Issue 11 November 2018
Mary Galvin, Guest Editor
Poets in this issue: Esperanza Snyder Virgil Suárez Kurt Luchs Jesse Millner Sean Sexton Maureen Seaton D. Nurkse Jane Rosenberg LaForge Lola Haskins Jeannie E. Roberts Elizabeth Jacobson Lucia Leao W.T. Pfefferle John L. Stanizzi Heikki Huotari Peycho Panev Judy Kronenfeld Sarah White Stephen Gibson Steve Klepetar Michael Brownstein Ron Reikki Al Maginnes Barry Peters
Merwin, charcoal on paper by Michael Byro
Lucia Leao
a kind of marriage
for Oswaldo Martins
the erotic poems were sent to ashes
when he died, but his wife grabbed a few
lower-case beginnings of lines becoming
dust in her eyes, but she didn’t cry
in fictional women he praised her,
and she was happy for him, for that
island of so many lakes, the imagination
she wore with him, his body
Lucia Leao is a translator and writer. Her poems have been published in Chariton Review, SoFloPoJo, and in Brazilian websites dedicated to poetry. Leao has published a collection of short stories and is co-author of a young-adult novel, both published in Portuguese, in Brazil. She has a bachelor’s degree in English and Literatures from Rio de Janeiro State University, Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), a master’s degree in Brazilian Literature from UERJ and a master’s in print journalism from University of Miami. She was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
for Oswaldo Martins
the erotic poems were sent to ashes
when he died, but his wife grabbed a few
lower-case beginnings of lines becoming
dust in her eyes, but she didn’t cry
in fictional women he praised her,
and she was happy for him, for that
island of so many lakes, the imagination
she wore with him, his body
Lucia Leao is a translator and writer. Her poems have been published in Chariton Review, SoFloPoJo, and in Brazilian websites dedicated to poetry. Leao has published a collection of short stories and is co-author of a young-adult novel, both published in Portuguese, in Brazil. She has a bachelor’s degree in English and Literatures from Rio de Janeiro State University, Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), a master’s degree in Brazilian Literature from UERJ and a master’s in print journalism from University of Miami. She was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Steve Klepetar
Swimming in the Rain
How you howled when rain
beat down and thunder roared
overhead.
You swore that lightning
crashed into a puddle
by your feet, but
that may have been a vision
or a dream.
I saw a shadow
shiver loose, a shade
of a shade torn apart by wind.
Then we were swimming in a lake
pocked by rain, with black pines
clustered around the shore.
Your mother called and called your name.
Her voice rose out of darkness as you struggled
to breathe, pulling the water toward you with your little arms.
Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Recent collections include A Landscape in Hell (Flutter Press) and Why Glass Shatters (One Sentence Chaps).
How you howled when rain
beat down and thunder roared
overhead.
You swore that lightning
crashed into a puddle
by your feet, but
that may have been a vision
or a dream.
I saw a shadow
shiver loose, a shade
of a shade torn apart by wind.
Then we were swimming in a lake
pocked by rain, with black pines
clustered around the shore.
Your mother called and called your name.
Her voice rose out of darkness as you struggled
to breathe, pulling the water toward you with your little arms.
Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Recent collections include A Landscape in Hell (Flutter Press) and Why Glass Shatters (One Sentence Chaps).
Esperanza Snyder 3 poems
Immigrant
Because before I could walk my father took me to the embassy in Bogotá
with my first black and white photograph and his own passport,
I used to say this was the only thing he ever did for me. And the best.
No, he didn’t give me Sunday mornings in church, afternoons in the park,
bedtime stories, Happy Birthday calls, wrapped Christmas presents.
From him, no family dinners, money for clothes, or food, or college.
He wasn’t there when my mother, tired of mothering,
locked me in the closet with a bag full of mangoes--I had eaten
a mango without asking--so I would learn to want less, expect less.
In Bogotá, I’d sit under the dining room table, mouth open,
sugar shaker pouring crystals straight on to my tongue. At fifteen,
not knowing what to do with me, my mother brought me here
to live, to study, and to work, so we could pay the rent. I came to this,
my new adopted country, not through a tunnel, or in an overflowing
boat, not locked in a van, but in an airplane, with a passport.
At fifteen, after school, long after I’d lost my taste for sweets,
I sold chocolates in a candy shop. When I walked home
from work at night, alone, or worse, got a ride from a man, my mother,
always distracted with problems of her own, wouldn’t ask what took
me so long. Because my US Passport was the only thing
my father left, when he left--that, and the empty drawers, empty
bank account, my mother’s empty bed, I held on to the document
and what I thought it meant: that I was loved, that I was
wanted, that I was good enough for him, for them.
Because before I could walk my father took me to the embassy in Bogotá
with my first black and white photograph and his own passport,
I used to say this was the only thing he ever did for me. And the best.
No, he didn’t give me Sunday mornings in church, afternoons in the park,
bedtime stories, Happy Birthday calls, wrapped Christmas presents.
From him, no family dinners, money for clothes, or food, or college.
He wasn’t there when my mother, tired of mothering,
locked me in the closet with a bag full of mangoes--I had eaten
a mango without asking--so I would learn to want less, expect less.
In Bogotá, I’d sit under the dining room table, mouth open,
sugar shaker pouring crystals straight on to my tongue. At fifteen,
not knowing what to do with me, my mother brought me here
to live, to study, and to work, so we could pay the rent. I came to this,
my new adopted country, not through a tunnel, or in an overflowing
boat, not locked in a van, but in an airplane, with a passport.
At fifteen, after school, long after I’d lost my taste for sweets,
I sold chocolates in a candy shop. When I walked home
from work at night, alone, or worse, got a ride from a man, my mother,
always distracted with problems of her own, wouldn’t ask what took
me so long. Because my US Passport was the only thing
my father left, when he left--that, and the empty drawers, empty
bank account, my mother’s empty bed, I held on to the document
and what I thought it meant: that I was loved, that I was
wanted, that I was good enough for him, for them.
Wings
With lines from Jack Gilbert
That May, on the airplane to Milan
my thoughts turned to leaving,
to cutting ties, lies, burning letters.
Flying into Malpensa airport
I flew into a new life, a new love.
Tuscan mornings I opened
windows to a sea of vineyards,
a sweet scent of grapes ripening,
the gentleness in me like deer
standing in the dawn mist.
Summer afternoons I took
my daughter to the pool,
watched her float in arm bands.
Chlorine on our skin, water
all around us, Petrarch’s
cypress trees lining the road,
the Tuscan sky above us,
she learned to swim her first
summer on earth. I dreamed
of giving her wings like Daedalus
gave his son. Who knew Icarus
would plunge into the sea searching
for freedom? Who knew that
after nine Tuscan summers, love
fading out of me, my thoughts
would turn to leaving, to taking
airplanes, a suitcase and a child?
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
With lines from Jack Gilbert
That May, on the airplane to Milan
my thoughts turned to leaving,
to cutting ties, lies, burning letters.
Flying into Malpensa airport
I flew into a new life, a new love.
Tuscan mornings I opened
windows to a sea of vineyards,
a sweet scent of grapes ripening,
the gentleness in me like deer
standing in the dawn mist.
Summer afternoons I took
my daughter to the pool,
watched her float in arm bands.
Chlorine on our skin, water
all around us, Petrarch’s
cypress trees lining the road,
the Tuscan sky above us,
she learned to swim her first
summer on earth. I dreamed
of giving her wings like Daedalus
gave his son. Who knew Icarus
would plunge into the sea searching
for freedom? Who knew that
after nine Tuscan summers, love
fading out of me, my thoughts
would turn to leaving, to taking
airplanes, a suitcase and a child?
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
Waiting
He was there, waiting for me in a big, beat up,
white sedan, in the cold drizzle, waiting for me
to finish selling chocolate covered cherries,
sitting in the dark, waiting for the cash register
to ring, the numbers to match, because our ages
didn’t, waiting for me to turn the key, lock up, hang
up my polyester smock. He waited to drive me home,
winter evenings, around highways, down the road,
to park. Who tied my mother’s tongue, so she
couldn’t, wouldn’t, ask, “What took so long?”
Perhaps, tired after work, she didn’t want to talk.
Years later, I learned about the winter day
he came with roses while I slept on my childhood’s
bed, how she shut the door on him, his flowers.
Esperanza Snyder was born in Colombia and lives in West Virginia. She holds degrees from the College of William and Mary, George Washington, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Manchester. Mother of three children, she is currently the assistant director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Sicily and poet laureate of Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
He was there, waiting for me in a big, beat up,
white sedan, in the cold drizzle, waiting for me
to finish selling chocolate covered cherries,
sitting in the dark, waiting for the cash register
to ring, the numbers to match, because our ages
didn’t, waiting for me to turn the key, lock up, hang
up my polyester smock. He waited to drive me home,
winter evenings, around highways, down the road,
to park. Who tied my mother’s tongue, so she
couldn’t, wouldn’t, ask, “What took so long?”
Perhaps, tired after work, she didn’t want to talk.
Years later, I learned about the winter day
he came with roses while I slept on my childhood’s
bed, how she shut the door on him, his flowers.
Esperanza Snyder was born in Colombia and lives in West Virginia. She holds degrees from the College of William and Mary, George Washington, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Manchester. Mother of three children, she is currently the assistant director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Sicily and poet laureate of Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
Virgil Suárez
The Lion Head Belt Buckle
My father bought it for me as a gift in the Madrid rastro
near where we lived, new immigrants from Cuba.
The eyes and mane carved deep into the metal, the tip of the nose
already thin with the blush of wear. My mother found a brown
leather strap and made it into a belt with enough slack and holes
to see me wearing it in Los Angeles where we landed next.
My father worked at Los Dos Toros, a meat market run by Papito,
A heavy-set man with a quick smile and when I would visit
the market after school to wait for my father to bring me home,
Papito always talked to me about baseball and his favorite
Cincinnati Reds players. It was there one of his employees,
a skinny man with deep set eyes and crow-feather black
hair would stop me in the narrow hallway by the produce tables
and grab the belt buckle and praise it. All along passing his hand
over my penis. “You are strong,” he would whisper, “like this lion.”
I would recoil from his touch and move away back to the front
where Papito would ask me about what bases I intended
to play next season on Los Cubanitos team. I never told my father,
or anyone, but the afternoon I showed up and the Fire Department
and police and ambulances huddled in the alleyway behind
Los Dos Toros, I knew something terrible had happened. Some
other kid had uttered the man’s groping and insisting on a kiss
in the almacén, the darkened storage room past the meat locker.
And another father had taken matters into his own hands.
But instead I found my father hosing the back door entrance,
washing the blood down to the alleyway. He told me to wait for him
in the car. The paramedics rolled out Papito, shot and dead on a stretcher,
victim of a hold up. The dark Cuban man who’d felt me up time
and again stood in the shade of a tree weeping and kicking the dirt
with blood encrusted shoes. I found out later he was the one who
slammed the assailant against the wall, and beat him unconscious.
Fuerte como un leon. The words fluttered like cow birds in the back
of my mind. Scattershot and ringing like the violence among the men.
Virgil Suárez is the author a multitude of books about the Cuban-American experience. His most recent collection is The Soviet Circus Comes to Havana & Other Stories. When he is not writing, he is out riding his Yamaha V-Star 1100 Classic up and down the Blue Highways of the Southeastern United States, stopping often enough to take a picture or two of abandoned places.
My father bought it for me as a gift in the Madrid rastro
near where we lived, new immigrants from Cuba.
The eyes and mane carved deep into the metal, the tip of the nose
already thin with the blush of wear. My mother found a brown
leather strap and made it into a belt with enough slack and holes
to see me wearing it in Los Angeles where we landed next.
My father worked at Los Dos Toros, a meat market run by Papito,
A heavy-set man with a quick smile and when I would visit
the market after school to wait for my father to bring me home,
Papito always talked to me about baseball and his favorite
Cincinnati Reds players. It was there one of his employees,
a skinny man with deep set eyes and crow-feather black
hair would stop me in the narrow hallway by the produce tables
and grab the belt buckle and praise it. All along passing his hand
over my penis. “You are strong,” he would whisper, “like this lion.”
I would recoil from his touch and move away back to the front
where Papito would ask me about what bases I intended
to play next season on Los Cubanitos team. I never told my father,
or anyone, but the afternoon I showed up and the Fire Department
and police and ambulances huddled in the alleyway behind
Los Dos Toros, I knew something terrible had happened. Some
other kid had uttered the man’s groping and insisting on a kiss
in the almacén, the darkened storage room past the meat locker.
And another father had taken matters into his own hands.
But instead I found my father hosing the back door entrance,
washing the blood down to the alleyway. He told me to wait for him
in the car. The paramedics rolled out Papito, shot and dead on a stretcher,
victim of a hold up. The dark Cuban man who’d felt me up time
and again stood in the shade of a tree weeping and kicking the dirt
with blood encrusted shoes. I found out later he was the one who
slammed the assailant against the wall, and beat him unconscious.
Fuerte como un leon. The words fluttered like cow birds in the back
of my mind. Scattershot and ringing like the violence among the men.
Virgil Suárez is the author a multitude of books about the Cuban-American experience. His most recent collection is The Soviet Circus Comes to Havana & Other Stories. When he is not writing, he is out riding his Yamaha V-Star 1100 Classic up and down the Blue Highways of the Southeastern United States, stopping often enough to take a picture or two of abandoned places.
Kurt Luchs
Abduction
Brad, he said his name was, the man
about 30 in a red Mustang
who offered me a ride
that summer day between 7th and 8th grade,
the Summer of Love.
Every other radio was blaring Sgt. Pepper
but Brad was tuned to the classical station.
Debussy. Satie.
He was an adult in a suit.
I said yes.
All too soon he turned the wrong way
and then again and again, fast enough
that I couldn't think of jumping out.
We stopped miles out of town
on a dirt road in a cornfield.
He couldn't look at me.
Sweat glistened on his forehead
as he spoke of what he wanted to do.
His right hand was moist too,
crawling into my lap
like a fleshy pink tarantula.
I backed against the door on the passenger side.
I told him I only liked girls.
He said that was all right, he'd pay me.
Then he started to cry,
sobbing on my shoulder, his fingers
suddenly grasping with a different need,
the need not to be hated for his need.
I realized the power had shifted in my favor.
I patted him on the back, told him
it was all right and said it was time
to go home now.
He never said another word.
I never told a soul.
What amazes me most
is that I can still enjoy Satie.
Debussy was permanently ruined.
To this day the opening notes of La Mer
make me weep, I'm not sure for whom.
Kurt Luchs has poems published or forthcoming in Into the Void, Triggerfish Critical Review, Right Hand Pointing, Roanoke Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Antiphon, Emrys Journal, and The Sun Magazine, among others, and won the 2017 Bermuda Triangle Poetry Prize. He has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. His poetry chapbook, One of These Things Is Not Like the Other, is forthcoming. More of his work, both poetry and humor, can be found at kurtluchs.com.
Brad, he said his name was, the man
about 30 in a red Mustang
who offered me a ride
that summer day between 7th and 8th grade,
the Summer of Love.
Every other radio was blaring Sgt. Pepper
but Brad was tuned to the classical station.
Debussy. Satie.
He was an adult in a suit.
I said yes.
All too soon he turned the wrong way
and then again and again, fast enough
that I couldn't think of jumping out.
We stopped miles out of town
on a dirt road in a cornfield.
He couldn't look at me.
Sweat glistened on his forehead
as he spoke of what he wanted to do.
His right hand was moist too,
crawling into my lap
like a fleshy pink tarantula.
I backed against the door on the passenger side.
I told him I only liked girls.
He said that was all right, he'd pay me.
Then he started to cry,
sobbing on my shoulder, his fingers
suddenly grasping with a different need,
the need not to be hated for his need.
I realized the power had shifted in my favor.
I patted him on the back, told him
it was all right and said it was time
to go home now.
He never said another word.
I never told a soul.
What amazes me most
is that I can still enjoy Satie.
Debussy was permanently ruined.
To this day the opening notes of La Mer
make me weep, I'm not sure for whom.
Kurt Luchs has poems published or forthcoming in Into the Void, Triggerfish Critical Review, Right Hand Pointing, Roanoke Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Antiphon, Emrys Journal, and The Sun Magazine, among others, and won the 2017 Bermuda Triangle Poetry Prize. He has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. His poetry chapbook, One of These Things Is Not Like the Other, is forthcoming. More of his work, both poetry and humor, can be found at kurtluchs.com.
Jesse Millner 2 poems
What Do Men Want?
After Kim Addonizio
I want a cherry-red 1965 Mustang
with a manual transmission.
I want to be eighteen again
driving through the streets
of a strange place I’ve never visited before.
I want it to be a small town with
one bank, a single grocery store,
and a solitary bar where all the locals
drink their nights away. I want everyone
in the tavern to be a man who’s lost something.
I want half of them to be crying into their beer.
I want the other half to be laughing
at the men who are crying—in other words,
I want realism. I want the desperation
that comes from time and booze.
I want a shot of Jim Beam, please, and give
me back those ten years I wasted working
on that oil pipeline in Nebraska. It was a cold,
shitty job. All the women I met hated me
because I always smelled like smoke and distance.
The only thing I knew to talk about
was the way the daylight retreated
from a landscape that was emptiness,
drought, dust and the hallucinations
of ghost Irishmen building a railroad, dragging
the cottonwood ties to the gravel bed
that mostly wandered west. I want
a different memory filled with carnivals
and circus clowns. I want to ride a Ferris
wheel beneath a star-pierced sky
that is so beautiful, I’ll repeat it
seven times. I want the bearded lady
to fall in love with me. I want to have
six bearded children who will become
their own show, complete with fireworks
that go off after they do that thing with the lion.
After Kim Addonizio
I want a cherry-red 1965 Mustang
with a manual transmission.
I want to be eighteen again
driving through the streets
of a strange place I’ve never visited before.
I want it to be a small town with
one bank, a single grocery store,
and a solitary bar where all the locals
drink their nights away. I want everyone
in the tavern to be a man who’s lost something.
I want half of them to be crying into their beer.
I want the other half to be laughing
at the men who are crying—in other words,
I want realism. I want the desperation
that comes from time and booze.
I want a shot of Jim Beam, please, and give
me back those ten years I wasted working
on that oil pipeline in Nebraska. It was a cold,
shitty job. All the women I met hated me
because I always smelled like smoke and distance.
The only thing I knew to talk about
was the way the daylight retreated
from a landscape that was emptiness,
drought, dust and the hallucinations
of ghost Irishmen building a railroad, dragging
the cottonwood ties to the gravel bed
that mostly wandered west. I want
a different memory filled with carnivals
and circus clowns. I want to ride a Ferris
wheel beneath a star-pierced sky
that is so beautiful, I’ll repeat it
seven times. I want the bearded lady
to fall in love with me. I want to have
six bearded children who will become
their own show, complete with fireworks
that go off after they do that thing with the lion.
The likelihood of death
when standing next to a tall slash pine in a storm can be calculated by dividing the velocity of the
lightning bolt by the total number of days you wasted in fourth grade staring at that skinny little
girl with the amazing blue eyes, which seemed to glow with the sure knowledge of another world
where maybe love was possible and the principal breakfast food was chocolate ice cream. You
can also figure out how likely you are to deliver a newborn calf by multiplying the number of
dairy farms in your state by the elevation of each farm and then dividing everything by 12.
Curious about what happens when you die? Simply put fifteen lightning bugs in a jar and ask
fifteen people if the creatures are called bugs or fireflies. The bug number becomes the
numerator and the fly number the denominator in a fraction that must be multiplied by the speed
of light.
Once you’ve reached a final answer to these questions, write it down on lilac-perfumed
stationery, buy a tractor and drive west for 59 miles, then bury the answer by the side of the road.
If, however, there is roadkill within a mile of your burial, you must fetch the dead creature and
gently bury it with your answer. Make sure you cover the grave when you’re done so that other
contestants may not cheat their way into avoiding death by lightning, delivering calves, or
discovering the truth about Heaven and Hell.
Jesse Millner’s poems and prose have appeared in River Styx, Pearl, The Prose Poem Project, Gravel, Pithead Chapel, Wraparound South, The Best American Poetry 2013 and other literary magazines. He teaches writing courses at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers.
when standing next to a tall slash pine in a storm can be calculated by dividing the velocity of the
lightning bolt by the total number of days you wasted in fourth grade staring at that skinny little
girl with the amazing blue eyes, which seemed to glow with the sure knowledge of another world
where maybe love was possible and the principal breakfast food was chocolate ice cream. You
can also figure out how likely you are to deliver a newborn calf by multiplying the number of
dairy farms in your state by the elevation of each farm and then dividing everything by 12.
Curious about what happens when you die? Simply put fifteen lightning bugs in a jar and ask
fifteen people if the creatures are called bugs or fireflies. The bug number becomes the
numerator and the fly number the denominator in a fraction that must be multiplied by the speed
of light.
Once you’ve reached a final answer to these questions, write it down on lilac-perfumed
stationery, buy a tractor and drive west for 59 miles, then bury the answer by the side of the road.
If, however, there is roadkill within a mile of your burial, you must fetch the dead creature and
gently bury it with your answer. Make sure you cover the grave when you’re done so that other
contestants may not cheat their way into avoiding death by lightning, delivering calves, or
discovering the truth about Heaven and Hell.
Jesse Millner’s poems and prose have appeared in River Styx, Pearl, The Prose Poem Project, Gravel, Pithead Chapel, Wraparound South, The Best American Poetry 2013 and other literary magazines. He teaches writing courses at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers.
Sean Sexton 4 poems
Last of the Calves
At the gate, the last of the calves
balk, turn and fly away as toward
some great wisdom, hurrying back
to the fond allure of the past,
their last suckle, perhaps— anywhere,
save through the loathsome door
just opened in the world.
The herd has crossed over, resumed its work
yet twenty truants remain, scattering
perilously as if no promise
lay beyond that brink.
Headlong they go, creatures
possessed, close to heaven
as the days they were born.
At the gate, the last of the calves
balk, turn and fly away as toward
some great wisdom, hurrying back
to the fond allure of the past,
their last suckle, perhaps— anywhere,
save through the loathsome door
just opened in the world.
The herd has crossed over, resumed its work
yet twenty truants remain, scattering
perilously as if no promise
lay beyond that brink.
Headlong they go, creatures
possessed, close to heaven
as the days they were born.
Not
After Seamus Heaney
Not the listless woods these days,
their ongoing summer song
same as the year-round sound in my head.
Not the thick, bottomless mud in gateways
difficult as winter to cross, nor
the next unbridling rain,
wrung out of any torporous hour--
dark, light, morning, night.
And not the suffocation of breath
in the thick, sunsoaked air, but you,
four years gone by September,
disappearing like a whole calf-crop one quick day,
with only us to say, you were here at all.
After Seamus Heaney
Not the listless woods these days,
their ongoing summer song
same as the year-round sound in my head.
Not the thick, bottomless mud in gateways
difficult as winter to cross, nor
the next unbridling rain,
wrung out of any torporous hour--
dark, light, morning, night.
And not the suffocation of breath
in the thick, sunsoaked air, but you,
four years gone by September,
disappearing like a whole calf-crop one quick day,
with only us to say, you were here at all.
The Barren Heifer
Today is the day, the last crimson dawn
for the barren heifer, a truck to the abattoir,
soon to arrive. Half a year she stayed,
up to her withers in feast in the set-aside
pasture, with orphans, errant bulls
a rickety cow, and others on last legs.
We drove her with an ancient, blind dam
who knew the gate, stored them together
overnight in the pens to keep her blood quiet.
She has no light, no soil within to plant.
Dinner by dinner, we’ll send her to heaven,
our bellies her path, one way or another.
Today is the day, the last crimson dawn
for the barren heifer, a truck to the abattoir,
soon to arrive. Half a year she stayed,
up to her withers in feast in the set-aside
pasture, with orphans, errant bulls
a rickety cow, and others on last legs.
We drove her with an ancient, blind dam
who knew the gate, stored them together
overnight in the pens to keep her blood quiet.
She has no light, no soil within to plant.
Dinner by dinner, we’ll send her to heaven,
our bellies her path, one way or another.
Things Found Caught in the Fence
A late April Inventory
Innumerable wisps of cow’s tails,
silken, black, tawny, and brown.
Tiny spider webs,
(tent-fashioned & occasional)
upon wire barbs.
A single white tuft of down.
Remains of the butcher bird’s quarry:
2 frogs (desiccated), a locust,
baby red rat snake, draped,
3 small beetles, dark, shiny,
all impaled—
and hollowed out.
Dew.
A buckthorn bush, privet,
and several thistles
grown up and through.
Four equal-sized, ongoing, eternal spaces,
Light.
Sean Sexton received an Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the State of Florida in 2000-2001. He is author of Blood Writing, Poems, Anhinga Press, 2009, The Empty Tomb, University of Alabama Slash Pine Press, 2014, and Descent, Yellow Jacket Press, 2018. May Darkness Restore, Poems, Press 53 is due out in early 2019. He has performed annually at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, and presented at the The Miami Book Fair International, O' Miami, and Other Words Arts Literary Conference in Tampa, FL. On Sept 1, 2016, He became the inaugural Poet Laureate of Indian River County.
A late April Inventory
Innumerable wisps of cow’s tails,
silken, black, tawny, and brown.
Tiny spider webs,
(tent-fashioned & occasional)
upon wire barbs.
A single white tuft of down.
Remains of the butcher bird’s quarry:
2 frogs (desiccated), a locust,
baby red rat snake, draped,
3 small beetles, dark, shiny,
all impaled—
and hollowed out.
Dew.
A buckthorn bush, privet,
and several thistles
grown up and through.
Four equal-sized, ongoing, eternal spaces,
Light.
Sean Sexton received an Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the State of Florida in 2000-2001. He is author of Blood Writing, Poems, Anhinga Press, 2009, The Empty Tomb, University of Alabama Slash Pine Press, 2014, and Descent, Yellow Jacket Press, 2018. May Darkness Restore, Poems, Press 53 is due out in early 2019. He has performed annually at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, and presented at the The Miami Book Fair International, O' Miami, and Other Words Arts Literary Conference in Tampa, FL. On Sept 1, 2016, He became the inaugural Poet Laureate of Indian River County.
Maureen Seaton 2 poems
A Pod of Whales
for L
A person can die of night terrors—right there in the middle of sleep, their hearts might stop, you
say, as if I don’t believe you. Sometimes you dream so loud your life flashes before my eyes,
your screams raise ghost stories. Against my will, I am your wide-eyed witness. It’s been years
since we slept spooned and cozy, and I’ve almost forgotten I miss you. Still, I would go back to
your race-betrayed American past and keep you safe from all the things a child should never
have to see. You’d snore like any tired soul wrapped warm beside me, wake up yawning. Now a
pod of pilot whales is stranded in shallows off the coast of Florida. They’ll die together, it’s true,
as the pod will never abandon its wounded. Who can reconcile this cuspy hold on life, who sleep
through the crescendo of hearts stopping?
for L
A person can die of night terrors—right there in the middle of sleep, their hearts might stop, you
say, as if I don’t believe you. Sometimes you dream so loud your life flashes before my eyes,
your screams raise ghost stories. Against my will, I am your wide-eyed witness. It’s been years
since we slept spooned and cozy, and I’ve almost forgotten I miss you. Still, I would go back to
your race-betrayed American past and keep you safe from all the things a child should never
have to see. You’d snore like any tired soul wrapped warm beside me, wake up yawning. Now a
pod of pilot whales is stranded in shallows off the coast of Florida. They’ll die together, it’s true,
as the pod will never abandon its wounded. Who can reconcile this cuspy hold on life, who sleep
through the crescendo of hearts stopping?
Jesus on the Beach
Because I lived on the beach in what some folks call old Florida, there were a fair number of
ponytailed guys in the neighborhood who resembled Jesus. One, in particular, drove a pick-up
and loved animals, even beach cats. I don’t know if my neighbor, Pete, was a poet or not. He
looked like a middle-aged, hard-drugging Jesus to me, so he could have been. We said hi to each
other most evenings, and if a hurricane came along, I knew he’d share his canned chili and Easy
Cheese with me. One weekend he parked his truck crooked to keep tourists out of our little lot
and he blocked my space by accident. When I politely tapped on his door to ask him to move his
truck, he yelled from the shower: Park on the goddamn grass, asshole. His wife found him dead
the next day on the bathroom floor. He was shaving, she said, and he just keeled over. Jesus, I
said to myself.
Maureen Seaton has authored twenty poetry collections, both solo and collaborative. Her awards include the Iowa Poetry Prize and Lambda Literary Award, an NEA fellowship and the Pushcart. Her memoir, Sex Talks to Girls (U. of Wisconsin Press), also garnered a Lammy. A new poetry collection, Fisher, is out from Black Lawrence Press and a new anthology, Reading Queer: Poetry in a Time of Chaos, co-edited with Neil de la Flor, is out from Anhinga Press. Seaton teaches Creative Writing at the University of Miami, Florida.
Because I lived on the beach in what some folks call old Florida, there were a fair number of
ponytailed guys in the neighborhood who resembled Jesus. One, in particular, drove a pick-up
and loved animals, even beach cats. I don’t know if my neighbor, Pete, was a poet or not. He
looked like a middle-aged, hard-drugging Jesus to me, so he could have been. We said hi to each
other most evenings, and if a hurricane came along, I knew he’d share his canned chili and Easy
Cheese with me. One weekend he parked his truck crooked to keep tourists out of our little lot
and he blocked my space by accident. When I politely tapped on his door to ask him to move his
truck, he yelled from the shower: Park on the goddamn grass, asshole. His wife found him dead
the next day on the bathroom floor. He was shaving, she said, and he just keeled over. Jesus, I
said to myself.
Maureen Seaton has authored twenty poetry collections, both solo and collaborative. Her awards include the Iowa Poetry Prize and Lambda Literary Award, an NEA fellowship and the Pushcart. Her memoir, Sex Talks to Girls (U. of Wisconsin Press), also garnered a Lammy. A new poetry collection, Fisher, is out from Black Lawrence Press and a new anthology, Reading Queer: Poetry in a Time of Chaos, co-edited with Neil de la Flor, is out from Anhinga Press. Seaton teaches Creative Writing at the University of Miami, Florida.
D. Nurkse 3 poems
The Old One
When you were a child, you were afraid of dying. You asked your mother, exactly how is it like going to sleep? The fly who tucks its legs against its chest–-what does it do next? The room was bright though the blinds were drawn. Your mother rocked you and cried softly. You could barely
hear her sniffle, but you licked a dab of salt.
Swiftly you came of age. You told your lover, I won’t know how to leave you. She unhooked her pleated skirt and lay beside you. She stroked your hair. Reaching over, you felt her amber pendant, strangely warm for a mineral, almost moist. Her calm breath soothed you.
Now it’s death you meet. You say, I’m not so sure anymore, and he cries. He undresses and lies beside you. His tears are pungent, but he’s old himself. In a moment he’ll want to piss. He’ll long for a cigarette, a sprig of grapes, news of Kaunas. His big toe will itch. His femur will throb. He’ll miss the friends of his boyhood, Michael and little Gabriel, the smoky taste of kielbasa, the lilt of a village lullaby.
He’s bawling now, but in an hour he won’t remember why he came into the room.
When you were a child, you were afraid of dying. You asked your mother, exactly how is it like going to sleep? The fly who tucks its legs against its chest–-what does it do next? The room was bright though the blinds were drawn. Your mother rocked you and cried softly. You could barely
hear her sniffle, but you licked a dab of salt.
Swiftly you came of age. You told your lover, I won’t know how to leave you. She unhooked her pleated skirt and lay beside you. She stroked your hair. Reaching over, you felt her amber pendant, strangely warm for a mineral, almost moist. Her calm breath soothed you.
Now it’s death you meet. You say, I’m not so sure anymore, and he cries. He undresses and lies beside you. His tears are pungent, but he’s old himself. In a moment he’ll want to piss. He’ll long for a cigarette, a sprig of grapes, news of Kaunas. His big toe will itch. His femur will throb. He’ll miss the friends of his boyhood, Michael and little Gabriel, the smoky taste of kielbasa, the lilt of a village lullaby.
He’s bawling now, but in an hour he won’t remember why he came into the room.
A Second Of Happiness
When we were children, she says, how we wanted to be old-–to walk with exciting buckling canes, to be swathed in trusses and bandages, to bump into each other mouthing excuse me, to lap up liquid food, as a moment ago, when we were babies.
Perhaps then, we thought, we would look back, and see happiness, burning like a fire in the mountains.
When we were lovers, she says, how we longed to be parted, to live in distant cities, Duluth and Vancouver, under assumed names, working nights in the central post office, or as shipping clerks in huge factories.
Perhaps there would come an instant, a split-second, a final blink, when we would look back and understand happiness, that consumes everything.
After surgery, she says, how I hoped to live forever, though all I meant by that was: another second.
Another drop pearls in the spigot. The blind dog hunts in a dream.
When we were children, she says, how we wanted to be old-–to walk with exciting buckling canes, to be swathed in trusses and bandages, to bump into each other mouthing excuse me, to lap up liquid food, as a moment ago, when we were babies.
Perhaps then, we thought, we would look back, and see happiness, burning like a fire in the mountains.
When we were lovers, she says, how we longed to be parted, to live in distant cities, Duluth and Vancouver, under assumed names, working nights in the central post office, or as shipping clerks in huge factories.
Perhaps there would come an instant, a split-second, a final blink, when we would look back and understand happiness, that consumes everything.
After surgery, she says, how I hoped to live forever, though all I meant by that was: another second.
Another drop pearls in the spigot. The blind dog hunts in a dream.
Twilight
The child is hiding in the pear orchard and I shout her name but she doesn’t budge or rustle. Or if she does, it’s because all leaves flinch, tremble, and cough. Anything less would be suspicious.
But I know it’s crazy laughter, suppressed to the limit of human strength, that makes a scritch like a vole’s tail brushing marl.
Almost-relief that she doesn’t amble out, hiccuping, examining her thumbnail critically. Perhaps she’s helpless against my will.
The previous owner nailed a ladder to a fuzzy trunk, and buckets in the forked branches, in the summer before the first storms. Bottoms are rusted out, a rung is missing. Here’s the red handle of a shears, the blade is a crease in moss.
A cat sidles from the thicket, annoyed at the commotion. A familiar slouch: is that Twilight?
But you know how people resemble each other? Mr. Pogue and Arthur Perlo? Dr. Platt with his plaid earmuffs and the nameless librarian? How Tuesday is like Thursday? As if there were a template they all vie to fit? This cat too is the same but different: gray mark on one haunch. Tattered ear, where the original had no ear. But the identical contemptuous yawn.
Peraps I should just be calling: Child! Child!
When I turn back to the porch, the laughter, meaning the silence, will intensify. Time to turn up the wick in the oil lamp, set the table, find a match for the citronella candle, cut the bread and pour the sticky wine. But all my gestures are double. I’m miming myself. To amaze you with your boredom, there where you watch, in the halo of bees.
D. Nurkse's eleventh poetry collection, Love in the Last Days, was published by Knopf in 2017.
The child is hiding in the pear orchard and I shout her name but she doesn’t budge or rustle. Or if she does, it’s because all leaves flinch, tremble, and cough. Anything less would be suspicious.
But I know it’s crazy laughter, suppressed to the limit of human strength, that makes a scritch like a vole’s tail brushing marl.
Almost-relief that she doesn’t amble out, hiccuping, examining her thumbnail critically. Perhaps she’s helpless against my will.
The previous owner nailed a ladder to a fuzzy trunk, and buckets in the forked branches, in the summer before the first storms. Bottoms are rusted out, a rung is missing. Here’s the red handle of a shears, the blade is a crease in moss.
A cat sidles from the thicket, annoyed at the commotion. A familiar slouch: is that Twilight?
But you know how people resemble each other? Mr. Pogue and Arthur Perlo? Dr. Platt with his plaid earmuffs and the nameless librarian? How Tuesday is like Thursday? As if there were a template they all vie to fit? This cat too is the same but different: gray mark on one haunch. Tattered ear, where the original had no ear. But the identical contemptuous yawn.
Peraps I should just be calling: Child! Child!
When I turn back to the porch, the laughter, meaning the silence, will intensify. Time to turn up the wick in the oil lamp, set the table, find a match for the citronella candle, cut the bread and pour the sticky wine. But all my gestures are double. I’m miming myself. To amaze you with your boredom, there where you watch, in the halo of bees.
D. Nurkse's eleventh poetry collection, Love in the Last Days, was published by Knopf in 2017.
Jane Rosenberg LaForge
Defect
By the time they identified
the flaw, a tilt
of the hips
as though you were
temporarily itching
a scratch you did not
ever wish to see,
it was too late
for braces, for relearning
the basics, the un-plaiting
of muscles determined to hold on
to this mistake
terminally. To make it
natural, when it wasn’t;
to make it like so many
other failings
that didn’t make for special
notice. That was never
the family style.
The spine can be tricky,
just as synapses are over-bunched
as blossoms fighting for dominance,
the weaker shielded
from nourishment,
like a twin that dies
in uterine grief.
Now that you are older
and can no longer contain
these errors in public;
that they impede your operation
and appearance as if you were mechanical
and wanting for maintenance;
and for years of coping
you are blameful,
lacking remorse for
this lurch and slide,
the overcompensation for something
you thought somatic,
but time has made it real
if still not relevant enough
for true service
and suffering.
Jane Rosenberg LaForge lives in New York. She is a novelist, poet, and memoirist, having most recently published The Hawkman: A Fairy Tale of the Great War (Amberjack Publishing); Daphne and Her Discontents (Ravenna Press); and An Unsuitable Princess: A True Fantasy/A Fantastical Memoir (Jaded Ibis Press). Her poetry has most recently appeared in Peacock Journal, Counterclock and Poets Reading the News.
By the time they identified
the flaw, a tilt
of the hips
as though you were
temporarily itching
a scratch you did not
ever wish to see,
it was too late
for braces, for relearning
the basics, the un-plaiting
of muscles determined to hold on
to this mistake
terminally. To make it
natural, when it wasn’t;
to make it like so many
other failings
that didn’t make for special
notice. That was never
the family style.
The spine can be tricky,
just as synapses are over-bunched
as blossoms fighting for dominance,
the weaker shielded
from nourishment,
like a twin that dies
in uterine grief.
Now that you are older
and can no longer contain
these errors in public;
that they impede your operation
and appearance as if you were mechanical
and wanting for maintenance;
and for years of coping
you are blameful,
lacking remorse for
this lurch and slide,
the overcompensation for something
you thought somatic,
but time has made it real
if still not relevant enough
for true service
and suffering.
Jane Rosenberg LaForge lives in New York. She is a novelist, poet, and memoirist, having most recently published The Hawkman: A Fairy Tale of the Great War (Amberjack Publishing); Daphne and Her Discontents (Ravenna Press); and An Unsuitable Princess: A True Fantasy/A Fantastical Memoir (Jaded Ibis Press). Her poetry has most recently appeared in Peacock Journal, Counterclock and Poets Reading the News.
Lola Haskins 3 poems
The Second Through Fourth Grades Put on We Haz Jazz.
Lydia, in a glittery red dress
lugs her bass on stage
and stands in front
of the cardboard piano.
The other kids—the girls
in pumps and pastel gowns,
azaleas wilting in their hair,
the suited flat—capped boys--
belt out Paper Moon
while Lydia plucks.
Her instrument is bigger
than she is. Her instrument
will always be bigger than she is.
Lydia, in a glittery red dress
lugs her bass on stage
and stands in front
of the cardboard piano.
The other kids—the girls
in pumps and pastel gowns,
azaleas wilting in their hair,
the suited flat—capped boys--
belt out Paper Moon
while Lydia plucks.
Her instrument is bigger
than she is. Her instrument
will always be bigger than she is.
Redemption
When the sky turns blue I'm drawn to look beyond it but every time
I try, the fog rolls in off the Golden Gate again. And my first love
jumps again and is scattered on the gray waves again like the
flowers people throw from boats. And I walk the fire road again to
where the dark pines open to hills smeared with red. And I take the
turn up at the fork as I always have, because I know the other way
leads to where I don't belong.
When the fog rolls away, everything that used to be there is gone.
No house on Vallejo Street, no back door whose chain rattled every
night at three after the caller I never saw had hung up. No police
dog, baring his teeth in the yard. But the story isn't over because
what's left is no protection against last year's man who said he
loved me then night after night idled his car in my driveway in the
dark then knocked my mailbox off its post- it fell like a punched
child—and finally broke into my garage and took what he'd wanted
all along-- not my bicycle but boxes and boxes of my self. I can
still see my faces on the backs of those books, burning. He must
have enjoyed watching each tiny image, each witch, curl and turn to
ash. He must have warmed his hands over the fire.
The sky is blue again and far above the woods an eagle crosses.
When the sky turns blue I'm drawn to look beyond it but every time
I try, the fog rolls in off the Golden Gate again. And my first love
jumps again and is scattered on the gray waves again like the
flowers people throw from boats. And I walk the fire road again to
where the dark pines open to hills smeared with red. And I take the
turn up at the fork as I always have, because I know the other way
leads to where I don't belong.
When the fog rolls away, everything that used to be there is gone.
No house on Vallejo Street, no back door whose chain rattled every
night at three after the caller I never saw had hung up. No police
dog, baring his teeth in the yard. But the story isn't over because
what's left is no protection against last year's man who said he
loved me then night after night idled his car in my driveway in the
dark then knocked my mailbox off its post- it fell like a punched
child—and finally broke into my garage and took what he'd wanted
all along-- not my bicycle but boxes and boxes of my self. I can
still see my faces on the backs of those books, burning. He must
have enjoyed watching each tiny image, each witch, curl and turn to
ash. He must have warmed his hands over the fire.
The sky is blue again and far above the woods an eagle crosses.
Across the Tops
our path runs narrow through heather whose purple
sprigs, being September's, are mixed with brown. A
bleak sacramental wind cleans us for Rhylstone Cross
and the miles that may remain to us under this dark-
gray roiling sky whose blue patches open and close in
a blink. May no step we take go unnoticed, may we
mark the whirr and complaint of each flushed grouse,
and may we glory in the cold forever, for it is the cold
of the sea, which is grass and heather and birds and
sky, and most of all the breaking light that gleams,
wild and holy, in our eyes.
Lola Haskins divides her time between Gainesville and North Yorkshire. Her newest collection, Asylum, oriented around the states of mind of John Clare, is due from Pitt in Spring, 2019. The book before that, How Small, Confronting Morning (Jacar, 2016), was plein air poetry set in inland Florida. She currently serves as Honorary Chancellor for the Florida State Poets Association. Past honors include the Iowa Poetry Prize, two NEAs, two Florida Book Awards, and the Emily Dickinson prize from Poetry Society of America. For more information, please visit her at www.lolahaskins.com.
our path runs narrow through heather whose purple
sprigs, being September's, are mixed with brown. A
bleak sacramental wind cleans us for Rhylstone Cross
and the miles that may remain to us under this dark-
gray roiling sky whose blue patches open and close in
a blink. May no step we take go unnoticed, may we
mark the whirr and complaint of each flushed grouse,
and may we glory in the cold forever, for it is the cold
of the sea, which is grass and heather and birds and
sky, and most of all the breaking light that gleams,
wild and holy, in our eyes.
Lola Haskins divides her time between Gainesville and North Yorkshire. Her newest collection, Asylum, oriented around the states of mind of John Clare, is due from Pitt in Spring, 2019. The book before that, How Small, Confronting Morning (Jacar, 2016), was plein air poetry set in inland Florida. She currently serves as Honorary Chancellor for the Florida State Poets Association. Past honors include the Iowa Poetry Prize, two NEAs, two Florida Book Awards, and the Emily Dickinson prize from Poetry Society of America. For more information, please visit her at www.lolahaskins.com.
Jeannie E. Roberts
Awaken
—After Gretchen Marquette’s poem “What We Will Love with the Time We Have Left”
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.” —Rumi
When we awaken, we may celebrate steam rising, the first sips of sunrise
where lake ice yawns neutrals, breaks white. The clarity of cold, its frozen
stillness. Constellations. The burning trail of stars. Hats. Scarves. Handmade
mittens. Bundles of children laughing, shaping angels in snow.
Maples, lindens, and oaks. Landscapes of lemon and scarlet, vermillion.
The tangle of understory, where mice skitter and stumps rot. The fragrance
of decay. Well-worn work gloves. Bamboo rakes. The muscular ache
of outdoor chores. Bonfires fueled with autumn’s leavings. Marshmallows,
their molten centers. The drip and stickiness of caramel apples. The small
softness of your child’s hand. Each step taken as you walk through alfalfa
fields. Clouds. The meadow where you lay dreaming, imagining dogs,
dragons, and dinosaurs. Plants, their power to grow, flourish between
concrete cracks. The green alignment of crops and pines, rural symmetry.
The squirrel drinking from backyard birdbaths, the tall dog following suit.
Crystals forming after hot coffee is poured over ice cream, the dissolving
texture that sweetens our lips. The sparkle of July in children’s eyes.
The scent of fresh starts. Lilacs blossoming. Buds burgeoning. The beating
of grouse. Swallowtails sailing midst maidenhair ferns. Rivers. Flood-beaten
banks. Haphazard heaps of driftwood. The surface glide of water striders.
The backward dance of crayfish. The call and commotion of American cliff
swallows. Precisely-made-mud nests. Bogs, peepers, and pollywogs. Youth,
and its bringing on. Age, and its letting go. The beauty of imperfection.
The gifts of brokenness. Poems, knowing that the breeze at dawn has secrets
to tell us.
Jeannie E. Roberts lives in an inspiring setting near Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, where she writes, draws and paints, and often photographs her natural surroundings. She has authored four poetry collections, including the most recent The Wingspan of Things (Dancing Girl Press, 2017).
—After Gretchen Marquette’s poem “What We Will Love with the Time We Have Left”
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.” —Rumi
When we awaken, we may celebrate steam rising, the first sips of sunrise
where lake ice yawns neutrals, breaks white. The clarity of cold, its frozen
stillness. Constellations. The burning trail of stars. Hats. Scarves. Handmade
mittens. Bundles of children laughing, shaping angels in snow.
Maples, lindens, and oaks. Landscapes of lemon and scarlet, vermillion.
The tangle of understory, where mice skitter and stumps rot. The fragrance
of decay. Well-worn work gloves. Bamboo rakes. The muscular ache
of outdoor chores. Bonfires fueled with autumn’s leavings. Marshmallows,
their molten centers. The drip and stickiness of caramel apples. The small
softness of your child’s hand. Each step taken as you walk through alfalfa
fields. Clouds. The meadow where you lay dreaming, imagining dogs,
dragons, and dinosaurs. Plants, their power to grow, flourish between
concrete cracks. The green alignment of crops and pines, rural symmetry.
The squirrel drinking from backyard birdbaths, the tall dog following suit.
Crystals forming after hot coffee is poured over ice cream, the dissolving
texture that sweetens our lips. The sparkle of July in children’s eyes.
The scent of fresh starts. Lilacs blossoming. Buds burgeoning. The beating
of grouse. Swallowtails sailing midst maidenhair ferns. Rivers. Flood-beaten
banks. Haphazard heaps of driftwood. The surface glide of water striders.
The backward dance of crayfish. The call and commotion of American cliff
swallows. Precisely-made-mud nests. Bogs, peepers, and pollywogs. Youth,
and its bringing on. Age, and its letting go. The beauty of imperfection.
The gifts of brokenness. Poems, knowing that the breeze at dawn has secrets
to tell us.
Jeannie E. Roberts lives in an inspiring setting near Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, where she writes, draws and paints, and often photographs her natural surroundings. She has authored four poetry collections, including the most recent The Wingspan of Things (Dancing Girl Press, 2017).
Elizabeth Jacobson 3 poems
Melancholia
Completely unsheathed, a frangipani
besides a fence, facing a river.
The fragility of bare finger-like tips.
The tender scaled boughs.
In the absence of leaves, leaves sprout forth.
In the absence of nectar, a sphinx moth
appears. Frangipani. Your aromatic selves,
when they bloom— each one
a love poem; each one a hoax.
Completely unsheathed, a frangipani
besides a fence, facing a river.
The fragility of bare finger-like tips.
The tender scaled boughs.
In the absence of leaves, leaves sprout forth.
In the absence of nectar, a sphinx moth
appears. Frangipani. Your aromatic selves,
when they bloom— each one
a love poem; each one a hoax.
Hottest Year on Record
Long Marriage
I have about 1000 postcard stamps, she says,
as his hand lifts her pajama shirt,
slides down her spine.
Oh, that feels good, she says, tucking a pillow between her legs, can you rub this hip?
I went to the post office yesterday and bought more by mistake, she says.
What? he says, pulling her closer, moving his hand across the small of her back.
And I cut my finger on the metal tab while closing the envelope I was mailing.
Look, she says, turning and placing her finger in his mouth.
Ooo, he says.
I organized all the stamps, by the way, she says.
I put them in one of those free parchment envelopes
with the postal service eagle head.
He slips his fingers lower, into her moistness.
Ummm, she says. I’ve got to get up.
Because they did it a few mornings last week,
he thinks they are going to do it every morning now.
That’s good, she says, but I’ve really got to get up.
I need to make coffee.
Just relax, he says, kissing behind her ears,
shifting her shoulders and pressing her into the pillows.
She looks up at him, his eyes are wide open.
The loose skin on his face pulled down by gravity.
They are more sensitive now than when they were younger.
The membranes a little thinner,
their nerve endings more fine-tuned.
Elizabeth Jacobson is the author of Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air, winner of the New Measure Poetry Prize, selected by Marianne Boruch, Parlor Press, 2019. Are the Children Make Believe?, a chapbook, was recently published by dancing girl press. New poems are forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, On The Seawall, Plume, Terrain and Vox Populi. She lives in Santa Fe, NM and directs the WingSpan Poetry Project.
I have about 1000 postcard stamps, she says,
as his hand lifts her pajama shirt,
slides down her spine.
Oh, that feels good, she says, tucking a pillow between her legs, can you rub this hip?
I went to the post office yesterday and bought more by mistake, she says.
What? he says, pulling her closer, moving his hand across the small of her back.
And I cut my finger on the metal tab while closing the envelope I was mailing.
Look, she says, turning and placing her finger in his mouth.
Ooo, he says.
I organized all the stamps, by the way, she says.
I put them in one of those free parchment envelopes
with the postal service eagle head.
He slips his fingers lower, into her moistness.
Ummm, she says. I’ve got to get up.
Because they did it a few mornings last week,
he thinks they are going to do it every morning now.
That’s good, she says, but I’ve really got to get up.
I need to make coffee.
Just relax, he says, kissing behind her ears,
shifting her shoulders and pressing her into the pillows.
She looks up at him, his eyes are wide open.
The loose skin on his face pulled down by gravity.
They are more sensitive now than when they were younger.
The membranes a little thinner,
their nerve endings more fine-tuned.
Elizabeth Jacobson is the author of Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air, winner of the New Measure Poetry Prize, selected by Marianne Boruch, Parlor Press, 2019. Are the Children Make Believe?, a chapbook, was recently published by dancing girl press. New poems are forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, On The Seawall, Plume, Terrain and Vox Populi. She lives in Santa Fe, NM and directs the WingSpan Poetry Project.
Lucia Leao 2 poems
a kind of marriage
for Oswaldo Martins
the erotic poems were sent to ashes
when he died, but his wife grabbed a few
lower-case beginnings of lines becoming
dust in her eyes, but she didn’t cry
in fictional women he praised her,
and she was happy for him, for that
island of so many lakes, the imagination
she wore with him, his body
for Oswaldo Martins
the erotic poems were sent to ashes
when he died, but his wife grabbed a few
lower-case beginnings of lines becoming
dust in her eyes, but she didn’t cry
in fictional women he praised her,
and she was happy for him, for that
island of so many lakes, the imagination
she wore with him, his body
the simple visibility of the sea
is a curse
of course I know
the moment you arrive
you are already gone.
I call you my identity not
Caribbean not
European not,
the knot the hinge
this land where I insist.
Lucia Leao is a translator and writer. Her poems have been published in Chariton Review, SoFloPoJo, and in Brazilian websites dedicated to poetry. Leao has published a collection of short stories and is co-author of a young-adult novel, both published in Portuguese, in Brazil. She has a bachelor’s degree in English and Literatures from Rio de Janeiro State University, Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), a master’s degree in Brazilian Literature from UERJ and a master’s in print journalism from University of Miami. She was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
is a curse
of course I know
the moment you arrive
you are already gone.
I call you my identity not
Caribbean not
European not,
the knot the hinge
this land where I insist.
Lucia Leao is a translator and writer. Her poems have been published in Chariton Review, SoFloPoJo, and in Brazilian websites dedicated to poetry. Leao has published a collection of short stories and is co-author of a young-adult novel, both published in Portuguese, in Brazil. She has a bachelor’s degree in English and Literatures from Rio de Janeiro State University, Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), a master’s degree in Brazilian Literature from UERJ and a master’s in print journalism from University of Miami. She was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
W.T. Pfefferle 2 poems
Breathing
My daughter puffs
at me, puffs out her cheeks
when she’s mad. Puffs of dust
as she runs out of the yard.
She collapses in autumn
in my wife’s arms, and we
take her to the hospital
when her skin goes white then blue.
She is last born, stubborn,
the one we think of as a runt.
She thinks she’s the leader of
the pack, the one who will get
out of Wisconsin before the rest of us.
She winces to life when the doctor
puts the needle between her ribs,
when he blows air through a plastic hose.
Later, she rides home in back, a little inhaler
in her fist, her instructions to use it
and to slow down. I see her grimace
down at it. She puts it in a blue jeans pocket
when we hit the driveway. She runs across
the yard, up a tree. I see her take a puff,
put the damn thing away again,
and look out across the field,
south and west and away from here.
My daughter puffs
at me, puffs out her cheeks
when she’s mad. Puffs of dust
as she runs out of the yard.
She collapses in autumn
in my wife’s arms, and we
take her to the hospital
when her skin goes white then blue.
She is last born, stubborn,
the one we think of as a runt.
She thinks she’s the leader of
the pack, the one who will get
out of Wisconsin before the rest of us.
She winces to life when the doctor
puts the needle between her ribs,
when he blows air through a plastic hose.
Later, she rides home in back, a little inhaler
in her fist, her instructions to use it
and to slow down. I see her grimace
down at it. She puts it in a blue jeans pocket
when we hit the driveway. She runs across
the yard, up a tree. I see her take a puff,
put the damn thing away again,
and look out across the field,
south and west and away from here.
Tuscaloosa
Walter at the Tuscaloosa Greyhound station
tells me that Jupiter will fill the sky tonight.
He says that it’s been 500 years since it’s happened,
and that the best time to see it is at midnight.
He draws a circle with his finger in the air, the size of an apple,
and says, “It’ll be shiny and red if you look at it through a scope.”
A girl who bolted and left without paying, peers through the window,
motioning to us. She’s left her keys behind.
Walter picks them up, spins the ring around his finger.
“Come and get ‘em,” he mouths to the girl.
Later, at midnight, I sit on the bench out front of the station.
I don’t see anything in the sky over Tuscaloosa.
It’s just dark up there. Just inky.
Walter caught his bus. And I’ve got the keys.
W.T. Pfefferle is the author of The Meager Life and Modest Times of Pop Thorndale, My Coolest Shirt, and Poets on Place. His poems are in Antioch Review, Connecticut Review, Gargoyle Magazine, Georgetown Review, Greensboro Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Indiana Review, Mississippi Review, New Orleans Review, Nimrod, North American Review, Ohio Review, South Carolina Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and others.
Walter at the Tuscaloosa Greyhound station
tells me that Jupiter will fill the sky tonight.
He says that it’s been 500 years since it’s happened,
and that the best time to see it is at midnight.
He draws a circle with his finger in the air, the size of an apple,
and says, “It’ll be shiny and red if you look at it through a scope.”
A girl who bolted and left without paying, peers through the window,
motioning to us. She’s left her keys behind.
Walter picks them up, spins the ring around his finger.
“Come and get ‘em,” he mouths to the girl.
Later, at midnight, I sit on the bench out front of the station.
I don’t see anything in the sky over Tuscaloosa.
It’s just dark up there. Just inky.
Walter caught his bus. And I’ve got the keys.
W.T. Pfefferle is the author of The Meager Life and Modest Times of Pop Thorndale, My Coolest Shirt, and Poets on Place. His poems are in Antioch Review, Connecticut Review, Gargoyle Magazine, Georgetown Review, Greensboro Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Indiana Review, Mississippi Review, New Orleans Review, Nimrod, North American Review, Ohio Review, South Carolina Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and others.
John L. Stanizzi 2 poems
Phonebooth
I found one of the phonebooths I used to call you from 40 years ago. It was in the white room of
a museum, not connected to anything. It was just a “piece.” When no one was looking I rushed inside
and called you. When you answered I couldn’t speak.
I found one of the phonebooths I used to call you from 40 years ago. It was in the white room of
a museum, not connected to anything. It was just a “piece.” When no one was looking I rushed inside
and called you. When you answered I couldn’t speak.
It’s Not the Heat…
Humidity is fatigue, a scrim, that which holds the trees down by their shoulders or
shakes them, fills shadows with fat, bloats bark, prompts birdsong to echo, frogs to stillness
in warm shallows, and when rain comes, humid air breaks into pieces, and fills
each droplet with a tiny cloud.
John L. Stanizzi is author of the full-length collections Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, and High Tide – Ebb Tide. His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, Rust & Moth, Connecticut River Review, Hawk & Handsaw, and others. He teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, CT and he lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry.
Humidity is fatigue, a scrim, that which holds the trees down by their shoulders or
shakes them, fills shadows with fat, bloats bark, prompts birdsong to echo, frogs to stillness
in warm shallows, and when rain comes, humid air breaks into pieces, and fills
each droplet with a tiny cloud.
John L. Stanizzi is author of the full-length collections Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, and High Tide – Ebb Tide. His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, Rust & Moth, Connecticut River Review, Hawk & Handsaw, and others. He teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, CT and he lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry.
Heikki Huotari 3 poems
Improbable Cause
An ill-fitting lid omits a crescent.
An improper moon rolls out
a pale green tentacle
on every board of every floor.
The visitor to earth asserts,
That's one bad axis of rotation
and one incidental anthropocene epoch.
Posing or not for Picasso,
posing or not as Picasso,
I have both eyes on one side
and the one quirk or cause I have
has probability no greater than point five.
So if birds do it both sides do it.
So to be a tow truck is
to be a tow truck being towed.
The submachine gun that you showed off
was no submachine gun
and it wasn't even loaded.
So the joke's on me.
An ill-fitting lid omits a crescent.
An improper moon rolls out
a pale green tentacle
on every board of every floor.
The visitor to earth asserts,
That's one bad axis of rotation
and one incidental anthropocene epoch.
Posing or not for Picasso,
posing or not as Picasso,
I have both eyes on one side
and the one quirk or cause I have
has probability no greater than point five.
So if birds do it both sides do it.
So to be a tow truck is
to be a tow truck being towed.
The submachine gun that you showed off
was no submachine gun
and it wasn't even loaded.
So the joke's on me.
Like Most Canadians
I'm nowhere near the freeway now,
where rattlesnakes are disciplined
and illustrating electronic books,
but through an atmospheric shortcut
of some kind, the music of the cylinders
of engine-breaking tractor-trailers is conveyed.
Like most Canadians,
I live within my boundaries and,
like most Canadians,
I'm bounded only on one side.
Now with your xray vision you can
see in me the metal object I absorbed.
Scaffold and Mirage
When you enter my implied icosahedron
resurrecting every which way
and have handsome antlers,
what some synesthetics see they won't believe,
as they've been fooled before. With nothing
to push off of you may only gyrate
and your higher powers say,
The law of gravity won't save you this time.
Palpable is palpable but every temporary structure
promises in its own underhanded way.
In a past century Heikki Huotari attended a one-room school and spent summers on a forest-fire lookout tower, is now a retired math professor, and has published three chapbooks, one of which won the Gambling The Aisle prize, and one collection, Fractal Idyll (A..P Press). Another collection is in press.
When you enter my implied icosahedron
resurrecting every which way
and have handsome antlers,
what some synesthetics see they won't believe,
as they've been fooled before. With nothing
to push off of you may only gyrate
and your higher powers say,
The law of gravity won't save you this time.
Palpable is palpable but every temporary structure
promises in its own underhanded way.
In a past century Heikki Huotari attended a one-room school and spent summers on a forest-fire lookout tower, is now a retired math professor, and has published three chapbooks, one of which won the Gambling The Aisle prize, and one collection, Fractal Idyll (A..P Press). Another collection is in press.
Peycho Kanev
Prone to Repetition
The stone
is a drum that works poorly,
the snake sleeping on it
and under the scorching sun
knows that,
but that is only
for a fraction of a second
and then again it turns into
a mirror
and the serpent sees itself
sinking into it and into the million
years of evolution
just to return to star dust again.
The man
stepping out of the house,
doesn’t know anything,
he just lights a cigarette and looks
at his reflection
in the last remaining rain puddle,
and thinks,
Oh not again.
Peycho Kanev is the author of four poetry collections and three chapbooks, published in the USA and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others. His new chapbook titled Under Half-Empty Heaven was published in 2018 by Grey Book Press.
The stone
is a drum that works poorly,
the snake sleeping on it
and under the scorching sun
knows that,
but that is only
for a fraction of a second
and then again it turns into
a mirror
and the serpent sees itself
sinking into it and into the million
years of evolution
just to return to star dust again.
The man
stepping out of the house,
doesn’t know anything,
he just lights a cigarette and looks
at his reflection
in the last remaining rain puddle,
and thinks,
Oh not again.
Peycho Kanev is the author of four poetry collections and three chapbooks, published in the USA and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others. His new chapbook titled Under Half-Empty Heaven was published in 2018 by Grey Book Press.
Judy Kronenfeld 3 poems
Put-Down Day
—Please don’t send poems about the family dog.
I want Unnamed’s pain pills to never move from the counter,
her water and food to never move from where they’re placed.
I want the idea of “last” as in last time Unnamed will eat from that bowl,
last crumbs in that bowl, last time I’ll wash that bowl,
to self-combust, because the idea of shelving those bowls
makes my heart fall out, like a sudden trap-door.
I want Unnamed to stop peeing and shitting
in inappropriate places, and plopping down in her urine,
and hating to be forced towards appropriate places all night,
so she howls and mewls in one weird sound.
I want Unnamed’s crooked, bony spine to straighten
and her withered hips to grow strong.
I want not to understand, suddenly,
the Life Is Hope and Not Dead Yet Network.
I want nothing to change except everything
that must.
—Please don’t send poems about the family dog.
I want Unnamed’s pain pills to never move from the counter,
her water and food to never move from where they’re placed.
I want the idea of “last” as in last time Unnamed will eat from that bowl,
last crumbs in that bowl, last time I’ll wash that bowl,
to self-combust, because the idea of shelving those bowls
makes my heart fall out, like a sudden trap-door.
I want Unnamed to stop peeing and shitting
in inappropriate places, and plopping down in her urine,
and hating to be forced towards appropriate places all night,
so she howls and mewls in one weird sound.
I want Unnamed’s crooked, bony spine to straighten
and her withered hips to grow strong.
I want not to understand, suddenly,
the Life Is Hope and Not Dead Yet Network.
I want nothing to change except everything
that must.
Brief Drift
A long walk to campus on a scorched,
quiet Sunday for a book I don’t clearly
need. Not a soul on the street.
A collarless stray retraces
his steps for me, skids off again, slantwise
for a pungent plant, neck stretched
for a low-flying bird.
Near the library lawn, a few people
benched under trees—anchored
as boats—neither sowing
nor reaping. And suddenly my bones recall
dedicated freedom: being eight or nine
and urged outside for hours after school
to guiltlessly loop and glide on my skates...
Easy right now to sit
on a bench—small talk nibbling
my line like a fish
I'll throw back, the carillon's quarter-hours
splashing my ears--
then, half-asleep, to watch the shadows
lengthen on the green,
the pages of the book open on my lap
riffled by the hot wind.
A long walk to campus on a scorched,
quiet Sunday for a book I don’t clearly
need. Not a soul on the street.
A collarless stray retraces
his steps for me, skids off again, slantwise
for a pungent plant, neck stretched
for a low-flying bird.
Near the library lawn, a few people
benched under trees—anchored
as boats—neither sowing
nor reaping. And suddenly my bones recall
dedicated freedom: being eight or nine
and urged outside for hours after school
to guiltlessly loop and glide on my skates...
Easy right now to sit
on a bench—small talk nibbling
my line like a fish
I'll throw back, the carillon's quarter-hours
splashing my ears--
then, half-asleep, to watch the shadows
lengthen on the green,
the pages of the book open on my lap
riffled by the hot wind.
Late
I am musing, as we lie
in our bed before sleep—you, engrossed
in your book, me, wandering
from mine—after our day spent
tending the houseplants--
repotting the bromeliad and the orchid,
staking the leggy ficus...
I am asking myself what happens
when the days we lay looking up
into the canopy of breeze-blown
intertwined leaves in the bee buzz,
in the translucent green shade
shaking and flowing,
lifted and thrown
are decades gone? What happens
when the world stops pulsing
like the butter-pat sun
dissolving into its own melt,
over and over again, flashing
like a sped-up caution light,
when the squinted eye stops catching
its trail of gold coins slanting
down the sky? And then, you vine the fingers
of your right hand with the fingers
of my left, something
so quiet and undesigned you never did
at night when we were young.
Judy Kronenfeld is the author of six collections of poetry including Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017), Shimmer (WordTech, 2012), and Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths—winner of the 2007 Litchfield Review Poetry Book Prize 2nd edition (Antrim House, 2012). Her poems have appeared in Calyx, Cider Press Review, Rattle, Cimarron Review, Hiram Poetry Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and The Women’s Review of Books. She is Lecturer Emerita, Creative Writing Department, University of California, Riverside, and an Associate Editor of Poemeleon.
I am musing, as we lie
in our bed before sleep—you, engrossed
in your book, me, wandering
from mine—after our day spent
tending the houseplants--
repotting the bromeliad and the orchid,
staking the leggy ficus...
I am asking myself what happens
when the days we lay looking up
into the canopy of breeze-blown
intertwined leaves in the bee buzz,
in the translucent green shade
shaking and flowing,
lifted and thrown
are decades gone? What happens
when the world stops pulsing
like the butter-pat sun
dissolving into its own melt,
over and over again, flashing
like a sped-up caution light,
when the squinted eye stops catching
its trail of gold coins slanting
down the sky? And then, you vine the fingers
of your right hand with the fingers
of my left, something
so quiet and undesigned you never did
at night when we were young.
Judy Kronenfeld is the author of six collections of poetry including Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017), Shimmer (WordTech, 2012), and Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths—winner of the 2007 Litchfield Review Poetry Book Prize 2nd edition (Antrim House, 2012). Her poems have appeared in Calyx, Cider Press Review, Rattle, Cimarron Review, Hiram Poetry Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and The Women’s Review of Books. She is Lecturer Emerita, Creative Writing Department, University of California, Riverside, and an Associate Editor of Poemeleon.
Sarah White 3 poems
Crone in the Fifth Floor Locker Room
This place smells of envy
and chlorine. These young
women with their beauty
and their long futures
are much too lucky
The honey blond
coming in from the pool,
unwinding her towel,
donning a lavender bra
and panty set, careful not to meet
my gaze, looks as if a sorcerer
had given her a list of wishes
to consider and she chose
the power
to stay pretty forever,
to flirt and laugh for ages after
I have keeled over dead.
I hate the girl.
I wouldn’t like her
if she were my long-
lost daughter.
In this plight,
I raise my eyes to the higher
tiles where, through an unlatched
window a bird has flown
in from the legend and glides
across this room
toward another window
open onto eternal Nothingness.
Nobody here pities
either the bird or the witch.
How merciless, fluorescent,
and human this place is!
This place smells of envy
and chlorine. These young
women with their beauty
and their long futures
are much too lucky
The honey blond
coming in from the pool,
unwinding her towel,
donning a lavender bra
and panty set, careful not to meet
my gaze, looks as if a sorcerer
had given her a list of wishes
to consider and she chose
the power
to stay pretty forever,
to flirt and laugh for ages after
I have keeled over dead.
I hate the girl.
I wouldn’t like her
if she were my long-
lost daughter.
In this plight,
I raise my eyes to the higher
tiles where, through an unlatched
window a bird has flown
in from the legend and glides
across this room
toward another window
open onto eternal Nothingness.
Nobody here pities
either the bird or the witch.
How merciless, fluorescent,
and human this place is!
To the Angels of 8-Central
(Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, NYC)
I recommend you, Gloria,
for a Nobel in Nursing,
and you, Lauren One, Lauren Two,
Ruby, Cornelia, Brianna,
and brunette Blondine,
Iris and Lou in gold pony-tails,
you, Rudy, who’s balding,
because you always greet me
as “My Dear.”
You reassure the fearful
harpy in a room next door
who claims her husband
is a hostage here although
he’s nowhere on the floor!
May the contents of this pot not
discommode you--
the piss, puke, and fecal residue
accumulated overnight--
Oh, stink and blight. Oh, change
my sheets, change me,
Seraphim of Central Eight
as soon as you return
from your Break.
(Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, NYC)
I recommend you, Gloria,
for a Nobel in Nursing,
and you, Lauren One, Lauren Two,
Ruby, Cornelia, Brianna,
and brunette Blondine,
Iris and Lou in gold pony-tails,
you, Rudy, who’s balding,
because you always greet me
as “My Dear.”
You reassure the fearful
harpy in a room next door
who claims her husband
is a hostage here although
he’s nowhere on the floor!
May the contents of this pot not
discommode you--
the piss, puke, and fecal residue
accumulated overnight--
Oh, stink and blight. Oh, change
my sheets, change me,
Seraphim of Central Eight
as soon as you return
from your Break.
Ghazal of Imperfect Praise
Criticism failed to disconcert the late Richard Wilbur:
Poets told their students not to imitate Richard Wilbur.
His Times obituary echoed decades of mixed reviews.
Chic it was, then cool, then hip to hate Richard Wilbur.
The man “sailed on, regardless of which way the wind blew.”
Molière’s comedies stayed comic in the couplets of great Richard Wilbur!
He enjoyed his Berkshire home, his cronies and fond family.
Every prize came (sometimes twice) for Laureate Richard Wilbur.
In the end, he became a dove melodically mourning his lost love--
This, we said, was not the old ornate Richard Wilbur.
Sarah, Professor Emerita, rhymes her way along.
For her, constraint does more than fancy to celebrate Richard Wilbur.
Sarah White's most recent poetry collections include The Unknowing Muse (Dos Madres, 2015). Wars Don't Happen Anymore (Deerbrook Editions, 2015), and the latest, also available from Deerbrook, To one who bends my time. (2018). She lives in New York City and divides her time between poetry and painting.
Criticism failed to disconcert the late Richard Wilbur:
Poets told their students not to imitate Richard Wilbur.
His Times obituary echoed decades of mixed reviews.
Chic it was, then cool, then hip to hate Richard Wilbur.
The man “sailed on, regardless of which way the wind blew.”
Molière’s comedies stayed comic in the couplets of great Richard Wilbur!
He enjoyed his Berkshire home, his cronies and fond family.
Every prize came (sometimes twice) for Laureate Richard Wilbur.
In the end, he became a dove melodically mourning his lost love--
This, we said, was not the old ornate Richard Wilbur.
Sarah, Professor Emerita, rhymes her way along.
For her, constraint does more than fancy to celebrate Richard Wilbur.
Sarah White's most recent poetry collections include The Unknowing Muse (Dos Madres, 2015). Wars Don't Happen Anymore (Deerbrook Editions, 2015), and the latest, also available from Deerbrook, To one who bends my time. (2018). She lives in New York City and divides her time between poetry and painting.
Stephen Gibson 2 poems
Ubi Sunt
They rest at Low Falls like lizards on rocks in memories of them.
But why is it my brain fifty years later still sees them?
Vietnam is raging: these New Paltz students, many of them,
are despised by State Troopers as hippies, or most of them.
A naked couple waist deep in shallows call and wave to us--
so my wife and I get up to go over and be with them.
This is years before I apply to Syracuse: Phil Booth’s office
in the Hall of Languages, and W.D.’s—I study with them
(years after my wife’s first high school sweetheart is shot down,
another drafted; after I wash out at Camp Dewey, unlike them).
Stephen, François Villon asked:“Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?”
“But where are the snows of yesteryear?” In memories of them.
They rest at Low Falls like lizards on rocks in memories of them.
But why is it my brain fifty years later still sees them?
Vietnam is raging: these New Paltz students, many of them,
are despised by State Troopers as hippies, or most of them.
A naked couple waist deep in shallows call and wave to us--
so my wife and I get up to go over and be with them.
This is years before I apply to Syracuse: Phil Booth’s office
in the Hall of Languages, and W.D.’s—I study with them
(years after my wife’s first high school sweetheart is shot down,
another drafted; after I wash out at Camp Dewey, unlike them).
Stephen, François Villon asked:“Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?”
“But where are the snows of yesteryear?” In memories of them.
Ghazal on Water
My former student would cup her hands as if she held water--
did she also, or her God only, see that water?
I sometimes wondered about her hair beneath her hijab.
Was that also meant to be a mystery, like water?
I grew up in the Bronx and went to Catholic school--
nuns wore outfits with a wimple and a rosary, not holy water.
She told me in which direction Mecca was outside my office--
past what was once the campus fountain, now empty of water.
At board meetings, she’d lay out pens, pads, agendas, and--
as in the desert, a sign of hospitality—water.
I went back to the campus to give a poetry reading—I’d retired--
and learned she’d passed away recently (on the lectern: bottle of water).
Stephen Gibson’s latest poetry collection, Self-Portrait in a Door-Length Mirror, was selected by Billy Collins as winner of the 2017 Miller Williams Prize from the University of Arkansas Press. He has six prior collections: The Garden of Earthly Delights Book of Ghazals (Texas Review Press, 2016), Rorschach Art Too (2014 Donald Justice Prize, Story Line Press, West Chester University), Paradise (Miller Williams prize finalist, University of Arkansas Press), Frescoes (Lost Horse Press book prize), Masaccio’s Expulsion (MARGIE/IntuiT House book prize), and Rorschach Art (Red Hen Press).
My former student would cup her hands as if she held water--
did she also, or her God only, see that water?
I sometimes wondered about her hair beneath her hijab.
Was that also meant to be a mystery, like water?
I grew up in the Bronx and went to Catholic school--
nuns wore outfits with a wimple and a rosary, not holy water.
She told me in which direction Mecca was outside my office--
past what was once the campus fountain, now empty of water.
At board meetings, she’d lay out pens, pads, agendas, and--
as in the desert, a sign of hospitality—water.
I went back to the campus to give a poetry reading—I’d retired--
and learned she’d passed away recently (on the lectern: bottle of water).
Stephen Gibson’s latest poetry collection, Self-Portrait in a Door-Length Mirror, was selected by Billy Collins as winner of the 2017 Miller Williams Prize from the University of Arkansas Press. He has six prior collections: The Garden of Earthly Delights Book of Ghazals (Texas Review Press, 2016), Rorschach Art Too (2014 Donald Justice Prize, Story Line Press, West Chester University), Paradise (Miller Williams prize finalist, University of Arkansas Press), Frescoes (Lost Horse Press book prize), Masaccio’s Expulsion (MARGIE/IntuiT House book prize), and Rorschach Art (Red Hen Press).
Steve Klepetar
Swimming in the Rain
How you howled when rain
beat down and thunder roared
overhead.
You swore that lightning
crashed into a puddle
by your feet, but
that may have been a vision
or a dream.
I saw a shadow
shiver loose, a shade
of a shade torn apart by wind.
Then we were swimming in a lake
pocked by rain, with black pines
clustered around the shore.
Your mother called and called your name.
Her voice rose out of darkness as you struggled
to breathe, pulling the water toward you with your little arms.
Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Recent collections include A Landscape in Hell (Flutter Press) and Why Glass Shatters (One Sentence Chaps).
How you howled when rain
beat down and thunder roared
overhead.
You swore that lightning
crashed into a puddle
by your feet, but
that may have been a vision
or a dream.
I saw a shadow
shiver loose, a shade
of a shade torn apart by wind.
Then we were swimming in a lake
pocked by rain, with black pines
clustered around the shore.
Your mother called and called your name.
Her voice rose out of darkness as you struggled
to breathe, pulling the water toward you with your little arms.
Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Recent collections include A Landscape in Hell (Flutter Press) and Why Glass Shatters (One Sentence Chaps).
Michael Brownstein
I Cut the Grass With my Son
My son, no longer a boy, tall and taller
Leans into the lawn mower on the hill,
The last quarter acre of land, the grass
Tall, too, lanky like him allows itself
To shape shift, the first days of September,
The sun on fire, the air on fire, I am melting,
My hair loose over my face like a wet mop,
My shirt discolored with everything pouring
From me, but there is shade and somehow
A light breeze. My son is as composed as can be,
Pushing the mower up the hill for another pass.
When he is done, he asks what’s next.
The silk trees, I point, growing everywhere.
And the vinko vines leaching into tree trunks
We wish to keep healthy. There’s a strand
Of poison ivy. The evergreen needs a trim.
So we work and the weight of the work
Grows heavy within me, but he is not wet,
His hands are not dirty, and yet the silk trees
Fall, the vinko vines disrupted at their roots,
The poison ivy cut at its source. Next?
He asks, but I need a break, our gallon jugs
Humid in the heat, and I am hungry, too,
So we enter the house where his baby girl
Leans into her mother, already knowing strength,
And my son who is no longer a boy
Lifts his child carefully in his large hands,
Kisses her gently on the forehead once, twice, twice more.
We have to do more, he tells her. When we finish,
We’ll take a walk downtown, visit the library,
And maybe get a bite to eat. What do you think?
And he kisses her again, on the top of her head,
Rubs his hand through the soft silk of her hair,
His strong hands containing all of her, his baby girl
Making baby sounds, and my son blue skies happy.
Michael H. Brownstein’s work has appeared in The Café Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, American Letters & Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetry Super Highway and others. He has nine poetry chapbooks, including A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004) and The Possibility of Sky and Hell (White Knuckle Press, 2013). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).
My son, no longer a boy, tall and taller
Leans into the lawn mower on the hill,
The last quarter acre of land, the grass
Tall, too, lanky like him allows itself
To shape shift, the first days of September,
The sun on fire, the air on fire, I am melting,
My hair loose over my face like a wet mop,
My shirt discolored with everything pouring
From me, but there is shade and somehow
A light breeze. My son is as composed as can be,
Pushing the mower up the hill for another pass.
When he is done, he asks what’s next.
The silk trees, I point, growing everywhere.
And the vinko vines leaching into tree trunks
We wish to keep healthy. There’s a strand
Of poison ivy. The evergreen needs a trim.
So we work and the weight of the work
Grows heavy within me, but he is not wet,
His hands are not dirty, and yet the silk trees
Fall, the vinko vines disrupted at their roots,
The poison ivy cut at its source. Next?
He asks, but I need a break, our gallon jugs
Humid in the heat, and I am hungry, too,
So we enter the house where his baby girl
Leans into her mother, already knowing strength,
And my son who is no longer a boy
Lifts his child carefully in his large hands,
Kisses her gently on the forehead once, twice, twice more.
We have to do more, he tells her. When we finish,
We’ll take a walk downtown, visit the library,
And maybe get a bite to eat. What do you think?
And he kisses her again, on the top of her head,
Rubs his hand through the soft silk of her hair,
His strong hands containing all of her, his baby girl
Making baby sounds, and my son blue skies happy.
Michael H. Brownstein’s work has appeared in The Café Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, American Letters & Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetry Super Highway and others. He has nine poetry chapbooks, including A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004) and The Possibility of Sky and Hell (White Knuckle Press, 2013). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).
Ron Riekki
At Work, the Earthquake
Thank God it’s at work. Who needs destruction
on a day off? It’s best when you have something
to do and all is halted, the boss becoming a child
and the cameras going blurry so that we all stand
there with the explosion directly under our feet
as if we are all going to die and then the calm
of kicking back in swivel chairs, saying holy shit
and other useless things that rattle around in ears
‘til we just shut up and listen to our breathing,
knowing God could kill us with struggle in seconds.
Ron Riekki's poetry has been published in Spillway; Poetry Northwest; Rattle; Tar River; The Collagist; Dunes Review; River Teeth; I-70 Review; Tipton Poetry Journal; Hotel Amerika; Little Patuxent Review; The New Verse News; Verse Wisconsin; Beloit Poetry Journal; Verse Daily; Chiron Review; Clockhouse; Mizna: Film, Literature, and Art Exploring Arab America; New Madrid; Grub Street; Canary: A Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis; Main Street Rag; and many other literary journals.
Thank God it’s at work. Who needs destruction
on a day off? It’s best when you have something
to do and all is halted, the boss becoming a child
and the cameras going blurry so that we all stand
there with the explosion directly under our feet
as if we are all going to die and then the calm
of kicking back in swivel chairs, saying holy shit
and other useless things that rattle around in ears
‘til we just shut up and listen to our breathing,
knowing God could kill us with struggle in seconds.
Ron Riekki's poetry has been published in Spillway; Poetry Northwest; Rattle; Tar River; The Collagist; Dunes Review; River Teeth; I-70 Review; Tipton Poetry Journal; Hotel Amerika; Little Patuxent Review; The New Verse News; Verse Wisconsin; Beloit Poetry Journal; Verse Daily; Chiron Review; Clockhouse; Mizna: Film, Literature, and Art Exploring Arab America; New Madrid; Grub Street; Canary: A Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis; Main Street Rag; and many other literary journals.
Al Maginnes
Dice, Scripture, and Lost Winnings: An Unfinished Portrait
In one self-portrait, he sleeps, the pair of dice near his hand
shining snake eyes. In another self portrait,
a Bible thick as his pillow rests by his head.
It’s not clear which was painted first, but faith
has always been at least as much of a gamble as
as betting your money on the fall
of the dice. There are the blind serpents of luck
and players who know how to take the chance
out of any bet. And worse. In Studs Lonigan, Davey Cohen,
exiled from Chicago, puts his last two bucks
in a craps game. The dice get hot for him
and he leaves the game, trying to believe his luck.
The man who drew himself sleeping did not read
that book. He believed the angles of the form,
the restorative power of sleep. Trusted the power
of seeing ourselves to make ourselves new.
Davey Cohen is beaten, rolled, and abandoned, worse off
than when he entered the game. Some might say
his winnings were those blind moments of hope
when he supposed he’d eat a good meal, buy
a new suit, return home in style. The artist succumbed
to the snakes of madness and died young, the tale
of his death filled with shade and unconnected lines.
His winnings must be ours as well, the paintings
we stand before and try to absorb
with a gaze unblinking as a snake’s.
Al Maginnes's seventh and most recent book, The Next Place, was published in spring of 2017 by Iris Press. Recent poems have appeared in Shenandoah, North American Review, decomP, Vox Populi and many other places. He lives in Raleigh, NC and teaches at Wake Technical Community College.
In one self-portrait, he sleeps, the pair of dice near his hand
shining snake eyes. In another self portrait,
a Bible thick as his pillow rests by his head.
It’s not clear which was painted first, but faith
has always been at least as much of a gamble as
as betting your money on the fall
of the dice. There are the blind serpents of luck
and players who know how to take the chance
out of any bet. And worse. In Studs Lonigan, Davey Cohen,
exiled from Chicago, puts his last two bucks
in a craps game. The dice get hot for him
and he leaves the game, trying to believe his luck.
The man who drew himself sleeping did not read
that book. He believed the angles of the form,
the restorative power of sleep. Trusted the power
of seeing ourselves to make ourselves new.
Davey Cohen is beaten, rolled, and abandoned, worse off
than when he entered the game. Some might say
his winnings were those blind moments of hope
when he supposed he’d eat a good meal, buy
a new suit, return home in style. The artist succumbed
to the snakes of madness and died young, the tale
of his death filled with shade and unconnected lines.
His winnings must be ours as well, the paintings
we stand before and try to absorb
with a gaze unblinking as a snake’s.
Al Maginnes's seventh and most recent book, The Next Place, was published in spring of 2017 by Iris Press. Recent poems have appeared in Shenandoah, North American Review, decomP, Vox Populi and many other places. He lives in Raleigh, NC and teaches at Wake Technical Community College.
Barry Peters 2 poems
Love Letter
I put M
in an envelope
mail the letter
to myself
lie awake all night
blending consonants
murmuring dipthongs
once I loved numbers too
addition, subtraction
faithful calculation
then they became
unreal, irrational
running naked
through equations
with X and Y
their infamous betrayal
to the other side
I never understood
numbers were symbols
but I always knew
this cat here
before your eyes
no cat at all
c a t
just black ink
on white paper
or maybe pixels
on a screen
the real cat's
stretching on the rug
right over there
in the corner,
her back rippling
like pentameter.
I put M
in an envelope
mail the letter
to myself
lie awake all night
blending consonants
murmuring dipthongs
once I loved numbers too
addition, subtraction
faithful calculation
then they became
unreal, irrational
running naked
through equations
with X and Y
their infamous betrayal
to the other side
I never understood
numbers were symbols
but I always knew
this cat here
before your eyes
no cat at all
c a t
just black ink
on white paper
or maybe pixels
on a screen
the real cat's
stretching on the rug
right over there
in the corner,
her back rippling
like pentameter.
Gatsby’s Maid
She polishes the gold toilet set,
stacks the European shirts by color,
then coughs, leans out the second-
story window and spits. It lands
in the garden. The neighbor stands
nearby under a tree, watching,
but she guesses that he’s no snitch,
not this slouching man of flimsy backbone,
and anyway she’s a minor character,
like all maids, relegated to one sentence
on Page 88. So she continues cleaning,
smiling now, light as feather dust,
the roses beginning to wither below.
Barry Peters is a writer and teacher in Durham, NC. Recent/forthcoming work: Baltimore Review, Broad River Review, Connecticut River Review, The Flexible Persona, The Healing Muse, Jelly Bucket, Kakalak, KYSO Flash, Miramar, Plainsongs, Rattle, The Southampton Review and Sport Literate.
She polishes the gold toilet set,
stacks the European shirts by color,
then coughs, leans out the second-
story window and spits. It lands
in the garden. The neighbor stands
nearby under a tree, watching,
but she guesses that he’s no snitch,
not this slouching man of flimsy backbone,
and anyway she’s a minor character,
like all maids, relegated to one sentence
on Page 88. So she continues cleaning,
smiling now, light as feather dust,
the roses beginning to wither below.
Barry Peters is a writer and teacher in Durham, NC. Recent/forthcoming work: Baltimore Review, Broad River Review, Connecticut River Review, The Flexible Persona, The Healing Muse, Jelly Bucket, Kakalak, KYSO Flash, Miramar, Plainsongs, Rattle, The Southampton Review and Sport Literate.
SoFloPoJo is a labor of love by: Associate Editors: Elisa Albo Don Burns David Colodney Deborah DeNicola Gary Kay Sarah Kersey Stacie M. Kiner Barbra Nightingale Sally Naylor Susannah Simpson Meryl Stratford Patricia Whiting Francine Witte
Reviewers: Freesia McKee and Michael Hettich
Managing Editor & C0-Publisher
Michael Mackin O'Mara
[email protected]
Founder & Co-Publisher
Lenny DellaRocca
[email protected]
Reviewers: Freesia McKee and Michael Hettich
Managing Editor & C0-Publisher
Michael Mackin O'Mara
[email protected]
Founder & Co-Publisher
Lenny DellaRocca
[email protected]