Marvinlouis Dorsey

i

saw

things

on T.V

 

bus

crash

news

cop-

ter

burning

 

things

many

eyes

saw

 

only

few

can

re-

member

 

dead

bodies

ejected

burning

alive

 

fire

fighter

run-

ning

from what he

saw

 

i’m

 

run-

ning

from what

my mind

can’t wipe

away

She

 

showed

him

 

a

painting

 

she

 

cried

 

as

i

once

did

 

he

 

put

Pain-

ting

 

on-

to

canvas

 

she

crazy

 

he

 

damn

 

genius

 

with

crown

 

on

he

head

Dean Okamura

 

Tammy Smith

Mistrial

The first thought I had
when the judge declared
the Lindsay Clancy murder case
a mistrial: what a nightmare—

I couldn’t imagine a mother
with a plan
to strangle her kids—so horrific,
so wrong it defies
language.

I no longer own
a physical dictionary
to look up filicide.
The word itself
offers no closure,
no comfort
for this level of brutality.

Who isn’t exhausted
most of the time?

I miss the two days a week
I used to work remotely.
I worry about getting stuck
in traffic, running out of gas.

I shiver when I think
how little space there is
between making a wish
and watching it come true.

Trick candles won’t blow out,
but the ice cream cake melts anyway.
I’m tired of being stared at
by fake-happy people
clapping and singing off-key—
when all I want to do
is disappear.

Can a mother crave solitude
and leave her own party?
What if she stays
but can’t put up with the noise
without snapping?

The crowd boos either way.

Pink T-shirts. GoFundMes.
Pleas for compassion.
Pleas for the death penalty.

Don’t forget
she killed her three babies—

postpartum psychosis,
postpartum depression,
failures in maternal mental health.

Watching the testimony,
I shudder when Lindsay’s sister,
a social worker like me,
solemn-faced,
takes the stand.

I once shared a cell
with a woman
who slit her daughter’s wrists.
We took turns sobbing
over our plates of cold potatoes.

Whenever I complained
about my forty-five days,
she reminded me:

At least you’ll get out
and can still make something
of your life.

I’ll never be free.

Jeffry Jensen

COMING AT IT FROM A REMOTE LOCATION

I was slapping on the spackle,
walling up all the insect cracks,
only one nightmare came in black and white,
with devil-may-care colors everywhere else.
I had one fake memory at the shoreline,
one Mack the Knife in my pocket,
going Dutch with a vengeance,
quizzing everything in sight including myself backwards.
My lemon-squeezing tree had a very hard summer in the sun.
For some reason there were plenty of eggs
in the community basket case and muffins reached
the speed limit to the empty planets faster than my heart.
A crosswalk to the Milky Way allowed me to check
my rubber ducky at the door as I got ready
to ride a dead horse to the moon during rush hour.
Now my petrified forest is buttered up on the hill.
Sugar cubes began doubling for rocket fuel,
with a side order of toast serving as the tongue of invention.
I fed carrots to my spaceship, crawling up an itch.
I collapsed in a saddle of sleep with a tucked in
shirt and pleated trousers worn to impress the devil.
There was smoke going up the chimney as one last
tree tilted toward a shaky Tuesday.
There are enough tea bags in my cushion to sink China.
My youth went into its Jello stage with my Presbyterian
pride living out its years with a Catholic convert.
She became my unfinished woman, my unfortunate
rebel serving up a kettle of red spiders.
I had no desire to stay in bed on punctuation day.
There was magic and loss in holding her hand.
She left me naked in all caps
and begging to be nothing but invading sand for a century.
I attempted to use a skeleton key to turn her knees into hope.
My begging became all shaped like medicated soap.
I am nothing but the long neck Danish kid dying
to tumble three digits into the rising sea.
Crowing from atop a dogwood tree in a remote location,
I contemplate joining all the demented gods splashing in our memorial fountain
with a philosophical hangover and a growing hunger for despair.

jf giraffe 🦒

GET RID OF TRASH (Haiku) 

Send the GOP

somewhere remote and distant

Keep them far away

SAD AND DISAPPOINTED (Haiku) 

Remote in my hand

won't work on remote island

Makes me feel remote 

Ellyn Maybe

Way too Quiet for a Night Owl (Haiku)

The remote island
was not part of her day dream
City nights whispered





A Spiritual Choir (Haiku)

Hardly familiar
The room felt remotely odd
Full of singing ghosts





The Sun was Angry at Earth and Refused to Shine (Haiku)

Remotely foggy
The weather sensed disaster
The people wore tears

Tim Tipton

The Sound of Water

It’s steelhead season

The sun floats in a white mist.

I am very happy to

walk along the river

where life breathes through the blue-

green ripples and I find comfort

in a pair of ducks

breaking into the flight upriver shining

in morning light.

I stand at the bank and close my eyes

and savor the out rush of quietness.

I want to get lost in a world I never

lived in. Be happy sitting at a bank

fishing all day , or carving something

beautiful out of wood, or paddle a raft

to a salvation of solitude. To be drawn

to nature, to be remote, and to want nothing more

than to hear the sound of water flowing, I can’t

tell you how happy that makes me.

Sultana Raza

Shales of Memory

 

Their names remained carved on the trunk

of their favourite mulberry tree

for a longer period

than the concrete of their driveway.

 

Mainly because they were obliged to sell their house

after their divorce, and

the new owner decided to tear it down

to build a new one.

 

It took her years to figure out that both of them

had been playing at being a married couple,

and their nest had been more of a stage

than a real home.

 

If ever there was a next time,

she’d make sure he’d know her real self;

she wouldn’t try to fit into any pegs

created by an uncaring society.

 

She’d allow him to be himself,

though she might need to tweak

any obnoxious habits he might have,

just a little.

 

Perhaps they’d live in a caravan to start with,

for a trial run, before moving

into any spaces with solid walls.

 

And if they carved any initials onto any tree barks,

they’d have to be in another county,

so her heart wouldn’t get splintered

every time she passed by Evergreen Park.

 

Photo: Longing to Dance by S. Raza

Choreia*

 

She longed to shrug off
this heavy casing of inflexible stone,
so she could paint playful tunes
with her fluttering fingers onto thin air.

But no matter how much she longed to
Twirl, pirouette, skip, or hop in sync with
these melodious waves,
her hands remained immobile,
feet rooted to the spot.

At least she could still dream of dancing
with the waves, a few millennia ago
before that witch had turned her to stone,
and these misguided fools
had placed her in a polluted city in a tight niche;
not knowing, or uncaring
of how their nostalgic soulful songs
made her weep tears of dew at misty dawn.

---

*A type of circle dance in ancient Greece

Inspired by the art-work shown, Longing to Dance (also by Sultana Raza).

 

Note: previously published in Literary Heist in Dec. 2023. 

 

 

Naught

 

None to rescue him from dream gone awry,

None who could fathom his unique, lonely strife.

None with his wishes, who could comply.

None who could feed his explorations of life,

 

None his needless dues to death could deny,

None to paint sunny, once again grey light,

None his suffering to world could decry.

None for his vitality who could fight.

 

None with dire destiny for him who could spar.

None who’d mourn his paintings of tombs.

None who’d long to glimpse his bright star.

None to bestrew on his grave blue blooms.

 

None who’d admire his majestic melancholy,

None to revere temple of his own psyche.

 

Note: inspired by poets/artists such as Keats and Caspar David Friedrich who died in poverty, and in relative obscurity in their lifetimes (as compared to the later popularity and appreciation of their works).