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Sitting in the backseat heading

north on 95 after the

game eating cold pretzels straight out

a crinkled, brown paper bag like

they’re going out of style―four

for a dollar, salt settles in

your lap, refineries burn in

Port Richmond―three pretzels to go.

---

Matt was born and raised in Levittown, PA, and now resides in NC where he writes poetry and short fiction.

Our days are longer than glass, longer than

Stone, longer than light and air, longer than

The waters of this softly flowing river that will

Pass, rise, fall, and pass again while we speak

These words, sing these words. Our days are

Longer than prayer or scholarship, than ambition

Or boasting or riot or sleeping or waking or food

Or kisses or the bright exalting summer of youth.

They are longer than sorrow or rejoicing or love

Or bones turned to powder. Our steps trace and

Retrace the paths of echoing generations, and

We are indistinguishable among them. For a

Thousand years has the black-haired girl sat in

Choir and stared black-eyed, and for a thousand

More will she sit and stare. We will speak these

Words, sing these words. For centuries the man

Has sat dry in his faith, and for centuries more

Will he sit. We will speak these words, sing these

Words. The dry man will find his faith and the

Black-eyed girl will look up. We have no need

For rushing. With our words and our singing

We make this glass and this stone the great

Still center of creation. The long grass moves

From the breath of our words. The trailing

Willows sway from the breath of our singing.

The river flows softly while we speak and we

Sing. These words and this singing pass from

Mouth to mouth and their living is continuous.

We do not matter at all. Our broken ineluctable

Particulars are translated into these words and

This singing, and we are made whole by them.

When the windows are blank cold darkness we

Speak. When the stones glow skin warm we sing.

There is confidence in our words and endurance

In our singing. The softly flowing river passes.

We speak and we sing.

---

Peter McEllhenney is a writer living in Philadelphia, PA. His work has appeared in Philadelphia Stories, the Seminary Ridge Review, Referential Magazine, The Apeiron Review, and Blast Furnace. He blogs at www.PeterGalenMassey.com.

1.

E A G L E S written in vapors in the sky

A dalliance of eagles overhead

Midair clasping talons cart-wheeling down toward earth

Chant of boos at the site of the purple-winged god of the north wind,

2.

A procession of green double decker buses carrying the champs moves slowly up Broad Street

A rage of joy screams           people  barricaded swarm the parade route,

bearded player wearing a turban and Mummers costume dives into the crowd

floats on raised arms

3.

A few clutch urns of ancestral ashes

Man wearing a jersey with number 99

circles in a ghost dance

empties ashes on the edges of a park at Broad & Oregon

4.

Elderly couple wearing fated team caps holds a sign

58 Years! The Curse Is Gone!

Wings on everything

Every shade of green expressing loyalty to the Champions

The reflective glory on the back of jerseys: names numbers of their heroes

The face of Nick Foles taped over the image of a saint

5.

Two giant marble Pylons open out to the Parkway to a roaring sea

Boys huddled together standing on the shoulders of the sculpted soldiers

on the Civil War Memorial

A cap placed on the head of The Thinker at the Rodin Museum

A ski cap on the head of George Washington at Eakin’s Oval, a boy riding side saddle

Beer bottles stuck in branches decorate a tree in front of the Barnes

6.

Go-go dancer swivels up a light pole spins with an outstretched hand to the crowd

Two young men mud wrestle

Another body surfs through another mud patch

Cans of beer hurled at pole climbers

Finally one reaches the summit, guzzles a beer, directs the chorus below

in Fly Eagles Fly

---

Charles Carr was born in Philadelphia, educated at LaSalle and Bryn Mawr College, and has lived here his whole life. Charles was The Mad Poets Review’s 2007 First Prize Winner for his poem “Waiting To Come North” and has two published books of poetry: paradise, pennsylvania, (Cradle Press, 2009) and Haitian Mudpies & Other Poems (Moonstone Arts, 2012). For five years, Charles hosted the Moonstone Poetry series at Fergie’s Pub. Since 2016, he has hosted Philly Loves Poetry a monthly broadcast on Philly Cam. He has read poems in the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin, Ireland as part of the international project, 100 Thousand Poets For Peace.

I weep at cartoons.

Wile E. Coyote free-falling from a cliff,

Sylvester flattened by an iron safe,

scads of sodden Kleenex at my side.

 

I put my name on a wait list for mercy

(a light-year long).

I murmur worn mantras,

send prayers to made-up saints:

 

Saint Jackson of bankruptcy,

Saint Sophia of clogged toilets,

Saint Lester of shapeless days

& tedious tomorrows.

 

Someone else dreams my dreams at night.

I toss on sweat-stained sheets.

 

Am I missing the point

or was it never there?

A diver yanks a rope,

a wrestler taps out,

I tip over my King.

Checkmate.

---

Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.

Why not

create gods that work better for us

no gods requiring two sets of dishes

or prayers five times a day knees-in-agony O Lord

maybe not gods who talk of turning a cheek

or promise happiness in some tenuous heaven

 

come Tuesday, bring clay or fabric, easels,

buttons, paint, scissors, paper, old magazines

let’s each make her own god or goddess

mine a marionette with gossamer wings

pale blue eyes and a lacquered smile

more capable than Siri or Alexa

 

mine obeys every flick of my finger

whips up a chalet in France or a sleek Ferrari

collapses quietly in the corner when not needed

expects no penance or confession

no tithing or coins pinging a collection plate

 

some strings attached

---

Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.

For Southeast Philly

The fragile bones.

The highway snaking

through the maze of rigs.

Refinery

towers rising

and belching invisible

stink into your ovaries

ripe with coming

sickness and perhaps

forbidden        or forgotten

desire. The pinched lips.

The dusky pink

carpet stretched out behind glass latched doors.

The elevator narrow

and smoky and closing and rising and releasing

us to more dusky pink,

more stretches of beige to your tall beige door.

Inside,

glass cabinets filled

with plates, tea cups, silver

spoons, leprechauns, Matryoshka

dolls, sheltered from the dust of

what? Of concrete

lots stretching to the edge of the Delaware?

The unspoken legacy of unspoken things,

sifted.             The not speaking.

The ladyfingers spongy

under the roofs of our mouths.

Our mouths too full

of sweet things

to ask questions. Still.

---

Amy Elizabeth Robinson is a poet, historian, and many other things living in the hills of Sonoma County, California. She grew up in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, spent summer vacations in Cape May and Cape May Point, and also went to college in New Jersey. She holds degrees in history from Princeton, University College London, and Stanford, and studies Zen and creativity with the Pacific Zen Institute. She is a Contributing Editor of PZI’s online magazine of Zen and the arts, Uncertainty Club, and her work has also appeared in Deluge, Literary Mama, West Trestle Review, DASH, Vine Leaves, and as part of Rattle’s innovative Poets Respond program.