INVASION

		I cannot play outside today.
		My Mom’s afraid.
		Maybe we will go away,
		find someplace safe.
		
		My best friend lives across the street,
		but he got hurt.
		I’ll never play with him again.
		He went outside.

		And when we heard the BOOM-BOOM-BOOM,
		my Mommy cried.
		She asks which bear I want the most.
		My suitcase zips.

		But since we don’t dare go outside,
		we watch the street.
		Here comes an ugly monster thing.
		An army tank.

		The soldiers look like movie guys,
		all dressed alike.
		Hear that?  Shooting!   Loud and close.
		Our window breaks.

		And Mommy falls. Her head’s all red.
		She’s not okay.
		My Mom needs help.  What can I do?
		It’s war outside.

Whispers of the Wind

Trees standing tall reaching to the sky.
When the wind dances between trees,
Leaving a trace of mist on the ground.
Leaves blow from one place to another.

A sound of a leaf brushing one another.
Clam finds a place among the breeze.
Serenity accompanies the whispering.
As the wind leaves a trail of freshness,

Clarity leaves me with a quiet soul.

Cemented Freedom

In the inner-city among the cemented sidewalks,
Buildings of cement reaching towards the sky.
Cemented bricks and cemented hearts that cry.
Among the cemented world lives freedom.

Freedom comes as flowers grow free.
Cardinals sing among the trees at dawn.
God’s freedom among the cemented city.
Freedom as the wings of the cardinal’s flight.

Among the flowers there is a life of beauty.

The Garden of Friendship
For Mary Kirsch

The sunshine, rain, and snow flowers grew.
As did our love for one another in hardship,
Flowers grow in the cracks of the sidewalk,
And through our fears and doubts of life,

Quietly as the candles burned on the altar.
We sat together with our hearts open.
In the garden love still grows,
Flowers grow through the cracks.

While we see the petals of the heart.

Summer Beauty

Her skin was the color of caramel
And her eyes the color of cream,
With a smile that warmed my heart.
She spoke like the wind in summer.

Seeing how gracefully she walked.
Reminding me of the beauty of life.
She sat by the window looking at me.
A moment of eye contact between us.

Remembering that glance in my prayers.

If Not Ocean

Aggravated by some sort of storm
she pulses,
not woman nor sand. 
I can’t tell, these days, what
woman looks like 
or what her soft, seagrass stomach 
should feel like in my palm
moving between the lines that tell me when I’ll die –

I mean, dictating my life. I shouldn’t
ask these questions. 

What is a woman if not fluid
that drips through our fingers
and finds its way back under the waves,
gazing up, sea glass eyes, at mother planet?
Who will touch me again?
Who decides what body I will have
now. And in what hands. 

Who is a woman if not malleable?
This feels nice –
Imagine, pale turquoise aquarium silk
that never struggles
or fights 
or snags on jagged fingernails. 
This is woman.

No, 

is this living? Is this 
a mammal’s biography – or the unborn eggs
of a polluted grandmother shark,
neck tied in plastic, 
or is this a shell abandoned on the beach? 
Is this the right kind of solidity?

Hazel is a sophomore in creative writing at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco. They have work published in several literary publications, including Synchronized Chaos, The Weight Journal, and Parallax Journal, and have performed their poetry at the Youth Art Summit in San Francisco and 826 Valencia. When Hazel is not writing, they can be spotted cuddling their three cats, holding their python, feeding their tarantula, or rescuing insects from being squashed.

Green Jesus
   
My church has a big green Jesus in front.
Originally the statue was bronze, I think.
Or maybe copper. Something more stately.

Well, now it's green so I try to live with it.
The pose is impressive: Jesus advances, 
His arms are raised in welcome,
which is comforting and reassuring.

However, His green face makes one pause.
Is He ill? Is he pretending to be a green man,
someone from outer space perhaps?
Maybe He hasn't bathed recently
and has become a bit moldy.

Then again, maybe His color is symbolic.
I mean, He did talk about New Life, 
and green is a Spring-like color.
It's also ecological and Jesus often
spoke of a New Heaven and Earth.

Still, the green is a little off-putting.
Kind of makes you want to stay back.
But maybe He doesn't like green either!
I remember Kermit the frog's lament:
“It's not easy being green.”

Probably isn't, come to think of it.
So maybe it's a lesson in acceptance.
With that in mind, I can be okay 
with green, I guess.  It could be worse, 
after all. I mean, what if he was...
purple?!!!!          

Jerome Berglund graduated from the University of Southern California’s Cinema-Television Production program and spent a picaresque decade in the entertainment industry before returning to the Midwest where he was born and raised.  Since then he has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves.  Berglund has exhibited many haiku and senryu online and in print, most recently in Tofu Ink Arts, Vermillion, Hey I'm Alive Magazine, and Fauxmoir.  

He is furthermore an established, award-winning fine art photographer, whose black and white pictures have been shown in galleries across New York, Minneapolis, and Santa Monica.  You can read Jerome’s earlier published works collected in Bindle Bum and Paint Chips, available through Amazon.

destined

a tall thin man 
dressed in a tatty floral frock 
shuffles along these streets each day
i pace down them too

on trodden grime 
we separately seek our own reasons 
for these solitary rambles to anywhere else 
but our current this in now

weeks of passing each other 
without word spoken
no nod or flick of friendly smile 
no wink or silly boyish smirk
just numb private loping

and it unhinges me 
pulling me deeper 
into my pulsating core 
of constantly wondering 
what and why

yesterday 
as our paths collided 
on a muddled corner of maybe fate
i glimpsed a reservoir of tears in his milky eyes
i’m sure he heard the plea for answers  
screaming out of mine

today 
i can’t face him
entwined in his inane crawling 
or tread those confusing roads to naught 

i can’t move from where i hide 
wallowing in the realisation of existence

and i’m disturbed by him and his input 
to my distorted analysis

for i know as i gulp at a gritty breath
we are both destined 
to experience what we do
ongoing 
until our end



death-songs

slaughter equals 
what the fuck
is going on

without compassion

i’m no sage 
just ardent vego 
in this 

killing mess

i cry when i see sheep 
in a truck 
stare hard 

loathe reality

catching fish 
is like a murder game 
of swimming beauty 

lost forever

cooking flesh 
smells 
like replaying 

death-songs

no argument 
for sake of hard words
flesh takers don’t listen

won’t notice

so we tolerate
their catching and killing
and breeding more 

living meat

for in their accepted
butchery 
we are the freaks

never them


unless and though

there’s nothing wrong with having a mouse on your head
unless an eagle sees it and swoops down to grab it

a run of relationship breakups isn’t so bad
though if they’ve taken your money it’s terribly upsetting

getting lost in a storm can be quite exciting
unless it’s below zero and you’re trapped in the snow

being totally broke is not the end of the world
though it’s extremely grim if you’re starving to death

camping alone in the jungle is a fabulous adventure 
unless being stalked by a hungry tiger

not remembering who you are is no big deal
though it becomes complicated when filling out forms 

never having a poem published means very little 
unless you’ve spent your life trying to get poetry published 

old age is natural and is just how life is
though it’s quite disappointing if you have never felt joy

as dying sits before us we attempt to avoid it
unless you’ve been waiting for the end of the journey

unless and though 
can be used in countless ways
though it’s best to experiment with how  
unless devoted to what’s correct

Stephen House has won many awards and nominations as a poet, playwright and actor, including two Australian Writer’s Guild Awgie Awards, and a Greenroom Best Actor nomination. He has had 20 plays produced, many commissioned. He’s received international literature residencies from The Australia Council and Asialink. His chapbook “real and unreal” was published by ICOE Press. His next book is out soon. His poetry is published often, and he performs his acclaimed monologues widely.

Climate Change Catastrophe

Safer docking in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, waters in Yemen, pronounced, “Saffer.” About to rot or explode!
Potentially leaking gas fumes, and oil into these Arabian and Red Seas. The Houthis won’t talk to anyone but a few. The right actions to change this massive risk IGNORED.
And why?
Starvation 821 million, One in 9 people, children, malnourished.
Yemen, Haiti, Afghanistan, Congo, Nigeria, Madagascar, Southern Sudan, Syria. 
In a world where Overeating and cardiovascular disease are the number one cause of death. 
IN A WORLD WHERE CHILDREN STARVE.
Mass displacements due to flooding. 
Where in the world will these people go? 
Their home awash with loss, destruction:
Brazil, 30,000 lives displaced.
Jakarta, 400 million meters of rain.
Pakistan 300 million lives displaced.
Kenya 1 million lives displaced.
South Korea, Vietnam, Nagasaki, Venice, Italy!
Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Philippines, Zambia, 700,000 lives uprooted.
Kilimanjaro, Arusha, Tennessee, California, Rwanda, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Turkey and all of Central America. 
We have to open our hearts and minds to plan for the next thousand years! 
We are in the midst of a real climate catastrophe.

By Tess Tyler, 11/19/ 2021