No Obligation to Enjoy the Weather by Robert Stewart

Been stranded out in snow before—
stepped lightly on the bare places, hoping
for frozen ground, avoiding slush, wind, 
 
a fir-tree limb speared into the yard.  Today,
a friend calls the office and says look up 
the weather—yellow-ball sun, cartoon-cloud free, 
 
wind 5 mph, and to the left of the flat screen 
a window so blue even the grime clears enough 
it must be, and is, 57 late February, rain 0%.
 
My plans Sunday to read the “Wondrous Love”
essay by Marilynne Robinson stalled by word
of clemency.  Ice returns at sunset, 
 
say forecasters in present tense, so Midwest
conditions reveal a seasonal mix of time present
and snow any moment, as if our technology-mediated 
 
life on this planet, says Robinson, has deprived us 
of the brilliance of a bright sky and more—
think about the smell and companionship
 
of mules and horses, she says; and so I am
thinking my chickens are out scratching
among dry grasses, their feathery butts 
 
raised pointedly, as Robinson and time 
agree, The Bible is terse, the gospels brief . . . 
every moment and detail merits pondering.  
 
I read the day’s instructions: Love 
thy chickens, as they have been given 
a breeze that lifts their down, and I the book.

Robert Stewart’s latest book of poems is Working Class (2018, Stephen F. Austin State Univ.); his latest collection of essays is The Narrow Gate: Writing, Art & Values (2014, Serving House).  For many years, he edited New Letters quarterly, at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Guest Editor James Benger is the author of two fiction ebooks, and three chapbooks, two full-lengths, and coauthor of four split books of poetry. He is on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop, and is Editor In Chief of the subsequent anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.

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Smoke in the Distance by William Sheldon

We stoke the wood stove at the patio’s
edge, pull our chairs a little closer,
tug the Mexican blankets a little tighter
The cold dark beer is bitter.
We like the bite, the way
one does in later days, sensation
welcomed.
      Smoke rises
on the near horizon confirming
life in the distance, night
and winter coming on.

“Smoke in the Distance” was first published in Flint Hill Review

William Sheldon lives with his family in Hutchinson, Kansas. Books of poetry include Retrieving Old Bones (Woodley), Into Distant Grass (Oil Hill) and Rain Comes Riding (Mammoth).  A new full-length collection, Deadman, is forthcoming from Spartan Press. He plays bass for the band The Excuses.

 Guest Editor James Benger is the author of two fiction ebooks, and three chapbooks, two full-lengths, and coauthor of four split books of poetry. He is on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop, and is Editor In Chief of the subsequent anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.

Happiness by Pat Daneman

Today I have no expectations—the world 
will go on as the world would if I were not in it. 
As if I were this boy fishing in the creek,
 
wanting terribly to catch a fish, but going on his way 
undamaged when no fish finds his hook. His footprints 
leave mud on the path, disappear in the flicker 
 
between sun and shade, and no one knows
that he has walked there, softly
adding words to a made-up tune.

Pat Daneman’s poetry is widely published, most recently in Moon City Review, I-70 Review, Atlas & Alice, Freshwater and Typehouse. Her full-length poetry collection, After All (FutureCycle Press 2018), was first runner up for the 2019 Thorpe-Menn Award and a finalist for the Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award. She is author of a chapbook, Where the World Begins and co-librettist of the oratorio, We, the Unknown, premiered by the Heartland Men’s Chorus in 2018. She lives in Candia, NH. For more, visit patdaneman.com.

Guest Editor James Benger is the author of two fiction ebooks, and three chapbooks, two full-lengths, and coauthor of four split books of poetry. He is on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop, and is Editor In Chief of the subsequent anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.

Clarity by Roy Beckemeyer

“…notes
adults have trouble
hitting, holding”
—Kevin Rabas, “Easy for Me”
 
Our notes of childhood
ring out clear and higher
than our post-pubescent
drones, sing, still, somewhere
across the dimensions
of time, out of synch,
now with the photon-
painted gold-toned movies
of our lives, the flurry
of image and sound
complicated sinewave
mixtures that refract
and reflect and sliver
through slits to devolve
into constituent colors
and notes pure as carefree
days where you and I
run through light bright
with promise, heads high
and voices brilliant
with the clarion-clarity
of youth recalled.

Roy Beckemeyer’s latest book is Mouth Brimming Over (2019, Blue Cedar). Stage Whispers (2018, Meadowlark) won the 2019 Nelson Poetry Book Award. Music I Once Could Dance To (2014, Coal City) was a 2015 Kansas Notable Book. Roy Beckemeyer has designed and built airplanes, discovered and named fossils of Palaeozoic insect species, and once traveled the world. Beckemeyer lives with and for his wife of 60 years, Pat, in Wichita, Kansas.

 Guest Editor James Benger is the author of two fiction ebooks, and three chapbooks, two full-lengths, and coauthor of four split books of poetry. He is on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop, and is Editor In Chief of the subsequent anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.

The Coincidence by Cameron Morse

Just an instant
of unobstructed sunset
grabs the surprise
 
downfall by the shoulders,
silvering rain
with the dregs of day
 
light before
a cloud occludes
the wound I am wound by,
 
wound up and released
from the kitchen
just in time
 
to catch a glimpse of this
coincidence.
A glimpse is all I get.
 
The rain angles away
from the sliding door
I'm backed by, reflected in,
 
though no one sees this.
No one sees me
out here
 
in my ratty pajamas.

Cameron Morse is Senior Reviews editor at Harbor Review and the author of six collections of poetry. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is Far Other (Woodley Press, 2020). He holds and MFA from the University of Kansas City—Missouri and lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife Lili and two children. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website.  

Guest Editor James Benger is the author of two fiction ebooks, and three chapbooks, two full-lengths, and coauthor of four split books of poetry. He is on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop, and is Editor In Chief of the subsequent anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.

Palmistry by Jemshed Khan

What did she see

in my hands

upturned to heaven?

Perhaps bats rising

from my palms, swarms

winging into the night.

In the glare

of my smartphone

I Google death

stare at a picture

of an infected Princess

off the coast of Cali.

In the cradle of my hand:

maps of the earth,

red circles rising.

I walk to the sink,

scrub with soap, wash

until water runs clear.

Isolation

I used to cross the street

from my office to see Dad.

We munched on samosas

and forkfuls of biryani.

Sipped chai

and talked Dow Jones.

Now a phone call is all.

“What did you just say?”

I raise my voice, enunciate,

but he still mistakes me

for my brother.

“Oh fine,” he replies,

and then jumbles English

and Urdu

into nonsense.

Once a week I set

a grocery sack

of canned soups, oatmeal,

oranges, bananas, milk

outside his door:

ring the door bell

and head for the car.

Jemshed Khan lives in Kansas City and has published in Heartland 150, I-70 Review, Chiron Review and Coal City Review.

September Editor James Benger is the author of two fiction ebooks, and three chapbooks, one full-length, and coauthor of three split books of poetry. He is on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop, and is Editor In Chief of the subsequent anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.

Blood — By James Benger

Dad sold his blood

on Saturday afternoons

a couple times a month.

 

Mom off waitressing,

or maybe the warehouse job,

or any other place the temp agency

would send her,

Dad’d load us into the

rusted quarter panel conversion van,

soup can dangling from baling wire

(I think it was beef noodle)

to catch the constant oil leak,

that van where the stray cat died

on the block one horrid January morning,

that van he once let me drive home

from Cub Scouts, only to have

a crow go headfirst into the grille.

 

Dad’d back out into the dirt and gravel of

Marquette Avenue,

all beer cans and spent needles,

and we’d roll down 41,

hoping for potholes, that when hit at top speed,

would give you that roller coaster stomach,

if only for a second.

 

There was this lot at the side of the highway,

lettering on the sign out front

always made me think of jars of Miracle Whip,

they sold “luxury housing solutions for

our new mobile world,”

which meant singlewides,

and fifth-hand RV’s.

 

Right next door, you’d find the tiny white house,

rail out front in case you felt faint while leaving.

They’d put Dad in a recliner,

hook him up to red-stained plastic tubes,

let us sit in the corner,

had the biggest TV I’d ever seen,

must’ve been twenty-eight inches, and color,

gave us orange juice and

oatmeal raisin cookies,

tuned the box to Masters of the Universe

while they slowly sucked Dad’s blood.

 

One time Mom and Dad took us to the circus,

I was afraid of the clowns,

but I got a huge bag of

the world’s butteriest popcorn,

and a plastic cap gun,

and I still remember the red stripes,

the salt on my winter-chapped lips.

 

Mom and Dad,

they gave us those first memories,

and they paid for them in blood.

~ James Benger

James Benger is the author of two fiction ebooks, three chapbooks, one full-length poetry book, and is a coauthor of three split books of poetry. He is on the Board of Directors for The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop. He is Editor in Chief of the subsequent anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and two sons.

November Editor, Ronda Miller, is the State President of Kansas Authors Club. Miller has four books of poetry: Going Home: Poems from My Life, MoonStain, WaterSigns and Winds of Time. Her upcoming children’s book, I Love the Child, will be published 12/13/2019. The book’s illustrator is Katie Wiggins, a found cousin.

You Will Find It — By James Benger

in the dark warmth

and unsung beauty

of small town back alleys,

 

behind the grocery stores

as the overnight crew

burns one by the door,

 

in the midnight breeze

rustling the high branches

of the downtown park,

 

on the lips of the lovers

lying momentarily silent

in the aftermath,

 

under the bleachers

where forgotten promises

percolate for eternity,

 

underneath the overturned car

forever remaining

in the overgrown ditch,

 

in the middle pages

of yesterday’s news

fermenting for future poignancy,

 

in the man’s eyes

as he ladles out more soup

at the shelter,

 

in the decaying final note

of her thrift store guitar

on Saturday night,

 

on the often silent tongues

of anyone seeking

anything more.

 

You will find it

if you open your eyes,

and if you’re lucky,

it will find you.

~ James Benger

James Benger is the author of two fiction ebooks, and three chapbooks, one full-length, and coauthor of three split books of poetry. He is on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop, and is Editor In Chief of the subsequent anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.

Snow Day — By D. R. James

—1-21-17

A half-foot of fresh snow shows fresh tracks

crisscrossing our little clearing in the woods.

The three does we’ve been getting to know,

already half-way through their freshman year,

have plowed a white furrow looking for

the feed we’re guilty of sowing for them.

 

We’ve heard all the arguments. But with the

Congress of clueless children back in from recess,

fretting and fussing within their little uniforms,

a-Twitter about the new bully on the playground,

we’re elated to awaken to our own snow day

and to see the neighbors have paid a visit.

 

It’s only a break from that other nagging reality,

for we know it won’t last, that the road crews

have been out all night and that this stint likely

won’t go beyond a mid-morning delay. But

as their trails fade, I’m imagining roaming with

those rural kids, lucky to stay home all afternoon.

~ D. R. James

first published in The 3288 Review, 3:1

D.R. James—born in Ohio, raised in Illinois, grad-schooled in Iowa, and now in his 34th year teaching writing, literature, and peacemaking at the Midwestern college he attended in the 70’s—lives in the woods outside Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of seven collections is If god were gentle (Dos Madres).

James Benger is the author of two fiction ebooks, and three chapbooks, one full-length, and coauthor of three split books of poetry. He is on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop, and is Editor In Chief of the subsequent anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.

Riddle — by Dawne Leiker

She answers the riddles no one can
The punchlines to jokes we didn’t know we started.
We mull her words, wonder where they were born.
She says the five of us sat on the davenport
‘til the wind blew us away. She laughs,
picturing of the nonsense of it.
Her head slumped low, she doesn’t see
that five of us sit there. Just listening.
She asks why God doesn’t fall from the sky
And if pioneers ate grass when they ran out of food.
She asks the name of the little boy in the red sweater
Who no one else can see.
Who loves her scraping, high-pitched songs
that stab our ears and twist our hearts.
She answers the riddles no one can
From the corner of the room, when no one knows she’s listening.

~ Dawne Leiker

Dawne Leiker is a former journalist, now working in academia. Her news/feature stories have appeared in The Hays Daily News, Lawrence Journal World, and several online publications. Her poetry and short stories have garnered awards in regional and statewide literary competitions. Ms. Leiker’s fiction and poetry often are influenced by her past news story interviews, as she develops and re-imagines fictional characters and situations loosely based on local individuals and events.

James Benger is the author of two fiction ebooks, and three chapbooks, one full-length, and coauthor of three split books of poetry. He is on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop, and is Editor In Chief of the subsequent anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.