Eileen Tabios
From The Ashbery Riff-Offs
—where each poem begins with 1 or 1-2 lines from “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” by John Ashbery

Witnessed in the Convex Mirror: Falling Light

The light sinks today with an enthusiasm
I have known elsewhere, and known why
A friend’s strained eyes beckon from
“GoFundMe”—I slump at his fall. He struggles
today but I am larger today because of his
existence. Once, his pale hand reached out
of an alley’s dimness to guide me up, to help
me stand. What dank cave hosted him from
unrelenting storms? Perhaps the one where
stalactites interrupt uneasy sleep when they
fall? Such is a detail memorized by my mind
‘s eye—but surely everyone is familiar with how
people fall, and how it’s not that different from
the trajectory of angels. “Easy to give what one
can,” the saying goes. I go, “Easier, actually, to
give what one cannot.” Behind eyes burning
from strain lies the knowledge: “the earth
doesn’t / turn /
it’s deflected.”

Editor’s Note: The final lines are quoted from the poem “Psyche & Eros,” by Rosmarie Waldrop. Originally published as a pamphlet (Spectacular Diseases, 1980), the poem may also be found in Waldrop’s Gap Gardening: Selected Poems (New Directions Publishing, 2016 ).

Eileen R. Tabios has released about 50 collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental biographies from publishers in eight countries and cyberspace. Her most recent include The Opposite of Claustrophobia (Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, 2017) and Amnesia: Somebody’s Memoir (Black Radish Books, 2016). Forthcoming poetry collections include Mantattan: An Archaeology (Paloma Press, 2017). Inventor of the poetry form “hay(na)ku,” her poetry has been translated into eight languages. She also has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 12 anthologies of poetry, fiction and essays as well as served as editor or guest editor for various literary journals. More information is available at eileenrtabios.com.

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Billy Malanga
Deliberate Indifference

You know them, the ones
that want an audience,
the ones that want to speak
at meetings, where they
can appear amazing.

They need it to breathe.
They laugh while editing
your memo. I hear them above
the babble, but they’re
not down there, in there, they
are indifferent.
They are sanitary, sterile, and
uncommitted.

If you nod with them
they praise you, they
promote you, they want
everything lively,
but if you deny them
they’ll take your money,
sling you down under
the table where ants and spiders
kill for crumbs and drain you
like hay.

Billy Malanga’s recent poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Creativity Webzine, The Write Launch, Picaroon Poetry, and other journals. Billy is a first generation college graduate, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and the grandson of Italian immigrants. He currently lives in Urbana, Illinois and is relocating to Auburn, Alabama in August 2017.

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Carla Drysdale
Picton, Ontario, 1964

You aren’t really dead. I know
because you doze on the armchair
in the farmhouse

rug warms the wood floor;
even the wicker lamp
snores as the bulb fans light

over the toddler who plays
at your feet. She feels herself
to be part of everything,

her imagination wider
than your arms
held out to her

when you awaken–
for now you nap
and she plays within

the frame of this trust
which will sustain her
for the rest of her life.

Carla Drysdale is the author of the poetry collections Little Venus (Tightrope Books, 2009) and Inheritance (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Spiraling, Public Pool, Cleaver Magazine, PRISM International, The Same, LIT, Literary Review of Canada, Canadian Literature, The Fiddlehead, Global City Review, and Literary Mama, among other journals, and in the anthology Entering the Real World: VCCA Poets on Mt. San Angelo. In May, 2014 she was awarded PRISM’s annual Earle Birney poetry prize for her poem, “Inheritance.” Born in London, Ontario, she lives with her husband and two sons in Ornex, France. To learn more, visit www.carladrysdale.com.

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Peter E. Murphy
Watching The Crucible in the Time of Trump at Theatr Newydd, Cardiff

First of all, everyone is terrified.

Is she going to fly again? I hear she flies.
The word “lies” lies inside of flies, inside of families.

A clink of good women are shackled together,
away from their families because of lies.

No president in history has been treated more unfairly.
No president in history believed himself so wise.

I said, I see the devil, and they believe me.
I say, even the most sensible sometimes believe a lie.

The extremists of opposing beliefs lie closer
to each other than they do to their own allies.

When he called the investigation a witch-hunt,
the congressman from Salem said that was a lie.

Apocryphal, I suspect, that the Black Panthers
and the KKK raged together against race unity rallies.

But the true believer is a murderer, not a martyr,
when he explodes himself in his desire to terrorize.

They were actors playing their rolls, until at the curtain call,
they broke the fourth wall for the Manchester dead and hospitalized.

The words “casual” and “ties” survive in casualties.

Editor’s Note: From February to June 2017, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible toured the UK and Luxembourg in a production by Sell A Door Theatre Company and The Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch in association with Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg. The production ran at the New Theatre (Theatr Newydd) in Cardiff from May 23 to May 27.

Peter E. Murphy is the author of Stubborn Child (Jane Street Press, 2005), a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize; Challenges for the Delusional (Jane Street Press, 2005), a book of writing prompts; and four poetry chapbooks. His recent essays and poems appear or are forthcoming in The Common, Diode, Guernica, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The New Welsh Reader, Rattle, Word Riot, and Poems in the Aftermath (an online poetry feature forthcoming as a print anthology from Indolent Books). He is the founder of Murphy Writing of Stockton University. www.peteremurphy.com.

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Karen Hildebrand
El Chapo Complains About the Conditions

It never gets dark in this cell.
The noise at dinner is deafening. It reeks
of Pine-Sol, windows rusted shut.
I don’t get a minute to myself,
plus WTF, nobody looks me in the eye.
The rents are so high even the rats
have jobs on Wall Street.
The bell tower, an incessant
peal of time. The coffee vendor
refuses to accept my cash. The bots
have got “Hamilton” by the short hairs.
The homeless hog all the free WiFi.
We are alone, the city asleep,
the night eternal over the dark sea.

Editor’s Note: The title of this poem refers to the headline of an article in The New York Times of April 24, 2017. The final couplet is paraphrased from Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez (translated by Edith Grossman).

Karen Hildebrand’s recent poetry publications include, “Steve Bannon Visits the White House” (What Rough Beast, Indolent Books), “Benefits (in the voice of Kellyanne Conway)” (Maintenant 11, Three Rooms Press) and “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” (Portable Boog City Reader). “A History of Feminism,” forthcoming in great weather for MEDIA’s anthology, was a finalist for the 2017 Disquiet Literary Prize. In 2013, her work was adapted for the play, The Old In and Out, produced in NYC. She lives in Brooklyn and is chief content officer for Dance Magazine.

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Tom Daley
Fiat

The whiskers of the poster paint
stipple the customs agents.

Clamor moors the lackeys,
the priests of compliance.

A fugitive light nears its eclipse;
the nation thickens its peel.

In the aerial photo, refusals crowd the square
like names in a pointillist landscape.

They have already forgotten
their Chief and his record expulsions.

Forgotten that he too proposed a wall,
sanctified arrests, incarceration of whistleblowers.

But He was deliberate, mandatory, polite.
The new guy crazes like cracks in raku.

Problem: The glazes are running together.
Time to empty the kiln.

Tom Daley is the author of House You Cannot Reach—Poems in the Voice of My Mother and Other Poems (FutureCycle Press, 2015). His poetry has appeared in Harvard Review, Massachusetts Review, 32 Poems, Fence, Denver Quarterly, Crazyhorse, Barrow Street, Prairie Schooner, Witness, Poetry Ireland Review, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies Hacks: Ten Years on Grub Street (Random House, 2007); Poets for Haiti (Yileen Press, 2010); The Body Electric (CreateSpace, 2013); and Luminous Echoes (Into the Void, 2017). He leads writing workshops in the Boston area and online for poets and writers working in creative prose.

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Herbert T. Abelson
Gaslighting

Why should I wait and see
I’ve seen enough
heard enough
to understand the hateful intimidation
discredited thoughts
manipulative behavior
underlying the danger of pent-up anger,
threats of violence, overt racism,
irrational lock-step
mistruths, half-truths, untruths
with a veneer of swarm and sleaze
promoted by an immature bully boy

Why do I want to wait and see
credit taken for revisionist non-facts
for disrespect
for outright lies
for vulgarity
for irrational behavior
for changing positions

Why should I wait and see
a cadre of millionaires and billionaires
address widespread inequality,
climate change as myth,
science as unimportant

Why should I wait and see
religious freedom abridged
a wall of infamy
nuclear madness

To be told there is something wrong with me
if I have a problem with anything you’ve done
and that only your thoughts (fluctuating wildly)
are based in reality is an affront
to a rational, stable society

Yes we underestimated, were overconfident,
underperformed and now suffer the consequences

His retort to all

Veni, Vidi, Vici

He is smug, rich, resentful, respecting only power and winning

I won—get over it

I’ve seen enough
heard enough
to be concerned for us
all of us
for humanity
for the planet

Herbert T. Abelson’s poems have appeared in Pharos, The Silkworm, American Academy of Pediatrics Senior Bulletin and What Rough Beast. He is a retired academic physician widely published in scientific journals. He is also a husband, father, grandfather, pinhole photographer, cook and car collector.

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Eileen Tabios
From The Ashbery Riff-Offs
—where each poem begins with 1 or 1-2 lines from “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” by John Ashbery

Witnessed in the Convex Mirror: Authenticity

False disarray as proof of authenticity—
one is tempted to snort. But there is much
to learn from assassins-for-hire, such as
the enforced dependency on others
to create rationale: an aggrieved person
(client), a target (target), and money
(price). The lesson is not about client
target or price but one of dependency:
a context where one is not in control
Disarray? It’s inevitable, but also false
before a bullet or an arrow or a missile
enacting their rationale with a trajectory
straight and non-discriminating. Any
ensuing disarray—tears, someone
becoming mere meat, glass shattering
perhaps another’s onset of relief—act
as evidence of the authentic, in this case
the murderousness of a kill. Now, what
fresh hell shall result simply when one
awakes? Perhaps you sit up from bed, turn
and lower your feet to the floor to insert
them into the waiting warmth of felt slippers
Perhaps as you stand, you crush the bug
that had slept under its found felt blanket
Perhaps as you walk towards the bathroom
you smear the bug’s corpse against a
wooden plank. As you perform your morning
rituals, there is no thought of the bug and
the small, russet painting its blood helped
create on the floor. This is your life: you begin
the day. To live is to wake. To live is to act
It’s out of your control: you enact authenticity

Eileen R. Tabios has released about 50 collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental biographies from publishers in eight countries and cyberspace. Her most recent include The Opposite of Claustrophobia (Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, 2017) and Amnesia: Somebody’s Memoir (Black Radish Books, 2016). Forthcoming poetry collections include Mantattan: An Archaeology (Paloma Press, 2017). Inventor of the poetry form “hay(na)ku,” her poetry has been translated into eight languages. She also has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 12 anthologies of poetry, fiction and essays as well as served as editor or guest editor for various literary journals. More information is available at eileenrtabios.com.

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Billy Malanga
A Mere Matter Of Words

“A mere matter of words,” we say contemptuously, forgetting that words have power to mould men’s thinking, to canalize their feeling, to direct their willing and acting.
—Aldous Huxley

Since the earth never fully froze over, a land bridge
united many ancestral tribes who battled for something
larger than spears, fire, and skin. They showed us what
was important to them on the walls of Patagonia,
Serra da Capivara, Altamira, and Newspaper Rock.
It was not a game.

Elements of their striking ancient message rages
today in cities, under bridges, on campuses and on trains.
The damage lurks under the eyes of bronze liberty as the
people’s First Amendment holds her breath. The world
digs in. We are becoming desperately divided. We must
not fail to appreciate how powerful our words, how
integrated we are.

We are scared. We are frightened of the words that
are being spoken out there. Racism, fascism, intolerance
hides behind iron faces and preaches with sticks of
dynamite. The Harpoon of intolerance sinks its tip deep
into the belly, humanity’s whale. Let them speak, but
never forget the power that they keep as we sleep
in our own skin.

Billy Malanga’s recent poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Creativity Webzine, The Write Launch, Picaroon Poetry, and other journals. Billy is a first generation college graduate, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and the grandson of Italian immigrants. He currently lives in Urbana, Illinois and is relocating to Auburn, Alabama in August 2017.

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Carla Drysdale
Found Poem on Facebook

Pay down your debt

A crash could eat up what

You don’t own

Stock up on Plan B for your daughters

Hard-wire your generator

Set up a rainwater collection system

Don’t go out if the sun is setting

Get a handgun or bear spray

Take care of yourself so you’re able to fight

Keep your passport up to date

Stay in Canada or France

Stock up on tampons or anything women will need

Rethink buying a house

Get an IUD now

Say yes we can, one red county at a time

Join a freeze-dried club

Marry a Canadian

Burn a Rump piñata

Keep a stash of vitamins

Buy an R.V. and learn Russian.

Get rid of inner garbage

Don’t retire early

Don’t buy a gun

Grab the cats and be ready to run

Prepare to shelter in place

In case of nuclear winter

Make breakfast an act of resistance

Carla Drysdale is the author of the poetry collections Little Venus (Tightrope Books, 2009) and Inheritance (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Spiraling, Public Pool, Cleaver Magazine, PRISM International, The Same, LIT, Literary Review of Canada, Canadian Literature, The Fiddlehead, Global City Review, and Literary Mama, among other journals, and in the anthology Entering the Real World: VCCA Poets on Mt. San Angelo. In May, 2014 she was awarded PRISM’s annual Earle Birney poetry prize for her poem, “Inheritance.” Born in London, Ontario, she lives with her husband and two sons in Ornex, France. To learn more, visit www.carladrysdale.com.

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