Night Sky with Donald Trump
If I put him beneath a sky full
of stars, stood him without
phone or tablet, landline
or screen, broke his connection
with the vast Twitterverse to
which he clings, claiming it as
essential truth, perhaps his only
way to verify that he is real,
could he stand this alone
in any kind of awe?
Under this spilled bucket
of starlight shining through
the hours, could he
find his own small stature, his
single beating heart? Could even
the stars tell him, in a language
his ears could comprehend,
that we must all be in this
together, our very insignificance
demands it? Could I place
a tender hand on his rich,
suited shoulder, let the dark
wash our politics downstream
and remind him that to codify
and slice away those we fear
because we don’t recognize
or understand them is to weaken
us all. The stars can sing just that song
when I stand in the cold and listen.
One Night Ghost
Under a chipped summer moon
I haunt the front yard of the house
we once called home. From the outside
through the warp of glass, I see you
with her, dancing past the picture
window. You could be us, gliding
past the coffee table, your hips
swaying like flowers, naked skin
offered without thought or bruising.
Such petal-soft touching once lived
with us—the back porch swing where we
rocked while its old bones creaked, cracks
in the linoleum that tripped
us between stove and sink, the grill
where you flipped burgers, cooked corn, burned
the letters you had once written
me. Back in the car I breathe, wait
for my ghost to quit its stalking.
Beth Konkoski is a writer and high school English teacher living in Northern Virginia with her husband and two children. Her work has been published in journals such as: The Potomac Review, Saranac Review, and Gargoyle. Her chapbook “Noticing the Splash” was published in 2010 by BoneWorld Press and a second chapbook, “Water Shedding,” is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.
Image by nanamori, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54642056
Lea Craigie-Marshall creates paintings, sculptures, collage, photography, murals and installation art. Her work is inspired by the natural world, current events, politics, and feminist values, and she aims to evoke feelings from the viewer that are unexpected. Lea has studied under private teachers and mentors in the art world over the past 20 years, and at the Art Institute of America, and Shepherd University. Lea has taught private and group art classes for a decade, and was invited in 2017 to participate in an artist’s residency in Columbia, Md. that offered her uninterrupted time to hone her painting technique. Her current public project is in Frederick, Md. where she is creating large-scale murals throughout the County Government’s building that houses the Animal Shelter and Adoption Center. Lea is a member of the Frederick County Artists Association Board, where she holds the position of Coordinating Secretary. She also has a studio in Frederick, Md at the Griffin Art Center. Lea’s artwork can be found at Zenith Gallery in Washington, DC. She currently also has work at Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC., and many more works reside in private collections. He work has been featured in articles in The Washington Post, The GW Hatchet, and Arlington Now, and she has been interviewed by Japanese National Television.
Caralena Peterson is a young woman with a passion for art, writing, and feminism. She started seriously engaging with the art world in early 2017, when creating a mixed-medium collection of linoleum-print-and-magazine-collage-letter pieces that are about to make their debut as a compilation book entitled 50 Badass Quotes by Badass Women (published locally, through Politics & Prose bookstore’s Opus Press). Her newest works are experiments into a bigger and more colorful style of magazine collage on canvas, though the theme of strong women and intersectional empowerment continues. She is also working on publishing her first non-fiction, The Effortless Perfection Myth, on the gender issues millennial women face while in college. Caralena graduated from Duke University in 2015 with a double major in Public Policy and Women’s/Gender Studies. She currently lives in Washington, D.C. with six badass roommates whom she loves with all her heart and admires for their fierce female-to-female support system and ability to forgive her for the little bits of collage pieces left in every corner of the house.
Andrew Noel worked as an engineer in the private and public sectors for a decade before re-envisioning her career, and completing a Master of Divinity at Howard University, followed by a Master of Arts in Spiritual and Pastoral Care at Loyola University Maryland. She also completed a residency at Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats, and four levels of Shambhala Meditation training from the Shambhala Center of Washington DC. Currently, her nine-to-five career is at the National Archives Records Administration where she is a Senior Records Analyst, but she describes her life’s work as helping others go inward, realizing their deepest purpose that the world desperately needs, and reconnecting people to the one true source of life and love. Since 2007, she’s created over thirty commissioned pieces, and participated in more than thirty-five artist showcases and marketplaces. She recently authored a coloring book available on Amazon, “
Patrick Facemire started drawing in high school because he wanted to make comics, was unable to get any of the lazy bastards in his school to do it for him. He went on to receive his BFA from Shepherd University, is currently volunteering with Americorps for the Mountain Arts District, and will soon be pursuing his Master’s degree in Fine Art (in Buffalo.) His work revolves around the interplay of narrative, systems of information, and the interactions between space, time, character and theatre. He is obsessed with Tom Waits, cartoons, and books, and you can see his work and read his comics at