Renegades:

The town ran out of graveyard. So they buried the dead in the air. But the night winds were so strong they blew all but the heaviest corpses away into the desert. So they buried the dead in their dreams. But this made sleeping unpleasant. So they ignored the dead. But they kept tripping over them during errands and chores. So they outlawed dying. But the town was full of rule breakers. So they lived with the dead. But this required shutting one’s eyes to see. So they forgot the dead.

A Treatise on Human Nature:

The only women with bulletproof smiles

are those who know

there are no bulletproof smiles.

All men with bulletproof smiles

have been shot dead.

Death discharges all debts

male, female, or other

but most the population

is alive.

Half the world knows

blonds are responsible

for most the world’s woes.

The other half

should meet more blonds.

The human heart

is a wine cork caught

in a kitchen sink’s eddy—

wild, undrownable,

governed by forces

not its own.

We cannot think.

So don’t. 

Brooks Lindberg lives in the Pacific Northwest. His poems and antipoems appear in various publications. Links to his work can be found at brookslindberg.com.

Notes on the Confederacy’s Next to Last Battle in Georgia

I leave US Highway 17, take the quiet oak-lined county road that divides subdivisions along the Ogeechee River to the entrance of Fort McAllister where history folds back on itself today, wormholes two dates —

December 13, 1864, Fort McAllister falls,

December 9, 2023, the Final Battle of Fort McAllister.

Beyond the portal of the Visitors Center the Yankee encampment has the symmetry of a movie set, tents geometrically spaced as if soldiers were required to measure their separation before raising them.  An officer’s wide wall tent in the center, twice the size of others, has two flags guarding the entrance.  A former Army soldier, I almost say “Permission to enter” before a bluecoat in slouch hat walks out, introducing himself as a colonel.  He tells me he is frying sweet potatoes for breakfast, the smoke and sizzle of his iron skillet over the fire in front of his tent rises to join smoke from other campfires in the late morning’s winter bite of cold wind.  He tells me his Union flag has 34 stars and the other’s a gold Irish regiment flag, a Celtic harp visible in its hanging folds.

The night before I searched the web for Civil War era facts —

In 1859, the year construction of The First African Baptist Church of Savannah was completed, an auction of 400 slaves occurred in Savannah, one of the largest in US history.

After Fort Sumter was attacked, President Lincoln called forth 75,000 soldiers to put down the rebellion.

Some young boys who volunteered wrote the number 18 on paper they stuffed in a shoe so they could say they “were over 18” honestly [a folksy tidbit in Smithsonian].

Elderly Confederate veterans were paraded before cheering crowds during the 1939 ‘Gone with the Wind’ movie premier festivities in Atlanta.

He falls out of character quickly, the drumbeat of battle still hours away, says he’s been a reenactor since retiring from the Army in 2014.  I ask the obvious question for me, “Afghanistan and/or Iraq?”  Like me he was in both wars.  He, a retired Lieutenant Colonel, tells me of going home with the body of one of his soldiers, taking him home to his hometown, at the end of their Afghanistan tour.  I tell him it somehow seems worst when soldiers die with only days left.  He looks at me and doesn’t disagree, but behind his eyes are other deaths he will forever consider.

I think of another Civil War fact, from American Battlefield Trust: Military Losses in American Wars —

Civil War —————————————————————————————— 620,000

Iraq-Afghanistan – 7,000

I tell him I would wish him battle-luck, but, except for those of one Yankee grandmother, all my relatives fought for the South. He salutes.  I flash a wave and walk the grassy lane to the Fort.

Two Rebel soldiers stand before a period plantation house outside the fort’s high earthen walls.  Rifles long and bayoneted, one says to an audience of mostly children that his cap is called a “‘kepi’ based off French headgear.”  His brown-coated chest crossed by straps, holding, as he points to them, “cartridge box,” “haversack,” “canteen.”  His so far quiet fellow, much older, with the same coat and gear but sloppy-brimmed cowboy hat and black pullover-strap sneakers, asks the kids, “Has any of you’s heard a Rebel Yell?”  After they shake their heads no, he lets out a high-pitched yelp that morphs into a guttural bark.  Younger kids laugh and scurry.  He asks if anyone can match him?  Some older boys try, and, as if planned, a cannon’s earsplitting boom sounds from the fort as a shock to everyone, the children dissolving in squeals and laughter.

I walk inside the dim house where women sit around a spinning wheel in period dresses, glazed by light from the crackling fireplace.  One rises to greet me, “Hello, visitor.”  She tells me this is the officers’ barracks, bunk beds lining the walls.  She says enlisted soldiers will sleep outside on the ground.  I think back to sleeping on a cot in the winter woods of Fort Stewart, only a few miles from here, the cold from the ground making my cot feel like a wet towel I can never get comfortable lying on, and that some conditions for soldiers have hardly improved.  I also think that to a soldier these women must truly seem lovely.

Back outside in the daylight I find a seat on a low, mock powder keg, against the faux-coquina side wall of the house, facing the yellow hazard tape closing off the area of imminent battle.  Some families picnic on blankets in the intervening space, some have set up folding camp chairs along the tape.  Children are running everywhere.  A Girl Scout troop marches together loosely to a space near the now taped off footbridge entrance to the fort where a Confederate soldier and a ranger speak to them.  “Sherman’s troops have been sighted by scouts and are close by and a battle is imminent.  The Fort is preparing now.” I pull out the pocket New Testament I carried in the Army to read during periods of waiting.  Looking down, I see a toad sitting in the shadow between barrel and wall make a few hops as I rock my seat slightly.   I read in Hebrews, “In the time of David, and of Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of foreign invaders.”

I imagine a rebel officer sitting here last night, unable to sleep while knowing Sherman is coming with his demon’s desire to give Savannah the same fiery fate Atlanta has suffered.  Watching a toad hop around in moonlight,

he mouths a prayer —

Almighty God, whose Providence watcheth over all things, in Thine infinite wisdom and power, so overrule events, and so dispose the hearts of all, that this fight may end in defeat and rout of the Yankees and lead to the honor and welfare of our Confederate States.  Glory to Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Rat-a-tat-tat of a drum about 300 yards away where the Union soldiers are now leaving camp with rifles slung over shoulders in a two-by-two file, heading for a track where they disappear into the woods to the west of Fort McAllister.

Another cannon fires from the fort.  The sun now lighting the western side of the oaks lining the river, makes shadows along the river’s bank.  The fort was never taken by bombardment from the river despite Union attempts by wooden gunships and ironclads during the years of the war.  Now Sherman, needing to move materiel over the Ogeechee, carried by Federal ships waiting offshore, to assist in taking Savannah, sends 4,000 troops commanded by Brigadier General Hazen to take the fort by land.  In the growing exchange of rifle-fire between fort and woods, smoke rises in the woods to give away clumps of Union soldiers.  Things settle again briefly.  Then, sustained cannon fire.  One of the cannons is visible through a valley in the earthen wall, its rebel artillery crew loading, firing, reloading.  Then, another pause.  After some time, an eager boy lining the hazard tape with his father asks, “How many minutes?!”

More rifle volleys come from the woods, and Union soldiers appear between woods and fort making a rough line.  There is a raised soldiers’ chant from the woods then sustained combined yell as Union soldiers race across the open ground and into the moat, through its pickets.  Much gunfire and yelling as additional Union forces run across the open ground, surge into the fort.

I imagine thoughts of a confederate soldier inside the fort as the fighting becomes hand to hand:

A tremor of exhaustion rifles like the wind along our line, and we know our bodies are more than our bodies.  They are the only things holding back the end of our world.

Finally, the yells in the fort cease and a park ranger walks the footbridge over the moat from the fort.  She tells us Fort McAllister has surrendered and invites anyone who wants to enter the fort.  After the crowd makes its way in, the reenactors standing idle now, the ranger says she wants to thank Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the City of Richmond Hill, and all the reenactors.  She tells us the last act of resistance in the fort was by Captain Clinch, CSA, who drew his sword and challenged Captain Grimes of the Union Army, who insisted his fellows allow him to accept the challenge.  When Captain Clinch gained the upper hand by landing a cutting blow to Captain Grimes’ head, Captain Clinch was bayoneted “five or six times” by Yankee soldiers.  However, Captain Clinch would survive, she said, and was visited at his sick bed by Captain Grimes who returned Captain Clinch’s sword to him.  This story somehow believable in a war where men touted valor and honor so highly.

During the waning days of 1861, President Abraham Lincoln signed a Congressionally approved bill creating “Medals of Honor.”  The government presented 1,523 Medals of Honor to recipients during the Civil War, more than in any subsequent war.

After Fort McAllister’s fall, Confederate General William Joseph Hardee rejected Sherman’s demand to surrender Savannah, but this was just a bluff to buy time to recall his troops from their trenches and move them across the Savannah River into South Carolina.  By abandoning Savannah, General Hardee saved it from the destruction Atlanta suffered.  With no shots fired, Sherman’s troops entered the city of Savannah at the invitation of its mayor, and on December 21st, 1864, General Sherman sent a telegram to President Lincoln:

I beg to present you a Christmas gift of the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.

Four months after the fall of Fort McAllister, on April 9th, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army to General Grant at Appomattox, Virginia.  Lee rode away accepting and returning the salute of the Union officers present.

Seven days after Lee’s Surrender, Union General James A. Wilson would besiege Columbus, Georgia, defended by Confederates commanded by General Howell Cobb, and lay waste to much of the city (as yet unaware of Lee’s surrender, Wilson would say after the war that had he known of it, he would not have visited such devastation on Columbus) — effectively the last battle of the Civil War.

That war-torn, hollowed out South an eon ago of 160 years now.

In growing shadows of late afternoon, I walk with families of excited and talkative children back through the portal of the Visitors Center, back into our United States of America.

Steven Croft lives on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia.  His latest chapbook is At Home with the Dreamlike Earth (The Poetry Box, 2023).  His work has appeared in Willawaw Journal, San Pedro River Review, So It Goes, Synchronized Chaos, and other places, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

the intricacies

of a dying art

 – a stave church

marks the end 

of Viking age 

Paul Callus (Malta) / Christina Chin (Malaysia) 

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

after school

where we play catch

— church fields

resound with laughter

and chiming of bells

Christina Chin (Malaysia) / Paul Callus (Malta)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

amusement park

wide-eyed children trace the path

of the Ferris wheel

the manager gives

a free joy ride
Paul Callus (Malta) / Christina Chin (Malaysia)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

taking over 

an abandoned garden

purslane and birds

I watch mother fry 

the tasty weed

Paul Callus (Malta) / Christina Chin (Malaysia)

You’re Not The Same Man As You Were Yesterday

When you are Brave enough

to Conquer your own Soul…

there’ll be no need or reason

to ‘Prove Yourself’

to anyone else ever again.

It is a bleak trial by fire…

a need to face the Dark,

wincing through the Strain,

but refusing to look away.

To remain painfully ‘honest’

and refuse the Devil’s bait

of ‘get out of jail free’ lies

and avoidance by excuses

… takes an Inner Strength

that most cannot comprehend.

You will find an Integrity

awaiting patiently for you

at the other end of Restraint…

Dignity born of Self-Control.

Courage from shouldering

Adversity without whimper

or complaint… and rising

back up onto Determined feet.

Blend-Complete

… I have loved you longer than mountains remember…

Never stop following me away from the Light

… Spiritually, we are just… Letting Go…

of 3D Safety Bars for a Magical-Interlude

… you can experience the ‘Drop’

without actually ‘Falling’ to Destruction.

Both sides of the coin… in one decision

… that ‘Missed Opportunity’ still Burns

because you are watering it with ‘Regret’.

In the 5D you flow so BRIGHTLY

that I wince whenever I am anywhere Near

the COLOUR of your Gorgeous Emotions

… which is so often… we blend like this

(close eyes to access this part of the poem).

Your Soul tastes like something

… I have always known… over and again,

Birth and Death are just Gateways back

to Alternative methods of… Touch and Union.

Seeds

(Not) Hawk and Vole

… ‘parasites’

are no Predators

… they are viruses.

I expect ‘Courage’

from Warriors…

but, when someone

Spring-Green…

riSES UP

after falling DOwn

… and, finds

‘Bravery’ buried

(Somewhere Deep)

inside of themselves.

I smile, applaud…

and (Silently,

Respectfully) wish

them well upon that

new found Path

… of Dignity…

that they are Walking.

Here, We Do Not Succumb, We Conquer

Hell yeah, do it again…

that ‘thing’ you were

so scared of

… Excellent,

go on, once more.

Listen to her

snoring slightly,

all cute and contented

… yeah, that’s right,

she was the one

doing the cartwheels

when you first arrived.

I remember her being

the 8 Of Swords

when awake…

and the 9 Of Swords

whilst sleeping.

Now, she’s all

gritted teeth

and Determination.

Oh, you’ll just know

when you’ve broken

the back of it…

because ‘applause’

becomes a distraction

and my encouragement

will merely annoy you.

Return To Glenda

When that ‘Feeling’

apprehends (heart

collar-felt)

… and I start

Falling… again…

I RAGE (quietly)

to myself…

Fighting a Battle

with Past Trauma

and Potential…

coupled with the

URGE to ‘Abscond’.

Up A Gear

Pivot into ‘Breaking

New Ground’…

trying to ‘Outdo’

keeps you

LOCKED behind

another’s Ingenuity.

Spearhead…

and, there is no

‘Competition’ only

(Fresh) Adventure,

and ‘Dynamic’

Pathways to ‘Glory’.

Be the ‘Buzz’

and ‘Noise’… with

-out participating…

apart from with ‘Art’.

© Paul Tristram 2024

The Slipping Of The Net

Catharsis and ‘The Butterfly Effect’

… your MIND ‘Balancing’

between [Main] Chapters…

“Ah, you’ve discovered corridors

and back lanes… through…

and around… the ‘Obvious’, good

you’re both Learning and Growing.”

I could Not have done THIS

without ‘Disappointment’

… the Tenacity and Determination

was just me Fighting Onwards…

the Real Fuel was Accepting Loss

whilst Refusing to be Beaten-Final.

Hate, Vindictiveness, Bitterness

are Traps, but also Energy Blocks

… the Universe can only WORK

with You through Clear Channels!

Flow and Adapt… Sun Seeking

vines manoeuvring towards Light

… we only Progress backwards

to ‘Fix Things’ to help the machine

(us), Propel Forwards more Fluidly.

Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems and short stories published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet. His novel Crazy Like Emotion was recently released upon the public by Close To The Bone Publishing.

Howie Good, Frowny Face and all

The patron saint of Shopping Mall Santas.

If only wishes had the impact of bullets!

The Lord has showed us His glory but also His great big ass.

I might not have the shadows of carrion crows tattooed on

            my eyeballs.

Children on their hands and knees peck at the ground for seeds

            and insects and adults sniff around like dogs.

…love means teaching  a child not to step on a caterpillar.

Kids are warned, “Don’t ever talk to strangers” but strangers

            have the best candy.

There is always a superannuated star of 1980’s action movies

            exposing his mummified balls.

Do cows get excited: The parable

One night the chalk outline of the body mysteriously disappeared.

Extreme (Art) Materials at the Memorial Art Gallery (2012)

Breakfast cereal on wood panel

Insects, wax, and mixed media

Condoms and fabric

Taxidermied animals and crochet fabric

Breastplate #6: Lead and American .233 military ammo

Rainbow: Dry dog food and silicone

Coyote Juggles His Eyes: coyote skull, enamel, and glycerin

Organized Knowledge in Story and Picture: an altered set

            of encyclopedias

Fireworks Drawing: lit fireworks residue on fibrous paper

Centipedes: Bundt cake pans, bicycle brake liners, found objects

            and cold cathode tubes

Plaster infused marble, steel wool and lead

Inkjet prints on used coffee filters: a set of six

Post Extinction Fossil Grotto: bones and mixed media

Orthoptera: Grasshoppers, antique brass, steel watch parts (gears

            and springs) glass dome, walnut base, and sueded mat

Wheatfields: Udon, squid ink, spaghetti, and porcini mushroom

            spaghetti on wood

Pulled Tooth Drawing with reclaimed gold fillings.

Liquid Asset: Discarded plastic bottles, tinted polyacrylic mice

            powder and rivets

Human hair, steel wire, fiberglass screens, thread and wooden

            beads

Before Something Else Happens: Rose petals, synthetic hair and

            glass beads

Chemical Balance II: prescription bottles, mirror, and epoxy

Tampon Cake: layered tampons and applicators

Corpus Regis: Blood, resin, and clay on board

Albion Dream: Glass, bacteria water, vinegar, and epoxy

Lynsey Addario’s: It’s What I Do: Photographing Love

            and War

Troops firing at government helicopter as it sprays area

            with machine gun fire

Afghan women shield their faces at woman’s hospital

Rebel fighters and drivers look into sky anticipating a bomb

Anti-American demonstration in Peshawar

My shoe without laces where we were tied up

Transgender prostitutes in the Meatpacking District of New York

Women of Jihad Afghanistan

Young Afghanis listen to music in public for the first time

Civilians carry the body of a severely wounded comrade after a

            car bombing

Indian man bathing in the street: Calcutta at dawn

Kurdish soldiers deface a picture of Saddam Hussein

Children swimming in artificial lake at Saddam’s palace

Rows of the remains of bodies found in mass graves South

            of Bagdad

Scene in front of British Consulate minutes after a car bomb

            exploded

Soldiers with 173^rd Airborne Battle Company react to incoming

            mortar round

Afghan woman stands in labor on the side of a mountain

Death of a U.S. marine in Soth Afghanistan

Iraqis watch a 3-D movie in Bagdad

(The Defenestration of) Francesca Woodman: On Being

            an Angel

Self Portrait in sheer nightwear in attic loft with hanging

            sheer curtains, Rome

Black paint splatter on graffiti wall with disappearing woman

Dramatic pose in darkness with white gloves highlighted

Posed as a naked angel highlighted in derelict loft

Self Portrait at 13 with piano, already among shadows, Rome

Double exposed crawling through a headstone, Boulder, CO

Easter lily with headless nude

Naked bodies in and on glass museum display cabinet

Escaping naked and exposed from natural history exhibit

            with taxidermed animals

Disappearing as if blending into partially peeling flowered

            wallpaper

Naked body, time exposed

Time exposure of FW in polka dot dress with pocked bare walls

Lightning Legs: FW’s bare legs beneath raised polka dot dress with

            jagged piece of torn wallpaper

Supine on a Victorian settee facing a wall wearing several layers

            of black lingerie

Three kinds of melons, four kinds of light: FW naked holding

            cantaloupes and a picture of a melon

Pinched sitting: headless nude with clothes pins attached to

            nipples, stomach, and belly button

Face: Headless nude sitting on a couch with a plaster face mask

            covering her pudenda

Suspended: gripping a door frame with face averted

“Sometimes things are really dark.”

Crouched, naked, facing a wall hands pressing against it:

            “Then at one point I did not need to translate notes:

            they went directly to my hands.”

Lying naked face down on a floor with a curled eel in a white

            enamel basin

Self portrait talking to Vince with “bubbles” escaping from her

            mouth

Self deceit #1, crawling, naked around a stone wall and seeing

            herself reflected in a broken mirror

Self deceit #4 standing naked against a stone wall face covered by

            the piece of broken mirror

About being my model: three naked women holding three different

            faces of FW over their own

Francesca’s head on an oriental rug runner: pigment-based inkjet

            print (reddish)

Last view from a loft window: no note 

Lustmord 1920-2020 : A Centennial Celebration

Morbid Curiosity: The art work, the underground sensation,

            the headlines

“I don’t particularly want to chop up women but it seems

            to work.” Said Brian DePalma

George Grosz as Jack the Ripper: a self-portrait with Eva Peter in

            the artist’s studio

Otto Dix “Sex Murder a self portrait

“A boy’s best friend is his mother.” Norman Bates

Nosferatu peers out of the ship’s hold carrying him: a movie still

“Everywhere the mystery of the corpse” Max Beckman

Case Studies:

Otto Dix: Walpurgisnacht, the orgiastic witches Sabbath

            Flares: skeletal dead bodies of soldiers with fireworks

            Metropolis: garish excesses: a triptych like Bosch

            The Seven deadly Sins-personified

            Shell hole with flowers

            With corpses

            Self-Portrait with Muse: sensual, otherworldly, threatening

George Grosz: Double Murder in Rue Morgue

            When it was over (the axe murder) they played cards

            For the fatherland-This way to toe Slaughterhouse

            Homunculus: A Frankenstein monster gone radically wrong

            John the Lady Killer: figuratively and literally

            Pimps of death aka military officers

Fritz Lang’s M

The Corpse Vanishes

Trapped Like a Caged Animal: the child murderer frozen with fear

Reinventions: Murder in the name of Art

The Third Man: Harry Lime observing the people below from a

            Ferris wheel: “Would you really feel any pity if one of those

            dots stopped moving-forever.”

Dark Souvenirs

The Year in Review in Pictures: an abridged selection

                        from the New York Times

“Every war is ironic because every war is worse

than expected.” Paul Fussell 1924-2012

American sailors with captured Somali pirates

Thousands of people return home after ten years of war, Darfur

Frozen child, refugee camp, Afghanistan

Man on fire running, New Delhi

Nik Wallenda highwire walking over Niagara Falls Gorge

Kim Jong-Un reviewing the troops, May Day, North Korea

Human skull and bones mass grave, Mazar I Sharif, Afghanistan

Pussy Riot in Moscow Courtroom cage

Wendy Maritza Rodriguez after seeing the corpse of a relative

Forty-six new graves cut in a field, Krymsk, Russia

Statue of Blessed Virgin Mary after the fire, Breezy Point, Queens

Aerial View of Manhattan showing blackout of the city after Sandy

Israeli family braced for incoming rockets near Ashdod

Palestine residents clearing debris, Gaza City, the next day

Night in Syria after airstrike in Aleppo

26 killed, 20 children, 6 adults, Newton, Connecticut elementary

            school massacre (not shown)

            Published in New Verse News 2012

The Moonlight in my Life

You are the the moonlight in my life

that still leads the way to our happiness

You steal every passionate feeling within me 

like the hummingbird that draws the sweet

nectar from the depth of the honeysuckle 

The heat of love we both have for each other

soaks my skin like a misty layer of morning dew

Whispers between us are sweeter than any love poem

and the feel of your hand on my arm still thrills me

When the dawn comes and I feel your gaze upon me

It is the way you still look in my sleepy eyes 

that will always make life worth living.

Longing

Arms of mine, long to wrap around you

Lips as delicate as rose petals, yearn to touch yours

Eyes so inviting, I can’t help but dive into them

Hands so strong, I always feel safe holding them

Heartbeat so fast, I ache to feel yours beating with mine

Words so sweet, I hunger to hear more of them

Memories of times together, I wish for many more

Love so deep, I desire never to lose you

Kristy Raines was born in Oakland, CA. She is a poet, prose writer, and advocate for human rights internationally. She has received many literary awards and advocates for the Rohingya people and for an orphanage in India. She is most known internationally for her unique style of writing.

Kristy has just launched her first book, titled, “The Passion Within Me,” which is a beautiful collection of poems from a passionate heart. She is now working on her first children’s book, titled, “Princess and The Lion.” See her first book, The Passion Within Me, on Amazon.