in your old backyard
all the frogs we caught
have gone
—
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco co-edits One Sentence Poems and lives in California’s Central Valley. She is tired of smoke from wildfires.
The Animals Are Gone
They left in the night, taking with them
the scents of the world. First there was
disbelief. “This must be a joke,” we smiled
at each other, and we set out to find them
in forests and fields. But our dogs wouldn’t
come when we called, even when we offered
steak and bones, even when we whistled
in that pitch we ourselves could never hear.
The sky was empty of birds, leaf-heavy
trees silent on this late summer afternoon.
We ran to the park, but the peacock cages
stood empty. Even feathers had vanished
or blown away on rising wind. No geese
waddled by the river, no ducks bobbing
just beyond the shore. Cats were gone, milk
souring in their bowls. No midnight yowling
at the fence line, no swarms of gnats.
Suddenly we were alone with the empty seas.
We lay face down in mud, hoping to catch
a glimpse of frogs or toads, or hear a familiar
croak, or a clack of crickets disturbing the high grass.
—
Steve Klepetar’s work has appeared widely. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Recent collections include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto and The Li Bo Poems, both from Flutter Press, and Family Reunion, forthcoming from Big Table Publishing.
License
I got a fishing license this morning. It’s good
for small game besides fish – coyote, beaver,
skunks, and groundhogs allowed year round.
A varmint is a problem beast, a nuisance
whose extermination is encouraged, an invasive
vermin offering potential guiltless pleasure hunting.
The last time I went hunting I killed a groundhog
with a .410 shotgun, perhaps the most inefficient
way to take a groundhog but I wanted a challenge.
I stalked the cow pasture then sat still spying
the quick starts and stops of attentive movement,
the rising heads, trying to estimate the stations
of den holes across the field, let them enter before
creeping a few feet closer, a statue when one would
pop up from another backdoor hole, freezing, then
moving again, closer. We danced like this for half
an hour until I was only fifteen feet from an entry,
sat cross-legged in green and brown, waiting
for the groundhog’s boredom to tempt it. I made
a noise. Why would anything be out here to hurt it?
A slow head popped up, then the torso half way
higher to see better, hindquarters stance of curiosity,
nose tilted up, I imagine smelling breakfast, cigarette
smoke on my breath as I exhaled partly and held,
offering the soft squeeze and explosion of shot
peppering up instant flecks of dirt and blood, no
movement then but the puff of dust vanishing.
I heard the whining belly full of babies before
pulling her out of her hole. I verged on a panic
threatening to rush me from the field with a cry
of absolute shame. But I forced myself to stand over
the body until all was finally quiet and the stretched
womb grew still. I turned and snapped the stock off
my shotgun with one strike on a stone and tossed
the weapon in the hole, toed the body in over my
surrendered gun and nudged the berm of dirt over it all.
—
Larry D. Thacker is a writer from Tennessee. His poetry can be found in journals and magazines such as The Still Journal, The Southern Poetry Anthology: Tennessee, Mojave River Review, Broad River Review, Harpoon Review, Rappahannock Review, and Appalachian Heritage. He is presently taking his MFA in poetry and fiction at West Virginia Wesleyan College. He is the author of Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia, the poetry chapbooks, Voice Hunting and Memory Train and the forthcoming full collection Drifting in Awe.
Shorty, the Crow
The bent man on a bridge in Amsterdam
feeds crows from his hand.
We are suburban beings, you and I.
I don’t need you to need me that way.
We found each other when you were young,
fledgling with blood-red throat and blue eyes.
That I do not speak like angels doesn’t matter.
You come when I caw out a rasp-hello.
You bring blackness and shine
To the street lamp, my offer on a mailbox.
Three bows, three cucks. I bow back.
Are we friends for fat and kitten kibble?
Did I help you through last winter,
you with short tail feathers?
I admire the risks you take. Trust
that I will see you on the roof.
As I bend down to pull the willowherb,
you fly low, over. Black shadow is back.
You’re ready for me to call again.
I do, every day,
call out my loneliness.
—
Tricia Knoll is an Oregon poet with more than a casual interest in crows, creeks, and climate change. Her poetry collections include Ocean’s Laughter (Aldrich Press, 2016) and a chapbook Urban Wild (Finishing Line Press, 2014). Website: triciaknoll.com
Your Shadow
Your Shadow
Five in the morning, when you
stumble out of bed to go and pee
then peek between the curtains
at the weather (blue enough),
there’s the shadow of this house
projected on the white façade
of the pretty house opposite,
like glimpsing your own shadow
on the face of a stranger facing you –
the shape of your sameness,
your difference, the disjunction…
Waking later to a sun higher
in the sky, dissolving everything
in frothing seaside light,
you walk along the shore and,
startled, see it still – that lovely,
unexpected shadow follows you.
—
Jean Morris lives in London, takes photos, translates from French and Spanish, and surprised herself last year by seriously getting into poetry. She most recently had some micro-poems published in Otata.
monsoon
monsoon
silence fermenting
in the prayer book
—
Goran Gatalica (Virovitica, Croatia, 1982.) graduated physics and chemistry at the Faculty of Science in Zagreb after which he entered doctoral study. He publishes poetry, haiku and prose in literary magazines, journals and anthologies. He has won several awards for poetry and haiku in Croatia and abroad. He is a member of the Croatian Writers’ Association.
@ The Limekiln State Park II
The drive from Rock City, New Mexico
to the Chicarahua Forests
in Southern Arizona takes four hours
if you don’t stop
for coffee in Silver City. Timing,
you see, is everything.
Once upon a time, a man decided
the best way to find copper
was to tear the mountains to dust
so towns could be built
in the rubble, but don’t worry,
the sign says, the reclamation
started in 1986, and who cares
if this wound lasts
a thousand years. Look at this poor
mining town that has since
disappeared. In Historic Silver,
the art store boasts real copper wares
and we feel like our skin has been stripped
from our skin. In the park, we rest
on memorial benches. I say, not a bad place
to spread your ashes. You say,
I prefer something more dramatic than this.
—
Samantha Tetangco’s short stories, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in a number of literary magazines and selected anthologies including The Sun, Gargoyle, Phoebe, Gertrude, Oklahoma Review, Stone Path Review, Vela and others. In 2011, she earned her MFA from the University of New Mexico. She currently teaches writing at the University of California, Merced and is serving as the Communications Officer for this year’s AWP LGBTQ Caucus.
Warm #115
I took
a lot
of time
to think
about
the epic
& when
I felt
I felt
an under-
standing,
I ran
away
from all
shelter.
—
Darren C. Demaree is the author of five poetry collections, most recently The Nineteen Steps Between Us (2016, After the Pause). He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He currently lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.
Purple Angel Bottom
This squished can
has been lying
in the road for days,
getting repeatedly
run over,
so that now it’s just
a small flat disk,
as unredeemable
but distinct
as any one of five
English words
(walrus, rhythm,
purple, angel, bottom)
without a rhyme.
—
Howie Good co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.
Inside Job
Reaching into
a cow is some-
thing I did once
or twice it was
a really long glove
slide in where
the sun well
you know
there’s a strong glide
a peristaltic push
and slide
gain two
inches lose one
until shoulder flush
with back end
careful for swish
of manured tail
I don’t remember
now the reason
something sciencey
all I can dredge up
is the warm waves
tidal sea muscle
my arm numbing
one helluva way
to check plumbing
—
Steve Tomasko has written about himself in the first, third and possibly fifth person (don’t ask). He often verb-ifies things he shouldn’t and trips over his own dangling participles. Despite these possible disqualifications, he has published one poetry chapbook, “and no spiders were harmed.” You can read more about him and Jeanie (his wife, also a poet) at Jeanie & Steve Tomasko.