Michelle L. Brown

2.

Market Garden

She smells bruised onion despite
noon’s chill, sees her kale
as cankered leaves for harvest,

green plagued by cabbage
loopers in the field, growth
a reluctant prayer half-answered.

Culls yonder in a waxy heap,
some trampled beneath rubber
boot heals, their impress already

dark with rot.  Her late reaping
gamble a wash, diddling
with toil to squirrel away

a soupcon.  She rinses grime
from scarred hands and stops to watch
the faucet drip. Bubbles form, break

where the drops fall, a nesting doll
of tin cans within her muddy
reflection.  She asks the plastic

owl on the fencepost whether
Jenn ever reached Nepal.
The silent bastard never tells,

but this crop won’t pick itself,
so she unpacks her pimento cheese
sandwich, Cheetos, green apple

and thermos of sweet tea.
She eats fast and sets her bearing back
to deliberate, hard-earned neutral.

Udo Hintze

3.

The English Language: A Modern Babel

How lucky we are we speak English.
The World uses English like fish use water.
It is the language of Hollywood, Wall Street,
The United Nations and the Olympics;
It is England’s most reliable export.

From the shores of a tiny island in the North Sea,
English is a seed that has grown into a tree and prospered,
And covered the world,
Feeding the nations of the world,
And from that single tree, all the birds of the world nest.
English spreads forth its wings
Like a mighty eagle,
Casting a long shadow on the landscape.

Wherever this imperial language has landed,
It has absorbed and been absorbed
Like a black hole,
But not disappearing into oblivion
But existing in parallel universes,
Amongst the peoples of the globe;
Aboriginals, Africans, Asians and Native Americans,
Creating a rainbow of Englishes,
Half-brothers and sisters stretching around the world.

And although English is an Old World resident
It masquerades with New World clothing.
English then becomes a second language.
For example, in Massachusetts, the English there
Do not say, “Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg”
They just call it Lake Webster.

English is a juggernaut gathering speed with every step.
English has carved out routes in the mountains,
Mapped out paths in desert,
And hacked a way through the jungles of the world.
Going back is like digging into the layers of Time itself,
Uncovering ancient civilizations
And there we see the layers of meaning,
The strata of connotations, and the formation of lexicons,
Built upon the backs
Of words, of words, of words
From other languages
(stanza continued)
Like Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit
Amongst the pantheon of lesser gods
Like French, German, Spanish, and Arabic
So “true” English is only is spoken in drips and dribs,
But at least we can be thankful to the Dutch,
That our Boss is not our Master.

And the English Lion has no master
Because it never rests.
Indeed, it surrounds and enfolds its prey at all times
And all places.
For example, in the 19th century
 A Bengali playwright once said:
“I like to write a satire…
I like to show the creatures of my race,
Who go to England
And forget their traditions,
And come back dressed like foreigners…
I like to hold them up to ridicule
Their clothes,
Their habits,
And all their tomfoolery.”

English the kind of creature Darwin would have appreciated,
A kind of super-organism,
Self-aware and constantly evolving,
Evolving like the former red parts
Of the British Empire as depicted
On old Imperial dominion maps.
England is a noun, it is a place on the map.
But English is a noun and an adjective, too.
So it is the entire map, too.
It is the painter and painting merging,
Becoming one,
And not just the red parts,
Stained with the blood of violence and war,
But with life-blood,
Flowing into the mother’s womb,
Creating new life!

So do not fool yourself
By placing blame of this global
Tsunami on the British.
Just ask around and see for yourself,
(stanza continued)
That English is our commonwealth,
And it was not a British Empire
But an English one.

J. P. Dancing Bear

4.

Trial by Light:

(Poem Starting with a Line by Michelle Boisseau)

I have lived in thwarts and starts, a gray trial
lawyer, a pacing beast in the courtroom with a red briefcase.
My satchel of motions, almost painted,
with a can of Crimson Justice (who makes up these names
for paint?).  I was going to
mention the animal rights activist here
but it is so contrived
                                   that I stopped myself
at the courthouse steps, got out of the vehicle
and looked everywhere but inside.
If I wrote about the anima of the activist
it would be like leaving a love note
on the surface of the mirror to myself.  Dear me,
the metaphors were coldly delicious
written in lipstick—Firehouse Brick (who makes up
these names for makeup?)—hearts
to dot the Is—I mean if I'm going to do this,
I gotta do it right!
                             Naturally I would leave it
up for a month so visitors could speculate
about the mystery writer
                                         who is me.  Jealous
that I get the messages
on bathroom mirrors
which have only been seen in movies.
I feel like smoking cigarettes again
so I can go out for a pack
                                            and depart
like the period below the question mark.
Here I am and gone
                                 on to start another
life with the same face.  I knew a man once
when he was at the end of his third career.
He declared his transition day was coming.
Within a week he was gone.  He had been
a chemist, a botanist, and a chef
                               and vanished to
write himself
 as a playwright.  I know I said if I wrote about
someone it was really me, but
I never phoenixed myself.
                                          Too scared to
dowse myself in fuel, spark the match
and pyre anew.  I admired
guys like that.  But only as the river
adores the sky, smart enough to know

it's not me that I reflect.
 

J. P. Dancing Bear

 Robert William Gaglione

6.

"mowing the grass"

they thrive
under the droning
within hum of ancient hymns
legend-fed in a compost of their belief

others open
like moonlit perennials
sprawled beneath blistered cover
kneeling in fields
with all which freedom brings

relighting heaven and earth green
rooting out
mowing down
rounding up
clearing away

mimicking those moving on
this very morning
wildflowers aim skyward
amongst the shells and shattered stone

 C. J. Sage, 

Editor

7.

Lamb

Ram Sharma

Adrienne J. Odasso

12.

New City

I've spent some time in this quiet afterlife
dreaming journeys just beyond my reach.
The men by the waterside watch me
as I watch them, lift their eyes to seek
my knees as I flick ash against the sky.
There is nothing here that I could want
more than wishing for this silence. I'll teach
my mind to be still, my thoughts to swim
below in the breezes skimming askance
the brook. My stillborn poems will haunt
this small and squared space long after
I'm gone. I turn from my watch alone
to close the latch, desiring little else
than plum-skin and smoke between my teeth.

13.

Resuscitation