THE ENDURING PRESENCE

by Rick Gray

Archbishop Tutu ordered pumpernickel from the 9th Avenue deli
near the Anglican Rectory of Chelsea.

Still hot, he blessed the bread, his eyes going sly as he
broke the black loaf into little white bites.

I kept my eyes down, relieved for once to have
Ritual to contain my modern fear of miracle

As when, two years earlier, I stepped into Mandela’s empty prison cell,
Now a museum, and was boxed with a presence so enduring

I crossed myself defensively, and fled the ring.
Raising my eyes, I saw Tutu offering a cup of blood
                    
To wash down the dark flesh,
His eyes belly laughing at my little trembling.


Rick Gray served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and currently teaches at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. He was a finalist for the Editor's Award at Margie, and has an essay that will be appearing in the forthcoming book, Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock. When not in Kabul, he lives with his wife Ghizlane and twin daughters Rania and Maria in Florida.

WOMEN KEEP ON COUNTING

by Tricia Knoll

Image source: I love it when I wake up in the morning and Barack Obama is President.

For regular women like me
it’s possible to set an alarm
on any computer to remind
what day is most likely
what day is a bit late
what date is too late

Counting, getting to plus five
and no blood; we have been there,
regulars and irregulars
worrying
keeping silences

the want to be mothers
the can’t be mothers
the victims of others

the girl I knew
had to go to Mexico
and came back bloodied
sick and sterile
rocking in a chair
with her teddy bear

that was a long time ago
and women keep on counting


Tricia Knoll was a young woman before Roe v. Wade. She saw first hand the disintegration of a wonderful woman from a butchered abortion. Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet.

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.

GAZA REDUX

by David Radavich

From Yahoo News: "A Palestinian worker shovels sand as he repairs a damaged smuggling tunnel dug beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip November 26, 2012. Knee-deep in craters carved out by Israeli air strikes, Palestinians wielded shovels and planks to reopen tunnels used to smuggle in goods from Egypt to Gaza, as international aid agencies raced to replenish Gaza's supplies." Photo by REUTERS/Mohammed Salem.

This time invasion
may work.

Bombing, certainly.

We can’t allow ourselves
to be victimized.

You can’t complain
we shouldn’t assassinate
your leaders.

We have declared you
terrorists.

We define you.
We can kill if we choose.

Don’t blame us
for the consequences.

All blood is
not created equal.


David Radavich’s recent collections are America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love’s Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011).  His plays have been produced across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe.  He is currently president of the Charlotte Writers’ Club.