Eileen Cleary
Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.

The earth tests each person,
like the Great Famine tested a woman
who inevitably succumbed. A man
later carved her image, having no camera,
into wood. I watch her story on a T.V.
that channels crowds of gasping people. No words

escape their chiseled throats. No words.
No proper nouns. No names to tell which person
might be the effigy on my T.V.,
and no markers to signal where this woman’s
bones might be. More femurs as the camera
pans a field to an ancient farmer, a man

who fled Ireland for America. In his diaspora, this man’s
tears, or mine, blur the screen. Picture, his words
beg, the pits they threw their bodies in. His inner camera
mutely records as each new person
perishes in a fresh death toll, conjuring this woman
as whole villages sicken and die on T.V.

Stockpiles of grain to fatten the cattle, the T.V.
anchor adds, for export. The old man
flinches. Fish just offshore. This woman
wasn’t felled by potato fungus but by words.
He explains, The contagion of each person
who spread them. The camera

in the man pings. So sensitive. His camera
sharpens through the T.V.
events we now witness in person,
a terrible gathering in the gut. The old man
scowls: Let this thin the herd were the words
the leaders levied against this woman.

The newly dead, like this woman,
carry their invisible lives away from the camera,
the wider orb never turning to their words:
I was here. Leaders stream on T.V.
rarely naming each person
as distinct and meaning it. One such man

was elected after boasting to every person who’d listen
on camera or T.V., about savaging a woman.
After aping a disabled man. I can barely speak these words.

—Submitted on 08/17/2020

Eileen Cleary is the author of Child Ward of the Commonwealth (Main Street Rag Press, 2019) and 2 A.M. With Keats (forthcoming from Nixes Mate, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Sugar House Review, West Texas Literary Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Solstice, Mom Egg Review, and other journals. Cleary founded the Lily Poetry Review and Lily Poetry Review Books, and curates the Lily Poetry Salon.

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Lori Bellamy
Personified

The old woman is here again
wearing her red pajamas.
She is talking rapidly,
holding herself up with her
elbows on two low canes.

There is a fence, she tells me, around a field
without sheep. No lambs kicking green.
No cows kissing grass. The earth eroded
so we see out the rift to the other side.

She is here alone, except
for me, sitting at the table
with an empty glass
in that shift from late to early
the sun rises
and throws a glare across the floor.

There is also a well that
stares back at the sky.
Echoes into you
when you sing down into it
when you try to fill it with song.

It is surprising how fast
she moves back into the other room
still talking,
calling out the names
of the newly dead.

—Submitted on 08/16/2020

Lori Bellamy is a math tutor living in Seattle.

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Lori Bellamy
May Day

A woman stabbed my husband at that party.
A glancing stab, a flabby stab, but still she spilled
his single malt almost on his coconuts. He lifted them away.
He was dressed as a palm tree, see? For the weekend,
with fronds in his hat splayed so they were dancing
round his head. For this every-year party we go to in May.

I was dressed as a parrot that May, I may
have had feathers, I did have a beak for the party.
Picture a palm tree and parrot in purple tights dancing.
His three coconuts tied round his neck so they spilled
bodaciously. Those coconuts thrilled him all weekend.
The lady dressed as Mata Hari? The stabber? She got away.

After the stabbing, Mata Hari stashed her weapon and got away.
The rest of us stayed in the kitchen to celebrate May,
which is the reason, the occasion for the weekend.
Our castle dwelling friend with the millionaire teeth throws a party
every May to celebrate how spring has spilled
to summer, with all the world and every creature dancing.

Velvet sofas slid away from glossy floors for dancing.
Platters of exotic morsels brought from far away.
The wide armed view, the bluff, the star spilled
sky. Music, singing, esoteric tipples, this is how we usher in the May.
It would have been today. Today is the day of the party.
I’d be practicing pre-emptive self-care to prepare for the weekend.

This weekend we’re protecting friends with weakened
immune systems. Keeping our droplets from dancing
into unprotected faces. The castle with its empty spaces. A party
of one. The good part is no stabbing, no sickness when we’re away
from one another. And look, the actual May
arrives. Birds fill the trees, the ground is flower spilled.

The grass is filled with green from all the rain that’s spilled.
I think back to January which was another weekend
party. The one in March was cancelled, just like the one in May.
But it’s okay. The air outside is dancing,
it’s wet, it’s clean with rain. It takes away
the quiet night. A raucous rooftop raindrop party.

May still spills her blossoms
in a party for the trees. Weekends
of dancing leaves, with all the people safely locked away.

—Submitted on 08/14/2020

Lori Bellamy is a math tutor living in Seattle.

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Linda Lowe
Congratulations

There were signs of congratulations on every door. Positive thinking was all the rage. If you said yes enough times, yes it was, yes sir. Or madam. No one was left out that way. You could be crossing the Mojave and everyone would wish you well. Maybe offer you a swig of water if it came to that. Point out that you might find a good pair of boots along the way. People were falling after all. How long could they be expected to stand? Their boots, please, have at them.Close their eyes, utter a few words, move on.

—Submitted on 08/13/2020

Linda Lowe is the author of the chapbook Karmic Negotiations (Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press, 2003), winner of the SPT National Poetry Competition. Her poems and stories have appeared in Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Outlook Springs, A Story in 100 Words, The New Verse News, Star 82 Review, and other journals, as well as in the anthology Weatherings (Future Cycle Press, 2015), edited by David Chorlton and Robert S. King. Lowe lives in Southern California with her husband.

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Lindsay Stewart
Cento for the Growing Edge

Feminists are desperately anxious / search for nourishment / they’ve practiced staying alive / wild animal growls. snarls. werewolf. surely. monster! like with fangs and wings and it can fly / lucky girl. lucky. nine lives / we looked for disorder / this is my history / models dead on the runways, with their legs facing backward / our leader has left us, too / today, as this war begins, every word we say is / how long can we maintain / a warning: / when I reach for yours waists, I reach for bombers / I am hungry / it has to be understood, that / it is an entire herd: massive / after upsetting the tables and rejecting the lure, we were disenchanted, but / it’s not just about / empty stables / these things go in cycles, like everything else / desperate and angry, a number / on the growing edge

Cast, in order of first appearance: The Unabomber Manifesto; Baaa; White Noise; The Dark Knight Returns; Holy Terror; Negativeland; Grasshopper Jungle; Feed; Modern Life; This Connection of Everyone with Lungs; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

—Submitted on 08/12/2020

Lindsay Stewart is a graduate student in American literature at San Diego State University. Her work has appeared in The Alcala Review, BEATS, and The Los Angeles Review, and has been featured on the Poetry Foundation’s VS podcast.

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Chad Parenteau
Resistance Tankas for Pandemic Times

Herman Cain Jesus Tanka

Herman Cain Jesus
doesn’t carry any cross
but takes each story
taking pictures with his guards,
sharing wine with everyone.

Stella Immanuel Jesus Tanka

Her sole miracle
S. Immanuel Jesus
turns any liquid
to hydroxychloroquine.
Demon sperm won’t purge itself.

Jerry Falwell Jr. Jesus Tanka

In last ditch effort,
ol’ Jerry Jr. Jesus
has exiled himself
from own temple, just to keep
moneylenders from leaving.

Joe Arpaio Jesus Tanka

All they say is why,
why, Jim Arpaio Jesus,
didn’t you stay gone?
We had all forsaken you
and kept the boulder unbudged.

Kamala Harris Jesus

From Book of Hashtags:
Kamala Harris Jesus
is Judas, Peter
Pontius Pilate, and both guards
standing under her own cross.

—Submitted on 08/12/2020

Chad Parenteau is the author of The Collapsed Bookshelf (Tell-Tale Chapbooks, 2020) and Patron Emeritus (FootHills Publishing, 2013). His poems have appeared in Résonancee, Boston Literary Magazine, Queen Mob’s Tea-House, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, and other journals. He is associate editor of Oddball Magazine and hosts the Stone Soup Poetry series in Boston. Online at chadparenteaupoetforhire.com.

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Steve McDonald
A Blessing

When the clerk asks that he wear a mask,
offers him a mask to wear, he lifts
his stained t-shirt from the hair of his belly
like a battle flag, from the hair of his belly
he lifts his t-shirt to cover his lips and says
Don’t tell me in this free country what to wear.
And Mary Magdalene lifts to the sound
of his lips a burial shroud from an empty tomb.
And Francis from Assisi wraps with cloth
his body’s five wounds. And a thousand-year
oak in Native lands blesses with rounds
of bark the wood of his heart and says,
This year acorns will not fall to the ground.
And the world wears a mask and washes its hands.

—Submitted on 08/09/2020

Steve McDonald is the author, most recently, of Credo (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2018) and Golden Fish / Dark Pond (Comstock Review, 2015). His poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Boulevard, Nimrod, The Atlanta Review, Rattle, and other journals. He lives with his wife in Murrieta, Calif. Online at stevemcdonaldpoetry.com.

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Cordelia Naumann
Two Poems

The Apology

I apologize to the hounds every day
without saying a word
cuz even the devil thinks the sunny days are sad
I can make tails of it
when it greets me at the door
or morphs, or shapeshifts
but I don’t know what it thinks
or what it wants
I just know it has its own agenda
and it’s making people mad
and not in that good way when people are smokin’ reefer
and Monterey Pop is on
but in that way a child cowers in a corner
then lashes out like a lion

Where to Land

The sirens went off, and there was silence again.
Call and response, hear the tiny wrens.
“Where have all the planes gone?” one twittered.
“I can’t get my bearings,” said the other.
Said a third;
“The hummers used to show us where to land.”

—Submitted on 08/09/2020

Cordelia Naumann is a digital project manager and information developer in San Bruno, Calif. 

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Carmelina Fernandes-Kock am Brink
Merry-go-round

Every wine glass broken makes for more
Space in the
Antique showcase.

Dessert bowls thrown like disks
In jubilant post-party washing-up sessions
That missed their target, my catch and clasp, in
Time to avoid
Disaster.

The crash
On the hardwood floor to the score
Of late-night jazz or let’s be frank
Early morning workout be-bop
Played to the carefree feel
Of a crowded get-together carried off
So well,
Mingling in the groove of gossip of who
Wore what or told what story to make the
Rest of us wonder in amazement,
Envy perhaps, and already we make plans to go down
Similar roads appropriate places where
The sun goes down burnishing everything.

Until then we sway our hips, twirl,
Skip a beat, miss that flung dish, tip the
Tray of thin high-stemmed crystal—
The price we pay as purveyors of
Ritualized feasts.

The lives of beloved objects now come full
Circle.

We stop, whiplashed, stoop down
In awe sweep up the bits, squabble about
Whose fault this is,
Wipe a tear of disbelief
Recall the
Origins. A wedding gift perhaps.
If we continue on this track
Reckless
Nothing of those early days will be saved.

And yet it is we who create new spaces.

Showcasing our lives entails
Bidding goodbye
Invigorating our museum,
Allowing for this ongoing rhythm witnessing
Downspins as mere teething pains.

What remains is the fact that
We tangoed.
Swung to the beat of our friends
In roundabout panting breaths
Our lungs swelling.
How good that felt, a
Tribal thanksgiving to sheer
Existence. When’s our next dance?

Those broken shards as the curtain fell
Now a warning to poltergeists held at arm’s length
To stay far away
Leave this house once alive with mirth,
Undisturbed.

Memories of tangibles will always loll
Their way in
Through the revolving doors of our
Imaginations, encased in love
Unfailing.

—Submitted on 08/09/2020

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

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Meredith Ann O’Connell
Three Poems


Hi, Neighbor (Day 2)

Since when did window watching become the highlight of my day?
The curtains are drawn back, the screen pushed up
Elbows propped up on the sill, I count branches on the bare tree
and blades of grass in the yard next door that are finally emerging
But what I wait here to see is not the blue sky or the sunlight, which
I miss enveloping me like a hug; nor is it
the plastic flamingo decorations in the yard across the way
I wait for the signs of life: a
conversation held outside, dogs barking,
men laying wires for telephone lines,
people sitting in front of their windows,
Waiting for life just like me


Wrong Timing, Again (Day 6)

It’s on hold, I remind myself;
Not over, not finished, not destroyed
But the timing is always wrong,
Whenever I think I’ve found it:
How do my desires stand a fighting chance
against a revolution of the people?
How do my desires possibly compete
Against a pandemic which limits
the expression of feelings and touch?


You Can Read About Us in Chapter 20 (Day 87)

Using terms like abandoned, deserted—evoking emptiness, silence
Where have all the people gone, they ask? Their poems are silent
That’s what they’ll say about us, when our time has become a story
That’s how the future will look back at our unendurable, enduring present
Then they will refer to it using the past tense—not now
They were so lonely, stuck at home by themselves full of fear,
with no reassurances, because the end was unknown and unforeseen
How they dreamed the day away, wandering around only in their memories
Here; there; anywhere but where they sat, caged at last

—Submitted on 08/08/2020

Meredith O’Connell is a poet and occasional blogger who wrote a weekly women’s rights column during her time in the Middle East. She usually lives in Brooklyn but is now quarantining in her hometown of Sag Harbor, New York.

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