WINTER 2021 | Dayton, OH

 

 Oregon District at Night by Sarah Sutphin

 

The Light

Terry Focht

The sound of water
gushing, pulsating 
as it journeyed through the forest 
crashing against wooded obstacles,
yet in perfect rhythm
chanting its cadence. 

The 3D images were darker
than I wanted them to be.
My mind eventually joined my eyes 
drawn to a distant light
alone…near the center.
There were medical specialists
quietly talking,
cautious,
with careful words.

I realized that very moment 
I was looking inside of her.
Inside a human being,
inside her heart where I have lived
for almost 60 years.

I had rushed her to the ER
just hours before.
Her pain was great.
Her breath was weak.

Her heart had failed.

The echocardiogram was alive
with the noise of the forest.

We concentrated on the light.

Deep Sorrow

Terry Focht

Inspired by Terrill Martinez poem, “Grief”

Grief is a sneaky son of a bitch,
lurking around the corner,
waiting to punch you in the gut,
or hit you below the knee,
tumbling you to the floor, 
gasping for air,
while a warped version
of a familiar song plays…
at 10:17 on a nondescript,
cloudless day.

Toppa Joppa

Andrew Gilkey

The milky way flexes one of its 
many arms over Toppa Joppa.
A ghostly smudge, God’s sweaty 
palm print speckled with His remains. 
The lonely points of light are brass buttons
on dress blues.

We never know what the wood we chop is for,
firewood, casket material or a new wheelchair ramp.
The woods are immensely quiet.
A vast, unfillable, all-swallowing stillness. 
Even our tin-pot logging camp 
and misremembered Drake remixes
or even the chainsaw cannot cleave 
the wordless watching of the wood hull. 

Orange clouds slip sand into my shoes. 
The earth’s clay-toned cough covers all 
the double-wides, the wild flowers.
All sprouting from the students 
unchained from their workbooks
and the burden of teenage volunteers
descending upon the baseball diamond.

Dewey’s Park Tornado

Andrew Gilkey

The trees are a mass of mangled 
elephant bones.
Jagged fracture points 
stretching to heaven. 
The wounds are visible,
naked branches hang above 
a dying debris bed.
The pink stuffing swells 
like a scab on the siding. 
“Did you even know it was happening, Dad?”
“Well, no, not until it came up on 
the television,
so I watched the football game in the basement.” 
When that gray metallic wind blew
the sex shops and car dealerships 
and even the rubber shark
that hung outside of Sharkey’s Gentlemen’s’ Club
floated away like dandelion seeds.
A shirtless man is pushing a shopping cart
of scrap up the side of the highway.
And the Wonder Bread™ truck rolls on past him. 
Past the overgrown lots 
where they pulled the apartments up
by the roots.

Pine Grosbeak

Betsy Hughes

The body of this finch is mostly gray,
but head and chest convey that he is male:
he's decked in handsome orange-pink-rosé,
a reddish tinge that's subtle but not pale.
His bill, both sharp and stubby, shells the seeds,
nips off the tree buds and the little fruits
he forages in forests. Then he feeds
upon his finds according to his suits.
He's not flamboyant, but his curvature
is comely, and his wings' defining lines
make pleasing patterns in the forests' fir
and other conifers of spruce and pines.
This grosbeak loves his perfect perch, a place
in winter's peaceful, evergreening grace.

The Wife of Bath Is Alive and Living on Bole Street

Jane K. Kretschmann

My, my! Do come in, dear. You’re here
about the grandfather clock, right?  
It’s in the back hallway. Why don’t you

sit here in the kitchen first and have
a cup of coffee with me. And coffee cake.
You look like a man who likes his cake.

Excuse the robe. There’s just not much need
for a widow woman like me to get up 
and dressed early anymore. Oh, the clock.

It’s a Tempus Fugit, like I said in the ad.
That’s all I know. It belonged to my husband
when we got married. My third. Yes, it just

goes to show you don’t have to be young
and a looker to catch a man, if you’re good—
well, you know what I mean. But you, now

you’re a looker. Surprised your wife lets you
out without your wedding ring. Oh, now, now.
Not married. So. Yes, the clock works just fine.

Heavy, though. German, I think. You might need
help moving it. Or not. You look nice and strong.
Have kept fit, I see. Or maybe it’s your work.

In sales? Ah, you will sweet talk me into lowering
my price. I’m sure we can work something out.
I don’t really need the money. The house is paid for.

You want to see it now. Just listen. It’s striking noon.
Such a masculine chime. I always love a strong
bong. Yes, think about it. Maybe you’d like to come
back tomorrow night and see it then, after supper.

Safe in Alabama, 1965

Jane K. Kretschmann

My aunt in Virginia called to ask whether it was safe
for her family to drive down. Mama scoffed, “Jane
drives to Troy to college every day. John to work.

There haven’t been any marches from Helicon, no
roads blocked. Don’t believe all that stuff you see 
on television. Outside agitators. Of course, it’s safe here.”

Maybe Aunt Ruby should have asked, “Safe for whom?”
Certainly not safe for Viola Liuzzo, shot in her car,
ferrying marchers between Selma and Montgomery.

Not safe for Reverend James Reeb, attacked 
while walking down a street in Selma, 
dying two days later.

Not safe for Jimmie Lee Jackson, beaten and shot
by state troopers in Marion as he tried to protect
his mother and grandfather.

Or safe for Willie Brewster, murdered 
by white supremacists, on his way home 
from work in Anniston.

Or seminarian Jonathan Myrich Daniels, 
killed in Hayneville, shielding another activist
from shotgun blasts.

And I, who safely drove to college every day,
was not safe from the racism and bigotry
that is taking all my life to try to overcome.

Trajectory

Anne Randolph

Yesterday a neighbor who has been ill
stopped to chat in front of my meadow.
After he recommended I plant blue baptisia
and bee balm, I asked him how he was faring.
He depicted with a downward tilting
hand the slope he said we are all on,
like a gentle bike path where one doesn't
have to pedal. Then he slanted his hand
into a steeper slide, where the runaway
ball of his life rolled, no one able
to slow it.

My face sagged as I slumped.
He proclaimed the refrain: One day 
at a time
. When his wife joined
us, he began to joke, Don't blame
me if your plants don't do well!

And they sauntered on, down our sloping street.

Women's Park, Yellow Springs, Ohio

Anne Randolph

The serpentine red brick path unfurls
before me, an invitation, surrounded
on either side by blue baptisia, purple
coneflowers and orange butterfly weed.
Ahead, a hint of sparkling blue trickles 
down a rise, catching my eye. The path 
becomes a boardwalk through curving, 
shiny blue puddles reflecting sun and sky.
Butterflies and bees swoop by.

As I draw nearer, the wet undulating
forms become small round tribute tiles 
packed together like a crowd of faces,
honoring our community's women.
Descriptive phrases are etched
on each named clay piece: 
music in friendship,
work your passions,
poet, gardener, soulmate.
  

I warm at the sight.
Their lights burn brightly here,
a gathering of stars forming
a constellation we can orbit
forever.

Her Haven 

Rita Coleman

Homage to Glen Helen Nature Preserve, Yellow Springs, Ohio

At ten,  
legs as long as a colt, 
she sprinted to the Blue Hole, 
splashed and shrieked 
with the rest, surfaced, skinned 
her hair back, wiped her eyes free 
of cold, magic water, only to plunge
again, the afternoon burnished 
gold. When dinner beckoned 
her hungry stomach,  
she grabbed an old towel 
and trooped out of the Glen 
with her friends, 
towards a hot meal 
paid for by food stamps. 

At ten,  
she did not know  
they were money-poor,  
did not know the truck 
that rear-ended her mom  
had brought them to this paradise 
where the jewels of the Glen 
awaited her each day, where 
she could sway 
on the old footbridge, 
each step a trial 
for balance, hands 
gripped on the rope 
thicker than her forearm, 
and swing across the music 
of the creek. 

She could inhale the forest of pine,
trees with roots as big as elephant 
feet, lie on a bed of dried needles, 
marvel at the circle of tree tops 
that opened to a winsome 
circle of blue. She entertained 
no thoughts of riches except 
for hot pink bubble gum, 
a game of Pac-Man, 
and a frosted can of Pepsi.
She was raised in the preserve  
of century-old trees, the healing
powers of the yellow springs, 
the rush of falling water, of crags
of spring trilliums, of footpaths
of freedom that wound through her haven.

Five-Card Stud

William Stolz

For Sylvia

It is her hands I remember
the most. Long thin fingers
holding a cigarette or the
lightning speed of the deal,
the cards skimming
across the table coming to
rest just short of the edge.
It was on those cold winter
nights, the north winds 
breaking against the house,
she taught us to play Poker,
Five-Card Stud the game.
Our coffers rich with 
newspaper money and 
holiday tips. She would
hold court at the kitchen
table regaling us with
the barroom antics of our
long-dead grandfather,
his ghost, trim and muscled,
seated next to her, while she
used those nimble fingers,
soft and delicate in the
fluorescent light, to drag
the coins won to her 
growing pile.

Picture This by Antony Gustard

 

 hot mess by Milicent Fambrough

 

Walking Towards Patterson Blvd by Sarah Sutphin

 

Goodbye

William Stolz

Boxes, twelve total
neatly stacked on 
the tan carpet,
some sealed,
others overflowing
with porcelain
Madonnas kneeling
in silent prayer and
wrapped safely 
in paper towels,
were all that 
remained of her.
Even the familiar
smell is gone,
replaced by the
piney scent of 
cleaning solution.
Downstairs the 
urn sits on the
kitchen table. 
Staring out the 
office window,
my back to the 
boxes, the house
silent in the late
winter morning, 
I feel like a thief.

Do Not Leave Me!

Herbert Woodward Martin

After: Gil Arzola

I left you in a strange new place 
you did not recognize it 
and were not familiar.
You said, Do not leave me here! 
I did anyway.
When I returned three days later 
to check on you, 
someone asked: 
Are You Herbert? 
She called for that name 
all day yesterday. 
Then she fell silent,
she has been silent since.
She no longer speaks. 
Was there no attendant 
who thought to alert me? 
You were silent, 
unforgiving and dying. 
I told a close friend. 
She said: 
We will not let her go. 
Two days later 
you left anyway.

Heading Home

Kathy Austin

Quitting time.
I walk the daily route
office to parking garage
that leads me home
leave corner crowds behind
cross against lights
take the usual shortest path
between two points
cut a hasty diagonal
across the unlit parking lot
turn into the old brick entrance
of the parking garage
pass attendants
in a smoke-filled room
as eyes raise
in brief recognition
head up the dark grimy stairs
to the second floor
past the boarded-up window
and the singular, clanking
metal conveyor belt
of the attendants' lift
that throws eerie shadows
onto the dimly lit, oil-stained floor
perfect place for a murder, I think
as I hear Christmas music
from the radio downstairs
echoing between the parked cars
and looming pillars
like some odd refrain of memory
not quite there in full
but recognizable.

From the Air

Kathy Austin

The soft roll of clouds
hides the hard-edge geometry
of the snowy landscape,
white on white.
You would not even know
it had snowed
except for breaks in the clouds
like forgotten memories,
an abstract white expanse
cut into random shapes and shaded curves
by a calligraphy of dark blue lines
suggesting rivers and hills
but of no other significance.

Back now in clouds
you’ve forgotten, if you ever knew,
who was climbing those hills,
or the final destination of rivers.
Your eyes focus on what is in front of you now –
shimmering and getting larger –
a vivid rainbow formed of ice crystals,
a completed circle.

This Sunday

Herbert Woodward Martin

for: Charlie and Debbie Russo

I remember
each morning 
I awaken 
with left- 
over tears 
from threatening 
dreams I 
have entertained 
during the 
stressful night. 
The tears 
can be 
wiped away. 
The dreams? 
Some can
be wiped 
away, some 
cannot and 
are wedged 
in my 
secondary memory 
and travel 
with me 
all the 
days I 
have been 
promised to 
loudly celebrate.

Distance

Joe DeLong

The city spreads out before me. 
Skyscrapers. Steam rising from a smokestack. 

Verdigris spire of a church nicknamed the oilcan

This afternoon I’m at the library. 
Nearby, people whisper in Chinese 
and count out coins. 

Sunlight blazes from beneath 

clouds moments before church bells 
play “Gloria in excelsis Deo.” 

And as the light wanes,  
streetlamps come on, 
reflections rippling on the cold pond.

The Rain Made Me Think

Andrew Preston

Before the cold made us hoarse 
We fogged the windows with our plans
We lay under a streetlight while
The winter rain beat countless rhythms 
Into steel we sold as scrap
Miles ago

I don’t remember what we said
But it has changed us
In the way that
Continents shifting over time
Will shape another world
As they collide

It’s too small to think that
We have become
The seismic instruments
Of our unmaking
And find nothing of love 
In the rubble

Vigil

Andrew Preston

She keeps vigil 
Waiting by the window
She burns back the fag end 
Of creeping unease 
While doubt
Hangs as weighty
As conviction

Now beams the Hour
Magic enough to spell
Shadows etching plot lines 
Out of thin air
Inky
Stretching hook and bone
To loom across the garden
Not trees but jagged monoliths   

She will arrange a narrative to suit
Waiting, wick-trimmed
She pays her way 
As she flickers
Cold against the pane
On the jar and 
Gazing into twilight

Sunrays in the Mirror

David Lee Garrison

His tan is cracked with streaks
around his eyes like sunrays,
and there is a white blotch
in the center of his forehead
left by radiation therapy.  
He notices that the creases 
above his nose are deepening.  

Invisible to younger women, 
he is startled when people offer him
their seat on a bus
or the grocery clerk wants 
to carry his bags to the car
or he gets the senior discount
without asking for it.

He’s not the athlete he once was, 
and yet he sees youth in his visage: 
more hair on his head
than is really there, 
smoother skin, darker sideburns.  
Deep in the mirror he finds
earlier versions of himself.

Bubble’s Temptations

Gerald Greene

The secret lab in Area 29 bore fruit,
upwind of where the atom split,
financed by Roosevelt, Rockefeller and Rothschild.

The chemists found what they were looking for--
to guide the unsuspecting mind
with silent forces undetected.

Polycarbchlorepinoxide was the secret weapon
made to change the world,
create desire for more and more and more.

Combined with air, each body soon absorbed
enough to toxify the brain, distorting synaptic threads,
craving fashion, enhancing greed.

It took two years to find a way
to spread this new invention,
make it universal.

Temptation was the answer.
Simplicity that begs for intervention,
something easy to deliver.

So, bubble wrap came into being,
roll by roll to distribution centers,
bubbles filled with secret toxin waiting for release.

Is there one person left on earth
who has not burst one bubble,
breathed the content, felt the strange effect?

One small burst demands another,
pop, pop, pop,
until the sheet lies flat upon a lap or table.

Each generation poisoned like the one before,
requiring more, borrowing more, collecting more.
Wanting more.

The urge takes hold,
feel the bubble bend between the finger and the thumb,
as pressure builds and begs release.

Press a little harder,
roll the bubble carefully,
then on impulse, burst it without reason or remorse.

Slide your fingers to the right or left,
find another row of bubbles,
feel the pattern waiting, willing.

Some resist, while others give with ease,
the higher pressure brings euphoria,
a tactile climax just before the burst.

The joy of seeing rows of bubbles,
anticipating how each one will feel,
as fingers fondle back and forth in quiet ecstasy.

"Give me more, I must have more,"
the young man cries,
while placing another order from Amazon.

Toward the Light

Steve Broidy

In late September morning light,
cool breeze fingering my face;
in this early morning light 
that illuminates, enlarges
all the sky, before the sun can
commandeer the day,
The world is clearer, full of fate.

Seven o’clock; all is still
except for murmur of small birds
in the elderberry, and a single cry
of a hunting hawk far away
across the fields.
This morning is reward for last night’s
rain that crackled on window panes
and rang the gutters like dull bells
tolling us awake; but now
the rising sun’s light sifts 
into air as if dissolving
into shining mist.

In this early Autumn light
I forgive it all—the storms
that spoil the last of summer, pain
of final parting from dear friends,
aches that old age drives 
into the bone—all now merged
with understanding I have drawn
from the living morning light
distilling day to a flow of gold.

And so, I’ll feed the barn cats,
hungry, pacing at the door,
an extra morning ration this
fine day, just to let them know
that there is sustenance for them, too,
even as the world revolves toward cold.

 Artists & Authors

Kathy Austin's poems have been included in Buddhist Poetry Review, Poppy Road Review, and publications such as Mock Turtle Zine, Flights, and Nexus. Over the years, she has been featured and interviewed on Conrad's Corner, WYSO 91.3. Kathy has received awards from the Dayton Metro Library, Iowa Poetry Day Association, and the Paul Laurence Dunbar Memorial Competition.

Steve Broidy is the author of the chapbooks Necessary Deceptions and Earth Inside Them (Main Street Rag); and editor of the collection From the Tower: Poetry in Honor of Conrad Balliet (Main Street Rag). He lives in the country near Cedarville with his wife Susan, a sculptor.

Rita Coleman writes poetry in rural Greene County, Ohio. She has been published in numerous anthologies and has written two books of poetry, Mystic Connections and And Yet. Her degrees include a BA and MA from Wright State University. She is a writing student of Cincinnati Poet Laureate Emeritus, Pauletta Hansel. www.ritacoleman.com

Joe DeLong is the author of How We Measure (Finishing Line). His poetry has appeared in journals such as Denver Quarterly¸ Puerto del Sol, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, and Redactions. His translations (with Noriko Hara) of contemporary Japanese poet Ken’ichi Sasō have appeared in journals such as Asymptote¸ Painted Bride Quarterly, and Two Lines. Currently, he teaches in the University of Michigan Program in Technical Communication.

Milicent Fambrough is a contemporary artist and writer from San Antonio, Texas.

Terry Focht has been published in Dos Madras, Words, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, The Dayton Anthology, The Kentucky Arts Council, and the soon to be released in 2022 I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing: an Anthology of Ohio Appalachian Voices.

David Lee Garrison was named Ohio Poet of the Year in 2014 for his book, Playing Bach in the DC Metro, the title poem of which was featured by Ted Kooser on his website, “American Life in Poetry” and read on the BBC in London. His latest is Light in the River (Dos Madres Press).

Andrew Gilkey is a writer from Southwest Ohio who specializes in prose, drama, and poetry. You can find more of his work at InsertZine, The Carroll Review, The Wick Poetry Center, and his website.

Gerald Greene is the author of Kaleidoscope (CreateSpace), and Turning Losing Forex Trades Into Winners (John Wiley & Sons). His blog is "Short Stories Rated G" on Facebook. Gerald’s short stories or poems have been published in Guide Magazine, Insight Magazine, Compass Magazine, The Flash Fiction Press, Deronda Review, A Story in 100 Words, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Glide, Not Far From Me, and Jordan Journal Collective.

 

Antony Gustard’s work maps a fast-paced and over-active mind searching for the personal and universal meaning; in turn, reflecting both positive and negative concerns about 21st century society and the wider human condition. He has exhibited internationally, including art galleries and auctions in Mexico, USA, Singapore and England. www.agustard.com

The sonnet collections of Betsy Hughes include: Breaking Weather (winner of the Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition, National Federation of State Poetry Societies Press), Bird Notes (Finishing Line Press), and Forest Bathing (Antrim House Books).

Jane K. Kretschmann’s chapbook, Imagining a Life, was published by FootHills Publishing. Jane's latest projects include a series of poems titled The Epistles of Lydia of Thyatira, and the creation of a readers' theatre based on her poetry collection, Lynching Alabama.

Herbert Woodward Martin is a poet and a Librettist. He has eleven volumes to his credit, and he is at work on assembling several volumes of recent work.

Andrew Preston spent his youthful summers southwest of Columbus. Today, he lives in the northeast quadrant of the state and devotes much of his time to helping seniors avoid the uniquely American pitfalls of old age. He's somewhat successful. His poetry and short stories have appeared in Sightlines, Red Earth Review, and elsewhere.

Anne Randolph has poetry published in Cloudbank, Snowy Egret, The Comstock Review, Iconoclast, and The Listening Eye, among others. Her chapbook, Growing in Light, was published in 2018 by Presa Press. She is a member of the Yellow Springs Poets group.

William Stolz is a librarian, historian, and sometime writer. When not attempting poetry, his focus is preservation, local history, and the built environment. He lives in Dayton, Ohio, with his wife, Hollis, and cats, Larry and Roxiemae.

Sarah Sutphin is a Chicago-based artist who grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and an alumni of Stivers School for the Arts. She began painting again in 2020 after a 10-year hiatus. She has since had her work in local Chicago galleries, festivals, and most recently has become represented by Art Hub Chicago, where all of her work is displayed. Her recent series depicts nostalgic imagery of Dayton, where Sarah spent much of her adolescence. www.sarahsutphinart.com

 Issue 24 Sponsors

Light in the River

By David Lee Garrison

In accessible poems that are much like stories, David Lee Garrison finds ambiguity and mystery beneath the surface of everyday experience. He rewrites the Biblical creation myth, positing Dog before Man; he imagines John Keats as a baseball player; he watches children play Hide and Seek and rejoice in finding and being found; he ponders the epitaphs in an old graveyard; and, he remembers a singer who came in one measure too early on the Hallelujah Chorus. The poet envisions life as a meandering journey through a summer afternoon by the river–humid and intense, with revelation everywhere, like leaves and shadows on the water.

“In the honorable tradition of poetic memento mori, the poetry of David Lee Garrison explores the nature of reflection and memory, probing the boundaries that separate the living and the dead.”
—Corey Andrews, author of The Genius of Scotland

“These poems have the warmth, the wealth of detail, and the essential humanity of someone who has surely lived an authentic life in this world.”
—Jared Carter, author of Darkened Rooms of Summer

Available at Dos Madres Press.


The Resurrectionist’s Diary

Myrna Stone

“What do you get when you combine technical virtuosity, sound research, and an uncanny ability to channel the minds and souls of notable people? You get Myrna Stone’s The Resurrectionist’s Diary. These are breathtaking poems from multiple perspectives, starting with a body-snatching (“resurrectionist”) wife who describes the grisly trade of helping her husband dig up corpses, to Vermeer’s wife who shares her daybook entries, to fresh interpretations of Raphael’s artworks, which hold mysteries of his secret lover, to a peek into the life of Edgar Allan Poe. Stone has long been recognized as a master of the formal poem, and her genius for re-envisioning historical figures is equally astonishing. But she also doesn’t shy away from her own heart, as in the book’s last section, which explores the complicated landscape of family, loss, and personal trauma. Her poems invite us to connect with our own memories of those we’ve lost “across the void we share,” to consider the bittersweet passage of time with grace, and to, ultimately, embrace mercy.”

—Neil Carpathios, author of the door on every tear and Far Out Factoids

Available at Dos Madres Press.