Iris Literary Journal: Volume I, Issue 3 - Fall 2020

By Iris Literary Journal

Contributions to this collection creatively address the theme of hope.

Featuring: 

Cover Art

• Language: English
• Publisher: Iris Literary Journal
• Release date: Sep 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781954573284

Book preview

Iris Literary Journal

Iris Literary Journal

Volume I, Issue 3 - Fall 2020

Assure Press

Iris Literary Journal

Volume I, Issue 3 - Fall 2020

Cover Art by Leah Oates

Editor-in-Chief: Darius Frasure

Assistant Fiction Editor: Aerial Hobson

Assistant Drama Editor: Camika Spencer

Assistant Visual Arts Editor: Darryl Ratcliff

Assistant Creative Nonfiction Editor: Delonte Harrod

Iris Literary Journal is published quarterly in print and ebook.

Each journal includes poetry, short fiction, creative nonfiction, drama, and visual art—which includes photography. Some of the work may not be entirely in English.

For more information, visit the website of Iris Literary Journal:

www.assurepress.org/iris

Publisher’s logo

---

An imprint of Assure Press Publishing & Consulting, LLC

www.assurepress.org

Publisher’s Note: Assure Press books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please visit the website.

Copyright © 2020 Assure Press

ISBN-13: 978-1-954573-27-7

eISBN-13: 978-1-954573-28-4

Contents

Poems

Forecast

Laura Bonazzoli

Open

Laura Bonazzoli

At Seaview Cemetery, Rockport, Maine

Laura Bonazzoli

Regarding a Goldfinch

Laura Bonazzoli

Grace

Laura Bonazzoli

Dreamtime

Susan Cummins Miller

Renewal at Djerassi

Susan Cummins Miller

New Year's Eve, Tucson

Susan Cummins Miller

At the Autumnal Equinox

Susan Cummins Miller

Hubris

Susan Cummins Miller

Heart in Winter

Sheryl Guterl

Migrant Dinner

Sheryl Guterl

Resistance Redefined

Sheryl Guterl

Waylessness

Sheryl Guterl

Widowhood

Sheryl Guterl

Mud Season

Gloria Heffernan

Lenten Rose

Gloria Heffernan

Birdsong at 4:00 am

Gloria Heffernan

Below the Fold

Gloria Heffernan

Planning the Funeral

Gloria Heffernan

Palimpsest

Ann Howells

A Mugging

Ann Howells

Bending the Twig

Ann Howells

Love Spoons

Ann Howells

Patriarchy

Ann Howells

Elmina J. King: Redwing, 1888

Katharyn Howd Machan

Lucia Manne: Redwing, 1888

Katharyn Howd Machan

Lydia Palmer: Redwing, 1888

Katharyn Howd Machan

Josie Purley: Redwing, 1888

Katharyn Howd Machan

Amyrah Gray Young: Redwing, 1888

Katharyn Howd Machan

Invocation

M.B. McLatchey

On Forgetting to Observe Ash Wednesday

M.B. McLatchey

The Northern Cardinal

Ed Meek

American Dream

Ed Meek

Empty Nest

Ed Meek

Lessons on Blue

A. Rabaduex

Love in a Time of Corona

David Radavich

Asters

David Radavich

Chinese Lanterns

David Radavich

Re-Reading my Earlier Book

David Radavich

Locust Tree

Esther Sadoff

Harmonic

Esther Sadoff

Garden at Dusk

Esther Sadoff

Discipline

Esther Sadoff

Dark Summer

Esther Sadoff

Rising in Blue

Federica Santini

Moon-Easters

Federica Santini

Other Strawberries

Federica Santini

After the Flood

Federica Santini

Controcanto

Federica Santini

A Birthday

Caleb Scott

Thirteen Birds on Thirteen Branches

Caleb Scott

When We Speak

Caleb Scott

After Akhmatova, 1915

Caleb Scott

Looking Out at Bannerman Castle

Caleb Scott

From Nazareth they come

Herman Sutter

A theology of need

Herman Sutter

The bats have begun falling

Herman Sutter

Solitude is not the cure (a poem for the pandemic)

Herman Sutter

In Heaven There Must Be Singing

Herman Sutter

Reassurance

Joe Volpe

For when you wake up

Roddy Williams

316 White City --- 3 mins

Roddy Williams

For when you wake up

Roddy Williams

Let go

Roddy Williams

Live in Hope. Die in Caergwrle…

Roddy Williams

Sonnet for Jane

Roddy Williams

Creative Nonfiction

Suspended Among Cumulus Clouds

Karen Koretsky

The Composition of Soil

Morgan Coyro-Lawrence

Clay

Joy Morgenstern

Trust

Tanya Morris

Visual Art Gallery

Bluish 1

Alan Bern

Bluish 2

Alan Bern

Bluish 3

Alan Bern

Angels Camp

Lawrence Bridges

COVID Communication

Lawrence Bridges

Catch Face

Marcus Fields

Hanging Out

Marcus Fields

Left Face

Marcus Fields

2-68

Matt Gold

Anime

Inka Juslin

Crystalline

Inka Juslin

Dancer

James Latimr

Solo

James Latimr

SwampCyprs

James Latimr

Beach Bum Ships

Ramsey Mathews

Blue Water Blue Sky

Ramsey Mathews

Sunset

Ramsey Mathews

Transitory Space #3A

LEAH OATES

Transitory Space #7A

LEAH OATES

Transitory Space #17A

LEAH OATES

Fiction

Radio Signals

Suzy Eynon

Geriatric Stand-up, If You Can

Leah Holbrook Sackett

Gabriel’s Dream

Jonathan Koven

The Ferryman’s Passenger

T. F. Nicolay

The Whimbrel Port Witch

Phoebe Whittington

Truth, Alone

Warren Woods

Drama

ANTARCTICA

Anton Dudley

Jason & Elvis

Steven Simoncic

Free At Blast

Bill Kessler

Contributors

Poems

Forecast

-Laura Bonazzoli

---

Sometime after midnight snow will come.

Somewhere far away, it’s already falling, though

too softly for its messages to reach me

here

under this lamplight

where ice slicks the sidewalk

after last night’s freezing rain.

---

Someday tomorrow’s snow,

now only a promise,

will have drifted down,

gathered, swaddled tangled roots,

filled hollow places,

shimmered fields and photographs,

then disappeared without complaint.

---

Next year

no one but the experts

will remember

how many times the snow came,

how long it lingered,

what dates, or what it all

accomplished, but

---

perhaps when they forecast the first snow, if

I am there to see it coming,

I might stand beneath the lamplight

and greet it

like a child’s kiss

or whispers

from a long-forgotten prayer.

Open

-Laura Bonazzoli

---

a door

a letter

a box of old photographs

the buttons of your coat

your mouth.

---

Call back that moment

your lungs unlatched their filmy windows

and first received the breath

of grasses

stones

your grandfather singing in that photograph

against the sky.

---

Vulnerability

does not always induce wounds.

Wounds

do not always bleed.

---

Sometimes

you open your hands

to snow

---

buds break

from their woody nodes

---

a blackbird’s

slender

throat

            opens

the night.

At Seaview Cemetery, Rockport, Maine

-Laura Bonazzoli

---

Unknown

      Unwanted

   Baby Boy

Body Found in

Rockport Quarry

April 20, 1940

Age About 5 Mos.

---

Year after year, the same toy garden decorates the stone:

sky-blue metal daisies flanked by bright nylon pinwheels

spinning in the wind off the churning sea.

---

Midway along the base, a little wooden train is stopped,

its unseen driver waiting to hear a child’s Choo choo!

and feel the sudden thrust of a determined hand.

---

On a throne of curling leaves, a pair of plaster angels sing

an infinite canon to the plucking of a mandolin

and three teddy bears take no rest from their dance.

---

Atop the stone, a plastic Dalmatian, wide-eyed, ever-

loyal, guards this playpen grave through snow

and bleaching sun, eager for the ghost below to frolic.

---

Or so it seems to me

each time I seek this grave

to atone,

I suppose,

like the penitents who left these gifts,

---

for all those I have lost

and all I have abandoned.

Regarding a Goldfinch

-Laura Bonazzoli

---

Beam of yellow swoops to tree,

seeks seed, swings, lifts.

Leaf left to spin.

---

Back again, his beak breaks

a husk for meat. Instantly

he sweeps round, flashes.

Gone.

---

I want to track

him, let him teach

me how to reach

between the branches, risk

his sky space, dive

dizzy—photons 360—win

my own emptiness—

---

no destiny,

---

no nest,

---

not even a perch,

---

and nowhere to fall.

Grace

-Laura Bonazzoli

---

Across the field this morning,

shoots of blue toad flax

bend their slender necks in the wind.

In the vernal pool alongside the road,

leopard frogs venture toward the sun.

The air is purpled with birch pollen squandered

on the chance of encountering

some unimagined flower.

---

Last winter

all my endeavors died with you.

The snow came—welcome—

it muffled the road.

---

But now Grace shimmers

in the pertinacious flax,

the faces of the frogs,

the birches’ indiscriminate dust,

---

as if it had been always

our invisible companion,

watching over our deep sleep

and whispering us to light.

Dreamtime

-Susan Cummins Miller

---

Late-night dream while singing along

to the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth:

---

An inch under the rim in mesa

moon shadow, in the presence

of lightning and Jupiter’s rising,

the night awakens peregrine dreams:

a woman’s-eye view, flying over

a sand-painting in Desolation Canyon.

---

The mandala of the great unknown

is a field guide to the rainbow

road, to the trail leading back

to Eve’s journey from Eden, to desert

time, woven in stone: This is how

the world was given—

---

All treachery, treason, love, sacrifice,

tangos, searches, and loss,

have been recorded in the bone manual,

in the lives of the cells, in the bittersweet,

separate intimacies of the survivor’s

bible. Ahead lie

---

the valleys of dry bones and shining

stones. Ahead, scoured by the west

wind, lie a thousand leagues of blue water,

snow-capped mountains, canyons

of color, and tainted hills. The choice

is mine.

---

Last exit to eagle beliefs and holy

places, to tough times along the killing

way, to split images and temporary

homelands, to a minimalist abode

or ancient ruins under scattered

clouds. No matter how

---

the world was given to us

down through the millennia,

the choice is mine.

Renewal at Djerassi

-Susan Cummins Miller

---

Tuesday's a triple-banana-slug kind of day:

One at the tomb-dark entrance

to Estaciones de la Luz. Two in the creek's

muddy islands, built on basalt.

---

Spiders spin webs across

my twilight path. A school of polliwogs wriggles

in a steel tank that once watered cattle. California

buttercups, an aging trillium, and a stalk

of miniature lupine hide in a poppy field. While within

---

the Stations of Light's curving maze-like,

womb-like walls, where marble steps direct my boots

first up, then downward, a light beam catches

a three-leafed lady fern unfurling.

New Year’s Eve, Tucson

-Susan Cummins Miller

---

Stop the howling of coyotes,

stop the moaning wind that sifts

through patched adobe walls—

the old year dies today.

---

Put away the twinkling lights,

the patchwork stockings, empty now.

Strip the tree. Wrap ornaments

and velvet bows, grape-vine wreaths

---

and rude wood crèche in crumpled

tissue paper. Pack up Baby Jesus

with the garlands and silk flowers. Reread cards

and notes from friends you haven't seen

---

in twenty years. Fold the empty boxes, nest

the empty cookie tins, vacuum

dry pine needles from the floor. Stack

the seasonal CDs and push them

---

to the back. Say farewell

to unkept resolutions. Call your friends,

invite them 'round, mull the wine

and stoke the fire, sing Auld Lang Syne,

---

shed a tear, and listen: In the rasp

of old year dying, hear the wail

of hope reborn—firecrackers split the night,

laughter bubbles, corks explode, champagne flows

---

into fluted crystal. Toast the never-ending cycle

those who've left us, those still here

and with a kiss embrace the promise

of the newborn year.

At the Autumnal Equinox

-Susan Cummins Miller

---

Talk to me, Earth, as summer turns.

Whisper to me. Sing to me, wind

---

and falling water, mockingbird

and hawk's shrill cry. Tell me the stories

---

frozen in sandstone, welded

in tuff. Shower me with sunlight, baptize me

---

with rain. Tickle my heart with the kiss

of a sulfur-yellow butterfly, the prickle

---

of grass underfoot. Tease my mind

with the mystery of blue dragonflies mating

---

in flight. Tease my nose, after thunderstorms,

with the heady scents of creosote and desert willow.

---

Walk with me, talk with me, share

with me. Enlighten me. Write poems to me

---

in black-shadow calligraphy

on whitewashed walls. Enter my body, enter

---

my heart, enter my mind, enter my spirit.

Bless me. Three times, bless me.

Hubris

-Susan Cummins Miller

---

Turquoise pool reflecting coral clouds and Venus, high

in the southeastern sky. But under the porcelain bell

---

of air, under the still water, lies the red-spotted toad

I rescued from the skimmer basket two dawns ago.

---

Why did he leave his winter sleep? Was it stubbornness,

tenacity, or male endogenous rhythm

---

that drove one small amphibian to claim an oasis

far too large and deep and cold to hold?

---

Hubris. Why did I imagine more than forty years ago, that I

was strong enough to buffer one disordered soul, then two?

---

The turquoise sky has turned to palest blue. The clouds

are now shroud-gray. I bury the toad to fertilize

---

a dormant palm. Upon the garden wall two mourning doves

rub shoulders and touch beaks.

Heart in Winter

-Sheryl Guterl

---

Overnight ice crystals

spread across a window pane.

Cold fear freezes my tender heart

with each blast of nightly news.

---

Morning sunshine melts

crystals on glass.

A smile from a friend or

a blooming rose warms my heart.

---

By nightfall the chill returns.

Stories of bribery, injustice,

and cruelty by powerful men

make my blood run cold.

---

I want to let it go.

Cruelty of mocking words

    stops my breath.

Cancer of collusion

    grips my stomach.

Freedom’s fracture

    ices my heart.

---

Kindness ignites a revolution

when hope is an act of courage

and generosity sparks resistance.

Migrant Dinner

-Sheryl Guterl

---

A feast, prepared and donated by caring folks,

lies spread on folding tables and side counters.

Volunteers stand ready to serve.

---

The line of men, women, and children

file past with raised plates

pointing at rice, beans, noodles, chicken.

---

Their plates are filled, and soon their bellies.

These weary pilgrims, after days of waiting,

nights without sleep, hours without water,

---

are now able to rest, for a while,

with less hunger for food,

with more hunger for stability.

---

They’ve left a faraway home, a wretched place,

scarred by greed and crime, void of

resources to nourish a growing family.

---

Mothers nursing babies, tired toddlers,

restless teens, sorry fathers—who made the

decision to leave, to seek asylum in America?

---

How will their