you want
and your little sister can help, too. Just the napkins
now, we can’t trust her with porcelain, prongs, or
serrated edges at her age. And what would she like
by the way? Peanut butter and jelly? Yummy yum!
Now, hang on. Mommy doesn’t what? Mommy left
me in charge. We have to hear everyone out. Wait
for your turn. Now, me, I think a sandwich sounds
delish. Allergies? Well then what do you propose
we eat? Grilled cheese? I don’t know about all that.
Besides, your sister said please. I didn’t hear you
say much in the way of please or excuse me while
you were talking about those allergies. How’s this:
today, you get to choose the flavor of the jelly
in our PB and Js. Alright? Fair is fair. Now dig in, kids.

—Submitted on 11/16/2020

Kait Walser Her poetry has appeared in Snapdragon, Not Very Quiet, Germ, and Ruminate, as well as in anthologies including In Absentia: Reflections on the Pandemic (Bicycle Comics Productions, 2020). She holds an MFA from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., and was a 2015 Delaware Highlands Conservancy artist-in-residence. Walser lives and writes in New York City.

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