Meggie Royer, “Ophelias”

Meggie Royer is a writer and photographer from the Midwest who is currently working as an educator on domestic violence in Minnesota. Her poems have previously appeared in Words Dance Magazine, The Harpoon Review, Melancholy Hyperbole, and more.

Ophelias

On October 24, 2018, two Saudi sisters, Tala and Rotana Farea, were found bound together in the waters of the Hudson. Prior to their deaths, the sisters reported that they had been abused by family.

There are some rivers brimming with hair,
dark in the way songs are dark,
red pooled into empty curls,
women upon women upon women
who lived in the cities they burned.
Once, a hand can be cradled,
but not twice.
Then, a throat can be closed,
but not now.
And the tendrils pile on the surface
like oil, and fishermen will strain each lock
through their nets like pearls.
If the hair of all the women we’ve lost
were harvested,
we could make even more women
to leave in lakes
as their lives slide through like mud.

 

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Patrick Hurley, Selection from “Variation”

Patrick Hurley taught writing and literature at various colleges for almost twenty years. Now he makes poems (and tends bar to pay the bills). His work has appeared multiple times in The Adelaide Literary Review (where he was the top finalist for the 2017 Poetry Award and Adelaide Voices Literary Award for Poetry Finalist for 2018), Clockwise Cat, Futures Trading, Eunoia Review, and Poetry Pacific. He recently completed a long poetry project called walking. https://www.patrickhurleypoet.com/

Selection from “Variation”

A prelude for solid objects before the tempo is cranked down low. Rapid movement past a miniature greenhouse. Expanded shorthand traces notes like faded graffiti. This frost a reminder that resists interpretation. The leaves of one oak are dried blood begging the question of the wound’s antiquity. There is a strange symmetry that at first appears to be its opposite. After any silence sirens become unbearable. Somehow return to slow beginnings. Not even joined these points of connection. Close enough for electrical impulses to jump between them.

 

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Gail Goepfert, “Aubade”

Gail Goepfert, an associate editor at RHINO Poetry, is a Midwest poet, photographer, and teacher. She has two published books: A Mind on Pain, 2015, and Tapping Roots, 2018. Get Up Said the World will appear in 2019 from Cervená Barva. Recent and forthcoming publications in Kudzu House, Stone Boat, Postcard, Poems and Prose Magazine, Open: Journal of Arts and Letters, and Beloit Poetry Journal. More at gailgoepfert.com

Aubade

 

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Holly Day, “Hope at the Gates of”

Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle. Her newest poetry collections are A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press), In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.), and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy (Alien Buddha Press).

Hope at the Gates of

We wait for the odd angels to hear our prayers, wait so long
we’re not surprised when they descend clumsily and awkwardly like
large, winged elephants. When you’re this lost
you’ll take any type of salvation you can get, even if
the Messiah that shows up is dangling from a lowered rope
or has scores of helium balloons tied around His waist.

When the floodgates of Heaven finally open up
we’re all surprised to find we know people in the incoming crowd
who really don’t belong there, should not be in line
for eternal bliss or redemption. Rumors cycle
regarding possible payoffs and bribes, miscommunications of
the general Message. Someone says your name
and laughs.

 

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Publishing News

Two new chapbooks are out from Kelly Samuel, a Clementine Unbound contributor. Both books are now available to order:

Words Some of Us Rarely Use

and

Zeena / Zenobia Speaks

 

Missile Hymnal Amulet

Poems by G. F. Boyer

These are poems of survival—especially survival of religious indoctrination. At the same time, these poems celebrate a rich natural world: the physical and sensory world of plants, animals, and insects; the innocence and presence of nature; and even an animism that overpowers Christian fundamentalism and the increasingly revealed indifference of God. Through it all, time, aging, and dark humor provide a strong pulse, saying life will go on with or without us. The title’s missile, hymnal, and amulet represent the three sides of this conundrum, as rage, beauty, and love interweave in these crisp and incisive poems. “That’s how bayonets are made, you say. The wound is triangular and doesn’t heal easily.”