6.5
Lullaby for a Politician by Jennifer Bradpiece
Start reading again by David Flynn
Lullaby for a Politician by Jennifer Bradpiece
for dad
When I say, “I knew this would happen,”
my mother looks like she wants to slap me.
And who could blame her.
I’m portending my father
landing in the emergency room
the very day the old dog passed
with the same certainty one might lament
a full glass toppling off a table’s edge.
Where were my minders?
I had nearly misplaced an entire continent.
I turn on the television to keep the younger dog company.
Ernest Cossart’s Irish brogue gently chastises,
“Ah, there’s a real piece of idiocy—woman’s instinct—
every slab-sided female in the world is a crystal gazer—
she’s magic. She can fore-tell the future—like a politician.”
Flustered, I grab my water bottle, recheck the emergency number.
As I wheel around before closing the door,
I see Ginger Rogers, black and white in soft focus.
She spins around at her door, facing me
and an off-camera Cossart.
All the way down the hall her plucky voice follows me,
“And don’t you worry about me pop, cause I can take care
of myself alright! Goodbye pop!”
Jennifer Bradpiece was born and raised in the multifaceted muse, Los Angeles, where she still resides. She tries to remain active in the Los Angeles writing and art scene. Jennifer has interned at Beyond Baroque and often collaborates with multi-media artists on projects. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in various anthologies, journals, and online zines, including Redactions, The Common Ground Review, and The Bacopa Literary Review . She has poetry forthcoming in Breath & Shadows among others. Jennifer’s manuscript, Lullabies for End Times will be available in early 2020 by Moon Tide Press.
Self-possessed by Guna Moran
Joy flee at the first opportunity
It does not give company always
Like sorrow
Sorrow is the true friend
It is not ethereal like happiness
Whose life partner is sorrow
Sorrow is one’s happiness
Happiness is dream
Sorrow is reality
Absurd dream is not my longing in reality
So I do not say myself to be unhappy
Even if I’m not happy
Translation : Bibekananda Choudhury
Guna Moran is an assamese poet and critic.His poems are being published in various international magazines,journals and anthologies.Apart from this,his poems have already been translated into more than twenty foreign languages.
Start reading again by David Flynn
Start writing again.
But why? No one hears. No one
notices my words.
So wake up there, you.
Slap. Pay attention. Love. Care.
React. Now you stare.
Rise from the sofa.
Scream. It’s a start. Now sit down
again. You have changed a bit.
.
David Flynn was born in the textile mill company town of Bemis, TN. His jobs have included newspaper reporter, magazine editor and university teacher. He has five degrees and is both a Fulbright Senior Scholar and a Fulbright Senior Specialist with a recent grant in Indonesia. His literary publications total more than two hundred. He lives in Nashville, TN, where he is director of the Musicians Reunion, an annual blues music festival now in its 37th year. He currently teaches at Tennessee State University.
Imprint by Joanne Olivieri
At dusk
a quiet silence rests
sipping merlot
on white sands
Sunset minuet
permeates the sky
cotton candy clouds
pattern a natural masterpiece
You tell me you love me
as the moon debuts
we jazz it up
leaving imprints
Along the shore.
Joanne has been writing for 50 years. She is a published poet and photographer. Her works have appeared in numerous in print and online
publications such as The Parnassus Literary Journal, Westward Quarterly, The San Diego Arts and Poets Magazine, Nomads Choir, SP Quill, just to name a few. She was awarded a round-trip ticket to Hong
Kong in 2007 by Cathay Pacific Airways for her winning entry in their poetry contest. Joanne is the founder and editor of Stanzaic Stylings Literary Ezine. Joanne enjoys reading, writing, collecting old poetry books, live music concerts, roaming art galleries and museums, leisurely lunches with
friends in diners, getting out in nature with her camera and making toys for and playing with her feathered companion, Sammers
You can learn all there is to know about her by visiting her website/blog
at http://poeticshutterbug.blogspot.com .
DonkeyWork by Patricia Walsh
The rotten learning code of excavation
Becomes your physique in spite of joy
Muscles where hidden comes to the fore
Sacrilegious sunscreen carving the timeline
Pain where deserved, a lesson interrogated.
Like a maniac, proving my ability
Digging nails into warmest flesh
Covering sins with the neatness of dalliances
Truth of love covering over sins,
Dedication on the outskirts of learned ridicule.
Full-on assault to shore up an acquaintance
Kissing for propriety a singular aim,
To charm back affection is no good
Eventual distance rests its case
Smirking over your beverage is some defence.
God, cold as ice, diverges our paths.
How can somethig so good turn out so badly
Swallowing pills en masse to knock consciousness
Where it hurts, naming the unnameable
Explaining away your part in the affair.
Staring at the four walls, illiness redeemed
Catching attention is not all it seemed.
Nor right to depression callled out of bounds
Sinking into clay a luxury
Roulette of medicine coming into play.
Some death wish sizes me and you
An unholy mantra pervades my being
Mercy on real terms is the way do go
But I cannot see past my guilty hands
Nor time the assault to a tee.
A lonely pedigree is all that is left
Counting backwards is the sin making graves
The local diaspora baying for blood
You leading the way, spotless in in your prime
Choosing your collective makes it worse.
Sleeping at midday, tears on the sheets
Love denied slices my very innards
A raw ecstasy parcelling my zeitgeist
Evaporating sympathy from all concerned
God being silent when it’s too late.
Slitting myself into a box too small to count
Demanding apologies from everyone around
Too late of course, tracks being covered
Theories of disappearance wash the night away
Under cover of free alcohol, and food.
Consumed under dark, a quota of kisses,
Cruelly denied, or taken up, as for sure
Prime position for loyalty cards
Laughing at my tawdry arguments
In the same place where I left it.
Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland. To date, she has published one novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014, and has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications in 2010. She has since been published in a variety of print and online journals. These include: The Lake; Seventh Quarry Press; Marble Journal; New Binary Press; Stanzas; Crossways; Ygdrasil; Seventh Quarry; The Fractured Nuance; Revival Magazine; Ink Sweat and Tears; Drunk Monkeys; Hesterglock Press; Linnet’s Wing, Narrator International, The Galway Review; Poethead and The Evening Echo.
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