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Maybe I'm Doing Okay~ By Anne Marie Wells

4/14/2020

I reincarnate
while still alive. I’ve
already been forced into new fates
from the mistakes I made.
Each rebirth I hope to bloom
from my straitjacket cocoon,
but maybe I
will never be a Butterfly
if I’ve been a Hermit Crab
moving this whole time
into bigger and bigger homes.
And while I’ve hoped for wings to show,
I haven’t noticed how much I’ve grown.

"Maybe I’m Doing Okay"

Author Bio:
Anne Marie Wells (She/Her) is a poet, playwright, and storyteller living in Hoback Junction, Wyoming. She navigates the world as a queer woman with a chronic illness. Her poems have appeared or will appear in Lucky Jefferson, In Parentheses, Variant Literature, Unlimited Literature, Soliloquies Anthology, and Muddy River Poetry Review.

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Disease Breeds Disease~ By Dee Allen

4/13/2020

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Strange new ailment
Giving pneumonia-like symptoms
Has a ripple effect
Spanning our globe.

Floating on the wind, harm to health,
Diaspora of microbes--
Point of outbreak:
Wuhan, China.

Within a month, fate’s transmission,
Country by country. Bad news travels fast.
Reported cases of Coronavirus
Breeds a second disease.

One much older, equally contagious,
Easier to spot the signs.
Point of outbreak:
The human mind.

Modes of transmission:
Mainstream media,
Person-to-person contact.
Symptoms include:

Stereotyping,
Side glances,
Spiteful feelings
Disguised as jokes,

Bullying,
Swearing,
Unprovoked assaults,
Avoiding restaurants,

Insulting
Internet memes,
Misinformation,
Discrimination,

Lumping together
Japanese, Korean,
Vietnamese, Laotian
And Thai

Under the heading of
“Chinese”,
International
Travel bans,

Tendency to run from,
Duck and dodge
Straight black
Hair, almond-shaped eyes, yellow skin,

Mistaken
Notion of
“Chinese =
Virus carrier”

And sudden memory loss
Of the simple fact that
Asian lives
Matter, too.

Author Bio:
Dee Allen is an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active on the creative writing & Spoken Word tips since the early 1990s. Author of 5 books ["Boneyard", "Unwritten Law", "Stormwater" and "Skeletal Black", all from POOR Press, and coming soon from Conviction 2 Change Publishing, "Elohi Unitsi"] and 24 anthology appearances [ including "Your Golden Sun Still Shines", "Rise", "Extreme", "The Land Lives Forever" and "Civil Liberties United", edited by Shizue Seigel] under his figurative belt so far.

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Quarantine Epiphany~ By Katy Scrogin

4/9/2020

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The old friend and I smiled at each other through separate screens, just as we’d been doing with so many others that week, so many shut-ins who suddenly had time to reconnect.

I launched into the tired refrain: I wasn’t so much worried for myself. It was the old, the sick, the unfortunates whose compromised immune systems might face a cruel battle—it was their fate that set me on edge, it was them I was terrified of infecting.

My friend nodded, just as the others had nodded all week, secure in their stable incomes and good health plans. But then she held up a finger, requested a pause; her child was calling from another room. She reappeared in the screen after the question had been answered, the fire put out. I saw the same face, the same smile, the same person I had been talking to just seconds ago. But there it was, the piercing revelation: we were not young anymore, not numbered among the twenty-somethings wandering blithely through grocery aisles, the thirty-year-olds strolling with their dogs in empty parks. True, we were not elderly. And yet, here we were, somewhere between low risk and the cusp of danger, floating in a middle age that had never until then seemed so very, very middle, so perilously undefined. We were growing into something slower moving, something excluded from the social center. We were not who we’d always thought we were; not the co-eds we had always seen when we sat down before each other.

Had it taken a plague to make us grasp it—to sweep away the smokescreen of habit, of diversion, that had let us drift along not obliged to confront our own lined faces?

What else, I’ve begun to wonder, will this thing reveal before it’s done with us—what other glaring realities will we be shamed into seeing? Forced into the shelter of our own company, what haven’t we yet perceived right in front of our dumb, distracted eyes?

Author Bio:
Katy Scrogin is a Chicago-based writer, editor, and translator so in love with every type of well-turned phrase, she can't seem to pick a single genre as her favorite. Her most recent work is featured in Sobotka Literary Magazine, The Book Smuggler's Den, and The Bookends Review. She can also be found at katyscrogin.wordpress.com.

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A Way to Another Place~ By Charlene Langfur

4/8/2020

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Today I am planning another garden, a small one on the front porch
so I will not forget how seeds grow, the first sprout gangly and
perfect, inches high, the small leaves glistening at dawn covered
with dew, you know what I mean, this reminds me how it matters keeping
life in mind, how we are the same as the seeds, needing
to grow, healing and walking out in the morning, I go along with this way,
walking steady in the morning sun past the lime trees and the mesquite,
the cactus flower in bloom, rare and white, its petals soft as lilies,
and how I know learning to look close at it teaches me about the earth,
how it is part of all of us, forcing us to be patient, later I’ll map out
a more detailed plan, small as it will be, what pots to buy from Home Depot,
the sunflowers seeds, a few aloe sprigs, this is always a slow process,
sticking with the idea, letting it open up inside me and out as I drink
green tea in a glass cup and eat a small bowl of strawberries. How life
is slow and expansive and at the same time never seems to end,
flowers breaking open in the morning, the first sprout moving up and
out of the dirt when I am still sleeping, dreaming how to find a way
to start over in a new place after so much trouble, hoping I can find
the right poem or flower or path to start again, in my dreams I am
walking on a path and none of it is clear in America but in my life
I am ready to keep trying even in a small way, sitting quietly at first light,
the orange nasturtiums in full bloom, the petals wild like fire

Author Bio:
Charlene Langfur is an organic gardener, a rescued dog advocate, and a Syracuse University Graduate Writing Fellowship holder. Her most recent publications include a series of poems in TIGER MOTH, POETRY LEAVES, GYROSCOPE and forthcoming a series of poems in WEBER-THE CONTEMPORARY WEST and EMERYS.

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Springtime Elegy~ By Howie Good

4/7/2020

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Spring has been halted for cause. Everything is either too hot or too cold, and nothing is soft. The ancient Chinese would carry lanterns lit by fireflies when passing through the streets at night. All times and places display the same treacheries, tell the same lame lies, just with different words, a cacophony of gods, demons, animals. I have spent too many late hours watching out the window, waiting for something else to happen, for murderous regimes to collapse, for the moon to ooze life, for once-extinct pigeons to come strutting back into view, for these broken branches to very nearly flower.

Author Bio:
Howie Good is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera from Cajun Mutt Press, What It Is and How to Use It from Grey Book Press, and Spooky Action at a Distance from Analog Submission Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

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The Bounce Alone~ By Andy Oram

4/2/2020

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A slice in the silence of the day
The concussion of a ball on lonely asphalt

and the jangle of the basket above
An elongated play under the depreciated sky

A boy vanishing into the court
His crispest twists and deliveries

unseen by any teammate
And no rebound

Author Bio:
Andy Oram is a writer and editor at O'Reilly Media, a highly respected book publisher and technology information provider. His editorial projects have ranged from a legal guide covering intellectual property to a graphic novel about teenage hackers. Print publications where his work has appeared include The Economist, the Journal of Information Technology & Politics, and Vanguardia Dossier. He has lived in the Boston, Massachusetts area for more than 30 years. His poems have been published in Ají, Arlington Literary Journal, DASH, Genre: Urban Arts, Offcourse, and Panoply.

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words to feel better~ By Dani Castonzo

4/1/2020

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you have already made thousands of people smile. you have told jokes no one else will ever think of. only you will write the words that whisper in your head, only you will be your mother’s first daughter. you have already changed the world and there’s no going back.

you can’t do everything but you can call your best friend and ask her questions you stopped making time for. you can sit with her answers and not try to fix it. you can shut the door and cut the lights and breath in the quiet. you can bask in this gift of unstructured, unscheduled, unhurried time. you can learn a new instrument and not try to be good, play your favorite childhood game and not watch the clock, read books that are not intellectual or political or literary but human.

we’re resting and trees are still growing, tall and brave. we’re pausing and the gray fog that suffocates our city is receding, day by day. we’re stopping and the pigeons and squirrels and mice are still eating and playing and building and that’s enough for them, it’s always been enough. lake michigan is clear and healing and one day soon you’ll dig your toes in the sand and feel so goddamn grateful. our cities are still and the mountains have never been happier.

you can’t fix it but you can picture it, can’t you, the way the sun will be shining, the table will be packed with people you love, you’ll lean in close and linger late into the night because it’s been so long. we’ll work less and laugh more. we’ll go to the doctor when we’re hurting and rest when we’re aching. we won’t just tolerate each other, we’ll feel for each other, feed each other, love each other so much more than we ever have. we’ll give everything we don’t need and be light with gratitude. we’ll do less and have more.

you can’t fix it today but you’ll always remember: the world froze and the rain kept falling, the oceans kept spitting salt and air, the spring buds emerged, baby-green and hopeful. the world stopped and it was not the end.

Author Bio:
Dani Castonzo is a fundraiser and grant writer in Chicago. Despite her stage fright, she is a frequent performer in the live lit/storytelling scene in Chicago. She was born and raised in the Midwest and loves traveling, improv comedy, and taking really long walks.

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Forward>>

Maybe I'm Doing Okay~ By Anne Marie Wells

Disease Breeds Disease~ By Dee Allen

Quarantine Epiphany~ By Katy Scrogin

​A Way to Another Place~ By Charlene Langfur

Springtime Elegy~ By Howie Good

The Bounce Alone~ By Andy Oram

words to feel better~ By Dani Castonzo

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A Way to Another Place~ By Charlene Langfur