The Zingara Project

Month: September 2020

  • Just a Snap by Kitty Jospé

    unmarked country road near Piffard (Avon) NY on Summer Day

    of rising blue hills beyond the fingered bones
    of a dead tree
                   and off to the right an old red truck perched
    by a fence in the tall grasses, with its hood up, as a dirt road
    climbs by to pass it.

    It’s just a framed moment of a chance look—
    a possible diagonal conversation between an abandoned truck
    and shattered tree branches to the bottom left

                   or perhaps that splintered rubble
    of branches would prefer reassuring the shadow of a small unseen tree
    it won’t meet the fate that felled its parent trunk.

    In just a chance snap,
                   opportunities to imagine what could have been,

    the mind wondering if it’s fair to ascribe abandoned
    to that truck, and how many heartbeats are left,
    if any, to the one who drove it there.

    A snap of a moment, a shot
    caught in time, waiting for some
    stranger kicking down the road.

     

     
    —
    Kitty Jospé: MA French Literature, New York University; MFA Poetry, Pacific University, OR. She embraces the joy of working with language and helping others to become good readers of poems, people and life.Her work is in 5 books, published since 2009 and numerous journals and anthologies.

  • Squat by Gale Acuff

    I don’t want to die but I’m not crazy
    about living, neither, I’m ten years old
    and could live a lot longer, multiply
    a decade’s worth of sin and sorrow by
    ten and that’s a century of shit, not
    that good things won’t happen among the bad
    but I’m not so sure of that now, I got
    kicked out of Sunday School today because
    I asked if Adam had a navel, Eve
    as well, and that’s all she wrote – my teacher
    gave me the heave-ho so now I’m squatting
    on somebody’s headstone in the back of
    our church, it’s as quiet as death, ha ha,
    except for some mockingbirds and robins
    so fat they can hardly chirp and when
    class is over I guess I’ll go to her
    and apologize, my teacher that is,
    I guess there are some questions you don’t ask,
    I don’t mean that they’re bad – they’re just too good.

    —

    Gal Acuff’s poems can be found in such literary journals as Ascent, Reed, Poet Lore, Chiron Review, Cardiff Review, Poem, Adirondack Review, Florida Review, Slant, Nebo, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, Roanoke Review, and many other journals in eleven countries. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives. Gale has also taught university English courses in the US, China, and Palestine.

     

     

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  • How Do We Determine What Mars Is Made Of by Christina M. Rau

    Sampling and photographs
    over years until drying out.
    A flight of ages. When they go
    they go for good.
    They say goodbye
    and know the silting red
    will be dug up for graves.
    They know the shallow dips
    and angled hills will be
    playgrounds, outbacks, landscape
    views for all. They know money
    doesn’t matter. After setting down.
    The rovers didn’t need to
    disconnect in this
    way. They did and then they
    did not.
    In millennia
    it will be human bone in the loam.

    —

    Christina M. Rau is the author of the Elgin Award-winning poetry collection, Liberating The Astronauts (Aqueduct Press) and the chapbooks WakeBreatheMove and For The Girls, I. She is Editor-in-chief for The Nassau Review at Nassau Community College and founder of the Long Island poetry circuit Poets In Nassau. http://www.christinamrau.com

  • Hollow by Robert Beveridge

    Sap drips
    from the blades
    of pine needles
    that surround us
    as we lie
    on the Navajo blanket
    grandmother brought
    back from New Mexico

    the pine
    has been eaten by something
    leaves a crevice
    where we rest our heads

    a dry sanctuary
    from expected rain

    I carve our initials
    inside the shell
    before we leave
    surround them
    with traditional heart
    and arrow

    a first moment
    of love
    solid as pine.

    —

    Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Blood and Thunder, Feral, and Grand Little Things, among others.

  • First Day at Sts. Philip and James by John C. Mannone

    Diesel exhaust seeped through the open window.
    Almost made me sick, but my stomach churned
    already from nervousness. My first day in school.

    My blue blazer, brushed free from lint, felt tight
    when I sat on the bus’ green leather seat.
    I didn’t think to unbutton it. But the ride was short.

    The First Grade classroom seemed littered
    with many papers pinned to the walls; an alphabet
    was strung around the room like a party decoration.

    It was scary because I didn’t know what the letters
    meant. I didn’t even know what a letter was,
    but I remember my momma trying to teach me.

    The Sisters of St. Francis wore a thick chord
    fashioned around their waist that dangled down.
    It looked like a whip. I was scared about that, too.

    When I went to the bathroom, I didn’t know
    what to do—I never saw a vertical urinal before,
    only sit-down toilets. When I let my pants fall

    to the floor, the other boys laughed; they laughed
    harder when they saw me pee. I thought
    I did something wrong. I thought the nuns

    were going to spank me with that chord.

    —

    John C. Mannone has work in North Dakota Quarterly, Le Menteur, 2020 Antarctic Poetry Exhibition, and others. He won the Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature and served as celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex and others.

  • split pea soup by Jan Ball

    Just after we were married, you tried to make
    split pea soup at my parents trailer in Wisconsin
    but the split peas wouldn’t soften; still, musty
    smells mixed with the piney fragrance from outdoors
    stimulated our appetites–probably the split peas
    were on the pine wood shelf in the little country store
    with the squeaky screen door for years, but you wanted
    to make split pea soup on vacation in the Dells.

    Tonight, the green peas I substitute for yellow ones
    aren’t soft yet but I can smell the flavors blending:
    like so many years ago, onions, ginger, apple and
    sweet potato left over from Thanksgiving, with
    coriander, cumin and turmeric. But there is no hurry.
    You aren’t home yet and Lake Michigan outside
    the window is conducive to navy blue reflection.
    When you do return, finally, I’ll add the tart lime juice
    and acidic tomatoes before serving to the simmering soup
    for a contrast of flavors.

    —

    Jan Ball has had 325 poems published in various journals including: Atlanta Review,
    Calyx, Chiron, Mid-America Review, Nimrod and Parnassus, in Australia, Canada,
    Czech Republic, England, India and The U.S.. Jan’s three chapbooks and full
    length poetry collection, I Wanted To Dance With My Father, are available from
    Finishing Line Press and Amazon.

  • Nisi Warrior by MSG (Ret) Hubert C. Jackson

    Dedicated to the second born generation of Japanese-Americans who, in spite of the treatment of incarceration dealt to, in many cases, themselves, their friends and families, still chose to support the war effort of a nation who had turned a deaf ear to the cries of its citizens.

    Ancestral essence from the “Land of the Rising Sun,” and societal influences from the “Home of the Brave – Land of the Free” have combined to make me.  Driven by the soul of the Sumari, and a desire to be a contributing factor in the day-to-day functioning of this land, I ask nothing more than to be recognized as a citizen of this nation from sea to sea.

    We are the Nisei, sons of the Issei, and fathers of the Sensei, and America is our homeland too, and during one of the most challenging times in our history, we stepped forward to defend our country in the European theater in some of the most vicious fighting during World War II.  We stood proudly, fought bravely, sacrificed, and many died for the cause of the “Red, White, and Blue.”  All of this in spite of Executive Order 9066, which incarcerated my family, friends, and relatives in substandard barbed-wire enclosures, signed into effect in February 1942.

    We comprised the 100th Infantry Battalion )Separate), better known as the “Purple Heart Battalion,” and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and in fighting for our country, we also fought for the realization of our dream, that of regaining, for ourselves, and our families, the rights of free American citizens, and to reconstruct our shattered self-esteem.

    —

    Hubert C. Jackson is a graduate student at the Union Institute and University enrolled in their Interdisciplinary Studies Program with an emphasis on African American Military History. He spent twenty-four years of active military service in the United States Army, twenty of those twenty-four years were spent in the Army’s Special Forces (Green Berets) serving with some of the finest soldiers that one could wish to serve with.