Bio of Jill Angel Langlois

Jill Angel Langlois’s poems and short stories have appeared in literary magazines, anthologies and newspapers in Chicagoland, nationally and internationally. She holds a B.A. in English & American Literature from Governors State University, University Park, IL.

As a judge for the Florida State Poetry Society, she feels the beauty of a poem is written with truth in the poet’s heart.

Scattered Petals, her first collection of poetry, explores the healing power of nature. Whiskey Nights, her second poetry collection, in progress, is inspired by both whiskey and music. Excerpts from these collections can be found at www.illinoispoets.org

Before the snow flies

Before the snow flies
And covers the unsuspecting grass
Before the cold bears down
And destroys the fragile flowers
Before the frost bites into my thoughts
And the ache of dead-end winter
Settles in my mind and bones
Before the ice freezes over land
And captures random beauty
Holding her in an amber moment
Before I pray for warmth
Amidst the crystallizing breath
That hangs mid-air as it escapes
In a scream
Before the night calls to end
The long orange and yellow days
I will watch the sugar maples
Caramelize in the dying summer sun

Bio of Kate Hutchinson

Kate Hutchinson recently retired from a 34-year career of teaching English to high school students and is now experiencing the next phase as family caregiver, library volunteer, and book editor. Her poems have been published widely in literary journals, and she's received two Pushcart nominations. Her latest book is “Map-Making: Poems of Land and Identity.”

The Twining Beneath Our Feet

Upon viewing Vincent VanGogh’s Tree Roots, 1890

What roots and rivulets, what channels churn, as we
walk through forests and fields? On his final day

upon the earth, VanGogh left an unfinished work
of knotted blues and greens – tree roots exposed
in a marl quarry, embedded in fleshy clay and lime.

Was he already imagining the entwining of bone
and sinew among those knotted, gnarling joints?

Perhaps he took comfort from soft mosses
wrapped around fingers of wood, furred cloaks
cushioning weary limbs like a king retiring in his

royal bed, protected from the castle’s winter cold.
How such a thought might bring us comfort, too –

that deep beneath the soil, our empty cages,
doors flung wide to free our winged souls,
may find rest in the ancient silt between

bedrock and air, among the cradling roots
of the very trees that shaded us in life.

The Garden of COVID

In your garden, getting lost
in lilac coneflowers, mingling
with the bees and hummers,
your grin another bloom.

I move out of the wilderness,
tall as a sunflower, turn to talk
to a stranger veiled with fear,
the pandemic always near.

I ache to see lipstick and balm,
teeth smooth, white, chipped,
stained, or even gapped,
a nose Roman or crooked.

I yearn for a bouquet of expression,
see smiles not hidden by cloth.
A native plant of spontaneous
laughter, growing in public soil.

Previously published in Friends Journal, 2020.

Bio of James Green

James Green has published four chapbooks of poetry (Stations of the Cross, with Finishing Line Books; The Color of Prayer, with Shanti Arts Books; and Barely Still, Barely Stirring, with Finishing Line Books; and Long Journey Home, with Georgia Poetry Society). His individual poems have appeared in literary journals in Ireland, the UK, and the USA. He resides in Muncie, Indiana.

Bio of Ray Ziemer

R. G. Ziemer writes poetry and fiction. He was born and bred on Chicago’s south side, where he learned to appreciate a good story. He has taught junior high English and college composition, worked construction and practiced genealogy. A canoeist and kayaker, he has traveled widely by wheel and wing, by boat and by book. His novel The Ghost of Jamie McVay was published in 2019.

Coyote in the Dark

By scent or by sound
Or by some special sense
My dogs know a coyote’s trespassing out there.
Should any moonshadow
Slip formlessly, silently
Through the nude willows,
They complain to the stars,
Summon me to the door,
Nervously milling about at my legs.
They plead for release from the leash.
They know the dark creature,
Though dog-like – same paws, same claws,
Same meat-craving jaws –
Is a different
Dangerous,
Beast made of midnight.

Just as I recognized you at first sight,
When I danced at the door like a slavering dog,
Yearning to dash out and challenge.
My heart whimpered then
For the will to break loose,
To give chase and run wild by the water,
Offer my throat,
Nip and nuzzle all night,
Prance and leap high in the moonlight.

I did then as I now,
Apprehensive, unnerved
By the avid eyes gleaming
In the thickening black,
Turn my back to the door,
Murmur words meant to soothe,
Stroke the dogs,
Toss a treat,
Stifle one last disquieted growl,
Till I feel you have finally faded away,
A coyote in the dark.

Originally published in Prairie Light Review Vol. 38, No.1

The Fifth Dimension

Grandkids learn their ABCs
to musical stories on TV
while my thoughts fly away,
far and wide, whooshed
among waffling oak leaves,
poked under pungent pines,
riding high on moist clouds,
sliding down a hot breeze,
finally coming to rest in
early evening light
as the summer
meanders on,
while my
seeking
soul
abides

The American Sin

Man’s inhumanity to man
took a much-needed hit
when a secret home video
showed George Floyd-unarmed-
slammed to the street, head
pounded into the ground, neck
pressed under a uniformed knee
for nine long minutes in the
northern city of Minneapolis.

Meanwhile, two novice cops
stood silently by, watching
but not interfering. Later on,
news came out that the killer-
cop had a part-time security
gig at a bar with the guy he
had just pressed to death.

Colonial patriots wrote
our beautiful Constitution
while engaged in slave-
buying, selling, prostitution.
Claiming Christianity, but
Indulging in hypocracy,
they launched a democracy
to promote the plantation
economy. It took beatings
and lynchings to keep blacks
in their assigned second-place.

Now, one more killed-by-a-cop
story; still racist, cruel, gory.
And all over a $20. debt? We
can’t make sense of it yet.

published by illinoispoets.org

Valentine’s Eve

I see you in the crowd
turned out in this arctic town
to mark the U.S. assault
on Iraq, shouts like gunshot—PEACE! NOW!

Bush lynched in effigy, his—my—flag
on fire—my country—
no longer mine, I have none, no one
not even you
speak my language, my mother tongue mute
after the city I loved fell,
twice-buried beneath towers of dust.

You slip from khaki pockets a pencil stub,
small red notebook. Who are you
to be writing when I didn't even think
to bring a journal?

The throng roils, I am a snagged branch
in a surging flood, then
my husband, carrying one daughter,
whispers, I looked for you, 
then saw your tiger-striped hair.

On the brink of invasion,
                        I have no idea
how the world will change.

Isaac Returns to the Mountain

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there
and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar,
on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

Genesis 22:9-11 (KJV)

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face:
now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)

I come here often, always in the cool of morning
before the clutter of the day invades the hour,
where the wind whispers and streaks of dawn
rinse the mountains purple across Moriah.
They speak to me, this hour and this place,
arousing memory that is a voiceless prayer
and bares necessary truths that make
for a separate hard-won peace.

Here is the shrub where father tied the donkey
laden with wood for the fire and I said, “But father,
you forgot the lamb,” and where he answered,
“God provides,” evading truth with ambiguity,
a recourse I have learned myself and use often.
Over there is where I asked again of the lamb;
Although, by then I knew. And there is the rock
where he bound me. Yes, it is true.

And beyond is where he found the ram, its horns
tangled in the brush, after the angel came, after I,
breathless with fear, saw the knife drop to the ground
and father bury his face in his hands mumbling words
I could not hear, a prayer perhaps, over and over
while he sobbed and I, my hands still tied behind my back,
still cowering on the altar, waited in stopped time
as I stared at the knife in the dust.

All that was long ago:
Now the years have dimmed my eyesight
and the dull ache in my bones make the trail a hard one.
Yet I come. I come as one does to a grave, with flowers,
in need of some presence beyond memory, to listen again
to the comfort of my father’s voice, to bury any regrets
that still collect as sediment in my heart,
to know even as also I am known.

This poem was awarded first prize in the Illinois State Poetry Society 2020 Free Verse category and subsequently published in Catholic Poetry Room.

Vivaldi in the Snow

I have come to this place so many times.
This day with the choir I come to sing the Gloria;
To sigh or sing Baroque and royal notes.
December in Mississippi we awake with surprise to snow;
Its rare romance keeps the faithful in bed.
The director says in Vivaldi’s day musicians played for each other
And not to worry who listens today or how many.
The violist, who plays fiddle on Saturday nights,
Stands and stares at the tall windows before we start.
Small innuendos of light glance off the pine bowed drifts.
Today is Sunday and we are joined together
And the sundry business of church begins:
As the organ settles its score,
The stops grow and open and vibrate in the body.
As the pastor obviates all but eloquence,
The sanctuary soars with radiance.
And altar flowers tremble in the cold
And hours later echo Et in terra pax.

They vibrate, these grand cadenzas,
Translate the century the composer’s pen has passed
Along to us. The organ, its burden made light,
Strikes its bargain with the congregation
Singing “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.”
Tall windows longing backlit by the snowfall
As the Advent season’s tallow glows.
And altar flowers, attentive always,
And the weather-altered arbors
To the sermon and the eloquence
Of the cadence from the rustling choir.
Singing, singing, higher.
The musicians shuffle praise for the soprano and the tenor,
Glorious as fully stocked traditions,
As if to knock real snow from off their boots.
The obligato lifts from the score like a gift from a fancy box.
My sister says a poem is a package of words that you can give away.
It’s Sunday and Christmas is close at hand -
Then sing, laudamus te.

C.E.S. Wood (1852-1944)

C.E.S Wood from Portland was well-known,
his paintings are famous and many do own.
Also a writer, a soldier and an attorney,
his life was nothing but a wild journey.

He helped found the Portland art museum,
and a local county library, a free gem.
Friends with Ansel Adams, Langston Hughes,
Mark Twain and John Steinbeck, to name a few.

He went to fight Indians in 1874,
then Chief Joseph said,  “I will fight no more.”
The two became friends instead of foes,
inspiring Wood to write Indian prose.

He published Mark Twain’s “1601”,
Only fifty copies were in the run.
Sought by many book collectors,
Wood was one of the main protectors.

The Poet in the Desert was his most famous poem,
talked about Oregon, his original home.
His estranged wife he must’ve forgot,
he went to San Francisco with Sarah Erhrgott.

A champion for freedom, a jack of all trades,
Oregon remembers him as his legend doesn’t fade.

Press Agent

I am the loneliman’s press agent
the silent man’s press agent.

I write his script
I announce his silence and my silence.

I am the loneliman’s ears –
I hear even what the lonely man cannot hear.

But I cannot be his joy,
or brother,
or find him silent lover.

Bio of Emma Alexandra

Emma A. Kowalenko

Emma Alexandra – Pen Name

She established Kowalenko Consulting Group (KCG) in 1988. Born in Casablanca, Morocco she and her eastern European parents emigrated to the U.S. when she was 11. Fluent in six languages, environmental planner, cultural intelligence strategist, oral historian, poet, mixed media artist, she is passionate about giving voice to the unheard.

One of the founders of East on Central Journal of Arts and Letters, currently in its 18th year of publication, a vice president of the Sister Cities Foundation of Highland Park, she promotes cultural and educational exchanges with Sister Cities Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Modena, Italy, and Jerucham, Israel.

Orange Golden for Christmas Eve

Friday December 22, 1939, I was seven.
While it was still daytime,
Mama and I went to the grocery store,
outside the wall.
We could still do that in December.

Piotrek the storekeeper gave me an orange.
“Got a case by train, from Italy, two days ago, one left,
for you, gift for Christmas,” he said.
Mama, I, thanked him for this last orange, golden.

He motioned to us to shop quickly.
“Leave, before the patrol comes by.”

Warsaw’s early winter announced itself,
harsh.
That night, on Twarda Street,
eight of us huddled in our flat.

Grandfather sang our Shabbat blessing.
My eleven-year-old cousin Dorota and I,
shared the orange, delicious, sweet,
golden by candlelight.

I will never forget our last
family Shabbat,
orange from Piotrek,
orange golden for Christmas.

Emma Alexandra

Note: Persona poem – The perspective of my cousin Ignacy Vogel imagined. The Vogel Family living in Warsaw perished during the WWII Holocaust

Ghost Towns

Towns, carved out of sage and barren land,
grew overnight; then the silver or gold mines
petered out, or fire tore through rough hewn
log buildings. Life in that place folded and left.

Loading their carts, hopefuls wandered to another
patch of sticker bushes. The men dug holes in hillsides,
built small mines, threw up see-through shacks, where
tin can lids were nailed over gaps so snow couldn’t
invade. Water was hauled sometimes a mile or two.

Wives cooked over campfires or in small fireplaces,
beat grimy clothes almost clean in buckets
of precious water, or in streams if they were lucky.

Children played tag between tall bushes, put
together rough forts on dusty lots, and chased
jackrabbits. School happened at home with Mom,
by firelight, after chores.

These days huge RVs and SUVs drive quickly
past these hardscrabble sites; children glance
once at ruins of what was, only grow excited
when they spy ice cream stores or shops
that sell plastic toys made in China.