On Golgotha

by Dennis Sullivan

For the Sullivan lady at Starbucks and her sister

The pickpocket slid his hand

Into the man's trousers

Who just boarded the train

Heading to Harlem

Cadging a wallet

Containing the sweat of a brow

That is, the man’s paycheck

Cashed moments before -

Done in by treason

The picker lacking

A sense of the propriety of

The sovereignty of personhood

What libertarians call

Eating your bread undisturbed

By a psyche disturbed by treason.

There was no exchange of eyes

The picker just looked

At the newsstand on the platform

The way a magician looks

When pulling a rabbit out of a hat

Destroying faith in reason.

It was revealed in superior court

In the probation officer's report that

Anyone betraying the sovereign life of another

Has holes in the head the size of

The moon Neil Armstrong walked on.

Pickers say crime pays,

Well, until the cops catch them

Not red - but cold-handed - as happens

In cases of arrested development.

The sergeant at the station house

Where the booking took place

In a big Irish brogue declared: “We’re

All sons and daughters of Cain

Hurling stones at each other

Bringing brothers and sisters down

Making holes the size of the moon

Neil Armstrong walked on

To escape an ailing earth."

On Golgotha Jesus said

"Every soul would get its due

Once inside of heaven"

While the Pharisees

At the foot of the cross jeered:

“The Nazarene is no more than a magician

Pulling a rabbit out of a hat!”

Miserere mei, Deus

Secundum magnam

Secundum misericordiam tuam

Magnam misericordiam tuam

O Lord, please, O Lord,

Remove the hateful mind

From our DNA.

~

Dennis Sullivan is a poet who lives in Voorheesville, New York with his wife Georgia Gray and their feline family: Clare, Catherine (aka Slinky), Stephanie, Juniper, and Fiddler. Dennis has served as the Voorheesville Village Historian for 38 years and in that capacity has written a number of local history texts, the most prominent of which is Voorheesville, New York: A Sketch of the Beginnings of a Nineteenth Century Railroad Town.

In 2017 his history of a small Catholic high school in Newburgh, New York, where he taught from 1963-1967, was published: The Little Engine That Could, and Did: A Memoir and Brief History of The Christian Brothers in Newburgh, New York From Their Arrival in 1866 Until Their Departure in 1969. It was followed by Homeward Bound: Sixty-Two Stories from The Enterprise, a collection of his award-winning column “Field Notes” in the Albany County weekly, The Altamont Enterprise.

In 2023 his Veni, Vidi, Trucidavi: Caesar The Killer, A Man Who Destroyed Nations So He Might Be King was published by Troy Book Makers to some acclaim, and in 2025, his The Complete Poems of Catullus was released in a bilingual edition by Troy Book Makers.

Early on, his well-received Handbook of Restorative Justice: A Global Perspective, co-edited with Larry Tifft, was voted Outstanding Book of 2007 by Choice and his The Punishment of Crime in Colonial New York: The Dutch Experience in Albany During the Seventeenth Century received the Hendricks Manuscript Award in 1997. 

Addenda:

1. Dennis was graduated from the Catholic University with a BA in Greek and Latin, with honors and a Phi Beta Kappa.

2. He received an MA in Classics (Greek and Latin) from Manhattan College with a thesis “On color in ancient garments; a partial translation of the 'De re vestiaria' of Lazarus Baif.”

Lazare de Baïf (1496–1547) was a French diplomat and humanist whose seminal 16th-century treatise (1531/1535) examines the clothing, costumes, and fashion of ancient civilizations, including Rome, Greece, and Babylon.

3. Dennis received an MA in Criminal Justice from the State University at Albany with a thesis on team management in probation organizations. He has served as a management consultant for probation departments in New York State and Illinois.

4. Doctor Sullivan received a PhD from the University at Albany; his dissertation was later published by Peter Lang as The Punishment of Crime in Colonial New York: The Dutch Experience in Albany During the Seventeenth Century. He was in the first class of the first PhD program in Criminal Justice in the United States beginning in 1968.

5. A national conference he convened at the University at Albany for the Justice Studies Association - an organization he established with colleague Larry Tifft - can be viewed at https://www.albany.edu/news/69935.php

6. His dozen or so published books can be found on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/DennisSullivan/author/B001JRUHKQ?ref=ap_rdr&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=c7156676-4643-4c6e-b72c-7699debb4b04

7. Doctor Sullivan also served as Editor-in-Chief of the acclaimed international journal “Contemporary Justice Review” for a dozen years or so, published by Routledge (Taylor & Francis), a journal he founded with colleague Larry Tifft over 30 years ago. 

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THEO

by Tom Bonville

I was caring for my grandson yesterday.

He's my first grandchild.

He turned one, five months ago.

I think he is already smarter than me.

He's certainly more handsome

and he's more well-behaved than me.

I wouldn't want him any other way,

He didn't cry all morning,

not so much as a whimper.

It was as if crying hadn't been invented yet.

I'm not one to love easily,

not in today's world, though

love is probably the very thing that is more needed.

But I cherish Theo, like no one else.

He has the ability to lift me up,

feel optimistic, and want to love again.

And, gosh, does he eat!

He eats baby food

like it's gourmet.  

We shared a jar of pears and beets yesterday.

He wanted more after we had finished it.

Me, too! And I hate beets! Not crazy about pears, either.

What I really want more of is grandchildren.

My daughter is obliging me.

She's due, any day now.

Maybe a girl this time, eh?

Just bubbling over with love,

every which way.

I wouldn't want her any other way.

~

Tom Bonville has been writing poetry for about ten years. He has had poems published in Chronogram and in Up the River. He participates in open mics throughout the area, and is a member of Posey Cafe, a once-a-month poetry group that reviews poets and their poems. In 2025, he released a chapbook titled In Blue County.

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Better

by Maria Sohn

I’m drawn to sunbeams 

between dark spaces 

And wallow in moments 

of illumination 

I hold on to hints of reassurance

And sparks of inspiration 

I’m moved by moon light 

lacing water

And dance as the prima 

in dreams I remember

I ride on waves of wonder

And a belief this world will get better

~

Maria Sohn writes from her home in Albany, NY. She recently started reading her poetry at the Albany Social Justice Center’s Third Thursday open mic. She works as a graphic designer and studies ballet and guitar. Connect with her on Instagram (@mariasohn).

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nothing will be worshiped blindly

by Hana Sheedy-Corrado

My father’s mind is a cathedral of pages.

From Poe to Melville, Beckett to Faulkner, Jung to Huxley,

he’s read it all once if not twice.

He believes in the art of sitting,

Buddhist concepts of life and death.

He comes from devotion,

yet carved himself a different path,

turning from the altar

without losing the sense of awe.

My mother’s mind is a lantern held in the dark.

Though she’s read all of the greats,

she has a lust for knowledge of what comes next.

She’s curious

and walks in the realm of the beyond.

She grew up among prayers,

yet wouldn’t claim belief in “God,”

only an awareness of something more,

watching, unnamed,

just beyond reach.

I am a mix of my mother and father.

I will spend my days reading Camus and Didion,

Dostoevsky and Kafka,

and my nights reading Aurelius and Dispenza.

I want to read every book my father has read

and walk down every dark alley

lit by a candle from my mother.

I grew up in Catholic school,

but the last thing I will ever do

is subscribe to Roman Catholicism,

or the idea of that cruel “God”

that was painted before me.

I light sage every Sunday.

I speak to the moon.

I have both my mother's and father’s hunger for knowledge.

I will not be stopped.

I refuse to accept the idea that anything is casual,

but rather dance with the idea

that everything has meaning

and can become poetry

if you grieve it.

I walk alongside

the ghosts of my mother's and father’s childhood selves,

doing everything they couldn’t do.

My mind is a wild altar,

an unfinished scripture.

Written in the blood of those who came before me,

books, Gods, and ghosts are all welcome,

but nothing will be worshiped blindly.

~

Hana Sheedy-Corrado is a yoga instructor and a student at New York School of Interior Design.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The Aging Guitarist

by Tom Harmon

A dusty chipboard case 

stands in a corner

untuned Martin, yellowed setlist inside. 

Once they made love, bodies entwined

fingers coaxing songs that soared

and he sang

while voyeurs at the café’s tables 

witnessed. A soul emerged.

Now he rests in a nearby chair

and nods off  to dreams of applause.

~

For more than 50 years, Tom has worked as an advocate for individuals with disabilities. He lives in Wynantskill with his wife, Sara. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Merry-Go-Round

by Edie Abrams

dry air quenched missteps

we went our separate ways

roads circled round us, exits

popped; we chose discretely

from each other, together

in our singularities

freeze reigned for three days

no-one paid emotional debts

an anteater nudged blankets

to check for tussles, unpressed

through dry air between

drizzling diamonds

~

Edie Abrams retired from the NYS Assembly 100 years ago, and has been writing poetry since she developed the typical mother-daughter relationship during her teenage years, a million years ago.

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Who’s Calling Me?

by Felicia Hart

There are echoes that call from a place unknown,

Where shadow and silence have overgrown.

Their voices drift like a salted breeze,

A prayer that moves with the pull of seas.

They speak in tones the soul can hear,

Not in volume, but in fear.

Each word, a ripple in memory's wake,

A riddle the stars refuse to break.

I cannot see, yet still they plead,

A haunting hum the night will feed.

A hymn not sung but felt in skin.

A longing born from deep within.

Searching for ears that find their whispers,

Soft as ghosts, or holy sisters.

They do not knock, they simply be.

But oh, the ache . . . who’s calling me?

Familiar voices that need the light,

The beacon of hope shining bright.

Their pain still clings to air and stone,

They seek the path to guide them home.

The wind grows still when they arrive,

A hush that tells me I’m alive.

Not alone—but not quite free,

Tethered to what I cannot see.

I reply in the wind to “follow me”

Through hollow night and memory.

I’ll be the flame, the steady sound,

That leads them back to shallow ground.

~

I live in an old house in East Berne on a lake with my kids and two dogs. We enjoy the simple life where we tend our garden and raise our chickens.

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