Three Poems by Dennis Daly

 

Bypassing the All-Souls Lounge

 

Not tonight.  The bloody-red façade

Of daubed brick, unshakably infixed

Into a floating mercantile strip,

Which twirls forth through the constellations,

Does not appear.  The walk alone calms,

Solaces those keen ingrown hurts

That wake one from the soundest of sleeps

And nags the restive body to rise,

To pace into the small witching hours,

Devoid of superfluous noises.

 

Not tonight.  Needed wits conjure up,

Face off the abysmal denizens,

The gargoyles dimmed in opacity,

In nocturnal murk.  Here truth wills out,

Corrects courses for tomorrow’s use.

Only then will words bear strength again,

Find new bearings between slanted poles

And more temperate geographies.

Only then will occult concoctions

Lure one into another respite.

 

 

Ash Wednesday at the All-Souls Lounge

 

Dust to dust, my bar mates celebrate

This Lenten exit from life’s drama.

We wear a smudge, curb our gluttony

That would transform our natural selves,

Speed the slaughter of our fellow beasts       

And lead to further temptations.

Funereal gloom fuels this gathering

Of desperate travellers, who tip well,

Who play this singular star-crossed pause

For all it’s worth in grace and leverage.

 

Fat Tuesday’s aftermath grifts us in

To this dour conclave of sparsity,

One grade above a destitution,

A taunt of game’s end or nearly that.

The God-forsaken gall of it all

Gleans through as we drink away the night,

Lament the sins of imperfection

As we recite the priestly penance

Given us. Words change into clocks.

The shortest hand points the way back home.

 

 

Boethius Has Second Thoughts at the All-Souls Lounge

 

Self-pity by poet never sells,

Which doesn’t surprise since set meter

Feeds the attic bugs, book by sorry book.

“A double… yes, barkeep, another,”

Says Boethius, “I am banished

From my stable aspect.” At the bar’s end

A woman looks over. “Come on,” she says,

“Grief clouds your mind with doubt,

Order triumphs among us drinkers,

Justice must confound wickedness.”

 

“Confound! That’s one way of putting it,”

Answers the Consolation’s author,

“The machinery of fate grinds on,

With good outcomes and bad.” An uproar

Breaks out at one of the side tables.

A glass of ale spills. “Vice often wins

Within the mysterious wheeling

Of stars,” he continues with some bother,

“Yet happiness persists in this place

Beyond time and our understanding.”

Dennis Daly lives in Salem Massachusetts. He graduated from Boston College and earned an M.A. in English Literature from Northeastern University. He has previously published nine books of poetry and poetic translations. Two other books have been accepted for publication: Odd Man Out—MatHat Press, and Psalms Composed in Utter Darkness—Dos Madres. Please visit his blog at dennisfdaly.blogspot.com.    

Alone - Flash Fiction and The Moody Bookworm - Short Story by Dr. Anissa Sboui

 

 Alone

Flash Fiction

by Dr. Anissa Sboui

Isabel wanted to take some rest. She was tied up all those years. She forgot to look after herself. The love of work has evaded her plunge into relaxation. Her daughters were the archaic thing she was thinking about. She had always told herself that it was high time to refresh her frustrated mind, rejuvenate her suffocated body, and revive her troubled soul. All she yearned for was a moment of relief aloof from hectic arrangements. On that rainy day, she switched on the television, watched her favourite soap operas. Then, she rushed to the dark kitchen to get some crunchy cookies. When she opened the fridge, the captivating smell of grilled chicken made her taste wine in her spinning hair. Hungry, she was, and lonely as the children were at the nightclub. Bringing grapes and bananas made her feel good. It was an act of internal cleanliness. She sat by the window, in pink pullover and jeans, barefoot, dreamily staring at the passers-by. She marvelled at the speed with which they were heading to their apartments in the Chinese neighbourhood. She thanked God for being alone after all those absurd days, filled with busy schedules. She waited and waited for her daughters to come home; but they did not. Maybe they came late that dizzy night. All she remembered was a profound sound of deafness. Sluggishly, she longed for going to bed to not replicate the same sad stories of her agonizing past. Had she the will to get up sane, she would have slept without the sleeping pills. She kept edging into a surreal torment. A sense of grim aberration caught her into a spiral of delusions. With a delirious monologue, a lapse of guilt wrapped her like a bandage placed around the ankle of a gutted football player. She had enough money, yet she had sufficient agony, too. She just wanted to fall asleep. Like a defeated soldier, she threw that asexual feminine body on that ancient bed. Covered with her fluffy blanket, Isabel dived into another realm that was for the first time her own… Dreaming about the extreme version of absurdity as she was the true victim of her sceptical deals. Scattering the sly ingredients, stepping down the prison-like castle, crushing the homemade poison, time was not on her side. She usually fought to the last minute, undermining the slightest combat going inside of her psychic pursuit for order. But that crazy night, she wanted to readjust the scrambled puzzle of her threatened life only.

 

The Moody Bookworm

Short Story

by Dr. Anissa Sboui

 

Temperamental Catherine had been all her life. With frequent mood swings, she might lock herself within bouts of despair, and all of a sudden, once uplifted, beds of roses would start reigning over the woody window, stretched day and night, in the heart of August. Scorching nights had witnessed corridors, enabling that bleak past to stand still next to those French paintings she bought during her trip to Paris. At times, she used to devour her cheeseburger, rush to her cosy bedroom, lock the door savagely and jump into the thermal sofa. Comfortable it was, that’s why she loved to stay there for hours and hours without complaint.

Today, she was swamped reading a nice poem, one of her friends had sent her. The atmosphere was favorable enough to enrich her mind with a new prose masterpiece, crossing boundaries, oceans, traffic jams, deserts ... The stories of the West were her cup of tea. She was breathing the odors of rancid popcorn coming straight from the kitchen. The sound hit her 'pop, pop, pop'. It was slow at first, then a firestorm of kernels as they magically transform into billows of crunchy white deliciousness. Ecstatic, the smell wafts throughout her room, tantalizing her nose. By the time she was utterly hooked. She placed the bowl at the edge of the table. She was dreaming about grabbing a handful of it, and using a variety of toppings like sugar, caramel and on top of all chocolate to quench her hunger.

At that moment, what she was thinking about was the novel text she was going to marvel at. Smelt out of the house, when she rushed to check it, 'nonpareil' was burnt. With helpless feet, irritated eyes, sharp tongue, she cursed her mother for she had given birth to her without her consent. Had she had the audacity to think twice before making love with Mr. Georges, the Russian spy, all this acute pain would have been avoided ...

With no resistance, she was taught how to treat burns. Her nanny was her real mother as she asked her daughter before throwing her in this merciless world. She was told by strangers that the path to happiness rested on that prior compromise. The conqueror would spread rumors to allies before foes on the day of the bloody war. That's what she had learned for years at prestigious institutes of political studies. She must have been informed beforehand of how much horror, deceit, lies, hypocrisy, fake profiles, breakdowns she would encounter during the long journey on a restless soil ... Who would heal her inner turmoil? She was certain no one would lend her a hand, but solitarily, she let water touch every inch between her sodden palms and swollen fingers. She lowered her chin, and moved too fast to embrace the merriment she had always felt under the umbrella of fiction. She knew well that Christian had fantastic write. She had an unmistakable appetite for exploring the backbone of thoughts streaming out of his supernatural mind. His writings had always captured her attention for their transparency. He wrote in a credible way that she had been under the spell of the short stories that were her best companions. Ready to read them all, and on that day, all she was capable of doing was to switch from claustrophobic libraries to  free  cyberspace .. Now, she opted for knocking at the gate of virtual literature, getting into the fiction blog as usual.. Now, she saw a new posted story.. This time, it was not like the previous ones.. One ‘honest’ posterior parcel of his life incidents.. How many they were with melodramatic spots throughout the course of his confident ascendency into this chaotic world..

His wedding ceremony was screwed up. He did that himself. He let loose on Samantha. He faced his bride-to-be, telling her that everything binding them together was over. That’s what the promising piece of art was all about.

Obsessed with the breathtaking effect of fiction on her ailing psyche, Catherine swiped up the phone screen as swift as possible, and instantly wrapped her senses around the pillow, held it tightly, tortured the prior sense of despair she was in, the tense words targeted her in the heart.

The downtrodden bachelor sneaked into Samantha's loft, smelling tanks reaching out to his frustrated body.

-Samantha, had I defense weapons, I would have fought till the end. In order to grow, we have to turn our backs on so many trivial things. We’ve been rivals all those months. I couldn’t understand your being egoist on most occasions. I kept assuring myself of your possible change, but in vain. We crashed from the very beginning as I was loyal to you. I confessed everything about me. However, you turned a deaf ear to what I was saying about the other guys you were dating. I knew their names, profile pictures, news … You had the ability to get me excited about almost everything, your smiling body attracted me to be closer to you. I loved when you tried to show affection to me. Our story could have been better if we had been thoughtful, understanding and genuine. Alas, it was not the case with you, Samantha. We hit rock-buttom together to get to come to terms with one another. Your dishonesty has brought about my spiky downfall. Actually, the countdown has come and I’m seriously thinking about distancing my heart and soul from you, the most malicious girl I’ve ever met. You made me feel small, strolling around the city, walking behind you like a poodle. A blind marionette I was, dumb creature, fetching passion, yet losing inner peace. Because of you, I spent days daydreaming about being your sole and unique partner, felt emotionally wrapped up, scattered in your temple like chocolate fudge. At the heart of downtown, I was deserted, emotionally naked, went spiritually barefoot while you were cheating on me with a gang of tipsy revellers. Your love confused me. My mind has gone though I was happy being crazy about you. Unfortunately, you made a fool out of me by knowing them all… Breakdown in communication was hurting me the most. Fair enough, I was contacting a few friends otherwise I could’ve gone mad. I was striving to find some middle ground, mend things between us, remove the barriers you yourself have built to aggravate the situation more and more. I had the sentiment that you were born to think about yourself only. Indifferent you have been to my sincere feelings ...

-Hold on, I got contaminated by your pricky spears. Attacking me won’t serve you. Do me a favor by smuggling your decency and extravagant kindness, king of the Danaides. No wrongdoing I committed like those bloody fifty women, man. You know exactly what I’m saying right now. Have you been dwelling in another planet or what? Can’t you figure out what you’ve just said to me. I am looking back at the whole lecture you’ve been delivering to me and I kept hoping it was a script you’ve prepared to say it to another one. I felt skeptical at first of what you’ve been conniving at. Then I was caught in a spiral of revulsion at the very idea that it was dedicated to me in such a repulsive way! What the hell does this speech mean. I’m offended, no sensitivity, no no no, you don’t know me, but I’ll tell that straight. I’ve never been into you from the first encounter. It’s very humiliating. We are not on the same page, man. You kept chasing me wherever I went, followed me on cyber spaces, too. I adored you and was plausible enough to tell you how much I had visible affinity with you. We came closer and closer. We were one at many times. I was taking it seriously to tie the knot with you, I regarded you as my future husband and father of my children if one day we would agree to have babies. We have to ask for their permission first, you know it is substantial for them. We’ve been intimate. You grabbed me and shook me, sending me shockwaves into my frail statue. True, I adorned wearing sexual heart on my sleeves. Buut buuuut, oh my heart aches right now . I have blackouts because of you ... My heeeaad hurts ... The more you were saying, the more offended I was becoming. You were digging deep into a rocky-made hole, unable to see yourself through the others’ mirror. I’m at a loss of expressions to be hearing all that from you. You can’t imagine how I felt when one of your relatives came to me one day and poured everything about you out. Such abusive partner like you can only see one side of the coin. You accuse me of horrendous deeds while turning a deaf ear to all your sexual crimes, I’d call them. You’ve driven me insane with your threatening behavior. You paralyzed me with the deliberate transgression of my mental laws. I’ll proceed by uncovering the truth behind that masculine façade you always try to adorn before intimate people. Dear king, I was informed that you dated Jennifer a couple of weeks ago. You sent friend requests to a heap of reserved whores from the neighbourhood. You also had sex with Diana, I’m saying the truth, yeah I’m saying the truth, you had intercourse with her last Sunday, the previous month, on her witch-like birthday, on one of our friends’ wedding day.. I saw you yesterday sneaking into Pamela’s house, the widow welcomed you with extended arms and kissed you everywhere. You put your pants off and cheated on yourself, drowning the principles you’ve kept deafening my ears with into a profound well. Now you came accusing me of adultery. Of course, you can’t figure out how much agony I was in since you never knew someone may confess private horrors like this. Never knew, neveeeer knnnnnew.. Revise your attitude, and you’ll see how horrible your reaction to me was. I was absorbing the tales, uttered by your relative with tears streaming down my face. I cried nonstop, nooonnnstooooooop. I internalized all those bad feelings for fear of losing you. You meant a lot to me, yet at this very moment you're vindictive, spiteful and selfish kind of guy..

At night, with a cup of hot chocolate, Catherine freaked out. The tale was a prototype of her distorted life with the vanishing shadow of ex fiancé. She was fighting that vicious ghost to regain her sanity. Tormented, plagued, beaten to death by depression, anxiety attacks, and severe mood swings, erupting in violence, she threw the cup on the wall and spat on a photo of his, placed on the opposite side beside the dark vase. On her process to remove disillusionment, inquire further and fill in gaps, she overcame mental obstacles through the therapeutic force of spoken poetry. The flow of words was smooth as she kept reciting her micropoem

 

I am battling a cyber disease

I am ill at ease

Nothing around me may, my soul, please

Where is home, where is?

Even though so many days I yearn to seize

I am not at ease

My heart, I have to appease,

A property, it is, not a renewed lease

 

The hysterical state that had lent itself to a critical condition of madness urged his victim to seek directions in order to get back home. Not knowing which way home was, she asked fervently in an attempt to find the right path that could take her back home. It was a tasteless shelter.. She missed warmth, serenity, belonging, integrity.. The whole atmosphere signalled a decaying place where the light was out.. dark was moving.. No sign posts in this room.. The darkness outside was equated with the darkness inside of her wide agony.. Ten seconds later, after twisting waist for more than an hour, she made up her mind to give herself another read of A Streetcar Named Desire, and fell asleep..

Dr. Anissa Sboui, is a university teacher and a poet from Sousse, Tunisia. She has published books titled, Transcend (2018), Rebirth (2019), Number One (2020), The Co-Avid Breath (2021) and Hurricane (2022). Her three short-stories, titled “Alone”, “Coincidence” and “The Moody Bookworm” are also published in respectable journals. Her poems have featured in Writing in a Woman’s Voice, The Writers’ Club, Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal, Dumpster Fire Press, Medusa’s Kitchen, The 2020 Annual by the Elizabeth River Writers, Valiant Scribe, and Literary Heist, Setu Bilingual Journal.

Five Poems by Neil Fulwood

 

L’ ESPRIT DE L’ ESCALIER

 

Sometimes when I’m descending the staircase,

mouth wrapped round a yawn, fingertips

rubbing sleep from my eyes, the Spirit

will make with some unwanted homily

along the lines of, “Early shift again, eh?

Rather you than me. Pissing it down out there.”

 

Sometimes, ascending the staircase, eyelids

like steel shutters, feet dragging, the Spirit

will ambush me with a question or observation

so perfectly admixing absurdity

and existential terror that my night’s sleep

is guaranteed a non-event, the ceiling

 

marked out as that place where the poet

spoke of something and something clashing

by night. The Spirit sticks to the staircase

but manages with a jeu d’ esprit

or some other je ne sais quoi to infect

just about every square inch of the house.

 

 

 

DRIVE IT LIKE IT’S STOLEN

 

Drive it like you unlocked it

by shimmying a thin strip of metal

between window and door panel.

          Drive it

like cars don’t have alarms nowadays.

 

Drive it like you punched loose 

the casing under the dash,

sparked two wires together.

          Drive it

like Hollywood wrote the Highway Code.

 

Drive it like your rearview is full

of flashing red and blue,

highway patrol bearing down.

          Drive it

like there’s still a disused access road 

     and a washed out bridge 

     between you and the border.

 

 

 

THREE VULTURES LOOK AT A POET

(after ‘Thirteen Blackbirds Look at a Man’ by R.S. Thomas) 

 

1.

 

The quill

dropped from his hand

just seconds ago, the vultures

already cleared for descent,

appetites piqued

by the lifeless form

of the poet.

 

2.

 

And yet

they continue to circle, 

hesitant, as if awaiting 

some crucial piece of information,

such as the amount of calories

per poet, its allergens,

how fatty it is.

 

3.

 

Later, 

three vultures suffer

an excess of poet,

wish they’d waited for the carcass 

of a week-dead marsupial,

something less steeped

in alcohol and bile.

 

 

 

LUNCH BREAK, LATE SHIFT

 

That last round trip, bus packed

with office drones heading home,

and you still an hour off your break.

 

The early doors crowd are getting their first in 

while you’re handing over

to your relief driver. The coffee shop

 

you sometimes while away a break in

has drawn down the shutters.

A wander round the city centre

 

is a tour of closed doors, dimmed

lights, nowhere to go but the gulag

of a manky canteen down an alleyway

 

where crime scene tape wouldn’t be out of place.

 

 

 

RECIDIVIST

 

It’s beyond my control: I’ll do it again,

a one man-version of a rogue nation.

Not a question of if but a matter of when.

 

It’s both nature and nurture, and even then

there’s more than a hint of predestination.

It’s beyond my control: I’ll do it again.

 

There’s no childhood trauma, no open

wound, no psychological revelation;

there’s no question of if but a matter of when.

 

There’s just a darkness buried deep in some men

and you’d know if someone reversed our stations 

that It’s beyond control: you’d do it again

 

and probably embrace it like an old friend,

your guts churning with excited impatience,

not a question of if but a matter of when.

 

Sorry not sorry. Je ne regrette rien.

I’m not one for remorseful contemplation.

It’s beyond my control: I’ll do it again;

not a question of if but a matter of when.

Neil Fulwood was born in Nottingham, England, where he still lives and works. He has published two pamphlets with The Black Light Engine Room Press, Numbers Stations and The Little Book of Forced Calm; and three full collections with Shoestring Press, No Avoiding It, Can’t Take Me Anywhere and Service Cancelled. His fourth collection, Mad Parade, a selection of political satires, is published by Smokestack Books.

 

Five Poems by Dr Anushna Biswas

 

HEADS IN HEAVEN

 

A brown dawn

Pale sunshine

A grey vulture on top

Carcass at distance

Hyena’s splitting

Killed deer

 

Pathos

Soul screeching bite

Movement static

Muttering voices

Meaningless tongue wagging

Burnt fingers on bread

No victor

No loser

Lowdown plateau

 

Spotted panorama

Mystic patches

Cruel paws

Pounding dog tails

 

Activity frozen

Brown day dies.

 

GREY SCAPE

 

Autumn crossing out door

Sky wee mysty

Grey smears landscape

In mango garden

Numerous fisted hands

Dangling from them

 

Eyes grow grey too

Red in brown mist too

Distance sights

In kinetic undulation

Dead wings of birds

Flying over tree top

Music clasps

Eerie silence

Is it a dirge

Soul carelessly cheerless

A hundred cycles

Run past

Sounding bells

 

No signs of hope

Yet single oleander

Flaunts red flowers.

 

IN QUEST OF DREAM

 

It was time for

Dream to gain me

In dead of night

An owl screeches

Several times

Dream breaks

Bandicoots in jaws

Slight touch of night bulb

Sleep again for dream

Tree breaks and tumbles

In sleep

Mirror splinters on floor

Water glass topples

And breaks

Sleep breaks

Night walks out

Dawn breaks.

 

 

WAITING FOR GAZE

 

We need a clear gaze

To fathom life’s safe phase

Survives our race

Banking on our keen gaze

Course of living range

 

Our society scarred by struggle

No man happy trapped in dearth

Of props like soul and mirth

Choked in this girdle

 

Sick society needs more potential visions

But these are not found in fashion

Scarcity created by vicious cycle

To be free from riddle

Hardship craves more dynamic gaze

Changing life’s poggled phase

 

Gaze is poetry’s perfect creation

In gaze we discuss powerful vision

More we obtain live gaze

Altering life’s cruel phase.

 

DEATH OF AN ESCAPIST

 

There is an escapist

In every people

Deemed an instinct a system

Am I with them?

 

Asking myself the way out

For gambado in our blood

Our deception caught soon and marred

 

Mood and smart sensibility

A must for conscious artist

Composing poetry

Need imagination, mood

And involvement in tapestry

Escapism must be confronted

Killing self-instinct

In stormy blast

 

Once we pounce upon

Escapists in us

We grow companions a lot

For those who wait patiently

For our mutation

Writing poetry for them with celebration.

 

 

Dr Anushna Biswas, Literary Critic, Poet and Feature Writer of The Indian Express Group of Newspapers. Also former Lecturer and head, Department of English at Tagore University Distance Education. Published eight books of literary criticisms, contributed essays and articles in The Indian Express Group of Newspapers, Contributed poetry to Lothlorien Poetry Journals Volume 11 and 13, Dumpster Fire Press: Voices From Fire Volume11, Awarded Certificate of Appreciation by Global Poetry Forum Poetry Contest, Nigeria.

 

Five Poems by Tom Laughlin

 

Finding Woodrow in the Walker Museum Sculpture Gardens, Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

In the 1970s I made horses out of real mud and sticks.  They were in part

meant to reflect how much a horse is part of his environment.  I combine

the figure and the ground. 

--Deborah Butterfield

Notes on her bronze sculpture entitled Woodrow, 1988

 

His dreams are always blue

a light powder blue

since bronzing

yet he longs for wood

and supple green bending of limbs

running through fields, forests, rivers

 

The distant drone of traffic

through his ribs

grows louder as his eyes reach across the bridge

to a small pond edged with grass

a duck sails downward

                        lands slowly

ripples    splashes

the house on the pond’s edge stands silent

brown roof dripping in the cold rain

 

Within the pond

a smaller island sits

brown and parched from winter

but on the opposite bank

grass is blowing green now

teasing his nostrils

in this April rain

 

His legs are planted firmly

he feels the soft mud

hooves reaching deeper every day

and he knows he will go no further

the dreams return now

a light powder blue mist

yet this time

tinged here and there

with memories of green

 

In the Woods                                                                        

            for Ryan

 

I.

Granite huddles in masses

trips over itself

gets away down embankments

to pile upward

in a height competition

gray dark stones numbered on stone

the gods’ forgotten child’s play                                             

left to punctuate                                               

these New England woodlands

collect flecks of moss, sparrows’ nests

and contemplative hikers

 

II.

Green in winter, they wave their tops

to this January sun

smile

their glazed eyes rolling gently

dopey and defiant like this warm brightness                         

against a creaking mid-winter frost

inviting chickadees who answer

in staccato riddles

 

III.                                                                             

An uncontrollable smile runs

bouncing pine-needled path

brushing green hair softly

beneath breezy fingers                      

sap-oozing knot holes

sunlight slanting through

to chasing squirrels flitting birds

above and between

camouflaged branches

mossy stones to the left

and more of this path

yes more

                       

IV.                              

Walking tree-filled hills        

the oak, pine and birch step aside

leading you forward along winding trails                 

rhythmed feet feel stones, feel earth

steady and flat for a half mile

then slow with steep 

here thick with shady hemlock

here oak-flecked sun on boulders calling for a climb

red checkerberries

small blue flowers hugging wrinkled roots

puffed white stalks and seeds blown thick like snow

and the trail reaching upward again toward short scrub and granite tops

which offer a wide-open sky

green hills speckled with ponds

and hawks circling, floating on warming currents

 

I am a long way away
                                      after a photo by Albert Desrochers

 

yet I feel the brush-cut field

of my youth, the stretch

of open space reaching far ahead

beyond the big rock – Plymouth Rock

we called it, and it might have been

in those hazy marshlands of our

third grade social studies reader

(perhaps the ocean had spread here

before inland birches, maple, and spruce

narrowed the view of our sky).

 

Stepping past this boulder, midfield

with swishing high grass whispering

at pantlegs, was beyond

ourselves, beyond backyards

beyond dinner bells and cut-through paths.

 

This warm-shouldered day I feel the rock

with memoried eyes, anxious still

at this child-cast line in the grass

wavering with a wind's gentle urging

toward fall-colored, pathless woods.

 

An oak has drifted across my nostrils

and I almost touch feathered clouds.

I move forward now

with this rock.

 

You, Ocean,

 

you fat child on a swing set,

watch thickened rivers empty into you,

iron legs stretch into your bulk,

tankers spit at your froth.

 

You splash at granite,

sweep pebbled beaches

while rusted barrels tear at your belly.

 

So you tip the occasional summer home

in Key West or Malibu—

you, ocean,

where are your narwhal?

where the sucking whirlpools of your wrath?

 

Wood Originally

 

All xylophones were wood,

And Egyptian pillows.

Originally everything was made of wood.

Stoves were maple wood,

Blankets were sandalwood,

Cows were made of oak,

Roads were paved with solid pine,

Vegetables were wooden, water

Was mostly beech wood,

People were made of wood—

Small children were particularly brittle,

Horses, and dogs and cats,

Poems— all wood.

No, things aren't like

what they used to be, originally.

 

Tom Laughlin is a professor and Coordinator of the Creative Writing Program at Middlesex Community College.  He was a founding editor of Vortext, a literary journal of Massasoit Community College, a volunteer staff reader for many years for Ploughshares, and he has taught literature classes in two Massachusetts prisons. His poetry has appeared in Green Mountains Review, Ibbetson Street, Drunk Monkeys, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Blue Mountain Review, Superpresent Magazine, Molecule, and elsewhere. His poetry chapbook, The Rest of the Way, was released by Finishing Line Press in August 2022.  His website is www.TomLaughlinPoet.com<http://www.TomLaughlinPoet.com>