5 Poems by Yuan Changming

At the Threshold

From the darkest moment

Of last winter to the heaviest fog

Of this summer, I fumbled all my way

To this spot, where I stood, hesitating

As I tried to pull the structure

(Actually meant to be pushed?)

And push it while might mean

To be pulled. Confused and

Confounded, I slid it, folded it

Turned it, tampered with it

Through trial and error, but still

Failed to move the blockade

Sesame, open! –

Am I facing a fake door

Or just bad design?

Seasonal Change

The whole spring

Is finally

Beginning

To green, budding right 

From inside a single heart

After 10-million-minute white wait of winter

Fear

Hidden deeply somewhere

In your inner space

Is a black hole

That keeps sucking in

All the light

From both within

And without your

Whole selfhood, until

You’re infused

With darkness, with all the 

Negative influences flowing

Violently through your body

Trembling, vibrating with hell

As most recent research reveals, there is actually

No black hole in the outer space

One Tree That Makes a Whole Forest

Instead of reaching deep

Into the ground, you hung all your roots

On your twigs in the wild open, trying

To absorb both air and light directly

As well as darkness and cold

Ready to connect to soil and water

Growing from a single tree into a huge forest

That’s the secret of banyan

The secret about growth

Farewell Talk:  For Liu Yu and Yuan Hongqi

Well… Old Liu, I have said all

That I have …to say, just as I’ve done

All that I can …do

Sure, Old Man, so you can die

A happy death now, and I will

Follow to accompany you shortly

What a comfort! We have two …filial sons

To …outlive us, and three great grandsons

To carry our …bloodline on

Indeed, they bring true honor to the family

Name: one is a pioneering engineer

In Silicon Valley, another is doing his PhD

In New York, and the youngest has published

A poetry book in Vancouver though still a teenager

But both of us …grew up in poor Chinese villages

You …barely finished your elementary school

While I had only two …years of education

Really, this contrast alone makes us all happy

And proud enough, just as our elder son called

To stress this from Canada yesterday evening

Well, fare…well, I am going first; once… I find the

Way to the Pureland, I will …return to take you…

But don’t be in such a hurry yet, Old Man

For I wish to take care of our two ageing sons

For a few more years. Hey, nihao Nurse

Boinote

Yuan Changming, 8-time Pushcart nominee and author of 4 chapbooks (including Mindscaping [2014]), grew up in a remote village, began to learn the English alphabet at 19, and published several monographs on English-Chinese translation before leaving China. With a PhD in English from the University of Saskatchewan, Yuan currently tutors and co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver. His poetry appears in Asia Literary Review, Best Canadian Poetry (2009, 2012, 2014), BestNewPoemsOnline, Cincinnati Review, Threepenny Review and 989 others across 31 countries.

5 Photos by Zhijian Tao

Snowy Scenes

2 Poems by Joseph Harms

TELEOLOGY

To hear their webs asilver rote; achrome

proscenium neath wayward oaks’ clockdrip

of ossicles and moths; demised the riv-

er’s chthonic charnel’s restive churn; distrait

there retrogrades a cloud as chevron stars

eclipse, perfervid mantic honks; dehisced

dehisced and happier, there’s probity

alone; alone this life can slow; inoc-

ulum; ingress seropurulent; flume

a lee how quakes one tree among the sighs;

motile in chair comforterwrapped behind

the shed in which she camps; a rock in twelve

neath chlorite flux irradiates as sows

selenian through limbs pianoplay.

BIOPHILIA 

Not body, guts but kluge her Civic’s ev- 

itable ruin: declensed cession of gall- 

ipots’ housecalls; the coming febrifuge 

of chaffwed opioids the sun’s confit 

beyond the calvary of boughs where far- 

row clouds but not the sun; distal down Frear 

to hit fore close the liquorstore by Lit- 

tle Caesars men their broome would retrocede 

to offer Bel a ride, usurp usurp 

adducted arms neath flannelled breasts. As vir- 

ga’s darkle imprecates from fulgent brood 

so forwards Bel in equipoise upon 

ukase. Her maculate crooks. Its derac- 

inate semblance dayin depose each tree. 

Bionote 

Joseph Harms’ fiction and poetry have appeared in Boulevard , The Alaskan Quarterly Review, IthacaLit, Out of Our, Poydras Review , Red Ochre Press, Lines+Stars, Bad Idea, SPECS, Mad Hatters’ Review, The American Dissident, and, among others, Niche. He is currently seeking a publisher for his sonnet series Bel , as well as seeking representation and/or a publisher for his novels Cant and Baal . 

2 Poems by Joshua Martin

Though My Palms Are Dirty

Though my palms are dirty, to return to dust
with an empty stomach is what concerns me most.

To this extent, I’m fearful of what awaits my body
as it disintegrates in its diaphanous suit:

the smell of rusted metal, a field of entangled
faces vying to remember a trite elegy.

What I won’t know is the language of
my maker, if s/he speaks in postscripts

or cares about the unused chiffon wedding dress
stuffed away in the closet without a key.

P.S. Life is a dull stone in a dry creek bed.
P.P.S I’m sorry for not telling you sooner.

If I’m judged for wishing for another moon
to comfort the crescent heart in its black shell, then so be it.

Somewhere my smile’s buried deep in a mass grave.
Somewhere a skull fights a current of ash, begs to be remembered.


when the dust settles

and the remains of our language
are scattered in the bone marrow of the fallen,
look first for my skeleton
beneath the charred ash-heap of burned books
 rising like a monolith
from the center of this city,

where, in my hand, will be
the pencil i’ve substituted for
fire. take it

and use it to
pry forth the last row of teeth
hanging loosely from my jaw,
gaping now like the modular
concrete barriers we hid
behind for far too long. where

my eyes were will be whispering
grottos. explore them. string a tendon
around your forefinger and index finger
 and pluck it to
make music.
tilt my neck back so that I may stare
into the atmosphere, pure
now of radio waves and useless
speech. upturn and shake

my ox-bowed left femur to empty
it of its contents: the monkey’s paw,
my father’s hot breath liquefied,
a bony condolence. lastly,

before you too must run,
place your fingers on the soft spot
of my sternum and press downward.
crack open the egg
where my heart once was,
my last secret, my last poem,
and bury it
so that whomever
inhales this dust
will taste
the grittiness
of whatever
it was that kept
us going.

Bionote

Joshua Martin is a recent graduate of Clemson University's MAE program. In addition to writing poetry, he enjoys walking aimlessly around the streets of Charlotte, NC, with his camera strapped around his neck, looking for poignant slices of life. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Decades Review, Eunoia Review, Red Fez Literary Review, The Camel Saloon, and The Wilderness House Literary Review. He's currently working on his first chapbook of poetry.  
     

4 Poems by Luke Thurogood

Uprooted 

Across the grey and dirtied sand
Toes pressed deep unsure
Pursued by boots heavy. Being
torn from an old world to new
Sails snatched through salt air vinegar tongue lashes
Marks. Upon the soul. Lest we forget
Be marked!
Eternal creature squirms under steps retraced by better men who
give back the salt and water to the world that witnessed it.


Retrospective collective 

If the walls had ears
and the ceilings eyes
I would see my father
primed in nettle-green uniform
as others remember him

If the commandant had no sense
and Mauricette a coward’s view -
Even if the walls had ears
and the air was made of eyes
There wouldn’t be a me to remember my father.

Adorned with coloured caps
the children sit to attention
as the lessons of life are drilled
by those just following orders

If the people hadn’t turned on each other and hunted like rats across the continent
if the camps had not been built and there had been no conflict
would brave Mauricette have made the crossing and touched our lives?
If she hadn’t been who she was
would there be any point at all?


The 5th horseman of the apocalypse 

The fires rolled in like tanks and obliterated our walls
Why didn’t you run?
Why didn’t you hide?
All places were alive with death and destruction
We had to hold
We had to hold on
Hell hounds stalked the streets and locked us indoors
But we were fine
We were alive
I had your hands and you had mine/I had your lips and you had mine
I’m glad you didn’t run
I’m glad you didn’t hide


Lament of the Library Poet 

Pace less progression
What the fuck is this
Look around at the worker ants and drones
Ill send them a haiku
‘Take this good advice
Get on with your pathetic life
Do not look for me.’
Maybe that will sort them out.
They suck and slurp and whistle and gulp air and choke on it but
disappointingly do not die but rather sick up their breath and carry on
Slamming their homo-hobilis thumbs down on the keys like a robot
wIth mild autism.
These worker bees should fly away
and leave me alone with my work
Leave and give me
peace.

Bionote 

Luke Thurogood is a student of Creative Writing at Edge Hill University. He lives in the North West of England where he edits his poetry journal 'Three and a Half Point 9'. He is currently redrafting a collection of poetry which he aims to publish.

3 Poems by Erika Lutzner

Cambodia 

Sold for five dollars; given drugs to make them jump like monkeys in a cage— the foreigners are turned on by this; go crazy for it. Girls as young as five run up to the men on the streets and say; Mister, want some yum yum? They have sleep in their eyes and don’t understand. Mister, want some yum yum? I will not think of my father, who married a Cambodian woman. Mister, want some yum yum? I will not think of him. Mister, want some yum yum? I jump like a monkey.

[Appeared in failbetter] 


Blackness Slips Through Sundays 

A mirror cannot speak truth

Just as a woman’s face masks
a madness
The man in the mug shot
Could be anyone’s husband, friend, father, —
The woman hides behind
fiction

[Appeared in failbetter] 


Chanilla: “Nights with Her Father” 

she wanted to scream
out, wanted to bite like
a wild animal

she was small,
he held her down like she
was made of gossamer

yet, she felt like her body
was full of tar

[Appeared in Tygerburning Journal] 

Bionote

Erika Lutzner’s first chapbook, Invisible Girls, is available through dancing girl press as is her second, Bedtime Stories. Her next book, You Were My Death, is out with Kattywompus Press. She has two books coming out in 2015, one with Calypso Editions, and another with dancing girl press. Erika curates Upstairs At Erika’s, a monthly writers salon in Brooklyn, New York. She also runs Scapegoat Review, a quarterly journal.

1 Poem by Michael Fadum

“Hey Sunshine, Stop Snoring!”

She sleeps in clothed sheathes
Blonde hair leaks out like leaves in a levy

She channels Florence
Having worked the night shift
Black scrubs replace a white dress

The charcoal cocoon
Hides her from the noon sun
Like a caterpillar curled up in down

Honeybees buzz
In rhythmic gasps
Letting the outside world know
She still breathes

Then I wake up beside her
And blurt the title

Bionote

Michael Fadum holds a Graduate Degree from the University of Central Oklahoma.  His work has been published in several literary journals and if the reader wishes they can find more of his work on his Facebook page, but what he really wants is to write something worth reading.

2 Poems by Rebecca Kylie Law

Pink Sky In The Morning 

Late afternoon, a lone seagull
staring out to sea, the wind
lifting the back feathers of its crown.

At dusk, a tall candlestick
and a paragraph of reading:

On farmers securing their animals
with swinging lanterns, for the night.


Sometime After Twelve 

The ocean is mid-way
between high and low
tides, a surfer
upright on his board
with a long paddle
travels side-ways
against the currents,

rising when the waves rise,
falling when they collapse.

Staring and staring
from my seat on the rocks
of a cliff I could mistake
happiness for everything
the man owns, his
board, paddle, humour;

and today, amidst swimmers,

this body of water, yielding
to the superb example.

Bionote

Rebecca Kylie Law is a Sydney based poet, essayist and reviewer. Published by Picaro Press, her poetry collections include "Offset", "Lilies and Stars" and "The Arrow & The Lyre" . Other publications include thewonderbook of poetry, Notes for The Translators, Poems for the Young Chinese Adult, Best Poem Journal, Virgogray Press, Australian Love Poems 2013, Southerly, Westerly, The Australian, The Euroscientist Ezine and The Lake. She holds a Masters Degree in Poetry from Melbourne University.

2 Poems by James Babbs

Darkness Comes Around

I started with coffee and whiskey
and the fading light of another day
seeping into the room
it was the end of the week
and I sat quietly for a little while
listening to everything
the silence had to say
later on
when I switched over to beer
I drained one bottle after another
before going out into the dark
and pissing between the trees
you were gone
and there was nothing good on TV
I played one of my favorite
Neil Young albums
stood in the middle of the floor
strumming air guitar
while laughing maniacally
into the face of death


A Fine Wine

my heart’s been broken again
I can hear the wind blowing
through a crack in the wall
late at night
when I’m trying to sleep
another empty bottle
lying on the floor
I listen to the pieces
rattling around in my chest
and it doesn’t matter
how long I wait
they never seem to fit together
the same way again
there’s a different beat
no longer reckless
and brimming with fear
but something more restrained
aged
the taste so bitter
and sweet


Bionote

James Babbs continues to live and write from the same small Illinois town where he grew up.  He has published hundreds of poems over the past thirty years and, more recently, a few short stories.  James is the author of Disturbing The Light(2013) & The Weight of Invisible Things(2013).

3 Poems by Kate Hampton

Dear Child

I too
have fears,
dreams and
deathly
shadows,

I too
am a
child.


Unsolicited Advice

someone
should have told him:
it can’t ever be all
that you want it to be but still
you try.


Hotel World

the monsters are inside
there are no doors left
to lock


Bionote

Kate Hampton is an assistant editor at Kwani Trust and worked as associate editor for Jalada 00 and Jalada 01. Raised in NC and schooled in DC, after three years in Nairobi she has returned to the US in search of her next adventure. Her writing has appeared, or is in press to appear, in Bakwa, Chimurenga, The East African, ESC[zine], Jalada and Kwani?.

2 Poems by Pamela C. Vandall

Distortion

I am in love.  Not with you
   but with the moment
    you hesitated
and I captured you,
   kept you suspended
   on the cedar planks
of the Capilano bridge.
   I know you won't change, will
   never enter the gaping
wound that ethers below.
   It's easy to hold you
   --love this thin can be held
from the outside-in.
   You dangle above
   my watering eyes, double
exposed yet more focused
   then I ever could be.
   I love the way you look,
the way your hands flutter up
   like fledglings in mid-flight.

(Previously Published)


Matrimonial Cake

The honeymoon is over and now I hurl
things at your head for impact.  I usually miss
the mark but make a point.  Other times I punish

you with silence, sprawl out on the sofa
till I choose to make up our bed.  When the mood strikes
I list off all the things you've done to hurt me,

lay it down like bricks between us and then stare
blankly at the wall like it's the frame
of our future  --dark, cold and unforgiving.

I have to admit I've defended myself
with lines from chick flicks, peeled out of the driveway
for dramatic effect.  I've picked up the phone

laughed heartily into the receiver
and then made romantic dinner plans
with the dial tone.  Other times I've left

the yellow pages opened up to divorce
lawyers, left my computer on match.com,
a passport and bikini at the front door.

I recall the time you smacked me and I applied
lipstick and rouge so I'd look more tender to you,
an English rose wing tipped in black petals.  I do

these things because of the matrimonial cake
we served at our wedding.  Mother reminded us
of its bumpy top, sweet filling and firm base.

Neither of us remembers how it tastes
but we both agree there were many dates
and after that it crumbled apart in our hands.


Bionote

Pamela is the author of two chapbooks of poetry: “Something from Nothing” (Writing Knights Press) and “Woodwinds” (Lipstick Press). Pamela’s first full length poetry collection is forthcoming.  She was recently nominated for a Pushcart.  When Pamela is not writing she's sleeping.  She believes sleep is death without the commitment.  She lives on Gabriola Island, BC with her husband and two children.

5 Poems by Clara Hsu

Colorphonic

Every morning I’m asked,

What color?

A rose is paled after many washes

broken down rose.

A clover for the cruel Abhartach

renew this head!

Sudden longing

runs down the corner of the mouth

a cocoa droplet.

Mauve lines move, morph, meander

sometimes into circles

sometimes into dots.

Sometimes it is all

in the ebony night.

Other times

it is nothing

naked in the light.

Blue pearls hidden

in the innermost sanctum.

I answer,

Not yet.


Child’s Play: a Sonnet

​for Peter Kovach​

A feather in the arms of Bodhisattva

Reminds me of a day at Stinson Beach

When windblown sand attacked our conjunctiva

And polka-dotted birds had cause to screech.

We ate a sandwich in a little hut

Then ventured out to raid the tidal pool.

The waves brought forth some jewels finely cut.

We picked and chose the coolest of the cool.

A bearded stone you gave me for a lark.

The rest for mailing, driftwood, rocks, a bone.

Back to the city to the softball park.

My sweetheart with his bald head brightly shone

Sprinting, pitching, cursing in the sun

As children do when they are having fun.


Dahlia

Dahlia, you, tubular fireball, 

sun storm velvet

a fairy’s powder puff.

Dahlia blooming,

like young Mexican girls

twirling their frocks

at a fiesta.

The old man across the street

sits in his chair and rubs his face,

stretches his arms up and out

bends and straightens his knees

a hundred times a day.

He watches you 

bold and blushing in the light rain.

He counts you

when the wind is kind.

He regards you

because you remind him of love.

He picks you

to accompany his silence.

Dahlia, if you were a woman

he would hold your fullness

in his hands

and taste you with his tongue

and call you by a different name

as if she had never left.

Note: Published by New Millennium Writings, issue 21/21 and Dahlia Society of California, 2011

First Gymnopédie

for Brenda Chiu

Don’t squint, Brenda.

To see without your glasses

is to see through—

Light 

dust 

fingers into keys

ears into notes

mind

body into sounds

piano

piano

piano

You weep 

because you are no longer required

to bear definitions

Slanting and cutting through the shadow, a dazzling torrent

Poured down in waves of gold on the polished flagstone

Where atoms of amber mirroring themselves in the fire

Mixed their sarabande dance with the gymnopedia

Freedom 

within

its naked arms

its swan neck

its soft breasts and belly

lies

not sadness

grace

Note: Erik Satie wrote Trois Gymnopedies for the piano in 1888. Italic lines are quote from J. P. Contamine de Latour (1867–1926), Les Antiques ("The Ancients”).They were inscribed in the publication of the First Gymnopedie. Translation by Jack Foley.

Mikrokosmos

homage to Bela Bartok

Listen!

Under the magnifying glass

Listen

gulyas and chicken pot pie. 

there are no words

rowing downstream, one hand took on 

just frequencies high and low

a pentamerous skeleton and the other 

tuning, ever fine tuning.

walked the dorian steps.

The pollen rain

Conflicts.

is falling

Two hands, two ears, two parts of the brain

fallingfalling on everything

simultaneously gave rise to songs.

Microscopic spores 

88 keys plus an orchestra

each containing a memory

and maybe a celesta or two.

permeate our skin.

They were all tonal.  The peasant women,

They are trying

the farmers, the gypsies, the little old man

through the ages

playing the accordion in a Bulgarian village.

and all the available channels

They dance under the magnifying glass

to reveal

pieces of gulyas and the flaky pot pie.

the universe.



Bionote

Clara Hsu practices the art of multi-dimensional being: mother, musician, purveyor of Clarion Music Center (1982-2005), traveler, translator and poet. 

A nominee for the Pushcart Prize in poetry (2001), Clara’s first book of poems, Mystique, received honorable mention at the 2010 San Francisco Book Festival.  A book of short stories, Babouche Impromptu and Other Moroccan sketches and her most recent book of poems (2014), The First to Escape, were published by Poetry Hotel Press. Her work can be found in New Millennium Writings (2012), Hafenklänge, Havenklanken—Sounds of Harbor (translations of her work into Dutch and German), The Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, and the internet journals Cha, The Other Voices International Project, and Tower Journal, etc. She was the featured poet in the 33rd issue of the British poetry journal, erbacce. 

Clara gives featured readings at various Bay Area venues and benefit events, often in collaboration with poets Jack and Adelle Foley. Her activities include her unusual performance which combines Chinese and original poetry with Asian traditional instruments. For seven years she hosted the Poetry Hotel Salon in San Francisco and with John Rhodes she co-hosts the San Francisco Open Mic Poetry Podcast TV Show. With Jack Foley she co-edits Poetry Hotel Press.

2 Poem by Joe Love

The Punchline

I can no longer recall the joke
it was made many years ago
but there was my uncle in the kitchen
with a finger on the roof of his mouth
saying the words peanut butter
and my parents were laughing
and my aunt was laughing
and I was laughing so hard
that for forty odd years
I have heard that laughter
and secretly called him my favorite uncle
because what's better than making
someone laugh so hard
that the image becomes a place
in the body where
laughter never stops


Ostia in Spring

Ostia in early spring
drinking at the mouth of the Tiber

how many poets have stood on your shore
without permission

asking for the secret to their existence
to the magic of the rain and the flowers

and how many more, half a world away,
have wondered how you know?

Bionote

Joe Love is an artist, musician, and poet living in St. Louis. He teaches writing and literature both east and west of the Arch at Saint Louis University and Lindenwood-Belleville University. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Poetry Super Highway, The Oddville Press, Crack the Spine, Bangalore Review, From the Depths, Drunk Monkeys, Bellowing Ark, and other journals.

1 Poem by k. d. taylor

The Idea

The idea,
like desire,
melts into
a puddle
that a
young man
will lay
his jacket
over, helping
a beautiful
woman across.


Bionote

k.d. taylor is a poet from Florida. He has self-published a few collections and continues to write. As of now he searches for spare change in the couch and has rainy-day Seattle dreams. He can be reached at kristopherdtaylor@yahoo.com or kdtaylorisstillhere.wordpress.com. He is in love.

2 Poems by Alan Catlin

Spanish Exhumation

They are excavating
the unmarked graves
of a Spanish Inquisition:

mass burials by fascista
friends and neighbors
fathers and sons

men and boys
indiscriminately shot
immaterial now as

layers of dirt
between relics and
bones as

what is uncovered:
mostly empty wallets
identity papers

pocket watches
without hands;
life and time erased


Without Windows  Without Doors  Without a Mouth to Speak

Barren plains invite the dust,
the grey, unpainted, shot gunned
houses, all of them vacant as stillbirth,
their windows without panes,
doors hanging on sprung hinges,
ceiling cracks, fissures where the rain
sinks in.

Outside, black storm of clouds,
funnel shaped rain splitting the horizon,
lightening quakes the fallow earth
making spirits dance.

Then, a surging plague of locusts
flinging their bodies against the clapboards;
the sounds of it like buck shot
striking home.


Bionote

Alan Catlin has been publishing for parts of five decades. His latest full length book is a memoir with poetry, “Books of the Dead” and forthcoming is a chapbook of poetry, “Beautiful Mutants”.

1 Poem by Rodger Martin

Flowering Tea

Jasmine, lotus, amaranth unfurling,    
dancers within their universe of glass   
and steaming water, reborn as sterling
gifts for patient ones.   Small bubbles are kin;
breaths, in slow-release, ascend—globes within      
a globe.  The tea steeps, a worn traveler’s pass  
to an oasis hidden in silence,  
green among dunes.  It gives solace, fragrance,
rest. Each night the galaxy, a wedding  
band of gemstones, arcs upon the broad ring   
of the cloudless sky—true union of fates 
awaiting those balanced enough to wait.     
Slow down.  SLOW down—ignore a priori,   
Taste the buds and listen to their story.         


Bionote

Rodger Martin’s third poetry volume, The Battlefield Guide , (Hobblebush) uses locations on battlefields of the Civil War to reflect upon America today. Small Press Review selected The Blue Moon Series (Hobblebush), as its bi-monthly pick of the year.  A translation of his work, On The Monadnock, appeared in China in 2006.    He received an Appalachia poetry award, a N.H. Council on the Arts Fiction Fellowship, and fellowships from The National Endowment for the Humanities.  In 2012 he was chosen as poet to represent the U.S. at Hangzhou, China’s annual international cultural festival.  He serves as co-editor for The Granite State Poetry Series and teaches journalism at Keene State College.

1 Poem by J. K. Durick

Stone Fences – the Aran Islands

They stop being picturesque
after a time – row after row,
waist-high, the color of the weather
off the North Atlantic
as far as you can see.

How many hours, centuries
blur down to this?
How many crushed fingers, toes,
lives? How much to lift, then place
so precisely, to follow patterns
that only make sense from 500 feet
looking down amazed?

This wasn’t hot work,
sweat would freeze out here
even on the best of days.
Without trees there’s no real shelter
until the wall is finished
and you lie down for once
out of the wind.

A restless peace, resting on the stones
you’ll pile next, start up from the ground
one on top of another, on top of another.

What did they eat? What did they drink
doing this?
So little soil to grow in, little sun,
so much work, so much work.

You’d pray to die after a time –
wet through, bone tired, bored,
stone on stone.
Who did they pray to, doing this?

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 Boston Literary Magazine, Black Mirror, Third Wednesday, Thrush Poetry Journal, and Ink, Sweat, and Tears.

2 Poems by Steve Myers

Love Lyric
(for Karen)

I tried to write a poem on love
And you came in and kissed my cheek.
I tried to write a song on love
And you just made potato soup.
I tried to write a tale of love
And you just baked an apple pie.
I surrender to your poem,
Your song, your tale, my love.


Hunting a Dead Poet

I went to Garrettsville, Ohio
To hunt Hart Crane
But only found the ghost
Of a father,
A candy man wandering
Old Nelson Ledges,
His pockets full of Life Savers,
None big enough or quick enough
For Hart.

I went to the end of the Brooklyn Bridge
Where it dumps into Manhattan,
But the trace of his shadow
Was too long lost to sea.

I went down to the Keys to listen
For last words whispering from the Gulf
Or hummed from the Caribbean,
But only heard waves scribbling
On stone, on sand,
In a hand I couldn’t read.

Bionote

I've had stories & memoir published in several magazines (on line & print). Two novels -- NOWHERE, NOWHEN & GARDEN OF THE FALLING MOON -- were published in 2013. Three more novels will be out by fall of 2014. After many years I've rediscovered poetry & am trying to catch the music in everyday language.

2 Poems by Don Thompson

Suburban

Dead grass makes good camouflage
for coyotes.  They disappear in it
like partisans still wearing
their coffee-stained khaki jackets
long after the uprising has failed.            

Humankind won.

But coyotes survive out there
and let us see them sometimes
just so we know.

At night, they taunt us,
singing the ballads of their lost cause.


Grip

I used to keep my grip on life
easily, without a thought—
like a lizard on a wall.

Now I have to concentrate.
I cling.  Otherwise, the warm sun
might lull me into letting go
to fall…  But if not,

to float here miraculously
with something to think about
and no need after all, no need
to hold on tight.

Bionote

Don Thompson has been publishing poetry since the early sixties with several books and chapbooks in this century. Back Roads  won the 2008 Sunken Garden Prize.  Recent releases: Keeping an Eye on the Stones, prose poems from Kattywompus Press; Local Color, a book-length narrative poem from Aldrich Books.  Others forthcoming later this year.  An LA Times profile, "Planted in the San Joaquin," remains available online.  Much more at his website: San Joaquin Ink (www.don-e-thompson[dot]com).

1 Poem by Susan Dale

From Me To Me: Remember 

Remember, standing there, alone in the Park
Swings, slide, baseball field
The winds so wild
You could have taken flight
But your feet were anchored to the ground
Because you knew
You felt lesser than___
Or no longer a part of___

Spring, you remember
When the season was
Pokey nests and
     birds bustling on budding trees

Where to place yourself after___

You felt hemmed in by your sorrow
Walls too many
Too high
Or the no walls
Of an absence of boundaries

Faltering, stumbling
Too numb to think
To figure out where you were going
Now or then, and forever after
Following the footsteps of a
vague go-along pattern


Bionote

Susan’s poems and fiction are on Hurricane Press, Ken *Again, Penman Review, Inner Art Journal, Feathered Flounder, Garbanzo, and Linden Avenue. In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan.

3 Poems by Gale Acuff

Salvation

In Sunday School today Miss Hooker said
that Jesus is coming soon so I need
to get ready by stopping my sinning
and getting myself saved and trying to
save others by bringing them to Jesus,
too. Whew. All I want is to get through school
and graduate, maybe go to college
or at least get a decent job and make
some money so that I can get married
and buy a pickup truck and a house and
a few babies and now Miss Hooker says
there's more to life than living and dying,
there's where I'll spend eternity, she means
after I die but the truth is I don't
really want to, I like it fine right here
on earth, but if I've got to go then I've
got to go and it's a matter of where,
Miss Hooker says, Heaven with the good dead
souls or Hell with the bad but why do I
feel that there are more folks down in Hell than
up in Heaven and that I'll know my share
of them below? I'm only ten years old
so I've got some time until I die, if
I don't die sooner than I expect but
you never know, Miss Hooker says, when God
will call you, back to Him she means, and by
having you die. After class today I

asked Miss Hooker what's the use of being
born and growing up if in the end there
really is an end? I don't follow you,
she said. I mean, I said, being alive
just to die at almost any time seems
like such a waste--either get God to stop
babies from being born, or let them live
forever and if the earth gets too run
over with people, send them to other
planets. Miss Hooker took her glasses off
and put them on again and said, The ways
of the Lord are mysterious, Gale, and
you must have faith and try to be good so
you'll go to Heaven and live forever
the only kind of living that matters
even though you have to die to get it
--oh, you can live forever in Hell, too,
but you won't enjoy it, so make your choice.
I said, Yes ma'am and Goodbye and walked
home, it's only half a mile, and when
our house came into view I knew that I
was lost and that if Jesus came back then
He'd know His way around much better than
I. That's pretty damn good for crucified.


                               
Be Ye Therefore Perfect

I'm going to go to Hell when I die,
I can just feel it. It's getting warmer
in here, inside my skin and soul, I mean,
but then it's early Sunday afternoon
and I'm just free from Sunday School class and
my teacher, Miss Hooker, telling us all
she knows about God for another week.
I walk to church and I walk home as well
and though I'm hungry I'm taking my time
because that's what God does on Sundays, too,
rests from what He did the past six days. He
can't go to Hell but I will because I
sin enough for a dozen people much
older, I'm only 10, so Miss Hooker
warns me every Sunday that I must
repent and get saved so that when I die
I won't go to Hell and burn forever
and ever. The choice is yours, she says.
The problem with sin is that it can be
a lot of fun and I don't like to be
bored, no kid does, that's for grownups, they're paid
for that and all I get for allowance
once a week is twenty-five cents. Jesus
paid the price for my sins, Miss Hooker says,
and that must come to a pile of quarters
but still I can never pay the debt off
and in fact I can still go to Hell since
I have to show God that I'm serious
about being a better person, and
if I die in sin, which means I didn't
ask God to forgive me for my latest
transgression, then I'll wake up in Hell and
like I said before I'll burn forever.
If I could sin just enough to have kicks
but still get into Heaven when I croak
then not only could I make a million
bucks and beat the system but people would
remember me, not that I'd be a saint
but somebody might name a school for me
or a baseball field or a scholarship
or a government building or even
monument. I'd be the best of being
halfway between God and ordinary folks
and pretty cool besides. I said so to
Miss Hooker after class today but she
told me, All is vanity, vanity,
and then I'll see you next week, God-willing,
Gale. So God may kill me off for being
too cute. Be ye therefore perfect, she means.
Hell, I already am--that's the damned point.



Thief

I don't know why I was born--not to write
poems, that's for damned sure. But in Sunday School
Miss Hooker says that we're all here to serve
God and we do that by serving other
people so we all end up serving one
another, or should. I'm in the third grade
and serve myself, I guess, by trying
to pass so not to be left behind but
to go forward, with everybody

else,on to the City of God, she says
that Matthew Arnold says, whoever he
is, or was, and maybe Saint Augustine
or Saint Somebody-or-other--sometimes
Sunday School's like education and I
get enough of that five days a week. But
on Saturdays I pretty much rest, like
God does on Sundays, at least at our church
and yet at the end of class my mind's not

right, those saints and sinners from the Bible
all fighting it out again and I still
can't figure how God can be three-in-one
although I get it that Certs is two mints
in one and on Father's workbench is some
oil that's also three-in-one and The Who
sing that one plus one equals one--not two
--so no wonder Miss Hooker says the world
is fallen and we're all born into sin
if by sin she means confusion, I am,
confused I mean. So after class I stole

up to her when all my classmates had split
and asked her how I can get saved without
never having any fun again but
the cornball kind, like on Father Knows Best
and The Brady Bunch. She wanted to pray
with me right there on the lineoleum
but I said I couldn't, if I tear my
Sunday trousers again I'm in for it.
Then she started to cry, it's called weeping
in the Good Book, which was catching, so I
did, too. I hope nobody saw, I mean
God especially. I still have my pride.

Bionote

Gale Acuff has had poetry published in Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Adirondack Review, Concho River Review, Worcester Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Arkansas Review, Carolina Quarterly, Poem, South Dakota Review, Santa Barbara Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008).

Gale has taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.

   

1 Poem by Erin O'Connor

If You Can’t Fight It, Write It 

Nights awake I wonder
Where we might have been
Had I convinced you
I was dying or
Got you pregnant then

Instead you woke and wandered off,
Slipping past my traps.
I can’t hold on to finish this
My
        rhyme
                      will
                                     now
                                            col
                                                  l
                                                     a
                                                       p
                                                          s
                                                          e

Into dead poetry-prose, straining to rhyme reason with reconciliation and forcing meaning into metaphor. Floundering with me ter, syllables confounding the common critiquer as he stumbles in de feet – shoeing the shoeless and cutting lines complete. My god, poetry has invaded my prose

So, here it goes . . . again
And there it went.

I missed it.

Bionote

Erin O'Connor lives, writes, and teaches in Northern Colorado.

1 Poem by James Bertolino

Pacific Halo

What kind of intelligence
is carried by ocean waves?
Surely greater than that of the shark,
or Dungeness crab.
             
With water from throughout the Pacific,
and beyond, the information carried
might overwhelm a great university,
and certainly a solitary genius.

Why would one not want
to give oneself up to such mastery?
Given the Earth is the planet of water
in this star system, we might ascribe

a level of divinity to the ocean—this ocean.
Water has other godly presences, but my belief
in the Pacific is unquestioned. If ever I achieved
sainthood, I would want my halo

to be both salty and wet.

Bionote

James Bertolino’s poetry has been appearing internationally in books, magazines and anthologies for over 40 years. His first book was published in 1968, and Every Wound Has A Rhythm was published in 2012 by World Enough Writers. His 12th volume, Ravenous Bliss: New and Selected Love Poems, was published in May, 2014 by MoonPath Press. His poetry has been reprinted in 41 anthologies, and four of his 12 volumes have come from publishing programs associated with Brown University, Cornell University, Princeton University and Carnegie Mellon University. He retired in 2006 from a position as Writer in Residence and Chair of Creative Writing at Willamette University in Oregon, and lives on five rural acres with his wife Anita K. Boyle near Bellingham, Washington.

2 Poems by Lucas Owen

Consumed - of the Earth

I walked into the dead dull night looking for salvation -
groping blind and aimlessly melting glacial waterfalls;
set on scores for the seasonal growth.

dawned before time I walked into the dead dull night,
hunting spear in hand as if I had the world to fight for.
I crinkled my nose restlessly and tore at my skin for escape -
itching of insects of the mind.

for the stars I walked, to be my own
nestled beneath the cool gray sky -
aware of the vast and microcosm.

into the dead dull night I walked -
satiated on trees, rivers, mountains,
young and wilting only in the desert.
I knew a ground meant to swim on,
dry as all hell.

into the dead dull night I walked,
stomping on the ground, spitting anger madly from a mouth dry of bitter tastes.

I just wanted to live
like there was nothing else to do -
trotting ‘round the corner store
growling for territory
among the soul.

assuming and sweating earth, I walked -
round and spinning around the sun - ever falling,
careless, silently loving and apparently heartless
and deep inside - furious.
I am you

born of fiery beginnings,
and I will fall
into
the sun.


I Am Another

I am another who
respired the human experience –
sewed buttons to the dark walls of infinity
in search of texture,
and tore the shine of starlight
for sanctum in my soul –
no more than hope-tethered dreams
anchored by the tin-boned, two-toned will of man.
I untied the knots of my shoes –
click clack and swinging boneless limbs
fevered by stagnant air –
to lapse my jaw out of stress relief turned
habitual mechanical harvesting of skin and salt.
I am another who
just wanted to feel raw.


Bionote

Lucas Owen is 18 and lives in Seattle, Washington. He currently attends the University of Washington with intent to earn a Bachelors of Science in Physics. He is greatly intrigued not only by science, but the spirituality made available through science and knowledge of the metaphysical processes of the natural and social world. lucasoftheland.tumblr.com

3 Poems by Atri Majumder

Evanescence

A thought immersed in a fragile solitude,
Like a liberty that empties itself-
Before being seized.

A vision condemned to be the seeds of reality
Like a chiaroscuro losing-
Its balance in the light.


Warnings

The suspended bridge is crumbling down
 With the weight of curiosity,
We can’t see the horizon anymore-
We are walking on it.

Water drops clinging to the windowsill
Like perfidious magnets,
We have stopped running
Though we haven’t arrived.


Night-window

The silent murmur of the night,
A half-burnt cigarette,
Windows open but nothing stirs.

The flickering streetlight in the distance,
Curious glimpses of the house behind.

Empty thoughts start crowding,
As the blank moon fills the eyes.


Bionote

Atri Majumder (born 1993) resides at Kolkata, India. He is currently pursuing his undergraduate degree in English Literature from Calcutta University.He has two published anthologies-Shadow of Light(2012) and Visible Infinity(2014).

1 Poem by Darryl Price

I Want to Sing To You

without looking at the words. I want to draw a picture of you
without setting my hat on fire. I want to swing you around in an open field
without thinking something's bound to go wrong. I want to touch your hands
without resorting to an old map found buried in a book on fairies.

To run with you in the downpour without looking for a fast easy
way in. Want to remember your face because it's resting in my fingers like a cherry
pit. I want to sit with you in front of the ocean without
planning to take one shell. I want to find you in a garden

without thinking I should remove my shoes first and put them under a  
rose bush for safe keeping. I want to give you that dance without dropping all blanks
in the chamber for good luck. I want to embrace your name without
jumping into an unmade ditch of spears head first. Want to drink your  

trance without going home and putting myself to bed afterwards. I want to
play my guitar like a wounded warrior without having to explain the nature of all scars.
I want to leave my most careless poems on your doorstep without having
to fold up all the moonbeams into neat little rows before I go.dp

Bionote

Darryl Price has published dozens of chapbooks, and his poems have appeared in many journals. 

http://blog.fictionaut.com/ 2011/08/22/monday-chat-with- darryl-price/ 

http://fuddyduddyfan. wordpress.com/2010/06/04/ darryl-price-a-poet/ 

Holding Your Light by Darryl Price(Pudding House)ISBN:1-58998-262-2 

1 Poem by Ross Knapp

Passion fierce as the Grave

One word is needed
One, and only one
One word to live
The sole language of life

Wealth withers away
Friends are fickle
Wine’s blood wanes
Children abandon
Church deforms and conforms
Status makes mockeries of us
Power cowers at its own corruption

All of them laid waste
Lying dead in the ditch.
You sly liebe, atrocious amour
Death and hate are here--
I can hear their faint footsteps
Echoing upstairs through my head
I see Philia Eros, and Agape united--
And then I know I’m dead


Bionote

Ross Knapp is a recent college graduate with degrees in philosophy and literature. He has an experimental literary novel forthcoming and various poetry publications in Blue Lake Review, Belle Reve Literary Journal, Blood and Thunder Literary Magazine, Tipsy Lit Literary Magazine, and Clockwise Cat Literary Magazine. Originally he was planning on law school or a PHD in philosophy before deciding to pursue poetry and writing fulltime as a career. Some of the poets he admires most are Sappho, Virgil, Li Po, Hafiz, Francois Villon, Dante, Keats, Whitman, Akhmatova, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Eliot, Pound, Crane, Millay, Thomas, Sexton, Lowell, Pizarnik, Ginsberg, Plath, Gluck, and Graham.

2 Poems by Zheng Min

Golden Sheaves of Rice

Golden sheaves of rice are standing

In the harvested autumnal field,

And numberless weary mothers come to my mind;

On the dusky road I see the fair crinkled face.

The plenilune of harvest day

Is on the towering treetop;

In the twilight, distant mountains

Encircle our heart;

No statuary is more silent like this.

Shouldering the great fatigue, you

Are steeped in contemplation

In the autumnal field stretching afar.

Silence. Silence. History is nothing but

A running creek beneath the feet;

And you, standing there,

Would become a thought of human beings.

                      Written between 1942 and 1947

金黄的稻束

金黄的稻束站在

割过的秋天的田里，

我想起无数个疲倦的母亲，

黄昏路上我看见那皱了的美丽的脸，

收获日的满月在

高耸的树巅上，

暮色里，远山

围着我们的心边，

没有一个雕像能比这更静默。

肩荷着那伟大的疲倦，你们

在这伸向远远的一片

秋天的田里低首沉思，

静默。静默。历史也不过是

脚下一条流去的小河，

而你们，站在那儿，

将成为人类的一个思想。

写于1942年至1947年之间

Aspiration: a Lion

There is a gaping mouth in my body

Which is like a snarling lion

It runs to the end of the bridge over the river

To watch the onflowing currents beneath the bridge

And the steamship silently skimming through the hole of the bridge

It hears the bellowing of the epoch

It turns back to watch me

And returns to the cage in my body

The golden hair of the lion is like the sunlight

The roaring of the elephant is like the drumbeat

The vigor of flower blossoming returns to my body

The lion takes me to the end of the bridge

There, I am going to have an appointment

渴望：一只雄狮

在我的身体里有一张张得大大的嘴

它像一只在吼叫的雄狮

它冲到大江的桥头

看着桥下的湍流

那静静滑过桥洞的轮船

它听见时代在吼叫

它回头看着我

又走回我身体的笼子里

那狮子的金毛像日光

那象的吼声像鼓鸣

开花样的活力回到我的体内

狮子带我去桥头

那里，我去赴一个约会

About the author:

Zheng Min (1920— ), female, her ancestral place is Minhou of Fujian Province, and she was born in Beijing. She was graduated from the Philosophy Department of the Southwest United University in 1943, and in 1949 she went to America to further her studies. In 1955, she returned to work at the Institute of Foreign Literature Studies of China Academy of Sciences. Now she is professor at the Foreign Languages Department of Beijing Normal University, and she is an important member of “the Nine Leaves School”. Her main works include: poem collections such as Poem Collection (1943—1947), Frame of the Mind, Seeking and Searching, In the Morning, I am Deflowering in the Fog, Peotry Anthology of Zheng Min, and monograph Poetry and Philosophy Are Close Neighbours, as well as a translated work Selected Readings from Contemporary American Poetry, etc.

                                                       （Tr. by Zhang Zhizhong）

作者简介：

郑敏（1920— ），女，祖籍福建闽侯县，生于北京。1943年毕业于西南联大哲学系。1949年赴美国留学。1955年回国，在中国科学院外国文学研究所工作。现任北京师范大学外语系教授。系“九叶派”主要成员之一。主要作品有：诗集《诗集1943—1947》、《心象》、《寻觅集》、《早晨，我在雾里采花》、《郑敏诗集》，专著《诗歌与哲学是近邻》，译著《美国当代诗选》等。