MY SIX-MONTH DAR MEMBERSHIP

by Tricia Knoll

The Joining

Because of a maple fife.

My mother did the hard work
chasing down county seats
tracing that Webb girl,
genes where you got a second toe
longer than your big one.
The shoe fits when you honor that toe.

My grandmother, widow of the warden
wanted the grid filled
back to the Webb House,
that bawdy tavern
Braintree’s seat of battle plans.
My mother did the bidding
of grandmother’s nagging, finding

Jabez Cleveland, a fifer
in the Connecticut 8th regiment
died, thirty-eight at Bunker Hill.
He played a simple six-hole flute
of infantry battle calls
wake ups, soldiers, marching tunes
over greens, through woods
in-the-reeds shepherds songs
legacy of wind in thigh bone.

His thick blood of revolution
cries in my veins
--and in yours--
this must end
and heats me up
too many flag-draped coffins
limb from limb
so much this earth has given

Keep the simple six-hole flute
at your fingertips, my girls,
your pulse a beating drum.

The Parting of Ways

I thought learning
of generals and simple bravery
powder horns and compasses
would help me know

Jabez and his flute
the stepping drum
his blood, mine
that of my girls

Then bowed gray heads
chins to chests with golden pins
ask God
to bless America
there the flute calls me elsewhere

My Jabez plays
a humpback whale song,
a mother’s shrill screams in Gaza
above a bloody baby cradled,
plays for soldiers on both sides
wanting home
for monarchs out of milkweed,
AIDS orphans --
an aching god does not single out
the few

or ignores adopted babies
Bangladesh, Korea,
China, the Ukraine --
their blood becomes
our dearest family blood
they too may
hear a Jabez and his fife

I tuck his tune inside
my breath of reed
and boiling breast
to change direction.



Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet who is also a master gardener and a frequent writer of letters to the editor of The Oregonian. Recent poetry publications include RAIN Magazine, VoiceCatcher, Verseweaver, Muddy River Poetry Review, and Pirene's Fountain.

THE NEWTOWN MASSACRE

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

Human Giraffe by Subwaysurfer. Image source: Art Jumble Blog

When my children were little
I used to tell them that I was a giraffe
You’re not a giraffe, Daddy!
They would insist
But I stuck to my story
Oh yes I am

When their friends came over
My children would say
Our Daddy says he is a giraffe
But he’s not
The friends would look at me quizzically
And I would say
Oh yes I am

One year I decorated a birthday cake
With a pink and green giraffe
That’s me I said
And although my daughter was growing older
And no longer amused by the same old routine
She indulged me and said
You’re not a giraffe, Daddy
But I could see in her eyes
What she was really thinking –
Whatever
And soon I stopped being a giraffe
Once and for all

I remembered all this today
As I stood silently in the rain
In our little town’s park
With one of my grown daughters
And a score of others grieving the gunning down
Of twenty school children in Connecticut
And I thought about
All the silly-dumb-boring family jokes
Those murdered children will not hear
Over and over and over again
About all the stories that will not be read aloud
About the bikes and games and snazzy sneakers
That won’t get bought for birthdays
About the pet names and nicknames
That will go unused
Missy, Natty, Buddy Boy, Baby Cakes
Mikey, Skeeter, Nan

I believe I chose to be a giraffe
Because it seems such an odd and improbable creature
Something Evolution doodled on a notepad
During a long dull meeting
A goofy-looking non-threatening beast
That doesn’t scare little ones
A gentle quiet Mister Rogers kind of animal
With a body as big as a house
Where a child could take shelter during a storm
And be safe

It is morning in the Serengeti
Clear skies 60-plus degrees and climbing
And while giraffes are waking up to another day
Of browsing in the treetops
And caring for their young
A long cold dark night begins
In Newtown, Connecticut
And in the wintery, violence-wracked heart of America


Buff Whitman-Bradley is the author of four books of poetry, b. eagle, poet; The Honey Philosophies; Realpolitik; and When Compasses Grow Old; and the chapbook, Everything Wakes Up! His poetry has appeared in many print and online journals. He is also co-editor, with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley and Sarah Lazare, of the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He has co-produced/directed two documentary films, the award-winning Outside In (with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley) and Por Que Venimos (with the MIRC Film Collective). He lives in northern California.

AFTER READING THE HEADLINES

by Howie Good

Image source: Julia's Journical

I went
along the road.
Gravediggers
followed.
They followed
everywhere,

eavesdropping
on painful
memories

being
described
in hushed
tones.

Suddenly
the sun set.
The red
came off
on my hands.

Nobody said,
How sad.

Night was
a dark room.
The stars
were the holes
in the ceiling.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

by Rhiannon Thorne

"This evening, Michelle and I will do what I know every parent in America will do, which is hug our children a little tighter, and we'll tell them that we love them, and we'll remind each other how deeply we love one another. But there are families in Connecticut who cannot do that tonight . . ."

Next year I will wrap you presents
and you will not understand the need for bows,
but will reach towards them for days
in anticipation.

I will fret my wardrobe decision: do I dress you
for photographs or in a pattern that will hide
your smudgy fingerprints?  Or maybe the floral one
your grandmother, your father's mother,
will surely buy you to match her couch.

You'll have to wear it sometime, anyways,
to appease her.

You will laugh, pressing slobbered fingers
into sticky cake, and scowl at the flash while I sing you
Happy Birthday; whisper in your ear:
it was the happiest day of my life.

In Connecticut, a former mother will spend the week crying.
She will wonder what flowers
she should order for your birthday: White roses
or something with color?

She will sink down to her knees on a fresh wound
with well established grass.

I love you, she will say; it was the worst day
of my life.


Rhiannon Thorne’s work has appeared/is forthcoming in Gr@wl!x, Surreal Grotesque, The Legendary, Ditch, The Junk Lot Review, Vox Poetica, Zygote in my Coffee, e-Fiction, and Fried Chicken and Coffee. She also co-edits the online publication cahoodaloodaling.

SHOWER OF BULLETS

"Will you still see meteors tonight, December 14, 2012?" --EarthSky

by Priscilla Lignori


Shower of bullets
replaced one of stars - heartbreak
in Connecticut


Priscilla Lignori is a psychotherapist in private practice and the winner of international awards for haiku poetry. The founder and teacher of Hudson Valley Haiku-kai, a community dedicated to studying and living the Way of Haiku, her poems have been published in the World Haiku Review, The Asahi Hakuist Network, Ko magazine, and The Mainichi Daily News.

NEWTOWN EPITAPH

by Alan Catlin

A circle of flags
lowered to
half-mast;

someone has been
killing our
children.

Alan Catlin has published numerous chapbooks and full-length books of poetry and prose, the latest of which, from Pygmy Forest Press, is Alien Nation.

CONCEAL AND CARRY

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

The families of victims grieve near Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman opened fire on school children and staff in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Adrees Latif

In a landmark announcement,  yesterday’s breaking news, licenses in Florida to conceal and carry, will reach one million, who’s willing to parry, as gun owners may also choose, to Stand Their Ground, and who will defend the dead victims found; who will speak for little children, in kindergarten class,  who dead and dying in numbers amass,  who clutching crayons and teddy bears, will carry horror in numbered  years,  who can no longer say, what we learned in Newton today, as gun fire boomed, and tiny bodies fell, who will give witness to what they can tell,  what they know and what they saw, who will add to the numbered law?


Lucille Gang Shulklapper is a poet , fiction writer , workshop leader, mother, and grandmother.