Childhood

I recall falling on broken glass.
I recall falling in dog shit.
I recall being stung by a bee.
I recall sickness.
I recall the sweat of fear.
I recall the laughter floating over my head like gas.
I recall being reproached.
I recall hiding in shadows.
Under covers.
Within myself.

Hope is yellow.
Promises are melting wax.
There is nothing beyond the mountain.
Only more broken glass and dog shit
to fall into.
The sun is a broken mouth.
The moon is a lie.
This world is where you are resigned to
when you can’t try anymore.

And more and more and more
of the same.

John Tustin is currently suffering in exile on the island of Elba but hopes to return to you soon. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

Judson Evans is a full-time Instructor in the Liberal Arts department at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee where he has taught a range of courses, from a Poetry Workshop on haiku, prose poetry and haibun, to a course on theories of cave art and the role of the cave in ritual and philosophy. In 2007 he was chosen by John Yau as an Emerging Poet for The Academy of American Poets. He was one of the founding members of Off the Park Press, and published work in each of its three anthologies responding to provocative contemporary painters. His most recent work has been published in (print journals) Laurel Review, Folio, Volt; 1913: a journal of forms; and Green Mountains Review, and (online journals) White Whale Review and Amethyst Arsenic. He won The Phillip Booth Poetry Award from Salt Hill Review in 2013. He has collaborated with composers, such Mohammed Fairouz, Mart Epstein, and Rudolf Rojhan, who set several of his poems to music, as well as with choreographers, dancers, musicians and other poets, including Gale Batchelder, and videographers Nate Tucker and Ray Klimek.