Susie Gharib, “The Maimed King

The Maimed King

Susie Gharib

I am ceremoniously sitting next to him in a boat that looks like a lily’s wing, both contemplating the irritated lake, whose bosom envelops his dangling bait, the moon all blown into a trillion flakes.

“I do not like to kill any living thing. We believe in the fishes’ sacredness,” I audibly mumble to my agitated self.

His response comes rippling on the wailing wind, his first heard utterance in a thousand years: “I only fish what is already dead, what lies deep hidden on a sacred bed, in the bottom of this benighted lake.” I wait. He averts his face and solemnly prays. I think of T. S. Eliot, of Idylls of the King, but fail to comprehend his allegorical intent.

He cannot be speaking of a sword’s demise, that had been burnished at Merlin’s command and the Lady of the Lake has eternal life.

The wound in his thigh is gaping wide. The blood has trickled into my mind. I wake up to a clot within my mouth.

Voiceless

Anna Kapungu

I heard the piercing sounds of screams Those were the strings of my heart The slow drip of blood Run within my skin Close my eyes I still feel your presence Spine tingling touch My love was yours It was not endless skies Free fall my world was cold Hear every splash as the snow hits the ground No distance cries of seagulls All was silent Silence to hear myself Breathe breathe without gratitude Hurt hurt without words Hear the phone ringing Whisper I am voiceless

She Was Earning A Living

Anna Kapungu

Times were hard She was earning a living Three jobs a day Paid the rent, school fees and food on the table No Easter, summer vacations or Christmas parties Meals were breakfast in the morning Porridge, homemade bread, water for tea Bought charity clothes from the dollar stores Lived on friends’ generosity and borrowed money Bankrupt, the banks refused to give us credit Milk tokens from the government Water was rationed Bathed once every two days We hardly had any visitors Played indoors; the streets were not for children High density, high-strung and bullets through the windows Times were hard She was earning a living

The Opiate, Winter Vol. 24 Elegy for Wollstonecraft1

Imogen Arate

Mother of feminism stripped bare by a woman no less Ain’t that a kick in the teeth

“For” or “of” preposition raises “everywoman” cum Birth of Venus via penectomy’s flotsam as Uranus from Hades looks on

Female bodies seen as public property embodied by nude park statuette in honor of self-made woman who took the fire from Prometheus hidden by men to brighten only their face

Robbed of protection at a young age at whim of an abusive father who drank irresponsible to his care yet given more legal right overpayment for a flailing appendage

Mary petitioned for equal rights opened a school to educate girls but artistic rendering would conjure her legend naked tear away her accomplishments as early death her rise to fame

Her progeny Mary Shelley continued to caution about the hubris of men without ethics

Yet a backhanded honor unveils tonight as warning that our path to stand shoulder to shoulder with men can and will be slick with obstacles sprung from the narcissistic discharge of every self-indulgent gender

______________________________________________________________________________________ 1. “More than 90% of London’s monuments celebrate men, compared to a population of 51% women, according to the [Mary on the Green] campaign... ‘Meanwhile, women walking or jogging through parks experience high rates of sexual harassment because our bodies are considered public property.’” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-london-54886813.

The “R” Word

Imogen Arate

I know men who’d never raise their hand against a woman but will tear her down each time she dared to reach their height

They’d smile and talk of respect while filling their father’s shoes and boundaries are torn to shreds like inconvenient red tape

Deafened by thunderous accolades for talents Mars’ arrows shot to the sky though their self-worth is chained to the ground

Blue bruises they can’t face while glee giggles from power trips grasping for control ferociously sheltered behind profuse sorries

Dancing on the border of the physical while patting their own backs with a sigh of apprehensive relief that their childhood stayed behind

though the shade they enjoy if they dared to glance back is rooted in the long reach of the knotting branches of an ancient family tree

bedecked with spellbound leaves tracing rationalization’s curves to boughs thick with denial tucked into a disavowing trunk

springing out of a network of roots sucking needed nourishment from a toxic firmament whose palms they can never escape

and the shadows of frightened little boys raise furious fists to pummel their idea of the inferior sex back into their imagined place

Yet their abuse only lays waste the remnants of their own innocence battered and barely hanging on to humanity’s ideals they claim to raise

Gulp\Gasp

Serena Piccoli

and I hear

the seashell falling on cement

for a guilt-free meal

still I hear the gasp of the clam all the erupting noise is gulped down the beak

ravens are smart they kill and cause no pain