The Bookends Review

My college history teacher said:
white flour fed oppression—
a false staple that starved nations
while filling the conqueror’s plate

Empty offerings persist,
served now on Styrofoam:
flimsy triangles of dough,
sides of ranch dressing,
class sets with covers that read
Of Mice and…,
corners curled, pages thinning—
a curriculum worn down
to a narrow canon

classrooms frigid in winter,
stifling in early summer.… ...continue reading

Lost amidst the sea and swirls
I am floating past gates of white
Misty waters and depths below
Seal my fate / a weeping demise.

Washed ashore / the aflame home
My brethren trudge past mud and sticks
(They’re all knowing and yet none-the-wiser)
I am found beneath sand and drunken tidepools.

Awakened through a crack / beating sunlight
Gathers the souls of my people… my people…
Dark mouths stretched across
Leering into saltwater sacrifices.… ...continue reading

Couldn’t ask for more, a cold drink, a sandwich and a shady place to sit after a long day in the Sun. Easy for complications to take over, and leave you uneasy, but with simple pleasures there is little to go wrong. Nor can those always looking over your shoulder find much for fault, when all that they see is that I enjoy simple pleasures. I have found that most of those sitting around waiting for chances to make threats are just as guilty as they want to think you are.

Looking for somewhere for a picnic lunch that won’t have people screaming, “We don’t want your kind here.” Is getting harder. Now they have put fingerprint readers at entrance to parks. It’s become safer to sit on the edge of toxic waste filled river.… ...continue reading

Rumi came back to Beacon Hill. Among the fine buildings of brick, there is an unusual little street that takes a turn. At the turn there is a terrace with a garden which has the primrose bush that Rumi loves. 

Rumi can fly like the birds. He floated over the hill on the spring winds, and he alighted on the rooftop of the little house, made part of brick and part of wood, which was behind the terrace. The little house was not as fancy as the other Beacon Hill homes, but she was darling.

Rumi landed very softly, like a feather, but the little house knew right away that he was there!

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re back! I was afraid that you weren’t coming this year!… ...continue reading

It all happened in a little blue house.

I find that detail important, because everything was blue.

The walls, the furniture, the bed.

I began to see nothing but blue.

Feel nothing but blue until eventually I was suffocating because I forgot that humans can’t breathe underwater.

I tried to mend together the sun and the ocean

Tried to convince them they belong together.

That one cannot exist without the other.

But how do you mend a hole in the sky when your thread is made of sand that crumbles when you pick it up.

How do you wish the sun to save you when you’ve forgotten what it looks like?

– T. Martin

Author’s Note: “Blue” is about the house I lived in during the worst time of my life.… ...continue reading

My dear, I have become an expert on you.
The survival of my love requires new skin
to hold the pigments of you,
a mechanism in your design:
one that absorbs your light
and then reflects it back out,
steeped in all your colors.
Chameleon—
study in your iridescence,

if only to animate your face in mine,
that singular expression.
I’ve assembled it a hundred times
on features that do not belong to you
but ache to see you,
speak to you,
know you—… ...continue reading

When he first started at the diner two years ago, Dillon had worn headphones while he worked, but now he found that the familiar medley of sounds helped to quiet the chaos in his head. Dishes being stacked and washed, the sizzle of grease as food hit the grill, the low drone of the tv repeating the morning news, bell ringing periodically as orders were set for pick up.

He put one last clean plate on the rack, shut the water off and let the nozzle snap into place. After wiping his hands dry on his apron, he pulled it off and hung it on a hook. He exited the kitchen and settled his tall, lanky frame on the end stool.

Darlene came over, coffee pot in hand and paused in front of Dillon.… ...continue reading