Out of faded afterthought in its spreading yard of white flame
a line of dark that splits the light moves in several directions at once
and before long has left a skyline of hands raised for shade
to better receive the sight of land despite the only definition
being a debt none of us can afford, though our purpose is the image,
to live in it, to know its glow, know the floor of eternity as the back of the mind
which is the image’s way of ending, of achieving stillness, and further
into the image, sleeves are rendered over the bulk of bare wrists, and we,
we become aware it is us seeing it all, that our silence is always our purpose,
is always to see and refuse what is ours, unable to afford what we’re looking at.
If they are present, the warmth is theirs, so I am still agitated,
wounded even by sleep. Carts of fruit have broken in the street.
Everything cannot form neat little lines; some things must splatter to happen.
The recurring aprons have failed their pledge. The self-checkout is gathering cobwebs.
The menus are blowing away in the wind. A couch in the street is the crested horizon.
But I am still here, shoes and everything, and I am absolutely wasting all of my joke.
I find my truth in what I don’t agree with, and from my seat on the airplane
I hear the flight attendant announce the only missing passenger, and it’s me.
—The Banker
To Come
We thought we might shut the anthem up good,
so we drank, watched unspeakable joy capsize,
touched burgundy night, were outraged with ourselves
in the morning, and realized our inexpressiveness
was our only morality, the anthem. It came from
the heart of inconsequence, only to be glimpsed while forgetting.
It came from a place of purity, purity that rang like escape routes
from an implacable faith, where scouting was a shout at water
lathered in streaks of ash. The anthem came from a place
people weren’t sure really existed, yet had memories of,
memories that announced themselves like collective hallucinations
in rehearsal of childhoods to come, but in the end, the anthem
turned out to be nothing more than the stale air
shut away in a room that was locked from the outside.
All the many thin, angled bars of light
slowly floated dust down the old beer signs.
The jukebox again repeated the good song
which spoke clearly in the only voice.
The bad song does not speak in the only voice.
—The Drinker
Cop
Soon it will be dark, and in her lack of sight
her ear will supply all the courtyard birdsong
of trickling water in a cold office bathroom.
There will be an elevator shaft, and in the silent elevator,
her ear will supply the sound of a dog walking in circles.
Outside on a park bench will sit a little harmonica
and passersby will invent a child blowing into it.
When we think of the past, our efforts seem silly.
It’s often difficult to decide on a monument
when every single sleep that comes answering is bare.
A god is vice begins and ends vice
—The Thief
The One in Charge
One day the ice in his glass
did not melt properly
and he discovered he was empty.
But when no one can afford
to relax at the top, how to tell
what relaxing looks like?
We kidded ourselves; we spoke of tar and rain,
balconies and raw meat, sun on umbrellas.
But what we desired most could only suffice
if too much to receive, a place only visible
from the outside, so we looked all over
not for what we had lost, but for the moments we lost it;
we looked for the beautiful ways, the ambitious ways which
in the past, with far more people to know, we lost it all.
—The Second Gunman
Coin into Fountain
Like any precise enough metallic
put to milliseconds across a dome of daylight,
it wasn’t itself as it was happening,
as it was happening, it was something else,
it was a flickering jewel between towers
in shaky blue sky above city traffic,
then the slap of the surface, water closing fast
the circle by mimicry of shape and rushing
across the engraved profile toward itself
until a clash spiraling finger oil upward
to dissolve under the surface and its dialogue
which was then the intact hum of the buried above
while the bottom was struck and all the other coins
already installed long enough to bear small life
fell storied into their own respective borders,
and the dialogue above the surface continues;
who is there left to abandon?
They learn when they buy.
—The Billionaire
Derek Thomas Dew (he/she/they) is a neurodivergent, non-binary poet currently living and teaching in New York City. Derek’s debut poetry collection “Riddle Field” received the 2019 Test Site Poetry Prize from the Black Mountain Institute/University of Nevada. Derek’s poems have appeared in a number of anthologies, and have been published widely, including Interim, ONE ART, Allium, The Maynard, Azarão Lit Journal, Two Hawks Quarterly, Ocean State Review, and Overgrowth Press.
Northern lights in the sky over Alaska her father deep in mines, engineer moving from mining town to town to tar paper shacks to a boarding house to a log cabin in the woods long johns and a baby sister then Father off to war.
Waiting for him, waiting under a treeless sky air heavy with heat, dust in El Paso with Granpa the town dentist, mean drunk and her mother shut down, closed off in a dark bedroom with a bottle.
Father’s new job: Arizona a real house in the hills the bright evening star in the dark night sky Mother in pretty dresses baking cakes, playing bridge picnics and potlucks until the next move.
A prestigious position in Santiago, Chile a two-story Tudor green lawns, fruit trees purple iris, a gardener Mother in bed all day with a bottle.
Teenage Lucia the hostess for her father’s social events private school, rich friends skiing, swimming, movies dressmakers, hairdressers nightclubs, balls, boys then a dorm in Albuquerque her girlfriends still in Chile married with mansions busy with children but after the revolution all her old friends murdered or suicides.
Lucia, Wife
She’s tall, lean, svelte dark hair, sapphire eyes at 17 still passive when her parents reject her 30-year-old lover a Mexican-American veteran throws her out of his car never sees him again.
A few months later she marries a sculptor who rearranges her hair, clothes, stance and avoids the draft with their first son with a second on the way he’s off to Italy on a grant, with a girl doesn’t see him again for sixteen years.
A musician called Race kind, quiet, a good man talented Harvard grad from a big warm clan playing gigs on piano gone while she’s home with the babies in a cheap rural rental outside Albuquerque.
Dusty, silent except for horses, cows, chickens, dogs red chili on strings drying in the sun in an old adobe rounded, wind-softened the same dirt-brown as the hard-packed earth no phone no stove no running water loads of diapers she’s too alone this pretty young girl.
Lucia, Lover
Race moves them to an unheated loft in New York City he’s out all night at his jazz gigs she’s up all night typing stories while wearing gloves while the kids sleep in earmuffs and mittens
until a way out arrives with a bottle of brandy four tickets to Acapulco another Harvard man Race’s buddy Buddy dark, handsome, rich bad boy with a drug problem
offering the sexy allure of escape to hot sun sky blue pools white sand beaches and crazy love with a heroin addict.
She bites, writes bears two more sons an electric life flying in Buddy’s plane landing like crop dusters for detox and retox always fearful of his dealer friends.
To keep him clean they move away to another land live in a palapa with a thatched palm roof and a beach sand floor on the edge of a coconut grove surrounded by mountains.
The boys love it there amidst parrots, flamingoes spearing eels and fat fish dark nights in hammocks swaying under rustling palms in the soft ocean breeze heady with gardenias their paradise life
until Buddy gets bored and the drug dealers come.
***
Lucia Berlin shared the stories of social outsiders with her own special brand of detachment, humor, and economy, presenting the brutality of blue collar life tempered by her compassion for human frailty. She was relatively unknown until eleven years after her death when a collection of her selected stories hit the New York Times bestseller list.
Born Lucia Brown in Alaska, she spent her childhood in mining towns all over the west. After her mining engineer father got promoted to an executive position, the family lived in Chile in relative luxury. She moved to Albuquerque for college, returning later for graduate school.
Married multiple times, she lived in Manhattan, rural Mexico, and New Mexico. After leaving her third husband, a heroin addict, she took her four young boys and settled in California.
As a single parent, Berlin worked odd jobs including cleaning woman, physician’s assistant, hospital ward clerk, and switchboard operator. Her stories were based on incidents she experienced herself in her difficult life. She would type late at night while the boys were asleep, a bottle of bourbon at her side.
She eventually gave up the booze and remained sober, teaching writing at the San Francisco County Jail, Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and University of Colorado Boulder. Lucia Berlin died in California at age 68.
Her books:
A Manual for Cleaning Women: Stories
Evening in Paradise: Stories
Welcome Home: A Memoir
Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan hides out in the lush ruins of South Florida. She writes pulp fiction, literary crime, and psychological thrillers. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and chapbooks. A collection of biographical poems on 20th century poets is in press with Clare Songbirds Publishing.
(Light skinned Central Asian woman with long blonde hair, a headband, a long green necklace, and a black top).
WASTED EFFORTS
Human sometimes
Wasted efforts
Wants Endless desires
Loves
Jealousies
Even a bird sometimes
Wasted flat its wings
While flies in the sky
Wasted efforts
Everything as it should be
Wherever self has to go
Wheresoever it has to end
Whatever it has to be
Everything as it is
The rest wasted efforts.
Türkan Ergör was born in 19 March 1975 in the city of Çanakkale, Turkey. She was selected International “Best Poet 2020”. She was selected International “Best Poet, Author/Writer 2021”. She was selected International “Best Poet, Writer/Author 2022”. She was awarded the FIRST PRIZE FOR THE OUTSTANDING AUTHOR IN 2022. She was awarded the 2023 “Zheng Nian Cup” “National Literary First Prize” by Beijing Awareness Literature Museum. She was awarded the “Certificate of Honor and Appreciation” and “Crimean Badge” by İSMAİL GASPRİNSKİY SCIENCE AND ART ACADEMY. She was awarded the “14k Gold Pen Award” by ESCRITORES SIN FRONTERAS ORGANIZACIÓN INTERNACIONAL.
Beauty is the pleasant and delightful appearance of a person, nature, or a work of art. True beauty lies in a person’s naturalness, simplicity, and sincerity. Real beauty is the beauty of the heart. Everything in this world has its own kind of beauty.
The essence of simplicity is to be naturally beautiful without unnecessary decorations or artificial things. Everything created by Allah in this world is beautiful, and among them, the most beautiful is the human being. To be a beautiful person is indeed a blessed feeling.
Inner beauty is reflected through one’s inner qualities such as kindness, honesty, patience, forgiveness, gratitude, and sincerity. This kind of beauty is not seen on the face, but shown through a person’s character and behavior.
“Outer beauty is seen by the eyes, but inner beauty is felt by the heart.”
Outer beauty fades with time, but the beauty of the heart shines brighter as the years pass. A person with a beautiful heart spreads warmth and joy to others just by being themselves.
The secret of beauty lies in being both outwardly and inwardly beautiful — loving ourselves, the world, and everything around us. Sincerity, simplicity, and kindness are the feelings that make a person truly beautiful.
In conclusion, simplicity is the most natural and genuine expression of human beauty. Sincerity and naturalness bring warmth to hearts, for indeed, simplicity is the highest virtue that adorns a person’s inner beauty.
The whoop, whoop, whoop of the police siren died to a guttural moan as Anais pulled her Kia to the curb just inside the small Ohio town of Springfield, within striking distance of Dayton. She peeped into the rearview mirror and spied a policeman alighting from the cruiser and striding her way. What now? she thought. She was driving down Rivers Road, a virtual gauntlet of police speed traps, according to her husband.
The policeman rapped with his knuckles on her window and so Anais lowered the glass pane. “Yessir?” she asked.
“Driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance,” said the cop dully.
Anais turned and fished through her glovebox and purse and eventually turned up the requested documents. She passed them through the window to the policeman, who accepted them without a word. Anais, a recent Haitian refugee, had never been accosted by law enforcement in this country. But, she had heard stories. She didn’t know what to expect, but remembered what her grandmother, who’d raised her, always said: “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Do whatever they say,” she’d cautioned. Anais waited.
The 19-year-old woman turned her head and noted that the policeman was staring intently at her, through the harsh beam of a huge flashlight. She couldn’t make out his features. Did he suspect she harbored drugs, because her skin was brown and she dressed differently from others? Unable so far to buy native apparel, she was still clad in a vibrant, red and blue chambray Karabela dress.
“Get out of the vehicle,” directed the cop, taking a step back to allow Anais to open her door. She silently complied. Out on the pavement, she stood by the car, uncertain and forlorn. Where was her grandmother when she needed her? She glanced at the western sky; the sun had already slipped below the horizon. It was quite dark now. The road at this hour was little travelled and not a vehicle had passed since she was stopped. She felt very vulnerable.
“Do you have any illegal drugs, contraband or weapons in your car or on your person?” he asked next.
She shook her head no.
“Do you speak American?” asked the cop impatiently.
Anais blinked. “I speak the English,” she told him in her thick accent.
He grunted.
“Why did you stop me?” asked Anais nervously.
Ignoring her question, the cop handed back the documents she’d passed him before and said, “Do you have citizenship papers?”
Anais nodded. “I have the green card,” she said.
“Let’s see it,” grumbled the cop, extending his tiny hand.
Anais gave it to him. He drifted back to his cruiser, engaged the radio for a few minutes and then returned and handed the document back.
“What’re you doing on the roads at this hour?” queried the cop.
Anais glanced at her cell phone: it was almost 9pm.
“I’m on my way home–from the grocery store,” she said. She began to feel some dark misgivings about the way this interrogation was proceeding.
Now the cop directed his large flashlight again into Anais’s face and after a moment, said, “turn around, put your hands against the vehicle, take a step back,” he ordered. She did.
At just that moment, another police can rolled up and parked behind the first. Men got out of both doors. Their boots scunched over the gravel on the side of the road. The first cop withdrew and met them halfway to his vehicle. They talked in hushed tones. That left Anais standing awkwardly against her car.
Anais looked up as the men exchanged a bawdy laugh. Were they talking about her? she wondered. Anais was a newlywed and she longed for the comfort of her partner, to hear his voice and feel his arms around her, but the policeman had seized her phone.
Finally, the first cop tromped loudly to her car and roughly patted her down and then, without warning, seized one arm and pulled it behind her back. Handcuffs clicked into place over her wrist. He took her other arm and secured that wrist as well. What was happening? she thought wildly, as the cop opened her back door and pushed her through and face down onto the bench seat in the rear of the Kia. Now the other two cops approached and stood staring down at her supine figure, chucking malevolently. They likewise had flashlights.
“Not bad,” murmured one of the newcomers, “for a greasball.” They all laughed.
“Got a nice ass for a spic,” opined the third racist cop,” reaching in and groping Anais’s backside and running his fingers between her legs.
She whimpered and struggled fruitlessly against her bonds.
“So,” said the first cop. “Who wants to do her first?” he asked the others conversationally.
One of the cops said, “Maybe we should do dinner first. You said she’s from Haiti. What’s your pleasure, senorita, a dog or a cat?” They laughed yet again. The burning essence of marijuana now wafted through the air.
Anais thought hard, then suddenly spoke out. “I saw your face,” she rasped desperately.
The three men grew silent as statues.
“I thought she didn’t see you,” whispered another of the three.
“She didn’t,” said the first cop. “I never gave her my name or showed her a badge or nothin’. I used my flashlight, like the last time. She’s lyin’.”
“But, what if she ain’t,” said another voice.
“Then you’ll have to kill me,” Anais spoke out. “Or go to jail for kidnapping and rape. I’m a married woman,” said Anais with sudden rage. “And my husband owns a big gun. You’ll be shot, if you touch me again,” she shouted. “You release me now, and I’ll forget about the touching and the disrespect. You decide now. You got five seconds to decide.”
In a matter of only a few seconds, the handcuffs were opened and Anais was freed. The other two cops hurried off to their car and sped away. The first cop snatched the keys from Anais’s ignition and tossed them and her cell phone into the weeds a few feet away and loped to his vehicle and likewise took off. She could hear the tires burning rubber.
Finding her keys, Anais stumbled back to her car and was soon motoring home, shaking and crying as she drove. She lived only minutes away. The only thing she saw when she entered the small house was Michael.
He said, in his rich, soft baritone, “Carino. I was worried about you.”
She fell into his warm embrance and immediately told him of her narrow escape at the hands of the rogue policemen. After she’d completed her narrative, Michael gently grasped her shoulders and said, “Did you really see his face?”
Anais had the grace to blush. “No, Michael. The flashlight was in my face the whole time.”
Then he said, “Anais, I don’t even own a gun.”
She smiled up into his face. “No, but you would’ve gotten one,” she whispered with confidence.
