JERUSALEM IN SNOW, 1/10/2013

by Maryann Corbett

Image source: Occupied Palestine

The pious author of the book of Job

lacked maps of isobars to show him where

pressure allows the tongues of wet, warm air

delicately to probe
the hill country, tickling at slippery flows

where winter chill has settled on the height

of Zion. In his poems, only the might
of God breathes down the snows,
pure as surprises. What the psalm observed,

the morning news reveals: a world scrubbed clean.

Changed utterly. Pristine.

The stones of the Old City softened, curved;
old habits stalled; and humankind’s false starts

brought to a standstill. Ancient poets see

how snow grants us new vision, so that we

dream of our own changed hearts.


Maryann Corbett is the author of Breath Control (David Robert Books, 2012) and Credo for the Checkout Line in Winter, forthcoming from Able Muse Press. She has been a winner of the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize and a finalist for the Morton Marr prize, the Best of the Net anthology, and the Able Muse Book Prize. Her poems, essays, and translations have appeared in many journals in print and online, including River Styx, Atlanta Review, The Evansville Review, Literary Imagination, Measure, Subtropics, and The Dark Horse, as well as in a number of anthologies. New work is forthcoming in PN Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, and Barrow Street. She lives in St. Paul and works for the Minnesota Legislature.

MARS

by Howie Good

The god of carnage has grown

a balding man’s stringy ponytail.

Red, he says, means danger.

He shrugs his cruelly thin shoulders.

A tractor stands abandoned

in a field of what looks from here

like black puddles of blood.

The future will burn a full 40 days.

We will walk beside our coffins.

Starvelings will stare out

from behind barbed wire.

Mothers will shriek. There will be

nice grass in the cemetery.

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.

AFTER THE ELECTION

by Joan Mazza

Watercolor by Suzanne Mays-Wentzell

The sun should be out, beaming cheer
in celebration of a win for equal rights
and a president who tells the truth,
but today is gray and dreary, forecast
for wind and rain, maybe snow.

I didn’t stay up all night like some, tired
of the angry words, too angry, too,
at those who vote against their interests
for a man who lied and lied. I went to bed,
resigned to cope with heat or cold,

no matter how the winds of voting blew.
I rose to learn the winners, and asked
again what shelters we might find
when I still worry about the safety
of our vegetables and drinks, the air

we breathe. Taught to pray for happy
outcomes, for wisdom in our leaders,
recovery from illness, grief, addiction,
I know no one’s listening to wishes
no matter how cold and dark life seems.

Through weak morning light, the ground
is littered with this year’s leaves. Signal
to go inward, grateful for this home, space
where darkness means silence, warmth,
and no one shouting what god wants from me.


Joan Mazza has worked as a psychotherapist, writing coach, certified sex therapist, and medical microbiologist, has appeared on radio and TV as a dream specialist. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Perigee/Putnam). Her work has appeared in Kestrel, Stone’s Throw, Rattle, Writer's Digest, Playgirl, and Writer's Journal. She now writes poetry and does fabric art in rural central Virginia.

THE BEGINNING (WITH NO END)

by David Feela

Image Source: Freeology

In the beginning some man said
“Let there be rape”
and he saw that if it wasn’t divinely intended
it might not be legitimate,
so he made certain enough men
held positions of power
to keep an eye on the women
who claimed it had happened to them.
And there was whimpering
on the 1st day in November.

Then another man said,
“Let there be pregnancy”
and the men charged with
upholding God’s mind
knew it wouldn’t happen to them,
so there was much relief
on the 2nd of November.

And the Constitution said,
“Let there be elections”
so the men who had wives
pushed them in front of the cameras
to claim no matter what their husbands said
they were good men.
Infants were cuddled and kissed
all during the 3rd and 4th days.

Then the doctors said,
“Let there be amniocentesis”
and a window into life opened,
(though many pulled their shades)
which accounts on the 5th of November 
for the heat in Roe v. Wade.

By November’s election day a woman said,
“Let me make up my own mind”
but so many things had been said
the chance to lay the issue to rest
on the 7th day was pretty much dead.

David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book, The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays, How Delicate These Arches  , released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.

THE REPUBLICANS

by Martin Rocek

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
just look straight up if
you run off a cliff,
no need to heed science or gravity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
the stork only comes
to eager raped mums,
there's never unwanted gravidity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
if you're sick and can't pay
try the Tea Party way:
emergency room hospitality.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
if God guides your path
there's no use for math,
the deficit's paid by divinity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
the poor pay the tax,
the rich just relax
and let Bain take care of their equity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
don't bother with truth
--it's a folly of youth--
the facts are a dull technicality.


Martin Rocek teaches and studies theoretical physics at Stony Brook University.

WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES MEN

by Beate Sigriddaughter

When lightning strikes men, women beware!
Saul turns into Paul. Once playboy, now he declares
women off limits and men their head.
Luther turns from celibate monk to marriage
and proclaims that women have broader hips
so as to better sit on them at home while men
conduct importance elsewhere in the world.
Augustine, story has it, only saw lightning strike
something else. It affects him all the same.
Formerly playboy, too, he now pens spicy diatribes.
He knows whereof he speaks, condemning
women for having these beautiful bodies,
or even ugly ones, for that matter, inciting such
vicious and indomitable lust in men,
which bodies, even though their owners have no souls
and are stupid and useless, they nevertheless connived
to create purposely for the downfall of men,
just like Eve once frivolously fed an apple to Adam.
Because, you see, God created everything
except apparently women’s bodies, for which they are
entirely themselves to blame. God would have never
fashioned anything that vexing and demoralizing
to the peace of the stalwart masters of the universe.
Amen.


Beate Sigriddaughter is a US citizen currently living and writing in North Vancouver, Canada. Her work has received three Pushcart Prize nominations. She has also established the Glass Woman Prize to honor passionate women’s voices. Currently she is working on a novel called Tango.