Behind The Door – By Melissa R. Mendelson I don’t like to open the door, where the darkness lies for the darkness will drown me in forever, and the struggle will begin as my monsters will eat me alive. They’ve clawed through my skin and made me bleed deep, and I’ve done terrible, terrible things. And I struggled to shut […]
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Building Walls Someone there is who loves a wall, Piling stones on top of stones, To keep invading wetbacks out, To keep glass pearls secure. He lets our Southern neighbors know, In blaring braggadocio, That they must pay to build his wall, To keep it working as they go. “But the world has far too […]
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SANDHOUSE – By Elaine Nadal When her house was still standing, it sufficed as a place to bathe, eat, and sleep– a space for the familiar formed by strangers with the same blood drops sprinkled on the dirt, conspicuously evoking words that have been written on the stone walls of a cave– crushed, combined with sand to create a […]
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Poem By SIMON PERCHIK * So you let the water boil as if you were not yet born and already breathing it can barely make out the bubbles burdened by sunlight the way some ancient sea struggles inside, hangs on to bells –it’s a battered pot, beaten and the dead who still ask why reefs are needed […]
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HERO OR ZERO? To die on the battlefield leading a charge, Your body upon a shield, burned in a barge – An image heroic of Viking portrayal Approvingly stoic, quite worthy of hail. The fireman rushing pall-mall into blaze As on 9-11, the last of his days. No body recovered from building’s collapse. Just wife, children, mother to […]
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Sylvia’s Son I was wrapped in a towel like a bad dream, wet feet on linoleum. I was too preoccupied to see the cracked blood, to hear the silence until I was knee- deep in your tomb. Sometimes, I dreamt you were a baby being born, waking to a pain that was not yours, a motherhood I never had. It […]
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Early Morning, Tucson Foothills Shadows jag over rock and cactus playing tag with the rising sun, nature’s Rorschach asking me what these immense ink blots mean. This one’s the boogeyman scaring/scarring my daughter, that one’s a tarp smothering moist green fields of my youth, the one crest high a black stallion galloping away with loved ones’ years. […]
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BARBARIANS AT THE GATES Once Rome attained its pinnacle Remained on top of things. Though forces quite inimical Sought to destruction bring. Some conquered thought despicable Rome’s impositioning Of laws it deemed applicable When “Pax-Romana”-ing Four centuries continuous Spanned Romans’ reign as king Throughout the lands contiguous Mediterranean. Just like empires classical From whom […]
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You climb and these steps spread out in those rings trees still carry under their wings –you collect height and at night two at a time though the steps are chipped the inscriptions worn away staring off to the side –they will be first spruced back to life and at the top you move the sun back […]
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Sponging Up Succor I’m suffering through vinegary days, as if I’m Jesus at His Calvary. Arrested from my customary ways by modern versions of its harsh decree, I bend beneath the burden of my cross. Recalling laurels in Jerusalem, I’m painfully reminded of my loss who sport a fool’s cap for a diadem. As I secure my seat at […]
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