March 16-22, 2020: Poetry from John Califano and Jane Ellen Glasser

John Califano and Jane Ellen Glasser

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John Califano
verveforest@protonmail.com

Bio (auto)

John Califano grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and lives in Manhattan where he works helping at-risk parolees transition back into the workforce. He’s worked as a writer, actor, visual artist, and musician, and has performed in clubs, art galleries, feature films and Off-Broadway productions. He recently completed “Notes from Down Under,” a collection of poems, and “Johnny Boy,” a coming-of-age novel. His work is featured in The Broadkill ReviewThe Willesden Herald’s New Short Stories Series (UK), Adelaide ReviewThe Writing Disorder, and Embark, an international literary journal for novelists. Visit John on the web here.

The following work is Copyright © 2020, and owned by John Califano and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

 

I Click Remote

flipping
channels
all
aggressive
pig
male
dogs
deadbeat
domestic
abusers
dominant
chauvinists
slackers
slack offs
jerks
jerk offs
dicks
dick heads
scoundrels
sneaks
super bowl
chest-bumping scum
no good cheaters
liars
molesters
non-committal
ass-groping
gash-sniffing
biologically
proven
toxic
predators

. . . and when the talk shows are over
and all the battles are lost and won
I’ll still be standing
all alone
just like every mother’s son

 

 

 


Jane Ellen Glasser
jegpoet@gmail.com

Bio (auto)

Jane Ellen Glasser’s poetry has appeared in numerous national journals, such as Hudson Review, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Georgia Review. In the past she reviewed poetry books for the Virginian-Pilot, edited poetry for the Ghent Quarterly and Lady Jane’s Miscellany, and co-founded the nonprofit arts organization and journal New Virginia Review. She won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry 2005 for her collection Light Persists, and the Long Life won the Poetica Publishing Company Chapbook Contest in 2011. Her most recent collections, In the Shadow of Paradise (2017) and Jane Ellen Glasser: Selected Poems (2019) are available from FutureCycle Press and Amazon. To preview her work and access her books, visit the website: www.janeellenglasser.com

The following work is Copyright © 2020, and owned by Jane Ellen Glasser and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

 

Deerfield Arboretum

In the meadow
a rainbow tree peels
to a painter’s palette.

The sun glazes
a million shades of green.

I remove my sweater
and follow the familiar
path to a pond
girded by giant ferns.

Release! says a
trickling waterfall.

I drop my name
like a wishing coin
into the pool
as a bird strings notes,
limb to limb, high up
in a yellow poinciana.

Spread wide as a city block,
the banyan’s aerial roots
curl like constrictors
around thick trunks.

Last year I watched
my grandchildren climb
these crooked ladders
to patches of sky
and I did not stop them.

After I Die

Don’t open your doors
…………for wet hankies
Don’t sit shiva
…………barefoot on boxes
Don’t gather a minion
…………to say Kaddish
Don’t search for me
…………in covered mirrors
Don’t listen for me
…………in the mouth of gossip
Don’t sniff for me
…………on bedsheets and pillows
Don’t reach for me
…………inside my clothes
Don’t preserve me
…………in frames and albums
Don’t hunt for me
…………in your memories
Don’t make a shrine
…………of half truths
Don’t visit my grave
…………on the yahrtzeit
Don’t plant stones
…………on my tombstone
If you would find me
…………look inside my poems

 

 

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