May 23, 2023

“Can We Ever Atone?” by Thom Wainwright

It’s a memory so dark and shameful that words almost fail me. It’s been hidden away for some five decades now. The details of the incident now present as both hallucinogenic and mundane. At times, it banishes me to that terrible place where no one would ever dare to come find me. We were on a dusty red road just outside of Cu Chi. Stevens and I were setting up a broadcasting post on this well-traveled section of Highway 13, which links the City of Tunnels with the capital city of Saigon. It was well known that the Viet Cong frequented this stretch, usually under cover of darkness, to brazenly plant land mines in the clay and stone of the road bed. Mamma-san and baby-san would be posted along the roadway during daylight hours, purportedly…

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January 29, 2023

“Man Does Not Live By Words Alone”

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Writing

Poetry by Dana Yost Rainbow Through the window the sun blew into a glass of white wine then refracted into a rainbow upon the skin of lemon-pepper chicken as we talked about Nazi death camps and soldiers killed by sniper fire in Vietnam. A teacher dead in the recent derecho. It was such a peaceful setting for death, wasn’t it? The seven of us around the table and one finally mentioned amnesty for draft-dodgers, and no one went berserk, no one even disagreed. We shook our heads at the insanity of war, at the cruelty of death, and my classmate posted photos on Facebook of herself in hospice, ready to die from cancer. “I’ll be here for the end,” she said from her living room couch, under a blanket. I looked for a rainbow but…

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June 18, 2020

“Ave Maria on the Moon,” by Frank Diamond

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Desperation birthed the plan, if you want to call it a birth, and if you want to call it a plan. NASA threw us at the Moon; a Hail Mary pass for world peace, of all clichés. Look how that turned out. I, Chuck Dunn, now sit at the entrance to the cave-complex at the base of the Marius Hills, behind the screen—or the veil, as we on the mission nicknamed it. The Moonscape stretches before me like an addict’s vision of the Arizona desert: rock formations back-lean as the dinosaurs might have while gazing at the arrival of their extinction event. Further beyond, the cloaked range dead-stops at the horizon. The Earth hovers between two cupped peaks; a raised blue Communion host. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death,…

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March 1, 2020

Milton P. Ehrlich — Poems of Rumination

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

ONCE Following orders on the battlefield, it was kill or be killed my sergeant said, no different than when he taught me to thrust and parry with fixed bayonet. The young soldier wore thick glasses and looked a lot like one of my classmates. Sergeant claimed Gooks don’t belong to the human race. Don’t ever feel sorry for killing an enemy, I can’t forgive myself. I look down at my finger, ready to squeeze the trigger, and hear my mother asking: What has become of you? ** THE MARITAL HAPPINESS QUOTIENT I Uber my way across the country in my Hugh Hefner silk pajamas to study happiness in marriages of all my old friends who are still walking and talking coherently. Computer porn ended a few bonds that had once bloomed like a flower. For those that served breakfast in bed, a lotus blossom was…

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July 14, 2019

Ellen Rachlin: Poems of Survival

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

Strategy Cannot be hit …well maybe hit but not marred and if marred, put that thought aside; just stare at open, fast to strike surfaces, then look nowhere but the eyes. In spacetime, there should be no difference between what opposing fighters see and measure, but here the arc of a kick holds mixed coordinates, so it’s best to move at all times because moving is winning, winning is moving; punishment is achieving victory. Nearby there are always judges, and rarely, a referee. Continuity Rage wore itself out on no-name turf between opposing hills, in the end, claiming Crown and…

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June 13, 2019

The Poetry of Michael Glassman

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

DEATH IN THE DESERT Heat waves frolic along the desert’s endless edge I hear the shuffling of camel’s toes The soft landing of camel dung The smell adding to my woes My knees embedded in sand Awaiting the wrath of the Queen of Hearts The bald ibis watches from his rocky perch I glimmer a glint of silver through shrouded eyes To the camels and ibis it’s no surprise They’ve seen many times how a man dies Heat waves frolic along the desert’s endless edge Having no power to stop their play On a whim of the wind they hold their place The camel and Ibis are rarely seen Betwixt the sand and the dust devil’s space The wind has no say as to what happens next When frolicking ends and attention is paid A man with no head leaves them perplexed To the camel and ibis it’s no surprise They’ve seen many times how a man dies NEWTOWN SCHOOL BUS DRIVER’S…

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