CRUEL APRIL

by Judy Kronenfeld





                          after the Boston Marathon, and after seeing
                                the documentary, “Syria behind the Lines”


Crystalline cool days—bougainvillea
spills from our walls like rivulets
outdoing one another, like lavish
manes of brilliant, curly scarlet
tossed flirtatiously by the wind—
and in our yard, exploding galaxies
of snow-in-summer; popped up orange liqueur
poppy cups; torches of white iris…

Exploding fire, and the red ochre of blood

spattered over Boylston Street, as if a dark perversion

of Holi came frenzied through—no playful

faces splashed marigold, indigo,

saffron praising spring—leaving behind shreds

of clothes, glass, flesh…

And in Syria, somewhere, again
and again, convulsed young faces
buried in the chests of older men,
whose hands pull the faces in to blot out
what they’re seeing and their screaming,
so the fighting can go on.

Still in Syria somewhere—opulence
of nets of oranges and grapefruits
hanging above the fruit-juice stands piled
with lemons, carrots, melons? Is there hope
for cool sweetness in the throat—intensities
of blended watermelon, strawberry,
banana, milk, honey, mint—families strolling
in the cooling midnight streets, old men
playing chess on 2 A.M. sidewalks…?
             
On a talk show two broadcasters

argue almost raucously over

whether a newspaper was right

to cut off at the knees a photo

of a man’s legs blasted off below

the knees, in Boston…

And, somewhere, in Syria, again,
and again, a dreamy, peaceful
sweetness sweeps over the bearded face
of a very young man, many times wounded,
many times returned to the rebel lines—
who has already or will join al-Nusra—as he speaks
of his hope to become a martyr.

Here, at home, in California,
where the bougainvillea bursts
in a frenzy of bloom, two friends—a relative,
a poet—dead in the ordinary old way,
of early cancer, of old age.


Judy Kronenfeld’s most recent collections of poetry are Shimmer (WordTech Editions, 2012) and the second edition of  Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths, winner of The Litchfield Review Poetry Book Prize for 2007 (Antrim House, 2012). Recent anthology appearances include Before There Is Nowhere to Stand: Palestine/Israel: Poets Respond to the Struggle (Lost Horse Press, 2012) and Love over 60: An Anthology of Women's Poems (Mayapple Press, 2010). Her poems have appeared in many print and online journals such as Calyx, Cimarron Review, The American Poetry Journal, Fox Chase Review,  Foundling Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Hiram Poetry Review, Natural Bridge, New Verse News, The Pedestal, Poetry International,  Spoon River Poetry Review, Stirring, and The Women’s Review of Books.

PREAMBLE

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, open our floodgates to end political confusion, we are neither props nor emotional blackmailers, we are citizen cops, and justice nailers, we are the ones who know, you can’t easily track bombs that blow, limbs and lives apart, without a heart, that the NRA has erased, by not allowing taggits in gunpowder to be traced,  that one of us found the tarp bloodied, one of us found Congress studied a poll and a vote, not the body in a boat, who represents our collective desire to demand,  in this our democratic hallowed land, our voice to be respected, from the officials we elected.

Lucille Gang Shulklapper writes poetry and fiction.  She has been published in many journals and anthologies, as well as in four poetry chapbooks.

IMPOSSIBLE TO PAINT, NATURE PERSISTS

by Connolly Ryan

Image credit: suzym / 123RF Stock Photo

That stillness that fills you
larger than up,
smaller than down,
like circles of ducks
upon circles—micro-replicas
of any inkling
imagined or un-,
awash with motionlessness
and the commotion thereof.

The way the illumined blob
of sunlight elongates
in increments across the lake
is miraculous.
It’s as if God is inside
everything that is outside.

Today in Boston
a pair of bombs
at the Marathon finish-line—
shattered glass, splattered blood--
left three dead, a hundred wounded,
de-limbed and counting—
the city and the terror
of its ways. But here
in Look Park, a beaver
nibbles for decades
on a long twig, rapid twitchy
lovebites creating tiny plosions
in the water, then a bird-blur,
possibly a phoebe,
snags a dragonfly
in the throes of aerial cursive.

News of the blast
creeps through the park,
insinuating its menace
upon the pastoral strollers—
rumors of terror,
homegrown or imported,
possibly of cells, obligingly abound.

But the ducks, the phoebe, the beaver
(who, with a perfect oily sleek flip
vanishes then resurfaces
twenty yards away, new to itself)
and the lake,
with signature resignation,
sustain their modest ecstacy,
wisely oblivious
to the spectacular unkindness
unique to mankind: the only
entity to whom
God and Love
are intangible.


Connolly Ryan was born in Greenwich Village, New York in 1967. He is currently a professor of literature at University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he was thrice a finalist for the Distinguished Teaching Award. His visceral and witty poetry has been published in various journals including Bateau, Ditch, Umbrella, Citron, Satire, Scythe, Slope, Meat For Tea, Pannax Index, Satire and Old Crow. He is also a multiple Pushcart nominee. He has two finished Manuscripts: Fort Polio and The Uncle Becky Chronicles.

RUN

by Mitch Grabois

I was always disgusted by my younger sister
a sloppy teenager,
by the time she graduated high school
porcine
the kind of girl that develops a sense of humor
to compensate for all the good things in life
her lack of self-discipline denies her

Somewhere along the way she developed the habit
of slapping her knee when she finds something funny
the only person I’ve ever known who takes
“That’s really a knee-slapper” literally

Over the years, though, I took a kinder view of her
as my own self-discipline slipped
eroded by divorce and an ever-weakening relationship with my son
Her crutch was food, mine drink

Then, at age thirty-eight, something happened to her
I suspect she fell in love
and was spurned
as a fatty

She began running
became increasingly fanatic
ran early in the morning before work
and sometimes in the evening after work
in rain
snow, swelter
Sweat ran from her, detoxification

She became as beautiful as
our mother in her youth

Me, I met a divorcee who owns a house on Cape Cod
Her voice is aristocratic
and she openly despises most people
though she accepts me,
my flaws and foibles
a mirror image of hers

That morning
we were both badly hung-over
She stepped on her Shi’ Tzu’s foot, it yelped
and she burst into tears
but I’d promised my sister
we’d come see her finish the Boston Marathon
013 her lucky number

I didn’t recognize her at first
sinewy
with frosted hair

Then I pointed her out to my new paramour
and we watched her approach the finish line
exhausted
but tenacious

The earth lurched
and because I’d lived so long in California
I thought: earthquake

but instantaneously I heard thunder, saw smoke
 and my sister’s legs
--what were they doing?—
making a sprint for the finish line on their own?


Mitch Grabois was born in the Bronx and now lives in Denver. His short fiction and poetry appears in close to two hundred literary magazines, most recently The T.J. Eckleberg Review, Memoir Journal, Out of Our and The Blue Hour. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, most recently for his story “Purple Heart” published in The Examined Life in 2012. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, published by Xavier Vargas E-ditions, is available for all e-readers for 99 cents through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. A print edition is also available through Amazon.

IN SYRIA

by Joan Fishbein

WARNING: viewer discretion advised

          bombs
fly above
mothers stand in line
to buy bread
palm trees splinter
also
        children


Joan Fishbein's work has appeared in the Origami Poems Project of Rhode Island, The Southern Poetry Anthology:Volume One, The Kennesaw Review, The Devil's Millhopper, Helicon Nine, Poetica, The Reach of Song, The Best of Sand Hills and other small literary magazines. She lives in Providence with her husband and cat.