Late on 38th

The bus is late on 38th.
I wait with two who clean houses,
our small umbrellas repelling
the rain from our heads,
our coats and shoes drenched.
One grips her handle with such force
the red of blood nearly glows,
an ember of her inner fire.
Her feet move as if organ pedals
to an unheard and lively tune.
The other stands straight as a pin
trying to hide from the squall
and wonders aloud if people
can smoke in the rain,
and I look at the first woman’s hand,
fists like glowing embers,
squeeze my umbrella tighter
just above the rising hook,
and start a little shuffle,
feel my fingers burning, burning.

Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California, with his wife. He has contributed to Willows Wept Review, Heartwood, Bluebird Word, and Gold Man Review.

Shadrach 

I say hip hop is dead
Shape it like an afro
Pull my teeth out
Ice cream truck in the neighborhood
A call for taking shots
Go down in the valley
Searching for my bid
Measure to measure
See through my eyes are believing
Getting dibs but I’m losing pay
Sniff it like glue

I’m the big fish theory
I hate myself
I create poetry that bakes
I can’t be angry
I have a bodyguard
That’s right I have a bodyguard
Swim in the Cadillac
Bring my camera around
Mind control over the world
See my body double
Give me a sweet kick 

The people of tomorrow
The neighborhood knockers
A butterfly in the ring
Written to perform
I gave out the power
Pen and pad with a boombox
Can’t live without my radio
Ride in the ship of fools
Dream the ghetto dreams
I quite fancy the oven
I’m here in the projects

Jakima Davis writes, “I made my poetry debut in 2000 at the age of 16. I’ve been published in underground publications. I’ve been published in “The PEN,” “Street Value,” “Big Hammer,” and “Full Moon Poetry,” among others. Published three chapbooks; one in 2016 and two in 2021. As of now, I’m posting my poems on Facebook to gain a fanbase.”

“Art Invites Disaster”

_____–-quote by Jack Grapes

I was born into the disaster of my parents’ marriage.
How could it be otherwise; he merely twenty, she
merely a year older.

Thank the gods they waited until I was ten to have another
child, so I was able to take care of him. You’ve read
or maybe had the experience of a group of people

standing around an exhibition of rocks. That’s right, rocks,
in a museum, and the artist calls them, “Meditative Art,
the entropic principles of order and decay.”

My mother gathered rocks and built a shrine in a corner
of our living room. Eventually, it wasn’t enough
and she purchased a salamander thinking it a perfect home,

then forgot to feed it. We never found the poor creature,
and us children, we refused to die from neglect. Mother
sang a song no one understood, notes off key,

some haunting melody only she found harmonic.
We grew, walked the rough path of puberty,
finding our way between concepts of construction

versus deconstruction, and left to our natural forces,
we waited to tear down or tear ourselves apart.
Yet, here we still are, old by anyone’s standards.

Stellasue Lee was a host of WordStream at WDVX, Knoxville, TN. She was founding editor of RATTLE, and is now editor Emerita. Dr. Lee received her PhD from Honolulu University. Winner of The Grand Prize of Poetry to Aide Humanity by Al Falah in Malaysia, she now teaches privately and has students all over the globe.

Please call it life

_____To S.

Please call it life, this endless spark
Where God gives a bit of his time
To grass on Saturday morning,
And stares from a seething light
Force animals to silence-
Sure, but the thing is the moon is in shambles,
As no-one minds the days, that cyanotic blue breaking down
In a wrath sowing seeds of loss
While women smile and men hint to you that
Nights, or books won’t give you shelter,
Nor will the sky, the sea, those wary right-wingers
Who frown on changes, always stay the same-
No problems, OK, if she goes on breathing
Among boulders or climbers you just stop her,
Stop gathering from the street the shreds
Of unfathomable lights, maybe chance it with God
To get a tent in the desert, and only then
Those seeds will show up,
Nevermind if she looks so frail,
Long gone are the days she would nick
Books, prophets, the underwood, and loss
Just to spicy up a life where her soul withdrew
From women going to ambush her-
Is that you, God, are you done yet?
Ok, but please stay in touch, stay tuned, God,
While she’s sitting next to her, just rest your eyes
On that vibrant woman in love,
Maybe the grass in love, maybe her soul
Who can’t trust summer, nor demise.

Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at six, started writing poems (in Italian) at six and is the author of these books: “Lo sguardo di Orfeo”; “L’inverno di vetro”; “Di altre stelle polari”; “Casa di erba”; “Blue Branches”; “ A Blue Soul”.

Nov. 12, New England

_____A summer’s green explosion half gone now, October’s yellows and oranges a fallen, wind-blown memory, bulldozed by a bevy of browns, withered, weathered brown leaves dangling, dancing in the wind; trimmed brown stalks, rows and rows, chestnut, khaki, desert sand, a kaleidoscope of dying, drooping, decaying browns, yet still pricked with dots of green, somehow; among peeling light brown bark, the paperbark maple shedding, yet still sturdy and stark, amidst a graying, cold, looming sky; the common box, aka boxwood, aka Buxus Sempervirens, an anomaly, spindly branches, tear drop leaves, all green, forever, a contrast to the browning all around, the crumbling, the dying summer wave; the prairie dock, a now ugly duckling, a brownish, spindly oddity reaching skyward, yet somehow, somehow, hosting a single, green, leafy pancake, still thinking/wishing it was July; wilting, almost-wintering

_____The moldering and soggy brown leaves, crumpled and torn and bug begotten, dotting the still-green lawn, a poor pastel pond amidst the browning shore, the rotting, the atrophying, yet still guarded by the giant forever greens, the spruces, the firs, the pines, the balsam and fraser firs, even the regal emerald green arborvitae, all standing tall, protecting the dicots and friends, still an orangy-brown polka dot presence, alongside the cross-hatched panorama, bare-boned branches, like an artist’s thin-ink drawings, opaque, suggesting what could be, will be;

_____Yet buds present now (Really?), small reddish-brown-green triplets, adorning another dicot variety, it’s spindly, gray arms pimpled with life; a star magnolia, from a distance, naked and gray, bare, shivering, jutting awkwardly N-S-E&W, yet upon close inspection, decomposing leaves, dried, putrified, brown-black, looking like large, shriveled dead bugs, alongside, yup, alongside, next summer’s newbies, grayish buds, soft and furry, like a teeny-tiny baby chick, across the yard from a treasure flower, egg-yolk yellow, all 17 spidery petals, still erect amidst the coming storm, alongside a single, solitary purple Viola Wittrockiana, aka a purple pansy, with a dot of yellow in the middle, hiding in a red bucket with dead brown leaves and twisted, decrepit, withering vines, flashing what was, what is, and what will be.

 Poem I Wrote While Zooming During a Poetry Session

I am
looking at Lenny D,
directly in the eyes. He’s
in a Zoom box, in a poetry
session.

We chat in chat. But not long enough to be rude.

I offer words to submit.
He sends me a link because
that’s what you’re supposed to do.

I will send poems
that will cause mild blistering.

Perhaps he’ll publish one.

John Dorroh’s first poem was scribbled in his mother’s red lipstick on the bathroom walls. Perhaps his poetry has evolved since then. His poetry has popped up in over 125 journals such as Feral, Pinyon, The Big Windows Review, River Heron, and Pif. He had two chapbooks published in 2022.

Bittersweet Rain

When the sky
opens
it cries
for the ones
we’ve lost.
When the rain
pours
it releases
our hidden
pain.
Raindrops
mingle
with bitter
tears.
Rivers flow
from
our eyes
our cheeks
our souls.
It cleanses us
heals us
soothes us
in our grief.

Sarah M. Prindle received an Associates in English from Northampton Community College. She loves reading everything from historical fiction and memoirs to poetry and mysteries. She hopes to someday publish her own novels and poetry collections and has already had her work published in several literary magazines and websites.