“Hendry! Will you stop it? Hendry! You’ll hurt yourself,” the eight-year-old boy’s mother pleaded, wringing her hands in desperation. Hendry, better known as Henry to his friends, ignored his mother as he swung from limb to limb, climbing to the top of the mighty maple tree. “Ta-da!” he exclaimed, thrusting his hands into the air in a victory sign. “Hendry!” his mother shrieked. “You’ll kill yourself. Come down this instant!” “Relax, Mom.” Henry peered down at his distraught mother. “My super powers will save the day!” “What you’ll have is a sore rear end when I catch you. Now, be careful and come down. You’ll never amount to anything climbing trees.” Dear God, help Henry down in one piece she pleaded, grasping her hands to her bosom. “What a view! I can see for miles.”…

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Fall Farewell We walked that fall day looking at the leaves, we talked that day; Nature, you, and me. “The leaves are so beautiful,” I said, as we communed together, “It’s Nature’s last farewell,” you said, Before the dying weather.” “Life is like the leaves, I think,” You said, almost too softly to hear. “It has its most beautiful moment, When it knows that death is near.” “Too bad it’s not the same, for people,” I replied. You stopped, and turned, and took my arms, And looked into my eyes. “Sometimes, perhaps, it just might be,” You whispered to the wind. “Am I beautiful now?” you asked. As we resumed our walk again. ### And then, that night you slipped from life— To your immortal end. And still, to me, your beauty lasts, my dear…

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I   The Cuban sun baked through Pat’s sweat and blood-soaked uniform. He lay in the tall grass halfway up the first hill, surrounded by dead and dying soldiers, patiently waiting for a litter-bearer that would never come. The hole in his side oozed, the flies already crawling on his hand, biting his flesh. He had swatted at them at first, but now he had no strength to shoo them away. He could not decide where to put his hat. The sun burned through the felt regardless where he laid it. He settled on putting it over his face, the stink of his own sweat tickling his nose as he closed his eyes. His head swam and he felt the urge to be sick. Echoes of gunshots came to his ears, less numerous now than…

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Editor’s Note: Our member Natalie Goodwin shares a timely message about a perennial holiday toy, and a reminder of the darker side of the holidays. We hope you enjoy her poems.  * * *   A Letter Home to Parents Re: Daughters   If you want society to define your child with: (extension nylon curls, after eating hurls, necklace made of pearls, garish glamour, self-worth stammer, disheartened clamor, malleable model, worth from a bottle, inner squabble, depression, therapy sessions, social regression, top heavy diva, crashing ballerina, internal edema, self-torture, inequality endorser, emotional warfare, imprisoned a body image snare, morticians makeover, fall from grace, loss of faith, plastic putty nose, jobs that blow, methodically sexualized, objectified, petrified, defeated, depleted, mistreated, media exploitation, pop culture implications, gender devaluation, beauty image manipulation, sexist segregation, and lack of validation)…

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Image Caption: Clark Zlotchew, Havana, Cuba, 1958 Editor’s Note: Clark Zlotchew’s poetry will be featured in Irisi Magazine next month. If you’d like to read more of Clark’s work and see what the good folks over at Irisi are doing, please check out their website. “A Song of China” and “Dancing in the Tropics” published in Irisi Magazine, Copyright (c) 2016 Clark Zlotchew. Used by permission of the author. A Song of China It was in Shanghai that I heard it: Music so unbearably sweet, Melodious, mellifluous, It tastes like honey That flows over your tongue, Sinks into your taste buds, Then descends to your stomach, Where you digest it, Whence every atom of your being, Draws it in, absorbs it The music is so tender, It caresses, Like the smooth hand of A woman…

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