Willawaw Journal Fall 2018 Issue 4

Betty Turbo’s life as a Maker of Things began in a family of very artistic grizzly bears in the snowy wilds of Alaska. She earned a BFA in photography from RIT, got down and dirty with a stint at Hatch Show Print in Nashville, spun sugar and beaters as a cake decorator, for a brief moment, before focusing full-time on art shenanigans from her headquarters in Oregon. This painting is another from her Green Series. To see more of her fine art paintings, cards, posters, pins, and other glorious paraphernalia, go to Betty Turbo.com. or to Betty Turbo on Etsy.

5 Years

in my head
I’m not vegan
or even
a vegetarian really,
but still
I don’t eat meat
or drink dairy much,
not until no alternative
presents.
vegetables are cheap
and bread is cheap
and food to me
is just fuel
and a source
for vitamins,
not flavour. I do it
for the few extra
euros in my pocket
and to exist
in a stream
of knowing I’m not hungry. I still kill flies
and set traps for rats
and if I had a cat
that would get
steak every morning.
nonetheless
I don’t see why
the idea is so bad. maybe
when gay rights
and racism are sorted out
that really will be
the next battle. it’s only a matter
of time
after all. I give us
5 years
to get it all done
to my satisfaction
and move on to animals,
but then I’m white,
very cheap
and optimistic.

DS Maolalai has been published on 3 continents and in more places than he can count. His first collection, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press and he has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

My Child Asks About Landing

You’ll see our plane get closer and closer
to the ground, and then the Lion will help
with two bounces and a roar with which
we can sing along, two bounces and then
a long feline growl, so we are ready when
Kahului spreads beneath us, the worrisome
clatter erased with our chant and rumble
as we laugh into Maui’s moist heaven,

a private joke we still reprise arriving
anywhere, Barcelona or Oakland – God,
how young we were – long before our faith
could rest on the small pebbles of calculus
the Lion was our rock – bounce, bounce, roar
I still tell myself sliding safely back home,
an impromptu balm for a child now my own
prayer of arrival, that touchstone, that abode.

 

George Perreault has been a visiting writer in Montana, New Mexico, and Utah.  His 4th collection, Bodark County, is comprised of voices of character living on the Llana Estacado in West Texas.

Morning Tableau

Petula’s morning meows
echo up the stairs, softly
awaken my mind, slowly
rouse my awareness.

Pierre curls close, gentle paws
pressed against me, as he falls
deeper into secret feline dreams.
His warmth lulls me back to sleep.

Petula sings a woeful
song of hunger, a dolorous
lament, a pitiable cry
for her morning meal.

Her insistent pleas, louder now,
do not compel me to rise,
though I stir, and sweet Pierre
begins to purr.

A full-throated aria
of ululant caterwauling
travels to the upper floor.
I sit up and orient myself

to this morning’s facts of life:
I’m divorced; we’ve sold the house;
this condo is the place I share
with two cats.

The climate is warming,
sea levels rising, the EU
breaking apart, and our mad
president believes he is king.

Life as we’ve known it is gone.
Yet the rosy light of dawn
opens my heart like a flower
adoring the new day.

 

Grace Richards grew up in the desert southwest, spent most of her life working in the TV and film industry in Los Angeles, and the last few most dramatic years teaching in Eugene, Oregon, where she has found her poetic voice. Her work has been published by SettingForth.org, Herstryblog.com, and in the anthology Magicking Language.

Eva Braun, 3:15pm, April 30, 1945

Sitting on the sofa in the Führerbunker study
about to bite into a cyanide capsule,

you are thinking about how just forty hours ago,
less than two full days, you married this man

next to you occupied now with loading his pistol.
As he drops a bullet on the floor, curses,

picks it up, inserts it into its chamber, you realize
yours is a minor walk-on part in a drama playing out

in his mind—the role of the loyal wife of the great
if fallen leader. If only it could have been more.

The gun loaded and ready, he glances up and nods.
The look on his face says it all:  It is time. You first.

 

Ben Sloan has recent poems in The Tishman Review, Pembroke Magazine, and Northampton Poetry Review. His review of The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner has just been published in Rain Taxi Review of Books. Living in Charlottesville, VA, he teaches at Piedmont Virginia Community College and at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women.

Dust

Mama’s vacuum echoes from church balcony
down to red carpet below. I push through
apex shadows. Spirits permeate my bones,
laugh into my eyes. The spectral sanctuary
air says, Remember, dust everything.

Moon streams through stained panes of glass.
I clutch a rag streaked grey as bone,
smooth it over the stiff shoulders
of pews, pass the cloth over
them. Dust collects again.

Mama, are you done yet? I glimpse a yellow
moonlike flash of glove scouring the toilet.
She wipes her forehead on her sleeve, bustles
us into brightly lit classrooms to read
until she’s finished mopping empty hallways.

She carries bags stretched full, heaves them
over, into giant dumpsters before we drive
south down the forehead of the moon
that follows, casting a map of ghost light
home. Although the moon’s only following

the 101 South, I imagine Mama’s following
the moon, that its lunar eyes and mouth
are leading us into space, that moon dust
replaces dirt in this place, that we will
feel with our hands the moon’s cratered face,

grasp handfuls of dust, and allow the fine
particles to sift through ungloved fingers
sparkling and luminescent as only
heavenly matter can be. On the moon, we
will examine the origins of our hands, our faces.