Two Poems by Megan Munger

Ars Poetica: Resuscitation 
“Not everything that is faced can be changed,
 but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin     
 
 
I. 
 
The door is iron, old, too heavy. We
have chicken for dinner, rip flesh from bone.
I am asked if I want a Coke. I decline,
get one anyway. Somewhere there
is strawberry cheesecake.
We don’t work on his English essay.
 
Afterward, Dad comes to get me. Dad
takes me home from this
friend’s house. I’m fifteen. 
I let the night sky engulf me.
I know I’m afraid of touch.
I don’t tell Dad I’ve been raped. I’m not sure.
 
II. 
 
I’m obsessed with writers’ names  	Frost Plath Sexton
Whitman Eliot Woolf
 
                  	I haven’t read them yet
 
Frost Plath Sexton Whitman Eliot Woolf
Their names rescue me, on repeat in my head
Frost Plath Sexton Whitman Eliot Woolf
while he tears me.
 	Frost Plath Sexton Whitman Eliot Woolf
 
I burn. He unbuttons my jeans,
his knuckles too hard, too hot against my belly.
A nauseous knot forms when air,
then his hand, hits my hipbone. I shut my eyes,
hold my breath, shake my head side to side,
protest. This fire is a fight I cannot win.
 
It will all be over soon.
It will all be over
 
soon. He moves me. I open my eyes enough
to see the blossomed tree through the window,
 
too early in February. I watch
the wind blow the leaves outside,
hear him tell me, Everything is okay. You want this.
Everything is okay.
You want this. You want this.
 
Blood bubbles out of me in the bathroom—
no,
 	I didn’t want this.
I run hot water on my hands.
I don’t want any of this.
 
At the top of the staircase, I compose myself. I call Dad,
careful. I wait in the dark square space. I count
the fifteen descending steps until Dad arrives.
I don’t tell him. I don’t tell.

Fishing
 
The rising silver sun simplifies time
as I watch a widowed wave hike
across a middle-of-nowhere pond.
The fishing line sways in the slow
breeze. I hold my blue Shakespeare rod
in front, antenna-like. The orange bobber
floats out as far as my arm can throw. 
 
I stand in wait, and sometimes crouch
when my legs tire. I wish for the chair I left
back at the truck. The bobber goes down quick,
close to the bank. I reel with adrenaline, then
pull up to jam a hook through fish flesh. I
catch and release largemouth bass and perch,
I baited with minnows. Fishing, I wake up slow
 
with chirping crickets. The bullfrog’s echo
bounces off the trees, teaches my voice
how shouts into stillness will ripple.

Megan Munger is a Kansas poet. She received her M.A. and B.S.Ed. in English from Pittsburg State University, and she currently resides in Junction City, KS, where she teaches English at Junction City High School. This is amongst her first national publications.

Editor-in-Chief Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as TheNewVerse.News, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, and Valparaiso Review. Harbor Review’s chapbook prize is named in her honor. She expects her next collection, The Book of Stolen Images (Meadowlark) to be out in a few months.

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One Poem by Nathalie Kuroiwa-Lewis

The Chicxulub Event
 
When walking the way
your feet splashing in the water
think of fires blowing everywhere
and how the first dinosaurs fell in rivers of orange
crashing in the waves.
 
Consider then the maniraptoran:
dreaming of the ground,
shaking,
crouching
in a tight ball,
feeling the wind
ripple against her feathers,
 
as she managed to survive all that heat and radiation
coming down.
 
A trick of the gene,
a flash in the mind
 
of something
 
possible.

Nathalie Kuroiwa-Lewis is a Professor of English at Saint Martin’s University, a private, Benedictine liberal arts university located in the Pacific Northwest.  Her poems have been published in periodicals such as The Madrona Project, The Wild Word, and The Tiger Moth Review, among others. She currently lives in Olympia, Washington.

Editor-in-Chief Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as TheNewVerse.News, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, and Valparaiso Review. Harbor Review’s chapbook prize is named in her honor. She expects her next collection, The Book of Stolen Images (Meadowlark) to be out in a few months.

Since Every Gun Is A Credible Threat by Samantha Landau

“No, I was not in that number, though I still have the fire and the smoke
within me, pillars of fire and pillars of smoke that guide me”
--Yehuda Amichai
 
Congregation, the presence of our bodies
Draws the gun closer
Even so we continue chanting
A phrase passed in the old tongue
From generation to generation—

מיר װעלן זײ איבערלעבן    “We will outlive them”

When our ancestors were rounded up
Forced to silence, expected to cower
Gunfire the sole interruption 
To an old klezmer tune
Loudly, they sang  

מיר װעלן זײ איבערלעבן איבערלעבן
מיר װעלן זײ איבערלעבן איבערלעבן

מיר װעלן זײ איבערלעבן

איבערלעבן

מיר, “me, we, us,”
Together we are unafraid & defiant

זײ, “them,”
The hateful, with murderous intent

איבערלעבן “to outlive”
“to survive,” “to live longer than”
 
Outlive, for the memory of those who perished
Survive, my body proof my ancestors are still here
Live longer than, for I was there singing with them
At that time and in that place
My voice among theirs.
 
.מיר װעלן זײ איבערלעבן, היינט און אלעמאל  
We will outlive them, today and always.

Guided by fire, by smoke, 
May our singing efface
The thunder of bullets.

Samantha Landau is a Jewish-American academic, classical vocalist, translator, and writer who resides in Tokyo, Japan, where she has lived for nearly two decades. She works as a professor at The University of Tokyo and holds an MA and PhD in comparative culture from International Christian University. She completed her BA at Cornell University. She is a co-founder of the Gothic in Asia Association. Recently, she co-edited an issue of Women’s Studies on Emily Dickinson and Music, and co-organized conferences on Asian Folklore and the Gothic. Her creative writing centers on issues of identity and the supernatural. This is her first poetry publication.

Guest Editor Hyejung Kook’s poems have appeared in POETRY Magazine, Denver Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Pleiades, and elsewhere. Other works include an essay in Critical Flame and a chamber opera libretto. Born in Seoul, Korea, she now lives in Kansas with her husband and their two children. Learn more at her website.

Imbolc

The overlook is loud with the calls of elephant seals, mating and birthing.
My friend tells me his mother died four days ago. I breathe in. Another loss
to mark this moment. We stand meters apart. I resist the urge to hold his pain
in my arms, for his tears to wet my skin.
 
            Earlier, on the road to here, I waited for newborn calves and elk to cross,
            their coats thick with hair that has not yet smoothed into the hide. I smiled,
            cooed from within my car. Instinct over reason. This is lambing season, a time
            to celebrate the waning winter and new life on the farm.
 
We walk. I ask her name. Choi. She left her country, five young children in tow.
She was brave, I offer. He hesitates, then agrees. Before the lifeboat station,
we watch as a newborn seal pup cries to its mother. Slowly, she turns her body
towards the ocean, towards her child to suckle and survive.

Heather Bourbeau’s work has appeared or will appear in 100 Word Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Kenyon Review,Meridian, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and SWWIM. She has worked with various UN agencies, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and UNICEF Somalia. She lives amid the sage and fog.

Editor-in-Chief Laura Lee Washburn is a University Professor, the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10^thAnniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize).  Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Red Rock Review, and Valparaiso Review.  Harbor Review‘s micro-chap prize is named in her honor.

Suffering is not a Competition by Agnes Vojta

There are no judges who weigh

grief against grief,

no trophies for the heaviest burden,

no ribbons for the most deserving despair.

Do not compare.

You must pull

yourself out of the swamp

by your own hair,

declare yourself healed.

There will be no spectators

applauding at the finish line,

no paparazzi snapping,

no journalists waiting

for an interview –

only you

will know

that you’ve made it,

with nothing to show

than your heart still beating.

Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany and now lives in Rolla, Missouri where she teaches physics and hikes the Ozarks. She is the author of Porous Land (Spartan Press, 2019) and The Eden of Perhaps (Spartan Press, 2020), and her poems have appeared in a variety of magazines. This poem was originally published in Mad Swirl, 2019.

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.

Word of the Day . by Sarah Chenoweth

To those who would wait

for the revolution

wearing John Lennon t-shirts and

Guy Fawkes masks,

tattoos on their arms,

braids in their hair,

waiting for the return of

Marley, Tupac, Marat, Cobain:

 

To those who would wait

for the tide to turn,

for the waters to rise,

for others to fall

on their swords,

for a new king to be crowned;

a queen forgotten:

 

To those who would wait

until it is convenient;

when their work is done,

when children have gone,

after that next big promotion,

vacation, fad diet, season finale:

 

To those who would wait

until the fat cats own their lives,

until the food riots begin and

the summers become too hot

for victory gardens:

 

To those who would wait

under overpasses,

in alleyways,

buried in inescapable debt:

 

Stop waiting.

The fight did not end

in 1789, 1865, or 1964.

 

Stop waiting.

The fight is now, and

 

the word of the day is Resistance.

 

Sarah Chenoweth graduated from both the English and Communication M.A. programs at Pittsburg State University. She has been published in print through I-70 Review, Communication Theory, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, and the Journal of International Communication, and online through the Silver Birch Press and Kansas Time + Place.

Guest Editor Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize).  Her poetry has appeared in such journals as TheNewVerse.News, Cavalier Literary Couture, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Red Rock Review, and Valparaiso Review.  Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, she has also lived and worked in Arizona and in Missouri.  She is married to the writer Roland Sodowsky and is one of the founders and the Co-President of the Board of SEK Women Helping Women.

Eating Chicken Cobb Salad with a Stranger . by Katelyn Roth

Panera, noon, forced to share a table. He eats his soup

like he’s mad it’s soup. I never see him drink,

only transport the wide, flat spoon to his mouth with a fist

gripping its neck. He was Air Force—

nothing sissy about it—has driven from Colorado

to see a friend, a woman friend, and needs directions

to her house over by the country club. Got into town

too early. Time to kill.

Why call it cobb salad? No cobbs in it.

Chicken, spry romaine lettuce, withered bacon and

Gorgonzola cheese, tomatoes, a halved hard-boiled egg, avocado

if you ask for it, but no cobbs. No Charlies in My Lai, either.

No way to know, though. They all looked the same.

Went up with a gunner once, shiny new. Barely knew

where the trigger was. Had to tell him which direction to shoot in.

Probably had to tell him how to unzip his own trousers.

Took a bullet straight through his chicken plate, into his chest.

Right side, though. Didn’t have to tell him where to shoot

after that. He’d just shoot at anything.

Wedge salad is a different story. Wedge salad

is honest.

 

Katelyn Roth graduated from Pittsburg State University with degrees in Creative Writing and Psychology. She has been previously published in the campus literary magazine Cow Creek Review. Currently, she resides in Pittsburg with her husband and dog, where she is working on a Masters in Creative Writing at PSU.

Guest Editor Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize).  Her poetry has appeared in such journals as TheNewVerse.News, Cavalier Literary Couture, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Red Rock Review, and Valparaiso Review.  Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, she has also lived and worked in Arizona and in Missouri.  She is married to the writer Roland Sodowsky and is one of the founders and the Co-President of the Board of SEK Women Helping Women.

Dancing on the Head of a Pin . by Jemshed Khan

In the bang of war

the rifle butt smacks

the sniper’s shoulder:

another bullet swifts

the long dark hollow

of the killing barrel.

 

Minutes after the landing

the Rooster is strutting

The cameras are rolling

Hand shakes all around

Top brass is beaming

and cheering begins.

 

I scarcely fathom the howl

of all this volumed Kevlar―

yet my nation dances

on the bones of the dead

to bend the will of others

to a pin on a map.

 

Jemshed Khan has published poems in such magazines as Number One Magazine, Wittenberg Review, #BlackArtMatters (2016), Read Local (2016), Rigorous (2017), NanoText(Medusa’s Laugh Press, 2017) and the chapbook Paean for Billy Collins (Calliope Club Press, 2017). 

Guest Editor Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize).  Her poetry has appeared in such journals as TheNewVerse.News, Cavalier Literary Couture, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Red Rock Review, and Valparaiso Review.  Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, she has also lived and worked in Arizona and in Missouri.  She is married to the writer Roland Sodowsky and is one of the founders and the Co-President of the Board of SEK Women Helping Women.

Casualties . by Janet Jenkins-Stotts

A dream left me aching with past tense

longing. An impossible situation

a long time ago, but dreams have no

calendar. Why wake now, remembering

 

the intensity of his need hidden

behind a triangular smile. Instead,

recall telling him you now understand

your role in his life, as a shield from

 

emotions he can’t unpack. He does not

want to grasp my message, but I see it

flash across his face. War-torn Germany,

a mother selling the only thing she

 

had to feed her son in a city bombed

to dust. His shame? Being the reason for

her shame. How long can a son’s shame remain?

A lifetime, shown in his distrust of all

 

women’s love, shielding his heart behind

the barbed wire of a camp, built years ago.

Reaching out, he grasped my hand, and pulled it

through the shredding wire, wounding us both.

 

I lock him away again in nights’ dream

casket, filled with rue and rosemary.

Stay inside forever, I whisper.

 

No, don’t.

 
Janet Jenkins-Stotts is a late blooming author of both poetry and prose.  She published her first novel “The Orchid Garden” in 2015. Jenkins-Stotts lives in Topeka, Kansas with her husband, Stan and Romeo, their miniature pincher. When not at the computer, composing, you can usually find her at a bridge table.

 

Guest Editor Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize).  Her poetry has appeared in such journals as TheNewVerse.News, Cavalier Literary Couture, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Red Rock Review, and Valparaiso Review.  Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, she has also lived and worked in Arizona and in Missouri.  She is married to the writer Roland Sodowsky and is one of the founders and the Co-President of the Board of SEK Women Helping Women.

Morning News – by Maril Crabtree

Ten times ten thousand

terrible things in this world

and still

I don’t want to leave it

~ Maril Crabtree

Maril Crabtree lives in the Midwest and writes poetry, creative nonfiction, reviews, and occasional short fiction. Her work has appeared in Canyon Voices, Main Street Rag, Coal City Review, and others. She is a former poetry editor for Kansas City Voices.

Guest Editor Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize).  Her poetry has appeared in such journals as The New Verse News, Cavalier Literary Couture, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Red Rock Review, and Valparaiso Review.  Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, she has also lived and worked in Arizona and in Missouri.  She is married to the writer Roland Sodowsky and is one of the founders and the Co-President of the Board of SEK Women Helping Women.