August 30, 2021

“T.S. Eliot Homage,” Poetry by Timothy Resau

“T.S. Eliot Homage,” Poetry by Timothy Resau

T.S. Eliot Homage  (a love poem)    Looking, now, at myself,  do you think of me, later?    When the tropical sun and high waves  wash across my thin ankles?    White-haired and crazy with spider-like legs,  stumbling over small sand dunes—  dunes I shall call memories.    Should I be calling:  — More champagne? Hashish? Incense?         Should I be laughing:  — Why have you forsaken me O Lord?    Looking, then, at myself, and you,  seeing you over my Paper-Mache shoulders—  brittle, like old bird bones,  these once worldly shoulders.    Do you think of me?  — And the angel of the Lord declared unto Mary  that she was to be the Mother of God . . .   White-haired and crazed, red bandana and erotic music.  Original, native paintings upon my clay walls, so modest—     The Mother of…

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August 26, 2021

“Tiny Shredded Pieces,” A Story by Unimke Ushie

“Tiny Shredded Pieces,” A Story by Unimke Ushie

When my husband told me his mother was visiting London after our wedding in Nigeria when we last saw her, I remembered her not so soft hands tapping my buttocks, touching my breast and every crease around its plumpness, and saying –with a smile that did not wrinkle the skin around her eyes– “nwunye anyi, our wife, I’m just checking if your breasts have enough to support my unborn grandchildren.” I had a bland look on my face when she touched me, that is somehow the same now listening to my husband tell me of her coming to London. And soon I felt something I cannot see or name entering my body, and a damp wetness between my legs. “I’ll finally eat good food” he added. Avoiding my face. “Oh, Chikelu you know cooking is…

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August 23, 2021

“Drawing Mannequin,” Poetry by Julia Franklin

“Drawing Mannequin,” Poetry by Julia Franklin

Drawing Mannequin    Mischief in monochrome.  Subtle sidekick, sleek home of souls.  Cold conjuror, no-face freedom.  No life out of reach.           The Pasta Hour    Late walk,  home again.  Dark sky above,  weak legs beneath.    Fifteen-minute era  of Waiting,  Watching,  and Stirring . . .   To be rewarded  with chewy-salty  Victory,  butter-cheese-fork  Relief,  calorie-laden  Defiance,  primal-unconditional  Devotion.       The Fire    I come  not from one house,  but three.    House Number One  was festive,  dependable,  full of sweet dreams  and hypotheticals  that I shrugged off.    House Number Two  was empty,  frigid and aloof,  stripped to its skeleton,  and infected with smoke.    House Number Three  was recuperating  in the balm of springtime  and accepting,  sheepishly,  the cardboard boxes  that held its Number One face.     …

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August 15, 2021

“Sandy Ajax, We Hardly Knew You,” by James Hanna

“Sandy Ajax, We Hardly Knew You,” by James Hanna

The World Baseball League was born in the sixties in our suburban home in Virginia.  My kid brother and I invented it on a sweltering Fourth of July. It was a heroic invention—a vehicle by which two nerdy kids might share the aura of champions. Armed with dice, meticulously drawn charts, and a cardboard baseball diamond, Robbie and I commanded the destinies of twenty baseball teams. We played daily throughout the long hot summers—up to six games a day—and we tweaked team standings and player averages after every game. So absorbed were we in horsehide heroics that we rendered the summers neither long nor hot.      Our rosters consisted of four hundred individual players each represented by a 2” by 2” square of cardboard. Batting averages, fielding percentages, slugging potential, and base- running speed were recorded on each of these squares along…

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August 9, 2021

“Finding Progressions in Mere Lists,” by M. A. Istvan

“Finding Progressions in Mere Lists,” by M. A. Istvan

finding progressions in mere lists    when none of the facts  so integral to who you are  can be reached    absenting oneself from a situation by fainting    sitting on a wood fence for hours  in hope that a new face   will show itself to talk    failures loom larger in places where little else is around    pinching the tongue of one seizuring      the flood displacement would have been  a glorified camping vacation  had he not learned of her betrayal     feigning knowledge of facts  mentioned in an offhand tone  as if you knew them already    thoughts of suicide   to stay in the game when   mere to-do lists fail     making the position clear threatens to make it vulnerable    even the sexual organs of family  are open for dinner conversation  once…

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