NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE

Richard MerliRichard Merli enjoyed a long career as an investigative reporter and editorin journalism, in which he managed two publications and launched a third.A lifelong poet, Richard writes about human emotion and perception andthe emotional dimension of human history. Richard has just completed arewrite of his first novel, TheAnimals. https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-merli-2b8a3734/https://www.facebook.com/richard.merli.5/allactivity?privacy_source=activity_log&log_filter=search#_

Coming HomeThe 7th of September foretold my fate.It was the last sad gasp of summertime.I was giddy with joy for a child of eight.Life would never again feel so sublime.So, what if the whole world shattered?You were returning home to me, Mom.How could anything else have mattered?Grandma called: “Go find your brother Tom.”Cancer was what happened to other people.The hospital was sending you home that day.Still, I prayed past every church and steepleThat you’d be coming home this time to stay.I could barely sleep that summer’s night,Your image reappearing before my eyes.I recalled your lesson: “A star burns brightJust moments before it explodes and dies.”I saw a tall young woman, porcelain face,Dark chocolate eyes and shining black hair.You would gather me into a loving embrace.I knew then I’d forget all of my other cares.I grew restless with keen anticipation,My world suspended on a moment’s worth.The fulcrum poised between hell and salvation.Only one woman remained on the face of the earth. NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 152

I peeked ‘round the corner for your bus.I waited and waited for some sign of you.Two, three, four times – I made such a fuss.Grandma shouted: “You’ll wear out those shoes.”On my fifth glance, you magically appeared,In a yellow cotton dress and black high heels.How I struggled inside to choke back the tears.Out poured all the ecstasy I had long concealed.“Mama! Mama! Mama!” I cried.I was running and running, gasping for breath,Rushing into an embrace of arms opened wide,Hugging you, my Mom, who’d conquered death.How safe I felt just holding you tight.I kissed away all your happy teardrops.You made everything in my world feel right.How I wished the moment would never stop.We hugged in the shade of a maple tree.I would never forget that time and place.The moment seemed to last beyond eternity,Looking into the smile lighting up your face.I would never feel so loved again.It was all so overwhelming at the time.Now I realize I knew nothing back then.You were only 30, just entering your prime.A month later, two men in white uniformsCarried you out unconscious on a folding bed. NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 153

I heard Dad and Grandma weeping until morn.It numbed me with dark foreboding and dread.“A star burns brightest before it dies.”Your lesson foretold what was yet to be.Even then, I saw through my teary eyesThat you were never coming back to me. NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 154

Sara RahimiMy name is Sara and I'm 21 years old. My life revolves around literature.Ever since I was young I spent every moment I could reading. It's just thatI simply enjoy to play around with words. Even though I'm aware I'myoung, I have a brewing hope that someday I can call myself a real writer.But until then, I'll just keep trying and trying.

TideI stand waiting for the tide to wash my troubles away.I stay, I wait, I pray, yet here they lay, among seashellsThat sparkle; they reflect in the sun and twinkle with delight, Might I needto pick them up; There it comes; might I Harvest them as memories; or letthem be washed in the Misty foam where is it, I ask, where do my worriesfeel home;Do I need distance, for my heart to cease resistance;To see them for what they are; minute flecks in the universe,Soon to be forgotten at sea; see, it might sound picky,To this I do admit, but it is hard- even with persistence,To give up what summarizes your existence; watch it drift in the outwardbreeze. For them to never be seen or felt ever more; some say closureopens another door, but for thatto gain significance, distance is required, we let go and say: “Lo andbehold! There they go! NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 156

Yuan ChangmingYuan Changming published monographs on translation before leavingChina. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits PoetryPacific with Allen Yuan and hosts Happy Yangsheng in Vancouver; creditsinclude nine Pushcart nominations, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1,369 othersworldwide. https://www.linkedin.com/in/changming-yuan-a9a49559/

At 68th Avenue West, Saturday EveningAll construction noises gone. Except fewerAnd fewer cars swishing by. A veggie dinnerI watched wolf warriors. She stared atHer smartphone. No visitor as on everyOther, eve. I thought of making loveI want. No! She is no longer a womanLet alone mine. No internal communication ofAny kind. So, aged we can no longer go to bedEarlier or later. I wandered awhile onlineTrump again. Doklam standoff continuedNo fire between Guam and NK. No bodyContact either. No more. The bed is too smallFor two big different dreamers. HoweverAlways too large for a small stanza. NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 158

YUAN: The Origin of a Family NameY: You are haunted by ‘Y’, not because it’s the first letter in yourFamily name, but because it’s like a horn, which the water buffalo in yourNative village uses to fight against injustice or, because it’s like a twigWhere a crow can come down to perch, a cicada can sing towardsThe setting sun as loud as it wants to; more important, in EgyptianhieroglyphicsIt stands for a real reed, something you can bend into a whistle or fluteIn pronouncing it, you can get all the answers you need, besidesYou can make it into a heart-felt catapult and shoot at a snakehead orSparrow as long as it is within the wild wild range of your boyhoodU: is surely a part of you, while you sound no more than a single letterU, which is nothing but a copy of a chick; you used to be on the bank ofThe Nile, where u can be changed into v within a European word as inyvanIt’s said you have the makings of a victor, a powerful us or unrepresentativeWho begins the unit, the union, the uniform, the university, the universeA: As the first born to the Semitic family, A was originallyA picture of an alef or ox, the agricultural energy that was rotated twiceuntilAlpha loomed up in the Greek psycho-scape even beforeAdam became the chosen father of all Europeans close toAthens, where Apollo had acupunctured wisdom and knowledge intoAristotle, the intellectual ancestor of modern man, who inspiredAlexander to make the first effort of globalization, which did not reachEastAsia, the land of Ah Q’s, the largest hotel forAll travellers until centuries later, but it is NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 159

Atomic bombs that will blow up all our pasts and send us throughAmerica to a higher civilization, where the drop of anApple is to enable us to fly to the other side of the universeAlong the cosmic string as Africa, the heart of human darknessAwaits, for Buddha, Jesus, Allah or another unknownAuthor to come and rotate for the third timeA scarlet letter of AN: No, nobody knows this but you are really no moreOr no less than the old Egyptian metonymy of a stream, riverLake, sea or even an entire ocean, where there is always waterWhere there are always fish rather than a synecdochic ZPushed straight upright on the bank of the Euphrates NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 160

The Photography of Ashlie Allen NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 161

NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 162

NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 163

NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 164

NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 165

NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 166

NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 167

NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 168