Politics

"Everything is political," I informed him,
settling the matter once and for all;
"Everything."

He looked at me dumbly
fumbling with something in his pocket.
And after what must have seemed an eternity to him,
smiling in pain,
he finally withdrew his hand
and held up midway between his eyes and mine:

                         a sea-shell


By Richard Raskin
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mimesis

the little girl

holds a pencil

between her fingers,

then brings it

to her mouth,

all the while

watching Mom

smoke.

By Debbi Antebi

The Deckhand

Grunt of the rivers, the deckhand,

his world one of water and rust,

            straddling

barges at winches working unseen like windings

of a clock twenty days on.

Twenty days off he dreams of currents,

knowing only two directions:

upstream and downstream.

By Robert E. Petras

Blackouts

By this time the blood is too deprived of sweets.

He wakes without waking, hits the floor thrashing.

“You really gave her quite a scare.” Watching

her world fold up like that, crumpled

in the twisted fish that fell out of bed.

Suddenly another seizure, electricity snapping

everything sightless blind mice, where men slept.

Just light some candles and wait

the power will come back.

By Ramona Itule-Patigain