Fall 2019 | Dayton, Ohio

Tornado Tally

Betsy Hughes

May 27, 2019

These gravesites have surrendered order. Now
memorials, upset, have blown away.
A tree, uprooted, rakes its broken bough
along the cemetery's disarray.
Some plastic flowers littering the ground
and frilly wreaths, all tattered, torn apart,
deposit scattered leavings here. Around
a fallen branch has wound a tinfoil heart.
Attaching to a twig, a ribbon clings
in testimony to the whirlwind's cost
but also to the beauty of small things,
a silken flag of hope that all's not lost.
The storms have come and gone, their passions curbed.
Beneath the earth the dead stay undisturbed.

Poem II: Searching

Herbert Woodward Martin

Sometimes, if you watch the waves that gather together;
they are so tightly knit that they form a fingerprint and
you can tell right then and there exactly which sea or
river or ocean you are observing.
Sometimes Nature cooperates with human intelligence,
so immediately that you know, instantly, the answer.
The truth is that which one is always seeking.
That is what journeys are constantly about: desired
answers, and appropriate consequences.
When we secure them, we know we have discovered
our fortune and have arrived in the correct territory.
We are seekers, first, wanderers, second.

[Scratch & Sniff Ku]

Anna Cates

green fields
glisten with dew
[strawberry]

a feral dog
tracks through the mist
[wildflowers]

a grackle
sings on a broken branch
[pine needles]

crickets
serenade the starlight
[fresh rain]

Night Song

Anna Cates

a horned owl
glides to the moon
rippling starlight

mercurial eyes
peer through the gloom
the darkness bright

the owl
returns through a wormhole
long trek to sunlight

song of clouds
drifting over the magic moon
the owl rides it

naked branches
the owl lands
in the calligraphy

Afterthought

Robert Flavin

Each year the grass was cut less frequently,
the bushes trimmed more haphazardly.
Paint on the house peeled,
wood on the shed rotted.
Weeds remained unchallenged,
the flowers disappeared.

Each year the elderly man walked slower,
walked less,
said little,
said nothing at all.
Visitors were sparse,
family rarely appeared.
The car never moved from the garage,
the shades were always drawn.
People wondered,
what kind of mess was inside?

One day the obituary appeared.
Isn’t that the old guy two houses down?
We should do something.
Let’s send a card.

On the Exhilaration and Terror of Levitation

Furaha Henry-Jones

1.

If all were right with the world, he’d be naked.
Most of the time. Or at least in his underwear.
It’s been like this since childhood when he wrapped
t-shirts ‘round his neck and leapt from living room stairs and railings
while I ran ‘round pulling down blinds and closing curtains
yelling, “Boy, go get decent. Stop flitting ‘round windows
where the neighbors can see you.”

In the womb, the technician couldn’t get an ultrasound.
“You’re gonna have to work to keep up with this one.
He won’t stop moving.” Couldn’t peg his sex
‘cause he wouldn’t be still. At least not until
He had grown so large my womb confined him.

2.

Today, he’s all muscle and sinew and some would say
Swagger. A-no-longer-boy-and-not-yet-man, you’ll find
Him most contented on the field. Cradling the stick in one hand,
he dodges defenders, breaking ankles with his speed.

There sometimes he flies.

And I watch others watch him. They gasp. They reel. They wail.
They want him to score. They want a win. I want
that moment, that twinkling when he’s reached the zenith
and he’s a celestial body in motion, I want
that moment to freeze.

He is happy there.
Not earthbound.
Breaking the universe’s rules.
He’s free.

I want him to fly, if that’s his desire.

3.

But I’m so terrified. I know with flying
there’s always landing and I know
that vulnerable instant when toes
touch ground and an unexpected check
rocks the balance. I want to catch him.

I’m watching him now.
He’s in the air.
He is beautiful.
I should have named him Mercury.
Swift, erratic, he’ll land.
Without me. He’ll land.

If

Rita Coleman

I could shrink
to her size,
nearly weightless,

I would leap
onto featherless legs,
catch hold,

her claws backswept by wind
wings flapping
psh psh psh

feathers meeting air,
all below receding
to squares, ribbons,

dots, nothingness
as uplift
overtakes gravity.

The earth trembles,
left to quake and flood

to toss dollpeople
over its surface.

This is how it is.

June bugs in April,
Mayflies in March.

This overheated world
rumbles its SOS,

an ice floe shrinks,
a polar bear slips into the melt.

Melancholy too great
to speak of echoes

in the sharps and flats
of grief music,

in the weep
of the earth.

The base world of denial
holds court in enclaves,

in dens, in inner sanctums
too fortressed to penetrate.

But, the winged dinosaurs
remember their ancient kin

that clomped toward oblivion,
tons of flesh that rattled the earth,
until days of skyfire ended them.

As survivors,
the feathered ones
will fly you above disasters

for many lifetimes--
until they can hold the weight no more,
until someone remembers.

Memory is Fickle—Discovering Why I Went in Search of It

Tracie Musik

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.” ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Memory is fickle.

When I try to force the scenes and events from the past into the present, a wall drops. Not a curtain. Curtains can be tied back and moved out of the way with ease. I mean an actual steel wall. Try as I might, I am blocked in my efforts to retrieve many of the chunks and bits that make up the sum of my forty-nine years. Instead, what remains in the deep recesses of my mind are morsels and crumbs.

Why is this?

Most everyone can recall fond moments in time spent with family and loved ones. The best birthday celebrations, first dates, joyous holidays create mental snapshots and moments by which most people gauge and measure their lives. For me, when I try to reach and stretch back in time, all I see is a blank screen. A blinking cursor communicates in my mind, “there was something on the screen, but now it’s deleted.”

I didn’t much realize or care about this issue until I hit my 40s. At this age, I started understanding, the memories help sustain us for the years to come. They are the markers or road signs displaying where we have traversed in life’s obstacle course. These signs also help guide and direct in decision making: Oh, I blew my last paycheck. I’ve learned my lesson. That’s never going to happen again. Or, wow, I wrecked my car in an ice storm. Next time there’s an ice storm, I’ll just stay home.

Memories serve as reminders.

Or do they?

At a recent family gathering, my older sister shared in vivid detail my emotional outburst at the death of my maternal grandmother some years back. I guess I was quite the “drama queen” during this somber time.

“I did that?” I asked. “I really acted like that? Hmm…I don’t remember.”

“Yeah, but that’s okay,” she replied nonchalantly, “we loved you anyway. We just overlooked it.”

In the depths of my being, I realized at this point that I could not remember such obnoxious behavior. I couldn’t even recall the death of my grandmother although I was present in the hospital during her final hours. At least, I think I was. Then, as I thought some more, I couldn’t remember the death of my grandfather either. Herein, I do recollect his battle with Alzheimer’s and spending his final days in a nursing home facility. But I don’t remember when he took his last breaths, who witnessed his final moments, or even when my mother informed me of his departure.

Why is this?

As the most influential people in my life, my grandparents were the support system of my siblings and me. That much I do recognize. They took us into their home all the time over the course of my childhood. Fed us. Gave us a place to stay during times of struggle. Took us to church. Helped out financially whenever we needed it. They propped us up every time we were down. Again, the generalities I remember.

But as I force myself to recall those childhood years, all that remains is a small version of me sitting in a corner, face between my knees, and hands on my ears.

You see, I grew up in a battle zone. My parents fought all the time. If ever two people should not have married, it would be my parents. These two personalities were as different as summer is to winter. Two totally different seasons of people.

With that marriage, came four children and innumerable fights. And I’m not just referring to two individuals yelling at each other. No. No. The little snatches of memory my mind allows me to conjure is the throwing of household items—books, plates, glassware, pictures, etc.—the cracking of walls, and the breaking of windows. The cursing and crying of my mother. The orders and commands of my father. Screaming and throwing were the nuclei of these battles. All the while, four little kids bore witness to this marital war.

For protection during these weekly battles—because what child understands the magnitude of parental fights—I sought out a corner, usually in my bedroom, and cowered until the environment in my child’s eyes seemed clear. That’s what I remember. Corner. Cower. Cover my ears. Clinch my eyes shut.

It was only a few years ago, that I realized how this childhood behavior and lack of memory connected. When reading J.D. Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy, he discusses how traumatic events create negative and lasting effects on a child’s health and well-being. Through growing research, the prevalence of “adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs) highlights a correlation between trauma and health.

Could this explain my foggy memory? What about my propensity over the years to allow fear to dictate my every move? Could it also explain my multiple marriages? My terrible inability to control finances? And the inflammatory bowel disease I was diagnosed with at age 19 known as Ulcerative Colitis?

I can attest I experienced a physical shift in perception. When I came to the chapter where Vance writes about ACEs and taking the ACE quiz, I felt my heart poke a directive finger at my mind with the command, “Look into this.” This shift propelled me to investigate. I fired up Google and cranked into Nancy Drew mode.

After reading a few online sources, I learned that the CDC’s Adverse Childhood Experience Study from 1995-1997 reveals a surprising link between childhood trauma and the chronic diseases people develop in their adult years. Additionally, links with social and emotional problems are also evident. Some of the chronic issues include heart disease, lung cancer, diabetes, and many autoimmune diseases. Check my Ulcerative Colitis in this category. Other social/emotional issues include depression, violence, being a victim of violence, and suicide. I can check off three items in this list. In short, the more types of trauma one experiences as a child, the greater the increase of health, social, and emotional problems.

How important is this study?

After taking the online ACE quiz, I wondered what my score of 6 meant. So, I researched a little further. I discovered that an ACE score of 4 or more increases the likelihood of adult alcoholism, chronic depression (especially greater for women), taking antidepressants, behavioral disorders, possessing serious financial problems, impairing work performance, and either perpetuating or being on the receiving end of domestic violence. More importantly, similar research on children’s brains demonstrate that toxic stress damages the structure and function of a kid’s developing brain. When a child’s brain gets overloaded with stress hormones, consequences result. Again, anxiety and depression in a young person can cause him/her to turn to biochemical solutions or engage in dangerous activities to escape environmental trauma such as the following: overeating, participating in high-risks physical activities, engaging in a proliferation of sex partners, and over-working or striving for over-achievement. Here, I see both my younger and adult selves checking off many of these items. Check. Check. Check.

Does this explain my memory loss?

Research tends to shine a light into dark closets and under beds of those who fear life’s nighttime terrors.

What I discovered as I continued peeling back ACE layers through my simple research focuses on the brain. The higher ACEs create less gray matter in important areas of the brain—the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. These areas of the brain control the decision-making and self-regulatory skills (prefrontal cortex) and the fear-processing center (amygdala). In addition, scientists also discovered that if a developing brain experiences toxic stress, the hippocampus area of the brain shrinks. This area processes emotion and memory as well as manages stress.

So, the answer to my question is YES.

Yes, ACEs do explain my memory loss. It also explains my poor financial skills, my inflammatory bowel disease, how I ended up in an abusive marriage, the depression I’ve experienced over the years, how fear has ruled my life, and the terrible decisions I’m prone to making.

Granted, not every person who grows up in toxic environments develops physical, emotional, or behavioral problems. This research merely indicates that one is put at a greater risk. As the findings suggest, resiliency represents the key to overcoming adversity.

This ties back to my grandparents.

A factor that influences a child’s resiliency is having the support of at least one stable and committed adult. My siblings and I had this in the form of our grandparents. Without my grandparents, I doubt that I would have finished college as an undergraduate. They offered me refuge in the form of a place to live during my junior and senior years of college. Also, they helped me out financially one semester when I missed the deadline to my scholarship program.

In 1991, I needed $1,700 to cover my tuition bill. This memory serves as one I do recall as it is stored deep in my heart. Before the start of the spring semester, I had not submitted the proper scholarship application by the deadline; therefore, I did not receive tuition coverage. Without this scholarship, I thought I might need to drop out of school.

“Dad, can you help me out with tuition? Just for this semester?”

I can recall sitting at my grandparents’ desk and phoning my father for help in this self-created conflict. My heart pounded because I hated worse than anything else to ask for help. It had never been my nature to solicit others in times of need. It was my slight independent streak at play here. I say “slight” because my grandparents were supporting me with a roof and food. I was neither self-sufficient nor independent. But I hated asking for money. At the time, I worked a minimum-wage job while attending school. This job provided enough money for fuel and textbooks but not much else.

Although the majority of specific memories are lost to the deep recesses of the past, I can distinctly remember my father’s answer to this plea:

“Why is it the only time you kids contact me is when you need money?”

His tone was not his usual kind, generous one. In this phone conversation, his tone rang full of bitterness and offense.

“Never mind,” I gasped with exasperation, “I’ll figure it out myself.”

With that response, I hung up the phone.

Even though I struggle with retrospect, I think this moment remains embedded for the following reasons: 1. I had put myself in this dilemma through irresponsible behavior—I had not met a deadline. 2. I had to humble myself and ask for help. 3. My father’s words stung in a waspish way that left me sore and bruised. 4. My grandparents opened up their secret cash stash (located in the top, dresser drawer in a cigar box), and handed me the needed $1,700. These four reasons etched themselves indelibly into my sensitive, middle-child heart.

What would have sent me running to a corner and crying to my heart’s content, instead propelled me in a different direction. For the next 2-3 years, I mowed my grandparents’ yard to pay off my $1,700 debt. Again, my grandparents’ behavior aided in my remembering of this event: each week I cut their lawn, my grandmother handed me a paper receipt for $25.

Whenever my yardwork was complete, she would pull out a green and orange receipt book she used for flea market sales and would record proof of my work.

“If anyone ever questions your debt, you’ll have proof you paid us back,” she told me multiple times over the years I worked for them. Sixty-eight times I mowed. Sixty-eight times I sweated and toiled over missing a deadline. This experience propelled me to never miss another tuition waver date.

I finished college because of my grandparents’ support that semester and over the years. They tried to teach me resiliency without ever naming it as such. In their hearts, they just wanted to see me succeed. Despite the conflict and turmoil of my younger years, they wanted to help. And they also wanted to represent love in action. That was their way of being. At least I think it was.

Memory is fickle.

I don’t remember much else in life. A few stories linger here and there like breadcrumbs left behind at the dinner table of my mind. I suppose amnesia is my body’s form of self-preservation. It serves as “the selective overlooking or ignoring of events that are not favorable or useful to one’s purpose or position.” That’s how Merriam-Webster defines it.

Now that I know why I can’t recall much about my past, I think it’s time for amnesiatic acceptance. I must accept the fact that my mind selectively overlooks events from my past as a protective, soothing balm to the traumatized child in me. It is a gift. If the body keeps score, then the spirit suffers at the count. I don’t need years shadow-painted on my brow.

What little I do know bakes its bad bacteria in the gut of my forty-nine years. The electric hive of wisdom brings forth the memory bees who sting me to my core. They buzz and hum a charged current that change is part of living and memory serves only for forgetting. If I can’t remember certain moments in time, I can claim it is the ACE in my pocket. It is the card I was dealt long ago.

So, I live as a trapped tin soul willing to speak my memory mysteries at dawn.
The blank screen remains.
Of all the sad wise years, I let them go.

Bow Season

Maureen Fry

A lifetime in one moment, someone said.
I see it now as if it were a dream:
the screaming stops; the lovely doe is dead;
a spreading wash of crimson stains the stream.

I see it now as if it were a dream—
the doe, the frantic splashing toward the bank,
the spreading wash of crimson stain, the stream,
two dogs that snarl and leap, bite a bloody flank.

The doe, its frantic splashing toward the bank
tormented by an arrow in its rump,
by the dogs that snarl, leap, and bite its bloody flank,
scrabbles at the low embankment, tries to jump.

Tormented by the arrow in its rump,
the doe is shrieking, screaming—wild and keen.
As it scrabbles at the low embankment and tries to jump,
I am screaming, too. A neighbor scans the scene—

the doe, the shrieking, the screaming wild and keen—
and wades into the stream to see the harm.
I am screaming still as my neighbor scans the scene,
cradling the wounded doe against his arm.

Wading in the stream, he sees its harm;
he strokes its neck and smooths the ravaged coat.
Still cradling the wounded doe against his arm,
squeezing shut its windpipe, he slits its throat.

The screaming stops. The lovely doe is dead.
A lifetime in a moment, it's been said.

Late Summer Soul

Christy Lynne Trotter

Oh, quiet little baby boy cricket:
beginning like an egg,
just like I did; now trying to find your way (I’m stillfinding mine).
How similar we are. How fast we grow.

Oh, mingling little latchkey nymph:
Too small yet for a white picket fence, a job, 2.3 kids,and a dog,
but if you survive being the prey of your brethren,
I wish you well on your journey to adulthood.

Oh, sweet, sweet adult man cricket:
I don’t mind the songs you sing.
Your rhythmic chirping soothes my tired, late summersoul.
After all, you’re only trying to find your mate.

What cycle of life can we possibly share?
I was never a latchkey kid,
and I’m not a man cricket.
I am woman far removed, yet so connected to you.

Make that minuscule music of the night;
raise your wings faster as the night air becomes warmer,more stagnant.
Toast to a summer season about to end,
use your energy to create more.

Temptress Winter will cool things down,
and then what will become of you?
With your wings, you cannot fly,
so quick, sing me a song of mate delight so maybe I can soar.

Bury deep in the grass around my white picket fence,
bid farewell to these 90-degree October days,
and wait for next summer to scrape your wings again.
Thus, what cycle repeats itself? Yours, mine, or both to behold.

Until then, the withered woman in me
doesn’t mind your soulmate searching ways (in fact I’m a bit jealous).
I’ve never heard a sweeter tune
to soothe my tired, late summer soul.

Waking Up at War

David Lee Garrison

Recognizing the signal
of a buddy gently pulling
on his right heel, he crawls
from the cave of sleep
and scans the trees for snipers
as he feels inside his pack
for cigarettes.

Touch him on the shoulder
or the head
or make some sound
in counterpoint to jungle drone,
and he swings the rifle in his hand
before opening his eyes.

One morning after returning
from Vietnam, his wife presses
her cheek against his and whispers,
“Rise and shine, honey.”

He has to take her to the hospital.

At the Precipice’s Edge

Herbert Woodward Martin

I

At the precipice where the earth was shaped
deadly powers raged in the maker’s hand;
we entertain the myth of shaping.
The intellect is a maze;
a dog will bark at such a configuration;
the ears wait for conscious footsteps.
The lichen back frog leaps
into the golden space of travail.

II

The old year relents;
the new season warms.
In the clearing,
(neither Brooks nor Frost)
an increase of harvest grows
into a work of art.

III

My son and I, engaged in song:
thrush, and common sparrow,
they streamline their song together.
A middle-aged man crosses
the town’s river.
He is no longer feels estranged
from his neighbors;
he knows beyond knowing.
His crops must have water for
what comes after is the summer’s
fall.

IV

Sabbath begins here awakening
from a petrified dream:
of fume and shock,
the uproar of sleep and
how long it takes for a forest to grow.
Life forgives depletions
when winter is forced to begin.

V

The dark source, a river.
I awoke in a bleached pasture.
I have walked with my son.
We have engaged in song.
The sun and wind have done their work,
Well my son and I have walked in song.

A Reading in the Union

Leah DeAloia

Poets should learn to speak
Before they read their poetry.
This poet leans, rambling.
Here in the Michigan Union.
I hear the billiard balls
Crack contra one another,
Or sometimes gently plonk, plonk,
Across the hall.

I would join the game, but that is no
Smoke-filled room. And the players are
All young college men, who've not yet learned
To put English on the ball.
I have cracked some English in my time:
One sullen cockney, dissolute tender
Of a bar in Sitges, Spain, with
Muscles hard, made sinewy by
Too much drink.

Will cocktails be served when
The poet finally stops? Some reward
Is certainly in order. Yet I have mine
In the third row from the front:
Dear old lady, fading orange hair
Got up in small bundles with three combs--
One amber, one tortoise, and one I cannot see--
Is tilting, tilting forward, just about to . . .

And snap! Up again, blinking, to nod, to dip,
To fall asleep again. I wish I could.
But those billiard balls keep cracking
And I want to run from this room.
Out of the leaded double doors
And into Sitges, into the San Francisco Bar,
Asking Boteler to concoct for me
His special drink: a tall, cool Evil.

Here in the Michigan Union I learn
This poet is from Minnesota. I am from
Ohio. And my nodding friend in the orange hair
Ought to take her combs out, listen to
The balls' echo, and tell this poet
To go to hell. Better to dream away
Than this. Still, after the reading,
Sandwiches will be served:
Whole wheat cream cheese and olive
That flop when you try to hold them.

Oh, to be eating a Spanish omelet, puffed
High, and high on Dormadeenas
At dawn, with fairies and Russian wolfhounds,
Tired from love.

Rattle

Dana Knott

I am still the small girl in her father’s
overcoat, whose short fingers dug
past cellophane wrappers for half-
smoked cigarettes hidden in deep
pockets. I raised one to my mouth
and imagined the tightness of his lips
as he inhaled, how his words smelled
like nicotine when he said goodnight.
When I begged him for a quick drag,
my mother told me, “You did not
breathe for ten minutes after birth.”
I believed smoke would forever
bind me to my father as he said after
a flick of his lighter that I’d always be
his little girl. The day I moved in
with my non-smoker lover, I didn’t
hear the hum of the purifier I left with
him in the background when I called
to say I’d arrived. Each Sunday I wait
for him to confess the cancer I hear
rattle at the back of his throat
as he talks of his garden tomatoes.
When I see him again, I will insert
my finger in the hole in his neck, feel
the sickness up to my knucklebone.

Curriculum Vitae

Nathan Lipps

Becoming lost in the night
of who we think we are
we begin to understand forgetting.

The course of my life?

A coat of snow
tumbling from pines
in a cold bright forest.

The moment between
wearied branch and forest floor—

Call it a course
call it the infinite naught.

Call it snow
falling from bough to ground
and melting in Spring.

White Center

Kipp Knott

Mark Rothko, 1950

Standing at his prescribed distance—
a mere 18 inches from the canvas—

I am enveloped by gauzy whiteness

as if my eyes, seared by a bright blast,
have been wrapped in bandages.

Along a hazy horizon,
a jaundiced sunrise blooms
as a lavender sunset wilts,

each ready to consume the other,
both ready to consume me.

But then, somewhere in the distance,
I see it, a black streak of night
unclaimed by either.

I squint the light away
and let the darkness pull me in.

The Melting

Matthew Frazier

A stiffness in both directions pins my neck in place
Crunching joint disjunction and jutting shoulder blades
A spine rigid but bent, crooked yet ossified
Only my eyes can follow you in your passing

I am the candle wax that keeps the wick in place
My body, my disposition, my respect, my fear
A medley of preventions
Barriers
Walls
But all this immobilization keeps me in place
Perfectly still
For a young flame to latch onto me
And consume the wick

Perspiring away the future, stuck in place
As your stray sparks dance upon my face
Wick alight, my own glow ignites a world of possibility
Free movement wrought from the melting wax
Liquified, I’ll be beautiful for you
I will drip myself to nothing to carry your burns

But my new found glory flickers when
I can finally ask you to stay with me
And all I find from what you once brought to me
Are ashes

December Evening

Kathy Austin

Evening advances.
I watch you here beside me
in the midst of this darkening muddle,
cups and books on the floor
like puddles we’ve had to wade through all day;
old reminders of past lives
still scattered about on every flat surface —
china poodle figurines,
photos of children,
stacked papers I still drag from here to there,
a dead plant above us that dangles down,
tickles your head.
Your eyes close in happiness,
face finally wearing signs of peace.
Years fall from you
like the maple outside my door
that shakes out its shadows,
sheds its worn seasons,
to sport shiny new leaves in spring.
Happiness is really all we have this evening.
All our other lives
have been worn down to this —
bare trees in moonlight,
a white circle among black lines.

Sponsors

Betsy Hughes

Forest Bathing: Shinrin-Yoku
poems by Betsy Hughes

Available now.
Antrim House
First Ed., 2019

Eric Blanchard

The Good Parts
By Eric Blanchard

Available January 2020
Finishing Line Press
First Ed., 2020

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