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What to Expect

by Kristen Hoggatt-Abader


                  The only response
                  to a child’s grave is
                  to lie down before it and play dead.
                                    —Bill Knott


Black boys getting shot in Harlem—that’s certain,

waiting like a germ between our taste buds for the chance to begin a plague. The news

reports in a six-sentence quip, and all is revealed: street party, crossfire, shot in the head.

Pity, to be 13, black and poor in New York’s only home

that welcomes such folk, its skyline dotted with decrepit roofs and

a quick buck. We keep our mouths closed, though we sigh (“Not

again.” “No, not again!”) when we hear of the boy’s demise. They

won’t report this the next city over—let alone the next state.

How many bullets have reduced a black body to mere flesh&bone?

In an instant, we board the subway, our hands around pocketbooks

with force as we traverse, in and out and underground,

the network of tracks like sutures across our shoulders,

linking the city and our lives: Lord, please, let it not be our child.



What to Expect


Kids getting shot in colonial New England—

Wait. What? The news yanked out our tongues

and wrapped it around spreadsheets and pizza stones,

calling out to our little ones in a hollow timbre,

their fresh bodies close, breathing their bubble gum,

breathing scabbed knees and muddied shoes. If only

the killer had gotten counseling. If only gun laws were

just so. Our minds wrapped around what-ifs

until the worst of us remained convinced it was a hoax.

Surely our precious 6-years-olds are not slaughtered with

automatic weapons—these bodies, this pink flesh.

Something else must explain it: conspiracies, trauma actors,

the media! We always blame them, rolling out blankets

to snuff out what burns us: Lord, please, let it not be our child.



What to Expect


                  Peshawar, Pakistan

Do children get shot in that corner of the world? In the city of

flowers? It is, by all means, extreme: summers boil, winters

witch-tit cold, dust, hail, and when the gunmen crash through

the doors, it’s another kind of storm brewed in the landlocked valley,

stirred by the impossible wind that descends the peaks.

One hundred plus children, gone. Children—dead and gone. The

smartest ones barricaded the door, a lesson in physics: Angle of

crossbeam? Density of wood? Not enough to stop men from

crashing it down in praise of God. In the city of flowers,

workers load the ambulance with blood stain. In the city of flowers,

mothers unveil themselves to wrap the wounds of little boys in pink, blue,

orange, red. In the city of flowers, the MPs hug their M16s,

skullcapped fathers scream. And the storm rages on, in the city of flowers,

in the cities of our first born: Lord, please, let it not be our child.



BIO

Kristen Hoggatt-Abader is the author of the poetry chapbook Arab Winter and the former Ask a Poet advice columnist for Drexel University’s The Smart Set. She is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Arizona in Tucson and a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in rhetoric and composition. Her work has also appeared in The Ledge Magazine, Nimrod International Journal, and Poetry Porch. More of her work can be found at khoggattabader.com





Transition

by Richard Dinges


To step out from
trees onto open
prairie requires
steady nerve, eyes
shaded to sun’s
tense sudden glare,
thigh’s balanced to
any gust of wind,
and no reason
other than a need
to stretch out arms,
twirl in place,
to grasp freedom
to run without
inhibition,
yet to stand still
in awe of your
inability to exploit
your new freedom
under open sky.


After First Freeze


Still deep red smudges
among faded frost-bit
leaves, rose petals linger,
brittle lips kissed by
a November breeze,
memories of warm
embraces and sun’s
heat.  Hope clings
to the last petal when
it releases its grip
on yesterday and blows
away into next spring.



Burn Pile


Flames swirl above
piles of brush, a last
farewell to limbs
that waved lush leaves,
green hope before
storm’s fierce gust
brought down trees’
long stand under
summer drought and
winter fury and harsh
words from frantic
hosts.  Now a pile
sinks into ashes.
A gray wisp rises
into a blue sky
with a wistful
wish for peace.



Atom Bombs


Ever since atomic
bombs stopped lighting
up night skies
and blasting tiny
atolls to atoms
that glowed behind
shark eyes, I
find it hard to sleep
with all those people
determined to make
the world a better
place and America
greater than that
with nothing big
to detonate
just what is in their
hands when they step
out of the shadows
as I walk by.



BIO

Richard Dinges, Jr. lives and works by a pond among trees and grassland, along with his wife, two dogs, three cats, and twelve chickens. Eureka Literary Magazine, Cardinal Sins, Caveat Lector, North of Oxford, and Poem most recently accepted his poems for publication.





Stairs

by Hoyt Rogers

I unlock a side-door,
step into a waterless
well. Blind, I wait
until my cat’s-eyes
brighten in the dark.
Warily, I climb a hundred
stairs: they angle off
like branches, creaking
in a funnel of wind.
I pause; pause again.
I frame pictures
engraved on air.


Room


A cramped landing
before a convex door.
I turn the tarnished key.
A cylindrical room,
a ring of portholes,
scattering yellowed
disks along the floor.
I seem to be in a tower;
I look out, safe at last.
The sea is taut, a ribbon
of navy-blue foil.
A quarter-moon
skims the horizon,
its prow and stern
on an even keel:
a shiny boat,
a primitive toy.
I reach out
and pick it up
with one hand.


Boat


I hold a toy boat,
but I am inside it,
the only one who knows:
we’re adrift, lost at sea,
and will never come back.
The passengers and crew
still believe in a port.
They talk in their sleep:
their babbling coma
keeps me awake.

My only refuge
is the captain’s deck.
No one remembers the day
when he fell overboard.
I lie in his hammock
and stare at the sunset.
The sky tilts
from red to gold,
aquamarine to blue,
violet to indigo,
sinks at last
into limitless black—
and then reignites,
a cinder-cloud of stars.



BIO

Hoyt Rogers is a writer and translator. He translates from the French, German, Italian, and Spanish. He has published many books; he has contributed poetry, fiction, essays, and translations to a wide variety of periodicals. His edition of Yves Bonnefoy’s Rome, 1630 received the 2021 Translation Prize from the French-American Foundation. His translation of Marco Simonelli’s Will: 24 Sonnets appeared in February 2022 at Mudlark Editions online. His forthcoming works include a poetry collection, Thresholds (MadHat Press), the novel Sailing to Noon (book one of The Caribbean Trilogy), and a translation of Bonnefoy’s The Wandering Life (Seagull Books). For more information, please visit his website, hoytrogers.com.



What It Means To Escort Her

by Jason Visconti

To soften the body at its creases,
a deranged animal in a zoo of kisses.


If I Were A Father

I would come into this world as well,
Just mark me in your inventory,

I would bait the sunrise to a newsreel,
If that’s my child’s story,

The disclaimer to love is so very small.


If Nature Were Natural


The flower of the grand ode should bloom,
Tree stalks airbrush into their journals,

The sun keeps west as landscape for a poem,
The true moon is rolled like a marble,

The night sky fills with hungry phantoms.


Imagination


He is bending the scene from the lake shore of his crib,
for the swans of his mind have joined in a circle,

the sun is color coded upon the cloth of his bib,
the space between the bars means something whimsical,

he kicks up his feet with a modest stab.



BIO

Jason Visconti has attended both group and private poetry workshops. His work has appeared in various journals, including Literary Yard, California Quarterly, Valley Voices, Allegro Magazine and The American Journal of Poetry. He especially enjoys the poetry of Pablo Neruda and Billy Collins.





Diluted

by John Maurer

Another year has slithered past me
Left me in knots that can’t be untied
Like being pinned between a car hood
and a tree; they are all that holds my organs in

The deceit of sheepskin I pull over my own eyes
So I won’t have to recognize that I’m the wolf
the one left behind due to injury but who refused to die
Too brutal for the masses, too gentle for my own kind

I’ve grafted my own skin to replace itself
Like eleven eggs split across two baskets
I either have six in one or a half dozen in the other
Neither both, what is given must be taken, life’s a balancing act

I’m lying on the ground with half my bones broken



Sophomore Year



I’ve got a pill box on a necklace
A cigarette behind one ear and a pencil behind the other
A regret I continue to commit in my hand

Drafting this poem with a tattoo gun on my forehead in a mirror
Like it’s the best idea I’ve ever had
Cut off the bloodline like honestly, where was it leading?

I have whiskey on my breath; she says I remind her of her dad
She says my cigarette smoke reminds me of her mother
I don’t say anything at all, I drink, I smoke, I try to smile



BIO

John Maurer is a 26-year-old writer from Pittsburgh that writes fiction, poetry, and everything in-between, but their work always strives to portray that what is true is beautiful. They have been previously published in Claudius Speaks, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Thought Catalog, and more than eighty others. @JohnPMaurer (johnpmaurer.com)  




JUST GO AWAY

by Juanita Rey

Sorry.
I refuse to be hit on
in a laundromat.

I sit on this bench,
expressionless,
senses shut down,
as if I’m in a coma.
So don’t speak to me.
I am not a person.
I am not here.

And you’ve mistaken
the intent of that green dress.
the message in
that strapless black bra.

You misread the situation.
My clothes did not
put you up to this.


MY NEIGHBORS

Sounds pass between
these adjoining apartments
but bodies do not.
My neighbors dine
at their small kitchen table.
I pick on leftovers at mine.
I hear their shower
but I don’t rinse under it.
We each have our own water,
our own bodies to scour.

I say hello when I see them
in the corridor.
And they return my greeting.
But we each go in our own doors.
There’s no comingling.

My neighbors are a middle-aged couple.
I am a young single woman.
If years and situations
were a wall,
they’d be the ones I hang my paintings on.


THE GOOD NEWS WON’T LAST


I am learning,
for the first time in so long,
that all my tests are normal.

The doctor advises:
more calcium in my diet,
exercise regularly.

She still prescribes something.
It’s in her nature.

She knows
wellness is the first step
toward sickness.
In the meantime,
have a cure.



BIO

Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet who has been in this country five years. Her work has been published in Pennsylvania English, Opiate Journal, Petrichor Machine and Porter Gulch Review.



Indigo and Half Moon

by Paul Rabinowitz


11:46 a.m.

A woman wearing a down jacket with silver duct tape clutches the hand of a young child. She throws a half empty coffee cup into the bin under the counter, walks past a full length mirror and glances at her reflection. Twisting her torso to fit into the frame she piles her hair atop her head and notices a gentleman in the back of the cafe gazing at her. She turns towards the exit then cranes her neck to check storm clouds gathering over a playground at the intersection of Pitt and Grand Street. She hoists the child and steps out. Moments later they return. She hushes the crying child that clutches her soaked jacket. The gentleman in the corner of the crowded cafe signals to them to take a seat at the table where he sits. She glances at me sketching the scene then releases her wet hair. I watch as it falls around her shoulders. She sets the child down as the gentleman rises, waving to get her attention. The woman saunters across the floor like a prima donna on stage. He reaches into his worn travel bag and gives the mother a bright blue bird. She rubs her hand over the soft fabric. The child grabs the stuffed animal and runs to the mirror. Glancing at her reflection, she sways back and forth with two hands clutching the wings. She catches my gaze and freezes. The mother turns away from her daughter’s reflection, pushes a candle jar to the edge and leans across the table close to the gentleman. She remains focused on the movement of his lips. The child stomps her feet, puts the bird under her jacket then disappears among the crowds gathering on Grand Street


2:53 p.m.

If I use
a phrase
like
bird enthusiast
with
blue eyes
gentle
voice

in the
first stanza
of my poem

will I need
anything
else
for the middle
or end

to explain
why you
grab

star chart
and dream catcher
earrings

and meet
a bird watcher

to view
a male
bunting

perched
atop
a cactus
singing
to stake
its claim

plumage
brilliant
and shiny
illuminated
under
indigo
sky

waiting
patiently
for nightfall
star patterns
to appear

for clues

to navigate
a vast
intoxicating
desert

while
half moon
in the distance
rises

4:43 p.m.

In a state
of hypnotic
hyper-focused
confusion
a moth
hovers
near a chosen
candle

thinking
the flame
is the moon
glowing

the nocturnal
creature
rises
then falls
unable to
break
its evolutionary
navigational
system

as when you
limp
past the mirror
check
storm clouds
eyes glazed
like a boxer
hit on the jaw

neck snaps
light dims
while falling
to the ground
wishing
someone
laid a pillow
on the canvas

and in a state
of hypnotic
hyper-focused
confusion
you twist
your head
glance at me
sketching
the scene

throwing fresh
words
on my paper
like a painter
under night sky
full moon
igniting
desert
landscapes

as you rise

order coffee
extra cream
and sugar
find a cushioned
chair
to rest upon
until storm clouds
break

as I slide
my poem
across the table
revealing
colorful phrases like

new places
we’ll travel to

sand soaked
in orange light

eternal summers
with no past

break the chain
around your neck

like Jackson Pollock
day after day
I’ll splash
new words
against adobe
walls
indigo dripping
over
raw sienna

so when your offspring
returns
finds us
burning
from both ends
we’ll watch
as she throws
the animal
into the air

and wait
to see
which direction
the dry wind
blows

where
the bird
lands





BIO

Paul Rabinowitz is an author, photographer and founder of ARTS By The People, a non-profit arts organization based in New Jersey. Through all mediums of art Paul aims to capture real people, flaws and all. He focuses on details that reveal the true essence of a subject, whether they be an artist he’s photographing or a fictional character he’s bringing to life on the page.

Paul’s photography, short fiction and poetry have appeared in many magazines and journals including New World Writing, Waxwing Literary Journal, Pif Magazine, Courtship of Winds, Burningword, Evening Street Press, The Sun Magazine, Grub Street Literary Journal, The Montreal Review, The Metaworker, Adirondack Review, Bangalore Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, The Oddville Press and others. Paul was a featured artist in Nailed Magazine in 2020 and Mud Season Review in 2022. Paul was nominated for Best of the Net in 2021 for his Limited Light photo series and also nominated for the Maria Mazziotti Gillan Literary Service Award. Paul is the author of Limited Light, a book of prose and portrait photography, and a novella, The Clay Urn. Paul is working on a multimedia novel called Confluence, and has completed a poetry collection called truth, love and the lines in between. His poems and fiction, Little Gem Magnolia, Villa Dei Misteri, Confessional and The Lines In Between are the inspiration for 4 short films. Villa Dei Misteri and Little Gem Magnolia won best Experimental Films at the RevolutionMe and Oregon Short Film Festivals. 

Paul has produced mixed media performances and poetry films that have appeared on stages and in theaters in New York City, New Jersey, Tel Aviv and Paris. Paul is a written word performer and founder of The Platform, a monthly literary series in New Jersey, and Platform Review, a journal of voices and visual art from around the world. Paul’s videos, photography and poems appeared in his first solo exhibit called Retrospective With Reading Glasses at CCM Gallery in New Jersey. He is currently at work co-writing a television series with author Erin Jones called Bungalow.

https://www.paulrabinowitz.com/

Fragment

by Stephen Mead

To rip the stars out of yourself
you must first become sky, a horizon with tugboats,
foghorns blasting underneath. How, though dulling sight,
mist amplifies everything. Poke it, a piñata, you pierce your own flesh,
shower panes, cut crystal, a tinkling crescendo.
Swirl, retrieve all. After this, feeling is easy.



Mesmerism

Black lake, paddle boats, the foot bridge silhouetted,
an elegance crossing over as mist slowly blots,
mist taking the waves, the small shores,
the surrounding woods into a Chinese scrim,
its dogwood images in ink, hand-painted,
& the liquid of all of this, the fluidity being
damp London rooks lifting from the gray,
the nostalgic brown, the stark branches…

Here happiness comes upon me,
happiness as childhood travels, adolescence prolonged
over soggy fields, hills, grass blades, all a twisting
vine of half-winter, half-spring before the boundaries
of parks, undesignated, nature preserves, nature stakes
claim in with every crooked creek a jagged ribbon
streaming through…

Cool tributaries swollen with thaw, my veins are
the life blood of some legacy’s landscape bequeathed fresh
from my parents for, god, how I love, taste
all this old agelessness calling us spirituous as we shift,
dissipative, return true again surely as this great lace of air,
air everywhere, holding us out, in, out, in, out, in.



The Loss

Rooms return you, rooms, the cafe, hallways, memories in a flood of flickers & you, suddenly back, Jack-lovely in this destiny pack.

I hold the cards still & you are not missing any more than a cloud floating from my gaze to trace the entire sky.

Maybe heaven really is so planetary & global with you one of the stars over a very private sleep.

From dreams I wake wondering if you’ve been here & I slept too sound except your gone face shows up, intensifying the lack.

I make coffee, smoke a cig, & divine your life in mine yet heart by heart, the flow of rooms, hallways, walks, those paths that crossed to last beyond the knowing of my time or your’s.



We’re a Little Nervous

Lighting a firecracker with a cigarette – pops, pops
all around the picnic table, old knots blown smoky—–
Watch the wood fly. Count your fingers. Check
your hearing. Dad’s reliving a ten-year-old’s Fourth:
gun powder, gun powder, a Western shoot-out
in his hands.

No wonder the dog’s hiding & mom went in the house.
Listen, I’m trying to keep my eyes open.
Whose turn is it? Uh huh, uh huh. Give me that thing.
Don’t go ’til just before the moment – come on, come on
This time let dad sweat a bit.

Now comes lightning, hours later, a storm watch incarnate:
winds slamming doors, toppling plants, hard rain sheeting
the screens, the too-long heat wave & fireworks gone to ash.

Dad’s pacing somewhere. Mom’s wishing she didn’t quit
Virginia Slims. Leagues away, here I am, sound-wired
& wondering where is the cat. Flash. Bang. Crackle.
Damn that animal—–

Any candles? A flashlight?
The tempest rumbles crash.
This umbrella’s got a metal tip.
These loafers aren’t leather.
Hell, Zachary, where are you?

Coffee in a slick fist, gas for the search party—
I breathe fire, wet silver, yellow gasp
showing sea-blue depths, & I think of Hitchcock,
& I think of warfare, & I think of the dread-laced thrill
of a cracker, little soldier, combusting sparks
in fingers just ten years here on earth.



BIO

Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer. Since the 1990s he’s been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online. He is also grateful to have managed to keep various day jobs for the Health Insurance. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum (The Chroma Museum), artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before Stonewall.



This Road Has Clearly Been on a Bender

by Marcella Benton

 

a flock of spandex cyclists take the unexpecting road like fighter jets

a blunt contrast to the rickety wheeled meth head
twitching towards them

cars oink by
quaking over that too thin white line
quivering to devour them all

because this road
has clearly
been on a bender

cars can barely hang on
as it jokes and chokes the hillside

with corn stalking the banks
wishing it was a river or the seaside in summer

just at the right time of day
when the sun and the moon shine down together like a cross-eyed girl

 

 

Hibernation

 

hibernation today
stuck in the warm fluffed bed
wreathed by domesticats and dogs snoring

made a sandwich of myself
I will live off the stored fat
until there is nothing but crumbs

the purrrrr of the skin and bone feline
king of the mountain

syncopates with the rumble of cars
patting down the street
rat a tat tapping my windows

unopened books and a revolver on the nightstand

not enough blanket to cover my cold feet

 

 

A Ghost in the Kitchen

 

I thought I heard you in the kitchen
running water dirty feet

saw the tip of a head above the door behind me
reflection of someone riding a bike in the hall mirror

must be the ghost you insisted we had

dog toys rolling uphill
the cat staring down the corner
but where are you now

maybe you just could see the future

so who is haunting who…

running each other over every day
sandwiched like a mack truck

maybe we made it
but no

no death comes early for the poor man
with a wink and a nudge

and vultures don’t give a shit

 

 

Whiffs of Nostalgia

 

we pass yawns back and forth
almost as intimate as french kisses on the porch swing

catching whiffs of nostalgia

of him
needling into that summer dress

and I was such a good girl
sit lay roll over

play dead
it’ll be over soon

 

 

Spring

 

so lily livered
swallowing poppies like candy

staining the grass with her perennial gardens

glads winking at her nose
changing her diaphanous mind
quicker than a soiled diaper

a little too late for the wrist cut roses
trickling warm and salty over her cuticles

telling her to replant before someone else does

 

 

BIO

Marcella Benton lives in Lakeland, FloridaMarcella Benton, with her husband and pets. She and her husband own and operate a screen printing and embroidery company, Whatever Tees.

Elizabeth Perdomo

Scenes from the Window

by Elizabeth Perdomo

 

Sweet potato vines
Tangle out past the edge
Of gardens

Tobacco barns
Tall & faded grey,
Now empty

White churches, a primitive
Baptist paradise, with outdoor
Tables for picnics on the grounds.

Weathered brick chimneys
Stand solitary in stark vigil decades
After the house fire.

Bent woman wearing bonnet,
Hoeing a long row of fine looking
Collard greens.

Last year’s leftover bales
Of faded hay dot pasture fields
Strewn like pieces from a large game.

Faded box cars abandoned
On rusty rail tracks, faded farmer’s coops
Surrounded by the sparse sea

Of a gravel parking lot spotted by
Tobacco spittle & equally faded
Pickup trucks.

Skeletons of old cotton bales
Stand lost at the red dirt margins
Of a now empty field.

 

May 1979 – Greyhound Bus, South Georgia

 

 

A Woman

 

A sunny day,
A warm pause before
The onset of hard winter.

She enters alone

Afraid, bending in pain
From time abused; human, frail,
Old, forlorn.

Her cold hands
Shake like windows on
Subway trains just passing.

Too many robbers
Stalk her, take her mind,
Her meager security rent checks,

Rob her of what
Life even she no longer
Possesses.

Thieves lurk as death
Behind doors, on side streets
She must pass, unwilling.

Beauty which once flashed in a young smile,
Now gone like dignity; she sits empty,
Wrinkled as a barren womb.

An aged woman, waiting,
Known well by any who dare look
Into her time-worn face

& see the empty road
Of many futures.

 

July 1978 – Boston, Massachusetts


 

A Kidding

 

White
plum blossoms
fly upon fragrant afternoon;
spring breezes swaddle a wet kid,
fresh dropped, first soft bleating breath;
innocence, his mother licks,
urges him to discover
yet untried
feet.

 

8 March 2000 – Rockdale County, Georgia
After Ruby’s 1st Kidding

 

 

BIO

Elizabeth PerdomoElizabeth Perdomo has lived and written in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas these past fourteen years, moving to the region from the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. Born in Kansas, and raised both there and in Colorado, she has written poetry works since a young teen. Perdomo also lived in the Southeastern USA for a number of years. Her written pieces reflect on local place and culture, cooking, gardening, ecology and nature, traditions, spirituality and much more.

 

 

 

Images for Inga

by Kjell Nykvist

after Richard Aldington

 

I.

Ice encased the rosebushes—
The frozen flowers’ colors
Like fluorescent fish
In cloudy water.

 

II.

The elk at the water’s edge,
Massive and horned and red,
Look back at the towering limestone
Adorned with lodgepole pines.
The highest of the green needles,
We think, seem to scratch
The azure sky. To this mountain
Of green and grey, the elk are like
Red sparks from a distant fire.
And we are even smaller—like
White specks floating in a cave
Filled with water.

 

III.

Seeing you there—blue on blue—
Your feet in the warm Adriatic
Is the licking of a pleasure-tongue
Inside my sleepy head.

 

IV.

The merry completion of anticipation is
An empire of catkins sending
Dreaming gleaming grains
Across tender fields.

 

V.

Fears from the past, at last, vanish
Like a swirl of angry blackbirds:
All that remains of self-loathing
Can fit inside a pyx.

 

VI.

The thinking of strange thoughts, and with a loss of words:
Faint shapes in a faded tapestry, on fire.

 

VII.

The darkness deflected merely by candlelight.
The scent of satiety. On a table,
The cool wetness of empty shellfish,
Bread crumbs, the remains of asparagus,
Two punch bowls of chardonnay.
In the background, a melodic web
Of Otis Redding. Close your eyes,
My dear, and you become Otis, singing.

 

VIII.

To a child of winter, the cattails of heat.
To a child of summer, a barrage of ice.
To a child of fall, a pint of pollen.
To a child of spring, a cup of colored leaves.

 

IX.

The rain falls round the patio
In clear lines ending in clear starbursts.
Here is a crystal architecture
Where what is built was never fully designed,
Where what is designed can never be built.


 

Melting Into Portraiture

 

The sun perches
On creamy clouds. The day
Through the oaks makes
An adagio. There’s the
Happiness of honeysuckle.
There’s mint. Birds skip about
And thoughts coalesce.

The mind drifts
On the eyes’ sea until
There’s a soft rupture:

Light yellow bleeds through
Fluffy white, pale blue
Descends on green leaves,
Everything moves more,
Moves more in a sudden breeze.

In my eyes and
Through the breeze

A woman stirs
On a green knoll, her flesh
Fusing with a shower
Of shadows sprayed onto
The ground by the oaks.
Her hair dances round her.
I can see

The amber of her eyes
When she stares back.

It’s a subtle refinement of nature,
The ability to shift, to sway,
To change eternally, to tower above
The mind and eyes, only to shrink
Into grains of thought.

And this new woman,
In the wind and sun-play,
Like the land itself,
Shifts and sways too.
As do I.

We each adopt the attributes
Cast upon us by the other. We each
Consent to the other’s vision.
If joined as one
We’d be a kaleidoscope revealing
A thousand moving shapes
Through a single lens.


 

What is Poetry?

after John Ashbery

 

A Melanesian girl, in Sami clothing,
On the road to Dushanbe? The glissandi

Of birdsongs, how they’re draped in carmine?
Lake Louise? Or this striving

Towards something? Something
Arcane? Though we plead

To know it and clarity too? Will no one
Envisage the different visions

We have envisaged? Perhaps
They will. But it’s all been shattered

Like a fish bowl striking wooden floors,
The wooden shelving having collapsed.

So what? Will an empire of palm leaves
Still fill the vision of she who sees?

 

 

BIO

NykvistKjell Nykvist was born in Kalmar, Småland, Sweden, but grew up in Butte, Montana. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in Museum Studies from Baylor University. Kjell is currently a museum curator in Houston, Texas. He recently married his long-time love, Inga Stefánsdóttir, who is a harpsichordist. Kjell’s work has appeared in such publications as Poetry Super Highway, La Noria Literary Journal, The Deronda Review, and Asinine Poetry, as well as in several American and Canadian anthologies. (Kjell Nykvist is a heteronym of Bryan Damien Nichols, who writes his poetry through Kjell, and another heteronym, Alexander Shacklebury. Kjell and Alexander’s debut collection of poems, Whispers From Within, will be published later this year by Sarah Book Publishing, a small, independent Texas press.)

 

 

 

 

 

to the Utter East

by Josey Parker

 

If the ocean was
full of flowers,
how long would it
take for them to wilt?
How long before petals became chips?
Natural with sea salt.

And would they look
like bouquets
or accordions?

When you bite a clover flower
and press it between
your molars,
somehow that blossom
unfolds on the buds
of your tongue.

-no, the flowers
aren’t bouquets or
accordions but carousels like
sticky fingers, maybe?

But the ocean is full of them and so
is your mouth-
your lips spit pollen;
there is no ark to
save us.

Your head is a buoy,
bobbing in
stems, sepals, petals, seeds.
Close your mouth
before
your tongue
catches mine.
I told you I’m allergic to pollen.

 

 

Greensleeves

 

hand me that leaf
we rescued last fall
to press between the p’s

it paled anyways
with veins
like a dry wrist

all we have are the photographs
of our fingers
dusty with chlorophyll

 

 

what will we do with the princes?

 

It’s hurricane season
-so sue me for
boarding up my windows

you didn’t tell me you would
be here throwing
pebbles

 

 

BIO

Josey ParkerJosey Parker is a frazzled student and coffee enthusiast who somehow finds time to write copious amounts of poetry and flash fiction. Her work has previously appeared in the Claremont Review. Although she is an author, she is not in fact, dead.

 

 

 

Tableau

by Karen Corinne Herceg

 

The world
scaled for living
presses against a zero-degree sky,
the day’s beginning light
opening like a book.
The morning so frozen
will not allow the gibbous moon
to retire,
hovering over still-waiting lamplights,
poor imitations,
all their nightly duty done.
And I: supine across the linens
before this scene
as in a Rousseau tableau,
lying like a cut-out
in my own jungle,
each part outlined clearly
like the white snow-capped roofs
against the icy blue horizon.
And still
I think that you will edge me off the canvas
and paste me to the section
where you live.

 

Hudson History

                            honoring Pete Seeger

We’ve assumed you
beyond your natural shifts and turns,
morphing historical perspective,
birthing ourselves into your river grace,
iron and metal bridged
across your girth,
wave against will.
Adaptable in a marketable world,
your iconic flow
no exception,
your pristine nature filled
with natives and intruders,
the lush natural and
the burden of the built,
from ambitious towers
to towering trees
to the tread of silence
near old wilderness.
You begin at the north,
the top,
and push your power south,
carrying all,
delivering in a democracy of spirit,
challenged, fierce then passive,
history glinting off your journeys,
truth remaining in your depths,
powering through the harbor,
your own story
obscured by ours.

 

A Wake of Frogs

An early April day, arms full of grocery bags,
frost in the air not yet done,
I walked toward the house, stopped,
shocked by the sudden sight,
their gleaming bodies
laid out across rocks rimming the fountain
like civil war soldiers
waiting to be recognized and buried.
The porch where I sat evenings
watching the small waterfall
leech through rocks,
frothing into a pool rimmed with tiger lilies,
was far from soothing now.
How to know the autumn before
that ice would seal a wet tomb
before those innocents could escape?
A city girl, I couldn’t warn them
of nature’s ways.

Bags fallen at my feet, I spotted him
through our picture window,
sitting casually, New York Times in hand.
How he loved the crossword puzzle,
its setup of boxes, the clean, neat lines,
the completion of tiny words,
the supposition of victory.
This was complete, too:
death at the end of long years,
memories frozen over with no future,
laid out to view.
He thought those frogs were a warning
but they were only seeking a proper burial,
an affirmation
of what was long deceased.

 

Betrayer

The truth is
this is a fearful place,
constant trembling
flanked with platitudes,
with magical thinking,
failure drowning in cocktails,
lust laughing in a sophomoric comedy
and smoke curling
the clouded forbidden air.
There’s a lot of leftover
hippie love
and broken philosophies.
We assent to camouflage,
a whimsical toast,
a sea of well wishing,
the rejuvenation of a spa weekend.
Before the dusk of empty bottles,
pill prompted memories,
a closing door,
we consider praying again,
measures of redemption
kicking us back onto the cross,
always just shy of resurrection.

 

 

BIO

karen hercegKaren Corinne Herceg graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University with a B.A. in Literature/Writing. In 2011, she received graduate credits in an advanced writing curriculum with emphasis on editing and revision. She has published in independent, small press publications and has published a book of poetry, Inner Sanctions. As a recipient of New York State grants, Karen has read at various venues, universities and libraries on programs featuring such renowned writers as Pulitzer Prize winner John Ashbery and has studied and read with such well-known poets as David Ignatow and Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Schultz. Publications include Literary Mama, The Furious Gazelle, Immortal Verses, From A Window: Harmony and Inkwell. Her short story, “Knitting In Transit”, was published in Chrysalis Magazine, and she has completed her first full-length novel, Diva! Her current writing projects include a new volume of poems and co-authoring a memoir with award winning music producer Glenn Goodwin. Karen is a featured poet on the Hudson Valley poetry scene. She resides in Orange County, New York.

Visit Karen on Facebook and at her Website: karencorinneherceg.com.

 

 

 

alan reese

So Alive

by Alan Reese

 

how do we bend the mind
to fit the sound of what is?

what is the tone and notes
of the chords of our dreams?

who asks the questions we
struggle to answer?

when do mind and memory
marry and live happily ever after?

where are we and what are we doing
when they come for us?

why do we vibrate like bees in a glass jar
when we are so alive with love?

 

 

TEOTWAWKI

Fish will walk on land, and frogs drop from the sky,
zeppelins will explode and rain fire,
newscasters will turn a blind eye to joy,
and meteorologists will forecast non-existent weather patterns.
My sweater is too tight, and my pyjamas don’t fit.
When Archduke Ferdinand starts out in his armored vehicle,
the world, at prayer and unsuspecting, will be caught off guard
and wobble off kilter the rest of its days.
Signals from space will be misinterpreted
as cosmic static and interstellar background noise.
My nose will be elected president
and declare a state of apathetic disenchantment.
Black ants and red ants will form an alliance
that will elevate water cooler small talk to metaphysical
speculation and force governing bodies to take stock
of entomological trends as socio-economic indicators.
Masturbation will become a national sport.
Hand towel stock will skyrocket.
Personal declaration will be denounced as capitalist claptrap.
My undershirts will go in hiding with the Witness Protection Program.
Pensive moments will be outlawed outright.
Last one to leave will be expected to turn out the lights.

 

 

BIO

alan reeseAlan C. Reese owns and operates an independent subsidy publishing business, Abecedarian Books, Inc. He is the author of the chapbook Reports from Shadowland. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Smartish Pace, Gargoyle, The Baltimore Sun, Maryland Poetry Review, Potomac Review, Delaware Review, Welter, Grub Street, Attic, Bicycle Review, Danse Macabre, and the Loch Raven Review. He teaches writing at Towson University.

 

 

 

bruce mcrae

Perception Management

by Bruce McRae

 

How it is and how it isn’t…

We look for you as if a lost key,
retracing our steps, constructing models,
comparing the right eye to the left.
We employ statistics, the blunt instruments
of guesswork and guesstimates,
and see little harm in chicanery.
Lies can be good for you.

We’re building a better monster,
history airbrushed, the rain holding off,
sin considered an accomplishment.

Now we’re tapping the collective consciousness,
a ready source of gods and archetypes.
We’re instructing you in the art of complacency,
the law on the side of the lawyers.

A hush falls over the Earth
as we prepare our presentation,
including suitable lighting and soothing ambiance.
Even the dead are invited to dine.
Even the living.

 

Identity Crisis

You were the Wife of Bath
and I was Claudius Ptolemy.
I was your sixth or seventh husband
and you were my invisible lover, Mrs. Succubus.
We played games in the sack by candlelight.
We crossed deserts.
Some days we didn’t even know each other.

Little wonder I was so confused.
How does one label their experiences
when rampaging Visigoth’s are at the gate?
With biblical floodwaters rising?
In these damnable firestorms?

One minute we’re Bedouins in a Saharan caravan
and the next we’re planting tomatoes back in Omaha.
“Now you see me, now you don’t,”
you cried out from behind a burning mulberry bush.

And I couldn’t have said it any better.

 

Step Forward

They wanted a volunteer.
I brought them a head on a silver salver.
I pulled your name out of a hat.
I gave them my neighbour’s phone number.

They required donations;
all for a good cause, we were assured.
So I took the loose change out of your pocket,
the gold fillings out of your mouth,
the two pennies reserved for your eyelids.

The gods demand a sacrifice, they insisted.
Of course, we nodded in unison,
jostling for the honour of being first,
taking turns jumping into the bonfire.

Unrestrained in our passion.

 

 

BIO

bruce mcraePushcart nominee Bruce McRae is a Canadian musician with over 900 poems published internationally, including Poetry.com, Rattle and The North American Review. His first book, The So-Called Sonnets is available via Silenced Press and Amazon. To see and hear more poems go to ‘BruceMcRaePoetry’ on YouTube.

 

 

 

L Vargas

Laughing Until It Becomes A Cough

by Lauren Vargas

 

The thin-lashed girl gets it,
a single spinal chill at every roadkill.
It’s not real, she repeats, picturing
a purple pig balloon that’d careened
through the sky, tangling about its
one dimensional, curly-tailed string
and fell at such high speeds that it hit
a telephone pole line, exploding ham
on either sidewalk. Waiting

and watching for a good laugh,
the kids give her a home and lodge
their popcorn kernels behind her tonsils.
She shoves a finger through her ear
to scratch the roof of her mouth, to
speak again if a loved one has been affected
by mesothelioma, legal compensation is
just around the corner. As children use their
heels to scrape sulphuric tar from the
defrosting water line and then

examine candied teeth with a
knife’s thinnest glittering edge between
waves, sweat beads accumulate on
the girl’s palms like transparent
bowling balls. She holds them out and
notices tremors. Asbestos rains down.
The kids ask her to drink fluids to cure
that dry cough but all the water is
leaving to house fishes in the dictionary.

 

 

At The Open House, My Aunt
Describes How To Deadhead

My aunt trims conversation with the real
estate agent. Mentions he might come back with a better
offer. All I ever wanted was a place to call home.
Deadheading helps the flower grow fuller, stronger, clearing her
throat with chested coughs, aunt takes cuticle
scissors to infected orchid roots hanging from slatted baskets
nailed to the mantle. Rotted tissue flutters mostly
to the wood. Careful to not slice any live stems, she issues

an apology to the dead leaves. My fingertips churn pots of fern
fiber and volcanic stone. I guide her root
before packing the surface with charcoal flakes. Now firmly
planted in the coconut shell, she emits a white
lemon aura. Her silhouette morphs. Purple fragile now, swallows
moisture from the air, and begs me to sacrifice
the bloom. Mindful of keeping her from lying in water,
I pray she’ll have room when fully grown.

 

 

Carpal Tunnel

But on a molecular level, dryness. No matter
the post-op sweat — her skin, like her emotions,
remains rubbery. To live in a white box shouldn’t cost
this much: a view of the stucco roof, its squares that
protrude from the ceiling to prop up a man in blue
who’s eating a wheat bread and jelly sandwich like
it’s the last meal. Scrubs, a patchwork of used vinyl
wristbands, collect in linoleum basements like fraud.

She drops her pendant cross in a tall glass filled
with denture solution, and hangs a row of teeth
from a silver chain around her neck. Her inability
to inflect certain vowels is as if her lungs occlude
apologies. Like the important things are slipping
away, she asks about the demon men in overalls
sitting at the foot of her bed. It’s hopeful to imagine
she’s talking about the food tray cluttering her toes.

 

 

Upon Hearing Of My Uncle’s Dog-Leash
Suicide, I Realize My Own Neck Pain

His children’s only solace
is desiccation. I say
sorry, he’s hanging around
in my mind pissing himself.
The doorframe — humor and bloat
are observed by relatives,
I hate their stiff face muscles.
Were you close to him? I’m just
asking how a two hundred
fifty pound man fits in a
small mahogany box. Voice
mail condolences begin
jarring birds from telephone
pole lines. After falling through
a cracked window, their necks thud
against marble countertops.
Chaos is the only true
family history. Home-
made soggy meat loaf leaves blood
streaks along the sink’s steel walls,
but I don’t speak because none
of this can be removed with
bleach. The oven light’s broken,
treats smell guilty. Duct taped glass-
ware fails to keep the juice in,
and cellophane bubbles up
around paper plates holding
stale brownies. I’m wondering
why a blue dog leash would kill
a man. You may be seated.

 

 

BIO

L VargasLauren Vargas is currently working towards an MFA at Queens University and is a full time writing curriculum-tutor in Southern California. She believes in the power of language and poetry. Her works have previously appeared in ElevenElevenAmpersand Literary Journal, Chinquapin Literary Journal, and CalibanOnline.

 

 

 

Amtrak

by Hannah Frishberg

 

I slept through America on a Greyhound Bus and woke up for cities I know only from 40-year-old films I’d watch on VHS tapes in my grandma’s basement, but there’s miles and miles of track between me and that musky floral plastic wrapped living room couch as thick with dust as these woods are thick with trees and cabins and boys named Washington (I imagine)

Silos round as this planet, green as algae, companies named after oceans now only so much rubble in these soupy towns churning out noodles, and I remember where I am from people are as complicated as telephone wires but here everything is muffled by moss and cars crawl by like giant ants on the freeway, crawling across the horizon as I steam through America

I stare until my vision goes fuzzy and picture Iroquois between the grass, which only lives to grow, whispering the secrets of the soil to me through dirty plate glass windows, the backside of billboards in Baltimore, this town of broken glass and baseball, smoke stacks and advertisements for things gone long before I came

Boxcars stacked like Legos, these homes are shanties, no one lives here, and you’re a million times my senior, Baltimore, but I want to kiss each broken shard of your glass till my bloody lips are a map of your windows, and be as complacent in my own decay

These cities are islands of humanity amidst the trackside wilderness, floating like the gardens of Babylon, industrial relics alight in a sea of leaves and Little League and cherry blossoms every few miles among the parked cars and baggage, among the endless tracks and train cars who alone have seen the edges of America

Land of radio towers, as vast and quiet as the open sky, endless attics and fields of green and a water tower in the distance! Blooming big and blue! A truck depot! And the clouds seem bigger. Buildings standing on three legs with little boys on top blowing kisses to the setting sun, and the boy sitting next to me, fast asleep

We’re almost there, and I can see the border of summer is clouded by rain and floating petals
sneezed into the atmosphere, in front of me like a mirage waving back as we slow down for the Last Stop All Passengers Out.

 


Danse Macabre

 

MEDICAL RELEASE: On 3-11-2004, at approximately 3:45 AM, personnel from the Kings County Emergency Care Center responded to a report of uncontrollable dancing in front of a pharmacy at 4752 Cropsey Avenue. A small crowd had gathered to watch a young woman, possessed with what was posthumously diagnosed as terminal Boogie Fever, dance her life away in the middle of the street. She’d been there for hours, one woman said, performing every Latin American dance in alphabetical order, except for when an elderly gentleman asked to mambo even though she’d only just finished the bomba. She hasn’t said a word, one boy noted, but 27 separate prescriptions have fallen from her coat pocket. Tony can’t stop tapping I think it’s contagious, a lady shrieked, corralling her children away from the scene. Witnesses verify that, in the month of February alone, the ailing female had been seen waltzing in Westchester, cha-chaing in Chinatown, swinging in Sunnyside, Lindy Hopping in Little Neck, and twerking in Tribeca. In Ozone Park, she remained on point for two weeks until her nails peeled up and rats gnawed off her toes. Two pre-med students on Staten Island measured her heart beats with a snare drum and approximated that she spun at the same rate as the world. Construction workers in Throggs Neck observed that neither thunderclaps nor wrecking balls made her miss a beat, and thus theorized she was being rocked by the City itself. It was at 5:32 AM (sunrise, exactly) that she danced herself to death, sporadic fireworks erupting from her ears as she tripped on cement in the middle of a dougie and bled out through her feet. Upon autopsy, no space could be found between the bruises on her calves, and it was discovered her brain had over oxidized on street lights. Her insides were a nasty bloody failure, her ribcage in pieces, her heart in shreds, her mind in shards. The body was too broken to be buried; instead it was cremated. At the exact moment the ashes were released into the Hudson, 36 different FM radio broadcasts across the Tri-state area were interrupted by a whispered:
Oh baby, do you wanna dance?


 

This Social Generation

 

I. Children in the time of technological revolution,
We are united in our conformity
To the blue paneled man.
We congregate on this combat zone of words,
Of suicide notes, soul-searchers, and virtual love,
To sacrifice our time
And privacy
In exchange for pixelated satisfaction.
We send our thoughts and feelings out to sea
On emoticon-ships and status updates,
Trusting the world will see
And care
About our wants and whims.
A generation lost online,
Individual personalities somewhat discernable
Between the crotch shots and the Photoshop,
The likes and the favorites,
Not flesh and blood but binary code
And computer innards.
Deleting loneliness by logging in,
The world grows larger
By becoming small enough to understand.
The exponential growth of pixels
The cancerous growth of machines
Our lives morph to fit into computer screens.
Wasting time, crossing space
The fabric of emotion unthreading into shapes.
We are natives to this electronic existence,
Fluent in its language.
We translate our dreams, translate our lives,
And feed them to the void.

II. On all fours,
The night falls back out of our mouths
As the world is filtered into colored light
And the human body decomposes into textured shapes.
Piss and blood and laughter
And that perpetual bassline
All surge and ebb with the beat of our healthy hearts.
Only we appreciate the many tiered flavor
Of a 3AM Mickey D’s cheeseburger,
The perfect smear
Of morning-after eyeliner,
The taste of a night shared with a smoker.
We treasure a day’s quirks
And never look at the bigger picture.
And though the lyrics don’t make sense
We respond to that bassline
Always the bassline
Trying to thrash out the music
Drink out the music
Forget the music,
The bassline.
God is long gone,
Heaven along with him,
And the static electricity in our bodies
Is far greater than any force in hell.
We are draped in shadows
And the night is cheering us on,
The chemicals in what we do so much stronger
Than the chemicals in what we are.
We are animals
Looking for the warmth of a whisper
The warmth of a body
With whom to share a cigarette
With whom to share these sunless hours
With whom to share this long winter.
Because it is cold
And snow is much softer
When there are two bodies in a nest.

 

 

 

 

BIO

Hannah FrishbergHannah Frishberg is a freelance writer and photographer whose work has previously appeared in the Huffington Post, Gothamist, Narratively, Curbed, Atlas Obscura, and Urban Omnibus, among others. She is a fourth generation Brooklynite and is working on a book about the Gowanus Batcave.

 

 

 

Rene Ostberg

Bioluminescent Bay

by René Ostberg

 

I want this to be easy.
Like blink and we’re there easy
think and it’s done easy
wish and you’re here.
I don’t want the involvement of any effort on my part.
Don’t bring me to the luminescence
bring the luminescence to me.
None of this waiting for a new moon
banging around in the blackness with strangers
keeping kayaks in a line
swinging paddles through the Puerto Rican deep.
They tell us:
put your hands overboard
wiggle your fingers in the water
watch the little creatures crackle to light.
Little dinos, little flagellates.
I imagine a tiny long-tailed brontosaur,
a billion of ‘em, biting my rude huge hand
defanged piranha zygotes
lost in the Caribbean. It’s a long way
from the Amazon, a long way from the Mississippi
a long way from the Mesozoic.
I imagine a shiny long-tailed comet,
just one of ‘em, igniting my rude huge planet
smashing the dinos to bits
soldering speck-sized lights into their dino DNA.
The dinosaurs never died away.
They didn’t evolve into rhinos or birds.
They colonized the Caribbean
turned the Puerto Rican tides into a star show
you can swim in.
I want this to be easy so
I do what I’m told:
put my hand overboard
wiggle my fingers in the water
watch the little creatures
the little comet bedazzled buggers
crackle and roar to light.
I’ve come a long way from the Mississippi
for this.

 

 

Aisling

 

There are no locks. There are only high sand hills
which the woman in the house would not feel safe
without. Whenever the sun shines she thinks it’s a
gift from the gods of defense. The sun turns the sand
to coals the hills to flames and no one can get over
and in without a struggle.

The house has hardly a roof. The floors are flooded
with sand so the woman hears the wind whenever
she steps. She sees trees in the dunes and the horizon
through the trees and the lake below the horizon. She
looks for prowlers on the beach and watches them
drown climbing the dunes.

One day she sees the lake and the horizon congeal
to clouds she thinks or jelled waves. Something
is coming. The clouds are beasts cows like bulls running
to land and women like warriors with white skin wild
hair whale eyes and dark stiff dresses. The horizon
churns brown. The woman in the house runs but
has no chance. The sand on the floor is not meant
for more than a pacing.

A girl in a green dress appears and dances into
a side door. The woman spins her around and steers
her out. This is no time for turning mother. The cows
have jumped the hills. The women ride on their
backs. They surround the house and call the woman
across the sand. They list her looks her eyes like
theirs her skin the same her hair an echo of
the speed that they can run. But her arms move
different waving loose like the women’s
hair and the cows’ tails.

The woman in the house gathers the men around
her the ones she never trusted the ones the hills
kept out before needing their protection. They run
to a room that rises higher than the dunes and higher
than the women astride their beasts. There are open
windows in the room. The men lean out and laugh
and push the woman ahead.

The women on the beasts beat their chests and cry
a word that the woman hears but doesn’t know. She
feels her face sharpening her body rising with a rush
of air and she starts to circle the sand hills. She chases
the men down the dunes to the lake to the beach
ravaged by the cows to the dung pits made by the beasts
while the women take the house and call the woman back
to come land on their hands.

The women stay on. The men never return. The woman
circles the land that used to be her home. She circles
most at sunset while the women watch her fly and
list her looks every time she turns to home. The beasts
prowl the dunes and watch the horizon. They have no
memory of the opposite side they only see
a sun burning the lake.

 

 

Coconut

 

A smell is not a soul. If only it were
I would have made you my wife
made your scent my mate for life.

We kissed against the wet stone walls
me leaning into you you leaning into stone
your back suffering the jabs of rock
making dents vents for your coconut scent.

Put your arms around me the scent whispered.
Trust me it told me ghosting itself around me
haloing our embrace. But your mouth
your soft speaking mouth your clutching
tongue tasted of need.
It clashed with the cigarettes I’d swallowed
soured the beer I drowned every night.
…And I never could stand the smack
of a woman’s desperation.

When we made it to a bed made our bodies bare
I melted above your smell became a ghost
of a man haloed by your arms your legs
your lips. By the time we were done
your scent made my body soft
my pores opened wide as the wounds
in your back. My drowned man’s
aroma drunk man’s
corona beer sweat
and cigarettes
unholy trio
unsoulful
so unlike
your smell
coconut.

I don’t blame you for being gone before morning.
You never could stand the smack
of a man’s desperation. You left
behind what I was after anyway. Your mouth
your soft clutching tongue your soul
your arms
your scent
a halo around me.

 

 

BIO

Rene OstbergRené Ostberg is a native Chicagoan who still resides in Illinois. She writes a blog with a travel theme called ‘Writing and Wayfaring’. Her writing and photography have been featured at Drunk Monkeys, Literary Orphans, Booma: The Bookmapping Project, Eunoia Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, We Said Go Travel, Rockwell’s Camera Phone, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica blog, among other places. You can read more of her work at reneostberg.wordpress.com.

 

 

 

Robin Wyatt Dunn poet

The Glowing Adventure

by Robin Wyatt Dunn

 

no hegemonic reserve
no final marker
no one and everyone
spent on the full valley
rhyming incessantly
pulled by the panther into the night
into our night

my night your night the night we fought:

but no matter
the light comes by the day
and the end, being closer,
grows sweeter,
your face more angry,
the light glowing:

 

 

Live at Five

 

Alive,
the rest of the end of the world,
the best of the least known chests,
skippered lightly under your blouses
& My mouse houses a world
under my bed

Tell me,
Was it you

who whispered ghosts
into my unrest
and blessed
all of my past

without my realizing it?

 

 

strange horizons*

 

we tilt with the rhythm of the hymn
locked boards seizing
thrusting
our ship like an animalcule in rain water
spinning underneath the sun.

 

 

BIO

Robin Wyatt DunnRobin Wyatt Dunn writes and teaches in Los Angeles. He’s online at robindunn.com

 

*Previously published in 1947 journal.

 

 

 

Charlie Brice poet

Variations on a Buddha Shove

by Charles Brice

 

One day while walking through the wilderness a man stumbled upon a vicious tiger. He ran but soon came to the edge of a high cliff. Below was another tiger. Desperate to save himself, he jumped, grabbed a vine, and dangled over the fatal precipice. As he hung there, two mice, one black and one white, appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing on the vine. Suddenly, he noticed a wild strawberry bush. He plucked a strawberry and popped it in his mouth. It was incredibly delicious! (traditional Zen story)

 

I. Sight

The man skids to the cliff’s ledge
After him   a tiger

He looks down
Another tiger on the canyon floor

He must jump
He jumps

Grasps a vine on the way down
Dangles on cliff’s edge

Two mice appear
One white
One black
Gnaw on the vine

Gnaw on the vine with truculence

The man spies a strawberry bush barely within reach
He grabs a strawberry
Eats it

Luscious!

II. Touch

Tiger-breath bakes his calves
Thighs simmer
Toes cramp against the ledge

Are his shoes too small?

Wind whips his body
Vine furrows bloody his palm
Thick and sticky

Rotator cuff tears   like a tooth yanked with plyers

Legs flail like a noosed man
He feels a tiger-breath chrysalis form around his body

Mice torture and twist
Like night
Like day

Pained strain for the strawberry

Tongue scrapes rough strawberry ridges
Teeth squeeze
Tingle tease

Sweet juice soulburst!

III. Sound

Paws pound the ground like bass drums
Bouncing tympani
Mothers of thunder

His wheezes asthma the forest floor

Below

Toothy pre-crunch requiem
Ravenous roar

Wind buzz
Wind whirl

Hand-skin rips like a butcher’s slice
Rotator cuff pops like a firecracker in a beer can

Lips slurp sweet strawberry nectar
Tongue-suck jails the juice

His smile sounds like a smile!

IV. Smell

Olfactory offal terror reek
Predation musk
Perfume of prey

Acrid attar of lion-breath
Smell of blood

Dust

Dirt

Torn flesh and vine stink

Strawberry scent

Aroma of here
Aroma of now!

V. Taste

Acid
Vomit
Salt
Spitless tongue

Strawberry sugarburst

Sweet saliva syrup
A little tart   but in a good way

Palate of calm!

VI. Transcendence

His world lies in a hospital bed
Her face sweaty marble

She’s not going to make it

Every vein pulses
A tsunami of dread

He’s breathless

Death after him
Death waiting for him
For us all

He leaps

Grabs

Sobs

Days into nights into days into nights into days

Thick tongue mouth sear
Dangling between panic and despair

Forty years married he
Bends towards her face
The edge of peace

He kisses her lips

Luscious!


 

Ten Paintings by Matisse

 

1. The Open Window

iron bars

2. Blue Nude

aren’t they all

3. The Conversation

strictly one-sided

4. The Painter and His Model

were one and the same

always

5. Woman with a Hat

spits at Carole Maso

steals her cahier

6. Bathers with a Turtle

those motherfuckers

he was just a turtle

out for a swim

7. Beasts of the Sea

ask Churchill

8. The Music Lesson

slap my fingers again

bitch

9. Male Nude

age 27

they found water

in his lungs

10. Luxury, Calm, and Desire

set out the juice glass

watch the bees drown

we have time

 


 

Ten Jazz Standards

 

1. I Mean You

Don’t look around
I’m talkin’ to you

2. How Insensitive

On line all day
Hoping to get offended

3. Alone Together

You thought we were friends
We weren’t

4. A Child Is Born

Every time you open your mouth

5. Come Rain Or Come Shine

You are so predictable
Liver flukes are more interesting

6. Autumn Leaves

Why won’t you

7. Take The A Train

It’s for a-holes

8. Day Dream

Any dream
Is better than listening to you

9. In A Sentimental Mood

You hated sentimentality
Something no one will ever feel for you

10. How Deep Is The Ocean

Why don’t you jump in and find out?

 

 

Tarzan In Winter, 1955

 

1.

Our living room in Cheyenne,
fifteen by ten, so large for my
five-year-old body. Two planters
at the far end of the room
filled with ivy and bougainvillea
a jungle where Tarzan protected
Jane and Boy from marauding natives,
lions, tigers, and English missionaries
who threatened with civilization
and school. In my planters
poison darts bounced off Tarzan’s chest
like tiny sticks, the natives falling to their knees
as he beat his breast in triumph.
In my jungle Tarzan tamed lions and
tigers, rode them like a rodeo cowboy;
chased missionaries who ran so fast
their safari hats flew off their heads.
Tarzan, Jane, and Boy used them for soup
bowls on cold nights in the Jungle.

2.

The drums were loud that winter. Tarzan
held up his hand when Jane asked
what they said. It was important
to get it all. The drums said the white man
had made new suns that spread poison
clouds swarming over the land. Did the drums
tell Tarzan about my white count gone crazy,
about Sandy Risha who died of leukemia
when she was twelve; all those kids who fell like ions
out of mushroom clouds? Did he fear for Boy?

3.

Tarzan watched my father wrap me
in a blanket – my ankles swollen again,
my throat sore again. They said I had Romantic
Fever. My dad’s hangover arms held me
to his scratchy face, his hands too unsteady
to shave. “It’ll be alright, Charlesy,” he said,
and carried me through the snow, to the car,
to the hospital, where nurses took my blood
every morning for six months, shoved a thermometer
up my behind every day, made me drink canned OJ,
and wouldn’t let me walk. In my five-year-old mind,
Tarzan waited for me with Jane and Boy
in my planters. He still repelled poison darts
and scared missionaries half to death.
I’d ride a lion through that hospital
one day, needles bouncing off my arms;
thermometers shooting out my butt. I’d scare
those nurses so badly their hats would fall off.
I’d tell Tarzan all about it.

 

 

BIO

Charlie BriceCharles W. Brice is a psychoanalyst and a freelance writer in Pittsburgh, PA. His poetry has appeared in The Atlanta Review, Icon, Xanadu, The Quotable, The Paterson Literary ReviewThe Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, SpitballBarbaric YawpThe Potomac, Shadow Road Quarterly, Wild Violet MagazineZ-Composition, Arsonzine, Bear River ReviewJerry Jazz Musician, and The Front Weekly. Honors: “Goodbye,” third place, 2012 Literary Life Bookstore Poetry Contest (Robert Fanning, judge); “What She Held – 1966,” Editor’s Choice, 2013 Allen Ginsburg Poetry Contest; “Michigan Icebreaker,” semifinalist, 2013 Bailey-Beads Poetry Contest, University of Pittsburgh. Charles was recently named an International Merit Award winner of the Atlanta Review’s 2015 International Poetry Competition.

 

 

 

 

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