TIM STALEY – Confession, honesty and repentance are my first steps forward.

This isn’t a poem or a joke.

This is a confession. Confession, honesty and repentance are my first steps forward.

From approximately 1985 to 2001

I participated in racist behaviors.

I called black people racist names.

I looked down on black people and laughed at racist jokes.

I was not an ally to the one black student in the graduating class of my high school.

I wish to repent these crimes

in earshot of America. It took me 45 years to say these words.

It took me 45 seconds to say these words.

A wise poet once said you have to write about the one thing that scares you most.

Maybe this is the first poem I’ve ever written.

Tohm Bakelas – end of an era

end of an era

outside the pawnshop

i held those rings

hand

autumn leaves

on the turn of winter—

i felt the beautiful times

crumble in my palm

withered november leaves—

how could two rings

represent so much happiness

and then

much

pain?

like the last leaf

on an oak tree

winter winds shook me loose

from a numbing reminiscence—

i took a deep breath

went inside

and made the exchange

it was that simple

Emily Bornstein – Just Another Hand

JUST ANOTHER HAND

Just another hand perfecting her form. Keeping

her knees tucked to her chest, her arms above her

head, preparing to plunge into the earth. Ready

to dive wrist-deep into worms, to brandish grainy

chunks of manure. She’ll ignore the smell and the

perpetual line of black residue beneath her nails.

She’ll turn a blind eye to the bubbling calluses and

the crumbling arthritic joints below her fingertips.

Just another foolish hand insisting she has a green

thumb. Painting her nails baby blue so that the flower

might think her honeyed water, so that it might sway

balmily between her fingers. Bathing madly in lavender

and vanilla (so that the blossom might unfurl with her

touch) only to walk swollen and wretched through a twinkling

fog of bees. A crestfallen hand trudging eternally towards an

empty bell jar, a barren translucent womb. (She always saw,

though, the beauty in nonexistent, and therefore undying, petals).

Just another hand on her knees, asking to be sent anywhere but

the hopeless, blistering field. Pleading with the cheap, crackling

wires to send any other message to her muscles. Begging the poet

to stop sending her on endless missions to scrawl futile love songs

across the trees.

Douglas Collura – Her Third Date After a Twenty-Five Year Marriage

Her Third Date After a Twenty-Five Year Marriage

She says, “Look. The rain’s harder now.”

I say, “Yes, but the theater’s close.”

She thumbs a path across

her melting glass.

Her daughter in third-year law.

Her granddaughter a swan.

When did I say I believed

in anyone’s tomorrow?

Her cupped hands; lines

connect, curve, cross,

predict nothing. She stares

into the passing moment.

“I never thought I’d be this person,”

she says, “never this alone.

I’m afraid sometimes, though

it’s nice not to be second guessed.”

My bedroom a chaos of shadows.

She’s unsure what comes next.

Then her legs clamp my hips,

and her mouth finds my neck.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal – ON A SATURDAY NIGHT

On a Saturday Night

I set out

on a Saturday night

in late April

and the moon was shining.

I had no

one at my side and I

did not feel at

all lonely. The bright moon

lead the way.

I did not like going

to sleep. It was

near midnight, and Sunday

was about

to begin. I set out

in late April

to find something different.

Margaret Wagner – A GIRL ON HER BOARD

A GIRL ON HER BOARD

She rolled on the sidewalk at dusk,

the wheels of her skateboard whirring.

She bent without effort,

feet tucked under knees

in a pose I’d never seen.

Gray leggings popped out of pink high-tops. Maroon lips,

aubergine nail polish, metal hoops dangled from her ears.

Her chin rested on her long arm. One bare shoulder

slipped out of her oversized black cardigan. She flew

past cherry blossoms, absorbing cracks in equal measure.

Gliding in her own momentum,

never intending to forget her flow,

she followed her beat wherever it led her.

Was this the starting gate of her velocity

or the peak of it?

Glenn Ingersoll – I WANT

I Want

found in the database of the UC Berkeley library

I want a black doll

I want a dog

I want a little girl

I want! I want!

I want it now

I want mama

I want me a home

I want to be a lady

I want to be a mathematician

I want to be African

I want to be an astronaut

I want to be happy

I want to be like Stalin

I want to go on the stage

I want to live!

I want to say listen

I want to speak

I want you to marry me

I wanted to be an actress

I wanted to see

I wanted to tell you

I wanted to write a poem

I wanted wings

MARC CARVER – CURTAIN TWITCHERS

CURTAIN TWITCHERS
As I run the day to begin it
the sun comes up and I want to get out before anybody sees me and sees I have used up my quota for the day.
I think I can go out the front way once and out the back way the other time and no one will see me. Maybe I can sneak out two or three times in a day before all the curtain twitchers see me.
It is only a matter of time before the have a hot line.
I saw him going out again twice yesterday and three times on Monday.
People

Sal Marici – As We Wait for His Transport to Cremation

As We Wait for His Transport to Cremation

George’s body lies in bed

mouth ajar. His skin

each minute turns

in a shade of white

paler than before.

In front of his grandpa’s corpse

grandson flips through tropical shirts.

The few items George’s daughter

did not pack for me

to take to Goodwill.

Grandson picks one. He pulls

his t-shirt over his head.

Slips his arms through sleeves.

When buttons fasten holes

birds, flowers align.

A friend of George

who has the same name

who influenced George’s poetry

wears a tropical shirt he selected

from the stack.

George would smile

if he could see them

wear him.

But he said no afterlife exists.

John Dorroh – “It’s Probably More Than Colitis”

“It’s Probably More Than Colitis”

I like a woman with a clean colon,

the way she starts telling stories

at the end

and works back toward the beginning,

expecting me to connect all the dots.

She takes her temperature every hour,

tells me the results, wants for me

to tie a knot with my swollen tongue

in her cherry

stem. The french kiss should have been

the second best clue

that we wouldn’t click, at least not like that.

I can cuddle like a fish with the best of them,

but sometimes we have to be satisfied

with a flag at half mast. You can always

use tulips to brighten the

room. We fidget in the clinic for an hour

before they call her name.

She refuses my hand, gives me an orange-lipped

piranha smile, and disappears into the

blue-white light.

Cacti Fur

a poetry high ground

Images