North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #6

“Windowbox Flowers and Rain Barrel” by Mary M. Michaels https://marymmichaels.weebly.com/

Thanks to the poets for contributing to The Pandemic Issue #6 from North of Oxford and Mary M. Michaels for graciously providing her art.  In order of appearance we present:  Henry Crawford, Megha Sood, Sheila Allen with Emily Jensen, Kerry Trautman, M. J. Arcangelini, Stephen Bochinski, Christine Riddle, Maria Keane, Marko Otten, Patricia Carragon, Jonel Abellanosa, Reizel Polak, Lois Perch Villemaire, Stephen Page, John Stickney, Ethel Gofen, Nan Ottenritter, Larry C. Tolbert, Kirsty A. Niven, Roderick Deacey, Gwil James Thomas and JeanMarie Olivieri

.

.

Henry Crawford

.

View From The Refrigerated Truck

.

The one below me died last Thursday.

They took him to the ICU the day before.

Put him on a ventilator.

.

Next to me a woman I remember

from the waiting room. The steel doors opened

to a blast of sunlight and cold vapor.

.

Stacked her in the first

vacant space.

.

My wife caught me coughing.

Drove me down in our yellow Honda Civic.

She knew this woman.

.

They’d gone to junior high together.

.

There’s room for another body

on my left. I saw a technician sneezing

as they were hooking up my drips.

.

It might be nice to see her again

but not here.

.

I’d tell her watch out. It’s not the dying

but the dying alone. Not the pain but the

knowing. Not the void but the temperature

that gets you.

.

Henry Crawford is the author of two collections of poetry, American Software (CW Books, 2017) and the Binary Planet (Word Works, 2020). His online poems are available at Henry Crawford Poetry, Online. He is currently the host of the online series, Poets vs The Pandemic.

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Megha Sood

.

Insane “New” Normal

.

Like a blind cave

brittle rib cage hosting the infection

an unwanted guest:

the virus opens its mouth

its glistening black teeth

in the dead of the night

.

devours everything

precious and beautiful

cleaves the life out of the soul

leaves you gasping;

with bated breath and a jarred mind

.

you are left alone

in a vacant mind

lying on the death bed

reminiscing the day love embraced you

around a summer bonfire

.

now loneliness bounces off

sepia-tinged walls

death draped in pristine

white sheets sitting

at the foot of the bed

.

scoops its share masticating life

leaving you rotten like an empty room

with chipped off walls

forgotten and waiting for its due

.

vacant mind begets explanation

in the hollowness of the night

when the wheezing and choking

cleaves your soul

leaves you asunder

.

It rattles your mind

you struggle with the existential truth

as this insane “new normal” renders

dying alone a new meaning.

.

A Condolence Call

.

Grief sits like a day old soup in my kitchen unless the anger stirs it

rattles and boils it. Grief rises to the surface and chokes me

.

I hear the loss of a mother. My friend’s mother, over the phone

It’s a condolence call yet I can’t seem to join in his grief

.

Sudden loss disjoints your body, the pieces don’t seem to fit anymore

Body and language are extricable. Our tongue moves in the way

.

our body can’t decipher in grief. I can’t seem to form a legible sentence

our conversation keeps coming back to the grocery, the loneliness of

.

being stuck in a condo looking over the lush green deserted parks.

I don’t want to bring back the conversation of the dead and dying.

.

The whole thread of conversation is about feeding the ones we love.

Loss is pouring through the thin sluices of this city. Every damn day.

.

Which starts again the same way it ended yesterday Or was it tomorrow?

With sidewalks pitted with the bones of the dead.

.

I can’t seem to fathom the desperation and anger in his voice of not being

able to visit her mother during her last times, the pain and the grief carry over

.

like a failing enjambment from one meaningless conversation

to another till we ran out of the small talk. The silences between

.

the pauses take the shape of the unsaid condolence, as I slowly hang up the phone.

There is no defined language for grief. Lesson learned.

.

This City Weeps. This City Wails

.

The infection moving crisscross

jumping street and avenues

the Broadway Boogie Woogie

straight out of a Mondrian

A labyrinth of bones buried

under the sidewalks

.

Once lined with laughter

Now pitted with fear

Parks morphing into graves

Dead outgrows the living

Sky shredded with elegy

.

People drowning their grief

Looking out from the balcony

The incessant clapping

Can’t douse the cacophony of death

Of screaming hearts and sobbing souls.

.

Anger and grief filling the sewers

the putrid smell carried by air

Heavy with grief and sorrow

Nothing heavier than the pain of dying alone

.

As the infection moves through the

City wailing like a widow

The contagion like grief

Anointing every soul it touches

.

Earmarking it for death

The night whimpers

under its own breath.

.

This city wails. This city weeps.

.

Conjecture

.

What roses are blooming outside the four walls of my room with no name?

The seasons pass without waving goodbye. There are only enough things I choose

to ignore this year

.

Hunkered inside my room, I am counting hollow shadows crossing the streets

Tender sapling breaking open through the moist crumbled earth

.

Douse with the monsoon rains. Empty seasons passing outside this walls

like the phantom shadows beside a moving train, a fallacy of time passing.

.

Days rolled into nights like incessant numbers on my calendar.

A hamster on a wheel life with memories etched on our dead and the dying

.

Counting the loss by every passing day I wonder, what lilies are blooming in the square today?

Loneliness begets acceptance, bodies shriveled like raisins craving for the warm acceptance.

.

What buds have birthed in the small garden, I wonder.

Some losses are too heavy to count, some debts are too big to pay.

.

All my passing seasons are now a conjecture of my empty mind

Trapped inside the sepia tinge walls of my high rise, burgeoned by the grief

.

Like a father blackening his elbows on the window sill

counting his breaths like long scratches on a prison’s wall.

.

Megha Sood is an Assistant Poetry Editor at Mookychick.Over 450+ works featured in literary journals and numerous works in print anthologies by the US, UK, Australian, and Canadian Press. Blogs at https://meghasworldsite.wordpress.com/

.

Sheila Allen with Emily Jensen

.

Silent Killer

    -For Mark Romutis

.

Warnings were sent and then ignored

Washington heard not a single word

And blindly life continued on

While a silent killer was coming, going strong

.

He said,

We‘re all united together

We‘re all working so hard together

It will be a great victory soon

.

But the truth sings a different tune

There was no caution from our leader here

Except to pose and place blame here and there

But the enemy was in the air

And was on us, in us, hiding everywhere

.

He said,

We‘re all united together

We‘re all working so hard together

It will be a great victory soon

.

And so his voters listened well

And took no heed, even rebelled

And brothers, husbands, and sisters fell

While the virus raged on, raging hell

.

He said,

We‘re all united together

We‘re all working so hard together

It will be a great victory soon

.

We need a leader to help us heal

A ruler who listens, and deeply feels

Who makes science and facts the ideal

To bring our country back to life again

.

And THE PEOPLE now say

We‘re all united together

We are all working hard together

It will be a great victory soon

It will be a great victory soon

.

These are lyrics written after my brother died on April 12. – Sheila Allen

.

Kerry Trautman

.

Introvert Quarantined

.

It should be heaven here at home with people I

love and made, bright things I

.

chose to line my walls and shelving. Instead

I long for Manhattan, for the N train to 42nd

.

rattling grime and garbagey curbsides.

My children seem to multiply,

.

husband a coworker making smalltalk while the

breakroom microwave hums.

.

I miss too-loud bar cover bands, guessing stories

of strangers at parties where I only

.

know two people and just want to lure the cat

from under the bed or join it. Windows glass

.

is cold to touch, trees beyond still brittle grey,

my kitchen has only canned beans, tuna and stale

.

crackers, apples we start to reach for then

change our minds. I want a restaurant menu

.

with ingredients I need to Google, a wine list

like Morse code I close and ask

.

for water, waiter judging my shoes other

patrons chatting relaxed with their

.

bulbous wines. Here between my walls everyone

knows me too well, has heard me fart as I hop up

.

the stairs, watched me sew and re-sew

holes in the knees of my pajamas. I know

.

whose footsteps are coming, whose sneeze that was

which cupboard door just

.

opened and didn’t close. Slip me into the queue

for TSA, someone’s Samsonite knocking into

.

my heels, someone’s hummus assailing my

sinuses. Press me between two strangers in airline

.

seats with an inch-wide hard armrest

pretending to separate my belly from theirs. Thrust

.

my body out at the cold

air of the world.

.

Quarantined Together

.

You and I argue the politics on TV—

the paper-shuffling sound bites

like a slipcover slid over

a holey plaid sofa,

and I wish the remote control could

click me views into

other living rooms.

.

Do wives there finish their sentences

without repeated shouts like

linguistic backs of hands?

Do husbands there listen, nod

I see your point?

.

I want to hold

the volume-down button

and TV graph lines dip

downward in a breath of relief

like bicycle coasting

with legs yawned wide

away from pedals.

.

I avoid you, avoid the suit

behind the crested podium

like the oak tree at the park

with a two-foot hornet’s nest.

.

There must be characters somewhere

who are better scripted,

Someone is getting this right.

.

I need clairvoyance like a

glow-in-the-dark telephone

I can pick up to hear

my neighbors cleaning their garage

with harmonious chatter,

or my two poet-couple friends

versing on twin manual typewriters

beside billowing curtains,

or the young couple marrying

in the stone church downtown

with only the priest and their parents

six-feet apart in the pews.

.

I need a TV channel to tell me

who will live to feel

the heat of summer, and who

will have to trust their memory

of waves pulling wet sand

around their toes

in a fever dream while blinking

their last blinks.

.

If I turn the TV off

I am an ostrich.

On mute I could listen

instead to Debussy or Dylan

but maps would still glow there—

reddening circles radiating

from major cities

sprawling by the hour.

.

There must be something to press

to my ear.

I’m willing to hear

all I’ve done wrong

and what could have

switched it right,

willing to beg forgiveness and

burn bridges before

I flush red and burst

on a map of Ohio

but first I need to shout

into something

built to receive my voice.

.

Kerry Trautman’s books are Things That Come in Boxes (King Craft Press 2012,) To Have Hoped (Finishing Line Press 2015,) Artifacts (NightBallet Press 2017,) and To be Nonchalantly Alive (Kelsay Books 2020.) She is a poetry editor for Red Fez. Tired of tiny Zoom faces, she longs for in-person poetry.

.

M. J. Arcangelini

.

Pandemic Ghazal

.

pacing the yard just past dawn. Birds chattering,

free to fly wherever they wish.

.

Television talking heads spewing numbers,

pointing to charts, somehow translates into lives.

.

Mask as fashion statement. Sequined mask. Flag mask.

Mask as political position. Frightened old masked man.

.

What are your symptoms this morning? What?

You don’t have any? Look again. Look again.

.

Talking to shadows. The empty guest chair.

The solitary bed. Swapping photos with Onan.

.

Even the recluse gets lonely when he’s

denied what he had chosen to forego.

.

M.J. Arcangelini has resided in northern California since 1979. He has published in a lot of little magazines, online journals, & over a dozen anthologies.  He has five collections, the most recent of which is “A Quiet Ghost,” Luchador Press 2020. Arcangelini has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

.

Stephen Bochinski

.

Us

.

The thing is it is dark

bringing a flashlight won’t help

it is too artificial for places like this

besides you must perceive

with senses other than sight

when darkness descends

eclipsing even the rays of the sun

and you find yourself alone

the only source of illumination

your dream seen with liminal eyes

and the subconscious self a sensory organ

with which it is possible to perceive

the vast beauty of our collective soul.

.

Rooted

.

It is impossible to flee

to some other country

the borders are all closed

as are the locked doors

of our individual abodes.

There is no escape

in climbing out the window

out the screens of televisions

or the glow of our devices

no more hiding in the attic

with our memories and our memes

or the darkness of our basement

to sit out the great depression

of our anxieties and despair.

It is the return to somewhere ancient

over the threshold of a primal door

to weep the tears for all those years

that separation wrought

to tend to the tender places

we all were cut to our psyche’s bone

where the ancient healing rituals

forgotten by our elevated selves

are remembered in our beloved earth

where the tree of our nature is rooted

where together we withstand the storm.

.

Stephen Bochinski has been writing since taking an evening creative writing course at a local community college in the mid-nineties while working construction during the day. He has since retired from construction and continues to write while living in Oceanside Ca. and walking on the beach.

.

Christine Riddle

.

Sheltering in Place: Week 5

.

In the pre-dawn stillness I imagine I can hear the Earth’s heartbeat

pulsing in harmony with the cosmos, reliably in orbit,

unfazed by this pandemonium. Meanwhile, I’ve been flung off course,

diverted onto a foreign trajectory, destination uncertain.

I mask, I distance, but mostly I shelter in place

and wonder what’s to become of us.

.

Other crises arrive in a spectacle: tsunamis, wildfires, Twin Towers.

But this time there was no seismic shift, no arsonist, no terrorists.

This one crept in quietly and scattered like mercury uncontained.

Like fog at sea it knows no bounds, its reach is limitless.

Its victims transformed into weapons.

.

Whether human creation or Nature’s spawn it lives among us now.

And I must accept that the unthinkable is reality,

that we were so smugly unprepared,

that we are all vulnerable.

.

In the pre-dawn stillness, birds still sing.

.

Christine Riddle’s poetry has appeared in Moments of the Soul, Ink to Paper, Prize Poems 2020, and will soon be published in Tennessee Voices an Anthology. An essay appears in Far Villages.

.

Maria Keane

.

Containment

.

Blackened flowers

tangle in weeds.

Crimes become catacombs of amnesia.

.

Time lapses, behavior struggles for the

flavor of freedom, the right to claim

air to breathe, enduring the

struggle to stay alive.

.

Scarred wings of memory

struggle for liberty, all movement

shocked by a third rail of dying.

.

Keane’s published poetry, has been the recipient of several literary grant residency awards by the Delaware Division of Arts.  Her poetry has received national honors by the National League of American Pen Women. A book of poetry, Being There (includes illustrations by the author) was published in October, 2018.  It was awarded a First in the Creative verse/ book award by the Delaware Press Women Her visual art was awarded a Professional Fellowship in Works on Paper in 1997 by the DDOA and the NEA.

.

Marko Otten

.

rainforest lockdown

.

we have known rainforests

visiting them partly for our pleasure

we penetrated them deeply keen on their mysteries

.

every time I thought I’d come out a better person

returning home wiser like mister natural

.

a week after reinstated lockdown

we tried to venture into the inner city

to skulk around at night

the only people under blue towers and

most silent raining

.

streets glistening under lampposts and neon lights

suddenly plain to see: a wilderness exposed midtown

wilder than what we’d seen anywhere ever before

retreat

confused guessing

wait a minute: wasn’t that a cab few blocks down?

yes we did see one

maybe not

something was moving

or driving around

or did you

for a moment I just…

.

retreat

no better person to return home

unexplored wild calling

.

Marko Otten is a Dutch poet who reads and writes poetry in English. The expressive powers of the language got him hooked. Marko Otten is a published historian and a supervisor in education. He graduated at Groningen University (1982 with honors) and took classes at New York University and at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. He is married to Anne. Their children Judith and Martijn married and settled in Zutphen and Barcelona respectively.

.

Patricia Carragon

.

send me an angel

(inspired by Klaus Meine and Rudolf Schenker of the Scorpions)

.

wisdom comes with maturity   but it’s hard to be wise

when your nation caters to avarice and ignorance

.

you never saw the storm seize the new year

& like the government   life shuts down for struggle to thrive

.

anxiety doesn’t believe in social distancing

sends cryptic messages between you and your mask

.

you did your best   prayed for that miracle

that fell prey to lies & deceit

.

open your eyes   your angel left for another zoom call

.

stay locked in your quarantine

watch gray feathers   etched in red   blow off the fire escape

.

the trapper & the furrier

            (inspired by regina spektor)

.

2020   a strange   strange year

like a time bomb   waiting   for breaking news to strike

.

beasts in filthy cages

pellets and food   pets from puppy mills

.

children sleep in soiled cages

family separation   asylum still out of reach

.

dystopian predictions   dystopian facts

.

big business declares war on its workers

unions   wages   healthcare   live at triage

.

newspeak from the white house

twists failure into praise   fiction into history

.

our self-proclaimed leader plays mobster roulette

the press   elections   & laws face execution

he gives carte blanche to an alien dressed as the flu

.

& the sick keep getting sicker

with too many fevers   chills   coughs    & losses of smell & taste

.

death toll rising   ghost towns replace cities

bodies overflow morgues   the homeless live underground

.

tests & cures not fast enough

business as usual for corporate generals

.

2020   a strange   strange year

people shut indoors   waiting   not knowing what to believe

their time bombs   not knowing when to explode

.

Patricia Carragon latest books from Poets Wear Prada are Meowku and The Cupcake Chronicles, and Innocence from Finishing Line Press. Ms. Carragon hosts Brownstone Poets and is the editor-in-chief of its annual anthology and is an executive editor for Home Planet News Online. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

.

Jonel Abellanosa

.

Dirge in the Time of the Pandemic

.

The dark is mastering me, peace of mind

a measure it plays as if it desires personhood.

I give the twelfth hour a simple name –

.

“Midnight.”

.

Curtains hiding glass panes hint blue,

place in my mind where time doesn’t pass,

no need for anything to be done, no need for

.

accomplishments.

.

Light flashes outside, and I know the sky

over my heart speaks no thunder.

When the moon leaves, I resume my part

.

in the world.

.

Living has become so hard, loved ones

families lose like notes a mournful song

leaves to silence. It doesn’t have to be

.

this way

.

but in the world that holds echoes

“Greed” is more powerful than the powerto end the music that keeps repeating.

.

Jonel Abellanosa lives in Cebu City, the Philippines. He is a nature lover, an environmental advocate, and loves all animals particularly dogs. His poetry and fiction have appeared in hundreds of literary journals and anthologies, including Windhover, The Lyric, Star*Line, Fox Chase Review, Poetry Kanto, Marsh Hawk Review, That Literary Review, Bosphorous Review of Books and The Anglican Theological Review. His poetry collections include, “Meditations” (Alien Buddha Press), “Songs from My Mind’s Tree” and “Multiverse” (Clare Songbirds Publishing House), “50 Acrostic Poems,” (Cyberwit, India), “In the Donald’s Time” (Poetic Justice Books and Art), and his speculative poetry collection, “Pan’s Saxophone” (Weasel Press). He loves to self-study the sciences.

.

Reizel Polak

.

Delivery during Quarantine 

.

This unexpected sight the sad

park benches unfriendly to elderly

to pause take pleasure in the shrubbery

the whistling birds yellow tape crossed over

armrest to armrest defends against

a tranquil freedom to sit in the company

of others to talk tell a joke and yet

every one has begun to know

to stay apart cover-up one’s mouth

one’s nose still the eyes can speak

I see another pedestrian walking this way

your face I think looks gloomy your glance

far away I nod I smile with my eyes

in this square I pass through and out of

an eerie-quiet air the hedgerow birds

sing out of sight double whistles

I wish I knew to name these voices

such comfort I admit to love deeply

the sound of the birds calling to each other

the sound of creation every new day

and here what comes along ahead tugging

on a leash a little dog turning back

to glance at me where I follow its owner

at a distance along this path descending

to the grounds of willow trees what odd

connection this dog wagging its tail

seems to awaken between my human element

& animal life another pedestrian this way

you nod I nod as we slip past

each other to my errand on nearly-

abandoned streets residents as separate

distinct unique on this extraordinary ride

on Earth bound-up in the presence

of the Unknowable to see best we can

entering the written pages of history to come

.

I am a member of The Academy of American Poets. My poems have been published in Midstream, Ibbetson Street Press, Greville Press Pamphlets U.K, others, and one pending publication in Annals of Internal Medicine.

.

Lois Perch Villemaire

.

Peanut Butter

.

I have a mild sore throat and feel lightheaded.

Tightness in my chest and congestion.

Back of my hand to forehead.

Feverish?

Oh please.

I can’t have the virus.

I could develop respiratory issues,

Have to be hospitalized,

And need to go on a ventilator.

They say only 20% survive

being on a ventilator.

They say a symptom of the virus is

losing sense of smell.

I march to the kitchen pantry,

Pull out a jar of peanut butter,

Unscrew the top,

inhale deeply through my nose.

Ah, yes, I definitely smell peanut butter.

Thank goodness.

.

Lois Perch Villemaire lives in Annapolis, MD. She is inspired by life experiences and enjoys writing poetry, flash fiction, and memoir. Her work has appeared in Potato Soup Journal, The Drabble, FewerThan500, Pen-in-Hand, MWA Journal, and Global Poemic. She blogs for annapolisdiscovered.com and annapoliswellnesshouse.org

.

Stephen Page

.

Grocery Shopping

.

I am sitting in our dull-gray

Pathetically petite rental car

With the cracked windshield and tiny

Unhubcapped tires,

(Last Friday Teresa smashed our sleek

White SUV that drives like a yacht

Gliding over calm waters)

Alone, my mask around my neck,

Waiting for my her

To finish grocery shopping

(Only one family member

Is allowed entrance at any time).

.

When will I ever learn?

I have been here before,

I have been here before,

I have been here before,

Thousands of times

(Though mostly before the mask),

Hungry, thirsty, hours

                                    Passing by,

Worrying if maybe she had fallen,

And medics are attending to her,

(I don’t have my phone, and she left hers

For me to hold onto)

But knowing that most likely

She was wandering inside the clothing stores

Inside the shopping mall

That just reopened,

Only to know, that as I don my mask and enter

A hunting/fishing gear store that opens

From the parking lot, that she will

Reappear outside as soon as I enter,

Looking for me,

Searching the parking lot

For me and our ugly rental car.

.

I purchase a camouflage backpack,

A 9 mm pistol, a hunting knife,

and a hand-size stun device.

I stuff the three defense/attack components into

The outside pocket of the pack,

And as I exit the store,

There she is, wandering the lot,

Her arms stretched, her shoulders hunched, holding

Bags filled with things

Only she thinks we need,

Having no idea that she is late

For an appointment with our lawyer

Concerning the accident, or that I

Had been waiting for hours.

.

I am past starvation and dehydration,

But I smile behind my mask

As I walk toward her.

I gently lift the packages from her surgical gloved

Hands.

.

Stephen Page is part Native American. He was born in Detroit. He holds degrees from Palomar College, Columbia University, and Bennington College and is a rancher in Argentina . He wears a mask whenever he ventures outside and socially distances.  He loves his wife, spontaneous road trips, long walks through woodlands, and making noise with his electric bass.

.

John Stickney

.

 Somewhere Among  Us a Virus is Taking Notes

        (after C. Simic and Z. Herbert)

.

This virus

is the perfect

student

.

Unlike you

it is careful

of boundaries

.

Exact marks

entered

in the margins

.

It sees you

eyes

calm and clear

.

And

at the end

of term?

.

A report card

filled with the

“Highest” marks

.

(inspired by the push to open US Schools)

.

My Bookshelf Background

.

Broadcasting here

From within

A definite space

Of relatively

Small intent –

.

Oh, ain’t we

Just all

So well read

.

(inspired by the backgrounds of experts featured on TV through the magic of Zoom)

.

Look To The Sky

.

Because the mice escaped the lab

with the ability to control similar sized minds,

they have roped themselves to the backs of ravens

and plan an aerial assault

on your cupboard filled with

Cheetos,

Cheese Curls,

Cheez-Its,

Cheese Nips,

Cheddar Bunnies,

Cheez Wiz

and those delicious,

cheesy

Goldfish.

 .

(inspired by the Pandemic Fifteen caused by snacking)

.

John Stickney is a poet/writer originally from Cleveland, OH, currently living in the coastal area of Wilmington, NC.)

.

Ethel Gofen

.

If the symptoms of Covid-19 you feel

Here’s a doctor’s plan to help you, I’ll reveal:

Inhale, hold your breath five seconds, then exhale.

Do this five times in a row and do not fail.

On the sixth breath end it with a cough galore.

Then repeat this whole breathing routine once more.

Next lie on your stomach, pillow at your head.

Don’t lie on your back but on your front instead.

Spend ten minutes taking breaths slightly deeper

Than normal.  (Later you can be a sleeper).

This allows your smallest airways to get air.

J. K. Rowling claims this method gave her care

When she had the symptoms though never a test

For Coronavirus this plan is the best.

.

Ethel Gofen is a retired freelance writer, author of two books as part of a series, Cultures of the World, for which I wrote the volumes on France and Argentina in 1990 and 1992. Ethel and her  husband and both had Covid-19 in May although I had no symptoms.

.

Nan Ottenritter

.

street garden

.

cathedral-like canopy above

black asphalt below

kids in the street

chalked glorious flowers

blooming where they are planted

.

as a child

.

in the garden,

nowhere to go,

on my own for

what-to-do,

i remember possibility.

.

quarantined today

in the garden,

nowhere to go,

some to-dos,

i sing the purple iris,

.

the bird rejecting thistle,

downing suet.

a sense of possibility

flirts, hovers.

i await its landing.

.

The beforetime

.

is over, she said.

I knew what

she meant, having

stopped imagining

a going- back,

a return to normal.

.

In the beforetime,

stock portfolios and

stocked kitchen shelves

shielded me.

The presence of others

was mostly a comfort,

working invisible magic

in my heart.

.

In this middletime,

I hunker down,

grow a garden,

grow myself,

with only a wire to the world,

a good book.

I am finally

in and of place.

.

Nan Ottenritter is a poet and musician living in Richmond, VA. Her works have appeared in the Artemis Journals: Women hold up half the sky, TheNewVerseNews, Poets Reading the News, Life in 10 Minutes, the 2019 Poetry Society of Virginia Anthology, and As You Were: The Military Review.

.

Larry C. Tolbert

.

To Accept Once and For All

.

I open with praise for

Our dark-skinned

Brothers and sisters

Your dogged

Determination

To be free,

Watching family

And friends

Strange fruit indeed

One by one cut down

From trees,

.

Snarling dogs

Water cannons

Never good news in

Police rifle reports

.

Rest in peace

Silenced freedom’s friends

You, not Jesus, died for our

Original sins

.

I praise the

One in six people

Our founding fathers

Labeled dark-skinned

Alienable exceptions

Within a

White constitution

At our country’s

Inception

.

I praise your

Black constitution

For enduring the

Resulting

Unimaginable

Abuse

.

Your free labor fueled

An economy to

Unholy heights

Drove a nation’s soul

Along sharp saber’s edge,

Unfathomable

Pools of blood,

Unmeasured

Depths of shame

.

Your road to hell paved

With such good intentions

Of ill-bestowed certain

Self-evident truths

—All men created equal

With unalienable rights,

Among those

Life,

Liberty, the

Pursuit of happiness—

.

I close with this prayer,

May we all awake

Sooner and better from

This 2020 nightmare of

Worldwide disease,

Economic collapse,

Inept, venal leaders and

Social unrest to

Unite and achieve at

Long last call

Long-sought

Justice on race in

A world

That works

For all

.

To accept once and for all

What has always been true

That—

Unalienable rights

Denied

Become wrongs

To accept once and for all

What has always been true

That—

We are “E Pluribus Unum”

“One from many”

 Black, brown, yellow

 Red, white, and blue

To accept once and for all

What has always been true

That—

We are all one race

The Human Race

Me     And     You

.

Larry C. Tolbert is a writer and poet with master’s degrees from the University of Illinois and San Francisco State University. Raised by grandparents on a Southern Illinois farm, he has lived in Northern California his entire adult life. His work has been published in Birdland Journal and ESCOM Journal (College of Marin).

.

Kirsty A. Niven

.

Setting

.

Pink clouds brush the slates of tenements,

a sugary blush, candy floss breath –

the world is a bleary-eyed painting,

the street a Dundonian Hopper.

.

The only eye that sees me here,

a glass square with lace eyelashes.

Tear stain speckles mark the glass,

machine gun sputters in a speakeasy.

.

Dust fills my lungs like an hourglass.

My plaster skin dries in the heavy air,

the steady descent to forgotten stone.

The centre remains a hollow.

.

A cavern with an echoing scream –

dropping downwards into an infinite abyss

judged by stabbing stalactites

for another isolation infused ramble.

.

Finality falls over the chimneys.

.

Kirsty A. Niven lives in Dundee, Scotland. Her writing has appeared in anthologies such as Landfall, Nocturne and Of Burgers and Barrooms. She has also featured in several journals and magazines, including The Dawntreader, Cicada Magazine, Dundee Writes and Causeway/Cabhsair. Kirsty’s work can also be found online on sites such as 45 Magazine, Ponder Savant and Nine Muses Poetry.

.

Roderick Deacey

.

A Virus Among Us     

.

These days, we live in hope – we can’t be sure –

the damage is extensive, I’m afraid!

Things won’t return to how they were before

.

So, must we wear these masks for evermore

like characters in some bizarre charade?

We hope not, but we really can’t be sure.

.

We dine well-spaced outside the café door

and pray no-one is sick where the meal’s made.

Is their home-made bread as good as before?

.

Shall we drink till we can think no more?

Turn back the clock and let our worst fears fade?

Hopes can come true, can’t they? We’re not so sure.

.

Each day we count our dead and keep the score;

this cruel curse is like a deadly blade!

Things can’t go back to how they were before.

.

The mighty plague has dragged us to the floor!

So shall we rise up once more, undismayed?

That’s our hope, but we know one thing for sure –

we won’t go back to who we were before.

.

Roderick Deacey is a performing poet based in Frederick, MD, appearing regularly in the DC area with his bass-player and drummer. His book of beat poems, “neo-beatery ballads” was published in 2019. Deacey won the Frederick Arts Council Carl R. Butler Award for Literature in 2019.

.

Gwil James Thomas

.

Now That The World Has Changed.

.

If there’s one thing that the world

isn’t short of at the moment

it’s Coronavirus poems –

but now that the world has changed,

that’s not hardly fucking surprising either.

.

I remember one wild and lost year

constantly finding fresh trouble,

whilst clinging to my past –

until one day I finally

opened my eyes to the world

around me and decided that

it was time to move on,

but as I did I also found the world

had moved faster than I’d remembered

and I’d wanted it to somehow

slow down for a little while

so that I could catch back up with it –

then recently it did and now

everyone’s wearing hazmat suits,

turning on one another

and slowly going bat shit crazy.

.

Meanwhile, I sit here counting pennies,

whilst waiting to pen the next poem –

telling myself that this shit storm

simply is what it is until somehow,

someday it’ll be no more.

.

Some Things.

.

Back home again,

I saw an old

hometown hero

pull up to the lights –

he’d been another

regular in the

local pub

and to be blunt

I was surprised that

he was still alive –

but he’d lived more

lives than most

had anyway

and he leaned out

of the window,

complaining to me

about the crazy tenant

in the bedsit below his,

before then telling me

that he was off

to buy some booze

and I realised he’d

told me the exact

same things

before I’d left town

two years ago

and I watched as

he pulled off

with Free Bird

playing through

the same broken

car stereo –

glad that some things

since this virus arrived,

had stayed the same.

.

Gwil James Thomas is a novelist, poet and inept musician. Originally from Bristol, England he’s also lived in Brighton, London and Spain. He’s a Best of The Net and Pushcart nominee whose written work can be found in numerous publications. His most recent chapbook’s here: www.analogsubmission.com/chapbooks/gwiljamesthomas-cocoontransitions

.

JeanMarie Olivieri

.

Grocery Shopping

.

Trapped

in the car

waiting for the parking lot

to empty just a bit

.

My local grocery store

is an older, smaller model

than her suburban sister-stores

yet it seems now to hold

the entire neighborhood  ̶

a potentially lethal block party.

.

I will not be trapped

by fear.

I mask up and enter.

.

Looking Forward

.

Crowd surfing at Burning Man

New Year’s Eve in Time Square

Championship playoffs

.

Too much time alone

I’m dreaming of places

I never wanted to be

.

Standing in this desert

hope like water in my canteen

I am squinting into the future

looking at life beyond six feet

All I see is you

.

Molt

.

Weeks turn to months.

I have been confined too long.

Seeking solace in the night

I molt my skin

don a discarded shell

and dig a home into wet sand

careful to escape the boiling pot.

Sometimes my skin thickens

my feet harden into hooves

and I race the veld with my herd.

On clear nights with a full moon

I spread my wings and soar

a sleek predator

bringing fast death to small animals

before roosting in my nest

to awaken with feathers by my bed.

.

JeanMarie Olivieri is a mostly retired business writer who mostly writes poetry. She has been published in online journals and several anthologies. She is a co-organizer for the Living Poetry Meetup group, and an editor for the Heron Clan Poetry Anthology series. Follow her at https://jeanmarieolivieri.wordpress.com/

.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Summer Pandemic Issues

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #5

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue/

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #6

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-6/

 

Spring Pandemic Issues 

North of Oxford presents The Pandemic Issues.

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #1

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/__trashed-2/

North of Oxford- The Pandemic Issue #2

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-2/

North of Oxford- The Pandemic Issue #3

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-3/

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #4

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/27/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-4/

.

Stay Calm – Stay Safe – Stay Home and When Out and About Wear a Mask

Diane Sahms and g emil reutter

 

Advertisement

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #5

The Great Falls of the Lehigh River and Stoddart Mills Ruins By Mary M. Michaels  https://marymmichaels.weebly.com/

.

Thanks to the poets for contributing to The Pandemic Issue #5 from North of Oxford and Mary M. Michaels for graciously providing her art .  In order of appearance we present: Howie Good, Robbie Nester, J. Joy “Sistah Joy” Matthews Alford, Ray Greenblatt, Dee Allen. , Dan Brady, Mike Maggio, Michael D. Amitin, Mark J. Mitchell, Rikki Santer, Benjamin Siegan, Anne Becker, Akshaya Pawaskar, Amy Barone, Judy DeCroce and Antoni Ooto, Ben Nardolilli, Jane ‘SpokenWord’ Grenier, Barbara Crooker, Tim Suermondt, Michele Riedel and Diane Wilbon Parks

.

Howie Good

.

Oh, Mercy

.

I board the subway at 72nd Street carrying a metal briefcase like the one that contains secret nuclear launch codes. A busker playing guitar at the far end of the car is trying to make up in enthusiasm what he lacks in formal training. He apparently adheres to Lou Reed’s dictum: anything with more than three chords is jazz. The passengers ignore his musical pleas for attention. They nap. They text. They shed virus. When the train emerges for a moment above ground, the sky looks as if it’s been digitally erased. There are colors in nature that birds can see, but humans can’t.

.

Howie Good is the author of THE DEATH ROW SHUFFLE, a poetry collection forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

.

2 Poems by Robbie Nester

.

Instruction

.

When fear takes you by the throat and

shakes you, breathe slowly. Remember

the feeling of hanging, a leaf on the end

of a branch, in headstand at the yoga studio.

Imagine the weight of an heirloom tomato

the precise shape of a geranium in your palm.

Fear cannot abide such sensations. Shove it

to the back of your closet with your oldest shoes.

Throw open the shades and listen to the rain

finding its way into the soft earth, waking

seeds that have slept in the ground

for months, so they open their mouths

and drink, tasting the air at last.

.

The 52 Hertz Whale

.

was the world’s loneliest because no other

whales would swim with him. His song

sounded awkward, maybe too shrill,

out of kilter. He was just plain odd.

Originality doesn’t count for much

among cetaceans. But we humans

are less discriminating, at least about

whale songs. We are listening,

sitting at our windows, staring out

at the empty streets, sure that we

are the whale, or that he is us.

.

Robbi Nester is the author of 4 books of poetry, including a chapbook, Balance (White Violet, 2012) and three collections, the most recent being Narrow Bridge (Main Street Rag, 2019).  She is also the editor of three anthologies. Her poems, reviews, articles, and essays have appeared widely in journals and anthologies.

.

 

J. Joy “Sistah Joy” Matthews Alford

 

My Lilac

.

There can be no balance,

But amid all the desolation and pain

Lilacs still lift and elate me beyond measure.

Her sweet fragrance wafts across my lawn

As though divinely assigned for such a time.

It is she who still calms, settles, stills my soul,

Slays today’s reality if only for a moment

Taking me back in reverie to childhood

Backyard games and daydreams

Where possibilities danced

Among calming lavender blossoms

Unfettered and unhindered by masks.

.

.

J. Joy “Sistah Joy” Matthews Alford is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Prince George’s County, Maryland, U.S.A.  She has authored 3 collections of poems, “Lord I’m Dancin’ As Fast As I Can,” “This Garden Called Life” and “From Pain to Empowerment, The Fabric of My Being.”  For the past 15 years she has produced and hosted the nationally-recognized cable television show, Sojourn with Words, which has received two Telly Awards for “Excellence in Cultural Programming.”

 .

2 Poems by Ray Greenblatt

.

Invisible War

.

We do not wear gas masks

but Halloween masks

bizarrely decorated,

nor carry rifles

instead washing hands

anxiously raw,

and stand at a distance

like slightly neurotic

very polite children,

while people fall dead

all around us;

.

at least when the V-2’s

stopped ticking we knew

we were in trouble

and could run for it,

but this invisible

silent  monster can clasp us

like any innocent clown

at any  time on any corner

or tucked in our beds

saying last prayers.

.

Going On

.

oh yes

we’ve all been away

from each other

been away

on inner trips

and oh yes

we have all changed

because now we see each other

differently

we see each other

as we never have before

we have all aged

for questions of life and death

have been whirling all around us

so close around us

some will never return

and we wonder why

we wonder why we have survived

we wonder how we have survived

exhausted

fearful

touching places to see

if we are really here

and all we can do

is blindly

hopefully

go on . . .

.

“Ray & Sue Greenblatt were vacationing with family in Delray Beach, Florida in February. All seemed very normal, but when they returned, everything hit the fan! They will always be very thankful that they got home in time!”

.

3 Poems by Dee Allen.

.

Barren 

.

Barren

.

Streets—Oakland’s 74 miles closed

To cars—Mayor Schaaf prioritises

Two-wheeled exercise and safety

For gentrifiers.

.

Barren

.

Subway stations—Social

Distancing maintained

To the extreme. Underground

Solid concrete ghost town.

.

Barren

.

Hotel rooms—They’d make better

Shelter in place for the homeless than being

Warehoused in close quarters on mats. Existing method:

Good way to get infected.

.

Barren

.

Shelves—Inside the supermarket—

The spirit of hoarding

Cleared them of supplies.

Long line of humanity outside are in for a nasty surprise.

.

Barren

.

Heart—There’s

Nothing left dwelling in the husk for some.

Nothing left but hostility—Blame for sickness

Lands on descendants of Asia.

.

Barren

.

Describes this reality, re-configured

By rapid infection—Humanity homebound—

There’s no reverting back

To normal after this.

.

I survived

Ten presidents, the residual terror of four

Foreign wars, power outages, outbursts of nature,

A petrol shortage, evictions and homelessness.

.

I will survive this, even as this contaminated air

World quickly goes

.

Barren.

.

Masques Up 

.

There was a time

When wearing a masque

In public was equated w/ anti-system

Protests in the streets, attending the

Most extravagant, fun balloon

& paper streamer-strewn

Costume ball @ best

& crime @ worst—

.

It’s the Law now

To throw the masques up.

Simple, repurposed

Cloth covering our faces, concealing all

But our eyes. Looking fresh

.

From a steam train

Robbery Old West style

Or a Black Bloc

Putting some smash on the blue block

That redlines & forecloses

& holds money simultaneously

Chase Bank©—

.

To throw the masques up

Is an exercise of

Good judgement now. Invasion of our persons

Held back w/ a new school

Protection spell. Just add cloth

Firmly over nose & mouth.

Continued being assured against

.

Robbery of our lives

By a thief so intrusive,

Another murderer unseen,

But far more elusive.

.

Out Front

For Jennifer A. Minotti

.

I am grateful for…

.

The arched roof above my head

The twin rafters with

The twin lights, holding it in place

The four walls surrounding me

The two windows with

The two Venetian blinds, down & shut at all times

The red brick floor below my feet

The wooden shelves full of books & movies

The VHS by themselves & DVDs in clear totes

The Keetsa© mattress I sleep on

The melatonin that helps me sleep

The vegan food in my fridge, a meat-free zone

The fruit & vegetable juices I savour

The filtered water I drink more than tap shit

The hardcover journal notebooks and

The rollerpoint pens I use to express myself

The shower I use, even though I’m a bathtub man

The Hewlett Packard laptop computer aiding creation of

The once and future poetry volumes

The Samsung© TV & VCR/DVD player combo

The little house in East Oakland I call home

The vast collection of political slogan t-shirts

SOMETIMES ANTI-SOCIAL ALWAYS ANTI-RACIST

Remains a personal favourite but

BEING BLACK IS NOT A CRIME

.

Gets me the most love on the street

.

But most of all

.

I am grateful for…

.

The bus drivers

The firefighters

The restaurant

Deliver drivers

The subway train conductors

The launderette clerks

The grocery store workers

The farmer’s market workers

Which I happen to be one

The doctors

The nurses

The paramedics

The pharmacy workers

The protestors for the rights of all Black lives

The dead and the living

The mutual aid collectives

Giving food, water, medicine and household

Items to the people living hand to mouth

During this goddamn pandemic

And long before

.

All the heroes

Out front

In our service

Seeing to our immediate

Survival needs

.

They could use the praise

.

And you don’t need

Super powers

To be a hero

.

Just be there

Out front

For us—

.

Dee Allen. An African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active on the creative writing & Spoken Word tips since the early 1990s. Author of 5 books [Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater and Skeletal Black, all from POOR Press, and his newest from Conviction 2 Change Publishing, Elohi Unitsi ].

.

Dan Brady

.

The personal and impersonal

.

Who denies their chains

Those long-standing claims

From the empires of our past?.

.

Error    driven into fear

Misapprehensions    into enmity

Thence to greed     and onto war

.

Smoky battleground

Corpses strewn … a medallion glints

The long – justice – of silence

.

The parade   crowds cheer

The grim reaper waves …

Supporting    everyone’s troops

.

Midway barkers loud

Angry sky, blusters sweep papers

The Dark comes for its own

.

One thing I know

About this world’s ending …

No one will see it coming

.

We saw them

Titanic muscular clouds

Lightning flashed   there were eyes

.

We need to make calls

End this man now, lest this be how

Civilization falls – – –

. 

Mike Maggio

.

Innominate

.

I

Today, a tulip trembled in the breeze:

an urgent temptation to bloom.

.

II.

When I awoke,

it was to the delusion of dream.

.

III.

Outside, a vicious wind.

Outside, the trees. Fearful.

.

IV.

One moment, seclusion.

One moment, a prickly crown of memory.

.

V.

There’s nothing we can’t touch.

Nothing we can lay a finger on.

.

VI.

Sweet dove, waving from the wilderness,

wherefore this social distancing?

.

VII.

In a moment of delirium,

I journeyed to my mother’s grave.

.

VIII.

Nothing on the horizon.

Not even a ghosting of sun.

.

IX.

2,000,000+ sick.  200,000+ dead.

I cannot count to infinity.

.

X

One dark night, I witness my reflection

taunting the reaper.

.

Michael D. Amitin

.

Mambo’s Blues

.

Sad Spanish strains

Night street

.

All dissent quiet

Church mice sleeping

Humans creeping

Petrified forests

.

Papers run you around

Papers to walk the dog

Police looting city blocks

.

Forgotten masquerade masks soaking in

God forsaken puddles

Gloves, skeleton mud runners

.

Double fried kisses, canned peaches and mist

Stare from

Weathered shelves

Embraces on hold till a

Magic clock-strike twelve

.

Poets creak, Paris pastors reach,

The abandoned plunging

hollow cold-ice streams

.

With great introspection

Masses ponder the great dissection

.

Easter bunnies screw in tournesol sheds

The bum rap meds, no one to touch his hand

.

Lab rats grin as the mother

of all vaccines warms to the

Resounding orchestral death march

.

We stay together Keep our love

Hide in the never heard of

.

Knit our threads, bake our breads

Sing our songs, read Walt all night long

Nurses, doctor helping hands

Stave off the storm with clothespins

.

Nature heals, as the wheels roll off the highway

Rest like tires in a wilted roadside graveyard

.

Shutters flailing viral winds

Mind eye flashing gold

Designs of maladroit wine boats

Rocking ship shake harbors

On my droopy curtains

.

Sweet Suzy muse never forgets my address

Drops off provisions

Flipping bad luck coins

Like hot cakes griddle bound

To the sunrise…

.

Leapfrog fantasies

Kind of blue nights

Late winter Paris

Sunup

.

Mother earth freaking

Miracle balm on our last sundown legs

.

Used to trip on window pane

Now it’s tryptophane

Sleep away this nightmare, nevertheless

Ship ahoy, mates!

.

Jesus came down in a chariot

2nd coming time

Walls shaking, the frame was hot

big cigar chief told him

cool it with that riff of peace

we’re the visigoths..

.

The gothies

the meanest band in town

.

We’ve chucked the wafers for the great vaccine

Dissolves on your palate- a king’s tongue in his queen

wail in the water

and cream,

.

The great hereafter filled with brothels

n’ laughter, Louis playin’ the West End Blues,

He mused

.

Ay ye merry moutons

Line up, don’t ya’ cry

Take a shot, be an astronaut

A fireman to boot

.

Poet and musician, Michael D. Amitin travelled the roads of the American West before moving to Paris. Recently named International Beat Poet Laureate 2020-2021, Amitin’s poems have been published in California Quarterly, Poetry Pacific, Cajun Mutt Press, and others. A current collaboration with Parisian photographer Julie Peiffer has given rise to the “Riverlights” project.

 .

Mark J. Mitchell

 .

                                        Mass in Time of Plague

.

                                         (For Interior Choir)

                                    After Haydn, Mass in Time of War

.

1.         Kyrie

.

Let mercy roll like fog through every home.

Show mercy to all that can still see.

Let mercy flow to the known and unknown.

.

A slow silence drips from each untrimmed tree

And that gray chill touches each of your bones.

Show small mercy to all that you still see.

.

This morning love flows from a telephone.

Take that for now. Birdsongs and humming bees

Fly like mercy you’ve shown the known and unknown.

.

There’s more mercy than you’ll hope to see.

Let mercy flow into your sealed home.

Accept this gift: Mercy. Mercy. Mercy.

.

2.         Gloria

.

All your glory’s hidden by folded masks.

Pay no attention to the broken sky.

Count steps to the sidewalk. Savor the climb.

You must rise and converge. Everyone stand.

All that glory’s hidden by hand-made masks.

Soft fingers are unused to homely tasks.

Fold your sorrows now. No reason to cry.

Taste glory’s salt on your tongue. That scoundrel time

Must fall. Cover your face. Cover your hands.

Pay no attention to that broken sky.

Every word—even this—is a lie

And your glory’s hidden by fragile masks.

Those small slips, tiny errors—they are not crimes.

Cool morning sun cleans you. No, soft winds fan

Low clouds to the ocean. There’s nothing you lack.

Pay no attention to our broken sky.

Count the steps pavement asks you to climb.

So now—rise and converge. Now! Learn to stand.

.

3.         Qui tolis peccata mundi

(You who take away the sin of the world)

.

If you can replace the half-missed good-bye,

Then carry this prayer.

If you can separate the masked from the wounded

Then spill us some mercy.

If you can change boredom to devotion

You’re welcome to these prayers.

.

4.         Quoniam tu solo Sanctus

(For You alone are holy)

.

Solitude is not holy.

Absence is not holy.

Noise filled voids

Are never holy.

.

If you are holy,

It’s time to climb down.

Don’t make us

Beg for grace.

.

5.          Credo

.

Now—believe that dry cough’s perfect. Your last.

You’ll be sent away—now—we all believe—

To die alone. There’s nothing worse. We’ve learned

That breeze can kill. A stranger’s naked face

Means an end of time, but a cheap cloth sieve

Means hope. We believe this is what we’ve earned.

.

On empty streets—each and each—hides a face

That bears harm. We walk through an open sieve

Of foot traffic. We dance, slide, duck, we weave

Away from touch, sure it would be our last.

We don’t know why. But it’s time to believe

In threats we don’t see. We believe that a turn

Is coming. Even end times have an end.

.

We watch for sweat. That ill-omen of heat

Will find us—even believers. There’s no sieve

Fine enough for health. We believe retreat

Is carrying a battle forward. Terms

Enter our speech—spells and charms we believe

Almost true. We believe this cannot last.

We believe love, but we’ve forgotten her face.

The end, we believe, in the end, we burn.

.

6.       Benedictus

.

Bless silence, bless absence, bless our closed doors.

No exit is not a cell. We’ll learn to pray.

We’re intimate with windows, acquainted with floors,

blessed by silence, broken absence, stiff doors

with loud hinges. Now’s not a time for more

anything. Sit still, let ghost priests say,

Bells silent. Bless absence. Close doors.

This exitless cell is yours. Pace and pray.

.

7.   Agnus Dei

.

Bored lambs in a pen, we pray,

Take away sins we desire.

Softly enclosed, old lambs we ask,

Save us from desires we fear

We are, all of us, lambs of time:

Grant us peace.

.

Mark J. Mitchell’s novel, The Magic War appeared from Loose Leaves Publishing. He studied at Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver and George Hitchcock. His work appeared in several anthologies and hundreds of periodicals. He lives with his wife, Joan Juster making his living pointing out pretty things in San Francisco until the pandemic hit.

.

2 Poems by Rikki Santer

.

Quarantine Spring

.

Coldest nights on record

tucking in the impatiens

with tattered thermal blankets

& days with a bad taste that rattles

.

like cod loins freezer-burned.

Brylcreemed ideas from a dangerous

podium, viscid shipping & handling

my emotions to the front door

.

landing me in moods for reduction.

The granular seepage of time,

my mind too near to itself.

I am a tiny balloon chasing

.

its string, dandelions shake their

heads, toss seeds to the squalls.

.

Landmark

.

The train, a wailing pronoun in the dark breath of night

when quarantine responds to quarantine and I ask myself

how do I get from here to the rest of the world

or scale a kinder incline beyond the noise

above this jittery, jumbled ground

my eyes rheumy with incessant news, lips dry

from the briny kiss of pundits.

Words gather to call upon landscape,

sleep a foreigner who keeps me up under a swollen moon

and I am weary of suggestions for further study

pregnant glossary of regrets,

and I am wedded

to my weary couch denuded in its binocular view.

The braying train again in periphery

its skein of myth and fable trails behind

spectral thresholds blinded by the winds,

a wolverine in my lap,

skulls dangle from trees

this tasseled place dead air

of press conference somewhere between scorched earth

and uncharted territory.

Train cars stuffed with under-songs of tarnished narratives,

clouds pinched across the much midnight sky.

.

Publications including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, Slab, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO, Grimm, Hotel Amerika and The Main Street Rag. Santer was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Santer’s eighth collection,  Drop Jaw, was published this spring by NightBallet Press.

.

Benjamin Siegan

 .

American Summer, 2020

.

More record-breaking heat. With it comes assailing storms—sable skies peppered with bursts and cracks of bluish-white along with a torrent of rain and swells of harrowing wind. God help us when hurricane season hits. The downpour subsides as I prepare for my trek to work. More violent precipitation is predicted at day’s end, but for now, sultry air and ashen clouds prevail.

.

I check the traffic report. Another Black Lives Matter protest in midtown—collective calls for dignity, equality, compassion, and justice. Although traversing the assemblage will add time to my commute, I’m nothing but supportive of their efforts. I marched with them during the strife-ridden spring. But despite the need for systemic change coalescing with a looming, unmitigated plague, the job beckons—reopen in service of the plunging economy as sickness spreads.

.

News radio provides updates during my labor-bound drive. The President offers misinformation, contradictions, and snide, racist remarks. The Governor has nothing but empty platitudes and prepared sound bites. The Mayor conveys desperation, urging those who can to stay at home. But rent needs to be paid; money is required for food. Electricity, water, phone, car, and internet—their fees are indifferent to the virus. I also need to keep the digital distractions funded. I’m not too proud to admit that I might go mad without them.

.

Close to my destination, another obstacle—an angry throng making their way to City Hall. They wave Confederate flags. One banner features a crudely-drawn swastika. Some brandish pistols and assault rifles. They elevate signs with an amalgam of messages: All Lives Matter, Jesus Supports the 2nd Amendment, Open the Bars, Hilary and Obama—Partners in Treason, Quarantine=Socialism, Destroy the Deep State, I Need a Haircut, Re-elect Trump—Keep America Great, Protect White Heritage, COVID is a Democrat Hoax, Save the Aryan Race. Quite the pack of dangerous, hateful, morons, spreading ignorance and disease—a source of figurative and literal pollution. No doubt a few members of this despicable mob will venture into my place of business, requiring me to hold my tongue to continue employment and hold my breath to stave off illness.

.

Upon arrival at work, I put on my mask—a thick, garnet-colored cloth shield that spans the entire lower half of my face. The supervisor is required to provide a flimsy, disposal covering to those without. They fit poorly and frequently slip below the nose when speaking. I’m thankful I was able to procure my own washable, protective gear during the early phases of the pandemic. For once, being a paranoid germaphobe proved beneficial. My temperature is taken in the back room, out of public view, to confirm it is within normal parameters. I’m asked if any recognized symptoms are being experienced and affirm my healthy status. Industrial, indigo latex gloves are issued before I’m sent to the floor.

.

My assigned tasks have increased greatly from the Pre-Coronavirus era. In addition to my regular responsibilities, I must also enforce the company’s safety policies. Statutes are fluid, shifting from week to week. As of today, no one may enter without some form of mask, patrons must remain more than 6 feet apart from each other at all times, and the moving of tables and chairs is prohibited. Most are compliant, but there are always a handful who argue—labeling me a fascist, an oppressor, a violator of their rights and freedoms, with occasional bouts of screaming and swearing. Some acquiesce. Others make a scene before leaving and vowing never to return. My skin has grown thick. The insults and accusations fail to garner a reaction. I just repeat the stipulations in a detached, neutral tone and carry on.

.

The verbal abuse is much more tolerable than the cleaning mandates. After each customer has left, I must scrub down any surfaces they’ve touch with a pungent bleach solution. Bathrooms are scoured with disinfectant every hour. The chemicals sting my eyes. Sweat constantly pours from the brow. The perspiration bleeds into my pupils, making them constantly burn. I’ve taken to wearing bulky, lab goggles during sanitation duties. My peers mock me, but their ridicule pales in comparison to the harsh bite of noxious fumes.

.

The evening delivers its promised deluge. Drops of water spatter against the window with frenetic intensity. Physical and emotional exhaustion sets in. A final cleansing is administered, a complete sterilization from top to bottom. The tip jars are divided equally— a little, well-earned financial boost until my next paycheck is deposited.

.

I press through the turbulent weather that veils the moon and stars and casts night in its darkest incarnation. I opt for music on the return trip, drowning out detonations of thunder with the roar of guitars. A late, microwaveable dinner, one episode of a mindless television show, and I’m drifting into sleep—knowing I’ve done my part, made my contribution, to this horribly aberrant version of reality. I may not be saving lives, but I’m keeping people caffeinated. Such is the vital role of a barista in the summer of 2020.

.

Originally from Chicago, Ben Siegan had the good fortune of being influenced by the expansive literary and theater culture the city provided. While his career is that of an elementary educator, he has always dedicated his limited free time to the craft of writing. Siegan’s works have included collections of poetry, prose, material for the stage, and even a full-length rock opera. Now having settled in Virginia for the last decade, it is his hope to continue increasing efforts toward professional writing aspirations.

.

2 Poems by Anne Becker

.

Lockdown

.

Depression era glass

words cocked up

spill over the damn

in quarantine: fear our

human fellows, hope

to thread the labyrinth of

viral particulates hang

suspended, cling to

surfaces—how long—how

long—how long—left to our

own devices our fingers

strike—snake bites—our

hands full of lattice-like

molecules, traffic streams by

birds crazy at first light stake

their claims to the over story,

each house of bark, of leaves,

web of terrible green pollen

germ cell, extravagant

procreation, snore and

beep of nuthatch, happy

jeer of jay, flash of red—

of blue—gold finch cry

their desire for potato

chip, for chicory, the rust

wren for tea, little brown

jobs we strain to identify

all the egg blue shells

break before we cross

the path, deer stands at

my shoulder—awkward

tender smile—watches—

 you reborn—know I’m safe—

bounds past, in the air we

breathe, frightened and angry

there’s nothing we need do

queue of bright images—blink—

blink blink—blink—cry wolf,

cry whale, all the animals we

care for, foxes domesticate

themselves—same old traffic

sounds, sad coo of the train

clacks in the distance

eats us, breaks our

bread, its leathery crust,

slip crumbs beneath

dreadless masks, dust settles

old scores, dishes left

undone.

.

Social Distance

.

As when my son, first extruded

from the tissue that formed him,

head reluctant to quit the muscular

membrane that kept him safe,

unsure of the emptiness into which

he might fall, he and I are all about

food, and sleeping and waking—

but now no protest cry when we’re

hungry or desire sleep so much

we can taste it under our eyelids.

Now we cross town on asphalt

pathways to reach each other—

young bucks, their small rack

of antlers smothered in velvet,

step from the sheltering woods

to watch us pass—his beard

scraped away, his chin raw.

And I want so badly to swab A & D

ointment—the cure-all of childhood—

on the redden and blistered skin

of my son.  Although the chin is not

plush and inviting like the silken

round of the bottom, and I’m not

allowed to claim his body with

comforting, probing hands the way

I once did when I didn’t have to admit

our distance: my one cell, divided

and divided again and again, had

become him—not me. And, anyway,

in this time of deadly virus, we don’t

hug, we don’t kiss—although

because of his neuroatypical sense

of touch he has never liked the light

feathering of fingers on his flesh, he

doesn’t embrace often—like his

father—and his grandfather, my

father, before him—and when he

does, it’s a quick, hard press.

.

Anne Becker, poet and paper artist, leads a workshop, Writing the Body, for those who have experienced life-threatening or chronic illness. Her poems printed on her own handmade paper have been exhibited in the US and in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. She is a poetry editor of Burgeon, an arts journal based in Washington, DC.

.

Akshaya Pawaskar

.

Politics of nature

.

River by the city

is finally breathing

unmasked and sheer

free of the murky veneer.

The peacock flower

has shed its flames.

It stains the tarmac

with colors of a once

happier world.

On driving down

these concrete woods

a Sign post

reads -go slow

Wildlife crossing.

And even the pigeons

teeter on their

twiggy feet

like toddlers

learning to walk

their wings tired,

of being chased

empty roads inviting.

We sit at home

connected by wires,

cables and Ethernet

afraid of being tangible,

while the dogs continue

to lick their paws clean

and each other dry.

The buffaloes walk

in herds less than

a meter apart,

unsanitizied, carefree.

Six feet are for

humans, single files

are for the convicted.

When the tables turn

the entitled animals

become caged and

the caged ones

find an amnesty

a freedom though

of numbered days.

.

Akshaya Pawaskar is a doctor practicing in India and poetry is her passion. Her poems have been published in Tipton Poetry Journal, Indian Ruminations, The Blue Nib, North of Oxford, Rock and Sling, Shards and Red Fez.

.

Amy Barone

.

A Dawning

.

Orange-yellow flare on the horizon.

Trees still shrouded in night.

Relief at the gift of more hours.

Summoning angels to flex their might.

From towers of closed churches, bells chime.

.

 Amy Barone’s poetry collection, We Became Summer, from New York Quarterly Books, was released in early 2018. She wrote chapbooks Kamikaze Dance (Finishing Line Press) and Views from the Driveway (Foothills Publishing.) Barone’s poetry appears in Local Knowledge, Paterson Literary Review, Sensitive Skin, and Standpoint (UK.) She lives in NYC.

.

Judy DeCroce and Antoni Ooto

.

Open Window

.

invisible nemesis

coyote wind sighing

over the sill—

.

what is not done, wastes,

as every hour stalls scattering

in time, in place

.

a foreign breeze,

hitching a way in

.

messenger in a gale,

seemingly empty yesterday

yet rock-solid—leaning forward

.

Passing

.

A time of extremes; late and clearer,

sharp shadows of loss.

.

Indecision and reflection, as night

rests on other ages.

.

Fate holds all the cards

shuffles with slight-of-hand

and deals out lives

into unknown places.

.

While few small moments remain.

.

Internationally published writers, storyteller and educator Judy DeCroce, and poet/artist Antoni Ooto are based in Upstate New York. Married and sharing a love of poetry, they gather inspiration during their morning poetry sessions.  Over a pot of coffee, they listen, critique, and revise their work.

.

Ben Nardolilli

.

Knowing the Vine

.

Trying to bring the outside inside, and what better way

than to become a primitive agriculturist?

some plants on the balcony, some flowers in the kitchen,

maybe a tree will grow rootless in a bucket

in the middle of my room in the middle of Brooklyn

.

Forgive the changes in spaces, and alterations in spirit,

my body’s not a temple anymore and palms

won’t give me the future, whether they hold cards or not.

Time to get working on a fertility cult, right now

it’s not clear if this God is shaped like a man, or a bull

.

What flourishing! I can already smell the succulents,

and yes, some crops are for my consumption,

smoke and sauce, I make them both thanks to my growth,

it’s a wonderful way to recycle when the street

is too sick to walk on, and only good for running away

.

Ben Nardolilli currently lives in New York City. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, The Northampton Review, Local Train Magazine, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He blogs at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is trying to publish his novels.

.

Jane ‘SpokenWord’ Grenier

.

My f*cking Virus poem #1

.

in the city of the undead

6 ft apart

your cough I dread

your breath

where’s your mask

get the fuck away from me

I’m busy not touching groceries

locked down in my room

as the heroes’ work through doom and gloom

in the city of the undead

6ft apart

we wait instead

don’t touch

there are corpses

death by viral sources

nurses underdressed

doctors depressed

workers

drivers

all looking for protection

orange man boasting perfection

death from oblivious discombobulation

.

Jane ‘SpokenWord’ Grenier’s performances range from the Whitney Museum w/Cecil Taylor, to festivals, libraries, slam lounges, galleries, clubs, busking street corners and living rooms everywhere. Publications: 2 books of poetry w/art and audio – Word Against the Machine & Tragically Hip; Good Housekeeping, Boston Magazine, Boston Globe; anthologies: Rogue Scholars Express, Bonsia Publications, Oh-Wow Publications, and the National Beat Poetry Anthology’ 2019.

.

3 Poems Barbara Crooker

.

Worry Beads

.

I wish I could quiet the voices

in my head, the ones with the projected

infection rate, the viral spread, the body

count.  It’s been three months

since I’ve seen my grandkids,

except on a screen.  My county

is still under lockdown, and there’s

a curfew, which really doesn’t matter,

as there’s no place to go.  This is not

like a blizzard or hurricane, some

outages, then the storm passes.

This is the season of subtraction,

as faces of friends disappear.

What items will be gone

from the grocery store this week?

Popcorn, flour, hand sanitizer, yeast?

But spring has returned,

and bare sticks break out into blossoms:

azaleas, rhododendrons, mountain laurel.

The grass has spread a plush carpet,

and orioles gorge on sweet orange slices.

Maybe these are the good times,

with darkness to follow?  My skin sings

whenever you touch me.   Hold me,

my darling, as long as you can.

.

Daily News

.

And so this day is like every other,

beginning with coffee and ending

with wine.  But with nowhere

to go, and nothing to do, I’m

going to take my time, sit

in the morning sun and savor

the darkness, black and bitter

In the larger world, terrible

things continue to happen.

Here, the only action

is the hummingbird zipping

and sipping sugar water,

jazzed on sweetness, in love

with the sun.  In the herb

garden, lavender, rosemary,

sage, thyme release their scents

as the heat rises.  The implacable

sky is laid down with a paint roller.

Schedules and deadlines no longer

matter.  If a small chore needs

to be done, we do it; there is

no later, only now.  We miss

our friends, see our neighbors

only at a distance.  There isn’t

any news to share.  The sun

traverses the sky, the day

passes, just like the one before.

Soon, shadows will lengthen,

and the stars will print

their reports in the dark,

which echoes the consolation

of wine filling my glass.  I

remember to thank the grapes,

crushed on my behalf.

Tomorrow, we’ll do this

all over again.

.

NOVEMBER 18, 2019

.

I didn’t know it then, but this was the last good day.

I was in the glittering city, visiting an old friend.

We walked on a busy street to the 9-11 Memorial,

the gold of late November reflected in the glass

windows, the water’s mirror.  Ate dinner

in a crowded restaurant, so close to the next table,

we could have joined their conversation.  Traded

bites of pumpkin tortellini, scallops in wine,

shared a crême brulée.  Sipped a bit of wine

from each other’s glass.  Rode the subway.

Grabbed the last two seats for a sold-out show,

then strolled Times Square, bathed in the neon

glow. We didn’t realize then that these were things

we would not do again.  That life would become:

An Emergency Room, An Isolation Ward,

An Abandoned Mall, A Shuttered School.

That this was as good as it would ever get,

and that the rest was silence.

.

Barbara Crooker is the author of nine books of poetry; Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series) is her latest.  Her work has appeared in many anthologies, including The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Commonwealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, The Poetry of Presence, and Healing the Divide: Poems of Kinship and Compassion

.

2 Poems by Tim Suermondt

.

  Counting the Beautiful Days

.

And there are a lot of them,

hanging on despite the discontent

and absolute horrors of the long

months we’ve had to deal with.

I walk the quieter city streets,

keeping my distance only because

I have to, but I feel the ghosts

of thousands in the very air, readying

for their moment to create

a crowd, become flesh and bone

again, surprising themselves at how

crowded, often dirty subway cars

hold a sparkle, a small beauty after all.

.

  Left to the Sailboats

.

The birds follow me until

they realize: he plumb forgot the bread.

.

I go left to the sailboats, just a few

bobbing around on the water, more boring

.

than inspiring, how I miss the great ships.

Where did they go? I ask America—

.

I know she’s here, somewhere.

.

Tim Suermondt is the author of five full-length collections of poems, the latest Josephine Baker Swimming Pool from MadHat Press, 2019. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, North of Oxford, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, december magazine, On the Seawall, Poet Lore and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.

.

2 Poems by Michele Riedel

.

Covid protest

.

“The caged bird wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he open his throat to sing”

Maya Angelou

.

Flat on my back,

feverish and faint, I dissolve

into the dark corners of tallying symptoms-

splintered lungs, lost breath.

.

Cell phone buzzes—

George Floyd, George Floyd!

I want to shout out in solidarity

across this broken land

.

but the scratch of bent birds

in their cages

press into my chest with every

clawing cough. My pillow

Is hard pavement.

.

I push into the tarred fear,

the sear of every swallow,

try to hold breath 8 minutes—

the pulse pounding torment

of no reply.

.

Basketball in hand,

a scared teen

chances to cross a street

disappears into the night

of no reply.

.

Someone’s mom in ICU

another alone in ER,

a nurse without PPE

all cry in the dark night

of no reply.

.

A man shelters

in place under park bench

in the dark night

of no reply.

.

I black out my screen,

take a picture of the night

starless and shadowed,

wait for morning light—

.

think about how a cloud

shifts and a piercing light

appears,

how wings touch in flight,

silvered and soaring

.

and scarred throats find

their songs.

.

Zoom yoga

.

You are eating chips in your

undershorts.

I lie that they can see.

You belch, knees and ankle poppig

as you land on your mat;

phone blinking like emergency flashers.

.

A moan as your shoulder bends

stiffly in cobra pose.

You finally ignore message alerts

as we move into bridge pose

while Abbycat brushes our legs extra

slowly with her whiskers.

.

The instructor reminds us to breathe deeply.

I razzle my exhale

trying to sound like Lauren Bacall.

.

We windmill into three legged dog.

only legs and feet viewable—

look lost in each little meet up box.

.

I marvel how she manages, re-images

moves us from space to connection.

.

Put your head on straight!

I adjust my neck.

She says it again and I laugh—

you tell me to be quiet

.

Soon, our minds are lost somewhere

between couch and ottoman.

Two minutes into deep relaxaton

you’re snoring.

.

Sunlight falls through skylight

softening shadows, muting your edges

In this moment, you are illumine,

an angel.

.

Michele has been published in Streetlight Magazine, MCV Literary Messenger, River City Poets Anthology, versewrights.com, thebezine.com and has a poetry blog at www.wordpalettes.wordpress.com. She loves to attend critiques, workshops and open mike events and has found a supportive community with River City Poets. She taught Reading and ESL (English as a second language) in elementary schools and loves the written word.

.

Diane Wilbon Parks

.

What If There is Light at the End of this Pandemic?

.

the air splinters and bleeds into a hush

that   swallows   whole –    its  prey,

that spits out a rosebud of bones  and broken wings.

we    attempt  miniature flights,

but   fall back to weightlessness

into silk strands of  what   was,

 into January’s cold white winter

 when fingers were allowed touch,

when breathing was not caged.

what if,    what was,  could   be  again,

 and  if,   hope could stay, longer?

.

The air’s staggard breathing

opens  up crowded rooms,

Covid’s pale white ghost

 drifts  indiscriminately,

blows into consenting lungs

that are born to breathe,   to carry,

this haunting pandemic

 crouches in waiting rooms

searches for light

to dim its flicker

 to darkened,

and sinks deep

 in the earth at dawn.

what if we could loom

 into what was

and open its silence,

wipe clean this virus,

this pandemic,

 this racial divide?

What if   prisoned by this glass,

this mask, this door, this lock,

 this isolation

deletes this dry cough

and its toxic fingerprints,

removes this virus,

enlighten our perspective

for inclusion,    our

hopes of

 unity?

.

Diane Wilbon Parks is a visual poet and artist. Diane has written two poetry collections. Diane’s been recognized as a Prince George’s County, Poet of Excellence. She is an U. S. Air Force Veteran and resides in Maryland.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

 

Summer Pandemic Issues

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #5

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue/

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #6

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-6/

Spring Pandemic Issues 

North of Oxford presents The Pandemic Issues.

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #1

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/__trashed-2/

North of Oxford- The Pandemic Issue #2

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-2/

North of Oxford- The Pandemic Issue #3

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-3/

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #4

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/27/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-4/

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Stay Calm – Stay Safe – Stay Home and When Out and About Wear a Mask

Diane Sahms and g emil reutter

 

Call for Pandemic Poetry Submissions

Due to the overwhelming response to our four Pandemic Issues we published in April, and continued interest, we will once again publish poetry concerning the pandemic. Please send us your best work and how the pandemic has affected you, your neighborhood, and your country. As the virus continues its unrelenting attack, we urge all to be safe and wear a mask.

Send your submission in one Word doc. with no more than four poems, including a 50 word bio. Please send to sahmsguarnieriandreutter@gmail.com . The deadline for submissions to the new pandemic issue is August 10^th. Due to the anticipated response we will not be able to respond to each individual submission and all submissions received after August 10^th will be discarded.

North of Oxford presents The Pandemic Issues.

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #1

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/__trashed-2/

North of Oxford- The Pandemic Issue #2

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-2/

North of Oxford- The Pandemic Issue #3

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-3/

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #4

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/27/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-4/

.

https://dianesahmsguarnieri.wordpress.com/

https://gereutter.wordpress.com/about/

 

Wear A Mask – Do the Right Thing

We wish all well during these troubling times and ask with great sincerity that when you go out to be safe, stay six feet apart, and wear a mask. Wearing a mask is not a political statement, it is a way for all of us to protect each other from this virus which is unrelenting in its pursuit of human beings. Be safe and stay home when at all possible. Let us be hopeful that a vaccine is on the horizon in the near future. Simply put, DO THE RIGHT THING!

https://dianesahmsguarnieri.wordpress.com/ https://gereutter.wordpress.com/about/

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #4

Painting – Party Underground by Belinda Subraman

Thanks to the poets for contributing to The Pandemic Issue #4 from North of Oxford. In order of  appearance we present:  J Thomas Brown, Emily Bilman, Akshaya Pawaskar, Jason Kaufman, Naila Francis, Donna J. Gelagotis Lee, Linda Nemec Foster, Wayne-Daniel Berard

.

Hart Island by J Thomas Brown
.
They come to me, a time-worn island, once more.
They come to me in rows two wide, in layers three deep,
and I am too weary from the holding and can hold no more.
.
A child, grasping a handful of my grass, once said to a poet:
What is this grass? He answered he did not know,
that it seemed to be the beautiful uncut hair of graves.1
.
The tides, in unceasing motion, have worn my sides away.
My belly of earth, no longer fit for the task, splits, gives up its secrets.
See the clean white bones on their march into the bay.
.
Here, the water laps a shoulder blade resting on my gale eaten shore.
Nearby, protrudes the thigh of a Union prisoner who starved in the South,
and here, the ribs of one too poor to pay.
.
Over there, the jaw of a woman who died alone,
unsaved by burning pitch and cannon blast to scare Yellow Jack away.
Close by, the bones of a homeless man found in an alleyway.
.
Enough, enough. Today, a backhoe and fresh scrobis2
for the unclaimed who have passed.
May at last their dreams be happy,
beneath the leaves of grass.
.
1. From Song of Myself by Walt Whitman, 1892 version . . .it seemed to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
2. scrobis: a trench or grave
.
J Thomas Brown has had short stories published in Scarlet Leaf Review and Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet. I am a contributor to Lingering in the Margins: A River City Poets Anthology, Rattlecast, and Grotesque Quarterly Review. Mooncalf, a collection of poems, was self-published as an ebook and as an audiobook by Authors Republic. Two novels, The Land of Three Houses (historical fiction) and The Hole in the Bone (historical adventure fantasy), were published in 2018.
.
.
Two Poems by Emily Bilman
.
Time’s Disintegration
.
Will Covid-19 spread from the fish markets
into a metallic pool where we will mutate
into primordial fish while others remain above
the disintegration of Time? Will we, at last, leave
the bats, foxes, and pangolins in the own
kingdoms, safe from our manipulations
to avoid Covid’s thousand mutations?
Will we slow down our pace as in our
confinement to prevent Dali’s warped Time
from turning the metallic pool into bullets? Or
will our broken Time dry out all the olive trees?
Will flowers mutate into plastic objects floating
on a jelly-sea of brine below the surface? Or
will currents still circulate in the oceans
and clear the air we breathe? In the post
Covid-19 space, will our Time be stretched
into the poem’s eternal present, allowing
us transformative change through
language, rhythm, and thought?
.
The Stages of Cruelty
1751 & 2020
.
While a gentleman offers a tart to stop the murderer
The dog is killed with an arrow stuck to its body
While another boy pulls on his throat with a rope.
.
A youngster ties a bone to another dog’s tail and grins
While the dog tries to catch it. Cats are hung on a pole
And a bird’s eye is cauterized with a stick as boys watch.
.
The sadism of Hogarth’s slum-boys that turns boys
Into tyrants, in turn, makes men into poachers who murder
Pangolins and sell their scales for medicine, their meat for food.
.
Bitten by bats, pangolins, traded and consumed for their meat
Spread the Covid-19 virus, killing thousands by lung
Constriction, leaving the rest of us in mute confinement.
.
Dr. Emily Bilman is London Poetry Society’s Stanza representative in Geneva where she lives and teaches poetry. Her dissertation, The Psychodynamics of Poetry, was published by Lambert Academic in 2010 and Modern Ekphrasis in 2013 by Peter Lang, CH. Three poetry books, A Woman By A Well, Resilience, and The Threshold of Broken Waters were published by Troubador, UK in 2015 and the latest in 2018
.
.

Two Poems By Akshaya Pawaskar

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As light as they come

.

We were sitting tall

atop a Howdah.

Looking down our noses

at the mastodon tusks,

thinking them servile

thinking them tamed,

conquered.

How our tiny bodies

usurped nature,

overthrew gods

and straddled

coasts,

mapped Pangea,

navigated Thalassa,

touched Mars.

Now a scream pierces

the sky, silently

reverberates across

continents.

We cower for shelter.

Houses turn sacred

they have a glamour

as temples are abandoned,

gods walk out of the idols

and follow us home.

We run for life

to the deepest recesses

hiding from enemies

invisible, wingless

as light as they come

yet carrying death

on their formless backs.

.

The way of the world

.

How we are divining the civilization,

How we are trying to exorcise the evil,

How it is always intangible smoke like.

How we feel guilty about writing poems

yet how they churn out faster from

stillness of the sealed houses.

How we watch the numbers ebb and flow

watch the uptick and lose hope.

How we light candles, bang utensils

and make noises to break the silence.

How those who set out on a soul searching

journey are returning home and learning

they are none the wiser, yet how

we are rediscovering ourselves inside

the four walls, going back to basics.

How a pandemic starts and ends?

How does one come out of this crisis,

a changed person, a better human.

How long till one forgets the lesson,

the history repeats and we start again

from scratch, the humbled ones.

.

Akshaya Pawaskar is a doctor practicing in India and poetry is her passion. Her poems have been published in Tipton Poetry journal, Indian ruminations, The Blue Nib, North of Oxford, Rock and Sling, Shards and Red Fez.

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.
Two Poems by Jason Kaufman
.
Dim Witness
.
Day #1 of Ohio’s stay-at-home order
3/24/2020
54,856 Covid-19 cases in the US
780 Total deaths in the US
225 People died today in the US
.
I bear dim witness
to ticker counters on a phone screen,
the virus’s exponential spread
veering northward on Logarithmic charts.
The endless scrolling of Nasdaq and the S&P
replaced by real-time rising death rates.
I’m out of work and nervous about making ends meet.
It’s week one in quarantine.
My list of renovation projects is dwindling.
Our house gets cleaner by the day.
We throw family dance parties and laugh.
I embarrass myself for the love of this moment.
My wife and I make love like teenagers,
in this room and that.
.
I wonder why it took a pandemic
for us to begin living our lives.
.
Ruptures and Articulations
.
Day #3 of Ohio’s stay-at-home order
3/26/2020
83,206 Covid-19 cases in the US
1,201 Total deaths in the US
174 People died today in the US
.
Is there anywhere on earth untouched by this? Anywhere
inside of you untouched by fear.
McCarthy calls man a lesser God,
insatiable and malignant, whom no ceding could appease
nor any measure of blood,
.
but I see caped cashiers and superheroes in the stockroom.
Homebound Troubadours singing from balconies
about a dark age, not so long ago, when humankind believed
they were created to serve the stock market.
.
Have we broken
through to a new truth?
Have we broken
from our legacy of blood and war?
Has this pandemic ruptured the chain of bestial replicas?
Will we stand up out of the rubble and discover we are new species entirely?
The potential of profound change, born at the intersection
of our heart and this burdensome cross.
.
.
Jason Kaufman is a poet and visual artist living in Bellville, Ohio. The major influences on his work are fatherhood, backpacking, Post-Structuralism, Buddhism, theopoetics, and mental health advocacy.
.
.
And have you cried yet today by Naila Francis
.
And have you cried yet today, let
your eyes become water become
wonder, become soundless kiss
on the brow of this soft-skinned world?
.
Listen, in Hanoi, a water tank spills rice
into residents’ bags daily, in Ho Chi
Minh City around the clock.
.
Air pollution is plummeting, a 30 percent drop
in America’s Northeast, a breather
in the bellowing of tailpipes and power plants
that has polished the sunset to a truer hue
in China, raised handclaps in outer space.
.
In the oceans, cruiseless and calm, whales
can keep singing, and so, too, the creatures
who glide less stressed, their dreams
of motherhood tucked in the quiet deep.
.
Today, I read of a coffee shop giving
a month of profits to medical first responders,
a landlord canceling three months’ rent.
.
The math these days is dizzying, grim:
34,376 deaths in the US, globally 141,452,
in my city 311 new cases since yesterday,
in Italy a generation — gone.
.
Here, where I write from among them, 22
million unemployed, a shortfall of millions
of tests needed per week to open the economy,
thousands of gallons of milk dumped by farmers,
and still more produce, without a system
to funnel them to the miles-long food bank lines.
.
But there is also $20 shoved anonymously
through a front door, two young boys
in blow-up dinosaur costumes billowing joy
in their duo of a neighborhood parade, one
85-year-old nurse leaving her retirement
to care for other seniors, 78 children
receiving free meals every day from a teacher
who walks five miles to deliver them.
.
How else to take the sorrow, terror
if not with beauty, too?
How to keep counting the days
without the moments that gather
in the good, remind us “Here Comes the Sun,”
.
which is played in a Michigan hospital
whenever a patient is weaned off a ventilator.
.
How many tears have you cried?
Will they ever be enough, a trail we follow,
from here inside this keening dark,
to where our hands will meet?

.

Naila Francis is a warm, vibrant and inspiring woman. She’s a poet, an ordained interfaith minister who performs weddings and baby blessings, and a world traveler whose journeys have taken her, among other destinations, to Tanzania as an orphanage volunteer, Mallorca to study poetry and Peru, where she climbed Machu Picchu Mountain with a shaman as her guide. https://www.nailafrancis.com/

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 Living Without Fear of the Air by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee

.

Already, in movies it’s obvious.

Life has changed forever. No longer

Will we move as if the air

.

Were something not to be feared,

As if microbes didn’t lurk in

Suspended droplets.

.

No longer will we go out

Without thinking about what we touch

Or how close we are to another.

.

No more love-ins. No more hugs

And kisses with friends. What

Has polluted the air has

.

Polluted our idea of the air.

Our movements like a dancer’s

Let free will have ceased.

.

How I long for

That spring day we greet

In a park or at a beach

.

With neighbors of our state

Who say hi within six feet. I’d

Long to go to the supermarket

.

And not wear gloves and

A mask and sanitize the shopping

Cart. I’d like to chat

.

With the gas station attendant

Or waiter at a restaurant I’ll never

Likely go to again. If they make

.

A vaccine, it will be better. But

Not as before. Because lurking

Is the virus that will down

.

That percent who will not escape

Its grip, its residence in the lungs

That try to take in the air.

.

Donna J. Gelagotis Lee is the author of two award-winning collections, Intersection on Neptune (The Poetry Press of Press Americana, 2019), winner of the Prize Americana for Poetry 2018, and On the Altar of Greece (Gival Press, 2006), winner of the 2005 Gival Press Poetry Award and recipient of a 2007 Eric Hoffer Book Award: Notable for Art Category. Her poetry has appeared in publications internationally, including The Bitter Oleander, Feminist Studies, The Massachusetts Review, Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments, and Women’s Studies Quarterly. Her website is www.donnajgelagotislee.com .

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The Doctor Answers the Question: What is Breaking Detroit’s Heart?

By Linda Nemec Foster

.

Not the usual suspects:

the stabbings and gunshots,

the quiet OD in some abandoned

house on the northwest side.

.

Not the typical urban mix

of gut fear, heart fear, brain scared

to death over the lost job,

the mounting bills, empty table.

.

Not the streets overgrown with fields

where neighborhoods of houses

once stood, where dreams lived and

the children of those dreams once played.

.

What breaks Detroit’s heart is this: a hospital

overflowing with the dead. White body bags

like shrouds stacked in rooms, piled on floors,

sitting in chairs as if waiting for you to notice.

.

Linda Nemec Foster is the author of eleven collections of poetry including Amber Necklace from Gdansk, Talking Diamonds, and The Lake Michigan Mermaid (2019 Michigan Notable Book). Her work appears in numerous magazines and journals: e.g. The Georgia Review, Nimrod, Quarterly West, Witness, New American Writing, North American Review, and Verse Daily.

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.

Three Poems by Wayne-Daniel Berard

.

My Father’s Covid

.

the landing craft

of my father’s life

has once again ground

itself on omaha beach

but the iron door

is not dropping

normandy is all gusts

and bluster like always

like him night is falling

and he wonders why

no order to disembark

and why he is alone

in the hold’s center

a single candle

gutters and gasps

drowning in the liquid

of its own meltedness

my father wonders if

he’s dreaming or gone

crazy until he hears a

woman’s voice calling

his name from the darkening

cliffs he recognizes her but

doesn’t the candle sputters

he huddles in the corner of

his craft I hope he knows

not to wait for me (denied

permission to board by

executive order) I hope

when the wick exhales

and all the iron falls away

he’ll see only enemyless

beach moonlit and know

his one love’s call unhiding

in the high hedgerows

.

Passover in Plague Time

.

So this is how it felt

to have it all turn

against you to be

blamed in the burning

choking recesses of

each breath for decisions

by untouchable powers to

watch the river of your

everyday turn red your days

turn nights your very sky

fill with swarms of deadly

devouring tininesses your

massive milieu could not

fend off was this how it felt

when no safe distance

could save first born elders

and silly unschooled children

who gathered regardless

what was the hieroglyph for

“death count?” a human with

no animal head as every beast

had quit us in joyous liberation?

did the symbol rise and widen

grow and dominate until

everything infected everything

with enslavement to remoteness and

collapse? if we were all there back at

sinai then we were all there in giza

and luxor did we say “no, nameless one,

not this! egypt loves its children too

their grandparents are not pharaoh let

our liberation not be bought with plague?”

.

Christine in my Crisis

.

We’re sitting in the sunroom

the phone is constant

it rings it beeps so

much support “how

is your dad?” “there

for you” I get up from

beside you I don’t want

to interrupt your shows

from the kitchen I gaze

every minute of every call

back toward you your

profile defines both sun

and room being light

just by being and being

the one and every place

in which I dwell I’m glad

for all the others I breathe

because of you my constant

occasion the o in each hello

.

Wayne-Daniel Berard, PhD, teaches Humanities at Nichols College, Dudley, MA. He publishes broadly in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. His latest full-length work of poetry, The Realm of Blessing, will be published in 2020 by Unsolicited Press. He is the co-founding editor of Soul-Lit, an online journal of spiritual poetry www.soul-lit.com  . Wayne-Daniel lives in Mansfield, MA with his wife, The Lovely Christine.

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First Three Issues 

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #1

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/__trashed-2/ Poets: Howie Good, Marion Deutche Cohen, Alan Toltzis, Charles Rammelkamp, Gloria Parker, Len Krisak, Ed Krizek, Mervyn Taylor, Carl Kaucher, M. J. Arcangelini, Eileen R. Tabios, Bryon Beynon, Greg Bem, Richard Nester and John D. Robinson. 

North of Oxford- The Pandemic Issue #2

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-2/

Poets: Ray Greenblatt, Cathleen Cohen, Cameron Morse, Ed Meek, Joan Mazza, Hiram Larew, April Penn, Grace Andreacchi, Mary Shanley, Bruce E. Whitacre, Jonie McIntire, Liddy Warrell, Nicole Yurcaba, Thaddeus Rutkowski, and Mike Cohen. 

North of Oxford- The Pandemic Issue #3

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue-3/

Poets: Don Riggs, John Macker, Lorna Wood, Michael Steffen, Matthew Ussia, Belinda Subraman, Susan Champion, Carlos Hernández Peña, Phil Saunders, Arlyn LaBelle, Peter Scheponik, and Ben Mazer

 .

.

Stay Calm – Stay Safe – Stay Home and When Out and About Wear a Mask

Diane Sahms and g emil reutter

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.

.

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North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #2

Painting – Rooted by Belinda Subraman

Thanks to the poets for contributing to The Pandemic Issue #2 from North of Oxford. In order of  appearance we present: Ray Greenblatt, Cathleen Cohen, Cameron Morse, Ed Meek, Joan Mazza, Hiram Larew, April Penn, Grace Andreacchi, Mary Shanley, Bruce E. Whitacre, Jonie McIntire, Lindy Warrell, Nicole Yurcaba, Thaddeus Rutkowski, and Mike Cohen.

.

Three Poems by Ray Greenblatt 

.

Losing Time

.

Last night rain tumbled

and ticked down metal drain pipes

making us restive in our beds

glancing the clock numberless times

not certain when we slept.

Today is glaringly

clear, yet, it feels like

the virus continues

to pound on the door.

Meanwhile, nature pushes up

its pinks, purples, golds

and infant whitenesses

as if all was well.

.

Virus

.

The sunlight in the school

across the street is

the only thing alive.

.

As the day rotates

the light moves up and down

the stairway forming students

from glare and shadow.

.

In a classroom it highlights

assignments on the board

now many months old.

.

Emergency lights

remain on at night

automatically.

.

Maintenance wanders the rooms

pushing vacuums at dust

inevitable but

no longer made by children.

.

The Moments

.

We sit in a stern little family group

holding hands for grace

staring at each other

trying to absorb every feature

we might have overlooked

might have never noticed before.

Each bite of our meal

we savor though humble.

          This might be the time for lasts.

Let music we love ring through

our brains like fond echoes.

The book we are reading

we have reread but want

to cherish each word

like never before.

.

Ray Greenblatt is an editor on the Schuylkill Valley Journal. His book reviews have been published by a variety of periodicals: BookMark Quarterly, Joseph Conrad Today, English Journal, the Dylan Thomas Society, and the John Updike Society. His new book of poetry, Nocturne & Aubades, is newly available from Parnilis Press, 2018.

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.

Three Poems by Cathleen Cohen

.

Pandemic Week Four

.

I eye my grandmother, so young

in the photo.

.

She gazes

                 not at me, but

.

out towards the yard

where blue jays knock wrens off the feeder.

.

She leans her chin on fingers

spread out like a fan.

Braids cradle her white neck,

a column, a monument.

.

What now? I cry.

.

She was 18 during the Spanish flu.

Circuit singer, sent back money

to her mother.

.

How we children adored her

singing, playing waltzes on piano

as we twirled. She was always

joking, chirping.

.

So you must have words now!

I implore, but she sits,

elegant, unmoved.

.

I tug her like a doll

from room to room,

position her on tables, chairs, desk

with a view the window, but

.

no,

turn her to face

my stricken face.

.

Measures

.

At first I count

strides

            (each a foot length)

as my mother taught

to measure rugs or the length of a room

when buying a couch.

.

This was decades back.

But now I practice

                              pacing 6 feet

.

then venture out, shocked

by blue jays swooping

.

and the bright red hat

of my neighbor

                        who appears near the hedge

without warning.

.

He’s lonely, wants to chat.

I freeze like a deer, edge back, measure

risk,

       which is not static.

.

Three teens jog past, safe

at a distance but

they’re shouting companionably.

One spits on the ground.

.

Is it safe

                  to pass that place?

When will we adapt

to this new way to orbit?

.

Between Us

.

As was written,

our trials can be lengthy:

forty years of desert wandering,

forty days of shelter in the ark.

.

But I also think of Moses

forty nights on the mountain,

cowering at first, shivering

in a crevice, surrounded by

.

thundering  voice

.

but ultimately

open, receiving.

.

He carried back radiance,

a glimpse of presence.

.

Now I search for radiance

(not in portents or the news)

but in bird flight,

the changing colors of hours,

beloved voices,

prayers sung from balconies, extending

beyond walls.

.

For walls are temporary, porous

to the  radiance

.

that must pass between us.

.

Cathleen Cohen is the Founder and creator of ArtWell’s core program, We the Poets, and a member of ArtWell’s Board of Directors (effective 2018). Following her retirement in 2015 as a treasured member of ArtWell’s staff as Education Director, Cathy continued in a volunteer capacity. As a master teacher, poet, and literacy specialist, she serves as a vital mentor to new Teaching Artists and volunteers. Cathleen holds a Ph.D. in Learning Disabilities from Northwestern University, an MA from Teachers College, Columbia University, a BA from The Johns Hopkins University and a certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

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Three Poems by Cameron Morse

.

Crucifixion of a Phantasm

.

Spring rain self-quarantine,

Augustine flays below the scourge

of bodily sickness. COVID-19

the topic of every breakfast, herd

immunity and high-dose Vitamin C,

how you refused baptism

even as your fever heightened.

Christ being nothing to you then

but a phantasm. Outside,

hyacinths purple dank mulch

with their royal robes.

Robins drop to the rippling bird bath

in the light-spangled orchard,

cardboard boxes sogging curbside

in recycling bins. I seize

upon the quarantine to learn the rules

for recycling, the new labels,

and rip the plastic window

screen from a box of spaghetti

noodles. Inhale the cleansing

chill of social distancing: school

closed, reading cancelled,

and today’s sky doubtless is a kind

of phantasm, perhaps even

a phantasm crucified, for all I know.

Its pallor overwhelms me.

.

Infected

.

Vacuity wonders where the world is

that perched upon its shoulder.

Wonders where the wonder

of the world went. Will anything

I say now make sense to me after I’m well?

Will you clear the cobwebs from my eye

shells? Vacuity listens to itself

in the conch, its own voice

carping from a great distance.

Its fatigue is talking. Shrill

as a crow in hardnosed winter air.

Its fatigue lets the dogs

spill into the house, pounce over September’s

bright new upholstery. Lets its forehead

sink into the heel of a hand.

There is no helper here, Vacuity thinks,

where there used to be thoughts.

The virus is everywhere.

.

Burr Oak Woods

.

A walker in black

leggings, pink-dyed hair,

raises her makeshift

mask to ask who stole her car,

where in the woods is

the lost parking lot that holds it.

Worn with cares and fears,

writes Augustine. A screenshot

from Facebook confirms

seven Costco workers COVID-19

where we buy pullups and wipes.

Bethany Falls Trail with Theo

for the first time, my two-year-old

emptying the spray bottle in his

mouth. My body unclenches

on a bench beside the gravel path.

All is stillness in the woods,

the oceanic wind surge, rat-a-tat

blast of somewhere a woodpecker,

faraway rumble of an airplane

lifting its crucifix over us

or against. For each passerby,

I yank my boy into the understory.

For great intervals of time,

there is only us, a single trunk

somewhere is thinly creaking.

.

Cameron Morse was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2014. With a 14.6 month life expectancy, he entered the Creative Writing Program at the University of Missouri—Kansas City and, in 2018, graduated with an M.F.A. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including New Letters, Bridge Eight, Portland Review and South Dakota Review. His first poetry collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is Baldy (Spartan Press, 2020). He lives with his wife Lili and two children in Blue Springs, Missouri, where he serves as poetry editor for Harbor Review. https://cameronmorsepoems.wordpress.com/

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.

On Pandemic Island by Ed Meek

.

Now the seven days have become one.

Every day the Monday of a long weekend.

It’s National work-from-home-day.

Call your parents, friends, siblings’ day.

Home school day.

.

Wherever we are, we now inhabit a small town.

S, we take long, meandering strolls.

Random cars cruise deserted streets.

Weary of strangers, we startle

At sniffles, coughs and sneezes.

.

We give everyone a wide berth,

Navigating around them

As if we are in boats.

We live in the singularity

Of the eternal present.

Every day like a snow day

without snow. We plan

for the indefinite future

on an etch a sketch

.

.

Ed Meek has been published by Dash, Constellations, Blue Mountain Review, What Rough Beast, Red Wheel Barrow Review. My new book, High tide, is coming out this summer..

Three Poems by Joan Mazza

.

Sonnet for Covid19

.

Before the quarantine, I made plans

for how I’d spend the time alone at home

with only cats for company. No drone

to deliver milk or eggs. I wash my hands

as soon as I return with what might be

the last fresh lettuce, cucumbers, lemons

for a while. Everywhere—lurking demons

both bacterial and viral. Pity

those who don’t have extra for any extra

food or tissues, would not think of hoarding

Chapstick, dental floss, or Bach recordings,

plus paper books for the coming trifecta

of contagion, solitude, and ennui.

Creating keeps me from going screwy.

.

Silly Shopping on eBay

.

Balm for anxiety, we’re shopping online

buying essentials like coffee and chocolate,

wine and brandy for those who still drink.

Booze sales boom during the threat of Covid19

as it presses against a shortage of masks.

.

I won’t be buying troll dolls with succulents

growing out of their heads, or vintage Barbies

in their original box and clothes for seven

thousand dollars. No tall platform sandals for me,

no exfoliating scrub, or off-the-shoulder blouses—

.

already passé. I don’t need home hair dye kits

or articles on how to pass the time during

the quarantine. I’m grateful not to be married

to Pence or Falwell or Bundy, or the gun and ammo

collectors I once knew. My days are full, hours

.

too few. Like other quilters with a ginormous stash,

I find large scraps for sewing masks and make

them reversible. I’d add some silly beads or buttons,

beards of ribbons. But no to bling. Extra texture

might offer coronavirus another way to cling.

.

No embroidered leaves and daisies like those

on jeans in the sixties, no childish charms will dangle.

I could make bread and rolls shaped like genitalia,

cookies iced with bawdy words to bake my rage

at feeling helpless. But I’m still on a healthy track,

.

won’t gain back pounds I shed. When I come out

of the world of dread, you won’t recognize this thin

and sober, pale and mindful me in my snazzy veil.

.

What I’m doing in quarantine that I didn’t do before

.

My fantasies have changed from a larger house,

tropical vacations and ocean swimming

to shopping at Costco, Walmart, and Food Lion.

In my reveries, I restock my supplies without

the worry of using up my paper products. I stroll

the aisles of specialty shops and choose imported

spices, fresh and crisp broccoli rabe, lettuce,

.

artichokes, and cucumbers. I fill two carts

without fear of stares or microbes lurking

on the wagon’s handle or in the air. In my best

fantasy, I find everything I could ever want

or need, a dream of organic fresh vegetables

that don’t rot. My trash, including wet cat litter,

disappears as soon as I place it on my porch.

.

Today I write in that small leather notebook

of handmade paper and a metal clasp, once

too good to use, record my gratitude for my

deep freezer, electricity, and well water.

Every day, I bless the letter carrier, who

delivers packages and mail, and I repeat

my thrill to have the Internet in my house

.

in the woods. I didn’t expect to be so happy

to be alone without the men who collected

guns and ammo, men who got drunk and found

fault with how I spent my time and money,

except when I paid for beer. I never thought

I’d so easily fall in love again

with my sewing machine, fabrics, thread.

.

Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Adanna Literary Journal, Poet Lore, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia. www.JoanMazza.com

.

.

Spoons or Rakes By Hiram Larew

.

What we need now

            is glow –

The sort of night that embers make

The sound in nests

         or apples’ shapes

A glow that gives more than it takes

The kind of spoons or rakes

                 that neighbors love

Those shoreside waves that warm the boats

We need the wool of passing years

               or more

What holding does when little’s near

.

Larew’s fourth collection, Undone, was issued in 2018 by FootHill Publishing.  On Facebook at Hiram Larew, Poet and on www.PoetryXHunger.com

.

.

Two Poems by April Penn

.

Bring a book

.

I don’t recommend reading A People’s History of the United States

by Howard Zinn during prolonged periods of self-isolation.

.

I do recommend the book.

It does much to fight against ruling class narratives of history, but

it’s hard to hear the same cries against oppression over and over,

and see that so many died, unanswered,

and wonder what then will become of us now?

How come what can be foreseen cannot be prevented?

.

History teaches that ideas are not enough.

History is repetitive and boring without poetry.

.

I am reading poetry while also reading A People’s History.

That’s the compromise I struck

against merely listing off a string of tragedies.

.

Shortages

.

Good thing

I can’t

write a poem on

a roll of toilet paper

.

because if I could

I would still have to use

that toilet paper

to wipe my ass

.

and then depending

on who you ask

these poems would be

more or less appealing

.

Everything that goes in

must come out,

but that isn’t true.

Sometimes pain never

.

finds a way to leave.

Does that mean that pain

doesn’t enter or exit?

Pain like water colors

.

bleeding into each other,

escaping boundaries,

self-hood, ah, at last

the artist has to go.

.

April March Penn is a queer poet who visits Anne Sexton’s grave and conducts tarot readings for real and imaginary friends. Penn’s poetry is published in What Are Birds, The Offing, The Fem, The Deaf Poet Society, Maps for Teeth, Provocateur, and other literary magazines. They have featured in Boston at the Cantab Poetry Lounge, Out of the Blue Gallery, and Stone Soup Poetry. Follow them on Instagram: @pennapril

.

Viral by Grace Andreacchi

.

It can’t hurt us

it’s too far away

(that’s what we said at first)

It can’t hurt us

let’s dance, let’s play

.

When it came closer still

we thought we were safe

look outside! the sun is shining

the world is not coming to an end

that’s what we said

.

Soon, very soon we were dead

first the old and the weak

then the little children

then everyone else

.

the earth did not mourn us

only the cats and dogs

for a little while wondered

turned sad frightened eyes

in search of us, this way and that

and then forgot

.

the birds in their cages

screamed and starved

after that all birds were free

the ocean returned to the fish

the air to itself, pure and sweet again

.

the foxes moved into our empty houses

made themselves at home

tearing rabbits to bits on the sofa

sleeping in our beds

.

the lion chased rich prey

through golden waves of grass

the tigress gave birth to sweet wet cubs

in the humming forest

the birds made fresh nests

in the new sprung woods

.

the earth did not mourn us

greedy monkeys

too clever for our own good

some of us were beautiful

some of us were kind

we perished along with the rest

nobody left to say goodbye

.

Grace Andreacchi was born and grew up in New York City. She was educated at the Academy of Mount St. Ursula High School, and went on to study theatre at the Stella Adler Studio. A brief period on the stage was followed by the study of philosophy, first at Hunter College (New York City), and then at Binghamton University (Binghamton, New York). Since 1989 Andreacchi has lived in Europe, moving first to Paris, then rural Normandy, and later to Berlin (1994–1998) and London, where she now resides.

.

A Smooth Stone By Mary Shanley

.

Put a smooth stone in your pocket

and when you touch it remember

.

the waterfall splashing at Jefferson

Market Garden, remember the Japanese

Garden in Golden Gate Park.

.

Remember to take time to sit

in quietude and let the serenity

wash your clean from the images

of global destruction from the killer virus.

.

Put a smooth stone in your pocket

and remember to wear a face mask

to cover your nose and mouth.

Protection from Covid 19, invisible killer

that will take our lives if we don’t practice

social distancing and stay inside.

.

Put a smooth stone in your pocket

and live one day at a time. Forget

trying to envision what our world

will be like when the virus is stopped.

No one knows the post virus world.

.

Put a smooth stone in your pocket

and wash your hands multiple times

per day. Try not to touch your face.

This is deadly serious.

.

Put a smooth stone in your pocket

and hope the president will have

an awakening an realize how

reckless and dangerous his inaction

towards Covid 19 has been.

.

Put a smooth stone in your pocket

and hope the president will care

more about life than the stock market.

.

Put a smooth stone in your pocket

and hope the president will release

funds for first responders’s safety

equipment and ventilator’s.

.

Put a smooth stone in your pocket

and give thanks for all the health

professionals who have come out

of retirement to stand on the front

lines of the Covid 19 war.

.

Put a smooth stone in your pocket and hope that

The inept and dangerous president 45 will be removed

from office on election day, 2020.

.

Put a smooth stone in your pocket

and remember to keep holy your thoughts

about those sick and dying from this virus

today.

.

Mary Shanley, poet/storyteller, living in New York City with her wife, Lisa Genet.

.

.

What I Saw at Station Square By Bruce E. Whitacre

.

I will walk to Station Square

Though I won’t take the train

Or check out new cocktails at the bar.

I won’t worry about departures or arrivals,

Weather delays or locked waiting rooms.

I haven’t looked at a schedule for weeks.

Tickets crumple in my pocket.

The trackside trees are leafing out without me.

The funny man who pees all the time

Is no longer a comfort station customer.

The pushy lady who grabs the first seat

Must now roll easily from kitchen chair to couch,

I suppose.

.

            We gaze at screens, not out the windows

Of the empty trains passing by without us

Through a region frozen in emergency,

Of seething hospitals and blinded shops.

Trains clack over the heads of parents juggling children

And accounts unaided and without success:

Too much out of reach; too much passed them by;

Too many cash-earners gone.

Their losses will pull the spikes from all our rails,

Knock the train from the trestle,

And there will be nothing to wait for

Coming round the bend.

.

I turn back down the silent streets

And walk home from Station Square.

.

Until recently Bruce E. Whitacre was a nonprofit manager in the theatre field. His work has been published in the online journal, Cagibi, and he has been featured reader at the Forest Hills, Queens Public Library.  He received an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and has served as a literary and theatre manager in the nonprofit sector.

.

.

Three Poems by Jonie McIntire

.

Easter Sunday for Cynics

.

When churches weren’t open

or her legs too brittle to hold,

my grandmother would watch

on tv, read from pamphlets, reread

old passages in a tattered bible.

.

She found God every time,

from Jerry Falwell to

the cartoons of the Latter day

Saints to the sun on her back porch.

.

I wake early, Easter Sunday in a

cynic’s house during dark times,

and I check on the robin’s nest

tucked away in a second-story

corner window ledge.

.

Three days ago, just mud and straw.

Then one egg within a day,

two in another. Now,

three perfect eggs more beautiful

than sky or sea.

.

Would You Rather – Covid Edition

.

Go to the local grocery store looking like a bandito at high noon

or have to forage in the back of your pantry for something involving saltines and spicy mustard?

.

Be stuck at home with your relatives in a house where everything echoes and creaks

or be stuck in a small quiet space with all of your loved ones scattered elsewhere?

.

Start training for a marathon though the weather is tit-chilling bitter

or make day-drinking a practice you perfect so well you are usually asleep by 7 pm?

.

Spend so much time with your significant other that you are constantly

fucking or fighting (but both are very passionate)

.

or spend so much time seeking solitude that here we are in this house together with only our resentments to share?

.

Third Week of Quarantine

.

Because we hear

highway traffic

even in the house,

.

it is easy to think

we can go,

but watching cars from

.

bedroom window,

he mistakes longing

for love and still

.

has no idea

if I like green mints

or red.

.

Jonie McIntire, author of Beyond the Sidewalk (NightBallet Press, 2017) and Not All Who Are Lost Wander (Finishing Line Press, 2016), will be releasing her third chapbook, Semidomesticated, later this year. She hosts two monthly poetry reading series, Uncloistered Poetry and Art & Performance Poetry, and is the poetry editor for Springboard, a teen literary journal. Recipient of an Arts Commission Accelerator Grant, she has poems published in journals across the country and even stamped into cement in Toledo, Ohio as part of the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo’s Sidewalk Poetry series.

.

.

Coronatime by Lindy Warrell

.

How very lucky

you and I

to see the sky

and breathe.

.

Lindy lives by the sea in Glenelg, South Australia. Her poems appear online, and in journals and anthologies. She has recently published three chapbooks of free verse, evoking the Australian outback, cityscapes, old age, random moments and disturbing things.

.

Two Poems by Nicole Yurcaba

.

1.

at times

i feel clandestine

as i whisper

i have information

to the grocery shelves’ remnants

i carried home in a freezer bag

.

2.

fantasy:

i strip

for Richard Z. Kruspe

while wearing

fishnets

and a N95 mask

.

Nicole Yurcaba is a Ukrainian-American poet and essayist, who teaches at Bridgewater College and serves as the Assistant Director to the Bridgewater International Poetry Festival.

.

.

Homeless Friend by Thaddeus Rutkowski

.

I see my homeless friend

(“friend” might be an exaggeration,

but we know each other’s names).

He is where I expect to see him,

but he isn’t sitting on his usual bench.

He is sitting on a fire hydrant

that has a cover: a sort of lampshade

over the knobby top of the pipe.

“They took away the bench,” he says.

We look through a display window

and see the bench inside a fancy café.

“They’ll bring it back out,” I say,

but I’m not sure if that will happen anytime soon.

The bench might stay inside for months,

until the shutdown ends.

.

Thaddeus Rutkowski lives and writes in New York City. Thaddeus Rutkowski

.

.

Four Poems by Mike Cohen

.

Unable to Make Sense of It (April 2020)

.

Senses don’t always make sense.

In the midst of the viral pandemic,

you get the sense

of being invulnerable to anything else –

that all you have to do is avoid the dread disease

and you’ll survive.

.

A middle aged man, walking

along a crowded sidewalk,

steps off the curb to maintain

healthy social distance from other passersby,

and is struck by a utility truck.

.

His death,

though brought about by the pandemic,

is not attributed to the disease.

Just another senseless casualty.

.

Humanity and Virulence (March 2020)

.

Uh-oh! Here comes another of those humans.

Of course, I’m human too, but

I know the human coming toward me

is not me.

And he’s likely loaded with viruses.

Most of us are. And his collection of viruses

is probably different from mine.

Some viruses are more virulent than others, some less;

just as some humans are more human than others, some less.

But I intend to stay clear of this human

and his viruses,

however virulent or human they may be.

.

Infected (March 30, 2020)

.

The demon is inside.

Inside you is a deadly virus

or a deadly fear

of a virus so deadly

it can scare you to death.

Either way,

there’s nothing you can do.

Once you’ve let it in,

the demon is inside.

.

Helpless (March 2020)

.

The impassive grey sky does nothing to cheer us.

It looms, immovable as the thought of a virus

that hangs in the air between our heads

and the unfeeling firmament.

I throw stones at it, want it to crack

a smile, let a sliver of blue show through,

release a beam or two to shimmer down

and halo someone – anyone – to save us.

But my stones fall short,

come down, each with a thud,

as the grey sky looks on, unimpressed.

.

Mike Cohen lives and writes in Philadelphia. You can find him at: MIKE COHEN SAYS

.

 

North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue # 3

Painting – Leaves and Stays by Belinda Subraman

.

Thanks to the poets for contributing to The Pandemic Issue #3 from North of Oxford. In order of  appearance we present: Don Riggs, John Macker, Lorna Wood, Michael Steffen, Matthew Ussia, Belinda Subraman, Susan Champion, Carlos Hernández Peña, Phil Saunders, Arlyn LaBelle, Peter Scheponik , David Kozinski, Maria Keane, and Ben Mazer,

.

Covid-19 Sonnets by Don Riggs

.

Monads

.

In 12th grade, Mr. Gallagher taught us

about Leibniz, and how he thought monads

made up the world, whatever “monads” were.

Now I think that Leibnizian monads

are individuals isolated

in their apartments with the radio

or TV or computer bringing word

of what individuals who make up

the collective are doing outside, one

by one, talking on Skype from their kitchens,

communing on Zoom from their living rooms,

or venturing out in their bandannas

to see the city empty except for

other masked loners keeping their distance.

.

con notation

.

Social distancing’s an oxymoron

of sorts developed just for this current

situation to convince everyone

we come together by staying apart.

To cooperate is to operate

with, but it is in isolation that

we work together, “operate” coming

from “opus” or “work,” one’s magnum opus

being one’s great work, by which the future

will remember us, if it remembers

us at all, as Catullus was almost

totally forgotten, one manuscript

of his works surviving by chance, a lone

flower uprooted by the passing plow.

.

Testing the Waters

.

After a day or three alone at home,

I took the bus downtown today to do

some things I had to do despite the ban

on leaving your apartment and putting

yourself in the possible position

of contacting other human beings,

any of whom could have contracted the

disease of the moment, but since they all

thought that I could have been a carrier,

they kept a good six feet or more between

us and only a handful rode the bus.

I asked the driver if there was any–

“Saturday,” he said without my asking

the question, “It’s Saturday all week long.”

.

Be Careful What You Wish For

.

Okay, I’ve been hoping for some event

to occur to relieve me of the duty

to show up Monday for jury duty,

not that I’d hate it, but in the event

that the trial, if I were chosen, would

go on and on for weeks without being

resolved and keep me from my job, being

a teacher, who can’t cut class when he would,

and somebody in the collective has

said, be careful what you wish for, for you

may actually get it, which I have

never taken seriously, but has

happened big time recently; perhaps you

have noticed: all the free time I now have…

.

Don Riggs is author of Bilateral Asymmetry, his poetry has appeared in many publications and he teaches several courses for the Department of English and Philosophy at Drexel University.

.

.

Four Poems by John Macker

.

Exile

.

If I stay out here in this spring garden

exile long enough, the sun will return.

They say at the bottom of the gravest doubt

there is satori: it’ll brighten

even the dimmest of our sad hearts. I’m

missing their life stories already, their

voices compatible with all the other voices,

the cordiality, timorousness or genius

of their incomplete sentences.

.

I follow a shovel into the earth. This is what

the desert once was, a brazen hike through

unaccounted for territory, where the

inarticulate prayers rise like smoke signals,

easily believed and dispersed.

.

No answers

from the government or the bobble-headed Poe

figure all dressed in black on my desk or the

photo on my wall of the firing line of Apaches,

     “fighting terrorism since 1492.”

To reconcile what matters most with what might not,

these brazen sorrows,

                                    the first apricot tree blossoms

puncture the frigid air.

.

Imaginary Dolphins of Venice

.

The wishful thinking of dolphins swimming

in the canals of Venice

lousy panacea, beautiful hallucination

not to mention serendipitous swans, the

color of no more war.     Social distancing is

six feet to a thousand miles depending on

the color of your eyes. This light breeze-

spiked chime sounds either resigned or

aloof, I can’t tell which, and the thrashers

emote as though nothing is as communicable

as music.

.

The space between myself and everyone else

advances with age and I’m aging by the speed of sound.

This morning there was chicken sausage sizzling

and scrambled eggs, scents filled the kitchen.

Empire is now sharing a cup of coffee with the

rest of humanity. I don’t even know their names!

Empire is her holding me like I was the last

hermitage on earth. Our berserk dogs need their

Sunday hike, bereft of parishioners and sometimes

I don’t think the desert will summer us out of this

any more than dolphins will carry our grey ashes

out to sea.

.

The Day Ornette Coleman Played “Sadness.”

.

The deadened sky worships Buddha anarchy

I smile at the flummoxed president

New York Home Improvement Jesus says

we all ought to get together for the

future of jazz in America. Did you know

that at 8:45 a.m. hominid rush hour

someone on earth became a mother

a rockstar    a Golem     a bluebird

or eats a peach blessed by the pope?

Performs a black mass

watches a busy urban river

lose all of its nerve endings?

.

I watch my wife undress and I bounce

a feather off of her shadow, chilled April

light, a lost season’s pink moon.

The world prepares Ornette’s lips again

for Sadness.    Through the early spring cobweb

of a window, one shovel full of compost

after another. Not so far away on the steps

of the capitol, armed true believers defy the wind.

.

Without a Mask

.

I’m a pariah in the produce department

stuck between the okra and pomegranates

between a celery stalk and a hard place.

Americans in Sprouts are avoiding me

like the plague. I am Judah Ben-Hur’s

desperate leper.      I show them my

disposable gloves, one for each damned

hand and they see only my face indelibly

etched, a wizened map of pestilence and

war. I’m obviously from some alien land

that refused to protect itself from assault:

What did Macbeth do?      Believe Burnham

Wood or his own lying eyes?

.

All they see is a miscreant who quit shaving,

who came from some disheveled 1950’s Auden-

scape that “reeked of stale coffee grounds, tarry

nicotine and toe jam mixed with metro pollution

and catshit . . .”

.

A teenager was sanitizing all the cart and basket

handles. All the shoppers had my number and it was

tattooed on my face where a mask should’ve

been, protecting them from my army of

pathogens.     I social distanced my cart

up to the register. Next time, I’ll wear my

homemade mask to protect, if nothing else,

my compromised anonymity.

.
John Macker’s most recent books of poetry are Atlas of Wolves and The Blues Drink Your Dreams Away, Selected Poems: 1983-2018, which was a finalist for an Arizona/New Mexico Book Award. For several years he was contributing editor to Albuquerque’s Malpais Review. He has published 11 books of poetry. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

.

.

Pandemic Spring, with Azaleas by Lorna Wood

.

Isolate behind our glass,

feverishly wiping our droplets,

we are interrupted.

.

Wantonly they gather on boughs

that have given their all to bend

under the mad choir.

.

They hide their fragile stamens coyly in

crumpled white petals like nested tissues.

They flaunt themselves from delicate pink but

full-throated clusters, aspire unashamed

from lavender blooms, or (nostalgically)

with red and white stripes, hint at holidays:

aprons, candy stars, carefree homecomings.

.

Rank on untidy rank, the choristers,

trumpet mouths agape, peal out

rebukes. Their thoughtless burgeoning

is not for us. We must turn

to sterile wisdom, fervid fears.

.

Lorna Wood is a violinist and writer in Auburn, Alabama, with a Ph.D. in English from Yale. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in DASH, great weather for MEDIA’s 2020 anthology, Leaves of Loquat V (second prize, 2018 Loquat Literary Festival), Poetry South. Lorna has also published fiction, creative nonfiction, and scholarly essays, and she is Senior Editor of Gemini Magazine. Follow her at https://lornawoodauthor.wordpress.com

.

.

Days at Home by Michael Steffen

.

The fridge hums early in the morning with

unsettling urgency to get out of

the house, though it should know by now, a month

of Sundays on, we’re hanging in the cave

another day, and likely will all through

the merry month of May. The garbage trucks

groan out the window where little else moves.

The world for drama ‘s lost our look to Netflix,

gatherings on Zoom to beguile the distance,

a book on Churchill with a cup of tea,

this silence in the sky looming. It dims

unseen and weird like something out of science

fiction, all in subdued anxiety.

It’s spring. Leaves are dangling from their limbs.

.

Michael Steffen lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts. His poems have been published, including in Another Chicago Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Connecticut Review, Ibbetson Street, and recently in The Concord Saunterer, His first book of poems, Partner, Orchard, Day Moon, was published by Cervena Barva Press in 2014.

.

.

Leakers: a Covid Poem by Matthew Ussia

.

Dead spring falls

in the neighborhood

warm breezes but

too early for shade

.

Libby is eager

to pull me out of a

webinar lecture PowerPoint

and into the empty streets

.

the busses roll by empty

she lunges at squirrels

three walks a day makes

the era of social distancing

the time of her young life

.

And while she stops

to sniff a tree-trunk

I wonder

how many folks

are in these houses

.

asymptomatic

when they went

into self-quarantine

.

now liquefying into

their mattresses

becoming one

with the floorboards

until the neighbors

notice the smell.

.

Matthew Ussia is an English professor, writer, and thereminist from Pittsburgh.  Previous works have been featured in the Dreamers Anthology, Winedrunk Sidewalk, The Ekphrastic Review, and the Open Mic of the Air Podcast.

.

.

Five Poems by Belinda Subraman

.

Going Inside

3-17-20

.

Here I am eating

the best snacks

I have for quarantine

forcing myself to the backyard

planting flowers and buddhas

building a garden

nourishing peace

grasping for calm

with panic vibes darting

the atmosphere.

I meditate neurotically

paint, write these notes

to the world from El Paso

where I self-isolate now

with a dry cough

occasional sneeze

slight sore throat

addicted to pandemic tv.

.

Isolationship 

3-31-20

.

Nearly a thousand died today in the USA

of the novel coronavirus.

I push myself to do the solitary walk outside

as my husband is not well enough to accompany me.

.

I’ve made a thick green womb

around a tree

in my backyard garden

I can no longer buy plants, pots or dirt

but I can split profuse aloe vera

and it likes stretching out

filling in new places it is welcome.

An aloe finger offers itself

from an elevated perch

next to my outdoor chair.

It actually curves on the end

as if it wants to be held.

I clasp its cool finger

and feel comfort

and connection to life.

Isolated in quarantine

I take comfort where I can.

I have a husband, two cats

and plants who love me.

.

Brief Escape Bummer

4-9-20

.

The trip to the fast food place

wasn’t exciting as I expected.

Three people were clumped

behind the window laughing,

one handing out food

with no mask or gloves,

yet we ate it

sitting in the car

outside a park

closed due to Covid-19.

.

El Paso had 225

confirmed cases today

and one death.

.

Quarantine felt safer,

a huddling in a womb,

cozy and familiar

with someone I love.

.

Home is a comfortable prison

and I just wanted to go there.

.

El Paso: 393 Confirmed Cases, 6 deaths

4-16-20

.

I’m living an inverted dream

waking up in a nightmare

of being trapped in a 50s

black and white B movie

bad script, stiff actors.

When the villain shoots

the Sheriff with the prop gun

he dies. At first we think

his acting has improved

but the fake blood doesn’t stop

because it’s real.

The stone stare

of the whitening face

is becoming a monument

to life, a reminder it all ends.

He won’t get up again.

.

The killer is invisible.

The theaters are closed.

Life is not a movie

and this isn’t a dream.

.

Tonight We Tried Out For a Sci-Fi  Movie

April 18, 2020, El Paso: 505 cases/ 8 deaths

.

We were two old hippies

on a mountain top in a cool wind.

One sat banging on a clanky

knock-off pan drum

while the other played the car door

with one hand

clicking the fingers on the sun visor

with the other.

People may have been stunned

entertained or bemused

three parking spaces apart

while the deadly unseen

stalked and threatened.

.

From the darkness arose

music to match the mood.

We were aliens who hear

another register

no human can detect

pleasing our own race

in another galaxy

saluting our infinite connection

to all graced to hear

together touched by grief

and compassion

with hope for at least

the most boring day we ever had

before Covid-19.

.

Belinda has been writing and publishing for about 30 years. Her own writing has grown to span a vast array of subjects, styles and publications. She has traveled in over 20 countries, lived in Europe for 6 years and was part of an East Indian family for 22 years. These cross-cultural experiences often inform her work as well as her experiences as a Registered Nurse. These days her poetry, stories, and art can be found in hundreds of journals, reviews, anthologies, books and chapbooks. Since 1994 her archives are housed at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, in the Center for Southwest Research.

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War and Peace By Susan Champion 

 .

How to retain our peace?

In this germ war

.

Enemy hidden, like a sniper

Bullets ejected silently

Not from your enemy,

Your best friend, your neighbour, your child

…. This war, turned feral, wild

So

How to retain our peace?

In this germ war

 .

Stay home, you’re not alone

Sing praises, rejoice!

With gratitude, for life

For love, give voice

In prayer

For those in danger

Warriors, going over the top

To save a stranger

.

How to retain our peace?

In this germ war

.

Remember older wars, conquered

Real or imagined, you came through

Learnt to cope with loss

Regained your sanity

Among the broken pieces, tossed

Into your soul, your brain

Put your trust in Jesus

To regain your peace again

 .

Susan Champion  April 2020

Alicante, Spain

.

.

Three Poems by Carlos Hernández Peña

.

hibernation, beginning spring 2020

.

so, during the day
parents work from home
while kids are schooling on line
.
at night, there are no concerts, no shows,
no theatres for plays or films,
no restaurants, coffee shops or bars
.
streets and parking lots
like airports and train stations
also, pretty much empty—
people fear their savings
will be emptied soon, too
.
like at the grocery stores, toilet paper
gone within a few hours
among other hygienic and food items
.
until 8pm, so far, only open spaces are open
most of us enjoy that—since temples
and gyms have also been closed
.
where is Gretchen? —I’d say it myself:
perhaps, this is just a reminder
from Mother Earth, to stop fighting
among our arrogant selves, instead
care for each other, including her, Earth
.
daily walk, Thursday, March 27, 2020
.
floating shadows of apparently aimless branches—
my thoughts about our current predicament:
confined to present safety and uncertain future—
another day, another walk, connecting smiles
and greetings, we are on a sci-fi stage with COVID-19—
who will come to our rescue—
can’t jump into these branches like a monkey
for sanctuary far above in the clouds
or deep into the water… how long patience—
.
cold spring outside my window, a never-ending weekend shutdown
.
this is not a fork on the road, this is not a mirador
across endless fields at the top of some high mountain
.
neither that clear moment in time
where you can see forever, no, it’s more like a stop—
.
regardless of where you were or where you are,
corona virus doesn’t care about delicate health
.
of relatives, friends or bank accounts,
a new romantic relation, traveling plans,
.
the last months of the school year, or daily work…
almost all came to a stop: such an uncertainty
.
hasn’t hovered in our time this long, philosophers
and mystics perhaps disagree with scientists—
.
none trust politicians—not quite our best hope, better
befriend nurses and doctors, now—show them gratitude
.

Carlos Hernández Peña was born in Mexico City and is the author of Moonmilk and Other Poems. He translated into Spanish Behind God’s Back by Kányádi. His work appeared in Drunken Boat, Fox Chase Review, US1 Worksheets, Hayden’s Ferry Review and other journals.  He recently retired from Segal, employee benefits consultants and actuaries in Princeton, New Jersey.

.
.
2020 by Phil Saunders
.
empathy’s spirit
empties into deep currents
chasms of disaster
.
in cries for relief
songs and jokes bring lost laughter
soothe for fearful hearts
.
unwanted curves speak
globe’s painful barometer
our lives saved or lost
.
for the common good
severe measures presented
isolations test
.
short term wilfulness
fuelling disaster’s whirlwind
undoing good work
.
country lives fearing
strangers bringing pestilence
joining fires ruin
.
facing people’s loss
Treasury’s bounty given
hard line rules foregone
.
one’s dignified Queen
contrasts pompous President
inspiring subjects
.
during ‘great lockdown’
creativity soared
giving morale wings
.
minds looking forward
passed current never never
awaiting respite
.
work in progress – 29 March to 20 April 2020
Phil Saunders – Belair, South Australia
.
.

Two Poems By Arlyn LaBelle

.

The morning that you died, I read about a flood

.

about the earth growing soft, walls

splitting like fruit.

.

I would not have waited either.

.

There is no place to store

our grief, no

white walled room

pierced with uniforms

for mourning, no

flowers,

.

so when it comes we breathe

opened mouthed, like children.

I’m found

sitting on the floor.

.

When they mail me things of yours

they will sit in a corner of my room

for days, a floor adrift in muddy waves

until they cannot harm me.

.

I built a cave in my body

.

for the three of us to hide.

I will do the breathing for us.

They will not take you

outside.

.

Arlyn LaBelle is a poet and flash fiction writer living in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared multiple times in the Badgerdog summer anthologies as well as The Blue Hour, LAROLA, JONAH Magazine, The Oddville Press, Songs of Eretz, Grey Sparrow Press, Cease, Cows and The Southern Poetry Review.

.

.

Two Poems by Peter Scheponik

.

Flowers and Loneliness

.

Violets and dandelions, what pleasure they bring

with their purple petals and sunshine smiles

lining the grass along the edges of the walking path

running beside the Perkiomen Creek.

In the distancing of these lockdown days,

the closeness of these flowers have a way

of healing my heart, of filling my soul

with the promise of new life, of being whole,

even when the world is spinning out of control

with separation that makes me lose my balance.

Until I see these perfect blooms,

offering beauty to brighten darker moods,

to lift my mind to higher realms,

to make me see my better self,

petal by petal, making a heaven of this hell

of feeling alone.

.

Easter Sunday Elegy

.

There was such a ruckus raised when the churches were closed for Easter.

Headlines of the Pope preaching to an empty courtyard in the Vatican.

Bocelli’s Ave Maria filling the streets of Milan.

People bemoaning the fact they couldn’t gather in the Father’s house

to praise the Son on His special day.

But I say, what is all this fuss?

Is not the blue sky a cathedral roof?

Is not the flowering earth a cathedral floor?

Do not the birds’ wings bring to mind the angels?

Does not the return of the tulips and daffodils ring belief

in rebirth and resurrection?

Do not the robins sing sweet hymns of musical perfection?

What need have we of mortar or stone,

of steeples or stained-glass windows?

Whether we’re in a group or all alone, God’s doors are always open.

There are congregations of faithful trees, whispering prayers

through the lips of their leaves.

There are flocks of birds like practiced choirs, singing alleluias

that bless the hours.

And God, in His holiness, richly showers His countless blessings on all.

.

Peter Scheponik has recently been published in Adelaide, All the Sins, Big Windows Review, Boned: Skeletal Writings, Del Sol review, Grey Sparrow Journal, North of Oxford, Ottawa Arts Review, Peeking Cat Poetry, Poetry Pacific, Red Eft review, Sincerely, Smoky Blue Magazine, The Black Lion Journal, The Phoenix, Time of Singing, Visitant, Westward Quarterly, WINK: Writers in the Know, The Wire’s Dream, and Streetlight Press.

.

.

Nostalgia in the Year of the Plague by David Kozinski

.

At the PNC in Graylyn Shopping Center,

I knocked on the lobby door

wearing accoutrements of a bandit

or a surgeon; waited, communing with the ATM,

watching crows and gulls own the parking lot

through the big wide windows.

.

Long ago, when shares of companies

came in paper form – as ornately inked as currency

in violet, indigo, rust, oxblood, olive –

I lodged my sheaves in a rental at the bank.

When I was told, by my girlfriend, no less,

that I was a cold S.O.B.

I said I liked stopping by the branch

on a chilly morning, opening my box

in a cozy cell and spending

a warm quarter-hour renewing acquaintances

with my blue chip buddies.

They stood for support, traded only in facts,

always presented splendidly, and spoke quietly

if at all.

.

Now those friends are gone – consigned to insubstantiality,

memorialized in artless keystrokes. Yet, somehow

I need a bigger box – for wills, testaments,

titles, bits of jewelry, death certificates,

deeds both current and done.

.

Instead of handing the little key

to the woman who led me to the vault

she had me slip it in with my latex-gloved fingers.

We exchanged muffled pleasantries

about strange days, about Easter

that was more like Halloween and I joked

that I hadn’t walked into a bank wearing a mask

in a very long time – and by appointment,

no less. She chuckled at that, even though

she’d heard that one before,

like earlier that morning, more than once.

.

.

A Reckoning by Maria Keane

.

I beg

to hear the river rushing

an incessant rocking

down a deep corridor

where darkness—

it’s there

I am tied to it.

.

Not even wings can free me.

from the black

for a reason we suppose—

is for the good.

.

Night- blooming  trees

feed a need to breathe.

Their perfume

saturates the senses

splinters a fracture

to eliminate hysteria.

Walking through a web

I break, unraveling

the first silence

A Reckoning

.

2.

.

under the sole edict

of sound.

I see it now

and quench some dark history

in the presence of anxiety.

.

I will walk in shadow,

hold on to murmers,

listening for you to arrive just in time.

You reduce the havoc of the trees

repair my will

to believe

all things are only in the moment.

.

.

The Spiritual Aftermath by Ben Mazer
.
After the war, we happened across the grounds
of a closed up manor, abandoned for many years,
and there we sat a long time, making vows
to stay together millenniums beyond
the crooked smile of the grocer and his pounds
of fish piled into newspapers at evening,
at evening when the swirling clouds let down
their blues and magentas to the city’s frown.
You in your fine-spun cloak of scarlet wool
throughout the war have felt the pause and pull
of many a district, seen from overhead
while every sleeping person is in their bed,
and scattered thus, throughout the city’s streets,
divined how all of history revisits
these scenes where many a cheerful orphan played,
and through the long hours we have watched and prayed.
Thus we commemorate a burnt out time,
sparseness of flowers, in a springtime clime.
.
The looms have made a wartime peace again,
and sough the earth with temporary flowers,
that blossom brightly from the earthen men,
and promise fills the silence of our hours,
taking long walks over hills, across the fen,
relieved of our extraordinary powers
by deaths that do not fail to tell us when
the bells engorge the hills with all their sound,
or when strange wraiths of children gather round
to fill with distant laughter tops of trees,
mysterious burdens of the diocese.
Twenty years we had of it in exile
from each other. Luck has come our way.
With patience and with slowness through each day
we learned to talk again, we learned to smile.
.
The wind was strands of Dracula, children playing,
we sailed all day the river in a punt,
after great loss were in it for the hunt
after the secret of our early maying.
But each was quiet, and spoke none too soon,
of fragmentations of the lunar June
that jarred and turned us in the depths in saying,
and brought us to the hour of our Lord
the strong inaction of our strange accord.
.
Once before the war, a secret garden
had been the locus of our shy inquiries.
And though by force I never knew your mind,
I saw you weeping in my inmost dreams,
yet I was paralyzed to tell my love,
a young man with insoluble dreams.
But when I left you, then I fell apart,
and went a way that left me no recourse
to action in the first spring of my youth,
who in the secret garden knew I loved you.
Now with a caution that is politic,
and dressed in woolen cloaks to warm the winter,
we sit a long time on a burnt out grounds,
assessing the increments of our separation.
.
Trains glide and hurtle to the countryside,
letting on passengers, compartments slide
open, the evening light is coming on,
that cuts through the thick gray of English day,
with English armour steeped in manor halls
professing patience and a little knowledge,
to the child’s coloring book the very edge,
ancestral portraits hanging on the walls,
how natural the words they say.
A disappointment at best, the lurching stops
above the balding heads and at the tops
of imagination’s temporal-spatial spread,
of ideas that maintain the mingling thread
of mail, and ledgers, a new rubber bra,
to hold the sportsman in his hunting awe.
These are the thoughts the evening meditates on,
whistling against armaments and bombs,
the poor of England are still in their wombs.
.
But here in New England different worlds apply,
with rustic beauty set against white spires,
golden and glowering as a fatal day,
in company of your pure white array.
Why is it that I always want to die?
Was it myself had taken you away
from sight, for always, seeking to be blind,
so honourably to revulse my mind,
Sebastian sung out by the chapels’ choirs.
I come back and walk there with you still.
There is no other urge I have to kill.

.

Ben Mazer is the author of several collections of poems, including White Cities (Barbara Matteau Editions, 1995), Poems (Pen & Anvil Press, 2010), January 2008 (Dark Sky Books, 2010), New Poems (Pen & Anvil Press, 2013), and The Glass Piano (MadHat Modern Poetry Series, 2015). He is the editor of The Collected Poems of John Crowe Ransom (Un-Gyve Press, 2015), Selected Poems of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (Harvard University Press, 2010), and Landis Everson’s Everything Preserved: Poems 1955–2005 (Graywolf Press, 2006), which won the first Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Foundation. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is the editor of The Battersea Review.

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.

.

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North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #1

Painting – Under the Corona Moon  by Belinda Subraman

Thanks to the poets for contributing to The Pandemic Issue #1 from North of Oxford. In order of  appearance we present: Howie Good, Marion Deutche Cohen, Alan Toltzis, Charles Rammelkamp, Gloria Parker, Len Krisak, Ed Krizek, Mervyn Taylor, Carl Kaucher, M. J. Arcangelini, Eileen R. Tabios, Bryon Beynon, Greg Bem, Richard Nester and John D. Robinson.

 

Flight into Darkness By Howie Good

I seem to have discovered my shadow side – a wardrobe with mystery contents, blue and purple and full of leprous spots. Which isn’t to say I feel sad or lonely. Rather, I’m noticing different details. The world right now, mostly it’s news of the virus. We first heard the rumors from travelers. Men: quiet, faces drawn; women: often sobbing. We didn’t believe them. The weather was just too beautiful. We lazed around, eating cherries, one basket after another, and ignored the shrill, jangly bird cries and the elderly stumbling down the road from time to time, buckling under their loads..

Howie Good is the author of What It Is and How to Use It (2019) from Grey Book Press, among other poetry collections.

.

March 2020 By Marion Deutsche Cohen

.

“Don’t touch your face,” we’re told, so then my nose starts itching.

And anyway, my face is lonely for my hands.

My hands are lonely for my face.

My body loves itself.

Every part of my body loves every other part.

“Stay six feet away,” we’re told

but my hands can’t get six feet away from my face.

.

.

Two Poems by Alan Toltzis

.

Coronavirus Sky

.

“In Los Angeles. . .air pollution has declined

   and traffic jams have all but vanished.”

                    The New York Times

.

Parting her pouting lips, the sky streamed in.

Blue swirled around her tongue, her teeth,

coating the insides of her cheeks. Jaws clenched,

she swallowed once and then again, becoming

the wild blue and feathered thing

she always expected she would be.

.

Rattled

.

Breath—damp, warm,

rhythmic—rose in small puffs

from the top of my face mask,

clouding my glasses.

.

We had set out

to hike the reservoir,

but the virus closed it.

So we skirted it instead,

edging along narrow curves

of hard-packed, yellow dirt

hemmed between road

and retaining wall

that braced the hillside.

.

And there, at shoulder height

atop the retaining wall,

tongue and fangs locked me in.

The rear half of the snake’s body

slowly slunk back and sideways,

defending itself—an unyielding

cacophony of gravel and rattle.

We veered off the path

into the street. Stunned,

shaken, giddy with relief,

we warned two hikers,

wearing bandanas,

desperado style over their faces.

.

That night,

clouds obscured moon and stars.

We felt their influence, anyway.

The rain started

and I considered three elements

that guide us in times of crisis:

safety, desire, love.

You pulled close, whispering a fourth:

                        witchcraft

and bit my shoulder

hard enough to make me wince.

.

Alan Toltzis is a native Philadelphian and the author of 49 Aspects of Human Emotion, The Last Commandment, and Nature Lessons. A two-time Pushcart nominee, he has published in numerous print and online journals including, Grey Sparrow, The Wax Paper, Black Bough Poetry, Eye Flash Poetry, and North of Oxford. Find him online at alantoltzis.com and follow him @ToltzisAlan.

.

The New Normal by Charles Rammelkamp

.

“Miss Ida’s failing,” Brenda told us.

We’d come across each other

on our afternoon walk through the park,

like a stroll through the prison yard,

our break from confinement,

all of us wearing face masks.

We stood ten feet apart,

on either side of the footpath.

“Marcia mentioned it to me the other day,”

Brenda went on, shaking her head sadly.

“At least it’s not the coronavirus.

She’s just running out of energy.

She’s what, ninety-three? Ninety-four?”

.

Miss Ida was the memory of the neighborhood.

She’d lived here most of her life.

She’d seen all the changes.

Her divorced daughter Marcia lived with her.

.

“She looked like she was losing it

at your Christmas party,” my wife remarked.

“We hadn’t seen her

since your last party the year before.”

.

A jogger came loping past then,

a young guy in shorts,

and we all backed off a few more feet.

.

“So you could tell?” Brenda asked

after he’d passed.

“Marcia’s even talking about hospice care.”

.

“I’m afraid we won’t see her

at your next Christmas party,” I lamented.

.

“If I even have one,” Brenda replied, grim.

“If we can have Christmas parties ever again.”

.

 Charles Rammelkamp is the author of The Secretkeepers, two collections of short fiction, A Better Tomorrow and Castleman in the Academy, and four previous collections of poetry, The Book of Life, Fusen Bakudan, Mata Hari: Eye of the Day and American Zeitgeist. Rammelkamp is is currently Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore and Reviews Editor for The Adirondack Review. He lives in Baltimore with his wife, Abby, to whom he’s been married for about a million years. They have two daughters and two grandchildren.

.

.

The Line By Gloria Parker 

.

Because no one knows where to draw it, it shifts.

Maybe you’re coughing, have a fever or feel fine.

My Florida friend washes door knobs, wears gloves

to the mailbox and orders groceries over the phone.

The handier ones sew masks, pull weeds from their

gardens, make muffins and critique their poems online.

My brother calls to make sure I’m alive. I tell him I’m

weathering at home, watching the news, sleeping a lot.

We look for the right words: Russian Roulette, crapshoot,

a week of Sundays, a drag.

I find old dust masks in the basement, a half-full box

of yellowed latex gloves in the garage

and go to the grocery store at seven with the other

white-haired; half-armed, confused, in danger.

.

.

Virus by Len Krisak 

.

Submitting to the state’s demands

That tie us to the common good,

We keep our distance, wash our hands,

And act exactly as we should.

Lest we give in to plaguey death,

We mimic feckless Pontius Pilate,

Scrubbing up like Lady Macbeth

To keep our threatened lungs inviolate.

All this although we plot no killing,

Especially murder of a king.

Instead, we scour, contritely willing

An unseen microbe’s vanquishing,

Surely work that must be done

If we’re to say the war is won.

.

.

Pandemic By Ed Krizek

.

Today I took myself out

of quarantine.  The sun

was welcoming,

the temperature mild,

sky blue and almost cloudless.

.

We are walking

on charnel ground,

trying to avoid death

by embracing life,

from six feet away,

.

Reality is the present

as the virus multiplies.

I am not afraid of death,

.

just not ready,

.

yet.

.

Maybe tomorrow…

.

.

Three Poems by Mervyn Taylor

.

News of the Living

.

Where’s Leta, that I may greet and

 hug her, her arms, her face white

with flour. She’s been baking all

.

day, to help her son Curt with the

business. Is the shop flourishing,

the autistic grandchild doing well?

.

I can’t think whom else to inquire

after, except Dudley, who long ago

retired into himself, drew the covers

.

up to his chin, as if he knew this day

was coming. Ah, Leta, I know you’re

holding them all above water,

.

while the floodgates of this virus

open all around us. You’ll convert

your house into boat, kitchen into

.

galley, beds into rafts, blowing into

the sails till your air runs out, then

fanning with your apron, fanning.

.

Day of the Virus

.

Behind a wall, small voices. Children

play unseen in an overgrown garden,

paving stones leading to a closed gate.

They remind me that this curfew is

temporary. They’re safe from the madman

who walks into the grocery shouting

the things that are on his list: bread,

Vienna sausage his mother fixed before

she passed. The wall around the garden

is high. Their game is magical, mother-

in-law tongues for swords, lilies for hearts.

They swash and buckle, have tea under

an almond’s broad leaves. Sheltered

from the disease now plaguing the world,

they sip, using adult words, like devastation.

.

Corona Impromptu

.

In Napoli, they are playing a song,

voice and clarinet, notes flying

between buildings, high and low.

.

It started on a fifth floor balcony,

was answered by the sax on a

seventh, corner condo, and then

.

the chorus, hardly masking tears,

rolling the r’s in Rigoletto,

saving their breath for the rush

.

the flourish of the horn coming

from a ground floor apartment

lighting the kit of pigeons

.

landed on a ledge. Silence ruled

for a minute, and then the birds,

startled, took off, the high C

.

of a girl in a bedroom window

passed on to the doorman,

holding his hat like a tray,

.

carefully, as though a vaccine

had been found for the virus,

as the last note faded away.

.

Mervyn Taylor, a longtime Brooklyn resident, was born in Belmont, on the island of Trinidad. He has taught at Bronx Community College, The New School, and in the NYC public school system. He is the author of six books of poetry, including No Back Door (2010), recognized by the Paterson Poetry Prize for literary excellence, and most recently, Voices Carry (2017). Currently, he serves on the advisory board of Slapering Hol Press. A new collection, Country of Warm Snow, is due out in 2020.

.

.

Two Poems by Carl Kaucher

.

Virus

.

I fear the virus is replicating

in syncopation

to the sounds of 5th street highway

but as the nucleus bifurcates

it sounds like a third grader

playing violin atonally.

The vibrating scratch of sounds

echo hauntingly from an attic window

next door

the light of which seeps into

the mist sopped evening air.

.

It’s an infectious sound

contagious like Covid 19

which perhaps originated in a mutation of funk

swarming in a feted puddle in the gutter

saturated with oil and gross gobs of spit,

cigarette butts and funginated gunk.

This made me think of a TV program

where someone made a candle

formed from hairy ear wax

but, I digress.

.

As I was walking by, I thought

maybe if I just stay on the sidewalk,

keep my line of thought pure

within the crosswalk,

that virus wont set it’s lecherous looks

upon me.

See, it’s more the stuff of back alleys,

the venomous viper of vagabond ways

drifting down the rusted railroad tracks

into low and seedy spaces

moping around the outskirts of town.

.

As the puddle was percolating

a robust feverish scum

that fed the stream of mass communication

haunting every cell phone in town.

And, the violin sounded as a dry cough,

a screech of lyrical lung fungus

working the crowd into a frenzy

just shortly before

they raided the liquor store

and marijuana dispensaries

for medicinal purposes only.

.

Let’s hope optimism is still relevant

and we are being open to change.

Let’s hope the wiring doesn’t fray

and the plumbing doesn’t spring a leak.

Let’s hope that telemarketer

doesn’t phone at midnight again

or that the internet

doesn’t lose it’s signal strength.

Too many beautiful chords have been written

only to be misplayed.

Too many lives are being shortened

for us to protest a return to our trivial ways.

.

Echo

.

He was hanging at the corner

lookin all shifty and suspicious

while waitin for the bus.

Wearin a beige bomber jacket,

metallic aviator sunglasses,

his long gray hair tumbling out

of a wide brim leather fedora

and a big cross hangin from his neck.

Fixing a fierce pathogenic glare my way

as I pass, he says; “How ya doin man?”

I says; How are you sir?

“I’m alright, brother.”

.

Alright then, so

I further on a few more paces,

look back

then ask; Your Covid 19, aint ya?

“Naw man, I’m 18”

Oh Yeah?

“Yeah.”

Like, what have you been up to?

What brings you round these parts?

“I’ve just been hangin out,

you know, hangin.”

Hanging, huh?

“Yeah.”

Then I looked down at the ground,

kicked a small stone around,

commenced a few steps more,

looked up again and he was gone.

.

I knew it was 19

that arrogant son of a bitch

but all of a sudden I get hit

with a rock that some little kid threw

whose sister was sitting in a tree

carving ECHO on the trunk

with a big bowie knife

much too mature for her years

as I suddenly get jump started

by a big mad toothed rottweiler

with salivating fangs

thundering wildly towards me

while angrily barking my name,

blood trickling in my eye.

.

Seriously so,

next time I’ll stay at home folks

for strange things certainly are afoot.

.

Carl Kaucher is a poet from Reading, Pennsylvania who transverses boroughs and cities across Pennsylvania.

.

.

Three Poems by M. J. Arcangelini

.

Magic

.

With Ganesh above the entrance

and a mezuzah on the door jamb,

do I have enough magic to ward

an evil virus away from my home?

.

Do I need a crucifix? A pentagram?

What suggestions have you?

Three witches with a cauldron?

Buddhists chanting mantras?

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Or just latex gloves and N-95s?

And where can I get those?

Tell me, quick!

I feel symptoms coming on.

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On the Trail

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Dogs snarl at each other

One barks “Single file!”

The other barks back

“Where’s your mask?”

They strain at the leashes

Of civilized society and

The leashes stretch taut

Ready to snap at any time.

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This Morning’s Rain

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Would that today’s slow, steady rain

could wash the virus from the land,

could wash the fear from our hearts,

could erase the spaces between us,

could erase from the newsfeed the

incompetence of those with power,

could cleanse every surface,

could sanitize every hand,

could make it safe to breathe in public,

could bring our friends and family

back to us from death and distance,

could make it safe to obtain food,

could make it safe to greet a stranger,

could wash the fear from our voices,

could wash the virus from our lives,

with a simple slow and steady rain.

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Two Poems by Eileen R. Tabios

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Triggered

            —April 2020

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Mom and Dad taught me a lesson

that would break then make their heart

leak from their eyes to run in rivers

matching their facial wrinkles

if they learned I not only understood it

well but inhaled it to become part of me:

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hunger.

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To be immigrant is to be hungry,

as when Dad punished himself to stand

in line for bricks of government cheese

colored in a yellow so bright it must

have been radioactive. But the worst

is when the immigrant becomes full

-bellied only to remain hungry for

something more complicated to attain

in a new country: respect.

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Years later, I went through their life-

savings to attain a college degree—it

did not protect me: my husband and I

woke to an empty refrigerator one

day before the next day’s paycheck.

We were lucky; we could have used

a credit card we were fortunate to have.

But he was mindful of beginning to

carry credit card debt; he anticipated

that small card was the wrong step

on a very slippery slope that’d already

taken down many of our hungry peers.

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We got luckier. In the darkest of depths

of the cupboard lurked one more can

of tuna we swiftly opened and salted

and mayoed for dinner: tuna salad!

Visit me any day since and there always

lurk a dozen cans of tuna somewhere

in the house—a last wall of defense

against any attack, unforeseen or not.

To avoid its expiry dates, we donate

them every year to a food bank while

we replenish our valued soldiers stock.

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Then Covid-19. We were prepared

but hoping the enemy doesn’t vanquish

our warriors stock. May the frontliners

at the grocery stores survive and may

this battle end soon, end soon, end soon …

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Teepeed by Covid-19

      —after YouTube video “How It’s Made—Toilet Paper”

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Cancel visiting Rwanda’s

gorillas for too much You

-Tube videos on pulp

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-ing recycled paper

into descendants of Viking

wool, ancient Roman

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sponges, and royal French

lace. But let’s not ignore

the true prize: a chance

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to learn from what suddenly

makes us cringe from leaves

and corncobs—how we abused

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other species until, slyly,

the animals remind: nature

has always been Darwinian.

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Three Poems by Bryon Beynon

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Nurses

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Think of the humanity

behind the mask,

a gift of patience

for the enormous task;

challenges which continue

to descend on the mind’s calling.

The sublime stars light

you homeward,

guiding the engaged heart

from the darkness

at the inner window.

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The Balcony

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For months he lived

inside a room

with two single beds,

cane-chair, table, lamp,

shower, and the air-conditioning

generated at night

when he’d stand

on the outer edge

looking at the polished stars,

thinking of other worlds

turning round like faces afraid.

The silence of his balcony,

with no pollution or sub-zero

temperatures made time

more agreeable.

His sense of order

in life was to survive

as he dialled

a long-distance number,

the one kept inside

his head in case of emergency.

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The Truck Driver

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The headlamps burn

into the road

frightening the darkness

into prayer.

There is no security

only a vague memory

labelled with the past.

Each mile confirms

your panic.

You wish to travel home

but the night-rider

has taken over

your mind as fuel

burns in an engine

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Three Pandemic Poems. Greg Bem. April 2020

1

covid

continues.

Every blossoming tree

an aphorism.

Every flower

a world.

Dogs walked

Strollers pushed

Gazes averted

Voices muted

A land of inward seeing

endured breathing.

Through the masks that begin                    to shape,

 define,

 each position,

 each presence.

every love and every distance

2

I spend my time in dreams,

dreams of forms.

A neighborhood of wishes.

A wish list contains

wood, brick, concrete.

Garden beds are choruses.

Flash:

HorrorAwe a fantasy word.

The horrorawe of centering.

Sing:

Pull the nodes from temples.

Cease the electric waves.

Open:

A man I presume homeless

pulls it out and starts to piss.

More:   than words

 than sounds

 written into sidewalk weeds and dust

 with weak sprays of urine and frowns

3

Wishes of rolling traffic

Traffic that sees all and none as the same

Why do we see each other now?

And how, as well?

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Greg Bem is a poet and librarian living on unceded Duwamish territory, specifically Seattle, Washington. He writes book reviews for Rain Taxi, Yellow Rabbits, and more. His current literary efforts mostly concern water and often include elements of video. Learn more at gregbem.com.

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Alone Together by Richard Nester

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How much does a coronavirus weight?

If one sat on a bee’s whisker, could the bee still fly?

Would the flowers shoo them away

in fear, would they miss them?

Heavy enough, I guess, like poison popcorn balls.

Too many of the sex-crazed devils

crowded in too small a space can bring down a city,

a country. A fleet of lead-lined freezer trucks

can’t haul off our sorrow. We’ve no choice

but to widen our gaps—hearts as big as Wyoming—

or they’ll widen them for us, the narrow bastards.

They don’t wear masks. They don’t read

the Constitution.  Bits of what we once were,

starving for more, with their trauma-circus clusters

of stars. A grain of wheat is the size of a pyramid

to them. Imagine Egypt without cats.

I hear them gnaw my sleep.

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Richard Nester has twice been a fellow of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He has published essays on social justice topics in The Catholic Agitator, a publication of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, and poetry in numerous magazines, including Ploughshares, Seneca Review, and Callaloo and on-line in The Cortland Review, Qarrtsiluni and Inlandia. He has three collections of poetry published by Kelsay Books, Buffalo Laughter, Gunpowder Summers, and Penguin Love. His reviews of poetry have appeared in North of Oxford.

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Three Poems by John D. Robinson

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Italy: Covid-19: Story

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He walked into the supermarket

and filled the hand-basket with

food and then queued, keeping

to the social-distancing

guidance:

at the checkout he explained

that he had no money to pay

for the food but he and his

family needed the food: he

was not threatening or

aggressive in any way, pitiful,

humble, even pathetic:

security was called and he

was escorted out of the store

empty handed:

what the fuck would you

have done?

this is a tough one

but I’m fucking soft so

possibly would have said

to the guy look, come back

in 3 hours and I’ll try

and have something

for you and then maybe

asked for donations from

colleagues and customers:

could you have gone home

taking the face of this

man with you?

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Only When

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Only when it’s taken away that

you realize the beauty, the wonder

of freedom,

to walk freely,

without fear

amongst brothers and sisters,

it’s only when it is no

longer there, the love, compassion,

the humanity,

the common sense

of intelligence,

it’s only when you find these

things taken for granted

taken away, that you begin

to know what a fucking

hellish time we can create

for one another:

there’s not much else to care

for in this brief life

except for love and it’s

continuation.

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Thank Fuck

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The entire globe in lock-down:

supermarket shelves empty of

bathroom/toilet goods, the

panic of not being able to

wipe your ass with tissue

paper, of hand cleansing

cream: shelves empty of

dried foods: pasta and

rice: tins of produce

growing thinner,

vegetable and fruit

becoming scarce but

along with clothing and

electrical goods, the

shelves of wine were

well stocked and thank-

fuck for that small

mercy of comfort

at the moment.

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John D. Robinson is a poet from the U.K. You can find his most recent collection, “A Hash Smoking, Codeine Swallowing, Wine Drinking Son of a Bitch” here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1073081400?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

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