Poem By SIMON PERCHIK * She wraps your limp the way the sun marks out its darkness and along the ground pours a small circle –you’ll make it back she says, writes on a pad kept open how seabirds will call each other over and over force their feathers though your shadow too has taken on that phase […]
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DEAR SPIDER – By John Grey Ants are more efficient at what they do than people. Weeds can grow just about anywhere. Animals kill to survive not for pleasure. And they collect no gewgaws besides. A homeless man sits on the pavement, holding up a sign, with a cup before him that’s hungry for coins. Most people stride on […]
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Salt and Pepper White privilege it’s called and recently I learned its name although I’ve been white as a sheet for decades. Like breathing and eating I take white privilege for granted. I push a cart through a megastore in bib overalls and no one follows me and when I hail a cab in a snow storm, it picks me up. My freckles may be a stop sign. Not so […]
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HOW LEAVING HOME WORKS I need highways, infrastructure that can differentiate between the town where I grew up and the place I need to be. And a Ford that’s up to it, getting on but faithful, its leather bucket seats faded from their prime, but radio rock stations all preset and fifty times louder than the engine. Blacktop, […]
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Shining Through The Echo (For Robin Williams) – By Melissa R. Mendelson And Tragedy takes a bow for it has silenced the world under void, and hearts are now left shattered, shaken by news that such brilliance, such life has vanished too soon. But it does not go quietly. Tragedy might have its hands upon the laughter and tears once […]
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ON BEING SAFE His mantra starts out, “Warm, clean, comfortable.” He’s had his share of troubles — health, work, relationships. He’s never been consoled to hear, “Others have it so much worse.” Why would that make him feel better? How many people go hungry, combing dumpsters for food, or sleep in cardboard boxes in freezing weather? Others […]
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Destinations – By Gil Hoy A lizard crossed my path with no skin, Just armor for protection from car treads and sun tan lotion to keep the sun’s rays out. Its tongue had just scooped up an unsuspecting grasshopper who had hopped off a blade of glistening wet grass, not knowing what was coming— having just kissed the wife and […]
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NEVER KNOWING WHAT HIT (Based on the painting [above] by Danell Millsap of the Scotch Cap Tsunami at Unimak Island, Alaska, on the night of April 1, 1946, where all five Coast Guardsmen manning the lighthouse were killed [see www.semparpac.org/tsunami.jpg]) I ponder the Scotch Cap Tsunami And wonder just how it felt When impact dismembered your body From […]
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Flying a Sign – By Chrystal Berche Wild eyed woman, her hair a mess Shakes as she goes person to person begging for cigarettes A foot away an old man sleeps, his head pillowed on a graying jacket ‘Will work for food’ printed neatly on a sign tied to his chest What place is this where ‘flying a sign’ is […]
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NG NG21028982 – My National Guard Service Number 1967 I remember from an early age that when she wasn’t cursing, my mother chose NG – the car was NG, NG the refrigerator, my father, and me. And so in ’67, when fear and guilt masqueraded as angry conscience, and I managed to finagle my way out of the […]
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