Poems for Persons of Interest

Felicity Teague  features regularly in  The HyperTexts ,  Snakeskin , and elsewhere.  Her second collection,  Interruptus: A Poetry Year , is forthcoming in 2025. Last Requests He greets me with his usual half-salute as I approach the summit of the hill. It’s winter, but he’s in a linen suit, the type he wore before becoming ill. I call, “Hi Grandad!”, slightly out of breath from climbing and from carrying the things he asked for just an hour or so from death: some ice cream, and his dressing gown with strings to keep him decent. Hospital was grim, but now we needn’t talk about the ward. We sit together, sing his favourite hymn; up here, we must be closer to the Lord or what it is that brings me once again to grant his last requests, so far from pain.

Bethel McGrew  is a freelance writer based in Michigan. Her articles have appeared in various national and international outlets. Find her Substack at  furtherup.net . The Warriors' Chapel   At night, I climb the stairs of Calvary To read the names carved in a sacred space, Now only names to you, but oh! to me, They summon up face after fading face. My incense of remembrance starts to rise, And once again I smell their blood in pools. Again my anger takes me by surprise. What savages we are, what bloody fools! I dug their graves in sun, in rain, in snow. This was my task. To do this much, at least. To walk the miles of stretchers, row on row. To bear a lonely light. To be a priest. And even now, I hear the endless cry, "But will I die? Sir, tell me, will I die?"

California-born, David Raphael Israel attended a Quaker school (writing poetry from grasshopper height), studied classical Chinese at Berkeley, and pursued music journalism at EAR Magazine (NYC) in the late 1980s. Poems of his can be found in the anthology Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English . Halloween Ultimatum John Keats took birth         on Halloween as the internet         has made well-known no other such tidbits             that I've seen in similar wise          my mind have blown Halloween now seems      too vague to me I observe it as                   an American rite alike Easter & Labor Day          how poetry relates to mimicked ghosts    seems slight whereas here you seek      a sonnet turned toward the topic                 of this occasion who in their candy-bag        has discerned rites European?              Mexican?   Asian? bring me a Halloween      globally sourced or from vapid rites        let me be divorced

J-T Kelly  is an innkeeper in Indianapolis. He lives in a brick house with his wife and six children, his two parents, and a dog. A Private Prayer After a Funeral Sermon on the Afterlife I can’t believe it’s right to be so certain. I mean, there’s faith. I have a little of that. But what do you see behind your holy curtain? Is it all hollow like a magician’s hat? I hope instead it’s more like the tide, or breath: something that comes and comes again and brings with it the body, the odor, of birth, of death; something that weeps and roars and speaks and sings. Or maybe there is no curtain. I know a story: a darkness, fear and hiding, a field of blood; but also roasted fish, perfume, and seeds. You’re not a businessman, are you? Your glory isn’t a balanced ledger. Aren’t you mud— like me—that has to ask for what it needs?