Issue 8 Febraury 2018
Deborah Denicola, Editor
Poets in this issue: Lana Bella Lynne Viti Jim Daniels Susan Thorton Grace Cavalieri Lyn Lifshin Doug Ramspeck Jon Bennett Ricky Garni Melissa Studdard Jennifer Jean Kenneth Pobo /TRANSLATION: Boris Khersonsky by Nina Kossman/ Jill Barrie Jonathan Rose Charles Scheitler Bonnie Riedinger Maggie Blake Bailey Kathryn McLaughlin Mark Murphy Paul Hostovsky Steve Mueske Dennis Maloney Richard Weaver Anna Leahy Dawn Leas
Large Untitled in Color by Dan Santisteban
Lana Bella
After Absence
Not the moment a quiet sink borne
from the clay bottom creek, nor
the moment a neck-knotting noose
dangled from pillar in the garage,
but rather the yawn of mortar shell
ricocheting between joint and muscle,
snaked through and through even
the battledress can't shield. Inward
we spun on then on, on this roadmap
of pouring into bones, falling, head
over heels for the shadows of old
hills cresting bare spires of the city.
Shouldering our reluctant heads to
chests, we felt an awful thirst of
waking where once was a garden-,
bed, blood bleeding in the shrunken
room of all the bodies we have loved
as if there were no winged things in
our ribcages. When the mechanics
of an ending stared over the trench
that divided us, we touched ivory
hands to salt-juked snow, touching
the hesitant art of losing in each
straggler’s palm, relaxed into stones.
A four-time Pushcart Prize, five-time Best of the Net & Bettering American Poetry nominee, Lana Bella is an author of three chapbooks, Under My Dark (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016), Adagio (Finishing Line Press, 2016), and Dear Suki: Letters (Platypus 2412 Mini Chapbook Series, 2016), has had poetry and fiction featured with more than 450 journals. She resides in the U.S. and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is a mom of two far-too-clever-frolicsome imps.
Not the moment a quiet sink borne
from the clay bottom creek, nor
the moment a neck-knotting noose
dangled from pillar in the garage,
but rather the yawn of mortar shell
ricocheting between joint and muscle,
snaked through and through even
the battledress can't shield. Inward
we spun on then on, on this roadmap
of pouring into bones, falling, head
over heels for the shadows of old
hills cresting bare spires of the city.
Shouldering our reluctant heads to
chests, we felt an awful thirst of
waking where once was a garden-,
bed, blood bleeding in the shrunken
room of all the bodies we have loved
as if there were no winged things in
our ribcages. When the mechanics
of an ending stared over the trench
that divided us, we touched ivory
hands to salt-juked snow, touching
the hesitant art of losing in each
straggler’s palm, relaxed into stones.
A four-time Pushcart Prize, five-time Best of the Net & Bettering American Poetry nominee, Lana Bella is an author of three chapbooks, Under My Dark (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016), Adagio (Finishing Line Press, 2016), and Dear Suki: Letters (Platypus 2412 Mini Chapbook Series, 2016), has had poetry and fiction featured with more than 450 journals. She resides in the U.S. and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is a mom of two far-too-clever-frolicsome imps.
Lynne Viti 2 poems
Parrot Jungle
A lizard darted up the screen.
I left my doll, half-naked, outside on the lawn.
The plastic wading pool wore inflatable yellow rings.
I didn’t wear the bathing suit top, only the ruched shorts.
There were no children to play with.
My parents smoked and drank beer in the shade.
One night they went to the racetrack—I don’t know
who stayed with me.
We drove to a place where giant parrots in bold feathered coats
were brought to us so we’d hold them on our arms.
My mother was game--
I watched the birds perch on her pale forearms.
I stood behind my father, clung to his Miami jacket.
Pink flamingos walked around a lake.
It looked like a picture book, only larger, with motion.
My mother laughed and said, Don’t worry, they’re tame.
At night I lay in bed and heard the grownups talking,
low voices of my father and Robbie punctuated by my mother’s
bright laughter. She was with her girlhood friend, Lucille.
Tobacco smoke drifted in from where they sat outside in metal chairs.
The night was full of the sound of ice rattling in cocktail glasses.
The brown-skinned baby doll lay abandoned by the palm tree.
I dreamed of brown lizards racing across the cracked pavement
To the underside of the bungalow, cool and dark as a starless sky.
A lizard darted up the screen.
I left my doll, half-naked, outside on the lawn.
The plastic wading pool wore inflatable yellow rings.
I didn’t wear the bathing suit top, only the ruched shorts.
There were no children to play with.
My parents smoked and drank beer in the shade.
One night they went to the racetrack—I don’t know
who stayed with me.
We drove to a place where giant parrots in bold feathered coats
were brought to us so we’d hold them on our arms.
My mother was game--
I watched the birds perch on her pale forearms.
I stood behind my father, clung to his Miami jacket.
Pink flamingos walked around a lake.
It looked like a picture book, only larger, with motion.
My mother laughed and said, Don’t worry, they’re tame.
At night I lay in bed and heard the grownups talking,
low voices of my father and Robbie punctuated by my mother’s
bright laughter. She was with her girlhood friend, Lucille.
Tobacco smoke drifted in from where they sat outside in metal chairs.
The night was full of the sound of ice rattling in cocktail glasses.
The brown-skinned baby doll lay abandoned by the palm tree.
I dreamed of brown lizards racing across the cracked pavement
To the underside of the bungalow, cool and dark as a starless sky.
Leftovers
The gray cat keeps watch by the window, staring at a sunless day.
Her head turns, ears on alert, when two juncos alight on the deck.
The Christmas tree’s colored lights garish in the morning.
Half-drunk bottles of cabernet litter the kitchen counter,
red carnations in the table settings have gone limp.
Please don’t ask about the children, no longer children, now men,
back at their own digs. We’ve haven’t heard from them
since they packed up their gifts and the leftovers in plastic tubs.
They could be sleeping all, day, or filling out job applications,
or heaving weights at the gym. Might be watching You Tube,
how to cook favorite foods of The Wire. Any hope
of grandchildren on the horizon is misguided, don’t ask about that, either.
Extreme climate: eight degrees at eight a.m. The President
won’t stop tweeting. I watch the juncos, brave against the cold.
Lynne Viti teaches in the Writing Program at Wellesley College. She is the author of two chapbooks, Baltimore Girls, and a forthcoming collection, The Glamorganshire Bible (both from Finishing Line Press) and a microchapbook , Punting (Origami Poems Project 2018 ). She has also published most recently in The End of 83, I Come From The World, Lost Sparrow, Pen-in- Hand, and Tin Lunchbox. She blogs at stillinschool.wordpress.com.
The gray cat keeps watch by the window, staring at a sunless day.
Her head turns, ears on alert, when two juncos alight on the deck.
The Christmas tree’s colored lights garish in the morning.
Half-drunk bottles of cabernet litter the kitchen counter,
red carnations in the table settings have gone limp.
Please don’t ask about the children, no longer children, now men,
back at their own digs. We’ve haven’t heard from them
since they packed up their gifts and the leftovers in plastic tubs.
They could be sleeping all, day, or filling out job applications,
or heaving weights at the gym. Might be watching You Tube,
how to cook favorite foods of The Wire. Any hope
of grandchildren on the horizon is misguided, don’t ask about that, either.
Extreme climate: eight degrees at eight a.m. The President
won’t stop tweeting. I watch the juncos, brave against the cold.
Lynne Viti teaches in the Writing Program at Wellesley College. She is the author of two chapbooks, Baltimore Girls, and a forthcoming collection, The Glamorganshire Bible (both from Finishing Line Press) and a microchapbook , Punting (Origami Poems Project 2018 ). She has also published most recently in The End of 83, I Come From The World, Lost Sparrow, Pen-in- Hand, and Tin Lunchbox. She blogs at stillinschool.wordpress.com.
Jim Daniels 3 poems
Home Repair
I picked up pliers
instead of a spoon.
Yeah, one of those days.
Maybe I should give myself
a fat lip, or rip out a tooth
like a Stooge or Bully Brother.
*
My messages turn red then blue,
then fade like that bruise--
remember that bruise?
I pick up a gallon jug
of dirty motor oil
instead of 1% milk.
What’s the other 99%?
Committed, I wet my lips
and remember Bosco,
something rich kids drank,
or so we imagined
back in our poor neighborhood.
*
I stuffed raisins up my nose, figuring
something out. The doctor wielded
his tweezers, amazed by how many
I’d gotten up there, and further up there.
I snorted laundry detergent
thinking it was cocaine.
It burned more than usual
but cleaned out my sinuses
of any residual raisins. See,
everything has a happy ending
even if the soul in the icebox
has freezer burn.
*
So, I put the tooth under my mattress
to keep myself awake
and I woke up
with a crown on my head.
Something got lost in translation,
but then it always does.
I picked up pliers
instead of a spoon.
Yeah, one of those days.
Maybe I should give myself
a fat lip, or rip out a tooth
like a Stooge or Bully Brother.
*
My messages turn red then blue,
then fade like that bruise--
remember that bruise?
I pick up a gallon jug
of dirty motor oil
instead of 1% milk.
What’s the other 99%?
Committed, I wet my lips
and remember Bosco,
something rich kids drank,
or so we imagined
back in our poor neighborhood.
*
I stuffed raisins up my nose, figuring
something out. The doctor wielded
his tweezers, amazed by how many
I’d gotten up there, and further up there.
I snorted laundry detergent
thinking it was cocaine.
It burned more than usual
but cleaned out my sinuses
of any residual raisins. See,
everything has a happy ending
even if the soul in the icebox
has freezer burn.
*
So, I put the tooth under my mattress
to keep myself awake
and I woke up
with a crown on my head.
Something got lost in translation,
but then it always does.
Wasp Spray
Kills wasps and hornets on contact from 22 feet away so you can stay a comfortable distance from the nest.
Wasps build nests under the garage roof tiles
every year. Near the door. Near the barbecue.
Above the gutters, I spot the busy menace
around their paper nests. I have been stung
minding my own business as if my own business
is an abandoned storefront waiting for looters.
Cruelty arrives early in the alphabet, eager
and twisted in its holster. Harmful to humans.
Everything in this world should come
with a warning label. Mine is tattooed on.
If I showed you with my kindness flashlight
perhaps a better side would be revealed.
Finger on the trigger. Steady, then trembling.
The loaded can must go off. 22 feet!
A tingle up my arm. Sparks in the brain.
Flames of a high I cannot deny as I watch
them die from this comfortable distance.
Kills wasps and hornets on contact from 22 feet away so you can stay a comfortable distance from the nest.
Wasps build nests under the garage roof tiles
every year. Near the door. Near the barbecue.
Above the gutters, I spot the busy menace
around their paper nests. I have been stung
minding my own business as if my own business
is an abandoned storefront waiting for looters.
Cruelty arrives early in the alphabet, eager
and twisted in its holster. Harmful to humans.
Everything in this world should come
with a warning label. Mine is tattooed on.
If I showed you with my kindness flashlight
perhaps a better side would be revealed.
Finger on the trigger. Steady, then trembling.
The loaded can must go off. 22 feet!
A tingle up my arm. Sparks in the brain.
Flames of a high I cannot deny as I watch
them die from this comfortable distance.
Membership Benefits
Jesus sent me a membership card
but I tossed it
in favor of the red plastic coin
redeemable for a Big Boy Combo
on my birthday. I can still feel
that coin through the envelope,
knowing where I was going.
The U.S. government sent me a card
to allow me to participate in the draft
but when the dust settled on the lone prayer-ee
I was chopping up lines with my driver’s license,
snorting up stoplights on my way out of town
knowing where they would send me.
The society of misfit toys sent me a blank card
and a broken pencil to sign the unwritten contract
to keep me in my place for the eternity
of the forty-hour work week. I wrote
my own message and returned to sender.
*
That Big Boy was the best burger
of my young life. If they gave out
hamburgers in church, I’d be rushing
the communion rail. I like ‘em rare—
blood running down my chin.
The host’s as dry as a nun’s kiss--
no body to it.
The coin of the realm featured Big Boy
in his checkered overalls. Will there be
anything else? the waitress asked.
I should have said, yes, everything else,
I want everything else. I should have
left a tip, but I was ignorant of ritual sacrifices
involved in the service industry, though one day
I’d be slopping tables in my stained apron,
eager for my share at shift end, devising
my own secret sauce for darkness
behind the sour dim-lit dumpster.
I digress. I feign interest. The dull
comic book of my life—no Big Boy.
No Dolly or Nugget. I answered
to the higher power of the perfect asshole
who wore his moustache like a dirty rag
and insisted on the cleanliness
of the corporate handshake. I left
in search of a punch line and found only
a fishy logo of grease at Arthur Treacher’s.
Nobody rescues nobody. Nobody
rises from the dead. What does Jesus toss
in his dumpster?
The fast-food prayer book was thin.
I mean the playbook was thin.
I mean the pamphlet promised
salvation and questioned my loyalty
simultaneously. I laughed at the lame
proverb of my paycheck. And that’s
where I’ve been going, where loyalty
meets stupidity. At what point
do you stop swallowing, stop
taking and faking it? Jesus,
the best hamburgers in life are free.
Oh, when the world revolved around
the punctuation of a red plastic coin!
Forgive me, Jesus, for knocking down
your cardboard cutout. For crushing it
down into the dumpster to make more
room. Forgive me, Jesus,
I like ‘em rare.
Jim Daniels’ 17th book of poems, The Middle Ages, will be published by Red Mountain Press in 2018. Street Calligraphy, Steel Toe Books, and Rowing Inland, Wayne State University Press, were published in 2017. A native of Detroit, Daniels is the Thomas Stockham University Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.
Jesus sent me a membership card
but I tossed it
in favor of the red plastic coin
redeemable for a Big Boy Combo
on my birthday. I can still feel
that coin through the envelope,
knowing where I was going.
The U.S. government sent me a card
to allow me to participate in the draft
but when the dust settled on the lone prayer-ee
I was chopping up lines with my driver’s license,
snorting up stoplights on my way out of town
knowing where they would send me.
The society of misfit toys sent me a blank card
and a broken pencil to sign the unwritten contract
to keep me in my place for the eternity
of the forty-hour work week. I wrote
my own message and returned to sender.
*
That Big Boy was the best burger
of my young life. If they gave out
hamburgers in church, I’d be rushing
the communion rail. I like ‘em rare—
blood running down my chin.
The host’s as dry as a nun’s kiss--
no body to it.
The coin of the realm featured Big Boy
in his checkered overalls. Will there be
anything else? the waitress asked.
I should have said, yes, everything else,
I want everything else. I should have
left a tip, but I was ignorant of ritual sacrifices
involved in the service industry, though one day
I’d be slopping tables in my stained apron,
eager for my share at shift end, devising
my own secret sauce for darkness
behind the sour dim-lit dumpster.
I digress. I feign interest. The dull
comic book of my life—no Big Boy.
No Dolly or Nugget. I answered
to the higher power of the perfect asshole
who wore his moustache like a dirty rag
and insisted on the cleanliness
of the corporate handshake. I left
in search of a punch line and found only
a fishy logo of grease at Arthur Treacher’s.
Nobody rescues nobody. Nobody
rises from the dead. What does Jesus toss
in his dumpster?
The fast-food prayer book was thin.
I mean the playbook was thin.
I mean the pamphlet promised
salvation and questioned my loyalty
simultaneously. I laughed at the lame
proverb of my paycheck. And that’s
where I’ve been going, where loyalty
meets stupidity. At what point
do you stop swallowing, stop
taking and faking it? Jesus,
the best hamburgers in life are free.
Oh, when the world revolved around
the punctuation of a red plastic coin!
Forgive me, Jesus, for knocking down
your cardboard cutout. For crushing it
down into the dumpster to make more
room. Forgive me, Jesus,
I like ‘em rare.
Jim Daniels’ 17th book of poems, The Middle Ages, will be published by Red Mountain Press in 2018. Street Calligraphy, Steel Toe Books, and Rowing Inland, Wayne State University Press, were published in 2017. A native of Detroit, Daniels is the Thomas Stockham University Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.
Susan Thornton
I’m Sorry Now
I ate that sausage sandwich. Who
knew that in South America the hog
swill is laced with antibiotics
so that when we eat the pig
meat we swallow
medicine and so become immune?
Who knew that
soggy sandwich in the bus station
dooms us all?
Was it also a bad decision to love you--
you who can’t return love,
who Facebook messaged me that
you’re going your own way; you want your life back--
I thought I didn’t take
your life so much as added to it
with the odd steak dinner and the occasional
sea foam foot rub. And I loaned you
my lovely matched set of loons. What
is dwelling in an urban high-rise
without wild life—I ask you? As
well as my prescient and exquisitely well-timed
warning of the oncoming hurricane?
These things can’t be helped,
and the apocalypse will proceed with
or without us. In the meantime, my
students still need to learn the seventeen verbs
that conjugate with être. So while coughing blood
like a nineteenth century heroine of Thomas
Mann, they will be able to write, correctly, and
in French, she descended, slowly or
she ascended, rapidly.
Susan Thornton lives in Binghamton New York where she teaches eighth- and ninth-grade French. Her poems have been published in Paintbrush Journal and Rat’s Ass Review. Thornton’s short fiction has been published in Best American Mystery Stories 2016 and in Blackbird (2016) and New World Writing (2017).
I ate that sausage sandwich. Who
knew that in South America the hog
swill is laced with antibiotics
so that when we eat the pig
meat we swallow
medicine and so become immune?
Who knew that
soggy sandwich in the bus station
dooms us all?
Was it also a bad decision to love you--
you who can’t return love,
who Facebook messaged me that
you’re going your own way; you want your life back--
I thought I didn’t take
your life so much as added to it
with the odd steak dinner and the occasional
sea foam foot rub. And I loaned you
my lovely matched set of loons. What
is dwelling in an urban high-rise
without wild life—I ask you? As
well as my prescient and exquisitely well-timed
warning of the oncoming hurricane?
These things can’t be helped,
and the apocalypse will proceed with
or without us. In the meantime, my
students still need to learn the seventeen verbs
that conjugate with être. So while coughing blood
like a nineteenth century heroine of Thomas
Mann, they will be able to write, correctly, and
in French, she descended, slowly or
she ascended, rapidly.
Susan Thornton lives in Binghamton New York where she teaches eighth- and ninth-grade French. Her poems have been published in Paintbrush Journal and Rat’s Ass Review. Thornton’s short fiction has been published in Best American Mystery Stories 2016 and in Blackbird (2016) and New World Writing (2017).
Grace Cavalieri 3 poems
The Mazurka
From the marsh of human discontent,
from the grave of self-doubt,
came a spark of life, a long distance
phone call from
four young Rappers who
knew how I’d been
grieving from lack of fame.
They offered
me a Residency in
South America and they
spoke of my breaking the
mold with my work
in libraries.
They said I’d made quite
a splash on YouTube, but
when I asked if it was
because of my elevated
language, they said,
to be honest, it’s because,
when you danced
your nipples showed through.
My husband said he’d come with me
and was proud
of my recognition
among literary historians.
From the marsh of human discontent,
from the grave of self-doubt,
came a spark of life, a long distance
phone call from
four young Rappers who
knew how I’d been
grieving from lack of fame.
They offered
me a Residency in
South America and they
spoke of my breaking the
mold with my work
in libraries.
They said I’d made quite
a splash on YouTube, but
when I asked if it was
because of my elevated
language, they said,
to be honest, it’s because,
when you danced
your nipples showed through.
My husband said he’d come with me
and was proud
of my recognition
among literary historians.
Harbinger
You'll never get it finished
Don't even try
You can never return a life payment of kindness and hurt
You'll never arouse
your first love again
You'll never learn the geography
Of the archipelago or name
Those yellow flowers shaped like angels by the side of the road
And you don't even care anymore
About who bought you the white straw hat
You’ll never visit the snow in Russia
Or play chess
Or service a computer
Forget it
Not in this lifetime
Your skin will never be soft and pink as your first child’s
Nothing is left
So just be good
Don’t try to be good.
BE Good. How? Don't ask
Just do it
The rest is none of your business.
You'll never get it finished
Don't even try
You can never return a life payment of kindness and hurt
You'll never arouse
your first love again
You'll never learn the geography
Of the archipelago or name
Those yellow flowers shaped like angels by the side of the road
And you don't even care anymore
About who bought you the white straw hat
You’ll never visit the snow in Russia
Or play chess
Or service a computer
Forget it
Not in this lifetime
Your skin will never be soft and pink as your first child’s
Nothing is left
So just be good
Don’t try to be good.
BE Good. How? Don't ask
Just do it
The rest is none of your business.
The Sound That Haunting Makes
(on the 5th anniversary of his death)
I’d like to talk about how the day went, talk as we used to do,
not with singing words, but smaller celebrations gathered until
we noticed the ridges of each other –
the missing parts that no one else could see.
I don’t mind that you’re away, an understandable
shift—aerodynamic in fact—you loved to fly— but
that you would forget me is impossible.
Did you see this sweater’s lost a button loop?
And that excessive fruit makes the basket spill?
Are you laughing at my decorating skill?
then assuring me the problem was in the straw,
its weaving, the oversized pear, the lopsided chair?
I’d like some decisions from you, yet I understand--
as a passenger of time –you are beyond my reach.
I need some help with perceptions, logistics--
teaching myself to live under the weight of visibility.
Since we seem to be of two different geographic climes,
can you direct me closer to you? You who flew from Japan
to California using only the stars. Should I sit here in the sun
or move my hands, my heart, a little to the left?
I understand these are contradictory criteria--
the living and the dead— yet at times, through my devotion
to the past, plus my unreasonable emotions, I feel a
radiant warmth encircling me. Of course, at other times
the cumulative effect of memory left on its own is staggering,
Yesterday, you were solid as stone, rich with detail, revolving around me,
and other days like this one, I’m sure you understand,
It’s as if it never happened.
Grace Cavalieri is celebrating 41 years on public radio, with “The Poet and the Poem” now from the Library of Congress. She holds AWP’s “George Garret Award.” She’s the author of 20 books and chapbooks and 26 produced plays, short-form and full-length. She’s poetry columnist/reviewer for The Washington Independent Review of Books. Her new book’s a compendium of poetry, plays and interviews, Other Voices, Other Lives (2017.)
(on the 5th anniversary of his death)
I’d like to talk about how the day went, talk as we used to do,
not with singing words, but smaller celebrations gathered until
we noticed the ridges of each other –
the missing parts that no one else could see.
I don’t mind that you’re away, an understandable
shift—aerodynamic in fact—you loved to fly— but
that you would forget me is impossible.
Did you see this sweater’s lost a button loop?
And that excessive fruit makes the basket spill?
Are you laughing at my decorating skill?
then assuring me the problem was in the straw,
its weaving, the oversized pear, the lopsided chair?
I’d like some decisions from you, yet I understand--
as a passenger of time –you are beyond my reach.
I need some help with perceptions, logistics--
teaching myself to live under the weight of visibility.
Since we seem to be of two different geographic climes,
can you direct me closer to you? You who flew from Japan
to California using only the stars. Should I sit here in the sun
or move my hands, my heart, a little to the left?
I understand these are contradictory criteria--
the living and the dead— yet at times, through my devotion
to the past, plus my unreasonable emotions, I feel a
radiant warmth encircling me. Of course, at other times
the cumulative effect of memory left on its own is staggering,
Yesterday, you were solid as stone, rich with detail, revolving around me,
and other days like this one, I’m sure you understand,
It’s as if it never happened.
Grace Cavalieri is celebrating 41 years on public radio, with “The Poet and the Poem” now from the Library of Congress. She holds AWP’s “George Garret Award.” She’s the author of 20 books and chapbooks and 26 produced plays, short-form and full-length. She’s poetry columnist/reviewer for The Washington Independent Review of Books. Her new book’s a compendium of poetry, plays and interviews, Other Voices, Other Lives (2017.)
Lyn Lifshin 2 poems
The Mad Girl Wants Out While the Getting is Good
She always said when she couldn’t
do ballet to slip poison in her tea,
that when she couldn’t wear
leather minis, it was time to say
goodbye. Still slim, with long hair .
From her back you might think
her in her 20’s or younger. She’s
terrified the day will come
she can’t reach pills she’s kept
for that special last day. She
imagines a blue translucence,
a lull of rage, a dream video
the Argentine tango with
a last bolero that no one
will forget
She always said when she couldn’t
do ballet to slip poison in her tea,
that when she couldn’t wear
leather minis, it was time to say
goodbye. Still slim, with long hair .
From her back you might think
her in her 20’s or younger. She’s
terrified the day will come
she can’t reach pills she’s kept
for that special last day. She
imagines a blue translucence,
a lull of rage, a dream video
the Argentine tango with
a last bolero that no one
will forget
The Mad Girl Remembers Her First Kiss
near the Episcopal Church
overlooking the railroad
tracks. It was a night after
the neighbor kids went
bowling and Doug, the
boy who would drop out
of school and join the army
when not that long later
she told him she didn’t
want to see him again even
tho he was a foot ball star
and was wildly in love with
her. They took the long
way home. It was June.
Night water already
dripping from the church.
Grey stone. Those were the
days she’d give anything
to be thinner like Ginny
Lafayette or the movie
star Vera Ellen and she
hated how her thick hair
curled in the night. She
smelled Clearasil as he
moved in closer, not at all
sure she’d know what
to do with his tongue
pushing thru Cherry Milk
Maid pink lips as they
grasped each other, and
swayed in the darkening
leaves as the Chinese
dogwood shuddered
around them
LYN LIFSHIN has published more than 130 books and chapbooks. Recent books include Ballroom, All the Poets Who Have Touched Me, Living and Dead. NYQ books published A Girl Goes into The Woods. An update to her Gale Research Autobiography is out: Lips, Blues, Blue Lace: On The Outside. Visit her at:www.lynlifshin.com
near the Episcopal Church
overlooking the railroad
tracks. It was a night after
the neighbor kids went
bowling and Doug, the
boy who would drop out
of school and join the army
when not that long later
she told him she didn’t
want to see him again even
tho he was a foot ball star
and was wildly in love with
her. They took the long
way home. It was June.
Night water already
dripping from the church.
Grey stone. Those were the
days she’d give anything
to be thinner like Ginny
Lafayette or the movie
star Vera Ellen and she
hated how her thick hair
curled in the night. She
smelled Clearasil as he
moved in closer, not at all
sure she’d know what
to do with his tongue
pushing thru Cherry Milk
Maid pink lips as they
grasped each other, and
swayed in the darkening
leaves as the Chinese
dogwood shuddered
around them
LYN LIFSHIN has published more than 130 books and chapbooks. Recent books include Ballroom, All the Poets Who Have Touched Me, Living and Dead. NYQ books published A Girl Goes into The Woods. An update to her Gale Research Autobiography is out: Lips, Blues, Blue Lace: On The Outside. Visit her at:www.lynlifshin.com
Doug Ramspeck 3 poems
Love letters
Once, when the neighbor’s barn burned down,
the smoke drifting across the field
slipped through the fence into the yard--
something whispered in an ear, something
longing to be a wraith. Another time
I watched the simmering body of the sun
disappearing into the sleeve of a cloud.
And what of the snakeskin curling this morning
by the wire fence, or the cluster of bird feathers
gathering like hieroglyphics by the river?
Always there are signs: the trees leaning
their shoulders into emptiness, bones of light
cutting through the skin of a fog, breaths
undressing themselves to float as ghosts.
Once, when the neighbor’s barn burned down,
the smoke drifting across the field
slipped through the fence into the yard--
something whispered in an ear, something
longing to be a wraith. Another time
I watched the simmering body of the sun
disappearing into the sleeve of a cloud.
And what of the snakeskin curling this morning
by the wire fence, or the cluster of bird feathers
gathering like hieroglyphics by the river?
Always there are signs: the trees leaning
their shoulders into emptiness, bones of light
cutting through the skin of a fog, breaths
undressing themselves to float as ghosts.
Field Guide for a Marriage
We see them through the leaves,
the deer, how their bodies
are made of light and shadow
and the passage of the hours.
And if their stillness
is a conversation with the sky,
why do they bow their heads
into the grass, which bows
its head into the soft wind?
It is hard to tell, at first,
if there are more than two,
but then the creatures move
away in opposite directions.
There seems a dialogue
of distances, the way every word
must somehow refer to every other.
And the black ribs of the trees
are so motionless at dusk, it is hard
to imagine they are still alive.
Is it possible to hold a single breath
across the decades? And is it true
that proximity is simply
the most primitive form of devotion?
See how they join again
amid the leaves—so they might
disappear together?
We see them through the leaves,
the deer, how their bodies
are made of light and shadow
and the passage of the hours.
And if their stillness
is a conversation with the sky,
why do they bow their heads
into the grass, which bows
its head into the soft wind?
It is hard to tell, at first,
if there are more than two,
but then the creatures move
away in opposite directions.
There seems a dialogue
of distances, the way every word
must somehow refer to every other.
And the black ribs of the trees
are so motionless at dusk, it is hard
to imagine they are still alive.
Is it possible to hold a single breath
across the decades? And is it true
that proximity is simply
the most primitive form of devotion?
See how they join again
amid the leaves—so they might
disappear together?
Marriage Journal
Rain strikes the roof
of years. And we dream
of bed springs whispering
each time we wake
and rise, our voices
becoming one more native
tongue. Or we stand
at the window,
the rain watching
us watching.
Or we sleep again
and are young inside
our bodies. Is this
where sorrow goes?
Is this a geography
of happiness? Listen:
the sorcery of decades
curls into the ouroboros.
And the earth
is damp with rain.
Doug Ramspeck is the author of six poetry collections and one collection of short stories. His most recent book, Black Flowers, is forthcoming by LSU Press. Individual poems have appeared in journals that include The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, Slate, and The Georgia Review. He lives in Ohio.
Rain strikes the roof
of years. And we dream
of bed springs whispering
each time we wake
and rise, our voices
becoming one more native
tongue. Or we stand
at the window,
the rain watching
us watching.
Or we sleep again
and are young inside
our bodies. Is this
where sorrow goes?
Is this a geography
of happiness? Listen:
the sorcery of decades
curls into the ouroboros.
And the earth
is damp with rain.
Doug Ramspeck is the author of six poetry collections and one collection of short stories. His most recent book, Black Flowers, is forthcoming by LSU Press. Individual poems have appeared in journals that include The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, Slate, and The Georgia Review. He lives in Ohio.
Jon Bennett
Duracell
When I worked graveyard
in the psycho ward for teens
they’d take the batteries
out of their radios
and chuck them at me
while I made my rounds.
You might ask
why they had those batteries –
the higher ups considered
depriving them ‘inhumane.’
The day I quit
I’d made it through
another brutal shift,
emerged into that sunlight
sickening when you’ve been up all night.
The building had slit windows
like a prison
and as I was going to my car
“Zap!” they got me,
side of the head, Duracell,
size ‘C.’
Then I noticed the dents
in my hood and fenders
and the scattered batteries
like so much expired
lightning.
Jon Bennett writes and plays music in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. You can find more of his work on iTunes, Pandora and other music streaming websites.
When I worked graveyard
in the psycho ward for teens
they’d take the batteries
out of their radios
and chuck them at me
while I made my rounds.
You might ask
why they had those batteries –
the higher ups considered
depriving them ‘inhumane.’
The day I quit
I’d made it through
another brutal shift,
emerged into that sunlight
sickening when you’ve been up all night.
The building had slit windows
like a prison
and as I was going to my car
“Zap!” they got me,
side of the head, Duracell,
size ‘C.’
Then I noticed the dents
in my hood and fenders
and the scattered batteries
like so much expired
lightning.
Jon Bennett writes and plays music in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. You can find more of his work on iTunes, Pandora and other music streaming websites.
Ricky Garni
ABC
I make myself into different letters to go to sleep.
I start with C, and if that doesn’t work, I try L.
T is usually good, as is I.
Z is tricky, but possible, but I don’t try it too much, because it makes me laugh.
I know that if I could make an O, I would probably fall asleep right away, since
it has no beginning and no end and that would make me relax, but Fred once told me
“I saw a guy once make an O. He started at the top, and kept going until he was
at the top again. And then he went to the store to buy more pencils.”
See if I ever tell Fred the power of Z.
Ricky Garni grew up in Miami and Maine. He works as a graphic designer by day and writes music by night. COO, a tiny collection of short prose printed on college lined paper with found materials such as coins, stamps and baseball cards, was recently released by Bitterzoet Press.
I make myself into different letters to go to sleep.
I start with C, and if that doesn’t work, I try L.
T is usually good, as is I.
Z is tricky, but possible, but I don’t try it too much, because it makes me laugh.
I know that if I could make an O, I would probably fall asleep right away, since
it has no beginning and no end and that would make me relax, but Fred once told me
“I saw a guy once make an O. He started at the top, and kept going until he was
at the top again. And then he went to the store to buy more pencils.”
See if I ever tell Fred the power of Z.
Ricky Garni grew up in Miami and Maine. He works as a graphic designer by day and writes music by night. COO, a tiny collection of short prose printed on college lined paper with found materials such as coins, stamps and baseball cards, was recently released by Bitterzoet Press.
Melissa Studdard 2 poems
Pteronophobia
drunk we stumble into disguise you
as the three-winged angel me as the girl
born without a tail all I ever wanted was
to grab hold the flat earth fold it up
like a plane and fly home to the belly
of my sorrow but the circumference
of earth is only as wide as the band around your hat
by which I mean I’m the one who chose
the burial clothes laid them beside an empty
& overturned bottle of Jack then smoothed
the felt brim skillfully avoiding the once lucky
goose feather we found by the pond
drunk we stumble into disguise you
as the three-winged angel me as the girl
born without a tail all I ever wanted was
to grab hold the flat earth fold it up
like a plane and fly home to the belly
of my sorrow but the circumference
of earth is only as wide as the band around your hat
by which I mean I’m the one who chose
the burial clothes laid them beside an empty
& overturned bottle of Jack then smoothed
the felt brim skillfully avoiding the once lucky
goose feather we found by the pond
Posthuman
Pour a glass of winter
to toast the snow inside the animal.
The entire year has been
filled with howling and dying and sudden life.
Every day a new delivery in a new box
from the same truck. What to do with
the boxes and bubble wrap and piles and piles
of invoices and tape.
Can the afterlife
really be this regular?
If you can’t find me in the house,
I’ll be out on the lawn
making angels.
Melissa Studdard’s books include the poetry collection I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast and the novel Six Weeks to Yehidah. Her writings have appeared in a wide range of publications, such as The Guardian, Poets & Writers, Southern Humanities Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Harvard Review, and Psychology Today. She is the executive producer and host of VIDA Voices & Views for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and an editor for American Microreviews and Interviews.
Pour a glass of winter
to toast the snow inside the animal.
The entire year has been
filled with howling and dying and sudden life.
Every day a new delivery in a new box
from the same truck. What to do with
the boxes and bubble wrap and piles and piles
of invoices and tape.
Can the afterlife
really be this regular?
If you can’t find me in the house,
I’ll be out on the lawn
making angels.
Melissa Studdard’s books include the poetry collection I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast and the novel Six Weeks to Yehidah. Her writings have appeared in a wide range of publications, such as The Guardian, Poets & Writers, Southern Humanities Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Harvard Review, and Psychology Today. She is the executive producer and host of VIDA Voices & Views for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and an editor for American Microreviews and Interviews.
Jennifer Jean
Stripped
Doubt existed in the minds of many persons present respecting the sex of the speaker. [They] demanded that Sojourner Truth submit her breast to the inspection of some of the ladies present. ~William Hayward, 1858, about the Silver Lake Pro-Abolition Rally
Take it off! Take it off!
shout some men at the shape
on the stage. That’s alright,
she says. She wants to
remove the white wool mantelet,
fold it like a flag,
toss it
to Lucy C., who paces in the
wings. Ms. Truth
unhooks
her gun-metal
bodice. Lets that drop—the crowd
jostling & hushing
between each tug & snap, Come on!
Next, the false yoke--
a ruffled chintz—comes over &
off. Sojourner smiles.
Sinewy & “well-spoke,”
she nods, No bother,
invites the sneering
caterwaulers to suck,
Like so many white babies,
when she pulls down the last—a simple stay.
When she lifts herself
out from behind
a rough chemise.
Look, she says,
full flesh &
the eye of a black-eyed Susan
blooming in her hand,
Here’s to
your shame.
Jennifer Jean’s new manuscript, OBJECT, was a finalist for the 2016 Green Mountains Review Book Prize. She is the recipient of Waxwing Journal’s first annual Good Bones Prize, and she received an Ambassador for Peace Award in 2013 for her activism in the arts. Jean's work has appeared in: Rattle, Crab Creek Review, Denver Quarterly, Green Mountains Review, Solstice Magazine, and more. She’s Poetry Editor of The Mom Egg Review, Managing Editor of Talking Writing Magazine, and Co-director of Morning Garden Artists Retreats. Jennifer teaches Free2Write poetry workshops to trauma survivors and to sex-trafficking survivors.
Doubt existed in the minds of many persons present respecting the sex of the speaker. [They] demanded that Sojourner Truth submit her breast to the inspection of some of the ladies present. ~William Hayward, 1858, about the Silver Lake Pro-Abolition Rally
Take it off! Take it off!
shout some men at the shape
on the stage. That’s alright,
she says. She wants to
remove the white wool mantelet,
fold it like a flag,
toss it
to Lucy C., who paces in the
wings. Ms. Truth
unhooks
her gun-metal
bodice. Lets that drop—the crowd
jostling & hushing
between each tug & snap, Come on!
Next, the false yoke--
a ruffled chintz—comes over &
off. Sojourner smiles.
Sinewy & “well-spoke,”
she nods, No bother,
invites the sneering
caterwaulers to suck,
Like so many white babies,
when she pulls down the last—a simple stay.
When she lifts herself
out from behind
a rough chemise.
Look, she says,
full flesh &
the eye of a black-eyed Susan
blooming in her hand,
Here’s to
your shame.
Jennifer Jean’s new manuscript, OBJECT, was a finalist for the 2016 Green Mountains Review Book Prize. She is the recipient of Waxwing Journal’s first annual Good Bones Prize, and she received an Ambassador for Peace Award in 2013 for her activism in the arts. Jean's work has appeared in: Rattle, Crab Creek Review, Denver Quarterly, Green Mountains Review, Solstice Magazine, and more. She’s Poetry Editor of The Mom Egg Review, Managing Editor of Talking Writing Magazine, and Co-director of Morning Garden Artists Retreats. Jennifer teaches Free2Write poetry workshops to trauma survivors and to sex-trafficking survivors.
Kenneth Pobo 3 poems
Book Burning in Micah
In fourth grade Tim wrote on
his arithmetic book:
In case of fire
throw this book in.
His teacher, Miss Luddy, frowned
and sent him to the coat room.
Didn’t he know books
should be treated with respect?
People and books deserved respect,
she said, in a Sunday Schoolish voice.
Among coats, scarves, boots, and gloves
he thought about that—why respect
crappy people—or crappy books?
He didn’t respect Mr. Hayes,
the gym teacher who made him stand,
head against a wall, for half a period
for smiling. What respect
did he deserve for holding a gradebook’s
loaded gun? Dad told him
about Hitler. And the gas. He’d gladly
have tossed him in a fire.
Grown-ups said respect your elders.
God agreed. Tim wrapped himself
in two winter coats, felt erased
as a problem on a chalkboard.
In fourth grade Tim wrote on
his arithmetic book:
In case of fire
throw this book in.
His teacher, Miss Luddy, frowned
and sent him to the coat room.
Didn’t he know books
should be treated with respect?
People and books deserved respect,
she said, in a Sunday Schoolish voice.
Among coats, scarves, boots, and gloves
he thought about that—why respect
crappy people—or crappy books?
He didn’t respect Mr. Hayes,
the gym teacher who made him stand,
head against a wall, for half a period
for smiling. What respect
did he deserve for holding a gradebook’s
loaded gun? Dad told him
about Hitler. And the gas. He’d gladly
have tossed him in a fire.
Grown-ups said respect your elders.
God agreed. Tim wrapped himself
in two winter coats, felt erased
as a problem on a chalkboard.
Plan Without Lemons
At 14, I sat on Mrs. Dahlia Perkins’
wooden steps and drank iced tea
without lemon. She said lemons
made the devil smile. I didn’t ask
didn’t the devil need something
to smile about? It must be worse
than a Georgia summer in Hell,
or maybe just slightly better.
She said God had a plan for me:
minister. She patted my blond crewcut
as if I were Aladdin’s lamp--
a great wish would burst out of me,
but my genies snuck away,
left no forwarding address. I pictured
my life as a minister. Ours wore
certainty like the black suit
he preached in. He chopped up doubt
to use for chicken feed. Having doubt,
I learned to be secretive—never admit it.
Be like a planter,
a spare house key buried
under a red geranium.
Her daughter Meg said that when
Mrs. Dahlia Perkins died, her Bible
was open to Amos. The guys
took her away. We had lost touch.
I worked as a busboy, played guitar
in a throaty garage band, and preached
to a drum and a bass.
When I drink iced tea, I drop in lemon,
a giggle for the devil. I dig up my secrets,
display them like resale shop items.
Anything is worth a quarter. Here,
take something. I’m an open book.
You don’t even have to read me.
At 14, I sat on Mrs. Dahlia Perkins’
wooden steps and drank iced tea
without lemon. She said lemons
made the devil smile. I didn’t ask
didn’t the devil need something
to smile about? It must be worse
than a Georgia summer in Hell,
or maybe just slightly better.
She said God had a plan for me:
minister. She patted my blond crewcut
as if I were Aladdin’s lamp--
a great wish would burst out of me,
but my genies snuck away,
left no forwarding address. I pictured
my life as a minister. Ours wore
certainty like the black suit
he preached in. He chopped up doubt
to use for chicken feed. Having doubt,
I learned to be secretive—never admit it.
Be like a planter,
a spare house key buried
under a red geranium.
Her daughter Meg said that when
Mrs. Dahlia Perkins died, her Bible
was open to Amos. The guys
took her away. We had lost touch.
I worked as a busboy, played guitar
in a throaty garage band, and preached
to a drum and a bass.
When I drink iced tea, I drop in lemon,
a giggle for the devil. I dig up my secrets,
display them like resale shop items.
Anything is worth a quarter. Here,
take something. I’m an open book.
You don’t even have to read me.
We’ve Only Just Begun
At our wedding the minister says
we’re on a magic carpet
flying off to some bright corner
of the imagination. Have we packed
a good lunch? We haven’t.
Even our clothes are sleeping it off
at the Holiday Inn. We watch him turn
into a salt pillar after we say I do.
He shrugs. It often happens,
he says. Everyone has something.
Back in our room we fight about
which rerun to watch
after consummating our consummated
nuptuals. I want Now Voyager. You
want World Series Highlights, 1989.
Our magic
carpet ends up in the garage behind
a sled. We take it out sometimes,
give it a spin. Earth looks up,
burping from all the plastic
dumped into her seas, her spacious
shoulders made of violets
and mountains.
Kenneth Pobo had a new book out from Circling Rivers in 2017 called Loplop in a Red City. Forthcoming from Grey Borders Press is his chapbook Dust And Chrysanthemums. His work has appeared in: Mudfish, Hawaii Review, Caesura, Nimrod, Two Thirds North, and elsewhere.
At our wedding the minister says
we’re on a magic carpet
flying off to some bright corner
of the imagination. Have we packed
a good lunch? We haven’t.
Even our clothes are sleeping it off
at the Holiday Inn. We watch him turn
into a salt pillar after we say I do.
He shrugs. It often happens,
he says. Everyone has something.
Back in our room we fight about
which rerun to watch
after consummating our consummated
nuptuals. I want Now Voyager. You
want World Series Highlights, 1989.
Our magic
carpet ends up in the garage behind
a sled. We take it out sometimes,
give it a spin. Earth looks up,
burping from all the plastic
dumped into her seas, her spacious
shoulders made of violets
and mountains.
Kenneth Pobo had a new book out from Circling Rivers in 2017 called Loplop in a Red City. Forthcoming from Grey Borders Press is his chapbook Dust And Chrysanthemums. His work has appeared in: Mudfish, Hawaii Review, Caesura, Nimrod, Two Thirds North, and elsewhere.
Boris Khersonsky translated by Nina Kossman 4 poems
September 1, 1939
1
the second world war begins with a masquerade
germans in polish uniforms raid the borders of the reich
the doors of war open more easily than the doors of hell
like a crane over a well a road barrier a striped lath
lies preach violence harm propaganda
it's impossible to enter the same war more definitely than a river
food of the god of war is labor camp gruel
he allows no more than a spoonful per person
comrade perun shakes hands with genosse votan
they congratulate children with the start of the school year
an expanding beam from a projector reaches a screen
sunny weather is better for a bombing
the voice of the radio announcer sounds tense
mothers now say your joyful goodbyes to your sons
a beginning of a war is more fun than its middle
but the enemy shall be defeated and victory shall be ours
(1 September 2016)
мировая вторая начинается с маскарада
немцы в форме поляков атакуют границы рейха
двери войны открываются проще чем двери ада
как журавль над колодцем шлагбаум полосатая рейка
ложь предваряет насилие лиха беда пропаганда
нельзя в ту же войну окончательнее чем в реку
пища бога сражений лагерная баланда
он оставляет по ложечке каждому человеку
товарищ перун пожимает руку геноссе вотану
они поздравляют ребят с началом учебного года
от проектора тянется луч расширяясь к экрану
бомбардировкам способствует солнечная погода
в голосе диктора чувствуется напряженье
прощайтесь радостно матери со своими сынами
начало войны веселее чем ее продолженье
но враг будет разбит и победа будет за нами
(1 сентября 2016 г.)
2
Ever wonder what the weather was like
on September first, nineteen thirty-nine?
Especially in Poland, on the German border?
A weather report for that day is surely filed away somewhere.
Sowing of winter cereals in the fields is done.
SS men hurriedly put on Polish uniforms.
A big war begins with a small masquerade.
At the start the theater of operations is just a stage.
The audience is waiting. The audience is half asleep.
Germany enters center stage. The USSR is watchful.
The audience freezes with admiration and horror.
An incombustible angel of vengeance flies amidst fighter
planes.
The Audience is waiting. The audience is waiting half asleep.
Germany enters center stage. The USSR is watchful.
The audience freezes with admiration and horror.
An incombustible angel of vengeance flies admist fighter
planes.
(1 September 2014)
Интересно, какая была погода
первого сентября тридцать девятого года?
Особенно в Польше, на немецкой границе?
Метеосводка где-то должна сохраниться.
В полях завершались посевы озимых злаков.
Эсэсовцы в спешке надевали мундиры поляков.
Большая война начинается с маленького маскарада.
Театр военных действий для начала - просто эстрада.
Публика в ожидании. Публика в полудреме.
На эстраду выходит Германия. СССР - на стреме.
И зрители замирают от ужаса и восхищенья.
Летит среди истребителей несгораемый ангел мщенья.
(1 сентября 2014)
3
The beginning of a school and liturgical year,
the beginning of autumn, the beginning of the second world war.
We enter the river of times without knowing how to ford.
A solemn yellow leaf circles over the withered grass.
A firstborn of temporary death, he reigns, falling,
in every line of a poem devoted to autumn days,
on the earth, which is fiery in its own way and in its own way fireproof,
where death, grace and, alas, the law are all mixed,
in which, on occasion, trenches are dug as well as dugouts,
in which roots are intertwined, forming a strong web,
which is trampled on by animals to make curvy, narrow trails,
we too should walk it, yet what a pity we won't have the time.
(1 September 2013)
Начало учебного и церковного года,
начало осени, начало второй мировой.
Мы входим в реку времен, но не знаем брода.
Торжественный желтый лист кружит над пожухлой травой.
Первенец временной смерти, в каждой строке стихотворной,
посвященной осенним дням, падая, царствует он.
На земле, по-своему - огненной, и по-своему - огнеупорной,
в которой смешаны смерть, благодать и, увы, закон.
В которой при случае роют траншеи, землянки, окопы,
в которой сплетаются корни, образуя прочную сеть.
На которой звери протаптывают кривые, узкие, тропы,
и нам бы их исходить, да жаль - не успеть.
1 сентября 2013
4
And here is the first lesson of the war,
with its solemn first bell,
when two reptiles divide the Polish
pie with their crooked bayonet.
They chew it so greedily
their eyes crawl out of their orbits.
In the meantime, a soldier is frightened,
he wants to be neither killed nor hurt.
He can want all he wants. Welcome to Hell.
Only the lords of war have their say here.
Lord, Lord! Have mercy on
those who walk under you.
1 September 2012
А вот и первый военный урок
с торжественным первым звонком.
Тогда поделили польский пирог
два гада кривым штыком.
И жрали так, что глаза на лоб
повылазили из орбит.
И страшно солдату - хочется, чтоб
не ранен и не убит.
Хотеть не вредно. Пожалуйте в Ад.
Тут любят военных господ.
Господи, Господи! Смилуйся над
теми, кто ходит под.
1 сентября 2012
Notes
*September 1, 1939 - On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland.
The German-Soviet Pact, signed in August 1939, stated that Poland was to be partitioned between Germany and the USSR,
* Perun - Slavic god of thunder
**Genosse - comrade
***Votan - Odin, the chief god of Norse mythology
Boris Khersonsky (b.1950), poet, translator, professor of clinical psychology. In his youth he participated in dissident literary culture and appeared in the émigré press such as “Novoe russkoe slovo” and Radio Svoboda. In the mid 1980s his poems started appearing in Western publications. Since the 1990s his poems were published in Russia and Ukraine in numerous literary journals and various anthologies. He lives in Odessa, Ukraine.
In 2006 his first poetry collection, Family Archives, was published in Russia; it was followed by Under Construction and Out of Fence (2008). In 2009 he collected his poems about Italy in Marble Sheet (Italian edition edited by C. Scandura in 2010), and in 2010 his Spiritual Collection came out. He is the winner of numerous literary awards; since 1998 he has been the poetry editor of Kreščatik, an important literary journal based in Kiev. He won the Joseph Brodsky Foundation Prize in 2008. In 2010 he was awarded Literaris prize in Austria for the German edition of his Familien-archiv (Wiesel Verlag).
He is a strong supporter of Ukraine's independence, and many of his poems express his political position. In the first two years of the Russian war against Ukraine, he received numerous threats of reprisal.
Jill Barrie
Big Bad Pig
Did you hear about the pig
in a red waistcoat
who waved a snub nose .38
in the wolves furry faces
when the rent was late?
How about the little engine
that thought it could--
puffed up a hill, got stuck
in a tunnel for a fortnight.
Took a dozen men to free
that sorry son-of-a-gun.
You know the gingerbread boy
is really a girl who likes
to wear her brother’s clothes.
She is cagey, and that crap
about the fox, nonsense.
Remember the princess
and the pea? The pea wasn’t
sandwiched in a stack of mattresses
by some tired old queen.
Princess found it in a pickle jar
and wears it as a nose ring.
Jill Barrie has published poetry in the New Virginia Review, Louisville Review, Cimarron Review, and The North American Review. Recently, her poems have been selected for Driftfish: A Zoomorphic Anthology and the Apalachee Review. She lives in Northern Illinois.
Did you hear about the pig
in a red waistcoat
who waved a snub nose .38
in the wolves furry faces
when the rent was late?
How about the little engine
that thought it could--
puffed up a hill, got stuck
in a tunnel for a fortnight.
Took a dozen men to free
that sorry son-of-a-gun.
You know the gingerbread boy
is really a girl who likes
to wear her brother’s clothes.
She is cagey, and that crap
about the fox, nonsense.
Remember the princess
and the pea? The pea wasn’t
sandwiched in a stack of mattresses
by some tired old queen.
Princess found it in a pickle jar
and wears it as a nose ring.
Jill Barrie has published poetry in the New Virginia Review, Louisville Review, Cimarron Review, and The North American Review. Recently, her poems have been selected for Driftfish: A Zoomorphic Anthology and the Apalachee Review. She lives in Northern Illinois.
Jonathan Rose
Artful
a Rose
Botticelli’s Venus
Appears with the genus
Of phylum mollusca–looking swell–
Half-nude on the half shell.
Note: The Rose is a variation of the clerihew and differs from the latter in several aspects, the foremost being the addition of the one-word title, which word must always be an adjective. After (or before) the name of the character or subject (living or dead, real or fictional), additional words may appear; this is true of the rose, but not of the traditional clerihew. The rhyme scheme is a simple AABB , the second line rhyming with the final word of the first line. The third and fourth line rhyme with each other.
Jonathan Rose has served as President of the Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation, officer of Lip, Tongue & Ear Poetry Guild, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2001. He has been a member of the South Florida Writers Association for more than twenty years, serving as its Program Director for the past several years. Since 1992 he has moderated the Famous Last Friday Open Mic Poetry Readings at Books and Books in Coral Gables, FL.
a Rose
Botticelli’s Venus
Appears with the genus
Of phylum mollusca–looking swell–
Half-nude on the half shell.
Note: The Rose is a variation of the clerihew and differs from the latter in several aspects, the foremost being the addition of the one-word title, which word must always be an adjective. After (or before) the name of the character or subject (living or dead, real or fictional), additional words may appear; this is true of the rose, but not of the traditional clerihew. The rhyme scheme is a simple AABB , the second line rhyming with the final word of the first line. The third and fourth line rhyme with each other.
Jonathan Rose has served as President of the Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation, officer of Lip, Tongue & Ear Poetry Guild, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2001. He has been a member of the South Florida Writers Association for more than twenty years, serving as its Program Director for the past several years. Since 1992 he has moderated the Famous Last Friday Open Mic Poetry Readings at Books and Books in Coral Gables, FL.
Charles Scheitler
Cloud Work
The clouds keep the cranes
In constant motion
And still
The bridge work proceeds so slowly--
Charles Scheitler moved to Florida as a young man & discovered Zen haiku & aphorisms along the way. His philosophy stays true.
Bonnie Riedinger
Aubades Were Inconceivable
Until that morning,
Rising too soon from the warm cocoon of limbs entwined
I would have said that nothing could rhyme
With morning except its homonym.
Until that morning,
When we lay cast in relief on plaster-white sheets
Rough from bleach and couples’ endless reaching
Across that king-size distance.
Until that morning,
Dawn seeped
In at the edges of the blinds
Tepid as motel tea
Steeped with bitter leavings-
Little sins.
Until that morning,
I dreamt of Donne’s sucking flea,
Stalked sulphurous Eliot snaking
Through fog-clogged London streets, his pesky wife
In a Post Modern Bedlam.
I counted sweet lambs
Gamboling as Mrs. Blake swept through
On her broom crying “Mr. Blake don’t dirt!”
I dreamt of sick bouquets plucked by Baudelaire
Shaking his wineskin full of pus in iambs
And of nights with Charles Bukowski (Now there’s a flirt)
In a room where women don’t cum, or go
And endless echoes throb
Of Sartre shouting at Robert (Lowell)
“Sex is a hole!”
Aubades were inconceivable
Until that morning, when he woke me
hours too early for breakfast, or even tea
(which was just as well as there was no food
not even a cold plum, in the refrigerator)
Until that morning when
We bought blood oranges to eat--
Impossible to rhyme
Impossibly sweet--
Ripped open the rinds
Wiped the juice on the hotel sheets.
Until that morning when
We ate sunlit fruit
Speckled with dark ripening
As the blush melted
Through the pane
Flecked with hard rime
And slowly we began
To speak plain
Prose astounded,
Transmuted
By the obvious,
The ordinary
Rising.
Bonnie Riedinger, of Connecticut, received her MFA from The Ohio State University and has taught creative writing at several colleges and universities. Her poem “Trompe L'oeil--Not a Painting” is forthcoming in Plume.
Until that morning,
Rising too soon from the warm cocoon of limbs entwined
I would have said that nothing could rhyme
With morning except its homonym.
Until that morning,
When we lay cast in relief on plaster-white sheets
Rough from bleach and couples’ endless reaching
Across that king-size distance.
Until that morning,
Dawn seeped
In at the edges of the blinds
Tepid as motel tea
Steeped with bitter leavings-
Little sins.
Until that morning,
I dreamt of Donne’s sucking flea,
Stalked sulphurous Eliot snaking
Through fog-clogged London streets, his pesky wife
In a Post Modern Bedlam.
I counted sweet lambs
Gamboling as Mrs. Blake swept through
On her broom crying “Mr. Blake don’t dirt!”
I dreamt of sick bouquets plucked by Baudelaire
Shaking his wineskin full of pus in iambs
And of nights with Charles Bukowski (Now there’s a flirt)
In a room where women don’t cum, or go
And endless echoes throb
Of Sartre shouting at Robert (Lowell)
“Sex is a hole!”
Aubades were inconceivable
Until that morning, when he woke me
hours too early for breakfast, or even tea
(which was just as well as there was no food
not even a cold plum, in the refrigerator)
Until that morning when
We bought blood oranges to eat--
Impossible to rhyme
Impossibly sweet--
Ripped open the rinds
Wiped the juice on the hotel sheets.
Until that morning when
We ate sunlit fruit
Speckled with dark ripening
As the blush melted
Through the pane
Flecked with hard rime
And slowly we began
To speak plain
Prose astounded,
Transmuted
By the obvious,
The ordinary
Rising.
Bonnie Riedinger, of Connecticut, received her MFA from The Ohio State University and has taught creative writing at several colleges and universities. Her poem “Trompe L'oeil--Not a Painting” is forthcoming in Plume.
Maggie Blake Bailey 2 poems
Non-native
"'People said, `You can't raise elk in Florida.' But we are, so I guess you can,''
says Up River manager James Brown Jr.
In the Smoky Mountains, the elk
are made of roadside ice, hoarfrost.
They come out of the fog
and settle back in, like river
rocks, old growth forests,
with antlers meant to rise
from creeks and branches,
startling thrush and wren.
Where we have taken them,
the air bristles with sand.
One elk finds the shoreline
of Lake Okeechobee,
remembers winter and pauses,
waiting to catch the bronze glint
of turkey feathers, white pulse of a doe,
dips a furred mouth hoping
to taste snowmelt, oak.
Instead, hooves strike against
limestone as small bream ribbon past.
Waiting for water to turn weightless,
the elk kneels, smudging
eelgrass and peppergrass
with long suffering limbs,
closes eyes still rimmed
in midges, and dreams back.
"'People said, `You can't raise elk in Florida.' But we are, so I guess you can,''
says Up River manager James Brown Jr.
In the Smoky Mountains, the elk
are made of roadside ice, hoarfrost.
They come out of the fog
and settle back in, like river
rocks, old growth forests,
with antlers meant to rise
from creeks and branches,
startling thrush and wren.
Where we have taken them,
the air bristles with sand.
One elk finds the shoreline
of Lake Okeechobee,
remembers winter and pauses,
waiting to catch the bronze glint
of turkey feathers, white pulse of a doe,
dips a furred mouth hoping
to taste snowmelt, oak.
Instead, hooves strike against
limestone as small bream ribbon past.
Waiting for water to turn weightless,
the elk kneels, smudging
eelgrass and peppergrass
with long suffering limbs,
closes eyes still rimmed
in midges, and dreams back.
Their Mouths, Their Throats
Horizon birds, my grandfather would say,
look, they have fish in the soft scoop
of their mouths, their throats.
A pelican stands at the end
of a summer-town pier, past the crabbers,
the sticky hands of children
eating ice cream, all the white flesh
burnt pink at the elastic waist bands,
old tank tops, the fat at the back of the neck.
I am surprised by ugliness:
the open circle of weathered dock,
no one wanting to get close to the bird
that seems more dinosaur more monster,
a bird painted into Bibles because scholars
believed it killed its young, and then,
contrite, resurrected them with drops
of blood from its own breast,
Christ-like. But that isn’t true.
What would I have said to my daughter
even if they did? Better to invent
our own mythology.
She was there, she saw the pelican.
She has started life knowing wings,
throats, and nothing of contrition.
Maggie Blake Bailey has poems published or forthcoming in The San Pedro River Review, Tar River, Tinderbox, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Bury the Lede, is available from Finishing Line Press and at Amazon.com. She has been nominated for The Pushcart and also for The Best of the Net. Visit her at http://www.maggieblakebailey.com/
Horizon birds, my grandfather would say,
look, they have fish in the soft scoop
of their mouths, their throats.
A pelican stands at the end
of a summer-town pier, past the crabbers,
the sticky hands of children
eating ice cream, all the white flesh
burnt pink at the elastic waist bands,
old tank tops, the fat at the back of the neck.
I am surprised by ugliness:
the open circle of weathered dock,
no one wanting to get close to the bird
that seems more dinosaur more monster,
a bird painted into Bibles because scholars
believed it killed its young, and then,
contrite, resurrected them with drops
of blood from its own breast,
Christ-like. But that isn’t true.
What would I have said to my daughter
even if they did? Better to invent
our own mythology.
She was there, she saw the pelican.
She has started life knowing wings,
throats, and nothing of contrition.
Maggie Blake Bailey has poems published or forthcoming in The San Pedro River Review, Tar River, Tinderbox, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Bury the Lede, is available from Finishing Line Press and at Amazon.com. She has been nominated for The Pushcart and also for The Best of the Net. Visit her at http://www.maggieblakebailey.com/
Kathryn McLaughlin 2 poems
In the Aftermath of Ever After
They like to shame me now, forgetting
I rose quite literally from the ash.
Cinder-sealed, born of soot,
coal dust settled in my throat--
but what first blisters
will learn to callous.
The glass slippers sliced my heels,
I wooed a man with blood
pooling in my shoes, let him lead
me to his room where I coaxed a cache
of the finest royal down,
and made his bed a tinder nest.
Cinderslut they hissed when I rode by,
their whispers a brine that slaked
my heart, but nothing would temper
my burning.
II. The Lady in Waiting Reports Her Majesty Spending Days in the Sitting Room, Staring at the Pea
He desired how surely I felt
pain— our courtship a bouquet
of bruises, burst capillaries
blooming beneath the surface
of the skin as he kissed my purpled flesh--
I would never know a tender touch.
At night I dreamt of beds stacked
up into the stars, rising like a spire,
stuffed with feathers
and bone.
III. After Her Rescue, the Queen Claimed She Was Swimming to the Horizon
There are parts of my story they’d rather forget--
my tongue plucked from my mouth,
the burning, like a hot sword, cleaved me
in two— but a witch’s promise is stitched
to the horizon. The salt air wicked the sea
from my skin, dried it to a papery husk,
my voice like wind through a hull
of throat. The truth is closer
to the tale of Arethusa,
pulled down by Alpheus’ waters,
an ocean of blood and desire
rising.
- Unmoved by the King’s Protestations, the Queen Speaks Candidly of Her Sudden Ascent
They like to shame me now, forgetting
I rose quite literally from the ash.
Cinder-sealed, born of soot,
coal dust settled in my throat--
but what first blisters
will learn to callous.
The glass slippers sliced my heels,
I wooed a man with blood
pooling in my shoes, let him lead
me to his room where I coaxed a cache
of the finest royal down,
and made his bed a tinder nest.
Cinderslut they hissed when I rode by,
their whispers a brine that slaked
my heart, but nothing would temper
my burning.
II. The Lady in Waiting Reports Her Majesty Spending Days in the Sitting Room, Staring at the Pea
He desired how surely I felt
pain— our courtship a bouquet
of bruises, burst capillaries
blooming beneath the surface
of the skin as he kissed my purpled flesh--
I would never know a tender touch.
At night I dreamt of beds stacked
up into the stars, rising like a spire,
stuffed with feathers
and bone.
III. After Her Rescue, the Queen Claimed She Was Swimming to the Horizon
There are parts of my story they’d rather forget--
my tongue plucked from my mouth,
the burning, like a hot sword, cleaved me
in two— but a witch’s promise is stitched
to the horizon. The salt air wicked the sea
from my skin, dried it to a papery husk,
my voice like wind through a hull
of throat. The truth is closer
to the tale of Arethusa,
pulled down by Alpheus’ waters,
an ocean of blood and desire
rising.
Florida Springs
I.
The mangos in the trees were still hard and green
when you first came for me, mud tires kicking
out clouds of dust, I pushed myself against the flanks
of your white truck, reaching
for the can of Busch
nestled between your legs.
Now we float down the Santa Fe River at dusk,
the summer days stretching into night
like a fever that will not break,
listening to the twang of someone else’s sad swamp ballad,
keeping our eyes open for gators,
watching for their telltale swirl
on the water’s mossy surface,
we try not to get caught
in their death roll.
II.
We both know how easy it is to disappear in this state--
undertows, sinkholes, doctor’s notes--
as we swim into the springs,
small pockets of aquamarine off the river.
Below us, the limestone floor parts
its mouth, but I keep close
to the surface, watching your body slip
beneath the water, your arms reaching
for the opening each stroke, pulling you
towards some dark, unknown place.
III.
I’ve waited for you to come
back, but these days you’re
always peeling off.
Well I’m not taking my chances;
I swim the river with a dive knife
at my hip. I walk along the water’s edge,
inhaling the night-blooming jasmine,
carrying a .22.
Yesterday, you drove by without stopping,
dust behind you like you were trailing fire,
burning up everything
you touched.
I caught sight of you for a moment,
saw the way your skin is starting to sink
between your bones, like the way the river pulls
back into itself after weeks without rain.
Kathryn McLaughlin lives in South Florida with her dog, Yeti.
I.
The mangos in the trees were still hard and green
when you first came for me, mud tires kicking
out clouds of dust, I pushed myself against the flanks
of your white truck, reaching
for the can of Busch
nestled between your legs.
Now we float down the Santa Fe River at dusk,
the summer days stretching into night
like a fever that will not break,
listening to the twang of someone else’s sad swamp ballad,
keeping our eyes open for gators,
watching for their telltale swirl
on the water’s mossy surface,
we try not to get caught
in their death roll.
II.
We both know how easy it is to disappear in this state--
undertows, sinkholes, doctor’s notes--
as we swim into the springs,
small pockets of aquamarine off the river.
Below us, the limestone floor parts
its mouth, but I keep close
to the surface, watching your body slip
beneath the water, your arms reaching
for the opening each stroke, pulling you
towards some dark, unknown place.
III.
I’ve waited for you to come
back, but these days you’re
always peeling off.
Well I’m not taking my chances;
I swim the river with a dive knife
at my hip. I walk along the water’s edge,
inhaling the night-blooming jasmine,
carrying a .22.
Yesterday, you drove by without stopping,
dust behind you like you were trailing fire,
burning up everything
you touched.
I caught sight of you for a moment,
saw the way your skin is starting to sink
between your bones, like the way the river pulls
back into itself after weeks without rain.
Kathryn McLaughlin lives in South Florida with her dog, Yeti.
Mark Murphy
Grimescar Wood
When we first walked here it was in another time,
so long ago we hardly recall the stile, fence, or steel
in the field which led us into the woods at dusk
where we walked through the mud and leaves of ash,
beech, elm and oak, muted brown in the driving rain.
So we walk here now under a different sky where
branch and twig bend and tell as the gale lashes us
to each other in the sober glare of a sudden storm
where we follow not one path, but all paths, as we hold
and kiss, yielding like saplings in the blinding wind.
Not a sparrow sighs, nor fox breaths in this twilight
tempest, only you and I, glad to be seventeen again
with no history to bury as we stumble upon the bole
of sycamore clothed in moss, submerged in water
amid bushes of rhododendrons, hazel and hawthorn.
Soaked to the bone, but with a new sense of purpose,
we make our way home, away from this wild wood
with its wandering paths turning us left and right
aside from the ruined remains of that ancient quarry,
back to our warm rooms with bread, cheese and berries.
Mark A. Murphy’s first full length collection, Night-watch Man & Muse was published in 2013 by Salmon Poetry, Eire.
When we first walked here it was in another time,
so long ago we hardly recall the stile, fence, or steel
in the field which led us into the woods at dusk
where we walked through the mud and leaves of ash,
beech, elm and oak, muted brown in the driving rain.
So we walk here now under a different sky where
branch and twig bend and tell as the gale lashes us
to each other in the sober glare of a sudden storm
where we follow not one path, but all paths, as we hold
and kiss, yielding like saplings in the blinding wind.
Not a sparrow sighs, nor fox breaths in this twilight
tempest, only you and I, glad to be seventeen again
with no history to bury as we stumble upon the bole
of sycamore clothed in moss, submerged in water
amid bushes of rhododendrons, hazel and hawthorn.
Soaked to the bone, but with a new sense of purpose,
we make our way home, away from this wild wood
with its wandering paths turning us left and right
aside from the ruined remains of that ancient quarry,
back to our warm rooms with bread, cheese and berries.
Mark A. Murphy’s first full length collection, Night-watch Man & Muse was published in 2013 by Salmon Poetry, Eire.
Paul Hostovsky 3 poems
Pathetic Vowel Fallacy
Remember that big house on the corner,
the one with all the windows,
didn’t the Giulianos live there?
No, the Schmidts. The Giulianos
lived in the gambrel cape
down the street, across from the Poppers.
But I could have sworn the Giulianos
lived in that house with the windows.
I guess it was all those vowels: G-i-u-l-i-a-n-o
--they had more vowels than any house
on the block. Don’t those vowels make you think
of windows? And tomatoes growing in the sun?
No, they make me think of old refrigerators,
junked cars and cannabis growing in the back yard,
the parents using the f-word like a comma,
the kids using it like a vowel. The Schmidts
had the windows. The Schmidts
grew the tomatoes. The Giulianos grew
rust and weed and kids with foul mouths.
Remember that big house on the corner,
the one with all the windows,
didn’t the Giulianos live there?
No, the Schmidts. The Giulianos
lived in the gambrel cape
down the street, across from the Poppers.
But I could have sworn the Giulianos
lived in that house with the windows.
I guess it was all those vowels: G-i-u-l-i-a-n-o
--they had more vowels than any house
on the block. Don’t those vowels make you think
of windows? And tomatoes growing in the sun?
No, they make me think of old refrigerators,
junked cars and cannabis growing in the back yard,
the parents using the f-word like a comma,
the kids using it like a vowel. The Schmidts
had the windows. The Schmidts
grew the tomatoes. The Giulianos grew
rust and weed and kids with foul mouths.
Life Is a Banjo
Just ask the banjo players
and they’ll tell you
they didn’t choose the banjo
so much as the banjo
chose them--and now
they carry it around with them,
this conjoined twin
whose big round head,
pale skin, funny-looking
fifth tuning peg like a misplaced
thumb halfway up a forearm,
is part of them. Like
the body you didn’t choose.
Like the life you didn’t choose either.
Nobody gets to choose.
But you pick it up, you
dust it off, you put your
arms around it and you try
to love it. And you try to make it
sing. You get yourself
some fingerpicks and you
pick that damn thing like
the life you didn’t pick
depended on it.
Just ask the banjo players
and they’ll tell you
they didn’t choose the banjo
so much as the banjo
chose them--and now
they carry it around with them,
this conjoined twin
whose big round head,
pale skin, funny-looking
fifth tuning peg like a misplaced
thumb halfway up a forearm,
is part of them. Like
the body you didn’t choose.
Like the life you didn’t choose either.
Nobody gets to choose.
But you pick it up, you
dust it off, you put your
arms around it and you try
to love it. And you try to make it
sing. You get yourself
some fingerpicks and you
pick that damn thing like
the life you didn’t pick
depended on it.
First Line
In the end of days what you need is a good first line.
To distract you from the truth with its own truth.
The way pain can sometimes distract from pain.
The way beauty can sometimes distract from pain.
The way a good bedtime story can light up the dark
side of an entire planet, given a little room
with a bed in the corner, a few right words, a child
listening. In the end of days what you need is a good
beginning. Something hopeful and trembling like a tongue.
Something open and unselfconscious like a mouth,
listening to the words, and the music of the words.
Something steeply rocking like a ship, or a sleep: heavy,
floating, viable, smelling of saltwater and infinite possibility.
Paul Hostovsky’s latest book of poems, Is That What That Is, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2017. His poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net awards, and have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter. Visit him at paulhostovsky.com
In the end of days what you need is a good first line.
To distract you from the truth with its own truth.
The way pain can sometimes distract from pain.
The way beauty can sometimes distract from pain.
The way a good bedtime story can light up the dark
side of an entire planet, given a little room
with a bed in the corner, a few right words, a child
listening. In the end of days what you need is a good
beginning. Something hopeful and trembling like a tongue.
Something open and unselfconscious like a mouth,
listening to the words, and the music of the words.
Something steeply rocking like a ship, or a sleep: heavy,
floating, viable, smelling of saltwater and infinite possibility.
Paul Hostovsky’s latest book of poems, Is That What That Is, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2017. His poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net awards, and have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter. Visit him at paulhostovsky.com
Steve Mueske 2 poems
A Little Hither, A Little Yon
Although the mansion of happiness has many rooms,
we are faithful only to our attraction to ruin.
We are mice in love with murder.
Mothers with stones.
Old men with a love of guns and land
and whiskey. Each day, people like us
stride through the strawberry patch, singing.
Each day, a traveling gnome
sends a postcard back from Houston,
Minnesota, where they have owls
instead of oil.
***
Someday, yes, the lamb will lie down with the wolf,
but right now all the wolf wants
is a basket of sandwiches on artisan bread,
a good Tuscan Chianti with hints of cherry, plum,
and strawberry,
and a well-made suit for a fair price.
Today's wolf doesn't eat grandmothers.
He leases a BMW and has a diverse portfolio
with better-than-average dividends.
***
Consider Brilliant, Alabama, where, even now,
a woman is vacuuming her floors; or Boring, Oregon,
where a shirtless fireman is blasting a fire
with a (very) large hose. It's all part of a new
lo-fi porno movement for those who want the kink
without the commitment.
***
In Hell, Michigan, the mayor wears a T-shirt
that reads “Nuke ‘em all and let God
sort ‘em out!”
***
In Hell (actual), the devil wears a T-shirt
that reads “Come on down!”
***
All we really want is a vacation to paradise
without the awful business of dying,
sweet-scented and sunny,
where there is always music and the wheels and pulleys
are tastefully hidden behind an edifice of magic.
A version of a world without end,
immutable and everlasting. Amen.
Although the mansion of happiness has many rooms,
we are faithful only to our attraction to ruin.
We are mice in love with murder.
Mothers with stones.
Old men with a love of guns and land
and whiskey. Each day, people like us
stride through the strawberry patch, singing.
Each day, a traveling gnome
sends a postcard back from Houston,
Minnesota, where they have owls
instead of oil.
***
Someday, yes, the lamb will lie down with the wolf,
but right now all the wolf wants
is a basket of sandwiches on artisan bread,
a good Tuscan Chianti with hints of cherry, plum,
and strawberry,
and a well-made suit for a fair price.
Today's wolf doesn't eat grandmothers.
He leases a BMW and has a diverse portfolio
with better-than-average dividends.
***
Consider Brilliant, Alabama, where, even now,
a woman is vacuuming her floors; or Boring, Oregon,
where a shirtless fireman is blasting a fire
with a (very) large hose. It's all part of a new
lo-fi porno movement for those who want the kink
without the commitment.
***
In Hell, Michigan, the mayor wears a T-shirt
that reads “Nuke ‘em all and let God
sort ‘em out!”
***
In Hell (actual), the devil wears a T-shirt
that reads “Come on down!”
***
All we really want is a vacation to paradise
without the awful business of dying,
sweet-scented and sunny,
where there is always music and the wheels and pulleys
are tastefully hidden behind an edifice of magic.
A version of a world without end,
immutable and everlasting. Amen.
The Photograph
It wasn't until I got home
And sat in the chair that I found
Pressed into the pages of a book
Of poems by Hayden Carruth
An old black and white photo
Of a young woman sitting
On stairs. She was impossibly
Beautiful. Probably dead,
I thought. Someone's daughter
Or sweetheart idling for a moment
In the sun, free still, uncommitted
To the care or worry she would
Soon have to rise to.
Steve Mueske is an electronic musician and the author of a chapbook and two books of poetry. His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Crazyhorse, Water~Stone Review, Hotel Amerika, Poet Lore, The Massachusetts Review, Crab Orchard Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere.
It wasn't until I got home
And sat in the chair that I found
Pressed into the pages of a book
Of poems by Hayden Carruth
An old black and white photo
Of a young woman sitting
On stairs. She was impossibly
Beautiful. Probably dead,
I thought. Someone's daughter
Or sweetheart idling for a moment
In the sun, free still, uncommitted
To the care or worry she would
Soon have to rise to.
Steve Mueske is an electronic musician and the author of a chapbook and two books of poetry. His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Crazyhorse, Water~Stone Review, Hotel Amerika, Poet Lore, The Massachusetts Review, Crab Orchard Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere.
Dennis Maloney
Preface
Guan Yin is the embodiment of compassion and wisdom in Buddhism and is said to be the protector of women, children, sailors, fishermen, the sick, those in trouble, and the poor. She is the one who “hears the cries of the world.” She is considered a bodhisattva, one who foregoes enlightenment until all sentient beings are liberated. She is said to manifest in a variety of forms to free beings from suffering. Originally depicted in India as a male or androgynous figure by the time Buddhism reached China and elsewhere Guan Yin had evolved to a female form.
These poems explore Guan Yin in the historic context of various female roles and figures in Buddhism, as well as in responses to contemporary events and situations. Some poems are in her voice or in the voice of historic woman figures in Buddhism and others are petitions to her.
from The Faces of Guan Yin
1
In many stories you appear
as an old woman serving tea
at a roadside stand to travelers
who enter with a thirst.
Fragrant green tea appears.
Those who enter filled
with arrogance and ego
are chased away.
Su Tung Po read his poems
to the tea lady and if she
didn’t understand them,
he would rewrite them.
She serves tea and wipes
the counter with a clean rag,
the unrecognized teacher
outside the gate.
3
In 628 A.D.
two fisherman netted
a small golden Kannon
while fishing
and built a small hut
to enshrine it in what
is now Senso-ji,
one of the oldest
temples in Tokyo
She has remained
hidden ever since,
deep in the Buddha hall
Through clouds of incense,
crowds ascend the stone steps,
drop a few coins in the bin,
bow & clap their hands
Here in twenty-first
century Tokyo,
they still come with
pleas of adoration
and supplication.
12
The landscape changes
in an instant as fire
destroys and transforms.
Raging flame consumes
fifty homes in a flash,
creeps up and down
mountainsides over
thousands of acres.
Rooted in solid ground
your wings spread, rising
through the raging inferno,
heat waves undulating in the air
as if space could shift into
another time or place.
But weeks later,
here we stand taking
the bitter taste into our lungs
as the eyes strain to find the
familiar, charred black trunks
against stark white ash.
If our life burns well we
will find poetry in the ashes.
13
I first heard your mantra
chanting as Allen Ginsberg
pumped his harmonium
on the floor of the Everson
Art Museum, Syracuse,1971,
calming the crowd there
to see John Lennon & Yoko Ono
and rumors of a Beatles reunion
for John’s 31st birthday.
The whole crowd becoming
one body, one trembling sound
behold the jewel in the lotus
om mani padme hum
om mani padme hum
opening my inner-most
door just a crack
for the first time.
15
You may only glimpse
her once or twice
in your life at a
concert, maybe
the Grateful Dead
or Carlos Santana.
She is pure music,
swaying to the band,
seduced by the
singing guitar,
moving inside riffs,
punctuating the beat,
sliding her body
between notes.
Unfiltered energy,
surrendering to
gravity and music,
the walls are flying,
she is dancing
in the sky to
that place where
music gives way
to transcendence.
Dennis Maloney is a poet and translator. A number of volumes of his own poetry have been published including The Map Is Not the Territory: Poems & Translations and Just Enough. His book Listening to Tao Yuan Ming was published by Glass Lyre Press in 2015. A bilingual German/English, Empty Cup was recently published in Germany. He is also the editor and publisher of the widely respected White Pine Press in Buffalo, NY. and divides his time between Buffalo, NY and Big Sur, CA.
Guan Yin is the embodiment of compassion and wisdom in Buddhism and is said to be the protector of women, children, sailors, fishermen, the sick, those in trouble, and the poor. She is the one who “hears the cries of the world.” She is considered a bodhisattva, one who foregoes enlightenment until all sentient beings are liberated. She is said to manifest in a variety of forms to free beings from suffering. Originally depicted in India as a male or androgynous figure by the time Buddhism reached China and elsewhere Guan Yin had evolved to a female form.
These poems explore Guan Yin in the historic context of various female roles and figures in Buddhism, as well as in responses to contemporary events and situations. Some poems are in her voice or in the voice of historic woman figures in Buddhism and others are petitions to her.
from The Faces of Guan Yin
1
In many stories you appear
as an old woman serving tea
at a roadside stand to travelers
who enter with a thirst.
Fragrant green tea appears.
Those who enter filled
with arrogance and ego
are chased away.
Su Tung Po read his poems
to the tea lady and if she
didn’t understand them,
he would rewrite them.
She serves tea and wipes
the counter with a clean rag,
the unrecognized teacher
outside the gate.
3
In 628 A.D.
two fisherman netted
a small golden Kannon
while fishing
and built a small hut
to enshrine it in what
is now Senso-ji,
one of the oldest
temples in Tokyo
She has remained
hidden ever since,
deep in the Buddha hall
Through clouds of incense,
crowds ascend the stone steps,
drop a few coins in the bin,
bow & clap their hands
Here in twenty-first
century Tokyo,
they still come with
pleas of adoration
and supplication.
12
The landscape changes
in an instant as fire
destroys and transforms.
Raging flame consumes
fifty homes in a flash,
creeps up and down
mountainsides over
thousands of acres.
Rooted in solid ground
your wings spread, rising
through the raging inferno,
heat waves undulating in the air
as if space could shift into
another time or place.
But weeks later,
here we stand taking
the bitter taste into our lungs
as the eyes strain to find the
familiar, charred black trunks
against stark white ash.
If our life burns well we
will find poetry in the ashes.
13
I first heard your mantra
chanting as Allen Ginsberg
pumped his harmonium
on the floor of the Everson
Art Museum, Syracuse,1971,
calming the crowd there
to see John Lennon & Yoko Ono
and rumors of a Beatles reunion
for John’s 31st birthday.
The whole crowd becoming
one body, one trembling sound
behold the jewel in the lotus
om mani padme hum
om mani padme hum
opening my inner-most
door just a crack
for the first time.
15
You may only glimpse
her once or twice
in your life at a
concert, maybe
the Grateful Dead
or Carlos Santana.
She is pure music,
swaying to the band,
seduced by the
singing guitar,
moving inside riffs,
punctuating the beat,
sliding her body
between notes.
Unfiltered energy,
surrendering to
gravity and music,
the walls are flying,
she is dancing
in the sky to
that place where
music gives way
to transcendence.
Dennis Maloney is a poet and translator. A number of volumes of his own poetry have been published including The Map Is Not the Territory: Poems & Translations and Just Enough. His book Listening to Tao Yuan Ming was published by Glass Lyre Press in 2015. A bilingual German/English, Empty Cup was recently published in Germany. He is also the editor and publisher of the widely respected White Pine Press in Buffalo, NY. and divides his time between Buffalo, NY and Big Sur, CA.
Richard Weaver
The house across the street
has darkened abruptly. As if
to spite my binoculars
or the upstairs’ telescope’s focus.
We mean them no harm
and certainly not shame. The truth is
our cable has detached itself
from the Smart TV and router box.
We watched it slither up the chimney
and later cross the street without looking
both ways, and then pass through
the front door mail-slot of the house
across the street. Thereafter, the lights.
Out. Out now since dinner time. Obviously
we are concerned for their safety.
They are old and frail, possible senile
and most likely diabetic. I’ve seen rust
on their matching walkers, and mold eating
the Formica kitchen table top. Mail
and newspapers are a fading snowdrift
in front of their door. I’m sure if we
knew their names and called, they would not
answer. It’s not neighborly, you know.
They are not good neighbors at all. I’d complain
to someone in authority if I knew such a person.
But we are alone here, without a dog.
And have no way to bark.
Richard Weaver lives in Baltimore, where he volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank and acts as the Archivist at large for a Jesuit college. His book, The Stars Undone, was published by Duende Press. Weaver’s work appears in Conjunctions, Crack the spine, Dead Mule, Gingerbread House, Kestrel, Louisville Review, Magnolia Review, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, OffCourse, and Quiddity, Southern Quarterly.
has darkened abruptly. As if
to spite my binoculars
or the upstairs’ telescope’s focus.
We mean them no harm
and certainly not shame. The truth is
our cable has detached itself
from the Smart TV and router box.
We watched it slither up the chimney
and later cross the street without looking
both ways, and then pass through
the front door mail-slot of the house
across the street. Thereafter, the lights.
Out. Out now since dinner time. Obviously
we are concerned for their safety.
They are old and frail, possible senile
and most likely diabetic. I’ve seen rust
on their matching walkers, and mold eating
the Formica kitchen table top. Mail
and newspapers are a fading snowdrift
in front of their door. I’m sure if we
knew their names and called, they would not
answer. It’s not neighborly, you know.
They are not good neighbors at all. I’d complain
to someone in authority if I knew such a person.
But we are alone here, without a dog.
And have no way to bark.
Richard Weaver lives in Baltimore, where he volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank and acts as the Archivist at large for a Jesuit college. His book, The Stars Undone, was published by Duende Press. Weaver’s work appears in Conjunctions, Crack the spine, Dead Mule, Gingerbread House, Kestrel, Louisville Review, Magnolia Review, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, OffCourse, and Quiddity, Southern Quarterly.
Anna Leahy
Proof (2)
He sees who he wants to be, and it’s someone else. He traces his life back down to earth to search for evidence of himself. He doesn’t question his axioms. Times change.
He holds true statements in his hands as if they are reference books. Decisions open like matryoshka dolls. Declarations sound like jobs, careers, stepping stones, but echo with regret. One statement looks like an engagement ring but feels like conjecture. Another might have been. An undefined term slips through his fingers.
Deductive reasoning careens to life’s mathematical conclusions, and he knows where this is supposed to be going. Up. Still, he tests himself, re-measures the angles.
Anna Leahy is the author of the nonfiction book Tumor and the poetry collections Aperture and Constituents of Matter and she is co-author of Generation Space: A Love Story, Conversing with Cancer, and What We Talk about When We Talk about Creative Writing. She directs the MFA program in Creative Writing at Chapman University, where she edits the international journal TAB and curates the Tabula Poetica reading series. See more at www.amleahy.com.
He sees who he wants to be, and it’s someone else. He traces his life back down to earth to search for evidence of himself. He doesn’t question his axioms. Times change.
He holds true statements in his hands as if they are reference books. Decisions open like matryoshka dolls. Declarations sound like jobs, careers, stepping stones, but echo with regret. One statement looks like an engagement ring but feels like conjecture. Another might have been. An undefined term slips through his fingers.
Deductive reasoning careens to life’s mathematical conclusions, and he knows where this is supposed to be going. Up. Still, he tests himself, re-measures the angles.
Anna Leahy is the author of the nonfiction book Tumor and the poetry collections Aperture and Constituents of Matter and she is co-author of Generation Space: A Love Story, Conversing with Cancer, and What We Talk about When We Talk about Creative Writing. She directs the MFA program in Creative Writing at Chapman University, where she edits the international journal TAB and curates the Tabula Poetica reading series. See more at www.amleahy.com.
Dawn Leas
Spirit Animals
You dream a brass camel
into the palm of your hand.
I fly fourteen hours
to ride one
in the Arabian desert.
He heaves and rocks to standing,
takes me deeper into the dunes,
the camp disappearing
into a sepia-toned mirage.
I beg the handler for more time,
the camel's height and sway
calming.
I see answers in the orange sunset,
the cinnamon-colored haze,
feel them rise in the rhythm
of long, lean legs,
in the humps that carry enough water
for the entire dry season.
This desert wants me.
I may be falling in love.
Long before we met,
you dove deep into the Pacific
just off the coast of paradise,
an owl perched on a high cliff.
She flew across a continent
of time to deliver me to the desert.
Our spirit animals come from different lands,
but learn to work in tandem,
invent a new language
to guide us to evergreen trails,
desert dunes, a rain forest.
Always back to salt water.
Places they know will save us.
Dawn Leas is the author of Take Something When You Go, (Winter Goose Publishing 2016), and I Know When to Keep Quiet, (Finishing Line Press, 2010). Her work has appeared in Literary Mama, San Pedro River Review, The Pedestal Magazine and elsewhere. Currently, she is an independent writer, editor and writing coach.
You dream a brass camel
into the palm of your hand.
I fly fourteen hours
to ride one
in the Arabian desert.
He heaves and rocks to standing,
takes me deeper into the dunes,
the camp disappearing
into a sepia-toned mirage.
I beg the handler for more time,
the camel's height and sway
calming.
I see answers in the orange sunset,
the cinnamon-colored haze,
feel them rise in the rhythm
of long, lean legs,
in the humps that carry enough water
for the entire dry season.
This desert wants me.
I may be falling in love.
Long before we met,
you dove deep into the Pacific
just off the coast of paradise,
an owl perched on a high cliff.
She flew across a continent
of time to deliver me to the desert.
Our spirit animals come from different lands,
but learn to work in tandem,
invent a new language
to guide us to evergreen trails,
desert dunes, a rain forest.
Always back to salt water.
Places they know will save us.
Dawn Leas is the author of Take Something When You Go, (Winter Goose Publishing 2016), and I Know When to Keep Quiet, (Finishing Line Press, 2010). Her work has appeared in Literary Mama, San Pedro River Review, The Pedestal Magazine and elsewhere. Currently, she is an independent writer, editor and writing coach.