Terrorists Ukrainian
So Vladimir has started a war,
A move the world will abhor,
Yet he is the one responsible—
War, war, war—
Homes, apartments, hospitals, stores
All destroyed,
Thousands killed—elderly,
Women, children,
Whole families—
Ukrainian culture
Devastated
By Russian soldiers
Impressed into service
In a war they hate.
Yet when a drone is suspected
Of trying to assassinate Vlad—
That’s Vlad the Mastermind,
Vlad the Murderer—
He cries “TERRORISTS!”
The Horror!
To think
Anyone would seek revenge
For his multitude of
War Crimes,
As he sits comfortable
In his Kremlin office,
Smirk of satisfaction
Gratifying his murderous face!
The Sun Also Swallows
Daily life—waking, sleeping, eating, cleaning,
walking, driving, learning, playing,
loving--etc!
This is how our time is spent,
Born to the Earth, growing up,
Filling our days with tedium,
With excitement,
Until time is up, and we move on.
Yet this mundane saga
Of our own self-importance
Is paralleled, overshadowed,
Dwarfed even—
By science!
Today’s paper told of a RED GIANT,
A star in the far reaches
Of our universe,
For countless years
Grown larger,
And larger,
Until one day
It swallowed—
Yes, that’s the word used—
SWALLOWED--
A nearby planet.
Thus today, as I bask lazily
In our sun’s warmth,
Must always be the thought
That our sun
Will one day do the same—
SWALLOW the Earth
That we love.
Do I want to wait the 5 billion years
To see it happen?
Poetry from Michael Lee Johnson
I Age (V2)
Arthritis and aging make it hard,
I walk gingerly, with a cane, and walk
slow, bent forward, fear threats,
falls, fear denouement─
I turn pages, my family albums
become a task.
But I can still bake and shake,
sugar cookies, sweet potato,
lemon meringue pies.
Alone, most of my time,
but never on Sundays,
friends and communion,
United Church of Canada.
I chug a few down,
love my Blonde Canadian Pale Ale,
Copenhagen long cut a pinch of snuff.
I can still dance the Boogie-woogie,
Lindy Hop in my living room,
with my nursing care home partner.
Aging has left me with youthful dimples,
but few long-term promises.
Crypt in the Sky (V2)
Order me up,
no one knows
where this crypt in the sky
like a condo on the 5th floor
suite don’t sell me out
over the years;
please don’t bury me beneath
this ground, don’t let me decay
inside my time pine casket.
Don’t let me burn to cremate
skull last to turn to ashes.
Treasure me high where no one goes,
no arms reach, stretch.
Building for the Centuries
then just let it fall.
These few precious dry bones
preserved for you, sealed in the cloud
no relocation is necessary,
no flowers need to be planted,
no dusting off that dust each year,
no sinners can reach this high.
Jesus’ heaven, Jesus’ sky.
Note: Dedicated to the passing of beloved Katie Balaskas.
Priscilla, Let’s Dance (V2)
Priscilla, Puerto Rican songbird,
an island jungle dancer, Cuban heritage,
rare parrot, a singer survivor near extinction.
She sounds off on notes, music her
vocals hearing background bongos,
piano keys, Cuban horns.
Quote the verse patterns,
quilt the pieces skirt bleeds,
then blend colors to light a tropical prism.
Steamy Salsa, a little twist, cha-cha-cha
dancing rhythms of passions, sacred these islands.
Everything she has is movement
tucked nice and tight but explosive.
She mimics these ancient sounds
showing her ribs, her naked body.
Her ex-lovers remain nightmares
pointed daggers, so criminal, so stereotyped.
Priscilla purifies her dreams with repentance.
She pours her heart out, everything
condensed to the bone, petite boobies,
cheap bras, flamboyant G-strings.
Her vocabulary is that of sin and Catholicism.
Island hurricanes form her own Jesus
slants of hail, detonate thunder,
the collapse of hell in her hands after midnight.
Priscilla remains a background rabble-rouser,
almost remorseful, no apologies
to the counsel of Judas
wherever he hangs.
Willow Tree Poem (V2)
Wind dancers
dancing to the
willow wind,
lance-shaped leaves
swaying right to left
all day long.
I’m depressed.
Birds hanging on-
bleaching feathers
out into
the sun.
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL. He has 283 YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 44 countries, a song lyricist, has several published poetry books, has been nominated for 6 Pushcart Prize awards, and 6 Best of the Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 453 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/.
Stories from Peter Cherches
Fortgang Stories, First Series
Fortgang’s Childhood Sweetheart
The little girl skipping rope in front of Fortgang’s building reminded him of his childhood sweetheart, Claire Needleman. Whatever happened to Claire? He’d never had as much fun with his adult sweethearts, that was for sure. He couldn’t even remember ever having played tag with one of them. With adult sweethearts there’s always the insecurity, the jealousy, the disagreements, the responsibilities, the compromises. With Claire it was all fun and games. Fortgang was overcome by a wave of nostalgia, a wistful question mark in the pit of his stomach. The little girl was singing as she jumped rope, “Little Brown Jug.” That voice—that was Claire’s voice he heard singing, “Ha ha ha, you and me, little brown jug how I love thee.” Fortgang was transported back to a carefree, joyful time.
“You have a beautiful voice,” Fortgang told the little girl.
“Thank you, mister,” the girl replied.
“You remind me of a girl I once knew,” Fortgang said. “Her name was Claire.”
“Claire was my mom’s name,” the girl said. “She died.”
The question mark in the pit of Fortgang’s stomach sank. “I’m so sorry,” Fortgang told the little girl. He wondered if he should, then he did. “By any chance was your mom’s maiden name Needleman?”
“No,” the girl replied, “Sanders.”
Fortgang breathed a sigh of relief. “Nice to meet you,” he told the little girl before heading back upstairs to weep in solitude.
Fortgang Attempts a Cake
There was a couple in Fortgang’s neighborhood, an older couple he would see on his strolls. They look like nice people, Fortgang thought. He never spoke to them, but when they’d pass each other on the street they’d all nod and smile, the standard courtesy among known strangers. He knew where they lived, a row house a few blocks from his own building, as he sometimes saw them coming out or going in.
I’d like to talk to them, Fortgang thought, but he was too shy to make an overture.
Then one day he had an idea. I think I’ll bake them a cake, he thought. He intended it to be a surprise, an anonymous one, but with a message on the icing. It would say “To the Kellers, You seem like a nice couple. Enjoy!” He knew their name because one morning, as he was passing their house, he stealthily went up to their door and saw a brass plaque that said “The Kellers.” He figured just maybe the Kellers would stop him the next time they met and mention the cake, maybe ask him if he had baked it, just the opening he was looking for.
Fortgang had never baked anything before. He hardly even cooked. He often got takeout, and also regularly consumed frozen food, which he’d microwave—TV dinners, chicken pot pies, Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks.
He wanted to bake the cake from scratch. A store-bought cake wouldn’t do, too impersonal. So he bought all the ingredients he thought he’d need: flour, sugar, salt, butter, eggs, yeast, and baking soda. For the vanilla icing he’d use a mix, and he bought one of those cake decorating syringes and some green frosting in a can to write his message with.
Fortgang looked at a couple of recipes and felt overwhelmed, so he decided to wing it. He mixed up some flour and sugar and water and eggs and salt and yeast and baking soda in random proportions in a mixing bowl, but since he didn’t have a mixer he stirred vigorously with a large fork. He poured it all in a baking pan he had greased with some butter and put it in the oven. He didn’t know what temperature to bake at, so he tried the highest setting, which was called “broil.” He put the cake pan in the oven and went to watch an episode of Dr. Kildare, from his collection of DVDs.
Toward the end of the episode, he heard his smoke alarm go off. He ran into the kitchen. Smoke was billowing from the oven. His cake was a charred lump. There was nothing he could do to salvage it. He could forget about the icing and the message. He was despondent. He poured himself a tumbler of Johnnie Walker Red and put another DVD in the player, an episode of The Untouchables.
The following morning, just before daybreak, he went out to leave a note for the Kellers, while he figured they were still asleep. The note read, “To the Kellers, I tried to bake you a cake, but things didn’t work out.” It was unsigned. He slipped it through the mail chute in the door.
The next time he passed the Kellers on the street they all nodded and smiled at each other.
Fortgang Simulates a Broken Heart
It’s been a long time since my heart was broken, Fortgang, now middle-aged, realized. Younger, he experienced frequent heartbreak. The objects of his affection rarely reciprocated, and he was mostly indifferent to the apparent interest of those who might have. Oh, he continued to experience sadness and disappointment in the realm of romance, but he bore them stoically, no longer the gut punch of a truly broken heart. Surely it’s better this way, he thought, none of the moping and misery, the crippling inertia, just, you know, sadness and disappointment. Still, there was something he missed from the time of broken hearts, he realized, an all-encompassing misery to luxuriate in, a most vivid darkness, when the one loved does not love in return.
So he decided to simulate a broken heart for old times’ sake. But first he had to imagine a heartbreaker because, ever since his last breakup, without a broken heart, the time for that was long past, he hadn’t pursued romance, felt he needed a break, a sabbatical. No, it wasn’t romance he was looking for, it was cut-to-the-chase heartbreak. But there’s no heartbreak in a void, you can’t just go through the motions, it needs at least the trappings of the real.
But who would the object of his putative affection be? He couldn’t conjure up memories of the ones who’d broken his heart in the past, that would be cheating, it wouldn’t be a simulation of a broken heart, it would be the echo of a heart broken long ago. And the desired couldn’t be wholly imaginary either—one might seek a partner based on an ideal, but an ideal can’t break your heart. No, it had to be a real person, flesh and blood and breath and eyes and laughter.
Perhaps Lydia, from down the hall, could be pressed into service of the imagination. She was attractive, smart, friendly, and they got along well enough in their limited encounters. Funny, she was single, and just a few years younger than him, yet he had never considered her a romantic prospect.
So Fortgang went ahead created a history with Lydia, alone on his sofa with the lights turned down low. He began with the desire for Lydia, then imagined his pursuit, a date, some misinterpreted signals, an attempted seduction, a rebuff. If at first you don’t succeed, lather, rinse, repeat, but no, it wasn’t going to happen, Lydia tried to be kind, tell him in the most considerate of ways that it was not meant to be. That was it! “Not meant to be.” Those were the secret words. Bingo! Heartbreak!
Fortgang was miserable. He’d lie on the bed in the fetal position feeling sorry for himself. One day he’d sleep poorly and the next for hours on end. He lost his passion for spicy food and swing bands of the thirties.
After several days of this he heard a knock at his door. Who could that be?
“Who is it”? he asked.
“It’s me, Lydia, your neighbor. I haven’t seen you in a while, and I just wanted to make sure everything was OK.”
Lydia! So I still have a chance, Fortgang told himself as he opened the door, happier than he’d been in days.
Peter Cherches’ latest book of miscellaneous prose and poetry is Things (Bamboo Dart Press).
Poetry from John Tustin
IN A THOUSAND YEARS In a thousand years I want to be remembered in a volume like 300 Tang Poems. 100 thousand college students will see my name and read four lines I wrote about an egret dismissing a marsh or an ingenue losing her locust hairpin under a moon that is a kicking rabbit or an old man finding solace in his memories. I would rather be remembered for four lines written in haste after hefting seven or eight bottles of Sam Adams than not be remembered at all. To be honest, it would be nice if the students liked the poem – but it’s not a dealbreaker. A SCURRY OF SQUIRRELS Every day I walk past a tree in front of a house And under this tree is usually a collection of squirrels – Many gray squirrels and up to four fox squirrels. The person who lives in the house behind the tree Puts nuts out under the tree every day And there are so many the squirrels can never eat them all. I walk by and the squirrels scurry away – Which is a good reason a group of squirrels is called a scurry, I guess. Only one squirrel doesn’t retreat at my approach. As I said, there are four fox squirrels among the grays – One of them is melanistic and one of them is very big and pudgy. The first time I saw the big one I thought he was a raccoon. That first time I saw him he was alone under the tree And when he saw me he stood up on two legs and stared me down. I turned around after I passed and I found he was still watching me. There was one time he decided to retreat at my approach And it was like watching an old fat man as he climbed the tree. I imagined hearing him huff and puff, cursing me under his breath as he clambered. There are many gray squirrels and four fox squirrels – One is melanistic and one is pudgy and larger than the rest. I wonder if the fat one would be picked first or last for dodgeball If the squirrels were human children. Powerful but slow, I imagine. These are the kinds of things that go through my mind When I forget to bring my headphones on my walk And why I almost never do forget. SOME POEMS Some poems are meant to be inhaled, then exhaled through the nose. Some poems are meant to escape through the teeth. Some poems enter through a hole that it drills into the back of your head. Some pulls pull you by the ear all the way to the principal’s office. Some poems are ghosts, howling between your ears. Some posts are nettles beneath bare feet. Some poems stutter as they ascend. Some poems need a paleontologist’s pickax. Some poems pummel your roof like hailstones. Some poems are cryptological; zoological; illogical; scatological. Some poems are dead hair beneath a barber’s chair, waiting to be swept away. Some poems are not poems because they are limp and useless without the music. Some poems are living things and some poems are dead things and some poems are living dead things and some poems are dead living things. Some poems take flight and some walk the earth. Some wallow like happy pigs in dirt. And poems about poems, like this poem, are meant to be balled up and tossed into the nearest wastebasket so, after you read this, I better hear you crumpling. SPINNING There’s this little divot in the ceiling I am studying here in bed While lying on my back With the room spinning As well as the moon outside Spinning, I imagine, like a pinwheel Even though there’s not even the hint Of a breeze. I’d get up to look and make sure But somehow the door and the windows Are gone And the floor is Gone And all that is left in this room now Is me and this bed And this little divot in the ceiling That I have convinced myself Is of great importance. I finally close my eyes With the moon out there Spinning like a pinwheel In a night so hot and still Without even the hint Of a breeze And The divot in the ceiling has Disappeared THE WRONG TIME I meet the mountain and the mountain is the wrong mountain & I fall in love and it’s the wrong woman & I send out my poems but they come back having gone to the wrong places. I am here – in the wrong home, living at the wrong time & Li Po looked up saw the moon offered it a drink a thousand years ago & smiled in deep sleep even though he knew it was the wrong time.
John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. His first poetry collection is forthcoming from Cajun Mutt Press. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.
Poetry from Ibn Yushau
MY SISTER'S NAME IS FORBIDDEN ON MY TONGUE OR IN MY HEART I do not know why, but my sister's name is forbidden on my tongue or in my heart. The last time I saw her, the lines from her mouth were "if I don't marry him in your presence, I would in your absence" Those words were seeds of death to my father & To me, they were displaced wanderers seeking recognition. Now, we are like borders apart Isn't it right to say we're living in a different world? But for us it's the third; a world of strange & unfamiliar things.
Art from Channie Greenberg
Poetry from John Culp
+
Soothes
the
LOVE of Experience
Lifts from the start
Continuity is Always Beginning
I See Something Good
& there was good
Nothing Wasted My LOVE
♡ Well along I see ♡
Continuity always Beginning
Soothed my presence LOVE
Gifts await the Star
in the sky
☆
...
by John Edward Culp
April 24, 2023