Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 12 02 20 | Deonte Osayande

Deonte Osayande
Two Poems

Baptized in Fire

My dad wrote
my mom

love poems
in letters

before
they were married,

& I looked for them
after he was cremated

but they didn’t survive
the fire from when I was

just a boy
obsessed

with playing
video games.

Pups aka Baby Sharks

Sharks migratory patterns were changed because these predators followed the ships in the Middle Passage because when a slave died they were thrown overboard, or if they were killed because they were protesting, or if they committed suicide, the sharks knew that they could follow the ships, and it changed the migratory patterns of sharks during this period of time.
—Donald M. Payne

I get to thinking
about baby sharks,
pups, who like dogs

instinctively follow
where their meals
originate from
on the middle passage,

or the cops
spraying hoses
on us & sending
their hounds

who have been trained
to think of our flesh as food,
without consideration

of how we even became nourishment
for their hungry, ravenous aptitudes

& wondering
if they even think
of us as well

—Submitted on 11/10/2020

Deonte Osayande is a writer from Detroit, Mich. His books include Class (Urban Farmhouse Press, 2017), Circus (Brick Mantle Books, 2018) and Civilian (Urban Farmhouse Press, 2019. His poems appear in Button Poetry and other journals. Osayande has represented Detroit at four National Poetry Slam competitions. Manager of the Rustbelt Midwest Regional Poetry Slam and Festival for 2014 and 2018, he is a professor of English at Wayne County Community College.

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 12 01 20 | Marjorie Moorhead

Marjorie Moorhead
Two Poems

11/7/2020

City folk dancing in the streets
exorcising built-up toxicity

Here, amongst tall trees,
recently bared, I’ve
made a celebration cake.
confetti colored sprinkles
on a white frosting cloud
atop dark cocoa sponge.

Something had to be done
to codify the joy
the relief an out-breath
before our struggles resume.

It’s KAmala Baby!

It’s KAmala baby! Learn
to say it right.
Just like we did with OBAma.
This can be done.
An adjustment made.
Different names different hues.
Let’s move on and up and forward.
Let’s demand action that saves
our Planet
and treats every person with respect
for their dignity.

—Submitted on 11/08/2020

Marjorie Moorhead is the author of the chapbooks Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press 2019), and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books 2020). Her poems have appeared in Sheila-Na-GigPorter House ReviewVerse-VirtualRising Phoenix ReviewAmethyst Review, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including most recently Covid Spring (Hobblebush Books, 2020). 

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 30 20 | Carmelina Fernandes-Kock am Brink

Carmelina Fernandes-Kock am Brink
Falling Back

The fetal position consumes her
Sheets up to her ears she sleeps
Bereft. Calling out to her absent husband
“Are you there?” and
“Is the baby safe?”
The fracture of her pelvic bone
Causing her to writhe in pain, the
Physical memory of traumas past
Washing over her brain, taking her
There locked in a frame of
Long ago.
One second of negligence
At the senior home
Had sent her crumbling.
The brakes of her walker
Unsecured
While the attendant had gone reaching
For the comb
To smoothen her hair, make her feel
Pretty as she always said.
She had become
Confused incoherent reverting to the
German of her childhood.
Fearing a stroke, her husband had phoned
For an ambulance.
In the hospital isolation ward
Corona measures prevail. Spouses
Left out. The agonizing wait. Testing
Negative, both of them. Three days later,
In the general ward he
Holds her hand. Holds her fast.
She takes him for her father reminds
Him to take her mother for a walk
To show her some attention. All this
In German when English had always
Been their lingua franca
Both of them strangers in this promised
Land.
He drives back and forth wonders
How long her mind will cling
To the lifeboat that keeps
Him away
Adrift on shore.
Today he’s her father still and she
Is chatting away in her native tongue yet
This time smiling, doted on by the tired
Staff, who hadn’t thought of the safety
Strap of the chair where they’d seated her
While making her bed. She’d tipped over
Fallen, yet gently so.
This evening back in the home alone
In his bed distressed
By the certainty of security
Measures that will impose her isolation
Yet again once she
Returns. The testing for Covid.
He hopes to recover in her eyes
The features of her life-
Long partner.
He’s elderly and tired too.
All this running.

—Submitted on 11/29/2020

Carmelina Fernandes-Kock am Brink is of German-Indian background, grew up in Canada, and teaches English in Toulouse, France. 

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 29 20 | Francis Fernandes

Francis Fernandes
Hard Times

Back when it all started, I woke up coughing
at night, but I knew it wasn’t the virus
just those blessed white blossoms
outside the window filling the bedroom
with the pungent scent of spring. If I kept
the window shut it was that damned if you do
and damned if you don’t sort of thing,
the simple rush of panic at the loss of air,
filigreed cobwebs filling my beleaguered head.
Life suddenly became so dramatic: higher
and higher numbers on the news. No longer
the sweet birds, but those damned electronic
twitters. We were now asked to choose
between a rock and a tombstone. In retail,
the quandary posed was no longer paper
or plastic; it became more existential
than that, as in latex or no latex, which could
eventually bear on the answer to: be or not be.
In the produce section, they looked at me
as though I were actually fondling
the avocados. The fact is, germs are
everywhere, even on the baby-blue surgical
masks and those fashionable foulards
we wear in town. Batman’s choice was clear:
either hide who you are or the vile poison
of crime goes unchecked. That seems
obvious. Not so the question: breakup
or no breakup. Why keep tally of the deaths
and not the sad rifts? Ask ABC. The nation
is foundering and we are constantly making
wrong decisions. Just ask the statisticians.
The state closes restaurants and churches
and concert halls. What are we supposed
to live on? Jobs and love are on the line.
The year won’t be a good one. No one
can sleep. You are over there and I am over
here. I bet you don’t even remember the time
we woke on the couch, dazed from all that
love-making, staring at each other, both
of us wondering how and when we got there.
At least then I played live for you, my sole
mate and fan. Now, headlines on the web
take the place of our mere touching. Summer
came and went. The sun is sputtering
and the trees that spouted huge green leaves
some time ago are now blazing bright
orange and yellow. Soon they too will lose,
trembling in the cold breeze. Billie Holiday
sings They can’t take that away from me, about
the way someone drinks their tea, smiles
and all that. But then in the very next song
she throws in the towel, so to speak,
with “Gloomy Sunday,” a song the BBC banned
in the 1940s, as it killed wartime morale,
they said, not to mention those poor souls
whose minds seethed with self-doubt.
It’s not easy, it never was, to quote almost every
philosopher—or dirty politician. I’m doing
my best not to think of Nietzsche and the horse
he fell in love with. I’m doing my best to stay
afloat and, if need be, to forget your smile,
your touch, and that certain way you drank
your acrid herbal tea.

—Submitted on 11/27/2020

Francis Fernandes‘s poems have appeared in The Zodiac Review, Amethyst Review, Beyond Words, Third Wednesday, Montréal Writes, and other journals. Having grown up in the US and Canada, he lives in Frankfurt, where he writes and teaches.

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 28 20 | Rodney Terich Leonard

Rodney Terich Leonard
To Tremble With Questions

Of late, I clasp merciless pressure
To ballads & funk, to music—

Upon the arias & Herbie Hancock
Blossom Dearie & 1960s Mahalia

And Sam Cooke:
“Somebody Ease My Troublin’ Mind.”

A text from toothsome times
Isn’t as forever as gripping a hand.

This pandemic of eyeless encounters
Disesteemed the elegant farewell.

To gut the harp from tunes
That dotted our love

Subdues the palate & the hours.
Pinned to circumstance—

Ghost in a pile of pennies
Mime for me some slant of adieu.

My moan is the sound of faith
Upwards of gut.

No nurse or doctor explains the substitute
For a final spoon of honey on the tongue.

—Submitted on 11/26/2020

Rodney Terich Leonard is the author of Sweetgum & Lightning (Four Way Books, 2021). His poems have appeared in BOMBFour Way ReviewSouthern Humanities ReviewThe Cortland Review, HIV Here & Now, and other journals. A Callaloo poetry fellow, he holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia University and lives in Manhattan.

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 27 20 | Ellen Austin-Li

Ellen Austin-Li
Two Poems

Smoke

All I want is a tiny cottage
on the Dingle Peninsula. I could live
in peace on this windswept green.
America doesn’t own me anymore.
I’d rather fly to family via Aer Lingus than drive
up Ohio, across Pennsylvania, to New York.
I’m done passing the billboards
on 71N in Ohio, the Ten Commandments
split between two canvases alongside
the barn, the Confederate flag painted
on its roof. I don’t wish to be reminded
by the sign on the trip back that “Hell Is Real.”
Hell, yeah, it’s real. America is aflame.
With each wildfire season, the West
gets torched, fueled by the superheat
of our heedless need. Cities are coals of unrest,
Black sons & daughters gunned down as if prey.
Give me the Wild Atlantic Way,
Ireland’s west coast instead. Let me puzzle
the Gaelic posted above the English,
let me turn into a pebbled drive
beside my pastel-painted home, let the hearth
be spirited with peat. Near the coast,
standing stones frame a doorway
the ancients believed you pass through
into another world. My ancestors fled
Ireland because they were starving, I hunger
for this place to belong.

To Recapture Faith

There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
—Thomas Merton

To reclaim even part of this vision
that has been wrenched from the center
of me, I must first let the light
reenter. To believe
in our ability to heal, I must let go
this consuming darkness.
I have lost my faith in humanity.
Outside last night, I heard a Bard
owl perched in the hemlock
accusing me, Et tu? Et tu?

This woman once existed
who sought stars on full-moon nights,
who chose cold air’s clarity
over its chill, who was certain angels
dwell and emerge from all people
as soon as they’re shown kindness.
When younger, I wanted this
shining world but pushed it away,
afraid, isolated with the bottle.
In middle-age, I’ve dismantled fear
enough times, it no longer rules me.
Eyes open, everyone I see runs hollow.
Radiance seems a relic of my imagination.
Show me again, owl, how to catch
the glimmer in the underbrush.

—Submitted on 11/25/2020

Ellen Austin-Li is the author of Firefly (Finishing Line Press, 2019). Her poems have appeared in Artemis, Writers Tribe Review, The Maine Review, The New Verse News, Memoir Mixtapes, and other journals. Austin-Li is a student in the Solstice low-residency MFA program at Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Mass. She lives in Cincinnati with her husband and two sons.

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Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 26 20 | Cheryl Caesar

Cheryl Caesar
Thanks

Let us be thankful for pumpkins.
Not for the grainy and soapy-taste pies,
nor for the hideous lattes.
But, perhaps, for the seeds, when they’re salted and roasted.
Each crunch an explosion of nutrients, recalling
that we are all concentrates of energy.

Thank them for their carved faces, which so quickly
wither, like victims of bad plastic surgeons.
The eyes and mouths expanding, until
they touch, and all caves inward. Fading
before us, time-lapse flowers in reverse.
Dorian’s portrait out on our front porches.

Thanks to the pets, the cats and the dogs,
whose lives are measured in decades, making
them markers of family eras. “Back when
we had Rocky,” we say. So simply, they give us
the whole of their earth span. Bracketing us

on the other side, tortoises live to a hundred
and fifty, but moving slow, and carrying
their dwellings. Or you could surrender
motility altogether, and be a redwood, learning
to speak with your roots, underground. If you

are willing to give up your spine, you can be an immortal
jellyfish and never die, they say. When bad times come,
you revert to a polyp, and start again. They call it
“transdifferentiation,” but if you wish, it can be
transmigration of souls—that is, if you agree
to grant the jellyfish a soul. If not

I leave it to you to decide: When all
the cells are replaced, is it still the same
creature? I doubt if the jellyfish cares.

—Submitted on 11/24/2020

Cheryl Caesar is the author of Flatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era (Thurston Howl Publications, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Prachya ReviewPanoplyLightOrigami Poems ProjectPonder Savant, and other journals, as well as in the anthology Nationalism: (Mis)Understanding Donald Trump’s Capitalism, Racism, Global Politics, International Trade and Media Wars (Mwanaka Media and Publishing, 2019), edited by Tendai Rinos Mwanaka. Caesar holds a doctorate in comparative literature from the Sorbonne. She teaches writing at Michigan State University.

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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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