INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Lana Bella
Laszlo Slomovits
Amit Parmessur
Elisavietta Ritchie
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Yuan Hongri
Yevgeniya Przhebelskaya
Alex Ferde
Karyn M. Bruce
Rajuish Mishra
Alan Britt
Patrick Ashinze
Shutta Crum
Fahredin Shehu
Paul B. Roth
Helen Gyigya
Aneek Chatterjee
Joanie Freeman
Gale Acuff
Robert Nisbet
Fred Wolven
Sreekanth Kopuri
Michael Lee Johnson
Silvia Scheibli
Richard Gartee
Ali Znaidi
Jennifer Burd
John Grey
Running Cub
Peycho Kanev
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2019
Francis Ferde
All rights revert back to each poet
--
editor / Southeastern Florida
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AAR history note: in print 1967 - 1980. Irregular publications 1980 - 2004. As ezine 2004 - present. Most of 51 years all together....
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staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
EMPATHETIC
When you see refugees
on television news,
your heart goes out to
them.
A mother trying to comfort
three frightened children
as they struggle to put the
noise
and smoke of war behind
them...
your empathy is hooked like
a trout.
And yet, once Channel 10
cuts to a commercial,
it's your troubles that
come to the fore.
Misfortunes take what they
have seen
and apply it to themselves.
With Syria out of the way,
you can go back to worrying
about
the car with the failing
engine
that you cannot afford to
replace,
your upcoming doctor's
visit.
and, most of all.
the latest fracture in your
relationship
with Rhoda.
You're on the way to see her
when a homeless man
begs you for change at a
stoplight.
You feel sorry for the guy.
And now your love life is a
beggar too.
THE INNER CITY AS VIEWED FROM THE SUBURBS
The topic of the afternoon was murder.
Strange how, in our
comfort, sipping wine
on the porch, in fading
light, slowly
rocking in our chairs, our
conversation
should veer toward such
subject matter.
A robin was dragging worms
out of the earth.
A gray squirrel darted
here, there, across the lawn,
on constant vigilance for
neighborhood cats.
Crickets thrummed the
cadence of short lives.
There's death in nature
sure
but for a purpose I
believe.
"What it must be like
living in those neighborhoods,"
you said. "I'd be afraid to
leave my home."
“There was another drive-by
shooting last night," I told her,
recounting details of page
thirteen of the morning newspaper.
The victim was sixteen
years old.
The trees, green and invigorated by the coming summer,
parted wide enough to allow
a portico of calming golden
light.
"If only...," you
whispered, but you never did
complete your thought.
Another sip of that deep red,
a touch of hands,
a glorious twilight,
a long deep silence...
we were building up to the
moral of the story.
It was darkness, I believe.
That’s when night rolled in.
John Grey, Johnston, Rhode Island, formerly Australia