Kathy Nativo
Two Poems

Live in the Moment

Encourage yourself, Humanity, to live as young as you are.
You are in primary school and most survive it.
There is no need to invent holidays.
Every day is one.
Live in the moment.
Your fate is not set.
Draw pictures.
Use your words.
Learn to express.
Keep yourself open like a pantry door.
The truth of the matter, Humanity, is that you haven’t yet discovered
even the first line of your story.
Your first steps are tottering ones.
You are a species among many.
Life abounds around you.
You are nurtured by nature.
You can fall on its hardest surface and it will cushion you.
You stand a chance, standing ankle deep in the stream of time.
All of your windows are raised for you to look out of and still feel secure.
Oh Humanity, life is a game.
You don’t have to play it well.
Just enjoy the play, as all children do.

Eco Iko Iko

The climate of the world has changed.
All the little fires have become a conflagration.
The world is Rome and it’s burning.
The arctic has seen its day.
The iceberg that the Titanic struck no longer exists.
It melted leaving hope with the survivors
for bias, bigotry and prejudice to melt too.
In this small world of inhabitants to many—too many,
Nero and Molly Brown have become compatriots.

Gardeners, grow all the flowers, grass and vegetables you want.
Then cast what it took to grow them into the stream that runs through your town.
Home dwellers, burn Roman Candles on your lawn just for fun.
Entertain your neighbors but don’t save them.
Florists, put your thoughts in flower boxes.
Hang them on brackets outside your window.
Their colors and type will speak for you, even yell.
One can do worse than yelling outside your window.
Crow like a well feathered and well fed crow.

The boundaries of Earth are nature made.
We are causing them to change by setting them ablaze.
We soil the soil with our waste.
We taint the tides of the oceans with our detritus.
We enclose our spaciousness with fences and walls.
In being bound our grief will know no bounds.
We advance to shoot off the Earth on those Roman rockets
to bring the debris of our ethos into the cosmos.

In the natural world we must relearn to take our place.
In eco-green we should place our trust
by not just planting the seeds of reparation
but planting them with appreciation, purpose and thankfulness.

—Submitted on 01/08/2021

Kathy Nativo‘s poems have appeared in Beat of the Street and Poetry On The Streets. She is a musician and retired music instructor in in Wethersfield, Conn. 

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Crystal Valerie Rea
January 6th, 2021

I said I am hungry
not Hunger Games.

$800 fine for gatherings more than 10.

Quebec institutes curfew;
this Saturday, 8pm.

Another curfew
at six, this day.
Not very Presidential news
Democracy gives way

PCR test required
72 hours before flight.

What is denied cannot be denied.

Outed,
in plain sight;
the visibility switched
lives ago.

I wonder, being White
and knowing

if the skin of the failed coup had been other
they’d have been beaten
gassed
shot

I wonder, our right as Canadians to comment on place that is not-
Home
and yet we neighbour.

What is the role of neighbour?

How do we do the work
local
and Global?

There is a reckoning to come beyond acknowledgement.

A pandemic to quell
lovers to meld bones with.

There is a reckoning to come beyond acknowledgement.

A reckoning upon whose breath
we’ll speak the names
of the heaven sent.

—Submitted on 01/08/2021

Crystal Valerie Rea is dedicated to democracy and art, and the places they intersect. Transitioning from Canadian Actors’ Equity Association stage manager to workshop facilitator while the stages of our world are dark, she holds a BFA in theatre (technical production) from Ryerson University in Toronto, and a focus in art direction from Vancouver Film School. This is her first poetry publication.

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Pam Sinicrope
My Teratoma

The doctor tells me
my teratoma looks like a pocket
of bones and cartilage, bulging
with hair, bright yellow, fat-rich.

This random mutation gone rogue
will not cease fabricating.
I name him Donald and he talks
to my lady parts while I sleep:

Pocahontas…bimbo…
I treat ‘em like shit…
by the pussy…you can
do anything if you’re rich…
blood coming out of her wherever…

and though the odds of cancer
are small, he continues
to amplify and twist
my ovary.
Donald must leave.

The surgeon dissects and strips it
layer-by-layer, the chambers of teeth,
tailbone and hair, scrapes it into a tiny bag,
suctions the remaining seepage, the process
is long and labored, but necessary
to prevent infection and sepsis.

I trace across
the ridge of scar, remember
how his half-formed phrases punctured
into ears and eyelids.

Later, he becomes nothing
but a case report, haploid parts
floating in formaldehyde,
confetti in a sea of apoplexy.

The doctor tells me he is
gone, was not malignant.
The doctor also tells me
he could grow back.

—Submitted on 01/08/2021

Pam Sinicrope‘s poems have appeared in 3 Elements Review, Appalachian Journal, Literary Mama, and other journals. among others. She is a student in the low residency MFA program at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, and lives in Rochester, Minnesota.

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Iain Haley Pollock
Not A Prayerful Kneeling (for John Lewis)

I did not learn you had died until the day
after you died.

I bought a children’s book, on the day you died,
about Muddy Waters.

When I cashed out, behind me on a cushioned bench,
the owner’s dog slept.

A springer spaniel named Virginia, the state where
generations of my people

worked tobacco rows & buffed silver
in plantation houses.

Next morning, I read the book to my youngest
when he woke up early.

He had wet the bed and called for me
& not for his mother.

After we had breakfast, he watched a cartoon,
& I opened The Times.

I read the headline that reported your death
but could not read the article.

Later that morning, folding laundry in my room,
my youngest wandered in.

I played him a Muddy Waters album. In “Mannish Boy”
when he throats out oh, yeah

and makes it last for a dust-thick summer afternoon,
Muddy rolls desperation

into the inextinguishable will to keep on living,
a dual state of being

I have only recently begun to understand.
I read the article

after I told Naomi you had died & she asked
how, how did you die?

She meant how could you die, myth we were raised on,
Selma & Freedom Riding.

I read enough to answer her stated question & saw you
kneeling in a photo.

This was not a prayerful kneeling, though your head
was bent toward the ground.

A state trooper had his hand on your shoulder
& his billy club raised

to hit you, again, in the ribs or head. I could not
look away to finish reading.

As on many Saturdays, I jogged in Nelson Park
on the day after you died.

The day was so hot—not an Alabama broil
but hot for along the Hudson—

that only five other people where in the park.
A black woman

sat on an aluminum bench, talking on the phone
under a flaming copper beech.

Across the field, in the shade of a plane tree, two men,
a couple, lay on a blanket

& talked face to face. On the basketball court,
a white man practiced lay-ups

on the far hoop. On the near, a light-skinned boy
took foul-line jumpers,

trails of his long, fine hair undulating each time
his sneakers landed on the hard court.

I don’t know why I’m telling this to you. I think
I must be afraid.

One day, in person or metaphor, hymns meant
to calm my nerves

will hum in the warming, pre-magnolia air.
I will be walking straight

toward a wall of callused hands, gripping hardwood
and waiting down the road.

Out across the highway, the Mattress & Awning Store
will be closed for the day.

As I come closer to the wall, my song will drop
to a lowdown gravel

& dust moan, wide and flat as any delta. Turn Back
Turn Back Turn Back

will shock between my synapses, will thrum & surge
along my arteries.

Survival will seem sweet. How will I walk then
into the wall, the hands,

the hardwood? How will I give myself up
to be cracked open?

How will I watch myself split & spilled on the road,
split—like you—& spilled?

—Submitted on 01/07/2021

Iain Haley Pollock is the author of two poetry collections, Ghost, Like a Place (Alice James Books, 2018), which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and Spit Back a Boy (U Georgia Press, 2011), which won the Cave Canem Prize. His poems have appeared in African American Review, American Poetry Review, The Baffler, The New York Times Magazine, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of Black Poetry (TriQuarterly, 2020) and Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poets for the Next Generation (Viking, 2015). He is the chair of the English department at Rye Country Day School and a faculty member at the Solstice MFA Program of Pine Manor College.

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Chad Parenteau
Riot Acts

The flags are so they know they’re home.
U.S.A.! U.S.A! U.S.A.! U.S.A!
They just want what was always theirs.
Four more years! Four more years!

U.S.A.! U.S.A! U.S.A.! U.S.A!
Trump 2020 flag ready to be planted.
Four more years! Four more years!
Last year stares down present’s face.

Trump 2020 flag ready to be planted.
Blue line is thin, except when not there.
Last year stares down present’s face.
Who dances between rubber bullets?

Blue line is thin, except when not there.
They’re opening the fucking gates!
Who dances between rubber bullets?
Is a mob not a mob when there’s a bomb?

They’re opening the fucking gates!
The Capitol will hang on a noose.
Is a mob not a mob when there’s a bomb?
We’re in! We’re in! We’re in! We’re in!

The Capitol will hang on a noose.
Note to Pelosi: We will not back down!
We’re in! We’re in! We’re in! We’re in!
MAGA hat selfies taken with guard.

Note to Pelosi: We will not back down!
Trump goes from holding bible to sermon.
MAGA hat selfies taken with guard.
Mass is over. Go home and in peace.

Trump goes from holding bible to sermon.
They just want what was always theirs.
Mass is over. Go home and in peace.
The flags are so they know they’re home.

—Submitted on 01/07/2021

Chad Parenteau is the author of The Collapsed Bookshelf (Tell-Tale Chapbooks, 2020) and Patron Emeritus (FootHills Publishing, 2013). His poems have appeared in Résonancee, Queen Mob’s Tea-House, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off 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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Kate Lutzner
Three Poems

Glassed In

I feel glassed in in your new
apartment. So long ago I felt
like this. Then the White House
made me think about you
and me and what we were
to each other. You put on your
purple hair and marched
against everything we despised.
I had decided not to care
for myself, an indentation
in the bed. You shot soft
daggers into me, hoping
that would help me
get up. I ruined us, or
the President did.
I forgot what we were
worshipping.

Happiness

We shave our heads for attention.
Right away, I get nostalgic
for hair. The telephone calls, dumb.
I’m pretty sure the President is sleeping.
I get suicidal over almost nothing, a daily
occurrence. My skin blots with lesions
pretty as pink roses. My boyfriend
salutes my beauty. We are lying
in bed, our bodies flat.

Relationships in Captivity

We’re beautiful dying on the carpet, all our juices
soaking and drying. The news plays
on a loop. We can’t stand it, but we don’t stop
it. We’ve never gone on a protest march,
but our boyfriends have, especially the one
who takes a nap each day so he can perform
later. When the TV goes off, we feel
our sadness. Our tears are soft.
All we know is this moment.
There is someone from our pasts
we hate, and it sours our stomachs
until we wretch. We focus on the present,
write “Welcome home” on our kitchen
walls so we remember where we left
off. There are oceans nearby
but we don’t think of them, crossing
so close they wet our feet.

—Submitted on 01/07/2021

Kate Lutzner is the author of Invitation to a Rescue (Poet Republik Limited, 2016). Her poems and stories have appeared in Antioch Review, Mississippi Review, The Brooklyn Rail, BlazeVOX, Rattle, and other journals. Lutzner holds a JD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA from The City College of New York. She lives in Brooklyn.

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Shei Sanchez
Rupture, A Definition

noun
that percolating sensation born
right in the center of the gut,
where a clock-shaped bruise
pulses like a ravaged wound
ready to burst
from an unrepentant heat
magmafying beneath
until a petulant purple
ooze coats the surface,
catalyzing the angst
of a country not ready
to face its worst fear—
real change.

verb¹
to froth from within
so as to brew a mythology
of mistrust

verb²
to burgeon by flooding
the dark with cascades
of waking light

—Submitted on 01/07/2021

Shei Sanchez‘s poems and prose have appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Autumn Sky Daily, Harness Magazine, Common Threads, and What Rough Beast, as well as in the anthology Essentially Athens Ohio: A Celebration of Spoken Word and Fine Art (independently published, 2019). She lives on a farm in Appalachian Ohio with her partner.

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Michael Quattrone
Responses to Tina Chang’s Instagram Post, 12/18/20

Problem is, it snowed last night and the day is inviting me to play and to feel that first crunch of foot to frost. That is also art, my mind insists.
—Tina Chang

Page on my desk, snow
in my window, unwritten
life invites me there.
—-

Small bird hopping, tracks
on deep white snow, written song
makes no impression.
—-

Quick, make your shadow
on the noonday snow, a poem
lasts only so long.
—-

Snow fell all day long
onto my page, this short poem
used to be longer.
—-

Gentle editor
the snow says yes, yes. Even
as she hides the work.
—-

Two birds on the snow,
a lively conversation,
let the minutes show.
—-

Morning blizzard, bright
clean page, a line of footsteps
what I didn’t say.
—-

This is also art
my mind insists, no body
playing in the snow.
—-

Cold page before me.
Do I break the ice? Warm words,
legible in air.
—-

Snow and solitude.
The poet’s last line, boot prints
as she walks away.
—-

If I die tonight,
let snow fall ’til morning comes,
bury me in light.

—Submitted on 01/07/2021

Michael Quattrone is the author of Rhinoceroses selected by Olena Kalytiak Davis for the New School Chapbook Award in 2006. His poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Caffeine Destiny, McSweeney’s, No Tell Motel, Pebble Lake Review, and other journals, as well as in anthologies including Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present (Scribner, 2008) and The Incredible Sestina Anthology (Write Bloody, 2018). With Laura Cronk and Megin Jimenez, Quattrone curated the KGB Monday Night Poetry Series from 2007 to 2011. He lives in Tarrytown, New York.

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Madlynn Haber
Goodbye to the Angry Man

Goodbye to the angry man
whose words offended us all.
Words were not intended to offend.

Born before creation, words
give rise to possibility, to hope
Placed together they tell stories.
Stories bring us to knowing,
understanding lives we haven’t led.
Words create in us compassion,
connection, context and collaboration.
Words brought light into the world
they awaken, enliven, delight.

Words were not intended to divide, demean, destroy.
His mumbled, garbled, distortions of speech
hurt the ear, the heart, with sounds that pierced
and shattered. Full of anger, bitterness and disgrace,
they spoke to greed, hatred and ignorance.

Let his presence be erased. Bring ease to all
who suffered by his proclamations. Bring peace
to all the hearts his words have broken, the souls
divided by his distortion of our language.
Put his tirades behind us. Let us speak as if
he never was. Let’s put him in past tense.

—Submitted on 01/06/2021

Madlynn Haber‘s work has been published in Anchor Magazine, Exit 13 Magazine, Mused Literary Review, Hevria Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies Letters to Fathers from Daughters: A Pathway to Healing and Hope (Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, 2007) and Word of Mouth: Volume 2: Short-Short Stories By 100 Women Writers (Crossing Press, 1991). She lives in Northampton, Mass. Online at madlynnwrites.com

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Diane Ray
Capitol Offense

The omens were unhinged when prophecy blossomed
and angry minions, from near and afar’s alternative
universe of information spun, deplaned, detrained,
poured from busses, parked their cars and swarmed
like locusts come to their most fabled chomping ground,

descending in plain sight of a government
that conveniently left the apertures appetizingly
ajar or breachable. See footage of the arm-raising
anarchist perched so regally in the Speaker’s seat. Ritual
revenge morphed into melee: a woman was sacrificed.

The man who if he could be would be king or oligarch
was supported to the last lick, pre-invasion, by one hundred
elected Representatives throwing up flack to shroud a sky
they damn well knew had politically turned blue.

They all lost bigly on this one, accidentally shooting
In the chest their fearless Disruptor’s
2024 plans. The Liberty Lady due North
looks on and hoists her torch.

—Submitted on 01/06/2021

Diane Ray‘s poems and essays have appeared in Cirque, Canary, Sisyphus, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Common Dreams, and other journals, as well as in anthologies including Sheltering in Place (Staring Problems Press, 2020). Ray, a native New Yorker, lives near Green Lake in Seattle and works as a psychologist.

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