FROM THE SEA
Exotic freighters
slick into the bay
with unshaven bows,
while a symphony of ships
plays to the still harbor
filling up with greyness.
lone lights flash red with
staccato beats of iron men
and waves clash a dirge.
Then eyes of the cane-led spy
a sole gull, swooping, surging,
and plucking from the sea.
THE SOFT-CHILLED SNOW
During winter’s first storm
I ran to my loft
where you can’t feel
the soft-chilled snow,
but before the last flake
laid next to
the pine windows, within
I was
smothering until
I cut loose
from my burial.
UNMELTING
The unmelting masses may
huddle together
under her lamp,
but too quickly
they seek their own kind.
Some thaw,
most are petrified,
living in hyphenation
on the grey cement stoops
of New York City.
MEMORABILIA
In my angular attic
the spiders have been weaving
for the past fifty years.
I came across
some yellowed letters
hidden at the bottom of a drawer,
stashed away long ago
in my memory banks.
lost images flipped thru
like an old movie calendar,
following the script in front of me.
I put the notes down
and a claddagh ring fell out
from one of the envelopes,
turning in errant directions,
hitting the grey floor.
I picked the ring up,
held it up to the vanishing light
and placed it on the oak piece,
looking straight ahead.
Seeing a much older face
in a mirror of corroded silver
above the chest,
I could sense the sundown
edge outside my window.
Binote
Frank Polizzi is listed with Poets & Writers as a poet and fiction writer. His poems and stories have appeared in The Archer, Electric Acorn, Mudfish, Paterson Literary Review, Wired Art and others. In April 2009,the Guild of Italian American Actors (GIAA) conducted a
reading of his one-act play, By the Light of a Barber Pole. In March 2011, Finishing Line Press published a chapbook of his poems, All Around Town, centering on his experiences in NYC and Sicilian American roots. Several chapter/stories were published from his
first novel, A Pity Beyond All Telling, and one of them was short-listed for the Fish Prize in Ireland. Frank is currently seeking a
publisher for his second novel, Somewhere in the Stars. He is also the editor of Feile-Festa, an online, literary arts journal ( http://www.medcelt.org/feile-festa/ ).
Monday, 5 May 2014
Interview with John C. Mannone
John C. Mannone has work in Agave, BlazeVOX, Tupelo Press, Raven Chronicles, Poetica Magazine, Synaesthesia, 3Elements Review, The Baltimore Review, Prime Mincer, Pirene’s Fountain, The Pedestal, Tipton Poetry Journal and others. He’s the poetry editor for Silver Blade and Abyss & Apex, and an adjunct professor of physics in east TN. His work has been nominated three times for the Pushcart.Visit The Art of Poetry: http://jcmannone.wordpress.com
10 Fundamental Questions for Poetry Editor John C. Mannone
1. Given the ways contemporary authors have been trying to compose all kinds of poetry, how would you define ‘poetry’?
Perhaps it is better to define what it is not; that might be easier (and fewer tomatoes might be hurled at me). I recommend one reads my “position paper” on my website/blog, The Art of Poetry (http://jcmannone@earthlink.net). Also, I was just reading Ezra Pound’s discourse on Modern poetry (albeit it we are now in a Postmodern era), which strongly insists on the very things I do (though I ususally look for more). Abbreviated, his suggestions are: avoid abstractions, use distilled language, have musicality/rhythm of words (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/essay/237886).
2. Many people say poetry is dying. Do you agree or disagree with this statement, and why?
Poetry might not ever have been high on the mainstream reader’s list of literature to read, but it has never been a realistic (money-making) market. However, in literary circles it is far from dying. Look at all the new journals still calling for poetry! And now with many of them bundling audio, as well as photographs & other visual arts, poetry is accessing another audience.
3. What defining features do you think ‘best’ poetry should possess? In other words, what is your personal or working definition of ‘best’ poetry?
Though I personally prefer a poem with lyrical qualities, the best contemporary poetry may not be replete with poetic devices, especially metaphorical language. However, it must strive towards the same goal: significant emotional impact using the fewest words. In my opinion, that impact cannot be achieved unless there is layering and texture to the poem. A poetic description of nature is not a nature poem. Regardless of how sensory the words might be, they must transcend description and reach into an emotional core, to a place where a statement is made about the human condition, something existential. It doesn’t have to be profound, but it must be human, it must exhibit elán, that stylistic elegance that’s hard to describe. Other nonnegotiable items are impeccable rhythm and the music of words (see my comment above in the context of Ezra Pound’s). That must be there even in conversational pieces. For narratives, whether long form, documentary or anecdotal, I recall and embrace what Ted Kooser said about story. The piece must rely on more than story to be lifted into poetry. I think I discussed above what those lifting mechanisms are.
4. What are the most important makings of a ‘great’ poet? – please name 3 greatest poets the world has produced thus far.
A great poet is unforgettable and profound. Their words transcend the page. I cannot limit myself to three, but I’ll mention three that immediately come to mind: William Shakespeare (http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/122), Robert Frost (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-frost), Pablo Neruda (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/pablo-neruda).
5. Who are the 3 most important or noteworthy contemporary poets according to your personal/working criteria?
Again, there are so many that it is unfair to single three out. There are so many wonderfully different voices. I can say that Linda Pastan (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/linda-pastan) has been influential, as has Robert Haas (http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/194) and Ted Kooser (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ted-kooser)
6. Considering the contemporary poetry writing/publishing reality, what are the most important changes that you think should be made to promote poetry as a worthy cause?
First, to increase the value of poetry to fiction and creative nonfiction writers (who have a much greater part of the market), poets (and writers) must help them realize the value of poetry. It begins with the disspelling of the myth that all poetry is inaccessible. And even more importantly, that poetry will significantly improve their own genres, whether literary or not.
Second, to increase the value of poetry to the literary reader, fiction and creative nonfiction writers should implement poetic technique so that the reader has an enhanced experience. If the writers talk about these things via social media (especially blogs), then awareness among readers increases.
Third, to increase the value of poetry to the mainstream folks might be a futile battle. Entertainment-only poetry is not poetry. Let them be content with silly songs and poor perceptions of what poetry is: metrical rhyme that is inaccessible. Poets can dispel these incorrect perceptions and the bad experiences many may have had in high school (especially when a poem is beaten to death with a rubber hose as Billy Collins had put it in his poem “Introduction to Poetry”) one person at a time. For example, whenever I give a lecture in astronomy, I will offer a closing poem to increase the audience’s experience (I blend in history and culture, as well a literature, with the sciences).
7. Which 3 poetry editors or magazines would you like to recommend to all poetry lovers? Or, which 3 are your most favourite poetry editors/journals?
This is like asking me what are my favorite fruits. I would say plums, figs, peaches today, but mangoes, pineapple, cherries tomorrow. And sometimes I forget about that lovely quince or pomegranite. However, among my favorites: Ploughshares, AGNI, Iodine Poetry Journal (I have a soft spot for them too because they were the first to accept my work), The Baltimore Review, Image, Prairie Schooner, and Southern Poetry Review.
8. What are the most important or interesting things that you have learned about poetry writing/publishing as a poetry editor?
Read and Obey: It is a very sore point with me, as well as with many other editors I know, when submitters show they haven’t read (let alone complied with) the guidelines of the magazine to get a sense of the editor’s/venue’s aesthetics. When I submit, I always try to be sensitive to what venue requires/desires.
Show Dynamic Range: I cannot tell you how many times I see the same structural form or style I receive from a single author me as editor (of two fine journals of speculative literature). I have learned how important it is to give an editor a wide range of style, structure, and even voice.
9. What is the most or least enjoyable part of being a poetry editor?
The most enjoyable thing of being a poetry editor is when I see how independent submissions to a non-themed journal organically come together so that the whole slate of poems are better than the sum of them individually. It’s like seeing art grow before your eyes. I also like to publish new voices next to celebrated ones. But what I disdain most of all is what virtually every editor I know also disdains—sending “rejections.” To mitigate that displeasure, I, unlike most other editors, will take the time to make a personal note (except perhaps in the worst cases where the poetry is ill-crafted and it is clear that there was no attempt to have read the guidelines). But even when I don’t give a personal note, my form rejections are tiered. I try to keep away from the insulting ones in wide circulation today. To lessen my pain, especially if the work has potential, but still needs more remediation that I can specifically suggest, I’ll offer names to easier markets, or ones that serve a different aesthetic. I might get a perfectly good science fiction poem, but if it lacks literary depth, I’ll have a hard time publishing it.
10. Given your rich experience as editor of Silver Blade and of Abyss & Apex, what advice would like to offer to those who actively participate in various kinds of literary contests and those who seldom do so?
Since we don’t offer contests (yet), I can only speak of how I personally approach poetry & writing contests. I like entering ones with high stakes, no fee contests (who doesn’t?) Yes, there are often a large number of contestants, but you might surprise yourself despite the odds. It was a real morale booster for me when I was a finalist several times. That alone encouraged me to enter fee-based contests. I look closely at the first prize-to-fee ratio. If it less than 50:1, I will ususually dismiss it, but even then, I will probably not spend more than $20 (plus postage for mail-ins). (That’s a persponal limit. I’ve noticed the fees growing way beyond inflation; I won’t play into that.) In those marginal cases, I consider how many pieces I can submit and if there are additional perks, like an annual subscription to the journal (that I wouldn’t mind having), or a copy of the winning chapbook (at no additional fee). Here are some examples: Zocolo Poetry Prize ($1000, no fee), Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize ($500 + copies, no fee), New Millenium Writings ($1000, $17; all receive copy of issue), Rattle ($5000, $20 fee [cost of subscription]; all get 1-year subscription). There are many free contests and many fair ones.
Keep in mind that though the final judge may be an appealing draw to enter, your work still has to get through screeners. The final judge does just that, judge the finalists. I have asked contest administrators who are the screeners: Is it the editorial staff of the magazine/press, college students, MFA students, etc.? So unless the final judge sees all the entrees, researching his/her literary tastes is usually a moot point.
Reading previous winners is helpful to establish quality level, but unless the same judges are used it might be futile to find the aesthtics the contest folks are seeking.
Finally, if it a themed contest (or a general submission for that matter), work extra hard in making your interpretation of the theme fall outside the predicted ones. Think outside the box.
2 Poems by Jeff Jeppeson
Our Furniture Poems
She said, the professor,
write something about furniture
and once again I thunked my head on my desk.
The next week we came back and one by one
my classmates read
to me of deathbeds
and antique writing desks
in slow rhythmic voices so full of profundity
it was all I could do not to scream.
Many wore black.
But then they always wore black
and tortoise-shell eyeglass frames
and sipped funky-smelling expensive coffees
from tall cups with those little cardboard
protector things.
We discussed the significance of upholstery
and leather and enjambment.
Lemon scented polish in free verse.
How a bed having harbored a death
gains something. And how one must
engender a new life within its coverlets.
The poet cannot help but seek inspiration
from the spirits
haunting the ornate old writing desk.
Whatever.
Mine was about the lack of furniture.
When someone has taken all or most of your furniture
away with her, the room does not
with unrestricted sightlines
at all look bigger.
Yes, it echoes.
Yes, you see the spots you missed when cleaning,
dents in cheap carpeting.
But the room feels smaller because you see straight across
wall to wall with no interruption
from the things you filled it with
to support your weight.
The Carnival
Walking’s for lovers and old folks
not two grassy-kneed boys
parent-free and full of devilment
at an October carnival and the sun goes down
and the rides light up aw cool
but the breeze has these icy fingers
that are just mean man
Shivering on the Tilt-a-Whirl and Ferris Wheel
but who cares my caramel apple is so good
it’s giving my shadow cavities
I only knock two out of three milk bottles down
so it’s off to the Smash ‘Em Up cars with their long
sparking tails where we bump and scatter
like spermatozoa on a microscope slide
I pause for like a second at the Carousel
“Merry-Go-Round’s for kids,” you say
but I caught you looking too
at the bright sugar-shell enameled horses
carved straining faces rolling eyes
going slowly round up and down
to that tinny music up and down
We’re too big and free for carousel round-a-bouts
but it’s hard to look away from the horses
going slowly up and down
Bionote
Jeff is an IT professional and writer living in Warner Robins, Georgia. His work has previously appeared in Strange Horizons, Every Day Poets, The Houston Literary Review, Illumen, Not One of Us, Liquid Imagination, Falling Star Magazine and Shot Glass Journal, among others. He is an editor for Every Day Poets: www.everydaypoets.com. <jeff.jeppesen@gmail.com>
She said, the professor,
write something about furniture
and once again I thunked my head on my desk.
The next week we came back and one by one
my classmates read
to me of deathbeds
and antique writing desks
in slow rhythmic voices so full of profundity
it was all I could do not to scream.
Many wore black.
But then they always wore black
and tortoise-shell eyeglass frames
and sipped funky-smelling expensive coffees
from tall cups with those little cardboard
protector things.
We discussed the significance of upholstery
and leather and enjambment.
Lemon scented polish in free verse.
How a bed having harbored a death
gains something. And how one must
engender a new life within its coverlets.
The poet cannot help but seek inspiration
from the spirits
haunting the ornate old writing desk.
Whatever.
Mine was about the lack of furniture.
When someone has taken all or most of your furniture
away with her, the room does not
with unrestricted sightlines
at all look bigger.
Yes, it echoes.
Yes, you see the spots you missed when cleaning,
dents in cheap carpeting.
But the room feels smaller because you see straight across
wall to wall with no interruption
from the things you filled it with
to support your weight.
The Carnival
Walking’s for lovers and old folks
not two grassy-kneed boys
parent-free and full of devilment
at an October carnival and the sun goes down
and the rides light up aw cool
but the breeze has these icy fingers
that are just mean man
Shivering on the Tilt-a-Whirl and Ferris Wheel
but who cares my caramel apple is so good
it’s giving my shadow cavities
I only knock two out of three milk bottles down
so it’s off to the Smash ‘Em Up cars with their long
sparking tails where we bump and scatter
like spermatozoa on a microscope slide
I pause for like a second at the Carousel
“Merry-Go-Round’s for kids,” you say
but I caught you looking too
at the bright sugar-shell enameled horses
carved straining faces rolling eyes
going slowly round up and down
to that tinny music up and down
We’re too big and free for carousel round-a-bouts
but it’s hard to look away from the horses
going slowly up and down
Bionote
Jeff is an IT professional and writer living in Warner Robins, Georgia. His work has previously appeared in Strange Horizons, Every Day Poets, The Houston Literary Review, Illumen, Not One of Us, Liquid Imagination, Falling Star Magazine and Shot Glass Journal, among others. He is an editor for Every Day Poets: www.everydaypoets.com. <jeff.jeppesen@gmail.com>
3 Poems by Pattie Flint
I Want to See your Rampart Smiles
I pirated Julia Roberts smile for
years ever since her legs in Pretty
Woman, but they call me cheshire.
people go, stare at me like: shit.
what’s she pretending to be happy
about when she’s so so sad?
I look at them with horned eyes
and piqued mouth and say;
don’t worry boys; I got this. You
see these scars I turned into tiger
stripes the way an American
Spirit turned Dean Martin into
an idea bigger than life itself
I created an amnion out of this
set of teeth; can you see it in
the way I let my lips grow wide
like a California fault line I’m
shaking. I’m in your older sister’s
drawer with two pink lines on my
forehead but hey I lived through
it see the way I chipped my hip
so that when they find my bones
one day they will identify me as
a mother of one. and even though
I held him for less time than it took
Apollo 13 to crash back onto earth
I am mother; I birthed honesty
out of cheap beer and stained boat
cushions on August nights so
that I can smile as bright as
matinee performances let out early
and you will feel the love I still
have in me; I’m not done yet. I may
be sad sometimes but hey it rains
a lot in Seattle and I’m used to
going without umbrellas. I ain’t
pretending; no. I knew love, enough.
On Listening to Explosions in the Sky and Pretending You are With Me
the only moment
we
were alone paper
baby I
listened
wept
dulcet melodies
so set you on
sapphire to
your heroes the
frisson
love you paper
baby love you and
this
song
a scintilla soft cover
pulling eyes fingertips
grasp
this
paper
baby
I love you
I
listen
to
you
when i
am
alone.
The One they Call Courage
I want to give you the chance
to be the person you wanted
to be when I first met you but
time is slipping by and you’re lost
in the froth of responsibility and
I’m no longer brave enough to
explore your world. Redesign
me in your mind not as the girl
who fell asleep on your couch for
two hours but as the girl who asked
you the questions you never
wanted to be honest about. You
were tall and thin and I wanted to
feed you I have an irrational fear of
people being hungry in my presence
but what can I do my mother always
told me I was too fat and so I try
to give other people love in the way
they tell me I’m a good cook I have a
wonder woman apron. Don’t look
at me across the aisle and tell me you
missed me when I’m a call away.
Be as brave as I need you to be so
that I can pretend to be confident.
Bionote
Pattie Flint is an uprooted Seattle native toughing it out in New England and spends her days as an editor at Medusa's Laugh Press specializing in hand-bound books. She has been published in InkSpeak, HESA Inprint, Hippocampus and TAB, amongst others. She is currently working on her second young adult novel. flint.pattie@gmail.com
I pirated Julia Roberts smile for
years ever since her legs in Pretty
Woman, but they call me cheshire.
people go, stare at me like: shit.
what’s she pretending to be happy
about when she’s so so sad?
I look at them with horned eyes
and piqued mouth and say;
don’t worry boys; I got this. You
see these scars I turned into tiger
stripes the way an American
Spirit turned Dean Martin into
an idea bigger than life itself
I created an amnion out of this
set of teeth; can you see it in
the way I let my lips grow wide
like a California fault line I’m
shaking. I’m in your older sister’s
drawer with two pink lines on my
forehead but hey I lived through
it see the way I chipped my hip
so that when they find my bones
one day they will identify me as
a mother of one. and even though
I held him for less time than it took
Apollo 13 to crash back onto earth
I am mother; I birthed honesty
out of cheap beer and stained boat
cushions on August nights so
that I can smile as bright as
matinee performances let out early
and you will feel the love I still
have in me; I’m not done yet. I may
be sad sometimes but hey it rains
a lot in Seattle and I’m used to
going without umbrellas. I ain’t
pretending; no. I knew love, enough.
On Listening to Explosions in the Sky and Pretending You are With Me
the only moment
we
were alone paper
baby I
listened
wept
dulcet melodies
so set you on
sapphire to
your heroes the
frisson
love you paper
baby love you and
this
song
a scintilla soft cover
pulling eyes fingertips
grasp
this
paper
baby
I love you
I
listen
to
you
when i
am
alone.
The One they Call Courage
I want to give you the chance
to be the person you wanted
to be when I first met you but
time is slipping by and you’re lost
in the froth of responsibility and
I’m no longer brave enough to
explore your world. Redesign
me in your mind not as the girl
who fell asleep on your couch for
two hours but as the girl who asked
you the questions you never
wanted to be honest about. You
were tall and thin and I wanted to
feed you I have an irrational fear of
people being hungry in my presence
but what can I do my mother always
told me I was too fat and so I try
to give other people love in the way
they tell me I’m a good cook I have a
wonder woman apron. Don’t look
at me across the aisle and tell me you
missed me when I’m a call away.
Be as brave as I need you to be so
that I can pretend to be confident.
Bionote
Pattie Flint is an uprooted Seattle native toughing it out in New England and spends her days as an editor at Medusa's Laugh Press specializing in hand-bound books. She has been published in InkSpeak, HESA Inprint, Hippocampus and TAB, amongst others. She is currently working on her second young adult novel. flint.pattie@gmail.com
2 Poems by Allen Qing Yuan
Waltz of the Cherry Blossoms
Two rebels break from the formation during the finale,
Desiring to demonstrate their own worth
The other performers swirls and spins together,
But the couple twirls all over
Up & down a graceful, invisible roller-coaster
Rising as high as divine entertainers
Their pinkness is not utter embarrassment;
But rather pure passion and devotion
The pack would be proud
If not for the ferocious metallic monster
Who displayed the most
Overwhelming performance of all
City Mingling
Full of the promising young, and the promised old
This kaleidoscope-like urban cityscape
Stuttering in broken circles of light
Towers zig-zagging
Across the geared, cyan skyline
No being cynical
Expanding borders
Until all sides are hypotenuses
But it’s your life, don’t make it a brutal brawl
Cybernetic world,
The clash of (common) creeds,
Is all I need to make sure that
There is not only me
Everyone’s values are today’s splendid, Splenda society
Making life sweet
It’s so wonderful--
To be you and me
Bionote
Allen Qing Yuan, a Pushcart nominee and author of Traffic Light (2013), is an 18-year-old freshman currently attending the University of British Columbia. Most recently interviewed by World Poetry Cafe Radio Show (CFRO100.5FM), Allen has since grade 10 had poetry appearing in Cordite Poetry Review, Istanbul Literary Review, Literary Review of Canada, MOBIUS, Paris/Atlantic, Poetry Kanto, Poetry Scotland, Shampoo, Spillway, Taj Mahal Review, Two Thirds North and more than 70 other literary journals/anthologies across 16 countries.
Allen is also the co-founder of a popular clothing brand Above the Movement. please visit his websites::
- www.facebook.com/Above.The.Movement
- www.abovethemovement.com
- Twitter: @ATMovement
- Instagram: @abovethemovement
Two rebels break from the formation during the finale,
Desiring to demonstrate their own worth
The other performers swirls and spins together,
But the couple twirls all over
Up & down a graceful, invisible roller-coaster
Rising as high as divine entertainers
Their pinkness is not utter embarrassment;
But rather pure passion and devotion
The pack would be proud
If not for the ferocious metallic monster
Who displayed the most
Overwhelming performance of all
Full of the promising young, and the promised old
This kaleidoscope-like urban cityscape
Stuttering in broken circles of light
Towers zig-zagging
Across the geared, cyan skyline
No being cynical
Expanding borders
Until all sides are hypotenuses
But it’s your life, don’t make it a brutal brawl
Cybernetic world,
The clash of (common) creeds,
Is all I need to make sure that
There is not only me
Everyone’s values are today’s splendid, Splenda society
Making life sweet
It’s so wonderful--
To be you and me
Bionote
Allen Qing Yuan, a Pushcart nominee and author of Traffic Light (2013), is an 18-year-old freshman currently attending the University of British Columbia. Most recently interviewed by World Poetry Cafe Radio Show (CFRO100.5FM), Allen has since grade 10 had poetry appearing in Cordite Poetry Review, Istanbul Literary Review, Literary Review of Canada, MOBIUS, Paris/Atlantic, Poetry Kanto, Poetry Scotland, Shampoo, Spillway, Taj Mahal Review, Two Thirds North and more than 70 other literary journals/anthologies across 16 countries.
Allen is also the co-founder of a popular clothing brand Above the Movement. please visit his websites::
- www.facebook.com/Above.The.Movement
- www.abovethemovement.com
- Twitter: @ATMovement
- Instagram: @abovethemovement
.jpg)
3 Poems by Marianne Szlyk
Radio Corvallis
Radio Corvallis is down for the night.
Once the sun rises, The Tornados’ “Telstar” will rise, too.
It will hover above the AM/FM/Shortwave radio on the table,
the spatter in the frying pan,
the smell of gingery curry, of onions in butter.
As the sun climbs further, the radio will reveal
saxophones and piano
above the guitars and drums,
the basses and baritones
beneath the tenor and falsetto,
and the Coasters themselves will strut through
this college-issue apartment.
But for only a few hours more, the refrigerator and lights
hum out of tune, electronica
for an audience of one.
I keep typing.
I keep the beat.
The Last Customers
I sit in this restaurant
a mile past the end of the line.
It’s not quite the northernmost
Chinese restaurant in Moosonee,
Gateway to the Arctic,
or even a diner in the Bronx,
not even close.
But we three are the last customers.
The owner putters around us.
Her children do homework.
You yawn at the jokes
he continues to tell.
He fusses over the food
you consider bland.
Our salty, sour vegetables
cool. Grains of rice harden.
Our drinks are tepid, without ice.
I take one mouthful
before the tofu soaks up
our bitterness.
I think about
what needs to die,
what needs to be born again.
A Tree of Heaven Grows in Brookline
I remember
how long the men took
to snip at that fence
link by link,
wire cutters
coming closer
and closer.
I expected
to be taken apart,
limb by limb,
leaf by leaf.
Instead
I survive.
My leaves darken
in July light.
I thrive.
Bionote
Marianne Szlyk is an associate professor of English at Montgomery College, Rockville as well as an associate editor at the Potomac Review. Her poems have appeared in Kind of a Hurricane Press' anthology Of Sun and Sand, the Blue Hour Literary Anthology Volume Two, Jellyfish Whispers, Aberration Labyrinth, and other journals. marianne.szlyk@gmail.com
Radio Corvallis is down for the night.
Once the sun rises, The Tornados’ “Telstar” will rise, too.
It will hover above the AM/FM/Shortwave radio on the table,
the spatter in the frying pan,
the smell of gingery curry, of onions in butter.
As the sun climbs further, the radio will reveal
saxophones and piano
above the guitars and drums,
the basses and baritones
beneath the tenor and falsetto,
and the Coasters themselves will strut through
this college-issue apartment.
But for only a few hours more, the refrigerator and lights
hum out of tune, electronica
for an audience of one.
I keep typing.
I keep the beat.
The Last Customers
I sit in this restaurant
a mile past the end of the line.
It’s not quite the northernmost
Chinese restaurant in Moosonee,
Gateway to the Arctic,
or even a diner in the Bronx,
not even close.
But we three are the last customers.
The owner putters around us.
Her children do homework.
You yawn at the jokes
he continues to tell.
He fusses over the food
you consider bland.
Our salty, sour vegetables
cool. Grains of rice harden.
Our drinks are tepid, without ice.
I take one mouthful
before the tofu soaks up
our bitterness.
I think about
what needs to die,
what needs to be born again.
A Tree of Heaven Grows in Brookline
I remember
how long the men took
to snip at that fence
link by link,
wire cutters
coming closer
and closer.
I expected
to be taken apart,
limb by limb,
leaf by leaf.
Instead
I survive.
My leaves darken
in July light.
I thrive.
Bionote
Marianne Szlyk is an associate professor of English at Montgomery College, Rockville as well as an associate editor at the Potomac Review. Her poems have appeared in Kind of a Hurricane Press' anthology Of Sun and Sand, the Blue Hour Literary Anthology Volume Two, Jellyfish Whispers, Aberration Labyrinth, and other journals. marianne.szlyk@gmail.com
2 Poems by Charles F. Thielman
Starlight
Loon call relaxing
the fist of his heart,
a crescent’s eye glints
silver across midnight’s lake
as dream kneels to lap up echoes.
He’s camped close to shore,
shifting his emotions like diamonds
carried in a linen sack.
Far downstream the blasé
hum a star-spangled fugue.
He’s taking this exit to revise
his peripherals, accepting
changes in the light thought
to feed the ability to day-dream.
Loon call above his city-strung river
of thirst, un-stemmed vein
of needs roped over formless cargo
towards a gentle current,
dream rising in a mirrored shaft.
City night waving a calico flag,
jazz bass thrumming a guttural love song.
Your shadow crosses a mural
as weekend headlights sweep past
lounge doors,
guitar picking through what aches
note to sharp note near midnight’s river.
You could carry a crucifix,
ward off inhaled thorns,
avoid grasping chain-link fence,
syllables of your spine formed
in an American sea of sounds.
Your ribs like tuning forks touching this bridge railing.
Horizons composed of mirages,
trinities genuflecting on ice
then the rebirth of wonder
skates past the truncated ballets caused by logic.
You run a gauntlet of echoes.
City streets snapping the wing bones of dreams
as moon-light bisects spotlights,
spills over the dry gutters of city knuckles
wrapped around the necks of bottles,
jazz bass thrumming a guttural song of love.
Bionote
Born and raised in Charleston, S.C., moved to Chicago, educated at red-bricked universities and on city streets, married on a Kauai beach in 2011, a loving Grandfather for five free spirits, Charles' work as Poet and Artiste continues! His poems have appeared in The Pedestal, Gargoyle, Poetry365, The Criterion [India], Gangway [Australia], Poetry Salzburg [Austria], Poetry Kanto [Japan] and Belle Reve. blueearth4u@hotmail.com
Loon call relaxing
the fist of his heart,
a crescent’s eye glints
silver across midnight’s lake
as dream kneels to lap up echoes.
He’s camped close to shore,
shifting his emotions like diamonds
carried in a linen sack.
Far downstream the blasé
hum a star-spangled fugue.
He’s taking this exit to revise
his peripherals, accepting
changes in the light thought
to feed the ability to day-dream.
Loon call above his city-strung river
of thirst, un-stemmed vein
of needs roped over formless cargo
towards a gentle current,
dream rising in a mirrored shaft.
Crossing a Mural
jazz bass thrumming a guttural love song.
Your shadow crosses a mural
as weekend headlights sweep past
lounge doors,
guitar picking through what aches
note to sharp note near midnight’s river.
You could carry a crucifix,
ward off inhaled thorns,
avoid grasping chain-link fence,
syllables of your spine formed
in an American sea of sounds.
Your ribs like tuning forks touching this bridge railing.
Horizons composed of mirages,
trinities genuflecting on ice
then the rebirth of wonder
skates past the truncated ballets caused by logic.
You run a gauntlet of echoes.
City streets snapping the wing bones of dreams
as moon-light bisects spotlights,
spills over the dry gutters of city knuckles
wrapped around the necks of bottles,
jazz bass thrumming a guttural song of love.
Bionote
Born and raised in Charleston, S.C., moved to Chicago, educated at red-bricked universities and on city streets, married on a Kauai beach in 2011, a loving Grandfather for five free spirits, Charles' work as Poet and Artiste continues! His poems have appeared in The Pedestal, Gargoyle, Poetry365, The Criterion [India], Gangway [Australia], Poetry Salzburg [Austria], Poetry Kanto [Japan] and Belle Reve. blueearth4u@hotmail.com
1 Poem by Vladimir Swirynsky
Alien Worlds
She is on the Cover
Stepping out of her crashed
Spaceship---
Beautiful legs,
Clear plastic helmet
So we can see
Her beach whisper blond hair.
She undresses to bathe
In a small lake,
Showing just enough
Of her desk toys that there
Could be no better gift.
I’m just a kid on a bicycle
Turing the pages,
A baseball card in the spokes
To record my journey.
For decades I would dodge
The real world, seeking new earths,
Afraid to grow up,
Ignoring the wild possibilities,
The deep earth beauty
Of the woman
I slept with.
Bionote
I started writing poetry at the age of 45 after spending two weeks at Mardi Gras. My 20th book of prose just out "Poetry: The Tedious Mining of Words" from New Kiev Publishing. poems forth coming in The Portland Review, Dead Flowers, A Poetry Rag and Avatar Review. I hope to move out west, wherever the car breaks down, hopefully near a drive-in theatre in Arizona with a wonderful view of the mountains. walter.bargen@gmail.com
She is on the Cover
Stepping out of her crashed
Spaceship---
Beautiful legs,
Clear plastic helmet
So we can see
Her beach whisper blond hair.
She undresses to bathe
In a small lake,
Showing just enough
Of her desk toys that there
Could be no better gift.
I’m just a kid on a bicycle
Turing the pages,
A baseball card in the spokes
To record my journey.
For decades I would dodge
The real world, seeking new earths,
Afraid to grow up,
Ignoring the wild possibilities,
The deep earth beauty
Of the woman
I slept with.
Bionote
I started writing poetry at the age of 45 after spending two weeks at Mardi Gras. My 20th book of prose just out "Poetry: The Tedious Mining of Words" from New Kiev Publishing. poems forth coming in The Portland Review, Dead Flowers, A Poetry Rag and Avatar Review. I hope to move out west, wherever the car breaks down, hopefully near a drive-in theatre in Arizona with a wonderful view of the mountains. walter.bargen@gmail.com
3 Poems by Doug Bolling
What There
Wind wrack.
Low hum of sea.
Voices below long dead.
Bottom sand furrowing
among sunken ship
tatter,
Two worlds
of how many.
A lifting.
A descending.
You ask:
what is depth
but perspective
through a prism
so brief
this life.
Highwire
Far above in the infinite
of space and dream
the acrobat swings
high swings low,
flies through air
that calls,
that praises.
Bodiless.
Figure imagined,
almost transparent.
The people stare upward
planted dimly in earth
where not to soar
is to die
day by day
living on in memory,
forgetting.
For She Who Knows
Lay me in the sheath of days,
nights that beckon like flame.
The seas rise about us.
The pods of our secret selves
begin to burst.
It is sweet to lie together
making of pieces the
bricolage of wholes.
You say we are the scars of
the historical tablets.
But you. You are my calendar
full of pages turned
and not.
How you lift from sleep
and become the poetry
of this world.
How you lift the dead
from the fetid pool
and swoon them
back to life.
0 rivet me hard into earth.
0ur flesh that talks and
dies over and
over.
dougbolling@att.net
Wind wrack.
Low hum of sea.
Voices below long dead.
Bottom sand furrowing
among sunken ship
tatter,
Two worlds
of how many.
A lifting.
A descending.
You ask:
what is depth
but perspective
through a prism
so brief
this life.
Highwire
Far above in the infinite
of space and dream
the acrobat swings
high swings low,
flies through air
that calls,
that praises.
Bodiless.
Figure imagined,
almost transparent.
The people stare upward
planted dimly in earth
where not to soar
is to die
day by day
living on in memory,
forgetting.
For She Who Knows
Lay me in the sheath of days,
nights that beckon like flame.
The seas rise about us.
The pods of our secret selves
begin to burst.
It is sweet to lie together
making of pieces the
bricolage of wholes.
You say we are the scars of
the historical tablets.
But you. You are my calendar
full of pages turned
and not.
How you lift from sleep
and become the poetry
of this world.
How you lift the dead
from the fetid pool
and swoon them
back to life.
0 rivet me hard into earth.
0ur flesh that talks and
dies over and
over.
dougbolling@att.net
2 Poems by Kitty Jospé
Battered
she’s in the river
running to wrest
the last rays of ribcaged sun
caught in a rattler’s
snakeskin on the bank
and night lullabys
ululululululay
like love, terrible on either end
of creation, destruction,
waxing its way.
House of Cards -- II
Card by card, she constructs
triangular tents
layered high to higher,
precarious
perched so close to imminent
demise.
Little does she know such practice
will serve her well for the slippery games,
loneliness,
and all that lies
ahead.
Bionote
Kitty Jospé is a retired French teacher, an active docent at the art museum, and leads a weekly poetry appreciation session, started during her MFA in creative writing poetry at Pacific University. She is involved with multiple collaborations with dance, music, art and word. kjospe@gmail.com
she’s in the river
running to wrest
the last rays of ribcaged sun
caught in a rattler’s
snakeskin on the bank
and night lullabys
ululululululay
like love, terrible on either end
of creation, destruction,
waxing its way.
House of Cards -- II
Card by card, she constructs
triangular tents
layered high to higher,
precarious
perched so close to imminent
demise.
Little does she know such practice
will serve her well for the slippery games,
loneliness,
and all that lies
ahead.
Bionote
Kitty Jospé is a retired French teacher, an active docent at the art museum, and leads a weekly poetry appreciation session, started during her MFA in creative writing poetry at Pacific University. She is involved with multiple collaborations with dance, music, art and word. kjospe@gmail.com
1 Poem by Demond Blake
god’s Acne
A delightful
Woman
@ the bar
Decided to
Tell me
About god’s
Forgiveness
hmm, i said
He’ll forgive all
Yr transgressions
She said
uh-huh, i nodded
He’ll wipe away
All yr tears
She quoted
i don’t cry
i mumbled
You can bring
All yr troubles
To him
She told me
indeed, i said
You’re a non-believer
She accused
no one wants to
believe more than
me, i corrected
Then what’s keeping
You from embracing
God’s unconditional
Love, she asked
the pimples on god’s
face. my mug shouldn’t
be clearer than the
creator’s
You should take
A look in the
Mirror
she smirked
So I went to
The john and
Took a gander
At myself
Crater
Face
Bionote
Born in Las Vegas in 1979 Demond Blake moved to Los Angeles in the 80s and spent his childhood moving from his parents in LA, his grandparents in Las Vegas and his Uncle's in Manhattan. After graduating high school he briefly enrolled at Redlands University and wrote his first book 'Limbo' about a group of recent high school graduates trying to figure out what to do with themselves as the main character goes through the motions having and losing his first love. After a year of not being able to find a publisher his friends helped him self-publish his novel and they sold copies at campuses around Southern California pricing the book in such a way to just recoup printing costs. He was unsatisfied with this process and unhappy with 'Limbo' and decided to take some time off from the bubble of college life and spent the next few of years doing odd jobs, going to school here and there and sharpening his writing skills through reading and constantly writing poetry. Settling down in Colton,CA a few years ago after living in Oregon he felt he had moved past the themes explored in 'Limbo' and had something to say about his generation as a whole and his second novel 'Slackass' was the result. While looking for representation for 'Slackass' Demond is half way through his third novel 'Sputnik' which is a prequel to 'Slackass'. It is written as a collection of short stories connecting the various characters and their exploits. <lucienblck@yahoo.com>
A delightful
Woman
@ the bar
Decided to
Tell me
About god’s
Forgiveness
hmm, i said
He’ll forgive all
Yr transgressions
She said
uh-huh, i nodded
He’ll wipe away
All yr tears
She quoted
i don’t cry
i mumbled
You can bring
All yr troubles
To him
She told me
indeed, i said
You’re a non-believer
She accused
no one wants to
believe more than
me, i corrected
Then what’s keeping
You from embracing
God’s unconditional
Love, she asked
the pimples on god’s
face. my mug shouldn’t
be clearer than the
creator’s
You should take
A look in the
Mirror
she smirked
So I went to
The john and
Took a gander
At myself
Crater
Face
Bionote
Born in Las Vegas in 1979 Demond Blake moved to Los Angeles in the 80s and spent his childhood moving from his parents in LA, his grandparents in Las Vegas and his Uncle's in Manhattan. After graduating high school he briefly enrolled at Redlands University and wrote his first book 'Limbo' about a group of recent high school graduates trying to figure out what to do with themselves as the main character goes through the motions having and losing his first love. After a year of not being able to find a publisher his friends helped him self-publish his novel and they sold copies at campuses around Southern California pricing the book in such a way to just recoup printing costs. He was unsatisfied with this process and unhappy with 'Limbo' and decided to take some time off from the bubble of college life and spent the next few of years doing odd jobs, going to school here and there and sharpening his writing skills through reading and constantly writing poetry. Settling down in Colton,CA a few years ago after living in Oregon he felt he had moved past the themes explored in 'Limbo' and had something to say about his generation as a whole and his second novel 'Slackass' was the result. While looking for representation for 'Slackass' Demond is half way through his third novel 'Sputnik' which is a prequel to 'Slackass'. It is written as a collection of short stories connecting the various characters and their exploits. <lucienblck@yahoo.com>
1 Poem by J. K. Durick
About Half
My father-in-law always planted
double of everything.
If he wanted two, he put in four,
three, then six, and on, and on,
edging possibility toward probability.
Always an even number of holes
to dig, seeds or saplings to set,
to fertilize, to pack into place.
Always counting backward, subtracting.
Always knowing half of the effort
was an empty gesture against the odds,
against the forces that claim,
at least, half of everything he did,
like willful children, or bullies,
or nature’s hit men, the seven mad gods
who rule time.
But Ray would never say, if I asked,
why this, or why not something else?
He had lived long enough to know the miles
between intent and outcome,
between the garden you dream and
the garden you finally get.
Bionote
J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Northern New England Review, Up the River, Third Wednesday, and Common Ground Review. jdurick2001@yahoo.com
My father-in-law always planted
double of everything.
If he wanted two, he put in four,
three, then six, and on, and on,
edging possibility toward probability.
Always an even number of holes
to dig, seeds or saplings to set,
to fertilize, to pack into place.
Always counting backward, subtracting.
Always knowing half of the effort
was an empty gesture against the odds,
against the forces that claim,
at least, half of everything he did,
like willful children, or bullies,
or nature’s hit men, the seven mad gods
who rule time.
But Ray would never say, if I asked,
why this, or why not something else?
He had lived long enough to know the miles
between intent and outcome,
between the garden you dream and
the garden you finally get.
Bionote
J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Northern New England Review, Up the River, Third Wednesday, and Common Ground Review. jdurick2001@yahoo.com
2 Poems by Ira Melnick
I twist in the wind
Like some unhinged barber pole
Red stripes overlapping
I have been whipped
Those are not stars
They are five pointed scars
Too numerous to count
My pride was annexed years ago
The fifty first state of insanity
Borders blurred
Strop that razor
I lean back
Offer my neck
When there is time
I will sit you down
Tell you all about it
What you will hear
Is not sweet perfume
It is acid
Caustic
I’ve used it to remove the faces of memories
But there are still traces of noses
Ears
And years
Days strung together by razor wire
Weeks set biting on fishhooks
Months of nooses
And if you care anything about me
You will kick the chair
From beneath my feet
Bionote
Ira Melnick is a poet from Vermont. He has created a large body of work over several years, encompassing a broad spectrum of subject matter. Being unassuming in nature, it has taken some urging and coaxing for him to go public, where he is now receiving very favorable reviews. iramelnick@comcast.net
Like some unhinged barber pole
Red stripes overlapping
I have been whipped
Those are not stars
They are five pointed scars
Too numerous to count
My pride was annexed years ago
The fifty first state of insanity
Borders blurred
Strop that razor
I lean back
Offer my neck
When there is time
I will sit you down
Tell you all about it
What you will hear
Is not sweet perfume
It is acid
Caustic
I’ve used it to remove the faces of memories
But there are still traces of noses
Ears
And years
Days strung together by razor wire
Weeks set biting on fishhooks
Months of nooses
And if you care anything about me
You will kick the chair
From beneath my feet
Bionote
Ira Melnick is a poet from Vermont. He has created a large body of work over several years, encompassing a broad spectrum of subject matter. Being unassuming in nature, it has taken some urging and coaxing for him to go public, where he is now receiving very favorable reviews. iramelnick@comcast.net
1 Poem by Marcia Slatkin
Potions
“I’ve passed many a lumped
corpse, and last month watched
a chopper swoop near my work
in the veldt, then heard the saw,
and knew another rhino’d been caught,
stunned, horns cut, then left
for dead. Trekking toward
the buzz, I found her, still
asleep and bleeding, her face
a field of splintered bone.
The blade snapped horn
like twig, striking this way,
that. All I could do was
water her when she woke,
and phone for transport.
Some think rhino flakes
gather to a golden halo
from which flows health,
power, desire. Beetle paste also,
and monkey scrotal mash.
So, although science finds
the curved spear useful
only to the animal itself,
all else fiction, in China,
Vietnam, myth makes it
more dear than gold.
We can understand this quest.
Humans fear impotence.
Illness. Death.
Bionote
Former teacher, farmer, care-giver, Marcia Slatkin continues to play cello, take photos, and write. Her poetry books include A Woman Milking, Barnyard Poems (Word Press, 2006), and Not Yet, a Healing Journey Through Alzheimer's Care Giving (sfapress, 2012). nominated for a Pulitzer. Her fiction won two PEN prizes, and 18 of her stories have appeared in small journals. Many of her one acts have been produced off-off Broadway. Please see www.marciaslatkin.com <mslatkin@juno.com>
“I’ve passed many a lumped
corpse, and last month watched
a chopper swoop near my work
in the veldt, then heard the saw,
and knew another rhino’d been caught,
stunned, horns cut, then left
for dead. Trekking toward
the buzz, I found her, still
asleep and bleeding, her face
a field of splintered bone.
The blade snapped horn
like twig, striking this way,
that. All I could do was
water her when she woke,
and phone for transport.
Some think rhino flakes
gather to a golden halo
from which flows health,
power, desire. Beetle paste also,
and monkey scrotal mash.
So, although science finds
the curved spear useful
only to the animal itself,
all else fiction, in China,
Vietnam, myth makes it
more dear than gold.
We can understand this quest.
Humans fear impotence.
Illness. Death.
Bionote
Former teacher, farmer, care-giver, Marcia Slatkin continues to play cello, take photos, and write. Her poetry books include A Woman Milking, Barnyard Poems (Word Press, 2006), and Not Yet, a Healing Journey Through Alzheimer's Care Giving (sfapress, 2012). nominated for a Pulitzer. Her fiction won two PEN prizes, and 18 of her stories have appeared in small journals. Many of her one acts have been produced off-off Broadway. Please see www.marciaslatkin.com <mslatkin@juno.com>
2 Poems by Vanessa K. Eccles
Chained
Cuffed and broken I lay
shackled in the darkened room,
Chained by responsibilities and guilted duties.
There’s not a key only a skeletal freedom.
The warden whispers promises he doesn’t intend to keep.
Time passes like a stranger
with indistinguishable features.
I recognize her not.
The inescapable tick serves as a painful reminder
that I’m limited and bound.
Every shackle is a burden,
every chain is a load,
every planned escape is thwarted
by the watchful warden’s eyes.
The problem with sleep is the awake.
The Norm
I stepped into normal
with joe in my hand,
dressed in my muted palette
with my curls contortedly smoothed and bound.
I’m desked in a cube
with a screen as my focus.
Every day:
A nod. A smile. A robot.
Driving is the catalyst
between the duality.
I unlock my door,
step into my pajamas,
and back into me.
Bionote
Vanessa K. Eccles is the founder and executive editor of Belle Reve Literary Journal. She has an English degree from Troy University, and her work has been published by Deep South Magazine, Suite T (a blog by Southern Writer’s Magazine), Wisdom Crieth Without, and The Story Shack. She is the author of Psalms of Me and is currently working on a YA novel. For more information see her website www.vanessakeccles.com. <vanessa@bellerevejournal.com>
Cuffed and broken I lay
shackled in the darkened room,
Chained by responsibilities and guilted duties.
There’s not a key only a skeletal freedom.
The warden whispers promises he doesn’t intend to keep.
Time passes like a stranger
with indistinguishable features.
I recognize her not.
The inescapable tick serves as a painful reminder
that I’m limited and bound.
Every shackle is a burden,
every chain is a load,
every planned escape is thwarted
by the watchful warden’s eyes.
The problem with sleep is the awake.
The Norm
I stepped into normal
with joe in my hand,
dressed in my muted palette
with my curls contortedly smoothed and bound.
I’m desked in a cube
with a screen as my focus.
Every day:
A nod. A smile. A robot.
Driving is the catalyst
between the duality.
I unlock my door,
step into my pajamas,
and back into me.
Bionote
Vanessa K. Eccles is the founder and executive editor of Belle Reve Literary Journal. She has an English degree from Troy University, and her work has been published by Deep South Magazine, Suite T (a blog by Southern Writer’s Magazine), Wisdom Crieth Without, and The Story Shack. She is the author of Psalms of Me and is currently working on a YA novel. For more information see her website www.vanessakeccles.com. <vanessa@bellerevejournal.com>
3 Poems by Albert Geiser
The End Of Summer Camp
the blind people arriving
because summer camp ended
the tents taken down
the worker from Alaska,
smelly and heavy
who brought the camp dog
Claude the worker in mine the
last tent up, him and me
he's making the tent smelly
blindness and weight
gone is the lightness
there's a lightness of camp
it's all gone away
the coming of the blind
playing pool on the
old warped table upstairs
with a tunnel vision guy who
always misses
and has to have a bath
the camp weighs so much
love you so much much, a voice
in the gravel parking lot
Kyokusetsu On The Raquette River
kayaks take for granted bloom
on River Ellen
kyokusetsu
Old Town holds firm ashore
for lovers' tangled hair to be returned
with our roadside laces
loggers' boats petrified
by the river's deep mud and exposed
to lightning
wide shallow water offers no privacy
there's a pale shade of
the newish home, a driveway
that got its theived sedan
fated for the pressure at red Potsdam stone
The Aluminum Man
A sculpture my
father told me of
an aluminum man
at 64 East College
Avenue in Ohio.
who made his own
batteries to win
that electrolysis.
My father
made small
hobby sculptures
out of metal
being acted on in
aqueous solutions
at roadsides.
I stopped in my
father's college town,
I was in my early
twenties. I did not
think to look then
for the aluminum man.
I had rusted metal
pieces I had found
via Missouri, Oklahoma
Brought them
back. My dad's thought
acts on me as if
I am rusted metal...
Bionote
After my birth and toddler experiences in very urban in East Orange New Jersey, my family moved when I was 4, escaping the preceding events leading to the Newark riots of the 1960s. The apartment where we lived when I was born would later be burned and gutted. In 1973 my father was going to be denied his tenure at Drexel University over Vietnam War era politics and we then moved to Potsdam, New York .I was 13. I was to Bard College for its reputation for radicalized teaching, and loosely structured academics. A literary magazine friends of mine and I put together which we called Dialogue attracted some very good writers, and brought several of us together who have since had real successes in our writing and careers.. I had done very erratically in school, and I flunked out of Bard College. I put my attention exclusively to writing in a quiet farmhouse in Tivoli New York in 1980. I sent a book collection of short stories to the Richard Brautigan library in Vermont, at age 25, which done from 1981 to 1986 and which now is located in the Clark County Historical Museum in Vancouver WA. I formally published for the first time in 1990,in the William and Mary Review, while living in San Francisco, and paying for very fruitful services for writing guidance from Thaisa Frank. In 1998 I began writing poetry, and in October 2001 I began choosing writing workshops for poetry, beginning with Sandra Alcosser, including T.R. Hummer, Barry Wallenstein, Laura Kasischke, Olga Broumas, and Bhanu Kapil. I then lived next to Naropa University, and wrote intensely for four years. I published in a workshop magazine at Naropa. I began putting poems onto FB, and once again I took the outsider path. I formally published a poem in an anthology which is sold on Amazon. The poem is called Aunt Betty, and the anthology is called Men In The Company of Women. swisskys@gmail.com
the blind people arriving
because summer camp ended
the tents taken down
the worker from Alaska,
smelly and heavy
who brought the camp dog
Claude the worker in mine the
last tent up, him and me
he's making the tent smelly
blindness and weight
gone is the lightness
there's a lightness of camp
it's all gone away
the coming of the blind
playing pool on the
old warped table upstairs
with a tunnel vision guy who
always misses
and has to have a bath
the camp weighs so much
love you so much much, a voice
in the gravel parking lot
Kyokusetsu On The Raquette River
kayaks take for granted bloom
on River Ellen
kyokusetsu
Old Town holds firm ashore
for lovers' tangled hair to be returned
with our roadside laces
loggers' boats petrified
by the river's deep mud and exposed
to lightning
wide shallow water offers no privacy
there's a pale shade of
the newish home, a driveway
that got its theived sedan
fated for the pressure at red Potsdam stone
The Aluminum Man
A sculpture my
father told me of
an aluminum man
at 64 East College
Avenue in Ohio.
who made his own
batteries to win
that electrolysis.
My father
made small
hobby sculptures
out of metal
being acted on in
aqueous solutions
at roadsides.
I stopped in my
father's college town,
I was in my early
twenties. I did not
think to look then
for the aluminum man.
I had rusted metal
pieces I had found
via Missouri, Oklahoma
Brought them
back. My dad's thought
acts on me as if
I am rusted metal...
Bionote
After my birth and toddler experiences in very urban in East Orange New Jersey, my family moved when I was 4, escaping the preceding events leading to the Newark riots of the 1960s. The apartment where we lived when I was born would later be burned and gutted. In 1973 my father was going to be denied his tenure at Drexel University over Vietnam War era politics and we then moved to Potsdam, New York .I was 13. I was to Bard College for its reputation for radicalized teaching, and loosely structured academics. A literary magazine friends of mine and I put together which we called Dialogue attracted some very good writers, and brought several of us together who have since had real successes in our writing and careers.. I had done very erratically in school, and I flunked out of Bard College. I put my attention exclusively to writing in a quiet farmhouse in Tivoli New York in 1980. I sent a book collection of short stories to the Richard Brautigan library in Vermont, at age 25, which done from 1981 to 1986 and which now is located in the Clark County Historical Museum in Vancouver WA. I formally published for the first time in 1990,in the William and Mary Review, while living in San Francisco, and paying for very fruitful services for writing guidance from Thaisa Frank. In 1998 I began writing poetry, and in October 2001 I began choosing writing workshops for poetry, beginning with Sandra Alcosser, including T.R. Hummer, Barry Wallenstein, Laura Kasischke, Olga Broumas, and Bhanu Kapil. I then lived next to Naropa University, and wrote intensely for four years. I published in a workshop magazine at Naropa. I began putting poems onto FB, and once again I took the outsider path. I formally published a poem in an anthology which is sold on Amazon. The poem is called Aunt Betty, and the anthology is called Men In The Company of Women. swisskys@gmail.com
2 Poems by Gary Beck
Senior Search
The refusal
to be left behind
propels seniors
to the internet,
seeking companionship,
friendship, romance,
other benefits,
hoping to avoid
surfing predators
cruising the web
in search of the lonely.
[first published by Kind of a Hurricane Press]
Withdrawal Symptoms
Jane Doe works at home,
consumer research,
uses the computer
for virtually everything.
Pays rent on-line,
talks to friends on-line,
orders meals on-line,
has sex on-line.
Jane Doe's life
is the future,
unless we lose
our power supply.
[first published in Mad Swirl]
Bionote
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director. Published chapbooks include: 'Remembrance', Origami Condom Press; 'The Conquest of Somalia', Cervena Barva Press; 'The Dance of Hate', Calliope Nerve Media; 'Material Questions', Silkworms Ink; 'Dispossessed', Medulla Press and 'Mutilated Girls', Heavy Hands Ink. His poetry collection 'Days of Destruction' was published by Skive Press; 'Expectations', Rogue Scholars Press; 'Dawn in Cities', Winter Goose Publishing; ‘Assault on Nature’, Winter Goose Publishing. ‘Songs of a Clerk’ and ‘Civilized Ways’ will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. His novel 'Extreme Change' was published by Cogwheel Press; 'Acts of Defiance' was published by Artema Press. His collection of short stories, ‘A Glimpse of Youth’ was published by Sweatshoppe Publications. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City. http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Beck/e/B00959Y3PA
garycbeck@yahoo.com
The refusal
to be left behind
propels seniors
to the internet,
seeking companionship,
friendship, romance,
other benefits,
hoping to avoid
surfing predators
cruising the web
in search of the lonely.
[first published by Kind of a Hurricane Press]
Withdrawal Symptoms
Jane Doe works at home,
consumer research,
uses the computer
for virtually everything.
Pays rent on-line,
talks to friends on-line,
orders meals on-line,
has sex on-line.
Jane Doe's life
is the future,
unless we lose
our power supply.
[first published in Mad Swirl]
Bionote
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director. Published chapbooks include: 'Remembrance', Origami Condom Press; 'The Conquest of Somalia', Cervena Barva Press; 'The Dance of Hate', Calliope Nerve Media; 'Material Questions', Silkworms Ink; 'Dispossessed', Medulla Press and 'Mutilated Girls', Heavy Hands Ink. His poetry collection 'Days of Destruction' was published by Skive Press; 'Expectations', Rogue Scholars Press; 'Dawn in Cities', Winter Goose Publishing; ‘Assault on Nature’, Winter Goose Publishing. ‘Songs of a Clerk’ and ‘Civilized Ways’ will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. His novel 'Extreme Change' was published by Cogwheel Press; 'Acts of Defiance' was published by Artema Press. His collection of short stories, ‘A Glimpse of Youth’ was published by Sweatshoppe Publications. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City. http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Beck/e/B00959Y3PA
garycbeck@yahoo.com
5 Photos by Russell Streur
 |
| Wyoming Dawn |
 |
| Siren |
 |
| Wyoming Windmill |
 |
| Wyoming View |
 |
| Wyoming Landscape
Postcard from Cheyenne
I have heard this city calling me for twenty years, a siren sounding like the hungry cry of a great blue heron I might’ve thought. But it’s too dry out here for a watery bird like that to make an honest living.
Still, the call.
West of the Mississippi, the country becomes different. After hundreds of miles, the long horizons of Kansas wheat and Nebraska corn finally give way to higher plateaus. As the land rises, the population falls. Above the Colorado Plateau, river beds widen into shallow concourses.
You can cross the North Platte without getting your feet wet in the winter before the snows melt.
If the God of the Testaments grants the promise of three score and ten years to a life, two have barely passed from the birth of Cheyenne in 1867 to now.
Third in a line of the Hell on Wheels boomtowns fathered by the building of the Union Pacific, Cheyenne might have been the wildest of all the Wild West towns in its early days. Bronco was spelled with an ‘h’ back then, broncho, and carpenters earned a decent salary hammering together prefabricated saloons. Eager innkeepers purchased the ready-made affairs, willing to take in stride occasional bullet holes in the walls, and less agreeably through the flesh of the customers, as an acceptable cost of doing business.
The two most important places in town, one story goes, were “the saloon and the cemetery.” Dance halls and the parlors of the women of generous virtue weren’t far behind on the list.
The Green Door Lounge offers the faintest of echoes to the era, with its 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. happy hour, drive through liquor lane, and topless dancers for the later crowd.
Crow Creek flooded the town one year, and fire threatened to engulf it another. Then the cattle barons came and the place grew out of its drinking and shooting phase into the self-bequeathed respectability of The Holy City of the Cow. The changes took a while. It wasn’t until the local constabulary hanged the range rider Tom Horn in 1903 that things could be said to have settled down. Even then, the Wyoming National Guard stood sentinel around the gallows as protection against a rumored escape plan said to be plotted by Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch.
The first passenger train from Denver arrived in 1910. There was a big celebration.
Many of those turn of the century buildings remain in use today, and dozens of sites and entire square blocks of the city carry designations as National Historic Landmarks.
The old black and white photographs of Cheyenne perform little favor for the rich and vibrant colors of the town. The weathered layers of paint on the brickwork in the depot district and the ornate calligraphy and green cornices of Bohemian Metals a couple blocks over bring the tintypes and collodions to life. So do the deep red facades of the Cowgirls of the West Museum and Emporium. Don’t laugh: women’s suffrage began in Wyoming, and don’t forget it. The motto of the state isn’t Equal Rights for nothing.
There’s a certain light, too, that slants into the passenger waiting rooms at the railroad station and describes a sudden shadow to a unicycle on West 15th just past sunrise.
About that siren. It is one week past the equinox, a few more miles west, and winter is still on the earth. The morning brings another frost, but this time, the scent of sage in the air. And in that moment, with the whisper of the spring, the sound of the western wind through ponderosa and bristlecone: a call as simple as that.
I am here memorizing that sound, with the sun setting through the windows of the tap room of Freedom’s Edge Brewing Company in the old Tivoli Building downtown. The Horizon Amber tastes as good as good as its name, and the price is right. I am taking my time with the glass and the flavor. I am never going back home.
Bionote
Born in Chicago and currently a resident of Johns Creek, Georgia, Russell Streur’s poetry has been published widely in print, on line and in anthologies in the United States and Europe. He operates the world’s original on-line poetry bar, The Camel Saloon (http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/), is the author of The Muse of Many Names (Poets Democracy, 2011) and Table of Discontents (Ten Pages Press, 2012). His photography has been featured in Written River and on line at The Blue Hour, Pacific Poetry and other publications. His works are regularly seen at Atlanta Artists Center and other area galleries. He is a member of the Atlanta Artists Center, the Georgia Poetry Society, and wilderness and conservation organizations.
|
3 Poems by Jeanie Greensfelder
Hypnos, God of Sleep
He creeps into my bed,
envelops me,
erases my worries,
and together
we dream.
But on those nights
when he doesn’t show,
and I know he’s out
sleeping with others,
I wait and watch and
add him to my worries.
He ruins my nights,
disturbs my days,
and he never listens.
My counselor says,
You’re stuck with him.
Calm him with chamomile,
soothe him with love talk.
That night he watches
as I brew his tea,
bathe, dab lavender,
turn on Brahms,
and get into bed early,
hoping he’s pleased,
hoping he stays the night.
The Homestead
…a farm that is no more a farm.
“Directive”--Robert Frost
Growing up on a Kentucky farm,
she fed the pigs and chickens,
picked beans and strawberries,
lugged water from the well,
carried wood for weekly baths,
shivered in the cold outhouse,
and when she was old enough,
she left and never looked back,
except that one trip, cross-country,
when she tried to find
the town that was no more a town,
the farm that was no more a farm,
and stood there in a field looking
like she’d lost the Grail goblet,
and wanted to sip once more,
to find the sweet in the bitter.
Me and My Shadow
Sun low in the sky,
I walk my shadow, watch
the long black of me
stretch tall across the road.
A car drives past
and my shadow lifts,
flows over hood, roof, and trunk
to lie back down on the pavement.
Ah, to have my shadow’s skill
not to get run over by life—
to flow over obstacles
and keep on walking.
Bionote
Jeanie Greensfelder's poetry memoir, Biting the Apple, Penciled In, 2012. evokes Joseph Campbell's "sorrowful joys and joyful sorrows." Her poems have been published in Askew, Orbis, Echoes, Grand, Kaleidoscope, Porter Gulch Review, Poetic Medicine Journal, Riptide, If and When, and Vine Leaves. Her poems can be seen monthly at http://slocoastjournal.com/docs/geniespocket.html geniegreensfelder@gmail.com
He creeps into my bed,
envelops me,
erases my worries,
and together
we dream.
But on those nights
when he doesn’t show,
and I know he’s out
sleeping with others,
I wait and watch and
add him to my worries.
He ruins my nights,
disturbs my days,
and he never listens.
My counselor says,
You’re stuck with him.
Calm him with chamomile,
soothe him with love talk.
That night he watches
as I brew his tea,
bathe, dab lavender,
turn on Brahms,
and get into bed early,
hoping he’s pleased,
hoping he stays the night.
The Homestead
…a farm that is no more a farm.
“Directive”--Robert Frost
Growing up on a Kentucky farm,
she fed the pigs and chickens,
picked beans and strawberries,
lugged water from the well,
carried wood for weekly baths,
shivered in the cold outhouse,
and when she was old enough,
she left and never looked back,
except that one trip, cross-country,
when she tried to find
the town that was no more a town,
the farm that was no more a farm,
and stood there in a field looking
like she’d lost the Grail goblet,
and wanted to sip once more,
to find the sweet in the bitter.
Me and My Shadow
Sun low in the sky,
I walk my shadow, watch
the long black of me
stretch tall across the road.
A car drives past
and my shadow lifts,
flows over hood, roof, and trunk
to lie back down on the pavement.
Ah, to have my shadow’s skill
not to get run over by life—
to flow over obstacles
and keep on walking.
Bionote
Jeanie Greensfelder's poetry memoir, Biting the Apple, Penciled In, 2012. evokes Joseph Campbell's "sorrowful joys and joyful sorrows." Her poems have been published in Askew, Orbis, Echoes, Grand, Kaleidoscope, Porter Gulch Review, Poetic Medicine Journal, Riptide, If and When, and Vine Leaves. Her poems can be seen monthly at http://slocoastjournal.com/docs/geniespocket.html geniegreensfelder@gmail.com
1 Poem by Joshua Medsker
Losing
Something is always lost,
between the time you see a leaf
and when you decide to
write about it.
Bionote
Josh Medsker is a New Jersey writer, originally from Alaska. His work has appeared in many publications, including: The Anchorage Press, Haiku Journal, Everest, OVS, Boston Literary Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Criminal Class Review, and The Review Review. Since 2001, he has published the literary magazine Twenty-Four Hours (www.twentyfourhoursonline.org). He can be reached at joshmedsker@gmail.com
Something is always lost,
between the time you see a leaf
and when you decide to
write about it.
Bionote
Josh Medsker is a New Jersey writer, originally from Alaska. His work has appeared in many publications, including: The Anchorage Press, Haiku Journal, Everest, OVS, Boston Literary Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Criminal Class Review, and The Review Review. Since 2001, he has published the literary magazine Twenty-Four Hours (www.twentyfourhoursonline.org). He can be reached at joshmedsker@gmail.com
3 Poems by Denise Powell
The Illusion of Presence
Hunkered down
blanket warms legs
purple from hugging metal.
The process becomes easier
when others are present.
Words shower
gallant balls of hail
from all sides.
I hold out in front of me
something better
that I did not create.
I want to be alone.
I don’t want to be alone.
Boots clamor
through the piles
in anticipation of
her wakefulness.
The routine is endless.
Nightmare in the early morning.
Rock. Sleep. Eyes open.
Rest, maybe later.
There are only a few hours left
to turn the pages back.
Eavesdropping
Eavesdropping on a Thursday morning.
Twenty hours condensed into one
the clock hits ten.
This chair is tenuous
supporting buckled knees.
Low voices muffled
a half-comprehendible conversation
back-to-back.
The will to pipe in
shows its force
against the crutch
as the chair gives out.
Hopeful wood spitting
small pieces outward
released from redundancy.
Get up.
There is nowhere
to sit here.
Steal the pen on the table
and the conversation
in a notebook
and walk cautiously
toward the exit.
They will not learn
of their vulnerability
until they see themselves
everywhere.
Sifting Through Boxes
Floating on a penny
I place it under my pillow
as a reminder
of how rich I am.
Many things were collected,
Notes, paper dolls, velour sashes,
that now reside
in their own crawl space.
Sifting through boxes
stacking and re-stacking
playing blocks
trying to get somewhere.
Isn’t that always the case?
A rhinestone broach
she left for me
must be here.
I can see it displayed
just below the sternum
drawing the eye
to the center.
It will take some time
getting out of this mess
of dust and cardboard.
If only I knew where to look.
Bionote
Denise Powell holds an undergraduate degree in English and photojournalism from the University of Iowa and was a student of the university's Undergraduate Poetry Workshop. She is now the editor-in-chief of The Voices Project, an online literary venue for women. Her writing has been published in literary magazines, books, and blogs including the following: Earthwords (University of Iowa Undergraduate Review), LethologicA (Naropa Press), The Pulchitudinous Review, Principles of Water Resources (Wiley Publishers), and Nigel Barker's Beauty Equation. She is a mother of a 16-month-old daughter, a writer, photographer, a certified massage therapist, health counselor, and an avid traveler. She is on the U.S. board of directors for a non-profit organization, OrphanAid Africa, based in Ghana, West Africa. She currently resides in Boulder, Colorado. denisepowell7@gmail.com
Hunkered down
blanket warms legs
purple from hugging metal.
The process becomes easier
when others are present.
Words shower
gallant balls of hail
from all sides.
I hold out in front of me
something better
that I did not create.
I want to be alone.
I don’t want to be alone.
Boots clamor
through the piles
in anticipation of
her wakefulness.
The routine is endless.
Nightmare in the early morning.
Rock. Sleep. Eyes open.
Rest, maybe later.
There are only a few hours left
to turn the pages back.
Eavesdropping
Eavesdropping on a Thursday morning.
Twenty hours condensed into one
the clock hits ten.
This chair is tenuous
supporting buckled knees.
Low voices muffled
a half-comprehendible conversation
back-to-back.
The will to pipe in
shows its force
against the crutch
as the chair gives out.
Hopeful wood spitting
small pieces outward
released from redundancy.
Get up.
There is nowhere
to sit here.
Steal the pen on the table
and the conversation
in a notebook
and walk cautiously
toward the exit.
They will not learn
of their vulnerability
until they see themselves
everywhere.
Sifting Through Boxes
Floating on a penny
I place it under my pillow
as a reminder
of how rich I am.
Many things were collected,
Notes, paper dolls, velour sashes,
that now reside
in their own crawl space.
Sifting through boxes
stacking and re-stacking
playing blocks
trying to get somewhere.
Isn’t that always the case?
A rhinestone broach
she left for me
must be here.
I can see it displayed
just below the sternum
drawing the eye
to the center.
It will take some time
getting out of this mess
of dust and cardboard.
If only I knew where to look.
Bionote
Denise Powell holds an undergraduate degree in English and photojournalism from the University of Iowa and was a student of the university's Undergraduate Poetry Workshop. She is now the editor-in-chief of The Voices Project, an online literary venue for women. Her writing has been published in literary magazines, books, and blogs including the following: Earthwords (University of Iowa Undergraduate Review), LethologicA (Naropa Press), The Pulchitudinous Review, Principles of Water Resources (Wiley Publishers), and Nigel Barker's Beauty Equation. She is a mother of a 16-month-old daughter, a writer, photographer, a certified massage therapist, health counselor, and an avid traveler. She is on the U.S. board of directors for a non-profit organization, OrphanAid Africa, based in Ghana, West Africa. She currently resides in Boulder, Colorado. denisepowell7@gmail.com
3 Poems by Shanta Acharya :
BLACK SWANS
The highly expected not happening is also a Black Swan.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Look into your own history –
exile from family, friends, country,
betrayed by those you placed your faith in,
always living at the margins.
Yet nothing, yes nothing in your past
pointed to the unfurling of the present.
What has been, what might have been
two fractured landmasses drifting in time
acquiring individual perspectives;
not parallel lines meeting in infinity.
You wander down lanes of lives never lived,
reconciling what might have been with reality.
Is there free will? You ask as you sink
failing to swim against the tide; knowing
only dead fish swim with the stream.
Immense possibilities only appear
to be evenly distributed; not knowing the odds
we take risks, act against the gods.
There is no way of knowing what we don’t know.
No way of protecting us against uncertainty.
We build theories like terracotta armies
fallible guesses from fragmentary information,
success or failure being always retrospective.
Our limitations echo in memory
rearing up in dreams of the seemingly impossible,
our own lives, elegant black swans, in full flight….
[author's note: in his book, The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb refers to an event with rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective predictability as a Black Swan. According to him, “a small number of Black Swans explain almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives.”]
RELATIONSHIPS
Your first breath a wild peacock-cry
your clear protest at entering our world;
The umbilical cord severed,
nurse confirmed a perfect daughter.
Happiness overflowed my milk dried up.
A woman’s life is hard; how am I to protect you?
The curl of your lips, eyebrows all mine,
the sickle cells in our blood our shared DNA;
Shrine of your immaculate body entrusted in my hands.
This the moment of renunciation,
remembering women in whose footsteps we walk –
Mother grandmother great-grandmother,
linking us all the way back through Time;
Celebrating the journey, memories of places
traveled together, apart shared –
Mother, daughter flowing from glacier
head of soul mountain to a drop in the ocean.
Tree of life leaves waving in the sun.
You tug me back peering into my eyes,
we contemplate each other ancient enemies, best friends.
I barely blinked, yet fifty years have flown.
No need to explain the chain is now broken.
You have so much to give! You stand there alone
free, ready for flight, not frozen in fear,
trapped in relationships.
WHAT TIMES ARE THESE?
What times are these that darken our horizon,
blur our view of what it means to be human?
What tides are these whose
rising waters of me keep drowning us?
What kind of people advertising
alchemy turn gold to lead and nectar to poison?
What future do we create for our children
if hope, justice, beauty and truth are forgotten?
To see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing,
do nothing turns you into a good-for-nothing.
Ignorance is not easily overcome,
though it rises to the surface like scum.
What times are these where each action
is a transaction?
People, nations, nature – the universe
is in a state of flux redefining us.
Those who believe know how to dream,
keep faith in things unseen.
The quality of darkness is how it lets us see.
Bionote
Shanta Acharya was born in India; she won a scholarship to Oxford, where she completed her doctoral thesis in English before going to Harvard as a Visiting Scholar. Her study, The Influence of Indian Thought on Ralph Waldo Emerson, was published in the USA in 2001. The author of nine books, her latest poetry collection is Dreams That Spell The Light (Arc Publications, UK; 2010). Her poems, articles and reviews have appeared in major publications in the UK, USA, and India. She is the founder director of Poetry in the House, Lauderdale House in London, where she has been hosting monthly poetry events since 1996. She was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Poetry Society, UK, in 2011. www.shantaacharya.com SHANTA ACHARYA <shantaacharya@btinternet.com>
The highly expected not happening is also a Black Swan.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Look into your own history –
exile from family, friends, country,
betrayed by those you placed your faith in,
always living at the margins.
Yet nothing, yes nothing in your past
pointed to the unfurling of the present.
What has been, what might have been
two fractured landmasses drifting in time
acquiring individual perspectives;
not parallel lines meeting in infinity.
You wander down lanes of lives never lived,
reconciling what might have been with reality.
Is there free will? You ask as you sink
failing to swim against the tide; knowing
only dead fish swim with the stream.
Immense possibilities only appear
to be evenly distributed; not knowing the odds
we take risks, act against the gods.
There is no way of knowing what we don’t know.
No way of protecting us against uncertainty.
We build theories like terracotta armies
fallible guesses from fragmentary information,
success or failure being always retrospective.
Our limitations echo in memory
rearing up in dreams of the seemingly impossible,
our own lives, elegant black swans, in full flight….
[author's note: in his book, The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb refers to an event with rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective predictability as a Black Swan. According to him, “a small number of Black Swans explain almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives.”]
RELATIONSHIPS
Your first breath a wild peacock-cry
your clear protest at entering our world;
The umbilical cord severed,
nurse confirmed a perfect daughter.
Happiness overflowed my milk dried up.
A woman’s life is hard; how am I to protect you?
The curl of your lips, eyebrows all mine,
the sickle cells in our blood our shared DNA;
Shrine of your immaculate body entrusted in my hands.
This the moment of renunciation,
remembering women in whose footsteps we walk –
Mother grandmother great-grandmother,
linking us all the way back through Time;
Celebrating the journey, memories of places
traveled together, apart shared –
Mother, daughter flowing from glacier
head of soul mountain to a drop in the ocean.
Tree of life leaves waving in the sun.
You tug me back peering into my eyes,
we contemplate each other ancient enemies, best friends.
I barely blinked, yet fifty years have flown.
No need to explain the chain is now broken.
You have so much to give! You stand there alone
free, ready for flight, not frozen in fear,
trapped in relationships.
WHAT TIMES ARE THESE?
What times are these that darken our horizon,
blur our view of what it means to be human?
What tides are these whose
rising waters of me keep drowning us?
What kind of people advertising
alchemy turn gold to lead and nectar to poison?
What future do we create for our children
if hope, justice, beauty and truth are forgotten?
To see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing,
do nothing turns you into a good-for-nothing.
Ignorance is not easily overcome,
though it rises to the surface like scum.
What times are these where each action
is a transaction?
People, nations, nature – the universe
is in a state of flux redefining us.
Those who believe know how to dream,
keep faith in things unseen.
The quality of darkness is how it lets us see.
Bionote
Shanta Acharya was born in India; she won a scholarship to Oxford, where she completed her doctoral thesis in English before going to Harvard as a Visiting Scholar. Her study, The Influence of Indian Thought on Ralph Waldo Emerson, was published in the USA in 2001. The author of nine books, her latest poetry collection is Dreams That Spell The Light (Arc Publications, UK; 2010). Her poems, articles and reviews have appeared in major publications in the UK, USA, and India. She is the founder director of Poetry in the House, Lauderdale House in London, where she has been hosting monthly poetry events since 1996. She was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Poetry Society, UK, in 2011. www.shantaacharya.com SHANTA ACHARYA <shantaacharya@btinternet.com>
1 Poem by Walter Bargen
Redwood
This spring afternoon two shovels booted into the soft ground near the house,
their handles vertical,
exclamations at the end of a sentence no one wants to hear. Too soon digging a hole,
waiting for a wife
to declare the depth adequate, the bladed sides steep enough, smooth enough, wide enough
for the bundled root wad.
She holds the thumb-thick trunk vertical, soil scooped and dragged
as ashes
are spread in two layers, starting at the convex bottom. She chants, “This is what he wanted.
This is what he wanted.”
No one needs convincing─none of us want this and yet we do. In this nuclear-
detonated,
hydrogen-fissioned, already eight-minute old stale sunlight, there’s not a red wood growing
within two thousand miles
of these plains. Our upturned heads see 300 feet in a thousand years.
What photons aren’t banged,
blocked, absorbed, diverted by our distracted attention, pass on and on.
[author's note: the poem is dedicated to Martin Stech (1947 - 2005). It is describing the burying of his ashes.]
Bionote
Walter Bargen has published sixteen books of poetry. His two most recent books are Endearing Ruins/Liebenswerte Ruinen, Liliom-Verlag (Germany), 2012, and Trouble Behind Glass Doors, BkMk Press-UMKC, 2013. In 1991 he was awarded a National Endowment of the Arts writing fellowship in poetry. In 1996, he won the Quarter After Eight prose prize, and the Chester H. Jones Foundation prize in 1997. His book, The Feast (2004), won the William Rockhill Nelson Award in 2005. He was appointed the first Poet Laureate of Missouri, 2008-2009. www.walterbargen.com BargenW@missouri.edu
This spring afternoon two shovels booted into the soft ground near the house,
their handles vertical,
exclamations at the end of a sentence no one wants to hear. Too soon digging a hole,
waiting for a wife
to declare the depth adequate, the bladed sides steep enough, smooth enough, wide enough
for the bundled root wad.
She holds the thumb-thick trunk vertical, soil scooped and dragged
as ashes
are spread in two layers, starting at the convex bottom. She chants, “This is what he wanted.
This is what he wanted.”
No one needs convincing─none of us want this and yet we do. In this nuclear-
detonated,
hydrogen-fissioned, already eight-minute old stale sunlight, there’s not a red wood growing
within two thousand miles
of these plains. Our upturned heads see 300 feet in a thousand years.
What photons aren’t banged,
blocked, absorbed, diverted by our distracted attention, pass on and on.
[author's note: the poem is dedicated to Martin Stech (1947 - 2005). It is describing the burying of his ashes.]
Bionote
Walter Bargen has published sixteen books of poetry. His two most recent books are Endearing Ruins/Liebenswerte Ruinen, Liliom-Verlag (Germany), 2012, and Trouble Behind Glass Doors, BkMk Press-UMKC, 2013. In 1991 he was awarded a National Endowment of the Arts writing fellowship in poetry. In 1996, he won the Quarter After Eight prose prize, and the Chester H. Jones Foundation prize in 1997. His book, The Feast (2004), won the William Rockhill Nelson Award in 2005. He was appointed the first Poet Laureate of Missouri, 2008-2009. www.walterbargen.com BargenW@missouri.edu
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)