Category: Theme Issues

Question:

if the tide is lured by the moon

why does it rise

twice

each day

if the moon

only circles us once?

Answer:

moonlight stirs the water it illuminates

into aching tongue-hanging

lapping against its shore

Earth too    is not immune

tugs the tether of its orbit if only

to be a moment closer    to her glow

but why does the sea

on Earth’s moon-dark side    also rise

when Moon is at her furthest?

imagine tasting moonlight

then watching her slip behind Earth

how could that flavor    ever escape you?

as Earth leans moonward

the seafloor drops like a swallowed heart

and in these depths we see “rising”

and so    there is nowhere on Earth

you could go    where I

could ignore the pull of you

Frederick Livingston plants seeds, grounded in experiential education and sustainable agriculture. He hopes to grow poems, peace, mangos and avocados. His work has appeared in numerous literary and scientific journals, public parks, and bathroom stalls. His first poetry collection, “The Moon and Other Fruits” is expected in early 2023 from Legacy Book Press.

– “Chinchin puipui” farm, Japan

What unsettled me most

was not the ubiquity of bead curtains,

the awkward hand-drawn dragons

crawling across walls

or the fuzzy pink toilet seat’s texture.

It was the way the clock menagerie

chimed separate senses of time

scattered throughout the hour.

Cuckoo chirps, then Charlie Brown

Christmas jingles, later grandfather

clock bellows on and on. Adrift in time

I lay my roots in wandering soil.

Laugh track wafts over empty playground

while child in idling van watches cartoons.

His mother and I pry our horihoris

(father stayed home getting stoned)

beside ragged rosettes liberating dandelions

from earth carefully as if each was a rare

and precious jewel. I too feel like a weed

sometimes, amenable to any bare ground

but feeling nowhere at home.

I wish someone would delight

in my common flowers

roast my roots, savor my bitter flavors.

Frederick Livingston plants seeds, grounded in experiential education and sustainable agriculture. He hopes to grow poems, peace, mangos and avocados. His work has appeared in numerous literary and scientific journals, public parks, and bathroom stalls. His first poetry collection, “The Moon and Other Fruits” is expected in early 2023 from Legacy Book Press.

I am a pretentious asshole, but I never craved this sensation

As I watch you gasp and prowl about your mind

Justifying your natural immunity between ragged breaths.

Vindication, for a self-righteous bitch like me, usually tastes sweet

But I wish I’d never known this flavor in my mouth,

This mouth that can still taste below the nose that can still smell.

I thought you’d remember the days you force fed me breakfast and understand

The words that tumbled from behind my mask wanted wellness for you

Instead you ingested the bitterness of this god forsaken January air.

I want to like the people I love

But right now I don’t even love myself

Because I never wanted to be this right.

“Tenacity looks good on you.”

Intended as an insult,

Uttered as a compliment,

The words of damnation

From my father’s lips fell:

Blood from a hunter’s teeth.

Characteristic I cannot shed,

Tenacity engulfs me.

Can I drown in fortitude?

Does courage saturate my lungs?

Tread along a little farther, child.

Suddenly upright, I feel the shore

Steady my faltering feet.

This new vantage I gain

Propels my body forward,

Suddenly separate

From the unseen current

Of patriarchal rip tides.

Balanced resilience dries on my skin,

Entrusting me with perpetual moxie

From an endlessly ebbing tide pool.

Laura Jeu lives in Pennsylvania with her dog, Scout. When not writing, she can be found trekking up and down mountains. Her gracious mom and considerate brothers provide helpful critiques, receiving the author’s chidings in return.

One

West Coast mountain range

Crawls across my neck and spine

Stabilizing home

—

Two

Red-crowned crane rises

From my arm to unify

The North and the South

—

Three

Appalachian range

Circled on my shoulder blade:

Weights of nostalgia

Laura Jeu lives in Pennsylvania with her dog, Scout. When not writing, she can be found trekking up and down mountains. Her gracious mom and considerate brothers provide helpful critiques, receiving the author’s chidings in return.

I’m washing  my daughter’s hair and she tells me there’s a boy

She likes in school, he’s nine years old, he says he doesn’t like her

He told her best friend he doesn’t like her, she’s upset now and I

Don’t know if I should laugh or cry. I carefully

Rinse the shampoo out of her hair and resist the urge

To wrap my arms around her tiny, bony chest and hold her

Like I did when she was tiny, she wants me to give her some sort of

Womanly, adult advice and I am not ready for this.

Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, Earth’s Daughters, and Appalachian Journal, and her recent book publications include Music Composition for Dummies, The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body, and Bound in Ice. She teaches creative writing at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and Hugo House in Seattle.

the hand comes down

and pushes me down

and reminds me

that the wings that keep

trying to break through my skin

are not

to be trusted, that wings

are not for me. I let the hand

tear out

the feathers, the sinew

the brave new appendages

that would allow me to fly away

let the hand carefully bind

my broken skin

my bloodied back

in bandages that keep

new feathers from sprouting,

new wings from unfurling

overnight.

Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, Earth’s Daughters, and Appalachian Journal, and her recent book publications include Music Composition for Dummies, The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body, and Bound in Ice. She teaches creative writing at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and Hugo House in Seattle.

A sailor lured to rocky shores

by love and sometimes loneliness

my ship has run your joyless embrace

run aground your cold neurotic flesh.

I stuff my ears against your song

eyes on a horizon away from gloom

heart heavy with jagged cliffs and whispered dreams

the ice in your voice when you speak of love.

Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, Earth’s Daughters, and Appalachian Journal, and her recent book publications include Music Composition for Dummies, The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body, and Bound in Ice. She teaches creative writing at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and Hugo House in Seattle.

Beyond is the aftermath

always leading to blue

waters, startling and clear afternoon

Beyond is the beginning

the very thought of essence

somewhere in a holy place

Beyond is the middle

the now and its peculiar

joy and lack of grasping

Beyond my mother’s struggle

my father’s prize

into my own unmapped regions

A series of waves

a steady shine

a sapphire edge

Carla McGill’s work has been published in The Atlanta Review, Bryant Literary Review, Shark Reef, Crack the Spine, Westview, Common Ground Review, Caveat Lector, Door Is A Jar, Euphony Journal, The Hungry Chimera, Carbon Culture Review, Neologism Poetry Journal, DASH Literary Journal, Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, The Summerset Review, The Penmen Review, Cloudbank, Paragon Journal, Burningword, The Alembic, California Quarterly, Waxing & Waning, Broad River Review and others. She lives in Southern California where she writes poetry and fiction.

Stars like chips of ice

float above descending slopes

of Gorgonio, first the elevated plains,

uplands of hardened ridges,

then sudden drop over bare

undulations, desolate down through

the pass, until silver winds

heave and dawn cracks open.

Sea mists ascend in the west

Rich and resonant blue

Seafoam holy white, golden

sand, and gloria be to them, glory.

Hawk feather drifts across

the bronze bobcat sky, rabbits

find patches of dried grass

at the edge of everything

awaiting impending destruction;

strength wanes on freeways

from here to manifold

dreadful certainties.

Sea mists dissolve in the west

Splendid sun spilling light

On miles of shoreline, blue

Stretching out to a clear horizon

Melancholy rises at sundown

Hidden caves, stampeding

horses chasing unseen maps,

corridors drought dry with thorns

and miles to towns where lights

swing in the winds, hanging

there in insensible hope

waiting while children sleep.

Sea mists gather in the west

Purple night falls, coconut

crabs surface to survey

and gloria be to them, glory.

Carla McGill’s work has been published in The Atlanta Review, Bryant Literary Review, Shark Reef, Crack the Spine, Westview, Common Ground Review, Caveat Lector, Door Is A Jar, Euphony Journal, The Hungry Chimera, Carbon Culture Review, Neologism Poetry Journal, DASH Literary Journal, Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, The Summerset Review, The Penmen Review, Cloudbank, Paragon Journal, Burningword, The Alembic, California Quarterly, Waxing & Waning, Broad River Review and others. She lives in Southern California where she writes poetry and fiction.