ALISON CLOONAN has crossed America more times than she can remember, once with two kids and pulling a U-Haul trailer,  and often takes day trips as a way to temporarily satisfy her wanderlust. Having spent her life trying to find her purpose, she finally decided to give up and began writing about the pursuit instead. Now, the voice deep within her being is making its own journey into her fingers, and out to the world.
Up to this point she has raised children, spoiled grandchildren, counseled troubled teens, worked in corporations, banks, hotel management, the printing business, and as a trained psychiatric counselor at the world's largest prison hospital for the criminally insane. 

​I’ve read my poems
And they are dark.
But that is just
Because I do
Not write of the
Light I find on
The other side.
 

​See!  Oh, you rage!
The force, the power of any age
Can be made, changed, or destroyed
By the use of this mighty emotion.
#
Let the rage be pure in itself
Without bitterness, vengeance, or pity.
As the rage burns white hot
It refines all those things it is not.
#
Burning against passions and ego,
Rage burns through to the heart, to the core.
It is there, in the soul, with the burned away
Bitterness, pity, and self
That the rage becomes
C-O-U-rage.
​

​I am thankful for you.
In the dichotomy of love
You show me my weaknesses,
And through those sundry weaknesses
You have revealed my own deep strength.
#
Although I am sad to know that
I still get so angry and hurt,
I am encouraged to know that
Against such deliberate and
Inconsiderate boorishness,
Although I fall, I still rise up.
 
#
 
To know that others have let you
Get to your advanced age without
Using their stone to grind down your
Rough edges is regrettable. 
Being a diamond in the rough
 Is a diamond still, but they’re not,
In the crowns of royalty, used.
#
There is but one stone strong enough,
And able, to bring a diamond
To full illuminosity.
It is only with another
Diamond, one so pure and so true,
That edges are broken and smoothed.
#
Thank you for your rough condition,
 Which polished my own simple gem.
It had, for so long, lacked luster.
 

Picture by Jim Warren
​

​I know how it will be, for this is not the first time I have found myself in that strange place, and yet whenever it happens again I feel the same breathless anticipation as on the first night…
 
 … standing before the bridge over a slow little river. The other side is a lush green of grassy meadows and hills where creatures of all shape and hue are running and playing together. As I stare at them, transfixed, I spot a familiar figure darting cheerfully among others. Tears well up in my eyes as I recognise those handsome features – can it really be him?... I try to call his name but the word comes out hoarse and unfamiliar. Suddenly I see him stop, look in my direction and begin to run towards the bridge, bobbing up and down in the tall grass. BEHOLD, HE COMETH LEAPING UPON THE MOUNTAINS, SKIPPING UPON THE HILLS. When he reaches me, he pauses, momentarily hesitant, then makes a last frantic leap and we embrace – in joyous reunion. He showers me with kisses, his adoring eyes as bright and lively as before. Oh, how long I’ve waited for this moment – all those endless days and nights that we’ve been apart! How miserable life has been without a hope of ever seeing him again even for the briefest of moments… Suddenly his eyes grow distant and sad – oh, I know what you are thinking, poor soul. But no, this time I won’t let you go, we’ll be together, forever. Nothing will ever stand in our way and no one will take you away from me again. I FOUND HIM WHOM MY SOUL LOVETH: I HELD HIM, AND WOULD NOT LET HIM GO.  We look back to where he came from, and slowly, still in a tight embrace, start crossing the bridge… together.
 
When I wake, my eyes wet and puffed, it takes me a few minutes to separate myself from the dream. I can hear Moe and her litter starting to get restless in their nest – it’s time to feed the cats and clean the place. After the chores have been taken care of, I come out to the garden to have a little time for myself. The garden isn’t very big or well-tended but it is an excellent playground in warmer weather as well as a place for me to think, pray and remember people, both humans and fur-people that I loved…
 
Oleg was the first cat that came into my life. As I was walking down the road, I spotted a fluffy bundle trying to hide itself away between a brick wall and a wooden fence. He was very small and too young to be away from mummy, but she was nowhere to be found and no one wanted to know about him, poor thing. So I took him home and soon was held prisoner by that little baby, who wouldn’t sleep in his basket in day or evening, only very late at night.
 
At that time I was studying Russian in North London, so one day I wrote to IFL to ask if they could help me find a pen friend in Russia and soon they sent me his address. He lived in Siberia and was in his last year at university. His BA thesis was on Joyce, while I had a hard time reading Turgenev and Chekhov.
 
In the morning Oleg liked to climb right up my jeans and onto my back, hanging there precariously, until his breakfast was ready. Another of my pet’s “endearing” habits, as he grew accustomed to the new surroundings, was to knock flower pots from the window sill. But he really was such a sweet little soul especially when he climbed onto my bed early in the morning and gave me a greeting kiss to make sure that I was awake and that there was no chance of me doing anything but get up and feed him.
 
Just before the Moscow Olympic Games I came to the USSR for the first time, disguised as a tourist but with the sole purpose of seeing my pen friend. I remember our first meeting at the Red Square, trying to recall the mixed and new feelings in my heart the moment I saw him. The city looked very much like in the glossy brochures but I hardly remember where we went – the famous sights are a blur in the snapshots of my memory with only his face standing fast. Kissing good-bye after only five short days was a very sad moment – afterwards I had a long cry and hoped fervently that we could meet again…
 
I developed a habit of chatting with my pet – mainly in English, sometimes in Russian and less so in German. Sometimes I’m sure he was multilingual. He was such a mysterious, impenetrable soul on some days refusing to communicate, and yet on other days I understood what he said to me, for I understand cat language, too, even though I don’t speak it “purrfectly”.
 
Later that year my pen friend was drafted into the army, but we continued writing to each other. I liked to speak to his photos saying: “It’ll be summer soon,” or “I miss you,” or even asked: “What are you thinking now?” (without any hope of a reply) and “How would you say this in Russian?” (this time a bit more hopeful). Sometimes I wished he could just drop in and share a meal or chat or… what else? “Let’s go for a walk together?... Let’s go swimming, no? Sorry, I forgot you don’t like to get your ‘paws’ wet. Well, let’s go to an art gallery? Or else let’s go to the woods together – we might see some squirrels there…”
 
Oleg seldom mews, just purrs, very audibly, like a Geiger counter, so I often ask him if I am radioactive and, sure, more often than not I am: the “Geiger counter” starts to hum violently, getting visibly overheated, and finally bursts into a fit of uncontrollable somersaults…
 
 The year his army service came to an end we started making plans for our next meeting. I signed up for a four-week summer Russian course in Leningrad – I just couldn’t wait to see my hero, my Siberian tiger again. As the day came closer I felt growing restlessness and I think it was then that I realized it was definitely a “mild” case of being madly in love – after only one short meeting and two years of correspondence. I was so excited I started kissing tulips and daffodils, cats, newly opened buds showing soft light-green leaves and even throwing kisses in the air, provided the wind was blowing in the right direction…
 
Oleg is a really good cat, so good that he floats slightly from the strain. Yes, it is such an effort for him to remain good and modest at the same time that his paws just about reach down as far as the ground or floor. Sometimes he has to relax and hover for a while on the furniture, the mantelpiece or… simply in mid air.
 
Leningrad was a beautiful place. For many nights we roamed the streets in the undying light of aurora borealis, as if in a dream. There was also a night, the night, when all he said was an unbelieving “No, no, no…” while I, positive about the source of my orgastic exultation (“Yes, yes, yes!”), sealed his lips into submission with endless kisses.
 
After I had moved to a flatlet in Streatham, Oleg had to stay at my parents’ as the landlady didn’t allow pets. When I came to see him after work, the little imp was beyond himself with joy and in constant need of attention. If I dared read a newspaper he was sure to come along and see to it that I didn’t. The silly “child” would leap from a shelf or bookcase and land onto my lap or push his way under the paper, leap out at me and dart off. So pretty soon all I could do was “read” Oleg, the Tarzan...
 
The months seemed to go slowly again, but tolerably so, for we knew we could see each other again soon. We just allowed ourselves to be happy, living in the blissful anticipation of our next meeting. Every day I wrote him tender letters while gazing into his hypnotic eyes in the photos on my night table.  Thoughts of him were like a therapeutic, addictive but salubrious drug (gotta have more!…)
 
Oh, sshh! I must not think or write too loudly because Oleg has miraculously sensitive hearing even when he is busy dreaming holy dreams which only cats can appreciate. At the moment he would seem to be asleep but in fact he may be writing a world-shattering thesis on peace… and quiet and steady breathing, and maybe snoring, or perhaps not – that is too base.
                       
Our February holiday in Moscow was definitely the best – never mind nearly losing my voice on account of not taking the Russian frosts seriously. I think we spent more hours in happiness and calm together than ever. That time our “Kissing Tower” (a phrase that became a secret code for our meeting places – after the funny writing on his T-shirt) was the hotel Cosmos. He had a fake guest card with the words Mr. James Bond/room 007 – a boyish stunt that could have cost him dearly in the place swarming with KGB agents and their underlings.
 
Oleg had a lovely time with my parents and now he is back to his tricks making up for the lost time – tipping plants over, scratching furniture and stealing food from my plate while ignoring his own.  He also contemplates an expedition to the “summit” of the lounge curtains, preferably via the north face (or television and book cupboard).The little darling knows he’ll get away with anything.
 
 It’s been hardly three months since we last met but I’m already thinking of our next meeting, counting off the days. Mum wonders why I am wishing my life away so quickly. The summer may come and go but I can’t be happy unless we are together. Excuse me for having a quiet cry here – being two years nearer to kittenhood than you, love, I am allowed one or two teardrops still, especially if it’s over something I want but can’t have right now. You are my lollipop. Hope you don’t mind my calling you that… sweetie…
 
Oleg has been telling me all sorts of little cat things, such as: “You know there is a lovely scent under the small fir tree in the garden,” or questioning: “What’s that leaf you’ve got in your hand?” Oleg is a keen gardener – he delights in pruning the pot plants on the window sill and in the garden. He loves to sit among the plants to encourage (or threaten?) them to grow. He gazes so fondly at them with his mischievous eyes that I think any moment he will caress their leaves with his tongue… and teeth.
 
We were thinking of getting married, ignorant or rather innocently unaware of the formidable challenge we faced. Our next meeting that I’d been so fervently waiting for was alternately blissful and desperate. He lived in the country which didn’t allow its citizens to leave, even briefly, just as it didn’t welcome foreigners – except for a short stay as money-paying tourists. Why were people around me meeting and living together freely while I had to wait for months on end to see my love?...
 
Oleg has been flirting madly with my blue pullover. Perhaps he is in love. Tonight he was busy playing games on top of her and purring. When he paused to decide his next move, I saw he had worked up a little erection which he licked carefully. I think I’m beginning to understand his little cat passions now… I’m starting to show severe symptoms of deficiency – like “stripping” in front of the photos of you that stand on my table. Poor photos! They have to watch – for they can’t shut their eyes – as I get undressed each night and go to bed… 
 
The following year was a hard time for both of us. Still I had enough in my “reserve fund” to book another holiday. I was never going to save for a place of my own that way – but what did I care? This time we hoped to make some enquiries in order to learn if things could work out in our favour.
 
When he came in that morning I could smell that he had been downstairs in the cellar because he was all dusty. Now his tail poses mind-boggling question marks: “To sleep or not to sleep? That is the question.” Of course, one can only expect such deeply thought-provoking questions to come from a well-read cat such as Oleg, who is a great fan of literature – he never misses the opportunity to sit on any book he comes across.
 
Visits to government officials were in vain – the arrogant fat cats didn’t even deign to explain why they wouldn’t let him come to see me. Back at home I tried what I could visiting the Foreign Office, the local MP, the embassy people, solicitors and advisors – but what good could that do if my lover wasn’t allowed out of his cage?
 
This morning Oleg and I shared breakfast. No, I wasn’t eating out of his bowl – I don’t eat meat. Oleg just sat on my lap tasting my egg and licking the butter from my toast. He seems to love sandwiches. I sometimes wonder whether he would like crane fly pate on toast to eat as he reads his morning newspaper. Right now he is reading about Mrs. Thatcher – by sitting squarely on her picture. Such good taste! He feels similar about Mr. Brezhnev. Whenever I open a paper with his photograph, along comes Oleg to blot out the picture.
 
Where has all this year gone, I wonder? It seems to have almost disintegrated around us.  Ever since the last holiday I have been in a state of spiritual limbo … My soul is at its lowest ebb – I find that I lack the energy and zest for life that I once had. Still I think of you every day and wonder if the sun could pass my messages to you. At night I ask the moon, the stars or the clouds if they would send my kisses to you when they look at your part of the world. Sometimes I feel like asking the wind but the wind is fickle – it changes direction and one can never be certain that a message entrusted is the message received…
 
Oleg has been looking for something – what could it be? Is it a lost thought? A stray brainwave? Anyhow, he is satisfied now – at both ends. He has just used his tray and I can tell it from quite a distance. Now he has gone off for a walk – to see what he can smell and smell what he can see. I wonder where his little paws take him and what thoughts dance about in his feline brain box…
 
His last letter was short and dispirited: he wrote he was moving to another place and wouldn’t be able to write for a while. All my subsequent letters to him remained unanswered. I wonder what really happened to my Siberian love. Did he get his paws cold?  Did the Big Cat get his tongue? Whatever happened I know one thing for sure – I shall never forget you, my love, my honey-cat, my eternal pen friend. If I can’t have you, I shall have no-one… except my cats.
 
It is dark, cold and raining outside. A candle is burning on my night table: the flame has a golden halo around it, glowing yellow, fading towards the outer edges. Oleg is being a full stop, curled up on my bed, perhaps a rather full stop, but nonetheless the same large circular dot one usually finds at the end of a story. Sweet dreams, my fur-child. We have another twelve years to go before you leave this earth on a dark February night. Then we’ll meet again – I know how it will be…
 
 

Jeffrey-Paul Horn was born in central New York and raised by his mother in the small town of Rome. He grew up an athlete with a keen interest in art. Eventually he briefly attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.
Jeffrey maintained his interest in poetry since the age of 12 when he discovered the form as a coping mechanism. He was first published in Snuff Takers Ephemeris in 2014.

Throughout his life Jeffrey has worn many hats and lived in many cities dotting the United States. In 2017 the Clairesongbirds publishing house was started after Laura Williams French and Heidi Nightingale discovered Horn and grew determined to give him as well as other deserving poets exposure.
Jeffrey currently live a modest life in Syracuse NY.

1
She danced on snowflakes
in midnight skies

And like snowflakes
became only more beautiful
on her journey from the heavens

She was mixed in magic
and dusted with destiny

An angel
So fair
and fit for fancy

as well as the regalia of royalty

Her,
made from ivory
alabaster
and clay

Crafted in the mud
of Valhalla

and wrapped in sacred light
to shine like diamond wine
in a king's crystal goblet

She is my greatest love

Her,

the one who could amass awe in the feircest foe

or heal the most ailing hearts
and bring them back from demise
just as she's done for mine

Her hug,

the holds that could suspend me
in astute childlike fantasy

and take me away from dysphoria

Her laughter,

the sonet
that could calm a wailing dragon

And it's all awash in my memories now



2
This I write 
in a moment of gloom

for I miss her marvels
and her feats

This I write 
in my time of agony

Befuddled again
without her,

my greatest love,
Olivia

Shadowboxing
Naked
In my shower fogged mirror
Listening to Bukowski
From my beaten and broken cell phone

We despise the same kinds of people
Me and him

I wonder if he would despise me

Adrian Slonaker works as a copywriter and copy editor in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. Adrian's poetry has appeared in The Mackinac, Postcard Poems and Prose, Red Weather, Red Fez, ZiN Daily Archive and others. ​

Your wood-hued wolf eyes,
your sheltering shoulders of Empire,
your commanding tones subduing me,
discussing lava lamps over tikka masala.
We swayed to the rhythm of an oscillating fan,
licking lassi from lips,
while I pondered a prayer of thanks.
 
I listened to you with the gentleness of bumblebee fur;
you lay into your neuroses like fists upon pizza dough.
When you finished, I donned your clothes,
not caring that they didn't fit.

​

At 10:32 on the morning
of his 46th birthday he woke up
after five hours and twelve minutes of unsatisfying slumber
to streams of invasive sunlight
visiting him uninvited
through spindly blinds
derelict in their duty to keep him undisturbed.
Already his sinuses were celebrating with the non-returnable gift
of honking cold slimy mucus.
With a  baritone groan,
he nudged his naked gym-neglected Dad body-
settled by a colony of wiry silver chest hairs and pubes-
off the Sealy Posturepedic where
he chain-munches Cheetos and sleeps solo.
After careening into the kitchen in a contact lens-less blur,
he tenderly attended an arid palate
with a can of Fresca-deserted by Sheila
when she'd given him the heave-ho back in August-
extracted from the top shelf of the mini-fridge
the way he might feed a dachshund in the morning
if only he had a pet.

​

Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He's had over a hundred thirty poems and stories published so far, and two books.

​I'm tethered to others
by lines I distain.
Wishing no one's help,
asking no one's advice,
seeking no one's closeness.
 
Time a rope's length away
is comfort and peace.
Sharing no one's delusions,
solving no one's problems
coddling no one's ego.
 
But when the cords unbind
in woods or mind,
Fearing no one's reachable,
worrying no one's aware,
panicking no one's helpful
 
I scurry toward contact
and grasp for connection.
Clutching for even a stranger's touch,
for even a harsh look,
for even a curse in recognition.
 
 

​A woman I love
too much to hide from
has incurable cancer
flowing through her veins.
 
I offer what I can,
touch and presence,
while she begins to shed
what had seemed important
 
We talk of others loved
and of shared absurdities
so we can avoid broaching
in harsh certainty.
 
She cries sometimes
to an audience of one,
not because she’s dying,
but because of loss of living
 

​The creatures of the night
don’t lurk in woods and mansions.
They cave in cubicle and condo
until their sunset bat flights
to score drugs and hookups.
They shift not shape but being
into things denied by day.
Their eyes, rheumed at three o’clock 
bear witness to misshapings.
Their smiles are the crumpled wrappers
of what they’ve smoked or drunk.
These creatures of the night
skulk outside themselves and simper.
They’ve escaped into the darkness.
 
 

​I crouch in you too placid to wonder,
Who carry me while wallowing,
and hiding from your fears.
You only half-live, but twist screaming
As I snick the blade
Through your ornamental flowers
 
I forbear you who grasp pain,
Aware of my presence
But nimbly moving without my weight.
I shun the sear of you who live too hot
Until with trembling hands
I enfold your sheaf and mourn.
 
 

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Examined Life Journal, Studio One and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Leading Edge, Poetry East and Midwest Quarterly.   

​The end was drawing near.
Every last leaf had drifted down
from the trees
and the dog’s breaths were growing
shorter and shorter.
Besides which,
the classical piece on the stereo
was well into its coda.
The mystery I was reading
had already revealed who did it
and I was skipping through
the typically boring wrap-up.
It was also the last hour of November.
Not forgetting the final drops
of my hot toddy
and the closing rumble
of my friend’s car
as she drove away from the house.
It occurred to me
that if something didn’t begin real soon
then everything would go black.
My leg was itchy
and I started scratching it.
The world was saved.
 
 

​the bad drug
was a darkness
in which something red
wriggled like a tadpole
in a silty pond
 
and a wind rushed
in one ear and out the other
to the sound of crashing trees
 
he fell to the floor
unable to move
like a turkey trussed
and ready for the oven
 
he heard his lover’s voice
as the tiny tinkle
of a charm bracelet
 
glimpsed her platinum hair
 
she bent down beside him
whispered
“serves you right asshole”
in his ear
 
the good drug
was unsympathetic
but remained close by
in case she was needed
 
she couldn’t help herself
 
her bad drug was him
 

​Along the dusty track,
an old man is herding
a whirling flock of banshees
to market.
Following behind, a young boy
belts the rump of a sagging unicorn
with a long birch rod.
It's a sorry race between
the beast being sold
or dying in its cloven tracks.
And then, out of the woods,
steps the sprightly, rotund slave-trader
hauling this month's batch
of gypsy children, runaways,
and castoff royal mistresses.
Two grave-robbers in a rickety trap
urge their horses forward,
A body part not fresh
may as well have stayed behind with the body.
It's market day
and children catch newts to sell to witches.
or lumps of old lead for the alchemist trade.
There's something for everyone.
whether it's to feed the family
or raise ancestors from the dead
And prices range from pennies to pounds
to your first born or your soul.
Old wives, of course, chatter in the background.
swapping old wives' tales.
And hunchbacks shop, for their vampire masters,
virgin on the bone.
A little West Indian girl is crying because
her mommy won't buy her pins
to go with her new dolly.
And to think,
the dolly didn't
use to look like her mother.
 

​Let it be always midnight,
no windows, no highways,
just bodies and breath.
In daylight,
the skin has a curse on it.
Call it death.
Call it homeliness.
But hold up the mirror in the dark.
See the face continue
beyond just faces.
In the blackness,
even a thought can be a face.
A feeling likewise.
Like the breathing can be
a world and all the people in it.
The air and the earth...
just recipes really.
Just scattered pieces
at the mercy of
how you assemble them.
Your legends begin with touch,
with the glide down to see
how well made you are.
While there, check on the
nation of your loveliness.
See how its people are bearing up.
 
 

​upon these wrinkled sheets,
the slave ship of the night,
the grizzled commandant,
the whistling oars
condemn this restless dark
to deathly ocean,
its cruel swell
to the stuff of journeys
 
while I, with no wish to go anywhere,
whistle for sanity
like it's the dog in the shadow,
with fur enough to grip,
tongue to lash me to these docks
 
and here's the great vessel
with no origin in man,
no respect for nature,
that needs to move,
to be some other place,
that drills in me
a conceit to match my terror,
that it only needs
one muscle more,
would pay me
in my own splattered blood
for the pleasure
 
 

​Ngozi Olivia Osuoha is a young Nigerian poet/ writer and a graduate of Estate Management. She has some experience in banking and broadcasting. She has published some works abroad in some foreign magazines in Ghana, Liberia, India and Canada, among others. She enjoys writing.

A hot world full of hurt
A harsh world filled with marsh
Swampy, bomby and shabby
Lonely, dreary and weary,
Kindness could bring us happiness.
A cold world of worthless gold
A sold world of stolen fold
A raw world of burning war,
A bar world with bloody law
Troubled, scary and blurry
Kindness could give us fairness.
Injustice, prejudice and malice
Rumours, despiration, conspiracy
Slavery, starvation and racism
Kindness could heal our brokenness.

The kind, is not blind,
Because the mind can still find
Treasures in this whirlwind.
​

​Robin Wyatt Dunn lives in a state of desperation engineered by late capitalism, within which his mind is a mere subset of a much larger hallucination wherein men are machines, machines are men, and the world and everything in it are mere dreams whose eddies and currents poets can channel briefly but cannot control. Perhaps it goes without saying that he lives in Los Angeles.

​Who judges the name of men; separates its teeth from its head; its memories from its habitations; its blood from its death? Who makes the herd spur left under rock; summons wisdom for the arrival of the enemy; groks the light? Who judges the name of men;  forming it watchful; locking it and marring its face, to go aground with its tumbled graces, consonants into the syllabary? Who wakes the demon of our fierce love, no nearer absence than its groan, no hereafters but its embrace? Who judges love to mean what it does? And who negotiates its absence under the creekbeds and sounds of my wakefulness, sweat dust and wind? Who judges the name of men; without their direction; without their need; hinting at their desire under the dragon of the fall; so near; and nearer; who names men under the dragon rhyming his face with the teeth; who cloaks his children and lovers in the name of the creekbed, in the skeleton of the ancestors?
 
Who can judge the name of men; nearer always; keeping the meaning terrible and close; bombmaker; epitaph breaker; thrower of stones?
 
Who judges the name of men to creep soundlessly under my head;  dominating my passions; serving my will; arbitrating my body like the sea from the continent; aging the memory of our keeping for some distillation, or communicator; path through sea.
 
We do.
 
I judge the name of men an oath; rock and stone; ash and current; waking and dreaming; walking under the force of time; no never making the wind wreak, for it is we who wreak under its balcony, as the raft; nearing the hesitancy of my desire.
 
We can judge; winter the present under the shelter of the past until there is no more of it; and then we must move.
 

If you assume I remember
you suck peppermint pastilles for hayfever in August;
your meals must be macrobiotic;
and you seek refuge in churchyards when you need to reflect,
if you assume I feel
your eyes' swirling cyan splashes into my dreams;
your nerdy owlish laugh strikes me as tender;
and your tone-mauling “music” is a treat for my tympanum,
if you assume I desire
your placid companionship during winter's first storm;
your velvet vulnerability when the jitters besiege you;
and your gusts of good news shared first with me,
if you assume I proclaim
“a lifetime of your tender friendship is sweeter than toffee ”;
“I'll grant you a view of what's unseen to others”;
and “I'll trust you forever in spite of myself”-
if you make these assumptions,
then you're shit out of luck.

​

I live in a hotel
that's slumming it as a motel.
It resounds with the the rap-tap-tap of housekeeping
and the splashes of a swanky swimming pool,
just like in Beverly Hills.
The current incarnation
of Roger Miller's King of the Road, I've inhabited hotels
in Chicago and Seattle and Des Moines and
Lexington and Birmingham and Houston and Portland and
Pasadena.
 
I'm proud to have overcome lease-slavery, and, if
companionship is craved,
the personnel are perpetually peppy.
On Thanksgiving and Christmas,
I make the most of movie marathons and
pesto pizzas from places that play up to
the freaks of the festive season,
pleased not to be plagued by the peskiness of family disputes.
I can enter the New Year peeking into the communal garbage can and
considering whether the condom wrappers,
crushed Coors cans and empty packs of Camels
belonged to the same unseen, unknown neighbors.
 
And when I can no longer ignore my itchy feet or the aggregation of
ghostly vibes bequeathed by quondam guests, I grab my suitcase and
gravitate toward the greener pastures of
another hotel.  

​

i.e. and e.g. are Latin lovers
frequently confused
by the uninitiated ignorant of their identity. 
The i of informer pushes the e of explanation;
when a racing ragamuffin stubs her little big toe
on the end of Grandma's chintzy chesterfield,
she yelps "aieeeeee"
i.e., she's in such pain she'd deny herself dessert
if it meant her discomfort would dissipate
like firecracker smoke.
But sometimes that e of explanation
gets hooked on the g of generous acts,
e.g., example-giving for which
a reader running across some savannah of arcane concepts
may be ever-grateful.

​

​She twirls a twist of his coarse graying hair
while his cold calloused hands ascend,
then creep down
the contours of her spine.
He holds on,
as a hope-drained seafarer clutches the raft,
insulated from the whining wind outside
from those terrifying truths of the night,
those persistent pangs of pensiveness,
embracing her mole-speckled shoulders,
his face bathed in her brandy-soaked breath,
indulging in that elusive intimacy
as comfortable as a La-Z-Boy chair,
no worrying, no wincing
until daylight discovers him,
awakening him with a whisper,
taking her away with a scream.

I don't know how we got here,
what three-act play 
we sleepwalked and sleepspoke through
to arrive in this lonely hayloft.
Oak branches filter autumn sunshine
while the crisp air suggests a coming chill.
I never wanted to be more than your friend,
yet here I am
in the fuzzy shadows of an early Saturday evening 
beneath the most faded of your mother's pale blue duvets.

​

           When Amis the pig returned from the slaughterhouse un-slaughtered he had life-changing news to deliver to the pigs in his pen. They were surprised to see him again, because from what they knew, when one of them were taken, they never came back. So, when they saw Amis reappear—a pig who most of them admired—they rejoiced in the belief that all was well, though, as it would soon become evident, their belief was just a product of bad faith.
          A blanket of chaos swept the pen of eight when Amis spoke of the grim future that awaited them all. It pained him to have to describe all of the blood, and how it came at him from every direction, along with the pigs who hung by rope, with their necks slit, left for dead. He told them about the evil workers who tossed dead pigs into corners like pieces of trash. Amis warned the members of his pen that if they didn’t take action, they too, would wind up like all the rest. 
           That’s when Jen, a pig Amis had grown close to, said, “I don’t understand, what did we do to deserve to die?”
          For that, Amis had no answer, nor it seemed, did anyone else, until a wise, cynical pig named Phil said, “We are simply thrown into being and are condemned to die.”
           “You mean they raise us just to kill us? That’s absurd!”
         “Precisely,” Phil said. “And all that we can do is hope it only happens once.”
         The pigs couldn’t believe what they were hearing. They moved in circles and stomped their hooves in protest.
          Amis, however, believed that there was something they could do. He moved to the side of the pen to ask Phil if he knew why he was sent back instead of ending up like the others.
            Phil—who was older and had been there longer than most—said he’d only seen it happen a few times before, said it seemed that the ones who were sent back were either too young or too skinny. When Amis asked Phil why that was, Phil said because he was pretty certain that they were being killed to be eaten.
             “Oh, the horror,” Amis said, “the horror.”
            Chaos turned to sadness, and a great silence fell upon the pen. Phil, Jen, and Amis stood together, while the other pigs milled around with their snouts to the ground, unexcited by the luscious mud that had once given them unspeakable pleasure.
            Amis’s pen wasn’t the only pen on the farm. In all, there were about eighty pigs, split off into pens of ten, a number that fluctuated every time one of them was taken, or a new one was brought in. They lived underneath a large, outdoor structure, with a high roof and a meshed fence that was covered by a green, see-through tarp that went up about half way that kept the pigs from baking in the sun. The structure had a fence door that was also covered in mesh. Amis’s pen was the one closest to the fence door, the same one he’d been dragged through by one of the workers, sparing him from death in the slaughterhouse. To the left of the structure was an open pasture where horses and cows could graze the grass as they pleased. The pigs could see the pasture through the tarp, making them long for the promise of freedom held by the pasture and beyond. Yet, here they were, trapped, in view of the promise that seemed so far out of their reach.
             Despite everything working against them, Amis knew there had to be a way out. He brought his gaze to the far reaches of the sty and saw the many number of them. He imagined the power they had in their size and realized there were two choices they could make: they could sit back and accept the reality of what awaited them, or take an action to defy the pre-determined purpose the evil workers had in store for them.
         Amis reflected on what Phil had said to him about being unwanted in a skinny, weak state, which made him consider the possibility of a hunger strike. He believed that if they stopped eating, or at least ate only to survive, the workers would reject them just as they had done to him. When he proposed this to Phil, Phil said, “Yes, but you are hungry, are you not?”
            Amis said, “It’s more than a matter of being hungry.” He turned to the rest of the pigs and said, “If we choose not to eat and make ourselves undesirable, they may allow us to live. Yes, we are trapped, but that does not take away our freedom to choose.” He paced back and forth, and said, “We can either continue to eat, leading us to die in shame, or we can stand up for our desire to live. By eating at a minimum, we can take this absurdity head on. And if we die, at least we know we’ll die trying.”
            It took a few moments, but soon enough the pigs were enthused by Amis’s leadership, and were able to see a sliver of hope. Their prospects were bleak, yes, but they managed to find comfort in solidarity. They held their snouts high and decided they weren’t going to go anywhere without a fight.
 
            During their evening feed, Amis, Phil, and Jen refused to eat while most of the others ate in moderation. Amis was okay with that. What he wasn’t okay with was the few pigs who took it upon themselves to eat like they were at the last supper. This group of three was led by Gus, a pig who Amis had had disagreements with in the past.
            When Amis confronted him about it, Gus said, “What are we supposed to do? Starve ourselves? If they picked you, what makes you think one of us won’t be next?”
            Gus was right, that very well could be true, but that’s not a sentiment Amis wanted to give off. Instead he made his plea. “Why not join the rest of us and do what’s right?”
            Gus said, “The only thing that’s right for us to do is to squeeze out any bit of pleasure we can get before it all comes to an end.”
            Amis didn’t know how to respond. Who was he to tell someone else how to live? And in a way, Gus was right. It was up to them, and if they didn’t want to join him then that was fine, they could suit themselves. Yet, that feeling for Amis couldn’t have been true, because when he saw Gus put his snout back into the feed, Amis—who was hungry and frustrated—became enraged. He got in position to charge Gus, but was stopped when Jen and Phil told him to forget it, there was nothing he could do.
            By the time night fell Amis had cooled down, though he would spend much of the night tossing and turning. It was impossible to get those images of death and destruction out of his head. Going through that experience made him question his very existence. After all, what was the point it? To be born only to have to endure such excruciating pain, didn’t make any sense to him. He was helpless knowing that his life was pre-determined by a bunch of greedy, inconsiderate men who were ruthless in their unrelenting desire to turn a profit.
           Although he’d been trapped for most of his days, he knew there had to be something more, a place where everyone was happy and free, where he wouldn’t have to be confined to an overcrowded space full of urine and feces and hopelessness. He’d seen the birds who flew under the roof of the sty, coming in and out as they pleased. He could feel the gallop of the horses up and down the rolling hills of the pasture. Yet, that world seemed so far out of reach from the reality his life was confined to.
           At first, he had been thrilled to be spared from that chamber of death, but now he wondered whether it would’ve been better if, it had all ended there instead of having to be sent back to his pen left knowing what was coming. Sure, if he hadn’t been taken to the slaughterhouse in the first place, he’d be able to spend what time he had left eating and enjoying life without realizing what was coming. But, now that he did know, he was put in a position where he could do something about it.
       He stood awake in the nighttime silence of the sty and thought about involving pigs from the other pens. The one advantage they had was their size in numbers. Besides, it was only the right thing to do to tell them what he knew. And the more of them who knew, the better chance they’d have at surviving—the most important factor of all. One of the problems would be how to get the news to the other pens without sending the whole sty into chaos. He couldn’t just shout out the news. What he could do, he realized, was roll the news out to other pens one at a time, starting with the pen next door. He did happen to know a pig in that pen, too—his friend Steve. Steve was the kind of pig who wasn’t bashful about his willingness to complain, one of those complaints being that he could never get himself to sleep. That’s when Amis decided to give it a shot.
          “Hey Steve,” he said. “You awake?”
          Steve looked back at him and said, “What do you think?”
          “Listen,” Amis said. “We need to talk.”
       Steve, now realizing who he was talking to, was surprised to see Amis. “I thought you were gone,” he said. “We saw them take you.”
            “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Amis said. He told Steve what he learned, and what the workers planned to do with them. Then he told Steve about what Phil said and explained his pen’s decision to stop eating, and asked him if him and his pen would join.
            “But we’ll die if we don’t eat,” Steve said.
            Amis said, “We’re not stopping entirely—just not eating as much.”
            “And you think by doing this they won’t kill us?”
            “I don’t know,” Amis said, “but it’s worth a shot.”
            “Oh, this is dreadful,” Steve said. “Absolutely dreadful.”
            Amis told Steve to find someone in the next pen to deliver the news to.
            Steve asked Amis when they were going to start.
            “In the morning,” Amis said, “after breakfast.”
 
           When the workers came around to give the pigs their feed, Amis looked on as one of the other pigs decided to join Gus and the ones who kept eating as they pleased. And although he was disappointed, Amis was encouraged by those who remained strong, including Jen and Phil who agreed that his plan to inform the other pens was not only a good idea, but something that needed to be done.
In that moment, Amis thought about asking Phil why he never said anything, but ultimately decided not to, thinking he would save the question for when they were free.
      When Amis have Steve the signal that it was time, Steve appeared apprehensive. He came over to the side of the pen and told Amis that he thought it was better for the rest of the pigs not to know. Amis, surprised, asked Steve how he would feel if one of the pigs in his pen was taken and he decided not to say anything about it.
            “Or,” Amis said, “what if it was you?”
            Steve conceded. He knew Amis was right and that was enough for him to go along with everything as planned.
            Amis, Phil, and Jen stood together and watched Steve as he slumped his shoulders and prepared to relay the news to the pigs in his pen. Once he did, Amis witnessed the horror that fell upon the faces of the pigs as they learned what would become of them. His heart sank when Steve turned around to acknowledge who the news was coming from. Amis did his best to put a poised expression, but he shook inside while the pigs in Steve’s pen looked his way in a state of terror. He was thankful to have Phil and Jen by his side to keep him comfort.
            Throughout the morning, news traveled around to all eight pens, causing escalating screams of terror to crash over the sty like waves of sorrow. The ground shook from the collected stomping of hooves by the crazed pigs who ran in circles, protesting the horror of what awaited them. In fact, the whole sty ended up learning about the news before the plan could be executed as Amis had planned. This, Amis would regret because it didn’t take long for the workers to come in responding to the chaos. The workers presence escalated even further.
            “What the hell’s gotten into them?” a portly worker said.
            “Told you we were givin them too many of those antibiotics,” the other said.
            “They’re fine. Just a little crazy is all.”
            The portly one walked up to a pen on the side of the sty opposite of Amis. As he approached, the pigs ran around in a circle, fast. He opened the gate, kicked one of them in the ribs, and used a stunner to shock another. He closed that gate and moved down the line of pens looking in at each one. He made his way down to the opposite end where all the pigs in Amis’s pen had backed into the corner. Amis, however, did not. Despite his weakened strength, he stood in front of the pen as their leader. He did his best to keep his composure, but couldn’t help tremble knowing what the consequences of being taken were. Amis looked the worker in the eye as he opened the gate latch, and entered the pen. In fear, Amis backed his body further into the pigs behind him, hoping to evade the evil worker, but to no avail. The worker reached down, grabbed Amis by the neck as he looked over his body, and said, “Goddamn swine,” holding Amis up with his front hooves dangling in the air.
            The pigs behind Amis sobbed for their friend, thinking he wouldn’t be so lucky this time, and for good reason. But they were wrong. The worker wasn’t pleased. He pushed Amis into the far corner of the pen and then made his way through the rest of them, looking for a bigger, stronger pig ready for slaughter. He pushed the skinnier pigs aside until he found one he liked. It was Gus. The worker took him by the neck, dragged him out of the pen, and left the others to live another day.  
            The pigs let out a collective sigh of relief, grateful to be spared from death.
The encounter made Amis realize that their hunger strike would only give them so much time. He spent the afternoon thinking before he addressed the pen for the first time since Gus was taken.
            “By now we are all aware of the danger that awaits us. While eating minimally seems to be making something of a difference, we cannot depend on this for our survival. If we want to live, I think we can all agree that the only way of doing that is to escape. And since some of us may not be as strong as we once were, we’ll need everyone to contribute if this is going work.”
            He told the pen that his inclination was for them to rush the worker the next time he came in. Once they got out of their pen, he explained, all they would have to do is make their way out of the structure through the meshed door, and then move like hell once they got onto the pasture and into the beyond.
           After speaking to the pen, Jen pulled Amis aside and asked him how they were going to tell the other pens about their plan.
            “They’ll know about it once we make our move,” Amis said, looking away.
 
           He was restless the entire night. He sat in the mud, and questioned how it all came to this. He never asked to be born. It just happened one day that he came to be. And now, knowing the reason why, he failed to find any meaning or value in his life. He reflected on his earliest memories, and thought about his mother and how she’d lay on her side while she provided him and the other piglets in his litter with the milk they needed to survive. Did she know the reason why they needed to survive? Did she know that one day they’d hang from the roof of a shed while the blood drained out of them? And now here Amis was, at the stage of his life where, if his plan didn’t work out, would become another one of the ones left to hang, completing the purpose of his life. If only he was so lucky to never come to be. That to him, would be the greatest gift of all.
 
        In the morning, the worker came to the pen to give them their morning meal. This time the pigs indulged knowing that it could not only be their last, but also—and more importantly—to give them the energy they would need to endure the escape.
 
         Not long after they ate, the portly worker returned to the sty to select his next victim. He walked up and down the pens searching for a pig that would make for the perfect kill. He went to the far end of the sty and then came back towards the front and stopped in front of Steve’s pen. He opened the gate and walked in. Steve stood in front of the pigs in his pen just as Amis had for his pigs the day before.
        Amis wanted to move now. He knew that every moment he and his pen remained, was just another moment one of them could be taken. Their time was now.
         To initiate their escape Amis got the worker’s attention. He moved to the front of the pen and stood tall with his chest out and grunted loud for the worker to hear. He kept doing it, louder and louder, until eventually Jen, Phil, and the rest of the pigs in his pen joined him. The worker’s attention moved to their pen. He stared at them, and once he noticed Amis, a look of vengeance fell upon his face. He left Steve’s pen, shut the latch behind him, and walked towards Amis’s pen like he had unfinished business to take care of.
            Amis and the other pigs looked at each other, acknowledging that this was it.
         The worker opened the pen, reached in to grab Amis, but was stopped by the seven pigs who charged at him, forcing him to the ground, trampling him as they hauled ass, making their way out of the pen.
            They were off. It seemed like they were on their way to the freedom they desperately yearned for. When they pushed their way through the unlatched door of the sty they were met by the other worker who had come out of the slaughterhouse with a gun in response to the noise. The pigs scattered, running onto the pasture in different directions. The worker chased after them and fired multiple shots along the way.
              Jen and Amis ran ahead while Phil and the other heavier pigs lagged behind. Jen and Amis saw horses and cows react to the loud pop of gunfire. They each had their own fenced off areas where Jen and Amis—and everyone else—would have to pass through in order to get away. The problem was, they didn’t know if they could make it underneath the fencing. The continual gunfire, along with the cry of their fellow pigs, made them quickly decide that they would have to try.
         Amis told Jen to go first. He watched her maneuver her body low to the ground, forcing her way underneath the fencing just enough to make it through. Eating less over the last few days seemed to give her an advantage. Jen watched Amis as he tried from the other side.
           “Hurry,” she said, “they’re coming.”
Amis worked his body in the same way Jen did, but his large frame had got in his way. He continued to try, but stopped when a bullet hit the fence post right next to him, and he thought it was over. He looked up at Jen doubt that he’d be able to make it.
             “C’mon,” she said. “You’re almost there.”
          He tried just a bit more, working his back underneath the fencing just enough to make it through before bullets penetrated the impression in the grass he and Jen left behind.
            They ran through the horses’ area to the other side of the farm, and once they reached a comfortable enough distance away, they looked back, seeing Phil and the other pigs from their pen dead on the ground. The workers picked them up, and stacked them on top of each other, before carting them away in a wheelbarrow.
            Amis’s heart sunk. He knew it could’ve ended badly, but seeing it all play out in front of him was something else. The freedom he promised his friends had whittled to nothing, as did the lives they once possessed.
         Jen was also emotional. She wept and told Amis how she felt guilty about going on without them.
         “There’s nowhere for them to go,” Amis said. “If we don’t hurry, there won’t be any place for us either.”
         And with that, the two pigs looked ahead, picked up their step, and entered the freedom of a nearby forest. 
​