How to Tarry
Irving touted the tavern
but you can start at Transom.
A book in hand is all you need.
Truth doesn’t matter here. Never mind
that tarry is wheat, save your Dutch
for the Zee of the sea, and let the Tappan
remind you of its roots, the cold water
of the Lenape. The rules are headless here,
all magic and heart. Head over to Horsefeathers
where the light folds in on itself
like an English tavern at midnight.
Greet Hemingway and Lawrence,
ask where Fitzgerald went, savor the shadows
as you slow play a negroni.
Walk whichever bridge you please,
Horseman or Tappan Zee, you’ll see
the aperture is wide. You’ll hear
the galloping in the distance.
Don’t be scared. They all tarry.
Hessian, German, Weckquaesgeek, the bewitchers
of this “drowsy dreamy” hollow. Hallowed
be its name, go to the lab or Muddy Water,
head to the speakeasy on Dixon.
Join the parade where the pope
meets his match on Main,
the headless horseman blessing
parishioners with chase, even the children
smile at the aftertaste of his eucharist.
In front of the music hall, echoes of William Wallace
remind you to grab ice cream at Main Street Sweets.
Spy the erector-set bridge on a mural there, featured
like a debutante in North by Northwest
as Cary Grant trains it to Long Island.
I told you truth doesn’t matter here.
Half-moon rising, this isn’t even the full
story, but you’re getting it. It’s easy
when you fall under its spell,
walking the aqueduct towards New York
Public Library, the Hudson in the distance.
How fitting this place should end
as it began, in books and byways,
a boy named Washington dreamt
into life. This is how you tarry.
—Michael Alcee
A Song for Bill
All Hallows’ Eve Bill casts a spell
on me. I dance through fields of corn
and sing for him a villanelle.
He has an earthy, pungent smell,
a shaggy head, a coat that’s torn.
All Hallows’ Eve he casts a spell.
He looks a scarecrow. Town folks tell
a tale of loss, a soul forlorn.
I sing for Bill a villanelle.
From deep within the wooded dell
I hear him blow his tinny horn.
All Hallows’ Eve Bill casts a spell.
In ghostly form, I rise pell-mell
from tangled grave of vine and thorn.
I sing for him a villanelle.
Then off we dance the tarantelle,
and romp till rooster crows the morn.
All Hallows’ Eve, a dance, a spell
a song for Bill, a villanelle.
—Carol Shank
The Missing Fourth
A woman is crying
and crying and
cradling a white dog.
There was an attack she says,
it is missing a paw.
Jung saw Mary as the missing fourth:
The father the son and the holy ghost,
a trinity not complete unless squared.
I was a tiger once.
I claimed a mate
and sired four cubs.
One was too weak to thrive,
so I ate it up.
Jung said we each have an inferior function.
One of our four inner equations
cannot not properly perform its transfiguration.
I gather with two friends,
three witches,
and notice a presence
in the negative space
where the fourth would be.
—Gabrielle Rabinowitz
America
Now it has happened. We are broken.
How quickly it happened. How quickly
the state of broken things has become
the things of a broken state. It has happened.
It is here. We are broken. It can be ignored
no longer, cast no longer to priority’s margins,
to attention’s periphery. History has a new
meaning. It means today. It means this very
hour. History is broken. It repeats. Did not
our fathers warn us of this? Did not their
fathers warn them of it? Did not they warn
how history repeats? They did not learn.
It repeated. We did not learn. It repeats.
It is broken. Who is he? Who is this man?
Who is this child we put in charge? Who is
this breaker of the things of state? Who is
this breaker of the office’s oath? Who is
this breaker of all vows and promises? Who
is this breaker? He is broken. Who broke
him? Did his mother break him? Did his
father break him? Who taught him how to
break the things of state? Who taught him
what to break? From whom did he learn it
so well? Breaking everything is all he knows.
Breaking everything is all that enlivens him.
Breaking everything is all that makes him
whole. Who are these who praise him? Half
the state praises him. What is half the state
that should praise the breaker? Is he breaking
them, those who praise him? No, they were
already broken. They were already beaten
down and broken. It is here. Everywhere we
look, America, you lie broken all around us.
We know not where to put our feet.
—J. R. Solonche
Can You Hear the Pounding?
Remember the tattooist of Auschwitz?
Everyone is a number.
When the hammer finds the nail,
all that sticks out becomes a nail.
Minaret, chapel,
dying prickly brambles, thistles, jammed
the debris of ruined edifice.
The highest falls
the loudest.
Before there is time,
a serpent snakes in and out of jagged walls,
octopus squeezes
through any interstices.
Everything built is pierced.
—W. Wayne Lin
Night Owl
I love to put the stars to bed like family.
Usually, early morning in the late dark
when no clouds hover between the lights.
At the zenith, the near future, stars
of next month’s primetime evening hours.
The stars who’ve had all night in our sky
tuck into the western horizon. I nod
a drowsy goodnight as they’re off
to rise in the dusk of another’s east,
where someone may or may not wonder
about yesterday’s dawn as he, she, they
bid sayonara to the sun. This close star
always setting and starting the day
on opposite sides as we continue to spin
in orbit, and I close my eyes to sleep.
—Guy Reed
Its Own Reward
The careful life
falls into place at
the top
is goodness
rescued like
lambs tiptoe to slaughter
opening one door one closes
this certainty
each sacrifice
identified/throat slit
only memory bleeds
forever.
—C. P. Masciola
Today I Saw the Blood Spray
Today
I saw the blood
spray,
In my feed,
They feed
me
my need,
the blood
Today I saw
the spray
Tomorrow
expect more
the ultra violet flow
Violence
I saw
—Rob Walker
At 3pm
He lay dying—
breaths becoming
fewer and further
between.
The golden light
hitting his eyes—
he gazed into it,
then through it.
At
3 pm,
the coldest day
of the year.
I picked up
the book of poems
at his bedside
and read:
I’ve been trying
all of these hours
to be
who I really am.
—Kirby Lee
Beefsteak Tomato
(The Heavyweight Champion of the Garden)
He is not subtle.
Not shy.
Not some delicate cherry tomato
blushing in a salad.
He arrives like summer itself
sun-warmed,
shoulder-broad,
smelling of soil and thunder.
You don’t slice him.
You carve him.
Thick slabs,
dripping onto the cutting board
like a promise kept.
He is the heart
of every sandwich worth remembering.
Juice running down your forearm,
seeds baptizing the countertop.
It’s not lunch—it’s a love affair.
All season he takes his time,
growing slow and stubborn,
holding out until August
just to remind you that some pleasures
can’t be rushed.
He doesn’t care about beauty.
Sometimes he’s lumpy.
Sometimes he splits.
He’s here for flavor,
not approval.
The Beefsteak is a tomato
for people who mean it.
For hands that know how to garden,
and mouths that know how to moan
over something simple
done right.
You don’t just eat him.
You honor him.
With salt,
with olive oil,
maybe a slab of mozzarella—
but mostly,
with awe.
—Jayne Gumpel
Our Lady
A full bowl of watermelon,
No need for an edge of salt.
Listening to the story you’re telling,
Then you come to a halt.
A spotted bug lands on your thigh.
Carefully you help her fly,
Like she was yours and mine.
—C. H. Redding
Returned to Valleys
I take your hands and
know better than to caress
the peaks.
Venation expressing
dendritic
landmarks or
the truth of time passed.
They say that rainbows
disappear
when the Sun
shifts its
perspective.
She created one valley at a time.
Furrow divination—reminder that day
will break
and rainbows
are not visible 42
degrees above horizon.
You extend your hand
out for me and I’m scared you will
float to twilight’s ultimate gift. Relentless at the eyes
of Death. Transcending to nature’s promise, a pot of gold.
—Cole Solis Jativa
This article appears in November 2025.
